Patrick Verbruggen's Blog

SharePoint

• SharePoint > Office Integration: A good tabular overview (in German) of the capabilities of the different Office versions (2000, XP, 2003 and 2007) in combination with SharePoint

BizTalk

• BizTalk PowerShell Scripts: Thomas Restrepo has a number of Windows PowerShell scripts to help you administer BizTalk Server

Development

• An overview of the Silverlight 3 Beta: A list of new features in Silverlight 3.0
• A guide to Silverlight 3 new features: And another list, this time from Tim Heuer.
• Working with the .NET Service Bus: Juval Lowy describes how to use the .NET Service Bus, one of the powerful pieces of the Azure platform.
• Discovering Internet Explorer Developer Tools: If you didn’t know yet: IE8 has some developer tools on board. The documentation on how to use them can be found here.

Software

• Microsoft Announces Availability of Internet Explorer 8: Just in case you were on another planet last week: IE8 is finally here.
• Live Framework Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio April 2009 CTP: The Live Framework Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extends Visual Studio 2008 to simplify creating Mesh-enabled Web Applications
• Microsoft updates Live Mesh, new features announced: there’s a brand new release of Live Mesh, with new functionality and bug fixes.

IT Industry

• State Of SOA: InformationWeek has polled readers to assess whether service-oriented architectures have simply hit an economy-induced bump in the road or are, instead, at a significant crossroads.

Social

• Internet Explorer 8: History of the Internet: Microsoft has a couple of funny videos on the history of the internet.
• SLTwitterMap: A good mashup of Twitter and Microsoft Virtual Earth
• Jennifer Aniston ended relationship with John Mayer because of his Twitter ‘obsession’: Twitter is causing all kind of havoc, and apparently, celebs are not spared.

Got myself a new toy yesterday, and it hasn’t got a single digital part: meet my new and beautiful dark-ash-grey Takamine EG540C.

Instapaper has just about the simplest, lightest, and dumbest UI of any website I’ve ever seen, yet still they have the bloody nerve to criticize me for using IE (I’m using IE8, BTW) for no other reason than that they’re feeling soooo superior. Ooooh, look at us: we don’t support IE. We’re so cool, smart and brave!

If you really feel the (completely moronic) urge to criticize users for their browser, at least make sure you actually have a UI worth mentioning, and make sure you check the browser version. IE8 is probably more standards-compliant than FireFox and Safari put together.

Arrogant little *ssholes.

BizTalk

• New WCF Adapter FAQ Whitepaper: The BizTalk Adapter development guys have a new FAQ whitepaper for their WCF adapters.

Development

• What I Use for Silverlight Development: Shawn Wildermuth lists a comprehensive toolset for Silverlight development
• Implementing the MVP Pattern in Silverlight: Tim Ross describes how to use the MVP pattern in Silverlight
• Silverlight 3 – What we Know So Far & What We Can Predict (Part 1 of 2): Bart Czernicki sums up what is know about Silverlight 3
• Consuming REST services with HttpClient: PluralSight has a screencast that shows you how to consume REST services using the new HttpClient API from the WCF REST Starter Kit
• Getting started with the WCF REST Starter Kit Preview 2: More from PluralSight on how to get started with this WCF REST Starter Kit

Software

• Microsoft to switch cloud SQL Server from Web APIs to relational one: Microsoft will switch SQL Data Services from a Web API to to the same relational one used by SQL Server.
• What Windows Azure is… and isn’t: Ars Technica had an interview with Steven Martin, Microsoft’s Senior Director of Platform Product Management about Windows Azure.
• Network Monitor 3.3 Beta Available on Connect: Microsoft Connect has a new release of Network Monitor

IT Industry

• IBM in Talks to Buy Sun in Bid to Add to Web Heft: The Wall Street Journal has news that IBM is thinking about buying Sun Microsystems
• BBC bemachtigt botnet van twintigduizend pc’s: Just to remind you how important even basic security measures are. (Article in Dutch)

Mobile

• iPhone 3.0 feature roundup: Most of what most people wanted is there. But: still no tethering, the ONE feature I would have wanted more than any other. Why is it that that is SOOOOO easy with a Win Mobile, yet after 3 major versions still totally absent from the world’s most successful smart phone?

Social

• USB finger drive concept attempts to keep up with reality: Sometimes imagination is overtaken by reality. A guy that lost a finger in a motor accident had a USB drive installed in his prosthetic finger. Make sure you click the picture and check out the comments on Flickr.

Just like many of us who’ve seen the Oslo presentations at last year’s PDC, I’ve been trying to understand Microsoft’s real purpose with it. At the time, it did all seem a little… ehm… shall I say esoteric to me.

A few recent blog posts (particularly this one by Scott Hanselman and this one by dskaufman) have helped me to see things more clearly: Oslo’s goal is multiplying developer productivity by at least a few factors for those types of tasks that can be described pretty accurately at a much higher level than traditional program code (or even current DSL code like XLANG/S for that matter).

DSL’s have real purpose and boost productivity in ways we don’t even realize any more.That becomes easy to see once you try to imagine life without them. Suppose there was no SQL and you would have to code every database action using some low-level API, doing your own query optimzations, getting the results back in a structured manner yourself. Pretty awkward.

Suppose you’re a BizTalk guy and there would be no Orchestration designer and no XLANG/S: you would have to code directly against the underlying engine API’s, doing all the coordination, followup, etc. yourself. It would take you hours for even a very simple case, and the quality of the result would probably be fairly low.

What Oslo does in my view is give you the ability to very quickly create a your own high-level, productivity-multiplying, purpose-built language dedicated to your specific job at hand. The key words here (apart from productivity multiplying, of course ) are: “your own”, “quickly” and “specific”, because it’s all about bringing down the level of granularity at which the creation of a DSL becomes worthwile.

Creating a DSL is only worth it if that creation itself is much quicker and easier than doing it’s intended task over and over again using a general purpose programming language like C#, VB or <insert your favorite here>. Most existing DSL’s were created (at considerable cost and effort) for purposes like querying relational databases (like SQL) or XML files (like XPath), simply because the need was so generic and widespread that it’s actually worth the effort to create the DSL and learning to use it.

Having the ability to create a tiny little DSL with very little effort, at a much more fine-grained and specific level, even for a single purpose or type of task in a single project, would already mean a significant productivity boost. Having the ability to do it quickly and with very little effort makes it even more worthwhile.

Keep your eyes peeled for more from the Oslo team.

I was just looking at this video from the launch of Windows 95, and I suddenly got a real blast from the past. At the 17 second mark (you’ve got to be really quick to see it!) there’s just a second with a couple of screens of the Microsoft Network, which was supposed to be Microsoft’s “own version” of the internet. This was way before everyone had internet, and Microsoft still hadn’t discovered it’s true potential.

Mind you: I’m not talking about MSN. This was a totally different beast.

The original Microsoft Network (aka MSN Network: the branding was just as confused then as it is now) was a dialup network (for you youngsters: that means you used a modem to dial in to an access number), and it competed with things like CompuServe and BIX, the Byte Information Exchange. (Hands up anyone that remembers BIX, if old age hasn’t made you incapable of raising your hands, that is…)

It was all dialup in those days, and I somehow acquired an account on the (then still in beta) MSN Network. After helping to iron out some bugs, I even got a T-shirt sent to me later on, with the MSN Network logo and big dead bug on the back, saying something like “I was there at the beginning”.

I sure was. Man, In those days I had phone bills that would make some small countries blush.

Anyway: Hit pause at 16 seconds, then start/stop until you see the click on the Start button. The MSN Network screens come immediately after that.

Development

• A BizTalk DSL using “Oslo”: A really good example of the sort of thing that Oslo allows you to do.
• Moq 3.0 RTM!!!: Daniel Cazzulino has released v3.0 of Moq, one of the more popular mocking frameworks for the .NET 3.5 platform

SharePoint

• SharePoint Web Services: A convenient overview of SharePoint web services
• My SharePoint developer toolkit: JOPX (a.k.a. Joris Poelmans) list the tools he uses for SharePoint development
• Comparison between MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0: Miles Consulting Corp has a nice comparison between MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0
• Downloadable content for Office SharePoint Server 2007: A large part of the SharePoint Server 2007 documentation is downloadable in Word .DOC files.

Software

• IE 8 RTM expected in the week of March 16, 2009: Neowin claims that IE8 will be released on March 16
• Microsoft outlines Windows 7 Enterprise edition features: Microsoft has outlined the features that will be included in Windows 7 Enterprise Edition in a series of briefings to product reviewers.
• Turning Windows Features On or Off: Yup, there it is. Internet Explorer can be turned off in Windows 7.
• Office 14: first information coming out: Hans Verbeeck points to information about Office 14

Social

• The History of Microsoft – 1979: Channel 9 has a great overview of Microsoft history.
• Apple rejects latest version of Tweetie for a ridiculous reason: Apple App Store’s process for allowing apps into the store is again proven to be a big lottery game.

BizTalk

• First Stab at Using New Tool to Migrate SQL Server Adapter Solutions: The old BizTalk Server SQL Adapter will disappear and be replaced with it’s WCF version. Richard Seroter points to a tool that can help you migrate your solutions to the new adapter.
• Compatibility Matrix Between 32 and 64-bit Versions of the Adapter, BizTalk Server, and Operating System: A handy Matrix that describes the supported versions for the BizTalk Adapter Pack v2.0

Development

• Easy REST: Ron Jacobs on creating a RESTful service with WCF
• 10 Papers Every Programmer Should Read (At Least Twice): Michael Feathers lists papers that should be in the "common knowledge" package for all programmers.

Software

• Microsoft Online Services Available Worldwide: Microsoft’s BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) is now available in 19 countries. Note: our company, Spikes NV, is a Microsoft BPOS partner and can help you deploy BPOS in your organization.
• Changes for the Win7 RC: Here is a list of changes we can expect in the Release Candidate of Windows 7
• How the Red Dog dream team built a cloud OS from scratch: Mary-Jo Foley tells the tale of the team that built Azure

IT Industry

• Ballmer: Azure ready for release by end of year: Steve Ballmer says that Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud OS and platform will be ready before the end of the year. Pricing will be announced soon.
• Yahoo fined by Belgian court for refusing to give up email account info: A court in Dendermonde found Internet company Yahoo guilty of withholding personal account information linked to Yahoo e-mail addresses.
• Microsoft Office Labs Virtual Presskit: I have seen the future and it works

Mobile

• 8 Little Things We Still Can’t Stand About the iPhone: While the iPhone is a great device, it does have it’s maddening quirks just like all the other devices. MobileCrunch highlights 8 of them. I can live with most of these, but #1 and #4 are the ones that bother me the most.

Social

• iPods and iPhones are not allowed in the Gates home: Bill’s kids don’t get an iPod or an iPhone. But I guess there are other perks that make up for that when your dad’s the richest man in the world.