ARCast.TV - Channel 9

Soundtracker Builds Global Geosocial Music Service on Multiple Platforms including Windows Azure and Windows Phone 7

zhiming — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:00:51 GMT

Daniele Calabrese, founder and CEO of Soundtracker, a Microsoft BizSpark One company, discusses with Zhiming Xue the enabling technologies behind their geosocial music service Soundtracker. The free global geosocial internet radio service, which currently supports smartphone and web users with 12 million songs in 10 languages, helps users discover, share and play in real-time their favorite music with friends and anybody nearby. With demos on a Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone, Daniele discusses their mobile-first strategy that focuses on smartphone users, their support for multiple mobile platforms including Windows Phone 7, and several key location aware and social music sharing capabilities of the service. He then explains the high-level architecture for the music service - how Amazon AWS is used to support the infrastructure and Microsoft Windows Azure powers the instant and predictive search function, and how data is managed in the backend and delivered to users. He talks about how HTML5 is used to provide optimized user experience to web users with Microsoft IE 9 and Google Chrome. Finally, Daniele shares their plan to extend the global music service to Windows 8 and XBOX Live users. You can follow Soundtracker at facebook and twitter.

For developers, you can download Windows Phone development tools and Windows Azure SDK, and get a free Windows Azure trial account.

Tags: Soundtracker, Geo Social Music, Nokia Lumia 800, HTML5, Internet Explorer 9, Windows Phone, Windows Azure, Windows 8, XBOX Live

ARCast.TV - The Zen of Architecture

zhiming — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:21:56 GMT

The one thing you can be sure of when it comes to software architecture is that there will never be a shortage of different ways to solve the same problem. The key is to look for the areas of volatility in the design and decompose it to its simplest element. Sound like that philosophy class you took in college? Well, as Juval Lowy , Principal of iDesign and Microsoft Software Legend, says, "For the beginner architect, there are mulitlple ways and options for doing anything. But for the Master, there are only a few."

In this episode of ARCast, Denny Boynton discusses this Zen approach to software design with Juval, seeking a state of technological nothingness.

ARCast.TV - Closing the Gap Between Stakeholders and Developers With Business Rules

zhiming — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:24:08 GMT

One of the tenets of good architecture is to seperate the business logic from the other layers of the application. As technology has evolved, so have the strategies for managing the business rules.

In this episode of ARCast, Joe Shirey sits down with Loren Goodman, CTO of InRule Technology, and talks about how to use business rules to drive good architecture in the software development process.

ARCast.TV - Building My First Windows Phone 7 Application

zhiming — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:23:11 GMT

In this interview with Zhiming Xue “Z”, Marc Schweigert, Solutions Architect at Microsoft Public Sector Services shared his passion for and thought process of building his first Windows Phone 7 application – Per Diem Rates. He explained how he used various components and techniques such as Bing Maps REST Services, Silverlight Toolkit, MVVM Light Toolkit, TiltEffect, BackgroundWorker and PerformanceProgressBar to enhance user experience and Windows Azure Blob Storage for backend data. Marc also offered advice from his first-hand experience for developers or anyone who are interested to start creating Windows Phone applications. Check out the video to find out how Marc turned an idea to a real application and made it available at Microsoft Marketplace.

ARCast.TV - Building Recovery.gov Using SharePoint and Other Technologies

zhiming — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:43:04 GMT

Synteractive is a DC-based start-up that provides global strategy and business solutions to clients. As a member of the project team assembled by award recipient Smartronix, Synteractive participated in building the new recovery.gov web site. This online platform enables every American citizen to view how the spending (worth $787 billion) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), a.k.a. The Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is used to create jobs and reinvest in America.

In this interview with Zhiming Xue “Z”, several members of the recovery.gov project at Synteractive – CEO Evan Burfield, director of technology Diane Johnson, solution architects Michael Mendelson and Jason Turim, and creative director Heather Waterman – discussed the challenges they faced on the project, from assembling a comprehensive proposal with loosely defined requirements and competing with major contractors to building a highly scalable, secure online solution under an aggressive timeline. The project team passionately shared their experience in building such a large-scale web solution using Microsoft SharePoint 2007 and a mix of other interoperable web technologies and services such as Microsoft Fast and Bing search, Amazon Web Services, Google Translate, ESRI’s GIS mapping technology, JackBe’s Enterprise Mashups and open source tools. They also shared their experience in building several specific features and areas for the web solution such as interactive user interface, data and content management, search integration and multilingual support.

ARCast.TV - Extending SharePoint Capabilities to the Mobile Platform

zhiming — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 18:16:58 GMT

H3 Solutions, Inc. is a start-up based in the DC area that provides SharePoint consulting services and integrated SharePoint mobile solutions to both public sector and private sector customers.

In this interview with Zhiming Xue “Z”, Mick Herres, VP of Technology, Joe Herres, VP of Product, and Lisa Ruff, business development manager, discussed what they had done to extend SharePoint capabilities to the mobile platform beyond what SharePoint 2007 and 2010 provide out of the box. Using the SharePoint’s solution framework, they created custom APIs and browser-based applications for smart phones and packaged them into a deployable and customizable solution called “Mobile Entrée”. As a result, users can experience rich and interactive SharePoint capabilities such as document management, tasks and lists, and Excel Services on their smart phones including the newly released Windows Phone 7 devices. And developers can use their licensed APIs to further customize or create browser-based applications for supported smart phones.

ARCast.TV - Architecting Collaborative Web-based Document Composition Solutions

zhiming — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:09:32 GMT

Project Performance Corporation (PPC) is a management consulting firm based in the DC metro area. It integrates world leading expertise in the areas of environment and energy with cutting edge IT and global management. Its clients include government agencies and Fortune 500 organizations.

In this interview with Zhiming Xue "Z", Rakesh Gupta and Dale Tuttle at PPC shared their insights on building online document management and collaboration solutions -- or in their terms, "collaborative web-based document composition solutions" -- that are based on open standards such as Microsoft OpenXML, or OpenDocument (ODF). They defined and demonstrated seven characteristics of document composition:

1.       Document being aware of its environment
2.       Document as user interface
3.       Document as data structure or template
4.       Rich online editing experience
5.       Document management capability
6.       Real-time online collaboration
7.       Online and offline editing capability

Check out the video to see what they mean by document composition and how they put the concepts into action in a real world Request for Proposal (RFP) application.

ARCast.TV - Creating Windows Phone 7 Apps Using a Configuration Tool

zhiming — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:05:16 GMT

PointAbout is a three-year-old startup company based in the Washington DC area. The company plans, develops and deploys mobile experience for the world’s leading organizations.

During the interview with Zhiming Xue “Z”, Kevin Lenane and Derek Tiffany at PointAbout talked about their development efforts in porting a AppMaker that was originally created for iPhone and Android to the new Microsoft mobile platform -- Windows Phone. With ease of use and simplicity, this standalone desktop configuration tool (a web version will soon be released) enables non-developers to create Windows Phone 7 applications using RSS feeds, images and other data elements which can then be published to the Microsoft marketplace. For enterprise customers, the application also enables users to submit real-time and location aware data and rich media contents to a backend database for further integration and analysis. Check out the video to find out their passion on creating Windows Phone 7 applications and a quick demo of the tool. (An extended demo is available here.)

ARCast.TV - Designing and Deploying SharePoint 2010 for a Global Audience

zhiming — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:24:31 GMT

Since 1987 Quest Software, with more than 60 offices in 23 countries, has helped more than 100,000 customers around the world reduce cost of managing IT – including the top 10 companies in several industries. It provides services in a variety of areas such as Windows, databases and applications, or in physical, virtual or cloud environments.

At TechEd 2010, Joel Oleson, Sr. Product Manager and SharePoint Evangelist at Quest Software, shared with Zhiming Xue “Z” his insights in designing and deploying SharePoint solutions for a global audience. During this interview, he discussed common scenarios and challenges for SharePoint global deployment, improved experience SharePoint 2010 has brought into the deployment process in several key areas such as SharePoint workspace (aka Groove), service applications, federated search, and multi-lingual user interface. Joel also discussed the pros and cons of the two common SharePoint, including the built-in MySite, deployment options -- centralized deployment vs. regionalized deployment. Throughout the discussion Joel emphasized the importance of planning for SharePoint deployment and working with your IT teams. Check out the interview and find out what Joel has to share with you and why he thinks you can help with the SharePoint community.

ARCast.TV - SharePoint Server 2010 Improved User Interface and Branding

zhiming — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:55:04 GMT

SharePoint Server 2010 allows customers to create customized, branding sites that fit their business needs. What should users, developers and administrators know about the improved SharePoint user interface features? While at TechEd 2010, Paul Stubbs, Microsoft Architect Evangelist, shares his insights on the topic with Zhiming Xue “Z”. From ribbons to theme files to Silverlight 4 dynamic theming engine to master pages, Paul explains what they are and how these new capabilities can be applied to create high-quality SharePoint 2010 based branding sites.

ARCast.TV - Developing Silverlight Applications for SharePoint 2010

zhiming — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 01:57:00 GMT

In this interview, Bob German, Technology Architect at Microsoft’s Boston MTC, shares his passion of creating Silverlight applications for SharePoint 2010 with Zhiming Xue “Z” while at TechEd 2010. Bob walks us through some of the improved support for Silverlight applications in SharePoint 2010, and then talks about a few options such as web part that developers can choose to get started with creating Silverlight applications and working with data stored inside or outside of SharePoint. Bob also explains why he thinks the sandbox solutions available in SharePoint 2010 are very important not only to developers but also to ISV partners. At the end Bob shows a few Silverlight web part demos, including Contacts Grid Web Part, Picture View Web Part and WebCam Web Part. You can download these web parts at Bob’s blog post here.

ARCast.TV - David Aiken on Azure Architecture Patterns

Bob Familiar — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:06:00 GMT

David Aiken is a Technical Evangelist for Windows Azure. David is responsible for:

· Bid Now Sample at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/BidNowSample.

· Windows Azure Platform training kit and Channel 9 learning course.

· Windows Azure MMC

· Windows Azure Table Browser

· Windows Azure Management PowerShell CmdLets

In this episode David talks to Bob Familiar about the architecture patterns that lend themselves to building scalable services for the cloud.

ARCast.TV - Building an Integrated Office Solution Using Word, OpenXML and SharePoint 2010

zhiming — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:31:00 GMT

While attending and presenting at TechEd 2010, Jawa Buddhavarapu and Murali Bala shared with Zhiming Xue “Dr. Z” their experience of building an integrated Office solution at Westat using Microsoft Word, OpenXML and SharePoint 2010. Check out this interview to find out:
- Why they choose Office Word as the frontend user interface and SharePoint for the backend;
- What they have done to enable users to get data from multiple data sources using familiar user interface in Word;
- How they manage security and user permissions with information stored in an external database and ERP system;
- What search functions they provide using metadata and built-in search capabilities; and
- What first-hand lessons they learned through the multi-phased project.

ARCast.TV - David Chappell on Effective IT Innovation

Bob Familiar — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:50:00 GMT

David Chappell is Principal of Chappell & Associates based in San Francisco, California. Through his speaking, writing, and consulting, he helps people around the world understand, use, and make better decisions about new technology.

In this episode David talk to Bob Familiar about Effective IT Innovation. David talks about how innovation is more than just coming up with great ideas. He makes the case that innovation is a change that provides value. He goes into some detail on his i3 approach to taking ideas and moving them through the implementation and infusion phases so that their value has the broadest impact.

ARCast.TV - SharePoint Deployment to Microsoft BPOS Cloud

zhiming — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:19:00 GMT

What do you need to know as you plan to design and deploy SharePoint solutions to Microsoft BPOS cloud? While at TechEd 2010, Zhiming Xue “Z” chatted about the subject with Marc Dencker, Enterprise Architect at Microsoft. In this interview, Marc explains what Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) is, and what financial and operational benefits it offers to customers. He then addresses several important issues related to SharePoint deployment to BPOS cloud such as custom code and third-party application consideration and integration, testing, deployment, revision and rollback, SharePoint service management and user authentication. From his first-hand experience, Marc also speaks about whether SharePoint BPOS is suitable for you or your customer, how long it takes to set up a SharePoint BPOS solution and what assistance you can get from the Microsoft BPOS team.

ARCast.TV - Rocky Lhotka on Patterns, Architecture and MVVM

Bob Familiar — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:19:00 GMT

Rockford Lhotka is the Principal Technology Evangelist for Magenic, a company focused on delivering business value through applied technology and one of the nation's premiere Microsoft Gold Certified Partners. Rocky is the creator of CSLA .NET, one of the most widely used development frameworks for Microsoft .NET and he is the author of numerous books, including the Expert 2008 Business Objects book.

In this episode Rocky talks to Bob Familiar about why patterns are important, the relationship between patterns and layered architecture and the emergence of MVVM as a key pattern for Rich Internet Applications.

More information on patterns and MVVM can be found on Rocky’s Blog.

ARCast.TV - Neil Palmer of Sungard on the Business Impact of Cloud Computing and RIA

Bob Familiar — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 20:41:00 GMT

In this episode, Hong Choing talks to Neil Palmer, Partner for Sungard Consulting Service about the impact of Cloud Computing and new Rich Internet Application technologies such as Silverlight 4.

Hong covers this solution in detail in this blog post.

ARCast.TV - UI of the new era, designing for multiple devices

Bob Familiar — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:46:00 GMT

Computer screens in laptops, desktops and phones are now the targets for application developers yet they represent challenges as the resolution, size, among other factors.

In this episode, Director of User Experience at Infragistics Dr. Komischke describes how using Fluid UI allows organizations and developers design in the new era of user experience.

ARCast.TV - A.D.A.M migrates from Google Cloud to Windows Azure

Bob Familiar — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:05:00 GMT

A.D.A.M. www.adam.com , a leading provider of consumer health information and benefits technology solutions to 500+ Hospitals in the US, was looking to use cloud computing to revolutionize its business. In September 2009, they developed an H1N1 Swine Flu Assessment tool using Java/Google Cloud App Server.

We talked to A.D.AM. about Microsoft’s “3 Screens and a Cloud” strategic vision and how we could leverage the initial Swine Flu Assessment tool work and create a dynamically configurable cloud hosted medical assessment tool engine that includes web, pc, and mobile UX capabilities. A.D.A.M. partnered with Microsoft and iLink Systems to rewrite the existing Swine flu assessment application as a reusable Medical Assessment tool solutions framework using the following Microsoft Platforms/Technologies;

VS2010/.Net 4.0
Silverlight 4.0
Windows Azure
SQL Azure
W7 (Gadget)
IE8 (Webslice)
Windows Phone 7.0 specification

This ARCast.TV episode gives you a full demonstration of the working production application and interview with Ravi Mallikarjuniah,iLink Systems Healthcare Practice Lead.

ARCast.TV - Selling Pizza in the Cloud: Domino's and Windows Azure

Bob Familiar — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:18:00 GMT

When you're one of the busiest pizza companies in the world, how do you scale your web site to meet regular and irregular demand? You move it to the Cloud, of course!

In this episode of ARCast, Denny Boynton sits down with Jim Vitek and discusses Domino's approach and appreciation for cloud computing with Windows Azure for Dominos.com.

ARCast.TV - SOASTA uses Windows Azure to offer CloudTest Solutions

Bob Familiar — Mon, 24 May 2010 19:43:00 GMT

SOASTA based in California, the company offers both internally installed and cloud-based testing applications. SOASTA developed a cloud-based testing application that it now deploys on the Windows Azure platform. Their CloudTest Service Helps Performance-Testing Firm Simulate Real-World Internet Traffic. With the Windows Azure platform SOASTA has easy access to servers all over the world under a pay-as-you-go pricing model. The company recently demonstrated its CloudTest® application in a case-study test of Office.com for Microsoft.

In this episode, Hong Choing talks to Tom Lounibos, CEO of SOASTA, and Brad Johnson, VP of Business Development, about their elastic CloudTest services on Windows Azure, partnership with CSC, and their views on Cloud computing trends and business impact.

More details, here.

ARCast.TV - Sharp Dudes Discuss Silverlight Application Migration

Bob Familiar — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:39:00 GMT

Michael Bird and John Hidey at Sharp Dudes recently discussed with Zhiming Xue (Dr. "Z") their application migration experience moving from Silverlight 3 to Silverlight 4.

Using demos, they focused on discussing two common areas of a typical multitier web application - form or web page validation and user authentication and authorization.

Check it out and hear what they have to say about Silverlight migration and lessons they'd like to share with you.

ARCast.TV - Accenture: Enabling the Mobile Workforce with Windows Azure

Bob Familiar — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:51:00 GMT

When most people think of the cloud, they generally look at is as means of building and hosting highly-scalable, highly-available applications to their customers and partners. However, many forward looking companies see the cloud as a way to enable and empower their mobile workforces, giving people the ability to work on-the-go wherever and whenever they need.

This is what Accenture has done using Windows Azure. In this episode of ARCast, Denny Boynton sits down with Joseph Paradi, Innovation Lead for Internal IT at Accenture to discuss why they chose the cloud to keep their dynamic and mobile workforce connected to their business.

ARCast.TV - High Value Asset Tracking with Bing Maps, Silverlight and Windows 7

Bob Familiar — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:01:00 GMT

OuterLink, based in Lowell, MA, builds high value asset tracking and communication technology. OuterLink creates the technology that allows users to track the location of their high value assets (aircraft, ambulances, etc.) in real-time on an interactive map and communicate with the pilot/driver in situations where traditional communication is not available. Their solution is used in life and death situations so speed and reliability are critical to their success.

In this episode, Bob Familiar talks to Steve Durante, CEO, and Rod Danielson, VP of Engineering, about their latest solution that leverages Bing Maps, Silverlight and Windows 7 Multi-Touch to deliver a cutting edge solution for their customers.

Architecture Detail Article here

ARCast.TV - Using jQuery to Improve User Experience in Web Applications

Bob Familiar — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:46:00 GMT

David Hoerster, Director of Technology for policyIQ at Resources Global Professionals and the co-chair of the Pittsburgh .NET User's Group (PGHDOTNET), shares his experience and passion on jQuery in this interview with Zhiming Xue.

Join us to learn what jQuery is and can do, what benefits it brings to web developers and end users, where you can further enhance user experience with jQuery plug-ins, how jQuery works with complementary technologies such as ASP.NET AJAX, and why you need not be concerned with the overall application performance, security and technical support when using jQuery.