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

Windows Vista: Beta 2, RC1, and RC2 Set to Expire

After Today i.e. May 31, 2007, pre-release versions of Windows Vista will expire. To avoid work disruption and the loss of data, PC users running any of these pre-release versions of Windows Vista migrate their PCs to the final version of Windows Vista .
After May 31, 2007, users that continue to use pre-release versions of Windows Vista will be able to log in for 2-hour sessions to retrieve data. After 2 hours of use, the PC will automatically reboot without providing the opportunity to save data. The opportunity to log in normally for these 2 hour sessions will only be available for a limited time.
Find answers to frequently asked questions on the Windows Vista blog.

8 Tips And Tricks For Better BizTalk Programming

A gr8 article on MSDN
the tips are as follows
1. Always Use Multi-Part Message Types
2. Always Try to Design Orchestrations with Direct-Bound Ports
3. Always Use Separate Internal and External Schemas
4. Never Expose Your Internal Schemas Directly in WSDL
5. Always Optimize the BizTalk Registry for Web Services
6. Always Set the Assembly Key File with a Relative Path
7. Never Overlook Free Sample Code
8. Debug XSLT in Visual Studio

O2 OBA Challenge

"Create an Office Business Application (OBA) using the complementary technologies of the 2007 Microsoft® Office system and Oracle® Applications. The company that builds the best solution wins $25,000 to implement the OBA, and a unique opportunity to protect the air we share."
you can read more details here

Pakistan Developer Conference 2007 is here :)

Guys it’s here again. The event I look forward to attend and present in. it is the best way to gain knowledge and insight from the technology gurus. I think it’s a gr8 opportunity for us Pakistanis (who can’t go to Europe and US every year for tech events). I'll be presenting on 1- Integrating Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 Forms with Workflow Solutions and Business Processes 2- Choosing the Right Technology for Integrating Systems: BizTalk, SQL Server, SOA and WCF So looking forward to meet you guys

Architect Journal -12th edition

MS Architect journal is one of the best journals if you are a Microsoft Architect. Its 12th edition just came out. go get it from here.

Microsoft PopFly

Popfly is the fun, easy way for anyone to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages, and applications. Popfly consists of two parts:
1. Popfly Creator is a set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups.
2. Popfly Space is an online community of creators where you can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.
See the video here for how to easily use online services like Flickr, Digg, and even World of Warcraft without writing code.

Judging Imagine cup 2007 , pakistan

The Imagine Cup is one way Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world – today. Now in its fifth year, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real world issues.
The 2007 Theme is Education. This year, Microsoft is calling on young programmers, artists and technologists around the world to "imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all." We’re challenging students to bring their ideas to life in a multifaceted competition that comprises nine categories, each catering to a different technological or artistic affinity. Students’ work will reflect valuable, real world solutions, while giving them the opportunity to compete for cash prizes. When coupled with the power of technology the potential of young people is unlimited and the ideas they develop for the Imagine Cup could significantly improve the lives of millions of people around the world. In this competition, everyone wins.

I was asked to be one of the judges at the project evaluation for the best project from pakistan for the imagine up in the Software Design category. We had some great projects and the competition was very good. the best project came from LUMS lahore it was a class recording software with some very cool features. the project whch can 2nd came from a very remote place of pakistan, nawabshah. It was great to see someone from such remote location to bring up such a good software. the software was a grid computing software.

TechEd US 2007: SOA and Web Services Track Schedule

The complete abstract can be found on the TechEd site.

Visual Studio Orcas Express

Microsoft has just released a Community Tech Preview download of Visual Studio Orcas Express, the next version of Visual Studio Express.
A gr8 Screenshot below :)

Converting Messages to Text in Outlook 2007

I read this great blog spot so wanted to share with you guys
"
In Outlook 2003, you could open an email message and convert it from HTML to text by hitting Ctrl-Shift-O. That was handy, because I generally prefer to bottom-quote, and that's a pain in the ass when the email is HTML. So when I installed Outlook 2007 I was annoyed that Ctrl-Shift-O didn't work any more.
After a bunch of fumbling around, I finally discovered that if you open a message and edit it (Message->Other Actions->Edit), you can then change it to plain text (Options->Plain text). Well, being a keyboard guy, I got pretty tired of doing that, so now I have the following key sequence committed to muscle memory:
Enter (open message)
Alt H X E (edit message)
Alt P L (convert to plain text)
Alt H R P (reply)
Which, honestly, sucks, but is maybe 100 times as fast as doing the same thing with the mouse."

Microsoft Announces Silverlight

You can read the press release here or visit the Silverlight home page for more information. I recomend you should use it.

BizTalk 2006 R2 Beta Download Instructions

To access R2 Public Beta, please follow these instructions:
Go to http://connect.microsoft.com/
1) Sign in using your passport
2) Click on Available Connections (on the Connect Home menu)
3) Apply for BizTalk 2006 R2 Beta program

Nomination Start Date : 4/2/2007
Nomination End Date: 8/1/2007

Preventing Anonymous Access from Nicholas Allen's Indigo Blog

How do I prevent clients from accessing my service anonymously? I've changed the settings in IIS from Anonymous Access to Integrated Windows Authentication. However, now I'm getting the error message: "Security settings for this service require 'Anonymous' Authentication but it is not enabled for the IIS application that hosts this service."
Disabling anonymous access requires coordinating the settings in IIS and in your service configuration. Those two sources must be in agreement about whether anonymous access is expected. IIS is already using Windows authentication in this case, so let's look at what needs to happen to the service configuration file. I'm assuming that this is IIS6 so the only network transport we're talking about here is HTTP.
There are two cases depending on whether you want the protocol that gets exposed to be HTTP or HTTPS. The simplest is to keep using HTTP since that's probably what you were using if anonymous access was allowed in the past. To switch off anonymous access with HTTP, you need to set the security mode to TransportCredentialOnly.







Note that TransportCredentialOnly is not supported for every binding (in this case we're using BasicHttp). For WSHttp, the only choice is going to be to use HTTPS. To switch off anonymous access with HTTPS, you need to set the security mode to Transport.







Other bindings can be made to work in this situation as well, including custom bindings. I'm just showing you the most common examples. The key in both cases though is that we're getting transport security with the right kind of credentials associated.

Announcing the OBA Reference Application Pack for Loan Origination Systems (OR-LOS)

The Architecture Strategy Team has just released an Office Business Applications Reference Application Pack for Loan Origination Systems (OR-LOS) that leverages SharePoint, BizTalk Orchestrations, BizTalk Business Rules Engine, WF Workflows, and Office Clients to automate a Loan Origination process spanning multiple human and system participants.

BizTalk Server 2006 Documentation in PDF Format

The BizTalk Server 2006 core documentation PDF here.

.Net 3.5 with Orcas!

It wasn’t long ago that we were discussing .Net 3.0 as a new development palteform from Microsoft's technology stack. Now Microsoft is ready with .Net 3.5 that is going to be released with Visual Studio Orcas later this year. you can download the CTP bits from MSDN.

SQL Server 2005 SP2 Now Available

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2) enables SQL Server 2005 customers to take advantage of the enhancements within Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system. Specific enhancements include, but are not limited to:
•Enhanced BI Capabilities
•Interoperability Enhancements
•Performance and Manageability Enhancements
for Review visit what's new in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2

My article on Integration technogies

I have working on this for quite sometime now , the problem which every arcitect faces when came accross the problem of integration is to which tool/technology to use. you can find my article on thi here