Microsoft is feeling generous again, since they’re offering a free online course. Public Sector Developper Blog reports that BizTalk 2006 for Developers (Self-paced course) is available for anyone to feed their brains.

Title: Clinic 2954: First Look: Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 for Developers

Course Type: Self-paced Course

Available Offline: Yes

Estimated Time of Completion: 3 Hours

Language: English

Description: This online clinic provides developers with an introduction to the BizTalk Server 2006 development environment and BizTalk messaging and orchestration services. This clinic also highlights BizTalk features and functionality through demonstrations of common developer tasks.

Objectives: At the end of the course, students will be able to: Describe the services and tools provided in BizTalk Server 2006. Describe the BizTalk development environment and toolset. Describe the purpose of a BizTalk schema and how to create a schema. Describe the purpose of a BizTalk map and how to create a map. Describe the purpose of a pipeline and how to create a pipeline. Describe how BizTalk applications are deployed. Describe the purpose of an adapter and how an adapter is configured. Describe how BizTalk orchestrations work. Explain schema promotion and how it works. Describe the types of transactions that can be created in an orchestration. Explain how Web services can be integrated into an orchestration. Describe how messages can be monitored in BizTalk. Describe how Business Activity Monitoring is enabled

Hit this link for the course and more information.

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Chris Bowen has selected a few Silverlight games, some with source included, for your gaming, and hopefully learning, pleasure.

If you’re interested in learning Silverlight, Bill Reiss has some nice tutorials, NibblesTutorials.net is quite nice and the official Silverlight is full of learning material.

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Arstechnica has some photos about unpacking the iPhone. Even the package is beautiful, makes you feel like you want one!

Check the Arstechnica article for more photos. That explains why some guys were already waiting 4 days before the launch. This video shows the ambient that people lived purchasing the iPhone.

edit: arstechnica has posted some first impressions.

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Arstechnica reports that Microsoft wants to prove the reliability of its new server OS Windows Server 2008 by switching their site Microsoft.com to Windows Server 2008 servers powered by IIS 7. Note that WS2008 is still in the Beta phase so Microsoft has put a lot of faith on their product. Microsoft is not the only early switcher though, Netcraft monitors the market share of servers OS and reports that there are already 2600 sites running WS2008, mainly developers and hosting companies testing the product.

Eric Woersching’s blog has an interesting article about the transition, including a 38 minute video interview with Microsoft’s Operation Manager, and some statistics:

Microsoft.com is the 5^th most trafficked site in the world, 4^th most in the US. The site is supported by roughly 80 Web servers delivering content daily to around 287M unique users via +300k concurrent connections at a rate of over 10k requests per second. Despite such a heavy load, Microsoft.com is consistently the #1 most available site on the Internet as measured by Keynote. The Operations team for MSCom had been playing with IIS7 since its early beta builds and recently finished deploying the new Web server in Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 to all its production servers.

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Internet is all about routing data and you’ve already seen the big numbers, like 100 million users here or there, or a 600 million dollar building that no one will see the inside, but where does the data go after those big network pipes? Companies hold and deliver undescriptible amounts of data that need to be able accessible fast or else the client goes instead of the data.

The data is stored in data centers (sometimes called server rooms), which are massive structures of computers (or something close) and are located in controlled areas, both securely and ambient. How do they look like? We’ll, i made a little selection of photos for your viewing pleasure.

A simple and cheap datacenter would look this:

(Micro concepts of Chesterfield Web Services photos)

Just throw some computers and network them and you have a data center. Heck, you can have one in your own room:

(Rob Krten’s server room)

A more professional data center might look like this:

(eLINC Gallery)

How about more professional than that?

(Mavweb datacenter photos)

(Click to continue reading/Clique para continuar a ler..)

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NetworkWorld reports that John Curran, from ARIN (American Registry For Internet Numbers), talker at the Burton Group’s Catalyst Conference (that agenda is so tasty!), said that 68% of possible IP addresses were used, and only 19% are available (only a few blocks can be assigned for public use). He predicted that in 2011, there would be no more available IP addresses to assign, urging the transition to IPv6.

ARIN has already issued a press release about this topic, but it has not control over the owners of the IP addresses, which need to return the unused IP address back to the available address pool.

The IPv6 Portal has an interesting paper about the issue, where some temporary solutions are discussed:

• Experimental IPv4 blocks could be reassigned to public use but devices would have to be updated.
• Resource reclamation policies could be enforced, but changes would have to be made to routing methods
• Increased usage of NAT would save somes addresses but would break the end-to-end nature of Internet

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Realizou-se no dia 27 de Junho de 2007 a entrega de prémios do Prémio Microsoft Great Minds Great Efforts, tendo tido lugar no auditório das instalações da Microsoft Portugal.

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O Prémio Great Minds, Great Efforts (GMGE) destina-se aos alunos de Tecnologias de Informação que tenham contribuído de forma significativa nas comunidades técnicas académicas a que pertencem. A dimensão deste contributo pode ser reflexo das acções de divulgação e advocacia das tecnologias junto dos outros estudantes protagonizadas pelo próprio, pela animação de grupos de discussão tecnológicos, pelo forte desempenho em concursos de Computer Science e Computer Engineering, pela participação em iniciativas que influenciem a comunidade estudantil positivamente, nomeadamente acções de cidadania, desportivas e lúdicas.

O evento contou com os oradores Prof. José Fernandes (Microsoft), Prof, Silva Lopes (IST), Alexandre Oliveira (MIT), Vítor Santos (Microsoft) e de entre o público destacaram-se os Microsoft Student Partners e os premiados.

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O Prof. José Fernandes abriu o evento dando as boas-vindas ao público, seguindo-se a apresentação de Alexandre Oliveira. O Alexandre Oliveira é estudante no Massassuchetts  Institute Of Technology (MIT), e relatou o ambiente estudantil que se vive no MIT, que segundo a apresentação dele, nada tem a ver com a ideia da escola de marrões.

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Definitivamente, os estudantes do MIT são malucos, isto é, criativos e munidos do conhecimento que adquerem no MIT, criam invenções muito..peculiares. Uma destas criações é o famoso Party Button, um botão que quando pressionado modifica automaticamente o ambiente da sala transformando-a numa discoteca. Poderão ver o vídeo de apresentação em baixo:

Existem muitas outras criações, como o Emergency Pizza Button (pressionando o botão, o sistema encomenda uma pizza), sofá motorizado, entre muitas outras. Vejam o site destas invenções que vale a pena: http://web.mit.edu/qmahoney/ec/.

O ambiente não se aplica apenas aos alunos, mas também ao MIT no seu todo. O MIT permite certas liberdades que outras universidades não aceitariam de todo. Um exemplo desta atitude é a série de Hacks que são feitos no campus, por exemplo os temas que o edifício da cúpula vai tendo de acordo com o humor dos alunos.

O Alexandre descreveu como foi admitido na universidade, e surpreendeu-nos a todos, dizendo que apenas visitou o site do MIT e preencheu o formulário, e que processam as candidaturas sem notas dos exames nacionais. Os caloiros têm a vida facilitada pois não existem praxes e quem for apanhado com cábulas é expulso do MIT.

Seguiu-se a apresentação do Prof. Silva Lopes, do IST, onde descreveu a filosofia do IST sobre os alunos e orientações académicas, e a importância que as actividades extracurriculares possuem na vida dos alunos.

O Vítor Santos introduziu o prémio Microsoft Great Minda Great Efforts para dar lugar à entrega de Prémios.

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As menções honrosas do prémio foram: André Rodrigues (FEUP), André Santos (IST), Gonçalo Dumiense (IST), Marco Silva (FEUP), Nelson Correia (FEUP), Rui Marinho (UM). Os premiados foram: David Alves, Felipe Costa Ávila, Gonçalo Chaves, Tiago Ribeiro, Valério Valério. Receberam uma Xbox 360 e uns livros.

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Podem ver as fotos do evento na minha galeria de fotos: http://www.filipefreitas.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=857

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Hello guys!

This post has been written with Windows Live Writer. Windows Live Writer (WLW) is a word processor designed for blogs, but it is a desktop application, which means you won’t need to use the browser and login the blog account, WLW does that for you.

WLW integration goes beyond writing, you can format everything, insert pictures, add effects, add categories, add tags, insert widgets, insert maps, tables, and much more.

WLW is customizible with plugins, for example Flickr integration, which will satisfy most users, but it doesn’t support the blog’s own plugins. For example, i have WordPress Gallery2 Plugin installed in my blog but i can’t use it from WLW, but if you’re an usual blogger you’ll be fine.

The beauty of WLW is that you can post to any of your blogs withing WLW by simply choosing which blog you’re posting to, this way you won’t have the hassle to open the browser, open the correct blog, login and choose to post. Click the image below to enlarge it.

Pointers:

Live Writer community: http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

Download Live Writer: http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas

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Cisco introduced a new level of certification to its training program – Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT). The Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician can be considered a half-way point to the current entry-level program, the Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA), which has been moved up the stack.

CCENT presents a new point of entry to those just beginning to build a career in networking, and validates the skills required to successfully install and verify basic networks — a requirement for most entry-level network support positions. At the same time, Cisco’s foundational CCNA curriculum has been revised to include a greater breadth of networking topics and more focus on performance-based skills to differentiate Cisco certified applicants in the IT job market.

Read the rest of the NetworkWorld’s article for detailed information and MarketWire’s press release.

Pointers:

NetworkWorlds article: http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/16740

MarketWire press release: http://www.marketwire.com/2.0/release.do?id=745470 

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The Wi-Fi Alliance started today testing and certifying 802.11n equipment, according to an Arstechnica article and Wi-Fi Alliance’s press release. The Wi-Fi Alliance’s testing and certification programs ensure the interoperability of WLAN products based on the IEEE 802.11 specification.

Products are being tested for interoperability across vendors, adherence to WPA2™ (Wi-Fi Protected Access) security protocols, and backward compatibility with more than 3500 Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n a/b/g products. Products based on the new IEEE 802.11n draft deliver up to five times the throughput and up to twice the range of those based on previous standards, enabling a wide range of content-rich applications, and delivering those applications over a larger footprint. The certification program also includes WMM® (Wi-Fi Mutlimedia) quality of service, which helps deliver the best user experience with applications such as video, voice, and gaming.

The 802.11n draft is capable of transmiting at 74 Mbit/s, check the Wikipedia entry for more information.

Pointers:

Wi-Fi Alliance: http://www.wi-fi.org/

Arstechnica article: http://media.arstechnica.com/news.media/draftn.jpg

Wi-Fi Alliance press release: http://www.wi-fi.org/pressroom_overview.php?newsid=574

Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11#802.11n

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