Saving your seat in our next class

by | Mar 20, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

We’re trying to make it easier for individual developers to reserve a seat in a specific course offering before they’ve completed the bureaucracy of obtaining payment from above — something that manycustomers have complainedto us about in the past. Often courses fill up to fast pushing them to the waiting list.
So now, when you see a specific course offering that you’re interested in, simply clickSave a Seatand fill out the registration form as usual, only this time you won’t be asked for payment. Then, closer to the course date, a member of oursales team will contact you to confirm attendance/payment. If you check out any of our course pages with upcoming offerings, like this one, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
And if you’d like to receive automatic notification of new courses as soon as they’re scheduled (so you can be first to save a seat), you should subscribe to our course schedule blog.

Framentation in the BTAHL7 Explorer

by | Mar 19, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

There is occasionally a time when you get messages that are ‘batched’ together meaning the messages come in like this

MSH

…

MSH

…

MSH

….

Or they can come in with the file header and trailer and one or more batch header and trailers like this

FHS (file header segment)

BHS (batch header segment)

MSH

…

MSH

…

BTS (batch trailer segment)

BHS

MSH

…

BTS

FTS (file trailer segment)

When you run the file through BizTalk, the subscription engine does not pick up the message, in looking at the details of the message, it looks like this (notice that ParseError is False):

and the body is unparsed

In the BTAHL7 Configuration Explorer you need to turn fragmentation on

The reason why this is happening is because the pipeline component isexpecting the start block (SB) and end block (EB)to be in the data stream so it knows how to seperate each of the messages, if fragmentation is not turned on and it is getting multiple messages, in the messagebox you will get a block of text,negative ParseError and the inability to transform data, it will only be used for routing purposes.

Hope that this helps explain something that is not quite clear from the documentation, or at least anything that I could find.

Fundamentals of WF

by | Mar 19, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Tomorrow (March 20) I am doing a presentation at the Metro Toronto .Net User Group entitled:
Fundamentals of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).


Most of it will be demos introducing WF. Of course, I will also include BizTalk in the presentation, discussing the differences and similarities between WF and BizTalk and when it is appropriate to use either technology.


The demos will include:


Creating a Sequential Workflow
Communicating with the Host
Logging Workflows
Persisting Workflows
Creating Custom Activities
Creating a State Machine Workflow
Using WF and BizTalk together


You can sign up for the presentation here:
http://www.metrotorontoug.com/User+Group+Events/379.aspx

TVNZ Ondemand Launches

TVNZ Ondemand Launches

by | Mar 19, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

During my presentation yesterday (watch it) I talked about the concept of media convergence…


“Media Convergence is not the reduction of devices but the expansion of channels to content combinations.”


I used TVNZ as an example to demonstrate these changing times.



This morning I received an email from John Ferguson (Production Manager of Interactive) at TVNZ anouncing the launch of their ondemand service.


I worked with John and his team on the great Vista Sidebar gadget that they produced and I’m convinced that this team really gets it!


Now over to ondemand to try it out!


The Long Tail of TV in NZ is with us!


Great work!

Emerging Web Technologies

by | Mar 18, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I presented today alongside David Bolocker amongst others on Service Oriented Architecture, Web 2.0 and Mashups.


I even came up with my own quote…


“Software Convergence, is not the reduction of solutions but the expansion of presentation & information to user combinations.”

Check out my presentation at http://gobeyond.net.nz/brightstar and tell me what you think.


Michael Sampson live blogged the event.

Guy Kawasaki

by | Mar 18, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I was recently lucky enough to see Guy Kawasaki present to Microsoft on the Art of Evangelism… it was a very entertaining session.


While enough said Guy is a legand and you can see him virtually talking about why it’s essential to innovate-and how to do it.


Register Now (yeah too many steps I know) – session is March 19 11:00 AM Pacific Time or (6am Tuesday morning NZ time)… the web cast will be available on-demand 72 hours after the event so you don’t have to be an early bird.


One comment Guy said during his presentation that resonated with me was that since he has left Apple Apple have never asked him back to speak… their loss I guess.


Vcal here to get into your calendar.

Mvp Summit: it’s over

Mvp Summit: it’s over

by | Mar 17, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Turns out I couldn’t post that much. Anyway, I really enjoyed the deep dive sessions included in the “Connected Systems” track, at Microsoft building 43. Clemens Vasters did the introduction to an agenda that would span topics such as BizTalk, Wcf, Wf, Identity (CardSpace+MIIS/ILM), and even POX/Rest/Ajax. Session’s durations ranged from 30min to 1 hour, and some had to be cut short or the overal agenda would be delayed. Marjan Kalantar did an excelent job in the organization.


One of the sessions that was most active was by Paul “Workflow” Andrew, on the topic of BizTalk vs .Net (specifically, WF+WCF). Paul pointed out that all of these are being developed by CS people (the only part of the .Net framework not being developed by the C.S.Division is WPF), and that while .Net is a framework, BizTalk is a premium server. Some structural parts of BizTalk are being replaced, that much is true, but that also means the resources can be invested in other areas. Very little is known (by us :-)) about where exacly evolution will happen, but the information was there, for those listening atentivelly. 🙂


Like I said in the previous posts, the Summit is in a big part a “networking” event, and I did get to meet several BizTalk Mvp’s, as well as several other Mvps from random competencies. My program included a Q&A and a dinner with people from the CSD/BizTalk teams. Both proved to be very interesting. One interesting note on this was the MVPs proved to be very demanding of Microsoft, which was interesting to see. Most of us are MVP’s because we have a passion for technology, but that doesn’t make us less demanding %u00abcustomers%u00bb.


As to information I can share: BizTalk R2 will be released in the second half of 2007, and the first public beta (beta2?) will probably come out near of little after the end of this month.


Finally, Seattle: the city is located in a great place, geographically, the only problem is really the weather, makes you wonder if it affects the software Microsoft produces :-). My favourite spots were the Pike Street Market, the amazing-amazing–amazing Elliot Bay Book Company (photos: 1, 2), and obviously the Space Needle. No time to see more or drive around. Maybe next year if I am nominated again (the next summit will he held 14-18/April), or at the SOA & Business Processes Conference later this year.


[Edit]
Other stuff to try from the CSD.