Zeeshan Muhammad

My code is perfect... I need more features

2007-08-24T18:41:00.000+05:00

One of my good friend send this to me this morning and I can't resist myself from sharing it with others...

Normal people believe that ...if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Engineers believe that: "...if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet."-Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

MVP for Visual Developer - ASP/ASP.NET

2007-01-03T18:42:00.000+05:00

Yesterday I received an email from Microsoft stating that I have been awarded MVP for Visual Developer - ASP/ASP.NET. Its just like a gift I wanted for this new year. A very Happy New Year 2007 to everyone. There's more from New Jersey later. Cheers!

Dubai International Airport

2006-12-29T02:38:00.000+05:00

Here I am waiting for my next flight to New York at Dubai Internatinal Airport. The flight from Karachi to Dubai has left me with mixed feelings. Food was aweful, service is below average and overal experience was no where close to being acceptable. However, my 3 hours of stay at Dubai International Airport is exceptional. The airport is beautiful and the duty free is amazing. I saw Lamborgini and BMW there. Went to starbucks and used internet for free all over the place. However the internet speed isn't that good and I wish it could be better. The airport is full of transit passenger going different places. I am back to Dubai Airport after 16 years and I notice a huge change everywhere. My next flight to New York is delayed for an hour and will leave at 3 AM local time. Its a 14 hours of flight straight from Dubai to New York so wish me luck :).

You can view my album here.

An inside look at Sony's Next Generation Console

2006-11-12T23:39:00.000+05:00

For those who haven't heard about it, PS3 or PlayStation 3 is the next generation or (third generation) of Sony's gaming console which was released in Japan yesterday on November 11 and is going to release in North America on November 17. I wont be around for the launch but I hope I am going to see lots of them early next year. Until then I suggest you browse some pictures of this beautiful console and some early looks of the cell processer, RSX chip and other parts of the console. Cell processor is jointly manufactured by Sony, IBM and Toshiba and packs a massive 22+ Ghz of power in its 7 cores with each running on approximately 3.2 Ghz frequency. You can also download and install Folding(AT)home project by standford university and can run it in the background to utilize the maximum power of this machine for some good use. Here's how cell processor looks in its package:

You can see more PS3 pictures here in a translated version of a Japanese site.

It was Einstein, they say?

2006-11-01T19:22:00.002+05:00

Ya I know the title looks a bit wierd but believe me after reading following conversation you'll be sure to say that it was Einstein, they say. I got this on my mail from a very dear friend of mine and I couldn't resist my self from sharing it with everyone. So here it goes:

A Teacher asked the student: "Did God create everything that exists?"

The student couldn't respond to that statement causing the professor to conclude that he had "proved" that "belief in God" was a fairy tale, and therefore worthless.

Another student raised his hand and asked the professor, "May I pose a question? ",

"Of course" answered the professor.

The young student stood up and sked : "Professor does Cold exists?"

The professor answered, "What kind of question is that?...Of course the cold exists... haven't you ever been cold?"

The young student answered, "In fact sir, Cold does not exist. According to the laws of Physics, what we consider cold, in fact is the absence of heat. Anything is able to be studied as long as it transmits energy (heat). Absolute Zero is the total absence of heat, but cold does not exist. What we have done is create a term to describe how we feel if we don't have body heat or we are not hot." "And, does Dark exist?", he continued.

The professor answered "Of course".

This time the student responded, "Again you're wrong, Sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in fact simply the absence of light. Light can be studied,
darkness can not. Darkness cannot be broken down. A simple ray of light tears
the darkness and illuminates the surface where the light beam finishes. Dark is
a term that we humans have created to describe what happens when there's lack of
light."

Finally, the student asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

The professor replied, "Of course it exists, as I mentioned at the beginning, we see violations, crimes and violence anywhere in the world, and those things are evil."

The student responded, "Sir, Evil does not exist. Just as in the previous cases, Evil is a term which man has created to describe the result of the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man.

After this, the professor bowed down his head, and didn't answer back.

The young man's name was ALBERT EINSTEIN, they say :)

Congratulations, you have reached your destination.. click here and here.

Windows Vista and Imagine Cup 2007

2006-08-28T13:24:00.000+05:00

I went to Usman Institute of Technology yesterday for 2 presentations on Windows Vista and Imagine Cup 2007. The event went good and everything surprisingly worked fine on Vista, atleast after 1 day of struggle for running my demo on Vista I prepared for the event. But the demo always crash the desktop so I decided to run it on Xp. Display driver may not be that strong yet in Vista. The demo was made using June CTP of .NET Framework 3.0 and was built again on July CTP so it can run on Vista July CTP, lol so many CTPs to keep track off. The demo runs 7 videos simultaneously in the background and can bring them forward when mouse hover over them and will run it on full screen when a selection is made. Its an early version of the application I am working on in the part time and will talk in detail after a few days, or may be I'll post the source code and binary as well.

I felt people are most interested in seeing the AERO Glass interface in Vista, but I personally feel the beauty lies beneath it. As DWM (Display Window Manager) is the key application for handling those killing vista looks and all those transparencies and 3d surface rendering. Those who are unaware of DWM, its a full screen WPF application, responsible for managing all desktops in Vista and its also exposed as an unmanaged API for programmers which Vista uses natively. I found it quite a powerfull tool in terms of providing all those beautiful effects in our own applications. DWM is a huge topic to cover, so I am leaving it for some other time and I may also put some code examples to show its power.

You can download both presentation slides from here. Cheers!

Cool Media Center Edition style WPF App

2006-08-20T00:15:00.000+05:00

Mobilewares Big Screen Photos is a WPF application that provides not only addin for Windows Vista and Windows Media Center Edition but runs as stand alone application in WindowsXP as well. Its a WPF web application that will run on your browser and you can browse Flickr photos just like using MCE, very cool. But wait thats not enough, you can run it from your XBOX360 on you HDTV as well, now thats super cool.

You can download this application here and can view its screenshot here. Cheers!

Insufficient System Resources to complete the requested API

2006-08-13T00:45:00.000+05:00

If you are having issues with Hybernation in WindowsXP and getting the error "Insufficient System Resources to complete the requested API" and you have 2GB or more system RAM then you are not alone to be hit by this bug. You can get a fix by searching an unreleased and unsupported hotfix by Microsoft. According to them, its still in testing phase and they plan to release it with their next Service Pack. If like me, you don't have the patience to wait till then the you can search for the hotfix WindowsXP-KB909095-x86-ENU or can download it from here. Read more about it on Microsoft KB article here. I haven't seen this error again after installing this hotfix, and unsupported one but works for sure. Cheers!

Windows Mesa

2006-08-04T14:57:00.000+05:00

I was downloading a lot of webcasts today from MSDN and a survey popuped so I decided to fill it out as a return of the favor to Microsoft. The surprising part is at the end of the survey there was a question which said:

Have you heard, seen, or read about Windows Mesa?

I am not sure what this is all about, but I think Microsoft has something very exciting going on in the background. I wasn't over with the Vista hype and there is something more to be excited about. I think we have to wait to see what this Windows Mesa turn out to be. Until then, keep smiling :).

Atlas everywhere

2006-07-07T02:46:00.000+05:00

There has been so many things happnening at my end these days, and everything is AJAX enable, HA. I got an invitation to speak at Minnesota Developers Conference 2006 which is hosted by ILM Professional Services (my employer) on September 19th, 2006 on the topic of "Building Highly Rich ASP.NET 2.0 Applications with Atlas and AJAX". I have also started preparing table of contents for Real World ASP.NET 2.0 Best Practices. I am co-authoring a few chapters with my colleagues on the same topic I am presenting at MDC06. The main guy behind this book series is Farhan Muhammad, CEO and Chief Architect ILM. I hope everything turn out great. Will keep you posted of all the latest. Cheers!

Pakistan Developer Conference :: Day 2 and 3

2006-07-07T02:35:00.000+05:00

It has been a little while since I blogged. I remember I left my last post to continue my experience at PDC (Pakistan Developer Conference) 2006 and how the overall event turned out. 2nd day was good, I took first 2 sessions by Stephen Forte and he was great as always. Then after the tea break I was so tired and decided to leave as there wasn't anything exciting left for the day. However, I decided to take Chad Hower session on "Vista for Developers" and actually I wanted to see how he is going to present Vista in front of developers. The session was pathetic and it had nothing to do with developers. He introduced Vista and its new and exciting features throughout the session I thought there may be a little glimpse about development in vista, wpf, gadgets and so on, but I was wrong. Anyways, I then instantly jumped to the other hall to attend Rafal session on Criptography in Vista. Rafal made my day and he was brilliant throughout the session. The whole presentation focused on criptography and whats new in it in Vista. After that I came back home.

I came during the 2nd half of the 3rd day of PDC due to some work. Took Hammad bhai's session and it was great as always. The next session was on CMS, but it was so boring that I left after 10 minutes. Stephen Forte and Richard Campbell made the ending ceremony an event to remember by showing an amazing demonstration of WPF in their ending keynote. After the rafel distribution and other boring stuffs I returened back home.

The overall event was not as good as previous PDC's, however I enjoyed first 2 days. I hope there will be a much better event next year.

Pakistan Developers Conference :: Day 1

2006-06-29T01:14:00.000+05:00

Today PDC (Pakistan Developers Conference) 2006 launched at Pearl Continental Hotel, Karachi and Awari Towers, Lahore simulatenously. Lunch ceremony was boring as always, except Rafal. He talked this time about how online Authentication will significantly change and how an average user is going to interact with online services without the need for providing todays authentication (id and password), all courtesy of CardSpace which was formerly known as (Info Card). I attended all Stephen Forte's sessions today on Security, Web Development and SQL Server. I really like the SQL Query Governer, that he and Richard demonstrated together. Query Governer is a small but quite useful tool that developers or database admins can use to run a query on the server on the basis of server load. If the server is on a very high load, then the governer wont let the query to execute. The algorithm they used to determine the load on the server was very basic, but can't be enhanced for various situations. I didn't attend the Q/A session at the end, decided to leave early to finish off some of my pending work at home. Stay tuned for more on day 2. Cheers!

WinFS no more !!

2006-06-28T01:30:00.000+05:00

Well I was just about to hit bed, decided to sleep early tonight. Gotta wake up early to attend PDC. And just as I thought I could finally leave for bed, I came across this shocking news. WinFS may not be a part of Vista as said by the team behind this amazing technology. This is what Quentin Clark has to say about it.

Is WinFS dead?
Yes and No. Yes, we are not going to ship WinFS as a separate, monolithic software component. But the answer is also No - the vision remains alive and we are moving the technology forward. A lot of the technology really was database stuff – and we’re putting that into SQL and ADO. But some of the technology, especially the end user value points, are not ready, and we’re going to continue to work on that in incubation. Some or all of these technologies may be used by other Microsoft products going forward.

Looks like I already lost my sleep for tonight. You can read more here. See you at PDC.

Longhorn Server Beta 2 and IIS 7.0

2006-06-04T00:18:00.000+05:00

Today, after a long time has been a good day for me. I ate lunch which I usually skip, I slept for a full five hours, I finally got my XML script running on a test app, I resolved Atlas issues over another project and to top it off, I got a free beta test hosting account featuring Longhorn Server Beta 2 and IIS 7.0 by MaximumASP. I can't wait to see their web based UI for connecting with IIS 7 in the backend. They have an amazing interface for IIS 6.0 over their regular hosting which provides us with pretty much everything we need to set our applications using IIS over the web.

Location of my new site is http://zeeshan.maximumaspbeta.com/ which currently showcase some demo content. I'll be putting up some cool Atlas Mashups as well as some other sample applications at my new hosting in weeks to come and will be testing this new account to see how much stable IIS and Longhorn are, commercially. Will keep you posted, cheers!

Windows Vista Beta 2 :: The Ultimate Edition

2006-05-29T01:17:00.000+05:00

Today I got a chance to check Windows Vista x64 Ultimate Edition Beta 2. First impression is always, jaw dropping. There were some issues with the installation but after a few attempts, I got through. The problem was the minimum harddisk space required by Vista for a successful installation. This build, which is 5384, requires atleat 15 Gigabytes of free space on the partition you wist to install and another 8 to 10 Gigabytes of free space on your primary partition. Anyways the user experience is awesome as always. WDDM (Windows Display Driver Module) now has more hardware in its supporting GPU list. The idea is to provide a hassle free installation of the next generation of Windows with OS as well as required drivers. Aero showed much improvement as well from the previous built and run alot smoother then ever before. Some new Gadgets are also added into this built. Saw the first glimpse of Internet Explorer 7+. There has been some added feature in this new version of IE and my guess is its relationship with IIS 7. This is a part which I still have to explore so I am putting it on hold for the time being. Here are some screenshots of Vista running on my desktop machine. Cheers!

What is an MVP, Anyway?

2006-05-18T21:16:00.000+05:00

Well I came across an interesting piece of writing by Jonathan which is posted at ASP.NetPro. Jonathan talked in detail about the Microsoft MVP program, selection criteria and interviews with the member of the selection board. He also pointed out the issues with the current selection criteria for MVPs and the improvements that we are going to see very soon.

Still wondering what an MVP is and how to become one? Well then click this piece of text and get your answer. Cheers!

Atlas Control Toolkit

2006-05-07T02:56:00.000+05:00

Do you Want to add nested drop-downlists to your page? In-line popup support? Implement smooth show/hide support? Add water-marking support to input controls? Use dropshaows, rounded curves and much more for your existing server control in ASP.NET 2.0? Already getting cold feet and thinking about spending long hours over the weekend to write ugly, unmanageable javascripts for your existing web apps. Well, that's a life of a web developer always pushed to his limits for adding more features in his application.

Well then there's a sigh of relief for you all, we now have Atlas Control Toolkit with us. Just head over to its website here and see some beautiful, mouth watering AJAX treats. Make sure to download this toolkit and start using it from today to add some cool AJAX features in your web apps.

Wanna know more about this toolkit? Then Shawn Burke's blog is your place to be. Enjoy!

Control Adapters in ASP.NET 2.0

2006-05-06T16:33:00.000+05:00

How many of you are willing to alter the layout of current server controls in ASP.NET 2.0? I am sure many of you are interested in playing with the layout and change the way it looks and reacts by default. One way to achieve your goal is to either use CSS style sheets or newly introduced Themes in ASP.NET 2.0. But at the end of the day, what you are doing is to alter the presentation of your server controls or html tags. There is no possibility of changing the way your server controls react and render at client side, because it always ends up in producing html markups for server controls. Server Controls are always rigid and is not able to adapt changes. It is a bit difficult to grasp the idea at first place, so let me add more details and references to support this concept.

Control Adapters in ASP.NET 2.0 is a fairly fresh concept for web developers to hold. In the background what it does is it allows you to do pretty much with the way your web application or, in other words server controls react to the browsers. You can create your one web application to run on web browsers of all types, even on mobile devices but just adding a ".browser" file to your web app. You can differentiate where the browser that send the request is of either a browser that runs on a desktop machine or is a mobile device browser. And can produce different layouts for different browsers with some additional lines of codes.

So what's the big deal, you may be thinking? Think about producing XAML through your current web application and play with the UI to run on top of WPF (Avalon). Think about creating your controls to render at client side, so to be more user friendly. Like you can do with javascripts for client side execution. You can do pretty much with custom controls and third party tools available these days. But think about having the same feature for your existing <asp:textbox> control or anyother.

Amazed aren't you. I am having a felling that I may not be as clear in explaining the feature so I would like to recommend a few resources for you to dig in and explore this feature at your own pace.

There's an amazing demo by Plip's on creating XAML from your existing web apps. Have a look at it here.

ASP.NET team member Scotts talks about the new CSS Control Adaptor toolkit for ASP.NET 2.0. Click here if you are willing to know more.

Visual Studio and BSOD's

2006-05-02T18:17:00.000+05:00

BSOD's (Blue Sceen Of Death) had annoyed me for quite a few weeks and it always appears when I am working on a project inside Visual Studio. Things got worse when they started appearing once everyhour, especially when I am downloading the latest files from Source Safe. Stop error I get always suggested the error is either related to a RAM related issues or BIOS. I tested my ram and it came out clean so I thought something else is messing up with my system. So after spending a couple of hours I found that ZoneAlarm has some issues with Visual Studio and even stopping the service wont solve the problem. So I have to completely remove it to get rid of these ugly BSODs. So remember, don't use ZoneAlarm if you are using Visual Studio for primary development purposes untill its team solve this issue.

But don't you think its odd that only Visual Studio has issues with ZoneAlarm, one of the leading firewalls in the market? Think about it :)

ASP.NET 2.0 at NED.net

2006-04-18T00:34:00.000+05:00

I was invited at NED.net user group to give an introduction on ASP.NET 2.0 last weekend. Event went great and I enjoyed the session. Audience were mostly beginner ASP.NET student developers and were quite passionate about this new release. I talked about new Controls, Page Framework, Services, API's, Execution Model, Compilation and Deployment. You can download presentation slides and source code from here. Here are a few snaps of the event. There are more events lined up by NED.net and I am sure you don't wanna miss any. For updates join NED.net mailing list at Yahoo Groups.

RSS as DataSource in ASP.NET 2.0

2006-02-23T22:13:00.000+05:00

Did you ever think about using RSS as a datasource in your web applications? Well then think no more as ASP.NET team member Dmitryr has posted an awesome RSS Toolkit for ASP.NET 2.0 on his blog. This toolkit supports both exposing and consuming RSS from ASP.NET applications made on version 2.0 of the .NET Framework and it also includes full source code.

More on Scott's Blog.

Anthem.NET :: Another AJAX Library

2006-02-16T00:31:00.000+05:00

I have just downloaded Anthem.NET, another library for using AJAX features in ASP.NET applications. First its an open source project and is hosted at SourceForge.NET. And the best thing about Anthem.NET is, it can be used with both ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0. Soon after Atlas release, I always wanted to have some kind of similar library for previous version of ASP.NET.

By adding Anthem.NET library and some scripts, you can use AJAX features in the form of server controls. Just like Atlas, Anthem.NET provides server side control model for ASP.NET. Nearly all existing server controls are now AJAX enabled with this tool, and we can make our existing web applications AJAX enabled in no time. The only thing needed is to replace <asp:> tag with <anthem:> tag. Cool isn't it :)

You can read more about Anthem.NET here.
Download Anthem.NET from here.

Visual Studio 2005 Addons

2006-02-15T00:37:00.000+05:00

Microsoft has released some addons for Visual Studio 2005, earlier this month. These addons are to provide more flexibility for the developers who are used to of making ASP.NET projects using the traditional model of ASP.NET Project system of VS 2003 or before. Due to many suggestions from the developers, ASP.NET team has provided this addon that will support the previous project system in VS 2005 as well as the the current model.

You can download these addons from the following locations:

VS 2005 Web Application Project
VS 2005 Web Deployment Project

Hotmail Live Beta

2006-01-25T13:57:00.000+05:00

I got an invitation from Hotmail to try Hotmail Beta Live and without wasting a single moment I jumped into the site, accepted the invitation and sign in to see the new Hotmail. First it took a while to load all the scripts to provide client side processing functionality. Hotmail live will give you feeling that you are working inside Outlook. Resize columns, Spell check, move between folders and download mails without refreshing the page all the time. According to them, Hotmail Live will take over current Homail within few weeks, and hopefully everyone will be repeaing the benefits from the new exciting services. The sad part is, it does not provide all AJAX functionalities with browsers other then IE. However, Hotmail team will provide all the features for all browsers before the final release. This is how Homail Live looks like:

You can sign in for an invitation here. See all the features here.

Fuel Cell Vehicle :: The cleanest car on the planet

2006-01-23T00:44:00.000+05:00

I was watching Discovery Channel lately and discovered about the FCX (Fuel Cell Vehicle) through an advertisement and I couldn't resist myself from finding more about it. So in search for more, I hit its own as well as other websites. FCX is a technology introduced by Honda Research Department and according to them its a simple but fascinating way to produce electricity to servce as fuel for the cars of tomorrow. FCX employs an electrochemical reaction between Hydrogen and Oxygen to directly convert chemical energy into electrical energy. Yes its the same experiment but done in a reverse order that we did in our ninth grade to separate Hydrogen and Oxygen from water through Electrolysis. These cars do not require petrol, diesel or gas and produces zero harmful emissions. It generates electricity from two virtually unlimited sources, hydrogen and oxygen and is already on the roads in Japan and the U.S.A.

For more information, visit:
We Love Challenges
HONDA Woldwide

Atlas Demo on MSDN TV

2006-01-22T13:53:00.000+05:00

There is a nice demo on Atlas on MSDN TV by Nikhil Kothari where he shows different examples of using Atlas in a web application. Client side scripting was never this easy before. Check out the episode here.

More comments on IT sector :: Adnan Farooq Hashmi

2006-01-19T14:40:00.000+05:00

If you are wondering what this is all about, please read this post first. Here are Adnan bhai's views on our IT scene in 2005.

Q: How much satisfied are you with the progress we have made during this year in our IT sector? If you are not much satisfied then what do you think are the impediments in our progress? Is it our government/companies/laws or our IT engineers? Explain your points and describe how we can make progress in days to come.

To evolve the software ecosystem in Pakistan, the Government, Businesses, Educational Institutions, and Entrepreneurs all have a part to play. It is utterly useless to look to the Government only for any solutions.

For the IT Industry to flourish in Pakistan, we need to have a local IT industry, and local technology consumers. This can happen if Government initiates spending on IT projects, which can lead to similar initiatives by the private sector. Hence, the local ISV (Independent Software Vendor) would have a local customer to cater to, before it can take on larger competitors globally. Universities need to start Entrepreneurship programs, and provide a bridge between new ideas and businesses. Entrepreneurs can play a key role by churning out innovative solutions for local public and private sector organizations. The Government, for its part, can provide easy access to capital through banks to promote and encourage young and talented Entrepreneurs. All pieces would have to work together.

Q: As being an MVP, you have been honored to attend MVP summit in Seattle and you have also been to India to attend a professional developers conference this year, how was your experience and how would you compare our IT markets and software industry from other developing/developed nations?

A clear distinction has to be made between the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry and Software/IT industry, since our Government has not been able to outline which it wants to focus on. Government officials and ministers still use the terms "E-Govenment" and "Call Centers" in the same sentence. India is a key player in the global BPO arena, and emerging countries as Egypt, Russia, Phillipines, and Bangladesh are eyeing a piece of the BPO action. A large part of software development in India is being done in research and development centers of foreign companies as Microsoft, IBM, HP, SAP etc. But they also have a domestic software/IT market valued at $5 billion. It was heartening to see and meet many Indian Entrepreneurs who have made a name for themselves for starting out with local customers and then gradually moving to new markets.

Q: Don’t you think that we are completely unsuccessful in bringing foreign investments to Pakistan in terms of software development and outsourcing?

I won't characterize it as being completely unsuccessful. There is still a lot of work being done for overseas clients currently, but not as much as we would like to see. There are still many unexplored areas that we can focus on. However, whatever the focus, it has to be with utmost dedication and resolve.

Q: Our country is full of talented people and we are no less then our neighbors, so why giants like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Nokia and others are afraid of investing their money in terms of research and development in Pakistan as they do in India and other countries?

I think Pakistan is better than its neighbors in terms of human resources and motivation. But it is important to understand that 3 things play a key role in attracting investment from abroad; Perception, Innovation, and a local research culture. Pakistan in the recent years has been able to shed its negative image and improve its perception, yet the act of doing our laundry in public has harmed us to a great extent. Innovation can come only through Entrepreneurship which our culture has not been able to foster in young minds. The IT Ecosystem whereby the Industry looks to Academia for new ideas and research and invests heavily in University projects and research grants is only possible through a wave of Entrepreneurship endeavors which Universities should themselves cultivate. This alone would create a research culture bringing with it the much needed innovation and global projection that we seek.

Q: We have seen a boom in IT sector by the launch of various international companies offering their telecom services in Pakistan . What role do you see they are playing in the economic growth of our country?

The growth in Pakistan's Telecom sector during the past year has been nothing short of extraordinary. Many surveys point towards Pakistan as the fastest growing market for mobile phones in the world. Go to any mobile phone market and one would see the extent to which cell-phone usage has grown in the country. This is a good precedent. More mobile phone users mean more technology penetration within the masses, and the growth in opportunity for localized mobile applications and content. The need for local expertise in technology development is as important as the need for a local technology market. It is up to local software companies to capitalize on this growth in telecom sector locally. Here again, much too emphasis is placed on getting projects from abroad and the local opportunity is neglected.

More comments on IT sector :: Hammad Rajjoub

2006-01-19T14:33:00.000+05:00

If you are wondering what this is all about, please read this post first. Following Sir Saqib Comments, here are the views I got from Hammad bhai.

Q: What role do you see PASHA is playing to strengthen IT in Pakistan and to bring more investments in the country?

I believe PASHA has to become more effective. Its got to be the platform for local ISVs. I mean there has to be more than just registering local ISVs and listing down their names on a web site. I believe PAHA is the platform where a local eco system could be developed for ISVs to sustain and grow.

Q: As being a developer, how many companies are adopting the current technology blast by Microsoft (VS Launch)?

I believe the momentum is great. So many companies are adopting up coming MS technologies that I am amazed to see this pace. It was just amazing at VS Launch Shows to find people so much enthaustic about up coming wave of Microsoft technologies. Interesting part of it is that people have started using these technologies in their solutions development life cycles and are already reaping the rewards.

Q: Do you see a bright and sustaining future of IT/Software industry in Pakistan?

I am an optamist. I believe yes there is a bright and sustaining future for IT/Software industry of Pakistan but we will have to work hard for that. There is no easy going. There has never been, but things are only going to get more difficult in days to come. So we have to really work hard, we need to come up quality and efficient soltuions. We need to have people with vision who can think beyond the line and come up with exciting and interesting product ideas, people who can deliver on time, quality softwares that meets customer requirements . We dont need pepole who only succeed in getting fundings from venture capitalists and then when its time to delieve they fail to deliver and in the end go packing! How many companies we have seen shutting operations just like that. So we need to think on these lines as well. And i m sure if we can plan well and hold our acts together then we can really make a difference.

Q: How do you compare our IT industry with India? Where do you think we lack behind?

India's IT Industry is huge. I mean i really dont feel comfortable comparing our IT industry to their IT industry. We have a relatively smaller work force , fewer companies and limited exposure. See there are many Indian IT companies that have work force of literally thousands and thousands of resources. But if you take a look here in Pakistan, how many companies you'd find employing more than 1000 technical resources? India has established itself in past many years, which we havent been able to do. If BPO comes to your mind, India is one place you would want to look for soltions. See we havent been able to come up such specific skill areas. Here in Pakistan, people are happy developing PHP and ASP based web based application for few thousand dollars. Thats where we lack, we need to establish ourselves in some specific areas. In India, IT insititutes and universtires are of world repute. Can you name a few such insitiutes in Pakistan?. So I believe we all know what the problems are but we are ignoring things. We need to get our acts together and strive for the better and brighter future.

Buy one get one free

2006-01-16T00:17:00.000+05:00

Mobile agents are just another form of ordinary sales agents, banging on your door in the middle of the day and asking to buy or try products which fails to ignite consumers interest. The only difference is that they are working virtually, on the network without any physical presence. They can come and talk to your applications while you are away dealing with their counterparts in reality, and surprisingly .NET made the work even easier for such apps. And hopefully, within the next few months, we'll be seeing hundreds of mobile agents swarming online applications with the most famous slogan, "Buy one get one free."

Well contradictory to the statement, mobile agents have far better purposes to serve. Take a look here.

Hard to swallow, even impossible to spit!

2006-01-06T18:13:00.000+05:00

I have written an article for Dawn Sci-Tech which was published last weekend, or perhaps last year :). It was their year ender special issue and I was told by the editor to write an article on the topic of "IT and its development in 2005." The deadline was tough and I had to complete the article within 2 days. And as it was going to be a cover story, getting views from IT experts was making the work even impossible. But thanks to Adnan and Hammad bhai and especially Sir Saqib Ilyas for taking out the time to give their views. I received Sir Saqib comments at the very last moment, when I was about to send the article, but believe me it was worth the wait. I couldn't include all the comments in the piece as it was already crossing the article's length, for which I am really sorry to you guys. However, I think Sir Saqib's comments are worth mentioning, so I thought I can atleast publish it here. So here it goes:

In the so-called war on terrorism, in return for Pakistan's surprisingly, or not so, high support, the US has assisted Pakistan directly and indirectly, which has resulted in increased business in ceratin sectors, including IT. For this reason, there has been some increase. Also, outsourcing has really caught on, and some parts of India becoming quite expensive, people are looking elsewhere, and due to being a US ally, Pakistan is also a viable place to look at. Also, Pakistan houses fairly good talent pool and the accent is not too heavy.
How long this will last is an important question. It depends on us as to whether we are able to make a name for ourselves or not. We sold rice to the mideast and hid heroin inside it. It got caught and those countries put a ban on Pakistani rice imports. Now, Pakistani rice is smuggled to India, put in bags with Made in India stamps and exported to these same countries. If our businesses keep that mindset, we're not getting anywhere. The powers that be and the investors are very shortsighted and have a tunnle vision about IT. All they can think of are call centers, which in my opinion are bullshit. Attaur Rehman was preaching call center establishment as a rule to everyone he met, including the sabzi wala. He and others cant think beyond that. So, where are the IT educated folks? Doing jobs at the Seth's tiny software house doing impossible hours, and getting paid in penuts in most cases. The mindset needs to be changed. For business to grow, I think that the businesses must hire a good management team, and give them full powers ( I mean FULL Power). Let them set the business goals and poicies. In India, the seths were very forthcoming when the first Indian expats came to them a long time ago to setup IT realted businesses. These people invested millions in those concerns and waited years and in some cases decades for the benefits to arrive. They were patient, we are not. Our seth wants to receive the benefit before he makes the investment. That mindset has to change or the business reigns need to be given to others more competent, hence the management team. People from vibrant business schools like LUMS have taken businesses from lakhs to Billions per year and beyond. That is the key on the business policy side.
Now, the talent pool is quite lacking. Excepting for perhaps 10-20 students per year, throughout the country, what comes out of the computer science/engineering program is not well equipped to deliver right away, the IT organization most of the times is unable to invest proper orientation to him, and things just drag along as the new kid learns the tricks of the trade the hard way.
Is there something wrong with the curriculum. Not at all. The same courses are taught to BCom students as to BBA students at IBA or LUMS. Why the difference in the graduates? The difference does not lie in the caliber of the students entirely, although it does to some extent. A lot of it has to do with the way things are taught. While we may have people with excellent intellectual abilities and a lot of knowledge of the subjects, we have few good teachers who are able to deliver the matter in a way that the students absorb it and are able to actually apply that knowledge somewhere. That's the key.
Some cs programs at private universities and even CSIT at NED are revising their curricula to have more job related courses, but that is an absurd idea.

You can read the article here.

InfoCard in WCF (Windows Communication Foundation)

2005-12-21T02:42:00.000+05:00

I came across this very interesting guide by Microsoft on Integrating with InfoCard v1.0 posted at MSDN webservice section. As you all know by now that WCF is a part of the upcoming Windows API named WINFX and will be playing a center part as providing the foundation for communication needs of our next generation of applications. Those who have already downloaded the Beta 2 version of WinFX will be able to play with this new piece of technology. Basically InfoCard will provide users to manage their identity from various identity providers, who are at this point unknows, atleast to me. No matter wheter they will be third part identity providers or Microsoft itself, I think it is a great move to provide security for the end application to communicate with trusted applications only.

The foundation of this model (InfoCard) is based on WS-Trust, WS-Security Policy and WS-Metadata Exchange web service specifications. We will be able to see a root-of-trust policy between applications before they start communicating with each other, eliminating all posiblity of sending crucial data to wrong hands or I should perhaps say, applications.

The guide also contains a very interesting example of utilizing this service and how this model can be used to provide security for the end users. WCF is going to serve as a very strong foundation in providing the communicaton standards, but I hope they dont put up heavy charges of utilizing such services.

Read the complete guide here.

Web Standards and ASP.NET 2.0

2005-11-30T17:18:00.000+05:00

While making websites using ASP.NET, a developer always have to decide either his site will be following all W3C standards or he is just another IE fan. Well following standards is no more a problem as MSDN has a nice article for all of us on "Building ASP.NET 2.0 Web Sites using Web Standards." It is a very comprehensive article covering all aspects of cross browser compatibility with code samples as well. A must read for every web developer.

Click here to read the article.

XBox360 Launch :: Zero Hour

2005-11-23T16:57:00.000+05:00

Thousands of gamers had witnessed the launche of XBox360 in an event called Zero Hour organized by Microsoft at Mojave Desert, California. If you happens to be a crazy XBox fan and want to see the spectacular launch, then this site is your place to be. I wish Microsoft had launched VS and SQL 2005 in the same way, full of fun. Anyways, all PS3 fans like me shouldn't worry. Our wait will worth it as its gonna be a massive system to play with. IGN PS3 has a nice article on this, check it out here and save every penny you have for the PS3 launch next year. Till then, I go and get my PS2 fixed.

Project Hoshimi - Programming Battle.

2005-11-16T04:54:00.000+05:00

Imagine Cup 2006 has already started and registration is open for all students around the world. I am participating for the first time and have registered for 2 invitationals. Project Hoshimi - Programming Battle is one of them and its 1st round has already begun. All participants have to download the SDK, which contains the first mission objectives, API, a server application to test your program and an introductory tutorial for completing the first mission. The minimum score to qualify for the 2nd round is 300 within turn 1500, which can be easily accomplished by going through the tutorial. Basicly, there is only 2 changes to be made into the MyAI.cs class to qualify for the next round, which is no fun at all. So I decieded to go furthur and made numerous changes into the two given classes and now I have some smart bots with a good strategy ending up giving a good score. I ended up getting a score of 1060 at turn 1340. The maximum score is 1100. The main theme of this invitational is to devise a strategy not only to accomplish a task, but to score higher. And believe me it took most of my time to formulate that. Time is going to be against us throughout this competition, so those who are also participating in the same invitational should start programming ahead of time and make different strategies to complete a single task.

I badly need the API documentation which isn't available yet, as the classes are implemented into a dll, which of course not much revealing. And for a lame programmer like me, Object Browser ins't helping a bit. Hope I will do good in the coming rounds, for that I need all your wishes.

For more information on this, visit:
Imagine Cup 2006 website.
Project Hoshimi website.
Project Hoshimi webcast part 1.
Project Hoshimi webcast part 2.

Ubuntu

2005-11-15T18:50:00.000+05:00

Ubuntu - another Linux distribution, which is gaining quite a reputation, arrived at my placed yesterday with 5 set of disks so I can copy and distibute them among others. But before that I decided to pop in the disk and see what the fuss is all about. Well there were 2 disks, one installation and other is a live distro means it can boot Linux directly from your CDROM. Before installing the distro, I launch the live disk to see what makes it different from other distros. Well first it took hell of a time to lauch and it cost me almost 10 minutes to boot completely. Second it has same GNOME desktop which is quite similar among other distros. Third it can't read your NTFS partitions and last it is damn slow. However, on the other hand it has almost all applications bundled so an average user will find no need in get in the hassle of finding OSS online. But this live CD has no comparision with Knoppix. Knoppix is fast, can read NTFS, boot faster and it even comes with a mono installion on a new distro, Monnopix. I think I should stick towards Redhat and Knoppix to fill in my ever increasing appetite for OSS. But still if you want to give it a shot, then you can order your copy here, free of charge.

Do you like what you learn?

2005-11-06T19:49:00.000+05:00

"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year" - said Einstein. I realized it when I was in 9th grade, when I had to learn Sindhi at which I really sucked at. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get along with it. I couldn't see any relevance of that subject in my career and was always finding a way to escape, which I couldn't. And I always asked myself, is it really necessary to learn something you really don't like?

Its been eight years now, and I still have this question murmurring deep inside me, with a little revision year by year and making it even more and more difficult to solve and find answers. I wish one day I wake up in a different world, where knowledge is not judge by a system, made by humans.

The future is open source

2005-10-29T14:09:00.000+05:00

Today I got my first cover story titled "The future is open source" published in Dawn Sci-Tech World weekly magazine. The purpose of this article is to shed light mainly on software piracy and ways to eliminate its roots from our society. I have also received an email this afternoon from our respected Vice-Chancellor, Engr. Abul Kalam, that he read my article and wants to see me. Well the email is not much revealing so I have to see him on Monday to unveil the mystery. I hope everything will turn out in my favor.

Read the story here.

Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?

2005-10-28T02:46:00.000+05:00

Charlez Petzold had an amazing speech at NYC.NET Developers Groups on the state of programming in the Microsoft World. A must read for every developer and thanks to Bill Evjen for pointing it out on his blog.

Read it here.

Microsoft Code Named Acrylic

2005-10-23T23:20:00.000+05:00

Today I got my hands on a great new application by Microsoft which is code named "Acrylic." Its a great new addition amongst the variety of application that Microsoft is developing these days. Acrylic is a graphics designer and somewhat identical to the features provided by Adobe Photoshop. The great addition which I found is that it can export your images in XAML, which can be utilized in next generation of Windows and Web applications. You can have your complete deign in Acrylic and use it to export it into XAML, which can save a huge amount of time to produce xaml code if you are working on a big project. Acrylic is a part of Microsoft Expressions products and we still have to see other remaining tools to complete the package. Here are some snaps of Acrylic running on my PC.

See how beautifully it produces vector based images. There are other new features as well which I will explore in a couple of days. So stay tuned for more!

XBox 360 Getting Ready to Launch

2005-10-14T02:01:00.000+05:00

XBox 360 manufacturing is at full speed and will gonna hit stores next month on November 22. Here's a video showing the manufacturing procees of the upcoming console to fill your appetite till the release.

Click here to download the video in wmv format. File size 4.19 MB

101 Samples using LINQ

2005-10-09T13:54:00.000+05:00

See the LINQ Project in action in these code samples. The sample are in C# for the time being.

Click here for the samples.

Silicon Photonics

2005-10-05T03:05:00.000+05:00

The relentless push of Moore's Law has allowed data rates to soar, Internet traffic to swell, and wired and wireless technology to cover continents. Increasingly, we all expect fast, free-flowing bandwidth whenever and wherever we connect with the world. Within the next decade, the circuitry embodied by a rack of today's servers, able to churn through billions of bits of data per second and handle all the data-processing needs of a small company, will fit neatly on a single silicon chip half the size of a postage stamp.

But there's a problem. As newer, faster microprocessors roll out, the copper connections that feed those processors within computers and servers will prove inadequate to handle the crushing tides of data. At data rates approaching 10 billion bits per second, microscopic imperfections in the copper or irregularities in a printed-circuit board begin to weaken and distort the signals—even traveling distances as short as 50 centimeters can be a problem. New board materials and new techniques could provide some additional performance gains, but only at increased cost.

Here's a better way: replace the copper with optical fiber and the electrons with photons.

That's the promise of silicon photonics: affordable optical communications for everything. It will let manufacturers build optical components using the same semiconductor equipment and methods they use now for ordinary integrated circuits, thereby dramatically lowering the cost of photonics. Meanwhile, the performance gains will be significant: integrated onto a silicon chip, an optical transceiver could send and receive data at 10 billion or even 100 billion bits per second.

Source : IEEE Spectrum

Who will guard the guards?

2005-10-04T14:51:00.000+05:00

Have you ever strayed onto a strange website, clicked on an interesting icon and felt the blood drain out of your face as your computer screen flickered and went black? It happens all the time. The security of your computer is constantly at risk and clearly something must be done to neutralise the threat. Traditionally, safety precautions such as antivirus software have worked well but with more sophisticated attacks exploiting all kind of bugs, the current security programmes are simply waiting to be chewed up. After all, one piece of software cannot make an insecure system risk free.

One solution could be to change the way the hardware itself is designed. This is the approach the trusted computing initiative was leaning toward. A family of specifications were produced by the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) - a group initially headed by industry giants such as HP, IBM, Microsoft, Compaq and Intel which eventually grew to include over 190 members. They began with the stated goal of making computers more secure. One of the major products of this working group was a specification for providing a trusted subsystem using the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), and additional chip to be included with computers to provide core security services and trusted computing features to the rest of the platform.

Read the complete story on Trusted Computing in this month's issue of Spider Magazine.

Are we there yet?

2005-09-30T02:40:00.000+05:00

While completing my latest writing for Dawn Sci-Tech, I came to know that Pakistan has been honored to be designated as a "Priority Foreign Country" because of its thriving underground business in illicit digital products by IIPA (International Intellectual Property Alliance). Pakistan has long suffered from piracy, and with the recent actions by our government, things has become more sophisticated. According to their report, estimate trade losses due to poor copyright laws are about 9 million dollars a year, as of 2004. After the recent raids and sealing of facilities at Rainbow center, a trade hub of illegal softwares, and different parts of the country has been very effective in promoting the piracy. Since then, the costs of each pirated disk has increased about 25% just to cover the loses faced by local shops and their copying facilites at remote locations. I wonder where it will lead us to. This ain't gonna stop like this, people are becoming more and more aware of piracy everyday, but cannot stop themselves from their ever increasing thurst for cheap copies of music, videos and softwares. We need to bring more awareness to our people as an alternative of pirated softwares available in the shape of Open Source. This is not a war between two companies and their businesses, this is infact the matter of our reputation, our image in front of the world. We never thought, even once, before using illegal softwares, that what we are bringing to our country. Are we returning the favor as a true patriot? It is the time to realize that governement is playing its role and it is upto us to adopt other alternatives in order to kill ever increasing piracy, and to stop the Pirates of the Cyberspace to sail their ships in our country forever, at least for a better tomorrow!

Download IIPA's "2005 Special 301" report from here in pdf format.

Metal Gear Solid 4 :: Guns of the Patriots

2005-09-22T16:46:00.000+05:00

The latest series of the most popular games of all time "Metal Gear Solid" was the center of focus for TGS (Tokyo Game Show) this year. The name of the upcoming title is Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots and is set in an undefined point after the events in Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Liberty, where an older Snake is deployed onto a battlefield, with series regular Otacon playing a supporting role from a remote location. You must see the images, they completely took my breath away, atleast for a moment :). I have the trailer for download which is about a 34 MB file. Here are some images from the trailer shown at TGS to fill in your appetite.

For more information, images and trailer visit Kikizo, IGN, Gamespot and GamesRadar.

Visit official Metal Gear Solid 4 website here.

Quicktime maniacs can download the trailer from here. Rest of the freaks, click here. Don't have enough bandwidth, watch the trailer on stream here.

Windows Workflow Foundation

2005-09-21T01:47:00.000+05:00

Paul Andrew has got some webcasts targeting especially Windows Workflow Foundation, which will be held during September 26-30, 2005. Make sure you drop by at his blog for the webcasts links. All of you still wondering whats Workflow is, well I have some links to kill your curosity.

Windows Workflow Foundation
Channel 9 coverage

First look at SCADA Embedded Devices

2005-09-15T17:07:00.000+05:00

Our group geathered at my place this afternoon for a photo session. No we didn't invite Brooke Burke for the snaps :) , our final year project has finally made into a working state so we thought we can have some really cool pictures of the system. If you are wondering what this is all about, then you can refer to my previous post on "Embedded Internet Kit - Phase 1" for the brief introduction of our project. We also published a paper at SCONEST 2005, which will also be available for download from our website (Coming Soon). The project is still in development, we'll have more pics when we are finally done. So stay tuned!

Xbox 360 Code

2005-09-10T16:25:00.000+05:00

IGN team has deciphered a very ingeniously hidden code in a picture of a tree released by Origen Xbox 360. After zooming into the picture, you can see the hidden message written on a tree branch to the very left side and in the bottom. Just visit the Origen Xbox 360 site and zoom in a couple of time on the picture made using Flash, and you will be revealed a hidden message written in Latin. I wonder if Da Vinchi has made some secretly hidden picture especially for Xbox :)

Visit IGN Xbox 360 for the explaination of the text and its possible relationship with the upcoming gaming console by Microsoft.

Origen Xbox 360 - Use IE, site may not be compatible with Firefox or other browsers.

Bill Gates on Channel 9

2005-09-10T02:25:00.000+05:00

Watch a short interview of Microsoft Chief Software Architect "Bill Gates" at Channel 9.

Video Length: 00:16:34 | Save

Click here to read more.

Software aims to catch Plagiarism

2005-09-07T02:21:00.000+05:00

The LexisNexis data collection service has introduced CopyGuard, a program aimed at exposing plagiarists or spotting copyright infringement. According to John Barrie, chief executive of iParadigms, the company that developed the program with LexisNexis, CopyGuard can generate a report that calculates the percentage of material suspected of not being original, highlights that text and pinpoints its possible original source, all within seconds.

"We take digital fingerprints of individual documents and compare them to the digital fingerprints of existing documents," Barrie said.

Existing programs from iParadigm and others have focused on plagiarism by students, not journalists. CopyGuard, which is available by subscription (the company would not divulge the price of the service) draws on LexisNexis' database of more than six billion documents and several years' worth of Web pages archived by iParadigm. In addition to checking newspaper and magazine articles, CopyGuard can be used by publishers to scan book manuscripts.

Read the rest of the story here.

Getting to know ASP.NET 2.0

2005-09-05T14:26:00.000+05:00

When Microsoft released the .NET Framework 1.0 Technology in July 2000, it was immediately clear that Web development was going to change. The company’s prior technology, Active Server Pages (ASP) launched hundreds of books, articles, Web sites and components, all aiming to make the development process easier than before. However, what ASP did not have, was an application framework - it was never an enterprise development tool. Everything in ASP was code oriented - but it simply wasn't possible to avoid doing work without writing codes.
ASP.NET was designed to counter this problem. Right from its initial release as a preview technology, Microsoft ASP.NET has been a huge success. For those people developing web sites using Microsoft technologies, ASP.NET provides a rich programming model, allowing sites to be easily constructed. There has been a lot of talk since its release, but ignoring all the hype and press, .NET really is a product for developers, providing a great foundation for building all types of web applications. One of the key design goals of ASP.NET was to make programming easier and quicker by reducing the amount of code that needed to be created. This phenomenon operates when one enters the era of declarative programming model, rich server controls, large class libraries, and support for development tools from the humble Notepad to the high-end Visual Studio .NET.

Yup thats an excerpt from my latest contribution for Spider Magazine. See their September 2005 issue, page 47 if you want to read more. Visual Studio Team System, SQL Server 2005 and Smart Clients are on the list for future publications for both Spider and Dawn Sci-Tech. Feel free to share your comments and suggestions.

Design Patterns :: Dependency Injections (DI)

2005-09-03T01:38:00.000+05:00

Today there is a greater focus than ever on reusing existing components and wiring together disparate components to form a cohesive architecture. But this wiring can quickly become a daunting task because as application size and complexity increase, so do dependencies. One way to mitigate the proliferation of dependencies is by using Dependency Injection (DI), which allows you to inject objects into a class, rather than relying on the class to create the object itself.

Read the rest of this article and download the source code from here.

Embedded Internet Kit : Phase 1 Complete

2005-09-02T02:44:00.000+05:00

Today was a good day for me and my project. We are working on a device that suppose to go online using any GPRS modem and allow us to communicate with our web server. This device is not only going to monitor any process from the system connected to it, but also allows operators to modify the running processes on the fly. This sounds so easy, but believe me, making this device just to go online made us sweat really hard :). I have been working since last 2 weeks just to make this device connect to internet using my Samsung SGH-C100 built-in modem. At first the cable was faulty and the pin configuration was not correct. After all it was made by China :). So I have to buy another cable and has to modify it to bypass the RS-232 circuit. Actually the cable is powered by DTR (Data Terminal Ready) pin from PC and allows transmission of data from TX line of the cable. But all original Samsung data cables are powered by Cell Phone Battery, which is unfortunately no where to be found in our beloved techno city. Therefore, I have to bypass this circuit so my device can freely communicate with the modem.

So finally tonight, just a few moments before, the device came online and allowed me to surf web sites, check my emails and open TCP sockets for Client-Server communication. Finally the hard work paid off. We are now going to move to the next phase and going to program our Microchip PIC16F877A so that it can communicate with our device and can share data.

I am using Warid GPRS service, but its way much expensive. They are charging Rs 3.80 for just initiating a GPRS connection and for a max download of 200KB. They will charge Rs. 3.80 for every 200 KB download. And their customer service is pathetic, with people having completely no idea about GPRS. What the hell are they doing. I am going to switch to Mobilink Indigo from next month. Atleast their GPRS tariff is much better then others. Rs. 500 for a month unlimited access, its is good or what :)

I will gonna post some pics and updates of our device soon... so stay tuned!

JUW and ASP.NET

2005-08-24T01:14:00.000+05:00

I was at Jinnah University for Women (JUW) last weekend, talking about basic ASP.NET. The session went good, the audience were good and I got only one question in the Q&A session. I think they either understood everything or most probably nothing :) . I told the participants that I will share a couple of links on the mailing lists but due to my work load, I am unable to to spend much time on net. Anyways if anyone of you is still waiting for the links then please send a reminder to our INETA Pakistan mailing list with your querry. I'll definately reply over there. You can download the slides from here.

.NET Pakistan : Where Paki Geeks Hangout!

2005-08-24T00:49:00.000+05:00

What is .NET Pakistan

.Net Pakistan will initially be a blogging site that will evolve as a .NET Portal and a discussion forum. At .NET Pakistan you will be getting daily dose of technology updates, code snippets, tutorials, best practices, and solutions for their posted problems.

Blogging at .Net Pakistan will be done by experienced .Net Professionals from around the globe. The list of bloggers will increase with time. If you are interested in blogging for us then do write us at (dotnetpakistan@yahoo.com) about your self, experience, and areas you would like to write on.

Behind .Net Pakistan

Wajahat Abbas has worked for the last three years as a Software Engineer. He is currently working as Technical Lead in Kalsoft (Pvt) Ltd, Pakistan, a software consulting firm focused on .NET development and consulting. Wajahat is an Executive committee member of INETA Pakistan. He has also worked for Microsoft Consulting Services for .NET development. He can be approached at wajahatabbas@yahoo.com. For more details visit his blog : http://www.wajahatabbas.com.

Hammad Rajjoub is a Software Engineer by profession. He is a Microsoft MVP for XML Web Services. He is also a MCP. He has been working on .Net platform since its beta release. He is also an Executive INETA committee member and member of INETA MEA speakers bureau. He is currently working as Technical Lead in Kalsoft (Pvt) Ltd, Pakistan, a software consulting firm focused on .NET development and consulting. Hammad has spoken at a number of seminars and conferences. He can be reached at hammad.rajjoub@ineta.org. For more details visit his blog : http://dotnetwizards.blogspot.com.

Where is .NET Pakistan

Right here : http://www.dotnetpakistan.com

Group fights Vista release

2005-08-12T00:38:00.000+05:00

A group known as The Committee to Fight Microsoft says it has has "begun a campaign to block Microsoft Corporation from releasing Windows Vista to the general public unless and until Microsoft offers a general and unconditional warranty to purchasers that the program does not include 'bad code.' "

Windows 95 was a disaster; it took three years to correct the major deficiencies. But the 95 fix, Windows 98, only created new vulnerabilities, and required yet another round of fixes for Windows 98. On and on it goes. No other company in America gets away with selling defective products and then expecting its customers to wait years for proper product pperability.

Josh Meier of Ars Technica offers an alternate view in this post:

Windows 95 certainly had its share of problems, and Windows 98 even saw a Second Edition, but to call them flat out defective is going a tad far. While Windows 95 made the term "BSOD" commonplace, it achieved a number of milestones. It brought preemptive multitasking and protected memory to the mainstream market years before Apple, while maintaining backwards compatibility with 16-bit Windows applications, and even most DOS programs.

Source: News.com Extra

Behind the screen

2005-08-03T14:25:00.000+05:00

With a sudden increase in awareness about the terms "web services", "WSDL", "XML" and "SOAP", to name a few, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of curious people who want to know what all the fuss is all about. Today's most popular search engine, Google, exposes its search application programming interface (API) through a Web service, giving Web developers the oppertunity to utilise such search capabilities within their applications. E-commerce giants such as Amazon and eBay also expose their product catalogues and search facilities via Web services. So what is the hype all about?

Web services, in the general meaning of the term, are services offered by one application to other applications via the World Wide Web. Clients of these services can aggregate them to form an end-user application, enable business transactions, or create new Web services. Utilities of this kind are built according to Extensible Markup Language (XML), simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Definition Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) specifications. They are prevelent and portable, covering every operating system and programming language. These standards provide the foundation for application integration and aggregation that companies are starting to use in order to create solutions and improve the usefulness and ineroperability of their applications.

This is an excerpt from my article published in Spider August 2005 issue. You can read the rest of this article "Understanding the architecture and facilities of Web services" on page 57 of the magazine. Some contents of the magazine are available for online viewing.

Visit Spider website here.

Master Pages and Themes Event Pictures

2005-07-28T19:44:00.000+05:00

Thanks to sir Saqib Ilyas and Faisal Nasim for taking some pictures during my event on "Master Pages and Themes in ASP.NET 2.0." Here you will find the thumbnails of the images. Just click on the images for the full view.

Images will be cracky at full viewing. However I will try to reload the images with higher resolution.

Page.Request in Master Pages

2005-07-25T17:55:00.000+05:00

I have been trying access Page.Request property in master pages and it didn't work at all. But after spending a few minutes at forums.asp.net I found my answer. There is a little trick involved in actually getting the request from the webform if you want to get value from a certain server control from the page. You actually have to go through the PageRequest Handler which looks something like this:

HttpApplication.PreRequestHandlerExecute

Brock Allen has got a solution with sample code to start your work with. ASP.NET Forums is a place to be. If you are working on any part of ASP.NET 2 and you are having troubles with some functions or controls then you should post the error in the forums. Remember ASP.NET team is watching the posts and they will not only answer your queries but will certainly improve the product before the final release.

No more Grid Layout in ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2

2005-07-25T17:20:00.000+05:00

I remember someone asked me during the presentation about how to enable Grid Layout in webforms in asp.net 2. Well the support for the grid layout is dropped by them Team and you have to work in the flow layout. But it also supports the Grid view for your controls, this is the trick :)... You just have to position your controls by giving absolute positioning. Goto the Layout Menu (at the top where you see File, Edit, View etc) and select Position-->Absolute layout. Then
you can more your controls anywhere in the form with absolute positioning.

For more information visit here and here too.

My first shot towards becoming an INETA Speaker

2005-07-24T00:05:00.000+05:00

I spend a wonderful time during my presentation for NED.net on "Master Pages and Themes in ASP.NET 2.0." This is the first time that I am not going to say that "the speaker was absolutely amazing and the presentation was just awesome." I am not being too modest, this is what usally happens when you are speaking for the first time. This was just the beginning and I have to walk a long way to become a good speaker.

I started by giving a very brief introduction about ASP.NET 2.0. Talked about the Visual Studio enhancements, new compilation and code-beside model, new deployment methods etc. Then I moved toward the main topic of presentation "Themes in the new version of ASP.NET." I have shown demos all along the slides to give the audience a better look at how to use these new technologies that are introduced in ASP.NET 2.0 for the first time. I really like the concept of applying themes to the sites which really ease the burden of giving "CSSClass" or "Class" refrences to all the contents of your site. You just have to include <% @ Page Theme="SmokeAndGlass" %> and thats all. All your controls will give a consistent look to your site.

Then we moved on towards the Master Pages. Master Pages are introduced for the first time in ASP.NET 2.0 and its all about giving a consistent layout to your website yet with almost no line of code at all. You just have to define the looks of your site in the master page with <% @ Mater %> tag, define the layout of your pages in just one file and throw some contentplaceholders which will be used to pass contents from content pages <% @ Page MasterPageFile="Master.master" %>. No more usercontrols for defining the layout of the site and placing the controls in all of you pages one at a time. You can also nest 2 or more master pages together to make the figure a bit more complex yet recommended for big project and portal style websites.

It was a nice start for me today and I have learned one thing. Never throw a bad joke during your presentation, you will loose some pretty looking audiences :) . The audience were amazing, they throwed some really good questions and have rated my 3.5 out of 5 which is not bad for my first attempt. I want to thank Usman especially for working with me in the lab and helping me in setting up the machine for my ugly demos, Sir Saqib Ilyas for allowing me to use his laptop and helping me during the arrangements, Faisal Nasim, Muhammad Yahya, Sarfaraz Soomro, Fahad Majeed for doing all the nasty work behind the scene and arranging the foods and drinks and the feedbacks offcourse. Last but certainly not the least, I would like to thank Hammad and Adnan bhai for being there for my support and helping me in the Q&A session. You guys just are just awesome and this event wouldn't have been possible without your help.

Thank you once again!

You can download the slides from here. I have also included some Theme files along with the slides. You just have to copy them in the Global Themes folder which I mentioned during the presentation and you are all set to go. All previous presentations can also be download from here.

Another Free XAML Designer

2005-07-23T20:20:00.000+05:00

Aurora XAML Designer is another free designer after XAM3D available for developers to get their hands dirty with XAML for Visual Studio 2005. It can also work in a stand-alone environment) .

Aurora for Visual Studio 2005 integrates seamlessly into the Visual Studio environment to provide a visual designer for XAML content. Developers no longer have to spend countless hours manually coding simple XAML content. Now the equivalent content can be created visually in minutes within the Visual Studio environment using the integrated Aurora XAML Designer. Aurora for Visual Studio 2005 improves developer workflow by allowing the developer to maintain their XAML documents visually within the Visual Studio 2005
environment; an integrated development environment that is familiar to millions of developers worldwide.

Recap of important features:

1. Aurora integrates into Visual Studio 2005
2. XAML content created visually within Visual Studio 2005
3. Content created in one environment improves developer workflow

Mobiform is the first company to provide visual designer software for maintaining XAML documents. Now Mobiform is the first company to provide a visual designer that integrates directly into the Visual Studio 2005 environment.

Downlaod the free designer from here.

Don't screw up your user group

2005-07-17T02:06:00.000+05:00

Jim Holmes has some really good tips and nice suggestions if you are thinking of starting your own user group. I must recommend all current as well as new community leaders to check out his blog so you never screw up your user group.

Link : Jim Holmes blog

Rolling With Longhorn Beta

2005-07-13T03:00:00.000+05:00

Screenshots of Longhorn Beta build 5303 have been posted online and include several shots of Internet Explorer 7, the Start Menu, Windows Media Player, and several explorer views. From the screenshots you can see that Microsoft is leaning heavily on transparency in the new OS.

Among the flash of the new screen images you may notice a plus sign on the IE 7 Toolbar. This will be the link to subscribe to an RSS feed. RSS information however is not stored in IE, but rather is supported natively by the Longhorn OS including a centralized RSS data store and built-in synchronization engine.

Download screenshots from here (Size 4.17 MB, ZIP format)

Read more at www.neowin.net

Source : TheServerSide.NET

Seminar on Master Pages and Themes in ASP.NET 2.0

2005-07-12T02:00:00.000+05:00

International .NET Association Pakistan Chapter and NED.net User Group invites you to attend an hour long seminar on Master Pages and Themes in ASP.NET 2.0 by Zeeshan Muhammad on July 23, 2005.

Venue:

CIS Lecture Hall, NED University of Enigneering and Technology, Karachi.

Date and Time:

Saturday, July 23, 2005 at 2pm.

Seminar Details:

Almost all websites use a similar graphical layout for all their pages. This doesn't happen by chance, it grows out of accepted guidelines for design and usability. For some websites, the layout consists of the header, body and footer; for others, it is a more sophisticated aggregation of menus, buttons and panels that contain and render the actual content. The question is, how can you effectively build such Web sites? Both classic ASP and ASP.NET 1.x provide good workarounds for this type of issue, but neither tackles such a scenario openly and provides a definitive, optimal solution. ASP.NET 2.0 faces up to the task through a new technology "Master Pages" and basically exploits the ASP.NET Framework's ability to merge a "supertemplate" with user-defined content replacements.

In our seminar we will discuss how ASP.NET 2.0 aids in the design and consistency of sites. From the development perspective, generating a site that is consistent isn’t so hard, and there are plenty of ways it can be achieved. However, these are all custom solutions, not part of the underlying .NET Framework. ASP.NET 2.0 brings a solution that not only improves ways of providing UI reuse but also aids in maintenance of the site.

Note:

Registration is necessary for you to avoid enterance issues at our campus. Current NED Students and Faculty members do not need to register for this event.
Registration closes on July 18, 2005.
Give-aways for audience.
Visit our blog : http://nednet.blogspot.com

Looking forward to welcoming you at our event.

From Web Services to SOA and Everything in Between

2005-07-02T12:48:00.000+05:00

As underlying Web services standards congeal and the technology matures, more and more companies will be moving more deeply into Web services, and ultimately, service-oriented architectures (SOAs). Many hope to solve integration headaches, while others want to make better use of their current information technology resources.

In order to gauge the state of Web services and SOA, Webservices.Org recently conducted a comprehensive survey of almost 1,000 developers and managers representing a wide variety of business sizes and industries. Respondents were asked to describe their current infrastructure, future plans, and opinions on Web services and SOA in general.

The survey found that while there are relatively few advanced Web services sites – and even fewer bona fide SOA implementations – managers and executives clearly understand the value proposition this new architecture has to offer. A large number of respondents are currently either deploying simple interfaces, or have new projects under development, the survey finds. Most businesses that do have efforts underway report they are seeing tangible benefits in terms of reuse, developer productivity, and cost savings.

Read full story here.

The Pakistan Wiki

2005-06-27T01:18:00.000+05:00

Pakistan has now its first WikiPedia. The information, as the site suggests, is limited to only Pakistan. The basic idea behind it is a national project, a "Pakistan Information" database to which everybody can and does contribute...You can read more at About US section, but for now, let's get to down to business; the business of information. What is Pakistan? What's going on in Pakistan?

Visit the site here.

Game Over for Blu-ray, HD-DVD Deal

2005-06-22T04:41:00.000+05:00

The possibility for a single next generation optical media format seems to be gone. While Sony has previously opened itself up to discussions with Toshiba on coming to a compromise in the upcoming Blu-ray versus HD-DVD format war, Sony Computer Entertainment chief Ken Kutaragi, in comments shared with the Nikkei Electronics, now states that it's "Game Over" for a compromise. According to Kutaragi, Sony does not want to delay production of the PS3 in order to wait for negotiations.

So it looks like the PS3 will ship with the format that SCE announced when first making mention of the system prior to last year's Tokyo Game Show: Blu-ray.

Elsewhere in the Nikkei story, Kutaragi made a few peculiar comments on the Cell processor. According to Kutaragi, the decision to include eight SPE units in the Cell was made with aesthetics in mind. When asked if the fact that only seven of the eight SPEs actually work (the eighth is there for "redundancy") is a violation of aesthetic principles, he states that this is itself an extremely good aesthetic, as it shows great engineering sense in improving yields of the chip.

Kutaragi made a few controversial comments about aesthetics with regards to the PlayStation Portable's hardware design a few months back. This time around, though, we don't think too many people will complain about one of their SPEs not working.

Source : IGN PS3

The Science of Your Brain on Games

2005-06-22T04:39:00.000+05:00

As we progress into the 21st Century, the videogame industry annually increases in size, complexity, and power. Games might be getting easier in hardcore players' minds (and they're right), but the reach of this medium is increasing to more "casual" and normally non-game-playing folks every day. Even my mom has heard of the game Grand Theft Auto. Eclipsing the movie industry in annual income, and in many ways mirroring it, videogames, one could surmise, are becoming the entertainment choice of this and the upcoming generations.

This is precisely the reason more researchers are studying how games affect our brains, behavior, and social interactions. There seems to only have been two kinds of studies. On the one hand, there are those that say games are bad for us. Titles such as DOOM are considered "murder simulators." They disrupt our focus, feed anti-social behavior, and teach us that shooting people is an okay "solution." These studies are generally politically inspired, using the "results" as moral lessons. The say that videogames (like movies, television, and even radio in earlier generations) are destroying our already-decaying culture.

On the flip side are the researchers, professors, and psychologists (perhaps more optimistic) who are interested in how games affect human nature. They're analyzing games from a more objective perspective. They often say that videogames are good for us. They don't promote violence; instead they engage our imaginations and test our hand-eye coordination. They are no worse than playing war games in the street with other kids, playing with Army Men, or engaging in imaginary role-playing games. They might even provide logic puzzles and challenge our intelligence from time to time. These folks generally say it's okay to play games, and just like with anything, to play them in moderation.

What we really need is a study that shows how ordinary people play games, and what, if anything is learned from those studies. What happens to their behavior? Do they look at things differently? Do they learn? Can they translate those lessons in a beneficial way to their lives?

Find out the answer here at IGN PS3.

PDC 2005 :: Day 3

2005-06-20T02:07:00.000+05:00

It was 7 AM in the morning when I woke up. It was the third and the last day of PDC 2005 and I was quite anxious to get there as soon as I can. I left home at about 8 AM and went towards "Tower" to complete some pending work. The first session was about to start at 9:45 AM and INETA Pakistan Country Leader Mr. Saqib Ilyas was going to speak on Security in Indigo. So I hurried towards the hotel. Thank God I reached there on time and didn't miss anything. His session came out to be awesome. Got to learn some basics of english. Yes we learned ABC, hehe... Just kidding. I know he was having tough time installing the RC 1 release of Indigo, but the demos worked absolutely fine and showed no errors at all. There was another parallel session of Hammad bhai in the next hall on Web Pars in .NET Framework 1.1. I wish I could attend both sessions as I was really interested to see web parts in 1.1 version of .NET, but dont wanna miss the oppertunity to learn and see Indigo in action. After the session I went up the rostrum to talk to him but he was swamped with people. I found Faisal sitting at the back of the stage and we both are upto no good :).

Its the tea break. So I decided to get some tea and refreshments. The next session was of the great Mr. Clemes Vasters who would be talking about Avalon. This is something that I was anxiously waiting from the first day of PDC. So I finished my tea and hurried towards Ball Room A. The gate was flooded with delegates so I took another route, clever me ;). I was lucky enough to secure the front seat. After a short while, he started his talk on Avalon and the first few slides were just the introduction of this new technology that Longhorn promises to bring. I was anxiously waiting to see some hands on code on XAML which is a new language introduced with Longhorn to design the next generation of UI's for desktop and web applications. But I was surprised that he showed pre-made demo by Microsoft which used to search audios or videos over internet. I have already seen this demo on Channel 9 Forum.

On the next hall, Mr. Adnan Farooq was talking about Speech Server 2004. I was so mad at me when the presentation on Avalon was over. I thought I could've attended the session on Speech Server and have learned something new, rather then just sitting and watching something which I already know. Anyway after the session I headed toward the refreshments area. Took lunch and met Zubair bhai. He travelled all the way from Dubai to attend this event. We talked alot about .NET and about the things I missed in the last session. He was in the Speech Server session and I got to hear some good stuffs from him. After finishing our meals we both headed towards the community lounge. The lounge was full of people and I met a couple of new people there. This was the best addition to the PDC this year. I really like the idea of having the community lounge where people can come and ask their queries regarding the sessions and the .NET community or just hang around. The next session which I was going to attend was on Master Pages by INETA MEA Regional Manager Mr. Goksin Bakir. But me and Faisal Nasim had to miss this session as we were going to start capturing interviews from various speakers of PDC for Channel 9 Forums. How cool is that :).

We first approached Clemens who was there at the lounge and we didn't wanna miss this great oppertunity. Faisal was taking the interview and I was behind the camera shooting the video. I prepared the questions. After that we setdown together with our INETA Pakistan speakers and took their interviews. This was the most fun part of PDC. Adnan bhai and Hammad bhai kept on throwing jokes which made us laugh for ever. We spend an hour or so for capturing the video. We tried to catch Lara but she just disappeared. So we wrap up the video and headed towards the next session on Indigo from Clemens. I was confident this time that I would gonna hear something new as I had very little experience in woking on Indigo.

This session was good. This time he showed his own demos. After this session we went back to the lounge and then joined a never ending que for the ending ceremony. We were told that some acting president is coming for the ceremony so they tightened the security. After spending about half an hour in the que we finally managed to get inside the hall. The VIPs came about an hour late which is I guess their hobby. They like to waste others time which they might think increases their value. Well anyways it was fun applausing all the speakers especially INETA PK people who stepped into the hall, instead of the acting president. Mr. Rahat Kazmi is now back to host the ending ceremony. After the first speech Mr. Rahat Kazmi made a very nice comment to them which was send indirectly (encrypted) and they were intelligent enough to decode it... :) hehe.. I guess he was annoyed like all of us for their never ending speeches. We were getting bored so Faisal asked me my copy of Spider. He started solving a word puzzle which he ended before the ceremony concluded. I was also able to solve a few but he solved the major portion. The X-Boxes were given to the 7 people through lucky draw. I was hoping to get one as I blown up the lasor of my beloved PlayStation 2. But I wasn't that lucky. The ceremony concluded and I headed towards the community lounge. In the end I was able to catch Goksin for the interview. After returning the camcorder to Sir Saqib I said good bye to our INETA Speakers and left towards home.

So this was PDC 2005. I enjoyed the event and learned alot. Made some new friends. Community lounge was great, however things didn't come exactly as we planned. However will come with some improvements next year, insha Allah. I will be posting updates about our video for channel 9. I hope they will approve it.

I definately missed my brother Farhan Muhammad at this year's PDC. He spoke at all past PDCs. We had lots of fun together during past events. Wandering at Karachi streets whole day, going to Area 51, playing PS2 together and beating him on Need For Speed (NFS) races, our trip to Northern Areas, buying him lots of DVDs, watching video of our dept annual function together and pausing at some special moments ;) are just to name a few. The world just rocks when we are together. Opening up my picture gallery to refresh some memories.

PDC 2005 :: Day 1 Continues

2005-06-20T02:04:00.000+05:00

The last session by Stephen Forte was great. He talked alot about XQuery in SQL Server. He became extremely tired after doing 3 consecutive sessions and throwed a very few jokes. However he was able to show us some really cool demos. After Q&A session we left the hall and went twards the Panel Discussion which was held at Ball Room A. It was nice to see our 3 INETA Pakistan Speakers Saqib Ilyas, Hammad Rajjoub and Adnan Farooq Hashmi sitting amongst the top industry professoinals who travelled from all over the world for this conference. Mr. Naseer Ghazi of Multinet hosted the panel discussion. After an hour the discussion was concluded and I left for home. Unfortunately I couldn't attend the 2nd day of PDC. I really missed Rafal's session on Cryptography. However the most interesting stuffs came out in the last day of PDC. See my next post for that.

PDC 2005 :: Day 1

2005-06-17T01:39:00.000+05:00

I woke up really early in the morning at 5:30 AM. I used to sleep at this time, but it was fun waking up really early. Took a shower and got ready to leave for PDC 2005. Reached at Hotel Pearl Continental, where PDC is held at about 8:15 AM. Went to Ball Room A. The opening ceremony started at 9 AM. Rahat Kazmi was great as always. Mr. Jawwad Rehman gave an opening speech followed by a Key Note by the great Rafal, who is considered a .NET Legend. Its always great to hear him talking all good things about .NET and its future. There was other speeches as well after Rafal which were really boring and nothing to do with the developers. They just talked blindly about the IT in pakistan and its progress. Man who wanna hear such boring people. Our class lectures were considered the most boring stuff that any student wanted to hear. But after attending the opening ceremony of PDC, my thoughts are changed now. I think I can proudly take lectures from now on... hehee... Well anyways after a long opening session the tea break finally announed which was somewhat considered a relief for everyone. Went for the tea and to revive my senses. I met many people during the break, it was a good reunion with everyone after a long time. The break was gonna over, so we finished our tea in a hurry and went to attend the first session by AddulmaleK Kemmou on "Overview on ASP.NET 2.0."

This session was somewhat not upto my expectations. I already worked a little on ASP.NET 2 and know almost everything he told us. I learned nothing new in this session and was completely dissapointed. This was another boring session from the morning and I thought I would better stay at home and learn some new stuffs or start my new writing assignment. Well anyways I opened up the agenda and found that the next session of my interest is on "Caching in Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005" by "Stephen Forte."

After a very bad morning, I got to learn something good in the afternoon. Stephen is good, infact great as always. He is so energetic and his sessions are so lively that no one wanna miss. The room was full of people and some unlucky one's who came late were unable to find seats and were standing at the back. It was my first experience attending his session. His throwed a lot of jokes during his session, targeting mostly Microsoft, which is great. Man it is so good to make fun of Microsoft, Ha. He not only told us how to do caching at server level in .NET Framework 2 but surprisingly in Framework 1.1, which is somewhat beyond my expectation. He believe that people should master their skills in existing technology and then go furthur to explore the new stuffs that are still in beta and crash all the time. He showed us some really cool demos. After attending this session, I decided to attend his next session on XQeury in SQL Server 2005.

O God! my MSN is flodded with messages, donno when it signed itself. Thats the bad part of always being online. The reason why I prefer Orkut over IM for offline messages. Atleast its less distracting, and I don't have to reply at the moment. Its been long since I talked on MSN, I think it will take sometime to answer all these people who must be mad at me!.. heheh.. Ok this is due and will definately gonna come back and post more details on remaining sessions of PDC. So stay tuned for more !!

2005-06-12T16:16:00.000+05:00

Yesterday I went to Hotel PC (Pearl Continental) to collect my Delegate Kit of PDC 2005. The kit is good and contains a Spider Magazine June 2005 issue (which have my article too), 2 ASP.NET Training CDs with a sample demo application, our INETA Pakistan first Newsletter in print, a PDC 2005 resource CD, a brouchre containing PDC Agenda and speaker details, Pen and notepad, a few resources on MS Offices and advertisements, my PDC student delegate ID and instruction leaflet for the attendees. All these are inside a PDC 05 bag. We received some complaints about the PDC kits at our INETA Pakistan mailing list, but I think the kit is good. Leaving for PC again within an hour to setup our INETA Pakistan community lounge there. Will write more as soon as I return. See you at PDC 05.

Code Run 2005 :: Huge Success

2005-06-07T01:30:00.000+05:00

INETA Pakistan arranged a Speed Programming Competition named "Code Run 2005" for NED Students. The competition is a huge success. Students participated from both BCIT and CIS departments of NED. In the beginning we received about 20 registrations for Code Run from which we selected senior most 15 students from both departments. Later on with the availability of more computers in our CIS Computational Lab, we selected 2 more teams, giving chance for junior students to participate and prepare for such future events.

The event started at about 11:15 AM with the introduction by Faisal Naseem on the contest. I then followed by introducing the prizes for the winning team and the runner ups. Questions papers were given to the teams and the clock start ticking. They were given 2 and a half hours to solve 5 mind juggling questions to prove their skills to be amongst the best coders in NED.
Pizzas and Sodas were served to the participants and teachers during the competition. 3 judges were assigned to moniter and approve/reject the enteries send by the teams. The competition ended at 1:45 PM. The remaining enteries were checked and the winners were declared. The team which end up in solving 4/5 questions were from Third Year CIS Department. BCIT ranked 3rd in the competition. In the ending ceremony we gave Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 and ASP.NET Web Matrix Book to the winning team. VS Beta 2 were given to the runner ups and all volunteers. It was an exciting event and I am sure everyone enjoyed whether they were writing codes, judging enteries or serving the lunch or completing their last minute assignment :) .

I would like to thank Sir Saqib Ilyas - Country Leader INETA Pakistan, Code Run volunteers, organizing committee and all participating teams for making this event a huge success. See the event pictures on the contest blog here.

Taking the bull by its horns

2005-06-06T12:30:00.000+05:00

Often countless hours are spent looking for a particular song, a random picture or an all-important document amongst the slew of files that clutter up everyone's personal computers (PCs). As hard drives increase in size, it has become more and more difficult to keep track of where everything is stored. Up until now, the most efficient search facilities available for the PC have used technologies that are distinct from the operating system's, but those days may be over as soon as the latest version of Windows (code-named "Longhorn") is released.
The technology behind Longhorn is based on three main pieces of technology that are named Avalon, Indigo and WinFS. Avalon is the code name for the Longhorn graphical user interface (GUI) that software developers will use to build applications. Indigo, is the unified programming model and communications infrastructure for developing connected systems applications for the next generation of Windows. Last but cetainly not least, WinFS is the new storage subsystem that will revolutionise the concept of the file systems. Confused by all the jargon? Here's an insight into what this new technology will offer.

Read the rest of my article in June 2005 issue of Spider Magazine on page 64. Don't be shocked to see that Windows Server 2000 shipped preinstalled with the .NET Framework. It was Windows Server 2003. However, writers are humans, so do expect to see some mistakes :)

"SOA" doesn't really exist, does it?

2005-06-04T01:34:00.000+05:00

The term “Service Oriented Architecture” implies that there is something special about architecture when it comes to service orientation, Web services, XML, loose coupling and all the wonderful blessings of the past 5 years in this wave. But if you look at it, there really isn’t much special about the good, old, proven architectural principles once you throw services into the picture.

This is what Clemens has to say about SOA. More detail on his blog.

An interview with Rafal Lukawiecki

2005-06-03T15:00:00.000+05:00

One of the experts invited to this year’s PDC (Pakistan Developers Conference) is Rafal Lukawiecki. As strategic consultant and director at Project Botticelli Ltd, a small consulting company based in the United Kingdom, Lukawiecki is responsible for analysing, planning and forecasting changes in the field of information technology (IT). Lukawiecki was one of the highlights at PDC 2004, and is this year expected to focus on security, study of programming models and management of large software development projects through frameworks. Spider catches up with Lukawiecki to discuss trends in security and Pakistan’s role in the IT world at large.

Read the complete interview online here, or buy June 2005 issue of Spider Magazine. And yes don't forget to read my article on Longhorn in the pipeline section.

New managed Speech API

2005-06-03T02:58:00.000+05:00

The new Speech API is included in the latest Avalon bits that were just released last week. Robert Brown on his blog gives us a bunch of the relevant details, including how you can download the latest bits and try this stuff for yourself.

If you've ever wanted to build an application that responds to your voice, this video from Channel 9 Forums covers the basics.

[Save]

Source : Channel 9 Forums

.Net Framework Compatibility Testing

2005-05-28T16:18:00.000+05:00

Microsoft Corp. is looking for a few good men … and women, and, ultimately, applications that can help the company check for compatibility between the current version of the .Net Framework and the version coming in Visual Studio 2005.

The software giant is in recruiting mode, looking for independent software vendors, enterprise customers, developers, end users and others who would like to have their .Net applications tested for compatibility with the upcoming version of the .Net Framework.

Read complete article here.

Indigo and Avalon Beta 1

2005-05-25T17:42:00.000+05:00

Microsoft has made the Release Candidate of Avalon and Indigo Beta 1 available to the public. This version works with .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2.0 Beta 2 and only includes the assemblies.

Those looking to upgrade a prior version should execute the following command to remove the March CTP version before attempting to install the Beta 1 RC.

msiexec /x {C350D87C-7B67-43E2-B717-E9ADABE2F631}

The Beta 1 RC download will execute an install program that downloads the files from the Internet and installs the assemblies into the GAC. MSDN has been propagating the files to their servers and so the files have been intermittently available, but you should be able to download them here.

Microsoft E-Learning Course Give Away

2005-05-20T00:46:00.000+05:00

Microsoft Learning and MSDN are giving away two of MSPress's most popular ASP.NET books and a US$349 eLearning course for free. Seriously, you get the Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications Using Visual Studio .NET eLearning course and the eRef version of Microsoft ASP.NET Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 2003 Step by Step and Building Web Solutions with ASP.NET and ADO.NET for free, no strings attached. Go over to the eLearning Access site and enter the access key: 8317-MSDN-6595. Fill in some basic info, and voila, tons of great ASP.NET info.

Source : Orlando .NET User Group

Metal Gear Solid 4 On PS3

2005-05-18T13:58:00.000+05:00

Hideo Kojima, creator of MGS franchise announced at E3 2005 Press Conference that he has been authorized to form a development house within the greater whole of Konami. The new production Studio, aptly called Kojima Productions, will continue work on the Metal Gear Gear franchise with MGS4 on PlayStation 3, a game Kojima himself will write, direct and produce, as it was "demanded by fans and staff."

While the trailer being demonstrated was built off the PS2 Snake Eater engine, which Kojima says is not at all indicative of planned MGS4 quality, it still gave us a good sneak peak at what the game will eventually be.

MGS4 will take place several years after the conclusion of MGS2 and will feature an online battle mode. Conceptually, the game follows the idea of "nowhere to hide." What this means for gameplay, we do not yet know, but it could spell a more action-oriented, run to survive type of experience.

"You can run, but you can't hide." You dig?

We also know that a few favorites from the series will make return appearances, including Meryl, Otacon and Revolver Ocelot. Thankfully, Solid Snake will this time be the main character, though Kojima hinted that Raiden might still make an appearance.

Interestingly, Metal Gear Solid 4 will include Metal Gear Ac!d 2 connectivity. What this entails, we don not yet know, but plugging our PSPs into our PS3s is certainly an exciting prospect.

Source : IGN PS3

PlayStation 3 Official Announcement

2005-05-17T15:35:00.000+05:00

Straight from Sony's press conference here at E3 comes the big news we've all been waiting for...PlayStation 3 is real, baby. The first word: The name of the next Sony super system is definitely PS3 or PlayStation 3. Nothing fancy or surprising there. And, at least Sony didn't go with PlayStation 361 to outdo Microsoft.

Full Hardware Specifications

CPU

Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU

RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound

Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)

Memory

256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth

Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB<>

System Floating Point Performance

2 TFLOPS

Storage

Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1

I/O

USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1

Communication

Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller

Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)

AV Output

Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

Disc Media

CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

PlayStation 3 Release Date

Sony has announced the PayStation 3 in a big damn way. The latest news is that the system will ship in 2006, with no chance of wacky 2005 surprises.

Unfortunately, Sony has not pinned down a month or quarter in which the system will launch, but Microsoft's Bill Gates recently said that he will launch the Xbox 360 version of Halo 3 to combat the PS3 launch, which he indicated could be as early as the Spring of 2006.

Source : IGN PS3

XBOX 360 Official Website

2005-05-14T20:13:00.000+05:00

All XBOX fans must checkout this official website by Microsoft for XBOX 360. All the underground pictures that were rumoured around websites are now confirmed as this little site shows the upcoming cosole in 360 degrees view. What are you waiting for, go check it out, its awesome.

Click here to visit the site.

Hideo Kojima :: A Gaming Legend

2005-05-14T17:38:00.000+05:00

Hideo Kojima, a gaming legend, director, producer and creator of the highly acclaimed video game series named "Metal Gear Solid." This guy have changed the way people used to play video games. He introduced the espect of stealth in the game, which was never thought before. After then many games like Splinter Cell, Tenchu and many others just trying to immitate this awesome game. But in the end Metal Gear just wins the show by its breath-taking and jaw-dropping scenes and highly intense story line which has become a trademark of MGS series. Metal Gear Solid 2 sold over a 7 Million copies worldwide and Metal Gear Solid 3 soled over 3 million copies uptil now which clearly shows that the fans are just crazy about this game. Here are some short videos from G4TV showing some footage of the series and an interview with the legend. All you guys who never had a chance to play this game, must check out this footage and see for yourself how beautiful this game is.

Watch the video Watch the video

Cool PSP Hacks

2005-05-13T04:00:00.000+05:00

Make your Sony PSP do all sorts of nifty things (like surf the web) with these hacks. Watch this streaming video to learn more.

Watch the video

Blue Ray Wins ???

2005-05-13T00:17:00.000+05:00

Following recent announcements of a move towards compromise in the heated battle to become the next generation home video standard, the Tuesday morning Nihon Keizai Shimbun contains a first report on the shape that such a compromise will take. According to the paper, Sony and Toshiba have entered into final preparations for a format which combines disk technology from Sony with software technology from Toshiba. The two companies plan to offer an unified format to members of their respective high definition video forums as early as next week.

Toshiba's decision to give way on the disk format was apparently made after examining cost issues related to the Sony technology. The merged format will make use of Sony's 0.1 millimeter Blu-ray disk technology with Toshiba's software in place for reading and writing from the disk and handling copyright protection. Toshiba's 0.6 millimeter HD-DVD disk technology will be dropped. The resulting technology will be offered as a new format. It's unclear at this point if the new format will adopt the Blu-ray or the HD-DVD name, or if something completely new will be used.

Sony announced late last year that the next generation PlayStation would make use of the Blu-ray format. The Nihon Keizai article reveals that, as part of the compromise, Blu-ray supporters Sony and Matsushita were demanding the highest possible storage space for future IT and game applications. This would suggest that, even though Blu-ray as it was known is gone, the new merged standard will end up serving as the format for PS3.

Source : PS3 IGN

HD-DVD and Blue Ray :: Heat Continues

2005-05-13T00:16:00.000+05:00

Sony and Toshiba have issued statements on today's Nihon Kiezai Shimbun report of a settlement in negotiations for a single high definition DVD standard. Both parties deny the report, which suggested that an agreement had been forged to adopt Sony's 0.1 millimeter Blu-ray disk technology and Toshiba's software technology for the new format.

Toshiba, a major backer of the HD-DVD next generation format, acknowledged that, under the belief that a single format would most benefit customers, negotiations are still under way with Matsushita and Sony, Blu-ray's primary backers, but denied that a settlement has been reached. In addition, the company revealed plans to show off the current HD-DVD format at the Media Tech Expo, set to kick off in Las Vegas on 5/11.

Sony offered a similar denial, stating that while a single format is ideal, there have been no major advancements since negotiations were first announced on April 21. "The only true aspect of this report is that Sony, Matsushita and Toshiba are currently engaged in negotiations," a Sony representative stated.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun has had breaking news stories denied and then proven correct many times before. Is this a case of Toshiba and Sony trying to take control of a bit of hot information that leaked out ahead of schedule, or have there truly been no advancements in negotiations for a single format next generation DVD? We expect more details to surface shortly (and be subsequently denied).

Sony Considers 2005 PS3 Release

2005-05-13T00:13:00.000+05:00

In a surprising twist on the next generation hardware race, a Sony representative has stated that a year 2005 release for the next generation PlayStation is a possibility. Responding to questions from Jiji news service, Sony Chief Financial Officer Takao Yuhara states, "For the year end sales season, simultaneously building up both the PlayStation Portable system in America and Europe as well as the next generation PlayStation is one option that we have."

Most industry speculation calls for a next generation PlayStation release in 2006. Sony's third party developers have backed this assumption up with a strong list of PlayStation 2 titles planned for the rest of the year and early next.

The state of the next generation PlayStation software shown at next week's E3 show should reveal if a 2005 release is a possibility for the new system, or if Yuhara's comments were designed to take some steam out of Microsoft's Xbox 360 unveiling later today.

Source : PS3 IGN.

Microsoft Architect at Matrix

2005-05-12T00:44:00.000+05:00

hehe... its way to funny and I couldn't resist myself for posting this on my blog. Its a conversation between a technical lead and Microsoft Chief architect "Bill Gates." Its a mimmic to Matrix Reloaded conversation between Neo and the Architect. I just love it, its a must see. Got it from Hammad Bhai's blog.

Here's the link.

Everything I Do

2005-05-11T03:17:00.000+05:00

Look into my eyes - you will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart - search your soul
And when you find me there you'll search no more
Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for
You know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

Look into my heart - you will find
There's nothin' there to hide
Take me as I am - take my life
I would give it all I would sacrifice
Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it there's nothin' I want more
Ya know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

There's no love - like your love
And no other - could give more love
There's nowhere - unless you're there
All the time - all the way

Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
I can't help it there's nothin' I want more
I would fight for you - I'd lie for you
Walk the wire for you - Ya I'd die for you

Ya know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

Its a great song by Brian Adams. I am sure everyone has it in their mp3 player. But if you haven't then you are missing a really awesome song. This song means alot to people like me who had been cut in deep. However, still I do anything, I do it for you...

Download this song in MP3 format.

Success never last forever !!!

2005-05-09T21:45:00.000+05:00

Had been reading Zindagi XP by Adnan Farooq lately and trying to learn from his past experiences. I liked his post on "Over Confidence Kills." It's a good lesson for those who are overwhelmed by their successes and become over confident.

I read it in a book "The True Story of Christopher Columbus, Called the Great Admiral" that he faced so many defeats in discovering America. In actual he was going for China, but ended in finding South of America which he himself didn't know what he found.
When he crossed the dark sea he was confident of his success and after reaching the America (which he thought is China) had made him over confident. He was glorified with his successes but he didn't know that success never last forever.
So one moment you are successful and the next, you never know. So as Albert Einstein once said "Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value." Because success never last forever and the value you will get will remain with you, forever.

Visual Studio Beta 2

2005-05-09T21:05:00.000+05:00

Today I received my copy of Visual Studio Team Suite Beta Experience Kit which I ordered from MSDN Visual Studio Beta Experience website a week ago. Its a nice collection of set of 4 DVD's. One is Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2, another is SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition Community Technology Preview, one of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server and my favourite WeFly247.NET. I had installed VS Beta 2 but still have to check SQL Server 2005 and VS 2005 Team Foundation Server. Just going to install WinFX March 2005 CTP which I downloaded from MSDN Subscriber downloads. It has SDKs of Indigo and Avalon and a bunch of cool samples and offcourse documentation. Can't wait to get my hands dirty with Xaml.

Google Web Accelerator

2005-05-07T20:52:00.000+05:00

Google Web Accelerator is an application that uses the power of Google's global computer network to make web pages load faster. Google Web Accelerator is easy to use; all you have to do is download and install it, and from then on many web pages will automatically load faster than before. Please note that Google Web Accelerator is currently in beta test mode. If you have any problems using it or have suggestions for how we can improve it, please see the Google Group devoted to it.

Also note that during the first part of our beta testing period, users outside of North America and Europe may not see much improvement in their web page loading speed.

Google Web Accelerator uses various strategies to make your web pages load faster, including:

Sending your page requests through Google machines dedicated to handling Google Web Accelerator traffic.
Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.
Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it.
Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.
Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays.
Compressing data before sending it to your computer.

Download Google Web Accelerator form here.

BizTalk Server and Indigo

2005-05-07T20:40:00.000+05:00

Scott Woodgate, Lead Product Manager for BizTalk shows an example of using Indigo with BizTalk Server 2004. Based on the March CTP bits, the demo also includes some small parts in Avalon and highlights how Indigo services can be used as endpoints for BizTalk orchestrations. In the demo, an Avalon Forms application calls a web service to order parts for Scott's 1990 Honda Civic. That web service is hosted in BizTalk Server 2004 and is implemented as an Indigo service.

Download BizTalk Server and Indigo from MSDN TV.

SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 Released

2005-05-07T20:27:00.000+05:00

Microsoft has release Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2000 which includes fixes from all prior service packs as well as enhancements to security, performance and serviceability. This service pack also includes support for 32-bit SQL Server to run on 64-bit Windows 2003 Server and MSXML version 3 SP6 and MDAC 2.8 SP1.

SQL Server 2000 SP4:

Includes a new version of MSXML version 3.0 SP6. With SP4, the OPENXML statement is updated to use a custom-built XML parsing technology designed to be backward compatible with MSXML 2.6.
Includes MDAC 2.8 SP1 except for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 platforms, where it is included with the operating system service packs for those platforms.
Adds the following platform support:
- With Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition, SP4 provides support for 32-bit SQL Server applications on 64-bit architectures using the Windows on Windows emulator (WOW64). For more information on specific 64-bit platforms supported, see the Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions Product Overview.
- With SP4, you can leverage 64-bit processor architectures using 32-bit SQL Server applications when running in WOW64. Note: SQL Server 32-bit applications, including SQL server client tools, are still not supported on WOW64 for IA64. Also, currently 32-bit Reporting Services is not supported to run on WOW64 on IA64 and x64 platforms running Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition.
Improves documentation; the Readme documents are reorganized into four distinct readme files for the different SP4 components:
ReadmeSql2k32sp4:
- Readme for Service Pack 4 for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (32-bit)
- ReadmeSql2k32asp4: Readme for Service Pack 4 for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services
- ReadmeSql2k32desksp4: Readme for Service Pack 4 for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000)
- ReadmeSql2k64sp4: Readme for Service Pack 4 for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (64-bit)

Benefits
In addition to providing the latest updates and fixes, SQL Server 2000 SP4 provides enhanced performance, security, and serviceability.

Performance
SQL Server 2000 SP4 improves performance on 64-bit systems with 32 or more processors.

Security
SQL Server 2000 SP4 provides:

Refreshed, more secure Visual Database Tools (Table Designer, Database Diagrams, and Query Designer).
New registry entries to provide additional control over security, metadata, and memory management.

Serviceability

SQL Server 2000 SP4 introduces new serviceability functionality that enables you to remove hotfixes applied to SP4 and later versions of SQL Server 2000 running on Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
SP4 itself cannot be rolled back.
Error reporting can be enabled for selected instances during the SP4 installation.

Download SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4.

Source : TheServerSide.NET

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 Cleanup Tool

2005-05-07T00:28:00.000+05:00

The most recent version of the VS 2005 cleanup tool has been posted to this location on the Microsoft Download Center. This version on the Download Center will likely not be updated until VS 2005 releases because it has proven to work correctly in beta 1 and CTP uninstall scenarios. Visual Studio team is currently working on updating the uninstall instructions on the VS 2005 site to include a link to this tool and more specific instructions, so stay tuned for that.

Download VS 2005 Beta 1 cleanup tool here.

Geekswithblogs.net

2005-05-07T00:07:00.000+05:00

Want to be a part of this community for bloggers "Geekswithblogs.net?" The registration process now became more easier. Interested people can now register their blogs by filling out a simple form rather then sending an email to Jeff which ocassionaly went unnoticed. You can register your blog by going to the following url:

Register your blog here.
Read INETA Pakistan blogs here.
Home of INETA Web Blogs.
Geekswithblogs.net

Speech Application SDK Tutorial

2005-05-06T00:28:00.000+05:00

These tutorial topics demonstrate how to build a simple voice-only application using the tools in the Microsoft Speech Application SDK Version 1.0 (SASDK) in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003. You will build a Start page of an imaginary pizza ordering service, for use by a telephony Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) client.

Goals of the Tutorial

The tutorial demonstrates the basic structure and data organization of a simple, voice-only speech application for a telephony environment. It shows the use of the SASDK tools in Visual Studio to create grammars, to record prompts, to create a dialogue with callers, and to test the application under development.

The tutorial does not cover all the requirements for a production speech application. For instance, it does not cover all the error-checking and confirmation strategies that production applications require, such as dealing with mumbled or unrecognized speech, setting recognition or confirmation thresholds, providing the alternative of touch-tone input, or providing error-recovery paths. It does not deal with the many facets of the audio characteristics of prompts, such as increasing or decreasing the pauses or silence at the beginning and ending of prompts, or smoothing concatenations of prompts to get a more pleasing response. It does not provide a way to display, print or store the received and confirmed results, nor does it provide a method to identify a particular session or caller.

The tutorial does not cover multimodal applications with visual components or desktop applications. The sample Using Tap-and-talk covers multimodal applications.

View tutorial here.

Xbox 360 FAQ

2005-05-05T20:57:00.000+05:00

To celebrate the launch of our new next-generation Xbox channel we've decided to put together an Xbox 360 FAQ containing all available information on the console. As we approach the unveiling of the system on MTV and at E3, more details are very likely to become available and this article will be updated accordingly.

Note that this FAQ is entirely speculative. As next-to-nothing about the system has been officially announced, it's impossible to say that most any of the information herein is 100% fact. Everything is very likely to be true, but imagine that each answer begins with, "To the best of our knowledge…"

General

Is Xbox 360 the official name?

While Microsoft refuses to comment on the official name of the console, everyone from developers to magazines to news sources like CNN Money have been referring to the system as Xbox 360. Given all the information that's out there now, Xbox 360 is our best guess as to the "official" name of Microsoft's next-gen system, but as we said, it is still as-of-yet unconfirmed by the big MS itself.

Maybe this is part of an elaborate ploy to make us all look silly when the "real" name is announced in May, but this is unlikely.

Where do the pictures in this FAQ come from?

Much of the speculation in this FAQ is based on images circulated by ourcolony.net. This site is part of a viral marketing campaign sponsored by Microsoft. It was developed by the advertising company 4orty2wo Entertainment. These viral campaigns are a form of an alternate reality game (ARG) that create in-depth "narratives" that ultimately draw the players of the game towards a reward wrapped in an advertisement. The game ends on May 12th when the Xbox 360 is officially unveiled on MTV. A similar game that started at ilovebees.com was used to promote the Halo 2 release.

When will the system be fully unveiled?

A special will air May 12th on MTV that will officially unveil its name, the look of the system, the controller and a few quick snippets of gameplay footage. The full unveiling, including things like full system specs, the launch lineup and more, will be unveiled during Microsoft's E3 press conference on May 16th.

When is the system launching?

All signs point towards a November 2005 launch window. This is a prime month for Microsoft to position Xbox 360 as the must-have holiday item.

How much will Xbox 360 cost?

The sweet spot for the cost of a new console at launch is $299. This is a good estimate of what a core package will cost for Xbox 360. There is a possibility of a second bundle that includes a hard drive and some pre-loaded game content. It is likely that this would bump the price up to $399 smackers for the HDD system. The bundle has become an incredibly popular sales technique, so don't be surprised to see more comprehensive bundles that include controllers and peripherals for around $500.

What's all this talk about the HD Era?

At this year's GDC Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and "Chief XNA architect" J Allard rammed the idea of the HD Era into the crowd's head. He stated that the last generation of systems were part of the 3D era, and the new wave of technology would provide a more cinematic high definition experience. At a base level, he is referring to the fact that Xbox 360 games will all run in at least 720p with a 16:9 aspect ratio and 5.1 Dolby Digital audio.

Read complete FAQ here on IGN XBox 360.