Webremixed Articles for tags: web-hosting

Microsoft Brings ARM In-House

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT

Microsoft has taken a relatively rare architecture license to the ARM chip and that’s pretty much all the pair are saying about it. The details of the deal are “confidential” although ARM broadly hints that Microsoft means to straddle the chip in “multiple application areas.” Speculation has turned to tablets as well as new and improved mobile phones, e-readers, new versions of its Xbox games console, even an ARM-based PC. Microsoft has had Windows Embedded and Windows Phone on ARM chips for years. Presumably Windows 7 is next.

In Silverlight Application Change Your Namespace and Assembly Name

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:16:00 GMT

The first thing I do when creating a new project in Visual Studio (regardless of type) is change the project name, assembly name, and default namespace. I like for the names of all these to be consistent. However, I have noticed in Silverlight, you must make changes in five different places for everything to work alright otherwise you will get errors. I’m no Silverlight expert, but I thought this post would be useful for people like me who only dabble in it from time to time. When you create your new Silverlight project, right click on the project name and bring up its properties. Go ahead and change the default namespace and assembly name just like you would in any other project.

In Silverlight Application Change your Namespace and Assembly Name

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:16:00 GMT

Microsoft Money Machine Grinds On

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:45:00 GMT

Microsoft’s stock price may stink but its P&L numbers are pretty much sweet perfume. In the June quarter, Microsoft’s fiscal fourth quarter and the end of its fiscal year it made $4.52 billion, 51 cents a share, up 48% on record revenues of $16.04 billion, up 22%.

Microsoft Money Machine Grinds On

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:45:00 GMT

Microsoft Expands Intune Cloud Beta

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:00:00 GMT

Microsoft is going to charge 11 bucks a month for each desktop PC attached to Intune, the cloud service that manages SMBs, once it comes out of beta early next year. And Microsoft will throw in upgrade rights to Windows 7 Enterprise Edition. Microsoft is moving to beta 2 with the stuff and expanding the test bed from 1,500 Americans and Canadians to 10,000 North Americans and Western Europeans in the US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain and the UK. Beta 2 is limited to five-25 machines. Resellers will be able to keep tabs on several customers in a single multi-account screen.

Microsoft Amassing Slate Army

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:30:00 GMT

Royally trumped in the tablet business that it couldn’t get off the ground – while Apple made it look easy – Microsoft is promising to return in force underneath the slates that 21 companies are supposed to put out within the year to dip their bread in the bubbling Apple-made gravy. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday that companies like Asus, Acer, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Panasonic and Sony – even HP despite its current infatuation with Palm’s WebOS – will be coming out with Windows 7-based tablets. “This year one of the most important things we will do in the smart device category is really push forward with Windows 7-based slates and Windows 7 phones,” he said. This is a terribly important area for us. We are hardcore about this.”

Windows 8 Slides Apparently Leak

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:45:00 GMT

Apparently Microsoft had a chin wag with computer makers in April about what Windows 8 might look like so they can make plans because a set of the “NDA” “Microsoft Confidential” PowerPoints used at the meeting seem to have turned up on an Italian web site called Windowsette over the weekend. They are evidently real. At least they are widely accepted as genuine and seem to have been in the possession of an HP engineer named Derek Goode. Not that they’re all that revealing or even a “plan of record,” but it looks like Microsoft is expecting to release the next-generation operating system some time in 2012 and that Internet Explorer 9 will hit beta this August.

Office Web Apps Inch Out

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Ahead of general release June 15 and following release to the corporate world last month, Microsoft Monday said its browser-based Office Web Apps on SkyDrive are now available to everyone in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland, SkyDrive being its free browser-based storage and document sharing service. The lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote are accessible through OfficeLive.com and require an Office Live account.

Office Web Apps Inch Out

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Ballmer Gets His Two Cents in at D8

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:45:00 GMT

On Steve Jobs’ contention that this is now a post-PC world: “I think that people are going to be using PCs in greater and greater numbers for years to come.” But PCs will look different. They’ll evolve. They’ll get smaller, get touch, get different interfaces, their insides will change. “The real question is what is a PC? Nothing done on a PC today will get less relevant tomorrow. I think there will exist a general-purpose device that does anything you want, because people don’t want multiple devices, or can’t afford them. I think the PC as we know it will continue to morph in form factor. So the real question is where do you push?” Addressing Job’s truck analogy he says, “Windows machines will not be trucks.”

The Next Chapter in the Virtualization Story Begins

Mon, 31 May 2010 10:45:00 GMT

Cloud Computing Journal recently caught up with Pete Malcolm, CEO of cloud management innovators Abiquo - a major new player in the fast-emerging Cloud ecosystem and Platinum Plus Sponsor of 6th Cloud Expo being held in Prague, the Czech Republic, 21-22 June 2010. Malcolm is keynoting at the event. His theme will be "An Open Cloud Ecosystem - the Gathering Storm."

The Next Chapter in the Virtualization Story Begins

Mon, 31 May 2010 10:45:00 GMT

‘There is No Software Market in China’: Ballmer

Sat, 29 May 2010 17:00:00 GMT

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer likes India or even Indonesia way better than China, he told Bloomberg while in Hanoi, because China doesn’t have a handle on piracy or on IP protection in general, which makes it a “less interesting market to us,” he said. “There is no software market to speak of” in China. The value of the software China pirated hit $7.58 billion last year, double the 2005 figure, according to IDC and the Business Software Alliance. Microsoft may only see returns from 5% of the copies of Office and 20% of Windows that the Chinese use.

Windows Phone 7 Session Line-Up for Tech-Ed 2010

Fri, 28 May 2010 16:08:00 GMT

Tech-Ed 2010 in New Orleans is just around the corner. While there are certainly a lot of really high quality sessions available there, of biggest interest to me are the Windows Phone 7 sessions. The following is a list of the sessions as they appeared on the Tech-Ed site this morning:

TLC-92 | Windows Phone 7: Coding4Fun:
TLC-93 | Windows Phone 7: Productivity and Collaboration
TLC-94 | Windows Phone 7: Development Tools
TLC-95 | Windows Phone 7: A Different Kind of Phone
TLC-96 | Windows Phone Device Bar
WPH01-HOL | Hello Windows Phone
WPH01-INT | Prepare for Windows Phone 7 Development! Coding practices you should start using now in Windows Mobile.
WPH02-HOL | Building Your First Windows Phone Application
WPH03-HOL | Microsoft Silverlight for Windows Phone
WPH03-INT | Windows Phone 7 Demo Only!
WPH04-HOL | Microsoft XNA Framework 4.0 for Windows Phones
WPH04-INT | Windows Phone 7 Performance
WPH06-HOL | Using Push Notifications and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Services
WPH06-INT | Microsoft’s Next Generation Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP)
WPH201 | Windows Phone 7: A New Kind of Phone
WPH202 | Deploying Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
WPH203 | Overview of the Windows Phone 7 Application Platform
WPH301 | Windows Phone 7: Deploy Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway for Access Control to SharePoint, Exchange, and More
WPH303 | Understanding the Windows Phone 7 Development Tools
WPH304 | An In-Depth View of Building Applications for Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft Silverlight (Part 1)
WPH305 | An In-Depth View of Building Applications for Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft Silverlight (Part 2)
WPH306 | Developing Occasionally Connected Applications for Windows Phone 7
WPH307 | Building Windows Phone Games with Microsoft XNA Game Studio
WPH308 | Building a High Performance 3D Game for Windows Phone
WPH309 | Microsoft Silverlight Performance on Windows Phone
WPH310 | Designing and Developing for the Rich Mobile Web
WPH311 | Developing Mobile Code Today that will run on Windows Phone 7 Tomorrow
WPH312 | Understanding Marketplace and Making Money with Windows Phone 7 Applications
WPH313 | Windows Phone 7 Architecture Deep Dive
WPH314 | Coding4Fun: Learn Windows Phone 7 Development by Creating a Robotic T-Shirt Cannon

I've bolded and italicised the sessions that I think are crucial for new Windows Phone 7 developers. Don't get me wrong - all of these sessions are valuable and the XNA sessions are of particular value to people currently building games using the XNA framework. My point is that for the vast majority of developers flocking to this new platform, these are the sessions that I think will be the most important. Developers need to understand how Silverlight works, how Silverlight functions on WP7 devices (including similarities as well as portions of Silverlight that do NOT exist on mobile devices). Also, knowing how to code applications so that they perform well is absolutely critical for mobile device development.

More than any other target platform, knowing how to make the most efficient use of resources and how to build things that respond as fast as possible to user needs and don't suck battery power will make you more effective at building WP7 apps and, ultimately, make you more money selling your app in the Marketplace.

We saw a lot of this at MIX, but I'm hoping that at Tech-Ed we'll get a new Beta release of the SDK and tools and get more definition and clarity around the exact set of features and functionality planned for 1.0 as well as the release immediately following that. Developers need to know what they can do now, and what they can start planning for next year.

Either way, if you're attending Tech-Ed or not, there will undoubtedly be a flood of valuable information coming out of that conference and I for one can't wait to get even further into WP7 development.

Windows Phone 7 Session Line-Up for Tech-Ed 2010

Fri, 28 May 2010 16:08:00 GMT

TLC-92 | Windows Phone 7: Coding4Fun:
TLC-93 | Windows Phone 7: Productivity and Collaboration
TLC-94 | Windows Phone 7: Development Tools
TLC-95 | Windows Phone 7: A Different Kind of Phone
TLC-96 | Windows Phone Device Bar
WPH01-HOL | Hello Windows Phone
WPH01-INT | Prepare for Windows Phone 7 Development! Coding practices you should start using now in Windows Mobile.
WPH02-HOL | Building Your First Windows Phone Application
WPH03-HOL | Microsoft Silverlight for Windows Phone
WPH03-INT | Windows Phone 7 Demo Only!
WPH04-HOL | Microsoft XNA Framework 4.0 for Windows Phones
WPH04-INT | Windows Phone 7 Performance
WPH06-HOL | Using Push Notifications and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Services
WPH06-INT | Microsoft’s Next Generation Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP)
WPH201 | Windows Phone 7: A New Kind of Phone
WPH202 | Deploying Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
WPH203 | Overview of the Windows Phone 7 Application Platform
WPH301 | Windows Phone 7: Deploy Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway for Access Control to SharePoint, Exchange, and More
WPH303 | Understanding the Windows Phone 7 Development Tools
WPH304 | An In-Depth View of Building Applications for Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft Silverlight (Part 1)
WPH305 | An In-Depth View of Building Applications for Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft Silverlight (Part 2)
WPH306 | Developing Occasionally Connected Applications for Windows Phone 7
WPH307 | Building Windows Phone Games with Microsoft XNA Game Studio
WPH308 | Building a High Performance 3D Game for Windows Phone
WPH309 | Microsoft Silverlight Performance on Windows Phone
WPH310 | Designing and Developing for the Rich Mobile Web
WPH311 | Developing Mobile Code Today that will run on Windows Phone 7 Tomorrow
WPH312 | Understanding Marketplace and Making Money with Windows Phone 7 Applications
WPH313 | Windows Phone 7 Architecture Deep Dive
WPH314 | Coding4Fun: Learn Windows Phone 7 Development by Creating a Robotic T-Shirt Cannon

Microsoft to Pay Troll $200m

Sat, 22 May 2010 01:45:00 GMT

Microsoft Monday agreed to pay VirnetX Holding Corporation $200 million and take a license to the outfit’s virtual private network widgetry to resolve a patent dispute that saw VirnetX win a $105.8 million jury verdict in March. The company complained in early 2007 that Windows and Office Communicator products tread on two of its patents and the judge could have trebled the award. VirnetX, which wanted to be acquired by Microsoft, then filed a second suit on St Patrick’s Day charging infringement by Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Google Fires First Shot in Brewing Codec War

Fri, 21 May 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Google fired a shot across Apple’s bow Wednesday and considering the way things have been going Apple will probably seek to return fire in the not-too-distant future with an armor-piercing lawsuit. The latest fray started when Google got up at the Google I/O developers conference – like it was widely expected to do – and open sourced VP8, the video codec it got when it acquired On2 Technologies, the video compression house, in February for about $125 million. VP8 will try to displace H.264, the proprietary codec that Apple and Microsoft are invested in. VP8 is now part of a thing called the WebM project, which also includes the open source Ogg Vorbis audio format, and a container format based on a subset of the open source Matroska multimedia container.

Azaleos Broadens Management Partnership with EMC

Wed, 12 May 2010 15:30:00 GMT

Azaleos Corporation on Wednesday announced that it has deepened its existing technical and business partnership with EMC Corporation. As part of the broader relationship, Azaleos has extended its patented ViewX monitoring system to provide advanced troubleshooting of EMC CLARiiON AX and CX networked storage systems in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 environments. This complements ViewX’s existing capabilities for managing Microsoft Exchange Server and CLARiiON infrastructures. In related news, Azaleos also announced Monday the newest version of its remotely managed service for SharePoint Server, Azaleos Managed SharePoint 2010 Services, and a new managed file transfer service for Microsoft Exchange file attachments called AttachIT.

Azaleos Broadens Management Partnership with EMC

Wed, 12 May 2010 15:30:00 GMT

The Future of Software Development

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:00:00 GMT

As software developers, our mission is to deliver positive, technology-based solutions – software that provides both the means and the method for working faster, performing better, achieving more. There is little doubt that the technologies we create provide users with the control and functionality needed to be more efficient and productive. However, what happens when the tools we use to produce these solutions get out of control? Evolution in the technology ecosystem has accelerated to the speed of light – blink and you may miss something important. The software development landscape has mushroomed with near-exponential growth; new products and innovations are flooding the market on a daily basis. It begs the question: does this swift evolutionary pace represent a positive stage in the maturation of software development or are we moving too quickly for our own good? What does the future of software hold for us? It is an open question that can only be answered with time.

Microsoft Outsources Its IT Management

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:00:00 GMT

Microsoft is outsourcing management of its internal IT services worldwide to Infosys under a three-year contract based on so-called “outcome pricing.” The Indian company expects to use what it learns to support shared customers. The deal includes Microsoft’s help desk, desk-side services (subcontracted to Unisys), IT infrastructure and application services and support for devices and databases at 450 locations. Infosys is supposed to streamline implementation processes, simplify support and lower costs.

Identify Performance Bottlenecks in Your BizTalk Environment - Part 3

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 02:00:00 GMT

In my last two articles I wrote about how to Use BizTalk Performance Counters and how to Analyze Adapter and Pipeline Performance. In this final article I focus on Orchestration and calling external services. Orchestrations can be as simple as reading a file from a file system, transforming it and writing it out to a different file. They can also be much more complex such as calling external web services depending on certain conditions in the incoming messages, taking the response of these services and calling other services or writing a transformed version of the response to a file or the database. The following screenshot shows a rather simple Orchestration taken from one of the examples that ships with BizTalk.

Identify Performance Bottlenecks in Your BizTalk Environment - Part 3

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 02:00:00 GMT

Microsoft Opines on Cloud Computing Security

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:00:00 GMT

Microsoft delivers enterprise and consumer cloud services from a global infrastructure that must keep customer data secure and maintain privacy and availability. This session describes how Microsoft has built on the same security principles used to manage risks to Microsoft software development and operating environments to create an information security program for its cloud infrastructure that maintains Microsoft’s commitment to delivering a trustworthy computing experience. You'll hear how Microsoft’s information security program operates and meets complex statutory and regulatory compliance requirements. This includes a review of its ISO/IEC 27001:2005 based compliance framework and information security management system.

Microsoft Opines on Cloud Computing Security

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:00:00 GMT

Writing 'Hello World' Program for Windows Phone 7

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 05:04:00 GMT

Windows Phone 7 (WP7) is a cool new mobile platform from Microsoft. Developers can use Silverlight, XNA Framework and of course .NET compact framework for developing applications for WP7. What do you need To get started, download and install the following tools on your Windows 7 or Vista PC. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2338b5d1-79d8-4... Installation includes Visual Studio 2010, Expression Blend, Windows Phone [...]

Writing 'Hello World' Program for Windows Phone 7

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 05:04:00 GMT

Adobe Turns Host

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 22:30:00 GMT

Adobe has opened the first of three new geographically diverse data centers for its bought-in Business Catalyst service, a hosted services platform for professional web designers that’s supposed to save them the trouble of back-end coding. The place is in North America and will be joined in a couple of months by facilities in Europe and Asia-Pac. Adobe expects users to deploy business web sites such as online stores and lead-generation mini-sites.

Abiquo’s Diego Parrilla to Present at Cloud Expo East

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:45:00 GMT

Traditionally, a team’s infrastructure resources have been at the mercy of the system administrator. Development teams using Agile Development Methodologies are made rigid by this dated and inefficient system. “What if” scenarios are generally never attempted because the upfront cost of IT resources needed to reallocate the necessary infrastructure is too high. Unfortunately, Agile development efforts often fail because the development team does not control the management and deployment of the artifacts they develop. In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Diego Parrilla, VP Product Management at Abiquo, will discuss the future of infrastructure management, which will reduce our dependence on IT for day-to-day operations, eliminating waste and boosting productivity in the process. Abiquo makes that future a reality by giving management teams hands-on control of resource allocation without risking damage to any virtual machine. Infrastructure changes are made easily and instantly, can be made by anyone with administrator capabilities, and do not affect other teams’ resources.

PerspecSys Named “Bronze Sponsor” of Cloud Expo East

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:15:00 GMT

SYS-CON Events announced today that PerspecSys, a provider of the Cloud Data Governance Solution, has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 5th International Cloud Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com ), which will take place on April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. Cloud Expo is the world's leading Cloud-focused event since 2007, and is held five times a year, in New York City, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo and Hong Kong. The PerspecSys mission is to open cloud computing up to every enterprise by giving them the ability to preserve total control over their most precious of assets – their data. With the Perspecsys Cloud Data Governance Solution, enterprises can employ and leverage cloud-computing without having to turn their private and sensitive data over to a third party. Their data never leaves their premise! The PerspecSys solution allows organizations to meet all the regulatory, compliance and legislative requirements imposed by cloud computing. The PerspecSys solution addresses what is considered by many to be the adoption challenges of cloud computing, namely: Data Privacy-Residency-Security.

Silverlight 4 + RIA: Exposing WCF (SOAP\WSDL) Services

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:31:00 GMT

I wanted to touch on how a RIA Services can be exposed as a Soap\WSDL service. This is very useful if you want to enable the exact same business logic\data access logic is available to clients other than Silverlight. For example to a WinForms application or WPF or even a console application. SOAP is a particularly good model for interop with the Java\JEE world as well. First you need to add a reference to Microsoft.ServiceModel.DomainSerivves.Hosting.EndPoints assembly from the RIA Services toolkit.

Silverlight 4 + RIA: Exposing WCF (SOAP\WSDL) Services

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:31:00 GMT

Cordys Named “Gold Sponsor” of Cloud Expo East

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:30:00 GMT

SYS-CON Events announced today that Cordys has been named “Gold Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 5th International Cloud Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com ), which will take place on April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. Mark De Simone, Chief Business Development Officer at Cordys, will present a general session entitled “Continuous Business Transformation: The Cloud Value Chain,” on April 20 from 5:05 – 5:35 p.m. He will also participate in the CEO Power Panel – “What's the Main Business Value of the Cloud?” on April 20 from 7:20 – 7:50 p.m. Catherine Minter, President of Cordys Americas, will present “Collaboration in the Cloud with GoogleApps and Cordys” on April 19 from 6:20 – 7:05 p.m.; and Philip Karecki, Solutions Director and Sr. Partner of CSC, will join Cordys in presenting on “Transforming Financial Service Firms with the Cloud” on April 20 from 9:10 – 9:55 a.m.

Windows Azure for Noobs

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Ok, so I admit I’ve been busy on projects and of course I’ve been focusing a ton on SharePoint 2010. In the meantime, I hadn’t been paying much attention to what’s been developing with cloud computing and more specifically in this case Windows Azure. I was, in fact, a noob. :-) This week I had the opportunity to attend a Windows Azure Boot Camp, so that now makes me an expert. At least that is what my boss will claim. :-) So this post today is for those of you who haven’t been keeping up and want to know about some of the basics. It’s not to teach you the ins and outs of developing with Windows Azure. Although, getting started isn’t too difficult and the boot camp site has all the materials you need to get you started quickly.

Windows Azure for Noobs

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Great Presentation to the Israel Dot Net Developers User Group

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:45:00 GMT

I continue to be impressed with the quality of .NET Developers in Israel.. we had a full house last night for a 2+ hour presentation on building business applications with Silverlight and RIA Services. The audience was very engaged and had lots of good, relevant questions which created a really good conversation. Check out the slides and demo. I started off by demoing the Right-to-Left text support for Hebrew that is baked in as part of Silverlight 4.

Great Presentation to the Israel Dot Net Developers User Group

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:45:00 GMT

Web 2.0 and the Return of the Relationship

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:45:00 GMT

Wikis. Blogs. Podcasts. Social networking sites. File sharing. User-generated content. These are just some of the hallmarks of the much-talked-about (but little understood) "Web 2.0." As with any concept that gets a lot of buzz and attention, Web 2.0 is a catchphrase that marketers, luminaries, and business strategists seem compelled to drop into almost any discussion. The conventional wisdom is that if your business hasn't fully embraced Web 2.0 (whatever that entails), then it is falling woefully behind and missing out on lucrative opportunities. In response, many companies, including firms from across the spectrum of the financial services industry, have raced to set up corporate blogs, invite user-generated content, set up profiles on MySpace, open storefronts in "virtual world" Second Life, and take other steps to connect with their markets using Web 2.0 tools.

Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Validating Data

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:38:00 GMT

To continue our series let’s look at data validation our business applications. Updating data is great, but when you enable data update you often need to check the data to ensure it is valid. RIA Services as clean, prescriptive pattern for handling this. First let’s look at what you get for free. The value for any field entered has to be valid for the range of that data type. For example, you never need to write code to ensure someone didn’t type is “forty-two” into a textbox bound to an int field. You also get nice looking and well behaved validation exposure in the UI.

Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Validating Data

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:38:00 GMT

Terremark VP to Present at Cloud Expo East

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:15:00 GMT

Go beyond the marketing hype, the brands and the buzzwords, and learn how differences in architecture, infrastructure, security and design can have significant impact on your ability to take advantage of the cost-effectiveness and agility of infrastructure-as-a-service without compromising availability, performance and compliance. In his general session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Chris Drumgoole, Senior Vice President of Client Services at Terremark, will discuss how leading enterprises and government agencies are taking advantage of the power and flexibility offered by enterprise cloud computing architecture and present a practical guide to evaluating enterprise clouds and cloud providers.

XML Maven Goes to Google to Fight the iPhone

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:15:00 GMT

XML co-creator Tim Bray has fled Sun and Oracle – where he says he could have stayed – for Google Android and the title developer advocate to stick it to iPhone, which he labels a closed “sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger. I hate it….Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other. I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.” He’s staying in Canada.

Windows Phone 7 Series – Initial Developer Impressions

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:08:00 GMT

Windows Phone 7 Series (hereafter I'll just call it WP7) debuted a while ago at a press event but it's true coming out party was this past week at MIX 2010. This conference is a designer-developer hybrid conference and, of all the Microsoft development conferences I've ever attended, this has consistently been the most informative and exciting of the bunch. In case you've been hiding under a rock this past week, Microsoft has been showing off WP7 and the development experience for it. I'm going to oversimplify here, but this is the basic idea: You can choose to either develop for the platform in Silverlight or you can use the XNA toolkit normally used for building XBox and PC games in C#. WP7 has all the trimmings including push notifications, rich GUI (hardware accelerated), rich audio, the full power of Silverlight's media control, and it even has Xbox live integration allowing you to unlock achievements by playing games on the phone. Development tool is standard Visual Studio and for the Silverlight model you can use Expression Blend 4 to build you GUI (and there are some fantastic new improvements in Blend 4).

Windows Phone 7 Series – Initial Developer Impressions

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:08:00 GMT

Microsoft Azure and Open Data Protocol - OData

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:45:00 GMT

In an increasingly interconnected world interoperability finds the highest resonance. The Open Data Protcol (OData) provides developers from many progrmming background such as C#, Java, Javascript, PHP etc. an open protocol to produce and consume data. Windows Azure Platfrom not only stands to gain from conforming to this protocol but also answers Google's GData with a rich data ecosystem.