by community-syndication | Nov 20, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
So
the word if officially out that Amazon will start shipping, on November 29th 2007,
their new eBook reader called “Amazon Kindle“.
The device is very compelling if you are looking for an eBook reader, here is are
just some of the vital statistics:
-
White background, black text “ePaper” screen
-
10.3 ounces in weight
-
Runs 2 days with Wireless turned on, a week with it off.
-
Recharges complete in 2 hours
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Blog reader (or at least some blog feeds available)
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Full Wikipedia access
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Read Microsoft Word documents and images (JPG, PNG, BMP and GIF)
-
88,000 books available now, 100 of the 112 New York Times Bestsellers
-
Wireless access to data without the need for WiFi
*blink Hold on there, run that last point again for me… Yes, you
read correctly you get access to the Amazon data services directly from the device
using Sprint’s wireless broadband network and without a monthly charge. How?
Amazon is absorbing the charges, the control the platform, you go to them for data,
and simply do it over the Sprint network. That is absolutely incredible and
the single most ground breaking concept within this device. With a $399 price
tag, is definitely a niche market right now, but if you consume 20ish books a year,
then you’ll make back the money within a year on the savings over “dead tree” versions.
But
my question to you, dear readers, is that if there was a cell phone company willing
to let a company “Pay Per Download” on devices in the field, how is it that Jeff Bezos
found them, and not Steve Jobs! Just imagine if you will an iPod, not an iPhone,
with the ability to download new songs literally anywhere, anytime, at a small 25
cent upcharge on the cost of the song for the download. This could be huge,
and I’ll bet you money that someone from Apple is already talking with Sprint about
this concept right now.
The good news for everyone else in the portable music industry is that this is a chink
in the armor of Apple. If someone can jump on this bandwagon fast, and cut a
deal for the same services for music, they could vault themselves over the iPod in
popularity because it would still be tethered to WiFi spots. Now, it can’t be
the “TimRayburn.net Music Player”, it would have
to be someone with a name in hardware already, and someone with enough money to make
the deal happen fast, and who has a vested financial interest in seeing the iPod tumble.
Is there such a person? I think so…
Tim Rayburn is a consultant for Sogeti in the Dallas/Fort
Worth market.
by community-syndication | Nov 20, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Yesterday was a great day for the Microsoft developer community: Visual Studio 2008 and .NET FX 3.5 have shipped as announced in Soma’s weblog you can find more details via my friend Sam Gentile . The Express editions are available from the new Express…(read more)
by community-syndication | Nov 19, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
At TechEd Developer 2007 in Barcelona, Steve Swartz, Clemens Vasters and David Chappell, 3 amazing speakers, conducted a Channel 9 interview on Software + Services and SOA.
You definitely want to watch this great video. They clarify definition of Software + Services and what services mean in this context as well as how it all relates to SOA. They also explain differences between ESB and ISB and BizTalk services’ role. They also cover other areas including goals of our identity platform, value of WCF framework and much more.
Enjoy watching this great video!
Regards,
Marjan Kalantar
by community-syndication | Nov 19, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Now here’s an idea!!! Hosted and Managed Services for BizTalk! Why hasn’t someone thought of this earlier in Aus 😉
I’ve worked closely with both Bryn and Utilisoft over the last several years (in my old national BizTalk role) and they both have excellent capabilities in BizTalk. They have decided to partner up and develop this offering.
If you are in Melbourne on Friday 30th Nov, register for their session.
by community-syndication | Nov 19, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Hot off the presses, you can get it now from MSDN subscriber downloads or the trial version. See Soma’s blog for more details on the new features, etc.
Surprisingly, being a WF and BizTalk guy, I’m least excited about the WF/WCF integration. I’ll talk more about what I dislike later, but this is a happy post! I’m jazzed about the new web models in WCF if only because it provides a nice affirmation of the extensibility of WCF. I might not like all of the details of how they have accomplished things, but the CSD team has certainly shown that WCF is a solid platform with all the extensibility hooks you need.
I’m also excited to spend some time with LINQ now that I’ll have the bits on my main PC (I have only put the beta on VMs or my secondary machine in my office). Like everyone else, I’ve done the simple examples to get some data out of a database and bind it to a UI, but I really want to dig in and see how it works after I have some code written and want to change something in the database. I want to see what the visual modeler/designer can and cannot do, and how using XML files might benefit me more than using the simple path that is there in V1.
The main thing that really sells this, and some folks don’t know this, is that VS 2008 and .NET 3.5, build on the existing .NET 2.0 framework. So, it should be close to a no-brainer for organizations to upgrade because they can still build their 2.0 applications without having to worry about using 3.5 assemblies if they use the multi-targeting correctly in VS / MS Build. That’s right, there are only additive changes and bug fixes in 3.5 and it uses the same 2.0 runtime that you are using today. So there should be no issues with breaking changes to core things like datasets and remoting like there were moving from 1.1 to 2.0. I’m upgrading all my boxes to take advantage of the new features and perf improvements. The only reason I could see for not updating is if you have other tools like BizTalk or Commerce Server that depend on the 2005 version. Then you can run both side-by-side, and maybe strip out some of the tools from 2005 that you no longer used to free up some space on your hard drive.
So, download, enjoy, and happy coding!
by community-syndication | Nov 18, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Ari Bakker and Isha have just completed the new Fly Buys website built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. I meet the team to check in on progress a few weeks back andf it is great to see that the new solution is now live! Along with http://aa.co.nz and others we are starting to see a bit of MOSS on the NZ Interweb.
Darryl has the word on NZ’s two MOSS MVP’s.
by community-syndication | Nov 16, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
As part of the RFID end to end course we decided to get the students to create a RFID
provider. Or more specifically this is Scott’s little
brain child – he’s a human dynamo on this stuff. Talk about an idea and this is what
he produces….
A little while ago I fielded a question on one of the internal D/Ls around
“Can you write a provider that interfaces with ’sensor’ type equipment for
BizTalk RFID?” – so now you create a provider that demonstrates how to do
that.
This comprehensive provider (these aren’t the course
lab notes – just a quick readme that Scott did)
is based on a Folder on the File System. As part of the management APIs the
Provider goes searching for ’Antenna’ which are sub-folders.
When files are dropped into these folders that acts as a ’Tag Read Event’ and the
Provider also supports Tag Writes/Prints.
Thought you might enjoy it ahead of time
Lab04
Extension Sample Code
Well done Scotty!!!>
by community-syndication | Nov 16, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Over on the Pluralsight blog, Joe Hummel talks about supercomputing in 2007 and some of the worrying problems the chip manufacturers are starting to encounter as we move to dual-, quad- (and above) cores.
In a nutshell, the chip manufacturers seem to have hit a brick wall in terms of CPU speed (levelling off at around […]
