Alain's Globosphere : Platform

Get ready to upgrade to Windows Visa

alainler — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:39:00 GMT

As most of you know already, Windows Vista is knocking at the door and should normally be on the market early next year. There are many things you can do to get ready to this upgrade.

If you're part of the Customer Preview Program then you do have access to the installation files. If you're not part of it, the MSDN kit will make Vista available. If you're neither in the Customer Preview Program nor an MSDN Subscriber, you'll have to wait until RC1 to get the bits.

It's also recommended you test if your machine will be able to run Vista at its best. There is a small test application called the Windows Vista Upgrade Adivsor Beta that you can download and run. This will tell you how safe (or unsafe) it is to run Vista on your existing machine.

For the software upgrade itself, there are some restictions on the type of software upgrade you can do. Some transitions will require a clean install, and some others will support in-place upgrade. There's a table that helps you identifying all the possible combinations. Of course, if you need to do a clean install, there's a tool you can use to transfer your settings from your old to your new machine. This tool is the User State Migration Tool or the Files and Setting Transfer Wizard. This tool starts up automatically as you install Vista.

For more information, go and visit the Windows Vista site or the Vista Developer site.

Why is it called .NET 3.0?

alainler — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:45:00 GMT

Why is it called .NET 3.0? Actually, when I first saw the annoucement of .NET 3.0 I had mixed feelings. Here's what I thought:

The good

This enforces the .NET brand that now becomes really known and appreciated by many of my customers. This is really perceived as a quality platform.
.NET is no longer in its early versions. It becomes more and more mature.
This is a perfect continuity with what Microsoft has delivered in the last 5 years.
The platform becomes richer and richer and help companies having a better productivity.

The bad

This is yet another version of the framework in 5 years
This is a new version of the framework that has to be deployed
This will cause a side-by-side environment to be set up

What if we had kept the .NET 2.0 + WinFX?

IMHO, maybe we could have presented WinFX as being an optional development framework on top of .NET 2.0. In which case:

we don't have to redeploy a new framework
we make this change very light
we make it optional
we show how to increase productivity and user experience by using it!

This, of course, could have caused confusion by adding yet another term on the market ("WinFX"), maybe not.

Here is what Redo thinks about it.

What do you guys think?

UPDATE June 24: There are some quite interesting comments on Soma's blogpost about this very subject. I strongly suggest you go and read them!

Javapolis was great

alainler — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 23:27:00 GMT

Hi all,

It's been a long time since my last post. I've been pretty busy those days and, on top of that, I decided to spend some time off with my family. That does not happen that often, so I try to make that a quality time.

Anyway, Javapolis was a real success. It's been a great conference and I must admit that the contacts we had there were really ... interesting! They were really wondering what Microsoft was doing at "their" event...

During 3 days, we had the opportunity to talk to hundreds of developers and CxOs who really were eager to see why Microsoft was there in a Java world. Yes, actually, we started with getting questions such as "Are you crazy, what are you guys doing here?". Hour after hour, questions became more like: "What can the reporting services do to help me better understand my data?", "How can I make use of my java applications from .NET?", "How can I reuse my Java knowledge on the Microsoft Platform?" ... as you can see, plenty of really good questions and a very high interest.

I had been very happy to hear that Sun Microsystems (through Tim Bray) officially recognized the use and support of multiple programming languages on their platform. They actually started the whole conference with a presentation with a title "When NOT to use Java".

Regarding my presentation, I had about 200-300 attendees. I got a lot of feedback and most of it was really positive, showing that neutrality pays off when it comes to integrating with other technologies. They actually liked facts very much. They have seen that integration is a fact, not just a marketing story.

After a little "show hands" survey, I found out that 1/3 of the audience already had touched our development platform but only say 5% of them had tried the integration exercise (with more or less success BTW). There definately is work to do there. The market offering is quite good though).

Last but not least, I had the opportunity to meet ex-colleagues; so people I had the chance to work with while working in other companies. Some of them are now working at BEA, Sun Microsystems, Cache Intersystems and Oracle. This ICT world is so small ... I was pretty happy to see them again (among which Rudi Vissers, Dirk Sommerijns, Johan Kenens ...)

But, as the marketing capaign of Javapolis said ... "Only the best got in! ;-)

I hope I'll have the opportunity to talk to all those people again. This was really great.

Thank you guys ...

.NET and J2EE Interop: Speaking at Javapolis in December 2004

alainler — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 01:34:00 GMT

I've been invited as a speaker at Javapolis. The subject will be "Interoperability between the Microsoft Platform and the Java Platforms". You can get the session details here. For the PPT's, you'll have to come! ;-)

The content of this presentation will mainly come from the work my colleague Simon Guest has done in his book "Microsoft .NET and J2EE Interoperability Toolkit" and will be very pragmatic. Simon has done a tremendous work around Interop not only with the J2EE world, but in general.

I must admit that I'm very eager to talk to non-Microsoft specialists and to show how the two platforms can nicely integrate. It's actually and excellent opportunity to hear feedback from them but also show the effort we do, day after day, to better integrate. There is also a number of technologies availabale to support this collaboration/integration. Among them, you can find:

Generic Web Services technologies (and all the work done by the WS-I organization)
Specific WS-based technologies (Apache AXIS 1.0, IBM WSTK 3.3.x, IBM WSAD 5.0.2, BEA Weblogic 8.1, The Mind Electric GLUE 4.1, etc)
Intrinsyc Ja.NET for Java 1.2+
JNBridge Pro 1.3 for Java 1.2+

Of course, I will address different scenarii around this collaboration/integration. We'll look at that from all the layers: presentation, integration, business and data layers. The challenges are numerous, the opportunities also.

We will also see what the future will bring to Interop (through Web Services) like Security, Routing, Reliable Messaging, Transaction support, attachment support, etc. More of those can be found at Microsoft in WSE 2.0, at IBM in ETTK 3.3.2 and at the Mind Electric in GLUE 4.1 which supports the WS-* in the latest drops.

A good information source at Microsoft can also be the Web Services Interoperability and Integration home page. There, you can actually find articles related to the Interop with BEA WebLogic 8.1.3 and also with IBM WSAD 5.1.2. Those are must-read.

Well, enough for now. Rest will come ... at Javapolis. I hope to see you guys there.

Cheers.

TechEd Yokohama has been great and a nice experience

alainler — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 02:19:00 GMT

As I said earlier in my blog, I had the opportunity to speak at TechEd Yokohama. This was my first time in the far east and my first contact with the Japanese people in their own country.

First of all, I felt ... lost! Actually, very few of them can speak english. This was very surprising to me since basically in any part of the world I flew to, I could find real good english-speaking persons. Fortunately, there was someone to welcome me and guide me to the limousine bus. I bought the ticket, jumped on the bus and stayed there for 1 hour. Believe it or not, the person who was there to welcome me could hardly speak any english but had received very good instructions from the event company.

Then, from Narita airport, I hit Yokohama. Once in Yokohama airterminal, I really did not know what to do to go to my hotel (The Grand Inter-Continental close to the convention center of Yokohama). Someone at the bus terminal called a cab, took me to the cab stop and directed the chauffeur to my hotel. So that person I don't know anything about actually stayed with me and waited until the cab was there. Once at the hotel, I did not even have the time to catch my bags, someone from the hotel did it and took my bags to the reception desk. Once registered, another person to my bags right into my room without me asking anything. Waouh, I'm not used to that!

The organization of TechEd was simply amazing! Every single thing was prepared, planned, organized, ... no room for surprise. As a matter of example, let me tell you this anecdote: I sat next to the speakers room to prepare my presentation, do my work and I had been there from 7.30AM. At 7.30PM, I had to "register" at the speakers room to make sure that I would be there to talk to my translators. Believe it or not, even though I had spent the whole day with them, someone came and cought me up in the room, took me to the speakers room just to put a check mark in a box on a whiteboard! Another good one: Say half an hour before my presentation, I decided to leave the place and head to my presentation room; someone called me and said: "It's too early, you must stay here. Someone will pick you up in here and bring you to your presentation room.".

As far as my session is concerned, I did my little home work and introduced myself in japanese! The audience was so please that they even clapped! Then I started my presentation ... No feedback, no reaction, no laugh, no nothing! Japanese audience is quite calm but they listen very carefully! It took me about one hour to do my presentation and then, I left the room and sat in a "Ask the speaker" corner for some question! Just a couple of persons dared coming! They are very shy indeed.

My presentation took place one week from now and I just got the feedback. It seems that my japanese audience really appreciated my presentation. I'll then further work on it and, who knows, maybe I'll present it to you guys.

That's it for now. Before I leave you, let me recommend a visit in Japan. This is an amazing country with amazing very friendly people. I also want to thank Masashi Narumoto for having given me the opportunity to present in Yokohama. It's been a pleasure.

Cheers!

Tech'Ed 2004 - Yokohama - Conceptual Approach to Application and Platform Interoperability

alainler — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 07:20:00 GMT

I must admit this is absolutely great: I've been invited to Tech'Ed 2004 in Yokohama in Japan by my colleague Masashi.

The subject I'll be presenting will be "Conceptual Approach to Application and Platform Interoperability".

Simon has done a superb job focusing on the interop possibilities that exist between J2EE and .NET. This is of course the most important interop requirement of the moment and actually, my work looks more like a generalization of what Simon has done in his book. Of course, I look forward to sharing my thoughts with him.

However, interoperability is something that always had been required. Interop, a long time ago, was just based on data, then it evolved to allow application interop (remeber the good old COM days), we're now more and more heading into the direction of platform interoperability and the concept of service delegation in nowaday's architectures is quite realistic.

This session will actually look at most of the interoperability styles that have existed so far and some that, IMHO, could become really key for high development productivity and efficient application maintenance. Once again, there's nothing bad at looking at the past to better understand the future (look at what Pat Helland has done with Metropolis)

All the developments around web services and the different protocols around it (see WS-I) are really key to the success of global platform interop and this is the way to go. However, not everything is web-services-based or even web-services ready and there are many other types of interoperability styles and possibilities.

I hope that my audience in Yokohama will like my presentation. I'll keep you posted anyway ... even while traveling! ;-)

Meawhile, if you guys have great ideas about conceptual approaches to application and platform interop (IOW: How would you do interop?), please let me know.

About backward compatibility of XP SP2: Life has changed ...

alainler — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 05:42:00 GMT

I read a lot of comments about the backward compatibility "issues" of Windows XP SP2 and I understand that this could be quite frustrating that an application does not run the way it always did but let me try telling why by using a real life example, not related to IT at all.

I'm living in a very peaceful neighborhood in Belgium around Liège. My wife, Josette, and I really felt good at home. You know, when you want to buy a bread, you just jump in your car, go to the baker, buy your bread and come back home without worrying about anyhting. Of course, when you're back home, you leave your car in front of you home and you don't even close the windows. Life really was great!

However, not so long ago, I left my home, not to go buy a piece of bread but to go and meet my sister. We stayed together say, half an hour, not a long time anyway and when I came back home, what a frustration! All drawers open, DVD player, TV, home theater system all gone, jewelry gone as well ... what a mess! This is a terrible feeling that I had back then.

That feeling, I don't want to have it anymore, never, no, never again. I called a security company and asked for the very best security system allowed by the law. I managed to have such a system not only in my home but also in my car. I had to pull wires all over my house for sensors and video cameras and of course, I had to repaint every single room. I attached sensors to the windows, the doors, etc. I connected my alarm system to my telephone and I managed to have a monitoring contract with a security company. For my car, I installed a system that allowed me not only to locate my car wherever it is, but also to remotely stop the engine. The cost of all that was huge, believe me, but I felt better. Hmm, better ... how good is that? Not really as good as it was before my home had been visited, no really, far from being as good as it was!

Actually, life has dramatically changed! All the things I did, like going to the baker (remember?)... Now, when I want to go to the baker, I have to activate my alarm system, close all the doors with the security keys I have received, deactivate the alarm system of my car, etc, etc. Even simple things such as going to p... at night and you forget you turned the alarm system on! (:-o) Can you imagine, all the things I did before and that were that easy?

Sometimes I wonder why I have done all that. I'm sometime so pissed to turn on the alarm system to go see my sister for half an hour. But when I really think about it, all this energy and money I have put in my home, in my car, really is to feel ... secure and once for all, prevent that terrible feeling from happening again!

Life will never be the same, it has changed, but it's the cost for my new peace of mind after a dramatic experience with a thief!

But, you know, in computer science, we also know that life was easy, that it was very easy to send files by e-mail to a friend, that if was very easy to go read a document at home through RAS but when you get a virus, when sensitive information is stolen, you start understanding that security measures really are necessary. Those security measures cost an awful lot of money, take time to implement and test. After you have them all, you feel better but life has changed ... dramatically! If you understand that feeling, you understand why Windows XP SP2 potentially can prevent you from doing things as easily as you did them before ... but that's the cost for your new IT peace of mind!

Think about it!

Some readings:

This Smartphone can change one's life ...

alainler — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:51:00 GMT

About 3 weeks ago, I got a Smartphone Qtek 8060 powered with Windows Mobile 2003. Well, it changed my life!

Before having that device, I had a Nokia mobile phone and an iPaq PDA (read about new HP iPaqs here). That was 2 devices to carry at all times. 2 devices to take care of, 2 cables connected on my desk at all times for battery reload, 2 contact lists and synchronization methods (+ a special piece of software for the Nokia), etc. I looked at the Qtek 2020 that took me closer to the PDA with telephone features but still, it was too big for me.

The 8060 is what I wanted. It's first and foremost a telephone. You have the ability to use it and carry it as if it were just a classic telephone. You reload the batteries once per day, you put it in its beltpocket when you leave in the morning and that's about it. However, it has the versatility of a PDA. (Oh yes, you also have the ability to turn off the phone features but keep the PDA features available).

As far as connection technologies, it uses GSM, GPRS and Bluetooth. Through GPRS, I got it to work with my Exchange server (for my mails, my tasks and my 500+ contacts) and with an Internet Browser ... in minutes. It automatically synchronizes with my Exchange server every hour so I'm in touch with the office and I have all my contact (speed dial is a dream!) and tasks info wherever I go. There's also a very nice feature called the "Automatic Mode" that changes the telephone mode (silent, normal, etc) based on your schedule so you don't even have to remember to put your phone on silent when you go in a meeting. Bluetooth comes in handy when it comes to using a headset or a GPS software!

It has a little camera but, really, it's more a toy than a real tool. There's multimedia support through Media Player. There's a "Voice Note" capability that really is great when you think about something while driving your car. Once again, the key thing is that you actually do have it all at all times!

I even installed maps of cities. Can you imagine having, in your telephone, the map of the city you're in, with hotels, points of interest, museums, etc?

Hey, and through the use of the Compact Framework and the convenience of Visual Studio.NET, you can also have your own applications on that device (DVD list, train collection, work hour registration, traffic counter, games, etc). I've put an extra SD card of 128Mb in ... and I never had to use it so far!

This smartphone also has some bad sides: The battery does not last long enough for one full day heavy use (say from 6.00AM to 11.00PM) so the craddle is very helpful to reload the battery when you're at the office; the navigation pad is not really the very best I've ever seen (to say the least); there is no voice dialing feature (that was available on my Nokia)!

If I have to summarize: It's an amazing productivity tool that you have with you at all times, even without thinking about it. It comes handy more often than you think. I strongly recommend it!

"open" means "freedom" ?

alainler — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 17:31:00 GMT

Hmmm, well I'm a bit skeptical when it comes to all the meanings (and consequences thereof) of the word "Open" these days in our beloved IT industry!!

While reading the news, I found two interresting quotes:

From Mr Peter Shay, executive Vice President of the Advisory Council, saying: "... the essence of 'Open' is the avoidance of vendor lock-in. In the long term, the users of proprietary software are at vendor's mercy" more
From Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly Media, saying: "The open-source software industry needs to realize that the Internet, not the PC, is the platform. While many applications are built on top of open source, they themselves are not open source." concluding "In the new world we are moving into, open and free software does not guarantee freedom when applications depend on the network effects and data lock-in more than on software secrecy". more

Also, too often is "open source" associated to non-Microsoft technologies. Well, just be aware that Microsoft also supports and encourages the development of open source applications, among others, through GotDoNet. Also, there's a program called "Shared Source" that allows vendors, governements, schools, etc to have access to some Microsoft technologies' sources.

IMHO, in the capitalism world, it's exactly like in the chemical world: "Noting is created; nothing is destroyed; everything is transformed". IOW, the time (read: money) you spend developing software will have to come back somehow (installation, service, support, etc) - Clemens' open letter just explains it differently, and very nicely BTW. To me, "open source" is just a mean to an end.

Sometimes, I see "open" understood as "free", "freedom", "java", "non-Microsoft", "non-proprietary", "freely redistributable", etc. How about this one?: "open" really means "accessible". Don't make any assumptions as far as technology, cost, licensing, etc ... you'd be surprised.

Try the exercise of replacing "open" with "accessible" and you'll understand all the consequences that can have on your understanding of the IT business.

Just think about it ...

Disclaimer: This is the expression of my own opinion and, by no means, reflect Microsoft's.