Brian H. Prince

Wally McClure is a great leader in our .NET community. He is a very active podcaster and author. He tours our area regularly, speaking on SQL Performance, ASP.NET, and is now diving head first into Azure. Some things he has been up to lately? - Published an ebook on ASP.NET 3.5 SP1: http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/New-Features-in-ASP-NET-3-5-Service-Pack-1.productCd-0470457341.html - Several podcasts on Azure: http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/blogs/asp.net_podcast/archive/2008/12/22/asp-net-podcast-show-132-windows-azure-blob-storage-video.aspx http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/blogs/asp.net_podcast/archive/2008/12/25/asp-net-podcast-show-133-windows-azure-table-storage-video.aspx - A lap around ASP.NET 3.5 SP1: http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/blogs/asp.net_podcast/archive/2008/12/05/asp-net-podcast-show-130-david-and-wally-talk-about-net-3-5-service-pack-1.aspx - Caching in a 3.5 SP1 world: http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/blogs/asp.net_podcast/archive/2008/12/04/asp-ne...

I like SlideShare. I surf it for ideas, and I always find something interesting. I don’t normally post about other articles or blogs too often, but I really found this as an interesting example of using the cloud to expand your existing offering in a horizontal way to provide more value to your users, as well as make your service a little more sticky. And without further ado… http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/15/slideshare-sends-powerpoint-to-the-cloud-with-new-plugin/ SlideShare , a startup that we’ve likened to a YouTube equivalent for PowerPoint presentations , has released a new plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 that allows users to edit and publish presentations directly to their SlideShare accounts. You can download the free plugin here . Beyond publishing new PowerPoint documents to the web, the SlideShare plugin can import SlideShare files from the cloud (both your own and those that are shared by others), which can then be modified on your native PowerPoint client....

nPlus1.org and Microsoft have teamed up to give a series of free ArcSummit events! The first of these events will be in less than two weeks on December 16th. I know it’s close to the holidays, but as things are winding down before vacations wouldn’t it be cool to spend some time with like-minded folks talking about how S+S and cloud computing can help your business and clients. Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:00 PM (Noon) - 5:00 PM Eastern Time Microsoft Office - Cincinnati MPR Room 4605 Duke Drive Suite 800 Mason Ohio 45040 The event will consist of presentations and open discussions on two topics: How Software + Services may provide business value . Cloud Computing in General and an Introduction to Windows Azure . Lunch will be provided starting at noon. Register! If you haven’t checked out the nPlus1.org website, you need to do it right now. They are also looking for new authors and editors, if you want to get involved in the community.

Recently I created a small tool to manage discount codes for CodeMash. It was a website based on ASP.NET Dynamic Data (which is part of .NET 3.5 sp1). This tool made it real easy to put together a quick and simple web form to manage these codes. When I went to deploy it to the CodeMash server, I found I didn’t have SP1 installed, so I installed it. Deployed the web form, and everything seemed awesome. Then at around 6:00am the next morning I started getting lots of emails about problems with the CodeMash site. Which was funny, because the core site (not including registration) has always been fairly stable. It is an ASP.NET site. We store the site content in WSS, and bring that content into the web site via the WSS web services. Both sites live on the same server (remember that, it becomes important later on). That morning, those web services started failing with a “The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized”. I searched and wondered. I uninstalled SP1, and reinstall...

My friend James just announced the next meeting for ColArc is this Monday evening. It’s at 6pm, and is at the QSI office. You should check it out. I plan on being there, and we will be giving out a free ticket to the MSDN Developer Conference , which is in Detroit on January 22nd, 2009.

Many architects and developers are integrating services into their strategies and projects. There are two main delivery mechanisms with services (from a mainstream, standards perspective). You can use SOAP, or you can use REST. There have been wars for a long time around which is better, easier to use, and has less impact on the global environment. This post isn’t about that. My answer as to which one you should use is ‘It Depends.’ SOAP has all of the enterprisey-goo that we typically need at the core of our systems. Transactions, Strong Typing, Routing, Security, Extensibility, etc. These are all planned out with WS-* standards for platform interoperability. REST, on the other hand, is simple, lightweight, easy to use, and very straightforward. I think most organizations will end up with a measure of both in their environments. I think SOAP will be more prevalent at the core of your enterprise, with REST at the edges that touch other enterprises and the public at large. When ...

You have likely heard about Windows Azure by now. We made a very big announcement at the PDC today about it. Windows Azure is our Cloud OS. It will allow you to run .NET code in the sky, in a dynamic, scalable, and manageable way. We have also announced Live Services, .NET Services, and SQL Services. These services sort of stack on each other. Think of Azure as your Server OS. SQL provides data related services, etc. Azure will support web facing, interactive, stateless applications. These applications run in an instance called a ‘Web Role.’ You can also host code that just performs asynchronous work, called a ‘Worker Role.’ The Worker Role might host a WCF service fed by a queue for example. You will be able to develop and test locally using the Azure Fabric locally, and then only deploy to the cloud when you are ready. David Chappell wrote a great whitepaper on our new services platform, and explains some expected customer scenarios. It walks through our services platform very ...

The Renaissance was a period of rebirth in Europe during the 14th to 17th centuries. It was hundreds of years of revolution in the arts and in culture. The social patterns, thinking and technology that allowed this to happen took thousands of years to develop. It sparked a new passion in learning, new techniques and styles of painting, and widespread reform.  This lead to an amazing leap in science and technology and the definition of the scientific method, heralding the ‘Modern Age’. This ultimately led to a change in human society so grand, that we still talk about it today. Many of the world’s best achievements and treasures come form this period of time. I think the past few years, and the technologies coming out today, represent the leading edge of Renaissance 2.0. And since we are all geeks, we will of course shorten it to Ren2.0. Today, with cloud services, Azure, software plus services patterns, modern testing, SOAP/REST, Geneva, platforms like Mesh, and everything el...

Mike Wood , James Bender , and Chris Woodruff saw a gap in the community. They saw that there was a strong community and a great deal of support for all types of developers. They also noticed that there isn’t a lot out there to help architects and aspiring architects come together, learn, and become better at what they do. So they got together, scrabbled together some cash (Microsoft is proud to be a sponsor), and launched www.nPlus1.org . The team is organized into two groups. Senior Editors run the organization, and coordinate the original content that is submitted for publishing. Then there is a larger group of Editors. Editors focus on submitting links and summaries of content found elsewhere on the Internet (known as TidBits on the site). They are actively looking for more Editors, so ping them if you are interested. This two pronged approach brings both new content from local authors, and a simple way to find all of the great architecture related content scattered all over th...

My teammate Jennifer Marsman has planned a tour with Mark Mydland through Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Mark is the Principal Group Manager over Visual Studio Team System Test Edition. Mark’s team will be making some huge announcements around what the next version of VSTS:Test can do, and you don’t want to miss this. It’s really incredible. Mark will be presenting at most user groups as he tours, and here is his schedule. Don’t miss it. Jennifer specifically scheduled Mark’s tour after the PDC so he can show you all of the new features. Come ask him your testing questions. We will also be provided dinner at all of the user group meetings, so come on out, and see it all in action. Grand Rapids, MI - Tues 11/11 at 6pm Watermark Country Club, 5500 Cascade Rd, Grand Rapids, MI 49548 Ann Arbor, MI - Wed 11/12 at 6pm SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Avenue, Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Cleveland, OH - Thurs 11/13 at 6:30pm Sogeti office, Beacon Place Office Buildi...

The SOA & Business Process Conference 2009 is put on by Microsoft, and is held on campus in Redmond. I have been to it many times as a partner and customer, and it is one of my favorite events. The event always gives you great access, directly, to the teams building our strategies and products around SOA and BPM. This is a great chance to learn a great deal, and provide feedback on our roadmap. The conference is also loaded with thought leaders, and leading companies in the SOA/BPM space. The event has grown so large over the years, that in order to keep it on campus, they had to break it into two parts. The first part is for partners in the SOA/BPM space, and runs January 26-27, 2009, and will cost $599. The second part will be for customers, and runs January 28-30, 2009, and will cost $599 if you register before December 1st, 2008. There is also a great reception held on the evening of January 27th for all of the incoming customer attendees. The theme for this year is “Re...

I have been working with some friends that are on our Enterprise team to put together an event. We decided to call it the Dog Food Developer Conference. About half of the speakers are local community leaders, and the other half are Microsofties. DF will be held on November 20th, 2008, and starts at 8:00am. We will have three tracks throughout the day, covering a wide range of topics. The schedule is listed below. The last part of the afternoon is left for open discussion with the speakers. We have reserved plenty of small rooms, so you can snag a speaker, and sneak off to have a private conversation. You can, of course, have your conversation out in the open if you want. The event is free, and there are only a few seats left, so register quickly. Lunch will be provided. Time: Track 0 Track 1 Track 2 8 to 9:00 AM Register 9 - 9:45 Key Note S oftware + S ervices , MS Roadmaps, PDC Announcements Speaker: Brian Prince , MS S oftware + S ervices , MS Roadmaps, PDC Announc...

I am just now recovering from a great tip up to AA. The event went very well, and the organizers did a great job. It is really cool to see leaders from five different user groups get together to put on such a smoothly run event. The speakers and content they lined up were just great. I ended up in the big amphitheatre room again, as the last session of the day, just like last year. But I am not complaining. I actually like that. It allows me to tie some of the things I have seen during the day together, and weave them into my talk. I spoke on ‘How to be an architect.’ This was the first instance of this talk, and I think, with that being said, it went pretty well. I definitely found ways to smooth the delivery, and increase the connectedness of some of the value flow. I will work to make these improvements before the next time I deliver it. I have posted the slides here , if you are interested. I do want to follow up on some of the questions that were asked. 0. Someone ask...

The PDC is next week, and it is going to be huge. The amount and scale of the announcements are, in my view, the biggest of any PDC in the past (can’t say for future PDCs). Two of the keynotes by Ray Ozzie will be streamed live. The other keynotes will be available online shortly after they are completed. Since the PDC is on the west coast, this puts the keynotes during lunchtime in the EST time zone. The keynotes will contain all of the big announcements, and the great demos. They will give you an idea for the flavor of what the sessions are going to deep dive into. So here is how to throw a PDC viewing party. 0. Reserve a conference room of some sort. You will need a projector, speakers, and a computer to stream from. The speakers are optional, if everyone in your part can read lips. 1. Invite everyone you know. Invite people you don’t know. Tweet about it. Try not to break any stalking laws though. 2. Either convince your boss to pay for pizza for everyone, or tell th...

Everyone is excited about PDC2008. Go register if you haven’t yet. See your local user group leader for a $200 off discount code! The biggest announcement so far is that each attendee will receive a 160 GB USB hard drive, with all the bits on it, include a pre-beta release of Windows 7! We will also be revealing our cloud platform,  as well as details on .NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010. To celebrate, Channel8 just published this video, of the marketing team putting together some promos for PDC. Watch to the end to see the twist. PDC 2008 is coming... and I can't wait!

A great team member of mine (Randy Pagels, who works with a lot of customers to help them understand the business value of ALM and TFS) just launched a site at http://www.teamsystemcafe.net/ . It brings together a lot of great resources on Team Foundation System, Visual Studio Team Suite, and Application Lifecycle Management. There is a great blog roll of related sites as well. Take a few minutes and check it out.

The Tennessee tour for ArcReady went very well (followed up by an awesome week at Disney for vacation). I want to thank everyone who came out. We had a lot of good conversations. Here are the slides: Session 1 covers the patterns and concepts for how to architect for different distributed systems using modern architectures. Session 2 covers Zermatt, and how you can use it to deploy scenarios covered in session 1.

Once when I worked for a consulting firm, one of my leads wanted to go to a big conference. So we filled out the paperwork, estimated flight and hotel costs, and submitted it into the black hole of bureaucracy. I hounded my manager at the time, every other day. After what seemed like an infinite amount of time, we found out the training request was approved. It was too late to use the early bird special price, but registration was still open. Then we had to fight the admin staff to get the attendee registered. By the time everything was all said and done, the event was sold out, and they couldn’t go. If you are in that situation, please note that the Early Bird discount for PDC2008 has been extended until September 8th. You will get $200 off (little less than 10%). This is the one PDC you can’t miss. It will be bigger than ever, covered with a gooey layer of awesomeness. Go register now, and ask for forgiveness later. :) Register

We were hanging out at the hotel bar on Saturday night (August 23rd), just hanging out. It was my birthday, and we were unwinding from devLink (which rocked!), and I was exhausted from working really long days. Carl and Richard from .NET Rocks was hanging out there as well. After the conversation got rolling, they whipped out a wireless microphone with onboard memory and started interviewing everyone at the table. There is a great discussion of devLink, OpenSpaces, CodeMash, and lots of other stuff. It was a lot of fun. Take some time and give a listen to show #372 .

Jeremy Sublett and Chad Campbell are organizing the second Kentucky Day of .NET.   It will be on Saturday, September 6. They have lined up a number of great speakers to cover lots of .NET topics for developers.  Please visit http://kydayof.net to see the sessions and to sign up. Jeff Blankenburg will be keynoting, and I will be presenting my Soft Skillz talk. If you need a ride from Columbus, maybe we can carpool.   Saturday, Sept. 6 Sullivan University 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

I'm pleased and excited to inform you that CodeMash 2009 planning is underway! We'll be returning to the Kalahari Resort to hold our third event this coming January 7-9, 2009, and do hope you'll consider participating. Submit your proposed session through the CodeMash website by navigating to http://codemash.org/BeASpeaker.aspx . As with prior events, speakers are provided with a free conference pass, including food, admission to all sessions, and all of the fame and glory attached to being a CodeMash participant. The deadline for submission is October 22, 2008 , however given the volume of proposals we'd appreciate it if you could strive to beat this deadline by at least a few weeks. January 7-9, you ask? You read it right, we're expanding the event to include a third day! Dubbed the CodeMash Precompiler, this day long event (held on January 7) will include a number of hands-on labs which give attendees the opportunity to explore a topic at great depth. We...

We are ready to announce our next ArcReady and MSDN Unleashed tour dates. ArcReady was detailed in the prior blog post. For those that are new, these are events given by your local evangelism team, in as many local cities as we can work out. These events happen every quarter. The ArcReadys are always in the morning, from 9am-11:30am. MSDN is from 1pm-4pm. They will usually be held in the same facility. ArcReady is geared for practicing and aspiring architects. You don’t have to be an architect to get value out of it. MSDN Unleashed events are geared for all types of developers. MSDN Unleashed Session 1 : Demystifying WPF Today’s applications need to do more than simply work. They need to draw in the user, and provide a differentiated experience. This means moving beyond battleship gray forms, boxy UIs, and providing a positive user experience. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides powerful capabilities to develop a compelling user interface, the kind that makes an ap...

We are ready to announce our next ArcReady and MSDN Unleashed tour dates. MSDN Unleashed info in next blog post. For those that are new, these are events given by your local evangelism team, in as many local cities as we can work out. These events happen every quarter. The ArcReadys are always in the morning, from 9am-11:30am. MSDN is from 1pm-4pm. They will usually be held in the same facility. ArcReady is geared for practicing and aspiring architects. You don’t have to be an architect to get value out of it. MSDN Unleashed events are geared for all types of developers. Microsoft ArcReady Architecting Modern Distributed Applications Nearly every application we build today has dependencies to other systems. How do we design them to work together to meet our goals? How do we decide what to build and what to buy? Do we host it ourselves or in the cloud? With a bewildering array of choices, the biggest challenge we face today is how to architect robust applications with the ri...

A few months ago I sat down with Jim Holmes and Philip Jordan at Quick Solutions to talk about an elegant way to handle a difficult scenario. ARCast.TV - Jim Holmes and Philip Jordan on Excel Services http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Jim-Homes-and-Philip-Jordan-on-Business-Models-that-leverage-Excel-Services/ They often have customers with complex business logic in Excel, and the customer often thinks they want a new application to replace this. But the users also want to be able to update not only the business data, but the business MODELS. Trying to do this can be difficult, so Jim and Philip turned to MOSS, and Excel Services. Excel Services allows the user to publish their spreadsheets to their consumers. The consumers use the sheet in the browser. They don’t need Excel on the desktop. The great thing is the Intellectual Property of the business model is safe, because the end consumer only ever gets to see the output of the models, not the math behind th...

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I was speaking a while ago at ITT in Nashville, TN. After my talk, several students came up to tell me about a site they were running called FlameGoat.net . The voice of the site is intended to be a little on the edge, with a ‘fight the power’ type tone. The site is interesting, with a lot of gaming news and trailers. They have started sections aimed at developers, with room to post videos and tutorials. These students were clearly self starters, taking their idea, and executing it, instead of just talking about it. The other great thing, is that 15%-25% of the ad revenue is donated to Saint Jude’s Children Hospital every month. Not only did they execute their idea, they are using it to help the community. That’s just awesome. As I look at my career, and the people I have known, I remember seeing some great idea, and thinking that I had the same idea, but never did it. I slowly learned that many times you can’t wait for someone else to let you do something, you just need to find ...

The open source community is rich with alternatives for any need or framework you could possibly need. It is a veritable cacophony at times. While this richness is great, it can be a challenge to get your project adopted by developers. This also presents a challenge for those architects and developers who are shopping around for a framework to solve a particular problem. Most projects have a web site somewhere (CodePlex, SourceForge, etc.), with a list of bugs, releases, notes, etc. Most of these project pages have only a short description about the project. That description was likely written at the very beginning of the project when it was just a simple idea. The description is usually outdated, and never updated as the project moved forward. If I am an architect/developer browsing your project site, and I see something that is vague, and hard to understand, I won’t likely check out your project. After an hour of only seeing poorly marketed and documented projects, I am likely ...

About a month ago I was at CinArc . During the break Leon asked me what Microsoft was doing about open source, and when were we going to change our business model to adapt or compete. He wasn’t picking a fight, he honestly wanted to know if MS recognized this new aspect of the market (not really new at this point, but anyway), and were we going to engage at this level, if not embrace it. I didn’t have an answer at the time. Not because I missed the ‘Annual Evil Empire Planning Meeting’ (I am still waiting to get invited to that meeting), but because I was so new, and am really not part of that part of the organization. I recently attended a session where Sam Ramji explained Microsoft strategies for working with open source, and the open source community. I was very pleased with what I head. I shows that we are embracing this model, and the people who believe in it. There have been some amazing announcements about how we are supporting and engaging the open source community. ...

A local training partner, Babbage Simmel is putting on a summer conference in Columbus. All of the speakers are from Microsoft, including Mark Harris, Luis Gonzalez, and Bill Steele. Details below. August 21 st and 22 nd Free hands-on labs, Special presentations, Giveaways, Lunch provided! Babbage Simmel is inviting you to come and experience the latest in Microsoft technologies: Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. One full day complete with hands-on labs, technical demos, and presentations by Microsoft and Babbage Simmel, August 21 st or 22 nd … You Choose! Come find out how you can leverage these products to solve your toughest challenges and reach some of your greatest opportunities. Event schedule includes: · Seminars on the upcoming training offerings and certifications for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and SQL Server 2008 · The newest Hands-on labs and First Looks for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and SQL Ser...

We often think that Enterprise applications are boring WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointers) style apps and that there is little to no value to having a compelling UX. Sometimes we do this because we can’t sell a better UX to the business customer. Sometimes it’s because this seems easier for us as the developer. Sometimes it’s because someone thinks that it is such a small app, that it doesn’t matter. (If it is so small, and matters not, why invest the time and money to build and maintain it?) UX is as much of the architects job as anyone else’s. It needs to be part of your project plan and system architecture. Having good UX in the presentation layer is like having a well factored class structure in the business tier. There is just this lack of compelling UX in the business/enterprise application world. The problem is not the argument about why UX is important, but great samples of real enterprise applications that show how effective great UX can be. While there are many benefit...

I like to solve problems. It’s in my blood. I have a feeling if you are in this industry, it’s in your blood too. I think this is why I was drawn to Math and Physics growing up, and ended up studying them in college (along with CompSci of course). I think this is also why I like the type of games that I like to play. RPG’s, and RTS’s tend to be problem solving type games. Think of the missions you are assigned, or Civilization and SimCity. Those are problem simulators. Anyway… When a problem gets in my head, I can’t shake it. There are times when I will hit a roadblock for days. One of my strategies is to take a break from the problem, get my mind off it. When I come back to the problem I usually have some fresh ideas on how to approach it. The time off gives me the ability to come back with a different perspective on the problem. That's why, when meeting with customers, I like to give some initial feedback, and then spend a day or two digesting what we talked about. This time gi...