by community-syndication | Jan 14, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
When you develop custom functoids in BizTalk Server 2006, one of the steps you have to do is create icons to represent them in the mapper.
These functoids must be created as 16×16 BMP icons, and inserted/embeded in a Resources file. You can do this directly in Visual Studio, by opening the Resx file and adding an Image file, or (my preferred way) by using Lutz’ Resourcer for .NET .
You can start by creating an icon in Visual Studio’s editor, which I then screenshot into Paint.Net and save as a 16×16 BMP to later insert into the resources file.
Another “detail” that shouldn’t be forgotten is updating the “Custom Tool Namespace”, on the .resx file. Also remember that you have to restart Visual Studio if you want to have the icons/dlls update, as it caches the functoid assembly from its path at <drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Developer Tools\Mapper Extensions.
Using a background color for the Functoid icons is good practice, to avoid confusing yours with the built-in ones.
by community-syndication | Jan 14, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
In the last two years I have been feeling a ever largest difficulty in following the rhythm of technological evolution in my area. When there was only BizTalk 2000/2002 and .Net 1.0, the world was simple. Now there is .Net 3.0, with WCF and WF, Dsl Tools and several Software Factories, BizTalk itself with its R2 evolutions, the notorious SharePoint/Office 2007, ever more frequent contributions in software architecture, more and more podcasts and videos, magazines, newsletters, hundreds of emails … and still only 24 hours every day (they’ll have to solve that one of these days).
It’s not possible to stay up to day on everything, it’s not even worth trying.
One of my decisions for 2007 concerns this Information Management issue. My first step was to identity the topics and technologies (I picked 3+1) I really want to follow in depth. Anything outside these bounds I will not focus on. I could have opted for “knowing little about everything“, but somehow that doesn’t feel right :-). I already started unsubscribing from blogs (from my list of 250 feeds), newsletters, and deleting podcasts. It’s sad to see them go, but there is no other option.
I also did a quick re-read of “Getting Things Done“, and printed out the poster freely available at David Allen’s store (you have to register, but it’s a free purchase). It really helps, having this in front of you during your workday. One of the hints I value most is: if you get contacted about something that takes less than 2 minutes to do, don’t procrastinate, do it immediately. This applies to all those emails asking for “Can you please send me document X?“. Sites like 43 Folders occasionally give you helpful hints to better manage your time. I personally tend to multitask a lot, and get distracted by multiple things of interest, so some of the resources here might help. Some time ago someone posted a method to keep you on track on something you are doing: write it down on a post it note, and stick it in your computer next to the screen. People can look at you sideways, but it seems to work. 🙂
The day I’ll feel happy is when I can get my Outlook Inbox from 500 to 0 emails, however.
by community-syndication | Jan 14, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Last week I went back to the V1 of the Dsl Tools, and re-did the tutorials. Much simpler than the beta ones, the entire platform is much stabler and parts of it were simplified, being easier to use. The unification of the DSL definition with its presentation definitions in a single file is very welcome. The lack of intellisense/syntax coloring support while writting the templates is one of my complains. The inability to use the DLS’s outside Visual Studio (in scenarios where you want the business user to at least prototype the model) is another serious limitation. Finally, there are also some concepts that are not easy to understand on the first approach, and there seems to be too much “visible plumbing” in the design of languages and its later use.
I personally find the whole Software Factories/Modelling idea very powerfull, and with some ingredients that can help solve this whole quality issue in the Software industry, but while activity in the Software Factories has been plentiful (also in the Architecture Journal issue 9), not much new has been coming up on the web concerning DSL’s and modeling. MS’s DSL blogs also have little activity and there’s no news on the expected book.
Most of the work Create It and myself do involve work around integration and custom software development, frequently around products such as BizTalk or SharePoint, and we don’t market our own products or specialize in any vertical industry. Given this, I’ve tried to find uses for DSL’s in what we do, and mostly I came out with what I call “technical” scenarios. For example, modeling a biztalk schema so that it’s easier to create, or model a structure of sites in SharePoint to automatically provision/update them. The Software Factories that came out also work in this “technical” space, so this helps explaining why they are easier to come up with and develop.
I found very few uses of DSL’s in real “business” scenarios, considering the kind of work we do. The most obvious case is perhaps in building workflows, which is Windows Workflow’s space, and WF in itself is a “technical” DSL without busines specific activities. WF in SharePoint is closer to what I am looking for, specially with its activities to do content approval and routing, focused on the document management space.
This is a topic I would like to discuss with other people interested in modeling. Any feedback?
by community-syndication | Jan 14, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
This morning I was interested to read about a security hole that enabled you to steal someone else’s Google cookie and access their Google services (this is now fixed). You can only imagine how much identity theft hurts until it happens to you. Some years ago my 5 digit ICQ account was stolen from me using a dodgy IM. At the time I was gutted as ICQ was my gateway to IM and Free SMS and I had “street cred” created by having such a low number.
By chance I also noticed across my “virtual desk” that Joe Stagner has secured Caleb Sima and Billy Hoffman for a series of Webcasts on AJAX Security starting this week.
Unfortunatley they all start @ 6am NZ Time and require passport/ live registration.
Fri Jan 19 – 6am – Live From Redmond: AJAX Security Basics- The Building Blocks to Protecting Your Applications Built with ASP.NET AJAX
Fri Jan 26 – 6am – Live From Redmond: How Hackers Reverse Engineer and Exploit an ASP.NET AJAX Application
Fri Feb 02 – 6am – Live From Redmond: The Brave New World of AJAX Hacking (and prevention using ASP.NET)
Fri Feb 16 – 6am – Live From Redmond: The Next Generation of AJAX Attacks – A New Generation of Attack Theories
Fri Feb 23 – 6am – Live From Redmond: Best Practices: A Look at Developer ASP.NET AJAX Security Mistakes
But if you are an early riser and build web applications with AJAX this series may very well be worth a look.
Oh yeah and for any of you true hAck3rs out there, check out this article on Jim Christy at DefCon.
by community-syndication | Jan 14, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Over the weekend I checked out the rolling stones top 50 albums of 2006 and thought I’d come up with my own top 10 in no particular order (not all these albums were released in 2006 but they are close enough).
The Shins\Chutes Too Narrow
The Black Seeds\into the dojo
Cat Power\The Greatest
Thom Yorke\The Eraser
Dave Dobbyn\Available Light
Flaming Lips\At War with the Mystics
Red Hot Chili Peppers\Stadium Arcadium
Modest Mouse\Good News for People Who Love Bad News
Pearl Jam\Pearl Jam
311\Don’t Tread on Me
It is good to see that Cat Power, Thom Yorke, Chili’s and Pearl Jam all make the Rolling Stones list.
One album I have been meaning to check out for a while is 4 Return to Cookie Mountain\TV ON THE RADIO I see Rolling Stone had this at #4 and Groove Guide had it at #1.
It is also hard to believe that Sonic Youth can still come in at #3 I stopped listening to them years ago maybe I should give them another go.
What was your must have album of 06?
by community-syndication | Jan 13, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Although there are lots of differences between these systems (notably one being a product and the other just being a framework), there remains quite a lot of confusion for some people in trying to choose which to use. I came across a couple of good articles with information to help you make a decision between Biztalk and WF for certain projects where it may not be crystal clear.
1. David Chappells excellent Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation at : http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/WFIntro.asp
and
2. Irena Kennedys post on Biztalk or Workflow at :http://softlogger.com/4314/BizTalk/SYSK-216–BizTalk-Orchestration-or-Windows-Workflow-Foundation.aspx
Hope you find these articles useful if you are at such a decision point.
(If anyone knows how to make firefox retain the hyperlink in the rich text editor or IE7 to display the rich text box instead of an ordinary text box, then please email me. Otherwise my only option is to go back to IE6).
by community-syndication | Jan 13, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I would like to mention that there is a great book available about BizTalk 2006. It is called “BizTalk 2006 Recipes”, published by Apress and written by Mark Beckner, Ben Goeltz, Brandon Gross, Brennan O’Reilly, Stephen Roger, Mark Smith and Alexander West. (ISBN 1-59059-711-7)
In the book you will find a comprehensive guidance on working through complex deployment challenges, including tested, reusable code snippets for use in production, enabling faster deployment and minimal post-implementation engineering support.I already did a quick read in the book during my BizTalk 70-235 study, the book gives a detailed step by step overview of solutions (with lots of images) on how to work with BizTalk. The authors really did a good job to provide you with solutions that work, but best of all that works well.
In the next month(s) I will read this book and try to run all the provided solutions. I will post feedback about this book on my personal blog.
by community-syndication | Jan 12, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I had the pleasure of talking last night at the Little
Rock .NET User Group and present my Black
Belt XML talk. It was a packed house, though not in there usual room and
that was why, but approximately 50 people attended. If you were one of those,
welcome to my blog, you can find the slides and code that I used during the talk here.
Also had a chance to visit some of the sites in Little Rock this weekend, including
a trip to Clinton Presidential
Library and a local gaming store. It’s been good fun, and I look forward
to a chance to come back and speak to the group again.
by community-syndication | Jan 12, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Here is a code snippet for writing information to the EventLog. This code will work in a BizTalk Expression Shape as well as in a .NET application. …..(read more)
by community-syndication | Jan 12, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I will be speaking there, hope to see you there (it is free)!
Shoot me an email through my contacts page and I would love to see the people who like reading about all of the mistakes I make!
