Professional ASP.NET 3.5 Book (only $16 on Amazon for a short time)

by community-syndication | May 6, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

.NET 3.5 Framework – some low level big bits, sockets and peer to peer evolutions

by community-syndication | May 6, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hi folks,

While freezing in NZ (this week) I came across this this great MSDN article discussing
some of the lower level implementation details around .NET 3.5 Framework.

The part that interests me is the Presence information (right at the end of the article)
where once a connection is setup, you can get presence information about the other
party – right from the .NET 3.5 framework.

If you’ve ever had to try and develop for that other ways i.e. by talking straight
to communicator, or messenger or… etc.

You’ll realise that they each have a slightly different API set, (some accept SIP,
some don’t, some require it, some don’t…) and it’s opening up trouble – cause on
the target deployment machine…can you imagine the production guys when you say “hang
on, I’ve just got to go and download Messenger (from Live)….”

Anyway – here’s the article.

Enjoy – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163356.aspx

Article Series on BizTalk and WCF: Part VIII, BizTalk Adapter Pack Service Model Patterns

by community-syndication | May 5, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

So how would you use the BizTalk Adapter Pack to build a RESTful HTTP URI on top of an Oracle database table?  What about calling Oracle stored procedures that made use of either strong or weak ref cursors?  In my latest article for TopXML.com,  I explore how to consume the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack’s Oracle […]

MSDN BizTalk Blog

by community-syndication | May 5, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

It looks like the BizTalk blog at msdn is new. Take a look.

Next Melbourne BizTalk User Group Meeting – Tuesday 6th May

by community-syndication | May 4, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

We will be holding the next Melbourne BizTalk User Group Meeting on Tuesday 6th May 2008 at 5:30pm

The venue and sponsor for the meeting will be Stargate Group at Level 3, 600 Victoria Street, Richmond

The topics will be:

Bill Chesnut from Stargate Group (www.stargategroup.com.au) will do a presentation on “Introduction to Trading Partner Management”

Bill Chesnut from Stargate Group (www.stargategroup.com.au) will do a presentation on “Advanced BizTalk Rule Engine Examples”

Please note we are starting the meeting at 5:30pm and there will be food and drinks supplied

Please rsvp for [email protected] if you plan on attending the meeting.

RAISERROR and the BizTalk Sql Adapter…

by community-syndication | May 4, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

There has to be a better way to do this – if you know of one, kindly post a
comment.

Until then, here is a technique that will allow you to ensure that if a stored procedure
that BizTalk is calling is unable to complete its work successfully, you can rollback
the work and be notified of that fact within your orchestration.

1. In the stored procedure, use RAISERROR with a severity greater than 10 in the event
   of an error.  This should abort the (DTC) transaction that the BizTalk Sql
   Adapter initiated (that wraps the work within the stored procedure.)
2. Use a scope around the Send/Recieve shapes in your orchestration that deal with this
   stored procedure.  You will want to catch Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.XlangSoapException…but
   you can’t.  The designer won’t let you.  So…be brave,
   open the ODX, and look for the catch block so you can modify it as shown below (see
   “ExceptionType”):

<om:Element Type="Catch" OID="e7590870…" ParentLink="Scope_Catch" …>

<om:Property Name="ExceptionName" Value="soapex" /> 


 <om:Property Name="ExceptionType" Value="Microsoft.XLANGs.Core.XlangSoapException"
/>


<om:Property Name="IsFaultMessage" Value="False" /> 


<om:Property Name="ReportToAnalyst" Value="True" />

<om:Property Name="Name" Value="CatchException_2" />

<om:Property Name="Signal" Value="True" /> 


</om:Element>

3. With this solution, you will wind up with the message you are sending to the stored
   procedure in a suspended state whenever the RAISEERROR occurs.  This isn’t a
   huge deal, but you have to plan how these will get cleaned up.  It could be done
   manually, with a script, or with an orchestration or send port that subscribes
   to these suspended messages (try a filter with ErrorReport.FailureCode ==
   0xc0c0167a to get started, though you probably want to be more specific.)

>

After you’ve gone to these lengths, it is always worth considering whether you
want to have your orchestration call a component so you are a little closer to the
action.  But, if you have need of the adapter, this should work out.

Upgraded dasBlog

by community-syndication | May 4, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Hi everyone.

I have just upgraded the software on my blog to dasBlog version 1.9.7174.1.

I hope it has been smooth for you all, and if you notie any difficulties, please let
me know.

Later, I will upgarde to dasBlog 2.0, which has been out forquite some time, but one
step at the time, ight? 🙂

—

eliasen

Finally Rediscovered those hidden 64 bit drivers for Fujitsu Lifebook T4215

by community-syndication | May 4, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

It’s a page that’s hidden away and difficult to land on from a Search….so I thought
I’d list it here for us all

http://www.pc-ap.fujitsu.com/support/drv_lb_vis64_t4215.html

Getting *a* version of Skype to run on x64 Windows

by community-syndication | May 4, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

After much trialling and not much success…..Skype would install on my Windows Server
2008 x64 no problems, but at the sign-in screen the app would crash.

This happened in many different ways over many different Skype install permutations.

I think I’ve cracked it with an older version being the goods:

http://www.oldapps.com/download.php?oldappsid=SkypeSetup_3.0.0.190.exe

Cheers,

Mick.

Sun not doing well – but they talk a good game

by community-syndication | May 3, 2008 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Sun
is not having a good quarter.  This reminded me of a few things that
have been bugging me lately.  I remember going to a live presentation of Scott
McNealy’s when he was creating a Java terminal/workstation.  I remember hearing
him say something to the effect of “This is the Windows-killer, in a year no one will
buy PCs with Windows – everyone including your secretaries will be using these workstations”. 
Of course, none of his predictions came to pass, and so the company still limps on.

My philosophy has always been that actually building a better technology and making
it a success has nothing to do with talking about how world-changing it will be. 
In fact, I have always thought the opposite.  I think showing people what a technology
is capable of is better than just talking about what it’s going to do in the market,
or that’s it’s the next “x-killer”.  Sure, you can say, “See how great the y
feature of this product is”, but predictions as to success and reach just sound dumb
to me.

I’ve always really disliked Scott McNealy, not because he was loud, and not because
he hated Microsoft, but
because he always talked about how this new thing Sun was doing was going to be the
Microsoft/Windows-killer.  How about just making a great technology? And
then after it becomes the “X killer”, you can boast.

A number of things I’ve heard or seen lately remind me of Scott McNealy.  
I wish people would just do cool things or build cool things without talking about
what the effect of that thing will be.  Even if the person might be really cool
and super-smart, or even if the technology might be the most important thing to computer
science ever, how about just showing us what you’ve done or built.  Accolades
will naturally come given the right ideas or actions.

I’ve always thought that if you talk about how important something will be before
it becomes important, is the kiss of death (assuming it does or would have become
important).  Maybe that’s some universal force. Or maybe that’s because anyone
who feels the need to make those kinds of statements is actually showing us that they
are desperate and insecure, otherwise they would just be showing us features and we’d
grok how great the thing was.

While he was writing it, did Matz talk about how the language he was developing (Ruby ,
if you weren’t aware) was going to be overwhelmingly popular?  I’m guessing not
(certainly there isn’t any evidence of that).

Did the Beatles go around in 1962 talking about how their music would change the world? 
-No, they just made music they way they wanted to and it turned out to have a tremendous
impact on music. It had that effect without them talking about how great they were.

My philosophy: Do something great, don’t talk about it.  Even if you think/hope/are
convinced it will be great, just do it first.  You can talk later about how you
hoped it would be great, but talking about it first is lame.  Having self-confidence
is a positive, but talking about having self-confidence is lame.

“Never make forecasts, especially about the future. In no time, it will be a forgotten
memory.” – Samuel Goldwyn

Sorry for the non-technical post – but I just had to say this outloud somewhere. 
Nothing to see here – move along 😉

Check out my BizTalk
R2 Training.