Do programmers dream in Byte Code?

Microsoft CRM 4.0 adapter for BizTalk 2006

Robert — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:15:53 GMT

Microsoft have just released the Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006 adapter for Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 4.0, the adapter has the same functionality as the 3.0 adapter plus :-

• Support for both 32-bit and 64-bit deployments of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

• Support for form-based authentication

• Support the joy that is multi-tenancy

Best of all the adapter is free.

Download Here

Microsoft Dublin ( Microsoft WCF/WF Application Host )

Robert — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:57:33 GMT

WOW, I was expecting this in a few weeks but Microsoft have just announced that .NET 4.0 will include new versions of WCF and WF , with new stateful and conversational services and significantly improved designers.

The new version of WF includes a 10 times performance increase , new flow control models including a large number of built in activities ( including but not limited to power shell , db and messaging ) , compos able rules and the ability to debug XAML

WCF includes transports for UDP, MQ , in process :). Unified XAML model with WF allowing.

Microsoft is also introducing a set of enhanced Windows Server capabilities codenamed “Dublin” that provides greater scalability and easier manageability, and will extend Internet Information Services (IIS) to provide a standard host for applications that need a standard host for WCF and WF.

Dublin offers message based correlation and forwarding. Dublin has an easy to uses interface which allows setup of scale out , management and monitoring and support from the Oslo modelling platform

I expect that a CTP will be available soon and it looks like there will be support for .NET 3.5. Dublin will be made available to download and included in later versions of windows server

To clarify a point, Dublin is the first of the products that were originally mentioned as a part of the OSLO wave platform, as the Oslo Application Host.

The official Microsoft information is HERE

in this short post I have not done justice to Dublin , I will post more over the following weeks

ReMix in Colour

Robert — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:55:40 GMT

Two weeks ago I was delighted to be at ReMix in Brighton. On the last day I was asked to be a Judge in the finals of Speaker Idol. The speakers did a great job in entertaining and informing the attendees , taking there own valuable time at the conference to share more information with others.

One chap presented on RGB to HSL , which is an important topic certainly for me as I spend some of my life doing that same work.

I did promise to add some of my thoughts on RGB and HSL

for an interesting set of projections of RGB onto other colour systems look here

the key item that I thought would be useful in describing the relationship between RGB and HSL is covered here which is the conic projection through the RGB cube

ReMix 2008

Robert — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:16:01 GMT

I am with a contingent from Black Marble at REMIX UK in Brighton, if you are here say hello.

Bill Buxtons keynote is both engaging and inspirational, if you are in the land of design I suggest trying to watch it.

Microsoft and the Object Management Group

Robert — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:26:30 GMT

While it might sound like a rather dull sequel to a set of “Microsoft does adventure” books, in fact Microsoft has joined the OMG and it is a very significant direction change for Microsoft to make, I have been following and commenting on the OMG’s work since the early 90’s, I really am pleased, as I think it will benefit our industry as a whole.

Read the press release here.

BizTalk 2009

Robert — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:25:40 GMT

Microsoft has just updated it’s BizTalk Roadmap , the key change in the roadmap is the introduction of BizTalk 2009. BizTalk 2009 replaces the planned 2006r3 release. The 2009 release should be with us early in 2009 with some great features including development in Visual Studio 2008 :), I have summarised the features below

Updated Platform – Support for Windows Server 2008 including virtualisation using Hyper-V & SQL Server 2008.

Developer & Team Productivity – Support for Visual Studio 2008 , .Net 3.5 and improved application lifecycle mgmt support including TFS with integrated source control, bug tracking and MSBuild automation.

B2B Integration – new mobile RFID support, enhanced RFID device support, improved AS2 and EDI support

SOA & Web Services - UDDI v.3 Web Services Registry, new Oracle EBS and SQL LOB adapters, enhanced host system integration (MQ, IMS, DB2, CICS) and a new release of ESB Guidance 2.0 patterns and practices.

Microsoft are committing to release a version approximately every two years, which looks good.

I would expect a CTP or Beta soon.

The Cops are in at Work

Robert — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:34:10 GMT

New versions of my favourite Cop(that’s police to you and I) Duo, FxCop and StyleCop are out.

FxCop 1.36 is out including but not limited to 200+ bug fixes over Beta2, new globalisation rules (I smell a Guy at work), half the memory requirement.

StyleCop 4.3 is out also including great features such as better VS integration, a bunch of new rules which you can’t live without and the final changes to make StyleCop its name :)

251 ways to help the community and learn visual studio

Robert — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:07:48 GMT

I have been consistently impressed by the blog/efforts of the ever lovely Sara Ford. for those of you who do not know who Sara is, she is a SDE/T on the Visual Studio Core team at Microsoft and via her blog provides us time strapped developers with visual studio hints in bit size easy to understand chunks almost everyday. if you don’t read her blog shame on you, subscribe now.

Sara is the author of the upcoming book Microsoft Visual Studio Tips. Sara has compiled 251 tips from her Tip of the Day series, to help on your way to Visual Studio enlightenment.

Sara comes from Waveland on the coast of the US which was hit badly by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and quite wonderfully Sara is donating 100% of her author book royalties to create a scholarship fund at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

Black Marble have ordered half a dozen to get things going. I would suggest ordering a copy of this book for any/all of the reasons mentioned.

Boss.

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is here

Robert — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:21:40 GMT

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is now available on MSDN subscriber downloads. or from Microsoft download.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (exe)

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (iso)

there are a good number of fixes and new features in the service pack (including TR1 for you C++ philes out there)

you MUST read the readme to make sure there are no problems and with the Silverlight 2 beta 2 tools you will need to download and run the new installer

If you get a Windows Update prompt to reboot during SP1 installation, ignore it. Wait until after the SP1 installation completes and then reboot.

Visual Studio 2008 themes

Robert — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:10:51 GMT

there are some nice themes for Visual Studio 2008 but if you want your own try this online tool to get that colour scheme you have always wanted.

WPF Performance

Robert — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:32:17 GMT

When I was at DDS a nice chap asked me if I knew about WPF performance and the answer was no but I did do some digging and just for the record this is what I found , comments welcome.

Perf in WPF

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970683.aspx

Perf tools for WPF

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa969767.aspx

the most important bit could be .NET 3.5 SP1

http://blogs.msdn.com/jgoldb/default.aspx

you need to make sure that the problem is not poor code performance ( your code )

http://blogs.msdn.com/timothyc/archive/2006/02/28/540291.aspx

Virtual BizTalk -

Robert — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:44:02 GMT

The BizTalk CAT/UE team have just released the “Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Hyper-V Guide”.

It covers Deploying, Evaluating and Testing BizTalk with Hyper-V. if you are even thinking of virtualizing BizTalk read this guide.

Richard is an MVP

Robert — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:57:01 GMT

I know it is on his blog but Richard is an MVP, it couldn’t happen to a nicer person. I am also pleased that Kevin Ball was renewed and Andy Westgarth is also now an MVP. it was nice to see all of the above at our event today.

congratulations to all the new and renewed MVP’s

TechED 2008 IT in Orlando

Robert — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:23:32 GMT

I am just back from a week on the BizTalk Stand at TechED IT in Orlando, it was great to have the opportunity to chat to so many great people and to meet other BizTalkers.

I was privileged to meet some great people to name but a few

Mark Beckner author of the classic Apress BizTalk 2006 EDI book.

Todd VanNurden co editor of the legendary BizTalk Hotrod

Clint Huffman Microsoft PFE

Winston Woo

Ofer Ashkenazi , BizTalk Product Manager

Tim Wieman , BizTalk Ranger Team ( cool team name )

and great thanks to Michael Iem (Ziem Group Inc) who made the week go like clockwork.

Ewan Fairweather and Petr Kratochvil announced the BizTalk Performance Guide , it is an essential read for any BizTalk project.

Despite daily thunderstorms and flying back on Friday the 13th , it was amazing fun , especially the Simpsons Ride @ universal :)

Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 is here

Robert — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:17:55 GMT

As promised you can get silverlight 2.0 beta 2 here and the june preview of blend and zoom here.

The SDK is available here or with the Visual Studio 2008 tools here.