3 new OBA (Office business Applications) RAP (Reference Architecture Pack) Released

One of the many great technologies to come out of Microsoft recently is OBA (Office business Applications). In the last week Microsoft release 3 Reference Architecture Pack (RAP). You should see them.

OBA RAP for Plant Floor Manufacturing Analytics:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb643797.aspx

OBA RAP for E-Forms Processing in the Public Sector:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb643796.aspx

OBA RAP for Health Plans
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb530326.aspx

Beta of two new web-based applications

Microsoft released a beta of two new web-based applications for storing and sharing photos and files -- Live Photo Gallery and Live Photo Folder.
1)Live Photo Gallery allows people to easily sharing, editing, organizing and printing of photos and digital home videos stored on their computers.
2) Windows Live Folders provides 500MB free Microsoft's online storage service, aiming to make it easier to share and control access to files stored online.
Both products are in 'managed beta', which means that the general public will not yet be offered access. Microsoft dominant position in the software market is an advantage over web-only service providers, such as Google and Yahoo

Calling a .NET class from a Gadget

We can call a .Net Assembly from a Vista gadget in following ways
1. We can interact with COM component by using the ActiveX Object constructor.
2. They are also different ways to interoperate with an application or a web service using WCF
3. A reference to Windows Forms UserControl is another option.
4. Last way is to dynamically execute a command line application, pass it arguments and get back output.

Enterprise Library 3.1 is here :)

Microsoft has released Enterprise Library 3.1. The patterns & practices Enterprise Library is a library of application blocks designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. Application blocks are a type of guidance, provided as source code that can be used "as is," extended, or modified by developers to use on enterprise development projects. This release of Enterprise Library includes application blocks for Caching, Cryptography, Data Access, Exception Handling, Logging, Policy Injection, Security and Validation. download it from here

Article on Choosing the Right Technology for Integrating Systems

I wrote an article on Choosing the Right Technology for Integrating Systems few months back and after the feedback i got from people in PDC i thought i should publish the link. you can find this article here. I 'll be publishing an article on Microsoft office 2007 and its integration with application soon.

Pakistan Developer Conference 2007

PDC rocks!!!!
I had 2 sessions today and 2nd was great , i had to play in a fast forward mode in the first one so sorry for that guys. The presentations as per promised are as follows


Integrating Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 Forms into Workflow Solutions and Business Processes (in .ppt format)

Choosing the Right Technology for Integrating Systems ( in .ppt format)

I'll upload the Code soon :). Cu tomo at PDC