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"If user is the King, then usability is the Queen." – Sohail Iqbal

Yet another beautiful piece of software form MS Live Labs: Pivot, a fun way of exploring and visualizing data. Here’s what MS says about Pivot:

“Pivot makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data in ways that are powerful, informative, and fun. We tried to step back and design an interaction model that accommodates the complexity and scale of information rather than the traditional structure of the Web.”

It is so simple and intuitive that “Even an MBA can use it” . And as you may have guessed, its XML driven and as a developer, you can bring your corporate data into it in minutes. All you need to do is publish you images according to Pivot guidelines and write a Data Transformation script out of your DB Engine and you are ready to rock n’ roll.

The dedicated site for Pivot getpivot.com has a comprehensive guide on how to model data collections for use with Pivot Client. Below is the diagram of XML schema which is consumed by the Pivot:

As i said, the UI is highly intuitive, just slice and dice through the data set and narrow down to what are you looking for. It keeps adding filters to data as you select through, and you can easily modify there filters as needed. There are some public collections available on their site for everyone to quickly get going.

Here a live example of how in just a few clicks I learned that our beloved Snow Leopard is one of the most endangered species in Pakistan:

I loved it and hope you too will enjoy it. I think Pivot is a great tool to present data to Information Workers as well as to the management for reporting and decision support.

Download here are give it a try: http://getpivot.com/download/

// ch3ckmat3

Just found a good feature of WCF, which seems quiet useful for distributed application developing/deployment practices. Through Net.TCP Port Sharing Service, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) allows different processes to share the same TCP Ports. Now you can deploy your .Net based network services side-by-side with IIS on port 80 or 8080, the standard HTTP and HTTP Proxy ports you find open in many firewalls by default. No need to mess around with client’s network department on this one.

Read on at MSDN: Net.TCP Port Sharing, and don’t forget to read the related articles on enabling and configuring the Port Sharing Service.

//ch3ckmat3

I just added a feature “Bundle the run-time with apps for mobile (WinMo/Symbian/IPhone/Android)” to Silverlight 4.0 Feature Discussion Group. Cast your vote here http://silverlight.uservoice.com/pages/4325-feature-suggestions.

Cheers

// ch3ckmat3

Wait a minute… you think you can leech some bits of torrents from every public hotspot that comes your way? No sir, that’s not the case (at least for now). This neat piece of software is not a torrent client, it actually lets you control the uTorrent from your mobile, ideally on Wi-Fi in home or office, where you have uTorrent running with WebUI installed.

I just happen to setup WebUI for myself and had this wild idea to get the remote control on my mobile, and guess what, “Your best idea is already copyrighted.” proves true again!

These guys here have done a great job actually. The uTorrent Remote Control is done in J2ME, with a simple interface, lets you control and monitor torrent activity on your uTorrent application.

I also found some other useful bits here on the same site, but I’m in love with this torrent thingy I tell you that. Go try it for yourself!

Cheers,

// ch3ckmat3

Scott Guthrie of Microsoft enlightens us on upcoming and highly anticipated Beta 1 of Silverlight 2. Link to his blog post here.

For those who don’t know about Silverlight, here it is… in a nutshell:

Silverlight is a (cross)browser plug-in, just like Adobe Flash Player… with a rich set of UI controls and application programming framework, just like Adobe Flex. It uses a declarative language (XAML) for UI definitions and JavaScript + .Net Framework languages for programming logic… just like Adobe’s MXML and ActionScript. Microsoft also has a rich tool-set for developing Silverlight applications (MS Expression and VS 2008)… just like Adobe Flash designer tool and Adobe Flex IDE.

Well… Silverlight is certainly much more than that… just like Adobe Flash is… but I suppose that a comparative approach would make it easier to understand for almost everyone.

Scott’s post is quiet comprehensive for everything else you need to know about Silverlight.

happy lightening

// ch3ckmat3

Our website made SWF2Go Professional version 1.5 publicly available through our online store, which was previously distributed to existing customers only.

SWF2Go is a professional tool for Adobe FlashLite mobile applications developers. Faisal has more on his blog post. Checkout product website for details.

// ch3ckmat3

Yes! this is sync for all…Microsoft Sync Framework…the anywhere, anytime, any device thing, which is currently available in CTP, and will hopefully be released as part of Visual Studio 2008. Countdown for release of VS2008 has already begun, and it is arriving this month.

Here’s a chunk from MS on the Sync Framework:

 ”Microsoft Sync Framework is a comprehensive synchronization platform that enables collaboration and offline access for applications, services, and devices. It features technologies and tools that enable roaming, sharing, and taking data offline. Using Microsoft Sync Framework, developers can build sync ecosystems that integrate any application, with any data from any store using any protocol over any network. Microsoft Sync Framework consists of the following technologies:

• Microsoft Sync Services for ADO.NET, which is used to synchronize databases for offline and collaborative scenarios.
• Sync Services for File Systems, which is used to synchronize files and folders in a file system.
• Sync Services for SSE, which is used to synchronize RSS and Atom feeds with data in a local store.
• Sync Framework core components, which are used to create synchronization providers for any type of data store.
• Metadata Storage Service, which is used to store synchronization metadata in SQL Server Compact Edition.”

Architects and developers and have been developing such custom frameworks for pretty much every large-scale enterprise application. Even I have designed a very light-weight object oriented SAF (Store and Forward) Framework for a system where MSMQ is not appropriate. And yes, for many occasions, these frameworks are one of the the core components of any multi-node, service oriented system. Replicating files or SQL data, passing object oriented messages, either pushing new configurations to nodes, or pulling generated files in the center…we have always used MSMQ, custom schedulers for FTP and web services calls, socket server, 3rd part tools and etc.

The Microsoft Sync Framework is the definite answer to all such needs and for solutions of any scale. I would say that this framework is going to be the heart of all the future SOA based enterprise solutions to be built on Microsoft platform.

This out-of-the-box system can be used in heterogeneous environments, where many tools and utilities are used to integrate loosely coupled multi-platform systems. To have an out-of-the-box experience, many enterprises are using Microsoft BizTalk Server as the core integration hub for integrating in house systems as well as for dealing business with outside world.

BizTalk is a mammoth of SOA jungle…many cant afford it, and many find it an overkill for small or mid size solutions, but hey, now you can have your own BizTalk Mini which can fit anywhere, and here is the formula:

Take .Net Framework 3.5, build required custom synchronization providers for Microsoft Sync Framework, use WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) where appropriate. Lets call them adaptors. Use some Plug-in Framework to raise the level of abstraction for the adaptors. Have a flexible Task Scheduler in the core, along with yet again, a Plug-in based WF (Workflow Foundation) engine, and certainly…the SQL 2005 or SQL 2005 Express as the universal data store, and you are done. All what is left are UI Tools for monitoring and configuration management initially, and many bells and whistles can be added further.

Yeah I know this is no match for BizTalk at all, but trust me, this is a BizSecret I’m revealing here for nothing…one can build a light-weight business process orchestration engine on top of this which can manipulate data from/to any data source. This was the first idea that came into my mind when I read about Microsoft Sync Framework. I will start a POC (Proof of Concept) solution on the idea as soon as I get some time, and I would love to start an open source project based on this idea and any volunteers are welcome.

Happy syncing

// ch3ckmat3

Reg Gate has finally released SQL Prompt 3, the first full and a far better version than its free predecessors. The team claims that the core has been completely rewritten and that they put it on thorough testing for almost six months.

Well, the effort seem worthwhile, as myself and my team of developers have been using version 2.0 and found it too bulky for memory and sticky at cursor and some of us finally dropped it, coz at times it was more of trouble than pleasure. Let me quote from their mail promo:

“Whether you’re still using SQL Prompt 2 or you uninstalled it in frustration I’d like you to know that SQL Prompt 3 is a different experience altogether.”

See?

Now the new version seem really cool in look and feel… and works smarter than ever! For a spoiled person like myself, who will look for “IntelliSense” even to code a batch file of three lines, this tool is a real gift!

Its core new feature is that its RAEL REAL FAST, and depends on its own intelligence to get the metadata from the DB whenever u connect to database server.

Other new features include:

• “Expand wild-cards” tab option
• rapid tick-box column picker
• code completion for:
  * table, view and column names
  * stored procedure names
  * USE
  * JOIN/JOIN ON
• auto-uppercasing of keywords
• configurable auto-popup after keywords
• personalized snippet list

SQL Prompt 3 Features – Image Source: www.red-gate.com

Wanna feel it? Download it right here:
http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Prompt/index.htm

I recommend to give it a try… that is… get spoiled, when offered

// ch3ckmat3