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• 2012&ndash;The End Of The World Review

  - by Tim Murphy

  The end of the world must be coming.  Not because the Mayan calendar says so, but because Microsoft is innovating more than Apple.  It has been a crazy year, with pundits declaring not that the end of the world is coming, but that the end of Microsoft is coming.  Let’s take a look at what 2012 has brought us. The beginning of year is a blur.  I managed to get to TechEd in June which was the first time that I got to take a deep dive into Windows 8 and many other things that had been announced in 2011.  The promise I saw in these products was really encouraging.  The thought of being able to run Windows 8 from a thumb drive or have Hyper-V native to the OS told me that at least for developers good things were coming. I finally got my feet wet with Windows 8 with the developer preview just prior to the RTM.  While the initial experience was a bit of a culture shock I quickly grew to love it.  The media still seems to hold little love for the “reimagined” platform, but I think that once people spend some time with it they will enjoy the experience and what the FUD mongers say will fade into the background.  With the launch of the OS we finally got a look at the Surface.  I think this is a bold entry into the tablet market.  While I wish it was a little more affordable I am already starting to see them in the wild being used by non-techies. I was waiting for Windows Phone 8 at least as much as Windows 8, probably more.  The new hardware, better marketing and new OS features I think are going to finally push us to the point of having a real presence in the smartphone market.  I am seeing a number of iPhone users picking up a Nokia Lumia 920 and getting rid of their brand new iPhone 5.  The only real debacle that I saw around the launch was when they held back the SDK from general developers. Shortly after the launch events came Build 2012.  I was extremely disappointed that I didn’t make it to this year’s Build.  Even if they weren’t handing out Surface and Lumia devices I think the atmosphere and content were something that really needed to be experience in person.  Hopefully there will be a Build next year and it’s schedule will be announced soon.  As you would expect Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 development were the mainstay of the conference, but improvements in Azure also played a key role.  This movement of services to the cloud will continue and we need to understand where it best fits into the solutions we build. Lower on the radar this year were Office 2013, SQL Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012.  Their glory stolen by the consumer OS and hardware announcements, these new releases are no less important.  Companies will see significant improvements in performance and capabilities if they upgrade.  At TechEd they had shown some of the new features of Windows Server 2012 around hardware integration and Hyper-V performance which absolutely blew me away.  It is our job to bring these important improvements to our company’s attention so that they can be leveraged. Personally, the consulting business in 2012 was the busiest it has been in a long time.  More companies were ready to attack new projects after several years of putting them on the back burner.  I also worked to bring back momentum to the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Both the community and clients are excited about the new technologies that have come out in 2012 and now it is time to deliver. What does 2013 have in store.  I don’t see it be quite as exciting as 2012.  Microsoft will be releasing the Surface Pro in January and it seems that we will see more frequent OS update for Windows.  There are rumors that we may see a Surface phone in 2013.  It has also been announced that there will finally be a rework of the XBox next fall.  The new year will also be a time for us in the development community to take advantage of these new tools and devices.  After all, it is what we build on top of these platforms that will attract more consumers and corporations to using them. Just as I am 99.999% sure that the world is not going to end this year, I am also sure that Microsoft will move on and that most of this negative backlash from the media is actually fear and jealousy.  In the end I think we have a promising year ahead of us. del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft,Pundits,Mayans,Windows 8,Windows Phone 8,Surface

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• BUILD 2013 Sessions&ndash;Building Great Windows Phone UI in XAML

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/build-2013-sessionsndashbuilding-great-windows-phone-ui-in-xaml.aspx Even the simplest of smart phone apps can be a challenge to give a compelling UI regardless of the platform.  Windows Phone and XAML are no exception.  That is what got my interest in this session by Shawn Oster.  He took a checklist type approach to the subject is good considering that is about the only way that many us get things done. Shawn started out giving us a set of bad design/good design examples.  They very effectively showed how good design gives a sense of professionalism to your app that could determine if your wonderful idea actually makes money is DOA. I won’t go over all his points since you will be able to get the session online, but a few of his checklist points included design from the beginning instead of as an afterthought, not being afraid to leave white space and making sure your application elegantly supports both landscape and portrait modes.  The many gems make this a must watch for any developers who struggle with visual design. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows Phone,XAML,Design

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• Preparing For TechEd

  - by Tim Murphy

  This being my first time going to TechEd and I want to make sure that I get the most out of it.  The first goal is to make sure that I get to the sessions that cover as many topics as possible.  This is important for me as a Solution Architect consultant specializing in Microsoft technologies.  To this end I have spent some time going through the sessions on the myTechEd site. The other reason for the trip is to connect with the Microsoft development community.  This includes both members of my local Midwest community and the global communities that I have only had online connections with.  Sharing the experience and getting a chance to exchange ideas with new and old friends is a great part of any convention. In any case, the time is getting close and I am looking forward to the trip. del.icio.us Tags: TechEd 2012,TechEd,community

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• TechEd 2012: Fast SQL Server

  - by Tim Murphy

  While I spend a certain amount of my time creating databases (coding around SQL Server and setup a server when I have to) it isn’t my bread and butter.  Since I have run into a number of time that SQL Server needed to be tuned I figured I would step out of my comfort zone and see what I can learn. Brent Ozar packed a mountain of information into his session on making SQL Server faster.  I’m not sure how he found time to hit all of his points since he was allowing the audience abuse him on Twitter instead of asking questions, but he managed it.  I also questioned his sanity since he appeared to be using a fruit laptop. He had my attention though when he stated that he had given up on telling people to not use “select *”. He posited that it could be fixed with hardware by caching the data in memory.  He continued by cautioning that having too many indexes could defeat this approach.  His logic was sound if not always practical, but it was a good place to start when determining the trade-offs you need to balance.  He was moving pretty fast, but I believe he was prescribing this solution predominately for OLTP database prior to moving on to data warehouse solutions. Much of the advice he gave for data warehouses is contained in the Microsoft Fast Track guidance so I won’t rehash it here.  To summarize the solution seems to be the proper balance memory, disk access speed and the speed of the pipes that get the data from storage to the CPU.  It appears to be sound guidance and the session gave enough information that going forward we should be able to find the details needed easily.  Just what the doctor ordered. del.icio.us Tags: SQL Server,TechEd,TechEd 2012,Database,Performance Tuning

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• Windows 8/Surface Lunch Event Summary

  - by Tim Murphy

  Today was a big day for Microsoft with two separate launch event.  The first for Windows 8 and all of it’s hardware partners.  The second was specifically to introduce the Microsoft Windows 8 Surface tablet.  Below are some of the take-aways I got from the webcasts. Windows 8 Launch The three general area that Microsoft focused on were the release of the OS itself, the public unveiling of the Windows Store and the new devices available from its hardware partners. The release of the OS focused on the fact that it will be available at mid-night tonight for both new PCs and for upgrades.  I can’t say that this interested me that much since it was already known to most people.  I think what they did show well was how easy the OS really is to use. The Windows Store is also not a new feature to those of us who have been running the pre-release versions of Windows 8 or have owned Windows Phone 7 for the past 2 years.  What was interesting is that the Windows Store launches with more apps available than any other platforms store at their respective launch.  I think this says a lot about how Microsoft focuses on the ability of developers to create software and make it available.  The of course were sure to emphasize that the Windows Store has better monetary terms for developers than its competitors. The also showed off the fact that XBox Music streaming is available for to all Windows 8 user for free.  Couple this with the Bing suite of apps that give you news, weather, sports and finance right out of the box and I think most people will find the environment a joy to use. I think the hardware demo, while quick and furious, really show where Windows shine: CHOICE!  They made a statement that over 1000 devices have been certified for Windows 8.  They showed tablets, laptops, desktops, all-in-ones and convertibles.  Since these devices have industry standard connectors they give a much wider variety of accessories and devices that you can use with them. Steve Balmer then came on stage and tried to see how many times he could use the “magical”.  He focused on how the Windows 8 OS is designed to integrate with SkyDrive, Skype and Outlook.com.  He also enforced that they think Windows 8 is the best choice for the Enterprise when it comes to protecting data and integrating across devices including Windows Phone 8. With that we were left to wait for the second event of the day. Surface Launch The second event of the day started with kids with magnets.  Ok, they were adults, but who doesn’t like playing with magnets.  Steven Sinofsky detached and reattached the Surface keyboard repeatedly, clearly enjoying himself.  It turns out that there are 4 magnets in the cover, 2 for alignment and 2 as connectors. They then went to giving us the details on the display.  The 10.6” display is optically bonded to the case and is optimized to reduce glare.  I think this came through very well in the demonstrations. The properties of the case were also a great selling point.  The VaporMg allowed them to drop the device on stage, on purpose, and continue working.  Of course they had to bring out the skate boards made from Surface devices. “It just has to feel right” was the reason they gave for many of their design decisions from the weight and size of the device to the way the kickstand and camera work together.  While this gave you the feeling that the whole process was trial and error you could tell that a lot of science went into the specs.  This included making sure that the magnets were strong enough to hold the cover on and still have a 3 year old remove the cover without effort. I am glad that they also decided the a USB port would be part of the spec since it give so many options.  They made the point that this allows Surface to leverage over 420 million existing devices.  That works for me. The last feature that I really thought was important was the microSD port.  Begin stuck with the onboard memory has been an aggravation of mine with many of the devices in the market today. I think they did job of really getting the audience to understand why you want this platform and this particular device.  Using personal examples like creating a video of a birthday party and being in it or the fact that the device was being used to live blog the event and control the lights and presentation.  They showed very well that it was not only fun but very capable of getting real work done.  Handing out tablets to the crowd didn’t hurt either.  In the end I really wanted a Surface even though I really have no need for one on a daily basis.  Great job Microsoft! del.icio.us Tags: Windows 8,Win8,Windows 8 Luanch

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• What is "egoless programming"?

  - by Bob Murphy

  I first heard this term about fifteen years ago. My understanding is similar to that described in the Wikipedia article and a TechRepublic article: you work with your colleagues in a "friendly, collegiate way in which personal feelings are put aside". It includes things like doing peer reviews with mutual respect and a desire to learn, and not feeling like you "own" code, so if somebody has a suggestion or says there's a bug or needs to change it, you don't get defensive about it. I've also thought it was largely about having an attitude that makes for good relations with other programmers with the goal of improving the code. So I haven't seen it as being incompatible with taking pride in the quality of your work or feeling regret if something you did caused your customer a problem. However, an answer to a recent question makes me think some other programmers have different understandings about "egoless programming". So what is the correct definition? And what are its implications?

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• Is The Ease Of Windows Phone Development Ruining Its Image

  - by Tim Murphy

  I was reading an article on Mashable recently by a long time iPhone user who is living solely on a Lumia 920 at the moment and giving her assessment.  One thing that struck a nerve with me was her describing the Windows Phone ecosystem as immature.  She wasn’t saying this because of the number of apps or the big names like most people do.  She means the quality of the apps in the store. This hit a nerve with me.  I find it hard to believe that the majority of app on iOS are of any higher quality than any other platform.  I believe in any ecosystem you are going to find some high end, high quality apps, but the majority by default will be from people who are trying to solve a problem but do not have the resources to have top graphics and full blown testing.  There will also be a large number that are just there trying to trick you into giving up some cash. Does any of the mean that we shouldn’t take notice of this complaint?  Of course not!  We should always strive to publish the best quality apps possible.  Don’t do things like leaving default app icons and backgrounds.  Put a little effort into your design.  You should also spend as much time as possible ensuring against crashes and giving the user the best experience possible.  Think through your apps organization and navigation.  Go the extra step of putting it into beta and letting select people use it and give you feedback before going to full release. Remember, if we want people to appreciate the Windows Phone platform we have to make sure we give them apps that they are going to enjoy using. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,iPhone,iOS,Nokia,Lumia 920,Mashable

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• Can I develop a game using C++ and deploy to XBOX 360?

  - by Murphy

  I'm a C# developer and an enthusiast of XNA, but I'm really disappointed with the game engines available for XNA. I was using Torque X, which is really good, but GarageGames no longer supports Torque X for XNA 4.1. I searched for other engines, but only the sunburn was worth it and would have to pay - I already spent money with Torque. Based on this, I'm thinking about starting to develop in C++. Can I develop with some C++ engines and deploy to XBox 360?

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• Local LINQtoSQL Database For Your Windows Phone 7 Application

  - by Tim Murphy

  There aren’t many applications that are of value without having some for of data store.  In Windows Phone development we have a few options.  You can store text directly to isolated storage.  You can also use a number of third party libraries to create or mimic databases in isolated storage.  With Mango we gained the ability to have a native .NET database approach which uses LINQ to SQL.  In this article I will try to bring together the components needed to implement this last type of data store and fill in some of the blanks that I think other articles have left out. Defining A Database The first things you are going to need to do is define classes that represent your tables and a data context class that is used as the overall database definition.  The table class consists of column definitions as you would expect.  They can have relationships and constraints as with any relational DBMS.  Below is an example of a table definition. First you will need to add some assembly references to the code file. using System.ComponentModel;using System.Data.Linq;using System.Data.Linq.Mapping; You can then add the table class and its associated columns.  It needs to implement INotifyPropertyChanged and INotifyPropertyChanging.  Each level of the class needs to be decorated with the attribute appropriate for that part of the definition.  Where the class represents the table the properties represent the columns.  In this example you will see that the column is marked as a primary key and not nullable with a an auto generated value. You will also notice that the in the column property’s set method It uses the NotifyPropertyChanging and NotifyPropertyChanged methods in order to make sure that the proper events are fired. [Table]public class MyTable: INotifyPropertyChanged, INotifyPropertyChanging{ public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; private void NotifyPropertyChanged(string propertyName) { if(PropertyChanged != null) { PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); } } public event PropertyChangingEventHandler PropertyChanging; private void NotifyPropertyChanging(string propertyName) { if(PropertyChanging != null) { PropertyChanging(this, new PropertyChangingEventArgs(propertyName)); } } private int _TableKey; [Column(IsPrimaryKey = true, IsDbGenerated = true, DbType = "INT NOT NULL Identity", CanBeNull = false, AutoSync = AutoSync.OnInsert)] public int TableKey { get { return _TableKey; } set { NotifyPropertyChanging("TableKey"); _TableKey = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("TableKey"); } } The last part of the database definition that needs to be created is the data context.  This is a simple class that takes an isolated storage location connection string its constructor and then instantiates tables as public properties. public class MyDataContext: DataContext{ public MyDataContext(string connectionString): base(connectionString) { MyRecords = this.GetTable<MyTable>(); } public Table<MyTable> MyRecords;} Creating A New Database Instance Now that we have a database definition it is time to create an instance of the data context within our Windows Phone app.  When your app fires up it should check if the database already exists and create an instance if it does not.  I would suggest that this be part of the constructor of your ViewModel. db = new MyDataContext(connectionString);if(!db.DatabaseExists()){ db.CreateDatabase();} The next thing you have to know is how the connection string for isolated storage should be constructed.  The main sticking point I have found is that the database cannot be created unless the file mode is read/write.  You may have different connection strings but the initial one needs to be similar to the following. string connString = "Data Source = 'isostore:/MyApp.sdf'; File Mode = read write"; Using you database Now that you have done all the up front work it is time to put the database to use.  To make your life a little easier and keep proper separation between your view and your viewmodel you should add a couple of methods to the viewmodel.  These will do the CRUD work of your application.  What you will notice is that the SubmitChanges method is the secret sauce in all of the methods that change data. private myDataContext myDb;private ObservableCollection<MyTable> _viewRecords;public ObservableCollection<MyTable> ViewRecords{ get { return _viewRecords; } set { _viewRecords = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("ViewRecords"); }}public void LoadMedstarDbData(){ var tempItems = from MyTable myRecord in myDb.LocalScans select myRecord; ViewRecords = new ObservableCollection<MyTable>(tempItems);}public void SaveChangesToDb(){ myDb.SubmitChanges();}public void AddMyTableItem(MyTable newScan){ myDb.LocalScans.InsertOnSubmit(newScan); myDb.SubmitChanges();}public void DeleteMyTableItem(MyTable newScan){ myDb.LocalScans.DeleteOnSubmit(newScan); myDb.SubmitChanges();} Updating existing database What happens when you need to change the structure of your database?  Unfortunately you have to add code to your application that checks the version of the database which over time will create some pollution in your codes base.  On the other hand it does give you control of the update.  In this example you will see the DatabaseSchemaUpdater in action.  Assuming we added a “Notes” field to the MyTable structure, the following code will check if the database is the latest version and add the field if it isn’t. if(!myDb.DatabaseExists()){ myDb.CreateDatabase();}else{ DatabaseSchemaUpdater dbUdater = myDb.CreateDatabaseSchemaUpdater(); if(dbUdater.DatabaseSchemaVersion < 2) { dbUdater.AddColumn<MyTable>("Notes"); dbUdater.DatabaseSchemaVersion = 2; dbUdater.Execute(); }} Summary This approach does take a fairly large amount of work, but I think the end product is robust and very native for .NET developers.  It turns out to be worth the investment. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Windows Phone 7,LINQ to SQL,LINQ,Database,Isolated Storage

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• November 2012 Chicago IT Architects Group Meeting Announcement

  - by Tim Murphy

  The year is quickly coming to an end.  This is the most exciting part of the year with technology manufacturers in overdrive trying to release as many products for Christmas as possible.  Our group is trying to do our part to bring order to the madness with one last presentation for the year.  Norman Murrin will be speaking on November 20th on Adopting Agile Processes in the Enterprise.  Be sure to join us by registering at the link below. Register del.icio.us Tags: Chicago Information Technology Architects Group,CITAG,Agile,Architecture

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• Review: Logitech t620 Touch Mouse and Windows 8

  - by Tim Murphy

  It isn’t very often that I worry much about hardware, but since I heard some others talking about “touch” mice for their Windows 8 machines I figured I would try one out and see what the experience was.  The only Windows 8 compatible touch mouse that they had in the store was the Logitech t630 Touch Mouse.  At $69 it isn’t exactly a cheap purchase. So how does it work with Windows 8.  First it works well as a normal mouse with touch scroll capabilities.  Scrolling works both horizontally and vertically.  Then you get into to the Win8 features, all of which are associated with the back 2/3 of the mouse.  If you double-touch-tap (not depressing the internal button) it acts as a Windows home screen button.  The next feature is switching applications.  This is accomplished by dragging a finger from the left edge of the mouse in.  Bringing up the Windows 8 open apps list is the same movement as on the table where you drag in from the left and then move back to the right.  The last gesture available is to bring up the charms.  This is performed by dragging in from the right side of the mouse. There is a certain amount of configurability.  You can switch dominant hand configuration as well as turn on and off gestures as shown in the screenshot below. It is nice that they kept the gestures similar to the table gestures.  Hopefully future updates to the drivers will bring other gestures, but this is definitely a good start.  It would be interesting to also compare this to the Microsoft Touch Mouse and see if there are additional gestures such as app close and for the app bar. del.icio.us Tags: Logitech,Windows 8,Win8,t620,Logitech t620 Touch Mouse,Gesture

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• Using foldr to append two lists together (Haskell)

  - by Luke Murphy

  I have been given the following question as part of a college assignment. Due to the module being very short, we are using only a subset of Haskell, without any of the syntactic sugar or idiomatic shortcuts....I must write: append xs ys : The list formed by joining the lists xs and ys, in that order append (5:8:3:[]) (4:7:[]) => 5:8:3:4:7:[] I understand the concept of how foldr works, but I am only starting off in Functional programming. I managed to write the following working solution (hidden for the benefit of others in my class...) : However, I just can't for the life of me, explain what the hell is going on!? I wrote it by just fiddling around in the interpreter, for example, the following line : foldr (\x -> \y -> x:y) [] (2:3:4:[]) which returned [2:3:4] , which led me to try, foldr (\x -> \y -> x:y) (2:3:4:[]) (5:6:7:[]) which returned [5,6,7,2,3,4] so I worked it out from there. I came to the correct solution through guess work and a bit of luck... I am working from the following definition of foldr: foldr = \f -> \s -> \xs -> if null xs then s else f (head xs) (foldr f s (tail xs) ) Can someone baby step me through my correct solution? I can't seem to get it....I already have scoured the web, and also read a bunch of SE threads, such as How foldr works

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• Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 3: Key Concerns

  - by Tim Murphy

  This is part 3 in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Keys Concerns Of Smartphones In The Enterprise These are the factors that you need to be aware of and address in order to build successful enterprise smartphone applications.  Most of them have nothing to do with the application itself as you will see here. Managing Devices Managing devices is a factor that is going to effect how much your company will have to spend outside of developing the applications.  How will you track the devices within the corporation?  How often will you have to replace phones and as a consequence have to upgrade your applications to support new phones?  The devices can represent a significant investment of capital.  If these questions are not addressed you will find a number of hidden costs throughout the life of your solution. Purchase or BYOD We have seen the trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) lately within the enterprise.  How many meetings have you been in where someone is on their personal iPad, iPhone, Android phone or Windows Phone?  The issue is if you can afford to support everyone's choice in device? That is a lot to take on even if you only support the current release of each platform. Do you go with the most popular device or do you pick a platform that best matches your current ecosystem and distribute company owned devices?  There is no easy answer here, but you should be able give some dollar value to both hardware and development costs related to platform coverage. Asset Tracking/Insurance Smartphones are devices that are easier to lose or have stolen than laptops and desktops. Not only do you have your normal asset management concerns but also assignment of financial responsibility. You also will need to insure them against damage and theft and add legal documents that spell out the responsibilities of the employees that use these devices. Personal vs. Corporate Data What happens when you terminate an employee?  How do you recover the device?  What happens when they have put personal data on the device?  These are all situation that can cause possible loss of corporate intellectual property or legal repercussions of reclaiming a device with personal data on it.  Policies need to be put in place that protect the company from being exposed to type of loss.  This can mean significant legal and procedural cost that you need to consider. Coming Up In the last installment of this series I will cover application development considerations. del.icio.us Tags: Smartphones,Enterprise Smartphone Apps,Architecture

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• Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 1: Why Build Smart Phone Apps

  - by Tim Murphy

  This is part 1 in a series of post based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Intro Most of us already carry smartphones. We play games on them. We keep up with what is going on with our friends and our favorite teams. We take pictures of our kids at their events. But the question is if that is all they are good for. Many companies have aspects of their business that lend themselves to being performed by mobile devices. Some of them lean toward larger device such as tablets, but many can be executed on smartphones. This and the following articles will discuss some of the possible applications of smartphone technology for businesses, the platforms that are available and the considerations you need to make when building them. I'll take a look at some specific scenarios and wrap up with a couple of capabilities that are just emerging that can be used in the future. Why Build Enterprise Smartphone Applications So what are some of the ways that you can leverage smartphone technology to gain efficiency in your business or a clients business. There are a few major areas that I have seen mobile platforms being an advantage to. Your mobile sales force is a key candidate for leveraging smartphone apps.  They can visit clients in their retail location and place orders on site. It is a more personal approach which can gain you customer loyalty.  A sales person may also gather information about the way a client does business or who their target market is. This allows them you to focus marketing information or build customized support for your customer. You may also have need to track physical inventory in a store. This is something that has historically been done with laser scanners, but with the camera capabilities in today's phones and tablets it is possible to use more general multi-purpose devices.  This can save costs on both hardware and telecommunication contracts. Delivery verification is another area that historically has been the domain of specialized devices but can now be accomplished with smartphones.  This also reduces costs because it is also used for communicating with the driver and other operations.  Add to that the navigation capability of smartphones and you can see how the return on investment increases. Executives are always on the go. They spend most of their time in meetings and yet they need access to decision making information at their finger tips. With a smartphone app they can get alerts when major sales are closed or critical accounting process are completed that may need their attention. They can also answer questions by instantly pulling up BI reports. I have often heard operations support people say that they need things like VPN and RDP from their phones. If they can also have notifications of outages or critical support requests they can be react to situations without needing to be tied to their desks. These are all valid reasons to need smartphone applications.  In the next installment I will discuss platforms and features. del.icio.us Tags: Smartphones,Enterprise Smartphone Apps,Architecture

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• Sept. Chicago IT Architects Group Recap

  - by Tim Murphy

  Thank you to everyone who came out for last night’s presentation.  Hopefully we will have a little better turnout next month when we are back on our regular night.  I will post out the topic and the registration as soon as we get confirmation. For those interested in last night’s presentation you can find the slides here.  I am also planning on making a white paper post here with the full presentation content. See you next month. del.icio.us Tags: Chicago Information Technology Architects Group,Smartphones,Enterprise,Development

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• Getting Requirements Right

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/10/28/getting-requirements-right.aspxI had a meeting with a stakeholder who stated “I bet you wish I wasn’t in these meetings”.  She said this because she kept changing what we thought the end product should look like.  My reply was that it would be much worse if she came in at the end of the project and told us we had just built the wrong solution. You have to take the time to get the requirements right.  Be honest with all involved parties as to the amount of time it is taking to refine the requirements.  The only thing worse than wrong requirements is a surprise in budget overages.  If you give open visibility to your progress then management has the ability to shift priorities if needed. In order to capture the best requirements use different approaches to help your stakeholders to articulate their needs.  Use mock ups and matrix spread sheets to allow them to visualize and confirm that everyone has the same understanding.  The goals isn’t to record every last detail, but to have the major landmarks identified so there are fewer surprises along the way. Help the team members to understand that you all have the same goal.  You want to create the best possible solution for the given business problem.  If you do this everyone involved will do there best to outline a picture of what is to be built and you will be able to design an appropriate solution to fill those needs more easily. Technorati Tags: requirements gathering,PSC Group,PSC

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• My Favorite Free Windows Phone Twitter App

  - by Tim Murphy

  Windows Phone 7 has been out for about two years now.  In that time I have switched back and forth with different free Twitter apps.  Mostly the has been because someone has mentioned one or another that they like.  I figured I would give a quick run down of what I felt were the pros and cons of each.  These are only the ones that I have used and your mileage may vary.  So here we go. WP7 Built-In Twitter Functionality While it is great that Microsoft put this functionality in, it is extremely limited in usefulness.  Some apps leverage it to allow you to share pictures or information they contain.  In all though, I don’t use it unless it is the quickest way to get something out. Official Twitter App The official Twitter app isn’t a very big step up from the phone functionality.  It gives you a better timeline view and better attachment handling, but it makes you bounce to a browser page to see images that are linked to a tweet. TweetCaster This was my main Twitter app for quite a while.  It is the only one with InstaPaper integration so that you can save you a tweet and review it later.  My main problem is that it crashes too much when it can’t find a connection.  It also only previews yfrog and twitpic images and only once you go to the detail of a tweet.  Other than that it is a solid Twitter client. moTweets This is my current favorite. It has nice image display in your timeline which I have not seen on any of the other apps.  There are two modes that you can use with this app.  The first is standard to most Twitter apps that allows you to navigate to a tweet and do the usual operations.  The second is what they call Quick Buttons.  In this case you do not see the content of the tweet but go straight to the let’s get something done stage.  It is an interesting take.  I do miss the Instapaper integration and it has a tendency to show a blank timeline list once in a while after you view detail entry.  If you scroll the list it restore your timeline, but you lose you place and are put to the first entry. Seesmic I am not very fond of this app.  The first thing is that it makes you pick a “Space” when you enter the app.  This is really “which account do you want to see”.  On top of that it does not show who retweeted an entry in your timeline and then only tells you how many people RT the post when you look at the detail.  There is a Speak feature that will read you a single tweet, but you have to navigate to the tweet and then to a menu to make it work.  We will have to see if this gets better with the features in Windows Phone 8.  Other than that it is another basic feature app.  Summary In the end I am sticking with moTweets.  I would appreciate it if they added the Instapaper capability and fixed the one bug.  If they did that I would be really happy with the product. del.icio.us Tags: Twitter,Windows Phone 7,WP7,TweetCaster,moTweets,Seesmic

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• Email with extra '.com' behind sender email address

  - by CHT

  Currently I had a situation where I sent an email to [email protected], but when I receive mail from [email protected], it showed as [email protected], with extra '.com' behind the email address, this just happen within this week. Before this, I didn't change any setting, currently I am using Outlook 2010. When I checked the email in webmail, it also showed it as [email protected]. It seem that it has nothing to do with Outlook. However, I also tried on Thunderbird 16.0.1, but still the problem is the same. Has anyone experienced this before? Is the problem caused by the sender or receiver? Header Message as below: Return-Path: [email protected] Received: from colo4.roaringpenguin.com (not-assigned.privatedns.com [174.142.115.36] (may be forged)) by pioneerpos.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id q9V6OsKU032650 for [email protected]; Wed, 31 Oct 2012 01:24:55 -0500 Received: from mail.pointsoft.com.tw (pointsoft.com.tw [59.124.242.126]) by colo4.roaringpenguin.com (8.14.3/8.14.3/Debian-9.4) with ESMTP id q9V6OmN0026374 for [email protected]; Wed, 31 Oct 2012 02:24:50 -0400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01CDB730.6B3D5A51" Subject: =?big5?B?scTByrPmLblzpfM=?= Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:25:16 +0800 Message-ID: X-MS-Has-Attach: yes X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: thread-topic: =?big5?B?scTByrPmLblzpfM=?= thread-index: Ac23MH3YpZuLx2ejTYqR5PfoZ+IoBw== X-Priority: 1 Priority: Urgent Importance: high From: "Alice" [email protected] To: "Bob" [email protected] X-Spam-Score: undef - pointsoft.com.tw is whitelisted. X-CanIt-Geo: ip=59.124.242.126; country=TW; region=03; city=Taipei; latitude=25.0392; longitude=121.5250; http://maps.google.com/maps?q=25.0392,121.5250&z=6 X-CanItPRO-Stream: pioneerpos-com:default (inherits from rp-customers:default,base:default) X-Canit-Stats-ID: 02IhGoMJb - 2e7fa924443e - 20121031 X-CanIt-Archive-Cluster: irqpXI7aJGyo4Ewta7qVH399FOg X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 174.142.115.36

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• Today's Links (6/29/2011)

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Event-Driven SOA: Events meet Services | Guido Schmutz Oracle ACE Director Guido Schmutz shows you how to achieve extreme loose coupling within a Service-Oriented Architecture by using event-driven interactions. Misconceptions About Software Architecture | Sanjeev Kumar A concise, to-the-point, and informative article by Sanjeev Kumar. Good Leaders Acknowledge What Can't Be Done - Jeffrey Pfeffer - Harvard Business Review "None of us likes to admit to bad decisions," says Jeffrey Pfeffer. "But imagine how much harder that is for someone who has been chosen to lead a large organization precisely because he or she is thought to have the power to see the future more clearly and chart a wise course." Suboptimal Thinking within Enterprise Architecture | James McGovern McGovern says: "We need to remember that enterprises live and thrive beyond just the current person at the helm." Boundaryless Information Flow | Richard Veryard "If all the boundaries are removed or porous, then the (extended) enterprise or ecosystem becomes like a giant sponge, in which all information permeates the whole," Veryard says. "Some people may think that's a good idea, but it's not what I'd call loose coupling." Coming to a City Near You: Oracle Business Analytics Summits | Rob Reynolds This series of events includes a Technology and Architecture track. New Date for Implementation of Sun Hands-On Course Requirement (Oracle Certification) As announced on the Oracle Certification website, Java Architect, Java Developer, Solaris System Administrator and Solaris Security Administrator certification tracks will include a new mandatory course attendance requirement. VirtualBox 4.0.10 is now available for download | Bob Netherton Netherton shares information on the new release. Updated Technical Best Practices whitepaper | Anthony Shorten The Technical Best Practices whitepaper has been updated with the latest advice. "New advice includes new installation advice, advanced settings, new security settings and advice for both Oracle WebLogic and IBM WebSphere installations," says Shorten. Kscope 11 ADF, AIA and Business Rules | Peter Paul van de Beek Whitehorses Solution Architect Peter Paul van de Beek shares his impressions of KScope11 presentations by Markus Eisele, Sten Vesterli, and Edwin Biemond. Amazon AWS for the learning experience | Andrej Koelewijn "Using AWS changes your expectations how your internal data center should operate," says Koelewijn. BPMN is dead, long live BPEL! (SOA Partner Community Blog) Jürgen Kress shares information -- including a long list of speakers -- for the SOA & BPM Integration Days 2011 conference, October 12th & 13th 2011 in Düsseldorf. InfoQ: HTML5 and the Dawn of Rich Mobile Web Applications James Pearce introduces cross-platform web apps development using HTML5 and web frameworks, such as jQTouch, jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, PhoneGap, outlining what makes a good framework. InfoQ: Interview and Book Excerpt: CMMI for Development "Frameworks like TOGAF are used to define an architecture that aligns IT assets and resources to support key business needs and processes of key stakeholders," says SEI's Mike Konrad. "But the individual application systems, capabilities, services, networks, and other IT assets and infrastructure still need to be acquired, developed, or sustained." InfoQ: Architecting a Cloud-Scale Identity Fabric | Eric Olden "The most cited reason for not moving to the cloud is concern about security," says Olden. "In particular, managing user identity and access in the cloud is a tough problem to solve and a big security concern for organizations."

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• Is there a simple LDAP-to-HTTP gateway out there?

  - by larsks

  We have a local LDAP directory that provides basic contact information about our user community. We would like to integrate this into some third-party hosted services that allow us to implement widgets that run arbitrary Javascript. In order to connect Javascript to our LDAP directory, I would like to set up a simple LDAP-to-HTTP proxy that would accept HTTP GET requests, translate them into an appropriate LDAP query, and respond with directory information as JSON-encoded data. In an ideal world, something like this: GET /[email protected] Would get me something like this: { "cn": "Bob Person", "title": "System Administrator", "sn": "Person", "mail": "[email protected]", "telepehoneNumber": "617-555-1212", "givenName": "Bob" } (And this obviously assumes that the web application has locally configured information about what base DN to use, how to authenticate, etc). I guess I could write one...but surely something like this already exists? UPDATE The consensus seems to be that there isn't a pre-existing solution out there and that I should just get off my lazy derriere and write one. So I did, and it's here. It's not especially pretty, but it works for my prototyping and I figure maybe someone else will find it useful someday.

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• Login to OS X Server User Account from Local Computer

  - by Brod Wilkinson

  I have OS X Server installed on a mac mini. I've created several User accounts, one of which is Account Name: Bob Password: abc123 From the Mac Mini's login screen I can choose "Server" (main account) "Bob" (Bobs account) and "Other..." OS X Server Accounts, from "Other..." if I input Bobs credentials it will log me in. I also have a macbook air, I would like to be able to select from the Login Screen "Other..." input Bobs credentials and have it login to Bobs account, or any other User Account for that matter. My Server is setup as private with the server address: server.network.private Following some googled instructions as well as apples very own instructions I have: Setup an Open Directory with Username: diradmin Password: abc123 Then on the macbook air gone into System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options and clicked Join next to Network Account Server, input my server (server.network.private) with diradmin credentials and its connected. Great. I've also ticked Allow Network Users to Login and Login Window and selected All Users. I was assuming this would allow my macbook air to login to the "Bob" account by selecting "Other..." from the login window although there is no "Other..." option. I then setup a VPN, basic credentials, logged into it on the macbook air and still not much has changed. I am able to share screens with the "Bob" account form my macbook air by logging in by clicking Share Screen... from the Finder under Shared > Network Server and then clicking Login In but this obviously requires the macbook air to already be logged into an account before it can share screens which is not suitable. Is there any way to simply login to the OS X Server User Account from the macbook air's login screen via the "Other..." like it does on the mac mini's login screen? Thanks in advance. Operating System: OS X 10.9 Mavericks OS X Server: Version 3

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• Active Directory Restricted Group confusion

  - by pepoluan

  I am trying to implement Restricted Group policy for my company's AD infrastructure, namely standardizing the local "Administrators" group. The documentation (and various webpages) said that the "Members of this group" policy will wipe out the "Administrators" group. However, an experiment made me confused: I created 2 GPOs: GPO-A replaces the Local Administrators with a list of domain users (e.g., "Alice" and "Bob") GPO-B inserts a domain user (e.g., "Charlie" -- not part of GPO A) into the Local Administrators Experiment 1: GPO-A gets applied first (link order 2) Everything happens as expected: GPO-A cleans out Local Admins and add "Alice" & "Bob" gets added; GPO-B adds "Charlie". Experiment 2: GPO-B is applied first What happens: "Charlie" gets added to the Local Admins group (which also contains 2 local users) The local users on the PC gets deleted, and "Alice" and "Bob" gets added. Result: Local Admins contain "Alice", "Bob", and "Charlie" My confusion: In Experiment 2, I thought GPO-A will totally erase the Local Admins group, including users added by GPO-B (since GPO-A gets applied after GPO-B). As it happens, it only erase local users from the Local Admins, but keeps the domain users. So, is that the way it should be? Or am I doing something incorrectly?

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• IIS7 - Virtual Directories' Parent Paths behaving differently than previous versions

  - by MisterZimbu

  I'm doing a migration of a web server running on IIS 5 to IIS 7. I'm noticing that the virtual directories are behaving differently between the two. I have a site located at c:\inetpub\SiteName. This site contains a virtual directory "bob" that points at c:\virtualdirs\bob. There's a script in the bob folder (script.asp) that contains just: <!--#include virtual="../index.asp"--> I'm noticing different behaviors between IIS5 and IIS7 when I attempt to run the script by going to http://SiteName/bob/script.asp: IIS5 references the parent path of the site, and imports c:\inetpub\SiteName\index.asp. IIS7 references the parent folder of the virtual directory, and looks for a c:\virtualdirs\index.asp (that doesn't exist). Doing a Response.Write of a Server.MapPath confirms this. Is there a way to get IIS7 to behave like IIS5 in this regard? Unfortunately, moving index.asp and its logic into the virtualdirs folder isn't an option as the virtual directory will be shared across many sites (with differing index.asps). Thanks.

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• problem with .Net xml importnode in powershell

  - by Trondh

  Hi, Im trying to construct a powershell script that uses some XML. I have a XML document where I try to add some values with email addresses. The finished xml document should have this format: (I'm only showing the relevant part of the xml here) <emailAddresses> <value>[email protected]</value> <value>[email protected]</value> <value>[email protected]</value> </emailAddresses> SO, in powershell I try to do this as a test, which fails: $newNumber = [xml] '<value>555-1215</value>' $newNode = $Request2.ImportNode($newNumber.value, $true) $emailnode.AppendChild($newNode) After some reading, I have figured out that if I do this, it suceeds: $newNumber = [xml] '<value name="flubber">555-1215</value>' $newNode = $Request2.ImportNode($newNumber.value, $true) $emailnode.AppendChild($newNode) So, I am stuck. I'm starting to wonder if I should use another function instead of importnode when I have several keys with the same name but different values. As you guys probably have figured out by now, i'm not an expert in xml. ANy help appreciated!

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• What are the disadvantages of domain email forwarding?

  - by naivedeveloper

  I have a domain, example.com. My domain registrar gives me two options concerning email. Set up forwarding email addresses (e.g., [email protected] forwarded to [email protected]. Set up Google Apps for email management Thus far, I have gone with option 1. I have a generic GMail email, [email protected], and I subsequently set up various email addresses on my registrar to forward to this gmail address: [email protected] -> [email protected] [email protected] -> [email protected] [email protected] -> [email protected] Through the GMail account, I have the option to alias these addresses when sending email. For example, from [email protected], I can "send email as" [email protected]. That way from the vantage point of the receiver of the email, the email came from [email protected] as opposed to [email protected]. My question is: Are there any disadvantages of this approach? Are these emails more susceptible to being picked up by spam filters vs using the Google Apps approach? Is there any hidden indication that the email is being aliased? When viewing the email headers, it shows the email was sent from [email protected] and not [email protected] or "forwarded from [email protected]" or anything like that. Am I naive in assuming that my cheap approach to email is masked by aliasing my outgoing emails? I have chosen approach number 1 simply because of the ease of setup. With that said, are there any advantages of going with approach 2 (the Google Apps approach)? Thanks for suggestions and advice.

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