Murray Gordon

Quick Summary

I attended the Atlanta .NET User Group meeting tonight.

Need to find out about local developer events?

Doug Ware, the speaker, is the founder of eLumenotion Training and Consulting and is the leader of the Atlanta .NET User Group.

Tonight he spoke about using the Web Browser Control in WinForms. This was a brief tutorial and very helpful info. He used his helpful tool "SharePoint Skinner" to demonstrate the Web Browser Control.

The technical presentation is about State Machine Workflows. I thought this would be an exciting topic. Being a MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) / BizTalk advocate, this topic is near an dear to my heart.

Most workflow talks focus on sequential workflows, but in this talk focused  State Machine workflows. State machines have always seemed like a complicated topic, but, as Doug clarified, they're actually easier to use for most situations.

During his talk, Doug built a State Machine Workflow from scratch, covering both handling faults and working with events. He covered the limitations of state machines in workflow foundation. This was great info, because it gave us a nice battle card for how to identify the situations where State Machine workflows do not fit requirements.

Doug used SharePoint as the workflow host, but clarified that the concepts apply to any workflow host.

This was a great presentation.

Event Details

• Food and drinks were sponsored by the folks from Magenic.
• The event was hosted at the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Atlanta

Announcements

• Sarah Cromey from Veredus announced that they are currently looking for .NET Web Developers. If you are interested in a position with Veredus, you can contact Sarah directly at through her email address, scromey(at)vereduscorp.com
• Doug Ware's company is giving some new training on SharePoint 2007.
  • SharePoint 2007 Development Basics Boot Camp
  • Intermediate SharePoint 2007 Development Boot Camp
  • SharePoint 2007 Developer Brain Bomb
  • Web Content Management with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
  • Business Process Automation with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

• DreamSpark - I introduced a small group of folks to the DreamSpark website, where students can get free license to the best development tools.

• Microsoft Online - Also spoke with a few folks over a beer at the bar after the event about Microsoft Online (Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting). If you want to get access to the Microsoft Online Services beta, go to http://mocp.microsoftonline.com. When you get into the MOCP site, go through the setup process. On this site you will be able to apply for the trial. That should get you going.

  I am currently gearing up my community efforts on MS Online, so I encourage you to come back to check out my other posts on MS Online. You can also participate in the MS Online forums, and add commentary to the MS Online team blog.

• Microsoft PDC2008 (Professional Developers Conference)
  • There currently a $200 discount till the 8th of September 2008, so hurry up and take advantage of the discount. This is going to be a huge conference. I really hope to see you all there.

Snapshots from the Event

We had over 45 attendees for the presentation, so awesome job Doug!

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation  http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Here's a handy resource that describes the compatibility issue IE8 could cause for web sites targeting IE7 and the steps they would need to take to resolve those issues.

You can find it at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952030 

For more information about document compatibility in Internet Explorer 8, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288325(VS.85).aspx

For more information about Cascading Style Sheets Compatibility in Internet Explorer, visit the Following Microsoft Web site:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc351024(VS.85).aspx

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation  http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Interested in learning more about Windows Mobile and Windows CE?

You can ask the experts at the monthly chats. 

Scroll down the list to find the next Windows Mobile and Windows CE focused chats. 

The Windows Mobile focused dev chat is typically the second Tuesday of the month. 

The Windows CE focused dev chat is typically the last Tuesday of the month. 

Thanks to Rob Cameron for the FYI on this.

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation  http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

I came across this great Webcast on running test with Visual Studio 2008. It's definitely worth checking out and on the top 10 webcast list for MSDN.

MSDN Webcast: Running Tests with Visual Studio 2008 (Level 200)

I read a great article a few days ago on "How Bill Gates Redefined Application Development" here http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/How-Bill-Gates-Redefined-Application-Development/.

It's definitely worth a read. With Bill's departure from Microsoft last Friday. I can't help but reminisce.

I found a great powerpoint presentation, by Martin Woodward, on what's new in VS2008. You can download it here (Powerpoint 2007 format (zipped) - 2.80 MB)

I recently read "Microsoft Silverlight to back Ruby, Python in browser" at http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/06/06/Microsoft-Silverlight-to-back-Ruby-Python-in-browser_1.html.

I'm very curious to see whether Ruby and Python, as alternatives to JavaScript, will have a serious impact in the ISV community.

I definitely think the capabilities extended by these two additions will definitely feed the community and drive for the addition of Perl and PHP support within Silverlight.

I recently read through the Microsoft "Oslo" Strategy backgrounder at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/soa-bpm/docs/OsloBG.doc.

I really think that the technologies that will surface out of this strategy will provide a shorter path for ISV that need create and maintain complex Line of Business (LOB) applications.

Check it out for yourself and tell me what you think.

I read a couple blogs recently that discussed whether multi-tenancy is a prerequisite for SaaS. (Why multi-tenancy matters and Many degrees of multi-tenancy).

Gianpaolo Carraro from Microsoft does a great job shedding light on the topic on his blog at

http://blogs.msdn.com/gianpaolo/archive/2008/06/20/i-can-t-believe-we-are-still-talking-about-whether-saas-multi-tenancy.aspx

I recently came across the Microsoft ISV Buddy Program at the ISV Zone Home on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/isv/bb190449.aspx. If you are an ISV. You should seriously check it out.

I recently had an very large ISV that was looking to return search results from their application within Windows Search for Desktops.

As I was looking for a solution to this challenge I came across this great article on the topic by fellow ISV Architect Evangelist, Bruce Kyle (View article...)

Here's the key links from the article:

Windows Search 4.0 for Developers

Description of Windows Search 4.0 and the Multilingual User Interface Pack for Windows Search 4.0

I came across the "ADO .NET Entity Framework Vote of No Confidence" at http://efvote.wufoo.com/forms/ado-net-entity-framework-vote-of-no-confidence/ today and thought this was something worth commenting on.

Background

I happen to find out about this petition in my regular read of "Never In Doubt", Ward Bell from IdeaBlade's blog. 

Ward Bell is, in my opinion, one of the leading experts in Object Relational Mapping and the Entity Framework.

I have summarized some key information from him and the other relevant blogger's on this topic. It's an interesting discussion and one that deserve a read and more than likely some input.

The Spark:

• The Powerkeg --- There's a "vote of no confidence" in Entity Framework petition that is circulating and
  • It has drawn signatures of some 156 people

The Heavyweights come in swinging:

• Ward Bell's blog on EF and the "Vote of No Confidence" at http://neverindoubtnet.blogspot.com/2008/06/rejoinder-1-to-of-no-confidence-in.html.
• Tim Mallalieu, the new PM for Entity Framework, wrote the official Microsoft response.
  • He is also showing a lot of love to the Persistence Ignorance fans these days on his blog and on the EF Design blog.
• Microsoft's Elisa Flasko offers her views on her blog.
• Roger Jennings has been following EF for a long time. He's been bulldogging links to "the vote" - adding his own appraisals of each - on his blog. He can save you a ton of time if you're trying to stay on top of what's happening in EF world.
• Julie Lerman also writes on matters EF and this topic in this post.
• Great Quote from Ward Bell: "Every two-bit architect with visions of grandeur is going to send this petition to his boss as proof that Entity Framework will doom the project."
  • "Hey boss, all these MVPs are against Entity Framework. Let me write our application with Domain Driven Design. I don't know a thing about it but how hard can it be? Of course I'll have to learn nHibernate first. Not sure how I'm going to do that. I can't seem to find a book on it. The documentation looks ok though. Well ... yeah .. I haven't found any examples or guidance on how to build a real application with it. But I'm an architect ... I'll figure it out."
  • "Six months later our budding genius proudly shows off his ugly baby: some undocumented, impenetrable morass that only he understands and that works "most of the time", just not while you're watching. The application itself?  "Ah ... it's coming ... honest."
• Key Points from Ward:
  • EF is going to mop the floor with all of the niche players. It will become the "standard" in this space. You want to throw yourself and your employer against that buzz saw? You better be able to show that something horrible is going to happen if you use EF instead. It is not enough to argue that technology 'X' is better. You have to show that the long term ROI of building with your pet technology is vastly superior to building with EF. You'll have to show that the EF defects identified in that petition are going to spell disaster for your project. Frankly, I don't think you can make either case. I'm not challenging your intelligence or persuasiveness. I'm saying the case is not there.
  • There are thousands of successful applications built with frameworks like Entity Framework. I'm defining "success" here in soft business terms as in "the business likes it and thinks you are doing a great job". Don't stack the deck against me with Fitness tests (which are great, btw, but not implemented in most shops and irrelevant to the argument). Ultimately, business satisfaction is what we're striving for.
  • We have zero empirical evidence that actually existing applications built with pure Persistence Ignorance frameworks are intrinsically more successful than applications built with Persistence Aware frameworks.
  • On the other hand, there is good evidence that Persistence Aware frameworks are (a) easier to use and (b) result in earlier delivery of useable applications. You can start coding against an EF entity model almost out of the box. I'm not saying you should ... but you can. The fair proponents of Persistence Ignorance always acknowledge this when they talk about the "trade-offs" of PI.
  • EF isn't even released and there is already more of an eco-system surrounding EF than around all of its competitors combined. Count the forum entries, magazine articles, and blog posts. Count the books on Amazon (six so far; ok, most not released yet ... but try to find a single published book on nHibernate).
  • Expertise in EF will emerge quickly and spread widely as it always does with MS technologies. You will struggle today to find affordable developers and consultants who know about the rival niche technology of your choice; that situation is unlikely to improve as EF gains traction.
  • Some people will be good at developing with EF; some will be awful. But this is a numbers game and you can be an atrocious nHibernate developer too. The difference is that you will be able to find someone who can tell you that you have an EF fraud in your organization; nHibernate charlatans can hide like roaches.

I love Ward's quote where he says "Our little corner of the world would be better served if the petitioners rallied to (a) help customers make the best of EF version one and (b) got busy helping Microsoft improve it in version two."

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation  http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

We recently put this list of resources together for an ISV.

Here's some great info, if you are in the process of evaluating or trying to bring Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) into your organization. These links provide great support when you are creating a cost benefit analysis. All of my ISV's have gone through this process in order to get management to approve a new Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solution.

Cost Benefit Analysis – ROI, Case Studies, ALM Best Practices, ALM Assessment Etc..

• Awesome ROI tool - http://www.microsoft.com/click/usapo/usdev/meet-milestones/default.mspx
• You can download the "VS-TFS Booklet.pdf" for additional case studies (http://cid-08de907e452a5557.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog%20Attachments/VS-TFS%20Booklet.pdf) 

VSTS/TFS Virtual LABS and Hosted Trial

• You can sue this virtual lab to get your folks familiar with VSTS and Team Foundation Server (TFS).
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs/aa740411.aspx

Visual Basic 6 -> Team Foundation Server 2008 MSSCCI Provider

• This is great for organizations that are currently using or migrating from VB6 and still need to be able to develop VB6 code for their solutions.
• with VSTS, you are covered, so that you can still develop and maintain your legacy VB6 code while using TFS.
• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=FAEB7636-644E-451A-90D4-7947217DA0E7&displaylang=en

Notion Solutions Virtual Training:

• Notion Solutions has some great training and a massive amount of content on their site.
• Notions Virtual Training FAQ: http://www.notionsolutions.com/training/etraining/Pages/default.aspx
• Team System Rocks is another huge resource for find information and training on VSTS/TFS (http://teamsystemrocks.com/files/default.aspx)

VSTS – Rosario Update:

• The following link explains the upgrade assurance associated with VSTS 2008 and moving to Rosario when it is released.
• Future releases are covered under "Select Agreement" benefits and would provide upgrade rights to VSTS futures i.e. Rosario with no additional cost.
• Check out the info on Rosario - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts2008/bb725993.aspx

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation  http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Pier1 is one of Microsoft's NXT Partners (specialized in S+S). They are offering a FREE webinar on Software + Services.  Though the event has passed, you can still check out the recording.

As some of you might know, an estimated 25 percent of all software is expected to be delivered as a Service (i.e. SaaS) in the next few years.

Peer 1 (one of Microsoft’s leading managed services provider) offered a FREE webinar with industry-leading SaaS speakers Tuesday (6/24) at 11:00 am (pacific time). Though the event has passed, you can still check out the recording.

You will learn the fundamentals and how to best prepare and capitalize on the overall opportunities. 

More details at:

http://now.eloqua.com/es.asp?s=251&e=0BD3A369DAAB4136A4B77383C18A06BC&elq=C0FEB82F89964AB6BF61EB34E432D51B

Click here to Register and access the video:

 http://www.bulldogsolutions.net/Peer1/PER06242008/frmRegistration.aspx?bdls=15170

You might be able to bypass the registration by clicking this link:

http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=lobby.jsp&playerwidth=1000&playerheight=700&eventid=111122&sessionid=1&partnerref=Qualified&key=0CFCBDFC801FCCFADBD0D39EF4E6C11A&eventuserid=17609673

Here's the original Info on the event:

Avoid These Common Pitfalls with SaaS3 from PEER 1

Software as a Service (SaaS) is here to stay, with an estimated 25 percent of all software delivered in the next few years expected to be SaaS. As successful SaaS companies know, to take advantage of the considerable benefits of SaaS, you must run your company in a completely different way than traditional software companies operate. Additionally, when you move from traditional software to SaaS, you must avoid several common mistakes.

This exclusive Webinar will provide insight to both startup software companies and companies transitioning from a traditional product to a SaaS offering. In this first-time event, industry experts Mike Jalonen, CEO of OnDemand Solutions, Jeff Hagins, partner and CTO of Mural Ventures and PEER1's Vice President of Business Development, Robert Miggins, will share their extensive experience and innovative methodologies that have helped ISVs build successful and profitable SaaS applications. You will learn how escaping the pitfalls that have hobbled other ISVs can save your company thousands of dollars.
Attend this event and learn about the Seven Deadly SaaS Offering Mistakes:

1. Thinking offering SaaS and being an application service provider are similar
2. Cannibalizing your current revenue by providing your existing offering to the same customers
3. Underestimating the power of and need for customer service in the SaaS model
4. Offering free trials that don’t convert prospects to customers
5. Underestimating the importance of web-centricity for marketing, sales and support
6. Failing to understand the importance of usability in selling a SaaS offering
7. Hosting with the wrong hosting provider or self hosting

Hope you find it valuable. I definitely enjoyed it.

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Here's a great blog post on the US ISV Developer Evangelism Team blog that talks about Best Practices Security Tools that help ISV's Protect Against Web Attacks.

 http://blogs.msdn.com/usisvde/archive/2008/06/25/best-practices-security-tools-help-isvs-protect-against-web-attacks.aspx

You can also check out the following link, to learn more about how you can protect your Web site from SQL Injection: Microsoft Security Advisory (954462): Rise in SQL Injection Attacks Exploiting Unverified User Data.

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG