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• Silverlight Cream for March 10, 2010 - 2 -- #811

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: AfricanGeek, Phil Middlemiss, Damon Payne, David Anson, Jesse Liberty, Jeremy Likness, Jobi Joy(-2-), Fredrik Normén, Bobby Diaz, and Mike Taulty(-2-). Shoutouts: Shawn Wildermuth blogged that they posted My "What's New in Silverlight 3" Video from 0reDev Last Fall Shawn Wildermuth also has a post up for his loyal followers: Where to See Me At MIX10 Jonas Follesø has presentation materials up as well: MVVM presentation from NDC2009 on Vimeo Adam Kinney updated his Favorite Tool and Library Downloads for Silverlight From SilverlightCream.com: Styling Silverlight ListBox with Blend 3 In his latest Video Tutorial, AfricanGeek is animating the ListBox control by way of Expression Blend 3. Animating the Silverlight Opacity Mask Phil Middlemiss has written a Behavior that lets you turn a FrameworkElement into an opacity mask for it's parent container... check out his tutorial and grab the code. AddRange for ObservableCollection in Silverlight 3 Damon Payne has a post up discussing the problem with large amounts of data in an ObservableCollection, and how using AddRange is a performance booster. Easily rotate the axis labels of a Silverlight/WPF Toolkit chart David Anson blogged a solution to rotating the axis labels of a Silverlight and WPF chart. Persisting the Configuration (Updated) Jesse Liberty has a good discussion on the continuation of his HyperVideo Platform talking about what all he is needing from the database in the form of configuration information... including the relationships. Animations and View Models: IAnimationDelegate Check out Jeremy Likness' IAnimationDelegate that lets your ViewModel fire and respond to animations without having to know all about them. Button Style - Silverlight Jobi Joy converted a WPF control template into Silverlight... and you'll want to download the XAML he's got for this :) A Simple Accordion banner using ListBox Jobi Joy also has an Image Accordian created in Expression Blend... and it's a 'drop this XAML in your User Control' kinda thing... again, go grab the XAML :) WCF RIA Services Silverlight Business Application – Using ASP.NET SiteMap for Navigation Fredrik Normén has a code-laden post up on RIA Services and the ASP.NET SiteMap. He is using the Silverlight Business app template that comes with WCF RIA Services. A Simple, Selectable Silverlight TextBlock (sort of)... Bobby Diaz shares with us his solution for a Text control that can be copied from in the same manner 'normal' web controls can be. He also includes a link to another post on the same topic. Silverlight 4 Beta Networking. Part 11 - WCF and TCP Mike Taulty has another pair of video tutorials up in his Networking series. This one is on WCF over TCP Silverlight 4 Beta Networking. Part 12 - WCF and Polling HTTP Mike Taulty's 12th networking video tutorial is on WCF with HTTP polling duplex. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    MIX10

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• Retro Video Game Collection

  - by Matt Christian

  Recently I've decided, in true nerd fashion, to collect either comic books or video games.  Considering I'm much more versed in the technological arts and not in ACTUAL art, I thought collecting old video games would be an interesting venture.  After all, I am a self-described compulsive shopper (my bank statement at the end of the month has a purchase every few days).  (Don't worry, I'm not in debt and still pay my bills on time!) I went to a local video game store in Stevens Point called Gaming Generations which is a neat little shop with loads of old games for great prices.  For example, any NES cartridge on the shelf (not behind glass) is, at most, $4.99 with the cheaper ones around $1.99.  During my first round at GG, I picked up the following: NES: - Fester's Quest - Adventures of Link (Zelda 2, grey cart) - Little Nemo - Total Recall - The Goonies 2 PSX: - Galerians N64: - Mission: Impossible - Hybrid Heaven I was a little cautious, would I even like collecting old games?  As soon as I popped a few of those games in I knew right away the answer was an astounding YES!  Not only is it fun to bring back memories of all these old games, but searching for them in stores is also a blast and saying 'I have that one, I need the second one.' After finding such joy in buying these games, I decided to go search through 4-5 stores in Wausau for old games as well.  While the prices were a bit higher and selection smaller, the search was still fun.  I found the following: NES: - Maniac Mansion - T&C Surf - Chip N Dale: Rescue Rangers - TMNT (the first one) - Mission: Impossible N64: - Turok - Turok 2 Genesis: - Sonic the Hedgehog Dreamcast: - Shenmue And I found a Gamegear for $5!  Now I just need to find games for it... Tonight I will go on one more small expedition into the used, once again stopping at GG and another second hand store to see if I can find any items for my collection.

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• Platform Builder: Building Cloned Code from Multiple OS Versions

  - by Bruce Eitman

  My career goal is to delete more code than I write, and so far I have been fairly successful. But of course once in a while I need to clone code from the public tree which is contrary to my goal. Usually what follows is a new OS release. To help reach my goal, my team uses the same BSP code for multiple versions of the OS. That means that we need to handle the cloned code so that the correct code builds for the OS version that we are working on. To handle this we could use SKIPBUILD in the sources file, but that gets messy if the cloned code contains multiple folders. The solution that we use is to have a parent folder with subfolders that contain the OS version number. Example: PM |-PM500 |-PM600 |-PM700 The version number corresponds to the environment variable _WINCEOSVER. Then we have a simple DIRS file in the parent folder: DIRS=PM$( _WINCEOSVER) Which automatically selects the folder that goes with the OS version that we are building.   Copyright © 2010 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

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• That Escalated Quickly

  - by Jesse Taber

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2014/05/17/that-escalated-quickly.aspxI have been working remotely out of my home for over 4 years now. All of my coworkers during that time have also worked remotely. Lots of folks have written about the challenges inherent in facilitating communication on remote teams and strategies for overcoming them. A popular theme around this topic is the notion of “escalating communication”. In this context “escalating” means taking a conversation from one mode of communication to a different, higher fidelity mode of communication. Here are the five modes of communication I use at work in order of increasing fidelity: Email – This is the “lowest fidelity” mode of communication that I use. I usually only check it a few times a day (and I’m trying to check it even less frequently than that) and I only keep items in my inbox if they represent an item I need to take action on that I haven’t tracked anywhere else. Forums / Message boards – Being a developer, I’ve gotten into the habit of having other people look over my code before it becomes part of the product I’m working on. These code reviews often happen in “real time” via screen sharing, but I also always have someone else give all of the changes another look using pull requests. A pull request takes my code and lets someone else see the changes I’ve made side-by-side with the existing code so they can see if I did anything dumb. Pull requests can facilitate a conversation about the code changes in an online-forum like style. Some teams I’ve worked on also liked using tools like Trello or Google Groups to have on-going conversations about a topic or task that was being worked on. Chat & Instant Messaging  - Chat and instant messaging are the real workhorses for communication on the remote teams I’ve been a part of. I know some teams that are co-located that also use it pretty extensively for quick messages that don’t warrant walking across the office to talk with someone but reqire more immediacy than an e-mail. For the purposes of this post I think it’s important to note that the terms “chat” and “instant messaging” might insinuate that the conversation is happening in real time, but that’s not always true. Modern chat and IM applications maintain a searchable history so people can easily see what might have been discussed while they were away from their computers. Voice, Video and Screen sharing – Everyone’s got a camera and microphone on their computers now, and there are an abundance of services that will let you use them to talk to other people who have cameras and microphones on their computers. I’m including screen sharing here as well because, in my experience, these discussions typically involve one or more people showing the other participants something that’s happening on their screen. Obviously, this mode of communication is much higher-fidelity than any of the ones listed above. Scheduled meetings are typically conducted using this mode of communication. In Person – No matter how great communication tools become, there’s no substitute for meeting with someone face-to-face. However, opportunities for this kind of communcation are few and far between when you work on a remote team. When a conversation gets escalated that usually means it moves up one or more positions on this list. A lot of people advocate jumping to #4 sooner than later. Like them, I used to believe that, if it was possible, organizing a call with voice and video was automatically better than any kind of text-based communication could be. Lately, however, I’m becoming less convinced that escalating is always the right move. Working Asynchronously Last year I attended a talk at our local code camp given by Drew Miller. Drew works at GitHub and was talking about how they use GitHub internally. Many of the folks at GitHub work remotely, so communication was one of the main themes in Drew’s talk. During the talk Drew used the phrase, “asynchronous communication” to describe their use of chat and pull request comments. That phrase stuck in my head because I hadn’t heard it before but I think it perfectly describes the way in which remote teams often need to communicate. You don’t always know when your co-workers are at their computers or what hours (if any) they are working that day. In order to work this way you need to assume that the person you’re talking to might not respond right away. You can’t always afford to wait until everyone required is online and available to join a voice call, so you need to use text-based, persistent forms of communication so that people can receive and respond to messages when they are available. Going back to my list from the beginning of this post for a second, I characterize items #1-3 as being “asynchronous” modes of communication while we could call items #4 and #5 “synchronous”. When communication gets escalated it’s almost always moving from an asynchronous mode of communication to a synchronous one. Now, to the point of this post: I’ve become increasingly reluctant to escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication for two primary reasons: 1 – You can often find a higher fidelity way to convey your message without holding a synchronous conversation 2 - Asynchronous modes of communication are (usually) persistent and searchable. You Don’t Have to Broadcast Live Let’s start with the first reason I’ve listed. A lot of times you feel like you need to escalate to synchronous communication because you’re having difficulty describing something that you’re seeing in words. You want to provide the people you’re conversing with some audio-visual aids to help them understand the point that you’re trying to make and you think that getting on Skype and sharing your screen with them is the best way to do that. Firing up a screen sharing session does work well, but you can usually accomplish the same thing in an asynchronous manner. For example, you could take a screenshot and annotate it with some text and drawings to illustrate what it is you’re seeing. If a screenshot won’t work, taking a short screen recording while your narrate over it and posting the video to your forum or chat system along with a text-based description of what’s in the recording that can be searched for later can be a great way to effectively communicate with your team asynchronously. I Said What?!? Now for the second reason I listed: most asynchronous modes of communication provide a transcript of what was said and what decisions might have been made during the conversation. There have been many occasions where I’ve used the search feature of my team’s chat application to find a conversation that happened several weeks or months ago to remember what was decided. Unfortunately, I think the benefits associated with the persistence of communicating asynchronously often get overlooked when people decide to escalate to a in-person meeting or voice/video call. I’m becoming much more reluctant to suggest a voice or video call if I suspect that it might lead to codifying some kind of design decision because everyone involved is going to hang up the call and immediately forget what was decided. I recognize that you can record and archive these types of interactions, but without being able to search them the recordings aren’t terribly useful. When and How To Escalate I don’t mean to imply that communicating via voice/video or in person is never a good idea. I probably jump on a Skype call with a co-worker at least once a day to quickly hash something out or show them a bit of code that I’m working on. Also, meeting in person periodically is really important for remote teams. There’s no way around the fact that sometimes it’s easier to jump on a call and show someone my screen so they can see what I’m seeing. So when is it right to escalate? I think the simplest way to answer that is when the communication starts to feel painful. Everyone’s tolerance for that pain is different, but I think you need to let it hurt a little bit before jumping to synchronous communication. When you do escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication, there are a couple of things you can do to maximize the effectiveness of the communication: Takes notes – This is huge and yet I’ve found that a lot of teams don’t do this. If you’re holding a meeting with  > 2 people you should have someone taking notes. Taking notes while participating in a meeting can be difficult but there are a few strategies to deal with this challenge that probably deserve a short post of their own. After the meeting, make sure the notes are posted to a place where all concerned parties (including those that might not have attended the meeting) can review and search them. Persist decisions made ASAP – If any decisions were made during the meeting, persist those decisions to a searchable medium as soon as possible following the conversation. All the teams I’ve worked on used a web-based system for tracking the on-going work and a backlog of work to be done in the future. I always try to make sure that all of the cards/stories/tasks/whatever in these systems always reflect the latest decisions that were made as the work was being planned and executed. If held a quick call with your team lead and decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to build real-time validation into that new UI you were working on, go and codify that decision in the story associated with that work immediately after you hang up. Even better, write it up in the story while you are both still on the phone. That way when the folks from your QA team pick up the story to test a few days later they’ll know why the real-time validation isn’t there without having to invoke yet another conversation about the work. Communicating Well is Hard At this point you might be thinking that communicating asynchronously is more difficult than having a live conversation. You’re right: it is more difficult. In order to communicate effectively this way you need to very carefully think about the message that you’re trying to convey and craft it in a way that’s easy for your audience to understand. This is almost always harder than just talking through a problem in real time with someone; this is why escalating communication is such a popular idea. Why wouldn’t we want to do the thing that’s easier? Easier isn’t always better. If you and your team can get in the habit of communicating effectively in an asynchronous manner you’ll find that, over time, all of your communications get less painful because you don’t need to re-iterate previously made points over and over again. If you communicate right the first time, you often don’t need to rehash old conversations because you can go back and find the decisions that were made laid out in plain language. You’ll also find that you get better at doing things like writing useful comments in your code, creating written documentation about how the feature that you just built works, or persuading your team to do things in a certain way.

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• Great Customer Service Example

  - by MightyZot

  A few days ago I wrote about what I consider a poor customer service interaction with TiVo, a company that I have been faithful to for the past 12 years or so. In that post I talked about how they helped me, but I felt like I was doing something wrong at the end of the call – when in reality I was just following through with an offer that TiVo made possible through my cable company. Today I had a wonderful customer service interaction with American Express, another company that I have been loyal to for many years.(I am a Gold Card member.) I like my Amex card because I can use it for big purchases and it forces me to pay them off at the end of the month. Well, the reality is that I’m not always so good at doing that, so sometimes my payments are over a couple of months.  :) A few days ago I received an email from “American Express” fraud detection. The email stated that I should call a toll free number and have the last four digits of my card handy. I grew up during the BBS era with some creative and somewhat mischievous friends. I’ve learned to be extremely cautious with regard to my online life! So, I did what you would expect…I sent them a nice reply that said “Go screw yourself.” For the past couple of days someone has been trying to call me and I assumed it was the same prankster trying to get the last four digits of my card. The last caller left a message indicating that they were from American Express and they wanted to talk to me about my card. After looking up their customer service numbers on the www.americanexpress.com web site, I called and was put through to the fraud detection group. The rep explained that there were some charges on my wife’s card that did not fit our purchase profile. She went through each charge and, for the most part, they looked like charges my wife may have made. My wife had asked to use the card for some Christmas shopping during the same timeframe as the charges. The American Express rep very politely explained that these looked out of character to her. She continued through the charges. She listed a charge for $160 – at this point my adrenaline started kicking in. My wife said she was going to charge about $25 or $30 dollars, not $160. Next, the rep listed a charge for over $1200. Uh oh!! Now I know that my account has been compromised. I informed the rep that we definitely did not make those charges. She replied with, “that’s ok Mr Pope, we declined those charges as well as some others.” We went through the pending charges and there were a couple more that were questionable. The rep very patiently waited while I called my wife on my office phone to verify the charges. Sure enough, my wife had not ordered anything from Netflix or purchased anything with Yahoo Wallet! “No problem Mr Pope, we will remove those charges as well.” “We are going to cancel your wife’s card and send her a new one. She will receive it by 7pm tomorrow via Federal Express. Please watch your statements over the next couple of months. If you notice anything fishy, give us a call and we will take care of it for you.” (Wow, I’m thinking to myself!) “Is there anything else I can help you with Mr Pope?” “Nope, thank you very much for catching this so early and declining those charges!”, I said smiling. Apparently she could hear me smiling on the other end of the phone line because she replied with “keep smiling Mr Pope and have a good rest of your week.” Now THAT’s customer service!  Thank you American Express!!! I shall remain an ever faithful customer. Interesting…

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• Azure WNS to Win8 - Push Notifications for Metro Apps

  - by JoshReuben

  Background The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 allows you to build a Windows Azure Cloud Service that can send Push Notifications to registered Metro apps via Windows Notification Service (WNS). Some configuration is required - you need to: Register the Metro app for Windows Live Application Management Provide Package SID & Client Secret to WNS Modify the Azure Cloud App cscfg file and the Metro app package.appxmanifest file to contain matching Metro package name, SID and client secret. The Mechanism: These notifications take the form of XAML Tile, Toast, Raw or Badge UI notifications. The core engine is provided via the WNS nuget recipe, which exposes an API for constructing payloads and posting notifications to WNS. An application receives push notifications by requesting a notification channel from WNS, which returns a channel URI that the application then registers with a cloud service. In the cloud service, A WnsAccessTokenProvider authenticates with WNS by providing its credentials, the package SID and secret key, and receives in return an access token that the provider caches and can reuse for multiple notification requests. The cloud service constructs a notification request by filling out a template class that contains the information that will be sent with the notification, including text and image references. Using the channel URI of a registered client, the cloud service can then send a notification whenever it has an update for the user. The package contains the NotificationSendUtils class for submitting notifications. The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 (WAT) provides the PNWorker sample pair of solutions - The Azure server side contains a WebRole & a WorkerRole. The WebRole allows submission of new push notifications into an Azure Queue which the WorkerRole extracts and processes. Further background resources: http://watwindows8.codeplex.com/ - Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 http://watwindows8.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Push%20Notification%20Worker%20Sample - WAT WNS sample setup http://watwindows8.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Using%20the%20Windows%208%20Cloud%20Application%20Services%20Application – using Windows 8 with Cloud Application Services A bit of Configuration Register the Metro apps for Windows Live Application Management From the current app manifest of your metro app Publish tab, copy the Package Display Name and the Publisher From: https://manage.dev.live.com/Build/ Package name: <-- we need to change this Client secret: keep this Package Security Identifier (SID): keep this Verify the app here: https://manage.dev.live.com/Applications/Index - so this step is done "If you wish to send push notifications in your application, provide your Package Security Identifier (SID) and client secret to WNS." Provide Package SID & Client Secret to WNS http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465407.aspx - How to authenticate with WNS https://appdev.microsoft.com/StorePortals/en-us/Account/Signup/PurchaseSubscription - register app with dashboard - need registration code or register a new account & pay $170 shekels http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh868184.aspx - Registering for a Windows Store developer account http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh868187.aspx - Picking a Microsoft account for the Windows Store The WNS Nuget Recipe The WNS Recipe is a nuget package that provides an API for authenticating against WNS, constructing payloads and posting notifications to WNS. After installing this package, a WnsRecipe assembly is added to project references. To send notifications using WNS, first register the application at the Windows Push Notifications & Live Connect portal to obtain Package Security Identifier (SID) and a secret key that your cloud service uses to authenticate with WNS. An application receives push notifications by requesting a notification channel from WNS, which returns a channel URI that the application then registers with a cloud service. In the cloud service, the WnsAccessTokenProvider authenticates with WNS by providing its credentials, the package SID and secret key, and receives in return an access token that the provider caches and can reuse for multiple notification requests. The cloud service constructs a notification request by filling out a template class that contains the information that will be sent with the notification, including text and image references.Using the channel URI of a registered client, the cloud service can then send a notification whenever it has an update for the user. var provider = new WnsAccessTokenProvider(clientId, clientSecret); var notification = new ToastNotification(provider) {     ToastType = ToastType.ToastText02,     Text = new List<string> { "blah"} }; notification.Send(channelUri); the WNS Recipe is instrumented to write trace information via a trace listener – configuratively or programmatically from Application_Start(): WnsDiagnostics.Enable(); WnsDiagnostics.TraceSource.Listeners.Add(new DiagnosticMonitorTraceListener()); WnsDiagnostics.TraceSource.Switch.Level = SourceLevels.Verbose; The WAT PNWorker Sample The Azure server side contains a WebRole & a WorkerRole. The WebRole allows submission of new push notifications into an Azure Queue which the WorkerRole extracts and processes. Overview of Push Notification Worker Sample The toolkit includes a sample application based on the same solution structure as the one created by theWindows 8 Cloud Application Services project template. The sample demonstrates how to off-load the job of sending Windows Push Notifications using a Windows Azure worker role. You can find the source code in theSamples\PNWorker folder. This folder contains a full version of the sample application showing how to use Windows Push Notifications using ASP.NET Membership as the authentication mechanism. The sample contains two different solution files: WATWindows.Azure.sln: This solution must be opened with Visual Studio 2010 and contains the projects related to the Windows Azure web and worker roles. WATWindows.Client.sln: This solution must be opened with Visual Studio 11 and contains the Windows Metro style application project. Only Visual Studio 2010 supports Windows Azure cloud projects so you currently need to use this edition to launch the server application. This will change in a future release of the Windows Azure tools when support for Visual Studio 11 is enabled. Important: Setting up the PNWorker Sample Before running the PNWorker sample, you need to register the application and configure it: 1. Register the app: To register your application, go to the Windows Live Application Management site for Metro style apps at https://manage.dev.live.com/build and sign in with your Windows Live ID. In the Windows Push Notifications & Live Connect page, enter the following information. Package Display Name PNWorker.Sample Publisher CN=127.0.0.1, O=TESTING ONLY, OU=Windows Azure DevFabric 2. 3. Once you register the application, make a note of the values shown in the portal for Client Secret,Package Name and Package SID. 4. Configure the app - double-click the SetupSample.cmd file located inside the Samples\PNWorker folder to launch a tool that will guide you through the process of configuring the sample. setup runs a PowerShell script that requires running with administration privileges to allow the scripts to execute in your machine. When prompted, enter the Client Secret, Package Name, and Package Security Identifier you obtained previously and wait until the tool finishes configuring your sample. Running the PNWorker Sample To run this sample, you must run both the client and the server application projects. 1. Open Visual Studio 2010 as an administrator. Open the WATWindows.Azure.sln solution. Set the start-up project of the solution as the cloud project. Run the app in the dev fabric to test. 2. Open Visual Studio 11 and open the WATWindows.Client.sln solution. Run the Metro client application. In the client application, click Reopen channel and send to server. à the application opens the channel and registers it with the cloud application, & the Output area shows the channel URI. 3. Refresh the WebRole's Push Notifications page to see the UI list the newly registered client. 4. Send notifications to the client application by clicking the Send Notification button. Setup 3 command files + 1 powershell script: SetupSample.cmd –> SetupWPNS.vbs –> SetupWPNS.cmd –> SetupWPNS.UpdateWPNSCredentialsInServiceConfiguration.ps1 appears to set PackageName – from manifest Client Id package security id (SID) – from registration Client Secret – from registration The following configs are modified: WATWindows\ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg WATWindows\ServiceConfiguration.Local.cscfg WATWindows.Client\package.appxmanifest WatWindows.Notifications A class library – it references the following WNS DLL: C:\WorkDev\CountdownValue\AzureToolkits\WATWindows8\Samples\PNWorker\packages\WnsRecipe.0.0.3.0\lib\net40\WnsRecipe.dll NotificationJobRequest A DataContract for triggering notifications:     using System.Runtime.Serialization; using Microsoft.Windows.Samples.Notifications;     [DataContract]     [KnownType(typeof(WnsAccessTokenProvider))] public class NotificationJobRequest     {               [DataMember] public bool ProcessAsync { get; set; }          [DataMember] public string Payload { get; set; }         [DataMember] public string ChannelUrl { get; set; }         [DataMember] public NotificationType NotificationType { get; set; }         [DataMember] public IAccessTokenProvider AccessTokenProvider { get; set; }         [DataMember] public NotificationSendOptions NotificationSendOptions{ get; set; }     } Investigated these types: WnsAccessTokenProvider – a DataContract that contains the client Id and client secret NotificationType – an enum that can be: Tile, Toast, badge, Raw IAccessTokenProvider – get or reset the access token NotificationSendOptions – SecondsTTL, NotificationPriority (enum), isCache, isRequestForStatus, Tag   There is also a NotificationJobSerializer class which basically wraps a DataContractSerializer serialization / deserialization of NotificationJobRequest The WNSNotificationJobProcessor class This class wraps the NotificationSendUtils API – it periodically extracts any NotificationJobRequest objects from a CloudQueue and submits them to WNS. The ProcessJobMessageRequest method – this is the punchline: it will deserialize a CloudQueueMessage into a NotificationJobRequest & send pass its contents to NotificationUtils to SendAsynchronously / SendSynchronously, (and then dequeue the message).     public override void ProcessJobMessageRequest(CloudQueueMessage notificationJobMessageRequest)         { Trace.WriteLine("Processing a new Notification Job Request", "Information"); NotificationJobRequest pushNotificationJob =                 NotificationJobSerializer.Deserialize(notificationJobMessageRequest.AsString); if (pushNotificationJob != null)             { if (pushNotificationJob.ProcessAsync)                 { Trace.WriteLine("Sending the notification asynchronously", "Information"); NotificationSendUtils.SendAsynchronously( new Uri(pushNotificationJob.ChannelUrl),                         pushNotificationJob.AccessTokenProvider,                         pushNotificationJob.Payload,                         result => this.ProcessSendResult(pushNotificationJob, result),                         result => this.ProcessSendResultError(pushNotificationJob, result),                         pushNotificationJob.NotificationType,                         pushNotificationJob.NotificationSendOptions);                 } else                 { Trace.WriteLine("Sending the notification synchronously", "Information"); NotificationSendResult result = NotificationSendUtils.Send( new Uri(pushNotificationJob.ChannelUrl),                         pushNotificationJob.AccessTokenProvider,                         pushNotificationJob.Payload,                         pushNotificationJob.NotificationType,                         pushNotificationJob.NotificationSendOptions); this.ProcessSendResult(pushNotificationJob, result);                 }             } else             { Trace.WriteLine("Could not deserialize the notification job", "Error");             } this.queue.DeleteMessage(notificationJobMessageRequest);         } Investigation of NotificationSendUtils class - This is the engine – it exposes Send and a SendAsyncronously overloads that take the following params from the NotificationJobRequest: Channel Uri AccessTokenProvider Payload NotificationType NotificationSendOptions WebRole WebRole is a large MVC project – it references WatWindows.Notifications as well as the following WNS DLL: \AzureToolkits\WATWindows8\Samples\PNWorker\packages\WnsRecipe.0.0.3.0\lib\net40\NotificationsExtensions.dll Controllers\PushNotificationController.cs Notification related namespaces:     using Notifications;     using NotificationsExtensions;     using NotificationsExtensions.BadgeContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.RawContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.TileContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.ToastContent;     using Windows.Samples.Notifications; TokenProvider – initialized from the Azure RoleEnvironment:   IAccessTokenProvider tokenProvider = new WnsAccessTokenProvider(         RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("WNSPackageSID"),         RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("WNSClientSecret")); SendNotification method – calls QueuePushMessage method to create and serialize a NotificationJobRequest and enqueue it in a CloudQueue [HttpPost]         public ActionResult SendNotification(             [ModelBinder(typeof(NotificationTemplateModelBinder))] INotificationContent notification,             string channelUrl,             NotificationPriority priority = NotificationPriority.Normal)         {             var payload = notification.GetContent();             var options = new NotificationSendOptions()             {                 Priority = priority             };             var notificationType =                 notification is IBadgeNotificationContent ? NotificationType.Badge :                 notification is IRawNotificationContent ? NotificationType.Raw :                 notification is ITileNotificationContent ? NotificationType.Tile :                 NotificationType.Toast;             this.QueuePushMessage(payload, channelUrl, notificationType, options);             object response = new             {                 Status = "Queued for delivery to WNS"             };             return this.Json(response);         } GetSendTemplate method: Create the cshtml partial rendering based on the notification type     [HttpPost]         public ActionResult GetSendTemplate(NotificationTemplateViewModel templateOptions)         {             PartialViewResult result = null;             switch (templateOptions.NotificationType)             {                 case "Badge":                     templateOptions.BadgeGlyphValueContent = Enum.GetNames(typeof( GlyphValue));                     ViewBag.ViewData = templateOptions;                     result = PartialView("_" + templateOptions.NotificationTemplateType);                     break;                 case "Raw":                     ViewBag.ViewData = templateOptions;                     result = PartialView("_Raw");                     break;                 case "Toast":                     templateOptions.TileImages = this.blobClient.GetAllBlobsInContainer(ConfigReader.GetConfigValue("TileImagesContainer")).OrderBy(i => i.FileName).ToList();                     templateOptions.ToastAudioContent = Enum.GetNames(typeof( ToastAudioContent));                     templateOptions.Priorities = Enum.GetNames(typeof( NotificationPriority));                     ViewBag.ViewData = templateOptions;                     result = PartialView("_" + templateOptions.NotificationTemplateType);                     break;                 case "Tile":                     templateOptions.TileImages = this.blobClient.GetAllBlobsInContainer(ConfigReader.GetConfigValue("TileImagesContainer")).OrderBy(i => i.FileName).ToList();                     ViewBag.ViewData = templateOptions;                     result = PartialView("_" + templateOptions.NotificationTemplateType);                     break;             }             return result;         } Investigated these types: ToastAudioContent – an enum of different Win8 sound effects for toast notifications GlyphValue – an enum of different Win8 icons for badge notifications · Infrastructure\NotificationTemplateModelBinder.cs WNS Namespace references     using NotificationsExtensions.BadgeContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.RawContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.TileContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.ToastContent; Various NotificationFactory derived types can server as bindable models in MVC for creating INotificationContent types. Default values are also set for IWideTileNotificationContent & IToastNotificationContent. Type factoryType = null;             switch (notificationType)             {                 case "Badge":                     factoryType = typeof(BadgeContentFactory);                     break;                 case "Tile":                     factoryType = typeof(TileContentFactory);                     break;                 case "Toast":                     factoryType = typeof(ToastContentFactory);                     break;                 case "Raw":                     factoryType = typeof(RawContentFactory);                     break;             } Investigated these types: BadgeContentFactory – CreateBadgeGlyph, CreateBadgeNumeric (???) TileContentFactory – many notification content creation methods , apparently one for every tile layout type ToastContentFactory – many notification content creation methods , apparently one for every toast layout type RawContentFactory – passing strings WorkerRole WNS Namespace references using Notifications; using Notifications.WNS; using Windows.Samples.Notifications; OnStart() Method – on Worker Role startup, initialize the NotificationJobSerializer, the CloudQueue, and the WNSNotificationJobProcessor _notificationJobSerializer = new NotificationJobSerializer(); _cloudQueueClient = this.account.CreateCloudQueueClient(); _pushNotificationRequestsQueue = _cloudQueueClient.GetQueueReference(ConfigReader.GetConfigValue("RequestQueueName")); _processor = new WNSNotificationJobProcessor(_notificationJobSerializer, _pushNotificationRequestsQueue); Run() Method – poll the Azure Queue for NotificationJobRequest messages & process them:   while (true)             { Trace.WriteLine("Checking for Messages", "Information"); try                 { Parallel.ForEach( this.pushNotificationRequestsQueue.GetMessages(this.batchSize), this.processor.ProcessJobMessageRequest);                 } catch (Exception e)                 { Trace.WriteLine(e.ToString(), "Error");                 } Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("Sleeping for {0} seconds", this.pollIntervalMiliseconds / 1000)); Thread.Sleep(this.pollIntervalMiliseconds);                                            } How I learned to appreciate Win8 There is really only one application architecture for Windows 8 apps: Metro client side and Azure backend – and that is a good thing. With WNS, tier integration is so automated that you don’t even have to leverage a HTTP push API such as SignalR. This is a pretty powerful development paradigm, and has changed the way I look at Windows 8 for RAD business apps. When I originally looked at Win8 and the WinRT API, my first opinion on Win8 dev was as follows – GOOD:WinRT, WRL, C++/CX, WinJS, XAML (& ease of Direct3D integration); BAD: low projected market penetration,.NET lobotomized (Only 8% of .NET 4.5 classes can be used in Win8 non-desktop apps - http://bit.ly/HRuJr7); UGLY:Metro pascal tiles! Perhaps my 80s teenage years gave me a punk reactionary sense of revulsion towards the Partridge Family 70s style that Metro UX seems to have appropriated: On second thought though, it simplifies UI dev to a single paradigm (although UX guys will need to change career) – you will not find an easier app dev environment. Speculation: If LightSwitch is going to support HTML5 client app generation, then its a safe guess to say that vnext will support Win8 Metro XAML - a much easier port from Silverlight XAML. Given the VS2012 LightSwitch integration as a thumbs up from the powers that be at MS, and given that Win8 C#/XAML Metro apps tend towards a streamlined 'golden straight-jacket' cookie cutter app dev style with an Azure back-end supporting Win8 push notifications... --> its easy to extrapolate than LightSwitch vnext could well be the Win8 Metro XAML to Azure RAD tool of choice! The hook is already there - :) Why else have the space next to the HTML Client box? This high level of application development abstraction will facilitate rapid app cookie-cutter architecture-infrastructure frameworks for wrapping any app. This will allow me to avoid too much XAML code-monkeying around & focus on my area of interest: Technical Computing.

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• Silverlight Cream for March 15, 2011 -- #1061

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Peter Kuhn, Emil Stoychev, Viktor Larsson(-2-), Kevin Hoffman, Rudi Grobler, WindowsPhoneGeek, Jesse Liberty(-2-), and Martin Krüger. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Image comparison using a GridSplitter" Martin Krüger WP7: "Using WP7 accent color effectively" Viktor Larsson XNA: "XNA for Silverlight developers: Part 7 - Collision detection" Peter Kuhn From SilverlightCream.com: XNA for Silverlight developers: Part 7 - Collision detection Peter Kuhn has part 7 of his XNA for Silverlight devs tutorial series up at SilverlightShow... discussing Collision detection... something you need to get your head around if you're going to do a game. Interview with John Papa about the upcoming MIX11 event and the Open Source Fest Emil Stoychev of SilverlightShow reverses the roles with John Papa and interviews John on this MIX11 and Open Source Fest discussion they had at the MVP Summit Debugging Videos or Camera in WP7 Viktor Larsson has a quick post up on the 3 ways of debugging a WP7 app and why and under what circumstances you should change debug method. Using WP7 accent color effectively Viktor Larsson's next post is about the 10 accent colors available on WP7 devices. He shows how to make best use of that capability in XAML and runtime code. WP7 for iPhone and Android Developers - Hardware and Device Services Kevin Hoffman's part 4 of a 12-part tutorial series at SilverlightShow on WP7 for iPhone/Android devs is up ... this oe concentrates on Hardware and Device Services... Launchers/Choosers/Sensors. How to publish WP7 applications if you live in the Middle-east & Africa region Rudi Grobler has a short post up on a legit way to publish WP7 apps if you are in the MEA region. Creating WP7 Custom Theme – Sample Theme Implementation WindowsPhoneGeek has a new post up and he's starting a series of 3 articles on Creating Wp7 Custom Themes... first up is this tutorial on Basic Theme Implementation... and use it as well. From Android to Windows Phone For "Windows Phone from Scratch #43", Jesse Liberty begins a series on moving apps from Android to WP7, beginning with a tip calculating program. Yet Another Podcast #28–Jeremy Likness Jesse Liberty's next post is his "Yet Another Podcast #28" with Jeremy Likness this time around... the list of all things fun that Jeremy's involved in is getting long... should be a good podcast! Image comparison using a GridSplitter Martin Krüger posted a cool 'Clip Splitter' for comparing images, and what a great set of example images he's using... pretty darn cool lining them up with a grid-splitter. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Silverlight Cream for February 22, 2011 -- #1050

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Robby Ingebretsen, Victor Gaudioso, Andrea Boschin(-2-), Rudi Grobler(-2-), Michael Crump, Deborah Kurata, Dennis Delimarsky, Pete Vickers, Yochay Kiriaty, Peter Kuhn, WindowsPhoneGeek, and Jesse Liberty(-2-). Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Silverlight Simple MVVM Printing" Deborah Kurata WP7: "Creating theme friendly UI in WP7 using OpacityMask" WindowsPhoneGeek Tools: "KAXAML v1.8" Robby Ingebretsen Shoutouts: Peter Foot posted Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit–Feb 2011 Rudi Grobler posts his top requested features for WP7, Silverlight, and WCF: vNext ... see you in Seattle, Rudi! From SilverlightCream.com: KAXAML v1.8 Robby Ingebretsen just posted KAXML v1.8 that now supports .NET 4.0, WPF, and Silferlight4 ... go grab it. Learn how to use Blend to create a Data Store, Add Properties to it, etc... Victor Gaudioso has 3 new Silverlight and/or Expression Blend video tutorials up... first is this one on Creating a Data store, adding properties to it, oh... read the title :), Next up is: Send async messages across UserControls or even applications, followed by the latest: Create a Sketchflow Animation using the Sketchflow Animation Panel A base class for threaded Application Services Andrea Boschin continues his IApplicationServices series with this one on a base class he created to develop Application Services that runs a thread. Windows Phone 7 - Part #6: Taking advantage of the phone Andrea Boschin also has part 6 of his series at SilverlightShow on WP7... this one is covering a bunch of items... Capabilities, Launchers/Choosers, and gestures... plus the source for a fun game. {homebrew} Skype for WP7 Rudi Grobler posted about the availability of (some features of) Skype for WP7 being available. The XDA guys have working contacts and the ability to chat going, plus they're looking for poeple to join in... Follow Rudi's link, and let them know you're up for it! Simple menu for your WP7 application Rudi Grobler has another post up about a very simple menu control for WP7 that he produced that is also very easy to use. Attaching a Command to the WP7 Application Bar Michael Crump shows how to bind the application bar to a Relay Command with the use of MVVMLight in 7 Easy Steps :) Silverlight Simple MVVM Printing Deborah Kurata continues her MVVM series with this one on printing what your user sees on the page... but doing so within the MVVM pattern. Enhancing the general Zune experience on Windows Phone 7 with Zune web API Dennis Delimarsky apparently likes the Zune as much as I do, and has ratted out tons of information about the Zune API for use in WP7 apps... and lots of code... Validating input forms in Windows Phone 7 Pete Vickers takes a great detailed spin through validation on the WP7... the rules have changed, but Pete explains with some code examples. Windows Phone Shake Gestures Library Yochay Kiriaty discusses Shake Gestures for the WP7 device and then describes the "Windows Phone Shake Gesture Library" that detects shake gestures in 3D space... and after a great description has the link for downloading. What difference does a sprite sheet make? Peter Kuhn is writing a series at SilverlightShow on XNA for Silverlight Devs that I've highlighted. An outshoot of that is this discussion of the use of sprite sheets and game development. Creating theme friendly UI in WP7 using OpacityMask WindowsPhoneGeek has a new post up today on using Opacity Masks in WP7 to enable using one set of icons for either the dark or light theme.. too cool, you'll wanna check this out! Linq to XML Jesse Liberty continues with Linq with regard to WP7 with this post on Linq to XML... and why XML? crap... I was just saving/loading XML today! :) Lambda–Not as weird as it sounds Jesse Liberty then jumps into Lambda expressions... maybe it's a chance for me to learn WTF the lambdas really do that I use all the time! Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• BizTalk 2009 - Naming Guidelines

  - by StuartBrierley

  The following is effectively a repost of the BizTalk 2004 naming guidlines that I have previously detailed.  I have posted these again for completeness under BizTalk 2009 and to allow an element of separation in case I find some reason to amend these for BizTalk 2009. These guidlines should be universal across any version of BizTalk you may wish to apply them to. General Rules All names should be named with a Pascal convention. Project Namespaces For message schemas: [CompanyName].XML.Schemas.[FunctionalName]* Examples:  ABC.XML.Schemas.Underwriting DEF.XML.Schemas.MarshmellowTradingExchange * Donates potential for multiple levels of functional name, such as Underwriting.Dictionary.Valuation For web services: [CompanyName].Web.Services.[FunctionalName] Examples: ABC.Web.Services.OrderJellyBeans For the main BizTalk Projects: [CompanyName].BizTalk.[AssemblyType].[FunctionalName]* Examples: ABC.BizTalk.Mappings.Underwriting ABC.BizTalk.Orchestrations.Underwriting * Donates potential for multiple levels of functional name, such as Mappings.Underwriting.Valuations Assemblies BizTalk Assembly names should match the associated Project Namespace, such as ABC.BizTalk.Mappings.Underwriting. This pertains to the formal assembly name and the DLL name. The Solution name should take the name of the main project within the solution, and also therefore the namespace for that project. Although long names such as this can be unwieldy to work with, the benefits of having the full scope available when the assemblies are installed on the target server are generally judged to outweigh this inconvenience. Messaging Artifacts Artifact Standard Notes Example Schema <DescriptiveName>.xsd   .NET Type name should match, without file extension.    .NET Namespace will likely match assembly name. PurchaseOrderAcknowledge_FF.xsd  or FNMA100330_FF.xsd Property Schema <DescriptiveName>.xsd Should be named to reflect possible common usage across multiple schemas  IspecMessagePropertySchema.xsd UnderwritingOrchestrationKeys.xsd Map <SourceSchema>2<DestinationSchema>.btm Exceptions to this may be made where the source and destination schemas share the majority of the name, such as in mainframe web service maps InstructionResponse2CustomEmailRequest.btm (exception example) AccountCustomerAddressSummaryRequest2MainframeRequest.btm Orchestration <DescriptiveName>.odx   GetValuationReports.odx SendMTEDecisionResponse.odx Send/Receive Pipeline <DescriptiveName>.btp   ValidatingXMLReceivePipeline.btp FlatFileAssembler.btp Receive Port A plainly worded phrase that will clearly explain the function.    FraudPreventionServices LetterProcessing   Receive Location A plainly worded phrase that will clearly explain the function.  ? Do we want to include the transport type here ? Arrears Web Service Send Port Group A plainly worded phrase that will clearly explain the function.   Customer Updates Send Port A plainly worded phrase that will clearly explain the function.    ABCProductUpdater LogLendingPolicyOutput Parties A meaningful name for a Trading Partner. If dealing with multiple entities within a Trading Partner organization, the Organization name could be used as a prefix.   Roles A meaningful name for the role that a Trading Partner plays.     Orchestration Workflow Shapes Shape Standard Notes Example Scopes <DescriptionOfContainedWork> or <DescOfcontainedWork><TxType>   Including info about transaction type may be appropriate in some situations where it adds significant documentation value to the diagram. HandleReportResponse         Receive Receive<MessageName> Typically, MessageName will be the same as the name of the message variable that is being received “into”. ReceiveReportResponse Send Send<MessageName> Typically, MessageName will be the same as the name of the message variable that is being sent. SendValuationDetailsRequest Expression <DescriptionOfEffect> Expression shapes should be named to describe the net effect of the expression, similar to naming a method.  The exception to this is the case where the expression is interacting with an external .NET component to perform a function that overlaps with existing BizTalk functionality – use closest BizTalk shape for this case. CreatePrintXML Decide <DescriptionOfDecision> A description of what will be decided in the “if” branch Report Type? Perform MF Save? If-Branch <DescriptionOfDecision> A (potentially abbreviated) description of what is being decided Mortgage Valuation Yes Else-Branch Else Else-branch shapes should always be named “Else” Else Construct Message (Assign) Create<Message> (for Construct)     <ExpressionDescription> (for expression) If a Construct shape contains a message assignment, it should be prefixed with “Create” followed by an abbreviated name of the message being assigned.    The actual message assignment shape contained should be named to describe the expression that is contained. CreateReportDataMV   which contains expression: ExtractReportData Construct Message (Transform) Create<Message> (for Construct)   <SourceSchema>2<DestSchema> (for transform) If a Construct shape contains a message transform, it should be prefixed with “Create” followed by an abbreviated name of the message being assigned.   The actual message transform shape contained should generally be named the same as the called map.  CreateReportDataMV   which contains transform: ReportDataMV2ReportDataMV                 Construct Message (containing multiple shapes)   If a Construct Message shape uses multiple assignments or transforms, the overall shape should be named to communicate the net effect, using no prefix.     Call/Start Orchestration Call<OrchestrationName>   Start<OrchestrationName>     Throw Throw<ExceptionType> The corresponding variable name for the exception type should (often) be the same name as the exception type, only camel-cased. ThrowRuleException, which references the “ruleException” variable.     Parallel <DescriptionOfParallelWork> Parallel shapes should be named by a description of what work will be done in parallel   Delay <DescriptionOfWhatWaitingFor> Delay shapes should be named by a description of what is being waited for.  POAcknowledgeTimeout Listen <DescriptionOfOutcomes> Listen shapes should be named by a description that captures (to the degree possible) all the branches of the Listen shape POAckOrTimeout FirstShippingBid Loop <DescriptionOfLoop> A (potentially abbreviated) description of what the loop is. ForEachValuationReport WhileErrorFlagTrue Role Link   See “Roles” in messaging naming conventions above.   Suspend <ReasonDescription> Describe what action an administrator must take to resume the orchestration.  More detail can be passed to error property – and should include what should be done by the administrator before resuming the orchestration. ReEstablishCreditLink Terminate <ReasonDescription> Describe why the orchestration terminated.  More detail can be passed to error property. TimeoutsExpired Call Rules Call<PolicyName> The policy name may need to be abbreviated. CallLendingPolicy Compensate Compensate or Compensate<TxName> If the shape compensates nested transactions, names should be suffixed with the name of the nested transaction – otherwise it should simple be Compensate. CompensateTransferFunds Orchestration Types Type Standard Notes Example Multi-Part Message Types <LogicalDocumentType>   Multi-part types encapsulate multiple parts.  The WSDL spec indicates “parts are a flexible mechanism for describing the logical abstract content of a message.”  The name of the multi-part type should correspond to the “logical” document type, i.e. what the sum of the parts describes. InvoiceReceipt   (which might encapsulate an invoice acknowledgement and a payment voucher.) Multi-Part Messsage Part <SchemaNameOfPart> Should be named (most often) simply for the schema (or simple type) associated with the part. InvoiceHeader Messages <SchemaName> or <MuliPartMessageTypeName> Should be named based on the corresponding schema type or multi-part message type.  If there is more than one variable of a type, name for its use within the orchestration. ReportDataMV UpdatedReportDataMV Variables <DescriptiveName>   TargetFilePath StringProcessor Port Types <FunctionDescription>PortType Should be named to suggest the nature of an endpoint, with pascal casing and suffixed with “PortType”.   If there will be more than one Port for a Port Type, the Port Type should be named according to the abstract service supplied.   The WSDL spec indicates port types are “a named set of abstract operations and the abstract messages involved” that also encapsulates the message pattern (i.e. one-way, request-response, solicit-response) that all operations on the port type adhere to. ReceiveReportResponsePortType  or CallEAEPortType (This is a two way port, so Receove or Send alone would not be appropriate.  Could have been ProcessEAERequestPortType etc....) Ports <FunctionDescription>Port Should be named to suggest a grouping of functionality, with pascal casing and suffixed with “Port.”  ReceiveReportResponsePort CallEAEPort Correlation types <DescriptiveName> Should be named based on the logical name of what is being used to correlate.  PurchaseOrderNumber Correlation sets <DescriptiveName> Should be named based on the corresponding correlation type.  If there is more than one, it should be named to reflect its specific purpose within the orchestration.   PurchaseOrderNumber Orchestration parameters <DescriptiveName> Should be named to match the caller’s names for the corresponding variables where appropriate.

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• What makes a Software Craftsman?

  - by Liam McLennan

  At the end of my visit to 8th Light Justin Martin was kind enough to give me a ride to the train station; for my train back to O’Hare. Just before he left he asked me an interesting question which I then posted to twitter: Liam McLennan: . @JustinMartinM asked what I think is the most important attributes of craftsmen. I said, "desire to learn and humility". What's yours? 6:25 AM Apr 17th via TweetDeck several people replied with excellent contributions: Alex Hung: @liammclennan I think kaizen sums up craftmanship pretty well, which is almost same as yours Steve Bohlen: @alexhung @liammclennan those are both all about saying "knowing what you don't know and not being afraid to go learn it" (and I agree!) Matt Roman: @liammclennan @JustinMartinM a tempered compulsion for constant improvement, and an awareness of what needs improving. Justin Martin: @mattroman @liammclennan a faculty for asking challenging questions, and a persistence to battle through difficult obstacles barring growth I thought this was an interesting conversation, and I would love to see other people contribute their opinions. My observation is that Alex, Steve, Matt and I seem to have essentially the same answer in different words. It is also interesting to note (as Alex pointed out) that these definitions are very similar to Alt.NET and the lean concept of kaizen.

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• Windows Azure Use Case: Infrastructure Limits

  - by BuckWoody

  This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx  Description: Physical hardware components take up room, use electricity, create heat and therefore need cooling, and require wiring and special storage units. all of these requirements cost money to rent at a data-center or to build out at a local facility. In some cases, this can be a catalyst for evaluating options to remove this infrastructure requirement entirely by moving to a distributed computing environment. Implementation: There are three main options for moving to a distributed computing environment. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) The first option is simply to virtualize the current hardware and move the VM’s to a provider. You can do this with Microsoft’s Hyper-V product or other software, build the systems and host them locally on fewer physical machines. This is a good option for canned-applications (where you have to type setup.exe) but not as useful for custom applications, as you still have to license and patch those servers, and there are hard limits on the VM sizes. Software as a Service (SaaS) If there is already software available that does what you need, it may make sense to simply purchase not only the software license but the use of it on the vendor’s servers. Microsoft’s Exchange Online is an example of simply using an offering from a vendor on their servers. If you do not need a great deal of customization, have no interest in owning or extending the source code, and need to implement a solution quickly, this is a good choice. Platform as a Service (PaaS) If you do need to write software for your environment, your next choice is a Platform as a Service such as Windows Azure. In this case you no longer manager physical or even virtual servers. You start at the code and data level of control and responsibility, and your focus is more on the design and maintenance of the application itself. In this case you own the source code and can extend or change it as you see fit. An interesting side-benefit to using Windows Azure as a PaaS is that the Application Fabric component allows a hybrid approach, which gives you a basis to allow on-premise applications to leverage distributed computing paradigms. No one solution fits every situation. It’s common to see organizations pick a mixture of on-premise, IaaS, SaaS and PaaS components. In fact, that’s a great advantage to this form of computing - choice. References: 5 Enterprise steps for adopting a Platform as a Service: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/davidmcg/archive/2010/12/02/5-enterprise-steps-for-adopting-a-platform-as-a-service.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0  Application Patterns for the Cloud: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kashif/archive/2010/08/07/application-patterns-for-the-cloud.aspx

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• Silverlight Cream for May 17, 2010 -- #863

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Christian Schormann, Vladimir Bodurov, Pete Brown, Justin Angel, John Papa(-2-), Fons Sonnemans, Miroslav Miroslavov, and Jeremy Likness. Shoutouts: Jeff Brand has been doing WP7 presentations and posted Windows Phone 7 Presentation and Sample Code Mark Tucker posted about his Windows Phone 7 Presentation at Desert Code Camp 2010 John Allwright discusses 4 New case Studies on Silverlight at the Winter Olympics From SilverlightCream.com: New Video by Jon Harris: Blend 4 for Windows Phone in 90 Seconds Christian Schormann is discussing a second 90-second Expression Blend video tutorial by Jon Harris... this second one is about Blend 4 for WP7. XmlCodeEditor – Silverlight 4 control for editing XML and HTML on the browser Vladimir Bodurov has a post up extending the RichTextBox control to add coloring for HTML and XAML ... it colors as you type, and he plans on adding Intellisense! Creating a Simple Report Writer in Silverlight 4 While working on his book, Pete Brown decided to share some Silverlight 'Report Writer' work with us... check out that list of goals near the top that are all met... looks great to me! Windows Phone 7 - Unlocked ROMs Justin Angel has a good long post about a subject I've stayed away from until now that someone of Justin's level of knowledge has approached it: WP7 ROMs. Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 Launch: New Designer Capabilities (Silverlight TV 27) John Papa has Silverlight TV 27 up today and is talking about the Silverlight 4 Tools for VS2010 launch with Mark Wilson-Thomas ... the video would be a great place to pick up some of the new features (hint, hint) WCF RIA Services v1.0 Launch! (Silverlight TV 28) John Papa also has Silverlight TV 28 up, talking with Nikhil Kothari and Dinesh Kulkarni about the v 1.0 release of WCF RIA Services. RightMouseTrigger Fons Sonnemans updated his MineSweeper game and has it posted at Silver Arcade, this version supports right mouse click via RightMouseTrigger code that he is sharing. Smoke effect The 'Smoke Effect' menus at the CompleteIT site are awesome, and this time out, Miroslav Miroslavov discusses how that was done and gives up the code...! WebClient and DeploymentCatalog gotchas in Silverlight OOB Jeremy Likness has a post up to give you some relief if you hit the same MEF/Silverlight gotcha he did when running OOB... like not running in OOB for instance. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Merging Waterfall and Agile – Getting the Worst of Both Worlds

  - by Nick Harrison

  Many people have seen and appreciate the elegance and practicality of agile methodologies.   Sadly there is still not widespread adoption.   There is still push back from many directions and from many different sources.   Some people don't understand how it is supposed to work. Some people don't believe that it could possibly work. Some people mistakenly believe that it is just code for a lazy project team trying to wiggle out of structure Some people mistakenly believe that it can work only with a very small highly trained team Some people are afraid of the control that they feel they will be losing. I have seen some people try to merge agile and water fall hoping to achieve the best of both worlds.   Unfortunately, the reality is that you end up with the worst of both worlds.   And they both can get pretty bad. Another Sad Reality Some people in an effort to get buy in for following an Agile Methodology have attempted to merge these two practices.   Sometimes this may stem from trying to assuage individual fears that they are not losing relevance.   Sometimes it may be to meet contractual obligations or to fulfill regulatory requirements.   Sometimes may not know better. These two approaches to software development cannot coexist on the same project. Let's review the main tenants of the Agile Manifesto: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. Meanwhile the main tenants of the Waterfall Approach could be summarized as: Processes and procedures over individuals Comprehensive documentation proves that the software works Well defined contracts and negotiations protects the customer relationship If the plan is made right, there should be no change  Merging these two approaches will always end badly.

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• Video on Architecture and Code Quality using Visual Studio 2012&ndash;interview with Marcel de Vries and Terje Sandstrom by Adam Cogan

  - by terje

  Find the video HERE. Adam Cogan did a great Web TV interview with Marcel de Vries and myself on the topics of architecture and code quality.  It was real fun participating in this session.  Although we know each other from the MVP ALM community,  Marcel, Adam and I haven’t worked together before. It was very interesting to see how we agreed on so many terms, and how alike we where thinking.  The basics of ensuring you have a good architecture and how you could document it is one thing.  Also, the same agreement on the importance of having a high quality code base, and how we used the Visual Studio 2012 tools, and some others (NDepend for example)  to measure and ensure that the code quality was where it should be.  As the tools, methods and thinking popped up during the interview it was a lot of “Hey !  I do that too!”.  The tools are not only for “after the fact” work, but we use them during the coding.  That way the tools becomes an integrated part of our coding work, and helps us to find issues we may have overlooked.  The video has a bunch of call outs, pinpointing important things to remember. These are also listed on the corresponding web page. I haven’t seen that touch before, but really liked this way of doing it – it makes it much easier to spot the highlights.  Titus Maclaren and Raj Dhatt from SSW have done a terrific job producing this video.  And thanks to Lei Xu for doing the camera and recording job.  Thanks guys ! Also, if you are at TechEd Amsterdam 2012, go and listen to Adam Cogan in his session on “A modern architecture review: Using the new code review tools” Friday 29th, 10.15-11.30 and Marcel de Vries session on “Intellitrace, what is it and how can I use it to my benefit” Wednesday 27th, 5-6.15 The highlights points out some important practices.  I’ll elaborate on a few of them here: Add instructions on how to compile the solution.  You do this by adding a text file with instructions to the solution, and keep it under source control.  These instructions should contain what is needed on top of a standard install of Visual Studio.  I do a lot of code reviews, and more often that not, I am not even able to compile the program, because they have used some tool or library that needs to be installed.  The same applies to any new developer who enters into the team, so do this to increase your productivity when the team changes, or a team member switches computer. Don’t forget to document what you have to configure on the computer, the IIS being a common one. The more automatic you can do this, the better.  Use NuGet to get down libraries. When the text document gets more than say, half a page, with a bunch of different things to do, convert it into a powershell script instead.  The metrics warning levels.  These are very conservatively set by Microsoft.  You rarely see anything but green, and besides, you should have color scales for each of the metrics.  I have a blog post describing a more appropriate set of levels, based on both research work and industry “best practices”.  The essential limits are: Cyclomatic complexity and coupling:  Higher numbers are worse On method levels: Green :  From 0 to 10 Yellow:  From 10 to 20  (some say 15).   Acceptable, but have a look to see if there is something unneeded here. Red: From 20 to 40:   Action required, get these down. Bleeding Red: Above 40   This is the real red alert.  Immediate action!  (My invention, as people have asked what do I do when I have cyclomatic complexity of 150.  The only answer I could think of was: RUN! ) Maintainability index:  Lower numbers are worse, scale from 0 to 100. On method levels: Green:  60 to 100 Yellow:  40 – 60.    You will always have methods here too, accept the higher ones, take a look at those who are down to the lower limit.  Check up against the other metrics.) Red:  20 – 40:  Action required, fix these. Bleeding red:  Below 20.  Immediate action required. When doing metrics analysis, you should leave the generated code out.  You do this by adding attributes, unfortunately Microsoft has “forgotten” to add these to all their stuff, so you might have to add them to some of the code.  It most cases it can be done so that it is not overwritten by a new round of code generation.  Take a look a my blog post here for details on how to do that. Class level metrics might also be useful, at least for coupling and maintenance.  But it is much more difficult to set any fixed limits on those.  Any metric aggregations on higher level tend to be pretty useless, as the number of methods vary pretty much, and there are little science on what number of methods can be regarded as good or bad.  NDepend have a recommendation, but they say it may vary too.  And in these days of data binding, the number might be pretty high, as properties counts as methods.  However, if you take the worst case situations, classes with more than 20 methods are suspicious, and coupling and cyclomatic complexity go red above 20, so any classes with more than 20x20 = 400 for these measures should be checked over. In the video we mention the SOLID principles, coined by “Uncle Bob” (Richard Martin). One of them, the Dependency Inversion principle we discuss in the video.  It is important to note that this principle is NOT on whether you should use a Dependency Inversion Container or not, it is about how you design the interfaces and interactions between your classes.  The Dependency Inversion Container is just one technique which is based on this principle, but which main purpose is to isolate things you would like to change at runtime, for example if you implement a plug in architecture.  Overuse of a Dependency Inversion Container is however, NOT a good thing.  It should be used for a purpose and not as a general DI solution.  The general DI solution and thinking however is useful far beyond the DIC.   You should always “program to an abstraction”, and not to the concreteness.  We also talk a bit about the GRASP patterns, a term coined by Craig Larman in his book Applying UML and design patterns. GRASP patterns stand for General Responsibility Assignment Software Patterns and describe fundamental principles of object design and responsibility assignment.  What I find great with these patterns is that they is another way to focus on the responsibility of a class.  One of the things I most often found that is broken in software designs, is that the class lack responsibility, and as a result there are a lot of classes mucking around in the internals of the other classes.  We also discuss the term “Code Smells”.  This term was invented by Kent Beck and Martin Fowler when they worked with Fowler’s “Refactoring” book. A code smell is a set of “bad” coding practices, which are the drivers behind a corresponding set of refactorings.  Here is a good list of the smells, and their corresponding refactor patterns. See also this.

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• How do I fix the error: CS1548: Cryptographic failure while signing assembly ?

  - by Paula DiTallo

  The full error in Microsoft Visual Studio on a compile looks like this: error CS1548: Cryptographic failure while signing assembly 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Samples\Analysis Services\Programmability\AMO\AMOAdventureWorks\CS\StoredProcedures\obj\Debug\StoredProcedures.dll' This is likely due to a missing strong key pair value file. The easiest way to solve this problem is to create a new one. Navigate to:  Microsoft Visual Studio 2010>Visual Studio Tools>Visual Studio x64 Win64 Command Prompt (2010)  [if you aren't on an x64 box, pick another command prompt option that fits] Once the MS-Dos window displays, type in this statement: sn -k c:\SampleKey.snk Then copy the output *.snk file to project directory, or the *referenced directory. Remove the old reference to the *.snk file from the project. Add the paired key back to the project as an existing item. When you add back the *.snk file to the project, you will see that the *.snk file is no longer missing.   Our work is done!   *referenced directory: Pay attention to the original error message on compile. The *.snk file that is referenced may be in a directory path you aren't expecting--so you will still get the error unless you change the directory path or write the file to the directory the program is expecting to find the *.snk file.

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• Silverlight Cream for February 26, 2011 -- #1052

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Mark Monster, Gill Cleeren, Pencho Popadiyn, Kevin Dockx, Joost van Schaik, Jesse Liberty, John Papa, Jeremy Likness, Arik Poznanski(-2-), Page Brooks, Deborah Kurata, Mike Snow, Alfred Astort, Samuel Jack, XAMLNinja, and Shawn Wildermuth. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Asynchronous Callbacks with Rx" Jesse Liberty WP7: "Phoney Windows Phone 7 Project Now Available!" Shawn Wildermuth MVVM: "Validating our ViewModel" Mark Monster Shoutouts: Shawn Wildermuth has a video up of his FadingMessage class to show it off: Introducing Phoney's FadingMessage Class From SilverlightCream.com: Validating our ViewModel Mark Monster discusses Validation in his latest post... using INotifyDataErrorInfo and his own implementation of a ViewModel base that supports it and INPC. Getting ready for Microsoft Silverlight Exam 70-506 (Part 7) Gill Cleeren hits part 7 of his series at SilverlightShow on a great walk through Silverlight and getting ready for the exam. This is the final part and concentrates on deploying apps. Windows Phone 7–Creating Custom Keyboard Pencho Popadiyn has a post at SilverlightShow discussing problems with WP7 keyboards in his native Bulgaria, and his solution to the problem... create his own. 360 Degrees Feedback by Kevin Dockx Kevin Dockx produced a white paper for his company about an employee review solution they did in Silverlight. The white paper is available, and SilverlightShow interviewd Kevin to answer questions about the app. Extended Windows Phone 7 page for handling rotation, focused element updates and back key press Looks like Joost van Schaik has a few posts I've missed... and I'm not going to get to them all today! ... this one is about the base class he uses for WP7 apps... a bunch of utilities he uses... definitely worth a look (and a take). Asynchronous Callbacks with Rx Jesse Liberty has his 8th post in the Rx series up and this one's on Asynchronous Callbacks... if you haven't seen this before, you should definitely look into it... cool stuff, Jesse! Silverlight TV 63: Exploring National Instruments' App Using Data and Business Features John Papa has Silverlight TV number 63 up and is talking to Steve Lasker about National Instruments and their Lab View product. Great demo and discussion. Jounce Part 11: Debugging MEF Jeremy Likness's latest (number 11) in his series on his MVVM framework Jounce is out, and he's discussing how to debug MEF, which Jounce handles nicely through the logging he provides... and you can use it externally to Jounce. Get Twitter Trends on Windows Phone 7 Arik Poznanski has a couple Twitter for WP7 posts up... first is one for pulling Twitter trends from whatthetrend.com... plus the code to do it. Searching Twitter on Windows Phone 7 In his next post, Arik Poznanski shows how to search twitter from your WP7 ... again with code. Tiled Background Control in Silverlight Page Brooks shows how to get a tiled background control in Silverlight ... did you know there was one in the JetPack them? Silverlight Charting: Displaying Data Above the Column Deborah Kurata continues her charting posts with this one displaying the column value above the column. I like this... it has a clean look and all the data is available at a glance. Silverlight: Tasks on the Win7 Mobile Phone Mike Snow has a list of the WP7 tasks available and an example of using them... looks like a pretty good reference! 10 of 10 - Aesthetics and alignment matter Alfred Astort discusses aesthetics and WP7 dev... looks like it's the same as any app development, but if you're not doing it, you should be. Simon Squared – We have Multi-player: Days 4, 5 and (ahem!) 6 Samuel Jack details the completion of his multi-player game for WP7 utilizing Azure, in the hour-by-hour detail he's done the rest... plus a video of the final product! Who ate all the pies!! XAMLNinja has a very good discussion/link set of Charting posts all leading up to a portrait-only version of charting for WP7 with labels that looks looks great Phoney Windows Phone 7 Project Now Available! Shawn Wildermuth has a collection of classes he always uses with WP7 dev, and he's sharing them with all of us a "Phoney" Tools project on Codeplex... and now has a NuGet project also. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Building a Mafia&hellip;TechFest Style

  - by David Hoerster

  It’s been a few months since I last blogged (not that I blog much to begin with), but things have been busy.  We all have a lot going on in our lives, but I’ve had one item that has taken up a surprising amount of time – Pittsburgh TechFest 2012.  After the event, I went through some minutes of the first meetings for TechFest, and I started to think about how it all came together.  I think what inspired me the most about TechFest was how people from various technical communities were able to come together and build and promote a common event.  As a result, I wanted to blog about this to show that people from different communities can work together to build something that benefits all communities.  (Hopefully I've got all my facts straight.)  TechFest started as an idea Eric Kepes and myself had when we were planning our next Pittsburgh Code Camp, probably in the summer of 2011.  Our Spring 2011 Code Camp was a little different because we had a great infusion of some folks from the Pittsburgh Agile group (especially with a few speakers from LeanDog).  The line-up was great, but we felt our audience wasn’t as broad as it should have been.  We thought it would be great to somehow attract other user groups around town and have a big, polyglot conference. We started contacting leaders from Pittsburgh’s various user groups.  Eric and I split up the ones that we knew about, and we just started making contacts.  Most of the people we started contacting never heard of us, nor we them.  But we all had one thing in common – we ran user groups who’s primary goal is educating our members to make them better at what they do. Amazingly, and I say this because I wasn’t sure what to expect, we started getting some interest from the various leaders.  One leader, Greg Akins, is, in my opinion, Pittsburgh’s poster boy for the polyglot programmer.  He’s helped us in the past with .NET Code Camps, is a Java developer (and leader in Pittsburgh’s Java User Group), works with Ruby and I’m sure a handful of other languages.  He helped make some e-introductions to other user group leaders, and the whole thing just started to snowball. Once we realized we had enough interest with the user group leaders, we decided to not have a Fall Code Camp and instead focus on this new entity. Flash-forward to October of 2011.  I set up a meeting, with the help of Jeremy Jarrell (Pittsburgh Agile leader) to hold a meeting with the leaders of many of Pittsburgh technical user groups.  We had representatives from 12 technical user groups (Python, JavaScript, Clojure, Ruby, PittAgile, jQuery, PHP, Perl, SQL, .NET, Java and PowerShell) – 14 people.  We likened it to a scene from a Godfather movie where the heads of all the families come together to make some deal.  As a result, the name “TechFest Mafia” was born and kind of stuck. Over the next 7 months or so, we had our starts and stops.  There were moments where I thought this event would not happen either because we wouldn’t have the right mix of topics (was I off there!), or enough people register (OK, I was wrong there, too!) or find an appropriate venue (hmm…wrong there, too) or find enough sponsors to help support the event (wow…not doing so well).  Overall, everything fell into place with a lot of hard work from Eric, Jen, Greg, Jeremy, Sean, Nicholas, Gina and probably a few others that I’m forgetting.  We also had a bit of luck, too.  But in the end, the passion that we had to put together an event that was really about making ourselves better at what we do really paid off. I’ve never been more excited about a project coming together than I have been with Pittsburgh TechFest 2012.  From the moment the first person arrived at the event to the final minutes of my closing remarks (where I almost lost my voice – I ended up being diagnosed with bronchitis the next day!), it was an awesome event.  I’m glad to have been part of bringing something like this to Pittsburgh…and I’m looking forward to Pittsburgh TechFest 2013.  See you there!

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Of LINQ and Lambdas - A Presentation

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. Today I’m giving a brief beginner’s guide to LINQ and Lambdas at the St. Louis .NET User’s Group so I thought I’d post the presentation here as well.  I updated the presentation a bit as well as added some notes on the query syntax.  Enjoy! The C#/.NET Fundaments: Of Lambdas and LINQ Presentation Of Lambdas and LINQ View more presentations from BlackRabbitCoder   Technorati Tags: C#, CSharp, .NET, Little Wonders, LINQ, Lambdas

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• T-4 Templates for ASP.NET Web Form Databound Control Friendly Logical Layers

  - by Mohammad Ashraful Alam

  I just released an open source project at codeplex, which includes a set of T-4 templates that will enable you to build ASP.NET Web Form Data Bound controls friendly testable logical layer based on Entity Framework 4.0 with just few clicks! In this open source project you will get Entity Framework 4.0 based T-4 templates for following types of logical layers: Data Access Layer: Entity Framework 4.0 provides excellent ORM data access layer. It also includes support for T-4 templates, as built-in code generation strategy in Visual Studio 2010, where we can customize default structure of data access layer based on Entity Framework. default structure of data access layer has been enhanced to get support for mock testing in Entity Framework 4.0 object model. Business Logic Layer: ASP.NET web form based data bound control friendly business logic layer, which will enable you few clicks to build data bound web applications on top of ASP.NET Web Form and Entity Framework 4.0 quickly with great support of mock testing. Download it to make your web development productive. Enjoy!

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• Apartment management software. Apartment accounting software FREE.

  - by Jay Kinker

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/JayKinker/archive/2014/08/13/apartment-management-software.-apartment-accounting-software-free.aspx How are you managing your society today? How about bill generation & collection or socializing at your housing society?   Check out the all new online and offline services to manage your society. Online management and accounting software for housing society is free now. Get your housing society or neighbourhood online today for FREE.   Get a new amenity at your society today!   Societyhive services: www.societyhive.com Societyhive helpdesk: www.societyhive.com/helpdesk   Helpdesk is a free service to provide legal and management advice for societies. Do let me know if you have any feature request you’d want to see at Societyhive.

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• New Web Comic: Code Monkey Kung Fu

  - by Dane Morgridge

  It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time and decided it was finally time. Yesterday, I launched a new web comic “Code Monkey Kung Fu”. After being a programer for more than ten years, I’ve come across quite a few hilarious situations and will be drawing on them for inspiration. I also have a four kids, so they will probably produce a lot as well. My plan is to release on Tuesdays with additional comics mixed in on occasion. I hope you enjoy! http://www.codemonkeykungfu.com

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• Crowdsourcing MVVM Light Toolkit support

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  Considering the number of emails that are sent to me asking for support for MVVM Light toolkit, I find myself unable to answer all of them in sufficient time to make me feel good. In consequence, I started to send the following message in response to support queries, either per email or on the MVVM Light Codeplex discussion page. Hi, I am doing my best to answer all the questions as fast as possible. I receive a lot of them, however, and cannot reply to everyone fast enough to make me happy. Due to this, I would like to encourage you to post your question on StackOverflow, and tag it with the tag mvvm-light. StackOverflow is an awesome site where tons of developers help others with their technical question. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/mvvm-light I will monitor this tag on the StackOverflow website and do my best to answer questions. The advantage of StackOverflow over the Codeplex discussion is the sheer number of qualified developers able to help you with your questions, the visibility of the question itself, and the whole StackOverflow infrastructure (reputation, up- or down-vote, comments, etc) Thanks! Laurent Bug reports Regarding bug reports, feel free to continue to send them to the Codeplex site (preferred), or to me directly. I hope that this will help all support queries to be answered faster, and with the great quality for which the StackOverflow users are known!   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• Scrum for Team Foundation Server 2010

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  I will be presenting a session on “Scrum for TFS2010” not once, but twice! If you are going to be at the Aberdeen Partner Group meeting on 27th April, or DDD Scotland on 8th May then you may be able to catch my session. Credit: I want to give special thanks to Aaron Bjork from Microsoft who provided me with most of my material He is a Scrum and Power Point genius. Updated 9th May 2010 – I have now presented at both of these sessions  and posted about it. Scrum for Team Foundation Server 2010 Synopsis Visual Studio ALM (formerly Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)) and Team Foundation Server (TFS) are the cornerstones of development on the Microsoft .NET platform. These are the best tools for a team to have successful projects and for the developers to have a focused and smooth software development process. For TFS 2010 Microsoft is heavily investing in Scrum and has already started moving some teams across to using it. Martin will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even asses your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. You can also read SSW’s Rules to Better Scrum using TFS which have been developed during our own Scrum implementations. Come and see Martin Hinshelwood, Visual Studio ALM MVP and Solution Architect from SSW show you: How to successfully gather requirements with User stories How to plan a project using TFS 2010 and Scrum How to work with a product backlog in TFS 2010 The right way to plan a sprint with TFS 2010 Tracking your progress The right way to use work items What you can use from the built in reporting as well as the Project portals available on from the SharePoint dashboard The important reports to give your Product Owner / Project Manager Walk away knowing how to see the project health and progress. Visual Studio ALM is designed to help address many of these traditional problems faced by teams. It does so by providing a set of integrated tools to help teams improve their software development activities and to help managers better support the software development processes. During this session we will cover the lifecycle of creating work items and how this fits into Scrum using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server. If you want to know more about how to do Scrum with TFS then there is a new course that has been created in collaboration with Microsoft and Scrum.org that is going to be the official course for working with TFS 2010. SSW has Professional Scrum Developer Trainers who specialise in training your developers in implementing Scrum with Microsoft's Visual Studio ALM tools. Ken Schwaber and and Sam Guckenheimer: Professional Scrum Development Technorati Tags: Scrum,VS ALM,VS 2010,TFS 2010

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• Windows Embedded CE DiskPrep PowerToy

  - by Bruce Eitman

  Kurt Kennett from Microsoft has offered up a handy new tool. This tool is useful for creating a boot disk for x86 Windows CE systems that use the BIOSLoader. This is especially useful for creating disks with formats other than FAT16, which are fairly easy to create. I am letting you know about this new tool, but I have to be honest in telling you that I haven’t used it myself because it is for Windows Vista and Windows 7 – which I don’t have available right now. But you can bet that I will be setting up a virtual machine to give it a try. Here is what Kurt has to say about the tool: Download the DiskPrep Tool  DiskPrep can prepare any hard disk that can be attached to your development PC so that it can boot your X86-based Windows CE OS Design. USB disks (including disk "keys"), Compact Flash Cards, and SD cards all work if your system bios can boot from that type of media. FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT all supported. DOS is not used - the program prepares the bios loader on the disk and only uses that. If you use Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can use VHD files for VirtualPC. This allows for rapid prototyping of a self-booting system. Copyright © 2010 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

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• Interview with Joe Healy

  - by Scott Dorman

  Earlier today, Joe Healy interviewed me about the upcoming book. The video is now up on YouTube and will be on Channel 9 shortly. Technorati Tags: Books,Sams Teach Yourself C# 2010

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