When I wrote my new book, Beginning Information Cards and CardSpace: From Novice to Professional, I wanted the reader to go beyond building just 'Hello World' applications that just focused on learning features. Instead, I wanted to have the readers build practical, usable code.

In an effort to let you see what you'll be getting when you buy the book, I thought I'd do some screencasts to highlight what you'll build out.

I'm going to start with Chapter 13, which focuses on automating the issuance of managed cards with Workflow Foundation.

In that chapter, you'll create a number of Workflow Foundation custom activities that can help you automate the issuance of managed cards, complete with email delivery.

Also included is a sample application will calls the workflow and generates a card based on data provided.

Click on the image below to see the video:

I'd mentioned that the BPEL for Windows Workflow Foundation was about to be released, and now it has.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6d0daf00-f689-4e61-88e6-cbe6f668e6a3&displaylang=en

Check it out.

Speaking of folks that I got to work with last year, I had the opportunity to work with Alberto Arias on a major WF project in the UK (the first Fortune 500 WF project in production, I believe).  Earlier this fiscal year, Alberto crossed the pond and took a job over in the Connected Systems Division.

He's been working on activities for BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) for awhile now, and while chatting with him tonight, he told me that with today's announcement on Paul Andrews blog, it was now cool to talk about the BPEL support externally. He and I then booted up Meeting Space in Vista (if you've not used it, check it out, it's quite cool), and he stepped me through how it works. 

Having spent alot of time with customers and partners last year, I regularly heard requests for BPEL support. The implementation is very clean, very straightforward, with capabilities to import and export BPEL. BPEL 1.1 wil be supported in the March CTP, and 2.0 will be supported after it is ratified by OASIS.  I think people are going to be happy with it, it's very cool stuff - hats off to Alberto and team! 

Going through my email this morning, I received my official Mix07 confirmation.  Last year, I had a number of customer commitments so was really not in the loop on Mix, this year, though, I've had some overlap with some of the things I've been working on and have had a chance to get involved in various aspects of the event.

Earlier this year I went to another web conference(which shall remain nameless), and was so dissapointed I left the conference (and Vegas) a day early. (Me, leaving Vegas early? unheard of, I know). 

Mix, though, is a different story. From what I've seen of the sessions, this is actually an event I'd pay out of pocket to go to. It's got a good mix of folks from MS, as well as from third parties.  I may or may not be delivering a session, that's something that'll get decided in the next month or so, but will be onsite either working in certain areas of the event, or attending sessions.

One of the great things about conferences is that I get a chance to meet up with former colleagues and people I've chatted with via email and blogs. If you're going to be in Vegas the 29th - 2nd and want to chat about WCF, CardSpace, Mashups, or whatever - shoot me an email and we'll make some plans to sync up.

One of the interesting things about writing a book on an emerging technology, is that you rev the chapters several times before they're released.  With the WCF book, this was because we were dealing with CTPS where the object model was changing, with the Information Cards/CardSpace book it's a much better reason. The industry is coming together and collaborating in a most excellent way.

One chapter I'm happy to update this week is the one that looks at information cards outside of Microsoft.

If you haven't heard, some signficant announcements came out of the RSA conference.

#1 JanRain, Microsoft, Sxip and Verisign will collaborate on interop between OpenID and CardSpace

As reported on Kim Cameron's Identity Blog:

JanRain, Microsoft, Sxip, and VeriSign will collaborate on interoperability between OpenID and Windows CardSpace™ to make the Internet safer and easier to use. Specifically:

• As part of OpenID’s security architecture, OpenID will be extended to allow relying parties to explicitly request and be informed of the use of phishing-resistant credentials.

• Microsoft recognizes the growth of the OpenID community and believes OpenID plays a significant role in the Internet identity infrastructure.  Kim Cameron, Chief Architect of Identity at Microsoft, will work with the OpenID community on authentication and anti-phishing.

• JanRain, Sxip, and VeriSign recognize that Information Cards provide significant anti-phishing, privacy, and convenience benefits to users.  Information Cards, based on the open WS-Trust standard, are available though Windows CardSpace™.

• JanRain and Sxip, leading providers of open source code libraries for blogging and web sites, are announcing they will add support for the Information Cards to their OpenID code bases.

• JanRain, Sxip and VeriSign plan to add Information Card support to future identity solutions.

• Microsoft plans to support OpenID in future Identity server products

• The four companies have agreed to work together on a “Using Information Cards with OpenID” profile that will make it possible for other developers and service providers to take advantage of these technology advancements.

Dick Hardt, Sxip Identity
Kim Cameron, Microsoft
Michael Graves, VeriSign
Scott Kveton, JanRain
 

http://www.identityblog.com/?p=668

#2 Ping Identity has released an open source module for Apache:

Ping Identity Corporation today announced the immediate availability of an open source module that allows Apache-hosted applications to use Windows CardSpace Information Cards for authentication. The Apache Authentication Module for CardSpace can be downloaded from http://www.SourceID.org, the open source federated identity management site sponsored by Ping Identity.

The Apache Authentication Module for CardSpace allows applications using an Apache Web server to use Information Cards as an additional authentication mechanism. It allows LAMP-based Web applications written in Perl or PHP to act as CardSpace relying parties (RP) by means of simple configuration. The module is responsible for decrypting the token submitted by the CardSpace identity selector, retrieving the claims and making the claims available for the application’s use.

http://www.pingidentity.com/about/show/165

This is important as it will increase the potential universe of sites secured with phishing-resistant mechanisms and provide a consistent user experience for consumers in CardSpace.

It looks like the migration by the hoster is now complete. I'll have a chance this weekend to modify the look/feel. Expect to see a post Monday/Tuesday next week announcing it's been re-launched.

I should have more details on the status of the InfoCenter portal (InfoCenter.tv) on Monday. There were some additional delays in my hoster's migration, but it sounds like it should be right around the corner.

When the site goes online, you'll see that the guide will now be driven by the audience. I'm looking at doing something like 'Digg' only with workflow and some oversight. On a related note, I'm seriously thinking of releasing InfoCenter 2.0 (based on .NET Framework 3.0) into CodePlex as a shared source project.

As you're likely aware, we've had a new RC1 release of Vista, and along with it a RC1 release of .NET Framework 3.0. 

I've gone ahead an updated the code for several chapters from the book WCF: Hands On to be compatibile with RC1 changes

You can find the code for Chapter 5 on Reliable Sessions, Transactions, and Queues here:

As you're likely aware, we've had a new RC1 release of Vista, and along with it a RC1 release of .NET Framework 3.0. 

I've gone ahead an updated the code for several chapters from the book WCF: Hands On to be compatibile with RC1 changes

You can find the code for Chapter 5 on Reliable Sessions, Transactions, and Queues here:

As you're likely aware, we've had a new RC1 release of Vista, and along with it a RC1 release of .NET Framework 3.0. 

I've gone ahead an updated the code for several chapters from the book WCF: Hands On to be compatibile with RC1 changes

You can find the code for Chapter 7 on interoperability here:

Code.zip (295.39 KB)

If you've read the blog for awhile, you'll know that I moved over to the incubation team in Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group back in August.

My old team is still looking for my replacement, and they're now expanding their search. if you're passionate about CardSpace, Windows Communication Foundation, and Workflow Foundation and working with large Enterprise customers you might be interested in this.

In addition to working with some great technologies, you'll be surrounded by a great group of folks on the Longhorn Server evangelism team, many of whom are authors (or authoring) books on .NETFX 3 or other topics.

James has the full scoop on his blog, check out the link below for details:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jamescon/archive/2006/09/19/761696.aspx

As you're probably aware, I separated Information Center from my main blog to www.informationcenter.tv.  In addition to providing a portal for adding more feeds, etc., part of the rationale was that the downloads of the August CTP pushed me over the download limit with my hoster. As this is a personal side project, I went out and found a separate 'free' hoster to handle the bandwidth challenges. Going through my email over the weekend, you can imagine my surprise when I ran across the following:

"I don’t know where to start to share with you the joy and fun on running upgrade!

We are still running testing on our mirror environment.  While we think we are getting closer, a few buggy issues pop up and we are still debugging.  If everything goes well by EOD tomorrow, then we will start upgrading our production environment next week.

What does it mean to you?

<hosternameomitted/> will need to be out of service for about a week.  Our schedule down time is

September 18^th 8:00am PST till September 24^th 11:00pm PST

If there is any specific information you’d need to pull off from the production environment, please make sure you do that before next Monday."

The hoster has had very little downtime in the last year, which is why I chose it, but they're upgrading all their servers to Office 2007 B2 TR. I've heard they could be online sooner than a week, if so, we'll get it posted sooner.

Watch this space for announcements.

As you're probably aware, I separated Information Center from my main blog to www.informationcenter.tv.  In addition to providing a portal for adding more feeds, etc., part of the rationale was that the downloads of the August CTP pushed me over the download limit with my hoster. As this is a personal side project, I went out and found a separate 'free' hoster to handle the bandwidth challenges. Going through my email over the weekend, you can imagine my surprise when I ran across the following:

"I don’t know where to start to share with you the joy and fun on running upgrade!

We are still running testing on our mirror environment.  While we think we are getting closer, a few buggy issues pop up and we are still debugging.  If everything goes well by EOD tomorrow, then we will start upgrading our production environment next week.

What does it mean to you?

<hosternameomitted/> will need to be out of service for about a week.  Our schedule down time is

September 18^th 8:00am PST till September 24^th 11:00pm PST

If there is any specific information you’d need to pull off from the production environment, please make sure you do that before next Monday."

The hoster has had very little downtime in the last year, which is why I chose it, but they're upgrading all their servers to Office 2007 B2 TR. I've heard they could be online sooner than a week, if so, we'll get it posted sooner.

Watch this space for announcements.

The blog has been quiet this past week, as between the new job and the new book (Understanding CardSpace), I've been incredibly busy. The next release of InfoCenter has been pushed, it will now be out on Sept. 18th.  Now that IE7 has gone to a release candidate, I'm strongly investigating taking a dependency on the RSS functionality provided by it and have it in the next release (hence the long interval). 

By leveraging the work those folks have done there, there are three direct benefits - (a) by going with platform componetns for RSS, it removes a disconnect between the  InfoCenter stored feeds and the RSS platform stored feeds, (b) the code underneath the RSS functionality has a dedicated group of developers/testers behind it, and (c) it will allow me to focus on some of the next-gen functionality much sooner (i.e. information dvr, community, etc.)

If anyone is strongly opposed to taking a dependency on IE, I'd like to hear your thoughts. 

Also, I'm investigating moving parts of this over to CodePlex as a shared source effort to have InfoCenter move along regardless of my personal schedule.  Is this something you'd be interested in participating in? If so, let me know (and let me know what your coding background is in)

Cheers,

Marc

I spent some time working on Information Center this weekend. I'll be working 1:1 with some folks who've offered to test some of the features that I can't reproduce here (i.e. web proxy issues), and look to post up a new drop late this week.

Splash Screen removed
Non-full screen mode (screen resizing - see screenshot above)
Backward/Forward buttons (see screenshot above)
Integrated Feedback
Integrated Update Notifications
WebProxy Support Added
Change Location of Subscription File/Mix File storage
Current Channel Media Player Enhancements
Modify button and list controls to Left Justify (in anticipation of new layout to debut in September)
Display descriptiion / last published / title on mouse-over in the list controls.
Resolve configuration save issues.
Create RSS feeds for downloads area.

www.InformationCenter.tv

I did four things this weekend - (1) I read some comments on blogs regarding what people thought Information Center was (and their expectations),  (2) did a fair amount of usability testing, (3) wrote alot of code, and (4) consumed more diet coke than any individual should in a 48 hour period.

I've had feedback from alot of people both direct and through comments I've read on various sites, that they'd really like to be able to use this for more than just technology blogs / podcasts. There were *alot* of people who said they'd like a new tool to manage their podcasts specifically.  I listened and I made some significant changes such that I think this is going to meet expectations. You'll see in the screenshots below sites that are distinctly non-technical, like NBC's Meet The Press and YouTube's Top Rated feeds. You'll also notice the guide now lists *alot* of non-technical categories. Alot of people were asking for this, so I rolled this in as a core feature in the first CTP vs. delivering it later on. 

I've totally overhauled the UI, and for the first time since Information Center's inception, I'm really happy with it. One challenge was in providing as good as an experience for text based content (standard blogs) as media, the other was integrating subscriptions, subscribing, sharing, and mixing in such a way as it was intuitive. I really think the UI is finally there. I've taken a number of screenshots from my testing today and have placed them below so you can see for yourself.

In addition, you'll notice there are graphics for the blogs that are there.  Where are these coming from?  Images will be pulled from the relevant tags for the channel in core RSS (seen in my blog below), iTunes extensions (seen in Meet The Press and MajorNelson.com), or NewsGator extensions (seen in Channel 9).  For those sites that do not specify a channel graphic, it will go to a default (see YouTube below)

I also had a fair amount of comments around the browsing window. Specifically "What if I want to watch the video in a bigger window?"  What's not visible in the screenshots - but it's there, I swear :-) - is a slider.  The upper section (video/blog description, image, description) and the list of items are on two separate panels. You can extend either as much as you'd like. Once you click on an item, it determines you current window size and resizes the embedded media player appropriately. You'll also note that the video/blog area is large in general.  This works out particularly well for text blogs, as you can extend to the full screen to read.

I've also been building out a tool behind the scenes which I call FeedCenter/FeedStation, which is helping me manage all of the feeds behind the scenes as well.

So - if you've ever done consulting or project management, you're familiar with the trade-off triangle. For those unfamiliar, you have time, resources and features and impacts to one area have carry on effects on others.  In this case, the UI has been re-done and locked down and this can be used for lot's on non-tech content much easier now - but it's pushed this back a few days more.

This is a slow week at the office, so should be able to freely crank this out in the evenings and turn it around soon.

Please keep those comments coming - mmercuri@microsoft.com - as you can see by the accelerated inclusion of non-tech content, I really do listen :-)

Cheers,

Marc

I mentioned in an earlier post that InfoCenter would be delayed a few days. What does that translate to? No later than 12:01am Monday PAC time. Likely before, if you signed up for a notification, you'll receive an email.

Otherwise, if you check back on Monday there will be bits available for use.

If you're asking 'Why the delay?'.  There were some things I'd wanted to include in V1, that I hand't and given the state of where InfoCenter is, and how long it would take to get them in, I decided to push the drop back a couple of days.  It will, without question, be on the site on Monday.  Right now, there are close to 200 channels configured, and there are a couple of additions I think you'll like when you get it on Monday.

If you're really keen, if you check back over the weekend, you'll start seeing some interesting stuff pop up on Sunday.

Cheers,

Marc

Reposted after the Microsoft Watch - EWeek references:

If you've seen/heard the latest podcast by the great folks over at DotNetRocks, you've heard the first public talk about a pet project of mine called InfoCenter. If you haven't - then it might be worth checking out here - http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=189.

While this is the first public discussion/showing of InfoCenter, the UI has undergone a very interesting set of changes recently. The .NET Rocks podcast was actually recorded close to a month ago, at which time this announcement was targeted to go live on the 18th.  Unfortunately, the original UI for InfoCenter (below) was similiar enough to a certain next-generation gaming console that it was ...err.. politely suggested (strongly too :-) ), that the interface be changed before sharing outside the company.  Fortunately, those same next generation console folks were very cool about it, and offered to re-design the interface for me for free. The UI also incorported alot of feedback I had from folks inside Microsoft who took a look at the original design / navigation flow.

You can see the original and the new UI below:

The original, and the released UI

Before we get to the introduction, I want to stress that InfoCenter is a pet project of mine - it is not an official Microsoft product, there is no sku for it, and until someone tells me otherwise, it's free.

Without further ado, the introduction........

Introduction

In the early days of Windows, discovery of Microsoft related content –  be it new product announcements, documentation, guidance/how to’s, downloads or community – was relatively straightforward.  There were four key areas to look – Microsoft.Com, MSDN, ftp.microsoft.com, and UseNet newsgroups.

During this period, Microsoft excited, educated, and enabled a legion of developers and developer-hopefuls to become part of the profitable software economy.  UseNet Newsgroups provided a forum that had not yet been corrupted by spammers, and provided a unique opportunity for individuals to audit a master class, a class where the professors were some of the more well known names in the industry.

Today, things are significantly different. There are more products, more places to look for information, more categories of information, and less time in which to find it.

Today’s reality has Microsoft releasing more new products and new product versions than in the entire history of the company. There are new versions of Windows, Office, Server, Mobile, Web, and Live. There are first class server products like Biztalk, Speech, SQL, and MOM. There are great new technologies like WCF, WF, WPF, and CardSpace.

With more products comes more content, and in the intervening years the number of locations where content can be found has exploded. When looking solely at Microsoft web properties, Microsoft.com and MSDN have been joined by Channel 9, ASP.NET, GotDotNet, and CodeZone. There are also numerous community sites now online, such as WindowsCommunication.NET, WindowsWorkflow.Net, IIS7.NET,MSDomino.net, etc.

Looking beyond 1 Microsoft Way, there are a multitude of other sites that are providing articles, downloads, code, and communities as well.  Beyond the sites, there are hundreds of blogs that are driven by individuals both inside and outside the company.  Discoverability of content is a major issue.

In addition to more locations to find more content, there are also new categories of content available.  Due to the adoption of broadband in the intervening period, it is now realistic to distribute audio and video content in both streaming and downloadable varieties. This opens up new opportunities to both serve and distribute this content to various devices and formats.

I think developers need a mechanism by which top tier content is identified, categorized, aggregated, and searchable from a single interface. And that mechanism needs to be automated, such that fresh, targeted content finds its way to the Enterprise consumer.

To enable this, I thought there was a need for an application that leverages aspects of both the Windows OS and the web, with an engine powered by RSS. Through RSS, we can empower our clients to consume not just the feeds that we provide – but also the ability to mix in those of third party vendors as well as their own internal corporate blogs and best practices.

Just as we created a Media Center to harness the growing amount of media content enabled by software, the thought was that there could be something similiar that could be done for information.  Essentially, I saw a need for an Information Center.

By harnessing information for people and providing them the ability to readily find and consume content of interest to them, I think there is an opportunity to once again educate, excite, and enable our next generation of developers.

Getting InfoCenter

With the late breaking design change, I've had to make some changes in the layout and the flow, and am just wrapping up the revised CTP.  The link for the bits will officially be listed here August 9th.  If you'd like an email sent if this is available sooner, if you'd like to chat suggest 'channels' for InfoCenter, or if you want to chat about InfoCenter, click here or send an email to mmercuri@microsoft.com with the following subject "[RequestFromBlog][InfoCenter][CTPNotification]"

Very best regards, Marc Mercuri

One of the negatives of having InfoCenter as a sideproject, is that I've got a full time job that sometimes gets in the way :-)

I've got to unexpectedly head to NYC next week to deliver an architectural design session for a customer, and while I've tried to get it polished off this weekend, it's just not there yet. The introduction of the new UI has required  both new controls and some variants on the existing ones, and I'm not happy with where they're at right now (10pm on Sunday). As a result, I'm pushing the 'official' date is now Aug 9th, if it's wrapped up any sooner I'll post it here.

Cheers,

Marc

Podcasts. I'd been interested in them before, but because my old mp3 player was a bit dodgy, I'd really only listened in on my desktop. As a result I'd stuck mostly to screencasts, and largely bypassed podcasts altogether.

Knowing I had alot of traveling coming up, I recently upgraded to a new portable music device. I loaded it up before I left, downloaded some technology content, some news podcasts(Meet the Press, and Wall St Journal Tech Week), as well as some comedy (Ricky Gervais - the guy who created The Office - is hiliarious) 

Loaded up, I listened to podcasts as I went from Seattle->Denmark->London and back again.  Annoying lines at customs that were 4 rows deep didn't seem so bad. The 2 block line to get through security in Denmark, no worries - I was being entertained and educated with an interview of a tech legend. Podcasts are a beautiful thing.

I was looking forward to this before, but even more so now - I'm sitting don with Ron Jacobs next week to record a few ARCast sessions. Ron is part of our Architecture Strategy Team and does some great podcast work that's posted up on Channel 9. 

If you've not come across the ARCasts yet, I'd definately recommend checking them out.  You can find them here: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast_with_Ron_Jacobs

I'm happy to report that the Windows Communication Foundation: Hands On book will be out in just a couple of weeks, and that I've just signed on to do another one.  This next book is tentatively titled “Understanding Infocard“ and will be written for APress. This will hit bookstores in Q1 of next year, most likely in January.

If you want more info on Windows Communication Foundation: Hands On, it is now available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes&Nobles, and others.

I'm happy to report that the Windows Communication Foundation: Hands On book will be out in just a couple of weeks, and that I've just signed on to do another one.  This next book is tentatively titled “Understanding Infocard“ and will be written for APress. This will hit bookstores in Q1 of next year, most likely in January.

If you want more info on Windows Communication Foundation: Hands On, it is now available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes&Nobles, and others.

If you're like me and wanted to go but missed it - good news.  The sessions have just been posted online for free view/download.

Sessions here: http://sessions.mix06.com/

NGW034 - From "Username and Password" to InfoCard

DIS003 - Today's Identity Crisis, and the Identity Metasystem

For those unfamiliar with MIX, here's the pitch -

“If you do business on the Web today, it's likely that more than 90% of your customers reach you via Microsoft® Internet Explorer and/or Microsoft Windows®. Come to MIX and learn how the next versions of these products, due later this year, are going to dramatically improve your customers' experience. Explore a wide range of new Web technologies that Microsoft is delivering to help you unlock new revenue opportunities and lower development costs. Learn about the future of Internet Explorer and join us in a discussion about how we can build the ideal Web surfing platform to meet your needs and those of your customers.

“

Anyone going to the Advisor Media conference at the JW Marriot in Vegas (April 9 - 13th)?

My teammate and Notes guy extroardinaire, Gary Devendorf, has invited me to participate in a number of sessions in the Notes2.NET track. I'll be bringing with me some interesting demos and presentations on how to utilize two of the great technologies inside of WinFX - WCF and WF - with Lotus Notes and Domino.

I'll be involed in the following sessions -

Schedule: 04/10/2006 11:15 AM
What is .NET?
Marc Mercuri & Gary Devendorf
Explore the parallels and similarities between .NET technology and Lotus Notes/Domino -- you may be surprised. In this session, you'll learn the fundamentals of .NET, presented in Notes/Domino terms. You'll look at .NET's vocabulary and workings. Finally, a .NET session aimed at the Notes/Domino developer. You don't want to miss this one.

Schedule: 04/10/2006 04:45 PM
Integrating Lotus Domino and Visual Studio .NET Web Services
Gary Devendorf & Marc Mercuri
You can host Web services on a Domino 7 server. But did you know you can also host them on Domino 6 or 5? Also, hosting Web services is only half the story. You must have a Web service client to make a Web service useful. In this session, you'll see how to create and host a Domino Web service. And you'll learn how to create a VS.NET Web service client to use your Web service. You won't believe how easy this is!

Schedule: 04/11/2006 11:15 AM
Integrate Domino Objects and Managed .NET Code Using COM
Gary Devendorf & Marc Mercuri
The Domino objects expose functionality of Lotus Notes/Domino applications to LotusScript, Java, COM, and more. In this session you'll see how you can call the Domino objects from .NET applications using Visual Studio.NET. Also, you'll see examples of LotusScript calling Managed code

Schedule: 04/12/2006 08:00 AM
Microsoft Workflow Linked to Lotus Notes
Marc Mercuri
You know about Lotus Notes workflow, but did you know that Microsoft has a new technology for workflow called Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)? See how WF works and how you can use it from Lotus Notes. You'll even see how to link a Notes workflow to a Windows workflow -- this is all new! You'll see VB.NET and LotusScript in the examples.

For those that know me, I come from an Enterprise background, and know there's a big need out there for info on how to do interop.  With Notes and Domino in particular there are some great opportunities to leverage .NET, Windows Communication Foundation, and Windows Workflow Foundation to provide great functionality and new opportunities to your existing applications.

I'll be in town the whole week, if you want to talk about how to leverage WCF, WF, or InfoCard in your projects, I'm happy to chat with folks 1:1 - just contact me via email to set something up (mmercuri@microsoft.com)

I've been on the road for most of the last month, enjoying the opportunity to work with a number of our Fortune 100 customers on real world implementations of WCF and WF.

I've got a number of blog posts in queue, so expect a number of posts of the next couple of days. Expect good stuff, demos, and samples.

Marc

I've been on the road for most of the last month, enjoying the opportunity to work with a number of our Fortune 100 customers on real world implementations of WCF and WF.

I've got a number of blog posts in queue, so expect a number of posts of the next couple of days. Expect good stuff, demos, and samples.

Marc

Lots of questions from folks about why the blogs gone quiet.

With the release of the CTP and the Go Live in January and wrapping up the book, I've been a very busy guy, so the blogs been a bit quiet.  I've got a ton of blog material in queue - so you'll be seeing a lot of posts over the next few weeks.

Lots of questions from folks about why the blogs gone quiet.

With the release of the CTP and the Go Live in January and wrapping up the book, I've been a very busy guy, so the blogs been a bit quiet.  I've got a ton of blog material in queue - so you'll be seeing a lot of posts over the next few weeks.

Lots of questions from folks about why the blogs gone quiet.

With the release of the CTP and the Go Live in January and wrapping up the book, I've been a very busy guy, so the blogs been a bit quiet.  I've got a ton of blog material in queue - so you'll be seeing a lot of posts over the next few weeks.

Ok, so it's been awhile since my last post - about 3 months. Lots of things have happened in the interim, and I've decided to reboot the site.

So what's new?

On the professional front, I made an internal move from being a PM to an Architect Evangelist for the Longhorn Server Evangelism team. I focus primarily on Windows Communication Foundation, Workflow Foundation, and the Identity and Access Management technologies and how they're used in the Enterprise space.

I've also co-authored an upcoming book on Windows Communciation Foundation (WCF) with team mate Craig McMurtry (details to come), and have some cool demos/code I've put together that you'll see posted as the weeks, months go on. I also had the opportunity to participate in Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, as a co-owner of the Ask the Experts session, writing some labs, and participating in one of the sessions.

On the personal front, I've dropped about 59 pounds with a little help from my friends at the 20/20 program over at ProSportsClub, and am targeting another 50 by next March.

For those rare few of you who subscribed to the blog before, you may have noticed that I've dropped the name 'whyanotherblog' and gone with the 'Living in a World of Connected Systems'. The original name seemed novel whatever late night I bought the url from GoDaddy.com, but in hindsight, was kind of lame :-) 

In the days/weeks/months to come, expect to find code, discussion, links, and screencasts on the latest and greatest stuff coming down the line. 

Ok, so it's been awhile since my last post - about 3 months. Lots of things have happened in the interim, and I've decided to reboot the site.

So what's new?

On the professional front, I made an internal move from being a PM to an Architect Evangelist for the Longhorn Server Evangelism team. I focus primarily on Windows Communication Foundation, Workflow Foundation, and the Identity and Access Management technologies and how they're used in the Enterprise space.

I've also co-authored an upcoming book on Windows Communciation Foundation (WCF) with team mate Craig McMurtry (details to come), and have some cool demos/code I've put together that you'll see posted as the weeks, months go on. I also had the opportunity to participate in Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, as a co-owner of the Ask the Experts session, writing some labs, and participating in one of the sessions.

On the personal front, I've dropped about 59 pounds with a little help from my friends at the 20/20 program over at ProSportsClub, and am targeting another 50 by next March.

For those rare few of you who subscribed to the blog before, you may have noticed that I've dropped the name 'whyanotherblog' and gone with the 'Living in a World of Connected Systems'. The original name seemed novel whatever late night I bought the url from GoDaddy.com, but in hindsight, was kind of lame :-) 

In the days/weeks/months to come, expect to find code, discussion, links, and screencasts on the latest and greatest stuff coming down the line. 

Ok, so it's been awhile since my last post - about 3 months. Lots of things have happened in the interim, and I've decided to reboot the site.

So what's new?

On the professional front, I made an internal move from being a PM to an Architect Evangelist for the Longhorn Server Evangelism team. I focus primarily on Windows Communication Foundation, Workflow Foundation, and the Identity and Access Management technologies and how they're used in the Enterprise space.

I've also co-authored an upcoming book on Windows Communciation Foundation (WCF) with team mate Craig McMurtry (details to come), and have some cool demos/code I've put together that you'll see posted as the weeks, months go on. I also had the opportunity to participate in Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, as a co-owner of the Ask the Experts session, writing some labs, and participating in one of the sessions.

On the personal front, I've dropped about 59 pounds with a little help from my friends at the 20/20 program over at ProSportsClub, and am targeting another 50 by next March.

For those rare few of you who subscribed to the blog before, you may have noticed that I've dropped the name 'whyanotherblog' and gone with the 'Living in a World of Connected Systems'. The original name seemed novel whatever late night I bought the url from GoDaddy.com, but in hindsight, was kind of lame :-) 

In the days/weeks/months to come, expect to find code, discussion, links, and screencasts on the latest and greatest stuff coming down the line.