Reviews

Azure and Hardware

Bill Evjen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:38:45 GMT

One of the cooler displays at PDC 2009 was a sample container that is something that is part of the Microsoft super data center strategy. To make Azure real, Microsoft has invested a ton into setting up the most state of the art data centers around the world. The idea is that Microsoft will provide a seamless means for customers to upload their applications, data, and capabilities to the cloud and leave the hardware, IT, and bandwidth management to them.

To meet these ends, Microsoft is building two rather significant data centers in each region of the world. Here is a video of the one in Chicago and some photos on one of the tours that someone took th ere.

Microsoft, for PDC 2009, wanted to show the development community what these data centers were like and instead of bringing the entire data center to Los Angeles, they did the next best thing and brought an entire container to the conference. The idea is that their data center has a rather modular setup and that these containers will be plugged in and run till a certain percentage of the servers fail and then they will interchange the faulty container for a new one. These containers are meant to be self running and self regulated.

It is interesting what the container has to do to regulate humidity and temperature.
** You can click on all the photos here to get a bigger view of them.

The container pulls in air through a series of air filters where the air then hits another type of filtered wall which gets water dropped through it to create a cool and humid means of keeping the contents of the container within a specific temperature and humidity level. This process is much like how the swamp-coolers of the mountain region of the United States have in a typical home. This air is then pulled through the server racks and then pulled out the back of the container. Though if things start getting too cooled, then the dampers in the upper part of the container open up a bit and let some of the air circulate back into the process thereby bringing the temperate back up to a level that they want.

Why so much focus on that temperature. Well, I was told the reason was that the server venders (which were Dell servers in this container) warranty the equipments only if it stays within a specific level of temperature and humidity. Here is a picture of some of these sensors:

Here, the sensor on the left monitors humidity and temperature both. There were four of these sensors and they were at the top part of the container. The sensor in the right photo was just a temperature sensor and there were eight of these. They were evenly spaced out so that there were some near the floor and some in the middle of the server racks.

This is a view of the space between the swamp-cooler system wall (on the left) and the air filtration wall of the right. In this photo, the air would move from the right to the left through the container. Here is a close up photo of the air filter wall:

Here is a photo of the server racks in the container:

Finally – here is the back side of the container. I’m not sure if the windows were for the display or if they are always there.

I like engineering and this was a fun tour. It will be a while before I get one of these in my homes! :)

Follow me on Twitter at @billevjen

REVIEW: Zune 2.0 - the best player on the market!

Bill Evjen — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 08:50:30 GMT

I got one of the first Zune players when it came out. There were things that I liked/disliked about it. The worse thing about it was the software that it came with. It was clunky and not to practical so I really didn't end up using it that often. Though, with that said, Microsoft recently released the new 2.0 version of the Zune software which was basically a complete new software package. With the new software and the changes to the firmware that was made to the Zune player along with the client software upgrade - the Zune player is the best player on the market! It is better than IPOD and any of the other players out there. Here are some of the cool Zune features:

BIG Screen! Look at the size of this screen. You might be looking at this and think that the screen size is oddly shaped to watch a movie or something, but the video that is played in this plays sideways so that you turn the Zune player to the side and it is like a widescreen view of what you are looking at. You will find that this is one of the biggest screens for a media device on the market. Especially compare the size of this video screen to what you see for the IPOD and there is no comparison!

One thing that I didn't like about the IPOD was that you are working with non-MP3 files - you couldn't just take your .mp3 files that you already have all over your system and just move those files to you player. The Zune player does make use of the .mp3 file extension - so moving over your already pre-existing files is a quick and easy thing to do.

So, what kind of media can go on your Zune? - MP3s, movies (.mp4), podcasts, pictures, and there is even a radio. I have become completely addicted to the podcasts:

There is a directory of video and audio podcasts for you to subscribe to. You can also find your own podcasts and add them to your subscriptions. The Zune software will keep the latest number of versions available for you synced up to your player. So, for me, I have the latest three episodes of all my podcasts synced up to the player and can watch them on my computer (with the client software) or on my Zune player. It has become a kind of Tivo for me as I watch the NBC Nightly News and other news programs (the complete video program) on my computer in the morning with the software. I have never been so caught up with the news (from around the world as I love the BBC newscasts as well).

Another nice thing about the Zune player is that with version 2.0 - it now has an exposed MAC address which is nice as the Zune player has wireless. This means that you can sync your Zune over your wireless network and also share items with other Zune players nearby.

Silverlight Book

Bill Evjen — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:14:16 GMT

While I am thinking about Silverlight, I am looking forward to Devin Rader and company's new Silverlight 1.0 book from Wrox that is coming out this Fall!

Devin is one of the main characters from Infragistics and due to the nature of his job of building controls for this company - he is usually neck deep in all the latest and greatest stuff coming out of Redmond. Stay tuned. Buy today:

http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/productCd-0470228407.html

http://www.amazon.com/Silverlight-1-0-Devin-Rader
/dp/0470228407/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/002-2349574-6000851?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187734404&sr=8-3

Microsoft Tafiti as a beta

Bill Evjen — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:03:58 GMT

Microsoft just launched a beta version of an application called Tafiti. A nice test application from Microsoft that demonstrates - probably most importantly - the use of Silverlight.

For those new to Silverlight - Microsoft's official one paragraph description of this technology is:

"Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows."

Basically Tafiti is not a new candy (the name is Swahili meaning "do research") but it is a way of looking at search that is different than a straight list of links (which it does also). You can look at the links in a tree view fashion. Though I have to say that I can't see any relationships between the elements that make up the leafs or the branches - so I am unsure if they are random or not.

I'm not sure how many will use this a search - I really think in the end - people want a list of elements and I don't think a tree is the quickest and surest way for a human to consume the data. Though, again, it is a nice showcase for Silverlight.

ReSharper on Visual Studio 2008

Bill Evjen — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:40:03 GMT

If I were to pick one tool to add to Visual Studio for my day-to-day coding, it would be ReSharper by JetBrains. I have been using the tool since version 2.0 and it is currently in version 3.0. It provides a ton of tips/corrections/advice as you type code. It provides better tooltips, better Intellisense, and extremely better refactoring than what you get out of the box with the default Visual Studio.

For those of us out there that grab hold of the latest betas as soon as possible, you might be wondering about how to install ReSharper onto Visual Studio 2008. I, myself, am running Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 on the same box (with no issues I might add). Installing ReSharper 3.0 on the box will default to install it to work with Visual Studio 2005. Though, if you are also going to want to install it on Visual Studio 2008, then you are going to have to take some extra steps.

The first step is to go to your command prompt and use the following command:

msiexec /i ReSharperSetup.3.0.1.msi VSVERSION=9.0

From there, it is a little confusing, but you will be asked to Remove/Reinstall/Change the current install. This is due to the fact that I already have ReSharper installed on the VS2005 version of the IDE. You can easily get around this by selecting Reinstall and it will then install the tool for VS2008 as is specified by the parameter in the command line VSVERSION=9.0 …. which is 2008.

So far, no problems.

UPDATE:

JetBrains just released the latest version of ReSharper 3.0.2 Build 517 and they now include a specific install for VS 2008.

So, if you are running both VS2005 and VS2008 on your box - you would need to download both versions of ReSharper and you will be good to go.

New Version of ODP.NET for .NET 2.0 Released as Beta Today

Bill Evjen — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 04:26:22 GMT

Oracle has released a new version of ODP.NET as a Beta today. You can find it here. This release offers some outstanding features ODP.NET developers have been waiting for. The new feature list is as follows:

Oracle Data Provider for .NET Features
Instant Client Support: Smaller ODP.NET client installation
User-Defined Types: Map Oracle objects and collections to .NET custom types and support REFs to object types
Process Database Down Events: ODP.NET automatically frees connections of a downed Data Guard instance
Windows-Authenticated User Connection Pooling: Windows-authenticated connections can now be pooled.
Connection Pool Performance Counters: Monitor connection pool status

Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET Features
Visual Studio 2005 integration with Server Explorer, Data Sources Window, Dataset Designer, TableAdapter Configuration Wizard and more
Improved ASP.NET web developer support
Oracle Database script project to provide source control of Oracle scripts
SQL script editor
Built in support for executing SQL*Plus scripts
Explain plan support
Integration with Query Designer
New designer for granting/revoking privileges on schema objects
User-Defined Types: Create, explore, modify UDTs; custom class code generation for .NET applications
Data Window and Query Window enhancements

Oracle Providers for ASP.NET Features
Membership Provider: Stores and retrieves registered user information in the Oracle database
Role Provider: Stores and retrieves user role information in the Oracle database
Site Map Provider: Stores and retrieves site map information in the Oracle database
Session State Provider: Stores and retrieves session state information in the Oracle database
Profile Provider: Stores and retrieves user profile information in the Oracle database
Web Events Provider: Stores and retrieves ASP.NET health monitoring event information in the Oracle database
Web Parts Personalization Provider: Stores and retrieves personalization data in the Oracle database
Cache Dependency Provider: Automatically invalidates ASP.NET cached data based on changes made to the base data in the Oracle database

Some big things that excite me are the new providers for ASP.NET! The new provider model in ASP.NET 2.0 is a must utilize for most applications that are being built today. It is an easily extensible system that allows for you to plug your controls and the application into built up and thoughtout systems that are commonly used in all web applications today. This includes items like membership, role management, instrumentation, personalization, and more. The wonderful thing about the provider model is that it is rather extensible and the new providers available in this new release of ODP.NET is testament to this extensibility.The other big feature that I am excited about is the UDTs or user defined types. This allows you to push your .NET custom types up into Oracle and get away from cursors if you wish. Nice!

The smaller Oracle Client installation is also a wonderful new feature as those that work on large web farms are aware! :)

There is quite a bit more - the main point is that if you are working with Oracle - take a look at the new release.

First Review of Professional XML

Bill Evjen — Thu, 31 May 2007 23:55:59 GMT

At least this is the first review of the Professional XML book that I have seen - there may be others. But Tech-Unity did a review and got some of the purposes of the book right on the button -

"This isn't a book about learning XML. This is a book about integrating XML into advanced programming and development. As the blurb on the back goes, "Wrox Professional Guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals". If that describes you and you need to add XML (and who doesn't these days) to your skill set and your projects, you're gonna love this book."

We made a big effort in making a book for the programmer that wants to make the best use of XML in their applications TODAY. This book is full of a lot of examples for both the .NET and Java developer in helping you to make that happen.

Microsoft Surface and the Future of Home Computing?

Bill Evjen — Thu, 31 May 2007 02:41:17 GMT

The big news of the day is that Microsoft's Steve Ballmer introduced Microsoft Surface.

A table computer that allows the end user to interact with the computer through their fingertips! No keyboard - no mouse. First thing you should do is take a look at the movies Microsoft made about this:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

The ability to drag and drop items around with your fingers. The ability to place a digital camera on the table surface and automatically pull the images / send them / edit them / etc. A bit off in the future but a wonderful look at where technology might be taking us. Is this a glimpse of the future of home computing? I think so. Will it be a table? - maybe not - or will it be a stand up screen like in the movie Minority Report? Its funny, but the table reminds me of my first days of seeing a "computer gaming machine" which was a pong game at my local Pizza Hut when I was a kid. We would lean on the tabletop computer game and play a ton of those pong/asteroids games. Though - that table got really greasy after awhile.

It is interesting to see where Microsoft is spending their dollars for the future of home computing. There will be a emergence of technologies in the future for the home - but when will that come is anyone's guess. Though, right now, Microsoft is making investments in gaming consoles (and doing a good job at it I might add), Tivo-like machines such as Media Center, this Microsoft Surface and more.

Whatever it will be - there will be a heavy emphasis on networking with devices, dummy terminals in the house, communicating with house members at their jobs, as they travel and more. There will be a heavy emphasis on a massive data store in the home for the huge amount of video, pictures, history that a family will want to digitally collect. I, today, could use a 5TB data store for everything I want to store - but alas - not yet.

Too bad we die and don't live on and on as I love seeing technology evolve and the experience just gets better over time. My kids are the lucky ones that will get to play with all those cool gadgets. Enjoy the moment, eh?

Server-Side Excel Generation

Bill Evjen — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 02:24:00 GMT

I have been looking at the best ways in which Lipper can work with Excel in our next-generation application and took a look at ExcelPackage - an Office Open XML file creation library. I was quite impressed with how easy it is to create Excel documents on the fly with our latest financial information and then to delivery that file to the end user via a web service or something.

The nice thing is that you can create exciting looking Excel documents (using Office 2007) on the server with very little coding. ExcelPackage makes use of the .NET Framework 3.0's new System.IO.Packaging namespace in the Office Open XML creation. This does mean that you are unable to create dynamic Office 2003 or earlier files to deliver (tried that as a test myself).

What makes it so fast is that you can make use of a templated Excel file on your server instead of building all the styles of document in code. This then means that you can just deal with just populating the values into the Excel document as needed and the values that you place in specific ranges or cells then can be used to drive other parts of the document - such as charts. An example I quickly put together with dummy data is presented here:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;
using OfficeOpenXml;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
           static void Main()
          {
               FileInfo newFile = new FileInfo(@"C:\LipperSelectedAsset.xlsx");
               FileInfo template = new FileInfo(@"C:\AssetOverview.xlsx");

               using (ExcelPackage xlPackage = new ExcelPackage(newFile, template))
               {
                     ExcelWorksheet worksheet = xlPackage.Workbook.Worksheets[1];
                     worksheet.Cell(1, 2).Value = "ABC Global Select Equity B USD";
                     worksheet.Cell(5, 4).Value = "Equity Fund";
                     worksheet.Cell(1, 2).Comment = "New Fund";

                     ExcelWorksheet worksheet2 = xlPackage.Workbook.Worksheets[2];
                     worksheet2.Cell(1, 1).Value = "23";
                     worksheet2.Cell(2, 1).Value = "32";
                     worksheet2.Cell(3, 1).Value = "25";
                     worksheet2.Cell(4, 1).Value = "22";
                     worksheet2.Cell(5, 1).Value = "23";
                     worksheet2.Cell(6, 1).Value = "231";
                     worksheet2.Cell(7, 1).Value = "232";

                     ExcelWorksheet worksheet3 = xlPackage.Workbook.Worksheets[3];
                     worksheet3.Cell(1, 1).Value = "";

                     xlPackage.Save();
                 }
         }
    }
}

In the first line of code - I created an instance of the file that I will be creating on the server. The second line specifies the template that is to be utilized. Then using the ExcelPackage object, you make an association between the new file and the template. Then using the ExcelWorksheet object, you create values on the three default worksheets of the Excel document. It is important to realize what I am doing in the 3rd worksheet of the file. You can see from my bit of code that I am populating a blank value in the first cell and doing nothing more. The problem is that the class library expects a value on each of the three default worksheets otherwise you will get an error.

Give it a try - this is pretty simple.

Scott Guthrie Gives Short Review of Professional ASP.NET 2.0 SE

Bill Evjen — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 03:05:00 GMT

It was nice to see "Mr. ASP.NET" himself (Scott Guthrie) give a nice review of the latest version of my ASP.NET 2.0 book on Amazon just recently!