E-Book Gallery for Microsoft Technologies

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/11608.e-book-gallery-for-microsoft-technologies.aspx?WT.mc_id=CIC_TWITTER_Azure%20Blogs_20130402_20130402063727_37166_WindowsAzure#UsingWindowsAzureMobileServicestoCloudEnableYourWindowsPhone8Apps

Azure Mobile services

With some new releases slated for Windows Azure, what caught my attention was support extended for Mobile service that can be quickly created through Azure Management Portal.

One of the latest blogs also talks about using multiple clients to communicate with the same mobile service.

http://chrisrisner.com/Connecting-Multiple-Clients-to-the-Same-Mobile-Service?WT.mc_id=CIC_TWITTER_Community%20Blogs%20_20130328_20130329053954_37107_WindowsAzure

TechEd 2013 in Pune

Was a great experience attending the TechEd 2013 in Pune. The two tracks I was particularly interested was  the Windows 8 / Phone track and the Azure Track. After attending some of the hands on labs and deep dives, I came out concluding that if not a 100% Microoft has at least started their march against the "Fruit" company and the Droid makers in the field of Mobility and Cloud at least.

Interesting to see how this war shapes up.

Aaron Swartz

It was indeed a sad day today to hear about the untimely death of Aaron Swartz..
Co-founder of Reddit, Demand Progress...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/technology/aaron-swartz-internet-activist-dies-at-26.html?_r=0

Vertica

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/01/11/h-p-using-its-analytics-software-to-grow-sales/?mod=wsjcio_hps_cioreport

I was a little surprised today to read about Google blocking Win 8 Google maps functionality.
http://t.co/XHumUYXI

Happy New Year 2013

Here's wishing all my friends a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. May the new year bring everybody peace, happiness, health and everything they wish for.

Open source stack

Looking at the different open source options like Node.js with MongoDB.
Also looking at Google's AngularJS to see how it fits into the overall scheme of things.
Looked at Testacular + Jasmine combination for a proper testing framework and found the power in the simplicity of this testing framework.

SharePoint 2013

After a long time went back to my Microsoft buddy. SharePoint and started looking at the newer features in SharePoint 2013...To be honest not too excited :(

Found these videos that helped:

SharePoint 2013 Preview Unboxing Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-5Dcpearwg

SharePoint 2013 Preview Unboxing Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=1fqxWuTItMw

Newer techs

It has been a fun last 5 months with lots of new technology tried - PHP, RoR, Alfresco, Liferay..
Not to mention to read up on lots of new tools in Social Media and Mobility.
Also did some deep dives into PhoneGap and Appcelerator...
Interesting technologies

Olympics

With the Olympics events going on, lots of things to ponder, despite it really being a great brand ambassador for international unity:
1. Were security measures truly upto the standard for 10K + atheletes to safely compete?
2. Are all players truly playing in the right spirit of the game that this event symbolizes?
3. The oft repeated - Why is India, despite having one of the largest populations and sending one of the bigger contingents still not able to get higher medal tallies?
As the event rolls on, you cannot but think about these things..

Win 8

Had the opportunity to try out Windows 8 Release preview along with the Mobile development process. I like the initial look and feel and the ease with which Metro style apps can be built using Visual Studio Release preview 2012..Will be posting screenshots of the development soon..

Comparison between Appcelerator and PhoneGap

Was trying to look at different platforms for Code once target multiple scenarios in the mobile space.
Here's an in depth look at Appcelerator and PhoneGap if you are interested: http://savagelook.com/blog/portfolio/a-deeper-look-at-appcelerator-and-phonegap
And here's more detail about how they differ programmatically:
http://savagelook.com/blog/portfolio/phonegap-is-web-based-appcelerator-is-pure-javascript

Microsoft Gallery

Microsoft's gallery for CMS, Blogs, Forums, Galleries and other tools have some interesting additions since the last time i visited them. They can be found at :
http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/categories.aspx?category=Wiki&sorting=mostpopular

Some nice plug ins I saw were :

• Incentive - Social collaboration for your company
• Composite C1 - MVC CMS
• nService - Help desk and support Software

Best Practices for MOSS

http://spg.codeplex.com/

SharePoint Online Virtual Lab

Found some interesting virtual lab for SharePoint Online at
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/hh699847

Microsoft's Big Data strategy

While trying to understand what Microsoft's strategy for Big Data was, stumbled upon the following link
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsofts-hadoop-roadmap-reveals-new-big-data-deliverables/12037

Microsoft has already released the Hadoop version of its Azure release. Need to check on its integration with Hadoop tools like Sqoop and Flume.

New role...different work...same chaos

Have moved into a different group within the same company..New interesting work and getting hands into a lot of Strategic/ partnership initiatives but the chaos remains...A different perspective..
Will be blogging more about offerings creations in enterprises and what the learned have to say about making a company "customer-centric" while keeping an eye on recent trends..More to follow..

New yr...new beginnings

Coming out fresh from some outings and rejuvenating experiences, starting the new yr on a high...
Working with some colleagues to identify business opportunities and trying to identify technology trends.Should post soon on what I find...

Happy New Year

As the new yr comes to a close, wishing everyone a very happy and healthy New Year!!
Have fun..