Come Across

Build and Deploy LightSwitch Application on Windows Azure

2012-01-11T01:04:00.000-08:00

Build and Deploy LightSwitch Application on Windows Azure

View more presentations from Mohamed Faizal

Build and Deploy LightSwitch Application on Windows Azure

2012-01-05T19:58:00.001-08:00

Presenting @ Community Technology Update

Visual Studio LightSwitch is the simplest way to build business applications for the desktop and cloud. LightSwitch simplifies the development process by letting you concentrate on the business logic, while LightSwitch handles the common tasks for you.

In this session you see the demo, Which shows you end-to-end, how to build and deploy a data-centric business application using LightSwitch and deploy to Windows Azure

Date : 07^th January 2012

Time: 0900 – 1730 hrs

Venue : Plug-In@Blk71

Blk71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #02-18

Singapore 139951

Registration Fees : $12 (Early-birds) - $20 (Walk-ins)

Community {Technology} Update 2012

2011-12-20T19:52:00.001-08:00

Technical Updates for the community, by the community

Community Technology Update is back!!! This is the 9^th iteration of CTU and we are doing something different this time round. Thanks to our venue sponsor, we will be holding upcoming CTU at Plug-In@Blk71. Apart from the change in venue, everything else remains the same, especially the Community’s Sprites of CTU!!

User Group of Singapore has come together once again to put up a full day technical sharing event for the community. Like the usual CTU, content are design to keep you updated with the latest technology. We have sessions planned for IT Professionals, Developers and Database Administrators. There is something for everyone so don’t miss this chance and start registering today!!!

As an exclusive member of AZURE.UG you get invited to this event!

Date	07^th January 2012
Time	0900 – 1730 hrs
Venue	Plug-In@Blk71 Blk71 Ayer Rajah Crescent #02-18 Singapore 139951
Registration Fees	$12 (Early-birds) $20 (Walk-ins)

Why you should attend this event:

· To learn about the new generation “8” product. Windows 8 Developer Preview and Windows Server 8 will be covered

· To learn about Windows 8 and Dev12 devolvement

· A great chance to network around with IT Pros and Dev in Singapore

Who should attend this event:

· IT Professionals

· Developers

· Database Administrators

· Essentially you, as you’re one of our user group members!

For instruction to register to this event, go to http://www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2012/Pages/Registration.aspx

To find out more about the event, go to
http://www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2012/Pages/default.aspx
Information on the site will be updated progressively nearer to event. We are still at work locking down and filling up the information.

To find out how to get to the venue, go to

http://www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2012/Pages/Venue.aspx
Information on the site will be updated soon

To find out why we’re charging for the event and other questions, go to http://www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2012/Pages/FAQ.aspx

If you have any questions, please feel free to email to Desmond(SWUG Lead) at desmond@sgwindowsgroup.org

* Please enable pop-up window on this page

What is the difference between management and leadership?

2011-12-14T00:04:00.001-08:00

Management – makes systems of people and technology work well day after day, week after week, year after year.
- Planning & budgeting
- Organizing & staffing
- Controlling & problem solving
- Taking complex systems of people and technology and making them run efficiently and effectively, hour after hour, day after day

Leadership – creates the systems that managers manage and changes them in fundamental ways to take advantage of opportunities and to avoid hazards
- Creating vision & strategy
- Communicating & setting direction
- Motivating action
- Aligning people
- Creating systems that managers can manage and transforming them when needed to allow for growth, evolution, opportunities and hazard avoidance

Source : http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples/management-vs-leadership

Windows Azure Account 3 Months Free Trial

2011-12-12T19:05:00.001-08:00

3-Month Free Trial

We offer a free trial for 3 months for any new customer. Each month, the free trial will allow you to use

Compute: 750 hours of a Small Compute Instance* (can run one small instance full-time or other sizes at their equivalent ratios)
Storage: 20GB with 50k Storage transactions
Data Transfers: 20GB outbound / Unlimited inbound data transfer
Relational Database: 1GB Web Edition SQL Azure database
Access Control: 100k transactions
Service Bus: Free through March 31, 2012
AppFabric Caching: 128MB cache

We require a credit card or debit card for identification, but you are capped by default at the free level to ensure you will never be charged. Here is how it works:

For all new subscriptions, we set a $0 (USD) Spending Limit on your subscription so you don’t accidently exceed the monthly benefit shown above. If you use more in a month than the above amounts, you will exceed your $0 (USD) Spending Limit and your service will be disabled for that month. Your service will be re-enabled at the start of your next billing period and, while your storage accounts and databases are retained with no loss of data, you will need to redeploy your hosted service(s). If you choose to turn off your Spending Limit, any overage, i.e., monthly usage in excess of the above amounts, will be charged at the Pay-As-You-Go rates.

After the first 3 months, if you wish to continue using your subscription, simply turn off your Spending Limit and your subscription automatically converts to a Pay-As-You-Go subscription. Otherwise, your subscription will expire after 3 months.

SQL Azure new Capabilities and Benefits

2011-12-12T19:01:00.001-08:00

Capabilities and Benefits of SQL Azure

No physical administration required

SQL Azure is a managed service - you do not have to install, patch or manage hardware or software.
There is no need for you to create virtual machines or manually manage high availability. Every SQL Azure database has built-in high-availability, failover, and redundancy.

Scale On-Demand

SQL Azure Federation gives you the flexibility to scale out depending on your needs while paying only for what you use.
You can rely on business-ready SLAs and global datacenters to offer highly available services to users.

Innovate faster

SQL Azure does not require new skillsets, programming models or tools - it works with the same SQL Server tools and APIs you use today.
Use an existing ecosystem of developer and management tools.
Enable new scenarios with services like Data Sync and Reporting to connect to mobile devices, HTML5 web applications, and location-aware services.
Consume or monetize premium datasets from commercial data providers and government sources with Windows Azure Marketplace.

Pricing and Metering for SQL Azure Database

SQL Azure supports a flexible subscription-based pricing model and supports both a pay-as-you-go and 6 month commitment offer. SQL Azure can be purchased independently or with other Windows Azure platform products. You can provision multiple SQL Azure databases for your application(s) and can use either the Web or Business Edition offering. A single Web Edition database can support up to 5 GB of data and uses billing increments of 1GB. A Business Edition database will support up to 150 GB, and uses 10 GB billing increments.

Database

Web Edition (up to 5 GB) : $9.99 per 1 GB of database per month

Business Edition (up to 150 GB) : $99.99 per 10 GB of database per month (Maximum charge of $499.95 per database)*

*This maximum amount is calculated based on the accumulated charges for each database you deploy over the entire billing month.

Customers are billed based on the peak database size in a day, rolled up to the next billing increment. SQL Azure Database is charged as a monthly fee for each database, but that database fee is amortized over the month and charged on a daily basis. This daily fee is dependent on which database type used (Web Edition or Business Edition). For example, if a customer utilizes three 10 GB Business Edition databases for 1 day in a billing month, their daily usage for that day would show a little less than 0.1 10 GB Business Edition database (3 databases / 31 days).
Visit Microsoft.com to get in-depth information on SQL Azure and SQL Server for public and private cloud scenarios.

SQL Azure Federation

SQL Azure Federation is a core feature of SQL Azure that enables the database tier to be elastically scaled out across multiple nodes. This new feature makes it dramatically easier for you to set up an elastic database tier that can repartition based on application workloads. SQL Azure Federation provides you unlimited scale, great price-performance and simplified multi-tenancy for modern cloud applications.

Capabilities and Benefits of SQL Azure Federation

Unlimited Scalability

Federations enable horizontal partitioning or ‘sharding’ of data across many nodes to gain unlimited scalability in the application.

Elasticity for the best price-performance

The online repartitioning of the database tier combined with the pay-as-you-go model in SQL Azure enables administrators to easily optimize cost and performance by changing the number of databases/nodes they engage for their database workload at any given time.

Simplified multi-tenancy

With federations, applications can repartition to promote any tenant of a multi-tenant database to a single database node per tenant without incurring downtime for the reconfiguration.

SQL Azure Data Sync

Microsoft SQL Azure Data Sync is a cloud-based data synchronization service which provides uni-directional and bi-directional data sync. Data Sync allows data to be easily shared between SQL Azure and on-premises SQL Server databases, as well as between multiple SQL Azure databases.

Capabilities and Benefits of SQL Azure Data Sync

Managed service

There is no need to write complex database logic to synchronize and transfer data between databases.
Use the point-and-click portal to quickly configure and schedule synchronization.

Control synchronization

Specify exactly what tables and columns to synchronize, setup filters to sync only a subset of rows, set the conflict resolution policy for two-way sync, and specify how frequently data should be synchronized.

On-premises and cloud

Enables multiple synchronization scenarios spanning both cloud and on-premises databases.
Enable one-way as well as bi-directional data movement across SQL Azure and on-premises SQL Server databases.

Cloud-to-cloud synchronization

Data can be shared between multiple databases, irrespective of whether the databases are in the same data center or span multiple geographic regions.

Learn Windows Azure 13th Dec. 2012

2011-12-11T18:01:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday December 13th we will be holding a special Windows Azure event for developers. At the Learn Windows Azure event you will learn how to get started building applications for the cloud. The entire event will broadcast live from the Microsoft Redmond Campus so you can watch from anywhere around the world.

We will cover the following topics at the Learn Windows Azure event:

· 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. – Getting Started with Windows Azure

Learn how to get started building applications for Windows Azure with the Windows Azure SDK & Tools from Microsoft Corporate VP Scott Guthrie.

· 10:45 – 12 p.m. – Cloud Data & Storage

Join Microsoft Technical Fellow Dave Campbell and learn how to use SQL Azure and Windows Azure storage services in your cloud applications.

· 12:15 – 1:15 p.m. – Channel9 Cloud Cover Show Live

Join Steve Marx and Wade Wegner for this special live edition to see some fresh Windows Azure demos and hear answers to common Windows Azure questions.

· 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. – Developing Windows Azure Applications with Visual Studio

In this session, Jay Schmelzer will show you how to use Visual Studio to its full potential to develop, debug, and deploy cloud applications.

· 2:45 – 3:45 p.m. – Building Scalable Cloud Applications

Do you want to build applications that are highly scalable, loosely coupled, and highly available? Then tune in for this session to learn about key Windows Azure services and patterns from David Aiken.

· 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. – Expert Panel Q&A featuring Scott Guthrie, Dave Campbell, and Mark Russinovich!

Submit your questions over Twitter with the #WindowsAzure hashtag and have them answered live during the event by senior Microsoft engineering leaders.

The Learn Windows Azure event will start at 9 a.m. and will conclude at 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. You can watch the entire event live on Channel9 at http://ch9.ms/lwa.

A limited number of seats are also available to attend the event in-person at the Microsoft Redmond Campus. Registration is required to attend in-person. Register now to reserve your seat for the in-person event or receive a reminder for the online event.

Cloud Computing Key Driving factor Q&A Session

2011-11-27T03:30:00.000-08:00

Last week we had Technovate at NCS for our customer, the customer questions me around cloud computing, just summarize and provide some points here.

What are the key driving factor for cloud computing as a business perspective ?

Key business driver for cloud :

1. Pay per use

2. De-risking

3. Outsourcing the IT Operations

4. Ability to Pilot Solution

5. Reducing Cycle time

Which Cloud is Right for Organization?

There are 3 types of cloud environments public, private and hybrid Public clouds are attractive to organization that don’t want to own or maintain their own infrastructure or applications

If you have confidential/proprietary application, you may not want to risk putting it public therefore a public cloud may be able to meet the stringent regulatory compliance requirements like HIPAA and PCI.

Some enterprises are building their private cloud to improve IT responsiveness to business needs and reducing costs. Private clouds also appeal to enterprises looking for elastic, dynamic computing capacity.

Other enterprises may choose to implement a hybrid cloud, consisting of multiple internal or external provider providing the cost-saving benefits of public cloud services with some of the control and compliance requirement for private clouds.

What are the driving factor for moving enterprise apps to cloud ?

Public or Private: Once it is decide to moving the application to cloud, next important decision is to move it to private or public cloud. A private colud gives you complete control over the hardware and It is build using one’s own resource. All this control and security comes at expense of over heads in management.

A Public cloud is something that does not givn you granular control over the infrastructure but relieves you all the overhead in terms of management and operational costs involve in terms of server admins, patches and operation system costs.

Choosing a Vendor : The driving factor s would be there the technology stack, current developer skills in a company, cost of the services provided by the cloud vendor. Out the these, for enterprise application scenarios, IaaS or PaaS makes sense, Once the basis of the technology involved and the team skills, the decision has to be made towards finalizing the PaaS or IaaS based vendor.

Failover Plan : Cloud is touted as an option that is highly available. However just moving the application to cloud does not imply that it will not fail. The application has to be designed and deployed in such a way that there is failover plan.

AzureUG.SG Meeting 29th Nov. 2011 @ 6:45pm

2011-11-20T01:47:00.001-08:00

(Light Refreshments will be served before the session)

Date: 29 Nov 2011 @ MS Singapore, 22^nd floor, CF12

Topic: Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus

Synopsis:

This talk will cover how Windows Azure AppFabric can be used to build Hybrid Apps. We will look at some of the common messaging patterns and technologies that can be used to connect on-premise apps to the cloud.

Speaker Profile:

Hammad Rajjoub works as an Architect Evangelist with Microsoft Singapore. In his previous role he was a Vice President at Bank Of America Merrill Lynch. His areas of interest include Cloud Computing, Enterprise Architecture, Design Patterns and Quantum Computation. He is frequently invited to speak at technology conferences. He is currently working on his second book on Windows Server AppFabric.

Topic: Windows Workflow Foundation in the Cloud

Synopsis:

The session will present an overview of migrating and scaling persistent and non-persistent Windows Workflow to the Azure Platform and integration into Windows Azure AppFabric Composite Applications.

Speaker Profile: Zonghe is an architect with NCS Pte Ltd and actively promotes Windows Workflow, AppFabric and Cloud technologies. He recently joined as the group leader in Windows Azure User Group Singapore (AzureUG.SG).

Please RSVP to confirm your registration and attendance by 27 Nov 2011. (kmdfaizal@gmail.com ) Note that there’s currently no email confirmation for the event

Southeast Asia SharePoint Conference 2011 (Singapore)

2011-10-20T19:17:00.001-07:00

It's your last chance to join us and 500 other SharePoint enthusiasts!
EARLY BIRD EXTENDED!
$350.00 for two days
8th + 9th November 2011
www.sharepointconference.asia
See the full speaker line up here.
See the full agenda here.
Join Microsoft, International Experts & MVPs
(Most Valuable Professionals) Including:

Thank you to our Gold Sponsors!

5 Reasons to attend
Listen to experts
Learn best practices
Connect with the SharePoint Community
Get answers to your questions
Gain the latest insights
THE event to learn about SharePoint!

Conference Price:

Early Bird Price: $SGD350.00
Group Discount: for 5 or more people
Regular Price: $SGD450.00

Conference Location:
Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel

Event managed by SPevents , a division of envisionIT (NZ) Ltd and is run by the Community FOR the Community. Phone: +65 6733 0880

Copyright © 2011 envisionIT NZ Ltd, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you have been associated with a SharePoint Conference in New Zealand, Australia or Southeast Asia, or attended a Training or a User Group Event.
Our mailing address is:

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Windows Azure MVC 3 Application Database Error

2011-10-10T18:58:00.001-07:00

“CREATE DATABASE permission denied in database 'master'”

IIS runs under the Network Service account, which does not have permissions to create a new SQL Server Express database by default. You can comment out the <Sites> section in the ServiceDefinition.csdef file to indicate that your web role should run in the Hosted Web Core, which runs under your authenticated user account, rather than running in IIS, which runs under the Network Service account. We will revert this change later, before deploying to Windows Azure, but for now, make theServiceDefinition.csdef file look like the following:

<WebRole name="AzureRoadTripSite">
<!--<Sites>
<Site nameWeb">
<Bindings>
<Binding name="Endpoint1" endpointName="Endpoint1" />
</Bindings>
</Site>
</Sites>-->
<Endpoints>
<InputEndpoint name="Endpoint1" protocol="http" port="80"/>
</Endpoints>
<Imports>
<Import moduleName="Diagnostics" />
</Imports>
</WebRole>

Now you run your Windows Azure MVC 3 Application which will work….

Windows Azure Traffic Manager Presentation Slides

2011-10-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

Windows azure traffic manager

View more presentations from Mohamed Faizal.

Outlook Integration with SharePoint 2010 (Drag and Drop)

2011-10-05T19:05:00.001-07:00

Recently, I was working on one of the SharePoint 2010 tender, User need to drag and drop the email and attachments from Outlook to SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2010 to Outlook. First I thought of propose Colligo outlook integration tool but the CAL licenses seems too expensive for our customer. When I look around I come across following tools.

1.) harmon.ie for SharePoint is an Outlook: http://harmon.ie/SharePoint/Product (Free for Outlook but limited feature). You can compare Free vs Enterprise edition @ http://harmon.ie/Products/CompareEdition

2.) OnePlaceMail : http://www.scinaptic.com/oneplacemail.html (OnePlace Express is free, but its limited to 25 users, Enterprise need to buy only server license)

3.) Third Sight (Singapore Base company) http://www.thirdsight.net/product_PS.html (I think implemented few government agencies)

4.) Connect for SharePoint : http://www.knowledgelake.com/products/Pages/sharepoint-integration-office-desktop-application.aspx

5.) SharePoint Email filer : http://www.sharepointemailfiler.com/features.asp

Some of above is server licenses and as well as CAL licenses. Overall I don’t know… if I custom develop using Visual Studio with Outlook Add-In not sure can we meet 50% of above product features?

I think it’s time to explore...

SharePoint 2010 and Windows Azure Training Course

2011-10-04T18:52:00.001-07:00

Good News the updated version of the SharePoint and Windows Azure Developer Training Kit is now available for developers who want to explore how SharePoint and Windows Azure work together.

This course is intended for developers and architects who are interested in understanding how SharePoint 2010 and Windows Azure can leverage each other. Knowledge of SharePoint 2010 development or Windows Azure is helpful but not required. Familiarity with general .NET development along with web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and Web Services is recommended

Deep Dive into Windows Azure Traffic Manager (CTP)

2011-09-27T00:59:00.000-07:00

The Windows Azure Traffic Manager CTP was announced at Mix 2011. Windows Azure Platform Training Kit (April 2011) included the hands-on lab for Traffic Manager.

For September AzureUG.SG meeting i share what is Windows Azure Traffic Manager and how does helps organization to run worldwide enterprise applications.

Windows Azure Traffic Manager helps to distributing the same internet application that hosted on various Azure datacentre in worldwide. The Traffic Manager provide following options to distribute the DNS Service and Request by managing the URL.

Performance : Traffic is routed to “Closest” hosted service in terms of network latency
Failover : Traffic is routed to primary service, In case of primary service down, the traffic route to next available datacentre.
Round-robin: traffic distributed requests between azure datacentres.

Windows Azure Traffic Manager Key Features

Host Worldwide Enterprise Application in to various Azure Datacentres

For this demo i hosted application in to following azure datacentres.

East Asia
West Europe
South US Central

Configure Windows Azure Traffic Manager via Windows Azure Management Portal. The windows azure Traffic manager is currently on CTP so go beta program and request for access. (usually Microsoft approve your request every Wednesday) so you may need wait to activate this service.

Once your requested activated, Go Windows Azure Management Portal, select the Virtual Network tab. Then, choose the Policies option under Traffic Manager and click Create.

Windows Azure Traffic Manager Policy Settings

The numbered steps below correspond to the numbers on the diagram.

1. Performance Times Table built periodically - The traffic manager infrastructure runs tests to determine the round trip times between different points in the world and the Windows Azure data centres which run hosted services. These tests are run at the discretion of the Windows Azure system.

2. Incoming request - Your Traffic Manager domain receives an incoming request from a client machine.

3. Performance table lookup - Traffic Manager looks up the round trip time between the location of the incoming request and the hosted services that are part of your policy using the table created in step 1.

4. Best performing service chosen - Traffic Manager determines the location of the hosted service with the best time. In this example, that is HS-D.

5. DNS name returned - Traffic manager returns the DNS name of hosted service D to the client machine.

6. Service call - The client machine resolves the DNS name to the IP address and calls the hosted service.

The numbered steps below correspond to the numbers on the diagram.

1. Your Traffic Manager domain receives an incoming request from a client.

2. Your policy contains an ordered list of hosted services. Traffic manager knows which service received the last request.

3. Traffic Manager sends the DNS entry pointing to the next hosted service in the list back to the client. In this example, this is hosted service East Asia

4. Traffic Manager updates itself to so it knows that the last traffic went to hosted service East Asia .

5. The client machine uses the DNS entry and calls hosted service East Asia.

6. The client machine uses the DNS entry and calls hosted service South Central US.

The numbered steps below correspond to the numbers on the diagram.

1. Your Traffic Manager domain receives an incoming request from a client.

2. Your policy contains an ordered list of hosted services. Traffic Manager checks which hosted service is first in the list. It verifies that the hosted service is online. If the hosted service is offline, it proceeds to the next online hosted service. In this case South Central USA is offline, but Eastern Asia is online.

3. Traffic Manager returns the DNS entry to the client. The DNS entry points to the IP address of Eastern Asia.

4. The client machine calls Eastern Asia.

AzureUG.SG Meeting on 27th Sep 2011 7:00pm

2011-09-19T21:13:00.001-07:00

Date: 27^th Sep 2011, Microsoft Singapore Level 22 @ 6:45pm to 9:30pm

(Light Refreshments will be served before the session)

Title: A Deep Look Inside Windows Azure Virtual Machines by Wely

This session will deep-dive in the under-the-hood of how Windows Azure Virtual Machines actually work. Hence, it requires audience to have basic knowledge or understanding of cloud computing concept and Windows Azure. We’ll start the discussion with the “kernel” Fabric Controller, Hypervisor, and explore more detail on each aspect of the VM including available OS Version, VM specification, Virtual Hard Drive inside the VM, Runtime installed, and so on.

Title: Windows Azure Traffic Manager by K.Mohamed Faizal.

This month Faizal discussing and demonstrates Windows Azure Traffic Manager which on CTP. Traffic Manager provides several ways to load balance traffic to multiple hosted services. You can choose from three load balancing methods: Performance, Failover, or Round Robin.

Speaker Profile:

Wely works in NCS as a “Cloud” Solutions Architect, specifically on Windows Azure Platform. Delivering cloud training, architecting cloud solution, designing and developing cloud project are his daily activity. In spare time, he writes blog, delivers presentation, and participates in online community. His passion in driving Microsoft technologies especially Windows Azure makes him to be awarded the first Windows Azure MVP in Southeast Asia.

Faizal is an Lead Consultant with Chief Architect Office, NCS (P) Ltd. Faizal spends his days serving as a consultant or architect helping clients succeed with the Microsoft development platform. He has over a decade of experience in Information Technology with a focus on enabling portals, Internet & Intranet application development. His area of specialization includes but is not limited to evaluate & develop migration strategies for Cloud Computing (Windows Azure) as well as for SharePoint Server technologies. Faizal spends most of his spare time reading technology blogs and exploring new development technologies.

Please RSVP to confirm your registration and attendance by 26 Sep 2011. ( kmdfaizal@gmail.com ) Note that there’s currently no email confirmation for the event

SharePoint 2010 Uploading multiple files Failed

2011-09-08T23:57:00.001-07:00

Uploading multiple files via SharePoint Multiple files uploads…failed mainly for file extension such .CS and .JAVA these files not in SharePoint 2010 File Block List under central admin.

By the way when you upload single file including .CS/.JAVA ext. no issue.

Notice that the issue happen following actions

1. Upload Multiples files (i.e .CS / .Java) Failed.

2. Windows Explore also fail to upload.

So how to overcome this issue. By removing file extension from IIS request filter allow to upload .CS and .JAVA files.

To help others :

1. Go to IIS

2. Select your website and Find Request Filtering

3. File Name Extensions tab and Select your extension for the list

4. Right click the and Remove.

5. Upload your files via SharePoint 2010.

Announcing simplified data transfer billing meters and swappable compute instances

2011-08-15T19:17:00.001-07:00

Beginning October 1st, we will make two billing related updates to the Windows Azure Platform to increase flexibility and simplicity for our customers.

First, the price of extra small compute will be reduced by 20 percent. Additionally, the compute allocations for all of our offers will be simplified to small compute hours. To deliver additional flexibility to our customers, these hours can also be used for extra small compute at a ratio of 3 extra small compute hours per 1 hour of small compute. Customers can also utilize these hours for other compute sizes at the standard prescribed ratios noted in their rate plan. Additionally, current Introductory Special offer customers and customers who sign up for this offer prior to October 1st will receive both 750 extra small compute hours and 750 small compute hours for the months of August and September to ensure maximum value and flexibility in advance of this enhanced offer.

Details on compute allotment by offer can be found below.

	Prior to October 1		Beginning on October 1
Offer:	Extra Small	Small	Extra Small	Small	Extra Small Equivalent
Introductory Special*	750	750	-	750	2,250
Cloud Essentials	750	25	-	375	1,125
MSDN Professional	750	-	-	375	1,125
MSDN Premium	1,500	-	-	750	2,250
MSDN Ultimate	-	1,500	-	1,500	4,500

*Note: On August 1, we increased the number of small hours included in this offer from 25 to 750. For the months of August and September, Introductory Special users will get both 750 extra small compute hours and 750 small compute hours. Once small hours and extra-small hours are swappable beginning on October 1, Introductory Special will only include 750 small hours.

We are also simplifying our data transfer meters to utilize only two zones, "Zone 1" and "Zone 2". The zone meter system will simplify the current meter system that includes multiple regions and separate meters for both standard data transfers and CDN. Data centers in Europe and North America will be reported and charged under Zone 1 and those for the rest of the world will be classified as Zone 2. This change will ease customer's ability to monitor data transfers and understand billing charges. The price per GB for outbound data transfers will not change. Customers will also gain the flexibility to utilize CDN data transfers against any data transfer amounts included with their offer. For billing periods that overlap September and October, customers will see both the current regional and new Zone 1 and 2 meters on their invoice These changes are part of our ongoing commitment to deliver world class services in a simple and flexible way to customers.

The Windows Azure Platform Team

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Windows Azure Error: Unable to find or obtain a context for requested certificate

2011-08-12T01:37:00.001-07:00

Today i was trying to explore Federated Authentication in a Windows Azure Web Role Application Hands on Lab by Windows Azure Platform Training Kit When to step 8 you need to create certificate.

the last step to create certificate prompt an error. Error: Unable to find or obtain a context for requested certificate if you skip and go to step 12 and try to Select certificate you can’t find in the list.

The above error happen due the absence of CAPICOM 2.1.0.2 SDK in your computer, so you need to downloaded and install once this is done. you need re-run above commands which prompt below screen to add certificates.

When you go to step 12 on your Visual Studio you can find your certificate.

Windows Azure Tools 1.4 for Visual Studio 2010

2011-08-05T15:31:00.001-07:00

The new Windows Azure Tools 1.4 for Visual Studio (August 2011) have just been released. You can download them using Web Platform Installer here. This latest version of the tools introduces several new features as follows:

Support for Multiple Service Configurations
Profiling support for Windows Azure apps running in Windows Azure (Profiling is only supported in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate & Premium)
MVC 3 web role support
Package validation

The detailed walkthrough of ASP .NET MVC 3 on Windows Azure see this post by Nathan Totten

The detailed walkthrough of Multiple Service Configurations and Profiling visit : Nick Harris

Windows Azure Platform Training Kit – August 2011

2011-08-05T15:20:00.001-07:00

The Windows Azure Platform Training Kit (WAPTK) includes a comprehensive set of technical content including hands-on labs, presentations, and demos that are designed to help you learn how to use the Windows Azure platform.

The August 2011 update of the WAPTK includes the following updates:

Labs and Demos
- All the labs and demos have been updated to leverage the new Window Azure Tools 1.4.
- Updated SSMS dependency of affected labs to SSMS SP1.
Windows Azure Deployment
- Applied fix in the setup experience for the Windows Azure Platform Management Cmdlets.
- Updated the Windows Azure Platform Management Cmdlets to the latest version.
Building ASP.NET Applications with Windows Azure
- Changed the way the membership password was encrypted to fix minor bug when deployed to azure.
Exploring Windows Azure Storage
- Updated the code to support deleting snapshots.
Windows Azure CDN
- Applied fix to a minor bug in the Overview section.

To Download : Windows Azure Platform Training Kit – August 2011

For more information, please see Microsoft Technical Evangelist Wade Wegner’s post Updates to the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit.

Windows Azure new symbology

2011-08-05T07:39:00.001-07:00

David Pallmann's published article which expressed in a design pattern language which may also be accompanied by a symbology. In his first article he describe the symbology he’ll be using in this series to represent Windows Azure design patterns in architectural diagrams, he also going to use in his AzureDesignPatterns.com web site and in his upcoming book, The Windows Azure Handbook, Volume 2: Architecture.

Azure Design Patterns Web Site

Service and Project Symbols

Hosted service project, , Storage account, AppFabric namespace

You can download the icons here

Classic mode authentication to Claim based authentication

2011-08-02T01:28:00.000-07:00

Recently i presented SharePoint 2010 permission and visited MSDN Forum people asking about how to convert web application that created with classic mode authentication to claim based authentication.

Yes, you can convert only via PowerShell Script.

$ConvertApp = get-spwebapplication “http://<web application name>”
$ConvertApp.useclaimsauthentication = “True”
$ConvertApp.Update()

Please Note : Once you convert the web application to use claim based authentication, you cannot return to classic mode authentication.

Umbraco Accelerator for Windows Azure

2011-07-31T23:44:00.000-07:00

When i was exploring Windows Azure Accelerator for Web Roles. i come across the Umbraco Azure Accelerator which help to publish open source CMS system in Windows Azure Platform.

Download Umbraco Azure Accelerator and Install it.

System will create new folder on : C:\WindowsAzure\UmbracoAccelerator\ to that folder and click starthere.htm file and show the detail step by step guide to deploy Umbraco CMS system on Windows Azure.

Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure

2011-07-27T04:41:00.001-07:00

27th July 2011 at AzureUG.SG (user group) meeting i cover & live demo variety of the third-party tools available in the Windows Azure ecosystem. Included are tools for both developers and IT professionals. We look at tools that will help manage storage and resources, migration, scaling, diagnostics and software components that will help you build cloud applications.

Windows Azure Accelerator for Web Roles. This accelerator enables you to deploy websites to a Windows Azure role with multiple instances using Web Deploy. You can now easily and quickly build, test, and deploy sites on Windows Azure using Web Deploy while still utilizing the full scale and reliability of Windows Azure.

During this session i live demo, how to publish multiple websites in one Web Role.

Please find more detail step by step accelerator installation @ http://ntotten.com/2011/07/windows-azure-accelerator-for-web-roles/

To Download the Accelerator : http://waawebroles.codeplex.com/

AzureWatch Auto scaling and Monitoring for Azure Applications

AzureWatch dynamically adjusts the number of compute instances dedicated to your Azure application according to real time demand. User-defined rules specify when to scale up or down, so that your application will always have enough computing power to process the workload without unnecessary over-provisioning. Freed from worries about capacity and overuse in the cloud, you can concentrate on your core business work.

Windows Azure Storage Explore

Free Tools :

Azure Storage Explorer is a useful GUI tool for inspecting and altering the data in your Windows Azure storage storage projects including the logs of your cloud-hosted applications. All 3 types of cloud storage can be viewed and edited: blobs, queues, and tables.

CloudXplorer is a rich UI client for browsing Windows Azure blob storage.

TableXplorer is rich UI client for managing your Windows Azure table storage.

Commercial Tools

Cloud Storage Studio is a Windows (WPF) based client for managing Windows Azure Storage, an important component of Microsoft's Azure (Microsoft's Cloud) platform and Hosted Applications. This one tool for all 3 types of cloud storage can be viewed and edited: blobs, queues, and tables.

AzureXplorer is a comprehensive Visual Studio extension for managing your Windows Azure storage accounts and hosted services without ever leaving the development environment.

CloudBerry Explorer makes managing files in Microsoft Azure Blob Storage EASY. By providing a user interface to Microsoft Azure Blob Storage accounts, and files, CloudBerry lets you manage your files on cloud just as you would on your own local computer.

CloudBerry Online Backup provides a powerful Backup and Restore program designed to leverage Azure Blob Storage to make your disaster recovery plan simple, reliable, and affordable.

SQL Database Migration to SQL Azure

SQL Azure Migration Wizard (SQLAzureMW) is designed to help you migrate your SQL Server 2005/2008 databases to SQL Azure. SQLAzureMW will analyze your source database for compatibility issues and allow you to fully or partially migrate your database schema and data to SQL Azure

Azure Diagnostics Monitor.

Azure Diagnostics Manager is a Windows (WPF) based client for Windows Azure Diagnostics. ADM allows you to manage diagnostics data stored by your applications running in Azure.

Management (API) PowerShell

Azure Management Cmdlets is a set of PowerShell Cmdlets to manage Azure Storage, SQL Azure, Hosted Services & Diagnostics. It allows you to backup/restore storage accounts

The GreyBox application is designed to alert a user if their Windows Azure compute services are currently running, or are even simply deployed. Great for Azure speakers and POCs you don't want left running.

SMTP Gateway

Elastic email makes email sending easier for both the developer and business manager of a cloud application. Several cloud application hosting platforms do not provide an email delivery service and may even set limits on your email sending. Elastic Email provides direct email sending through standard SMTP or a simple REST API.

SendGrid's cloud-based email infrastructure relieves businesses of the cost and complexity of maintaining custom email systems. SendGrid provides reliable delivery, scalability and real-time analytics along with flexible API's that make custom integration a breeze

Windows Azure Calculators (Estimation).

Windows Azure online price calculator help you select the right Windows Azure platform offer and estimate your monthly costs, we’ve just launched a new pricing calculator. The pricing calculator lets you pick compute, database, storage, bandwidth, CDN and Service Bus capacity based on your needs. Along with predicting your expected monthly costs, the pricing calculator then recommends the most cost effective offer for you to purchase Windows Azure platform services.

Windows Azure platform offer and estimate your monthly costs hosted by partner site http://azureroi.cloudapp.net/

Must have tools for windows azure

View more presentations from Mohamed Faizal

Add Deployable Dependencies for MVC 3 Application in VS2010–Windows Azure

2011-07-27T03:55:00.001-07:00

Recently i was deploy MVC 3 application in to Windows Azure Platform, The MVC 3 assemblies in the project as MVC 3 is not part of Windows Azure Web Roles I need to include the the Deployable dependencies. With Visual Studio 2010 usually when I want to deploy dependency dlls, i had need to go to the properties of the .dll and set CopyLocal to true.

With VS2010 SP1 Microsoft added a feature in that allowed you to specify a specific set of deployable dependencies. To do go to your web project and right click you can see now a menu option as follows:

You will the Deployable dependencies for MVC 3 Added in your project

Ecommerce Application on Windows Azure with ASP.NET 4.0

2011-07-22T01:50:00.001-07:00

Introduction

This project is to demonstrates how extraordinarily simple it is to create powerful, scalable applications for the Windows Azure platform with .NET 4 new features . It shows off how to use the great new features in ASP.NET 4 and Windows Azure to build an online store, including shopping, checkout, and administration.

Most of the code migrate from Tailspin Spyworks web application..

Building the Sample

Demonstrates how you can build application on Windows Azure with .NET 4.0 (Web Application)

Overview

Windows Azure Web Role
Windows Azure Diagnostic
Windows Azure Storage
SQL Azure
ASP Membership provider
Demonstrates the new features in ASP.NET 4
Data Access via Linq to Entities
MasterPage and CSS based desig

This tutorial requires

Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET 4.0
Windows Azure SDK
Windows Azure Platform account for hosting
SQL 2008 R2 Express and Management Studio 2008 R2

Screenshots

Application Home Page

Product Details Page

Shopping cart page

Source Code Files

Visual Studio 2010 Project File
SQL Server DB Script
SQL Azure DB Script

To download source code : http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Ecommerce-Application-on-518fea5e

More Information

Tailspin Spyworks Step-by-Step Tutorial : http://www.asp.net/web-forms/samples/tailspin-spyworks
To download sample Tailspin Spyworks VS Project : http://tailspinspyworks.codeplex.com/

For more information on visit http://faizal-comeacross.blogspot.com/

AZUREUG.SG July 27th Meeting @ Microsoft 7:00pm

2011-07-20T19:05:00.001-07:00

(Light Refreshments will be served before the session)

Claim based authentication @ Windows Azure

Ma Qi (Sam), Solutions Architect @ NCS

During this session you will learn about the major investments in claims-based identity in Windows Azure Platform. He will discuss the new identity architecture, learn about all the components and how to manage and operate them. In addition, He will go over the design decisions you will need to make as you plan the interop between Windows Azure and external systems/Web services. During this session sam will show as a demo how to convert traditional RBAC ASP.NET application into CBAC application.

Profile :

Ma Qi (Sam) is currently working in NCS as .Net Application Architect. Since graduated from Xi’an Jiao Tong university in China, Sam started his IT career as software developer in 1997. In 2000, Sam moved to Singapore to pursue career development. During the period, Sam worked in various technology companies with different roles such as Software Developer, System designer, IT Consultant, System Analyst, Application Architect. In the past 5 years, Sam had successfully executed 2 enterprise .Net projects. Besides career, Sam received his MSc (Information Studies) from Nanyang Technological University in 2007.

Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure

K.Mohamed Faizal, Lead consultant @ NCS

Any platform, by its own nature, creates an ecosystem for third-party tools and helpers. Windows Azure is no different. In this session we look at a variety of the third-party tools available in the Windows Azure ecosystem. Included are tools for both developers and IT professionals. We look at tools that will help manage storage and resources, migration, scaling, diagnostics and software components that will help you build cloud applications.

Profile :

Faizal is an Lead Consultant with Chief Architect Office, NCS (P) Ltd. Faizal spends his days serving as a consultant or architect helping clients succeed with the Microsoft development platform. He has over a decade of experience in Information Technology with a focus on enabling portals, Internet & Intranet application development. His area of specialization includes but is not limited to evaluate & develop migration strategies for Cloud Computing (Windows Azure) as well as for SharePoint Server technologies. Faizal spends most of his spare time reading technology blogs and exploring new development technologies. Part of community work Faizal is active speaker in SharePoint User group. Faizal and Wely (MVP) founded AzureUG.SG User groups in Singapore and they meet every month last Wednesday night at Microsoft Singapore to discuss, share knowledge and experiences on development and Windows Azure architecture.

Windows Azure boot camp training

2011-07-18T20:21:00.001-07:00

14^th & 15^th July 2011 we have completed 4^th Intake of our Windows Azure boot camp training. (Only for NCS). around 21 NCS people attended our session and learn about Windows Azure, SQL Azure, AppFabrics.

Presenting : Explore and Implement SharePoint Security: Permissions, Identities, and Objects @ NCS SharePoint CoP Group

2011-07-18T20:11:00.001-07:00

On 21st July i am presenting Explore and Implement SharePoint Security: Permissions, Identities, and Objects @ NCS SharePoint CoP group. This a NCS Internal user groups which meet every two months once to share experience and present various technical topics in SharePoint Server and Application development.

During this session i will be discussing about Portal End to End to Security.

The SharePoint security model can be confusing, with its deep hierarchy of securable objects, granular permissions and policies, and clunky user and group management interfaces. This session demystifies SharePoint security by dissecting each of these components and presenting best practices for implementing and managing security. Learn when and why it makes sense to leverage Active Directory groups or use SharePoint groups, and take away options for new permission levels and settings that address common business requirements.

Request.ApplicationPath not supported in Web Role

2011-07-13T02:26:00.001-07:00

ApplicationPath not supported on Windows Azure. Recently we need to migrate existing .NET 2.0 project to Windows Azure. We upgrade the code to .NET 4.0 and run application locally there is no issue. When we migrated to Windows Azure we discover that the ApplicationPath not working the reason from MSDN forum is….

ApplicationPath is only valuable when you have multiple virtual directories under the IIS web site. But on the cloud machines, each web role (and even each instance) is hosted on a separate virtual machine. Each IIS will contain only one web site with no virtual directories. All web pages are stored under the root web site. So ApplicationPath will always return /, with no meaning on the cloud.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazure/thread/9f0c1f8e-cc6d-4d07-9dcd-93db179d3703/

Windows Azure AspProviders error on deployment

2011-07-13T02:25:00.001-07:00

When you deploy AspProviders (Azure Table Storage) on Windows Azure you may encounter following error.

Configuration Error

Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.
Parser Error Message: Could not load type 'Microsoft.Samples.ServiceHosting.AspProviders.TableStorageSessionStateProvider'.

To overcome above issue, make sure that you have Added AspProviders project as a References to your web project.

TOGAF Certified Enterprise Architect

2011-06-08T18:56:00.001-07:00

Recently obtain TOGAF Enterprise Architecture certification, during the course enrolment the university (NUS ISS) challenge me with following questions.

1) Why we should accept you into this programme?

A huge part of Enterprise Architect in general is communicating and selling ideas and vision. The main area that I work in is the evaluation of IT offerings (i.e. Cloud Computing) against the business processes and business requirements and selecting the strategic applications and middleware to meet those requirements. AS an Enterprise Architect I should analysis the current state and the strategic for ?to-be? architectures which includes looking at the as-is architecture and what exists today and making decisions on what the strategic architecture should look like in future.

As an Enterprise Architect. In my mind there are four technology specialties which coincidently match how Business, Applications, Infrastructure and Data. I hope that these course would allow me learn more about these four key areas and provide better consulting for our clients.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2) Educational qualifications and professional experience:

I am holding a Bachelor?s degree in Business Administration from the Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, India (1999), and a Master?s degree in Business Administration from the Central Queensland University (CQU) Australia. (2006).

I am having, 14+years? experience in information systems, understand the business process and formulating, propose design/system architecture, developing and managing application, Design site maps, process maps, prototypes, provide online service, managing security access level, data protection, end-user consulting, risk management, Plan & Monitor and control project schedules, project management and he successfully migrated applications from Lotus Notes to .NET / SharePoint portal.

After 7 full days of training, project work, assessment and presentation NUS ISS and TOGAF awarded me

http://www.opengroup.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Architecture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Architecture_-_Building_Blocks

Windows Azure Video Tutorials Now Available

2011-06-05T18:44:00.001-07:00

Quick introduction to a variety of topics,including how to connect enterprise assets with Windows Azure roleswith a new feature called Windows Azure Connect, how to synchronize SQLServer data with SQL Azure, how to authenticate users with Access Control Services (ACS), and how to migrate ASP.NET applications toWindows Azure. We've also included a 5-part series on how to apply the Microsoft Software Development Lifecycle (also known as SDL) to developing applications for Windows Azure. Most of videos are five minutes or less and include related code samples.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/videos/

AppFabric.Tv on Channel9

2011-05-29T04:57:00.001-07:00

AppFabric.tv covers the latest in Windows Azure AppFabric, Windows Server AppFabric, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF4).

http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/AppFabric-tv

I am on Channel 9

2011-05-26T06:48:00.001-07:00

I am on MSDN Channel 9. In many times i visited Channel 9 and viewed videos about Windows Azure and SharePoint 2010. First time i am seeing myself on Channel 9… this is most memorable moment in my life.

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Microsoft-Cloud-Day-in-Singapore-Building-web-pplications-with-Azure-Storage

Building web applications with Azure Storage

2011-05-23T03:35:00.001-07:00

A key component of any cloud computing offering is durable storage. Windows Azure provides 3 forms of durable storage: tables, blobs, and queues. Join me as we explore the highlights of these 3 important implementations.

In this session you will learn storage capabilities of Windows Azure, Blobs, Tables and Queues. Discover how to create storage accounts; upload and retrieve blobs and blob metadata; create, update and query tables; and create a simple service that uses a message queue for communication.

MS Cloud Day - Building web applications with Azure Storage by K.Mohamed Faizal from Innovative Singapore on Vimeo.

MS Cloud Day - Building web applications with Azure storage

View more presentations from Microsoft Innovation Centre Singapore

Speaking at Microsoft Cloud Day @ Singapore

2011-04-23T04:51:00.001-07:00

On 27^th April 2011 speaking at the Microsoft Cloud Day event, I session at 11am after the tea break, I understand that the event is over response (after 200 people booking confirmation).

My topic is Building Web application with Azure Storage

I prepare for set of demo for each topics, Hope everything will become smooth on the day.

Microsoft Cloud Day on 27th April 2011

2011-04-13T01:37:00.001-07:00

Deep dive into the world of Cloud Computing with Microsoft as we bring you across a series of topics ranging from Web Applications on Cloud, Implementation & Security as well as Cloud Computing Architecture. Seize this golden opportunity to speak to Alex Chan, one of the leading minds in Cloud Computing, and let him shed some light on your burning questions about the Cloud.

Alex Chan joined Microsoft in 2005 to help establish the Server and Tools Business (STB) in China. He currently serves as the Product Unit Manager of the AppFabric Developer Experience (ADX) team based out of Shanghai, responsible for global product development and local customer and partner engagement in the region.

Come and find out for yourself the power of Cloud Computing.

To Register go to

http://swap.com.sg/ms/edm/270411/registration.html

Date:
27th April 2011 (Wednesday)

Time:
9.00am to 5.00pm
(registration starts at 9am)

Venue:
Microsoft Auditorium
Level 21
One Marina Boulevard
NTUC Centre

Who Should Attend:
TDM, IT Manager, IT Pros, Project Manager, Application Manager, Architect, Development Team Leader, Developer, Programmer.

RSVP before 25th April 2011

9:30-9:45

Ziriad Saibi
Director Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Singapore

Keynote Opening

9:45-10:45

Daniel Bucherer
Azure Platform Strategy Advisor,
Microsoft Corporation

CL101:

Introduction to Windows Azure platform and real world case study

10:45-11:00

Break

11:00-12:00

K.Mohamed Faizal
Lead Consultant, NCS Pte Ltd

CL201:

Building web applications with Azure Storage

12:00-13:00

Tan Choon Ngee
Director, aZaaS Pte Ltd

CL301:

Understanding and implementation Windows Azure platform security

13:00-13:30

Lunch Break

13:30-14:30

Alex Chan
Principal Product Unit Manager, Server & Tools Business, Microsoft China

CL302:

Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus and access control

14:30-15:30

Darryl Chantry
Platform Strategy Advisor, Microsoft Singapore

CL202:

Cloud Computing – A Crash Course for Architects

15:30-15:45

Break

15:45-16:45

Wely Lau
Windows Azure MVP / Solutions Architect,
NCS Pte Ltd

CL303:

Deploying and Monitoring Windows Azure Application

16:45 – 17.00

Harish Aitharaju
Server & Tools Business Group Lead, Microsoft Singapore

Closing

For more tech updates, you can visit us on www.InnovativeSingapore.com.

Follow us on

SGDOTNET & AzureUG.SG Meeting on 18th April 2011 7:00pm

2011-04-13T01:18:00.001-07:00

Date: 18th April 2011

Location : Microsoft Singapore Level 21 Auditorium

Time : 7:00pm to 9:30pm

(Light Refreshments will be served before the session)

Session Agenda

From the trenches: Lessons learnt working on Azure

Mahesh Krishnan, Principal Consultant, Readify
1900 hrs – 2000 hrs

Mahesh Krishnan, from Melbourne, Australia speaks about the lessons learnt working on one of the largest Azure projects in Australia. The application which is set to go live soon uses web roles, worker roles, VM roles, queues, blobs, tables, WIF, and Sync Framework, among other things. When it goes live it will feature hundreds of thousands of SQL Azure databases and scores of services hosted on Windows Azure. Come and find out what the team learnt on things such as deployment, configuration, security, diagnostics, testing etc.

Speaker Profile
Mahesh Krishnan works as a Principal Consultant for Readify, in Melbourne Australia. He has written the book “Silverlight 4 for Dummies” published by Wiley Publishers and speaks frequently at Industry events such as Tech Ed and ReMix. He is very active in the Melbourne .NET community and helps organise conferences such as “Developer Developer Developer” and Silverlight code camp in Melbourne. He also runs Victoria .NET, which is the one of the largest .NET user groups in Australia and he is one of the founding members of the Silverlight Developer and Designer Network.

Visual Studio Productivity Power Tools
Justin Lee, C# MVP
2015 hrs – 2115 hrs

VS Productivity Power Tools is an extension which few people know about its features and how many productivity improvements it adds to VS2010.

Speaker Profile
A weird, passionate geek for technology with an undying love to pick at every flaw that will hopefully improve technology all around. Owns a lovely MacBook Pro with 8gigs of ram, involved intimately with Linux and works closely with Microsoft technologies. Owner of an HTC Hero Android phone, once owned an iPhone 3g, still owns a 1st gen Sony Ericsson W800i. A coder of many languages, from Haskell to C#, from F# to Ruby. A jack of all technology, a master of one. Motto is “Taking over the world with every line of code”.

To register for the event, click here. Note that there’s currently no email confirmation for the event.

Please RSVP to confirm your registration and attendance by 15th April 2011. ( kmdfaizal@gmail.com OR microlau@sgdotnet.org Note that there’s currently no email confirmation for the event

AzureUG.SG Meeting on 30th March 2011

2011-03-24T20:44:00.001-07:00

Date: 30th March 2011

Location : Microsoft Singapore Level 21 Auditorium

Time : 6:45pm to 9:30pm

(Light Refreshments will be served before the session)

Session Agenda

Best practices for designing & developing applications for Azure

Rishi Agrawal. – Microsoft – Azure Technical Specialist

The Azure platform, and the related new development model, provides many opportunities to design and develop applications in many flexible ways. This session will provide some interesting practices for designing & developing applications for Azure. In many situations, such practices might be considered ‘best practices’, but as we all know – rules are meant to be broken depending on the situation….

Advanced Topics on Windows Azure Service Roles

Wely, Solution Architect (Azure MVP) - NCS (P) Ltd.

This session will walk you through each Windows Azure Service Roles (Web, Worker, and VM) and explains the appropriate scenario of using them. Subsequently, we will show you how to enable Remote Desktop (RDP) to your Windows Azure instances. Finally, we will show you how to pre-configure or pre-install some third-party program that your application need on the Windows Azure. Apart from presentation slide, you will see more live demo to have a better comprehension on the real-scenario.

Speaker Profile :

Rishi Agrawal. – Microsoft – Azure Technical Specialist

Profile: Rishi Agrawal has been with Microsoft for 11 years, in different roles related with Application Platform and IPTV products. Currently, he is Azure Technical Specialist for the Microsoft South East Asia region. In his role, Rishi interacts with various Azure customers and partners from the region, as well as Azure product group and other technical specialists.

Wely Lau (Microsoft MVP, Windows Azure)

Prior joining NCS as a “Cloud” Architect, he worked as Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Indonesia. Driving the adoption of latest Microsoft Development Platform to technical communities was his main mission.

In NCS, he focuses on Cloud Computing, specifically on Windows Azure Platform. Performing cloud consultancy, architecting cloud solution, and delivering cloud training are his day-to-day activities. In spare time, he writes blog, delivers presentation to technical community, and participates in online activities. His passion in driving Microsoft technologies especially Windows Azure makes him to be awarded the first Windows Azure in Southeast Asia.

Please RSVP to confirm your registration and attendance by 29 March 2011. ( kmdfaizal@gmail.com) Note that there’s currently no email confirmation for the event

Windows Azure SDK 1.4

2011-03-10T17:45:00.001-08:00

New versions of the Windows Azure Software Development Kit(SDK) and Windows Azure Management Portal are now available to developers. The 1.4 version of the Windows Azure SDK includes new features for both Windows Azure Connect and the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN). It also includes enhancements to improve the stability and robustness of Remote Desktop to Windows Azure Roles, as well as other bug fixes

New features we are enabling today include:

Windows Azure Connect:
- Multiple administrator support on the Admin UI.
- An updated Client UI with improved status notifications and diagnostic capabilities.
- The ability to install the Windows Azure Connect client on non-English versions of Windows.
Windows Azure CDN:
- Windows Azure CDN for Hosted Services: Developers can now use the Windows Azure Web and VM roles as"origin" for objects to be delivered at scale via the Windows Azure CDN. Static content in a website can be automatically edge-cached at locations through out the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America to provide maximum bandwidth and lower latency delivery of website content to users.
- Serve secure content from the Windows Azure CDN: A new checkbox option in the Windows Azure management portal enables delivery of secure content via HTTPS through any existing Windows Azure CDN account.

AzureUG.SG meeting summary

2011-03-03T18:23:00.001-08:00

My self and Wely (Windows Azure MVP) founded the AzureUG.SG (Singapore Windows Azure User Group) in Singapore we had our first Azure.UG meeting at Microsoft Singapore on 26^th January 2011.

We got wonderful response more than 30 participants attended the meeting. Microsoft supported us in various form Mingfei Yan Developer Evangelist team help us sponsored as nice food for participants.

David Tang, Product Marketing Manager from Microsoft Singapore. Given welcome note, David talked about the opportunity, potential and Microsoft commitments on Windows Azure cloud computing. Big Thanks to David Tang who helped us lot in many ways our UG.

Developing, Deploying, and Managing Windows Azure Application by Wely (Windows Azure MVP)

The first session done by Wely, He talked about Developing, Deploying, and Managing Windows Azure Application. This talk was actually derived from what Jim’s session in PDC2010. He stared his session with explaining overview of Windows Azure and complete the rest of the session with more demo. Starting with creating an application with Visual Studio, deploying it on Windows Azure Developer portal, and finally managing the deployed application via remote desktop.

You can download my slides and sample code over here

Exploring Windows Azure Storage – Mohammed Faizal

The second session was done by me. I start to discuss about Windows Azure Storage in overview first, subsequently explore more on Windows Azure Table Storage in deep. I use Portfolio and stock and How effectively you can use partition key and row key access or retrieve data from storage.

Unique partition key is the fastest access method.
Partition key and row key is very fast
Partition key and no row key is slower (the Table service needs to read all properties for each entity in the partition).
No partition key and no row key is very slow

Download presentation slide from http://www.slideshare.net/kmdfaizal/exploring-windows-azure-cloud-storage

Microsoft Video - A Sustainable Future

2011-02-21T07:16:00.001-08:00

A Day Made of Glass... Made possible

2011-02-21T07:14:00.001-08:00

FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

2011-02-21T04:45:00.001-08:00

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search training courses provide a series of hands-on labs, presentations, and videos that demonstrate how to enable high-end enterprise search with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search IT Professional Training
Learn about deployment, administration, maintenance, and about crawling and indexing content, and defining the user experience.

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search Developer Training
Learn about crawling and indexing content and defining the user experience. By completing these modules, you can build most of the Contoso Research Demo and gain a broad understanding of how to apply these design principles to your site

Microsoft Cloud Certifications and Training

2011-02-18T00:10:00.001-08:00

Business is moving to the cloud. According to IDC predictions for 2011, 80% of new software will be available as cloud services; by 2014, over one-third of software purchases will be delivered through the cloud.* To keep pace with their customers and employers, most IT professionals and developers will require additional skills. If you’re ready for the challenge, Microsoft is ready to help. Our new training courses will help you acquire the skills you need for success, and our new certifications will help you prove your knowledge and skills to employers and customers.

	Goal	Certification Paths	Certification Availability	Required Exams	Get Training
Platform as a Service	Build your skills	MCPD: Web Developer 4 Earning the MCPD: Web Developer 4 certification will help you gain core web development skills and better prepare you to develop for the cloud. It is not required to pursue the MCPD: Windows Azure Developer certification.	Available now	70-513, 70-515, 70-516, and 70-519	Visual Studio Training Portal
OR
MCPD: Windows Developer 4 Earning the MCPD: Windows Developer 4 certification will help you gain core Windows development skills and better prepare you to develop for the cloud. It is not required to pursue the MCPD: Windows Azure Developer certification.	Available now	70-511, 70-513, 70-516, and 70-518	Visual Studio Training Portal
Obtain new skills	MCPD: Windows Azure Developer Show employers and clients that you are ready to support the move to cloud services by earning the MCPD: Windows Azure Developer certification. This certification validates your ability to design, build, and deploy cloud-based applications for hosting on the Windows Azure platform.	New! Available now	70-513, 70-516, and 70-583	Windows Azure Training Portal
Infrastructure as a Service	Build your skills	MCITP: Server Administrator Earning the MCITP: Server Administrator certification will help you gain core Windows Server skills and better prepare you to support a cloud infrastructure. It is not required to pursue the MCITP: Virtualization Administrator certification.	Available now	70-640, 70-642, and 70-646	Windows Server Training Portal
Obtain new skills	MCITP: Virtualization Administrator Get ready for private cloud by earning your MCITP: Virtualization Administrator certification. This certification validates your knowledge and skills in designing and deploying virtualization solutions when using Windows Server 2008 R2 in an enterprise organization.	Available now	70-669 and 70-693 plus either 70-659 or 70-652	Virtualization Training Portal
Software as a Service	Build your skills	MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2010¹ Demonstrate your professional messaging expertise by earning the MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator certification. Updates to include cloud-related skills coming soon.	Available now— Updates coming soon	70-662 and 70-663	Exchange Server Training Portal
OR
MCITP: SharePoint Administrator 2010² Demonstrate your SharePoint 2010 administration skills. Updates to include cloud-related skills coming soon.	Available now— Updates coming soon	70-667 and 70-668	SharePoint Training Portal
OR
Dynamics CRM 2011 Certifications³ New certifications will cover relevant skills for both cloud and on premise implementations of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. Certifications include Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Applications and Microsoft Dynamics 2011 Customization and Configuration.	Coming soon	Access Dynamics Customer site or Partner site for more information	Dynamics CRM training
Obtain new skills	MCITP: Lync Server 2010 Administrator⁴ This certification shows that you have the skills to deploy and configure Lync Server 2010, an integral part of the Microsoft SaaS offering—Office 365.	Coming soon	70-664 and 70-665	Course 10533A ---- Course 10534A

Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer

2011-02-01T18:45:00.001-08:00

Error occurred in deployment step 'Retract Solution': Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer 'SHAREPOINT'.

You can do the following steps to resolve it.

1. Go to Central Administration

2. Open "System Settings"

3. Open "Manage services on server"

4. Locate the service “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation User Code Service”

5. Start the service “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation User Code Service”

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/is/sharepoint2010general/thread/2af4352a-7379-44c8-99e3-0a33ed1a1db1

AzureUG.SG Meeting at 26th Jan 2011

2011-01-17T03:46:00.001-08:00

Date : 26^th Jan 2011

Location : Microsoft Singapore Level 21 Auditorium

Time : 7:00pm to 9:30pm

Session Agenda

Building, deploying, and managing Windows Azure Applications

Wely, Solution Architect (Azure MVP) - NCS (P) Ltd.

In order to take full advantage of Windows Azure Platform, you need to know more than just how to write the code. You need to know how to incorporate your application in a team environment, deploy, monitor, manage and retrieve diagnostic information back from the cloud. In this session, you will learn everything you need to know to be successful with a project that utilizes Windows Azure Platform including setting up your development environment, automating build, and deployments to different deployment environments from staging to production, and managing credentials and user roles using the Windows Azure Portal. You will also learn how to use the Windows Azure Portal to monitor and manage your application to discovers issues and how to use diagnostics and Remote Desktop to monitor and resolve those issues

Exploring Windows Azure Storage

K.Mohamed Faizal, Lead Consultant - NCS (P) Ltd.

In this session, you will learn the persistence storage services offered by Windows Azure, called Windows Azure Storage. Windows Azure Storage consists of Tables for storing tabular data, Blobs for storing large binary data, and Queue for asynchronous processing.

Please RSVP to confirm your registration and attendance by 25 Jan 2011. ( kmdfaizal@gmail.com ) No email response will be sent for your registration.

Azure Hands on Labs

2011-01-14T14:40:00.001-08:00

I am happy that we are one of the early group tried and given feedback on these HOL.

Moving Applications to the Cloud – Hands on Labs

This series of Hands-On Labs is related to the guide "Moving Applications to the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure™ Platform" available from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728592.aspx.

The individual labs correlate with the chapters of the guide, and demonstrate or expand upon the techniques shown in the guide. The Labs are designed to enhance your understanding of the Windows Azure platform through practical, hands-on work with the complete, sample a Expense application developed by the fictitious Adatum company Moving Applications to the Cloud – Hands on Labs

Developing Applications for the Cloud – Hands on Labs

This series of Hands-On Labs is related to the guide "Developing Applications for the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure™ Platform" available from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff966499.aspx.

The individual labs correlate with the chapters of the guide, and demonstrate or expand upon the techniques shown in the guide. The Labs are designed to enhance your understanding of the Windows Azure platform through practical, hands-on work with the complete, sample Surveys application developed by the fictitious Tailspin company.

Windows Azure Jump Start video series

2011-01-14T14:14:00.001-08:00

The Windows Azure Jump Start video series is for all architects and developers interested in designing, developing and delivering cloud-based applications leveraging the Windows Azure Platform. The overall target of this course is to help development teams make the right decisions with regard to cloud technology, the Azure environment and application lifecycle, Storage options, Diagnostics, Security and Scalability. The course is based on the Windows Azure Platform Training Course and taught by Microsoft Press authors, Manu Cohen-Yashur and David S. Platt.

Session 01: Windows Azure Overview
Session 02: Introduction to Compute
Session 03: Windows Azure Lifecycle, Part 1
Session 04: Windows Azure Lifecycle, Part 2
Session 05: Windows Azure Storage, Part 1
Session 06: Windows Azure Storage, Part 2
Session 07: Introduction to SQL Azure
Session 08: Windows Azure Diagnostics
Session 09: Windows Azure Security, Part 1
Session 10: Windows Azure Security, Part 2
Session 11: Scalability, Caching & Elasticity, Part 1
Session 12: Scalability, Caching & Elasticity, Part 2, and Q&A

Word Automation Services–Power Point download

2011-01-13T19:11:00.001-08:00

Word automation services

View more presentations from Mohamed Faizal.

Code : http://cid-d1e9ef060fcd5fa2.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/WordToPDFCoversion.zip

Word Automation Service–FAQ–SharePoint UG

2011-01-13T19:09:00.001-08:00

1.) Word Automation service can convert Password protected file ?

The answer is NO.

2.) Document that contain Review with comments can covert as PDF?

The answer is YES….

Here is the output file

SharePoint 2010 : Convert Document to PDF using Word Automation Service

2011-01-13T18:49:00.001-08:00

Jan 13th 2011 at SharePointPro.SG (SharePoint User Group) i presented Word Automation Services the step by step walk though give below.

Objective : This session you will lean creating custom solution to convert Word documents to PDF using document library list item event receiver to call Word Automation Services to convert Word documents to PDF when they are added to the list. The event receiver checks whether the list item added is a Word document. If so, it creates a conversion job to create a PDF version of the Word document and pushes the conversion job to the Word Automation Services conversion job queue.

Select as as farm solution. (Word Service API’s dose not work with Sandboxed solutions)

Select List Definition as a Document Library and click Finish.

Ensue that you BaseType =1 and Type = 10000

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <ListTemplate
        Name="ListDefinition1"
        Type="10000"
        BaseType="1"
        OnQuickLaunch="TRUE"
        SecurityBits="11"
        Sequence="110"
        DisplayName="WToXPS - ListDefinition1"
        Description="My List Definition"
        Image="/_layouts/images/itdl.png"
        DocumentTemplate="121"/>
</Elements>

Right Click project and Add new item Select Event Receiver

Event Source - Select an item was added and click finish.

Add project reference and click browse go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI path and select Microsoft.Word.Server.dll file as reference and click OK.

Add following using statement on .CS file

using Microsoft.Office.Word.Server.Conversions;

Click Ctrl-K and Ctrl-S and select if statement

Insert following code :

if (properties.ListItem.Name.Contains(".docx") || properties.ListItem.Name.Contains(".doc")) 
    {
               ConversionJob jobConversion;
               ConversionJobSettings jobSettings;
               string wordDoc;
               string pdfDoc;

               jobSettings = new ConversionJobSettings();
               jobSettings.OutputFormat = SaveFormat.PDF;

               jobConversion = new ConversionJob("Word Automation Services", jobSettings);
               jobConversion.UserToken = properties.Web.CurrentUser.UserToken;

               wordDoc = properties.WebUrl + "/" + properties.ListItem.Url;

               if (properties.ListItem.Name.Contains(".docx"))
               {
                   pdfDoc = wordDoc.Replace(".docx", ".pdf");
               }
               else
               {
                   pdfDoc = wordDoc.Replace(".doc", ".pdf");
               }

               jobConversion.AddFile(wordDoc, pdfDoc);
               jobConversion.Start();
       }

Now i converted the document to PDF i want discard the original document. Use ConversionJobStatus to monitor the ConversonJob process and once the process completed delete the document

 ConversionJobStatus status = new ConversionJobStatus("Word Automation Services",
                jobConversion.JobId, null);

               while (true)
               {
                   Thread.Sleep(5000);
                   status = new ConversionJobStatus("Word Automation Services", jobConversion.JobId,
                       null);

                   if (status.Count == status.Succeeded + status.Failed)
                   {
                       properties.ListItem.Delete();
                   }
               }

Right click Build and deploy your project

Upload files to Document Library

The code run and generated PDF and Deleted the word document.

Download the full solution here at http://cid-d1e9ef060fcd5fa2.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/WordToPDFCoversion.zip

Windows Azure - Getting Started

2011-01-10T18:09:00.001-08:00

Cory Fowler posted wonderful post on Windows Azure resources which provide links to Windows Azure related Blogger, Twitter which you can subscribe or follow them to learn more about Windows Azure, Cory Fowler also provided the links to Videos, Books and code examples.

Sample :

Essential Downloads

Windows Azure SDK and Tools (MSDN)
Windows Azure Training Kit
Identity Developer Training Kit (WIF)
Recommended! patterns & practices Windows Azure Guidance

Folks in the Know

To view more from original post visit :

Essential Resources for Getting Started with Windows Azure

SharePoint UG Meeting – 13 Jan 2011

2011-01-09T17:28:00.001-08:00

Date : 13 January 2011

Time : 06:30PM – 09:00PM

Location : Microsoft Singapore Level 22. One Marina Boulevard

** Refreshments will be provided. Courtesy of Microsoft DPE Singapore

Please RSVP to confirm your registration and attendance by 12 Jan 2011. No email response will be sent for your registration.

Session Agenda

Automated Installation of SharePoint 2010 using PowerShell
Chyan Yee Goh, Consultant at Microsoft Consulting
In this session, we will start with some PowerShell basics in SharePoint 2010. After that we will cover the reasons behind the usage of PowerShell and we will go into the challenges and scenarios when installing SharePoint 2010 using PowerShell scripting.

Word Automation Service
K.Mohamed Faizal, Lead Consultant at NCS
This session you will lean creating custom solution to convert Word documents to PDF using document library list item event receiver to call Word Automation Services to convert Word documents to PDF when they are added to the list. The event receiver checks whether the list item added is a Word document. If so, it creates a conversion job to create a PDF version of the Word document and pushes the conversion job to the Word Automation Services conversion job queue.

About Faizal:
Faizal has over a decade of experience in Information Technology with a focus on enabling portals, Internet and Intranet. His area of specialization include but are not limited to evaluate and develop migration strategies for Lotus Notes application to SharePoint/.NET based solution, design content management, web-based self-service and collaboration solutions

Windows Azure Webinars - Free

2011-01-04T01:24:00.001-08:00

Free Webinars for Windows Azure which going to cover the benefits, implications of -and best practices for - adopting Windows Azure – Don’t Miss it.

The Business Case for Azure (Part 1) - January 12, 2011

The objective of this session is to provide an understanding of why Software as a Service is a compelling business model for today's ISVs and how Windows Azure can be a key enabler for ISVs considering a move to the cloud.

Understanding Implications of the Cloud (Part 2) -January 19, 2011

The focus of this session will be on the implications for adopting cloud computing as a core pillar of a go to market strategy. This webinar will provide an understanding of what ISVs face relative to change management challenges and implications for their current business models.

Easing (Leaping) Into the Cloud (Part 3) -January 29, 2011

The objective of this third and final session will be to introduce a decision-making framework - based on real world experience – for rationally adopting Windows Azure as a core element of an application architecture.

Merry Christmas to Everybody!

2010-12-23T19:01:00.001-08:00

Brief about Windows Azure Platform components

2010-12-21T19:45:00.001-08:00

Kev Ritchie has did 12 (days) posted brief about Windows Azure Platform components for more details visit below links.

Day 1 - Windows Azure Platform - Compute Service

Day 2 - Windows Azure Platform - Storage Service

Day 3 - Windows Azure Platform - Fabric Controller

Day 4 - Windows Azure Platform - Content Delivery Network

Day 5 - Windows Azure Platform – Connect

Day 6 - Windows Azure Platform - SQL Azure Database

Day 7 - Windows Azure Platform - SQL Azure Reporting

Day 8 - Windows Azure Platform - SQL Azure Data Sync

Day 9 - Windows Azure Platform - Azure AppFabric Service Bus

Day 10 - Windows Azure Platform - Azure AppFabric Access Control

Day 11 - Windows Azure Platform - Azure AppFabric Caching

Day 12 - Windows Azure Platform - Marketplace

Windows Azure Sample Applications

2010-12-20T00:29:00.001-08:00

Try following to sample application to see how Windows Azure Platform various product and service we can use and how to build highly scalable application.

BidNow
BidNow is an online auction site designed to demonstrate how you can build highly scalable consumer applications running in the Windows Azure Platform.
In addition to Windows Azure Web and Worker roles, BidNow uses SQL Azure for relational data storage, Access Control for authentication andauthorization, Caching to store reference and activity data, OData services to extend reach, and a Windows Phone 7 client to demonstrate how to use cloud services from a mobile device.
Download BidNow from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/BidNowSample

FabrikamShipping SaaS
FabrikamShipping SaaS is a full end to end sample scenario which demonstrates how to use the Windows Azure platform for exposing an application as a service. It features a number of advanced tasks such as developing long running processes, automated SQL Azure and Hosted Services provisioning, PayPal API integration, self-service federation and access control rules provisioning, account activation and social providers integration, Multi-tenancy, email notifications, MVC and Windows Identity Foundation integration, secure REST services via OAuth2, and much more.
Visit the FabrikamShipping home page at http://www.fabrikamshipping.com: there you will be able to interact with a live instance of the demo and download the full source code of the solution.

AzureUG.SG

2010-12-17T04:33:00.000-08:00

{Community} Technology Update 2010

2010-12-11T17:18:00.001-08:00

Technical Updates for the community, by the community

The 7^th iteration of CTU is back – Once again, the Singapore User Groups have come together to bring a full day of technical sharing ranging from topics for developers, IT professionals and database administrators. We’ve packed a full day of contents which is meant to get you up to date with the latest technologies in the Microsoft stack. If you’re one person who learns better only with practice, come on and sign up for our Hands-on Lab!

As an exclusive member of SGDN, you get invited to this event!

Date : 18^th December 2010

Time : 0900 – 1730 hrs

Venue :Microsoft Singapore, One Marina Boulevard

Registration Fees : $10 (Early-birds) - $15 (Walk-ins)

Why you should attend this event:

To learn about the latest changes in .NET, Microsoft virtualization technologies, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft Exchange
To participate in Hands-on-Lab: 1 covering Hyper-V and another to introduce Microsoft Azure

Who should attend this event:

IT Professionals
Developers
Database Administrators
Essentially you, as you’re one of our user group members!

PS. If you’re tired from all the listening and would like to chill out during CTU, we’ve prepared 2 sets of Kinect to help you to loosen up!

To register to this event, go to http://www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2010v2/SitePages/Register%20Now.aspx*.

To find out more about the event, go to http://www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2010v2

To find out why we’re charging for the event and other questions, go tohttp://www.sgdotnet.org/events/CTU2010v2/SitePages/FAQ.aspx

If you have any questions, please feel free to email to Alvin Lau (microlau@sgdotnet.org)

* Please enable pop-up window on this page

Windows Azure Advanced Applications Training

2010-11-22T02:09:00.001-08:00

From 15th Nov. 2010 to 19th Nov 2010, We had a great week with Windows Azure Core Team member Mr.Patrick Butler Monterde and Mr.Rishi Agrawal trained exclusively NCS Architects.

Day 1: Developing Applications for the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure™ Platform.

Day 2: Moving Applications to the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure™ Platform.

Day 3 & 4: Azure Advanced Applications – Make it real!

Wely (Azure MVP) Rishi Agrawal, Mohamed Faizal and Patrick Butler Monterde

First day training was very different from traditional method Patrick kick start with assigning project from each team and explore more about Windows Azure, Windows Azure Storage, SQL Azure and AppFabric and present the understanding on each topics. That was wonder experience and learn with fun.

Second day Rishi share with us upcoming features for Microsoft Sync Framework on SQL Azure. After tea break Patrick come with real world scenario that he implemented using Azure and assign team to work on solutions and present the pro and con. finally Patrick share with us his actual solution. This session was very intensive and helps to apply the learning on the spot.

Third day Rishi share with us Azure 1.3 new features (i.e. VM Role, Full IIS, Remote login) and Patrick share with us AppFabric after lunch Patrick given each team the real world scenario“Make it Real”. Each team responsible to do following task’s

Analyzing a business scenario.
Selecting the most suitable architectural implementation.
Designing and implementing Windows Azure solutions.
Presenting and justifying your selection.

Each team need to come up with

Component-Level Architecture for Windows Azure that will address the scenario at hand in a complete manner.
Class-Diagram outlining the relevant interfaces, class structure, methods and properties that will be implemented for the solution.
Code Sample must be created demonstrating one area of the proposed solution.

and forth day each team created a short presentation and share about the factors you considered tools you used to help your selection, any resources you found, and conclusions. When each presentation completed Patrick shard with us the real application Architecture of each application and the customer name.

NCS Architect Team with Patrick Butler Monterde

SharePoint 2010 and Windows Azure Firestarter event

2010-11-10T07:02:00.000-08:00

Microsoft TechNet SharePoint 2010 Firestarter 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM on 2nd Dec. 2010

Join us for this free, full-day event and learn about SharePoint 2010's new features, upgrade path, deployment options, Office Web Apps, and maintenance and virtualization.

To view Live on Dec 2nd Register @ http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9745632

Windows Azure Firestarter 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM on Dec 9th 2010

Is cloud computing still a foggy concept for you? Have you heard of Windows Azure, but aren't quite sure of how it applies to you and the projects you're working on?

Join your Microsoft Developer Evangelists for this free, all-day event combining presentations and hands-on exercises to demystify the latest disruptive (and over-hyped!) technology and to provide some clarity as to where the cloud and Windows Azure can take you.

To view Live on Dec 9th Register @ https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032464261&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

You can also register for event link Windows Phone 7 and Windows 7 Deployment

@ http://www.msdnevents.com/firestarter/

Microsoft Office 365

2010-11-09T07:02:00.001-08:00

The cloud base Microsoft Office 365 combines of Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online.

According to Mashable.com

There are two editions of Office 365. Office 365 for Small Businesses is designed for organizations of one to 25 people. It’s a pre-built package that includes Office Web Apps, Lync, e-mail sync and more. It doesn’t require IT support on the user’s end and will cost $6 per user per month.
The second version is Office 365 for Enterprises. Unlike the small business version, the enterprise edition can be customized based on an organization’s needs. It can be customized so different teams have different access levels to Office 365’s features. The enterprise edition comes with everything in the small business version, plus single sign-in, Office Pro Plus (via subscription), internal social networking tools, voicemail in the inbox, and more. It costs anywhere between $2 to $27 per user per month, depending on which features the company chooses to utilize.

South East Asia SharePoint Conference 2010 Day 1 Comments

2010-10-26T08:47:00.001-07:00

Wonderful day guys… South East Asia SharePoint Conference 2010 is begin today more than 500 delegates attended the 1st day event.

I attended the following sessions

Keynote speaker Mike Fitzmaurice has shared how did SharePoint started and how it becomes center of the universe. Interestingly he use most of his presentation with simple picture and talk about SharePoint history. (By mistake his photos listed list of speaker from USA, he pointed out that he not an American and he is Canadian) His shown as the first SharePoint Conference WF T-Shirt.

Virtualization of SharePoint 2010 Farm Architecture session by Michael Noel who is author of SharePoint 2010 Unlashed book he share above topic how organizations can begun to replace physical servers virtualizing the SharePoint Web Front end server, Index Query server, Service Application Server and Database server. During this session he share lots of tips and trick about virtualization.

Virtualization of SharePoint 2010 Farm Architecture session by Michael Noel

SharePoint 2010 : Developing with Data Technologies session by Randy Williams my favourite local speaker and one of the organizing member for South East Asia SharePoint Conference. He shared about how developer can use various Technologies retrieve / update / delete data from SharePoint. In this session he focus on CAML vs LINQ to SharePoint and dive in to LINQ to SharePoint demo. He also explain about REST API and finally talk about Client object model. His session was bit drag due to delegates questions and answers mainly on Permission and exception handling on Client object model programming. Sorry Randy I don’t take photo of your session I was looking at your demo and presentations.

Developing Web Parts in SharePoint 2010 by Ishai Sagi who is author for SharePoint 2010 How To book In this session he sharing his experience about developing webpart with SharePoint 2001 with VB scripts and how much Microsoft improve in SharePoint 2010 on Visual Web Part development. The important thing he share about common mistake developer make while developer developing web parts. He also demo to us AJAX visual web part and Sandox Web Part development for SharePoint online (Cloud). He giveaway two prices. SharePoint 2010 How to book and MSDN Subscription worth of $8000.

Me and Ishai Sagi

Developing Web Parts in SharePoint 2010 presentation by Ishai Sagi

Playing with Sanbox by Wictor Wilen my favorite blogger I regularly following his post resent one his Visual guide to Windows Live ID authentication which very good most people talk about this on community. It is great opportunities to meet him face to face in Singapore. I took a photo a with him.

During his session he was talking about Sanbox solution. So for I don’t see many people talk about this because of scare. He just start general introduction and how it will work. He also discuss and show how to overcome the limitations in the Sandbox solution. I am happy to know that his SharePoint 2010 Web Parts in Action book will available on Print soon. Currently he offer 40% discount for e-book. He give away MSDN Subscription worth of $8000.

Faizal and Wictor Wilen

Why code when you can click and build SharePoint 2010 applications using InfoPath 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visio 2010! Session by Alpesh Nakar that was full house no place to sit I was standing 1hr to see his demo and presentation. Somehow the feature that he was going through was not existed to me. (Since I was using SharePoint 2010 beta 1 and did same kind of presentation two times) But I notice that the delegates loved his presentation and posted questions to him on SharePoint workflow and SharePoint Workspace.

Presentation Session by Alpesh Nakar

Overall the day one was good… Looking forward Day 2 sessions.

Cloud computing assessments and Start-ups

2010-10-25T02:43:00.000-07:00

Recently i come across the following blog post What You Need and Want With Windows Azure Part I and What You Need and Want With Windows Azure Part II which talk about Basic requirements of Windows Azure start up.

David Pallmann's Technology Blog discuss about is a right way and a wrong way to get involved with cloud computing. This article series is about doing it the right way and focuses on the use of cloud computing assessments to properly evaluate, plan for, and adopt cloud computing. Two part of articles link given below for your reading

Cloud Computing Assessments, Part 1: The Right Way to Adopt Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing Assessments, Part 2: Envisioning Benefits & Risks

SharePoint 2010 Custom Document ID

2010-10-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

The following post provides you details How to create a custom Document ID provider for SharePoint Server 2010!

Microsoft.Office.DocumentManagement

The namespace Microsoft.Office.DocumentManagement contains a class called DocumentIdProvider, which will be the base for our upcoming project!

Microsoft.Office.DocumentManagement.DocumentIdProvider

This is the class we will derive from when creating our custom provider. It contains three (3) abstract methods and one (1) abstract method that we need to implement:

GenerateDocumentId (Method)
GetDocumentUrlsById (Method)
GetSampleDocumentIdText (Method)
DoCustomSearchBeforeDefraultSearch (Property)

For details post visit ": Tobias Zimmergren's thoughts on development blog http://www.zimmergren.net/archive/2010/04/13/sp-2010-sharepoint-server-2010-creating-your-custom-document-id-provider.aspx

SharePoint Analyst HQ http://www.sharepointanalysthq.com/2010/04/document-id-feature/

Document ID Settings Error “There are no addresses available for this application”

2010-10-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

Recently i enable Document ID future in SharePoint 2010 when i click Settings -> Site Collection Administration – Site Collection Administration to Document ID settings link i got following error how to resolve it.

“There are no addresses available for this application.”

Go to central admin, Service on Server and make sure that SharePoint Search service is running else enable your Search service.

Go back and click Site Collection Administration to Document ID settings links

System will show the Document ID's setting screen.

How to Configure Document ID services

2010-10-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

Document ID's is new future in SharePoint Server 2010 which provide you the ability to tag documents with a unique identification number.

I remember few of my clients have done custom solutions take care of in SharePoint 2007. With this new feature, you get all the required functionality to tag documents with unique identification numbers based on a specific pre-set formula with a custom prefix.

New site collection Feature: Document ID Service
Adds unique ID for all documents throughout the site collection
Documents can be retrieved regardless of the current of future location based on their unique ID, which does not change after initially set for the document
Using Microsoft.Office.Document Management.DocumentIdProvider to add custom Document ID provider.

To Enable Document ID Service go to Site Settings -> Site Collection Administration

Click Activate on Document ID service and to back to Settings -> Site Collection Administration – Site Collection Administration to Document ID settings links

System will show auto generate your unique ID's OR you can specify a prefix 4-12 document ID which you can configure as you wish

Beside enable above function you need to run following timer jobs so that system will assign the Document ID immediately.

Go Central Admin. run Now following jobs

Limitation : ONLY content types that are derived from the Document Content Type will have unique ID’s

The Future of IT & High Impact Decisions

2010-09-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

Recently I have downloaded and view following 2 videos which enlightening and I am assure that the time that you are going spend will worth it.

· The Future of IT – an interesting session and which creates fear that what would happen with changes in technology. With faster pace of IT development these days and its ability to transform our society, it is time to look at the trends, disruptors and potential outcomes that IT brings to us in next years. We'll touch the transformation of IT and its impact on business, education, governments and other pillars of our society.

· High Impact Decisions – A necessary skill to grow in any direction! an wonderful session needed by both developer and architect was done by Ranganathan S. Decision taking is influenced by information one has, challenges one face and the knowledge one possess. Information can be fact or assumption. Fact can be stated or unstated. Assumptions can be reasonable or unreasonable. challenges can be Fixed or Changing. knowledge can be accessible or inaccessible.

Go download and view it… (Decisions is your…. )

Rating Setting Error “No User Profile Application available to service the request”

2010-09-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

One of the SharePoint 2010 cool feature is Ratings, When you enable Rating setting from List Setting system prompt following error, this article explain how to resolve it.

No User Profile Application available to service the request. Contact your farm administrator.No User Profile Application available to service the request. Contact your farm administrator.

Go to Central Administration > Services on Server > Ensure that User Profile Service is Started ?

Go to Central Administration > Manage Service Applications and Select User Profile Service and Go to Application ribbon and click the Administrators button.

When you click Administrators button you will see below windows Select username and assign Full control under Permissions, now you go and enable Rating Setting you will not get above error.

Link : http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2010/02/22/no-user-profile-application-available-mystery-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx

Tech Insights 2010 Day 2 Photos

2010-09-26T06:43:00.001-07:00

Speakers room atmosphere (Everyone busy with preparing/updating presentation slides

Lunch @ Day 2

Developer Track Delegates….

Gogula Gomethagan Aryalingam (MVP for SQL Server from Sri Lanka) at Using dimensional modeling to build a data warehouse on SQL Server

Choirul Amri (MVP SQL Server, Singapore) at SQL Server Performance troubleshooting for busy DBA

Teh Wei King (MVP System Center Operations Manager, Malaysia) Deploying Windows 7 using free tools

Dinesh Priyankara, Microsoft MVP for SQL Server Sri Lanka @ Strengtheing DW/BI system loading

Raymond chou MVP System Center Operation Manager, Malaysia @ Lunch

Lilian Quek, Southeast Asia Regional MVP Lead with MVP’s

Mohamed Faizal, @ SharePoint 2010 List Improvments session @ Day 2

Darren Sim MVP, ASP.NET Singapore @ Visualizing your ASP.NET application with "Razor"

Managed Metadata Service or Connection is currently not available

2010-09-23T05:03:00.000-07:00

The Managed Metadata Service or Connection is currently not available. The Application Pool or Managed Metadata Web Service may not have been started. Please Contact your Administrator.

Go to Central Administration – > System Settings and Click Manage Service on Server.

Ensure that Manage metadata Web Service is Started…. if not click start and do iisrest you will able to raid about error.

Southeast Asia SharePoint Conference (Tuesday 26 October 2010 – Wednesday 27 October 2010)

2010-09-22T01:20:00.000-07:00

Have you registered for the SharePoint Conference yet?

An opportunity like no other in your region, and you're invited.

Two days. Over 40 sessions. All for the Early bird price of SGD$300!

This is is the conference to learn about SharePoint 2010 with expert local and international speakers presenting on topics that will help you understand and succeed with your SharePoint implementations and add real value to your organisation and businesses.

In addition to the session content you'll have ample opportunities to network with your peers in the community and technical and industry experts including local and international Microsoft Most Valued Professionals and Southeast Asia's top Certified Partners.

Don’t miss out on Southeast Asia's biggest SharePoint event of the year!

Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore, October 26 and 27 2010.

Group Registrations for 5 or more participants are available and will receive a 20% discount. Please note the person arranging the Group Booking (Group Leader) is responsible for all credit card fees and agenda updates for all people registered in the group. Group members cannot individually update their agendas.

Early Bird Registrations of $SGD300.00 will apply to the first 275 delegates who register.

Regular Registration fee is $SGD400.00.

Additional Training Opportunities - be sure to check out the Pre and Post conference training courses - see GTTP

Audience and Products

The SharePoint Conference is intended for a wide audience and has content to cover roles such as:

Business Roles like End Users, Business Champions, Power Users and Business Managers
Information Architects, Record and Information Managers IT Managers, CIO and Decision Makers
Technical Roles including Developers, IT Pro, Systems Administration and DBA's Microsoft

Technologies covered during the conference include:

WSS 3.0 (Windows SharePoint Services)
MOSS 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)
SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010
SharePoint Designer 2007 and 2010
Integration with other Office 2007 and 2010 including InfoPath, Excel, Access and Visio
Integration with 3rd Party products enhancing SharePoint functionality

Connect with SEA SPC

Linkedin: http://events.linkedin.com/SharePoint-Conference-South-East-Asia/pub/364552

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SharePoint-Conference-South-East-Asia/135980859759693

Twitter: #SPCSEA @spcsea

Web site: http://www.sharepointconference.asia/

Speaking at Tech Insights 2010 in Penang, Malaysia

2010-09-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

Last month I have been confirmed as a speaker for Tech Insights 2010 in Penang, Malaysia. Branded “Ignite your passion” 3 day events. (http://www.techinsights.my/)

The event is scheduled to run from 22nd to 24th September 2010 (Wednnesday to Friday)

Venue : Eureka Building, University of Science Malaysia (USM), Penang

Time : 9.00am to 6.00pm

Registration : RM120.00, RM80.00 (for members of supporting organizations)

My two sessions will be on 23rd Sep and 24th Sep. Here are my two sessions:

Topic 1 : SharePoint 2010 List Improvements

In this session you will learn SharePoint 2010 List Improvements such as

Column Validation,
List Validation Settings,
List Lookups and Relationships,
List inline editing and
Listing customization on Info path.
Form Web part
Calendar Overlay
Per location view

Topic 2 : Explore SharePoint 2010 Enterprise & Document Management features

This session you learn about SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Content Management offerings.

Enterprise Content Management
Document Management features
Metadata Management
Term Store, Term Sets & Terms
Content Hub
Content Type Syndication
Document IDs
Document Sets
Document Centre
Content organizer
Sent to Location

My both sessions going be to full of demo rather then normal talk, so please join if you are Penang in Malaysia see you there.

Download Updated SharePoint 2010 Software Development Kit (SDK)

2010-09-17T15:34:00.001-07:00

The SharePoint 2010 Software Development Kit (SDK) has been updated! Get it here: Download from the Microsoft Download Center

Tips: Installing and Using the SharePoint 2010 SDK Download

What’s New in this SDK Update

We are excited to announce the latest quarterly update of the SDK for SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010. This free update replaces previous 2010 versions of the SDK and includes the following:

New code samples: Silverlight List Viewer, plus new samples in Business Connectivity Services (BCS), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), and User Profiles and Social Data
Updated documentation, including: new and updated How To, reference , and conceptual content
Updated IntelliSense XML files for tooltips and auto-complete in Visual Studio

Here are two MSDN topics listing new and updated content and code samples in the AUG2010 version of the SDK (14.0.4763.1031):

A complete listing and description of the 44 code samples currently available in the SDK can be found here on MSDN Code Gallery: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/sp2010sdk.

Singapore SharePoint Community meeting September 2010

2010-09-06T18:47:00.001-07:00

Singapore SharePoint Community

Date : 09 September 2010

Time : 07:00 PM – 9:00PM

Location : Microsoft Singapore Level 22 CF-12

SharePoint Content Governance

Linden Daniels, Microsoft Consulting Services

SharePoint is one of the fastest selling products from Microsoft. Yet it still causes IT and users problems with scaling usability, performance and operations. Find out more by understanding the underlying architecture and what remediation can be done.

Refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Microsoft Singapore.

Please RSVP to ssofian@mvps.org to confirm your attendance

The FIRST ever SharePoint Conference SEA is coming to town on October 26-27. Register NOW

Windows Azure SDK Installation error

2010-09-02T00:45:00.001-07:00

When you run VSCloudService.exe you may get following error

“”The Windows Azure SDK requires Internet Information Service 7.0 with ASP.Net Application Development components installed”

To resolve this error you need to and run your web platform exe and select Web Platform tab and customize the Web Server option with: ASP.Net, Default Document and CGI deployment types.

After completion of above Installation you may need to go to From the Start menu, choose Settings | Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features, Click Turn “windows Features On or Off”, under Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5.1, select WCF HTTP Activation

Now you can Install Windows Azure SDK….

Windows Azure Deployment Stuck at Initializing, Busy and Stopping states

2010-08-31T23:59:00.001-07:00

When you deploy your Windows Azure Application sometime you may face problem like Initializing, Busy and Stopping states cycling between. This blog provide you the check list for the most common reasons.

http://blog.toddysm.com/2010/01/windows-azure-deployment-stuck-in-initializing-busy-stopping-why.html

A Lap around Windows Azure (SGDOTNET September 2010)

2010-08-30T23:11:00.001-07:00

We’re very delighted to have a trio of Azure enthusiasts who’s willing to share with us about Windows Azure, from high level all the way down to code level. With the cloud as an emerging architecture in future systems, all of us should be aware of how cloud will change the software ecosystem, architecture, design and even how we deliver our software or systems.

September UG meeting will be held on 2^nd September 2010 on this Thursday, at Level 21 Auditorium from 1845hrs – late. Light Refreshments will be served before the session.

A Lap around Windows Azure
Wely Lau & Mohamed Faizal
1900 hrs – late

The Windows Azure platform is a set of high-performance cloud computing services that can be used together or independently and enable developers to leverage existing skills and familiar tools to develop cloud applications. In this session, we’ll provide a developer-focused overview of

What is cloud computing?
Lap around Windows azure
Using the Windows Azure and local developer cloud fabric
Working with table & blob and queue storage

Speaker Profile

Wely and Faizal are both working as Solutions Architect under Chief Architect Office from NCS. Both of them are taking care of the Cloud competency as part of their day-to-day job.

To register for the event, click here. Note that there’s currently no email confirmation for the event.

Getting start with Windows Azure

2010-08-25T01:59:00.001-07:00

Getting start with Windows Azure, you need to following steps to be completed

1. Operating System Requirements

Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2

2. Download Web Platform Installer 2.0, Run –> Click Options and select Developer Tools options

3. Select Visual Web Developer 2010 Express and Windows Azure Tool for VS 2010

4. Go to Web Platform and Select database, make sure that you selected Express edition and Management Studio.

5. Click install and confirm

6. While the installation is going on go to Windows Azure Platform Training Kit and download the kit. This kit will provides some cool videos to watch to give you an overview of Windows Azure. Once download completed open the training kit and work through both the Windows Azure and SQL Azure labs.

How to Install and Configure Office Web Apps for SharePoint 2010

2010-08-23T00:58:00.000-07:00

With SharePoint 2010, you can deploy Office Web Apps which helps to view / edit Office document (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote ) over the web.

When you Install “Office Web Applications” on your SharePoint farms system will add the following service applications;

Word Viewing Service Application
Excel Calculation Service
PowerPoint Service Application

Download Office Web Apps from the Microsoft Download Site. This download is available to Volume licensing customers or those with TechNet and MSDN subscriptions.

Enter Product Key

Click Continue… (Note that is RTM Version)

Click Install

System will perform configuration task step 1 to 10

System will complete the process and successful

Click Start the Wizard… (Or) Click cancel and activate the Office Web Apps services individually when you need for my case i just click Start the Wizard and completed process.

Go to Site Setting > Site Collection Administration > and Click Site collection feature

Activate Office Web Apps…. and view/ / edit on browser.

Office Web Application on SharePoint 2010 Step 5 Error

2010-08-19T08:04:00.001-07:00

Installing Office Web Application on SharePoint 2010 after the configuration wizard is through with its process you may ran into an issue on Step 5: Configuring SharePoint services. The configuration wizard failed with an InvalidOperationException with the following entry in the eventlog.

Failed to register SharePoint services. An exception of type System.InvalidOperationException was thrown. Additional exception information: Failed to load or format string Id ManagementUI_ExcelCalculationService_FriendlyName for culture en-US: System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for ‘Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.Host.ExcelServerHost’ threw an exception. —> System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. —> System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type ‘Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.Extensions.IHostExtension’ from assembly ‘Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.MossHost, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c’.

Click run and type regedit enter goto HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\WSS\Services Delete the key for the service causing the error and re-run the configuration. After the delete the coniguration wizard ran successfully to completion.

Please note that by removing above reg. key the Excel Service will appear under SharePoint Central Admin. Configuration. so you may not able to view Excel document online.

help from : http://techdhaan.wordpress.com/

Key Definition of Cloud Computing

2010-08-09T21:07:00.001-07:00

There are many definitions of Cloud Computing out there. Here is one of them that seems to represent the most commonly held view.

5 Essential Characteristics

On-demand self-service
Resource pooling
Rapid elasticity
Measured service
Broad network access

3 Service Models

SaaS
PaaS
IaaS

4 Deployment Models

Public Cloud
Private Cloud
Community Cloud
Hybrid Cloud

Singapore SharePoint Community (12 August 2010) Meeting

2010-08-06T01:57:00.001-07:00

Date : 12 August 2010

Time : 06:45 PM – 9:30PM

Location : Microsoft Singapore Level 22 CF-12

InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Productivity

Riwut Libinuko, MVP SharePoint Server

Microsoft InfoPath 2010 provides easier way than ever to design electronic forms. It includes Office Fluent UI which allows us to create powerful, interactive forms without having to write any code.

This session will show how to use InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2010 to increase your productivity in solution delivery. Formatted mostly as on stage scenario – demos , we are expecting to expose all new functionalities.

InfoPath Forms + SharePoint Workflows = Business Applications

Hoo Kai Sheng, K2

As an application platform, SharePoint comes with a wide collection of building blocks that enables both business and technical users to create applications to suit varying business needs.

We will be exploring forms and worklows in SharePoint - two commonly seen building blocks in a business application and review how can they be combined to establish high performance SharePoint solutions with the minimal effort possible.

Refreshments will be provided, courtesy of K2 Singapore.

Please RSVP to ssofian@mvps.org to confirm your attendance

The FIRST ever SharePoint Conference SEA is coming to town on October 26-27. Register NOW!

http://www.sharepointconference.asia

SharePoint Usage Reports (FREE Tool & 3rd Party tools)

2010-08-03T20:41:00.001-07:00

Given below recommend 3rd party tool to enable SharePoint administrators to see web application/ farm usage reports

Open Source : http://www.reportmagic.org/ (Free Report Magic makes usable statistics from your web site log file analysis)

3rd Party products

Southeast Asia SharePoint Conference - October 26 and 27 2010

2010-07-27T07:03:00.001-07:00

Don’t miss out on Southeast Asia's biggest SharePoint event of the year!

Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore, October 26 and 27 2010.

Early Bird Registrations of $SGD300.00 will apply to the first 275 delegates who register.

Regular Registration fee is $SGD400.00.

Additional Training Opportunities - be sure to check out the Pre and Post conference training courses - see GTTP

Audience and Products

The SharePoint Conference is intended for a wide audience and has content to cover roles such as:

Business Roles like End Users, Business Champions, Power Users and Business Managers
Information Architects, Record and Information Managers IT Managers, CIO and Decision Makers
Technical Roles including Developers, IT Pro, Systems Administration and DBA's Microsoft

Technologies covered during the conference include:

WSS 3.0 (Windows SharePoint Services)
MOSS 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)
SharePoint Foundation 2010 SharePoint Server 2010
SharePoint Designer 2007 and 2010
Integration with other Office 2007 and 2010 including InfoPath, Excel, Access and Visio
Integration with 3rd Party products enhancing SharePoint functionality

Connect with SEA SPC

Linkedin: http://events.linkedin.com/SharePoint-Conference-South-East-Asia/pub/364552

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SharePoint-Conference-South-East-Asia/135980859759693

Twitter: #SPCSEA @spcsea

Web site: http://www.sharepointconference.asia/

MS-SQL 2008 R2 Named pipes error 40, SQL server error 53

2010-07-21T18:46:00.000-07:00

According to SQL Protocols blog “winerr 1326 means "Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password". When you get this error code, it means a) the client stack is able to reach the target machine, and b) the service account of the client application does not have enough credential to make a NP session to the server. NP is based on SMB (file sharing). The logon failure message represented by winerr 1326 is from SMB layer, not SQL Server. You need to make sure you can make a file sharing to the server machine with the same service account. If you cannot make a file sharing between your server and your client, NP in SQL Server would not success. Try "net use" or "Map Network Drive" to check this. This often happens when server and/or client is not on domain.”

For more details visit :

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sql_protocols/archive/2007/05/16/named-pipes-provider-error-40-could-not-open-a-connection-to-sql-server-microsoft-sql-server-error-xxx.aspx

Office Web Application on Web (Sky Drive)

2010-07-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Wow… Office Web Apps are available on Windows Live Currently its support only English… More languages and locales will be added over the coming months.

This release includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. This allow you to edit your Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint documents on Online.

Online version…

SharePoint 2010 Blank Page display, 401 Unauthorized Access is denied due to invalid credentials.

2010-07-19T18:40:00.001-07:00

SharePoint 2010 running on Windows 2008 R2 sever with Host name header. the problem is NO ERROR message displayed it display just Blank White Page

Randy Williams on his blog posted that how to enable error message. Go to IIS website and select web.config for the Web Application and Edit. I add below code in between the <Configuration> element:

<system.webServer> 
<httpErrors errorMode="Custom" existingResponse="Auto" >  </httpErrors>
</system.webServer>

When you run your SharePoint site, System will display below error message.

How to overcome this issue.

The KB article from Microsoft explain http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0

Right-click MSV1_0, point to New, and then click Multi-String Value.

Type BackConnectionHostNames, and then press ENTER.

Right-click BackConnectionHostNames, and then click Modify.

In the Value data box, type the host name or the host names for the sites that are on the local computer, and then click OK.

Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the IISAdmin service

After completion regedit, Restart IIS server, and then type your SharePoint site address, you will able to view your site.

SharePoint 2010 Client Object Model using ADO.NET and REST Services (Retrieve / Update List items)

2010-07-14T08:31:00.001-07:00

As I discussed my previous post the Client Object Model allows client application to interact with SharePoint content directly. The ADO.NET Data Services Framework helps to query SharePoint Foundation data via client application.

In this example you will see .NET Managed client by create Windows Form application, and you will see how to retrieve list items and updating the items via Client Object Model.

1. Open Visual Studio 2010 by going to the Start Menu | Programs | Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 | Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

2. From the menu, select File | New | Project.

3. In the New Project dialog window, choose Visual C# | Windows from the Installed Templates.

4. Select Windows Forms Applications from the Project Templates.

5. Go to Visual Studio top menu bar, select Data | Add New Data Source… to add new SharePoint ADO.NET List Data Service.

6. In the Data Source Configuration Wizard select Service and click Next > button. When next screen appear Add Service Reference dialog window, type the following Url in the Address text box and click Go:

7. Click OK.

8. Click Finish button in the Data Source Configuration Wizard.

9. Go to Solution Explorer, expand References. and Right click on System.Data.Services.Client and select Remove.

10. Right click on References and select Add Reference and switch to Browse tab and type the following path in the File name textbox and press enter:

C:\Program Files (x86)\ADO.NET Data Services V1.5 CTP2

11. Select Microsoft.Data.Services.Client.dll.

12. Got Visual Studio Data menu and Click Show Data Source System will open the Data Sources window showing the service reference.

13. Drag and drop Tasks from the Data Sources window to the Form window. This will insert the Tasks DataGrid into the Form.

14. You can Remove columns by clicking Edit Columns window, Keep only following columns as shown in the screen shot.

15. Add the following using statement in the code behind:

C#, using GeSHi 1.0.8.8
using SharePointADORESTService.ServiceReference1; 
using System.Net;

16. Insert the following code just after the Form1 class declaration:

C#, using GeSHi 1.0.8.8
HomeDataContext context = new HomeDataContext(new Uri("http://demo2010a:1000/_vti_bin/ListData.svc"));

17. Insert the following code in the Form1_Load method

C#, using GeSHi 1.0.8.8
context.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
tasksBindingSource.DataSource = context.Tasks;

18. To Update changes from Data Grid to go Tasks DataGrid, select the BindingNavigator right click on the Save button and Select Enable.

19. Double click on the Save button in the BindingNavigator to generate the Save method:

C#, using GeSHi 1.0.8.8
context.SaveChanges();

20. Go to TaskBindingSource –> Right Click –> and Go to Properties Select Events. Double click on CurrentItemChanged event. Visual Studio will generate the item changed event for the TasksBindingSource:

C#, using GeSHi 1.0.8.8
context.UpdateObject(tasksBindingSource.Current);

21. Press F5 to start debugging the application.

22. You should see the application window with the list of Tasks items from SharePoint List.

23. Click on the first tasks and change the Title value from Faizal from Rafi and click Save and go to SharePoint Tasks list you will able to view the updates.

For Source Code click here