A world apart from the everday ...

IE8 beta 2 initial thoughts (1 of n)

Ryan CrawCour — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:46:41 GMT

When the first beta for IE8 was announced I rushed out, downloaded it and installed it eager to see what the IE team had been up to ... Well let's just say that the beta lasted about 5 days on my machine before it was removed. The best thing about beta 1 was the uninstaller that actually removed all traces of the beta properly.

So when beta 2 of IE8 was announced last week it was with some skepticism that I hit the download link, and with even more doubt that I installed it.

My initial thoughts aren't bad, but they aren't great either! Whilst (so far) it seems more stable than the first beta there are still some things that are pesky and annoying at best, and others that simply make the product unusable and are coercing me to try and see if the uninstaller for the second beta is as good as the first was.

Firstly, it's VERY aggressive use of resources drives me bonkers! I like tabbed browsers as I can fire up tabs in the background and let them load peacefully and read them when i get around to it. Well, lemme rephrase that, I like tabbed browsing when using firefox, opera, or safari, but NOT when using IE. (and yes I am running them all to compare 1 browser to another, comparing apples with apples if you like). The reason being is the IE8 just kills my machine when opening more than 1 tab. I know sometimes I can get carried away having as many as 20+ tabs open, but firefox (my current browser of choice) handles this just fine. IE8 beta 2 doesn't! In fact any more than 3 tabs and you're starting to ask for trouble.

This shows a screenshot from this morning; with a mere 11 tabs open

321 Meg being consumed by iexplore!?!?! That's a little extreme guys ... i mean come on! That's more than 30 meg per tab! Does IE simply fire up a new "instance" of itself per tab?

Here's a comparison between IE and Firefox with the exact same tabs open, notice the difference ...

Firefox here is using only 80Meg vs IE's massive 225! That's a difference of close to 300%. Ridiculous if you ask me.

Aside from the annoying aggressive use of my system resources some other quirky things bug me about IE; like the silly green color of the tabs. What's this about? At first i thought it was an attempt to indicate unread vs read tabs like Firefox does via a few nice addins, but alas no. There appears to be no way to remove the pesky green color.

Compare this again to the stock standard Firefox way ...

the inactive tabs appear in a darker grey and the active tab appears with a lighter background color as well as the close button highlighting nicely so at a glance you can see which is the active tab. This is the stock standard firefox behavior, adding some nice tab add-ins can get you a much more custom experience.

So thus far my feelings on IE8 aren't great!

I'd love to hear what others out there think of the browser.

Next time I will focus more on the features of the product from a developers point of view and will touch on things like standards compliance etc. So watch this space.

A little Friday humour ....

Ryan CrawCour — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:39:00 GMT

After the week I have had preparing for TechEd and the week I am going to have at TechEd and Partner Summit I know I was in need of a little Friday humour to lift the spirits .... I haven't laughed this hard in a while ... so I thought I would share it with you.

For more of the same check out the XKCD comic strip @ http://xkcd.com

TechEd '08 Post mortem ....

Ryan CrawCour — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:25:00 GMT

It was almost a post mortem for me .... shoooo .... a number of crazy parties as TechEd is known for, but somehow this year it just seemed to be on a whole new level. Maybe it had something to do with the sea air .... or ... oh heck I don't know .... but it was CRAZY man!

The MVP hunt (Ruari's brilliant idea) was hectic. Note to self, don't walk around an event like TechEd wearing a t-shirt that says "MVP" on the back. No matter how small it is, the hungry tshirt hunters will spot it and come running! Ruari was also kind enough to invite me to the MVP Cave braai ~ WICKED! Ruari, you sure know how to throw a party. Enjoy the leftover steaks!

The community lounge was great. So thanks to all the community leads that did an incredible amount of work to pull that off. Willy, Willy-Peter ... superb guys. You guys do so much good stuff for the community at large it is inspiring.

Bulldog (aka. Zlatan) you're legend. Sorry to hear you didn't win that Zune; nevermind dude next year! You'll have some stiff competition for sure cause I'll be back armed with a "brandnew" product release. If you don't know Zlatan this guy is a hoot, he winds up other MVPs to stimulate healthy debate by saying things like "CRM is nothing more than an extension of Sharpoint!". Hahahahaha that definitely caused a stir.

My sessions went ok, or at least I think so. In spite of the numerous technical issues faced at the last minute (including 3 vpc crashes, 1 vista blue screen which i've never seen before so that was "novel", a dead notebook as we plugged into the projector and an RFID reader that didn't do very much reading) we still managed to do a few demos and spend a bit of time outside of the dreaded powerpoint. If you attended any of the 4 sessions i would LOVE to hear from you. Lemme know what you thought.

It was really great meeting some of the international Microsoft folk. Guys like Shy Cohen ... dude, you're a legend! And those moves on the dance floor; sick I tell you. sick!

All in all a great event. MS I LOVE the new venue. Seriously cool! If you missed out this year don't stress I hear bookings for '09 open soon

So I am now off to catch up on some much needed sleep and see if I can find a new liver somewhere cause mine ran away ....

Oslo ...

Ryan CrawCour — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:58:07 GMT

No, not the city in Norway even though that is a beautiful place it's far too cold to get my tail feathers in a flutter ....

I am talking about the "Oslo" initiative that Microsoft announced some time back.

Since it was announced it has caused more hooha than anything else Microsoft has announced since possibly the introduction of Windows!

So what is it?!?!?

Darn fine question .... Up until not many have been able to give me a definitive answer and often the messages being received by Joe Public are confusing and sometimes even contradictory!

Well thankfully Steven Martin, senior director of product management in Microsoft's Connected Systems Division (CSD) has shed some light on this topic at the recent Worldwide Partner Summit;

Check it out here ... Oslo: Road to Microsoft's Cloud

Probably the most clear description of what the imitative is aiming to achieve!

I particularly like this paragraph:

Martin said the future of application development at Microsoft involves modeling and services and will feature analysis and design tools, next-generation declarative languages, process-aware engines and platforms, and self-aware system management. The Microsoft products and tools involved in this will include BizTalk Server 5, BizTalk Services 1, Visual Studio 10, Microsoft System Center 5 and the .NET Framework 4 -- all upcoming versions of core Microsoft technology.

Seems the farm is safe so to speak ....

I look forward to exciting times ahead!

TechEd Africa 2008

Ryan CrawCour — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:16:04 GMT

So ... this will be my 9th year in a row (if i can count 2000 .... 2008) that I have been to TechEd Africa, never missed a single one!

I always find something new to learn about; network with some cool people; and usually have an absolute PARTY!

I am always amazed that year-in year-out Microsoft can put on such an amazing event. The organisation is always so slick and each year it just seems to get bigger and bigger!

This year, well, this year might be a little different for me anyways; A) it's the first time it's NOT at Sun City but in Durban and B) last but not least because this time round I get the somewhat dubious honour of presenting a session or two (or 3 or 4 or ...) !

Can you say ....

PRESSURE!!

STRESS!!

I will be flying solo with these two breakout sessions; (SOA304) - Enterprise Service Bus As an Operating Environment for Services and (SOA301) - A Technical Drilldown into Microsoft ESB Guidance

And then if that were not enough, I will also be co-presenting the following breakout sessions with Markus Landler, Microsoft Field PM for EMEA from Germany, (SOA201) Microsoft BizTalk RFID in Real World Deployments: Connecting Movements in the Physical World to Enterprise Applications and (SOA302) - Everything You Wanted to Know about Real Work Value in RFID, Including the Kitchen Sink!

If I survive these sessions you will find me ~~recovering in my hotel room~~ ~~hiding in the speaker room~~ hanging out with all you cool people out in the community lounges and in some of the "Ask The Experts" sessions or in some of the "Demo Lounges".

All this work doesn't mean that I will be missing out on some serious R&R and a few good cold ones, oh no way!

I'll just have to sleep for a week after TechEd!

So if you find yourself at TechEd this year do pop around and say hi.

BizTalk Server and unit testing ...

Ryan CrawCour — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:25:16 GMT

The next instalment of the South African BizTalk User Group meetings will be happening tomorrow evening (9 July 2008) at the Microsoft Campus in Bryanston starting at 18:00.

If you have always wanted to know how to unit test your BizTalk solutions because you're an avid fan of TDD, then make sure you don't miss this! Nabeel Prior from Microsoft will be walking us through this very topic and how to use BizUnit and the BizUnit designer.

So short and sweet, but I am sure you will agree that it should be extremely interesting and add a bunch of value to your BizTalk projects. I know I am looking forward to it.

Remember to keep an eye on the BizTalk User Group site (here) so you don't miss out on the exciting stuff happening in the local community ....

There are RSS feeds all over the site so you can make sure that the latest content wings it's way down to your favourite RSS Reader; like the feed for User Group Meeting announcements which can be found here

That's it for now!

Hope to see you tomorrow evening.

The Bloggers Guide to BizTalk is back ......

Ryan CrawCour — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:49:04 GMT

For those of you that have been working with BizTalk for any amount of time I am sure you are well aware of the "The Bloggers Guide to BizTalk" and if so you will no doubt also be aware that there hasn't been one of since v1.8 (June 2006) ... if like me you were getting serious withdrawal symptoms fear not .... IT IS BACK!

What is this thing that has me all excited you ask ...

The aim of The Bloggers Guide to BizTalk is to provide the best of the online content produced by the BizTalk blogging community in an easily accessible format.

All the content in the guide has been created by BizTalk developers who wish to share their knowledge and ideas with others in the developer community.

The subjects of these contributions and the level of their complexity are varied, so there is information available for those who are new to BizTalk, as well as for advanced developers.

The posts are usually taken directly from the contributors blog, so the writing style of the contributions vary, and there is no guarantee that all the information is free of errors. Any feedback as to corrections can be made by commenting on the original article at the authors blog.

All contributions to the guide are gratefully received, and new contributors are always welcome.

Check out the latest version (1.9) here

BizTalk VTS Summit '08

Ryan CrawCour — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:54:24 GMT

I must just say a BIG thanks to Microsoft for sending me to the annual BizTalk Virtual Technical Specialist Summit; held this year on a cruise liner out of Miami!

I met a bunch of new people from all over the world; including Brian Loesgen (co-author of the BizTalk ESB Guidance), John Brockmeyer (author of the incredible whitepaper on optimising your BizTalk solution), Erik Leaseburg (founder of the BizTalk Rangers team). Be warned though, some of these guys can induce instant brain haemorrhage! But it was really great to meet them and put faces to the blog poster I read all the time.

I learnt a bunch, had an incredible amount of fun, and yes ... believe it or not, worked real hard!

I look forward to VTS Summit '09!

But for now it's back to reality and life in cold SA ....

BizTalk user group has an online home ....

Ryan CrawCour — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:24:00 GMT

At last!

The South African BizTalk community has an online home. Head on over to www.biztalkug.co.za where you will be able to find anything and everything related to BizTalk in South Africa.

Go ahead, sign up ... you know you wanna!

PS. a big big big thanks to all that helped to get this site up & running. Nabeel, big up to you man! Thanks! To Telligent for sponsoring us a license to Community Server, thanks very much!

I am currently in Miami for the BizTalk VTS conference but as soon as I get back I will start planning for the next meeting. If anybody has any suggestions for topics you want covered please let me know by posting on the forums on the user group site.

Other ways to deal with suspended messages...

Ryan CrawCour — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:55:43 GMT

Rudolf Henning recently wrote an interesting post in his blog entitled "Listing BizTalk suspended filenames";

Typically I don't respond directly to people's posts, but heck that's what blogging is supposed to be for - to express my opinions and insights on particular subjects; and this seemed like a good candidate for a response ...

So here we goes my best attempt....

Rudolf opens his post with the following:

"One of the real limitations of BizTalk server (design issue) is the lack of details for when things go wrong"

Now I am not sure what he means by this but I disagree with this statement.

BizTalk provides EXCELLENT support for when things go wrong. The tools are all there you just need to go looking in the right places.

New to BizTalk Server 2006 is the excellent BizTalk Administrator Console. This is really your one stop shop for your BizTalk environment. In previous versions of the product this functionality was seriously lacking and we needed to rely heavily on HAT and on the brilliant tools provided by the community; such as the "BizTalk 2004 Administration Management Tool" written by our very own local boy, Paul Somers. But thankfully this is now a thing of the past, I have not yet come across and administrative type requirement that I could not do with the Administration Console. The Admin Console is the cockpit or flight deck of your BizTalk environment providing you with detailed insights into all your applications, active messages, suspended messages, etc. It allows you to access the body of all messages and view the promoted properties etc.

That's all fair and well if you're sitting watching the Admin Console all the time; but what if you're not that masochistic and you prefer to be doing other things with your spare time than hitting F5. Well, fear not ! BizTalk has great support for a number of operational management applications, including SCOM. With the BizTalk pack loaded you have access to all sorts of metrics and events that you can build actions on. You want to know when a message is suspended, no problem. You want to know when a send port could not deliver a message, no problem. Whatever you want it's there for you, and if by some miracle it isn't you can always write your own stuff for SCOM.

Rudolf mentions that he'd like the original filename of a file message that was suspended and shows how to retrieve this info from the message box; nice idea but I have a few issues with this. Firstly, i try NEVER to dig around in the MessageBox. This things is central to the entire way BizTalk works and any work inside this is more than likely not supported by Microsoft and is not guaranteed to work the same way in future versions. It's like popping the bonnet of your Ferrari and fiddling around with the complicated wiring and plumbing of the engine ... um, no thanks!

What if you have a BizTalk deployment that has multiple messageboxes? Do you need to know where to go look for your messages?

What is the sole purpose of the messagebox? It's a central temporary store where messages are published for subscribers to consume.

So how long does a message stay in the messagebox? Depending on your exact setup, only very briefly. Messages are delivered, consumed and they're gone. Well ok, not exactly true ... The body of the message is discarded and the context is moved off to the tracking database. Even the tracking db is not a permanent store for messages, because it is best practice to prune this thing else it can grow really really big quickly. So assuming your messages don't get suspended they don't stay in the messagebox very long.

Ok, Rudolf is talking purely about suspended messages, so what happens to these? Well if they're Suspended (Resumable) then the body of the message is held in the messagebox and his solution works quite nicely. But surely there is a better way of doing this instead of digging around in the BizTalk internal organs. Well, I believe there is ...

What about enabling failed routing and creating an orchestration that subscribes to failed messages. This orchestration can then access the original filename from the context, has access to the body of the message and can something with it; Like returning it to sender for correction, or emailing an information worker, or dropping it into a Sharepoint list ready for human intervention? The possibilities are endless and the nice thing about this solution is that you will not clutter up the Administration Console with all these suspended messages lying about ....

Without knowing the complete problem being faced by Rudolf I cannot say whether my solution would suffice or not, but the point that I am trying to make is that BizTalk, like anything, is merely a tool and it is up to you to decide how best to use it's (extensive) set of features in your specific scenario.

It is great to see local guys blogging on BizTalk topics ... it means the product is finally starting to find purchase in the local marketplace and is starting to rise up to where it is destined to be .... </salespitch>

I'd love to hear your thoughts / comments / flames / other suggestions on how to accomplish the same thing.

Disclaimer: Please note; this is in NO WAY an attack on Rudolf (I don't even know the guy) or the way he is doing things, just merely my insights into what he wrote, the problem he faced and an attempt to come up with a potential alternative.

MVP Interop Event

Ryan CrawCour — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:41:40 GMT

Willy-Peter is doing a sterling job in organizing the upcoming MVP Interop session which will show that the us M$'ers are not completely ignorant and unaware of the other technologies out there and will show just how easy it is to integrate different technologies together.

For further details of the event check out Willy's post here

As Ruari said at last night's planning session it is no longer about the technology but more about the mind-set ...

So let's get our minds right and let's INTEROP!

BizTalk Deep Dive

Ryan CrawCour — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:26:00 GMT

So this week I am attending a deep dive course presented by John Callaway from Quicklearn.

I must say the sesison is very informative and even though I have been using BizTalk for almost 8 years now I am still picking up lots of little pieces of fun things that I never knew about before. Little things that will make my life as a BizTalk developer much, much easier.

This is the kind of content that us local BizTalk developers have been starved for; for such a long time. Thanks to Microsoft for bringing these guys out here ... now that you've wet our tastebuds can we have more

I will aggregate these bits and pieces, tips and tricks, into a session which I will present at the next BizTalk user group meeting, So if you missed out ... don't worry you can either catch the notes from the session on Willy's blog as he is posting regular titbits from the inside, or you can attend the next session and you'll gain a lot of this deep insight for gratis!

*grin*

ps. it is VERY good to see this session is jam packed with eager beavers ready to learn! i see the potential for a very bright future for BizTalk in South Africa.

now all i have to do is get back on to REAL [] development projects where i get to use this stuff daily and not stuck on the stuff i am doing now ....

ciao for now

The 3rd BizTalk User Group Meeting...

Ryan CrawCour — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:01:40 GMT

It's nearly that time again ... jeesh how time flies when you're having so much fun.

The next instalment in the saga of the Johannesburg BizTalk User Group will be happening on the 7th of May at the Microsoft campus in Bryanston at 18:00.

Topics planned for this session include;

EAI Patterns and their application in a BizTalk environment with an introduction to the BizTalk pattern wizard by Jon Flanders; which can be found here.
Business Rules Engine, best practices, tips and tricks from the field
Q&A ... so bring your questions and let's see if we can come up with the answers together.

Check out www.biztalkug.co.za. Yes I know the site is UGLY, out of date and in need of a serious overhauling, but hopefully if the universe plays along, and the sky does not fall on my head again, we'll have a new fully featured functional site up and running by beginning of next week. I love deadlines; mostly I love the sound they make when the go wooshing by :D. But seriously watch this space ...

So anybody who actively uses BizTalk server, is interested in BizTalk, or has heard about it and is wondering how it can revolutionise the way they integrate systems is welcome to pop in and share a cold beverage with us! We're not as bad as you may have heard....

Just please drop me an email and let me know you are planning on attending; the last thing we'd want is for you to get there and find we've run out of beverages or the ultra geeky, but really cool BizTalk T-Shirts... Whilst you're at it, please feel free to include requests / suggestions / demands / offers of free overseas trips etc. and we'll try get on top of it as soon as possible!

Ciao for now

One rotten apple can so easily spoil the bunch...

Ryan CrawCour — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:31:47 GMT

So with the MVP summit currently under way in Redmond I am once again reminded of the different caliber local MVPs out there.

Some of the guys are brilliant and do fabulous work in the communities for their respective areas of speciality. They blog constantly with interesting posts, tips and tricks that they've picked up from their daily experiences using the technologies. They host community events, deep dives, training sessions; often free to the community. Even now as we speak, whilst they're off hot knobbing with the big brains out there at the MVP summit they constantly blog, letting us know what is happening and where they can let us know about the new exciting things we can be expecting down the road. These guys are clearly passionate about their areas of speciality and do what they can to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with the rest of the community.

I am talking about Willy-Peter Schaub for Team System and Zlatan for Sharepoint in particular... well done guys; you do a great job! These guys host user groups, blog regularly with very valuable information, host training sessions etc. It is in part due to their constant knowledge sharing in respective areas that I have personally found a new interest in these technologies.

And then...

Then you get those on the opposite poles to the category mentioned above...

Well, what can we say about them? These are the guys that year after year get voted into their roles yet you NEVER hear about them. In fact one particular case I did not know we even had a local MVP until one of the foreign MVPs I had been interacting with often suggested I contact the local guy ... what we have a local MVP? Jeesh blow me over ... These guys head off to MVP summit year after year yet never seem to share any of the knowledge gained with the guys back home. You never see them presenting at events, you never hear of them doing anything in the communities and even their blog sites are dead with not a single post in the last 6+ months. I shall refrain from mentioning individuals from this group in a public space like this, for obvious reasons but I am sure we have all had our dealings with them.

quoted from http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities

So they are meant to be leaders in the community; imagine that...

quoted from http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

MVPs tend to be early adopters of new technology and actively communicate their experiences to millions of other technology users. Through their extensive community activity, MVPs help others solve problems and discover new capabilities, helping people get the maximum value from their technology.

They're meant to volunteer their time and knowledge helping out other professionals!?!

Yeah granted it's not an easy job! We all understand that you yourself are holding down a regular day job; but I guess that's the price you gotta pay for fame and fortune. Some are doing it really well, and others seem to not even try. In fact some are down right negative when it comes to their involvement with community events and user groups.

So what I want to know is how year after year some of these guys get voted in?

quoted from http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpawardintro

In order to receive the Microsoft MVP Award, MVP nominees undergo a rigorous review process. Technical community members, current MVPs, and Microsoft personnel may nominate candidates. A panel that includes MVP team members and product group teams evaluate each nominee's technical expertise and voluntary community contributions for the past year. The panel considers the quality, quantity, and level of impact of the MVP nominee's contributions. Active MVPs receive the same level of scrutiny as other candidates each year.

So that is how it is meant, but how does the nomination process and voting system really work?

Do you think I am being harsh and unfair? I would love to hear from the current SA MVPs or those in the know....

Should a few rotten apples be allowed to spoil the bunch?

PS. There are other great local MVPs (past and present); so if I did not mention you specifically then for that I apologise; but you know who you are.

And for the rest ... If the shoe fits...

The 2nd BizTalk User Group meeting ....

Ryan CrawCour — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:36:10 GMT

Well, it's done, it's happened and now it's time to look forward to the next one!

Yup, the 2nd meeting of the newly formed BizTalk User Group was held this week, 5 March 2008, at Microsoft's offices in Bryanston. Thanks again to Frikkie for arranging the venue and organising the fantastic refreshments!

What else do we need? Some BizTalk perhaps, well there was loads of that too...

We started off the evening watching a video clip from on10.net about how Blue C Sushi are using the new RFID technologies available in BizTalk 2006 R2 to power their business and improve their customer experience whilst reducing wastage and costs at the same time. Finally, a practical use for RFID!

This was followed by a Deep Dive into debugging your messaging solutions presented by Pieter van der Merwe from The Enabler Group. Pieter highlighted the use of some really cool techniques and tools for pinpointing some nastiness that are often not exactly visible.

After the break it was my turn to do a short and sweet high level introduction into WCF & BizTalk 2006 R2. I covered a simple scenario to illustrate how to consume a WCF service in a messaging only scenario and then proceeded to build the world's most complicated calculator by exposing a BizTalk orchestration that performed various simple operations on a set of numbers passed in and returned the result. I then demonstrated how to expose this as a WCF service using the publishing wizard.

All in all I think the meeting was a success. Nice to see some faces from the first meet back for version 2 ... must mean we're doing something right!

I will be posting a link to the PowerPoint slides and the sample code from the demos on to the group's site www.biztalkug.co.za in a short while and will probably update this post with the links too, so watch this space.

We are going to try and hold these session on the 1st Wednesday evening of every month, which makes the next get together of like minded souls 2nd April 2008. Invites will follow shortly...