SharePoint world of ECM and Information Management : General

Australia only discount vouchers for MS Exams. Ask me one

Michael — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:57:20 GMT

I have several 10% discount vouchers on Microsoft Exams valid till March 31, 2009

Note that the limited time offer is valid in Australia ony and for Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS), Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) and Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) exams only.

If you want to get one drop me a word via “Contact Form” page

Mirror: Australia only discount vouchers for MS Exams. Ask me one

SQL Encryption Overview

Michael — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:58:49 GMT

In these days I’m working on SQL encryption, and would like to post best guidelines for this

1. Choose from Symmetric vs Asymmetric encryption, based on the security of key distribution.

Symmetric encryption algorithms are historically computationally fast, which makes them a good choice when encrypting large amounts of data or when key distribution is not a concern

2. Protect “Data-in-motion” – transferred data by selecting the right protocol and “Data-at-rest” – stored data.

3. Choose from encryption in Database Level vs Row/Collumn Level.

Database level encrypt the whole data file and each db manipulations request data decryption, which hinders performance for big db.

4. Prefer to create Certificates rather then use pass-phrases or keys

It simplifies key management and you don’t need to use your pass or pass-phrase in each stored proc

5. Generate you keys with the most advanced algorithms (AES for Symmetric for example, but it request Win2k3 and above)

Resources:

Mirror: SQL Encryption Overview

Farewell to TechEd 2008, Sydney

Michael — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:02:01 GMT

Teched 2008 in Sydney finished. It were amazing 4 days of intensive sessions and parties afterwards. I attended mostly all SharePoint session about infrastructure, governance and architecture, BizTalk sessions and ASP.NET MVC and LINQ session. The overall impression is high. Not all session were as good as I expected, but SharePoint once where just awesome - Joel Oleson and Michael Noel are just great. Really impressed.

Got a lot of new info, which trying to sort now.

The locknote was run by MS “futuronist” architect, describing how nowadays communication changes our life. The resume is that - expose everything to “services” and “context based devices” are our future.

Can’t wait the Tech-Ed 2009 in Goldcoast and expecting to deliver my SharePoint presentations at TechEd 2009

Mirror: Farewell to TechEd 2008, Sydney

Attending TechEd, Australia

Michael — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:37:20 GMT

Going to attend the following TechEd sessions

Mirror:

8 random facts

Michael — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 07:58:41 GMT

Last 3 weeks were a bit tough, didn't have enough time to blog

I moved back to the Sydney from long client engagement at Canberra government, had 2 short-term engagement in Sydney and was tagged by Mitch Denny regarding 8 random facts.

So, it's my turn

I'm half Russian half Pole - my family roots start from Kraków (Poland), but I was born in Russia.
At high school I took the third place at the sport sniper competition over all regional schools
The first PC I ever seen were Commodore Amiga. I was so stunned and I understood that it's exactly what I wanna do all my life.
The first game I wrote were Sokoban, it were developed on basic with ZX-Spectrum. (somewhere between 1990-1992)
I have some problems with vestibular apparatus - it feel myself dizzy even in cab
I was an active FIDO user (NET5063:27.12)and used TMail + GoldED, also I run BBS with Quake game content
I took the 3rd place at the regional Quake-2 contest at year 2001
I was fired from one of my first jobs for failing the project deadline (8 years ago).

Mirror: 8 random facts

Twitter map

Michael — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:10:28 GMT

"Twitter Blocks" is a nice tool to build the map of your Twitter's neighbours

Mine looks so http://explore.twitter.com/blocks/#laflour

Mirror: Twitter map

Era of pure software developers comes to an end

Michael — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:24:52 GMT

In last years I've started to note that there is no place for the pure developers in Computer Science world - their era comes to end. By "pure software developers" I mean those who speciality is just writing code and nothing else.

I'd say I mean geeks. I'm not blaming them, because I consider myself being a geek a bit, but I reckon geeks are not valuable now as they were before - about 5 years ago.

There are some changes happened in IT world. Looking around I found that IT became mature - we are not in infancy stage. We started to develop not for the sake of developing but for others. We are trying to automate the businesses, routines and we put software wherever it possible. It's hard to find the place where we don't use PC. We even finally started not the business for software, but software for business.

Infancy has been ended.

Now we need to think what to do with all that crap we created and how to resolve existed problems

We are on the threshold to come on another level of abstractions, but we can't go further being on the same boat - we need paradigm shift. We need to be on the next level of maturity to solve current problems.

Looking at the existed problems in all areas, like prediction systems, data mining, robotics end etc we see that everything is really good engineered - good architectures and good models, but it doesn't work as we expected, because we are missing the humane factor.

I mean that existed Computer Science engineers can't solve existed problems, because they think in machine terms, losing the humanity. We resolve problems building machine algorithms, not the psychology algorithms.

Just a simple example, when you bought something on Amazon they record your purchasing and then when you return back they try to predict your taste, suggesting new items based on what is already bought - just standard "prediction system". It's good example which shows the power of machine perspective, where everything is easy predicted. But fails from human point of view. Half year ago I bought comics on Amazon as a present to my friend. Since then whenever I come to the Amazon they always suggest me different comics :( I don't want them. I don't even like comics. That purchase was exceptional for me, I only interesting in IT books. System is not able to track such behaviour which is natural to people.

I reckon that nowadays we should bring the psychological engineers to Computer Science world, who build the psycho logic algorithms based on the human actions. We should predict people behaviour not the results of behaviour.

This psychology in Computer Science will be that factor (paradigm shift) which allows us to go on the next level in Computer Science, and helps to solve existed problems.

We already made the first step in that direction - "usability engineers", who are actually good psychologists, and who help us to develop for people, not for machines. But I hardly know about 5-10 products which were developed with "usability engineers" assistance.

We are still too far to build the "psychological" software.

Footnote: this post was written after I found the http://www.netflixprize.com/ competition, where DVD store suggested 1 million for those who improve their prediction system. The most confusing is that contest began October 2, 2006 and continues at least October 2, 2011. 5(!) years to find the solution. It's exactly what I wrote about. These guys really understand the problems with existed computer science where no humanity exists. And they hope that psychological factor will be introduced and properly implemented in the next 5 years.

Mirror: Era of pure software developers comes to an end

Twitter clients

Michael — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 09:43:50 GMT

Today Mitch asked about the favourite Twitter clients.

I use the following 3 clients

Google Talk Twitter - just to update status. No list of users, no replies, no following, nothing.
Twadget (Vista SideBar widget) - my favourite one. List of users, easy to reply and update the status. Always on the screen. Only one disadvantage - can't scroll the list of statuses :( For this reason I use number 3
OutTwik - outlook twitter. Good support of status, replies, list of statuses with pictures. Keep to look through the history, because don't like to switch to different folder to read statuses.

Update: Twitting there http://twitter.com/laflour

Mirror: Twitter clients

.NET 3.5 Common Namespaces and Types Poster Published

Michael — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 11:08:00 GMT

Using this poster we can easily inspect what new was added to .NET 3.5 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7b645f3a-6d22-4548-a0d8-c2a27e1917f8&displaylang=en&tm

The most interesting changes are:

in ASP.NET regarding authentication and roles

System.Web.ApplicationServices namespace provides classes that enable you to access ASP.NET forms authentication, roles, and profiles application services as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services.
System.Web.ClientServices namespace provides classes that support access in Windows-based applications to the ASP.NET AJAX authentication, roles, and profiles services.

in WCF regarding P2P, new ServiceModels

System.Net.PeerToPeer namespace provides access to peer networking functionality.
System.ServiceModel.Web classes that make up the Web Http Programming Model.
System.ServiceModel.Syndication classes that make up the Syndication Object Model

in CLR

System.DateTimeOffset
System.TimeZoneInfo
System.AddIn
System.Diagnostics.Eventing
System.Diagnostics.PerformanceData
System.IO.Pipes

and etc.