Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Very simple answer:
The Name: Azure… no one at Microsoft can agree as to how to say Azure!!!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The process is simple:
Get paid for the things you buy anyway
Same shops. Same prices. Just extra cashback.
- Create your free MirrorCashback account
- Login and click on our links before visiting the shops
- Buy from the retailer as usual
- The retailer validates your sale and pays us
- Once your earnings reach £25, we pay the money into your bank account or Mirror Quidity prepaid card
Use the following link:
http://www.mirrorcashback.com/refer.php?referrer=502404
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Microsoft have provided and excellent standards agreed format called XPS. Vista comes ready installed with an XPS viewer for XP you can download it. The issue is if your preferred browser is Firefox you will not be able to view XPS files.
The solution is simple:
- Download the IE tab addin for Firefox
- Install it
- Then the clever bit open options
- Set up a URL thus: /^file:\/\/\/.*\.(xps)$/
- Jobs a good ‘un.
Now if you click on and XPS file Firefox will open and IE tab and load it!!
After upgrading to Microsoft® Office 2007 is the default for all documents is the .???x format for example new Word documents now end in .docx instead of .doc.
Although the new file type offers many improvements over the old one, it can be troublesome to use if you work with many people that have older versions of Office. There are workarounds available from Microsoft, but it's usually easier just to send them something you know they can open.
One way to solve the problem is to simply change the default file format to the previous Office formats. In the case of Word 2007 that’s to DOC.
To do this go into Word 2007 and click the Office Button | Word Options | Save | Save files in this format | Set this to "Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)" and click OK.
For Excel and it’s the same principle.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Microsoft code name “Geneva”, an open platform for simplified user access based on claims. This release consists of three components: Geneva Framework for .NET developers, Geneva Server for IT Pros, and Windows CardSpace Geneva for users.
Find out more here
So the secret’s out!
Microsoft’s Cloud will give us a number of key aspects.
First is the foundation or Windows Azure, this can be seen as the cloud OS but is much, much more than that. It is an infinitely scalable Computation, Storage and Management system providing hyper-visor powered virtualization for cloud hosted apps be it web or otherwise.
Next we have the application building blocks or Azure services. Here we find the gestation of BizTalk services and SQL data services. We have .Net services covering the service bus, workflow and access control (federated identity and more). Next along we have SQL services today giving us database, data sync and reporting with ETL, reference data and others hot on its heels. And then we have Live services the Mesh, Contacts and Calendar functins and again more to come.
The future promises Sharepoint and CRM services as building blocks to add even more to the mix.
And finally sat on this is and will be Microsoft’s own application offerings of Sharepoint online, CRM online, Office Live and Windows live.
This is a major future gamble for Microsoft and as such the other announcements this week almost act as supporting acts – take the example of ‘Oslo’ introduced as part of the cloud message allowing users to model on and off premise.
This is a great start to an exciting PDC. My only concern is that Live services feel a little like an aftr though or blot on…
Monday, October 06, 2008
I have recently been invited to join the Microsoft Cloud Advisory group and have just spent the last week at an SDR getting to understand all the wonderful cloud stuff. Unfortunately I'm under NDA until PDC but it is looking good.
On the topic of the cloud and BizTalk I came across a blog by Lori MacVittie (http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/10/06/how-microsoft-is-bursting-into-the-cloud-with-biztalk.aspx)
that really has got it all wrong. The blog talks about BizTalk activities in the cloud and orchestrations and on but has missed the point completely.
Microsoft in their infinite wisdom named their cloud messaging and workflow technologies BizTalk Services. In fact they have nothing to do with BizTalk!!! They are based on the Windows Workflow foundation and the Windows Communication foundation. No it is true that we will/can be able to host our workflow's in the cloud, and use the Internet service bus it isn't and never will be BizTalk. I cannot do transformations, having adapters and accelerators coming out my ears and the like and I will not/am not able to use BPEL in the cloud - the underlying language of BizTalk orchestrations.
After PDC this will become a lot clearer!
Technorati Tags:
Cloud,
BizTalk
Monday, September 08, 2008
Following on from BizTalk Server 2006 R2 released on October 2, 2007,Microsoft has been working on BizTalk Server 2006 R3. In a recent announcement Microsoft renamed it to simply BizTalk Server 2009. It is scheduled to be released in the first half of next year. A first community technology preview (CTP) has already been sent out to select BizTalk customers, and a second public CTP will be available later this year at PDC.
Oliver Sharp, general manager of BizTalk Server, stated that BizTalk Server 2009 will be a full release of the product that takes advantage of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, and .NET Framework 3.5:
In particular the platform updates enable greater scalability and reliability, new Hyper-V virtualization support, and many advances in the latest developer tools. BizTalk Server 2009 also delivers some of the top features that have been requested by our customers, including a new UDDI v3-compliant services registry, new and enhanced LOB adapters (Oracle E-Business Suite, SQL Server), enhanced host systems integration (updates to MQ, CICS, IMS, CICS), a new Mobile RFID platform and management tools, enhanced B2B capabilities (updates to EDI, AS2, SWIFT), enhanced developer and team productivity through ALM integration with Team Foundation System and Visual Studio, and a new release of ESB Guidance 2.0 patterns and practices.
Sharp also stated that the customer base for BizTalk has doubled over the past four years and laid out Microsoft's goal for BizTalk Server releases: approximately two years apart, with service packs in between. Every full BizTalk Server release will integrate the previous major release with the latest service pack and new functionality. Microsoft has now posted a roadmap for BizTalk for now and the future.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Just wasted a few minutes trying to install the latest and greatest beta of IE8. Kept receiving the very unhelpful message: "Extraction Failed"
And then the penny dropped - simply Run As Administrator!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Nice article by Sebastian Iacomuzzi: Intro to ZZermatt.
Zermatt is a set of .NET Framework classes. It is a framework for implementing claims-based identity in your applications.
When you build claims-aware applications, the user presents an identity to your application as a set of claims. One claim could be the user’s name, another might be an e-mail address. The idea here is that an external identity system is configured to give your application everything it needs to know about the user with each request she makes, along with cryptographic assurance that the identity data you receive comes from a trusted source.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
“Zermatt” is the codename of a .NET framework that helps developers build claims-aware applications to address challenging application security requirements using a simplified application access model. It is currently in beta, and the first final version is expected towards the end of this year. This framework consists of a comprehensive set of libraries that facilitate the use of "claims" in applications - in Microsoft's words: make them "claims-aware". This greatly simplifies the development of applications that will work within federated environments and the new identity metasystem technology that Microsoft is developing, and will give a push to adoption of the new identity technology.
Download the bits of the Beta of “Zermatt” Developer Identity Framework.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
OK for those who like it first....
The new version of iTunes is ready to download. It includes all the hooks for the new iPhone and version 2.0 software release and of course APP store.
App store is hidden at present but you can get to it by searching for AOL AIM in the store search then 'backing out' to App store. Here you will find all the goodie apps for free download or paid download.
Remember you still need version 2.0 of the software to run these!!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Have a look at the following investigation by Sam Allen.....
"The author developed a program to snapshot memory usage per process every 3 seconds on Windows. Using this he recorded 3 hours of memory usage for five different browsers under real-world usage scenarios: Safari 3.1, Firefox 3, Flock 1.2 (a browser based on Firefox 2), Opera 9.5, and Internet Explorer 8. A million data points indicate that Firefox 3 has a surprising advantage over the other browsers tested. These are real-world tests and not contrived benchmarks."
Technorati Tags:
Firefox,
IE,
Opera,
Flock
Friday, June 13, 2008
SlickEdit is one of the old school editors that has survived the wonder world of the new IDE. Version 13 has just been released and it continues to blur the boundaries between a simple text editor and a fullblown IDE. While there are no visual form designers and other such wizbang graphics, what you get is an editor that you can use for many development tasks, including building, running, and debugging complete applications.
Ten versions down the road, and we now have almost too many features to list, but let's hit a few of the highlights. You get multiple windows and configurable everything, with colour-coding for all the languages your heart could desire. There is also a variety of language-specific indentation, auto-completion, and code prettification functions designed to save you typing while making your code look right. Add in a slick diff and merge tool, integration with loads of source code control systems (Subversion support is new in this release), searching that lets you use regular expressions or skip strings or comments (or limit your searching to strings or comments, for that matter) or what ever. You get a C-based macro language and just about any keyboard shortcut man (or woman) can imagine. And then there is built-in class and definition browsers making it super-easy and super-fast to jump to parts of your code. So overall SlickEdit is very fast; if you're used to waiting for an IDE to churn, you'll be pleasantly surprised with the responsiveness here.
From there, move on to the actual coding stuff. For example, you can open up a Visual Studio .NET solution directly in SlickEdit v13, build or rebuilt it, run it, even debug it with a full selection of watches, single-stepping, and other advanced debugging features. If you're working in C++ you also get a whole mess of refactoring features in the editor. Java developers get new support for Java Live Errors and the Hot-Swap Debugger (essentially edit and continue for Java), plus the ability to run JUnit tests from within the editor. The user interface has also been modernized from previous versions, with slicker icons and dockable windows for a more modern feel.
If you want to take the program for a spin, there's a trial available for download.
Find it here....
SlickEdit is one of the old school editors that has survived the wonder world of the new IDE. Version 10 has just been released and it continues to blur the boundaries between a simple text editor and a fullblown IDE. While there are no visual form designers and other such wizbang graphics, what you get is an editor that you can use for many development tasks, including building, running, and debugging complete applications.
Ten versions down the road, and we now have almost too many features to list, but let's hit a few of the highlights. You get multiple windows and configurable everything, with colour-coding for all the languages your heart could desire. There is also a variety of language-specific indentation, auto-completion, and code prettification functions designed to save you typing while making your code look right. Add in a slick diff and merge tool, integration with loads of source code control systems (Subversion support is new in this release), searching that lets you use regular expressions or skip strings or comments (or limit your searching to strings or comments, for that matter) or what ever. You get a C-based macro language and just about any keyboard shortcut man (or woman) can imagine. And then there is built-in class and definition browsers making it super-easy and super-fast to jump to parts of your code. So overall SlickEdit is very fast; if you're used to waiting for an IDE to churn, you'll be pleasantly surprised with the responsiveness here.
From there, move on to the actual coding stuff. For example, you can open up a Visual Studio .NET solution directly in SlickEdit v10, build or rebuilt it, run it, even debug it with a full selection of watches, single-stepping, and other advanced debugging features. If you're working in C++ you also get a whole mess of refactoring features in the editor. Java developers get new support for Java Live Errors and the Hot-Swap Debugger (essentially edit and continue for Java), plus the ability to run JUnit tests from within the editor. The user interface has also been modernized from v9, with slicker icons and dockable windows for a more modern feel.
If you want to take the program for a spin, there's a 15-day trial available for download.
Find it here....
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
If you keep getting nagged for log ons when using sharepoint this will solve the problem almost 100% of the time. The trick is to use the Windows managed Stored username and password feature. To access this,
1. Simply go into Control Panel
2. Click User Accounts
3. Go into Managed Passwords and click Add
4. Type the URL of the server (without HTTP), for example portal.us.com
5. Enter your credentials and click Ok
Now anytime Windows attempts to access ANYTHING on this server it will use the use those credentials and your prompting issue should go away.
The downside to this is if you change your password, you need to remember to come change it here.
O2 remains the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the UK for iPhone 3G. In keeping with Steve Jobs announcement the cost has been kept right as well.
O2 offers the following four tariffs for iPhone 3G:
- £30/month - 8GB iPhone £99 - 16GB iPhone £159 - 75 Minutes - 125 Texts - Unlimited Data & WiFi - 18 month contract
- £35/month - 8GB iPhone £99 - 16GB iPhone £159 - 600 Minutes - 500 Texts - Unlimited Data & WiFi - 18 month contract
- £45/month - 8GB iPhone Free - 16GB iPhone £59 - 1200 Minutes - 500 Texts - Unlimited Data & WiFi - 18 month contract
- £75/month - 8GB iPhone Free - 16GB iPhone Free - 3000 Minutes - 500 Texts - Unlimited Data & WiFi - 18 month contract
O2 is also offering existing iPhone customers the chance to simply renew their contract rather than having to pay it off coupled with a chance to upgrade their phone...
Finally O2 have announced a Pay and Go option as well!!!
Technorati Tags:
Apple,
iPhone
As we use more and more virtual machines, particularly for development, there is a risk because they don't get updated by pushing critical security or virus updates and then they are fired up six months later we can have a security problem.
Microsoft has a solution for their virtual machine environment adding to the virtual machine management tooling - the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool. This turns on your VMs, updates them and shuts them down automatically. You can find information about getting on the Beta at the link below.
Get it here