Developer's Shelf By Rupak Ganguly

Apple launches new iPhone 3GS and ships iPhone 3.0 software

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:45:00 +0000

Well, I had earlier written about the new iPhone 3.0 software updates, and now that software is being shipped by Apple to general public on June 17th, 2009. Download the update from the Apple site. Earlier, it was only available as part of the updated iPhone SDK for the developers.

Also, the new iPhone 3GS version has been launched for $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB). Also, note that the now old iPhone 3G is being sold at a revised rate of $99 (8GB).

So, what you get extra with the new iPhone 3GS hardware? In summary you get the following features:

	3 megapixels Autofocus Video recording
	Improved Performance
	Built-in video camera with editing
	Voice Control
	Compass

For a full list of features available with iPhone 3GS, please check http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3g-s/. Check out a guided tour of the new iPhone 3GS phone at http://www.apple.com/iphone/guidedtour/#medium.

For a detailed side by side comparison betwen iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G, please check page at http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare-iphones/

For consumers like me, who just got their iPhone 3G when it was announced, we can rejoice that Apple is released the iPhone 3.0 software for free and it includes some cool features which I mentioned in a previous post. The summary of those features would be:

	Cut, Copy & Paste
	Messages
	Spotlight Search
	Landscape keyboard
	Voice Memos

If you have upgraded to the new iPhone 3.0 software or bought a new iPhone 3GS phone, please feel free to share your views.

Technorati Tags: iPhone,Apple,iPhone 3.0,iPhone 3GS

Rails Magazine releases RailsConf 2009 Special Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:48:00 +0000

Special Edition – RailsConf 2009 Report!

This concise issue of Rails Magazine covers RailsConf 2009 – in-depth commentary, photography, pointers to related resources and an interview section.

If you did not attend RailsConf, this is one of the best ways to get up to speed on the conference, what’s planned for Rails 3 and related information.

For those who attended, this should provide a good recap and insights by presenting different perspectives.

As usual, we will provide this issue as a free pdf download in maximum two weeks. The print edition is already available and can be purchased through MagCloud for $3.

Please check back our site for our next regular edition – coming soon!

Buy print edition

A Word From the Editor by Olimpiu Metiu

RailsConf 2009 Roundup - Have it your way... by Casper Fabricius

Resources by Khaled al Habache

The Unofficial Guide to What’s New in Rails 3 by Rupak Ganguly

Interview with Ben Johnson by Ben Johnson and Bob Martens

Artwork by Duncan Davidson

Technorati Tags: Rails Magazine,RailsConf2009,RailsConf

My Lift-One Project - Sponsoring one child at a time

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:50:00 +0000

Dear friends,

I have been sponsoring a child for the last 10 years. It is such a satisfying feeling, I cannot explain in words. I get letters and photographs of the child I am sponsoring and it brings tears to my eyes whenever I read his letters. It is just amazing what you can do with a few dollars to a person's life. I have seen this child grow through photos and letters sent to me. I write back to him often.

If you would like to make a difference in a child’s life, you can support my Lift-One Project at http://www.liftoneproject.org/goto/rupakganguly. Just go to the bottom of the page and click on the “Sponsor a child now” link.

I believe we can all change this world to be a better place by just doing our part.

I am trying to do mine. How about you?

Sponsor a Child Now.

Please spread the word to all your friends and family. We can all make a difference together.

Technorati Tags: Charity,children,sponsorship

Skype for iPhone - finally

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Finally, the most wanted is happening for me: Skype app for iPhone. It will out on Tuesday. Can’t wait. I have been using Fring but the call quality is not that great. Not that I am complaining as that was the closest VOIP you could get on a phone. I will continue to use Fring for the multi-network chat capabilities. Also on the vine is the fact that Skype for Blackberry will be released in May.

[image credit to CNET]

Skype is already on Windows Mobile phones, Nokia N800/N810, and Sony PSP as well.

Happy calling and staying in touch!

Skype for iPhone: It's official | CTIA show - CNET Reviews

CNET Photo Gallery of Skype app

DaVinci: Microsoft Surface Physics Illustrator

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:56:00 +0000

Well, nothing much to write. Just see it. So simple, yet so mind boggling. Beautiful. Watch.

DaVinci (Microsoft Surface Physics Illustrator) from Razorfish - Emerging Experiences on Vimeo.

del.icio.us Tags: DaVinci,physics,surface

iPhone 3.0 – New Features

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:30:00 +0000

Quick pointers while live iPhone 3.0 event is going on:

Free apps will still be available.
Peer to Peer connectivity – will use Bluetooth, will automatically pair and find other devices in the same area, without any WiFi. – Now this I love.
Peer to Peer gaming - My kids will be happy to play with each other in the car.
Stereo BlueTooth is now supported.
Accessories are more integrated

will be able to control speakers’ EQ.
will be able to control FM signal transmitter for cars.

Apple will work with Google to build the next great maps app. Make the API public so that apps can embed maps. Increased interactivity with maps.
Push Notifications – IM responses, weather notifications, alerts. TouchPets game more interactive. - Now this I love.
Proximity sensors ?
Streaming Audio Video over HTTP
Built in VoIP APIs.
Email sheet – send email without leaving the app.
Copy and Paste – YEAH!!! – finally. it works everywhere. - Now this I love.
SMS app has a camera icon. send photos.
Landscape mode in important Apple apps – mail, notes. Same usage as Safari has today.
Message App for MMS - send and receive files. multiple photos in a message.
new app – Voice Memos, share them over email
calendar app supports CalDAV, subscriptions via .ics - Now this I love.
search added to mail, calendar, iPod, notes – well search across all apps – introducing Spotlight UI.
notes app will sync via iTunes. - Now this I love.
Safari gets some new features like anti-phishing, wifi auto logins for hotspots, remembers login credentials, parental controls etc.

Most important:

iPhone OS 3.0 will ship this summer, free to all iPhone 3G customers
Available for original iPhones and iPod Touch ($9.95 update) although some options will not be available.

Update: Watch the exciting presentation video at Apple.com

Hello World – Building Azure Services Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:07:00 +0000

I am very excited about the cloud platform that Microsoft announced in PDC 2008 which I also blogged about earlier. MS also released the Windows Azure SDK (Jan 2009 CTP), Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio 1.0 (it works with Visual Web Developer Express 2008 SP1) and the Windows Azure Training Kit (Feb 2009 Update). Start by reading about Windows Azure and see how it works. Then go get the tools and install them. Then, let the fun begin…

Hello World project

Just follow the steps to create our first HelloWorld Cloud Service project:

1. Open Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Web Developer Express 2008.

2. Click New Project. Under Visual C# node, select Cloud Service. Then, select Web Cloud Service from the right hand pane of installed templates.

3. Give your project the name HelloWorld and a desired path to store the project.

4. Your first Cloud Service project is created.

5. Open the default.aspx page from the HelloWorld_WebRole project and change the page title between the <title> tags to “Hello World” and also type in the text “Hello World!” between the <div> tags.

6. Hit F5 to start your Windows Azure application in debug mode.

7. The Development Fabric and the Development Storage will start automatically. They will remain in the system tray.

8. You might see a popup like this when the Development Storage is setup for the first time.

9. You will see a web browser window open up with your web application.

10. Now, right-click the icon and click “Show Development Fabric UI” to open the Development Fabric. Note the IP Address of the HelloWorldContract points to the HelloWorld application we just created.

Some details about the project we just created:

The structure of the solution and notice that VS creates two projects – HelloWorld and HelloWorld_WebRole. HelloWorld_WebRole is a ASP.NET web application project. It contains a ServiceConfiguration.cscfg and ServiceDefinition,csdef files.

The ServiceDefinition.csdef file contains the metadata needed by the Windows Azure fabric to understand the requirements of your application, such as which roles are used. It will also contain configuration settings that apply to all instances.

The ServiceConfiguration.cscfg file lets you set the values for the configuration settings and the number of instances to run for each role.

This wraps up Part I where we created our first Windows Azure Cloud Service application. Check back for Part II shortly.

Technorati Tags: Windows Azure,Azure,Cloud Computing,Cloud

Several aliases for gmail, ease of accessing one

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:54:00 +0000

From an article at www.makeuseof.com:

Just about when I thought I got everything out of Gmail, I discovered my top favorite feature. We have published over 30 tools in Gmail RoundUp 1 and almost 80 tools and tips in Gmail RoundUp 2 but never mentioned anything similar to this one. Tribute for this one goes to my ‘I am not into computers‘ type girlfriend.

Let’s say that your email address is ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’, basically everything sent to any of the following email addresses will be forwarded to your primary email.

GeorgeBush@gmail.com

G.eorgeBush@gmail.com

Ge.orgeBush@gmail.com

…
…

GeorgeBus.h@gmail.com

GeorgeBush@googlemail.com

G.eorgeBush@googlemail.com

Ge.orgeBush@googlemail.com

…
…

GeorgeBus.h@googlemail.com

And that’s not all, you can place as many dots as you want, it can be even something like ‘G.e.o.r.g.e.B.u.s.h@gmail.com’ and you’ll still get it on ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’

Additionally, I just also found out that you can embed random text to your email ID using ‘+’ sign. That is to say ‘GeorgeBush+anythingyouwant@gmail.com’ can be used as your email address, as well.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/1-awesome-gmail-tip-you-dont-know-about-seriously/

Live Streaming: 2009 Swearing-In Ceremony

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:30:00 +0000

If you already do not know, the 2009 President swearing-in ceremony can be seen live at http://inaugural.senate.gov. An audio and video feed with CC is available.

Update: Some screen captured photos from the above live feed.

What a day! God Bless America.

Free Silverlight Training

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:12:00 +0000

Stumbled upon this partner program site ISV Innovation which offers some nice Silverlight and Expression training and it is FREE! Checkout their training offerings on .NET, SaaS, Visual Studio, Sql Server and others, while you are there...

Technorati Tags: Silverlight 2,training,.NET

Silverlight 2 RC0 Upgrade Notes - Missing breaking change documentation

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:35:00 +0000

I upgraded to RC0 and I got the following two errors due to breaking changes not documented in the Upgrade Notes or Mike Snow's post:

1. DataGrid's property GridLinesVisibility has changed slightly to GridLinesVisibility. Notice the L capitalized in RC0.

2. DataGridTextColumn's property DisplayMemberBinding has changed to Binding.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight 2,breaking changes

Start developing with Windows Azure today...

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:19:00 +0000

Well, now that Microsoft announced Windows Azure at PDC 2008 yesterday, it is time that we have a quick look at what is being offered today to start developing with Windows Azure.

Here are the tools/technology bits available for download:

1. Windows Azure SDK - it provides developers with the tools and APIs needed to develop, deploy, and manage scalable services in Windows Azure. It works on Vista SP1. The download is also available in 64-bit versions. You will also require .NET 3.5 SP1, IIS 7.0 with ASP.NET and WCF HTTP Activation and SQL Server Express 2005/2008.

2. Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio October 2008 CTP - it extend Visual Studio to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable services on Windows Azure. It requires VS 2008 SP1 with Visual Web Developer. It also works for Visual Studio Web Developer 2008 Express Edition with SP1. It requires SQL Server 2005 Express or above. You should have already installed Windows Azure SDK. It includes:

C# and VB Project templates for building Cloud Services

Integration with the Development Fabric and Development Storage services

Debugging Cloud Service Roles running in the Development Fabric

Building and packaging of Cloud Service Packages

Browsing to the Azure Services Developer Portal

Role configuration

SSL Certificate selection

3. Microsoft .NET Services SDK - These are the assortment of .NET Services which complement and sit on top of Windows Azure to provide other additional capabilities like Authentication etc. Read more...

4. Microsoft SQL Data Services SDK - These are the SQL Server storage and data services extended on the cloud as web-based services and they sit on top of Windows Azure. It enables storing data from structured, semi-structured and unstructured data. SQL Services will provides integrated services that enables performing relational queries, search, reporting, analytics, integration and synchronizing data with mobile users, remote offices and business partners. Read more...

5. Live Services - These are a set of building blocks within the Azure Services Platform for handling user data and application resources.

Sample Applications

Phluffyfotos.com is a web 2.0 Picture Gallery Service where users can upload their pictures from the web or mobile device. This sample is designed to demonstrate how you can develop a multi tenant application using SQL Server Data Services (SSDS).
LitwareHR is a fictitious HR recruitment management application delivered as a service. LitwareHR is implemented as a single instance multi-tenant application, which means that all LitwareHR customers (or tenants) share the same instance of the application.

Windows Azure development links

Technorati Tags: Windows Azure,development,cloud computing,cloud services,Visual Studio 2008,Live Services,.NET Services,SQL Data Services

Windows 7 screen shots

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:31:00 +0000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31242879@N00/sets/72157608452379413/

Technorati Tags: Windows 7

PDC 2008 - Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:31:00 +0000

Keynote by Ray Ozzie, Amitava Srivastava, Bob Muglia

Windows Azure - Microsoft's Cloud Computing. These are services run in Microsoft Data Centers i.e. the cloud.

High level feature set:

Scalable Hosting, virtualized by Hyper-V
Security - code access, IP Filters, Hyper-V isolation.
OS - to manage global data centers, separates the app from underlying OS,
Fabric controller - enables scaling applications seamlessly, as demand rises and falls. Manages resources and services, maintain health of services, deployment, interfaces, configuration settings, channels and endpoints, roles and groups
High Availability - partitions, replication, caching, automatic load balancing
Desktop Development Environment - integrated with Visual Studio 2008, managed and native code, on-demand compute and storage to host.
Development with the Cloud:

VS Cloud Templates and Cloud SDK
Code
Debug and Test Offline with cloud on the desktop
Publish
Azure Services Developer Portal to manage apps on cloud
The BlueHoo application demo

VS and C# - no new tools
easy deployment and scalability

Open Platform

The services breakup within Windows Azure are as follows:

SQL Services - Data services on the cloud. Database, Reporting, Data Sync, Data Mining/Analysis, Reference Data
.NET services - WCF Services, Federated Identity Services, Microsoft Services Connector via Microsoft Federated Services Gateway
Live Services
Dynamics CRM Services
Sharepoint Services

Microsoft Online Services + Azure (by Dave Thompson)

Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, Live Meeting, Dynamics CRM Online
Now available on the cloud

Download Azure CTP, SDKs, services at http://www.azure.com/. Preview will be free and commercial pricing at a later date will be competitive with the market standards.

Other stuff

Silverlight Charting control.

Checkout this excellent video explaining Windows Azure

Manuvir Das: Introducing Windows Azure

Technorati Tags: PDC 2008,PDC,cloud computing,Windows Azure

Happy Diwali

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:16:00 +0000

It is the auspicious time of the year again. It is not the same, not being part of the celebrations in India, but the video below captures the essence...

It is hard for Indian kids born / living in US to understand the fun we had growing up on Diwali. Nevertheless, we had our part of the fun with friends and family here at Atlanta.

शुव दीपावली

Silverlight 2 Release Candidate released

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Microsoft recently (09/25/2008) released the much awaited Silverlight 2 RC0 to the public. It has a bunch of bug fixes, three new controls namely ComboBox, ProgressBar and Password Box. It also released MS Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1, MS Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 and Silverlight 2 RC0 runtimes for Windows/Mac.

Since there are breaking changes between Silverlight Beta 2 and RC0, MS wanted to give developers time to update their applications and hence the RC0 version can only be used for development as of now and one cannot go live with it until the final released is shipped. This version of RC0 is being termed as Silverlight Developer Runtime edition and is not the final end-user edition.

If you have already converted your Silverlight Beta 2 application to the new RC0 edition, leave me a comment as to how it went and any issues you had. I am doing my upgrade this week. I will have a follow-up regarding my experience soon.

Update: I have completed my upgrade to RC0, and I found couple of breaking changes that were missed in the documentation listed below. If you have found any more, please list them in comments and I will update my posts.

VS 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 released

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:26:00 +0000

Microsoft recently released the VS 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework SP1 which they state will significantly improves developer experience at design and runtime both. The issues were mostly identified by customers and reported.

In summary, VS 2008 SP1 provides:

Improved WPF designers
SQL Server 2008 support
ADO.NET Entity Designer
Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007 style ‘Ribbon’)
Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server (TFS) addresses customer feedback on version control usability and performance, email integration with work item tracking and full support for hosting on SQL Server 2008
Richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and Web site deployment improvements

and, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 provides:

Performance increases between 20-45% for WPF-based applications – without having to change any code
WCF improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services
Streamlined installation experience for client applications
Improvements in the area of data platform, such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and support for SQL Server 2008’s new features

Additionally, there were WPF and visual designer improvements, an optimized .NET 3.5 runtime, ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and several TFS improvements. Read the MSDN article for full details. Please read the VS 2008 SP1 readme and the .NET Framework SP1 readme before installation.

Apart from the above the VS 2008 Express Editions SP1 and VS Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 versions were also released.

Download VS2008 SP1, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, VS 2008 Express Editions SP1 or VS Team System 2008 TFS SP1.

Update: If you already have Silverlight Tools Beta 2 installed, you will need to upgrade it, after you install Visual Studio 2008 SP1.

Update: If you previously installed a Visual Studio 2008 Hotfix or Visual Studio 2008 SP1 pre-release, you must run the Service Pack Preparation tool before installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1.

The Mohave Experiment: our pre-conceived ideas gets the worst out in us...

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:54:00 +0000

http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/ - let the first video play and watch it. It is just 1 minute video. It sums it all up. Very nice.

Technorati Tags: Vista

Silverlight 2 Tools Beta 2 For Visual Studio 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:13:00 +0000

Microsoft just recently released Silverlight 2 Beta 2 today. They also released the Expression 2 Suite of tools and the Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview that works with Silverlight 2 Beta 2 release. These are truly exciting technologies that help us to create stunning RIA web applications.

As I had mentioned in my earlier post when Silverlight 2 Beta 1 was released, the setup process has been simplified a lot. Just download one file and it takes care of all. So if you are interested, go ahead and download the Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008. NOTE: However as mentioned at the top of the download page, it is important to manually uninstall KB949325 (installed as part of Silverlight Tools Beta 1) before installing Silverlight Tools Beta 2. The VS 2008 Tools for Silverlight download works with both VS 2008 and the recent VS 2008 SP1 Beta release.

The installation actually takes care of everything that is required and installs the following:

Silverlight 2 Beta 2
Silverlight 2 SDK Beta 2
KB950630 for Visual Studio 2008 RTM or KB950632 for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta
Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008

Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008 includes:

Visual Basic and C# Project templates
Intellisense and code generators for XAML
Debugging of Silverlight applications
Web reference support
WCF Templates
Team Build and command line build support
Integration with Expression Blend
Enhanced Setup with upgrade support

To get details about the new features and improvements check out the excellent blog post by Scott Guthrie.

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2008,Silverlight,Silverlight 2,Expression Studio,Expression Blend,Microsoft,RIA

Problem loading IIS7 hosted WAP projects in VS 2005 after installing Vista SP1

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:18:00 +0000

After Vista SP1 got released, I was excited as it was very promising and wrote about it that every Vista user should get it. Now before I start with the problem it is important to understand my environment prior to installing Vista SP1:

Vista Enterprise RTM
IIS 7
Visual Studio 2005
Visual Studio 2008

It is also important to note that I work with WAP projects which are configured to be hosted on IIS7 and NOT the ASP.NET Development server.

Now, I installed Vista SP1 and it went without any hitch despite a lot of pain that people have expressed on the forums.

Next, I opened my WAP project in VS 2005 and the project would not load. It showed the dreadful 'Unavailable' status. I right-clicked on the project file and chose to edit the project file. I went down the file and changed the highlighted property to False.

<ProjectExtensions>
    <VisualStudio>
      <FlavorProperties GUID="{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21}">
        <WebProjectProperties>
          <UseIIS>True</UseIIS> ---> Changed to False
          <AutoAssignPort>True</AutoAssignPort>
          <DevelopmentServerPort>60528</DevelopmentServerPort>
          <DevelopmentServerVPath>/</DevelopmentServerVPath>
          <IISUrl>http://localhost/Cronus</IISUrl>
          <NTLMAuthentication>False</NTLMAuthentication>
        </WebProjectProperties>
      </FlavorProperties>
    </VisualStudio>
</ProjectExtensions

Well that made me load my project in VS, but now it was not hosted in IIS 7. That is where the whole problem started.

If I tried to change the project to be hosted on IIS 7 via the project properties in VS, I would get the following error:

I tried a lot of stuff and googled a lot but could not find anything relevant. So, I shamelessly emailed Scott Guthrie, who has helped me in the past. He sent me a reply the next day (that is pretty quick for a guy so high in ranks in Microsoft):

Can you check out the steps in this article to see if they help: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/431/using-visual-studio-2005-with-iis-70/

Well, I read the article and in gist the article suggested to install the “IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility” component. The following screenshot from the above article describes what should be in place:

Now, I had a lead to follow. I checked on the “IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility” checkbox and Windows installed stuff or atleast it seemed so... But. alas, after a minute or two it errored out with the following message:

After I clicked OK, Windows still wanted me to Restart and I did. It showed messages that it was configuring updates and the machine came back. I went back to the Windows features window, and the “IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility” checkbox was now "unchecked". I thought I will try again but I got the same result. Now, I was stuck again. I replied to Scott's email with the above explanations. He forwarded the message to some of his colleagues at MS looking for a resolution. Greatly appreciate the effort, Scott.

While I waited, I searched again, and now for the failed “IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility” component. As luck would have it, I found an article by "bluemanifold" at http://forums.iis.net/p/1148581/1866381.aspx#1866381 (see the last post) that solved my problem. Here is the clear instructions from the article:

Hurrah! After goodness know how many fruitless hours, I have managed to enable IIS6 compatibility. For anyone else who happens to become trapped in this mess, here is the solution:

Enable the built-in Administrator account:

From Start menu, run cmd as administrator.

At prompt, type net user administrator /active:yes

Exit, log off and log in using the now-visible Administrator account.

Open Explorer and make sure that hidden files/directories are visible.

Navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys.

Set the permissions on the directory as follows:

Right-click on MachineKeys directory, select Properties and then select the Security tab.

Click Advanced, select the Permissions tab and click Edit.

Click Add and add the following object names: Administrators and SYSTEM. Give then full permission and make sure the 'Include inheritable permissions' is not selected.

I also did the same for the files in the directory (just in case).

From the Start menu run cmd as administrator and type the following at the prompt:

start /w pkgmgr /uu:IIS-WebServerRole;WAS-WindowsActivationService

Now open Control Panel and select Programs, Programs and Features, Turn Windows features on or off.

Select Windows Process Activation Service (at the bottom of the tree) and select all components. Hit OK.

Repeat step 6 and select Internet Information Services. Now select the appropriate options, click OK and it should just work!!

I performed the last steps in stages so that I could be sure that everything worked. This whole process sucks - I cannot believe that something as simple as setting up compatibility should require such contortions.

I thing to note is that after I did the above steps, all the components in Windows Features under IIS->Web Management Tools and World Wide Web Services were unchecked. So, I check the relevant ones as shown below.

All is well now. I can open my WAP projects in VS 2005 and host them on IIS 7. Thanks to Scott Guthrie for all the help and "bluemanifold" for the article. Hope this helps someone else.

Technorati Tags: Vista SP1,VS 2005,WAP,IIS 7

.NET 3.5 Framework Enhancements Training Kit released

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:20:00 +0000

The .NET 3.5 Framework Enhancements Training Kit includes ~~presentations~~, hands-on-labs ~~and demos~~. It helps in learning the new concepts and features including:

ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET Dynamic Data
ASP.NET AJAX History
ASP.NET Silverlight controls
ADO.NET Data Services
ADO.NET Entity Framework

The supported operating systems are Windows Vista and Windows XP. The pre-requisites to run the training kit application are:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (Express recommended)
Windows PowerShell 1.0 RTM
ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview
ADO.NET Entity Framework Tools CTP (for all data labs)
Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Runtime (for Silverlight labs)
Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008 (for Silverlight labs)

The installation was pretty standard and easy. The web page that describes the kit, states it as April Content Preview. It also mentions the fact that it only includes hands-on labs. The presentations, demos and screencasts will be added in a future release of the training kit. Each lab has an overview page which lists the pre-requisites for the lab in details.

The following are the excerpts from the kit's details page:

ASP.NET MVC

Developing ASP.NET MVC Applications

This lab shows the fundamentals of creating and ASP.NET MVC applications, their core concepts, how they work and how to use them. You will also learn what is needed and how to perform unit testing while creating the application and how to extend the ASP.NET framework to use an IoC container.

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

Introduction to ASP.NET Dynamic Data

In this lab, you will learn how to quickly create and customize a data-driven Web application without the need to write a great amount of code. The application created uses the ASP.NET Dynamic Data features to offers viewing, editing, filtering and sorting operations over the data model of the underlying database.

ASP.NET AJAX History

Introduction to ASP.NET AJAX History

One problem faced by a typical AJAX application is that the browser’s Back button does not move back one AJAX step, but moves back one entire document, which is unlikely to be what the user expects. In this lab, you will learn how to use the ASP.NET AJAX History features to insert history points using server controls or client-side code, so that the user may click the browser’s Back and Forward buttons to move between AJAX states.

ASP.NET Silverlight Controls

Introduction to ASP.NET Silverlight Controls

In this lab, you will learn how to use the ASP.NET controls for Silverlight to add rich media capabilities to your Web application. From one side, you will learn about the ASP.NET MediaPlayer control which lets you integrate audio and video into a Web site. On the other side, you will learn about the ASP.NET Silverlight generic control to integrate XAML into your Web site.

ADO.NET Data Services

Introduction to ADO.NET Data Services

This lab highlights the creation of a data service using the Entity Framework as its data source, and shows how to consume the service using both the .NET client APIs and the ASP.NET AJAX APIs. Additionally, you will use Service Interceptors to add validation support and Service Operations to perform custom queries.

ADO.NET Entity Framework

Introduction to ADO.NET Entity Framework

In this lab, you will learn how to create an Entity Data Model using the ADO.NET Entity Framework Tools and how to consume it using the Entity Framework APIs.

I recommend downloading the .NET 3.5 Framework Enhancements Training Kit to get familiar with the new concepts.

Let me know your thoughts by putting comments about the usefulness of the training kit.

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2008,.NET,.NET 3.5,.NET Framework,training,ASP.NET,AJAX,Silverlight,Entity Framework

Vista SP1 is released

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:38:00 +0000

All Vista users, you should install Vista SP1 and here is why…

Technorati Tags: Vista,service pack

All that "Googles" is not gold...

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:30:00 +0000

Well, agreed that most of the stuff that Google has put their hands on has been gold, but not App Engine. I think it is too early to judge but why just limit it to Python. People compared it to Amazon's EC2 - my take it is not even close. Amazon is a totally different beast altogether. Well, 10,000 invites to try the program was gobbled up fast, but only time will tell what happens. Another theory could be to compete with Facebook who have opened up and allowed developers to write code against their API and host their apps on Facebook.

Or it could just be another thing that Google can afford to do with the kind of money they have.

Technorati Tags: Google,Google App Engine,Facebook,Amazon,EC2,cloud computing

Silverlight 2 Tools Beta 1 For Visual Studio 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:44:00 +0000

Microsoft just recently released Silverlight 2 Beta 1 at MIX08. They had also released the Expression 2 Betas and the Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview. These are truly exciting technologies that help us to create stunning RIA web applications.

Usually it is a bit of challenge for me to setup newer versions as they are released but I had come to believe that is a small price to pay for living on the edge. But, this time when Microsoft released Silverlight 2 Beta 1 and its additional SDKs/components to support Visual Studio 2008, they made the installation easy and in one package. So if you are interested, go ahead and download the Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008. The installation actually takes care of everything that is required and installs the following:

Silverlight 2 Beta 1
Silverlight 2 SDK Beta 1
KB949325 for VS2008
Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for VS2008

And it includes:

Visual Basic and C# Project templates
Intellisense and code generators for XAML
Debugging of Silverlight applications
Web reference support
Integration with Expression Blend

Just make sure you uninstall any previous installations of Silverlight versions or any Silverlight SDK components, otherwise the installer will throw an error. For other scenarios, errors and gotchas read the excellent post from Bradley Bartz, which covers the installation process in detail.

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2008,Silverlight,Silverlight 2,Expression Studio,Expression Blend,Microsoft,RIA

Amazon starts new Amazon TextBuyIt service

noreply@blogger.com (Rupak Ganguly) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:08:00 +0000

Continuing on its innovation trail, Amazon has again done it. It released a new service TextBuyIt, which allows anyone with a SMS capable phone to send a message to Amazon to get pricing details of a product and then choose to buy it.

Very easy, just SMS the item name or author, artist ISBN/UPC code or any keyword to 'AMAZON' (262966). Amazon sends back a text message with the details and with instructions to buy the product by replying with 1 or 2 to buy an item. If the person chooses to buy, the person has to sign-in with an email address and zip code. Then an automated call is received by the buyer for order confirmation. Also, the first time one uses the service, a separate help text message is sent with all commands applicable to the service.

Truly remarkable. If you have any experience with the service (good or bad), please share it in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Amazon,TextBuyIt,service

Developer's Shelf By Rupak Ganguly

Apple launches new iPhone 3GS and ships iPhone 3.0 software

Rails Magazine releases RailsConf 2009 Special Edition

Special Edition – RailsConf 2009 Report!

Table of Contents

My Lift-One Project - Sponsoring one child at a time

Skype for iPhone - finally

DaVinci: Microsoft Surface Physics Illustrator

iPhone 3.0 – New Features

Hello World – Building Azure Services Part I

Several aliases for gmail, ease of accessing one

Live Streaming: 2009 Swearing-In Ceremony

Free Silverlight Training

Silverlight 2 RC0 Upgrade Notes - Missing breaking change documentation

Start developing with Windows Azure today...

Windows 7 screen shots

PDC 2008 - Day 1

Happy Diwali

Silverlight 2 Release Candidate released

VS 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 released

The Mohave Experiment: our pre-conceived ideas gets the worst out in us...

Silverlight 2 Tools Beta 2 For Visual Studio 2008

Problem loading IIS7 hosted WAP projects in VS 2005 after installing Vista SP1

.NET 3.5 Framework Enhancements Training Kit released

ASP.NET MVC

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

ASP.NET AJAX History

ASP.NET Silverlight Controls

ADO.NET Data Services

ADO.NET Entity Framework

Vista SP1 is released

All that "Googles" is not gold...

Silverlight 2 Tools Beta 1 For Visual Studio 2008

Amazon starts new Amazon TextBuyIt service