Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)

Like various runtime environments helping developers to create offline, online applications, there is one more runtime in the market from Adobe this time. It is called as Adobe Integrated Runtime or AIR. It allows developers combine HTML, Ajax, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Flex technologies to deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop.

I need to do more hands on this to give more feedback. In the meantime, you may want to have a look at the Adobe website to get more information.
Adobe AIR

Cheers,
Amol

Common problems while creating a new TFS team project

After you have installed TFS, sharepoint etc, when you try to create a new team project then you may get following mysterious errors. Also, given below the resolution for the same. I have encountered this problem few times earlier and hence jotting it down here so that it may help others.

1. Unable to connect to the Windows sharepoint service
Resolution: Change the port number of Sharepoint admin website to 17012 and restart the IIS.
2. Error uploading report : Work Item with Tasks
Resolution: After trying all the things available on the newsgroups, websites etc., if still your problem is not solved then try using domain user for logon for the Microsoft Windows Share Point Search service. Restart the service and then try creating the project again. The same domain user should have access to the reports database.

Hope it helps.

Cheers,
Amol

The 7 deadly sins of IT managers

Here is one good article on the INFOWORLD which talks about the 7 deadly sings of IT Managers.

Following are the sins:
Sin No. 1: Lust for new technology
Sin No. 2: Information gluttony
Sin No. 3: Avarice as an action item
Sin No. 4: Slothful approaches to IT
Sin No. 5. In-house envy
Sin No. 6: Wrath management
Sin No. 7: Pride creep


Source:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/12/15/51FE-it-manager-sins_1.html


Cheers,
Amol

Even after lot of criticism and cribbing, Vista is alive and kicking.

Following are some of the details from the Vista Tracking Poll:
1.48 percent of respondents indicate that their organization is evaluating, testing, or implementing Vista. That doesn't sound dead to me.
2.30 percent of respondents have organizations that are currently implementing or have already implemented Vista.
3.50 percent of the respondents said Vista is performing "above expectation" on key features.

I felt really happy when I read this article on Vista today. Here is the URL for your reference from the InfoWorld .
http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisewindows/archives/2008/10/windows_vista.html

What I really liked about this article is given below:
“If you truly want a Mac, go get one. Stop complaining about Vista and change. Or take your PC and install Linux. Or downgrade to XP. But stop the Vista bashing. You 20 people who yell like you are 20 million are really starting to get on the nerves of the 200 million Vista-loving PC users out here who would spend more time debating with you, but we are too busy enjoying our Vista OS and don't have time.”

Thanks J. Peter Bruzzese. I agree with you completely.

Cheers,

Amol

Mono 2.0 project released

Hello,

All of us are aware of Mono project. The latest update from Mono is that they have released Mono 2.0 and it supposed to be a major milestone in the Mono project. After releasing the Moonlight they have now incorporated new features in 2.0 most notably C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 8 -- a debugger and MoMA, a tool that analyzes .NET assemblies and determines how compatible they are with Mono.

Following are the features in Mono 2.0:

Microsoft Compatible APIs
1.ADO.NET 2.0 API for accessing databases.
2.ASP.NET 2.0 API for developing Web-based applications.
3.Windows.Forms 2.0 API to create desktop applications.
4.System.XML 2.0: An API to manipulate XML documents.
5.System.Core: Provides support for the Language Integrated Query (LINQ).
6.System.Xml.Linq: Provides a LINQ provider for XML.
7.System.Drawing 2.0 API: A portable graphics rendering API.

Mono APIs
1.Gtk# 2.12: A binding to the Gtk+ 2.12 and GNOME libraries for creating desktop applications on Linux, Windows and MacOS X.
2.Mono.Cecil: A library to manipulate ECMA CLI files (the native format used for executables and libraries).
3.Mono.Cairo: A binding to the Cairo Graphics library to produce 2D graphics and render them into a variety of forms (images, windows, postscript and PDF).
4.Mono's SQLite support: a library to create and consume databases created with SQLite.
5.Mono.Posix: a library to access Linux and Unix specific functionality from your managed application. With both a low-level interface as well as higher level interfaces.
6.Third Party APIs bundled with Mono
7.Extensive support for databases: PostgreSQL, DB2, Oracle, Sybase, SQL server, SQLite and Firebird.
8.C5 Generics Library: we are bundling the C5 generics collection class library as part of Mono.
Compilers
These compilers are part of the Mono 2.0 release:
1.C# 3.0 compiler implementation, with full support for LINQ.
2.Visual Basic 8 compiler.
3.IL assembler and disassembler and the development toolchain required to create libraries and applications.
Source:
http://mono-project.com/Main_Page

Cheers,
Amol

Windows 2008 Server Installation Experience on the 64 bit server

Finally I got to play with the most awaited server 2008. The installation was smooth and really faster if I compare the installation of older OS/servers like XP/2003. Overall, it was amazing experience to install 2008. I must say that I am impressed with the quality of installer Microsoft has produced this time. That WOW effect has now started with the installer itself. I played around a bit with 2008 configuration. The server roles is the new concept in 2008 including hyper v and it’s fun to configure it. I was searching for add/remove programs to install the IIS and its related components, old habit you see. But then realized that I have to add the server role and it takes care of the installation. I also played a bit with hyper v and created virtual hard disks. Next thing, I want to do is to compare hyper v with Virtual PC server and how compatible they are. I will keep you updated on this.

To summarize, I am impressed with Win 2008 server.

Cheers,
Amol

50th Post

And here it goes.....the post number 50.....

Cheers,
Amol

Are we heading to global recession and if yes then how will it impact on India IT/ITES industries?

These are some of the questions which I have been thinking since lot of time now. Everyday newspaper is full of updates on how top investment banks/ financial institutions are fading away. Who would have expected that Lehman Brothers would declare bankruptcy? Especially, in India there own people were not aware of this and hence were on target for their aggressive recruitment plans in Lehman brothers.

Some of the big tier 1 service providers in India, have or rather had some kind of investments with Lehman brothers as well. Since, they are the big boys of the market here, they can sustain the temporary impact of this. But, what about other IT companies having strength in the range of 500-5000 people?

First thing first, are we heading for global recession? Most of the people will answer it as ‘Yes’. And looking at some of the events at Wall Street happened recently, it is not wrong. US government has to prepare bail out package for this. This it self says that how bad it is. My gut feeling is that what we are seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg and worst is yet to come. As Mr. Amartya Sen has said in one of the interviews recently that it might take 3-4 years for the world to come out completely. Also, in terms of percentage it not as bad as it was during the greatest world recession. It could be just 50% if we compare it. Such events will trigger panic among the investment banks, investors, creditors etc. This is a storm rather Financial storm and it will take some time to settle down. It will throw away lot of garbage material which has been piled up so far in the market. As they say, during the storm; it is the best time to fish if you are comfortably positioned. Merger and acquisitions will take place as usual but with better sense.
However, what amuses me is the chain of events. One bank goes down…then second…..then third and so on. Also, combine this with crashing real estate market and oil prices and you will get more amused. Couple of months back, oil has touched almost 150$ and not it somewhere between 60-80$ if I am not wrong. Analysts are predicting that it could even touch as low as 50$. Who knows…….

Now, second thing is how will it impact Indian IT/ITES companies? There will be direct impact on those companies having BFSI vertical and having major presence in the BFSI space. This could lead to cost cutting, workforce reduction rather than keeping on bench, reducing focus on BFSI and narrowing on health care etc. Others who do not have this vertical in their organization will also be hit in some form or other. The impact would not be too high. The onsite companies may want to cut down on IT expenditure just to consolidate their position. This would mean projects in the pipelines could be delayed. The customers will ask for more value for the money they are paying for sure. For all the jumping jacks who keep on changing jobs every now and then; they will have to be patient and be at the right place at the right time. Job market would be driven by requirements purely and not by the HR recruitment targets for sure. Sales people will have hard time in selling the products/ applications/services.

So far, I focused more on the negative part. There would be some positive outcomes as well. As they say in Italian Mafia that every decade there should be a war between the mafia gangs. This makes sure that bad blood is thrown out from the mafia stack. Same theory can be applied to the current situation as well. This happens once in a decade or twice in some cases. It settles down the dust and throws away unwanted particles. This is the law of the nature. We have been seeing lot of Investment bankers recently. Everybody was investment banker. This will stop now and only talent will be available in the market. This could be a boom to the outsourcing as well. Because more you stress on the cost cutting more you have to do the outsourcing. This will also move the focus of the market to products, innovations etc. for sure.

Cheers,
Amol

MS Office to support ODF and PDF...

The news is out and this time it is correct. Microsoft has decided to add support for ODF and PDF in MS Office 2007 through the Office SP2 to be released in early 2009. What it means is that now we can save office files in ODF and PDF format. Currently also it is possible but you have to use different plug-ins for this. Now this support would be give in Office only.

This is a good feature for end users. Once installed, they need not have to use any plug-ins or converters to translate the word file to PDF etc. This may also open lot of opportunities to programmers to play around with this feature programmatically using Office APIs.

Cheers,
Amol

Fortress........succesor to Java????

If you look at the various programming languages that we use today, most of them were designed for earlier generations of machines. Though, Microsoft has responded beautifully by introducing .NET and languages based on .NET, others are much behind.

Sun Lab is working on a language which could be potentially successor of Java, called as ‘Fortress’ to solve problems for application development for high-performance computing. Parallel computing is supported in this language. Its syntax is based on mathematical notation. It has language constructs such as for-next loops are parallelizable.

Should you want more information on this, you can download the binaries from
Project Fortress Community .


Cheers,
Amol

Thick client application using Silverlight

If at all we want to use cool Silverlight UI in the thick client application, would it be possible. If we concentrate on Windows forms only then there are few workaounds and answer to above-mentioned question is ‘Yes’.

The simplest thing to do is to use WebBrowser control on the Win Form and then let the browser control display the web pages using the Silverlight. Isn’t it simple to start with? And yes, it is also possible to have two way communications between the Windows Form application and the Silverlight application.

I also found on the net that few people have successfully used this approach on Linux as well with the help of go-mono of course.

Well, well, well….I am not finished yet….

Microsoft is also planning to launch a new MSN toolbar beta powered by Silverlight. Now, does that ring a bell in your mind? I am sure yes if not then please go through this blog one more time.


Cheers,
Amol

Moonlight….Silverlight on Linux…

You may be already aware that Moonlight is an open source project that supports the Silverlight 1.0 profile for Linux. According to the go mono web site, they have released not yet feature complete test installers for the Moonlight. These are basically snapshots from their development tree for Moonlight project.

Should you want more information on Moonlight, here is the URL.


Cheers,
Amol

ASP.NET MVC Framework

You may be already aware that Microsoft has provided ASP.NET MVC Preview 1 in the last year. Now, ASP.NET MVC Preview 2 is also available for download. It is basically a framework which will help you to implement MVC (Mode-View-Controller) design pattern quickly, efficiently and effectively. It also facilitates test driven development.

The new MVC framework is built on top of ASP.NET 3.5 and hence can use all the features of ASP.NET 3.5.

This is how you can see the template and Solution explorer in Visual Studio .NET.




You can download this preview version 2 from here .


Cheers,
Amol

Sony Ericsson to make phones using Windows Mobile Operating System

Here comes good news for Windows Mobile developers and MS Smartphone users. Recently, Sony has announced its plans to produce Windows mobile OS based gadgets. The first gadget will be launched on Feb. 11 at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.

Here are the links giving more insight information on this:
Sony introduces Windows mobile phones.

Future Challenges

Cheers,
Amol

Launching of MS 2008 technologies

Finally, 2008 MS technology launch is here. Microsoft would be releasing Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and VS2008 on 27 February 2008. As usual these products are flooded with tons of features. For example, Server 2008 has built-in virtualization, IIS 7.0, increased security, Network Access Protection framework, enhanced terminal services and so on. More about these features can be read on MS site.

BTW, did you know that Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 originally began as part of a single development project? Then the development of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 has branched into separate releases with different release cycles.

Cheers,
Amol

Microsoft and Acquisitions

Do you know which is the first company acquired by Microsoft? Well, the answer is a company called as ‘SOFTIMAGE’ and this acquisition happened on 28 June 1994.

Today, I found the list of official acquisitions by Microsoft here on the website.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/acquisitions/history.mspx

You may want to have a look at it know more about it. One of my favorite acquisitions is that of Great Plains software in the year 2000 and of course hotmail. Recently, Microsoft has acquired UK based provider of online mapping and location based services called as ‘Multimap’.


Cheers,
Amol

Hedging in Finance

Most of us do hedging in our daily lives. Hedging is nothing but securing or should I say insuring yourself from the future loss. For example: when you a buy a house, you also take house insurance. This is in order to prevent loss in future if at all disaster happens. Now, this is again nothing but hedging. In such simple scenarios, you can afford to do hedging by just paying the premium to insurance companies. But in financial markets, hedging is not so simple.

Most of the companies do hedging to avoid loss in the future. They typically rely on derivatives. Options and future are typically used derivative types for hedging by investors. These investors could be single person, corporate companies, banks etc.

The common example of future in Indian market could be hedging done by some big IT companies in India. Due to depreciating US dollar, these companies use future derivatives and so that they get good exchange rate on the future rate. Oil companies, for example, might hedge against the price of oil while an international mutual fund might hedge against fluctuations in foreign exchange rates. An understanding of hedging will help you to comprehend and analyze these investments.

Cheers,
Amol

Derivatives in Finance

Derivatives are nothing but instruments whose value is derived from the value of something else. In other words, it can be also called as an asset, whose value is derived from other asset. The main types of derivatives are futures, forwards, options, and swaps.
Derivatives are generally used by institutional investors to increase portfolio return or to hedge portfolio risk.

Now, derivatives can be also grouped in 2 different groups such as: over the counter and exchange-traded derivatives. In case of over the counter derivatives, trading happens directly without going through any exchange.

Cheers,
Amol

Mutual Funds Vs. Hedge Funds

Being an investor, sometimes you may want to know the simple difference between Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds. First of all, both the funds are nothing but managed portfolios. Some one (manager) will pick up the securities that might perform well in future and groups them into a single portfolio. Then investors can actually buy portions of the fund in order to bear losses/gains of that fund.

Now, what does the word hedge mean? We hear this word a lot now days. Terms like hedging, hedge funds have been already part of our vocabularies. For example: most of the big IT companies in India do hedging against the depreciating US $ to increase their profit margins. Basically, hedge means insurance against the bad times or defensive management. Now, the basic differences between mutual fund and hedge funds are:
1. Anybody can invest in mutual funds. The hedge funds are available to only accredited investors. For example: having net worth more that few millions etc. Also, they rarely have more that 500 investors each in hedge fund.
2. Hedge funds are managed more aggressively and the managers can do the short sell of stocks. On this track, mutual funds are more secure.
3. Mutual funds typically adhere to regulations like SEC(in US) and SEBI(in India) for example. The hedge funds are not regulated.
4. Mutual Funds change less fees and also as decided by the regulatory body. Where as hedge funds charge more fees like 1-2% of asset value + percentage of profit etc.
5. Traditional mutual funds generally rely on stock markets to go up but for hedge funds this is not the case. It makes no difference if market goes up or down.

Cheers,
Amol

What does it mean to be an Architect?

According to Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, this is what it means to be an Architect.

"It’s about being exposed to enough tools and techniques of the trade that over time you start to develop a toolkit of different patterns that work in different situations. This is true of software architecture and probably other types of architecture as well. Whether you build bridges or design buildings, you’re trying to apply design patterns to a given situation."

You may want to refer the Architecture Journal.

Cheers,
Amol