Ken Spencer

PDC 2007 Announced

Ken Spencer — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:42:00 GMT

Word just came out before Christmas that Microsoft will be holding the next Professional Developers Conference (PDC) October 2-5, 2007 in Los Angeles. This will also include two days of pre-conference on September 30 and October 1.

I can't wait! Its almost a year out but the PDC is always a good spot to glimpse the future. Seeing with the engineers and teams come up with gives me a good idea of whats on the horizon. Its also a great place to hang out with various Microsoft and industry folks.

See you there.

Ken

TechEd Locaton - Boston

Ken Spencer — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:23:00 GMT

Well, i have been here since Saturday and its Tuesday now.

I have been hitting teched since the early 1990's and have been to many cities around the us. Up to now, i thought that LA was the worst evenue. Now i have to say Boston is right up there with LA now.

It takes me from 40 minutes to an hour to get from the hotel to the conference center. Thats also a $40 cab ride. What a waste of time. Hotels are all over the place.

Microsoft, Please put it back in New Orleans or San Diego.

Ken

TechEd 2006

Ken Spencer — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:44:00 GMT

Just got into TechEd on Saturday 6/10.

First time i had a chance to post in awhile. Been working 60+ hours a week and traveling too. So its been busy.

I will put more stuff into the blog this week on teched as i see things happen.

If you are here, make sure you get your logistics in place. The convention center is big.

Ken

Good security article - Sin City (Las Vegas)

Ken Spencer — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 21:16:00 GMT

Check out this link. This is a good article on security.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/transcripts/20060223CodeRoom3Transcript.aspx

A pragmatic approach to security

Ken Spencer — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 22:14:00 GMT

One of the most important things in security is to setup a practical set of security features. A layered approach is to me one of the best approaches and it allows you to protect the most important things and make sure they are hard to get to. Lets take a quick look as it applies to home security.

In the case of home security, you buy a house in a nice area. First layer. Then you light it up. We have street lights in front and one in the back (for about 10 bucks a month). There are no dark entrys around my house. Second layer. Then we have a good alarm system. You can hear it for 2 miles around. Third layer. You do not want to find out about my fourth layer. I will be very painful to whoever cracks the other layers.

Software development security is sort of like home security. Over the next few months, we will explore lots of areas that are tied into securing applications.

Check out the Security Developer Center on MSDN

Ken Spencer — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 15:46:00 GMT

The new Security Developer Center on MSDN has some great links on security topics. This site will be frequently updated and has key things you should know.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/securecode/application/default.aspx

Staring out with Security

Ken Spencer — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 01:00:00 GMT

Well, i just got appointed by MS as a MVP of Developer Security. So i plan to start hitting some of my favorite topics here.

I should be starting this topic in a day or so.

Cheers,

Ken

Windows Server 2003 R2

Ken Spencer — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 23:51:00 GMT

Well, here it comes.

This new version of Windows Server 2003 makes it easier to implement and mange servers and applications. There are many new features in this server that will impace IT from the system / network managers to end users and developers. From the .NET Framework 2.0 to the new security and management features, this version will open up many new opportunities and solve a lot of existing problems.

By making security management easier it also makes it more likely it will be implemented. Its just like source control, unless its simple, then people do not do it. So we need to make security simple out of the box just like Windows Server 2003 did to start with.

The .NET Framework 2.0 helps by providing built in security such as membership services for web applications, built in encryption for items in config files and more.

VS 2005 and 2003

Ken Spencer — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:15:00 GMT

I have been working for about 7 months (since 2005 B2) .

They work great together except for one thing. Sometimes when building a 2005 app, I forget about the great debugger and being able to edit code on the fly. Then its like, duh!

Its also cool that you can use 2003 components right in 2005.

.NET 2.0 Adoption Rocks the world

Ken Spencer — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 22:36:00 GMT

The information below is pretty wild. .NET 2.0 is really great. I have been teaching on this since Jan 2005 and using it in production since B2 came out around March. I must say I am really impressed with both performance and ease of use. Of course, I use VB.NET all the time.

1. NET vs. J2EE and IBM WebSphere Adoption for Mission Critical Apps: The IDC Study

IDC-conducted study of adoption rates of OS and application platform/vendors for mission critical applications conducted in 8 countries (Asia, Europe, North America)
Conducted with large companies, central IT across Devs, Architects and IT Managers
Random selection of companies, scientific/projectable data across large sample size (>2,000 participants WW)
Shows strong data for .NET over J2EE, Windows over Unix/Linux, MS over IBM as preferred vendor

2. New Technical Benchmarks of .NET 2.0 vs. IBM WebSphere 6.0

Downloadable whitepapers, all source code and customer-ready benchmark kits at http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/java /compare/

Web Application Server Performance

Based on .NET implementation of PlantsByWebSphere IBM-created primary J2EE sample app (ships with every copy of WebSphere)
Shows .NET 2.0/SQL Server 2005 performance beating IBM EJB/Oracle 10G implementation by 183%
Shows detailed pricing data including price/performance metrics for .NET/Windows vs. WebSphere/Linux

64-bit vs. 32-bit Benchmark for .NET 2.0/Windows and WebSphere 6/Linux

Highlights advantages of 64-bit memory addressability for a middle tier app server scenario
Data includes .NET 2.0/Windows Server 2003 vs. IBM WebSphere 6/RedHat Linux

SSW Code Auditor

Ken Spencer — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:02:00 GMT

Good coding practices are required to build applications. I suggest you check out: http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/CodeAuditor/

The Code Auditor is an awesome product from my buddy Adam's company SSW.

I found it to be a really great tool. I ran the Code Auditor against our Access 2 .NET product (built with VS.NET 2003) and the Code Auditor helped me find things and get them done post haste. I think I fixed most things in 2 or 3 hours while watching tv. That’s pretty sweet for an application thats very large and complex. The Code Auditor also works with VS 2005.

Also check out the other SSW products including SSW eXtreme Emails!!

VS 2005 Adoption

Ken Spencer — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 10:01:00 GMT

The developer community is excited about the approaching Visual Studio 2005 launch. Developers love Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft’s customers can’t wait to deploy it. 32X just closed a deal where I convinced the dev team to move to 2005 in 5 hours. They were wowed by cool features like the class designer but also features like the new win form toolbar and such. One of the driving features they want is the new click once deplolyment feature.

Today (8/22/05) I found this link http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/. VS 2005 is going hot in early Sep with the Release Candidate hitting the streets. This is great news as the RC should be rock solid. In fact, B2 is pretty solid as I am using it full time and have been for weeks and weeks bulding a new 32X product. VS 2005 blows my mind with how easy it is to use and the power it brings.

VSTO serverdocument class

Ken Spencer — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 16:41:00 GMT

VSTO 2.0 rocks. One of the cool things is the serverdocument class. It lets you access documents without even have office installed. This allows you to dig into a document and get things out of it like chached datasets.

VB.NET 2.0 Rocks - Smaller than C#

Ken Spencer — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:24:00 GMT

I am teaching a Ascend class on VS2005 in Paris now (June 27,2005).

Started a VB vs C# discussion.

One of the guys said VB.NET used to gen noop lines in msil and it bloated the exe in 1.1.

So he tried it in 2.0. Now VB does not do it but C# does so the C# exe is larger than the VB one.

3 cheers for the VB team.

GrokTalk at TechEd by Spencer and others

Ken Spencer — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:34:00 GMT

http://mediaserver.aspsoft.com/blog/FirstBatchOf6VideosReady.aspx