Win8 vs Android

Android and iOS have many advantages over Windows Phone 8, but perhaps the biggest is the length of time they’ve been available. The first Android-powered handset – the T-Mobile G1 – came out in 2008 and Apple’s first 2G iPhone landed in 2007. Since then both platforms have evolved significantly.

Windows Phone, by comparison, is a newbie and is still very much finding its feet within the space. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as it’s always good to have new ways of doing things. But it does pose problems for certain types of users invested in other platforms.

Coming from Android 4.2 to Windows Phone 8 was an odd experience, almost like stepping back in time. On the surface Windows Phone 8 looks ultra-modern and fresh. The UI is snappy and navigating around the phone is simple. Few key points are:

• Microsoft’s vision for how you interact with a mobile device is also very bold, it dares to try something new – and that’s highly commendable
• Microsoft’s SkyDrive is thoroughly excellent, offering all the functionality of Dropbox and top-notch syncing between mobile, desktop, and tablet, which is great
• It looks pretty, has lots of cool things like the People hub, which aggregates all your social feeds into one place, and it powers some of the best hardware
•  Xbox Music, which is by far the best music service available on any platform, absolutely wiping the floor with iTunes and Google Music in my opinion.

Perhaps Windows Phone is best viewed by someone who's never used iOS or Android. It’ll be interesting to see how Windows Phone stacks up against RIM’s BlackBerry 10 platform, which is scheduled to launch on January 30. 2013 will be an interesting year for both companies

Windows8 Phone Skydrive

Microsoft has a bunch of new developer tools related to its SkyDrive file-sharing and cloud storage service, including new software development kits for .NET and Windows Phone 8.

The new SDKs for the .NET software framework for Windows and the recently released Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system are available for download at Microsoft's own developer portal or via NuGet for Visual Studio projects, the company said in a blog post announcing their availability.

The .NET SDK comes in both a client and server version, providing a .NET library for client desktop apps as well as for ASP.NET applications, Microsoft said, adding that "[w]ith this release you can now create applications that target traditional desktop scenarios and as well as server side scenarios."

Along with the Windows Phone 8 SDK, the devkit for .NET allows developers to build SkyDrive functionality into their apps and programs. For example, with the client version of the .NET SDK, developers can now create WPF, Windows Form or console applications that let your users use their SkyDrive data.

Windows8 Chief Resigns

Barely two weeks after playing a prominent role in Microsoft's launch of Windows 8 and the Surface tablet, Redmond veteran Steven Sinofsky is out as head of the Windows Division, effective immediately.

Sinofsky, who led development and marketing of Microsoft's flagship product for more than three years, joined the company as a software design engineer in July 1989. His departure, announced late Monday, was abrupt and took the tech and business worlds by surprise

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addressed Sinofsky's departure in a company statement, describing the move as a "leadership change" without explaining why such a prominent and out-front executive was leaving the company so soon after the roll out of its biggest new product in years.

"I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company. The products and services we have delivered to the market in the past few months mark the launch of a new era at Microsoft," Ballmer said.

Sinofsky took over the Windows Division in July 2009 after more than a decade contributing to and leading the development of Microsoft's Office products. He was also heavily involved in recruiting talent to the Redmond-based company over the years.

Windows 8 Phone

With Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Windows Azure, developers using Visual Studio 2012 can build experiences that span the Windows ecosystem, from desktops to laptops to tablets to smartphones to the cloud.  And with that in mind, today’s release of the Windows Phone SDK 8.0 enables some exciting new capabilities for developers, such as using C++ and DirectX to build stunning experiences, enabling in-app purchases to sell virtual and digital good within apps, helping developers to streamline their efforts with the advances in Visual Studio 2012 and .NET, and more.

The Windows Phone SDK 8.0 works with the Visual Studio 2012 and enables you to get started today building great apps for both Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7.x.  It includes emulators for both environments, including the ability to validate for multiple chassis, and support for simulating various network conditions (e.g. ‘2G’, ‘3G’).  It includes new templates for developing Windows Phone apps, such as for building apps with Direct3D, and it sports enhanced diagnostics for analyzing apps, such as power and network profiling and responsiveness monitoring.  It enables building native apps as well as building managed apps that consume native libraries.  It enables much easier portability between Windows 8 apps and Windows Phone 8 apps.  It includes .NET portable library support, so you can write your libraries once and reuse them across all your apps. The list goes on.

Windows8 Launch

Microsoft Corp launched its new Windows 8 operating system and Surface tablet on Thursday 25 Oct in a bid to revive interest in its flagship product and regain ground lost to Apple Inc and Google Inc in mobile computing.

"We've reimagined Windows and we've reimagined the whole PC industry," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told Reuters Television early Thursday ahead of the launch.

Windows 8 devices and the company's new Surface tablet, which aims to challenge Apple's popular iPad head on, go on sale at midnight on Thursday.

Steven Sinofsky, head of Microsoft's Windows unit and the driving force behind Windows 8, opened the launch event in New York in front about 1,000 media and PC industry partners.

He showed off Windows 8's new look, but stressed that the system was built upon the base of Windows 7, Microsoft's best-selling software that recently passed 670 million license sales.

The new design of Windows, which dispenses with the Start button and features square tiles for apps, may surprise some users. Initial demand appeared solid, but customers were wary.

Win8 PC Market Transition

"The launch of Windows 8 is the beginning of a new era at Microsoft," CEO Steve Ballmer said in a prepared statement. "Investments we've made over a number of years are now coming together to create a future of exceptional devices and services, with tremendous opportunity for our customers, developers, and partners."

While investors will scour the earnings statement for clues to the future -- as well as the investor conference call scheduled for later -- this was one of those rare moments in Microsoft's history where the important news accompanying its quarterly earnings statements was not so much the quarterly earnings statement itself. The reason: next week Microsoft will officially release the Windows 8 operating system as well as its Surface as the company takes its next big steps toward a post-PC world that it has dominated for much of the last three decades. That's a market that continues to slow down, a trend underscored by recent warnings from both Intel and Hewlett-Packard of sluggish demand ahead.

But with PC sales slowing, Wall Street is hoping that the Surface tablet will help secure Microsoft s future. Indeed, Credit Suisse forecast PC shipments to grow by just 5.6 percent year-over-year in calendar 2013. The opposite side of that coin: the firm says that Windows 8 "will have a more meaningful position in tablets than the market appreciates, which we believe will serve as a catalyst for the stock."

Netflix Win8App

Windows 8 is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablets, and home theater PCs.

Development of this operating system started before the release of its predecessor in 2009. Its existence was first announced in January 2011 at Consumer Electronics Show. During its development and test phases, Microsoft released three pre-release versions: Developer Preview (September 13, 2011), Consumer Preview (February 29, 2012), and Release Preview (May 31, 2012). On August 1, 2012, Windows 8 graduated from the development stage and was released to manufacturing. Windows 8 is scheduled for general availability on October 26, 2012.

Microsoft confirmed that a Netflix app would be available for Windows 8, and it turns out it's available well before the big October 26th launch date. Netflix announced today that the app is now available for download from the Windows Store for those who've already upgraded to an early version of the OS. Expectedly, the app matches the overall style of Windows 8, and Netflix says that it's also made the app more efficient to cut down on both CPU and battery usage. It's quick to point out that this is only the first version of the app, though, noting that it has "more updates and ideas in the pipeline for later this fall."

Win8 Copy NewLook

After conducting research with users of Microsoft 7 and older operating systems, Microsoft has discovered that when it comes to using Windows Explorer, 50% of us use it for copying files, moving files, renaming files and deleting files.

They also found that whilst for most of us, these tasks complete within seconds, for some people, especially those who are copying or deleting huge amounts of data, these tasks can take over two minutes to complete.  So, they've re-designed the whole thing. Now when you copy files, you get one user interface, (UI) open to show all copying jobs.

To help you to decide which job to pause, if you click on the 'More Details' button you can see a graphical representation of how much data is being transferred.  As mentioned in the screen shot, you can pause each job from this screen to speed up the data transfer of one particular job.

If the rest of the improvements to Windows 8 are as impressive as these improvements to Windows Explorer, this should be a very interesting new operating system indeed.

Flash Vulnerability in IE10 on Windows 8

Today, Microsoft is announcing the availability of an update for Adobe Flash Player in Internet Explorer 10 on all supported editions of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. The update addresses the vulnerability in Adobe
Flash Player by updating the affected Adobe Flash libraries contained within Internet Explorer 10.  Technology mitigation is listed as:

• In a web-based attack scenario where the user is using Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop, an attacker could host a website that contains a web page that is used to exploit any of these vulnerabilities.
• Internet Explorer 10 in the Windows 8-style UI will only play Flash content from sites listed on the Compatibility View (CV) list. This restriction requires an attacker to first compromise a website already listed in the CV list. An attacker could then host specially crafted Flash content designed to exploit any of these vulnerabilities through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website.
• By default, all supported versions of Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live Mail open HTML email messages in the Restricted sites zone.
• By default, Internet Explorer on Windows Server 2012 runs in a restricted mode that is known as Enhanced Security Configuration.  This mode can help reduce the likelihood of exploitation by these vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player in Internet Explorer 10

More info at:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/advisory/2755801

Win8 App in 30 days

Windows 8 seeks to re-imagine the Microsoft OS experience with a focus on connectivity, users, mobile PCs, and the cloud. "Fast and fluid" is the soul of Windows 8. No more prompts or questions, simply tap a tile - the Windows UI showcases only what you need.

For developers, Windows 8 brings new opportunities... and new techniques to learn and use in your apps, from Windows-style design to coding apps with web technologies to the marketplace.

I came across an interesting site, which helps the developer to build a Windows 8 App in 30 days.  The developement portal contains:

• Insider tips and tricks on Windows 8 application development.
• Personal on-the-phone access to a Windows 8 architect.
• An exclusive one-on-one Windows Store design consultation.
• An opportunity to get expert help from a Microsoft Services Engineer at an App Excellence Lab.

You can visit at http://www.generationapp.com/W8appsin30.aspx

Microsoft New Logo

It’s been 25 years since Microsoft updated its logo and now is the perfect time for a change. This is an incredibly exciting year for Microsoft as we prepare to release new versions of nearly all of our products. From Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8 to Xbox services to the next version of Office, you will see a common look and feel across these products providing a familiar and seamless experience on PCs, phones, tablets and TVs. 

The logo has two components: the logotype and the symbol. For the logotype, Microsoft uses the Segoe font which is the same font for their marketing communications. The symbol’s squares of color are intended to express the company’s diverse portfolio of products. The symbol is important in a world of digital motion.  In that dimension, the symbol represents Windows8 new Tile based User Interface (UI).

It reflects Microsoft's branding milestone towards Windows8 product suit releases.

Windows8 Updates

It's happened to all of us at one time or another; you're halfway through some work when Windows Update informs you that it's about to restart your computer to install an update. Sure, you can delay it for fifteen minutes, but at the back of your mind you know you're going to have to stop what you're doing, close down your programs and restart. It's a pain.

But now Microsoft has made it easier to update without interrupting your work. In Windows 8 Windows Update or WU will happen once a month.

If you haven't restarted your machine within these three days, your computer will give you a standard 15 minute warning that it is about to restart. 

When it comes to restarting, you will notice that you now have new options: 'Update and restart' is shown 'immediately after the update occurs.  Isn't it cool?  I'm sure we can all cope with that.

No Flash in Windows8 Tablet

Microsoft has confirmed that tablets using Windows 8 OS will not use Flash but instead use a HTML 5, plug-in free Metro browser. At the moment, as far as we are aware, Adobe Flash will still be supported on the Windows 8 OS for both laptops and PCs.  Microsoft noted on the MSDN blog, "The reality today is that sites are already rapidly engineering for a plug-in free experience. Google, for example, recently launched their HTML5 YouTube site for phones."

In fact, research by Microsoft has discovered that plug-in free sites are becoming more popular than plug-in sites. Microsoft "examined the use of plug-ins across the top 97,000 sites world-wide, a corpus which includes local sites outside the US in significant depth. Many of the 62% of these sites that currently use Adobe Flash already fall back to HTML5 video in the absence of plug-in support. When serving ads in the absence of plug-ins, most sites already perform the equivalent of this fallback, showing that this approach is practical and scalable. There’s a steep drop-off in plug-in usage after Flash, with one control used on 2% of sites and a small collection of controls used on between 0.5% and 0.75% of sites."

Microsoft envisages most of these sites moving to HTML 5 in the near future.

Windows8 Power Efficiency

Microsoft knows that many of us use laptops rather than desktops these days and we also want to use a lot of apps at the same time. They also know that more memory equals more RAM, which means more battery usage, which in turn means lower run times for our laptops. So, what Microsoft has done is to identify ways to free up memory requirements and still have an efficient and effective operating system.

Microsoft has developed a way of combining memory so that memory takes up less space. What normally happens is that when you install an application, it will allocate some extra memory to that app in case you need it in future. Install lots of apps and you have lots of sets of allocated memory just sitting there, doing nothing, but taking up valuable memory space. By using memory combining, Windows 8 assesses the actual memory needs of an app and then deletes all duplicate memory entries across the system memory. In this way Microsoft has managed to free up to 100MBs of memory.

By looking at Task Manager they saw that using Windows 8 dramatically reduced the amount of memory needed by the OS. CPU usage was reduced by 4% and physical memory by 12% as attached.

CodeProject Reference

I was on a week vacation and getting ready to work.

My motto is continuous learning for self improvement and continuous sharing to motivate others. Glad that the second part worked well in one of the CodeProject article at http://www.codeproject.com/script/Articles/ArticleVersion.aspx?waid=31794&aid=442251

Jon Andersson is a PhD student in the field of production flow simulation and very interested in software development.  He is an active CodeProject member http://www.codeproject.com/Members/joncool

In his recent article (shared above), he quoted two reference as:

MSDNs latest guide
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142571.aspx

A good Code Project article by GanesanSenthilvel explaining many things.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/315101/SQL-Full-Text-Search-Programming

Glad that my work is getting motivated for other members in CodeProject to explore on the emerging technology.  Thanks for the CodeProject opportunity towards continuous learning & sharing.

Windows8 TouchPad

On June 1, 2011 Microsoft launched the next generation of Windows, currently known as Windows 8, at the D9 Conference.

Windows 8 is a complete re-working of the windows operating system and one that will work on all devices from tiny touch screen phones to desktops. Windows 8 will work with traditional keyboards and mouse but also on touch screens too.

This is a huge project and they are re-examining and re-designing every aspect of the windows operating system architecture.

The key improvements to look out for in Windows 8 include:

• A start screen to replace the Windows Start menu. This will be made up from tiles that will enable you to launch apps faster.
• Each tile app will be 'live', that is, it will provide you with constantly updated information about your apps.
• Easier switching between running apps.
• The ability to snap and resize apps to have several open on your desktop at once.
• Touch optimized browsing using Internet Explorer 10.

To give users an idea of what to expect, they launched a video too, which you can find here:http://media.ch9.ms/ch9/cda16b03-c463-47e7-b604-9ef5011c5b25/Demo.mp4

Top10TechTrends

Gartners' David Cearley listed the top ten strategic technology trends that the research and advisory company think will impact IT departments most of the next year.

The list (as shown) consists of media tablets, mobile-centric applications, contextual and social user experience, the Internet of Things, app stores and marketplaces, next-generation analytics, big data, in-memory computing, extreme low-energy servers, and cloud computing.

Cearley explained that the inexorable push of technology, as exemplified by Moore's Law of improving semiconductor density and Metcalfe's Law of improving the value of networks as they get larger, was leading to the "digitization of everything." 

He then detailed the specific trends:

"Say hello to the post-PC era," he said. He expects "Bring Your Own Technology" will remain the norm, as people use their own phones and media tablets, though this leads to security and management challenges. He also expects no single platform, form factor, or technology to dominate, meaning Windows share of client devices will shrink steadily even though Windows may grow in absolute numbers.

Microsoft Windows8 strategy is aligned with this industry trend by providing seamless integration between desktop, web, mobile clients.

CenturyPost

Thank God for making this 'century' post.  Humbled and honored at this moment.

In continuation to my hat-trick hits on Mar'12 (Ref: http://ganesansenthilvel.blogspot.com/2012/03/hat-trick-hits.html), got an opportunity to be the Chief Guest for the valedictory function of an internation conference on Intelligent Information Systems and Management (IISM) in collaboration with Idaho State University, USA.  It was conducted by RVS College, Coimbatore on Saturday 14 Jul 2012.

Most interestingly, my beloved inspirer Dr. Abdul Kalam was presenting on space technology at Coimbatore University during the same time frame.  What a co-instance!!!

IISM 2012 conference was a motivation for technical challenges posed by the revolution of computing background, which encompasses to explore and support all levels of research that will improve and enhance our ability to conceive, design, build and optimize information and knowledge based systems.

About 125 research manuscripts were presented during the conference and distinguished resource persons both from India and abroad were invited to share the lectures on various topics related to the theme of the conference on Intelligent Information Systems and Management.  In connection to the theme, I presented the concepts and trends of BigData in the industry.  It was well received by an audience group of 250+ international research scholars and got the feedback as the inspiring speech on the emerging technology.  Humbled to earn it.

Key note speakers for IISM-2012 are:

Dr.Hossein-Mousavinezad, Professor & Chair, Dept of EE.
Idaho State University, USA

Dr. Ashok Rao
Former Head, Network Project, CEDT, IISc Bangalore
Guest Faculty, IIM Bangalore

Dr.Narasimhan Sundararajan, Former Senior Professor,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Dr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamy, Director of Senior Design Program,
University of Texas, Dallas, USA.

Dr. S. Thamarai Selvi,
Dean MIT Campus, Chennai.

Invitation reference is available at http://www.iismrvscet.com/pdf/Invitation.pdf

Friends and followers, thanks for all your support.

Windows8 Release

If you've been waiting to get your hands on Microsoft's new, tablet-friendly Windows 8 operating system, your wait is nearing its end. This week, at Microsoft's annual Worldwide Partner Conference, it was confirmed that Windows 8 "will reach general availability by the end of October 2012".

Samsung and HP have already revealed their plans for manufacturing Windows 8 devices and Samsung will be launching devices based on the Windows RT operating system in October

Simply put, the news means you'll be able to buy your upgrade or new computer pre-loaded with Windows 8 in October. The operating system will be released to manufacturing in August, which is when certain enterprise business customers will be able to upgrade. Attached image shows the major milestones drafted on 2009 by Microsoft.  They are on mark.

According to the company, this release brings forth a number of enhancements to the platform. It proffers better personalization options and multi-monitor support. The updated list of preloaded applications that come along with the OS include Bing Travel, News and Sports. There are even gaming and music Xbox apps which are said to integrate with Zune pass.

Asia Mobile Revenue

The mobile application market is rapidly growing and gaining popularity as an emerging job opportunities market. India is the third fastest growing app market in the world. As per Gartner report, Indias active mobile connections will exceed 900 million by 2016, which translates to 72% penetration. According to Trai in January 2012 the number of active mobile connections in India has reached 659.99 million and the total mobile subscriber base stands at 903.72 million.

It is estimated that every Indian user spends nearly 52 minutes per-day using mobile apps. Similarly, mobile app economy-estimated at nearly $4 billion (Rs 20,000 crore) in 2009 and expected to grow to $18 billion in half a decade-continues to expand exponentially.

There is an increase in the demand of mobile applications as more and more people are using smart phones. It has been projected that mobile value-added services market (which includes mobile apps) will reach Rs 214.1 crore by the end of 2012 from Rs 158.6 crore in 2011. Revenue generated by mobile VAS was INR 122 billion, as on March 2011. It is estimated to reach Rs 482 billion by 2015.

As growth area, the future is mobile and all the services and offerings are going to run through application. India has more mobile connections than PCs or TVs and landline phones. Mobile app development is evolving to integrate with television, in-car navigation and entertainment, shopping, commerce and banking. It is safe to say that the future of apps is This talks about future growth prospects in the industry.  Attached Asian mobile revenue proves this statement.

MobileRevenue

In 2010, consumers spent $6.8 billion in mobile application stores while advertising revenue is $0.7 billion worldwide, according to Gartner, Inc. Analysts said mobile application revenue will easily touch 30 billion in 2013.

“As smartphones grow in popularity and application stores become the focus for several players in the value chain, more consumers will experiment with application downloads,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. “Games remain the No. 1 application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money.”

Consumers will have a wide choice of stores and will seek the ones that make it easy for them to discover applications they are interested in and make it easy to pay for them when they have to. Developers will have to consider carefully not only which platform to support but also which store to promote their applications in.

High-end smartphone users today tend to be early adopters of new mobile applications and more trustful of billing mechanisms, so they will pay for applications that can meet their needs. Average smartphone users will become less tech-savvy as smartphones come down in price to have a mass market appeal and these users will be more reluctant to pay for applications.

Windows8

It is an interesting Sunday.  Yep. My home desktop is migrated to Windows8 OS. Cool stuff. As the end user, Top 3 remarkable points are:

1. Metro UI style
The Metro environment will feature a new tile-based Start screen similar to that of the Windows Phone operating system. Each tile will represent an application, and will be able to display relevant information such as the number of unread messages on the tile for an e-mail app or the current temperature on a weather application. Metro-style applications run in full-screen, and are able to share information between each other using "contracts" 

2. Jet speed startup and shutdown
Felt like a sub second response during Windows 8 start up and shut down process.  It is kind of thrilling experience for earlier Windows version users.  Isn't it cool?

3. App Store model
Windows Store is an upcoming digital distribution platform developed by Microsoft Corporation as part of Windows 8 for Metro style applications. The Windows Store will also allow developers to advertise their desktop applications. It will support both free and paid applications, with the paid applications ranging from $1.49 to $999.99. Developers will also be able to offer free trials. The Windows Store was made available concurrently with the release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview which was released on February 29, 201.

Yet to explore as the developer; Just downloaded its SDK and installed VS2012 Express RC for Windows8.. Letz see!!!

Surface

Surface is a planned series of tablet computers designed and marketed by Microsoft. The Surface will be available in two versions, "Surface" or "Surface Pro". The product was announced by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a Los Angeles event on June 18, 2012, at Milk Studio.

There are five things which are better in Surface on comparision with iPad.

1. Touch Keyboard Cover
Typing on tablet computers can be a struggle for those accustomed to PC's physical keyboards. Microsoft Surface offers a solution with a lightweight keyboard attachment that clicks into place and doubles as a cover for the device.

2. Integrated Kickstand
Microsoft is keen on packing convenience into its new devices. Each Surface comes with a built-in kickstand that pops out from the back panel and props the device at an angle, letting the user enjoy media or type comfortably on a flat surface.

3. Digital Ink And Stylus
Microsoft designed the Windows 8 Pro version of the Surface tablet to accept stylus input. The company's demonstration of how the digital ink works gave the impression that writing, highlighting and underlining on the tablet is easy

4. USB Ports
Plenty of people weren't happy when the iPad launched without USB ports back in 2010. Microsoft seems to have taken that to heart. The width of the Surface offers just enough space for a traditional USB.

5. Options For Casual And Power Users
Microsoft can be used either as tablet for casual users or laptop for power users.

Web vs Mobile Apps

Microsoft, Apple and Google first shared the digital marketplace in 1998.  Since that year,their history has featured one battle after another for dominance and the top position in specific market segments, notably search engines, digital music, smartphones and tablets.

In 1998, Microsoft had the upper hand in the software market. This was due to founder Bill Gates’s specialized technical skills and personality. Apple founder Steve Jobs focused on users’ experience with his organization’s devices. Jobs was aiming to produce the best machines in a limited number of categories rather than emulating Microsoft’s wide reach. Google, which famously derives its name from misspelling a math term denoting an enormous sum, began when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin explored the need for a search engine that would help users categorize and navigate the growing number of Internet resources.

Next war/revolution will be "Handheld" smartphone - designed to “act like a handheld computer.”  Attached is the industry data on web vs mobile applications development during 2010-2011. It clearly indicates the growth rate on mobile apps than web.

EnterpriseArchitecture

Enterprise is any collection of organizations that has a common set of goals.  The purpose of enterprise architecture is to optimize across the enterprise the often fragmented legacy of processes into an integrated environment that is responsive to change and supportive of the delivery of the business strategy.

In simple terms, an enterprise architecture addresses this need, by providing a strategic context for the evolution of the IT system in response to the constantly changing needs of the business environment.

If you have a good enterprise architecture, it can bring important business benefits as listed below:

• More efficient IT operation
• Better return on existing investment, reduced risk for future investment.
• Faster, simpler and cheaper procurement.

An architecture framework is a tool that can be used for developing a broad range of architectures.  It contains a list of recommended standards and compliant products that can be used to implement the building blocks of the firm's architecture.

As per Simon Townson, the benefits of enterprise architecture derive from the better planning, earlier visibility, and an more informed designs that result when it is introduced

Open Group

I'm back.  Yeps, held up in few personal commitments and disturbances. Thanks for queries from some followers to motivate for quick return. As inked last time, our focus will shift towards Architecture.


ISO/IEC 42010:2007 defines “architecture” as: “The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and
evolution.”

The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, whose vision of Boundaryless Information Flow will enable access to integrated information within and between enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers, suppliers, consortia, and other standards bodies. Its role is to capture, understand, and address current and emerging requirements, establish policies, and share best practices; to facilitate interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications and Open Source technologies; to offer a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia; and to operate the industry’s premier certification service.

The Open Group has over 15 years experience in developing and operating certification programs and has extensive experience developing and facilitating industry adoption of test suites used to validate conformance to an open standard or specification.

TOGAF is developed and maintained by The Open Group Architecture Forum. The first version of TOGAF, developed in 1995, was based on the US Department of Defense Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM). Starting from this sound foundation, The Open Group Architecture Forum has developed successive versions of TOGAF at regular intervals and published each one on.


 The Open Group public web site at www.opengroup.org.

IIS7 WinAuthentication

Some times ago, we developed a thick client application with windows login authentication.It was successfully running under IIS6 without any special treatment. On migrating this existing application from IIS6 to IIS7, Windows authentication was not working at all. Theroot cause is that IIS 7 misses the Windows Authentication provider on Windows Server 2008.

Windows authentication (formerly named NTLM, and also referred to as Windows NT Challenge/Response authentication) is a secure form of authentication because the user name and password are hashed before being sent across the network. When you enable Windows authentication, the client browser sends a strongly hashed version of the password in a cryptographic exchange with your Web server.

Windows authentication supports two authentication protocols, Kerberos and NTLM, which are defined in the element. When you install and enable Windows authentication on IIS 7, the default protocol is Kerberos. The element can also contain a useKernelMode attribute that configures whether to use the kernel mode authentication feature that is new to Windows Server 2008.

In general Windows authentication, which includes both NTLM and Kerberos v5 authentication, is best suited for an intranet environment.The default authentication configuration for IIS 7 enables Anonymous authentication only.

To install the missing Windows Authentication, you need to Open up Server Manager (one way to do this is by right clicking the computer node from within the start menu and choosing Manage). Expend the Roles node. Right click the Web Server (IIS) and choose Add Role Services. You will get the attached wizard, just scroll down a bit and check Windows Authentication under the security node. If you've done everything right, you should get the Windows option in IIS authentication panel.

Hat-trick hits

A hat-trick or hat trick in sport is the achievement of a positive feat three times during a game, or other achievements based on threes. The term was first used in 1858 in cricket to describe HH Stephenson's feat of taking three wickets in three balls.

Month of March 2012 is suitable for number '3' in my life.

Here are few interesting professional facts:

• Blogged the first 3 technical hits in IIS 7 for last 3 weeks, based on work experience
• Earned 3rd position for the first time in CodeProject's Top Experts this month
• Chief Guest for the national conferences 3 in a row in this month
• Positioned 3rd in CodeProject Top Expert in last 24hrs
• 3rd year, since the loss of dream team 'RUFUS'

On the lighter side, March is 3rd month of the year and Today popular 3 movie (kolai veri) release. Interesting magic number '3'.

Fun apart, will be back with the technical contents to clarify the black box of 'Architecture', as the foot steps of industry legends like Martin Fowler.

Third Hit IIS7

Here is the hat trick (3rd hit) problem on upgrading the internal/tool application from IIS 6 to IIS 7 version. In the classic ASP pool, when we run the ASP page, IIS 7 throws the below error:

Error 500 :There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed.

It made me to try a lot of permutation as the error in the tool code. However, it doesn’t tell me the line number the error was found on. After searching the web, it has been found out how to turn on the more detailed error reporting for classic ASP in IIS 7; but you have to do it on the webserver.

We need to turn the below changes in the web.config file. I know this can be turn on for ASP.NET in the web.config file but as far as I know, not classic asp.

configuration
  system.webserver
    httperrors errormode="Detailed"
    asp scripterrorsenttobrowser="true"
  system.webserver
configuration

Hat trick wickets on opening spell of IIS 7. At the same time, itz happy learning!

SecondHit in IIS7

As the continuation of first hit IIS 7 experience, learnt another interesting lesson on second hit of IIS 7.0

After the successful fix of the first issue (as mentioned in last blog), started browsing my service. Another hit! This time, got the error as:

Could not load file or assembly 'XXXXX' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format

Guess what! The error is due to the upgrade in development environment from 32-bit to 64 bit system. On opening the particular project, it has been discovered that the project configured to target x 86 platforms. As the application is running on 64-bit platform, it will have such ‘incorrect format’ error.

To fix it, perform the below steps:

· open project properties window.
· select Build tab
· Change it to ‘Any CPU’
· Save your changes.
· Compile your project and run :)

Another tip. Let us say you have a VS project that has the build configuration set to Any CPU but still getting the same error for an assembly. In that case, please make sure you have did so for all dependencies your website uses. You can also enable 32-bit mode on IIS and adjust your website and its dependencies to target x86 platform. Interesting technology hits on migrating to IIS 7.0

First Hit IIS7

On developing one of the internal firm’s application, got an opportunity to host the application in IIS 7.0. Guess what? It is interesting experience on first hit in IIS 7.0

If you are using IIS 7 then you probably might face this error. It’s a little frustrating when such errors occur and simple IIS 6 users when it was really simple to configure and run a website, those users feel really hooked up.

As the simple steps, Virtual Directory and Web services are created like earlier versions of IIS. After the hosting our application, the first launch hits the attached error.

Error Summary: HTTP Error 403.14 - Forbidden The Web server is configured to not list the contents of this directory.

Most likely causes: A default document is not configured for the requested URL, and directory browsing is not enabled on the server.

On root cause analysis, it has been found that directory browsing is not allowed. As far as this issue is concerned in the earlier versions of IIS we used to just set the directory browsing checkbox to be selected and so no issues.

In IIS 7, you just click the directory browsing option in the configuration section and on the right side of the directory browsing view you will find enable by default directory browsing is disabled. It will be more clear from the attached image. As the solution, you enable the option for directory browsing and all set.


First hit to learn about the interesting default setting in IIS 7

Salute to Master

This week, I'm honored as Chief Guest in National Conference on Computer Science & Applications 2012 (NCCSA'12). This national event was run on Mar 7, 2012 at MEPCO Schlenk Engineering College.

The Conference aims to provide an energetic environment by bringing together Researchers, Academicians and Scientists from Computer Applications and related Engineering fields for presenting their innovative original work. Delegates of
students, research scholars, professors, etc. from various organization presented 24 research papers in latest computing and technology.

As the chief guest, the committee put me in the dias center of the huge auditorium. The function started with traditional prayer and lightning activities. Souvenir was released by me and the first copy was received by Principal. I shared the topic on technology trends, covered 2011 trend, 2012 promising open sources, 2012 top technology, etc. Got the high positive feedback on the session. Great experience as Institute and Industry synergy!

Pause; Roll back the moments 20+ years. Our beloved master motivated us to (at least) participate the science program in the same institute. In fact, our master had tough time to push for that event. Finally, 7 of our friends attended in late 80, where in district collector as chief guest. We were so curious to take snap with chief guest. Guess what! One of our master's product is Chief Guest for this national conference on Mar 7 2012. Hats off to her grooming, nurturing, motivating, etc.. dedications. Itz all because of you, master!

PS: Met the master in person after the function and got the valuable blessing!

Mahout Hadoop

Apache Mahout is a new open source project by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) with the primary goal of creating scalable machine-learning algorithms that are free to use under the Apache license. Mahout contains implementations for clustering, categorization, CF, and evolutionary programming. Furthermore, where prudent, it uses the Apache Hadoop library to enable Mahout to scale effectively in the cloud

A mahout is a person who keeps and drives an elephant. The name Mahout comes from the project's use of Apache Hadoop — which has a yellow elephant as its logo — for scalability and fault tolerance

Once the exclusive domain of academics and corporations with large research budgets, intelligent applications that learn from data and user input are becoming more common. The need for machine-learning techniques like clustering, collaborative filtering, and categorization has never been greater, be it for finding commonalities among large groups of people or automatically tagging large volumes of Web content. The Apache Mahout project aims to make building intelligent applications easier and faster. Mahout co-founder Grant Ingersoll introduces the basic concepts of machine learning and then demonstrates how to use Mahout to cluster documents, make recommendations, and organize content.

The Mahout project was started by several people involved in the Apache Lucene (open source search) community with an active interest in machine learning and a desire for robust, well-documented, scalable implementations of common machine-learning algorithms for clustering and categorization. The community was initially driven by Ng et al.'s paper "Map-Reduce for Machine Learning on Multicore" but has since evolved to cover much broader machine-learning approaches.

EnterpriseIntegration-Camel

The purpose of a "patterns" book is not to advocate new techniques that the authors have invented, but rather to document existing best practices within a particular field. By doing this, the authors of a patterns book hope to spread knowledge of best practices and promote a vocabulary for discussing architectural designs. One of the most famous patterns books is Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides, commonly known as the "Gang of Four" (GoF) book.

Since the publication of Design Patterns, many other pattern books, of varying quality, have been written. One famous patterns book is called Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf. It is common for people to refer to this book by its initials EIP. As the subtitle of EIP suggests, the book focuses on design patterns for asynchronous messaging systems. The book discusses 65 patterns. Each pattern is given a textual name and most are also given a graphical symbol, intended to be used in architectural diagrams.


Apache come up with Camel Project, which is an open-source, Java-based project that helps the user implement many of the design patterns in the EIP book. Because Camel implements many of the design patterns in the EIP book, it would be a good idea for people who work with Camel to have the EIP book as a reference.


Camel empowers you to define routing and mediation rules in a variety of domain-specific languages, including a Java-based Fluent API, Spring or Blueprint XML Configuration files, and a Scala DSL. This means you get smart completion of routing rules in your IDE, whether in a Java, Scala or XML editor. Apache Camel uses URIs to work directly with any kind of Transport or messaging model such as HTTP, ActiveMQ, JMS, JBI, SCA, MINA or CXF, as well as pluggable Components and Data Format options.

Mobile Computing Trend

We are already shifted into a new era of mobile computing, one that promises greater variety in applications, highly improved usability, and speedier networking. The iPhone era from Apple is the poster child for this trend, but there are plenty of other developmentsthat point in this direction. Google-led Android phone offers a compelling open-source alternative to Apple's device.

While the current 3G is an improvement on data speeds, the upcoming 4G networks will be even faster and more reliable through sending data as IP packets. Western countries are already in 4G mobile. Heavy mobile data users are likely to trip to one billion by 2013.

56% of enterprises use a wireless LAN, 36% are evaluating or piloting. It shows the significant increase wireless access. Emerging 4G wireless networks offer increased wireless speed.

Android, Apple's iOS, Windows Phone 7, and other smartphones will continue to become more advanced. Example: The new Google Nexus S is one of the first smartphones to support Near-Field Communication (NFC), which lets the phone communicate wirelessly with other NFC objects within 4 inches. Though barely in use today, NFC will enable smartphone users to easily make payments in stores or receive information about a local business via an NFC window sticker.

Smartphones will get smarter!!!

IBM 5 in 5 years

Recently, I read an interesting article by IBM. The firm predicts that
over the next five years technology innovations will change the way we
work, live and play in the new ways. Few interesting points are:
· In Energy section, people power will come to life.


· In security, multifactor biometrics plays a vital role that will
never need a password again.


· Mind reading: IBM scientists are researching how to link your brain
to your devices, such as a computer or a smart phone, so you only
have to think about calling someone and it happens.


· In mobile technology, mobile commerce and remote healthcare are key
focus areas.


· In data analytics, new app uses analytics and sense-making to
integrate data into applications that present only the information
you want.


Ref:http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibm_predictions_for_future/ideas/index.html

Tech Trend 2012

Happy New Year 2012. Hope, most of the financial turmoil impacts will be resolved in this year.

To start with, it is good to take few minutes to analyze the trend in past and present years.BusinessDictionary defines trend as 'pattern of gradual change in a condition, output, or process, or an average or general tendency of a series of data points to move in a certain direction over time, represented by a line or curve on a graph.' In simple term, swim your life in the flow of waves to survive.

On interesting analysis, it has been found that Top 3 Technology Innovations of 2011 are:

• Cloud Storage


• Mobility


• Social Media

In cloud space, Top 5 Cloud Providers (Source: SearchCloudComputing) are:

• NephoScale


• Verizon Terramark


• IBM


• Salesforce


• Google

Interestingly, top most position are ruled by SVS (Silicon Valley Startups). Point to understand is that the customer ranked the products based on robustness, cost, performance and availability; not on branding alone.

In CIO.com, Top 3 Promising Open Source Products for 2012 are Nginix, Stig and Gluster.

For the last decade,development had the Web server choice of either Apache or IIS. Third alternative is Nginix. It has 50 million different Internet domains, or about 10 percent of the entire Internet. It is designed to handle highly trafficked Web sites, such as Facebook, Zappos, Groupon, Hulu, Dropbox. It got $9 million including CEO Michael Dell. Amazon to streamline Nginx for the AWS (Amazon Web Service) cloud service.

Stig had been introduced during last September NoSQL conference. We can probably see Stig in 2012. By design, it is built on a distributed graph database and Haskell functional programming. It allows for inferential searching, allowing users and applications to look for highly scalable connections.

Gluster strategically enters the storage software market, which generates $4 billion in revenue annually. Red Hat revolutionize by acquisition. Over the past year, GlusterFS downloads increased by 300 percent of 40K.

Letz swift our gear to programming language trend which is the core area for IT developers. On observing the attached programming index, 1/3 rd of programming world is ruled by Java and C languages. As emerging languages, developers need to keep an eye on the significant deltal in C# and Objective C languages due to the power of C# 4.0 and iPad applications.

All the very best in 2012. Happy Coding!