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2016-04-08T15:32:00.002-05:00

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Prioritization: Less IS more

2015-06-25T17:32:00.003-05:00

Prioritization: Less IS more

We all have a tendency to keep adding to our to-do lists; we often hear a voice that says, “Do more,” as if doing more equates to the value of work we’re producing. But this is a flawed strategy: taking on more has diminishing returns. You may get overworked, burn out, or feel chronically stressed by the scope of projects you’re taking on.

No person or team can do everything. Instead of doing more, you can learn when to stop: when adding work no longer adds significant value (just before the curve above turns downward). You and your team will gain insight into what work is most impactful and, ultimately, you’ll be more focused and productive.

Science says, “do less”

Leaving the office no longer means leaving work

There used to be an easy check against constantly doing more: going home. But now that many of us can work from anywhere, leaving the office no longer means “leaving work.” While working all the time has become the new normal, both science and common sense say this is completely unsustainable.

The negative effects of constantly working are clear: More than 80 percent of Americans are stressed at work. Adults aged 18-33 experience more stress than any other age group, with work being the top reported source of stress according to a 2013 survey.

Prioritization shouldn’t be this complicated

There is no shortage of advice about how to prioritize. But typically, advice and frameworks (like the diagrams below) don’t help you make decisions during crunch time, when deciding what your team needs to get done today, this week, or this month is crucial.

Coaches and productivity experts have developed charts, graphs, and matrices to help you prioritize, but prioritization shouldn’t be this complicated!

3 Ways to prioritize your day

1. Start by setting goals

Start by thinking about what you’re doing and why. Set and record goals with your team for a specific time period. Make these goals accessible, so everyone can refer back to them frequently.

Get into a habit of evaluating your work and tasks in the context of your team’s goals. Your top priorities should align with these goals and help you get one step closer to achieving them. Once goals become the common decision-making framework for your team, it will be completely reasonable to say, “This is a great idea, but isn’t a priority for this time period. Let’s save this for later when we are focused on that goal.”

Asana Tip: Track high-level goals, and every step between now and the successful completion of the goal, in Asana.

2. Keep your daily task list clutter free

Once your team is clear about the high-level goals, start prioritizing your tasks. Narrow down your daily task list to just 3 to 5 items (unless your tasks are very small).

Asana Tip: Use Today, Upcoming, and Later sections in your My Task List in Asana to plan exactly what you’ll work on each day. This process should just take just a few minutes each day.

Consider these questions as you prioritize your tasks:

Does this task directly support the goals we set for this time period?
What do I absolutely have to accomplish today?
When does this need to get done by?
Am I excited about this?
Is my team excited about this?
Do I have the energy and brainpower required to do this effectively today/right now?

Once you have your task list set for the day, you will find that you are more productive, effective, and at ease when you start working.

3. Get more done

Once you have an uncluttered plan for the day, get started on your work. Getting going might be the most challenging “task” of all, since your highest-priority task may be what you are resisting the most. To move from procrastination to action, try breaking the task into smaller parts or reflecting on why you are avoiding the work.

“I’ve found an indispensable three-step process for reliably moving from procrastination to action: (1) face whatever I’m putting off, (2) be honest with myself or a friend about why it’s uncomfortable, and (3) identify one easeful next step.” Justin Rosenstein, Asana co-founder, How to Overcome Procrastination by Facing Discomfort on Linkedin

Leave room in your planning for unexpected tasks

Throughout the day, you’ll encounter distractions and hurdles that will lure you from your task list. Leave room in your planning for unexpected tasks, but feel empowered to respond to requests for your time by citing your priorities and team goals. Instead of saying, “I’m too busy,” say, “I would love to work on this, but I’m focused on goal X this week.”

Mastering the art of prioritization is one of the best ways to achieve more. By dedicating yourself to what’s most important to your team and eliminating the other options, you’ll be more productive, more valuable to your team, and have more time to relax.

(Source: https://blog.asana.com/2014/12/workstyle-prioritization/)

60 Empowering Quotes to Help You Get Things Done

2014-07-26T03:50:00.003-05:00

Here are 60 quotes gathered from our sister site, Everyday Life Lessons, to empower you to take action, navigate through life’s challenges, and get things done.

Just because you are struggling does NOT mean you are failing. Every great success requires some kind of struggle to get there.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve failed or if you’ve been beaten. All that matters is that you learn something, get back up, and try again. Because winning is a good feeling, but winning when nobody else thought you could is an awesome feeling.
Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress; which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
‘Finished last’ will always be better than ‘Did not finish’, which always trumps ‘Did not start.’
Don’t think too much, or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place.
Thinking too long about doing something is often the reason it never gets done.
If you truly want to change your life, you must first change your mind.
Most great things in your life won’t happen by chance, they will happen by choice.
Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes theconditions perfect.
Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.
There are seven days in the week and someday isn’t one of them.
You don’t have to be great to get started, but you do have to get started to be great.
Sitting on the right track is equivalent to racing down the wrong track.
Procrastinators who say, “There’s always tomorrow!” deny the reality that one day, they will be wrong.
Do something today that your future self will thank you for.
It’s easier to take a small action now instead of a big action ’some day.’
What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.
The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists. It rewards people who get things done.
If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
The best way to prepare for the future is to take care of the present.
Don’t forget what happened, but understand that you cannot move forward while looking backwards.
Don’t carry your mistakes around with you. Instead, place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones.
Mistakes teach you important lessons. Every time you make one, you’re one step closer to your goal. The only mistake that can truly hurt you is choosing to do nothing simply because you’re too scared to make a mistake.
Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing.
No matter how many mistakes you make, or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
Your mistakes should be your motivation, not your excuses.
Past mistakes should teach you to create a wonderful future; not cause you to be afraid of it.
Don’t get caught up in wasted potential from years past. Potential is all we ever have. Read The Power of Now.
No matter how long you have traveled in the wrong direction, you always have the choice to turn around.
You don’t drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.
Stop looking back at the door shutting behind you before you walk past the door opening in front of you.
Growth begins at the end of your comfort zone.
Being uncomfortable and uncertain is part of learning and growing. Get used to it. It’s worth it.
In order to be creative, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
Take a chance on the opportunities your gut says are good, because some things only happen once.
Don’t let your fear of what could happen make nothing happen.
If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.
When you stop worrying about what you can’t control, you have time to change the things you can control.
When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you.
You might think you’re not good enough, but you’ll surprise yourself when you try.
People seldom do things to the best of their ability. They do things to the best of their willingness.
Don’t worry about others doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
You’ll never reach your destination if you keep stopping to tell everyone where you’ve been and what you’ve accomplished.
If you are still talking about what you did yesterday, you haven’t done much today.
“Time changes everything.” That’s what people say, but it’s not really true. Doing things changes things. Not doing things leaves things exactly as they were.
Every day we are faced with great opportunities disguised as difficult circumstances.
There is a hidden treasure inside every problem. It’s your job to find it.
Nothing is impossible. The word itself says “I’m Possible.”
If you want to get over a problem, stop mulling it over and talking about it. Your mind affects your mouth, and your mouth affects your mind. It’s nearly impossible to move beyond something when you’re obsessing over it.
Worrying is like a rocking in a chair: it keeps you busy, but doesn’t get you anywhere.
Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
The one who wins the race in the long run is usually not the strongest or the fastest, but the one who has tried the hardest.
Often it’s the deepest pain which empowers you to grow into your highest self.
The one who falls and gets up is so much stronger than the one who never fell.
The only difference between an obstacle and an opportunity is your attitude. Read How Full Is Your Bucket?
When something bad happens, you can either let it define you, let it destroy you or let it strengthen you. The choice is yours.
You have three choices in life: Give up, give in, or give it all you’ve got.
Don’t look back and ask, “Why?” Look ahead and ask, “Why not?” When it comes to your dreams and goals, be too positive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful, and too determined to be defeated.
No matter how many times you break down, there should always be a little voice inside you that says, “NO, you’re not done yet! Get back up!” That’s the voice of passion and courage.
Approach the start of each day with one goal and end the day with one word: DONE!

Source

What I like to read every morning...

2014-07-26T03:49:00.000-05:00

We all start our days differently: some lazily rolling out of bed after several 5-minute snoozes, others energizing with a quick jog around the block. One thing is unanimous, though. We all browse. To find the hottest news, to explore our interests, to boost creativity... This time I decided to share my morning browsing / reading rituals.

FOR NEWS

A List Apart positions itself as meant for people who build websites. That's exactly who I am. Moreover, that's exactly what ImpressPages is about. So there couldn't be a better source for news than this. It was once published as a mailing list for web designers, later on it transformed into a web magazine about development, design, web content, web standards and best practices.

Like the bigger part of the world, I consider Mashable to be a great source for all kinds of news. As a designer, I always check the Dev&Design column but often my attention drifts to other stories as well. I like the variety, I like the quality and I like the relevance of each story. I believe that looking at beautiful and innovative things boosts your own passion to build something alike.

Ok, it’s more insights than news. Still, I find Paul Graham a very useful source for information on programming and startups. He is a known writer, investor and programmer himself who co-founded Viaweb (the first software as a service company) and as of 2005 runs a startup incubator called Y Combinator. His articles are thoughtfully and thoroughly written with strong arguments and examples, thus when I read them I get that feeling of reliability.

The goal of The Latest is hot, "freshly baked" news. And the source for it – Twitter. This app automatically collects links posted by a bunch of the most interesting and influential people on Twitter. They compile the links into a real-time updated list with the 10 top stories at the time. News range from buzzing articles on Medium and interesting blog posts to new Apps and compelling websites. The content is very selective and it feels super good to be among the first ones going “hey, have you heard about this awesome new tool…”

FOR TIPS

Good CSS tips and tricks with a pinch of witty humor (the footer alone says “may or may not include any actual CSS or tricks”). The website is run by Chris Coyier, web designer and developer who’s unselfish enough to share all of his knowledge with the less enlightened. Not a day without a CSS trick!

I believe for most members of the design world Smashing Magazine is like the Bible. It’s the ultimate source to look for answers! I discovered it when looking for some information on web typography and stayed over since. Not only do they offer good tips on how to do things, they also include useful links and freebies.

And again, it’s tips and insights. I guess I like insights :) Coding Horror is a spring of articles about coding, Internet, work and human error related issues. The blog is easily read as all of the information is presented through a quirky writing style. I strongly agree with Jeff’s take on the human side of web software: studying code isn’t enough; you have to study the people behind the software, too.

As the title gently puts it, User Onboarding is related to successfully getting new users on board with your product. The website is run by Samuel Hulick, an insightful UX designer who takes popular web apps like Pinterest, Gmail or Evernote and explores their cases of user onboarding. He tears down the whole new user experience to minuscule details and adds comments to every single one of it. Though concentrated on UX, reading these walkthroughs help me to build logical story structures.

FOR FUN

All work and no play...yeah, you know the ending to that. So apart from checking work related stuff on the web, I sometimes drift to the world of Dilbert, a stereotypical tech minded single male working as an engineer in one of those cubicle offices. His sarcastic take on life is so accurate I cannot help but love this fictional little guy!

So everybody loves a good gif these days. I’m no exception and working in the web development field I especially love the collection of DevOps Reactions. As developers are not the famous types of feeling expression, this Tumblr board is the perfect way to show our everyday emotions about sysadmin interactions. All of that in one tiny sharp moving image. Gets me laughing to tears sometimes!

Yup, I don’t start without my daily dose of inspiration from these two websites. I love Yatzer because of its wide spectrum – you can get stories on interior design, book graphics, travel, music, gastronomy, whatever. And Design Collector is a very selective showcase of the most interesting design ideas and projects. I always browse through their daily feed to feast my eyes.

Boredpanda is my go-to resource when in need of a good mood lifter. It’s a web magazine sharing news on a myriad of themes – from photography, art and design projects to Tumblr memes, new technology and DIY ideas. You will laugh, marvel, sometimes even cry. It’s extremely visual with good quality photos and videos.

9 Tools I use Everyday

2014-07-26T03:38:00.000-05:00

There are several tools we can't live without. But I decided to make a list of the most common web tools we use daily @ work. Take a look, give it a try and maybe you'll find something useful. :-)

To keep it tidy

Trello

We believe order boosts productivity. And even though our desks never look tidy enough, our task management is done neatly with Trello. Visual workflow makes it really easy to follow up every task and know the stage it's in. Plus, you can assign team members to tasks.

Evernote

While Trello is for tasks, most of us use Evernote to document personal thoughts and ideas. Which then turn to tasks, of course. It's nice that you can have this digital notebook on any device and it's easily synchronized so no bits of thought get lost.

Dragdis

Writing down tasks on Evernote is easy, clipping pics is not. That's when Dragdis comes in handy. Basically, anything from the web (images, videos, texts, urls...) can be saved with one drag&drop. Really goes above and beyond all that bookmarking and "save as" nonsense.

To keep it smart

Travis CI

Travis is a continuous integration service used to build and test projects hosted at GitHub. Our tech minds Audrius, Mangirdas and Algimantas use it to test ImpressPages system online.

Visual Website Optimizer

This tool came especially in handy when developing ImpressPages 4.0. We ran several A/B testings of the new design and rewritten copy on Visual Website Optimizer. The heatmap and clickmap features are also very useful when deciding on implementing new CTO buttons and such.

Colibri IO

With all that buzz on the web it's easy to get lost. To avoid that, Justina uses Colibri IO. It's a neat growth hacking tool to keep an eye on the specific topics you're interested in. Sort of like Mention (which we tried before) or Google Alerts but more user-friendly, fetches information from very different sources. Plus, you can sync it with Google Analytics and add other team members.

To keep it going

Spotify

Best music streaming so far. We just love how Spotify is full of music that we like and how easy it is to create personal playlists. Thus, when in need of inspiration or just wanting to hide from babbling colleagues we dive into this world of sounds.

We find beautiful things on the web everyday so why not share them? And why not on Pinterest. Mindaugas has created some really nice boards expressing his view on style, graphic and web design, start ups and even CMSs!

Coffee!

Oh the drink of Gods...Really, if coffee was digital, it would be the first one in the list of web tools we use. Still, we drink so much of it we couldn't leave it behind. The office has a nice Espresso machine but whenever we're in town it's flat whites all the way! Thanks for reading!

Best Wordpress Hosting Company

2014-06-12T14:51:00.001-05:00

I manage a lot of Wordpress websites. I have used GoDaddy, Bluehost, 1and1, A2 Hosting, and recently SiteGround. I am really impressed by the features and speed of SiteGround.

The Pros and Cons of SiteGround

Founded in 2003, SiteGround is a reputable web host in Sofia Bulgaria. Its data centers spread across the globe, in U.S. Europe, and Singapore. With robust services and 10+ years of reputation, it has earned over 300,000 domains and 400,000+ customers worldwide.

The Pros of SiteGround

SiteGround offers 3 upgradeable plans named as Startup, GrowBig, and GoGeek. Customers can choose a proper one based on the current requirements and upgrade easily when the site grown.
The basic Startup plan is affordable, starting at $3.95/mo presently, 70% off the regular price for $9.9/mo and along with free domain & free CloudFlare CDN.
The company offers 30 days money back guarantee to enable customers ask refund if they are unsatisfied with the service within 30 days.
It utilizes cPanel control panel, which offers easy-to-understand interface and allows users to manage their websites, domains, databases, email accounts with great ease.
The company provides 24×7 technical support via phone, live chat and email.

The Cons of SiteGround

The basic Startup plan is seriously limited, with only one website and 10 GB disk space allowed, which make it only a toy for beginners. For customers need powerful features, they need to go GrowBig that is high to $6.95/mo.
The company attracts customers with low initial price and large discount, but comes with high renewal prices.
The money back guarantee only allows customers to request pro-rated refund, but not full refund. All the free services are charged when refunded.

Forget Time Management - Manage your Attention to get more productive

2013-06-10T10:48:00.002-05:00

Some Interesting Videos:

RescueTime's Blog on Multitasking

ASAP Science on Productivity

ASAP Science on Procrastination

Fast Company on Multitasking

Fast Company on Time Blocking

Apps to try:

https://www.rescuetime.com

https://www.any.do

Articles you may want to read:

Harvard Business Review Infographic from RescueTime

NYTimes on Multitasking

Books to Check Out:

18 Minutes by Peter Bregman

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Personal Productivity Secrets by Maura Nevel Thomas

The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward Burger and Michael Starbird

The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Does this Inspire or Motivate you?

2013-05-24T11:58:00.000-05:00

Let's Get Pumped....

Leadership - What are you feeding your people?

2012-12-31T14:03:00.000-06:00

Are your people getting what they need from you to become fully engaged … and give their best - day in, day out?

Here’s a great story…

A woman bought a parrot, took him home and then returned him to the pet store the next day.

“This bird doesn’t talk” she told the owner. “Does he have a mirror?” asked the owner. “Parrots love mirrors. They see themselves and start up a conversation”. So the woman bought the mirror.

Next day she returned. The bird still wasn’t talking. “How about a ladder? Parrots love a ladder”.

Sure enough, she was back the next day; the bird still wasn’t talking.

“Does your parrot have a swing? If not, that’s the problem. He’ll relax and talk up a storm”. The woman reluctantly bought a swing and left.

When she walked into the store the next day her countenance had changed. “The parrot died”. She said.

The pet store owner was shocked. “I’m so sorry. Tell me, did he ever say a word”? he asked.

“Yes, right before he died”, the woman replied. “He said, Don’t they sell any food at that pet store?”.

The moral of this story is: You can give your people mirrors, emphasising appearance; ladders, emphasising career success; swings emphasising entertainment but you could be starving them to death by not feeding their spirit and sense of pride and value in themselves, their team and in what the organisation stands for.

Stop the superficial stuff that doesn’t work. Learn how to ignite the real passions in your people so that they become unstoppable!

Learn about Pinterest

2012-09-20T16:00:00.003-05:00

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard where users collect and share pins (images and videos) and categorize them on their individual boards. Users “pin” images they find on the web, upload their own, or re-pin from other users. Similar to how Facebook posts are shown to a profile’s friends, these pins are displayed to anyone who follows the pinner’s profile. Users can also “like” and comment on pins while adding links as well.

Pinterest is a popular social network that exploded on the scene a little over two years ago. It now boasts more than 18 million active users worldwide and its growth has rivaled that of the top social networking sites.

What does this explosive growth mean for you as online business owners? You will find out shortly. First, let’s take a look at how the network operates.

The Pinterest “How To” Guide and Tips for Marketing Success – Part 1

The Pinterest “How To” Guide and Tips for Marketing Success – Part 2

To join Pinterest, click here to sign up and create an account via Facebok, Twitter, or email.

The Top 10 WordPress Plugins for 2012

2012-09-20T15:57:00.000-05:00

The Top 10 WordPress Plugins for 2012

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast

This plugin enjoys excellent ratings and is presently one of the top SEO plugins available.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/

As you can see in the example above, the plugin offers many features to optimize a page. Once you input a keyword into the “focus keyword” box and add an SEO title, it will autofill the snippet preview and tell you what else is needed to properly optimize your post. In the example, the items with a “no” are those that need attention. The plugin also supplies fields for all of your meta keywords and descriptions.

Here are the features at a glance:

Snippet Preview – Observe how your post will look before it is published.

Lindex Page Analysis- A helpful tool to suggest possible improvements as you optimize your post.

You have complete control over what posts you want Google to display in the search results.

Breadcrumb menu functionality

XML sitemaps

RSS Optimization

Social integration

And many more…

2. Akismet

http://akismet.com/

Akismet is a well-known plugin because it comes standard with every WordPress install. It is often listed with the top plugins since it eliminates spam comments on your blog posts.

Akismet automatically detects spam comments and sets them in a separate spam folder. Follow the activation instructions that come with the plugin. There are a few steps required but they are not difficult to execute.

3. Contact Form 7

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

Contact from 7 is an easy-to-use plugin that allows blog owners to insert a customizable contact form on any page. You do not need to know any complex coding to activate it. It also has built-in spam filtering

As webmasters, it’s important to give your visitors an opportunity to connect with you. Your willingness to communicate with them shows authenticity and helps to break down the skepticism people feel when visiting a new website.

4. Wassup

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wassup/

Wassup is a tracking plugin that monitors your analytics in real time. At any given moment, check who is visiting your site, where they came from, the referring site or keyword, what pages they visit, the search engine, as well as hack and spam attempts.

Wassup offers a birdseye view of what is occurring on your site while it is happening, directly from the WordPress interface. It gives you a quick overview of your site’s activity from one easy-to-use interface.

Note: WassUp is not compatible with page-based caching plugins.

5. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is recommended by some of the top internet marketers and web host providers. The plugin improves your website’s performance by helping your pages load faster while boosting server performance. A fast-loading website contributes to a better user experience which keeps visitors on your site longer.

Here are some benefits:

10x or more improvement in the website’s performance

Better conversion rates

Load time reduced; visitors will view more pages and stay longer. Faster load times increase your Google rankings.

Improved server performance to manage high traffic days

Save up to 80% bandwidth

6. Shareaholic

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sexybookmarks/

Shareaholic is a social bookmarking plugin that allows your blog visitors to share your content. The plugin offers customizable text and the ability to add or remove social websites to personalize the experience. It provides share counters, social analytics and a new “recommendations” section that offers your blog visitors related post content while they are reading a similar post.

7. Follow Me

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/follow-me/

Along with giving people the ability to share your posts, make it easy for them to follow your social profiles. Follow Me is a social plugin that displays a window where users can click and visit your social profiles. The banner can be displayed on the side of your site where it is noticeable, yet not obtrusive.

8. Broken Link Checker

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/

A broken link will deter users and send them away frustrated. This plugin automatically searches the links on your blog and lets you know if any are broken. This plugin is quite helpful since your website visitors will seldom tell you about a broken link. It also checks for missing images and gives you the option to prevent the search engines from following any broken links.

9. WP Touch

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch

With hundreds of millions of people accessing the internet via mobile devices, this industry is fast becoming a requirement for websites that want to stay competitive. Desktop sites are cumbersome and do not load quickly on mobile devices, which can decrease conversions.

Designing a mobile experience can cost businesses a large sum. This plugin is invaluable to WordPress users because it is free and it automatically transforms your site into an application-like theme when your mobile users visit your website. Visitors will also have the option to toggle back and forth between your mobile site and your full site. Activation of the plugin will not change the appearance of your full site. It will only affect what your website looks like to users accessing it on mobile devices.

10. What Would Seth Godin Do

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/what-would-seth-godin-do/

I know the name is a bit uncharacteristic of a plugin, but it delivers a great benefit. Expert marketer Seth Godin encourages websites to treat return visitors different than first-time visitors. The plugin corroborates this principle by offering visitors different messages depending on their identity. It creates a customizable welcome box for new visitors. Program its message, lifespan and location on your site and exclude it from pages you designate. Use this message to prompt visitors to opt in to a newsletter, RSS feed or just to greet them with a nice welcome message.

Though this list is but a small glimpse of the many effective plugins available, it is a good start and covers a wide range of needs.

All-In-One-SEO is pretty useful also !!!

Best Wordpress Theme - "THESIS"

Http Client Protocol Issues - Understanding MaxServicePointIdleTime and DefaultConnectionLimit

2012-09-20T15:52:00.000-05:00

Http Client Protocol Issues

Understanding MaxServicePointIdleTime and DefaultConnectionLimit

To understand these settings you need to understand how the HttpWebRequest class relates to the ServicePointManager and ServicePoint classes. When you make a request with the HttpWebRequest class, the ServicePointManager provides a ServicePoint object to the HttpWebRequest object to handle the connection to a web resource (web server). This ServicePoint object manages all the requests for a particular URI Host and protocol. For example: There will be one ServicePoint object for all the requests in my sample because they are all going to the server JSAN1 and using the HTTP protocol. The ServicePoint object has some settings to control how it services the requests. You can set the default values for these settings on the ServicePointManager before any ServicePoint objects are created. Once the ServicePoint object is created these default values will not affect existing ServicePoint objects, only newly created ones.

The ServicePoint model allows optimization, control and performance enhancements for the request. When you make an HTTP protocol request, ultimately that request and response will take place over a TCP Socket. Creating and initializing this TCP Socket is a very expensive operation in terms of computer resources and time so if you can re-use this connection for the next request, you have saved the time of creating and initializing a new socket. The HTTP 1.1 protocol provisions for this optimization by keeping the socket connection alive for subsequent requests by the client to the server.
Reference - How ServicePointManager works: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.servicepointmanager.aspx (see remarks)
Reference - ServicePoint: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.servicepoint.aspx

The ServicePoint object contains a queue of connections to the server identified by the URI of the server passed in. By default the number of simultaneous connections to a server is controlled by the ServicePoint.ConnectionLimit property. This property is set on this object when the ServicePointManager creates the ServicePoint object for your connections to a host. Connections to the server are queued and will be served by the connections to the server as they become freed from use. The default number of connections is set to 2. Ref: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.servicepoint.connectionlimit.aspx

Obviously if the number of connections your application has requested to a resource is greater than the connection limit, requests are queued and may timeout before they are taken from the queue and processed on an active connection. An example may help you understand this. This example creates 64 Worker threads and executes HTTP requests on them. Create a simple HTTP page on a server in your network (not on the same machine you run this code on) and run this code, passing the URI to the page on the command line. You will see some timeout exceptions generated:

Complete code listing for sample (Copy Code):

using System;

using System.Net;

using System.Threading;

using System.Text;

using System.IO;

// ClientGetAsync issues the async request.

class ClientGetAsync

{

// This class is used in the worker thread to pass information in

public class threadStateInfo

{

public string strUrl; // the URL we will be making a request on

public ManualResetEvent evtReset; // used to signal this worker thread is finished

public int iReqNumber; // used to indicate which request this is

}

// this does the work of making the http request from a worker thread

static void ThreadProc(Object stateInfo)

{

threadStateInfo tsInfo = stateInfo as threadStateInfo;

try

{

HttpWebRequest aReq = WebRequest.Create(tsInfo.strUrl) asHttpWebRequest;

aReq.Timeout = 4000; // I want the request to only take 4 seconds, otherwise there is some problem

Console.WriteLine("Begin Request {0}", tsInfo.iReqNumber);

HttpWebResponse aResp = aReq.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500); //simulate a half second delay for the server to process the request

aResp.Close(); // if you do not do this close, you will timeout for sure! The socket will not be freed.

Console.WriteLine("End Request {0}", tsInfo.iReqNumber);

}

catch (WebException theEx)

{

Console.WriteLine("Exception for Request {0}: {1}",tsInfo.iReqNumber,theEx.Message);

}

//signal the main thread this request is done

tsInfo.evtReset.Set();

}

public static void Main(string[] args)

{

if (args.Length < 1)

{

showusage();

return;

}

// The number of worker threads to make simultaneous requests (do not go over 64)

int numberRequests = 64;

// Used to keep the Main thread alive until all requests are done

ManualResetEvent[] manualEvents = newManualResetEvent[numberRequests];

// Get the URI from the command line.

string httpSite = args[0];

// 2 is Default Connection Limit

ServicePointManager.DefaultConnectionLimit = 2;

// Get the current settings for the Thread Pool

int minWorker, minIOC;

ThreadPool.GetMinThreads(out minWorker, out minIOC);

// without setting the thread pool up, there was enough of a delay to cause timeouts!

ThreadPool.SetMinThreads(numberRequests,minIOC);

for (int i = 0; i < numberRequests; i++)

{

//Create a class to pass info to the thread proc

threadStateInfo theInfo = new threadStateInfo();

manualEvents[i] = new ManualResetEvent(false); // thread done event

theInfo.evtReset = manualEvents[i];

theInfo.iReqNumber = i; //just to track what request this is

theInfo.strUrl = httpSite; // the URL to open

ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(ThreadProc, theInfo); //Let the thread pool do the work

}

// Wait until the ManualResetEvent is set so that the application

// does not exit until after the callback is called.

// can wait on a maximum of 64 handles here.

WaitHandle.WaitAll(manualEvents);

Console.WriteLine("done!");

}

public static void showusage() {

Console.WriteLine("Attempts to GET a URL");

Console.WriteLine("\r\nUsage:");

Console.WriteLine(" ClientGetAsync URL");

Console.WriteLine(" Example:");

Console.WriteLine(" ClientGetAsync http://www.contoso.com/");

}

Please read the comments in the code. There are some interesting points here. The first is that if you do not set the ThreadPool MinThreads property to the anticipated number of threads you will use, the delay of creating these threads on the fly is enough to fail all of the requests with a timeout exception. Next, note the Close() call on the response. No matter what we do to the code, if you do not do the Close(), those sockets will remain open and a new socket will be created for each request (you will see that in a network trace). This will also prevent any of the connections in the ServicePoint object from being freed, so no additional requests can be served. Another thing that is sort of cool about this code is that it simulates the ASP.NET environment as far as the thread pool idea goes. If your sample code works OK in this test app, chances are you will be able successfully run similar code in ASP.NET with the same ThreadPool and Connection settings. Reference Asp.Net tuning:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998583.aspx

Next play with this line of code:

// 2 is Default Connection Limit

ServicePointManager.DefaultConnectionLimit = 2;

Set it to 12 and see how the number of successful requests increases. Now set it to 4. You will see a different number of requests succeed and fail depending on the sleep value simulated in the request (System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500);), the response time of your target server to provide the content, network traffic and the performance of your machine. Similar factors will affect your real world application. Also, I set the timeout for the web request to 4 seconds because I expect the result to come back very quickly. This may or may not be realistic in your situation. Only testing and careful design will allow you to determine what best works for your application.

The question often comes up “why can’t I set the DefaultConnectionLimit to a HUGE number”? You can set this number in the hundreds if you want. This will take more computer resources however. More threads need to be created, more sockets open and the target server will be taxed more. It is all a balance of resources and expected performance. These factors need to be considered during design and testing.

The value MaxServicePointIdleTime comes in to play when you consider performance as well. This value indicates how long a socket will be kept open after a request and response, before the client gracefully closes the socket down. Again, the design and performance of your system will determine what a proper value would be for you situation. If you close unused sockets down too fast, then the socket will never get reused by another request (remember I said the connection creation time is very expensive). If the value is too long, then sockets (read resources, threads cpu time and memory) may be used unnecessarily at the source and target computer. Finding the correct balance is important. In addition, if the MaxServicePointIdleTime is not less than the server Keep-Alive timeout, there is a chance that your code will start using a connection at the same time the server is sending a message to close the socket resulting in a WebException.

Example App Design

Let’s work through an example together. Let’s say this application is designed to handle 40 users every 4 seconds. Let’s also assume it will take .5 seconds to process a web request in your code. If this was a single threaded application, 40 users processed in 4 seconds means 4/40 or .1 seconds per user would have to be the performance of your application. Given that the request to the backend server is .5 seconds (normally) there is no way that your single threaded application can handle this load and meet the spec. The very best you could hope for is 20 seconds! So you decide to create a multi threaded solution based on my example and try to apply the principles in this article. Change the number of requests to 40 in the sample code to simulate all the requests coming in. If this were a single threaded app, then the best we could do is 4 seconds/.5 processing time = 8 requests. So in theory if we could do 6 simultaneous requests over the 4 second time period at 8 requests per thread, we would get abound 6*8 or 48 requests done in 4 seconds. So set the DefaultConnectionLimit to 6 and let’s test.

Well, my results are: about 10 of the 40 connections timed out. Why is that, and what in my calculation is wrong? First, the sleep value I have in my code to simulate the time it takes to get a request back from the server is added to the actual time it took for the request to come back, so the socket was not freed in exactly .5 seconds, it was a little longer. Also, it takes some time for those 40 worker threads to start processing, they are background worker threads an run at a lower priority than the main thread, so the main thread (adding the work) is going to get a higher priority and is running in a tight loop and so the worker threads will be delayed a little before they start working. Finally there is the overhead of the connections initially spinning up! To see if the time spent to get the connections up is part of the delay, I added this code to see if once the 6 connections are created and maintained by the ServicePoint object, would the performance be as I expected after the WaitHandle.WaitAll(manualEvents); code in the sample code:
for (int i = 0; i < numberRequests; i++)

{

//Create a class to pass info to the thread proc

threadStateInfo theInfo = new threadStateInfo();

manualEvents[i].Reset();//Unsignalled state
theInfo.evtReset = manualEvents[i];

theInfo.iReqNumber = i+40; //just to track what request this is

theInfo.strUrl = httpSite; // the URL to open

ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(ThreadProc, theInfo); //Let the thread pool do the work

}

WaitHandle.WaitAll(manualEvents);

Sure enough! On my system, once the 6 connections are created in the first loop, each of the second set of requests succeeds.

Next let’s play with the MaxServicePointIdleTime to see how this affects the performance. Let’s say in our case we expect that the 40 user in 4 seconds rate occurs in bursts every 6 seconds. In other words, 40 users come in, there is 4 seconds processing time, 2 second delay and another 40 users come in. Simulate this in code with this sleep statement just before the new loop you added in the previous step:

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(2000);

On my machine that seemed to perform well. But let’s see how the MaxServicePointIdleTime affects this. Set the idle time to .5 seconds at the top of the code:
// 2 is Default Connection LimitServicePointManager.DefaultConnectionLimit = 6;ServicePointManager.MaxServicePointIdleTime = 500;

I was surprised to see that this still succeeded. I started Netmon to see what was happening with the network sockets, and indeed with the timeout, more sockets were being used. I picked a couple of the conversations and filtered by the port and indeed saw that the connection was being reset by the client after .5 seconds. Apparently in MY case, the overhead of the ServicePoint object initializing internal structures was greater than the cost of setting up the socket. Realize in my case the target server was doing nothing else and was on the same switch that the source computer is on so the TCP overhead for creating the connection was indeed negligible.

All this said, pick a MaxServicePointIdleTime that is less than the Keep-Alive timeout of the server and small enough so that you do not have ports open when it is not necessary. In my scenario I expected 40 users in a burst after 2 seconds of activity so a value of 2-6 seconds seems like a good choice. I set it to 2500 milliseconds.

Next I wanted to get a good setting for the DefaultConnectionLimit that would allow the requests to succeed all of the time. Simple experimentation showed that 10 seemed to always succeed. Confident that I had a good bunch of settings, I now had to plan for the fact that sometimes the network, local resources or target server may create a timeout condition. One way to address this would be to increase the HttpWebRequest.Timeout value. Another may be to increase the number of connections available. Finally you could simply retry the request when it fails.

To simulate the system under a heavy load and test retrying the request, I increased the sleep value in my Worker ThreadProc to sleep for a second. I then added a retry immediately after the catch:

static void ThreadProc(Object stateInfo)

{

threadStateInfo tsInfo = stateInfo as threadStateInfo;

bool success = false;

try

{

HttpWebRequest aReq = WebRequest.Create(tsInfo.strUrl) asHttpWebRequest;

aReq.Timeout = 4000; // I want the request to only take 4 seconds, otherwise there is some problem

Console.WriteLine("Begin Request {0}", tsInfo.iReqNumber);

HttpWebResponse aResp = aReq.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000); //simulate a half second delay for the server to process the request

aResp.Close(); // if you do not do this close, you will timeout for sure! The socket will not be freed.

Console.WriteLine("End Request {0}", tsInfo.iReqNumber);

success = true;

}

catch (WebException theEx)

{

Console.WriteLine("Exception for Request {0}: {1}",tsInfo.iReqNumber,theEx.Message);

}

try

{

if (success == false)

{

Console.WriteLine("Retry Request {0}:", tsInfo.iReqNumber);

HttpWebRequest aReq = WebRequest.Create(tsInfo.strUrl) asHttpWebRequest;

aReq.Timeout = 4000; // I want the request to only take 4 seconds, otherwise there is some problem

Console.WriteLine("Begin Retry Request {0}", tsInfo.iReqNumber);

HttpWebResponse aResp = aReq.GetResponse() asHttpWebResponse;

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000); //simulate a half second delay for the server to process the request

aResp.Close(); // if you do not do this close, you will timeout for sure! The socket will not be freed.

Console.WriteLine("End Retry Request {0}", tsInfo.iReqNumber);

success = true;

}

catch (WebException theEx)

{

Console.WriteLine("2nd Exception for Request {0}: {1}", tsInfo.iReqNumber, theEx.Message);

}

//signal the main thread this request is done

tsInfo.evtReset.Set();

}

This allowed all of the requests to succeed! Retrying the after the exception has the benefit that we do not use additional resources unnecessarily and in the event there is a temporary problem with the system, the requests will still go through.

This allowed all of the requests to succeed! Retrying the after the exception has the benefit that we do not use additional resources unnecessarily and in the event there is a temporary problem with the system, the requests will still go through.

Summary
This is only a simple example but should give you some hands on experience with the two settings; MaxServicePointIdleTime and DefaultConnectionLimit. If you work through this document and sample code on your own, you will have a good idea of how these values can be changed to help you create an application that is efficient and that will work for you. NOTHING can replace careful design, initial specification and analysis. You will need to load test and see how your system behaves in the normal case and when unexpected events affect the normal processing. You should be able to extend this knowledge to ASP.NET and Windows applications that use the HttpWebRequest class and successfully design or troubleshoot them. Network Monitor will be a great tool for you to see what is actually happening over the network as well. I only showed once how I used the tool to see the connection activity over the network, but I use this tool daily to troubleshoot HTTP issues.

15 Useful Project Management Tools

2011-12-21T08:40:00.001-06:00

There is a huge variety of project management applications out there. Most are general purpose apps, not aimed at any one industry. But there is a growing number of project management apps aimed specifically at one industry or another. Applications geared to creative types are becoming more readily available, and some of the offerings are really quite good.

Many of these project management apps have built-in code repositories and subversion browsers (or are built around them). A few have built-in bug and issue tracking. Others include more than just basic project management. All of them can help you keep track of activities and team members. There are both free and paid options. Some have very slick interfaces, and some are modeled more after desktop applications. All are relatively easy to use and easy to set up.

Below are 15 useful project management applications, almost all of which are targeted directly at Web developers, designers (both Web and print) and other creative types. The last one is not geared specifically to creative types but is the most unique project management application I’ve found and is included on that basis as well as because of its potential usefulness for designers and developers.

Read the article here

(Source: Cameron Chapman from smashingmagazine.com)

45+ Very Functional Javascript Sliders and Scrollers

2011-12-21T08:30:00.001-06:00

Every web developer needs to use Javascript in creating web applications, and when it comes to displaying multiple items on a page with a focus on a single item Sliders and Scrollers comes in handy. You can use Javascript Sliders and Scrollers with news, images or products to display data in an organized and user friendly way. In this article there is a list of 46 Very Functional Javascript Sliders and Scrollers for you to use in developing web applications.

Check out the Sliders and Scrollers here

(Source: Ahmad Hania from 1stwebdesigner.com)

Nuggets from the book - The Checklist Manifesto

2011-11-15T20:18:00.002-06:00

I have listening to the audio-book - The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande. I definitely recommend the book, as it is a fascinating read.

In the book Gawande says “The checklist gets the dumb stuff out of the way, the routines your brain shouldn’t have to occupy itself with, and lets it rise above to focus on the hard stuff…”

In other words, a checklist can help you

work smarter
get all necessary tasks completed,
avoid overlooking the little things that can unravel an entire project, and
ensure that you’ve got key information available,
remind you to communicate with all key stakeholders.

The Checklist Manifesto looks at the use of checklists in surgery, construction, investment banking, and aviation. Gawande provides some very compelling arguments for using checklists from the simple to the most complex of situations.

DEVELOPING A CHECKLIST

Decide whether the situation calls for a DO-CONFIRM checklist or a READ-DO checklist
Outline all the steps in a process that need to be followed

Review situations that went wrong, identify overlooked steps and ensure those are included on the checklist

Ensure the right people are reviewing and approving the checklist components
Include a publication date on the checklist, as it will be revised often
Add “pause points” at which you or the team must pause and run through a set of checks before moving onto your next steps

Especially pertains to a DO-CONFIRM checklist type, where one distinct group of critical steps have to be completed before another set of tasks should be undertaken

Include a ‘communication’ check to ensure that at necessary points in a process key stakeholders are communicating about the project status, next steps, and so forth
Keep checklists simple, to one page, and with an easy to read font type
As needed, get leadership onboard with embracing and promoting the use of checklists
Test the checklist in actual, real-life situations
Refine and test the checklist until it succeeds at consistently improving the process and outcomes for which it is being applied
Schedule a regular checklist review schedule
Determine if using the checklist in one business unit or team will require other process changes to be implemented elsewhere in the company (and make a checklist for them!)

Golden Nuggest from the book - PeopleWare (By Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister)

2011-11-15T16:39:00.004-06:00

Summed up in one sentence, Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition)
say: Give smart people physical space, intellectual responsibility and strategic direction

DeMarco and Lister advocate:

private offices and windows.
creating teams with aligned goals and limited non-team work.
managers finding good staff and putting their fate in the hands of those staff
The manager's function is not to make people work but to make it possible for people to work
managers should help programmers, designers, writers and other brainworkers to reach a state that psychologists call "flow" - an almost meditative condition where people can achieve important leaps towards solving complex problems

The best way to describe this book would be as an Anti-Dilbert Manifesto

DeMarco and Lister attack cubicles, dress codes, telephones, hiring policies, and company core hours and demonstrate how managers who are not insecure about their positions, who shelter their employees from corporate politics, who, in short, make it possible for people to work are the ones who complete projects and whose employees have fun doing so.

Programming languages come and go with an occasional paradigm shift thrown in. However, the thought processes and the mental gyrations needed to complete large software projects remain largely unchanged

Top Ten Idea Killers in Software Development

2011-11-15T15:03:00.001-06:00

Software engineers start out as being curious, enthusiastic and gung-ho about getting things done. Somewhere along the way, they butt heads against a world that doesn't understand software development: systems that count engineers by numbers, productivity by lines of code and quality by process; a world where software development is a "risk-management" bureaucracy rather than a creative endeavor that can solve customer problems.

Unfortunately, many engineers consider this a wake-up call to shed their energy and adopt those bureaucratic ways, convinced that they have stepped into a new, adult world of "management". Some who manage to resist that misstep become disillusioned and don the garbs of martyrdom, ascribing every failure to something that management did or did not do.

If you are a software engineer, or an engineering manager, here's a list to help you identify if you still retain your software development genes or have morphed into someone that brings out a worn out list of cliches to robotically throw into every meeting, killing every idea and the morale behind it:

10. "This is good enough" : The fact is that nothing is ever good enough, least of all software. It may be good enough for today, or this release, but if your product has had the same problem for the last decade ¹, some other company has already taken your customer away because of this feature. Fix it before you reach the point where you cannot.²

9. "This is how it was always done": This is an anachronism in any competitive, rapidly changing field but particularly in software. Software companies are not like automobile companies that can set an assembly line in place and forget about it for a hundred years. Oh, wait-a-minute! Even automobile companies cannot do that anymore! Today's problems require a new set of solutions because in an industry fantastically bound to Moore's Law, machines, along with people's expectations from them, set a terrific pace of change.

8. "There isn't enough time to do it right": This is how you get into Technical Debt; some of it may be inevitable due to business pressures or working with a new piece of hardware or technology. As long as you repay this debt in the immediate future, this is part of the process; but if this is how you avoid making the right decision and the responsibility that goes with it, you are not being true to your engineering origins.

7. "This requires core architectural changes": What doesn't? Ideally, a well-designed piece of software should be flexible and amenable to changes as the product develops. But as we've said, demands on software change rapidly and every piece of software written will need to be rewritten. This is the nature of the work, not an anomaly to be used as an excuse!

6. "Management has not prioritized it": I always want to ask: what exactly hasn't management prioritized -- making a good product? writing error-free code? reducing bugs in the field? making the customer happy? Agreed that sometimes we inherit legacy code and there is juggling to be done between fixing what exists versus writing new code but this is a specious argument as we will see below. Suffice it to say that engineering needs to set and execute its own priorities, however small, every day, instead of waiting for some giant, magical mandate from above, because that's never going to happen.

5. "There is already a lot on our plate": This is one of those nonsense tautologies that add nothing to the discussion. The focus is no longer the idea or how it should be executed but some longstanding grouse about 'having no resources' or some customer's bug list. Of course you have a lot on your plate! You are being paid to have that stuff on your plate -- start chowing down!

If an idea is worth executing, its adoption should not depend on whether you have a lot on your plate; if you fill your plate at the buffet with junk and decide you can't have a desired dish because your plate is full, you have done two things wrong: you chose the wrong things to begin with and then haven't done the simple math that you have to throw the junk off your plate to get what you want. You don't kill the idea, you clean your plate.

4. "Our software is very complex; we have to be careful about making changes": Check another nonsense tautology off the list. What enterprise software isn't complex? Are you saying you are usually not careful when writing code? You are a software engineer -- you are expected to deal with complexity and be careful about making changes -- that's a basic requirement. If this is a reason we as engineers cannot execute an idea, we need to go back to relearn the basics.

3. "No one is asking for it": This reminds me of Henry Ford's wry comment "If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'a faster horse'." Human beings are incredibly adaptable -- they will live with anything, including, as Ford observed, horse manure. If you give your customers a substandard product, they will live with it. But remember that humans are incredibly fickle, too; an idea you kill will only bloom in another company's garden. Being sloppy just because our software is "sticky" -- short for "the customer hates us but can't change because it's too much work" -- is setting the bar at a level that's not worthy of a true engineer.

2. "We have to have consensus": This is at number two for a reason -- it's a seemingly innocuous statement with noble intent that is insidious and on closer inspection, meaningless in the software context. Consensus is given undue importance in everything from design meetings, SRS/SDS³ reviews, documentation, QA practices etc. Software development is an expertise-driven exercise. Someone has spent years studying, learning and working in a specific field, and to not defer to that person for the final decision is to waste all that expertise, not to mention deliver a bad product, demoralize the expert, adopt the safest and most timid way and most insidious of all, diffuse accountability.

A group decision is a way to duck responsibility for the outcome. "We all decided together" is a way of saying "No one is responsible". We have a presidential system instead of a parliamentary system for a reason: the congress advises the president but the president makes the decision. Unless the decision is so obviously horrendous that 2/3rds of congress decides to override the decision, the president's decision stands. This is the only way the buck can stop at the president's desk.

And the #1 idea killer in software development is

1. "It can't be done": There is nothing that cannot be done in software. Non-engineers kid around with "It's only software, right?" as a way to gently provoke engineers but it's true! It is indeed only software. Engineers should respond with specifics of what it takes to implement rather than say something cannot be done. A statement like "It will take 15 engineers, with individual licenses for software xyz, with 30 Model ABC machines, each with 2 TB of storage with at least 250GB in SSD storage and 5 QA personnel for a period of 1 year to deliver this software" instead of "it can't be done."

Everything can be done; let's get into that mindset first. The rest will fall into place.

Footnotes

1 . Anyone who has worked on enterprise software can give you a long list of "known bugs" that have been around for more than a decade

2 . Sometimes you cannot because too much code has grown around the defect and changing it is just too darn difficult at this point; or because the software died under the burden of too many such defects; or you no longer have a job because the company folded. It happens.

3 . Software Requirements Specification/Software Design Specification

Source: Navneeth Mandavilli @ computer.org

Navneeth Mandavilli is a senior technologist and innovator with experience ranging from hands-on development to the management of multi-national engineering teams building enterprise applications and system software. His most recent focus has been on helping others build development organizations that can successfully innovate, creating incubation teams that select projects based more on the promise of technology than proof. His approach has resulted in ground-breaking solutions, valuable acquisitions, and interesting failures.

Navneeth believes a successful career is rooted in two words: Know Thyself. He hopes that sharing his thoughts on what he learned about himself as he succeeded, and failed, in his career is helpful to the readers of this blog. He currently works in the Office of the CTO for EMC Corporation and is based in Santa Clara, California.

Follow Navneeth on Twitter @nmandavilli.

Viral Marketing Via Social Media

2011-08-19T11:39:00.000-05:00

Found a good article around Viral Marketing...

Read the article - Viral Marketing Via Social Media

SOA'izing MSMQ with WCF

2011-08-10T10:10:00.003-05:00

Microsoft Message Queuing’s (MSMQ) integration with the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is extremely powerful. It enables MSMQ developers to write fault-tolerant, service-oriented applications and provides a robust extensibility model developers can use to improve any system’s capabilities – including MSMQ’s. In this video and corresponding sample we'll convert a System.Messaging application into a WCF Queuing application, enable that application to overcome MSMQ’s 4mb message size limitation with a prototype chunking channel, and integrate it seamlessly with existing MSMQ applications.

More here...

BizTalk 2010 Recipes : Importing Schemas

2011-08-05T09:45:00.001-05:00

To import an existing XML schema into another schema...

You can use the XSD Import method within the BizTalk Editor to reuse an existing common XML object structure within another, as opposed to manually creating an entire schema. As an example, assume you have two simple XML structures, Customer and Address:

<Customer>
  <FirstName> </FirstName>
  <LastName> </LastName>
  <MiddleInit> </MiddleInit>
  <Age></Age>
</Customer>

<Address>
  <AddrLine1> </AddrLine1>
  <AddrLine2> </AddrLine2>
  <AddrLine3> </AddrLine3>
  <Zip> </Zip>
  <State> </State>
  <Country> </Country>
</Address>

To use the XSD Import method to allow this scenario within BizTalk, follow these steps:

Open the project that contains the existing schema (in this case, the Customer schema).
Double-click the Customer schema to open it.
Right-click the root node of the Customer schema, and select Properties.
In the Properties window, click the ellipsis next to Imports to open the Imports dialog box, which is shown in Figure 1.
Select XSD Import as the import type, and click the Add button.
In the BizTalk Type Picker dialog box, select the Schemas tree node, and select the Address schema.

Figure 1. Imports dialog box

NOTE

In this example, the Address schema is within the current BizTalk project. If the schema existed outside the BizTalk project, the schema could be imported by selecting the Reference tree node.

The preceding procedure imports the Address schema into the Customer schema. To use the Address schema, follow these steps:

Click the Customer node in the Customer schema.

Right-click and select Insert Child Record.

Click the newly created child record.

In the Properties window, click the Data Structure Type drop-down list, and select the Address reference.

The Customer schema is now referencing and using the Address schema via the Imports schema method within the BizTalk tool set.

3. How It Works

Within the BizTalk tool set, there are a variety of ways in which you can construct XML schemas. The choices revolve around common architecture principles such as reuse, development best practices for schema organization, and fundamental development preferences.

This example illustrated using the Imports method for referencing schema. The Imports dialog box offers three choices for achieving the schema reference activity (step 5 of the recipe):

Include: This method physically includes a schema definition within another. The common usage would be to create a static reference of a schema during the schema build process. This choice could be used to leverage previously defined XSD schema (for example, publicly available schema). The include schema must be the same target namespace of the schema you are including. Alternatively, the target namespace of the include schema can be blank.

Import: The most commonly used import method within BizTalk, the Import option includes XSD Imports statements within the source schema definition. By using this option, namespaces and XSD object structures within the target schema are available for use within the source schema in read-only fashion. The practical application for this choice revolves around common reuse, such as reuse of an existing schema artifact or use of a publicly available XML schema.

Redefine: The least-common import method within BizTalk, the Redefine option, like the Import option, allows namespaces and XSD object references to be used within the source definition. However, the Redefine option allows objects and data structures to be overridden within the source definition. Common uses could be to create an inheritance model or to reuse and customize an existing XSD structure.

This example demonstrated referencing other schemas within the BizTalk tool set. However, while BizTalk provides and implements standard XSD instructions to achieve this functionality, common architecture usage and choices should not be ignored to ensure the correct schema reference method is selected.

Tips for WCF Tools

2011-07-19T09:59:00.000-05:00

Here are some tips for using WCF Tools in VS2008 SP1

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wcftoolsteamblog/archive/2008/08/28/tips-for-wcf-tools-in-vs2008-sp1.aspx

Best Web Hosting Sites - iPage vs BlueHost

2011-07-03T16:54:00.000-05:00

iPage

Bluehost

49 Ideas For Awesome Lenses

2011-06-15T09:46:00.000-05:00

Are you ready to make a lens or two?

How about 5 or 10 or 100?! It's pretty easy, non-techy, and of course, free. Right? Right. Sure, to make your lens a real knockout it takes some time, but the point of this lens is to share some ideas for getting started, not for being perfect. This is just a short list of different lenses worth making. Just to get you thinking. There are a gaggle of other ideas you should absolutely make lenses about.

P.S. If this isn't enough to get you going, try stopping by The Squidoodlr: A lens idea generator.

http://www.squidoo.com/lensbrainstorm

Video - BizTalk Server, SOA and the Shift to the Cloud

2011-06-03T12:25:00.001-05:00

In the session Richard Seroter discusses the continued relevance of SOA and how to apply SOA principles when designing and exposing services from BizTalk Server. (View session 2)

Richard Seroter is a solutions architect for an industry-leading biotechnology company, a Microsoft MVP for BizTalk Server, and a Microsoft Connected Technology Advisor. He has spent the majority of his career consulting with customers as they planned and implemented their enterprise software solutions. Richard worked first for two global IT consulting firms, which gave him exposure to a diverse range of industries, technologies, and business challenges. Richard then joined Microsoft as a SOA/BPM technology specialist where his sole objective was to educate and collaborate with customers as they considered, designed, and architected BizTalk solutions. One of those customers liked him enough to bring him onboard full time as an architect after they committed to using BizTalk Server as their enterprise service bus. Once the BizTalk environment was successfully established, Richard transitioned into a solutions architect role where he now helps identify enterprise best practices and applies good architectural principles to a wide set of IT initiatives. Richard maintains a semi-popular blog of his exploits, pitfalls, and musings with BizTalk Server, SOA and enterprise architecture at http://seroter.wordpress.com/.

Presented by Richard Seroter.

Length: 52 minutes 01 seconds

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Audio: AAC | WMA | MP2 | MP3 | MP4

Exposing BizTalk Applications on the Cloud using AppFabric Connect for Services

2011-06-03T12:21:00.003-05:00

With the advent of the cloud and enterprises building cloud-based applications, enterprises will still want to use their existing on-premise applications. Thus, one of the key requirements in building hybrid cloud-based applications across on-premise and on-cloud environments is the ability to use pre-existing on-premise applications. The BizTalk Server 2010 AppFabric Connect for Services feature now allows BizTalk users to expose their on-premise BizTalk Applications as WCF Services on the cloud, by adding Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus endpoints. These Service Bus endpoints can subsequently be consumed by clients residing outside the enterprise’s organizational firewall.

Before we go deeper into details of exposing BizTalk Applications to the cloud, let us clarify how cloud related technologies have impacted application and service deployment. We can divide the application and service deployment scenarios into two broad categories:

On-premises deployment: An application or service that runs within an organization’s firewall and is typically accessed by clients that are within the firewall.
On-cloud deployment: An application or service that runs within an organizational firewall and can be accessed by clients inside or outside the firewall through a Service Bus endpoint exposed in the cloud. The services still run locally in IIS. Only the endpoints are exposed in the cloud.

Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus provides the capability to take on-premise web services and extend their reach to external clients. Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus supports this on-cloud scenario with a relay service that can listen to external clients on behalf of the on-premise web service at a given public address and relay messages between both parties.

Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus provides the platform where developers expose the Service Bus endpoints for their on-premises services. AppFabric Connect for Services enhances the capabilities of theBizTalk WCF Service Publishing Wizard to enable developers to expose on-premise BizTalk application operations to external clients as WCF services via the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus relay service.

What does the BizTalk WCF Service Publishing Wizard do?

The BizTalk WCF Service Publishing Wizard essentially exposes the operations in BizTalk Applications as WCF services. AppFabric Connect for Services enhances the wizard to support the relay service provided by Azure AppFabric Service Bus. The wizard enables you to select the operations that you want to expose as services and then creates the following:

A local endpoint for the WCF service.
A Service Bus endpoint for the WCF service.
A Service Bus endpoint for metadata exchange with the WCF service (if configured).
Receive ports in the BizTalk Application, which are used to bind to the desired operations.

Security Considerations when Exposing Services on Cloud

Security becomes a paramount concern when organizations expose mission critical data and operations to services outside an organization’s protected environment. To address these concerns, organizations can follow certain security best-practices to ensure that only authenticated clients get access to the service.

Client authentication by the Service Bus Relay Service. All the Service Bus relay bindings expose a binding property, ‘RelayClientAuthenticationType’, that controls whether the client consuming the service is required to present an authentication token to the relay service. This property can be set to either ‘None’ or ‘RelayAccessToken’. If the property is set to ‘RelayAccessToken’, the client must provide an authentication token to the Service Bus. The authentication token must be communicated separately to the client, for example, as an e-mail message by the organization hosting the service. In addition to implementing security, setting ‘RelayClientAuthenticationType’ is also a cost-effective solution for the organization hosting the service. If there is no authentication from the Service Bus, any client would be able to hit the service endpoint even if it is eventually denied by the service. As a result, the organization would incur a chargeback even though there was no business operation that resulted.
Message-level and transport-level security. WCF inherently provides message-level and transport-level security for services. For more information on message- and transport-level security, seehttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733137.aspx.

Tip: It’s not essentially a security setting, but organizations can also secure the services which are exposed on the cloud by not making the endpoints publicly discoverable. Service Bus provides an ATOM feed which lists all the publicly discoverable endpoints under a given Service Namespace. Making the endpoints discoverable is controlled through the “DiscoveryMode” attribute of an endpoint's behavior in the "ServiceRegistrySetting". This can be set using the BizTalk WCF Adapter Publishing wizard. The disadvantage of not making the endpoints publicly discoverable is that if you have a large number of clients that would be using the service you hosted, you will have to communicate the endpoint URL to each of those clients.

Who Should Read This Whitepaper?

This whitepaper assumes some familiarity with Microsoft BizTalk Server, Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus, Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control Service (ACS), and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). This whitepaper is intended for the following users:

Organizations that want to extend the reach of their on-premises BizTalk applications to the cloud by exposing them as WCF Services with endpoints in Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus.
Users that want to consume the web service that is extended to the cloud, to perform operations implemented in BizTalk Application that are deployed inside an organization’s firewall.

Read the rest of the post @ technet.microsoft.com...