Web Service Software Factory: Modeling Edition - Released

Web Service Software Factory: Modeling Edition ( aka Software factory ) is one of the new releases from the Patterns and practises group of Microsoft. The software factory helps developers and architects to built WCF and ASMX service with the best patterns and practices in the consistent manner. The Service Factory contains automation and guidance integrated into Visual Studio 2005 for building services. The core of the automation components is a Web services domain model. This domain model contains elements specific to WCF like Service contracts, operations, messages, and data contracts.

More info can be available on following resources

MSDN : http://msdn.microsoft.com/servicefactory

Community site: http://www.codeplex.com/servicefactory

Roadmap of Silverlight and .NET

Microsoft have been in the news since its inception. This time, they are in the news for the series of releases of their product. October timeframe , Microsoft have released the source code of .NET Framework libraries. This was mainly help developer to understand how the libraries have been written and also to debug the code within the libraries which was not possible earlier. Apart from this, Microsoft is eyeing on Feb, 2008 to release some of its major products called SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 etc .. However, side by side, another exciting product that is gaining a lot of discussion is Silverlight. In a one line, i could say, Silverlight is compiled and must more robust product of Microsoft against Flash. Series of .NET Products are going to get released this year as well. The very famous, scott guthie has blogged on upcoming releases and can be accessed from here

VS 2008 Beta 2 WCF SVCUtil error

Svcutil.exe is used to generate the WCF proxies. In VS 2008 Beta 2, if you create simple WCF application and try to generate proxy of your service, you may encounter the error that states

"
Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembl
y 'svcutil, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' o
r one of its dependencies. Strong name validation failed. (Exception from HRESUL
T: 0x8013141A)
File name: 'svcutil, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11
d50a3a' ---> System.Security.SecurityException: Strong name validation failed. (
Exception from HRESULT: 0x8013141A)
The Zone of the assembly that failed was:
MyComputer
"
Solution

The problem is that SVCutil.exe is not been verified as a strong Name and one needs to do this in order to rectify the issues
1. Open Command Prompt
2. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\V6.0A\Bin folder
This is the folder where by default, all the utilities provided by .NET 3.5 is placed.
3. run sn -Vr svcutil.exe

it will respond as verification entry has been added for the assembly svcutil.

This is a generic problem and might can occur to other utilities. All you need to do is to put your utility name in place of svcutil.exe in the above and You are Done !!! I am sure this will be resolve in the next beta of VS 2008

Seminar on Distributed Computing

Last week on September 1, 2007, I was honoured to be one of the speaker for Faculty Development Programme (FDP) organised by T-John College,Bangalore. T-John has invited faculties from almost all the colleges of bangalore and it was a very nice experience to share my views and spent time with all the college eminient teachers and professors.Along with me, there were three other speakers , 2 are scientist from DRDO and one person was from Cisco. I had given my seminar on "Distributed Computing" where in i spoke on the

1. current scenarios of distributed computing
2. challenges faced by today's distribuited computing
3. How to overcome those challenges with the latest Distributed computing

Visual Studio 2008 targets Multiple Frameworks

Way back in Year 2005, i had blogged on why Visual Studio 2005 doesn't target .NET 1.x(if you missed it to read, click here). The problem is overcomed by Visual Studio 2008 aka ORCAS. Expected to be released in feb , 2008, Orcas is having an ample set of features to talk about apart from LINQ , which is one of the most awaited feature. So we have new things line up in areas of WF, WCF and many more and i would be blogging more on these areas as and when time permits. One of the most exciting feature that i came about is multi-targetting feature of Visual Studio 2008. what it means is that by Default, Visual Studio 2008 target .NET framework 3.5 but you can also get an opportunity to create projects targeting .NET 1.x, 2.0 and .NET 3.0 as well which was never been supported by any Visual Studio IDE. well now below are the ways by which you can change the target framework for the specific projects in Visual Studio 2008

1. when you create a Visual studio 2008 project, the option is available on the top right corner to select the version

2. You can also go on Project Properties --- > Application tab --- > set the target framework

Isn't this awsome feature.

Port Sharing Features in WCF

HTTP with Port 80 allows to share Port 80 with multiple web applications. If you want other TCP ports to be shared by multiple applications, there is not an easy way to achieve the same. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) allows multiple application to share the same TCP port. I had written an article on the same as how WCF enable a TCP port to be shared by multiple applications

Please have a look on Port sharing feature of WCF

Now comes MSCD

Recently Microsoft havce recently launched its new product called Microsoft Secure Content Downloader (MSCD)which is based on Bittorrent and is used to download the Microsoft content securely. one of the limitation of the MCSD is that it cannot cross firewalls so presently , though it is in testing phase, this might be for only end users who are not behind firewalls. Also MCSD downloads limited Microsoft products like Visual Studio 2008, soon we might be able to see it for large downloads if this is been a success :) .. cool, so now if you are like me and wants to play with the new MCSD, Click Here to download the New MCSD

Global Launch wave date : Feb 27,2008

Having releases of three global products to be launched on the same day .. isn't it some thing different that Microsoft hasn't done in his history .. But yes, things are coming true. Feb, 27,2008 is suppose to be the global launch date of

1. Windows Server 2008 (aka Longhorn)
2. Viusal Studio 2008 (aka ORCAS)
3. SQL Server 2008(aka Katamai)

check out this article http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=8800


wherein Microsoft COO Kevin Turner announced the same at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver. I am waiting for D-Launch Date.

No More OEM Microsoft Office 2003 after June 30th

After June 30, 2007, OEM Microsoft Office 2003 will no longer be available from Microsoft. I do feel that this is really a nice decision on behalf of Microsoft. It has been some time that developers and end users have started working on Office 2k7 , they have given various comments but have appreciated the Office 2k7. This decision will not only give a decent path to say Good Bye to Ok but also invite a lot of professionals to use Office 2k7 who are still sticked with Office 2k3. More information about the same is available by clicking Here

Windows Server 2008 Beta .. Great stability

From one of the blogs post from MS employee about Windows Server 2008 Beta3:
"microsoft.com site is running 100% on Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 "


It shows how stable Windows Server 2008 beta3, already is

To get more updates on Windows Server 2008 , click Here

Have a look on the Microsoft new computing Device called "Surface" aka Project code "Milan". The surface is more kind of PC that runs Vista in the back but rather than working with keyboard and mouse, it works on a touch-sensitive display. image to your right is Bill Gates talks with TODAY tech editor Paul Hochman while demonstrating his company's new computing device, Surface. I am sure that few years down the line, this news inventions gonna change the way people perceive the PC. Its just a wait and watch situation for us

Read more on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18928656/#storyContinued

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2138251,00.asp

Microsoft also came up with a separate site

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Virtual Tech Ed

Greats News !!!
You can attend Tech Ed “virtually” though J. You can easily access Tech·Ed content that include webcasts, virtual labs, podcasts – when you want, where you want.
http://www.virtualteched.com/Pages/default.aspx

TechMela 2007 , Agenda

Moving ahead with my blog entries on TechMela 2007, below is the Agenda for the same on Day 14,15 and 16th Respectively. Click on the below image to get more clearer view

No TechEd 2007 this time in India, TechMela Aka TechED 2007

On 28th April, I have blogged a post about TechEd 2007 dates in which i mention about the techEd, happening in Mumbai from June 13. To know more about that posts, click Here .To get more curious, one of the bad news is that this time, there will be no Tech Ed 2007 across cities in India. The TechEd has been wrapped with a new name called TechMela and this TechMela is happening in only one location in India i.e. Mumbai. It seems Microsoft have done it to make the TechMela a huge success and to bring the Indian IT mass in one location. This TechMela is divided into 2 zones.

1. for Business Users, its on 13th June
2. for Technology users, its on 14,15and 16th June

Click here to register for TechMela

Not sure, if its going to be a good success. For the people, who are living in other locations apart from mumbai, there is something good. Well not good as TechEd alias TechMela, Just keep an eye on my blog. I am going to blog it soon !!!

Hotmail Gets bigger

Now hotmail is as bigger as 2 GB. Though most of the existing hotmail user might be using it from the beta versions, but for the email users, its a news. if you haven't upgraded your account till now, Click here to upgrade

TechEd 2007 Dates

Tech Ed 2007 dates have been published now and its going to happen in May end- June 2007 all over india. The dates for Tech Ed to happen in Mumbai is been revealed to be June 13-16 2007. still the dates on other places of India is yet to be finalized. More information about Tech Ed 2007 can be available by clicking Tech ED

Office 2003 compatibility with Office 2007 docs

As if now, today's generations of IP professionals are working on two versions of Ms Office

1. MS Office 2003
2. MS Office 2007

There are numerous benefits of using office 2007 and you can really experience only when you download and work on office 2007 docs. Now if you see the documents creates using office 2007, they have the extensions of office 2003 docs preceded by "x" character. for e.g. Docx, Xlsx etc. The problems of sending these documents to the Office 2003 camps professionals is that they are unable to open the documents. So generally office 2007 camps professional used to save it in the office 2003 format and then send the docs. Though this is still available a better option is to ask the colleague to download Office compatibility pack that’ll allow you to open these documents in Office 2003.

To Download the compatibility pack , click here

I hope it now saves a life of lot of office 2007 camps

Offline links for WCF webcasts

I am back on the blog and to all the people who are intrested in viewing the offline view of my webcasts that i delivered last week for Microsoft India, here are the link

1. Beginning on WCF
2. Securing services with WCF
3. Programming with WCF
4. Understanding endpoints with WCF
5. Implemention Service Oriented architecture by WCF

It was quite nice to get in touch with lot of passionate developers,who have some familiar and unfamilaiar questions about WCF.

Webcasts on Windows Communication Foundation

I will be delivering webcast series on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) this month. The webcasts are schedule back to back from 26th march – 30th March 2007 from 4 PM to 5 PM IST

26th - Beginning with WCF
27th - Implementing Service Oriented Architecture through WCF
28th - Understanding Endpoints with WCF
29th - Programming with WCF
30th - Securing services with WCF

All the 5 webcasts are open for registrations on Microsoft site


hope to see many of the blog readers online :)

Orcas Latest CTP

Latest CTP of Orcas delivered today and can be downloaded by clicking here



it contains a lot of cool stuff like

1. WCF/WF designer
2. ATLAS integration
3. and lots of enhanced feature for WCF like templates for authoring WCF service, Enhanced REST/Pox Model etc

and many more

SQL Server 2005 SP2 released

Microsoft has announced release of SQL Sevrer 2005 Service Pack 2. To download the Service Pack 2 version click on download
New features of Service Pack2 can be seen by clicking
here

Sample chapter uploaded

The first chapter of my book, Introducing Service Oriented Architechture is been uploaded in Apress Site as sample chapter

click on Chapter 1 to download

Got the Books

Though i was very busy in my current work schedule, and i really miss the opportunity to blog. Finally, i want to start it with sharing a good news. Last feek i got the hard copies of the book, that recently i have co-authored. It was very soothing to have a touch and feel. Though book has been published world wide last month itself, it might take few more months to hit Indian Market. The book is avalable at APress, BarnesAndNoble,Amazon and BookPool. You can get down to it through the below links

Link to Book on Apress
Link to Barnesandnoble for Purchase
Link to Amazon for Purchase
Link to Bookpool for Purchase

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Unleashed

couple of days earlier, much awaited service pack 1 of Visual Studio 2005 was released. There are somewhere around 400 issues that have been taken care in this release and all of them can be available at http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio/content/content.aspx?contentid=4324
If you want to download the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 ..click on this

Me being Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)

On eve of new year, i got a great news to share. I got myself lucky to be among the elite group of an Most Valuable Professional(MVP). MVPs is the award that is given to technical community leaders from around the world who foster the free and objective exchange of knowledge by actively sharing real world expertise with users and Microsoft. I had just thought to update my MVP profile and can be accessed through MVP Profile. My name has also been updated in Indian MVP List