Agile and SCRUM

Agile vs. Waterfall: A Tale of Two Teams - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHS-ycbRwqI


SCRUM - Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management often seen in agile software development, a type of software engineering.


What is Scrum? - http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/topics/scrum
What are the main activities in Scrum? - http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/topics/scrum
What are the main artifacts of a Scrum project? - http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/topics/scrum
What are the main roles on a Scrum team? - http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/topics/scrum



Scrum Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)

Scrum with Urban Turtle - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxiuE-1ujCM&feature=player_embedded#!


Agile Intro 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbhKG0rNWgQ&feature=related
Agile Intro 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pEx7zONEUs&feature=related
Agile Intro 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbn6hMAxPZ0&feature=related

Kinect Effect Reaches Into Hospitals, Senior Centers

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2011/dec11/12-19KinectEffect.mspx?rss_fdn=Custom

10 predictions for 2012 in tech

1. The web experience: Cascadia believes this potential $8 billion market, which has been led by the growth in online shopping, will continue. Speech recognition technology, thanks to the popularity of Apple’s Siri, will also gain more attention.

2. Cloud computing and data center automation: 2011 was the year of the cloud, and companies will now look to reduce the huge cost of running data centers with data center automation solutions.

3. Continued growth in the cloud: Enterprise will want affordable cloud solutions. Cascadia predicts that small and medium-sized businesses will be the biggest market.

4. Software development becomes agile: The growth of mobile apps has shown that new applications can hit the market in mere days after development. Cascadia thinks large software companies will recognize the growing importance of tablets and smartphones and acquisitions may follow.

5. Convergence of SoLoMo: Social, local and mobile have all seen growing interest with the growth of services like Foursquare. Mobile commerce could be a $100 billion industry in a couple years, and Cascadia believes this will lead to M&A activity.

6. Online video advertising: This segment will continue to grow, and advertisers will continue to shift away from print and television. By 2015, online video advertising spending could reach $7.1 billion.

7. Video content from broadcast to broadband: More and more people will watch video online, and this will result in more M&A activity for companies that make technology to digitize, store and distribute video.

8. Brick-and-mortar acquires e-retailers: Most brick-and-mortar stores have an online storefront, but consumers are buying more from e-retailers. Cascadia thinks acquisitions could be forthcoming from companies looking to maintain their strong positions in the market, like Home Depot, Lowe’s or Bed Bath and Beyond.

9. Social voice gets louder: Hundreds of millions of people are now on social media sites, but advertisers will continue to want more detail about the users of social media. Companies offering social analytics will see interest from investors.

10. Continued consolidation in online advertising: Ad networks of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft dominate the online advertising space. The space could become a $77 billion industry by 2016, and Cascadia believes these companies could shut out competitors.

Extracted - http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/12/10-predictions-for-2012-in-tech-the.html?ana=from_rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TechFlash+%28TechFlash+-+Seattle%27s+Technology+News+Source%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

HTML 5 Browser Support Banners

http://www.findmebyip.com/litmus/#html5-web-applications

http://www.focus.com/images/view/11905/

The First Real-World App Store

https://openspacestore.com/

The Rise of the "App Internet"

At a recent conference in Paris, Forrester Research's Chairman and CEO George Colony challenged attendees to change the way they think about the Internet. He posited his theory that the Web is really software architecture and the Internet is becoming the "App Internet."

Colony explained, "In this model, powerful local devices (PCs, smart phones, tablets) run applications that simultaneously take advantage of resources in the Web/Cloud. If you want to see this model in action, check out iPhone and Android applications."

Forrester believes that this new "App Internet" could be worth $2.2 billion."

Extracted from - http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/12/app-internet

Things to remember while working in a software company

Once you get into a company, you will come across many different people with different attitudes and passions.
In the same project, you may have competitors / the more lazy / one who neither wants to move ahead and can't even see you moving or the one who falls for you, irrespective of your position.
Well, these may make you worry and if you are mature enough, you can make others worry by ignoring them (which is the toughest part to do, after all we are humans with emotions).

Let me turn to a developer who is working hard to prove how dedicated/strong he is and becomes disappointed after the review/rating/appraisal. The most important thing is not to just work hard, but let your superior know what you are doing. What is the risk you are taking/have taken, the amount of time you are spending in the organization. That way, he will always have the visibility of what you are doing and can guide you as and when required. It’s always better to shadow someone as you may not be best at the very initial stage, but his/her experience will help you to grow better. There are people who might want to surprise everyone/superior with something extra, they hide what they are doing and only if they succeed, they come up or sometimes being lazy they go back, and this most of the time, puzzles the superior, but it's important to note that the project and your superior are not your family members. They can’t read you until you convey to them.

It is also noticed that the developer wants to do better in projects than what the client expects (the design/development) but it's always better to have a clear communication and visibility before you do something because sometimes, the line you have changed may have its own significance to the client/project, and they may fire back.

One thing which we should accept is that predicting someone’s mind is always risky than to commit/ understand and work on what we hear/ what has been said. There might be very simple mantras to get flick in the organization.
What I would say is to first make yourself simple, be dedicated towards the assigned work, before that do analysis and evaluate the timeline, try to be a bit committed, also give some time for regular improvement (upgrade), have a cup of coffee with co-workers and turn to a helping hand as and when required.

Let me add about the quality of work... which is always better to provide, but check out the timeline. You shouldn't try to be perfect when you know you are working on a tight schedule. You can take up all the points to your superior with clear and polite communication. There is no harm in using shortcuts as and when really required.

Let me go back and pick the used terms. When we say helping hand, it should be help and not to take the whole credit/steal from someone's mouth and eat fully, grow and let others grow, so people will remember you. When we say committed, you should check for the possibility of achievement and try out if you can't achieve within a given time, no need to feel low, no one is perfect but giving prior intimation to superior is always better.
About upgrading, yeah there should be some hours of time you give for yourself; you shouldn’t be puzzled after years of work as you don't know what the current market demands, also accept the truth... Perfection is always important, but knowledge is wealth.

Well, the other thing is coffee with co-worker, yeah it's important, grooming with co-workers sometimes brings people closer and gives an opportunity to understand each other, creates an emotional touch. It also gives an opportunity to share ideas and get knowledge. You shouldn't drag your colleague if he/she is really busy; make it casual rather than a very important task. Your tea time shouldn’t be so long that your superior is really getting disappointed, and it shouldn’t be a sort of tension for her/him. Keep track of your activity, we shouldn't forget that the company pays us on an hourly basis and we should be worth the money. Everyone will have their own way to track the daily activity, but it's better you draft your day's schedule on paper as soon as you reach the office and check and work if you have some priority task to finish (In short, list out your priorities).

Now let’s step into a role where if a person is managing a team, obviously which can't be a simple job, as the job of a junior because if a junior is noticed by one superior then the lead will be surrounded with many eyes, a team, his superior and other stockholders, it’s not just managing one but managing many stockholders of a project with the project.
When in IT, the most important quality is to adapt your leadership style according to the situation and/or the state of the team - an example is to be a supervisory leader when a team is forming but to be a participative leader when a team is performing. A leader must play with the individual strengths rather point to weaknesses. People love the one who supports, guides and gives room for growth, rather than ignores. Honesty, patience and confidence are key qualities. The other thing that a leader must have is vision.

When we talk about a manager, he/she should be a leader and with better planning quality. A perfect planning gets half of the work done. This comes only with experience, sometimes after failing several times, you may not be perfect, and need not worry about it, and we are not here to succeed always. It’s better to have people in control as much as the project, which surely helps in progressing.

We will see the other way around, in IT few situations which often happen in small scale industry. The scarcity of the project, the scarcity of resources/expects resources, which sometimes may bring the tough time for an individual. Most of the time, this leads to competition/ worry to upgrade/ make resources to quit the job. A simple tip is to keep updating yourself. It is often noticed that if a person gets into completion would always love to win and sometimes can go to any extent to make others lose or show down and sometimes, a person really doesn't think about where the path leads to. He/she shouldn’t forget that people are watching them. It is recommended not to get into such situations. Live and let others live. The world is round and every individual has his/her own strengths. Never work to please someone in the organization, just look for your individual strength and the organization benefits. Your individual growth is directly/indirectly the growth of the organization. Remember the resume should build slowly. Try to make sure that you have a strong foundation. Avoid comparison.

Also your stability in the organization always makes a lot of difference in your organization and resume, it will make you stronger but you should stay back for the sake of the resume, your everyday leaning and growth is most important. Remember it’s not family planning to plan for minimum 3/5 or 10 years stability. Place yourself where you are learning and growing and always share ideas.

Last but not the least statement for IT and non IT folks, try to be happy with whatever you do, you shouldn’t lose self-respect and peace of mind... Being happy is not just what we meant to be, we are here to do a little more. Even tough “successful or the richest person is weaker in front of the happiest person”. Don't die to live and be happy!!
Good luck!!

Extracted from - http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/295787/Remember-things-while-working-in-Software-Company

How to become a successful businessman

Believe in yourself

Being an entrepreneur is a lot more risky than the conventional job routine. There is no regular salary; you have to find customers on your own. Marketing your product/service and financing the project are also of concern. I noticed that most entrepreneurs use a combination of due diligence and gut instincts while evaluating their product/service. They are good at spotting a need in the market and then backing themselves up to believe that their idea can fill that void.

Lesson one -- Believe in your idea. Never underestimate what you can do. You may surprise yourself.

• Entrepreneurship: What it takes

Hire the right people

Most entrepreneurs highlighted this as the toughest aspect of building a business. Sanjay Bhargava, who co-founded Paypal, recommended entrepreneurs to bring in people who are really good at what they do and also to focus on ensuring the team members get along with each other.

Some entrepreneurs confessed they made the initial mistake of hiring friends and people they liked, but soon realised that friends were not always the best employees.

Lesson two -- Build your team with people possessing complementary skills, not 'yes men' who are always showering praise. You need employees, partners and mentors you trust, who will give you honest feedback and take your company to the next level.

• Have a question you want to ask?

Be money wise

While some entrepreneurs went in for conventional sources of funding from a venture capitalist or banks, etc, quite a few started out with their savings or by borrowing money from friends and family. Most entrepreneurs said they focused on increasing efficiency and optimising costs and overheads. One entrepreneur shared that he consciously stayed away from non-essentials like an extravagant office, equipments, etc. The focus was on superior execution and high quality service.

Lesson three -- It's tempting to dream of a corner office, a pool table and expensive chairs, but give it some time. Start small and start efficient. Being better is more important than being bigger.

Concentrate on the message

"As a small business, most of our marketing is word-of-mouth. Our clients appreciate the kind of work we do and our reputation for delivering results," said Vidhanshu Bansal, founder of an information-technology company called Pixel Webtech.

Most entrepreneurs said that in the early days, their tendency was to focus on sales activities and as they grew, they started looking at various marketing initiatives, as that is the cement that gels customers, vendors and employees together. Their strategy kept changing, depending on what worked -- direct mailers, e-mail marketing, presentations at seminars, etc.

Lesson four -- Marketing a start-up business is a 24/7 activity and you need to pay attention to the message you're sending out to existing and prospective clients. Your message has to be tailored to meet the customer's expectations.

Keep the team motivated

Do not indulge in fault-finding or blame games. That was a clear message from most entrepreneurs. Pigeonholing a particular member of the team may spread negative vibes within the team and cost you time and quality. Celebrating every small success and appreciating team members will build a sense of camaraderie.

Lesson five -- Be a coach, rather than the star player. Appreciate and acknowledge the positive behaviours of team members so that the behaviours turn into consistent practices.

Make mistakes

"If you ain't a little bit scared, you ain't driving fast enough," said Deepak Wadhwa, another entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs agreed. Give your people the license to fail. It's ok to make a mistake as long as they are succeeding 9 out of 10 times, and making sure that they don't repeat those mistakes in the future.

Lesson six -- The worst mistake is the one that gets repeated. Create a culture of learning and experimentation right at the start of the business. This will become a powerful value with the growth of the business.

Be passionate

Most entrepreneurs accepted that the rewards of being an entrepreneur can be terrific but they were also of the opinion that there is no 'secret sauce.' There are a lot of magazines, self-help books and biographies of successful entrepreneurs that one can read, but at the end of the day, it's about execution. What you really need is to be passionate about your work.

Lesson seven -- If you are doing something and the day flies by, if you are surrounded with people you like to work with, then you have most of the ingredients for entrepreneurial success.

Extracted From - http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/jan/18entre.htm

Five Key Enterprise Development Trends

As we head into 2012, enterprise developers will need to focus on some major themes, including the emergence of HTML5, “big data” and analytics, and Agile Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). They should also continue to concentrate on Web, mobile and cloud development, and take advantage of advances in languages and integrated development environments (IDEs).

HTML5 is going like gangbusters. Microsoft has adopted HTML5 for Windows 8, Internet Explorer 9 and upcoming versions of the browser and other products. And there are indications that Microsoft may shelve future development of Silverlight, a development framework for building Web and mobile applications, after Silverlight 5 or a subsequent point release.

The onset of HTML5 also drove Adobe to halt its development of its Flash technology for mobile browsers.

“HTML5 is coming on strong as a standard, accelerated by the speed of change of hardware devices,” said Al Hilwa, an analyst with IDC. “By 2013, we will reach a point where 90 percent of smartphones and tablets will sport HTML5-capable browsers.”

However, Hilwa notes that it is important to remember that the need for a Flash browser plug-in continues on the desktop. “We don’t expect 90 percent of desktop browsers to be capable of HTML5 until 2015,” he said. “So the differentiation that Flash provides in high-end graphics and video protection continues, and Adobe will continue to invest in it.”

Web-based development environments, such as the Eclipse Orion, Cloud9 IDE, eXo Cloud IDE and others, are becoming more and more popular. “Web-based tools will become more important as development moves into the cloud,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. “However, we should expect a new way of thinking about Web-based IDEs. Trying to fit something like Eclipse into a Web browser just won’t scale. The nice thing about Orion is, it attempts to make the browser your IDE.”

The big data and analytics craze will continue to grow due to the explosion of data coming from intelligent devices, social media and other sources. According to IDC, the market for intelligent systems will grow substantially in the next few years, from 800 million units today to more than 2.3 billion by 2015. Shipments of embedded devices already exceed those of cell phones and PCs, and IDC predicts the market for intelligent systems will soon represent a $520 billion industry.

“Data has become the new currency,” said Kevin Dallas, Microsoft’s Windows Embedded general manager. As proof of how hot big data has become, venture capital firm Accel Partners launched a $100 million big data fund at the recent Hadoop World 2011 conference.

Meanwhile, “One of the most important trends in 2012 will be the maturation of Java PaaS [platform as a service],” said Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop Technologies. “While the transition will be a long one, Oracle’s Java Cloud culminates key announcements around PaaS offerings in 2011, and sends a signal that Java developers [should] start considering PaaS solutions as the deployment destination of new applications.”

The Eclipse Foundation’s Milinkovich said he believes the concept of Agile Application Lifecycle Management is becoming a reality. Developers are integrating new tools chains to support Agile development and a faster release process, he said.

“On the ALM side, a key trend to watch [in] 2012 is the open-source-powered tidal wave changing how developers work and collaborate,” Tasktop’s Kersten added.

Extracted From - http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Five-Key-Enterprise-Development-Trends-819318/

Try Windows Phone 7 on Iphone and android

try this on your mobile browser - aka.ms/wpdemo

HTML 5 Snooker Club

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5728198/Html5SnookerClub/Html5SnookerClub.htm

Web Development with Power Productivity and speed ASP.net New Site

Launch - http://www.asp.net/

Microsoft Kinect Connected with JAVA

Hi All

kinect Connected with Java

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJHR45u0wmo&feature=player_embedded

Extracted form - http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/kinect/Kinect-with-your-Eclipse-IDE

Why aren't smartphone app developers going where the sales are?

Windows Phone developer interest has risen during the third quarter of 2011. Source: Appcelerator


How developer interest for different smartphone platforms has changed over the past two years. Source: Appcelerator
Extracted From - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2011/nov/18/smartphone-app-developers-sales

Dream Job

Link - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/YourImagesAreAVirusTheyAreEVERYWHEREOnTheInternet.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScottHanselman+%28Scott+Hanselman+-+ComputerZen.com%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Kinect Effect

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/gallery/imageviewer.mspx?3AMBwaEoKCAtQ%2bsNlzHVTXml3CAzGFCzjJXqTjDzvT0OXRnjS5yQwJL5%2fzGW5q7HccqHqE53uqVskk8SM2lfyFV3fY50u2pcPMHAqwba%2bLTCttz1yXXGemq8LT92sclfQQ8cf8ugMgae1MnmwZ8T4GJ0F1rzbCU%2fp8cwqmO5nTUzICEa30oU43qltgXC9QUspGKQ8KP%2fl2RKKiVhv%2bXcB1uQHWrhEbSCrw3g1iN03npCT2U8HE6GYhygt9ulPDwwbYQUCBs97NSVdH%2bqoIAERvrUUQ8VWIUHSUHCFVR9vehd4RrKF%2f6zeMn4pNXpsS9SdidktIp%2bU1FoLtWkKj%2fp%2beRqEyTm%2bfjZvJKSzucmWqk%3d

First Nokia Windows Phone 7 - Nokia Lumia 800

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QRBobovHuY&feature=related

Launch @ nokia world 2011 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbFpGt9HScs

Nokia with windows phone 7

http://events.nokia.com/nokiaworld/

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/26/the-nokia-world-2011-keynote-liveblog/

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Delivers Social Productivity to Customers

Delivering Social Productivity

Social CRM is the convergence of social technologies with CRM processes and technology, and organizations today are looking for ways to leverage social technologies to deliver improved business results and customer satisfaction. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM approach to social technologies enables people to use social CRM in a highly productive way from within the tools they already know.

With the new release, Microsoft Dynamics CRM introduces new social collaboration capabilities that include the following:

•	Activity feeds. Configurable, real-time notifications on important relationships and significant business events via a blended view of micro-blog posts and interactions for a person, customer or sales opportunity.
•	Micro-blogging. Status updates and notifications regarding business events and actions, providing simple experiences for users.
•	Conversations. Post questions, observations, suggestions and status updates, allowing users to collaborate quickly and efficiently, locate information or expertise and gather feedback from others.
•	Automated activity updates. Post information directly to the activity feed based on configurable event rules (for example, when a sales opportunity is closed). People can subscribe to or “follow” these activity feeds and consume them in a variety of ways.
•	Mobile activity feeds. A new Microsoft Dynamics CRM mobile Activity Feeds application for Windows Phone 7 allows users to view their activity feeds while away from the office.*

“As companies grow across geographical and technological boundaries, businesses need to be able to capture knowledge and disperse it effectively to ensure people have the most up-to-date information when they need it,” said Jim Steger, co-founder and principal at Sonoma Partners. “To be effective, social tools need to be easily accessed and usable, they need to be searchable allowing you to filter information, and they need to be a holistic part of the CRM solution. Microsoft’s approach to social productivity uniquely meets those criteria.”

More information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and a demonstration of the new social collaboration capabilities are available at http://crm.dynamics.com/nov2011.

Delivering a Unified Office 365 Experience and Enterprise Cloud Enhancements

Today, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 provide a seamless experience for end users. With the Microsoft Dynamics CRM November 2011 service update, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online simplifies cloud service management by offering a common administration, billing and provisioning platform with Office 365.^**

In addition, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM November 2011 service update offers improved disaster recovery features with in-region replication to further help protect data and offer high levels of business continuity in the event of a disaster.

More information about partners and customers deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 can be found at http://crm.dynamics.com. Those who want to follow and engage with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM community can do so at @MSDynamicsCRM, #crm2011.

About Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP solutions empower your people to be more productive and your systems to last longer and scale as your business grows, while enabling you to derive the insights necessary to respond quickly in an ever-changing world of business.

Microsoft Unveils Preview of Roslyn Compiler-as-a-Service

As promised, Microsoft has released a community technology preview for Roslyn, its new compiler-as-a-service for C# and Visual Basic. Usually, developers can't see what happens inside a compiler. However, "The Roslyn compilers become services exposed for general consumption, with all of that internal compiler-discovered knowledge made available for developers and their tools to harness," blogged Microsoft's S. Somasegar. "The stages of the compiler for parsing, for doing semantic analysis, for binding, and for IL emitting are all exposed to developers via rich managed APIs."

You can download the CTP here.

HoloDesk - Microsoft

This is the future

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHL5tJ9ja_w&feature=player_embedded#!

Microsoft wants to transform your hand into a touchscreen

hi Guys

This is a kind of a marvelous technology which is introduced by microsoft

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz17lbjOFn8&feature=player_embedded#!

Cheers !!!

AK

The Specification Pattern

Following pattern is very use full decupling intermediate functionalities in between two domains.

Thanks shanka (My team member) for valuable contribution on research

Cheers!!!!

Continuing our series on Domain Driven Design, we now get to one of the more interesting patterns in DDD – the Specification.

A Specification is, in simple terms, a small piece of logic that sits on it’s own and gives an answer to a simple question … “does this match?”

With a Specification we split the logic of how a selection is made, away from the thing we are selecting.

We have a Customer, and we want to be able check if they are eligible for a discount on a Product.

If we were to put a method on the Customer entity, for example .IsEntitledToDiscountPrice(Product) we start to couple our entities tightly together, and as the number of questions we want to ask of our entity increases, the more polluted its interface becomes.

To avoid this we can use a Specification.

Some Code – A First for the Series

The basic implementation of Specification has a single method .IsSatisifiedBy, in our Discount example above we may have a EligibleForDiscountSpecification, the method would be .IsSatisifiedBy(Customer c)

The actual Specification is variable in how it is defined, but a very simple version for this scenario would be:

public interface ISpecification {     bool IsSatisfiedBy(T sut); }  public class EligibleForDiscountSpecification : ISpecification<Customer> {     private readonly Product _product;     public EligibleForDiscountSpecification(Product product)     {         _product = product;     }      public bool IsSatisfiedBy(Customer customer)     {         return (_product.Price < 100 && customer.CreditRating >= _product.MinimumCreditRating);     } }

This now simplifies selection or matching, and the Customer and Product are no longer coupled – our Specification now knows how to decide if the Customer is eligible for a discount. Ignoring the fact that the following is a rotten unit test, we can use our Specification like this:

[Fact] public void TestSpecification() {     var product = new Product() { MinimumCreditRating = 3, Price = 50 };     var spec = new EligibleForDiscountSpecification(product);     var goodCustomer = new Customer() { CreditRating = 3 };     var badCustomer = new Customer() { CreditRating = 1 };      Assert.True(spec.IsSatisfiedBy(goodCustomer));     Assert.False(spec.IsSatisfiedBy(badCustomer)); }

Two things become very easy when using Specification – we can easily select from lists and we can pass dependencies without creating coupling.

Extracted from - http://devlicio.us/blogs/casey/archive/2009/03/02/ddd-the-specification-pattern.aspx

Microsoft Tellme "Say it. Get it."

The Future --------------It’s not about you learning the technology .It’s about the technology leaning about you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB6pWs46GY8

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Tellme/developers/default.aspx

Enterprise app makers not fully embracing HTML5

While developers working on business apps agree that development of HTML5 is coming along, they’re not ready to abandon native applications. At Mobilize 2011, the theme was hybrid.
Salesforce.com SVP Sean Whiteley, speaking from very recent experience, said his company hedged their bets with a hybrid solution for their upcoming application, Do.com. He said Salesforce built it as a native app for iPhone and Android because they “didn’t want it to feel like a web app, it needed to be fast and snappy,” and it needed to take advantage of all the features available on the user’s iPhone or Android.
But for tablets, they did go HTML5. ”We’re doing it all. We didn’t have to make a decision, we just had to figure out what to do using what. HTML5 is still not there yet, it’s very early, but we do believe it will evolve.”
Adam Blum, CEO of Rhomobile, agreed that such a choice between the two does not need to be made. “It’s not HTML5 versus native. It’s all about native apps. You need device capability… but [you] also [need to] leverage HTML5.”
That’s because it’s all about getting people to use those apps at work. If they’re not easy to use, they won’t be used, and Blum says that you need native apps for that because people aren’t comfortable working on the web all the time. “They need to know that when they save something to a device you save it,” he said as an example.
Santiago Becerra, CEO and co-founder of MeLLmo said that while there are advantages to hybrid applications that leverage both native and HTML5, there are some things that are “impossible” to recreate in HTMl5. “For high-end experiences you really have to go native,” he said.
Blum agreed that native will stay out in front of where HTML5 is for a while. “I don’t think HTML5 will keep up with [native] device capabilities, but I do think you owe it to yourself as an enterprise developer” to incorporate HTML5 in enterprise apps in some way

Extracted From http://gigaom.com/2011/09/27/enterprise-html5-mobilize-2011

Enterprise Application Development in a Mobile World

The indicators and the research are everywhere: mobile apps are becoming the dominant force in software development. A recent Forrester Research report titled Mobile App Internet Recasts The Software And Services Landscape predicted the mobile apps market could balloon to $38 billion by 2015 from its current value of $1.7 billion. The challenge for developers and IT departments is tackling their mobile development needs while integrating mobile apps with multichannel and enterprise apps.

The solution to that challenge (according to Forrester) might be to design for mobile first. That's the principal conclusion of the newForrester Wave: Mobile Collaboration, Q3 2011 report written by Ted Schadler. Mobile collaboration now requires a new app approach, asserts Schadler.

Mobile User Expectations and Demands

Schadler's report states, "We now live and always will live in a multi-device world, where companies and consumers choose different smartphone and tablet platforms and expect to get apps on all of them."

Increasingly, work has become something that people do anywhere. Two-thirds of the information workforce already works remotely, according to Demystifying The Mobile Workforce, a Forrester report issued this June. That figure is only likely to grow, given the adoption of tablets and the growing use of smartphones.

In a related report, Gartner said worldwide sales of smartphones will reach a staggering 1.1 billion in 2015. As early as the end of 2011, Gartner expects that smartphone sales will be 468 million units, a 57.7 percent increase over last year.

Schadler notes that the most productive employees now use four devices to get work done. This means that "client/server solutions with on-premises servers are inadequate, simply not responsive or agile enough for escalating user requirements and expectations."

Because of the proliferation of devices, Schadler also believes mobile apps need to be designed to run well on any mobile device. With so many different mobile platforms and form factors to target, app developers will have to organize differently, code differently, and execute differently. In this new environment, design skills will grow ever-more important and scarce.

As a result, there will be new abstraction layers that separate presentation from interaction and interaction from back-end services.

Mobile Applications on Multiple Platforms

The growth of mobile devices and the plethora of apps that run on them leaves developers with one huge challenge: how to create and deploy cross-platform applications quickly and within budget.

Many vendors offer mobile application development solutions, which Gartner calls Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms (MEAPs). A MEAP provides tools and client/server middleware for mobile (targeting any sort of mobile application), multichannel (highly device/OS- and network-adaptive), and thick (offline) enterprise application development. In so doing, MEAPs enable companies to deploy multiple mobile applications across several devices, helping them to achieve enterprise app creation far beyond their bandwidth.

Gartner predicts that more than 95 percent of organizations will choose MEAPs or packaged mobile application vendors as their primary mobile development platforms through 2012. Leading vendors in the MEAP space include Sybase, Spring Wireless and Antenna. Appcelerator, Pyxis Mobile, Rhomobile and WorkLight are among the up-and-comers.

Recently, WorkLight unveiled WorkLight Mobile Platform Version 4.0, which includes what the vendor calls "the first multi-platform hybrid coding IDE." This IDE enables developers to create smartphone and tablet applications via a centralized, enterprise-ready custom development process using a variety of native and Web technologies.

Other all-in-one platforms include the open source Titanium (from Appcelerator), the open source Rhodes (from Rhomobile) and Pyxis Mobile (from Pyxis Mobile).

Extracted From -

http://www.devx.com/wireless/Article/47324?trk=DXRSS_LATEST

Extracted from

Rackspace and Managed Cloud Services: "Magic" or Marketing?

"The Cloud" may be an industry buzzword, but many companies are starting to realize that it takes work to move to the cloud. There is no magic button that you press and instantly have your company utilizing the cloud. No matter how you slice it, IT is just complex, slow and expensive. With its new managed cloud service, Rackspace is trying to prove that even within the challenging IT realm the cloud is better, faster and cheaper than data centers. The hosting provider wants to make moving to the cloud easy so you can concentrate on what matters most: your applications.

In order to make your cloud experience magical, Rackspace has introduced a managed service level for its Cloud Servers product that will provide your cloud servers with monitoring, troubleshooting and administrator assistance 24/7/365 on both Windows and Linux. This managed service will provide the following features:

• 24/365 chat, phone and ticket support
• Provisioning on demand
• 100 percent uptime guarantee
• 100 percent HVAC/power uptime guarantee
• Migrations
• Image backups
• Expanded backups
• Server OS and application support
• 24x7x365 monitoring, response and resolution support
• Technical guidance
• Account team

With the above features, Rackspace aims to do all the work and allow you to just deploy the applications and concentrate on making money -- not managing servers and a data center.

How Much Does the Rackspace Managed Service Cost?

If you have a 2GB Rackspace Cloud Server running for 730 hours or 30 days, you will pay the following:

• An account management fee of $100.00 per month (Flat fee)
• A utility fee of 12 cents per hour (Pay-as-you-go metered pricing)
• A service fee of 12 cents per hour (Pay-as-you-go metered pricing)

The total would be $275.20.

Managed Cloud Services: Leveraging Laziness?

So, is this really a magical solution or just a way for a company in a questionable economy to earn a buck? As I stated previously, IT is just hard no matter how you spin it. You can sing a song all day long about support and uptime, but when you do your due diligence and you'll find Rackspace managed services complaints dating back more than two years:

• Forced migration of servers
• Inability to get new IP addresses
• Rackspace IT support turnover
• Clients that report servers down for days
• Rude support staff

Managed cloud services seems like just another buzzword for repackaging services that Rackspace already had and adding "The Cloud" onto it. Why do you have to pay for tools to manage your cloud servers? They should be available out of the box. I would not sell you a brand new car without a spare tire or a jack. Now if you are the type of car owner who will pay for additional perks like vacuuming, oil changes, and tune-ups -- while you do nothing -- managed services such as Rackspace's may be for you. At least you are in control of how many services you need. With Rackspace managed cloud services, you pay only for the time you need the service.

Honestly, this trend is not going away anytime soon. Even if I do not completely agree with the concept, the rise of managed cloud services will continue. The industry is moving in this direction and there seems to be a demand created by laziness as we migrate from traditional hosting to cloud computing. The "magic button" concept is here to stay.

Extracted from - http://www.devx.com/enterprise/Article/47320?trk=DXRSS_LATEST

Microsoft Touch Mouse Brings Multi-Touch to Windows

After decades of dependable point-and-click service, the humble mouse is getting a makeover. The result is introducing Windows 7 users to a new way of interacting with their PC.

The Microsoft Touch Mouse combines multi-touch gestures with the pinpoint control of the humble mouse. Click for larger image.

The new Microsoft Touch Mouse combines the virtues of the old familiar mouse – which has been continually optimized since the 1960s – with multi-touch gestures. Now available online and in retail stores in late September, the new mouse offers the millions of people who use Windows 7 a natural way to navigate the operating system, said Scott Rockfeld, director of product management for Microsoft Hardware.

“This is the first time we’ve married the control and precision of a mouse with the interactivity that touch delivers on your PC,” he said. “We give you control of your PC that you can feel in your fingertips.”

The Touch Mouse lets users do everything they’re used to doing with a mouse, such as point and click, but adds multi-touch functionality that helps them navigate Windows 7 easier and faster with a flick of their fingers, said Hrvoje Benko, a researcher with Microsoft Research (MSR) Redmond who helped develop the Touch Mouse.

Meet the team from Microsoft Research and Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group that worked together to create the Touch Mouse.

“This mouse is designed to optimize your experience with Windows 7,” he said. “The tasks you do every day – minimizing and maximizing windows, scrolling through Web pages – all that functionality is available right at the top of the mouse with a touch of a finger.”

Or two or three fingers. As shown in this video, users can navigate with Touch Mouse in a variety of ways:

•	One finger allows users to scroll 360 degrees through the document they’re in.
•	Two fingers allow them to manage the active window they’re using and perform tasks such as maximizing and minimizing windows or snapping them left or right.
•	Three fingers allow users to manage their whole desktop by switching between different tasks or clearing all open windows.
•	A flick of the thumb allows users to move forward and back in programs such as Internet Explorer, PowerPoint, and Windows Photo Viewer.

Building Mouse 2.0

The newly announced Touch Mouse Artist Edition features a design created by New York-based artist Deanne Cheuk. Click for larger image.

Hidden inside the Touch Mouse’s deceptively simple design is more than two years of cross-company research. The product evolved from the Mouse 2.0 project, a joint effort started in 2008 by Microsoft Research teams in Redmond and Cambridge and the Applied Sciences Group from Microsoft Hardware. Their goal was to combine the standard capabilities of a mouse with multi-touch sensing.

“We were looking at how to merge the excitement of the multi-touch gestures that were just starting to infiltrate computing devices with the flexibility and control of the mouse, which essentially has been optimized for two-plus decades,” Benko said. “We wanted to bring these rich new interactions to the desktop without losing the tried and true mouse.”

The team initially explored a wide range of technologies and interaction models, relying heavily on user feedback. They ended up with five different research prototypes representing different types of multi-touch sensors: camera-based; articulated, meaning they stitched together three mouse sensors; and capacitive, which have functionality similar to a laptop’s track pad.

Microsoft Hardware’s portfolio of touch products, including the Arc Touch Mouse that flattens for portability, aim to bring multi-touch computing to millions of Windows 7 users. Click for high-res version.

After careful consideration of the technological tradeoffs, the team decided on the capacitive-sensing model because it allowed for multi-touch gestures without abandoning the familiar mouse shape. They wrestled long and hard with the shape – it had to be comfortable in the hand and yet provide the right surface for natural gestures with all five fingers. The team conducted extensive user research and tested hundreds of forms and models before settling on a mouse with a 23 degree slope, a “sweet spot that gives you the comfortable shape and enough flatness to perform gestures,” Benko said.

Over several months, they continued to refine the sensor design and tweak functionality. The result became the Touch Mouse, which lets PC owners use natural gestures to access the features in Windows 7 they want to use most.

Benko said he was excited to bring touch to a much broader range of devices. Touch is an increasingly popular way of interacting with technology, but it’s primarily taken hold in small handheld devices. “For desktop scenarios with large, vertical screens, you’d need gorilla arms to go longer than 10 minutes through touch alone,” he said. “In terms of optimizing the effort of controlling the real estate you have on large screens, it’s really hard to beat the mouse.”

The Touch Mouse emerged out of a Microsoft Research effort to reimagine the mouse. The Mouse 2.0 project initially produced the five prototypes of multi-touch mice above. Click for larger image.

That’s why the Touch Mouse is a happy marriage, Rockfeld said. Direct touch technology is good for some things but not for others, he points out. It makes scrolling and flicking through digital pictures a breeze, but clicking in a small cell in Excel – not so much. “Desktop users need the precision and control of a mouse, but they also want that feeling of power that touch gives them,” he said. “With the Touch Mouse, without taking your hand off the mouse, we can deliver both to the millions of Windows 7 users.”

Only a fraction of Windows 7 users have touch enabled natively in the hardware. Touch Mouse is part of Microsoft Hardware’s effort to bring touch to millions of Windows 7 users. Other examples are the Explorer Touch Mouse, the Arc Touch Mouse, and the soon-to-be-released Touch Mouse Artist Edition.

“The Touch Mouse is our stake in the ground with multi-touch PC input devices, and it’s really just the beginning of things to come,” Benko said.

The product highlights the value Microsoft Research can deliver, Benko added. “This is a good example of how the algorithms and ideas and prototypes developed in research directly translate and make certain things possible for product teams that wouldn’t have been possible,” he said. “You could not make this mouse without the software.”

Shall we buy this from amazon

Extracted from -

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/Features/2011/sep11/09-01TouchMouse.mspx?rss_fdn=Custom

Windows 8

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Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59mP3R4I8wU

ROI

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Windows 8 Replaces the Win32 API

Windows 8 introduces a new core API called WinRT. This is used to develop Metro style applications using C/C++, .NET, or JavaScript. These applications automatically gain features such as hardware acceleration and advanced power management out of the box. Existing Silverlight and WPF applications can be ported to the new “Native XAML” libraries with minimal effort.

What follows is a summary of the keynote presentation. More details will be provided as they become available.

General Notes

Windows 8: Base line memory usage dropped from 540 MB to 281 MB.

The lock-screen can now display user content.

Touch-based passwords, essentially you tap on three points of an image to unlock the machine.

Like Windows Phone, the start page uses the metro style with live tiles.

There is a heavy emphasis on full screen applications.

Application specific and system settings share the same space on the user interface. It appears that applications will need to indicate which systems settings are relevant.

New version of Internet Explorer will be completely free of chrome. All of that functionality is hidden in application bars that slide into view.

Spell check is included system wide.

Developer preview includes Visual Studio 11 Express, Expression Blend 5. There is no timeline for the next milestone, which is the public Beta. Intern updates will be pushed to the preview machines on an as needed basis. The preview will be available starting tonight as http://dev.windows.com at for x86/x64.

Application Integration

Windows 8 will have extension points known as “charms”. An example of a charm is the “share charm” which shows all the ways text can be shared such as email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Applications can register themselves inside a charm by implementing the correct interfaces. Meanwhile other applications can indicate they are capable of sending information to the charm. The concept is very much like JavaScript mashups or classic OLE, but with a lot more thought about what those interactions should be.

System wide search is now supported. Again, applications can register themselves as a search provider.

Applications can expose files directly from the cloud for use by other applications. One does not need to copy files such as images to the local hard drive before other applications can access them.

Developing for Windows 7: Classic platforms:

· HTML/JavaScript on Internet Explorer

· C/C++ on Win32

· C#/VB on .NET and Silverlight

Developing for Windows 8: Metro Style

Windows Kernel is still at the bottom of the stack

WinRT is the new OS-level API layer. This is the new native API for Windows, it isn’t a new layer on top of Win32.

You can access WInRT from C/C++, C#/VB, or JavaScript. XAML is the UI layer for C, C++, C#, and Visual Basic. HTML/CSS will continue to be used as the UI layer for JavaScript.

Visual Studio will have project templates for the various styles of Windows 8 applications. The first demonstration is a JavaScript-based application. The application isn’t compiled but it is packaged into a bundle that includes all the html and JavaScript files needed by it. Windows 8 runs it directly, there is no need to launch the web browser.

As alluded to above, JavaScript can access the native functionality from the WinRT API. In the keynote demo it only took a couple lines of code to expose the new Windows open file dialog. Since Facebook was already installed on the machine the open file dialog showed images from the presenter’s Facebook page. The JavaScript application had no networking code at all, this link between it and Facebook was handled entirely by the platform.

Expression Blend now supports HTML and CSS with much

The HTML 5 grid proposal is essential to building Windows 8 applications. Without it supporting the wide variety of screen resolutions that Windows 8 runs on would be very difficult.

Metro style applications are automatically suspended when not visible. This was done to prolong battery life.

App Stores

As expected there is now going to be a Windows store for distributing applications. The technological aspects of application licensing is handled by the by store itself, one merely has to indicate basic information such as price and whether or not there is a demo period.

A certification process is required for offering applications in the Windows store. The tools used to certify applications will be given to developers so they can see and correct violations before they formally submit the application.

The application for accessing the Windows 8 store is actually written using JavaScript over the WinRT API.

The app store is not limited to Metro style applications, traditional Win32 applications can also be offered via the store.

Upgrading from Silverlight to Windows 8

In the demo all the of the existing XAML worked as-is. The presenter just needed to change the namespaces (e.g. System.Windows becomes Windows.UI) and tweak the networking code. With only a couple more lines of code he was able to register the application as a search provider.

Moving from Windows 8 to Windows phone just required an extra line or two.

Hardware Support

A new mode called “Connected Standby” is inspired by mobile devices. The power consumption is very low with occasional spikes as the Windows temporarily turns on the network connection to allow applications to receive updates. Since the system is never actually turned off it comes alive instantly.

Max hard drive size is 256 terabytes. Windows 7 was limited to a 2 terabyte boot drive.

The entire platform is built to use hardware accelerated graphics. Metro style applications will use them by default, no additional coding is needed to enable it.

The Sensor Fusion API will combine the information from the gyro, accelerometer, and magnetometer. Getting basic information such as the physical orientation of the device takes three lines of code.

The networking stack now supports concepts such as the side-channels in 3G.

For the give-away they are offering a Tablet running Windows 8 and Visual Studio.

Refresh and Reset

Using the Refresh command will remove everything except personal information/settings. Metro-style applications will be retained, any Win32 style application will be removed. This is one from a baseline image and should be run in response to system problems such as viruses.

The Reset command will completely wipe the PC. All personal information is removed and it is returned to the factory settings as if it were just purchased new.

There is a command line tool to update the baseline image. This would be used to add applications such as Visual Studio or Office to the standard image. Enterprise users would most likely want their companies custom software also included in this baseline image.

Cloud Services

Application settings, themes, passwords, etc. can by synchronized across machines using a Windows Live account.

The Windows address book pulls in contacts from all sources including social networking sites and exposes them via your Windows Live account. Likewise shared calendars are aggregated.

Windows SkyDrive is available to all users with a Windows Live account. Developers can access it as if it were a normal disk drive.

Windows Live allows one machine to access another even if it is behind a firewall. Companies that are concerned about information security should take care, as this allows common users with no technical skills easily move otherwise restricted files from their workstation to home machine without even being in the building.

Microsoft is expecting developers to use Windows Live to connect their applications together.

Who built the Apps?

17 teams of 2 to 3 developers each worked for ten weeks on the demo applications. They were all summer interns working on an evolving platform

Extracted From : http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/WinRT