MSDN Blogs

SharePoint 2010 & Office 2010 Launch

arpans — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:39:00 GMT

[Cross-posted @ http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2010/03/05/sharepoint-2010-office-2010-launch.aspx]

We officially announced that May 12th, 2010, is the launch date for SharePoint 2010 & Office 2010. In addition, we announced our intent to RTM (Release to Manufacturing) this April 2010.

It’s an exciting time for us! We hope you can virtually join us on May 12th at 11am EST to listen to Stephen Elop, President of the Microsoft Business Division, announce the launch. You can register for the event @ http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/proof/pages/2010-launch-events.aspx.

Storing your information into activities during design time

kushals — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:20:57 GMT

Continuing with the theme of questions we get from customers: How can we store some specific information into activity. One of the cases might be since we don't provide a unique identifier for an activity, the developer wants to store the unique ids per activity. This way he can differentiate between two activities of the same type in the workflow.

This can be accomplished through the ViewStateService. We already use the ViewStateService per activity to store the Expand/Collapse state of the activity. An additional item in the ViewState dictionary would be its unique identifier. So every time an activity is added to the designer surface, we can do the following in the OnModelItemChanged(fired when the activity is added the first time to the designer) event handler.

this.Context.Services.GetService<ViewStateService>().StoreViewState
(
     this.ModelItem, "myId", i++
);

As you persist this Xaml, you would see something like below for a leaf activity:

<sap:WorkflowViewStateService.ViewState>
   <scg:Dictionary x:TypeArguments="x:String, x:Object">
        <x:String x:Key="myId">22</x:String>
   </scg:Dictionary>
</sap:WorkflowViewStateService.ViewState>

Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Kushal.

Data Macro Aliases and the Where Condition Demystified

James K. Rivera — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:32:04 GMT

Whenever I debug a data macro, one of the most common mistakes I find is misusing aliases, especially in the Where Condition of a ForEachRecord or LookupRecord data block. This blog post is an attempt to demystify this area. Hopefully, by the time you are done reading this you will have a firm grasp of how to use aliases in data macros.

Key points

1. What is the default data context?

2. When does the default data context change?

3. What else is in the data context?

4. What is the default data context in a named data macro?

5. Using an alias in the Where Condition of a ForEachRecord or LookupRecord.

6. Using an alias to reference a data context outside of the current default data context.

What is the default data context?

In a data macro, the "default data context" is what you are using when you refer to a field without using a table name qualifier. When a BeforeChange, BeforeDelete, AfterInsert, AfterUpdate, or AfterDelete event data macro is triggered, a new default data context is created, which can be used inside that block.

This new context is what I like to refer to as the “incoming default data context” or, for brevity, the “incoming record.” Note that in event data macros, the incoming default data context is always read-only. This is a change in behavior from the Beta 2 release.

When does the default data context change?

The data context stack is expanded and the default data context changes whenever you enter a data block (ForEachRecord, LookupRecord, EditRecord, and CreateRecord).

For example, if you are in a data macro in Table1, and you call “ForEachRecord Table2”, and then refer to a field without a table name qualifier, you are referring to a field in Table2.

What else is in the data context?

If you are in Table1.AfterUpdate, then you call “ForEachRecord Table2”, and inside that loop you call “LookupRecord Table3”, the data context at this innermost point contains a record for each of the 3 tables, and can be accessed using the following table name qualifiers:

1. [Table3] contains the record (if any) found by LookupRecord.

2. [Table2] contains the current records in the ForEachRecord loop.

3. [Table1] contains the record that triggered the AfterUpdate event.

4. [Old] contains the record in Table1 from just before the data change that triggered the AfterUpdate event was entered.

At the innermost data block (the LookupRecord on Table3), all of these are available from the data context stack with [Table3] being the current default data context. So, inside the LookupRecord data block, the data context stack looks like this:

When you exit a data block, the data context for that block is removed from the data context stack. So, if the LookupRecord on Table3 is finished, but you are still inside the ForEachRecord on Table2, then [Table2] becomes the current default data context, and the data context stack looks like this:

What is the default data context in a named data macro?

If you call a named data macro from an event data macro, the entire data context is carried over. So, in the above example, if you called RunDataMacro from the innermost data block, all 4 items would still be available inside the named data macro.

Note that there is no data context if you call a named data macro from a user interface macro (UI macro). In this case, any attempts to refer to a field will fail until you enter a data block, because there is no way to know which record you are referring to.

TIP:

If you define parameters for data that is consumed by your named data macro, then you can also call the named data macro from a UI macro. Then, if you are viewing a form you can pass the ID of the record being viewed (or any other field in it) to the data macros and then use LookupRecord on the ID to get the same record and perform some processing, such as deleting the record. Note however, that parameter values in data macros are read-only and cannot be edited.

Here is a screenshot illustrating this:

Using an alias in the Where Condition of a ForEachRecord or LookupRecord.

In most cases, you will not need to define an alias in a ForEachRecord or LookupRecord and you can just leave it blank, because the alias defaults to the same name as the table or query you are referring to on the first line.

IMPORTANT: The Where Condition is inside the data block. Therefore, the default data context in the Where Condition argument is whatever table or query the ForEachRecord or LookupRecord refers to.

Suppose you are in Table1’s BeforeChange event, and you want to prevent the change if it would create a duplicate value in the [Text1] field. The easiest way to do it is to create a LookupRecord on Table1 to find out if there is another [Text1] field in the table with the same data as the incoming record, and raise an error if a duplicate is found.

The solution is to define an alias for the LookupRecord block, then use that alias as the table name qualifier for fields in the Where Condition expression, and call the RaiseError action if any record is returned by LookupRecord to prevent the entry of this data.

Here is a screen shot illustrating this:

Using an alias to reference a data context outside of the current default data context.

Let’s say you want to iterate over all the records in Table1 and look for a match in Table2.Text1, and if found, set Table1.Text2 = "Match found in Table2 at row ID=X". To do this, I’ll define an alias at each step. Then, to edit the record from the ForEachRecord instead of the LookupRecord (which would be the default data context for the EditRecord if no alias was specified), I’ll use the alias I defined for the ForEachRecord (T1) in the Alias argument of the EditRecord block. This is how to edit the record from the ForEachRecord loop and instead of the record found by the LookupRecord.

Here is a screen shot illustrating this:

TIP:

The other benefit of always defining your aliases and then using them in the expressions inside the data block is that if you rename your table, you do not need to update all of your expressions.

That’s it! I hope this clears up any questions you may have had about using aliases or the where condition in data macros.

-James

the Beta of Team Explorer 2010 for Java is available for download

Dannawi — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:30:28 GMT

The Beta Team Explorer for Java codename "Eaglestone" (Microsoft Version of Teamprise) is available now. This is the Eclipse plug-in and cross-platform command-line client for Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server more info: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3c9454e0-523a-4ee1-b436-5c6fc2110b34 support Apple Mac OS X; HP-UX; IBM AIX; Linux; Solaris; Unix and of course Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP SP 2...(read more)

SCVMM 에서 VM을 Template로 만들어서 Library에 넣은 후 새로운 VM 배포하기

DebugMachine — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:09:48 GMT

6. Creating a Windows Server 2008 Template in SCVMM 2008

http://blogs.technet.com/julesman/archive/2009/03/23/creating-a-windows-server-2008-template-in-scvmm-2008.aspx

위의 포스트에서는 SCVMM의 Labrary를 사용해서 VM을 배포하는 방법에 대해서 설명하고 있습니다.

1. VM 만들기

2. VM에 OS 설치하기

3. VM에 Virtual Guest Services 설치

4. 로컬그룹정책 에서 패스워드 복잡성 Disable

5. 로컬 어드민의 패스워드를 NULL로 변경

6. New template 하여 Labrary에 저장

7. Create New VM gkdu Labrary에 있는 VM을 기반으로 새로운 VM 만들기

감사합니다.

Mystery of memory fraction in Showplan XML

queryproc — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:34:00 GMT

If you examine Showplan XML, you may find an entry like <MemoryFractions Input="1" Output="1" /> on some operators . They are internal parameters used by query memory grant to save overall memory usage, and “fraction” means how much this operator is allowed to use from “total additional memory” (please see previous post for definition on additional memory).

For example, let’s consider the following hypothetical plan:

SORT – HJ (hash join) – complex build side child
|--- probe side child

Since server knows HJ does not need to access its build-side once hash table is built, it can delay creation of sort table until HJ is ready to output joined rows. Then SORT can reuse memory previously used by HJ build side child. This is done by observing input (building hash table) to output (probing) phase transition by HJ.

So what’s the practical use of these values? Not much beyond confirming memory grant usage, if the fraction is comparable to 1. If it is very small (say 0.1), however, the query may be susceptible for bad cardinality estimate. If you experience bad performance due to disk spilling and see such small number in Showplan XML, then it may be a good starting point for investigation.

--- Jay Choe, SQL Server Engine

Working with data in cloud solutions

colbertz — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:48:00 GMT

In this blog post, we'll give an introduction to working with data in cloud solutions.

Overview

Working with data is a critical part in most solutions. In a cloud solution, we can adopt most guidelines we already have for on-premises solutions. However, cloud solution also has its unique use cases in working with data. In this post, we will discuss the following use cases:

· Expose your cloud data to the rest of the world.

· Expose your on-premises data to your cloud applications.

Common considerations

In either use case, there're a few common considerations that you need to decide before going on.

Choose a protocol

In an SOA world, the most important concept is contract. In a cloud world, when it comes to communication, the most important concept is also contract. When there is a common contract that is adopted by lots of cloud applications, we call it a protocol.

In the data communication scenario, if you choose Microsoft cloud solution, the recommended protocol is the Open Data Protocol (OData). Based on open standards such as HTTP and AtomPub, OData provides a consistent solution to deliver data across multiple platforms. If your cloud service exposes data using the OData protocol, the rest of the world can consume your data using the same solution as they consume other OData compatible cloud services. Likewise, OData provides the ability for your cloud applications to consume your on-premises data in a consistent manner.

A lot of products are already using OData. Just to name a few: Windows Azure Table Storage, Dallas, SharePoint 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2, and so on.

If you want to choose other protocols, it is important to investigate how scalable the protocol is, what's the adoption rate, and so on.

Choose a technology

After the contract (protocol) is chosen, it is time to choose a proper technology to implement the protocol.

If you choose Microsoft cloud solution, the recommended technology for communication among applications is WCF. And when it comes to data, the WCF Data Services is the de-facto choice.

First of all, WCF Data Services are WCF services, so all your existing knowledge about WCF can be used. In addition, WCF Data Services help you to implement the OData protocol without dealing with the underlying specification. You can focus on the CLR representation of your data model rather than the actual AtomPub/JSON messages being transferred over the network. What's more, WCF Data Services focus on data communication rather than data storage. The data source can come from any places: an on-premises database, a cloud database, external web services, xml files, and so on. No matter where the data comes from, you can expose and/or them in the same way.

If you choose other technologies, it is important to investigate how much effort it takes to implement the protocol you choose using the technology, how much effort it takes to extend the solution in the future, and so on.

Now that we've discussed the common considerations, let's have a look on how Microsoft products help you to realize the above mentioned two use cases.

Expose your cloud data to the rest of the world

A lot of cloud solutions involves interaction with the rest of the world. When it comes to data, the word DaaS (Data as a Service) might be the first to occur in your mind.

Cloud data can be stored in a lot of places, and there're a lot of kinds of data. For simplicity, we will focus on structured (think of xml) and relational (think of relational databases) data in the rest of this blog post. Currently Microsoft provides 2 cloud data storage products:

· Windows Azure Table Storage: It allows you to store structured data in the cloud. It uses flexible (dynamic) schema.

· SQL Azure: It allows you to store relational data in the cloud. It uses fixed schema.

The following table compares fixed schema with dynamic schema:

Fixed schema	Dynamic schema
Relational databases such as SQL Azure	Windows Azure Table Storage
Proven by decades of years’ experience	Highly extensible (single storage, but different schema for different apps)
Lots of existing products and tools	Web friendly, Open
O/R Mapping to take advantage of OO languages	Take advantage of dynamic languages.

You should choose a proper data storage based on your scenario. In most cases, if you want to enable write access on your data to the rest of the world, a dynamic schema is preferred, because third party applications may want to modify the schema a bit to adopt their scenarios. But considering the current limitation of Windows Azure Table Storage (not all features of OData are implemented), and the fact that the relational model has been proven by decades of years' experience, it makes sense to use a fixed schema if it takes too much effort to adopt dynamic schema.

No matter what schema you choose, OData and WCF Data Services can help.

As discussed above, WCF Data Services can be used with all kinds of data sources. It ships with 2 data providers out of box: ADO.NET Entity Framework (EDM) and LINQ to SQL (L2S). When using these data providers, it generally only takes a few line of code to work out a solution. If you choose SQL Azure to store your data, you can use EDM and L2S to access the database.

When working with other data providers (such as Windows Azure Table Storage), you're required to convert the source data model to a data model that WCF Data Services understand. This is usually a trivial task if your service is read only. You just need a class that describes your data model. If you need to support full CRUD, you must implement the IUpdatable interface. This is called a "Reflection provider for WCF Data Services". In more advanced scenarios, you can also use Custom Data Service Providers. For more information, please refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd672591(VS.100).aspx.

Windows Azure Table Storage itself uses OData protocol, so you may attempt to allow your clients to access your table storage directly. But doing so is not recommended in most scenarios. You must protect your storage account key at all cost, otherwise it is you who ends to pay for the storage usage abuse that occurs from a "trusted" hacker who you've sent your storage key so he/she can access your storage directly. In addition, ever since the SOA era at the beginning of this century, it is often recommended to wrap your data and business logics into services. That's why the recommended solution is to use WCF Data Services.

You can download a sample from All-In-One Code Framework (Azure).zip that demonstrates how to expose your cloud data stored in Windows Azure Table Storage to the rest of the world using WCF Data Services. The sample name is: CSAzureTableStorageWCFDS/VBAzureTableStorageWCFDS.

Expose your on-premises data to your cloud applications

Another common use case in a cloud solution is to Expose your on-premises data to your cloud applications. In most cases, the data is stored in a relational database (such as SQL Server) using fixed schema. So generally you do not need to worry about data storage. In this case, what you need to consider is connectivity and security.

Most companies have firewalls and NATs. It is very difficult to find a machine that is accessible from internet, and at the same time, has a static IP address. This makes it very difficult to communicate with the database server directly from a cloud application. In addition, it can be tricky to control access to your database. Cloud applications do not live in the same domain as your intranet, so it's impossible to use integrated Windows Authentication, and federated authentication solutions do not work well with databases yet.

To address the connectivity issue, Microsoft provides you with Windows Azure platform AppFabric Service Bus. Service Bus works as a bridge between your on-premises services and the cloud applications. Your on-premises server works as a client to the Service Bus, so even if it is beyond an NAT, it can communicate with Service Bus. Service Bus will relay messages sent from your cloud applications to your on-premises services.

Service Bus also supports both TCP and HTTP communication protocols. Most firewalls permits outbounding traffic over port 80/443, and that's the minimum requirement for Service Bus to work. Thus, Service Bus is able to traverse both NAT and firewall. The only obstacle that it can't help to overcome is proxy.

As for security, it is a complex topic. We won't cover too much details in this blog post. But Windows Azure platform AppFabric Access Control can help in most cases, and it can work together with Service Bus.

Once again, OData and WCF Data Services can help in this use case.

You can download a sample from All-In-One Code Framework (Azure).zip that demonstrates how to expose your on-premises data stored in SQL Server to the cloud. The sample name is: CSAzureServiceBusWCFDS/VBAzureServiceBusWCFDS. The sample also provides an ASP.NET client that you can use to test the service.

Windows Azure FireStarter | April 6th | Redmond, WA & Online (Live Stream)…

Mithund — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:38:45 GMT

You wanted more and now, we are giving you MORE! Based on your feedback, requests and suggestions – We are continuing our FREE Trainings on Windows Azure.

On April 6th (Tuesday) we are hosting the Windows Azure FireStarter event in Redmond, WA at the Microsoft Commons facility. The entire event will be simulcasted online for those of you who can’t be here in-person.

We have some rock stars from the Azure Product Team including Steve Marx who’ll be talking about Microsoft’s vision for Cloud Computing and more specifically how Developers can get ready to take advantage of everything the cloud has to offer. If you attended the recent MSDN Azure Events, or saw a few Azure Webcasts, then this is the perfect Continuum story. We will go deeper and get your trained on Windows Azure. Did I mention, it’s FREE!

Seating is limited, so please do Register. Also note that Registration is required for both In-Person and Online Events.

- Windows Azure FireStarter: www.msdnevents.com/firestarter

- In-Person Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032441229&Culture=en-US

- Online Streaming (Live): http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032441296&EventCategory=2&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Twitter Tag: #wafs

For any further questions, contact me at mithund at Microsoft or tweet me at @mithund (please include the #wafs tag).

Please forward the information to anyone else who might be interested in attending this event.

We look forward to seeing you at the event!

-Mithun Dhar

Technorati Tags: Azure,Windows Azure FireStarter,azure fireStarter,cloud computing,cloud events,windows cloud platform,Microsoft cloud platform,microsoft cloud,cloud

버전 UP!! vol.16 :: MIX10 Session Update, NBC Sunday Night Football – Case Study, ELLE – Silverlight Site, Mini-app at MIX10, Silverlight Toys, Silverlight TV Series, Why Windows Azure?, VS2010 RC Update, VS Team Explorer with 크로스 플랫폼

popcon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:38:00 GMT

영상이 보이지 않으면 이곳을 클릭해서 실버라이트를 설치하세요

따끈따끈한 IT '핫' 뉴스를 수다로 풀어보는 버전 UP!!

관전 포인트 :: MIX10 Session Update NBC Sunday Night Football – Case Study ELLE – Silverlight Site Mini-app at MIX10 Silverlight Toys Silverlight TV Series Why Windows Azure? VS2010 RC Update VS Team Explorer with 크로스 플랫폼 - Team Foundation Server Plugin for Eclipse

더 많은 내용을 원하시는 분들은 MSDN 뉴스레터와 TechNet 뉴스레터를 확인 하시기 바랍니다.

MSDN 뉴스레터 최신호: http://www.microsoft.com/korea/msdn/flash/currentissue/default.aspx

MSDN 뉴스레터 지난호 http://msdn.microsoft.com/ko-kr/aa940986.aspx

TechNet 뉴스레터 : http://www.microsoft.com/korea/technet/flash/archive/default.mspx

지금 이영상을 보는 순간 당신은 바로 버전 UP!! 을 하게 될 것입니다!!

* 버전 UP!!은 앞으로 금요일에 업데이트 됩니다.

Windows Media Video (WMV)
Windows Media Audio (WMA)
iPod Video (MP4)
MP3 Audio
Zune Video (WMV)

Solver Foundation 2.1 Preview

Nathan Brixius — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:34:00 GMT

The team has been hard at work on the next version of Solver Foundation. Here are some early details. We hope to release 2.1 later this spring and we'll be updating all the SKUs, including the brand new Academic version available on MSDNAA. Our focus for this release is on improving the development experience for Solver Foundation Services programmers: better performance, more control over the solution process, better reporting, and integration with the latest and greatest tools. Specifically:

The Report class will be greatly enhanced so that you can programmatically access report information (including solver-specific information such as sensitivity information).
The amount of overhead (measured in memory usage and CPU time) to create models using OML/SFS will be significantly reduced.
The SFS will include events that will allow you to get and set model and solver parameters before and during a solve operation.
Improved performance for data binding input and output values in the Excel add-in.
Visual Studio 2010 / .Net 4 support.
Office 2010 support.

All of these improvements are based on feedback from partners and customers. Thanks for your suggestions, keep 'em coming.

Chat with SharePoint MVP Experts

sptblog — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:27:20 GMT

Do you have tough technical questions regarding SharePoint for which you're seeking answers? Do you want to tap into the deep knowledge of the talented Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs)? The SharePoint MVPs are the same people you see in the technical community as authors, speakers, trainers, user group leaders and answerers in the MSDN forums. This is the first time we have brought these experts together as a collective group to answer your questions live. So please join us and bring on the questions! Topics include setup and administration, design, development and general questions.

We are pleased to have the following MVPs sharing their time and expertise with the SharePoint community for our first chat: Andrew Connell, Becky Bertram, Brendon Schwartz, Dan Attis, Daniel Larson, Darrin Bishop, John Ross, Matthew McDermott, Mike Oryzak, Paul Galvin, Paul Schaeflein, Randy Drisgill, and Rob Foster.

When: March 15, 2010

Time: 9-10:00 am PDT

Where: MSDN Chat Room

Add this to your calendar

Join this Facebook Event

Twitter Hash Tag #SPMVPChat

Azure Guidance – Scenario – Part II

eugeniop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:23:29 GMT

In this post, we’ll examine the application Adatum is considering migrating to the cloud as a proof point for their assumptions.

Adatum’s a-Expense

a-Expense is one application in Adatum’s finance support systems that helps them submit, track and process business expenses. Everyone in Adatum is required to use this application for requesting reimbursements. a-Expense is not a mission critical application, but it is clearly important. Users could tolerate a few hours downtime every once in a while, but it is clearly an important application nevertheless.

Adatum has a policy that all expenses are to be submitted for approval and processing before the end of each month. However, the vast majority of employees submit their expenses in the last 2 business days leading to relatively high demands during a short period of time. a-Expense is sized for average use, not for peak demand, therefore, during these 2 days, the system is slow and users complain.

a-Expense is currently deployed on Adatum’s data center and it is available for users on the intranet. People traveling have to access it through VPN. There’re have been requests in the past for publishing a-Expense directly on the internet, but it has never happened.

a-Expense stores quite a bit of information as most expense receipts need to be scanned and stored for 7 years. For this reason, the data stores used by a-Expense are backed up frequently.

Adatum wants to use this application as a test case for their evaluation of Windows Azure. They consider it to be a good representation of many other applications in their portfolio, surfacing many of the same challenges they are likely to encounter further on.

a-Expense Architecture

a-Expense’s current architecture is fairly straight forward and common:

There’s a web site built with ASP.NET, which is the front-end users interact with.
1. It uses Windows Authentication
2. It relies on ASP.NET Membership and Profile (for storing user preferences)
3. Exceptions and logs are implemented with Enterprise Library Exception Handling and Logging Application blocks.
4. It uses DirectoryServices APIs to call AD and query for the employee’s manager (who is the default approver of his/her expenses) and the employee’s cost center.
5. The web site uses a service account to login to SQL (trusted subsystem). This service account is in fact a Windows Domain account.
6. The database is configured to use SQL Authentication.
7. The application stores all information on SQL Server and images (receipt scans) on a file share.
There’s a background service (implemented with a Windows Service) that runs periodically and generates thumbprints of the scanned receipts.
There’s another background process (a Windows Service too) that periodically queries the database for expenses to be reimbursed and generates a flat file for the payment system to process. Using the same process, it imports payment results back to the application when the expense is paid and updates the expenses status (to “paid”).

Our “Secret Agenda” in case you haven’t noticed

You probably realize that the election of this scenario is not an accident. We believe that this is a realistic enough scenario, but more importantly we think it highlights quite some interesting challenges that can be easily extrapolated to other applications. It is also a functionally simple application, we don’t really want to build a 100% complete expense report system.

Application hot-spots

Almost everything in this application has considerations for moving it to Azure. Most are rather simple things, a few require more thought. Of course, “making it work” on Azure is not equal to “making the most” of the platform. So there will be room for improvement and optimization; and plenty of trade-offs.

Let’s examine some of these areas:

1- User profile is currently implemented using ASP.NET SQL Provider. This is a good candidate for using an Azure Table based provider. The data model is rather simple, there will not be a lot of information and it is probably cheaper than using SQL Azure, because even the smallest instance is larger than needed. Of course the SQL Azure implementation would just work with minimum changes.

2- In an intranet, you can usually afford not being very sensitive about how you use your network. Latency is low, bandwidth is rather high and it’s been paid for already. For example, the web pages might be very chatty or use a lot of bandwidth. Guess what? Once Adatum moves a-Expense outside their datacenter, latency and bandwidth limits will be more noticeable. There might be a need to optimize this (e.g. viewstate, pages, big images, etc). Also, bandwidth is something Adatum will start paying for. Money is a great motivator :-). Session management on the website will also need to be reviewed. Keeping session in memory and using server affinity are not viable options on Azure 9e.g. you can’t control the load balancer and you want at least 2 instances running at any given point in time).

3- The application is logging messages and exceptions to the Windows Event Log, where events are picked up by standard management tools.This is likely to change on Azure. Luckily, Azure provides a compatible trace listener and tools to ship the information back to Adatum. This should mean minimal changes to the a-Expense itself.

4- As many intranet applications, a-Expense relies on AD for authenticating its users. This is good, because employees enjoy SSO, user provisioning is automated, etc. One issue is that Azure machines will not be joined to Adatum’s domain. Luckily again, we have a great guide on this front :-). This a great example of dealing with internal dependencies.

5 and 6 – The easiest way of moving a-Expense’s database to Azure is to simply use SQL Azure. Some possible issues are: SQL Azure won’t accept Windows Authentication, will only work over TCP (e.g. no named pipes) and there’re some features not available (e.g. SQL Broker, etc). a-Expense uses SQL Server in a fairly standard way. Should not be a big deal, unless: the storage needed doesn’t fit on SQL Azure and we’d need to split it in multiple instances. There’ll be some minor changes for issues dealing with shorter timeouts, connection drops, etc. But all that can easily be dealt with in the lower levels of the data layer. Another, and perhaps more interesting discussion is the tradeoffs of using Azure storage instead. That will require some changes on the application as a new data layer will have to be developed. Also, developers will have to learn new APIs. One motivation for this change being the lower cost of Azure tables compared to SQL Azure.

7- Uploaded files go to a file share in the current implementation. On Azure, this functionality will probably have to be changed to use Blobs.

8 and 9 – These two background processes (implemented as Windows Services) are perfect candidates for Worker roles in Azure. Some pretty obvious questions: how much of the code can be reused? Does it make sense to have 1 or 2 workers?

10- The last hot spot: sending files back and forth to the external system. There are many ways of addressing this of course.

Increase your search rankings with better web page titles

Anna — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:14:00 GMT

Are you still waiting for a flood of visitors to find your site? Wondering if you need to invest in some online ads or an SEO specialist? Before you do any heavy lifting, first try the simple task of reviewing the titles of your web pages for their search relevance. I just published the following post to introduce you to one basic SEO concept and also show all of the options for efficiently reviewing and editing web page titles in Expression Web.

Read the entire post here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/anna/archive/2010/03/11/increase-your-search-rankings-with-better-web-page-titles.aspx

Anna Ullrich

Increase your search rankings with better web page titles

Anna — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:13:50 GMT

A web page title does not appear anywhere in your page, except in the browser title bar, as in the text “Web Overview < Product Information | Microsoft Expression” that appears in the following screenshot:

The title of a page appears only in the browser’s title bar.

Despite the low profile of the page title, major search engines do use the content in your <title> tags to help determine the relevance of your page to a user’s search. So if your web pages have generic titles such as “Home”, “Photos”, “Calendar” which do not contain terms that are unique to your site and terms that your target users are searching for, you are losing out on one of the simplest ways to increase the search ranking of pages in your site.

For example, let’s consider this site I created by using the Organization 2 site template in Expression Web for the fictitious Blue Bells Girls Soccer Club.

Generic titles, such as “Home” do not help users find your site

Naturally, I want this site to be easily found by girls, parents, and educators in the Pacific Northwest who are interested in soccer and team sports for girls. The placeholder page titles that the site template generated include Home, Photo Gallery, News, Information Links, Frequently Asked Questions, Contact, and Calendar of Events. These titles do not provide any details about the unique content of my site and won’t help my target audience find my site.

Instead of the title Home, a better title for the homepage is “Blue Bells Girls Soccer Club – Seattle, King County, and the Pacific Northwest”. This new title increases the chance that users searching for “Seattle girls soccer”, “King county soccer”, etc. will find my site. One more example: Instead of the title Calendar of Events, a better page title is “Blue Bells Girls Soccer Club - Game calendar and event schedule”. But be careful of producing “web spam”. If search engines notice an excessive number of keywords in your title, they may lower your page ranking if they determine you are overstuffing your page title with keywords. From the Bing Webmaster Center Blog:

Stuffing in less visible areas of the page. Placing repeated keywords in less visible areas of a page, such as at the bottom of the page, in links, in Alt text, and in the title tag, can be indicative of web spam.

If you use Expression Web, the program provides a number of ways to help you efficiently review and edit your page titles, including the file Properties dialog, the Page Properties dialog, the Find panel, and my favorite: the sometimes elusive Title column in the Folders view of a site. I’ll cover each method next.

Edit web page titles in the file Properties dialog box

In the Folder List panel, right click a web page and click Properties.

Right-clicking a file in the Folder List panel to access the file Properties command

The file Properties dialog box opens and enables you to edit the Title for the page.

The file Properties dialog enables you to edit the Title of a page

Edit web page titles in the Page Properties dialog box

To edit the title of a page you already have open in Expression Web, you obviously can edit the <title> tags by using the Code view of your page. Perhaps less obvious, you can also edit the page title, as well as other important page properties, in the Page Properties dialog by choosing File > Properties while a page is open.

Use the Page Properties dialog box to edit the title, page description, and keywords for a page

Review pages titles by using the Find panel

The Find command and Find panel enable you to find and review all <title> tags in your site.

Choose Edit > Find.
In the Find and Replace dialog box, on the Find tab, in the Find what box, type <title>. Under Find where, select All pages. Under Advanced, select Find in source code, and then click Find All.
Double-click any search result to open the associated page. Alternatively, you can right click a search result in the Find panel and click Go to Page to select the page in the Folder List panel.

Use the Find panel to find all instances of the <title> tag in your site

Edit the titles of all pages in your site in the Folders site view

My favorite method, and by far the easiest method to efficiently review the titles of all pages in your site, is to use the Title column in the Folders view of your site. Click the Site View tab and if it’s not already selected, click Folders at the bottom of the Site View.

Review and edit your page in the Title column in the Folders view of the Site View

Note: If you don’t see a Title column next to the Name column, as shown in the previous screenshot, then use the following steps to display the Title column.

With your site open in Expression Web, choose Site > Site Settings. In the Site Settings dialog, make sure there is a check next to the option Maintain the site using hidden metadata files, and click OK.
Quit Expression Web.
In Windows Explorer, locate the root folder of your website.
Right-click any HTML file in the site, and click Edit with Microsoft Expression Web. Expression Web opens and displays the page you right-clicked.
Click on the Site View tab and the Folders button at the bottom of the site view.

You can edit the title in the Folders view: just click, wait a second, and then click the title again to get into editing mode, and type your new title.

Edit a title directly in the Title column of the Folders view of your site

That’s fine and dandy, but it’s not especially efficient to navigate in and out of all your site folders in order to review each of the pages in your site. Instead, select View > Site > Files > All Files to list all of your site files in a single list.

Choose View > Site > Files > All Files to view all files in your site in a single list

To group your HTML pages together so they are not mingled in the list with other files in your site, click the Type column’s heading to sort the list by file type. Now you can efficiently review all of your page titles and quickly edit them in this view if desired.

Click the Type column to sort your site files by file type and group your pages in the list

More SEO guidance:

Google’s Search Engine Optimization (SE)) documentation: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
Google’s PDF-based Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
Bing’s Guidelines for successful indexing

Fiddler at MIX 2010

EricLaw — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:06:00 GMT

Just a quick little advertisement:

On the heels of the successful Fiddler session at PDC last fall, I'll be hosting a "mini-session" on Fiddler at the MIX 2010 conference next Wednesday morning.

I hope to meet some of you there!

Safepay Integration

Dave Dusek [MSFT] — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:00:00 GMT

Recently, I have been getting a lot of customization requests for Safepay, specifically, adding information into the detail line in the safepay file. Safepay customizations like that are pretty much all the same thing, no matter what field you want to add, so I figured I would share my integration point and how to handle these types of customizations. I have done probably 4 or 5 of these in the last couple of months.

Obviously, the first thing that you want to do is run a script log and script profiler and do some testing, I already did that part, so I won't go through that again here. If you generate a Safepay file, and you want extra data to show up in the detail line, then basically, you want to trigger on the script ME_Configurator_Get_Field_Output. This script determines what the field output will be and passes that field data back. The parameters for the script are:

ME_Configurator_Get_Field_Output Global Procedure
{ME_Configurator_Get_Field_Output} in table ME_Configurator_Tables_DTL; in table ME_Configurator_Tables_HDR; in table ME_Upload_Transactions; in currency IN_ChecksTotal, IN_VoidsTotal, INFieldAmount; in long IN_NumberOfChecks, IN_NumberOfVoids; out string OUT_field_output; inout integer IOError; inout string ErrorMessage; inout boolean FromConfigurator;

A few things about this global procedure. First, it is in the Safepay dictionary, so you will need to use Trigger_RegisterProcedureByName() to register a trigger on it. The trigger would be after original. Second, you will need to change the out OUT_field_output parameter to inout so you can set it. Third, you will need to add anonymous to all the table parameters since they don't exist in your dictionary. When you access these tables, you will need to use the column() function to get the data.

All the table buffers are positioned.

The ME_Configurator_Tables_DTL table is the table that holds the detail information of the safepay line being generated.

The ME_Configurator_Tables_HDR is the header table.

The ME_Upload_Transactions is the table that holds the transaction information that the safepay line is being generated for.

Let's assume that the client wants to add an extra field from the cash payment (check) in the Safepay file. Here is the overall design strategy for this type of customization.

In the Safepay configurator, create the safepay file as normal. When you create the detail line, add a field and give it a field name of something that you can recognize later when your trigger runs. Set the field as a constant and set the number of characters, padding, etc. This is your extra field. So right now it is just a constant, but you are going to intercept this later and give it the real data. Save the configuration file.
The idea is that you have a cross dictionary trigger on ME_Configurator_Get_Field_Output, this script runs for every field on every line. In the trigger processing procedure, you watch for the field name that you set up in step one, or you can watch for the constant. Both the field name and the constant are in the ME_Configurator_Tables_DTL table, so you use the column() function and watch for your field name. When you get the field name, then you run your code to retrieve your extra data.
Also, watch the ME_Configurator_Tables_HDR table buffer for when the bank id that you configured comes through. You would only want this code to run for that bank ID.
The ME_Upload_Transactions table buffer has the transaction information in it. So from this data, you can go to the CM_Transaction table. The one thing to watch out for here is that the CM_Transaction table, key 1 does allow duplicates. So in this case, for each record in the ME_Upload_Transactions table, there could be multiple in the CM_Transaction table, so you have to make sure that the client isn't allowing duplicate checks in payables management.
From the CM_Transaction table, you can get to the PM_Transaction_Open and the PM_Paid_Transaction_History tables. From there, you could get the apply information if you needed that for anything.
Once you have your data, you set the OUT_field_output parameter and then justify it and fill it. The justification and fill information is also in the ME_Configurator_Tables_DTL table.
Safepay takes care of the rest and puts your data in the text file that is generated.

That's really all there is to it. Most of the customizations are all very similar. Set up a constant in the configurator and then watch for it to come through in your trigger and change that constant to your data that you want on the safepay file and set the out parameter.

Dave

Tune Replication Performance using PacketSize

chrissk — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:58:05 GMT

Tune Replication Performance using PacketSize

Contributed by: Karol Korasadowicz

Depending on type of data being replicated and network throughput adjusting the PacketSize parameter for the Distribution Agent may increase your overall Transactional Replication performance.

-PacketSize packet_size
Is the packet size, in bytes. The default is 4096 (bytes).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms147328.aspx

To see which setting has most impact, create test scenario which inserts/updates records then distributes those to the subscriber using PacketSize 4KB (default), 8KB, 12KB, 16KB, and 32KB. Use Distribution Agent OUTPUT Parameter to track detailed performance statistics with each setting. Compare overall timestamps for each step along with overall Agent performance. Note: A higher packet size does requires more memory for the Distribution Agent.

For SQL 2008 see also Navigating Subscription Streams

Updated IIS 7 Configuration Reference

robert_mcmurray — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:58:00 GMT

One of the many projects that I've been working on for the past several months is an updated version of the IIS 7 configuration reference that describes every configuration setting for IIS in detail, which is located at the following URL:

http://www.iis.net/configreference

This latest version incorporates all of the updates to IIS for IIS 7.5, including previously out-of-band modules like FTP and WebDAV that are now built-in for IIS. As with the previous release of the configuration reference, each reference topic focuses on a specific configuration element that contains: an overview section that describes the purpose of each configuration element, setup steps when appropriate, "How To" examples using the IIS Manager, and practical examples using IIS configuration settings and ready-to-use code samples for AppCmd, C#, VB.NET, JavaScript, and VBScript.

I would be remiss if I did not send out my thanks to everyone that helped out - my apologies if I missed anyone:

Pete Harris and Samir Patel for helping to get this version of the configuration reference deployed on IIS.net.
Tom Woolums for helping to load balance this project with my other projects. ;-]
Anil Ruia, Daniel Vasquez Lopez, Eok Kim, Jaroslav Dunajsky, Jenny Lawrance, Kateryna Rohonyan, Kern Handa, Ruslan Yakushev, Sergei Antonov, and Wade Hilmo for all the great tech review feedback.
Alec Rowell for all of the great editing feedback.
And last but not least, I need to thank my wife - just because I should do that more often. ;-]

Are you an ISV? Are you developing packaged applications?

Sarah Theiss — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:47:00 GMT

Subscribe today to our local Australian ISV Newsletter. Spark for ISVs is distributed monthly and provides information for Channel Partners who develop packaged applications, and develop for the Web. Subscribe today!

NDISKD and !miniport

ndisteam — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:41:53 GMT

The second installment of a beginner’s guide to debugging with NDISKD

Last time we set up the debugger, looked at !ndiskd.help, and dumped out a table of active miniports. Today we’ll continue our laboratory by examining a specific miniport. As before, we use !ndiskd.miniports to get the table of active miniports:

kd> !ndiskd.miniport
    MiniDriver         Miniport            Name                                _
    fffffa800acf4640   fffffa800ad051a0    WAN Miniport (SSTP)
    fffffa800ac8f020   fffffa800ac911a0    Microsoft Virtual Machine バスネットワークアダプター

Suppose we want to get more information about the VM NIC named "Microsoft Virtual Machine バスネットワークアダプター". (It’s a Japanese target OS; this example showcases ndiskd’s newfound Unicode support). To pull up the details page on the Miniport, click the link in the second column. On my machine, the link is labeled fffffa800ac911a0, although it will be different for your machine.

When you click the link, the debugger displays a screenful of information. To keep things simple, we’ll dissect the output in sections. The first section displays basic information about the miniport.

MINIPORT

Microsoft Virtual Machine バスネットワークアダプター

    Ndis Handle        fffffa800ac911a0
    Ndis API Version   v6.0
    Adapter Context    fffffa800ad7e000
    Miniport Driver    fffffa800ac8f020 - netvsc60.sys v6.0
    Ndis Verifier      [No flags set]

    Media Type         802.3
    Physical Medium    NdisPhysicalMediumUnspecified
    Device Path        \??\VMBUS#{9df4aa68-e174-46f3-b4d1-716969be9559}#5&296c0f0e&0&{9df4aa68-e174-46f3-b4d1-716969be9559}#{ad498944-762f-11d0-8dcb-00c04fc3358c}\{42C420A8-067B-41DC-B746-114BAA3FB84A}
    Device Object      fffffa800ac91050
    MAC Address        00-15-5d-1e-25-09

There’s a lot of information there—let’s consider one row at a time. The Ndis Handle shows the miniport handle that we just clicked on. Every NDIS object (miniport instances, miniport drivers, filter instances, etc.) has a handle that uniquely identifies it to NDIS. If you are manually typing ndiskd commands, you’ll usually have to include a NDIS Handle value to specify which object you’re manipulating. Of course, clicking the Windbg hyperlinks is easier than copying and pasting handle values; then you don’t need to know the handle value at all.

The NDIS API Version identifies which version of the NDIS contract the miniport is written to. There is an exhaustive table of versions here.

The Adapter Context is a pointer to the driver-specific information. For example, if you are using the XFrameII sample miniport, it is a pointer to an xmpNicCtx_t structure.

Miniport Driver is, not surprisingly, a NDIS handle to the MiniDriver. Click on it to get more information about the driver.

The Ndis Verifier row shows you any Ndis Verifier settings that might be enabled for this miniport. NDISTest manipulates Verifier settings on your behalf, so don’t be surprised if you see some flags set on your miniport during testing. But in the output above, we see that there are not any verifier flags set on my miniport instance.

The Media Type and Physical Medium rows show what type of network interface this miniport is. If you’re a networking nerd, you might recall that 802.3 is the IEEE name for Ethernet. But if you didn’t remember that, it’s still okay, since you can click on it to pull up a definition from ndiskd’s built-in help database.

The Device Path shows the device instance ID. The Device Object shows WDM’s underlying DEVICE_OBJECT.

Finally, the MAC address should hopefully need no introduction.

STATE

    Miniport           Running
    Device PnP         Started
    Datapath           Normal
    Interface          Up
    Media              Connected
    Power              D0
    References         8
    User Handles       0
    Total Resets       0
    Pending OID        None
    Flags              2c452000
        ↑ NOT_BUS_MASTER, DEFAULT_PORT_ACTIVATED, SUPPORTS_MEDIA_SENSE,
        DOES_NOT_DO_LOOPBACK, MEDIA_CONNECTED
    PnPFlags           00210000          ← RECEIVED_START, HARDWARE_DEVICE

The next section shows the current state of the miniport. As you might notice, everything is printed in green text—green is supposed to hint that "packets can be sent". If you are trying to figure out why network packets aren’t getting through, the first thing you’ll want to do is scan this section for status that isn’t green. (Colored text is not available in kd.exe by default, so kd users can instead compare the text output to the 'good' text printed in the example above).

There are also a number of flags printed here. The flags are useful in advanced debugging situations; you don’t usually need to worry about them too much. If you do see a suspicious-looking flag, you can always click it to see the explanation from ndiskd’s built-in help database.

BINDINGS

    Filter List        Filter              Filter Driver      Context          _
    WFP LightWeight Filter-0000
                       fffffa800b3068d0    fffffa800ab682d0   fffffa800b2e9630
    Buggy Filter Driver 1-0000
                       fffffa800b2e3540    fffffa800ac207b0   fffffa800b2e44b0

    Open List          Open                Protocol           Context          _
    RSPNDR             fffffa800b91b8d0    fffffa800b920010   fffffa800b926010
    NDISUIO            fffffa800b9236b0    fffffa800b90f910   fffffa800b921e00
    LLTDIO             fffffa800b90c8d0    fffffa800b90d760   fffffa800b90c010
    TCPIP6             fffffa800b3018d0    fffffa800a997010   fffffa800aaff290
    TCPIP              fffffa800b3082a0    fffffa800a996540   fffffa800b3089e0

The next section shows you the binding stack. The first table shows you the filter drivers that are bound to the miniport. The filters are listed in the order of their binding altitude. The second table shows the protocols that are bound to the miniport. (Note that in NDIS terminology, an instance of a protocol is called an Open—see this post.) You can get more information about a filter or open by clicking the corresponding entry in the table.

MORE INFORMATION

     → Driver handlers                      → Task offloads
     → Power management                     → PM protocol offloads
     → Pending OIDs                         → Timers
     → Pending NBLs                         → Receive Side Throttling
     → Wake-on-LAN (WoL)                    → Packet filter
     → Receive queues                       → Receive filtering
     → NDIS ports                           → NIC switch

Finally, the last section is a list of links to more information. The first three links (Driver Handlers, Power management, and Pending OIDs) are the most useful. When debugging issues in miniports, I will often click on Driver Handlers so I can set a breakpoint in the miniport driver and catch the bug in action. Note that because we give you the same ndiskd that we use internally to debug NDIS itself, not all of the other links will work properly with NDIS's public symbols.

Phew, that was a lot of material to cover. Next time we’ll put this material to use as we diagnose a real network problem using ndiskd.

Now Available: The Windows Azure platform AppFabric LABS Environment

netsqlservicesteam — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:35:00 GMT

Today the AppFabric team has released the AppFabric LABS environment. This is a new environment which the team will use to showcase some early bits and get feedback from the community. Usage for this environment will not be billed.

AppFabric Labs provide a way for customers to test out and play with experimental AppFabric technologies. These are upcoming capabilities that excite us, and we want to get your feedback on them as soon as possible. As a result, there is no support or SLA associated with the LABS environment, but in return you will be able to preview the future of AppFabric while helping us shape it. Though similar to a Community Technology Preview, LABS technologies may occasionally be even farther away from commercial availability.

In this release of the LABS environment, we’re shipping two features:

1. Silverlight support: we’ve added the ability for Silverlight clients to make cross-domain calls to the Service Bus and Access Control Services.

2. Multicast with Message Buffers: we’ve added the ability for Message Buffers to attach to a multicast group. A message sent to the multicast group is delivered to every Message Buffer that is attached to it.

To get started:

1. Go to https://portal.appfabriclabs.com/,

2. Sign up using your Live ID,

3. Create your LABS project, and

4. Download LABS samples from here to learn more about these new features.

We hope you enjoy working with these Labs features as much as we have enjoyed making them available to you.

Thanks,

The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Team

Slides from SQL Saturday #33 "Troubleshooting Transactional Replication"

chrissk — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:28:00 GMT

Slides from SQL Saturday #33 Replication Talk "Troubleshooting Transactional Replication" Chris Skorlinski Microsoft SQL Server Escalation Services Here are the slides I used for my SQL Server Replication presentation "Troubleshooting Transactional Replication" during SQLSaturday #33 in Charlotte, NC. Keep an eye our for the nearest SQL Saturday and plan to attend. These mini-SQL PASS conferences provide great local and national speakers over wide range of SQL Server and BI topics. Don’t miss it!...(read more)

Now Available: The Windows Azure platform AppFabric LABS Environment

netsqlservicesteam — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:22:00 GMT

In this release of the LABS environment, we’re shipping two features:

1. Silverlight support: we’ve added the ability for Silverlight clients to make cross-domain calls to the Service Bus and Access Control Services.

To get started:

1. Go to https://portal.appfabriclabs.com/,

2. Sign up using your Live ID,

3. Create your LABS project, and

4. Download LABS samples from here to learn more about these new features.

We hope you enjoy working with these Labs features as much as we have enjoyed making them available to you.

Thanks,

The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Team

Pre-Order Visual Studio 2010 Professional upgrade today, and save hundreds

WebDevTools — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:21:00 GMT

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional will launch on April 12 but you can beat the rush and secure your copy today by pre-ordering at the affordable estimated retail price of $549, a saving of $250.

If you use a previous version of Visual Studio or any other development tool then you are eligible for this upgrade. Along with all the great new features in Visual Studio 2010 (see www.microsoft.com/visualstudio) Visual Studio 2010 Professional includes a 12-month MSDN Essentials subscription which gives you access to core Microsoft platforms: Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter.

So visit http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/pre-order-visual-studio-2010 to check out all the new features and sign up for this great offer.

Cheers,
Omar | Visual Web Developer

Article About Dassault Systemès and SQL Server

anuchaw — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:02:26 GMT

Express Computer, an IT business weekly publication, just published an article about component manufacturers that have driven product innovation through PLM, including a deployment of Dassault Systemès and SQL Server. Akhtar Pasha wrote "According to [Vivek Marwaha, Marketing Director, Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software India Pvt. Ltd.], earlier the TCO in PLM was high because it worked well only with the Oracle database. . . . Today customers can use SQL Server for engineering, which has low TCO on PLM systems."

Read the whole article at http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20100315/coverstory01.shtml.