XooMLe

How could I miss XooMLe? Beau Lebens left a comment on our website directing us towards XooMLe. Thanks Beau. XooMLe is an implementation of Google API using REST-Approach. And if you don't know what REST is, check out this great new article by Roger Costello. We had also blogged about few REST articles in the past, so you can even search the archives for that.

Is .NET dead yet?

In an article on E-Commerce Times, the writer asks, Is .Net dead yet? I must warn you, It's a very confusing article. After asking the question, She goes and talks about how the transition from "legacy" applications to .Net applications will take place and that the biggest challenge for MS will be keeping the development tools easy to use. So, What information did she convey? Well, I have no clue, You decide. Also, Why is everyone so keen to declare Microsoft's .Net initiative as dead so early. How old is .Net, not even 2 years and already we are seeing such articles. Some days back Sam Gentile and others had rebutted one such article. Well guys, .Net has just started and is maturing real fast, no matter what these short-sighted guys write, .Net is here to stay.

Hot, Steaming Hot

Well, Looks like you guys voted our blog as hot blog. Thanks!!

Update: I just came across few blogs with 9.5+ rating, So mebbe we are not that hot. I guess the title of the post should be, Hot, Steaming Hot, not Boiling hot.

.Net comes to Apache

Now you will have options selecting the Web server to run your ASP.Net applications on. Covalent Technologies today released the Covalent Enterprise Ready Server which will support Microsoft ASP.NET Web services development platform.

"With Covalent's Enterprise Ready Server, a server package that includes Apache, developers will also be able to use Microsoft development tools, which are fairly popular, to build their Apache applications. Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net includes Visual Basic.Net, Visual C++.Net and C-Sharp, a new C-like language from Microsoft that Java programmers say looks awfully familiar. All of these tools can be used to build Apache applications now.

Userland Software's deal with Salon

Salon.com in partnership with Dave Winer's UserLand Software will allow user's to publish their own weblogs through Salon. These blogs will be powered by Radio Userland tool. The service along with the software will cost the users $39.95 a year (30 day free trial period). Read this Press Release for more details. Now, you head over to Recently Changed Weblogs page on Salon, You will see a high-water mark at the bottom of the page which stood at "70 weblogs, on 7/24/2002; 5:44:06 PM". This high water mark looks like the total number of weblogs created under this partnership. In just 2 days they've reached this figure and I know this will have an exponential increase(atleast for the next few days/weeks). I understand most of these started under 30 day trial period, but even if half of these guys actually bought the service, that translates into handsome $$ figure for both Userland Software and Salon. So, What's the moral of the story(read partnership). No it's not dollars for Dave Winer (actually it is). As for me, this shows the power the medium of Blogging brings to these people, And who does not like power and power at $40 is no big deal. Just my 2 cents !!

Code Secure

This article from MSDN explains cross site scripting with very good and simple examples. We all have heard of cross site scripting in the last couple of years and most of the times it was in context of some vulnerability with IE (different versions). Threats from Cross Site Scripting (or XSS) includes account hijacking, changing of user settings, cookie theft/poisoning etc. If you don't take care, this could be easiest forms of hacking. Here's the URL once again:
When Output Turns Bad: Cross Site Scripting Explained

HOT or NOT[via Scripting News]

Well, So many interesting things keep happening in the blog world. Here's one we stumbled upon today. So you guys decide, Is our Blog HOT or NOT?

Dive Into Accessibility

I knew it was coming what with all the success this series had. Mark Pilgrim has released his wildly popular series "30 days to a more accessible weblog" as a book, only this time the word weblog has been replaced by the word website. I would recommend this to any serious blogger, website designers, user experience designers, programmers, my managers, friends, foes and everyone I meet in the next few days.

REST + SOAP [via Sam Gentile's Radio Weblog]

Sam Ruby has a new article on REST + SOAP. A must read for anyone trying to comprehend SOAP from REST architectural style .

Cool Dude, We've got a SONY VAIO

Atlast, It arrived. Our Sony VAIO (GRX500 series) Notebook. With a screen of 15" (XGA), it's not a compact and lightweight eyecandy, but it's what we wanted (in fact Deepak wanted to go for the one with 16.1" screen, No way). It is powerful with 1.6 MHz Pentium 4-M processor and then we got it customized with 512 MB RAM, DVD/CD-RW drive and a 30 GB hard drive. With Windows XP Professional operating system, shall we say We've arrived at the .Net scene. There will be no excuse for not learning .Net and trying out few things now (At work, .Net is atleast 6 months away). And this beauty in purple and black didn't come alone, it came with an Epson Color printer (free after rebate) and a free DVD(Black Hawk Down)

Amazon Web Services Implementations @ Speed of Light

In just two days (not even two exactly) after Amazon.com launched web services, we are already seeing some very cool implementations of Amazon API. Here are some we really liked:

Amazon Light
Amazon Similarity Maps
Mockerybird: Amazon API various implementations list

If time permits, we will also try to provide our own implementation in a day or two. Check out blog.hebig.org, for some more Amazon API examples .

High-technology companies spend less on technology

This article points to a recent Forrester Research report that shows high-technology firms spend less on technology than other companies. One of the reason it cites for this behaviour is that in most of the tech companies, the CIO's reports to a CFO and "With finance more likely in charge, these firms demonstrate less executive commitment to technology than the average company does--ironic, considering the industry is technology". Also, most of the big IT firms eliminate the spening by utilizing in house developed products and applications. The article lists many other reasons to support the finding's of this report. Read it all here.

Amazon.com Launches Web Services

Amazon, today launched web services targeting website owners and developers. Developers will now be able to create applications which will allow them to search and display products from Amazon's catalog. Also, another newly exposed web service will allow them to add Amazon.com products to shopping carts, wish lists, and registries from third party locations. The whole thing is free. You just need to download the development kit which has quite some examples and then you will need to register yourself with them to get the developer's token just like the key used with Google API. It wouldn't have hurt if the toolkit had few .Net and Visual Basic/ASP samples.

Magnificent Victory

Congratulations to all the fans of Indian Cricket for the most amazing win in recent years. Finally we are out of the jinx.

What's that site playing?

Now here's a cool tool which will allow you to maintain your streaming playlist. "BlogAmp is a free Winamp plugin that allows the user to keep in his personal web page a list with the last songs played in his Winamp. This list is updated by FTP in real time." Keep an eye for our playlist, coming soon.

Microsoft's Palladium: What the heck is it?

Good FAQ on Palladium, a new security initiative by Microsoft. "Palladium is not a separate operating system. Rather, it consists of enhancements to the Windows kernel and to hardware, including the CPU, peripherals, and chipsets. Together, these enhancements will support a trustworthy execution subsystem within the PC--think of it as a very secure little computer inside your larger, insecure one."

Few good articles at Builder.com

How to thrive as a developer among nondevelopers - "Being a developer among nondevelopers is a challenging situation. You have the opportunity to make significant contributions to the organization thanks to your skills. Properly handled, a career as a lone wolf can be highly rewarding."

Eight reasons why extreme programming won't work in your shop - "XP can work in a development shop if both the development team and the business organization are realistic about what XP can deliver."

XML Web Services Developer Center

Today has been a day of some cool discoveries. Check out the XML Web Services Developer Center at MSDN. A cool feature of this website is links to few blogs under community section. Although this list can be more exhaustive, but it's a nice start. All the action seems to be taking place at Weblogs. While at the website check out the new article by Don Box on Understanding GXA.

World’s largest circulated English broadsheet daily: The Times of India

The Times of India has now become the world’s largest circulated English broadsheet daily. It replaced USA Today to take the first place. The Times is the best newspaper published in India. One of the first things we do in the morning is read the The Times of India online. Cheers !!!

.Net Architecture Center

Another good website by Microsoft on Enterprise Architecture. According to them, "An enterprise architecture (EA) is a conceptual tool that assists organizations with the understanding of their own structure and the way they work. It provides a map of the enterprise and is a route planner for business and technology change." Since we are currently working on Enterprise Architecture Integration (EAI) applications we will be looking out for EAI technology patterns.

Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.2 Working Drafts Published

The Web Services Description Working Group has released the first public Working Draft of the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2 and Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2: Bindings. WSDL 1.2 is an XML-based language that describes a Web Service - the data exchanged, the protocol to use, and its location on the Web. WSDL 1.2 Bindings describes how to use WSDL 1.2 with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) 1.2, HTTP, and MIME.


NOTE: Read more about WSDL and how it is used to define web services in our article, Defining Web Services using WSDL

Jakob Nielsen - User Empowerment and the Fun Factor

Designs that engage and empower users increase their enjoyment and encourage them to explore websites in-depth. Once we achieve ease of use, we'll need additional usability methods to further strengthen joy of use.

Web Page Reconstruction with CSS

Christopher Schmitt writes about reconstructing pages using CSS layout to get rid of HTML elements(most notably, tables) that's used for presentational purposes. Using Digital-Web Magazine's table based layout, he builds his own CSS driven site. Note the resullts of this exercise, a much smaller HTML page in size, no use of spacer images, and a much smaller use of images. Howzzat !!

Guardian Unlimited Lists us

Guardian Unlimited has placed us under Tech Blogs they like. Wooohoooo...

Sathish links us at his blog, Random Thoughts. Thanks Sathish and btw, We had learnt about Guardian from your blog. Also, if you wanna read blogs by Indian bloggers, head over to Indian Bloggers List maintained by Anita Bora. Apparently, Anita has not listed her blog in the list.

Clay Shirky: Half the World

But saying "Half the world has never made a phone call" makes no more sense than saying "My car goes from 0 to 60" or "It rained 15 inches." Without including the element of time, you cannot talk about rate, and it is rate that matters in dynamic systems. - One of the most finest articles I have ever read. Clay Shirky writes about economic dynamism and differentiates between statists and dynamists and by some wonderful research concludes that Economic dynamism is a far better tool for improving telephone use than any amount of erroneous and incomplete assertions on behalf of half the world's population, because while The Phrase has remained static for the last decade or so, the world hasn't. While at his website do read other great articles on topics such as Economics and Culture, Open source, Globalization and Media and Community.

Business Plan Archive

Let us all learn from our mistakes. The University of Maryland?s Robert H. Smith School of Business with help from Webmergers.com have launched the Business Plan Archive website. This website is currently in the process of collecting documents from dotcom startups and it will soon make these available online so that future entrepreneurs and researchers can learn from the past successes and failures. So if you were ever associated with dotcom boom, head over to this site and help build this unique archive.

I almost missed this interesting news story about software bugs. Software bugs cause US economy about $59.5 billion a year. Another revelation from this article is that better testing could expose the bugs and remove bugs at the early development stage could reduce about $22.2 billion of the cost. Now that's some news. A must show to all the managers who want to reduce the development time at the cost of testing.

Community Computing

This month's Software Development Magazine's newsletter (DevTalk) talks about Simputer. For those who don't know what it is, Simputer(Simple, Inexpensive, Mobile Computer) is a handheld device which has been designed by students and professors from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) at Bangalore, and engineers from the Bangalore-based design company Encore Software Ltd. The Simputer runs on Linux and packs 32 MG of RAM and 16 MG of Flash memory. At about $200, Simputer is costly for most indians, rural or otherwise. But with its smart-card reader, Simputer extends access from the community to the individual: For the cost of a card (a proposed $1-2) and a nominal rental fee, each villager can buy a smart card that stores all his or her information, and allows Internet and e-mail access. I could not find a online link to the story but keep watching this space for it to appear.