Aali - a developer's view

May CTP of Azure SDK

aalialikoski — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:42:00 GMT

Almost missed this: May CTP of the tools & SDK has been released. Most notable changes are added stability and integration to VS as well as Visual Studio 2010 beta support.

SEAMonster

aalialikoski — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:57:00 GMT

Maybe this should go to my photo blog, but since it has an interesting software development aspect, let's post it here:

SEAMonster is a .NET based implementation of a fairly recent idea presented in SIGGRAPH 2007 called seam carving. To put it short, it means resizing images in a way that preseves meaningful areas of the image while compressing/deleting the other parts as needed.

Have to download the code and play with it with my own images, putting it in codeplex is also a great idea :)

http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/archive/2007/10/23/seamonster-a-net-based-seam-carving-implementation.aspx

New Azure white papers

aalialikoski — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:13:00 GMT

Recently released:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5057e2b3-c8e5-4b26-a601-ff9621589ce3&DisplayLang=en

An Introduction to Microsoft .NET Services for Developers. This overview paper introduces Microsoft® .NET Services, each of its building block services, and how they fit together.

A Developer’s Guide to the Microsoft® .NET Access Control Service. This whitepaper shows developers how to use a claims-based identity model and the Microsoft® .NET Access Control Service – part of the Microsoft® .NET Services family – to implement single sign-on, federated identity, and role based access control in Web applications and services.

A Developer’s Guide to the Microsoft® .NET Service Bus. This whitepaper shows developers how to use the .NET Service Bus – part of the Microsoft® .NET Services family – to provide a secure, standards-based messaging fabric to connect applications across the Internet.

A Developer’s Guide to the Microsoft® .NET Workflow Service. This whitepaper provides details about the Microsoft® .NET Workflow Service, its relation to Windows Workflow Foundation, and what developers need to know to begin building workflows for the cloud. It not only explains the current tools and capabilities but also outlines the vision for future releases.

Win 7 RC up and running

aalialikoski — Sat, 02 May 2009 21:13:19 GMT

Haven't installed Visual Studio etc yet, but so far everything works.

Windows 7 RC

aalialikoski — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:20:42 GMT

RC became available yesterday on MSDN. Just finished burning it on DVD, starting to install.

Finnish Imagine Cup

aalialikoski — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:19:09 GMT

Wednesday I was mentoring the four teams that have been selected for the Finnish final of Imagine Cup Software Design. All of the teams had different and, in my opinion, quite compelling ideas. Me and other mentors gave feedback on how they could improve their ideas, presentation etc. The judges will have a tough job to pick the winner who goes to Cairo in July.

Good luck to all competitors!

www.imaginecup.com

www.codezone.fi/ImagineCup2009.Codezone

VSTS User Group Finland

aalialikoski — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:14:53 GMT

Kävin viime maanantaina laittamassa nimeni otsikon nimisen yhdistyksen perustamisasiakirjaan Microsoftin tilaisuuden yhteydessä. Paikalla oli mukavasti porukkaa tärkeän asian edistämiseksi, palaan asiaan kun yhdistykselle saadaan julkiset sivut ja on muutenkin kerrottavaa toiminnasta.

Aali, perustajajäsen :)

M5 CTP for .NET Services

aalialikoski — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:47:00 GMT

According to Steven Martin, a new CTP will be released later today for .NET Services.

Look here for new releases.

X10 and Oslo

aalialikoski — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:02:46 GMT

Exactly the idea that me and Waldo had, except he is using Oslo instead of DSL Tools: http://blogs.msdn.com/krisho/archive/2009/03/24/oslo-is-running-my-house.aspx

Have to get started on our idea as well, and now that Oslo is available use that of course.

March CTP of Azure (aka MIX CTP)

aalialikoski — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:48:51 GMT

New version of the Azure SDK and tools is available.

Most notable new features:

Managed full trust apps
Native code
Combined installer for SDK and tools

Full list of new stuff from the following link.

Now available: March CTP of the Windows Azure Tools and SDK

Enabling Full Trust to Call Native Code on Windows Azure

And there is a session about the coming features of SDS on Friday at MIX. Can't wait to get to try it out.

How to prepare for Azure malfunctions in the future

aalialikoski — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:16:00 GMT

From http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/archive/2009/03/18/the-windows-azure-malfunction-this-weekend.aspx

For continued availability during upgrades, we recommend that application owners deploy their application with multiple instances of each role. We'll make two the default in our project templates and samples. We will not count the second instance against quota limits, so CTP participants can feel comfortable running two instances of each application role.

Boot from VHD

aalialikoski — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:48:22 GMT

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Windows-7-Boot-from-VHD/

SDS details begin to emerge

aalialikoski — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:13:39 GMT

The no spin details on the new SDS features

Data will be available via TDS (i.e. standard communication channel used in SQL Server), with at least the following features supported:

Tables?...Check
Stored Procedures?...Check
Triggers?...Check
Views?...Check
Indexes?...Check
Visual Studio Compatibility?...Check
ADO.Net Compatibility?...Check
ODBC Compatibility?...Check

Sounds good, especially the following comment: "majority of database applications will “just work”, allowing developers to target on and off-premises deployments with essentially the same code base". Can't wait for the bits...

TechDays 09

aalialikoski — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:52:46 GMT

Pitkästä aikaa taas kirjoittelen tännekin. Torstaina ja perjantaina oli Microsoftin järjestämä TechDays 09 -tapahtuma. Olin mukana puhumassa Windows Azure sovelluskehityksestä yhdessä työkaverini Tero Teelahden kanssa. Paikalla oli oikein mukavasti ihmisiä maksullisuudesta huolimatta (tai ehkä jopa siitä syystä - suurin osa ilmoittautuneista tuli paikalle kun lystistä oli jotain maksettu), myös meidän esityksessä oli kuulijoita oikein mukavasti kuten koko Service Layer -osuudessa. Azure selvästi kiinnostaa, ja miksei kiinnostaisi. Kyseessä on mitä todennäköisimmin suuri muutos vähään aikaan. Esitykset videoitiin joten meidänkin esitys tulee saataville lähiaikoina muidenkin kuin tilaisuuden osallistujien katsottavaksi.

Azuren osalta on ilmestynyt muutama mielenkiintoinen lehtiartikkeli:

Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Software Set For Release This Year

'Full' SQL Server planned for Microsoft's Azure cloud

Virallisia uutisia Azuren tulevaisuudesta kuullaan todennäköisesti MIX09 -konferenssista reilun viikon päästä. Mielenkiintoista kuulla miten Azure ja erityisesti SDS muuttuu.

Tässä vielä muutamia kuvia tilaisuudesta:

Tilaisuus alkoi lyhyellä alustuksella torstai-aamuna

Käytävät olivat täynnä väkeä taukojen aikana

Iltajuhlassa oli parikin eri bändiä...

... joita tietysti yritettiin kuvata kaikenmoisilla kännykameroilla :)

Installing Live Mesh to Windows Server 2008

aalialikoski — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:11:16 GMT

I have been trying to install Live Mesh several times to my Windows Server 2008 -based workstation, but it keeps failing by claiming that the install is forbidden by system policy. Well, I took the time to actually look at the link the error message provided, and it suggested adding registry entry to modify MSI policy. So I went ahead and added DWORD value named DisableMSI, value 0 to this key (actually the "Installer" part was also missing so I added it as well):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer

And after adding this, Live Mesh installed with no problems! Great, now I can really use it on all of my machines!