April 2006 - Posts
This post serves two purposes. It is somewhat of a personal rant about myself and also functions as a statement of my new focus.
You don't have to look back very far through my existing blog posts to see that I haven't really "produced" a lot of useful information. Instead, I have served as more of a conduit of information about various topics of interest to me. This bothers me for a couple of reasons.
First, I initially started this blog last year with the vision of eventually becoming a frequently read blog that was considered to be a good source of useful information, particularly among the local developer community. While it could be argued that I do provide useful information, the majority of it was not created by me. Based on my logs, some of the most heavily viewed posts on my blog are the weekly "Blog Spotlights", which anybody could get on their own if they subscribe to the same blogs that I do. I would like to get out of this rut in which I am simply posting links to other blogs or typing a couple of quick paragraphs about a hot topic. It is hardly useful information.
Second, it is no big secret that I have always ambitiously desired obtaining the honorary status of Microsoft MVP. Say what you will about MVPs, but I consider it to be quite a distinguished achievement that indicates a person is very active in the community and possesses an expertise that has been recognized by Microsoft. Recently, I have developed a renewed interest in striving toward this goal. Besides, I have always said that someday I would love to work for Microsoft. Regardless of whether that ever comes to fruition, MVP status certainly wouldn't hurt in making it more of a possibility.
In order to make a concerted effort to achieve these goals, I am going to get back into the habit of spending a minimum of a few hours a week answering questions on some of the well-known technical forums, such as Microsoft and Experts Exchange. I have also made a decision that I am going to dive very deep into Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation in an attempt to learn their every possible detail.
It won't be easy. It won't happen overnight. However, this is the type of stuff that I love to do. WinFX is going to be another major shift in development skills and these specific areas are some of the ones that interest me most. I really have enjoyed getting more involved with the local user group and code camps. This is the sort of thing that really motivates me. I truly hope both my career and the development community will benefit from me becoming intimate with the technology so that I can help share the information with others.
So, as I conclude this lecture to myself, please take note and start checking back here for more information about WCF and WWF as I begin to pour through the information. I am sure that I will continue to share pertinent links to other blogs. However, in the future, I intend to be much more of a producer of information rather than a conduit.
As you may know, I did a presentation about mashups for the Alabama Code Camp. However, I was rather disappointed that the attendance for the presentation was very low. In fact, nobody chose to show for it. Now, this could have been due to the fact that I was up against several other well known speakers during that particular timeslot. Or, it could have been that people think I suck. Or, it could have been possibly due to most people still don't know what is a mashup. Since this was my first time speaking at code camp, I am going to assume it was the last option. Consequently, let me give you a brief description and example of a mashup.
Essentially, a mashup is a web application that consumes data from other web sites or services and aggregates (or remixes) all of it into a new web application. I am sure most of you have seen some site where Virtual Earth or Google Earth is used to display various spatial data on top of the map. Typically, these kind of sites are considered mashups. However, mashups aren't limited to the canonical map example, but it definitely seems to be in the majority so far.
So, what kind of stuff can you make other than spiffy maps? Well, there are numerous free services available to help you in your quest. For example, Google has exposed a public API to access Google Calendar. There are also sites like evdb that provide a complete nationwide event database. Even the National Weather Service has an xml web service to get forecast information. There are lots of possibilities for combining these various services into something new.
In the spirit of toying with mashups, I have added a section to my site. You can find an online version of my code camp demo there. As I continue to create some new mashups, I will post them to that section. You can access it here.
If you are interested in playing around with mashups, then I highly recommend Programmable Web as a resource.
I finally have posted the slides and source code from my Alabama Code Camp presentations.
Mashups 101: Aggregating Content from Different Sources
Introduction to Windows Live Search Macros
The demo for the mashups presentation can also be viewed online here.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via my blog. You can do so using this form.
Yesterday, we held the latest Alabama Code Camp in Hunstville, AL. I think it went very well. We had a good turnout and people seemed to really get a lot out of it. It is awesome to see the Alabama developer community starting to really come together with a unified front. I was fortunate enough to sit in on one of Wally's podcasts where he chatted with the user group leaders from Huntsville, Birmingham, and Montgomery. Based on that discussion, I think there will be an amazing group of developers involved with the community by this time next year.
I would like to thank all of my fellow speakers for taking time out of their schedules to contribute to the community. A big thanks also goes out to the event volunteers who worked their butts off all day. And, I would like to personally give a big shout out to Sujata Devraj from Intergraph for doing an awesome job with the organizing and logistical planning. She played a major role in the success of this code camp.
There is already talk of planning the next Code Camp for sometime around October in the Montgomery area. It sounds like Bruce Thomas is being charged with the search for a facility that could house the event. If you happen to know of a place, then let him know.
Here is what happened this week:
I have been extremely busy this week completing my presentations for the Alabama Code Camp this weekend. However, when I found out about this, I had to take a moment to blog about it.
After releasing their Google Calendar, it didn't take very long for the Google Calendar API to be released. This looks very cool. It is offered as part of their GData API. Essentially, it works using XML over HTTP. It supports RSS and Atom. For editing, it uses the Atom Publishing Protocol. This allows for publishing and editing data using only HTTP requests in a REST-style approach. Any language should be able to use the API, but Google has already written C# and Java libraries.
There is a good chance that I will be incorporating this into my demo for my Mash-Ups 101 session. If you make it to code camp, then come by and check out the presentation. I will also have it posted on the blog over the weekend.
I had previously posted about the presentations that I would be giving at the Alabama Code Camp. Unfortunately, I have been forced to cancel my presentation regarding Windows Live Messenger. I simply wasn't able to dedicate sufficient time for completing the type of rich examples that I wanted to demonstrate, especially around the use of the Conversagent SDK and Messenger Activity API. I hope to complete my original examples and post them online at a later date.
In the meantime, I will be replacing my Messenger presentation with a session about mashups. It will be entitled: Mash-Ups 101: Aggregating Content from Different Sources. We will discuss the key concepts of mash-ups such as consuming and exposing data in a component-oriented manner using technologies such as Atlas and web services. However, I don't want this to turn into another Atlas presentation. I intend to concentrate on discussing mash-ups from an architectural perspective rather than spending half the time just looking at Atlas code snippets.
I will still be delivering my presentation about Windows Live Search Macros.
A lot of cool stuff on the wire this week:
Yesterday, I posted about Google's new online calendar. Today, I saw a post by Brandon LeBlanc on LonghornBlogs.com about Microsoft's response. They intend to add a calendar service to their suite of Windows Live services that will compete against Google's Calendar.
In my opinion, the competition between Google and Microsoft is a good thing. It will be interesting to see how innovative each company really is as their battle for interstellar domination continues.
I recently noticed that Google has started offering an online calendar that is similar to the one available in Microsoft Outlook. From a first glance, it seems like a decent calendar application.
They have implemented a lot of features similar to Outlook such as the ability to share your calendar with others. You can delegate other people to have permission to edit your calendar. It also provides the ability to schedule events, send invitations, and manage RSVPs. Invitees can also post comments that are visible to other invitees (sounds very eInvite-ish to me). Once the event is configured, you even can add a button on your site that will provide event reminders. Google has even created their own calendar buttons that can be used such as the one shown here.
They also have an import feature that can be used to upload an existing Apple iCal or MS Outlook calendar. However, there is no export feature. In other words, they would be happy to let you discontinue using other applications and load your data into their calendar, but don't expect an easy way to get your stuff back out if you don't like using it.
I will probably play around with the calendar, but I expect to continue using Microsoft Outlook for personal stuff. It suits my needs and is right there with my email. However, if you are looking for a freebie calendar that has quite a few features, it is definitely worth checking out. I could see it being particularly useful for community-style sites that want to maintain a calendar of events for all users.
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Disclaimer:The opinions and views expressed within this blog are solely my own and do not represent those of my employer or anyone else.