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Better WSSF solution structure

I’ve done my share of work with the Web Service Software Factory modelling edition, but never have I liked the solution structure it generates for me. Or either the namespaces of the projects are wrong, or the paths became too long because of the fully qualified names I’d use. This time I reserved some time to tackle this once and for all. The result is an easy to apply patch for WSSF: Modelling Edition.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 Read
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Viddler.Net on Codeplex

Things are moving fast. Yesterday I released an early first version of Viddler.Net, a wrapper for the Viddle API. Today I was able to post an updated version to Codeplex, which seems more suitable for managing this project than my own blog. The updated version uses HTTP POST instead of GET and includes one extra implemented method to upload videos. Find the Codeplex project at http://www.codeplex.com/ViddlerDotNet

Friday, August 22, 2008 Read
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First release of Viddler.Net

If you read my article in the Dutch .Net Magazine about Vista Media Center add-ins and you came looking on my blog for the Viddler.Net api, you just found it! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please read on This is my first release of the Viddler.Net api, which is a wrapper for the Viddler api. The Viddler.Net api allows a .Net developer to make use of the videos on the Viddler website through code.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 Read
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Microsoft BizTalk Server Performance Optimization Guide

From MSDN: Welcome to the first edition of the Microsoft® BizTalk® Server Performance Optimizations Guide. We created this guide to provide in depth information for optimizing the performance of a BizTalk Server solution. Full end-to-end performance testing is frequently overlooked during enterprise application deployment. Knowing that Microsoft has built a scalable messaging infrastructure, many organizations that use BizTalk Server spend little or no time conducting performance testing of their own applications.

Thursday, July 10, 2008 Read
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Control Windows Media Center with New Windows SideShow BETA Gadgets

From the Windows Experience Blog: The Windows SideShow Team has announced the availability of 4 BETA Windows SideShow Gadgets that let you control Windows Media Center from a Windows Sideshow device. You can sign-up via Microsoft Connect to gain access to Beta Test these new Windows SideShow Gadgets: http://connect.microsoft.com/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=2380&SiteID=312&InvitationID=GPB-79MM-RFJ2 Here is the breakdown of the 4 Windows Media Center BETA Windows SideShow Gadgets and what they do: Now Playing: View what is currently playing in Windows Media Center (includes playback controls) Pictures + Video: Browse your Photos and Videos folders Music: Browse your Music folder and play any song TV: Look at what is on TV via the Windows Media Center Guide, Schedule Recordings, and View Recordings (in a Thumbnail view)

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 Read
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BizUnit Designer

From CodePlex: BizUnit Designer is a GUI that allows rapid creation of BizUnit test cases which can be used for unit testing or system testing distributed applications. The easy to use drag and drop user interface has minimal learning curve which will get you up and running with test cases in a matter of minutes. I’ve used BizUnit on a couple of projects (even non-BizTalk projects) and I think it’s very useful.

Friday, July 4, 2008 Read
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More BizTalk posters

Somebody at the product team has really started a rush to push out these nice looking posters. Here is a rather new one: BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Database Infrastructure Poster http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=24662FB5-622C-4E7E-9E83-505D1F664C4D&displaylang=en And as a service to those of you that haven’t seen anyone of these: BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Runtime Architecture Poster http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8790E652-1DA5-4E80-88FE-B87606233DB4&displaylang=en BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Capabilities Poster http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=34F41573-C552-466F-B531-32CB09A57CDD&displaylang=en BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Scale-Out Configurations Poster http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FF468298-64BE-4947-A086-F61584CAF995&displaylang=en

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Read
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Home Server campaign

[](File URL) in case you haven’t seen this yet, Microsoft has a rather interesting marketing campaign around Windows Home Server. One of the parts of the campaign is a book about Home Server which looks like it’s written for kids. The book explains what the magic ‘Server’ in the house is all about. Microsoft went so far with this campaign that it actually looks like you can buy the book from Amazon!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Read
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How-To: New ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Video Screencasts

From the almighty Scott Hanselman: Released today are four new screencasts about the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions by various members of the ASP.NET team. Every video is available in numerous formats, and note that this also includes re-encoded versions of my **Intro to MVC Screencast **in a pile of formats including an iPod/iTouch compatible format, as well as ones for the **Zune **and **PSP **and a utterly unwatchable 😉 40 meg 3GP one for 3G Phones.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Read
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Video: BizTalk Services Explained

In this video, James Conard talks with John Shewchuk and Dennis Pilarinos about BizTalk Services. In the simplest definition, BizTalk Services simplifies application connectivity by extending WCF and providing a set of hosted services. John and Dennis quickly explain BizTalk Services by discussing the challenges with building applications today. Dennis also shows four demos of BizTalk Services and then drops into Visual Studio along the way to show the programming model.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Read
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Released: BizTalk Server 2006 extentions for WF

Just released (oh well, a couple of months ago), the long awaited BizTalk Server 2006 extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation SDK. Use WF modeling and host workflows in BizTalk Server. Note the BTS messaging activities in the image. The new BizTalk Server edition will most likely sport the Workflow Designer instead of the plain old Orchestration Designer. This probably results into something that looks a lot like what you get with the extentions.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Read
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Microsoft LoadGen 2007

Microsoft LoadGen 2007 generates message transmission loads to run performance and stress tests for your Microsoft BizTalk Server applications, and provides performance counters to monitor the performance of the infrastructure running BizTalk Server. This tool is intended for developers and IT professionals to simulate load on a BizTalk Server. Using this tool, you can simulate load to instrument performance and stress against a BizTalk deployment. In addition, this tool may also be extended by developers to simulate load for custom transports.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Read