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Thinking In REST
2008-04-18 11:09:00
REST or WS-*? The debate which will never end. While REST is taking the lead gradually, the community see many drawbacks in using the traditional WS-*. The complexity and overhead in using WS-*, REST simplicity and how they fit the web architecture are always the main points of the argument. REST is simple, that is it. It has nothing to deal with except three things: Resources, Verbs and URIs. The idea of making use of the HTTP standards to accomplish all the needed CRUD operations on the resources is really interesting from the service development perspective.It was clear from the beginning of the WS-* evolution that WS-* violates and ignores the architecture of the Web. It replaces the concept that the Web is identified by URIs to the concept that the services is identified by WS addresses. However, in the RESTful architecture, all the addressing is through URIs. This creates a homogeneous architecture comparing to how the web is actually constructed. Even dealing with URIs as yo...
More About: Rest , Thinking

Seekda - Seeking Services On The Web
2008-04-11 21:54:00
SOA is now one of the most valuable options in building integrable and loosely-coupled applications. As much as the number of the web-services increases on the web, indexing the services to be reachable by the seekers became a vital need. seekda! - by Semantic Technology Institute (STI) - is one of the nice efforts to index the business services around the Web. The project is based on the results of another research project funded by the European Union called DIP - which started on 1st January 2004 and came to an end officially on 31 Dec 2006 with total funding of €16.3 M. The project acts like a link between the services providers and service consumers aiming to increase the transparency of the services market across the web.
More About: Services , Seeking

Open XML Appears to Win ISO Approval
2008-04-05 01:29:00
After more than 14 months of intensive review, a Joint Technical Committee of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has concluded its formal process to evaluate Ecma International?s submission of the Draft International Standard (DIS) 29500: Office Open XML (Open XML). While the final vote has not yet been announced formally, publicly available information appears to indicate the proposed Open XML standard received extremely broad support. Open XML now joins HTML, PDF and ODF as ISO- and IEC-recognized open document format standards. Read the full story here. google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732"; //728x90, created 12/23/07 google_ad_slot = "8172850607"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90;

jQuery Validation Plugin
2008-03-23 23:21:00
We start to see several plugins in the web based on the jQuery library. I have the chance today to work a bit with a plugin called: jQuery Validation Plugin by Jörn Zaefferer - which enable you to apply client validation to your web forms using jQuery. To get started, you have to download the plugin files from this link. And sure the jQuery library as well: jQuery 1.2.2+. Then, you should have: jquery.validate.js and jquery.js files reside on your project somewhere and linked in your markup.The following sample is the simplest one. You use the selector to get the form element. Then, you call the validate function.<script language="text/javascript">& nbsp;   $(document).ready( function() {      &nbs p;  $("#simpleSignUp" ).validate();    }</script>In this case, you will have to set some predefined metadata in the class attribute of the elements telling the library the required rules to apply...
More About: Tools , Tips , Javascript

Get the Last Run Query in SQL Server 2005
2008-03-01 13:40:00
Have you ever run an update or delete query by mistake and you need to roll back or at least want to know the last run query to fix the problem? The following SQL statement can help in that.SELECT deqs.last_execution_time AS [Time], dest.text AS [Query ]FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS deqsCROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(deqs.sql_handle) AS destORDER BY deqs.last_execution_time DESCThis will retrieve the last run queries with its execution time. google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732"; //728x90, created 12/23/07 google_ad_slot = "8172850607"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90;
More About: Tips , Server

Inversion of Control & Dependency Injection
2008-03-01 11:58:00
In the last Thursday, 28th Feb. 2008, we had our internal demoday in SK. The day was really informative. We had many interesting topics in different fields. My topic was an introduction about the inversion of control and the dependency injection. You can download it from here:Download: Internal_Demoday_28_2_08_IoC_DI.pptxN.B: Most of the examples in the presentation use Sprint.NET as a DI framework.If you want to go deeper in the topic, I recommend the following article: Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern. The author is Martin Fowler - Chief Scientist, ThoughtWorks - and the article is considered to be the ideal reference for the topic. google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732"; //728x90, created 12/23/07 google_ad_slot = "8172850607"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90;

The Root and Top-Level Nameservers
2008-02-23 22:17:00
I was reading: Web Security, Privacy & Commerce by Simson Garfinkel and it was interesting to know that there are only 13 DNS root servers on the internet that are responsible for resolving the IP addresses to the top level domains (e.g: .com, .org, .net). For example, when you write unesco.org on the address bar of your browser, the address will be resolved from right to left. The client computer will ask one of these 13 root servers to resolve the address of .org server which accordingly will be responsible to fetch the address of the unesco.org. The address formats of the root servers is: X.ROOT-SERVERS.NET where X ranges from A to M. You may have an initial guess that most of these servers exist in the United States. But actually this not correct. Most of the physical root-servers are outside the United States and distributed in multiple locations in different continents. Check the full list here: root-servers.orgThe root-servers are completely transparent to the internet users....
More About: Networks , Root

Securing Configurations
2008-02-16 12:19:00
Have you ever wanted to provide a level of protection to your values in the configuration files? aspnet_regiis will help you in encrypting the configuration section(s) in your config files. The executable resides in: "<windows_root>Microsoft.NETFramewo rk<framework_version>" and it was common to be used in installing ASP.NET on IIS. However, you can use it as well in encrypting/decrypting the configuration files.Here is the command line used for encrypting a section in the web.config of SecureWebProj application:aspnet_regiis.exe -pe connectionStrings -app /SecureWebProj-pe attribute is used to tell the executable to encrypt the specified section. You can also use -pd attribute instead if you want to restore or decrypt the section to its original values. -app attribute is for specifying the application virtual path.After encrypting the connectionStrings section, the web.config will look like that:<connectionStrings configProtectionProvider="RsaProtectedCon figuratio...
More About: Security , Tips

Mohammed Hossam @ Microsoft
2008-02-14 11:36:00
Great news! My dear friend, Mohammed Hossam, will join Microsoft Live Team in next May. Mohammed is one of the best techinical professionals I have ever met. You can find that from his blog posts, sessions, initiatives and technical side talks. Mohammed is so effective in his work and his knowledge is always spread among the team. You can feel his innovation, spirit and knowledge when you work with him. He is one of the few guys who is always up-to-date with the new technologies and not always that he tries to use it in real projects if it really fit the needs.We will miss you Mohammed. We wish you all the best of luck in Microsoft. Keep in touch! google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732"; //728x90, created 12/23/07 google_ad_slot = "8172850607"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90;

Survey Results
2008-02-03 11:10:00
In Decemeber 29th, a survey were published for public to answer it - for more details check this post. Here is the results of the survey:Download The Survey Results google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732"; //728x90, created 12/23/07 google_ad_slot = "8172850607"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90;

Survey - The Software Industry Inside Egypt
2007-12-29 19:20:00
This survey is one of the first initiatives aims to formulate accurate indicators about the software development industry inside Egypt . The survey will give important information about the current professional level of the software companies. It will try to measure different aspects in the industry like the companies technical level, management, process, salaries and work environment. The target is to give informative details for the IT stuff to get a clear and transparent information regarding their career.Please be accurate in your answers as much as you can. Your answer is definitely affect the overall results and the others attitude. The final results will be published here in this blog.*We don't collect any identity information in this survey.ANSWER THE SURVEY NOW!var PDF_surveyID = A758094F2B6673E7'; var PDF_openText = 'PARTICIPATE NOW!'; PARTICIPATE NOW! google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732"; //728x90, created 12/23/07 google_ad_slot = "8172850607"; google_ad_width = ...
More About: Software , Industry , Survey , Inside

Vote Results: Do you apply design patterns in your software projects?
2007-12-27 15:05:00
This is the result of a vote I made later: Do you apply design patterns in your software projects? The question is to illustrate if the developers really care about learning solutions for already predefined problems. Do you really care about using the best solution to solve a problem?37 people contributed in the vote. The following is a chart representing people votes.Design Patterns are a collection of patterns documenting successful solutions for specific problems. The term introduced from a long time. Most of the developers uses the patterns in there daily work, but don't really know that it's a predefined design pattern until they read about it. For more information about the topic, I highly recommend this book: "Design Patterns - Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software " by "Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides". For a brief summary about the book, check the Wikipedia Version google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732"; //728x90, created 12/23/07 google...
More About: Projects , Results , Vote

Image Resizing
2007-12-22 20:03:00
Sometimes you need to process the users' uploaded images in your web application so that it doesn't take too much space. This can be done either by resizing the uploaded image, saving it in a specific format or may be both.The following is a code snippet for resizing images and saving it in *.jpeg format. The method take the image file to be resized as a stream, the destination path, the file name to save the image as and the maximum side size of the image (i.e the output image should fit a square of this maximum side size).public static void ResizeImage (Stream originalImageStream, string destinationFilePath, string destinationFileName, ImageEncoding saveEncoding, int maxSideSize){ int intNewWidth; int intNewHeight; Bitmap original = new Bitmap(originalImageStream); // your original image //Set the image format ImageFormat fmtImageFormat = original.RawFormat; //Get the image original width and height int intOldWidth = original.Wid...
More About: Tips

Language-specific Code Compilation in App_Code
2007-12-20 22:32:00
App_Code folder is the default location to add your code files for your ASP.NET project. You may have the situation when you want to add mixed code files written in different languages i.e C# or VB.Net and you need to include these mixed files in the project compilation. The question: Can I have mixed files some written in C# and others in VB.NET in the App_Code folder? Yes, you can but in limitation. First, you will have to add different folders for each language-specific code. Then, in web.config add an entry for each folder inside CodeSubDirectories tag.<?xml version="1.0"?><configuration> <system.web> <compilation debug="true"> <codeSubDirectories> <add directoryName="CSharpFolder"/> <add directoryName="VBFolder"/> </codeSubDirectories> </compilation> </system.web></configuration> If the folder you added to codeSubDi...
More About: Tips , Language , Compilation , Specific

ASP.NET MVC Framework CTP is Finally Released.
2007-12-10 12:56:00
ASP.NET MVC CTP is finally released. The framework is released as a part of new ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions package. The extensions includes some new stuff beside the MVC framewok like: The Entity Framework , new additions for ASP.NET AJAX and others.Download ASP.NET 3.5 ExtensionsScott Guthrie published a series of articles about MVC. Here is the full list:ASP.NET MVC Framework: IntroductionASP.NET MVC Framework (Part2): URL RoutingASP.NET MVC Framework (Part3): Passing ViewData From Controllers to ViewsASP.NET MVC Framework (Part4): Handling Form Edit and Post Scenarios google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732"; //728x90, created 12/23/07 google_ad_slot = "8172850607"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90;
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Scrum in Action
2007-10-20 16:58:00
We are now working in a project which have taken more than 6+ months and still in progress. 159078+ lines of code, 80+ page, 120+ user controls, 100+ tables and counting. In projects with such scale, you need to manage and control your development life cycle. You want to decrease all risks and possibilities of failure. Working with Scrum methodology helps a lot in making developers time
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Finally MVC Model For ASP.NET
2007-10-09 23:42:00
Finally we will have MVC model for ASP.NET. This was announced on Alt.Net Conference last day. In my opinion, this will be one of the most interesting feature added to ASP.NET. MVC is one of the old design patterns which introduced in many object-oriented languages. In MVC pattern, controllers just handle application flow, models represent the data, and the view is just concerned about
More About: Model , Finally , Ally

SKDD2 - Windows Workflow Foundation Session
2007-08-12 14:47:00
This is one of the sessions held on SilverKey DemoDay 2 - Cairo Conference Center. The session was an introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation and how it can help you in automating you business process in an entire organization. The session was in Arabic language. If you're interested, you can download the session materials to try out the demos and check out the slides. I will try to keep
More About: Workflow Foundation , Dati

Why Employees Leave Organization?
2007-08-10 19:11:00
This is an article of Azim Premji - Chairman & CEO of Wipro - explains why employees leave their organizations - even it seems that their choice in the begining was right. The conclusion that if you start losing talented people in your organization, you should start looking to their immediate managers. As a fact, People leaves Managers not Companies. Humiliation, Stress, being too controlled are
More About: Organization , Employees , Leave , Organ

SubSonic - Free DAL Generator
2007-08-05 16:24:00
Data Access layer generation is one of the exhausting tasks in building any multi-tier software projects. SubSonic is one of the free .NET Data Layer Generator s which can help to make your life easier. The generator is really simple to use and efficient. You can do almost all the needed SQL operations using simple method calling. Moreover it's an Open source and the source is available on
More About: Free , Subs , Subsonic

New ASP.Net PageFlow Framework available for Download
2007-07-24 01:05:00
New UI Workflow Framework was recently available for download. The framework brings Workflow and UI applications together - This includes ASP.NET applications as well. The source code of the framework and some sample applications built on top of it - is included. The design document describing the entire architecture of the framework is also included. To learn more about PageFlow Framework,
More About: Download , Ework , Available

Touring the Windows Workflow Foundation Team Offices
2007-07-22 15:27:00
This is very nice tour video in Windows Workflow Foundation Team Offices. You will meet those WF guys - the creators of this technology. The video is out there for a while and I just found it while navigating on channel 9. But really very interesting one. WWF - Windows Workflow Foundation - is a solution provided by Microsoft as a core component on .NET Framework 3.0 for business process
More About: Touring

Introducing Windows Workflow Foundation
2007-07-21 18:23:00
This is a brief post introducing Windows Workflow Foundation - We will try to introduce basic concepts and definitions. We will know also why Workflow Foundation can be useful for building large scale projects. google_ad_client = "pub-6699943802796732";google_ad_width = 728;google_ad_height = 90;google_ad_format ="728x90_as";google_ad_type = "text_image";google_ad_channel = "";
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SKDD II - Another Success
2007-07-08 01:38:00
Today, we had our SKDD 2 event on Cairo Conference Center. The day was really amazing. We discussed many topics and technologies. My session was about "Business Automation Using WF". We discussed how Windows Workflow Foundation can help you in automating your business process in an efficient and transparent way. For interested people, the materials, videos and demos will be available on
More About: Success

Microsoft Releases First Public Longhorn Beta
2007-04-28 12:10:00
Microsoft has moved forward on the server side of the OS equation. The company just released the first public beta of Windows Server, aka Longhorn . It's widely available for download by just about anyone who wants it. And finally, the OS is feature complete. Download Windows Server - Code Name Longhorn - Beta 3 Copied - eWeek.com
More About: Microsoft , Public , Horn

New Way in Searching
2007-04-12 11:45:00
We usually get the new searching inventions from Google. This time we have a new search way introduced by alltheweb. It depends on something like AJAX style searching or auto-complete search. While typing, you get some suggested keywords which help you get results faster. AllTheWeb Live Search
More About: Searching

Propagation of Trust & Distrust
2007-03-30 15:24:00
Yesterday, I presented my session in SilverKey Internal Demo Day. The topic title was: "Prop agation of Trust And Distrust ". There is currently a great interest in maintaining and building trusting networks between the communities members so that you allow users to get the "high" quality of information before acting on it. Many variants of algorithms and techniques introduced. The techniques of

Open XML and Java
2007-03-21 10:58:00
As you know Open XML doesn't target only Microsoft products. That is - we find currently many ambitious projects to enhance other programming languages and frameworks to make use of Open XML capabilities. Java is one of the main targets here. This is a meeting with Julien Chable who worked in an open-source API project to provide the functionality of System.IO.Packaging - which used in .NET

Corporate Agile Software Development Methodology
2007-03-19 16:41:00
This is a very nice post for Joe Ocampo, about Corporate Agile Software Development Methodlogies. The post contains details about the agile process and its phases for corporate process management.
More About: Software Development

IP-To-Country Mapping
2007-03-19 12:22:00
I have just found this interesting IP-To-Country mapping database which enables you to map a certain IP Number to Country. The problem is that this database is not alwayes up-to-date. So, you may take care of this point when you using it. Also, you should check the copyrights section if you want to use it in a commercial applications. The database uses IP Number ranges for identifying the
More About: Mapping