Latest News from .NET DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

Timing the Market with Distributed Genetics - Part 2

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:48:00 EDT

At the end of my previous article (DNDJ, Vol. 6, issue 4), I explained the theory behind the two major technologies to be used in timing the market. On the one hand, we are dealing with distributed computing – a process whereby large computationally intensive tasks can be broken up and shared among multiple computers in order to be processed in a shorter amount of time.

AJAX RIA Tutorial - Accessing the ASP.NET Authentication, Profile and Role Service in Silverlight

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:00:00 EDT

In ASP.NET 2.0, we introduced a very powerful set of application services in ASP.NET (Membership, Roles and profile). In 3.5 we created a client library for accessing them from Ajax and .NET Clients and exposed them via WCF web services. For more information on the base level ASP.NET appservices that this walk through is based on, please see Stefan Schackow's excellent book Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management.

Composite Software to Exhibit at SYS-CON's Virtualization Conference & Expo

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:00:00 EDT

Composite Software provides a virtual approach to data integration. Hundreds of enterprises including five of the top six U.S. investment banks as well several Government agencies, such as the Office of Secretary of Defense and Intelligence, and software vendors including Cognos, Informatica and BMC, rely on the Composite Information Server to virtualize, abstract and federate data from multiple, disparate sources and deliver this real-time information to their applications. Composite Software’s technology fulfills real-time information requirements, enabling enterprises to respond faster to business requests, reduce their data integration costs, and keep pace with ever-changing business needs. Founded in 2002, Composite Software is a privately held, venture-funded corporation based in Silicon Valley.

OpTier Unveils CoreFirst 3.0

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:52:00 EDT

OpTier has announced the immediate availability of CoreFirst 3.0. Deployed in complex IT environments, CoreFirst links business and IT so that transactions flow smoothly through the IT infrastructure, ensuring that services remain uninterrupted and business goals are met. OpTier also announced that CoreFirst 3.0 now supports the Microsoft Application Framework (.NET).

TFS Timesheet Application for Microsoft's Visual Studio Foundation Server

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:25:00 EDT

TeamExpand, a developer of products complimentary to Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), announced the commercial version of its TX Chrono, a timesheet tracking application targeted at software development organizations standardizing on the Visual Studio .NET environment. Besides a number of bug fixes, the commercial version of TX Chrono features new workflow functionality and complete TSF compatibility to make software development activities more visible and predictable. A trial version of the product will also be available for free download.

Virtualization Conference & Expo - Intel Watch

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:45:00 EDT

Intel held another one of those Developer Forums this week and said that besides its newly christened i7 next-generation 45nm Nehalem desktop chips, a quad-core energy-efficient dual-processor server part code named Nehalem-EP, a k a Gainestown, will go into production in Q4 as well as Bloomfield, an Extreme Edition of the widget that may be good for 3.2GHz.

Chinese Rival Looking for Evidence To Nail Microsoft

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:01:00 EDT

China’s new anti-monopoly law went into effect August 1 and China-based Evermore Software, an Office wannabe, would love to haul Microsoft into court. It says it’s collecting evidence and has suggested to MarketWatch that the integration between Office and Windows might be just the ticket it’s looking for to pin Microsoft’s ears back.

WinForms and ASP.NET Reporting Controls

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:21:00 EDT

Developer Express announced the immediate availability of its reporting platform for WinForms and ASP.NET – the XtraReports Suite v2008 vol 2. Built and optimized for Visual Studio, the DevExpress suite of reporting components allows software developers to deliver cutting-edge capabilities to their end-users with ease.

Cloud Computing Expo - Poland Complains to the EC about Microsoft

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:12:00 EDT

Poland’s Office for Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has complained to the European Commission about Microsoft Windows being on laptops to the exclusion of Linux. It suspects collusion between Microsoft and the laptop makers that Microsoft allegedly greases with rebates, a charge reminiscent of AMD’s complaints against Intel that the EC is also pursuing.

Investments in SOA Governance Set to Rise in APAC

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:30:00 EDT

Corporate investments in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) governance are expected to rise sharply across the Asia-Pacific region, particularly among organizations with one or more SOA project deployments, according to the latest report from Springboard Research, an innovator in the IT market research industry. As per Springboard's report "SOA Governance in Asia Pacific", awareness of the importance of SOA governance is increasing sharply across Asia-Pacific, as most companies in the region that have implemented SOA have also instituted governance mechanisms at some point during the SOA project."

Cloud Computing Journal - Corel May Get Sold

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:30:00 EDT

It said late Wednesday night that it is in talks with an unidentified third party regarding a potential sale of the company, but that there’s no agreement yet or even the assurance of an agreement. The statement followed a Reuters report that Corel had received “multiple preliminary offers from private equity firms and strategic buyers” late Wednesday afternoon.

Red Gate Acquires .NET Reflector

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:32:00 EDT

An agreement between Red Gate and Lutz Roeder will place future development of .NET Reflector, the popular class browser for .NET developers, in the hands of Red Gate. Red Gate is maintaining a free version of the software for downloading.

Solutions for Optimizing ASP.NET Applications

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

One of the reasons that ASP.NET has become popular as a framework for Web developers is the availability of third-party controls and tools. This third-party product support means that, when you’re developing features and functionality in an ASP.NET application, you have "buy versus build" options in many areas. Usually, if the options are buying a third-party control or rolling up your sleeves and manually coding the solution yourself, the choice is an easy one.

Appeals Denied, OOXML Inches Toward Apotheosis

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

ISO said Friday that the appeals made by Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela protesting the standardization of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) file format hadn’t gone anywhere – it was unclear whether any of them had any standing anyway – but since they “failed to garner sufficient support” from the ISO/IEC technical committees, as ISO put it – the standards body is going to go ahead and publish OOXML as an ISO/IEC International Standard, ISO/IEC DIS 29500 – or it will provided another, effective appeal isn’t registered.

BizTalk Server 2006 Tutorial - A Walk Through the Process

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Services are all the rage these days, but there’s a lot more to building a service than just slapping an interface on top of some business and data access logic. Robust services need to take into account usage patterns, security, reliability, scalability, monitoring, and more. Covering all of those areas is not a simple task, which is why you should consider building your services using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2.

Microsoft Opens Up "Two-Way Discussion" with Developers About Windows 7

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EDT

"The Professional Developers Conference on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference the following week represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7," announced Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky, two very senior Windows 7 development engineers, on a new Microsoft blog which has just gone live.

Continuous Integration with Team Foundation Server 2008

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:00:00 EDT

In the recent past, it was common for Windows applications to be manually compiled and built directly on a developer's desktop computer. This caused many problems. For example, the developer may have had a different version of a component used in the application, or you couldn't build when he was on vacation let alone left the company, and it introduced a high degree of error if the developer made changes for future features (or testing code) without realizing it was included in the build.

Building Web Services Using Microsoft.net

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:15:00 EDT

Microsoft .NET is the key enabling technology for Microsoft's vision of software as a service. The .NET Framework is the overall infrastructure that provides developers with a platform to create programs that transcend device boundaries and fully harness the connectivity of the Internet. In this article, I'll illustrate how easy it is to build and use Web services using the .NET Framework SDK. I used the Beta 2 of the .NET Framework SDK and wrote all code samples using C#, Microsoft's new programming language for .NET. This article assumes you have some familiarity with Web services concepts and component-based programming.

.NET Developer ThinkGeo Releases Map Suite 3.0

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:00:00 EDT

ThinkGeo is excited to announce the release of Map Suite Web Edition 3.0 Beta 1, the next generation of its professional ASP.NET GIS server control. Web Edition 3.0 has been re-engineered from the ground-up to help .NET developers create more efficient, more powerful and more attractive Internet and Intranet GIS applications.

All Roads Lead to SharePoint

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:45:00 EDT

Corporate IT organizations have deployed numerous platforms over the years to enable users to collaborate on and share unstructured documents, files, and other data. File shares, document management systems, e-mail servers, Web servers – chances are that most of these are still in use in your company. New user requirements and technical capabilities have driven this evolution, and the result is a scattered variety of platforms that have become unwieldy and expensive to manage.

WinForms Data Grid Control by DevExpress

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:30:00 EDT

DevExpress has announced the immediate availability of the XtraGrid Suite v2008, vol 2 - a feature-complete WinForms Grid control for Visual Studio .NET. Easy-to-use with advanced presentation and theme options, the XtraGrid Suite by DevExpress allows software developers to introduce cutting edge user interfaces to their next Windows Forms application.

WinForms Wizard Control by DevExpress

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:15:00 EDT

DevExpress is proud to announce the immediate availability of the XtraWizard component suite for Windows Forms. Built and optimized for Visual Studio .NET, this Wizard control radically simplifies the way in which developers create and deliver step-by-step 'guides' and/or detailed data entry forms in their smart client solutions.

WinForms Gauge Control by DevExpress

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:15:00 EDT

DevExpress is proud to announce the immediate availability of the XtraGauge Component Suite for Windows Forms. Built and optimized for Visual Studio .NET, this Gauge control radically simplifies the way in which developers create and deliver dashboard-style UIs to their customers.

Icahn Snags Three Yahoo Board Seats, But Yang Remains

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:45:00 EDT

Shareholder activist Carl Icahn has joined the Board of Directors of Yahoo! Inc. Jerry Yang remains in place as CEO. Two further seats will be filled by two people from a list of nine candidates recommended by Icahn.

And Now the Begging

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Mithras Capital, which owns a relatively small block of 1.7 million shares of Yahoo and would vote for Icahn's replacement slate in a heartbeat, sent an open letter to Microsoft Thursday asking Steve Ballmer to take Microsoft's 'alternate transaction' directly to Yahoo's stockholders. That's the better-than-Google deal that Microsoft claimed - after talks with Yahoo fell apart a second time - was worth better than $33 a share.

Working at Google vs. Working at Microsoft

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:45:00 EDT

Recently I've been bumping into more and more people who've either left Google to come to Microsoft or got offers from both companies and picked Microsoft over Google. I believe this is part of a larger trend especially since I've seen lots of people who left the company for 'greener pastures' return in the past year (at least 8 people I know personally have rejoined). However in this blog post I'll stick to talking about people who've chosen Microsoft over Google.

JetBrains Releases ReSharper 4.0

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:15:00 EDT

JetBrains announced the release of ReSharper version 4.0, the compan's productivity add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio. This release is spearheaded by across-the-board support for C# 3.0 language, including LINQ, and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 in general. In addition, the upgraded add-in features multiple new usability and productivity-boosting tools, such as standard class library annotations, solution-wide analysis (for C#), versatile code cleanup, new automated refactorings, new and improved code-editing capabilities, and more.

Microsoft Kinda Moves Offline

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:15:00 EDT

Microsoft has bought Navic Networks, a move that puts it in the business of placing TV commercials in near real-time, one of the things that Steve Ballmer may have had in mind when he said there were a lot of things you could do with $50 billion besides buying Yahoo.

Was GPLv3 Worth the Effort?

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:00:00 EDT

GPLv3, the great General Public License rewrite, is now a year-old and used by 2,345 open source projects including Ubuntu, SugarCRM and Samba. Adoption has reportedly been growing at about 20% a month over the past six months. According to some figures sent around by Black Duck, approximately 58% of all open source projects today are covered by GPLv2 and 11% by LGPLv2.

Atos Origin and Cordys Sign Worldwide Alliance Agreement to Offer Innovative SOA Solutions

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Atos Origin and Cordys have signed a worldwide alliance to jointly offer innovative state-of-the-art BPM solutions. The companies will collaborate on the implementation of joint market offerings; using the Cordys Business Process Management Suite (BPMS), in conjunction with a range of consulting, systems integration, application management and managed operation services from Atos Origin.

Wind River to Enable Virtualization for Devices with Introduction of Scalable Hypervisor

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:00:00 EDT

Wind River introduced a comprehensive multicore software solution for device development. Wind River's multicore software solution will help companies solve complex business challenges by taking advantage of multicore processing and virtualization. In connection with this announcement, Wind River announced that it will introduce a scalable hypervisor that will enable virtualization for devices across a broad range of vertical markets, including networking, industrial and consumer devices.

Green Hat Nominated for SYS-CON's "SOA World Magazine Readers' Choice Awards"

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Green Hat's GH Tester is the essential tool for organizations working with SOA platforms from vendors such as IBM, BEA, Sonic, TIBCO, Software AG and Oracle as well as any JMS or SOAP implementation. The creation of automated, repeatable tests is carried out using an intuitive graphical user interface, achieving the power of a custom-written program in a fraction of the time. User-friendly screens allow the display, creation and manipulation of your message catalogue and comprehensive reports detail the test results. These not only provide information on test success or failure, but also on the performance of the application under test. GH Tester's transport agnostic approach allows users with more than one integration technology to standardize on a single automated testing tool, and, the combined SOA and BPM validation capability provides a means of testing all aspects of their SOA projects, including exception handling and manual processes.

SOA Power Panel: Are B2B, SOA and BPM Converging?

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Is the system integrators' vision of 'business without borders' becoming a reality? This panel will examine the 3-way coalescence of Business-to-Business, SOA, and Business Process Management in the direction of a more flexible enterprise.

The Opening of Virtualization

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:15:00 EDT

Open Source. Open Standards. Open Collaboration. For the past 15 years, Linux has served as the benchmark of a successful global open source project. The impact has been far reaching: today it powers the Internet, a significant portion of the datacenter, is the emerging market choice for the desktop, and soon will likely be on your phone. Over the last 5 years, this open community has turned its attention to virtualization. This talk will discuss what has been achieved and what is under development, and most importantly why open source is critical when building integrated infrastructure solutions.

APC Named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's Virtualization Conference & Expo

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:45:00 EDT

In February 2007, APC and MGE UPS Systems combined to form a $3.5 billion (2.4 billion) Critical Power and Cooling Services business unit of Schneider Electric. The Critical Power and Cooling Services division offers the industry's most comprehensive product and solution range for critical IT and process applications in industrial, enterprise, small and medium business and home environments. The company's solutions include APC's InfraStruXure data center architecture, the comprehensive integrated power, cooling, and management solution. The company's products also include APC and MGE-brand uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), along with APC-brand precision cooling units, racks and design and management software.

Do Not Buy Your BlackBerry From AT&T

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:45:00 EDT

I am one of the very first BlackBerry users - I've been one since 1997 when it was first introduced at the annual JavaOne Conference in San Francisco. Since then I went through more BlackBerries probably than even JetBlue founder David Neeleman. With all the love and around-the-clock use, comes basic maintenance as well, I guess. Recently, the trackball in my Pearl jammed. We called AT&T support, they rushed me a replacement unit, overnight. (After all my monthly BlackBerry charges as a world traveler/CEO run to around $1,500 each and every month.)

MQSoftware to Exhibit at SYS-CON's SOA World Conference & Expo

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:15:00 EDT

MQSoftware delivers business transaction assurance, business service monitoring, middleware management applications, and enterprise application integration products to help customers align IT operations and investments with their business applications. Working with BEA , BMC Software, HP, IBM, Oracle, and TIBCO Software, MQSoftware solutions provide a complete range of real-time transaction assurance and application services performance and availability management backed by comprehensive reporting and supported with powerful tools built for multiplatform infrastructures enabling precision control of customer service and cost-control.

XNA or Game Development for Everyone - Part 2

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:30:00 EDT

In Part 1 we started to develop a small racing game using XNA Game Studio Express 2.0. We learned about the game loop and how it's implemented by the XNA (by using the Update and Draw methods) framework. We also created our first track on the screen and four cars started moving on the screen, but, sadly enough, they left the track and weren't seen again. What does that mean?

Microsoft Will Support UML in Visual Studio 10

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:45:00 EDT

For years and years Microsoft would never have any truck with the Object Management Group's Unified Modeling Language (UML) so it came as a bit of a surprise the other day at Microsoft's TechEd Developer conference when Bill Gates - in what he described as probably his last speech as a full-time Microsoft employee - up and disclosed that Microsoft was going to support UML in Visual Studio 10.

Virtualization - The Great MID Rollout Begins

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Intel hit Computex Tuesday with enough design-wins in hand to put its newfangled netbook-, nettop- and MID-bound Atom chips in short supply at least for the next six-eight weeks, it said. The manufacturing giant confessed last week to hiccups with its new more conventional laptop-bound Centrino 2 chips and chipset that will delay volume production until August.

Virtualization - South Korea Fines Intel; AMD Pops a Few Corks

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Intel has been fined $25.4 million by South Korean regulators for abusing its dominant position and discounting its microprocessors, thereby freezing AMD out of the market. The charges relate specifically to $37 million in rebates awarded to Samsung and Trigem between 2002 and 2005 in exchange for not buying chips from AMD. By 2005 Intel owned over 90% of the Korean market and the authorities claim AMD couldn?t have competed even if its chips were free.

Brazil, India & Venezuela Join South Africa in Objecting to OOXML Standardization

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:30:00 EDT

At the eleventh hour Brazil, India and Venezuela joined South Africa in appealing ISO's highly politicized standardization of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) file format. Meanwhile, the Danish Open Source Business Association has protested the Danish Standard's 'yes' vote for standardization claiming a lack of consensus, rules violations, no final draft and little chance of interoperability. It wants ISO to reopen the issue. Denmark's is not a formal appeal and Danish Standard disagrees with the charges made. Microsoft declined to comment saying the flap is between ISO/IEC and the national bodies.

Why Code Snippets Are Not My Cup of Tea

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Call me a purist but I like to make my code as object-oriented and well structured as possible. I like to tweak the design and to work toward the overall quality of the code. My refactoring olfactory sense is quick to react to any offending odor in the code and it's becoming more sensitive and less tolerant with time.

SOA World Conference & Expo in NYC: Themes & Topics

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:15:00 EDT

A round-up of the Service Oriented Architecture related themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 13th International Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.

IBM and Google Boost Cloud Computing: "Universities Really Need To Get On Board"

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:45:00 EDT

'We in academia and the government labs have not kept up with the times,' Randal E. Bryant, dean of the computer science school at Carnegie Mellon University, told the New York Times over the weekend, as IBM and Google announced a major research initiative to provide the technical training needed for the kind of high-performance computing both companies are famous for. 'Universities really need to get on board,' Bryant added.

Xiotech Automates VMware Virtualization

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:45:00 EDT

Xiotech announced Virtual View, a new add-on for its ICON Manager user interface that simplifies storage monitoring, management and provisioning tasks in virtual environments. Virtual View, designed for users of Xiotech's Emprise 7000 and Magnitude 3D 4000 storage systems, enables administrators to manage storage in their VMware infrastructure environments from a single interface. Users can have a global view of the three storage layers (array, VMware ESX and virtual machine) from a single console and then automate configuration across all layers. As a result, storage management becomes faster and easier with less risk of misconfigurations.

Transformer in H1 Data Center in Houston Explodes

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:30:00 EDT

'We are acutely aware that uptime is critical to your business, and you have my personal commitment that The Planet team will continue to work around the clock to restore your service,' said Douglas Erwin as The Planet, one of the larger hosting providers online, struggled to deal with the knock-on effects of three walls of the electrical equipment room on the first floor having blown several feet from their original position, causing a fire that destroyed the underground cabling powering the first floor of its H1 data center in Houston, Texas.

Timing the Market with Distributed Genetics

Fri, 30 May 2008 12:30:00 EDT

I've always been puzzled by the ability of some traders to consistently make money. A cynic would say that anyone who is able to profit in all adverse economic environments (recessions, depressions, etc.) is most likely able to do so because they are getting information that is not generally available. Although the cynic might mean 'inside' information by this statement, I believe that there is a non-cynical interpretation of this statement that is, to some degree, correct.

Virtualization - Windows 7 Sighted

Fri, 30 May 2008 12:15:00 EDT

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer previewed Windows 7 at the Wall Street Journal's D6 conference in California Tuesday. The next-generation operating system is due in late 2009, Ballmer said, confirming what we reported weeks ago, which probably means December 31, 2009.

Norway's SEC Sics Cops on New Microsoft Subsidiary

Fri, 30 May 2008 12:15:00 EDT

When Microsoft bought Fast Search & Transfer ASA and its vaunted enterprise search widgetry last month for $1.23 billion cash to compete against Google it bought itself police investigation. When Microsoft agreed to buy it in mid-January, the publicly traded Norwegian company was already in the revenue-recognition soup. It had been delisted a month before, and was supposed to restate its 2006-2007 results for a second time.