Friday, April 26, 2002
After being grounded in New York for the last few weeks, I am finally taking a trip. Melanie and I are heading to Kansas City to visit my friends Darren and Jeff. Should be a great weekend.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 26 02:39 PM | comments (3)Thursday, April 25, 2002
For those wondering, there was an explosion on West 19th Street between 6 and 7 Avenues. I work a few blocks away. I am fine and unaffected by the incident. Thanks to those like Renay who checked on me via e-mail and phone.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 25 01:06 PM | comments (0)Wednesday, April 24, 2002
It is always nice to test betaware. I submitted the posting below on April 20. Talk about net lag in e-mail.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 24 07:00 PM | comments (0)After a few days off working on a top secret project, I am back to post another weblog. Okay, so the project is not top secret, and I didn't really have a few days off. I was working for my employer Avanade. I'm really just looking for another excuse to test blogger new e-mail feature.
After a few days off working on a top secret project, I am back to post another weblog. Okay, so the project is not top secret, and I didn't really have a few days off. I was working for my employer Avanade. I'm really just looking for another excuse to test blogger new e-mail feature.
After a few days off working on a top secret project, I am back to post another weblog. Okay, so the project is not top secret, and I didn't really have a few days off. I was working for my employer Avanade. I'm really just looking for another excuse to test blogger new e-mail feature.
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
System.Xml.Serialization namespace in .NET totally kicks ass. It makes consuming and producing XML almost as easy as writing a class definition. Let me explain.
I am working on a project that includes a set of SOAP calls. These calls must consume and return XML. Lucky for me, an XML schema (.xsd file) already exist. Using the xsd.exe utility included with Visual Studio.NET, I generated a C# source file containing the class definitions and appropriate Xml.Serialization attributes needed to serialize/deserialize XML that adheres to the rules defined in the schema. And the great thing about xsd.exe is that expect for one attribute setting the generated code worked perfectly from the get go. This was a great time saver for me, and allowed me to focus on the implementation of the web service stubs for the SOAP calls.
In the future, whenever I need to consume or produce XML especially complex XML I plan to use System.Xml.Serialization.
Saturday, April 20, 2002
Over the years, I have read a lot about the Open Source "movement" and I have been a fan even though I never really participated in an open source effort. I have written a number of freeware applications in my time and now I wish those efforts had been open source.
A lot of cool things have come out of the Open Source community. The one area that has me totally jazzed is the development tools such as CVS, TortoiseCVS, and SourceForge.net. These products are amazing and have me wondering why these great development aids are not used in larger corporations.
I understand not relying on open source for mission critical applications that businesses depend on to survive and gain their competitive advantage. And for years I have worked with companies where the IT staff consistently complain about working with inefficient development tools such as Visual SourceSafe. But tools like these do make sense in the corporate environment. Speaking for one developer, myself, I would be happy if these tools were part of my daily development environment.
Bahahahaha...being new to CVS, I really enjoyed this quote, "TortoiseCVS was orginally based on the source code for WinCVS, a more comprehensive but complex to use client. Many thanks to them!"
posted by Kirby Turner | April 20 05:36 PM | comments (0)Nice and quiet in New York City today. Rain and cooler temps...yey! I'm happy. The rain earlier canceled my roller blading plans but chillin' in the apartment turned out to be a good thing.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 20 05:15 PM | comments (0)Wednesday, April 17, 2002
ZDNet: Tech Update: Enterprise Applications / IBM drops Internet patent bombshell A recent IBM patent claim could threaten royalty-free access to a key Internet standard protocol backed by the United Nations. The standard--called ebXML--is an XML-based set of definitions for electronic transactions and business collaboration.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 17 01:36 PM | comments (0)Just when you thought swing technology could not be any better, some guy is issued a patent on side to side swinging. Yes, swinging! The activity most of us enjoyed as a kid. Hopefully the guy will not expect retroactive royalty payments.
Speaking of patents, I have invented a new way to scratch an itch. When I haven't shaved in a day or so, I will scratch my arm with my chin. I hope to have the patent papers submitted later today.
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
Security in a Web Services World: A Proposed Architecture and Roadmap
From the abstract, "This document describes a proposed strategy for addressing security within a Web service environment. It defines a comprehensive Web service security model that supports, integrates and unifies several popular security models, mechanisms, and technologies (including both symmetric and public key technologies) in a way that enables a variety of systems to securely interoperate in a platform- and language-neutral manner. It also describes a set of specifications and scenarios that show how these specifications might be used together."
I have not read this document yet, but I threw it up here as a reminder to myself that I need to read it tonight.
What UDDI is not? It is not an execution environment for web services.
Recently I have had a number of conversations regarding UDDI and the implementation of private UDDI nodes within the enterprise. During these talks, I've noticed a common misunderstanding with regard to UDDI at runtime. It seems that many think of UDDI at runtime as a means to execute a web service. However, UDDI is not an execution environment but one of a number of ways to discovery services.
There are some interesting uses of UDDI at runtime though. One use is to determine the end point to a web service at runtime. This eliminates the need to hard code the end point address in the application. This type of abstraction layer could be used to provide greater reliability within the application in much the same way DNS provides greater reliability verses direct use of an IP address.
Saturday, April 13, 2002
I really hate doing taxes.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 13 11:38 AM | comments (0)Friday, April 12, 2002
I had a nice surprise today. My girlfriend Melanie called me from Brussels. She's the greatest!
posted by Kirby Turner | April 12 05:13 PM | comments (0)So the new e-mail feature of BLogger is cool, but it has some problems with Microsoft Outlook. I don't blame BLogger but Outlook. Why does Outlook try to out smart me by changing formats, etc? Even if Outlook is configured to send e-mail as plain text, it still does weird things from time to time. Guess that's why I have been a long time user of Eudora Pro.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 12 02:45 PM | comments (0)As some of you have already heard, I have become a hugh fan of weblogs and specifically BLogger.com. After playing with BLogger for a day, I upgrade to BLogger Pro. It is amazing how much easier it is for me to update and maintain my web sites using BLogger. I only wish I could use it within my corporate firewall for private team web sites on our intranet.
So why am I sharing this with you? Simple. Pro Blogger has a new feature that allows me to publish new content through e-mail. Yep, that's right. I am composing this entry from Outlook. Within seconds of sending out this e-mail, thecave.com will be updated. Talk about a great service! Now if I could publish my thoughts as I am riding the slopes...
I just discovered an interesting web site, The End of Free. This site lists latest news articles related to "free" Internet services such as free web e-mail.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 12 02:24 PM | comments (0)Thursday, April 11, 2002
Microsoft has released a sample of Direct Internet Message Encapsulation using .NET. KeithBa showed off the code sample at the recent Web Service DevCon. The code seems nicely done. I am hoping to play with it later this week.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 11 11:50 AM | comments (0)Wednesday, April 10, 2002
The hard drive of my daily used laptop kicked the bucket last Friday. I finally got a replacement drive and now I am going through the painful process of re-installing software. But one piece of software is making this more painful than usual, Visual Studio.NET.
I for one am a fan of VS.NET. It seems Microsoft has finally gotten it right. But this lovely piece of software is just too damn big. The install takes too long and the slightest problem can cause the installation process to take longer. I have been working to install VS.NET since 3 pm yesterday with numerous failed attempts. Funny how Borland's Delphi ever did this to me.
Monday, April 08, 2002
I just completed the latest Microsoft Beta exam 71-316 and I now know I should have looked at the title of the exam, Development and Implementation of Windows-base Applications with C# and .NET Framework. This exam is jam packed with WinForm based questions, something I know little about. The exam I took covered areas such as security, configuration [gotta love those wonderful .config files], application packaging and deployment, Windows Form application development, debugging, setting up application menu and help systems, implementing custom controls, ADO.NET [both SqlClient and OleDb manager providers, connection and command objects, DataSet, DataView, data binding, and data editing], and finally XML [through various XML Readers and ADO.NET DataSet].
The questions were not as technically challenging as I had expected. In my opinion, if you have done WinForm development, you will do fine on this test. So how did I do? I suspect I did not do very well as I have done very little WinForm development using Visual Studio.NET and C#. Since this was a beta exam, my actual score will be sent to me in 8 weeks.
Pass or fail, taking the exam served my purpose of preparing for the actual release exam due out later this year. I now know what to expect from the exam and what I need to study. And my study list does not include the topics I expected today: reflection, delegation and event handling, web services, and web applications.
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
Slashdot | Do Programming Languages Affect Your Sexual Performance?
Dare I say, I have my own opinions on this topic but I think I will keep them to myself for the time being. Still, this is a funny thread to read...if you are a geek like me.
Monday, April 01, 2002
Lately I have been looking at all things web services and UDDI. I attended the Web Service DevCon in Portland, OR, which totally rocked! Chris Sells and Tim Ewald did an outstanding job bringing together some of the best minds in the industry for this 2-day conference. And today I looked at Microsoft UDDI Services.
Microsoft UDDI Services appears to be nothing more than an ASP.NET application built on top of a SQL Server database, so I am at a loss as to why Microsoft requires Windows .Net Server to run UDDI Services. I suspect it has something to do with a marketing decision.
Negativity aside, Microsoft has done a nice implementation with UDDI Services. The web interface is nice, maybe even a bit better than Microsoft own public UDDI node web site. And the SOAP interface to the UDDI registry worked in all my test. I have a console app written in C# that uses Microsoft UDDI SDK for .NET. I have been using the console app to test the UDDI SDK against Microsoft and IBM's public test UDDI nodes. Today I ran the app against a locally installed instance of UDDI Services and the program ran without a problem. This is what I expected to see, but rarely do with other software packages. Nice job Microsoft.
It's a sad day. I finally stored my snowboard gear away.<sigh> At least I had an incredible season with 35 days riding the slopes. WASTED was great and hopefully I will get around to posting all the photos online. I have collected some 270 photos from the various people who attended WASTED. The rest of the season included trips with Melanie to Killington, Vermont. And we ended the season together with one last wonderful weekend in Whistler. It was very hard to leave. But I guess there is always next year.
posted by Kirby Turner | April 1 08:08 AM | comments (0)