Brian H. Prince

I Solve Problems in the Shower

2008-07-03T14:17:00.001-04:00

I like to solve problems. It’s in my blood. I have a feeling if you are in this industry, it’s in your blood too. I think this is why I was drawn to Math and Physics growing up, and ended up studying them in college (along with CompSci of course). I think this is also why I like the type of games that I like to play. RPG’s, and RTS’s tend to be problem solving type games. Think of the missions you are assigned, or Civilization and SimCity. Those are problem simulators. Anyway…

When a problem gets in my head, I can’t shake it. There are times when I will hit a roadblock for days. One of my strategies is to take a break from the problem, get my mind off it. When I come back to the problem I usually have some fresh ideas on how to approach it. The time off gives me the ability to come back with a different perspective on the problem. That's why, when meeting with customers, I like to give some initial feedback, and then spend a day or two digesting what we talked about. This time gives me the perspective to give the best feedback I can.

Another approach I use is to list out all of the possible solutions on a whiteboard, aka Solo Brainstorming. This helps me get my thoughts together, gets some kinetics into the equation (Brain mapping software doesn’t seem to work for me in this scenario). The ideas seem to build on each other, and it makes for an easy ‘rule out the crap' process as well.

But my best solutions to problems, the biggest breakthroughs I have are always in the shower. I don’t know why. I think the isolation, the removal of distractions maybe? Anyway, that's where my best thinking happens.

There were many times when I would go into work, and start out with :

“I was thinking about you in the shower this morning, and I think we should …”

As part of keeping my problem solving skills fresh, I thought I would take a crack at the www.projecteurler.net problems. I got to the seventh problem in a few hours. One of the problems, #3, is stated:

The prime factors of 13195 are 5, 7, 13 and 29.

What is the largest prime factor of the number 600851475143 ?

Side note: At one point I had to refactor my code from int to Int64 because of the size of the number. I should have seen that in the first place.

At the surface, the algorithm to use is straight forward. Find the factors for the number, then determine which of those is prime, then determine the largest one of those. This is of course a brute force solution. We often just use brute force because cpu’s and RAM are so cheap today.

While the first order goal of the problems on the list is to solve them, your code is also expected to solve them in a minute. You don’t upload your code, you just type in the final answer. People post their code in the forum dedicated to each problem. Many people use assembly. Brings me back to the college days.

My first cut at the code took a while to calculate this, as a matter of fact, a whole conference call on the upcoming fiscal year.

While I didn’t use a timer, I think I didn’t make the one minute mark.

My process for finding factors was as tight as it could be. Finding primes is a brute force thing, there isn’t a formula that will tell you the nth prime number. That’s why there are those distributed computing screen savers out there.

I considered using the concurrency framework to split the work across my cores. But that would be a new fx to learn, and I wasn’t sure it would help.

So I started my isPrime loop at the top of list! While there were hundreds of factors, and only a few of them were primes, I figured the largest prime factor was likely to be found on the upper end of the list.

Didn’t help, time wise at least.

So I took a shower (advantage of working from home). By the end, I had come up with ways of speeding up the process.

I recalled that there were better ways for testing the primality of a number besides making sure it didn’t have any other divisors besides 1 and n. This lead to finding out a different way of approaching the problem. I looked up the math, and implemented the code. It was done in only a few minutes.

You basically divide the number by primes until you have nothing left. Track the primes you used, and the answer is the largest one in the list. This is an inversion of the original approach. Why find all of the factors? Just test each prime that is less than the target number to see if it is a factor. Then, instead of testing hundreds of numbers for primality, I am only checking a few numbers.

I had an isPrime method.I did need to write a new helper method. I implemented a nextPrime method, that given any number, finds the next largest number that is a prime. I implemented a few optimizations here as well. For example, not checking even numbers past two.

I am sure I could tighten this code further, but it is ‘MeWare’, and I wanted to move on to the next problem.

I love solving problems.

private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    List<Int64> answers = new List<Int64>();

    Int64 remaining = Convert.ToInt64(textBox1.Text);
    Int64 divisor = 2;

    while (remaining > 3)
    {
        if (remaining % divisor == 0)
        {
            answers.Add(divisor);
            remaining = remaining / divisor;
        }
        else
            divisor = nextPrime(divisor);
    }

}

public static Int64 nextPrime(Int64 start)
        {
            Int64 numToCheck = 0;

            if (start > 2)
            {
                if (start % 2 == 0)
                    numToCheck = start + 2;
                else
                    numToCheck = start + 1;
            }
            else
                numToCheck = 3;

            while (!isPrime(numToCheck))
            {
                numToCheck++;
            }

            return numToCheck--;
        }

public static bool isPrime(Int64 target)
        { 
            // assumes target is > 2. I know, but it’s meware.

            if (target % 2 == 0)
                return false;

            for (Int64 i = 3; i < target; i=i+2)
            {
                if (target % i == 0)
                    return false;
            }

            return true;
        }

Improving Web Services Security (Beta)

2008-07-03T11:58:00.001-04:00

The patterns and practices team at Microsoft has been releasing beta’s of their new guide, ‘Improving Web Services Security.’

If you are a lead developer, or architect, and are working with web services (of any platform, but especially WCF) this should be required reading.

The guide does a great job first covering what you should care about, and look for with regards to security when designing web services.

The first section covers the fundamentals really well. What the threats are, and the related countermeasures. Don’t think that because your service in ‘internal’, and only called by consumers you provision that security isn’t important.

As each section delves into it’s topic, it relates back to a ‘Web Services Security Frame.’ This frame lists the different aspects you need to take into account as an architect for each component of what you are building.

I will list them here, so you get a sense for what they are covering:

Category
Description

Auditing and Logging
Auditing and logging refers to how security-related events are recorded, monitored, and audited.

Authentication
Authentication is the process where an entity proves the identity of another entity, typically through credentials, such as a user name and password.

Authorization
Authorization is how your service provides access controls for resources and operations.

Configuration Management
Configuration management refers to how your service handles database connections, administration and other configuration settings.

Exception Management
Exception management refers to how you handle exceptions within your application, including fault contracts.

Impersonation/Delegation
Impersonation and delegation refers to how your service impersonates users and passes identity information downstream for authorization purposes.

Message Encryption
Message encryption refers to protecting a message by converting the contents to cipher-text using cryptographic methods.

Message Replay Detection
Message replay detection refers to identifying and rejecting messages that are re-submitted.

Message Signing
Message signing refers to signing a message with a digital signature using cryptographic methods, to confirm the source of the message and detect if the contents have been tampered with (i.e. authentication and integrity of the message.)

Message Validation
Message validation refers to how you verify the message payload against schema, as well as message size, content and character sets. This includes how your service filters, scrubs and rejects input and output before additional processing. Input and output includes input from clients consuming the service as well as file-system input, as well as input from network resources, such as databases. Output typically includes the return values from your service or disk / database writes among others.

Sensitive Data
Sensitive data includes data integrity and confidentiality of your user and application data that you need to protect. This includes how you protect sensitive data from being stolen from memory, from configuration files or when transmitted over the network.

Session Management
A session refers to a series of related interactions between a client and your service.

A guide on web service security can scare people away. Your first thought is that it is a boring topic, with lots of details to slog through. Many security books I read just cover principles, and never give actual guidance. The guide finally comes through.

It’s also nice to see that some of the architecture I have used in the past fits some of the patterns included.

One section I will call out as an example, is in Chapter 07, Message and Transport Security.

It explains the differences (and pros/cons) of transport versus message security. What I like is that they provide some concrete guidance. For example,

Use transport security in the following scenarios:
• You are sending a message directly from your application to a WCF service and the message will not be routed through intermediate systems.
• Both the service and the client are located in an intranet.
Using transport security offers the following advantages:
• It provides interoperability, meaning that communicating parties do not need to understand WS-Security specifications.
• It may result in better performance.
• Hardware accelerators can be used to further improve the performance.
Using transport security has the following disadvantages:
• Security is applied on a point-to-point basis, with no provision for multiple hops or routing through intermediate application nodes.
• It supports a limited set of credentials and claims compared to message security.
• It is transport-dependent upon the underlying platform, transport mechanism, and security service provider, such as NTLM or Kerberos.

Chapter 05, Client Authentication and Service Authentication, covers a topic that I often get questions on. Namely, what pattern should an architect use regarding authentication and identity across the service boundaries. This guide covers the options, explains them well (with pictures!), and gives you the information you need to make the decision that is right for your project.

Many guides merely do an MSDN style breakdown of the options. An explanation without providing value. For example, sample code that breaks all best practices. In this guide, it explains an option, then tells you not to use it. I love it! Example:

Authentication Options with Message Security
The following authentication options are available when using message security:
• None. When using this option, the WCF service does not authenticate the callers. This is not the recommended option from a security perspective – avoid using this option wherever possible.

Anyway, if you have ANYTHING to do with web services or WCF, this is a must read. I find the web version easier to navigate and read than the PDF version.

My First Experiment with Silverlight Streaming

2008-06-24T15:29:00.001-04:00

I am in post production at the moment on a video I am hoping will be accepted as an Arcast episode. This is my first significant video editing experience, so I have had a lot of hurdles, and challenges to figure out. But this post isn’t about the horrible state of video editing software in the world right now (how anyone expects a normal consumer to do any of this is beyond me!).

I had a spare clip that was shot while we were doing a sound test. Jim Holmes and Philip Jordan just started gabbing. I thought this would be a good excuse to try out Silverlight streaming (while waiting 5.5 hours for the real video to render).

What is Silverlight Streaming? It is a new service off of live.com. You can go to http://silverlight.live.com to get all of the official details. Microsoft gives you up to 10GB of storage space, and up to 5TB of bandwidth! You simply login, and create an account.

Once you have an account, you can upload videos or music for online storage. You will be given a streaming ID (which is a public key), and a secret key for your own use, so you can secure your content.

You can then send links to those clips directly, or you can embed them in your web site, blog, etc. The Silverlight player will start streaming the video. Currently, no ads, bugs, or logos will be added onto your content. Later this year they will release an upgrade that allows you to generate ad revenue, just like AdCenter on your web site.

When you log into your account, you will see this menu.

If you click on the Manage Applications menu item, you will see where you can upload your own Silverlight application. This will let you have Microsoft host your application. The Silverlight Streaming system uses Microsoft’s global content network, so it’s reliable, fast, and always up.

Notice that it also shows you how much space you have available in your account.

I wanted to simply host a short video, so I clicked on Manage Videos. It list the videos I have uploaded, as well as some simple viewing statistics.

If I select a video, I will see a preview, some HTML code to embed it into a web site or blog, and a simple URL to send to people.

That’s it. It was really easy for me to do this. I didn’t have to ‘figure’ anything out. A lot easier than figuring out how to edit, and render video.

DevLink Bus

2008-06-24T14:43:00.001-04:00

Amanada Laucher (and others) are putting together a coach bus from Grand Rapids, Michigan, all the way down to Nashville and back for DevLink. There will be plenty of stops along the way to pick up more people. Check out the post to see the route they will take.

Years ago, before I joined MS, we did a similar bus from Columbus to Detroit for the VS2005 launch. It was a blast, and that was with only 16 people. We had video games, video interviews, wifi with Internet, DVD players, and a Russian driver that wasn’t afraid of the speed limit.

They are looking for sponsors to make the bus easy. Microsoft is sponsoring the bus, but they need more!

If you want to go to DevLink, but thought it was too far, now is your chance.

They will have more information up soon, along with registration.

CodeStock : Knoxville, TN –> August 9th, 2008

2008-06-11T12:32:00.001-04:00

CodeStock is a new local event in Knoxville, TN being put on by the community leaders in the area. Save the date on your calendar, and check out the site.

CodeStock's mission is to bring the best and brightest code experts to East Tennessee for a one day conference open to all developers. This is not a trade show with slick salesman giving prepared demos - this is a gathering of real programmers learning about the latest in technology from each other.

If you would like to speak at CodeStock, go to http://www.codestock.org/Pages/Speakers.aspx and put in your submission. We’re looking for talks in all areas of software development, including .NET, RIA, Web, AJAX, Databases, and other. This will be a great opportunity for you to speak and to show your knowledge to the community.

They plan on revealing major details next Tuesday on June 17th, so stay tuned.

Microsoft will be a Platinum sponsor.

I plan on being there and presenting my Soft Skillz talk. It will be hard to not make Woodstock comments all day long.

Speaking to students at ITT in Nashville, TN

2008-06-11T12:12:00.001-04:00

I will be speaking to a whole bunch of students at ITT in Nashville, TN this Friday (June 13th) at 6:00pm. Contact me if you want to attend. I will be covering my Soft Skillz talk, focusing on the career management aspects of it.

A Lap Around VS2008/.NET FX 3.5 SP1 Slide Deck

2008-06-11T12:00:00.001-04:00

Last night I delivered a talk to the Cleveland .NET User Group. I think we had about 60 people there.

We had a great time. Despite the rumors, there is no “Screw Developers!” button on the Excel tab for TFS.

Here are the slides.

Speaking: A Lap Around .NET 3.5 SP1 in Cleveland

2008-06-08T19:08:00.001-04:00

I will be presenting this Tuesday (June 10th, 2008) at the Bennett Adelson .NET SIG in Cleveland.

Summary:

.NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 are on track to be released this summer. In this presentation, Brian will cover a lap around the new frameworks, and features it includes. These servicing updates provide a roll-up of bug fixes and performance improvements for issues reported since Microsoft released the products last November. They also contain a number of feature additions and enhancements that make building .NET applications better. This includes ASP.NET Dynamic Data, ASP.NET Routing Engine, ASP.NET AJAX Back/Forward Button Support, ADO.NET Entity Framework, and LINQ to Entities, and ADO.NET Data Services.

Reserve Your Seat:
To confirm your attendance at this month's .NET SIG, please reserve your seat. Walk-ins are always welcome.

Location:
Microsoft Corporation
6050 Oak Tree Blvd.
Independence, Ohio 44131

Here is some information on Bennett Adelson’s group.

TheUMLGuy is on the air

2008-06-04T14:31:00.001-04:00

Many of you in the community may know Martin Shoemaker, either personally or by name. He has done a great deal for the community in the West Michigan area, and has been an MVP for a while.

He is a noted UML trainer, and is a big believer in UML as a discussion aid in designing systems (he, like I, draws the line at thinking UML can generate system code for you).

He has FINALLY started blogging at http://TheUMLGuy.spaces.live.com. Subscribed! His first post, which will ship later today, will be a video on the new UML features in Rosario.

Also, he has a UML class coming up :

UML Applied: From Customers to Code.
June 16, 8:30 - 4:00 at The Kalamazoo Air Zoo.

It's a one day class, so it's easy in & out.

If you sign up and say which user group you are a part of (regardless of type, so .NET, java, agile, etc.) then he will give you a 10% discount, and donate 5% to your user group. Now that is community support! I would love to see more vendors do that.

If you go, just don't mention Vista Speech APIs or tablets. You will derail him for hours. :)

Deep Fried Bytes Podcast, ep2.

2008-06-03T11:49:00.001-04:00

Keith Elder and Chris Woodruff have joined forces to start a podcast called 'Deep Fried Bytes'. The focus is going to be on pragmatic, hear-and-now technology, and related war stores.

The first episode was an introductory cast. The second podcast was recorded at the MVP summit, in the lobby bar of the W. It was a lot of fun. We tried to discuss interviewing war stories, and related advice, but half of it turned into a treatise on the 'using' statement (which in and of itself is worth listening to).

I normally don't listen to podcasts because I learn faster by reading, and I don't spend a lot of time in cars typically (unless on travel). Because my Zune makes it so easy to subscribe to podcasts, I have started subscribing with it. That way, when I am traveling, I have a ton load of content to listen to as I drive.

Vista Indexer Sidebar Gadget

2008-05-08T11:24:00.001-04:00

I run this gadget. People always ask about it, and where they can get it. Here it is. I like it because it gives me a control surface on the indexing engine that is normally hidden from view. I can see what it is doing, and can pause it while I am trying to give a demo, or some other critical event.

So go download it.

Ricardo is blogging

2008-05-06T23:01:00.001-04:00

Ricardo is a friend of mine that I have know through a customer, and through the community for a few years. He just let me know that he has started blogging, so I thought I would let everyone else know.

http://rixbits.blogspot.com/

Robots are cool.

2008-04-24T16:29:00.001-04:00

Let's face it, we have all dreamed of programming robots to do cool things, like fetch batteries for our wireless mice, pick up that stray d20 that fell under the table, or just to chase cats around the scale model Lego Death Star.

There have been several games over the years that I have played (on almost every platform) that had a variation on this theme. One, on the Apple IIe, had you wiring together logic circuits and sensors to make the robot solve a challenge in a room (navigate force fields for example).

Microsoft is starting a new competition that taps into this endless pool of hope we all have (still waiting for the flying cars!). RoboChamps.com.

There will be a series of challenges over the next few months, with contestant rules and everything. You compete by using the MS Robotics Developer Studio, and a challenge kit. You program the robot to complete the goals in the challenge. The robot you program is a simulation of a real robot, as well as the environment. The first challenge is "Amazed Challenge". You have to navigate a maze, that has traps. You have to teach your robot to open doors, etc.

Future challenges include navigating the surface of Mars in a Mars-rover like robot. That's cool. I hear it gets great gas mileage.

To get started, you have to:

0. Watch the Sports Center meets 'Number 5 is alive' video on RoboChamps.com.

1. Create an account. I used 'Wirehed', my Xbox Live handle.

2. Download VS2008 (express works fine, and it's free).

3. Download the MS Robotics Developer Studio 2008 CTP1.

4. Download the Challenge pack.

5. Do your voodoo, and write some code. Solve some challenges. Have some fun.

6. There are blogs, and forums.

7. Upload your code to enter the competition.

Each challenge will have its own prizes. The maze challenge has CoroWare CoroBot ( $3219.00 ) as the first prize. It looks big enough to chase household pets.

Go check out the site. You can download sample code. I think this is a great way to learn .NET as well. I am trying to pull together funds for next year to hold challenges at local events.

WCF Channel for Intra Process Communication

2008-04-24T09:15:00.001-04:00

WCF is awesome technology. I think it is the second most important technology an enterprise .NET developer should learn today. The first being LINQ (which is far easier to learn).

With great power and flexibility comes some cost. WCF has to build the channel, proxies, etc etc. (You thought I was going with the Spiderman quote, didn't you?)

This cost is worthy if you are talking across physical boundaries. But a lot of teams are using WCF now just to talk to services that happen to be hosted on the same machine. There is an interprocess binding called netNamedPipeBinding that will use Named Pipes to communicate through memory instead of the wire, with a service hosted on the same machine.

That's great. But what if you want to communicate with a service hosted in the same app domain without having to jump out and back in? The Null channel adapter covers this scenario.

This is very useful if you have different WF workflows running on the same box that need to communicate with each other.

I had heard about this at the Summit, and I am glad Roman Kiss put so much effort into this. His article (link above) on codeproject goes in depth into how this works, and when you would use it.

This just shows the power and extensibility of the WCF APIs.

Announcing Windows Live Mesh Technical Preview

2008-04-23T00:44:00.001-04:00

Jeff Blankenburg and I have been dog-fooding a new platform called Windows Live Mesh for the past month or two. On the surface, it just looks like another cool Web 2.0 application with some Software + Services architecture for fun.

But Live Mesh is leveraging two big trends we have all seen in our lives. The explosion of the web's role in our lives, and the vast array of digital devices we have. Many of these new devices can access the Internet (cell phones and cameras), or are network aware. Can you imagine what the Apollo program might have looked liked with today's technology?

I was talking to a friend that has a new phone, and he is trying to get all of his contacts (how many places do you store contacts?) synchronized everywhere, and easily accessible wherever he is. How many computers do you work on throughout the day, and forget something on the other?

See some sample screen shots, and read the official announcement at Introducing Live Mesh.

Our lives are filled with disconnected digital islands.

What about when you add an new device in your life? I just got a new Alienware laptop (post coming). How much time do I spend integrating it into my existing, analog, old fashioned mesh?

That is just the beginning. Imagine what it will be like once my XBox 360, Media Center, MP3 player, car stereo/bluetooth, printer, digital picture frame (which I don't use because I have to manually update the pictures), my cameras (still and video), actually work together to make my life easier.

Once you create your mesh, and join your computers to it, you can do some great things. A simple feature is to sync folders over your mesh, so that they are accessible anywhere, ever on your web desktop! Hey, and since our devices are meshed, what about remote desktop? Sure! Remote Desktop is supported (and I believe it does not use RDP, so it gets through firewalls). I have already used these features a lot as I try to get my new laptop setup, and as I travel around the area.

What is a Technical Preview?

A Technical Preview is a limited release of a limited set of functionality. It's kind of like a "proof of concept", but more concrete. We want to get some web and desktop developers hands on the bits so the can provide us some feedback (some people call this transparency). We will also be testing for scalability, and other issues. There is no support, nor any expectation of uptime, or that the APIs won't change.

There is currently a very limited API. The full blown APIs will be released over the next few months (both .NET and JavaScript), as the platform is expanded and filled in. Not only will they be rich, but extensible. Being extensible is very important. It allows me, as a developer, to add my own sense to the platform. The APIs are identical for local and cloud use, which makes leveraging them much simpler.

The Technical Preview is by invitation only. If you are invited, please participate, and provide thoughtful feedback. I have given a lot of feedback over the past few months to the product team, and they have been very open about discussing the options, and the reasons for choices. It's nice to work with such an open team.

Timeline for a production release has not been set, but an open beta is targeted for the fall.

What can I do with this today?

When you join Mesh, you get an online desktop. This desktop in the cloud has 5GB of available storage.

While currently limited to web and local desktops, mobile and cross platform support (i.e. Mac) is on the schedule. I can't wait to access contacts and data from any of my devices, regardless of where the data IS!

That's cool, where's the revolution?

If you dig down, and look at the architecture, the vision, and the plan, you can see that Mesh is a platform. An S+S platform that every developer will be able to start leveraging. It is a platform that other Microsoft products, over time, will start using.

This platform represents the relations and connections between ourselves and our devices. It doesn't just stop there. I can use it to model my connections with peers, friends, and family. I can join their Mesh's to mine, in ways that are meaningful and useful to us.

This platform is not built on some new proprietary protocol we developed. It was built with HTTP and ATOM. You can use JSON, FeedSync, RSS, REST, POX, etc. over the wire. These are protocols and technologies we know really well today, and are very comfortable with. AtopPub is used to expose GET, PUT, POST and DELETE operations on Live Mesh resources. All of the resources are contained in feeds, which are addressable with standard URLs.

Earlier I used the term Revolutionary about this in a tweet. Maybe that is too strong for some people. But clear the noise from all of the activity going on in the technical space right now (the distractions, turf wars, and malcontents), and remember that power is in the platform. Can some of what WLM does today be done with other tools or frameworks? Yes, some. But we have put it all together, using open protocols, and added in a rich API.

Don't be a Plumber

I say that all the time. Think of how much code in something like Skype is truly about Skype. The bulk of the code is not about Skype, its about network management, encoding, security, peer-to-peer, etc. If those things were in the platform, Skype could have been built in a fraction of the time. Not just Skype though. Pick any new application or idea. Live Mesh is about giving you this platform. But not just to you, the smart, engaged, experienced enterprise developer, but to a whole host of developers and software tinkerers around the world. Live Mesh solves the hard plumbing problems for you, so that you can focus on building the application you dream of in your head.

The services the platform provides, today, are:

Online and offline storage
Membership
Sync
Peer-to-Peer communication
Newsfeed

I can already imagine some amazing products I could write, just by mixing in the WLM platform into my architecture.

If you aren't up on the Software + Services architecture model, you should take some time and do so. We have an S+S event coming up soon, and once we have more details, I will post them here.

So when you download and play with Windows Live Mesh, enjoy the application, but see through this facade, to the platform. Where can you go on that platform?

Larry on Architecture by Baseball

2008-04-22T10:12:00.001-04:00

Larry Clarkin is a colleague of mine. Apparently he likes baseball. I haven't paid much attention to baseball since I ended my career in fourth grade to focus on computers.

He posted an article "Architecture by Baseball: 5 tool architect" on the five core skills an architect must have, using baseball as a metaphor. You should check it out. I don't know a thing about baseball, and it made sense to me. Except for the field goal. He didn't mention what those mean in his metaphor.

Soft Skillz in Toledo

2008-04-22T09:32:00.001-04:00

The tour continues. I will be at the Northwest Ohio .NET Users Group presenting my 'Soft Skillz : They aren't just for Humans anymore' talk.

I haven't been up there in about year (maybe longer?) so it will be good to get up into Jason's and Greg's area. I will be bringing a copy of VS2008 Pro to give away.

If you miss me in Toledo, I will be at the West Michigan Day of .NET as well this May 10th.

Central Ohio Day of .NET

2008-04-22T09:27:00.001-04:00

I gave my Soft Skillz talk at the Central Ohio Day of .NET this past Saturday.

The event went really well. The organizers (led by Jim Holmes, Mike Wood, and Carey Payette) did a great job putting a team together, and running the event.

The new space worked out well, and there were a lot of great speakers. It's amazing how far our community has come in five years.

My session was pretty full, and VERY interactive. That is why I went over! If people had not interacted, I would have been on time. ;) Yeah, that's the story!

I would always rather have an interactive group and go over, than a quiet group and finish early.

COALMG.org

2008-04-22T09:10:00.001-04:00

Alexei Govorine and Jeff Hunsaker have started a new user group called Central Ohio ALM Group. Their web site is www.COALMG.org. They plan on meeting every other month, opposite of the the MOCSDUG.org user group.

They are going to focus on Application Lifecycle Management, and related tools.

Join them for their inaugural meeting Thursday May 1st at the Polaris Microsoft office. An agenda will be announced soon.

COALMG meets on the odd 1st Thursdays of the month (Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep, Nov) at 6pm - 8pm on the 4th floor of the Microsoft Offices off Polaris Parkway in Columbus, Ohio.

Address: Polaris Center 8800 Lyra Dr., Suite 400 Columbus, OH 43240 Phone: (614) 719-5900 Fax: (614) 719-5319

West Michigan Day of .NET

2008-04-11T13:13:00.001-04:00

Spring is here, and there are DODN's popping up all over!

The team in West Michigan has been busting their humps all winter to get this great event off of the ground.

The event is FREE, and is on May 10th, 2008. Check out their web site, West Michigan Day of .NET 2008, for all of the details.

I will be presenting my 'Soft Skillz - They aren't just for humans anymore' talk. I will be also showing off some great news that will be released April 21st.

Application Lifecycle Management Executive Briefing in Columbus

2008-04-11T13:07:00.001-04:00

Date:   4/30/2008
Where: Microsoft Corporation
           8800 Lyra Dr.
           Polaris Center, Suite 400
           Columbus, OH 43240
Welcome Time: 8:30 AM Eastern Time
Event Time: 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Registration Link: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=127766
or go to www.clicktoattend.com and enter Event Code: 127766

Recommended Audiences: Business Decision Maker, Technical Decision Makers

Business and technology executives and IT managers are being asked to do more with less. Maintenance of legacy systems and current technology support consumes vast amounts of a typical enterprise IT budget, leaving few resources to develop new standards-based, adaptive applications that meet the core needs of the business.
So how can you measure the real value of IT, and how can you ensure that it helps you effectively run your business? Your core business and your IT departments must unite, and your software initiatives must deliver measurable business benefits. To help achieve this, a common lifecycle management solution is needed to help you track, balance, and communicate the systems that are being created to effectively run your business.

Come join other IT industry leaders to learn how Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) provides a solution by addressing the overall alignment and synchronization of business goals and IT investment priorities.
Hear Proven Approaches to Implementing ALM
During this interactive session, you will learn how ALM brings:
- Stronger collaboration between business and IT, resulting in better alignment of IT and business goals.
- Increased accountability, enabling stricter compliance with governance initiatives.
- Improved project management, including better estimation, tracking, and reporting through a single, unified view of the project.
- Quality improvements, so the final application meets the requirements of your customers and quality of service requirements.
- Utilization of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to improve development contribution to the business.

Heroes Happen Here Launch in Cincinnati, OH

2008-04-11T13:00:00.001-04:00

Max Technical Training, and three of the local user groups are banding together to put on their own HHH launch event for VS2008, SQL 2008, and Windows Server 2008. If you missed the other cities, here is a great chance to get in on the action.

Max is a great community supporter in southern Ohio, check them out!

Apr 15 - CINNUG ~ Visual Studio 2008 Register Here (only 4 seats left)

Venue - MAX in Mason
Speakers

Kirk Wilson (MAX) – New features of VS 2008
Stefan Kyntchev – What is LINQ?
Dan Hounshell – ASP.NET 3.5 New Features

Hands-on
- 2 classroom set up for a hands-on experience
Q & A Stations

May 7 - CiNPA ~ Windows Server 2008 Register Here

Venue - Cinci State in Evendale
Speakers
- CiNPA member - What’s New In Windows Server 2008
- Tim O’Connor (MAX) – still finalizing presentations
Q & A Stations

May 27 - CincySQL ~ SQL Server & VS 2008 Register Here
- Venue - MAX in Mason
- Speakers – still finalizing
  - Kirk Wilson (MAX) – VS 2008
  - CincySQL Speaker – SQL 2008
  - Phil Japiski – VS/SQL 2008
- Hands-on? – still finalizing
  - 2 classroom set up for hands-on
- Q & A Stations

New SOAP implementation

2008-04-03T16:09:00.001-04:00

Microsoft has done it again. Having shipped an updated version of WCF, we have now released a new version of SOAP. I like this version a lot better, it is lighter weight, and is much faster. Also comes with a great Silverlight video interface. Stay to the end to see how to make your own SOAP.

Check out http://preview.microsoft.com/video to see more!

West Michigan Day of .NET

2008-04-02T10:02:00.001-04:00

I will be attending the WMDODN on May 10th. The event will be held at the Davenport University, W.A. Lettinga Campus in Grand Rapids, MI. Microsoft will be a sponsor this year.

While they haven't announced the sessions yet, the agenda shows that they will have four tracks of content!

The date for their speaker submissions was March 24th, but the site hasn't bee updated. They may still be accepting speakers. I submitted some talks, hopefully they have room left.

Go register now! What could be better than hanging out with other geeks, free food, and 'conversatin' about .NET?

Anyone coming from the Columbus area (or along the route) is welcome to ride along with me. I may or may not be spending the night before.

If you are a company in the area, this is a great event to sponsor. This crowd represents the passionate .NET developers in the area. Who else would take a Saturday to hang out with other geeks?

Career ADD?

2008-04-01T23:29:00.001-04:00

Continuing my thoughts on my last post, Manage a Job Change, I want to talk about a special set of people that have 'Career ADD'.

These are people that quickly tire of a job, and not for the reasons I outlined in the last post. They simply find no challenge left in the current project or position. These people thrive on that challenge. Once the challenge is gone, they get bored and go find a new mountain to climb. This can quickly lead to breaking the 'stay at least two years' rule.

What can such a horribly afflicted individual do to avoid being branded a job hopper? I see a few options:

0. Get a job at large company that values and expects their people to excel and seek new roles with new challenges. Microsoft does this VERY well. Be careful you don't get stuck in a large company that prefers to drain the soul out of you.

1. Become a serial entrepreneur. Get an idea. Start a company. Launch it. Sell out. Start over.

3. Do so well at your current company that they grow, and create a growth path for you. Become a leader in your company, and leverage this growth.

2. If you lean more to pure tech, and don't want to run a business, you can always be a consultant (with a firm, or as a freelancer). You will always be moving on to new projects, are minimally engaged in local politics. And you get to recycle your work environment on a regular basis.

I know plenty of challenge junkies that are consultants for this exact reason. I was one of them. I loved finding new challenges, and solving them. I loved having a new vertical (-50 Gump points!) to learn, and new people to get to know. I thrived on every project REQUIRING some new tool or technology.

This lets you stay at the same employer (the consulting firm) while constantly climbing new mountains.