Daniel Wissa's Online Connection

Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services: Part 4

Wed, 15 May 2013 04:02:27 +1600

In the previous posts in the series Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services we’ve covered everything required from building a data driven application from scratch to making the application ready to be fully running in the cloud. The final step in this process is to publish/host the application on Windows Azure. Below are the steps required to do so.

Creating the Windows Azure cloud service

The first thing that needs to be done is that we create the service to host our application. To do this I’ve chosen the Cloud Service option and specified the required parameters as shown below.

Once the service has been successfully created the Windows Azure Portal dashboard will show the service entry as can be seen here.

When we drill into the details of that service we will see two deployment options, one into a staging environment and one for production. We can deploy the application to either of these environments but for now we’ll use the staging option as shown below.

Once we drill into this option, the following dialog will be presented which allows us to specify the packages to upload. At this stage, we do not have any files that can be uploaded so we need to first create these before uploading.

Creating and uploading the Windows Azure packages

From within visual studio we can use the IDE to create the packages we need so that we can manually upload them using the portal screen shown earlier or we can publish directly from the IDE. For the moment, we will use the portal to upload the files. To do this we need to package our solution into the required format.

1) Configure the role properties

The first thing to do before creating and uploading the packages is to configure the role properties for the instance we are uploading. From here you can configure things like the instance count and VM size. I’ve currently set these to a single instance and to use the smallest VM size as shown below.

The standard for Windows Azure is to use 2 instances – this will be apparent further in the post – but for now we’ll just use a single instance.

2) Build the packages

To build the packages, all that needs to be done is to select the package option by right-clicking the cloud service project and then choose the desired build configuration as shown below.

Once the above steps have been completed, the required Windows Azure files will be generated in the folder below – the folder will open once the build is successful.

2) Upload the packages

With our packages now ready, we can go back to the portal and select the generated files for upload as shown below. Note that the option Deploy even if one or more roles contain a single instance is selected here. If we do not select this option the Windows Azure portal will prevent the deployment from uploading. The reason for this is that in the role configuration that was shown earlier, we chose to only create a single instance of the role. We also selected the Start deployment option so that once the upload is complete the deployment to the staging environment is accessible straight away.

3) Deployment being prepared

After we complete the upload process, the instance we uploaded will start initialising and will go through several stages, below are screenshots of what you will see while the deployment is being made ready.

4) Deployment ready

Once the deployment is complete, the dashboard will show the status of the instance as Running.

Now, given that the service is running in the staging environment, we can drill down into the details of the instance and obtain the URL to access the service as well as other properties as shown below.

Accessing the service and fixing deployment issues

With all the upload steps now completed, we can use the URL of the staging instance to access the service as shown below. However, as you can see, our initial publish has failed due to the reason mentioned below. We are able to see the error here as I’ve already set the customErrors mode to Off. This issue is due to the explicit version number reference for the Microsoft.Data.Services dll which can be seen below in the QuotesDataService.svc file.

1) Microsoft.Data.Services dll mismatch error

2) Fixing the Microsoft.Data.Services mismatch error

To fix the dll issue observed earlier, all that needed to be done was to remove the explicit version reference. After this has been done we are able to successfully view the service data after fully deploying to Windows Azure as shown below.

Summary

In the previous Exposing your data using WCF Data Services posts we covered everything from creating a local application and database, migrating the database to the cloud to making our code ready for cloud publishing. This post covered the final stage of the process for migrating everything to Windows Azure which involved publishing the cloud ready application code to the Windows Azure portal. The post covered doing this by manually creating the Windows Azure packages and then uploading them manually through the portal’s upload interface. Whilst this approach is fairly simple, there are other ways to publish projects to Windows Azure such as directly from Visual Studio or via the Windows Azure PowerShell.

Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services: Part 3

Wed, 08 May 2013 04:12:51 +1600

In the previous posts Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services: Part 1 and Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services- Part 2 I wrote about creating a WCF Data Services application to expose data from a SQL Database and publishing the database to SQL Azure. In this post we’ll go through migrating the WCF Data Service code created in Part 1 into a Windows Azure service so that we can ready the code for publishing to the cloud.

Downloading the latest Windows Azure SDK

The first step in migrating our code is to grab and install the latest Windows Azure SDK as shown below. At the time of writing this post the latest version is version 2.0.

Creating the Windows Azure service and role

Once the SDK has been installed, we can start using Visual Studio to work with Azure. To get started, we need to first load the solution created in Part 1 of this post series. After the solution has been loaded, we can begin creating our Windows Azure components which will run the WCF Data Service that was created in Part 1. The first step is to create a Windows Azure Cloud Service as shown below.

After the step above is completed we will need to create a role that will contain our application. As can be seen below, there are multiple options for doing this. For the purpose of this post series, I’ve gone with the WCF Service role as this is populated with the least amount of files by default. Another option was to host the service in a web role. You will see below that for creating this role the Windows Azure Tools version 2.0 is selected. I also have an older version installed on my PC but 2.0 is chosen by default.

Completing the above steps results in two new projects being added to our solution as shown below.

Adding code to the Cloud Service Role

To begin the migration to the cloud service, we need to add our WCF Data Services code to the role that was just created. Here’s a list of things we need to do:

1) Add reference to Entity Framework

In the first post in the series we used Entity Framework to access the DB data. At this stage, our cloud service role does not have any Entity Framework references so we need to bring these in. The easiest way to do so, is using Nuget from the package manager console as shown below.

2) Copy the Entity Framework files and other relevant files created in the first project

Now that the EF references are included in the project, we can just copy the relevant project files for EF & also the WCF related files into the Cloud Service role project as shown below.

3) Add references to WCF Data Services DLLs

After including the EF & the WCF service project files required, if we try to build the application, the following error is presented. The reason for this issue is that the WCF cloud role is not initially created as a WCF Data service and therefore is missing some assembly references.

We can bring in the WCF Data Service references by using the following commands in the package manager console. Both commands can be executed in the same way as done for including Entity Framework as shown in step 1.

PM> Install-Package Microsoft.Data.Services and PM> Install-Package Microsoft.Data.Services.Client.

Running the first command should include both references, but in case not, then you can add the missing DLLs using the second command. However, when I build the Quotes Service Role project after adding the references, it still fails and I get the error below.

The reason for the error shown here is that this cloud role was created as a WCF role so it already had a reference to System.Data.Services.Client.dll which we do not need to use. To resolve this issue, we need to remove the redundant references, I will also remove the default svc files which got added when the role was created as shown below as this are not needed either.

As you can see, with the redundant files and references removed the project now builds successfully.

4) Copy the Cloud DB Connection String

The last outstanding thing to do now, is to copy across the Quotes DB connection string which was used in Part 2 of this series in order to allow our cloud service to connect to the cloud DB instance. I’ve done this by simply copying and pasting the connection string from the QuotesDataService project into the service role project as shown below.

After completing the above step the QuotesDataService project is no longer required and can also be removed from the solution.

5) Test the changes

The previous steps complete all the changes we needed to make to the code to make it ready for the cloud. We can now do a test run to ensure it still works the same way as it did in the previous post when we migrated the database. Below is a test I did and as you can see the service is successfully running in the Windows Azure Emulator. Note that in order to run the emulator, your Visual Studio solution must be opened with elevated privileges and also in order to connect to the cloud database successfully your IP needs to be enabled in the firewall (refer to the previous post on how to do this if you have not read that previously)

Summary

Following on from the posts Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services: Part 1, and Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services- Part 2 this post explained how we can migrate our WCF Data Services created code into code that’s cloud ready in order to enable us to publish that code to Windows Azure so that it can be available and used externally. The post covered Downloading the latest Windows Azure SDK, Creating a Windows Azure cloud service and migrating existing code to a cloud service. In the next post we will cover the final step of publishing the cloud service created in this post to a publicly accessible Windows Azure service.

8 Years of blogging, and counting!

Wed, 01 May 2013 21:43:18 +1600

The History

It’s amazing how fast time flies but as of today, I have been blogging for 8 years! Before I started blogging back in 2005 while in my last year at university, I remember talking to Paul Andrew, who was working at Microsoft New Zealand at the time when I was a Microsoft Student Partner. Back then, my title was 'Microsoft Student representative’, which then was changed to Microsoft Student Ambassador and currently is called Microsoft Student Partner. It’s hard to believe that this was 10 years ago now for me!

Putting the student ambassador story aside, at that time, when I was involved in some stuff with Paul, I found out that he had a blog. I thought to myself, hey it would be nice to have one of these. I asked Paul how he got his blog and he mentioned that these are allocated to Microsoft employees. I still wanted one, so I thought why not start my own. I started thinking of domain names to use and ended up going for http://www.dan.net.nz at the time. I’ve since also acquired http://www.wissa.net.au and a couple of years ago http://www.wissa.net which is what I currently use as my main domain. In 2005 I thought it would be nice to call myself DanDotNet and that’s how I came up with the first domain name – dan.net was not available to use. A couple of months ago I decided to let that domain name lapse after using it for so long. Since I’ve been using http://www.wissa.net it has grown on me so it felt like the right time to let http://www.dan.net.nz go. That’s basically how my blogging journey started and it’s good to see that 8 years on I’m still doing so.

Thoughts on blogging and blogging tips

Looking back at my blog posts over the past eight years, what I notice most is that in the very early days, the majority of my posts were very short in length. I suppose this is what you could refer to today as the equivalent of what we now know as tweets! However, as I started gaining experience, knowledge and an audience, my posts have also matured a lot in nature of content, value and style. In addition to that my blog now has much more exposure than it did in the old days and I hope it continues to grow.

When I started blogging, most of the people in this blog list had active blogs. However, a few have disappeared over the years. I think social media and sites like twitter have taken content away from blogs, but, there are also some who have decided to retire. This includes one of my favourite blogs along that time of Xero CEO Rod Drury who now occasionally blogs on the Xero Blog instead.

Like Rod, who these days probably needs 72 hours in a day, we all have times when we are busy and that takes us away from blogging, other times there may not be much to say or blog about. A couple of years, ago I started regularly reading Scott Hanselman’s blog – my current favourite blog to read – and he has some great tips for bloggers in his posts Your Blog is The Engine of Community and Your words are wasted. The key message for me from both of these posts is that when you blog, you own your words, you are in control and that your words contribute content for the community and this can be useful in many ways. That’s why if you have a blog, you should blog more. Reading Scott’s posts has definitely encouraged me to keep blogging and even make more effort in blogging well and not just rant!

A trip down memory lane

Now given my blog’s anniversary I thought I would share 8 of the most popular – viewed/clicked – posts I’ve had on this blog. Here’s the list in alphabetical order which I hope you enjoy.

- A lap around the New Windows Azure Portal (several posts)
- Breaking up Microsoft
- Fixing your BlogEngine.NET theme in Windows Live Writer
- From Windows Live Search to Bing Social in 6 years!
- History of the Start button
- Steven Sinofsky: Other reasons why he left Microsoft
- Visual Studio 2012: New Features
- Windows 8: Where's my start button?

So remember, if you have a blog and haven’t blogged recently, blog more and keep the content coming!

Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services: Part 2

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 05:21:04 +1600

In the previous post Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services: Part 1, I wrote about creating a WCF Data Services application to expose data from a SQL Database. In this post we’ll go through publishing the database created in Part 1 to the Windows Azure cloud.

Creating the Windows Azure database

The first step in migrating the Quotes data services application that we created in Part 1 is to move our database into the cloud. To get started with this the initial step is to create a new database instance in Azure, which we can do in the management portal by the following steps.

Navigate to the SQL Databases node

Once we are logged into the Azure portal, we can specify the database details for the database we wish to create via the Databases node as shown below. From there we can choose options like the database type, size and collation. The Business version of the databases offers larger storage capacity.

Manage database details from the SQL Databases dashboard

Once our database instance is created, we will be able to see the database details in the dashboard of the portal and are able to start managing/configuring the database details as shown below. The dashboard will allow you to see server events, errors, amount of storage used and so on.

Attempt to connect to the database

With the database instance now created we are able to view the server details on the dashboard. From there we will be able to view the URL which we can use to connect to the server using the credentials created in the previous step.

However, when I attempt to establish a connection using SQL Server Management Studio, I’m presented with the error below. The reason for this error is that for being able to connect to a SQL Azure database the IP Address for the client computer – or an IP Address range – must be allowed in the database firewall rules.

To correct this issue we need to allow the IP address reported in the error above – masked– into the SQL Azure firewall. This can be done by accessing the Manage allowed IP addresses setting and then adding the desired IP address or ranges as shown below.

Establish a connection to the Azure database from SSMS

Once the IP addresses have been allowed in the SQL Azure firewall we are now able to connect to the database from management studio as can be seen here.

Migrate our database to SQL Azure

With our connection now established, the main remaining task is to migrate our data out to the Azure database. One way to do this in the past was by using the SQL Azure migration Wizard. However, given we are using SQL 2012 in this instance there is a way which I consider simpler. You may be aware of the SQL Server Management Studio Generate Scripts utility. Now this same utility can be using to export scripts to a format that is suitable to run in Azure. The article How to: Migrate a Database by Using the Generate Scripts Wizard (Windows Azure SQL Database) explains the options that need to be chosen in SSMS to do this. Below is a quick summary:

Set Output Type as Save script to a specific location. Select Save to file. Click Single file. Type the file name and location in File name. Click Advanced.

In Advanced Scripting Options set “Script for the database engine type” option as “SQL Database”, set “Convert UDDTs to Base Types” option as “True”, and set “Types of data to script” option as “Schema and data”. Click OK.

Once these options are set, the script is generated as can be seen below.

Execute the generated script on the SQL Azure database

Now that the script is ready we can execute it on our target database and once this is successful, our tables will be created in the target instance as shown below.

Connect our local application instance to the Azure database

With our data now in the cloud, the final step is to connect our local application instance to the cloud database. This can be achieved by simply updating the connection string in our project to point to the SQL Azure instance as shown below.

After the above step is completed we should be able to view our data in the same way as we did in Part 1. By running the application locally we can see that our data displays as expected as shown here.

Summary

The above steps in this post show how we can easily create a SQL Azure database instance using the management portal and migrate our local database and application to use that instance. In the next post we will go through the final step of moving the application’s code to Windows Azure.

Exposing your data using .NET WCF Data Services: Part 1

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 18:03:38 +1600

Last year I wrote the post Data as a Service: The next big thing? where I mentioned that in a Devices + Services era, one issue we face is that in many cases it is not possible to access useful data to build consumer applications over. I summed up that post by saying the following:

As a result I really think that for the Devices + Services to succeed we need more data to consume… if you have data that can be shared to make other services possible, simpler or better then share it! It’s time to make DaaS the next big thing along side Devices + Services.

With that in mind, the question is: Is there a feasible way for companies/organisations with data available to share to expose their data? I’ve been wondering about that myself recently. I had heard of OData but never really looked much into it and although I’m still a newbie to OData it turns out that OData provides a simple, uniform way of publishing data. In .NET this can be done using WCF Data Services and below I provide a walkthrough of publishing a small database using WCF Data Services and consuming that in an application.

Creating a Simple Database

For this post I decided to build a simple quotes database for the walkthrough. I’ve built a small database of quotes by putting together quotes I’ve found on the internet from people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and others.

As can be seen above, the table contains three basic columns to hold the quote ID, Author and the Quote text. The next thing that needs to be done is creating a way to use that data which we can do using WCF Data Services.

Creating a WCF Data Service

You can host a WCF Data service in a web application so given that for this post all we need is the service I have just added it to a blank ASP.NET Web app by using the following steps

1) Create an Empty ASP.NET Web Application in Visual Studio

Launch Visual Studio and add a new ASP.NET Empty Web application.

2) Add your Data Model to the project created in the previous step

The next thing that needs to be done is adding our Data Model so that we can use that in our service. One way to do this is by adding an ADO.NET Entity Data Model as shown in the screenshots below.

For this post we’ll use the Quotes database that was created earlier by choosing the Generate from database option.

Once we have established a connection to our database we can then choose the desired tables and when completed our model will be added to the solution as seen below.

3) Assigning our Data Model to a Service

With our Data Model ready we can now create the service to consume this model with. This can be done by adding a WCF Data Service file to the project. In the screenshots below I create a QuotesDataService.svc file.

Once this file is created the code below will be presented.

Now what we need to do is assign our Data Model entities to the DataService and also set up the access rules to the service. Below is what I’ve done for the Quotes service.

As you can see above, I’ve passed the QuotesDBEntities model – the data source class name – to the DataService and set read access to the operations and data.

Accessing and Querying the Data Service

The previous steps complete everything required for us to be able to access the data and now we are ready to start querying the service.

1) Browse to the service URL

Given we are currently still running locally all we need to do is just run the Visual Studio Project with the QuotesDataService.svc page set as the start page. When this is done we are presented with the following page showing us the available entities in this service that we can query.

2) Perform some queries on the Data

With our service published we can now start querying and below are some example queries I have done.

Show all available quotes

Show a quote with a specific ID

Show quotes by a specific Author

The above queries demonstrate a few ways OData can be used to query the data published in our service. You may have observed that in this instance the data is displaying in an ATOM feed format. WCF Data Service also enables you to publish that data using JSON. One way to do this is by changing the response headers to accept the JSON format which you can do through your code/fiddler. Another way is to use the $format attribute. Unfortunately this is not supported in WCF Data Services out of the box. The good news is, there’s a way to add that support!

Adding JSON format support to your WCF Data Service

In addition to publishing the service in ATOM format, here is one way we can add JSON support to the WCF Data service.

From the link above I went with the option of using JSONP and URL-controlled format support for ADO.NET Data Services which required me to do the following:

1) Download the code

Download the extension code from here

2) Add the JSONPSupportBehavior.cs class to your service project

From the files extracted in the previous step, the next action required is to add this file to your project so that the extension can be used. I’ve done this by just copying and including the file in the solution as shown below.

3) Assign the [JSONPSupportBehavior] attribute

By adding the class in the previous step we are now able to annotate our service class with this property so that we can publish our data in JSON format. To do so all that needs to be done is to bring in the required namespace and assign the attribute to the class as shown below.

This completes the required steps and we can now access our service data using JSON format.

4) Viewing the service data using JSON

With the addition of the code mentioned in the previous step completed, we can now use the $format option to view the data using JSON as shown below. Almost!

As you can see, when I try this and pass the $format=json in my URL I get the response above instead of the actual JSON. The reason for this is that I’m using the latest version of WCF Data Services. The changes we made earlier to support the format query will only work directly if you’re using WCF Data Services older than version 5. However, we can work around this issue by either adding the odata=verbose option or setting the MaxDataServiceVersion header to 2. To fix this issue in my case, I went with the former option by updating the JSONSupportBehaviour extension code to add the verbose option to the AfterReceiveRequest method as shown below.

With the above steps completed we can finally request our service data in JSON format as shown below.

Summary

The steps above in this post demonstrated how we can use WCF Data Services to easily publish a data model so that its data can be consumed by other applications through OData. This enabled us to expose the data using both the ATOM and JSON formats. In the next post I will continue on from this post by publishing this data into the cloud using Windows Azure so that it can then be consumed by client applications such a Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 app.

Why Bing when you can Google?

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:43:01 +1600

Over the past few years, I’ve blogged a number of times on Microsoft’s search offering from the early days of Windows Live Search through to it’s current Bing services. Despite my interest in Windows Live Search and Bing over that period, I still find myself using Google a lot of the time and I decided to try and find out why. One reason for me, which I’ve mentioned in my post From Windows Live Search to Bing in 6 years is the home page. Every time I visit the Bing homepage I find it distracting when I go there I go there to search. I know that the search box is there and I can easily move away from the home page by starting to type in it straight away. However, why is this page so busy with information, pictures and colours that I don’t care about? It would be nice if one can just customise that page to their own liking.

With that aside, I believe that the main reason that I use Google over Bing is that Bing is a latecomer and I’m already used to using Google. So, unless there’s an advantage that Bing offers over Google then put simply, what’s the point?

Lack of Innovation

In recent years Bing has introduced many new features that help in producing good search results. The posts I linked to earlier above cover some of these. However, both search engines still lack significant innovation and have not provided any improvement in the way we search for many years. It’s still just a search box. Here’s an example of things that both engines do which are simply pointless!

Google

Bing

Both sets of pictures above between Google and Bing show features that most of us would not care about. Why would one care how long a search has taken or how many results have come back? When we’re searching we’re looking for information so what we care about is whether or not we got those. If a search is too slow, we will know, such as if a page takes to long to respond or doesn’t load results. The fact that we got 5 billion plus results back in 0.17 seconds doesn’t provide us with any value whatsoever.

The next thing is the results pages, rather than both search engines returning us tens, hundreds or even thousands of pages back, who views results in pages 5 or beyond for instance? Why don’t search engines try and allow us to refine our queries rather than let us scroll through pages and pages of results till we find what we’re looking for. So to both Google and Bing, I say, please remove all the page results and try and understand me and my query better so that you give me what I am looking for. Accurately.

User Understanding

The last paragraph above brings me to an interesting point. One reason I prefer Google over Bing in my day to day usage – and as a result I use Google more – is that for a lot of the queries that I do it would seem that Google knows me better and has a better understanding of what I am looking for. I think this is an area where Bing – the so called decision engine – needs to improve a lot. Below are some examples of where Google does better in that department in my view.

Finding out the current time

One query I perform often is searching for the current time in a particular location, Google has the smarts to display the result to me as the top returned item instead of requiring me to click on a link so that I find out the answer. Bing on the other hand doesn’t let me do that. Below are the results in Bing and Google and you can see that Google does better there.

Bing

Google

As you can see above, doing the time search in Google has saved me time by displaying the actual time within the results page. In Bing, I would have to navigate to the www.timeanddatewebsite.com to find out the current time and this is a much slower process.

Recent sports results

There are many other areas where Google does much better than Bing in returning relevant results. One of them is recent sports results. I’m a tennis fan and regularly check for tournament results and once again Google makes that very simple but knowing which tournaments are currently on/recent and displays the results within the results page. Here’s some comparison between both engines.

Bing

Google

Once again, as can be seen above, the Google search engine has had better understanding of my query and displayed to me all the recent tournament results for Andy Murray, which is exactly what I was looking for in this query. Bing unfortunately did not do the same. These are just two examples of things that Google does better than Bing and are among the reasons I use Google more often.

With these differences there might seem that there’s no reason to use Bing, and for me, that’s mostly the case. On the other hand, there are still some areas where Bing does really well.

Things Bing does better than Google

- Social integration
- Dedicated searches such as Bing Travel
- Bing Image Search

Summary

Going back to the original question of this post, unless you are searching for very specific things that Bing is known to do better than Google, there really is no reason at the present time to Bing given you can Google. Google is still better at understanding users – at least in my experience – and as a result I don’t think there’s enough reason for me to make the switch despite all my interest in Bing over the past few years.

Last words, Bing: you need to show us something new. You need to understand us better. Until then, it’s back to googling.

2013: Year of working in the office or else...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 03:43:00 +1600

So there’s been a lot of news going around about Marissa Mayer’s decision to ban Yahoo employees from working remotely with opinions both agreeing and disagreeing with that decision. Whichever side you are on this decision has resulted in a huge reaction and I thought I’d share my own thoughts on this.

As summed up in the image above. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer tells her employees to return to work – the office – and then everyone out there starts wondering why! There could be many reasons why Mayer has taken this decision. I liked Scott Hanselman’s breakdown in his post Being a Remote Worker Sucks - Long Live the Remote Worker which I’ve snapped below.

I see this ban on Remote Work at Yahoo as one (or all) of these three things:

1) A veiled attempt to trim the workforce through effectively forced attrition by giving a Sophie's Choice to remote workers that management perceives as possibly not optimally contributing. It's easy to avoid calling it a layoff when you've just changed the remote work policy, right?

2) A complete and total misstep and misunderstanding of how remote workers see themselves and how they provide value.

3) Pretty clear evidence that Yahoo really has no decent way to measure of productivity and output of a worker.

Of course no one will really know exactly why Mayer has taken this decision that way and everyone will speculate in different ways, however time will tell. As you will read in Scott’s post he has been working remotely for a long time. Imagine if he were working at Yahoo what this decision would’ve done to his daily life! For that reason I wish to think that for Yahoo it’s not the case of what Scott mentions in his #2 point above. Being a large Silicon Valley company I assume that Yahoo understands remote workers.

With that assumption in mind we are left with point #1 & #3 to deal with, both of which are closely related. If it were the case that remote employees were not optimally contributing then perhaps it is fair for Mayer to just chop them all off by changing policy to avoid calling it a layoff. However, there is no way that all yahoo’s remote employees fall into that category! Physical location can be a barrier for some companies attracting top talent and in this day and age you’d think available technology facilitates bridging those barriers so that non-local top talent have the ability to work for these companies. I doubt in this case that Yahoo would cut such people off just to avoid having any employees working from home and not delivering.

This brings me to the last point in what Scott has mentioned – point #3 – regarding measuring productivity of remote employees. In my view, this is likely the issue Yahoo is facing at the moment, with no effective ways in place to monitor employee productivity they have no choice but to keep a close eye on what everyone is doing and the way to do that is to bring everyone to arm's length.

Even though this seems like the only logical explanation to that ban decision, it’s still hard to believe. Employee productivity is tied to employee morale and with this decision there is guarantee that the morale of those impacted by this decision – provided they stay in the company of course – will be negatively affected. I doubt that Yahoo would want to lose it’s star remote performers just to ensure that they squeeze the most out of those who under perform remotely. Not to mention the potential cascading effect when employees start to leave!

So going back to the third point, if Yahoo is really struggling to measure employee productivity for remote employees what should they do?

Here are some thoughts:

1) Ensure that they have in place tools that allow teams to communicate & collaborate efficiently together, if other companies can facilitate that it’s hard to see that the future Yahoo cant!

2) Put processes in place to allow better visibility of work done by remote workers. This depends on the structure of the teams of course but there are definitely ways to make this happen. Scott’s post mentioned some.

3) LISTEN TO YOUR EMPLOYEES!:

I haven’t yet been in a manager’s or executive’s shoes so I probably see things a bit differently. However, it surprises me quiet a lot that in a lot of work places the chain of command is only a one-way channel. Sometimes you run into situations where decisions are made for you without your consultation such as how long a piece of work should take when you are the one doing the work and many other examples of similar things, I’m not saying that you get to make all the decisions here but a person’s view should be considered if they’re going to be the ones doing the work. If you want someone to be productive and deliver value to you, wouldn’t it make sense to actively engage them in the work they are meant to do? Or is forcing things down their throats the way to go? I think the keyword here is engagement.

If you’re employee has an opinion, listen to it, those in the field of work are usually right a lot and listening to them early can save problems later. Make your employees feel important – even if you don think they are – and they will be important! If you think they have no place in one area of work, tell them why, get them to suggest how they can change it or where they best see themselves fit – be transparent. If you engage them it’s much easier to hold them accountable for their actions – if they’re quality they’ll be challenged, they’ll deliver, if not then not – , you can then monitor their performance on that basis and if they don’t deliver then whose to blame but them!

Windows 8 Modern UI Apps: Choosing between XAML/C# vs. HTML5/JavaScript, what would your pick be?

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 02:34:55 +1600

Since the wrap-up of Tech.Ed Australia last year I’ve been meaning to get started learning to develop a Windows 8 Modern App so as to embrace the future of Windows software development. I think Windows 8 provides a huge opportunity for developers to tap into Windows’ market share with their own apps. There are some limitations of course but the changes Microsoft has made over the past year should not be something that gets overlooked by those in the Microsoft software development field. One of my favourite reads throughout 2012 was Paul Thurrott’s WinSuperSite so if you were hiding somewhere last year and missed a lot of the big news then a good place to catch up would be checking Paul’s site archive for 2012.

With all of these changes and learning some starting points for Windows 8 Modern App development I’ve been struggling to choose with side of the fence to fall to i.e. XAML/C# or HTML5/JavaScript. As a developer using Microsoft technologies I’ve spent the past few years using HTML, C#, VB.NET, JavaScript, a little bit of XAML among other things, with that in mind I thought I should be able to go with either path without too much fuss. My initial feeling was that using XAML/C# would be the better approach as I’m familiar with C# and I can build on my basic XAML knowledge to develop that skill further. However, I also though I should check out the JavaScript/HTML5 approach to see what that offers. As a result, at Tech.Ed I did some Hands On Labs for both to get a feel of each. When I did the JavaScript/HTML5 labs I must admit that the kind of JavaScript code that is required for Windows 8 Apps felt a little bit odd. It was like writing a foreign language using JavaScript syntax in a way. It’s true that it’s JavaScript, but to me it didn’t feel like the JavaScript I’m used to, however maintaining HTML5 was just as familiar to what I’m normally used to, CSS… etc. With that I was undecided, which way do I go? Design or Code?

After some thinking, I decided to go with using XAML/C#, and I started reading a bit on building Windows 8 apps using that approach, and also did some C#/XAML tutorials as well as started watching some Windows 8 courses on Pluralsight, they have a great line-up of courses by the way. Now at that point I thought I have my direction set and was feeling happy with C# and a little tweaking of XAML. This was all well and good until, I started fiddling with the design for the app I’m working with – a Windows 8 app for this website. The thing to note here is that I’m a developer, I like using code editors and not designers, I feel I have more control. However, due to my basic XAML knowledge I thought I’d try using the Visual Studio and Blend designers to play around with the XAML. This is when things started turning ugly for me. To be fair, I haven’t yet given it much time to get over the hurdles, I interrupted myself to write this post. However, I really felt like a stranger when trying to use the designer to move things around in XAML, using the design space is uncomfortable, especially for someone who spends more time in text editors…etc.

So now I feel stuck, do I put up with this and force myself down the XAML/C# track or retreat back towards HTML5/JavaScript. The only selling point for me at the moment towards XAML/C# is potential skills reuse for Windows Phone 8 Dev. If you’re a Windows 8 Developer, which way did you choose and why? Also, Microsoft, any chance we could be getting HTML5/CSS/C# for Windows 8 dev. in the future?

Data as a Service: The next big thing?

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 19:27:20 +1600

As you all know this year has been a huge year for Microsoft with several product launches, corporate logo change, Microsoft Surface, Sinofsky leaving the company and a few more out there. With all of these changes Steve Ballmer also this year announced that Microsoft is becoming a devices and services company. All in all these are some huge changes for a large company in a single year and the question now is whether these changes will allow Microsoft to compete well with other companies in the so called post-PC era. It could, but…

If you look back a few years on how digital devices such as Music Players, Phones, Tablets/Pads …etc. have evolved over the years it is clear that a lot of them have gone from sole-purpose devices to all-purpose devices. Some of those purposes now include content consumption and content manipulation such as streaming media, videos, music …etc. as well as information sharing through social updates and so on. Others include banking, email, tasks …etc. The common thing in each scenario is that data is either being pulled out of somewhere or being pushed into somewhere. With that in mind, think about how many services can be improved or made use of if the data in question was able to be used externally to the core service. Microsoft may be able to offer some services, but Microsoft alone is not enough.

In the Devices + Services era, the more services available to be consumed, the better value one can get out of a device. In the context of Microsoft’s new direction, think about how many Windows Store or Windows Phone style apps can be built if more and more data is available to be accessed every day. In one way lack of apps is a result of lack of good quality content accessibility. This is where I believe DaaS has a role to play. I know that there already exists many APIs that can be consumed today by these devices. However, what’s available is no where near enough. Currently there is a limitation that some institutions/companies with good quality data do not have apps that allow users to consume this data and use it and as a result this data is locked. The only way for the data to be unlocked is if the content owners themselves build their own apps and that’s the problem – not all data owners can/will build apps for each available platform.

Using companies such as Facebook and Twitter for example, they own content and this makes them the best shaped people to build apps to allow accessing that content. In the case of these two companies they do have APIs to some extent but with that there are also limitations that prevent 3rd party developers from being able to utilise the data fully. Yes, I know that may be desirable in some scenarios, but what about smaller companies. Ones with data that could be used to improve other services but are unable to expose it due to lack of resources, ROI and so on. Wouldn’t they be able to offer more if they used a DaaS model and rather than build the apps themselves just provide a service that allows users to access/buy access to their data?

As a result I really think that for the Devices + Services to succeed we need more data to consume… if you have data that can be shared to make other services possible, simpler or better then share it! It’s time to make DaaS the next big thing along side Devices + Services.

Migrating this blog to Windows Azure Websites

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:15:15 +1600

So I’ve been wanting to use the new Windows Azure portal for a while now and with all the new features currently available one good way to do so was to try creating a website on Windows Azure. Of course the best candidate for this task was moving my blog from my current web host over to the Windows Azure cloud. Below are the steps I had to go through to perform this migration. I have broken them down to the 3 sections below.

1) Creating the website

2) Creating the FTP credentials

3) Migrating/Updating Data

4) Configuring custom DNS

As you can see below, once you log in to the new portal there are many different options. For the purpose of this migration I only needed to use the WEB SITES option. If you want to know how much better the new portal is in comparison to the old one check out my Lap Around the windows azure portal series which covered the old portal in a lot of detail. Also in case you are not aware, you can setup up to 10 websites on Windows Azure for free.

1) CREATING THE WEBSITE

To get started the first thing that needs to be done is clicking the website option and choose FROM GALLERY as shown below.

My blog currently uses the BlogEngine.NET blogging engine and one of the things that can be done as you can see in the following screenshot is choosing to setup a website from the gallery, there are many options to choose from and given my blog uses BlogEngine I selected that as shown below.

After selecting which type of website you wish to setup from the gallery you will be prompted to enter a name for the website which will be hosted under the azurewebsites.net domain name in the format of yoursite.azurewebsites.net. You will also be able to choose a region in which to deploy that website.

Once these have been setup the portal will show the deployment progress status as shown in the two screenshots below.

Once the status of the website shows as running you can browse to the site using the URL chosen. You can also view several statistics about your website such as the ones shown below. How nice does that look!

2) CREATING THE FTP CREDENTIALS

Now that the basics of the website have all been done, the next step is to actually create the FTP credentials so that we can log on to the site and copy/update data and files …etc. You will see in the screenshot below that the DEPLOYMENT/FTP USER section has no user specified and there does not seem to be an option to create an FTP logon. Turns out that the way to do so is to click on Reset deployment credentials which you can see in the screenshot above in the previous section.

Clicking on Reset deployment credentials will present the dialog below which you can use to create an FTP logon.

Once the logon has been created by following the steps above you can connect to your website using an FTP client by using the FTP HOSTNAME URL and the credentials created. The next step is to upload your data using FTP.

3) MIGRATING/UPDATING DATA

To migrate your blog data for blog engine to the new website I think the best option is to just copy over the App_Data folder to the new location using FTP. You can also export your data using BlogML from the old site and then re-import that in the new destination. However, this will mainly contain blog posts, comments …etc. so other customisations will not come across. I’ve found it easier to just copy the App_Data folder across along with any custom folders I was using to keep data for links on the blog.

Once you’ve done this step then the migration is almost complete and the blog should be fully functional on yoursite.azurewebsites.net.

4) CONFIGURING CUSTOM DNS

Now that everything is up and running you may wish to point a custom domain name to your azure website. Custom domains for Windows azure websites are only available if you use the Shared or Reserved modes. If you want to keep using the Free mode you can only access your website using yoursite.azurewebsites.net. However, if you have an MSDN subscription then you may still be able to host on Windows Azure for free depending on the MSDN subscriber benefits you have included.

So to go ahead with creating custom DNS for your website the first thing to do is to switch to Shared mode by going to the SCALE tab and selecting Shared as shown below.

Once the change above is confirmed a new option will be enabled at the bottom of the portal, you will see the MANAGE DOMAINS option now enabled.

Clicking the manage domains option will then present the dialog shown below which provides all the details you need to configure your custom DNS entries.

With the above steps complete my blog has been migrated to www.wissa.net running over Windows Azure in the cloud! The longest processes in this migration were copying the data – you can use FTP Server to server if you want to by the way – and waiting for the DNS updates to propagate, other than that it all seemed fairly straightforward as this post shows.

Test blog post from my Surface using Office 2013

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:09:00 +1600

It would still be nice to have a dedicated Windows 8 RT app for Windows Live Writer however if you are using a Surface RT device then you can use Microsoft Office RT to post to your blog.

I've just setup Word RT to post to my blog so if this succeeded then you should be seeing this post right now.

For Blog Engine the settings I needed are below.

Go to Word RT and create a new document using the blog post Template

Once you launch Word 2013 RT choose the blog post template as can be seen below.

When you select that template Word RT will prompt you to register your account.

If you have not previously setup your blog account you will be prompted to register your details as shown below. There are many blog engines already defined but in my case I'm configuring BlogEngine so I needed to choose 'Other'

One the above steps are completed then you're ready to go!

The remaining steps after the account has been configured is to write your content and then publish. Publishing can be done as a draft or normal just a can be done using Windows Live Writer.

If this post succeeds then I've just published my first blog post using my Surface RT via Word 2013 RT! Not to mention this was also done using wi-fi over 4G on the train!

Steven Sinofsky: Other reasons why he left Microsoft

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 08:08:12 +1600

The news of Steven Sinofsky leaving Microsoft is a week old now. However since then I’ve been thinking about some possible reasons why he actually left and whether there could be another reason despite what’s been speculated by many last week. I think I’ve found one and below are my thoughts on this.

The way Sinofsky’s departure was handled would certainly indicate that there were a lot of internal politics involved. If you’ve read some of the articles from last week you will know that many people noted that he is a difficult person to deal with, doesn’t get a long well with other teams … etc. Yet in his memo to staff and also in online reports the following statements were made.

"Some might notice a bit of chatter speculating about this decision or timing. I can assure you that none could be true as this was a personal and private choice that in no way reflects any speculation or theories one might read—about me, opportunity, the company or its leadership." – Steven Sinofsky

And from online reports

“The company said the decision behind Sinofsky's departure was mutual, thought the abruptness of the announcement might suggest otherwise.” – CNet News

So giving both the company and Sinofsky the benefit of the doubt, why did Sinofsky have to leave the company. In simple terms, he’s a victim of his own success here’s why:

If you think about where Windows Vista was and how Sinofsky’s leadership has contributed to Windows 7 and Windows 8 being released in much better way/schedule …etc. You would see that his approach works – or at least seems to be so on the outside. Now tie that to all the reports about how difficult he is to deal with internally and you can come to this conclusion. Steven Sinofsky likes to work alone with his own team. It is this working alone bit that has caused conflict between Sinofsky and the other teams. Yet it is also the reason Windows 7 & Windows 8 releases were not delayed and shipped properly. Think about it from Sinofsky’s point of view. He’s leading a team, and has to do task 1,2 and 3 to get from point A to point B. In order to effectively do that his view would be to be in control of the whole process once you introduce collaboration with other teams lead by other people – who also want to play their own game for their own benefit – then Sinofsky ends up with other variables in an equation he wants to be in control of.

I believe that the absence of these variables was the root of the success of Windows 7 & Windows 8 deliveries on the other hand it meant that for the bigger picture of the company’s strategic direction which requires all the teams to work together collaboratively …etc things were not going to work out if the Windows team is shielded from the other teams.

In other words, Microsoft needed to have someone like Sinofsky to get Windows to where it is now and now that Windows 7 & Windows 8 are where they are, Sinofsky’s approach is no longer viewed as strategically relevant. He was basically used to cross Microsoft over a bridge from A to B, now that this is done and the fact that there was never a place for him in the bigger picture due to the other stuff then, well, there was only one possible outcome which was for him to move on.

You might then be asking why wasn’t this a planned transition then? One possible explanation is this: motivation & incentive. In a company where there’s a lot of inner politics and competition in management culture why would Sinofsky bother with doing what he’s done if he knew the end result would be he’ll end up leaving the company? So maybe he was led to believe that with these achievements there could be a bonus or a promotion up the hierarchical chain – like taking the CEO job – and then when he found out that this ain’t gonna happen after he crossed the bridge then it was time to say goodbye the way it happened.

Microsoft Leadership Changes: Goodbye Sinofsky

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:24:01 +1600

By now you will have probably heard that Steven Sinofsky has decided to leave Microsoft after being with the company since 1989. Without knowing much about what happens within the teams at Microsoft I must admit I was very surprised at hearing this news especially with all the recent product launches at the company that were lead by Sinofsky. However tech blogger Mary Jo Foley seems to be one of those not surprised by the news and in fact seems pleased with Sinofsky’s departure.

Update: "Some might notice a bit of chatter speculating about this decision or timing. I can assure you that none could be true as this was a personal and private choice that in no way reflects any speculation or theories one might read—about me, opportunity, the company or its leadership." via Paul Thurrot’s WinSuperSite and the opposite view from cnet.com’s Jay Greene.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about what Microsoft should do to change the company perception in the market including Breaking up Microsoft and also changes at the top suggesting that perhaps Steve Ballmer should leave the CEO post. With that I think Microsoft making changes to it’s leadership team is a positive thing. It’s obvious that Julie Larson-Green is worthy of a promotion for all her work on Windows 7 and Windows 8 but should that have been done through Sinofsky exiting the company? I disagree.

Despite the comment that the decision was mutual if you read between the lines you would know that it wasn’t simply that! I think if Steven Sinofsky was making a transition or planning to leave the company he would’ve slowly phased himself out by perhaps transitioning to a separate role first and then moving on in a way similar to Bill Gates or Ray Ozzie perhaps. Him leaving immediately is really sad given he was the face of all the recent Windows 8 and related releases and also he was a regular blogger on the http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/. I understand that internally it may not have been easy dealing with Steven Sinofsky on regular basis but the fact is the changes that Microsoft needed to do to shape itself for the future were done in his presence and under his leadership. Who knows if they would have ever been done if someone else had lead these efforts in a different approach? For that reason I think that regardless of all the internal politics at the company it would have made much more sense for Sinofsky to make a smooth transition out and not like this.

I really hope that this sudden departure of Sinofsky will not have a negative impact on Microsoft’s image and recently launched products. In the long run it probably wont but this news will surely disrupt all the good news on the recent product releases with some sour taste. Change is good, but not when done like this!

To Steven Sinofsky, thanks for all your contributions on Windows 8, Surface and the other Microsoft products and all the best for whatever’s next. To Julie Larson-Green, congratulations and all the best. To Microsoft, I hope this news does not disrupt all the momentum that’s been building in recent times.

Microsoft Surface: Review & why I decided to buy one

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 14:14:01 +1600

So by now you are probably aware the Microsoft Surface has become available for purchase in several countries and many have already gotten their hands on one – including myself! There is already a whole heap of content out there reviewing the device itself and showing videos …etc. of how to use and operate it. Rather than tell you much of the same which you can find online I have decided to take a different approach in this post. There are several reviews on Surface out there but you will find extensive coverage about the Surface on Paul Thurrot’s WinSuperSite website. In this post I will cover two things. 1) Why I decided to go out and pre-order a surface in the first place and 2) what my experience has been using the device over the past few days.

So why did I decide to pre-order one?

There are a number of reasons I decided to go ahead and pre-order the Surface device. At the core, the main reason is that I have always been a fan of Microsoft as a company and the idea that they were releasing a tablet device was very exciting for me. In other words I’m a Microsoft fan-boy! The second reason is that up until I bought the Surface I did not actually own any other tablet device so it did feel like it was about time! The real reason though is that to me it is clear that Microsoft are beginning a new era for the company with all the recent changes they have made to the company logo, new software releases and so on. Given the tablet market dominance by Apple and how late Microsoft is making it’s entry, in my view and as many others will agree, Microsoft are making a huge bet on the future with the Surface device. In other words they’re putting their reputation on it and for this reason I decided to give Surface a go by getting my hands on one very early. Microsoft has changed the world in the past and despite the delay in getting into the mobile and tablet markets with offerings worth considering I decided to give them a chance. After all if they are willing to bet their future on a device like this then it’s a fair assumption that they will do whatever it takes not to screw up this time around.

Now that the device is out and has been used by several people you are probably aware that the main observations about the Surface can be summarised in the following points: 1) The hardware is great. 2) The software not so much. I will cover a few aspects of the Surface hardware and software below to provide my thoughts on each of these two points.

The Surface Hardware

I believe one of the things that Microsoft did well with the Surface device is getting out a good piece of hardware out there. It is much easier to refine the software side of things later but with hardware, if you miss then you’re in a mess basically. So here are a few thoughts on the hardware front

1) Form factor & dimensions

In comparison to other tablets already in the market the Surface tablet is slightly heavier than some and also has a slightly wider width/or length depending on how you hold it. From the weight point of view despite being slightly heavier than other tablets I don’t find the Surface uncomfortable to use even for extended periods of time. With the 10.6 inch width the Surface feels a bit awkward to use in portrait mode as the screen feels a little bit narrow in that view. The only application I used which I felt works well in portrait mode was the Kindle reading app. If you need to read any document the portrait mode with the 10.6 inch width gives you some extra room to read more text. I wouldn’t say it’s necessary but it works well.

This still makes you wonder though why would they choose 10.6 when a lot of devices are out already with 10.1. I think there are two reasons for this: the first being using the Surface as a laptop alternative with laptop-screen-like dimensions and second pinning Windows 8 apps! Since getting the Surface tablet the ability to pin apps to one side of the screen and use two applications at the same time has been one of my favourite features of the device. If you try to do that on a 10.1 inch tablet – if it were actually possible – you wont have much space to do much on the screen. Try doing that on an iPad!

2) The touch cover

Having a keyboard/keypad in the cover of the device is an interesting concept and a great idea. The Surface I bought came with a touch cover and whilst it took a little while to get used to it actually works very well. The only downside I found with the touch cover is that if you put it over a soft, uneven, surface – like you’re lap – it’s a little hard to touch the keys and type properly other than that, once you can position your fingers on it properly it’s easy to use. I really like the magnetic connector too!

3) The Kick-Stand

I LOVE the kickstand! This feature was very well thought of I think and it’s very nice that it exists as part of the device. It makes it easy to put your Surface on any –um– surface and do stuff without having to hold the device. You’ll probably use the kickstand most if you’re using the classic windows desktop view and using Office or if you just want to type some emails or documents with the touch/type keyboards. However, one additional use I’ve found the kickstand very useful for is not holding the device! I’ve found that whenever I want to watch a video or play games or just read some material I can use the kick-stand and just sit the Surface on my lap. There you go, despite the extra weight I don’t even have to hold the device most of the time!

4) HDMI output

Not much to say here other than it’s nice to be able to easily get output from the Surface to an external monitor.

5) Lack of 3G/4G support and only having Wi-Fi

To be honest, I really don’t see why many have noted that this feature is a downside of the Surface tablet. Nowadays you can use Wi-Fi over mobile phones or 3G/4G modems so you can very easily work around the lack of built in support for 3G/4G. So to me this is not an issue at all.

I think the above points cover most of the obvious hardware features of the Surface other than internal hardware specs. On the latter, I guess this can be summarised by saying that the internal H/W specs are good but could be better, some of the missing features are going to be available in the Pro version though like USB 3.0 and Full-HD resolution. Would be nice if the next Surface – Surface 2 ? – has a combination of what is currently in the RT version such as HDMI out and the Pro version such as USB 3.0

The Surface Software

On the software front I must admit I LOVE the touch features of Windows 8. I’ve been using Windows 8 on my desktop for a while now with no touch and a lot of the features didn’t make much sense. Once you use them on touch they all start making sense. I’ve even discovered a few gestures I wasn’t aware of just by touching around the device! So from a usability point of view Microsoft have certainly done a great job with Windows 8’s touch features.

The main issue Windows 8 has as you may have heard is the lack of noteworthy applications in the Windows App Store. I agree that this is currently an issue. However, as I noted earlier in this post, it is much easier to fix software issues than hardware issues and it’s only a matter of time until the Windows 8 App store matures enough to have better app selection that’s comparable to other app stores such as Apple’s. I don’t know why a lot of people argue about the number of apps in the Windows Store at the moment. Like they say, it’s not quantity it’s quality. I’m not trying to suggest that all existing Windows Store apps offer the quality required but rather that the focus shouldn’t be how many apps the store has!

One problem with the Windows Store in my view is that the Surface tablet and other Windows 8 RT or Pro with touch tablets work very well as content consumption devices. In many cases content owners do not have their content publicly available in a usable manner for others to build an app for and until all of these come on board and build their own Windows 8 apps or make their content accessible through APIs …etc the Windows App store will still lack noteworthy apps. Outside that that you’re mostly suck with games and who needs more than Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds to play?

Windows 8–Why the Start button and menu are gone

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 22:15:48 +1600

With the public release a few days ago many users may – or probably will – be frustrated when they find that in the Desktop mode there is no longer a Start button or menu. The start button has long been a subject of discussion/criticism from a usability point of view and has had minor changes over the years. With the introduction of the live tile screen in Windows 8 and the removal of the start menu from the Desktop view it’s time to step back and think of why Microsoft have gone with this approach and specifically why is there no start menu when you’re viewing the desktop.

When I first started using Windows 8 a few month ago, I used to describe it to friends and people I talk to as ‘Windows 7’ plus ‘touch’. However, over time I have come to realise that I was completely wrong. If you look carefully you will realise that Windows 8 is a new era the Microsoft operation systems and is not an add-on to Windows 7 to enable touch capability. This is why I think Microsoft are correct when they say that Windows 8 is windows reimagined and the changes in the start screen/menu are a reflection of how this is the case.

Look at the screen below and think about the steps you need to take to get to desktop mode.

You start your laptop/tablet/surface PC and the first thing you see is the new live tiles touch enabled screen from which you have an ‘icon’ – tile – through which you get to Desktop mode. Now if you think about this for a second you’ll realise that in this instance Desktop mode is just a different view which enables you to continue to do some functions in the same way you did before. An easier way to think of it – though not technically true – is that Desktop mode is just another app that you can use in Windows 8 and with both of these two points in mind I think this is precisely why Microsoft removed the Start button and menu from the Desktop view. It’s the only way to move forward! If like me you used to use the start menu to access some common functions quickly like admin tasks then don’t panic! There is still a way to quickly do that as mentioned in my Where’s my start button post.

So why is removing the start menu and button from the desktop view the only way to move forward then? Well, imagine what would happen if it was still there in Windows 8. If it was, then it would literally mean that you have 2 operating systems bundled together serving the needs of two separate types of customers. Now that approach may make a lot of people happy but it certainly wouldn’t help Microsoft transition to the future because you could end up having some Windows 8 users that never actually use or see all the new stuff and that defeats the purpose of all the new changes. This is one reason I think Microsoft created the Windows RT version that doesn’t run any of the old legacy apps but still provide the Desktop view in Windows RT which allows you to run Office 2013.

Time to forget the past and embrace the future, the start button and screen have certainly come a long way since the early days. The windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and X-Box 360’s unified experience is the way of the future and before you know it the Desktop view is eventually going to be retired!

Breaking up Microsoft

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 17:17:08 +1600

In my previous post, Microsoft’s new logo: The hidden mesage, I mentioned what I called Microsoft’s hidden message in the new logo where I noted that I believe they are trying to send out a message that they are changing. There’s no doubt that that is the case given Steve Ballmer’s recent letter. As most of you will agree Microsoft is now trying to focus more on reaching out to consumers in addition to being a business focused company and one of the things I talked about in my previous post about their logo change is that they are trying to change the perception about them being so.

The new logo is a step in the right direction. However I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately and I feel that this step may not be as effective as it is intended due to the company name still being ‘Microsoft’. Unfortunate as it is, despite existing Microsoft products being widely used by consumers - mainly windows PC - they left a gap now mostly filled by Apple and they’re trying to get back into this gap themselves again now. I believe that this ‘gap’ has now resulted in Apple being now viewed as the ‘consumer’ company while Microsoft has become the ‘business’ company with ‘some’ consumer centric products rather than a consumer focused company like what Apple now is.

For Microsoft to be fully successful as a consumer company I think they need to detach themselves from the perception of their current image/brand. The changes they are making now are great in showing that the company is changing but to me it’s still a change that the ‘old’ company is making so there are still strong links to who Microsoft was before. I sometimes view this as KFC coming out and saying that they now make beef burgers. Now they may be the best burgers you ever taste but KFC is still a ‘chicken’ restaurant so why would you care about their beef burgers?

The same goes for Microsoft. People – majority of consumers – see them as a ‘business’ company so why would they really care about their ‘consumer’ products when they can go to Apple which fulfils all their consumer needs. Hence all the changes Microsoft is making to change their image. A logo change along with the products can help with that but is it enough? – people still know that they are ‘Microsoft’ despite the new wrapping.

This is where I think Microsoft splitting/breaking-up would make a lot of sense as that would change the public perception of the company as you may then have a ‘Microsoft Business Company’ and a Microsoft Consumer Company. It is true that you can have those as separate divisions in the same company but that still leaves the big picture as the parent Microsoft. By splitting up I believe the perception can be changed as individual consumers can expect different things depending on who they are dealing with and same with business consumers. I feel that the same also applies for Apple, apple has now become so consumer centric that I think it’s not logical for them to try to target business products …etc. You just don’t expect that from them anymore. This is Microsoft issue on the reverse side so whilst all the recent changes are in the right direction they may not be sufficient in getting consumers to believe in Microsoft simply because they will never perceive the products from a business focused company as consumer targeted.

This is why I think Microsoft should break-up with itself and split into two separate companies. What do you think?

First time to Tech.Ed? Read these tips

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:07:15 +1600

So tomorrow I’m going to be at Tech Ed Australia 2012 in the Gold Coast. This year is my fourth time at Tech Ed and while not even close in count to some other people I know I feel that I’ve been there enough times to know my way around. As a result I thought I’d share some tips on how I think you can make the most of the event. Hopefully you find these useful. If you’ve been to Tech Ed before and are reading this post please share your tips too in the comments.

Tip 1: Ensure you visit the Schedule Builder and choose your sessions

The best way to benefit most from the event is to plan what you’re going to do in advance. Whilst session times during the conference may vary slightly from the initial published data given the conference starts tomorrow most of the timeslots will be valid unless there are some unexpected changes. You can log on to the schedule builder at https://australia.msteched.com/SignIn. Other than being organised another reason it’s a good idea to plan your sessions in the schedule builder is that this gives Microsoft an idea of how much interest is in a particular session which affects room allocations. Who wants to be in a room where there’s only standing room or overflow? Help Microsoft organise rooms by filling your schedule builder.

Tip 2: Populate your schedule by choosing sessions by Track

One thing you may notice when populating your sessions is that if you try to randomly allocate the sessions based on individual ones that interest you you may run into a lot of conflicts. To make things easier when planning your sessions I suggest you do so by track first. Generally speaking you will find that all sessions are aligned in their time slot based on the track they belong to. So if you’re interested in Cloud development then choose this track first, if interested in Windows 8 then choose that track first …etc. This will allow you to have the least clashes in your schedule.

Once you’ve chosen a particular track you’re interested in most you can then find out which sessions you do not want to attend from that track and then you can remove those sessions and fill them in with alternate sessions from other tracks that are of interest. Tracks that are related to each other such as Web and Dev Tools for examples normally are aligned to allow you to mix and match easily but I can’t say this will always be the case.

Tip 3: Be prepared to Run and arrive early for each session

Whether you like it or not chances are there may be a session you want to see that’s in a room not too close to where your previous session is so be prepared to be there early if you want to ensure you find a seat. In previous years there’s been a few sessions that overflowed even for those who got there early. Between each session there’s normally around 10-15 mins for you to get from one place to another. Don’t get caught in conversations during that time if you want to make the next session

Tip 4: Don’t feel bad if you have a time slot where you can’t find an interesting session! There’s other stuff you can do

If you’ve used the schedule builder and you can’t find any session you like to fill a particular time slot, you can spend that time doing 3 things: Get Certified, do some Hands on Labs or visit the Exhibition Centre where you can chat to some companies and network with people, the latter you can also do at the networking events during the conference.

Tip 5: Keep the link below on your phone/tablet or whatever you use on the go to be connected

Last year at Tech Ed all session information and other relevant stuff were available on http://techedmobile.microsoft.com.au I assume the same site will be used again this year. I’ve personally found this the best place to keep me up to date with all the latest information including any schedule/room allocation changes …etc

Tip 6: Don’t forget your business cards!

This one is a no brainer but nothing worse than getting into a conversation with someone and then not having a way to catch up or get in touch again at a later stage.

Tip 7: Join the conversation

If you have twitter, facebook or linked in then it’s a good idea to join the conversation, share your thoughts, engage with others, there’s definitely going to be a lot of talk over the next few days!

Tip 8: Enjoy your self and have a good time!

Remember the main reason you’re at Tech Ed is to learn something new, for all of us geeks usually this is also fun time, gosh this is actually my first week off work (holiday) since almost a year ago! So ensure you make the most of it, learn, and have fun.

Hope you find the above tips useful, and if you’re already reading this post then you probably know how to find me!

See you all at Tech Ed, have a great week!

Visual Studio 2012: New Features

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 15:08:47 +1600

So you will have probably heard that Visual Studio 2012 has been released to manufacturing earlier this month. With that announcement I thought I’d write up a quick post highlighting some of the new features in Visual Studio 2012 that I like.

1) Opening solution files between Visual Studio 2012 & Visual Studio 2010 without conversion

If you have a Visual Studio Solution file that was created in Visual Studio 2010 you can open and modify the same solution in Visual Studio 2012 without having to upgrade your projects which means you can go back and forward between the two versions as shown below.

- Create a solution in Visual Studio 2010

- Open solution in Visual Studio 2012

As you can see below, the solution opens just fine with no changes made to it

- Update the solution in Visual Studio 2012

- Open the solution again in Visual Studio 2010

Even though the solution was updated in Visual Studio 2012 it can still be opened again in Visual Studio 2010 without any changes

2) Solution Explorer Updates

Another nice feature in Visual Studio 2012 is being able to navigate your code/functions as well as search your code from the Solution Explorer. In Visual Studio 2010 as shown in the screenshot below the only action possible was to click on a code file to edit it.

In Visual Studio 2012 the Solution Explorer now allows you to search files using the search box shown below and you can also navigate method definitions and access them directly by clicking them in the Solution Explorer as shown below.

3) Publishing to Windows Azure without using the Windows Azure Administration Portal.

In Visual Studio 2012 it is now also possible to Publish your Windows Azure application to the cloud without having to use the Administration Portal. I’ve previously blogged about how you can use the Windows Azure administration Portal with Visual Studio 2010. Now you can do the majority of this straight from Visual Studio 2012 with the latest Windows Azure SDK. Below is a video that demonstrates using the SDK to do this.

Start around 30 minutes into the video

Microsoft's new Logo: The hidden message

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 20:35:37 +1600

So you may have recently heard that Microsoft today has unveiled a new logo for the company and you might be thinking - new logo, what's the big deal? - on the surface it might seem like a simple change that's irrelevant but is it? Maybe, and maybe not. As you can see from the search results, as with anything else, some will like it and some wont.

To dig a bit deeper I think one should ask: What's in a logo - brand - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand?

So from the link one of the things noted about a brand is "...A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace...". In other words it defines your identity. This is what makes Microsoft's logo change, though small, very significant. In effect to me what Microsoft are saying - or at least trying to say - to the world is we're changing, we're no longer the same company that you’ve known for over 25 years.

In my previous post - Ballmer’s baby – Time to let it grow - I spoke about how I think Microsoft needs a change at the top for the main reason being changing the perception about the company (their image – brand) to the industry to indicate that they're now different. I believe that the significant changes they've made to their core products Windows, Office, Windows Phone, Developer tools ...etc. whether or not you agree they are good or bad, innovative and rethought from the bottom up or not. They're still significant changes and are a step towards the future of what Microsoft is to become.

With all the changes to the Microsoft core products I think Microsoft which started off back in the day with the vision 'a computer on every desktop and in every home' is now trying to get back in touch with the 'in every home' part without forgetting the business side. During the rise of apple over the past decade I think the general perception of Microsoft has been that they're the business company and not the consumer company, now with all these changes I think they're trying to find a balance/intersection between the two. Will they succeed? I guess time will tell!

Fixing your BlogEngine.NET theme in Windows Live Writer

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 20:46:02 +1600

If you’re using Windows Live Writer with a custom designed theme the blog theme template sometimes doesn’t work correctly. I’ve had this issue a while back and just fiddling around I accidently got it working but wasn’t sure of the steps I followed at the time. Among the things I tried - which didn’t work for me – were using the ThemeFixer tool which you can grab from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brandonturner/archive/2009/08/16/broken-theme-in-windows-live-writer-you-can-fix-it.aspx. After upgrading to Windows 8 and installing Windows Live Writer again I started having the same issues but this time I managed to fix the issue by doing the following.

Step 1: Multiple attempts to add/remove my account in WLW and update the blog theme

This didn’t work, so save some time and don’t try it.

Step 2: Tried ThemeFixer

As noted above, this also didn’t work for me so it may not work for you too.

Step 3: Publish a draft post to the blog

After failing step 1 & 2 I thought maybe if I post a draft to the blog from WLW it might detect the correct theme layout. This didn’t make a difference but when I did this I recalled that when the issue got resolved last time I saw the following popup display.

It turns out that if you post to your blog from WLW and then go to the blog settings and update the theme the issues go away! The actual theme may not display for you in Edit mode but it will still work fine and display correctly when you go to Preview in WLW.

Step 4: Update blog theme after posting a draft to your blog

Once you post your draft to the blog the last thing remaining is to update your blog theme in WLW again.

Step 5: Done! You can now start writing, editing and posting!