Mick's Breeze Blogs - Biztalk/Sharepoint/... - Events

General: Handy little Command line tip for Restarting Services from a Batch File

Mick Badran — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:28:28 GMT

Hi folks, I came across a very handy little tip the other day that works with *any* set of Batch Commands that you want to run sequentially.

Now before you jump out and tell me “Mick, what are you doing?! Powershell is where it’s at!”….yes yes I know. I’ve half the guys at the office telling me that too.

So onto the goodness on this one:

The key is

<cmd> && <cmd>
or
<cmd> & <cmd>

Hold the Phone - we have an UPDATE (from a commenter upon whom I owe a beer)

----- Update ----

Using a single ampersand achieves a similar result but with a slight difference:

* single (&): run command 1 then command 2
* double (&&): run command 1, and if it returns success then run command 2

So in your example, if the print spooler is already stopped then "net stop" will fail and "net start" will not be run. If you use a single ampersand instead, then "net start" will still be run.

------ End of Update -----

e.g.

net stop “Print Spooler” && net start “Print Spooler”

Azure: Windows Azure Community Conference–Chit Chat.

Mick Badran — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 01:55:16 GMT

Halloween’s just over and my place was overrun with Kids of all sizes seeking high-fructose corn syrup hits…to keep them going till the next house.

It seems Scott Gutherie has all sorts of pieces he wants to chat about on this next free conference.

The world of the Cloud moves just so quickly that these sorts of events are essential to get you up to date in your thinking.

Remember what the cloud story was 12 months ago & how many new features/capabilities have been added since.

Check out the blurb and register….

http://www.windowsazureconf.net/

BizTalk 2010: Bootcamp - Sydney - Coming up.

Mick Badran — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 05:29:10 GMT

Hi folks,

What a great time we're in at the moment. Cloud(s) are knocking a the door, local devices, windows 8 etc.

No complaints from me that this world is getting more and more connected.

To maintain those connections and handle new ones - Microsoft BizTalk Server serves as your on-premise middleware platform.

We're running a course shortly on Design, Build and Manage your solutions within BizTalk Server.

We have a wealth of knowledge around Integration and Cloud technologies. As you and I know, integration is all about the systems you're integrating with.

Here's the details - and hope to see you there. Mick (you're new Azure Integration MVP)

Come along to our office for a week of BizTalk 2010 Bootcamp Training!

Agenda

We will take care of you with delicious catering, friendly staff and provide our state of the art BizTalk trainer. There are a limited amount of seats, so book now!

Click here to register

Start: Monday, November 12, 2012

End: Friday, November 16 2012

What is BizTalk?

For your business, BizTalk provides the "glue" to giving you a very good integration foundation for both internal applications as well as the outside world and giving you consistency across those interfaces as well.

BizTalk is a platform that is durable, reliable and fault tolerant right across your services, from email, FTP services, web services, database calls and much more, you will have something that retries all of those for you.

Why BizTalk?

BizTalk provides a level of maturity to customer operations as well as consistency. It is harder for customers to build themselves, the capabilities that BizTalk can offer out of the box. Our experience is that customers often start out building smaller applications here and there with eventually having over 100 applications talking to each other in a very specific way, all in a very ad-hoc approach and all very speciailised. Over time to maintain those systems becomes a big challenge for the client with increased complexity along the way.

Whereas by introducing a uniform, a best practice way of doing something, "business rules" such as within BizTalk, it eases that integration with the company to make it a lot simpler and easier to manage and everyone gets visibility in to the activity of those calls within the applications.

What our customers are doing with BizTalk today

BizTalk being a middleware product is being used in many different scenarios, from simple file transfers right across to complex business process automation.

Customers in one instance are getting real time notifications around FTP, where certain files appear, then systems have to react or respond immediately instead of within a polling interval that may occur at any time during the day. So being able to build out that infrastructure and apply or update databases, all of that happens right across the BizTalk layer, then exposed out via web services.

In-short BizTalk forms another tool in the client toolkit, using the MS integration stack, so on top of not only BizTalk and all of its' capabilities and adapters, we have WCF (Windows Communication Foundation), messaging, MSMQ and many others in the integration stack, not to mention Azure and cloud hybrid solutions we can deploy and employ today. So with clients it's not just about providing BizTalk to solve a problem, it's about using the tools in the toolkit to meet their requirements, whatever the tools may be, to solve their immediate challenge.

Partner of the Year 2012 Winner

Mick Badran — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 05:10:02 GMT

Now that the dust is settling after WPC 2012, I’m able to catch up on all the emails still coming from the event.

I had a picture taken with John (against a green screen) and is it’s amazing what they can do with modern technology now.

From my research a couple of points:

Over the last 4 years, approx 200 Worldwide Partner awards have been given – 6 of them Australian Partners! We’re one of 6.
This is the first time EVER an Australian Partner has been an Application Integration Winner
This is the first time EVER an Australian Partner has been a Cloud Partner Finalist

See more here

Talk to you soon.

Mick.

Breeze: Thank you!–WPC 2012–We won Application Integration Partner of the Year

Mick Badran — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:25:41 GMT

I am still in shock over this award and are very humbled in receiving it – over 3500+ entries and our story won. Thank you Microsoft, thank you Breeze team and thank you to our great customers in which all of this would not have been possible without you.

Application Integration

Cloud Partner

So today was the day at WPC2012 to receive the award up on stage here in Toronto. Not nervous at all seeing we had a 2hr rehearsal yesterday.

What a time has this been so far at my first WPC!!! Compared to ‘techie’ conferences the dress standard is higher, different type of events and some great tech demos that are mind blowing (there was one on the keynote today where a partner had developed software around Kinect that created a 3d model of a person by moving the Kinect camera around the person, their software stitched the images together to produce a 3d model. Then the image/model was fed to a 3D printer and presto…out came the 3D person! Very cool)

So after having a photo down under the stadium we were to come out of I was ready to go….

Waiting in the tunnel:

My View from out in the middle:

Your view of the middle:

So all in all it’s been a great day, great time so far and well worth it. I was then fortunate enough to be invited to a Azure Round table discussion with Satya Nadella (President of Server and Tools) and what a lovely lovely lovely guy. He’s very switched on and a refreshing experience was had with myself and 6 others in the room.

He took away our Azure stories and feedback so let's wait and see what transpires – very inspirational stuff! Thank you Satya.

And I think I the Northern Hemisphere could be affecting me slightly…

More filming tonight and then I can relax!!

WPC Day 2.

Azure: Azure 1.7 SDK tid bits

Mick Badran — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 01:54:11 GMT

Hi folks, you've probably heard a fair bit about the make over of Azure into 'Azure 2.0' (the SDK is still 1.7)

There's some great new tools within VS.NET to manage your environment better, even a Service Bus 'explorer' which was much needed.

I've collected a few links to start with for you guys to read up on when you've got a moment:

Azure 2.0 Details on:

Windows Azure Powershell Extension - http://cloud.github.com/downloads/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-tools/windowsazure-powershell.0.6.0.msi
Command Line Tools Independent of WebPI - https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/downloads/
Virtual Machines - FAQs etc - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156003
Windows Azure Virtual Network - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156007
- Get slides from my previous presentation here - Azure Virtual Network 2.0
Windows Azure Media Services - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh973629
Create and Deploying WebSite walk through - https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/web-sites/how-to-create-websites/
- (like we need this one - seriously takes 3 minutes! - well done MS!)
Azure Chalk Talk Videos - http://www.meetwindowsazure.com/DigitalChalkTalks
- Azure Virtual Machines - Part I & Part II
- Web Sites with ASP.NET (NB: SSL is not supported, but it will arrive when Win Server 2012)
- Web Sites with node.js
- Web Sites with OSS Apps & Web Matrix
- Azure Cross Platform Command Line Tools
- Cloud Services (aka perviously web+worker roles)
- Apache Hadoop Based Services On Windows Azure
- TFS Service Preview Intro
- Azure Websites - Continuous Integration with TFS.
- Azure SQL Databases Intro
- Azure Storage Introduction

Azure: Connecting Cloud and On-Premises Applications Using Windows Azure Virtual Network - Breeze

Mick Badran — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:24:57 GMT

Hi guys, I gave an online presentation earlier this afternoon as part of Microsoft Readiness on Azure Virtual Networks.

I had the whole presentation prepared until the http://meetwindowsazure.com announcement, where I had to go to the drawing board and just share all this goodness that was pouring out in Azure V2.0.

Thanks to the healthy turnout for those online and to those who registered, then check the emails for a link shortly.

As promised here’s the slide deck guys that I used through my demos

Presentation:

Presentations

Azure: Presentation - Managing Windows Azure Applications

Mick Badran — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:51:51 GMT

Folks, this is Scotty's 2nd presentation this week where he shares is love, scripts and years of experience in Managing Azure Applications (Breeze started back in early 2008).

Tune into this free event and to hear & see what Scotty has on offer.

Register

LIVE Meeting: Managing Windows Azure Applications

Event ID: 1032500972

Language(s): English.

Product(s): Microsoft BizTalk Server and Windows Azure.

So you just made your first Windows Azure deployment. Now what? Is it healthy? How many instances do you need? What will my bill be? When do I need to scale up? Was that a DoS attack? Will auto-patching break me? Getting an application into Windows Azure is the first step, now you have to run the application for the next three years. Come to this session and see how to manage and operate your Windows Azure applications.

Register

Azure: 2 live Meeting Presentations this week! Ten Must-Have tools for Windows Azure

Mick Badran — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:44:52 GMT

Hi folks,

Scotty (aka Sco the Stig) Scovell is presenting this week on

Ten Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure as part of Microsoft Readiness.

We'd love to see you there - free event

LIVE Meeting: Ten Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure

Event ID: 1032500970

Language(s): English.

Product(s): Microsoft BizTalk Server and Windows Azure.

Any platform, by its own nature, creates an ecosystem for third-party tools and helpers. Windows Azure is no different. In this session we look at a variety of the third-party tools available in the Windows Azure ecosystem. Included are tools for both developers and IT professionals. We look at tools that will help manage storage and resources, migration, scaling, diagnostics and software components that will help you build cloud applications.

Registration

VTSP Summit: Feature decision making with Hybrid IT Solutions

Mick Badran — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 04:40:35 GMT

I’m finally back home after a great trip to Seattle and to see some fellow VTSPs from all over the globe. Very switched on bunch.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to present and with Scotty at the demo controls, we steered a pretty good session.

Thanks to ‘all y-all’ whom was in the session and I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

Grab the Public Version of the slide Deck – HERE.

So as promised on the advice of John Brockmeyer here’s some current limitations of the Azure ‘Integration’ Services.

General: Can Too Swimming to Cure Cancer–Me!

Mick Badran — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:58:13 GMT

Well folks it’s week 5 of a 12 week program where the great Can Too swim coaches train you and put you through a challenge.

I signed up for a ‘2.5km’ ocean swim – Palm beach to whale beach. Which for me is well off my map and out of my comfort zone – so it’s a challenge for me mentally and physically, but really only a small price to pay for the challenges that cancer sufferers.

My endeavor is raise money for cancer research – you have the chance to make a tax deductible donation through my page - http://cantoosydneyswimprogram.gofundraise.com.au/page/Mick_Badran
(my target is $1250 in total)

My pledge is that I will swim 4 times a week, rain hail or shine (just so I don’t drown in this swim) – feel free to come and join me if you’re in the area. Early week – at Wileys Baths (near Coogee), later in the week Clovelly laps.

So what can I offer you as incentive – as an MVP each year I get a MSDN Subscription “Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN” (many thanks Microsoft).
Check out the versions - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/subscriptionschart.aspx

To whomever donates the most I will give you this! I’d also really like to put this subscription to good use.

You maybe starting out, starting up, or whatever – you will have all MS Products at your development disposal.

I challenge you for cancer research, good luck and Merry Christmas!!!

Important: You can contact me on twitter on - @mickba

SQL Server 2012: Licensing based on a PER CORE basis!!

Mick Badran — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 04:41:44 GMT

So your SQL 2012 is US$6.8K/core which roughly equates to 4 cores = a SQL 2008 Ent license.

How many DB servers have 4 cores? I wonder if there’s a way now to limit the cores then that SQL 2012 will use on for e.g. an 8 or 12 core machine.

Will this change by RTM?? I wonder.

(on a side note – way back when ‘hyper threading’ originally came out, when 1 CPU looked liked ‘2’ to the O/S, MS wanted to license per visible CPU. Intel & AMD at the time said if you do that we’ll take the feature out…nowadays we call them ‘CORES’ and looks like the discussion has come full circle)

Azure: How the “Cloud" can help you integrate–we’re doing another session–come along.

Mick Badran — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:33:41 GMT

Azure: How the “Cloud" can help you integrate–we’re doing another session–come along.

How the “Cloud” can help you Integrate

Microsoft Australia & Breeze

are pleased to invite you to a breakfast Seminar

on Cloud Integration

Sydney – November 16, 2011 8:30 - 11:00am

Venue: Breeze Office, 5a/2 New McLean Street, Edgecliff, NSW 2027

(Adjacent to Edgecliff Station)

With the excitement of technology moving towards “the Cloud” come and learn exactly what this means to your business and how your development projects can leverage the Windows Azure Platform without re-architecting your environment. Should you invest in private cloud, move your application to the public cloud, choose a hybrid approach or keep the application on-premise?

Hear from Microsoft about their cloud strategy and computing platform ‘Azure’ and what this provides with scalable computing power and storage, as well as a number of other online services hosted on Microsoft datacentres.

Hear from Breeze how to make this happen in the real world with measurable results. Breeze Integration Specialists will share with you some of their experiences in the field with helping customers maximise their existing investments as well as future scalability by utilizing the Azure platform with their integration development projects to date.

This seminar is an opportunity to gain insight with the Windows Azure Platform including Windows Azure AppFabric, SQL Azure, Windows Server AppFabric and BizTalk AppFabric Connect as well as meet the industry experts.

This seminar is for all Integration enthusiasts from IT Professionals, Developers to Business Decision Makers. Bring along your questions!

Seats are limited. Register NOW !!!!

For more information and to register contact emmav{at}breeze{dot}net

Breeze Azure Sessions: Recordings Now Available

Mick Badran — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:09:03 GMT

Hi folks, from a previous set of posts, we’ve been running a series of Azure Training Sessions.

Here’s the online links to the recordings that many of you have asked me about. Enjoy.

The links below should take you to the landing page, from the click on the View Online button.

Breeze Azure Sessions: Overview of upcoming sessions

Mick Badran — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 04:59:54 GMT

Hi folks we’re delivering Azure sessions on behalf of Microsoft over the next coming weeks…

Here’s the official timetable, come along they’re free for you!!
(All times are in Australian Eastern Standard Time)

LIVE - 2 Hour	IT Pro/Dev/ ISV	Sept 27th 2-4 pm	https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032489403&Culture=en-AU	Ten Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure
LIVE - 2 Hour	IT Pro	Oct 25th 2-4 pm	https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032489405&Culture=en-AU	An IT Pro View of Windows Azure
LIVE - 2 Hour	IT Pro/Dev/ ISV	Nov 22nd 2-4 pm	https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032489407&Culture=en-AU	Managing Windows Azure Applications

SharePoint 2010: Sydney Bootcamp a couple of seats left….

Mick Badran — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 11:51:23 GMT

See you there folks…I’m coming up from the trenches to share what’s in the real world with the class…content types, deployments etc.

Hope to see you there.



Sydney \| SharePoint 2010 Bootcamp “The best course I have done in years!” “A fantastic course. Mick really has depth of knowledge and is a very engaging trainer” REGISTER TODAY - 4 seats left! Special offer of 15% discount if book & pay before June 30^th 2011. Overview This is a 5-day bootcamp designed for both IT Professionals and Developers packed with fun and technical training to explore the features of SharePoint 2010 ‘out of the box’. At course completion students will be able to upgrade their SharePoint V3 sites/portals to SharePoint 2010, to implement and extend Microsoft Office client side solutions, and also implement custom workflows developed in Visual Studio. They’ll be equipped to care for their SharePoint farm, back it up and restore it, and set up and configure SharePoint 2010 infrastructure. Architecting the portal and sub-sites layouts is streamlined using best strategies and known best practices within the SharePoint space. Students will create custom WebParts and SharePoint customisations easily, as well as site wide features, event handlers and InfoPath Forms based solutions. They will also explore Excel Services and Business Intelligence Offerings. Be ready to roll up your sleeves and start your adventure here! Date: Monday 25 – Friday 29 July 2011 Instructor: Mick Badran – MVP Location: Breeze Office Edgecliff Court, Suite 5a 2 New McLean Street, Edgecliff NSW 2027 Time: 8.30am – 4.30pm Duration: 5 Days Course Price: $3,450.00 + GST Register NOW: Emmav(AT)breeze(DOT)net(NO DOT)

BizTalk 2010: Integration Roadshow hits Sydney

Mick Badran — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:54:47 GMT

April 4th folks…April 4th.

Quick background: The BizTalk team have been travelling the globe on a ‘Microsoft Integration Roadshow’ covering countless countries and cities.

On April 4th the bus stops in Sydney. Here’s the official blurb and I’ll be presenting – let me know if there’s anything you’d like covered in my demo and I’ll try and accommodate.

Enjoy,

Mick.

REGISTER TODAY >>

Date

Monday, 4^th April, 2011

Location

The Menzies Sydney

14 Carrington Street,

Sydney NSW 2000

Time

8:30am-12:30pm

Sydney | Monday April 4^th, 2011

Microsoft Integration Road Show

Worldwide events running Feb - Apr 2011

Overview

Enterprises today typically work in a fairly heterogeneous environment with disparate systems. Connecting the systems and applications sitting across the diverse platforms and tying them to the business processes has become one of the top priorities for most organisations. As they continue to evolve towards a cloud strategy - to take advantage of the economic and scale benefits - the need to have a robust Integration Platform escalates. Microsoft offers a tremendous opportunity for customers to make a paradigm shift in the way they do business to maximize their benefits and profitability whilst maintaining an optimized cost structure.

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to learn how we can help you beat the demands of today’s difficult economy, about our commitment to BizTalk Server and how we plan to continue to innovate in the integration space helping you begin your journey to the Cloud.

Agenda
8:30am – 9:00am: Light Breakfast and Registration

9:15am – 10:00am: Keynote

“Innovations in Integration – Begin your journey to the Cloud”

Speaker: Paul Larsen

Group Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation

10:00am – 11:00am: Customer session

Caltex is Australia's leading oil refiner and supplies products via a network of pipelines, terminals, depots and the company-owned and contracted transport fleet. Caltex made the business decision to acquire many of their independent resellers – who were spread across every state of Australia.

In this session you’ll learn how Caltex COSMOS project integrated those different reseller businesses into a single operating entity now called Caltex Petroleum Services.

Robin Brown, IT Project Manager, Caltex Australia

11:00am – 11:30am: Break

11:30am – 12:30pm: Technical Drilldown

Mick Badran, CTO, Breeze

This session is for those that want to delve into the technology to see the latest integration best practices and products including BizTalk Server 2010, AppFabric and Azure.

Location
The Menzies Sydney

14 Carrington Street,

Sydney NSW 2000

Target Audience
CIO/TDM/BDM, IT Directors/Managers, Architects, IT Pro & Developers

To Register
Click here to register. Space is limited so register today to ensure your attendance at this event.

SharePoint 2010: Australian SharePoint Conference 2011

Mick Badran — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:53:37 GMT

Firstly thanks for all that attended my 5pm - ‘fireside’ session.

I definitely was a first for me having a session so late in the day. I took my shoes off, wiggled my toes and got into it up on stage.

The session was pretty light and easy to follow along as to get bogged down into the deep technicalities of data storage within SharePoint was going to put all to sleep.

During the session I spoke about (& demo-ed) each approach from Site/Web Property bags, Custom Service Apps, Lists/External Lists Pros and Cons of each – all good.

Here’s my slide deck guys – Enjoy.

SLIDE DECK - PPTX

UPDATED – DEMOS USED IN THE PRESENTATION
DEMOS

SharePoint 2010: Getting Started – Navigation and Sharing

Mick Badran — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:41:45 GMT

Hi folks, as promised here’s my little slide deck for the presentation given last week. We had a great audience with some very interesting questions.

Thanks all that attended as part of the Microsoft Partner Readiness program. Hope you’re enjoying and feel free to give me feedback as to what you’d like to see more of and less of.

Have fun,

Mick.

Slides in ZIP PPT Slide Deck

SharePoint 2010: Breeze SharePoint 2010 Bootcamp in Brisbane next week.

Mick Badran — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:55:16 GMT

Hi folks, I’ve got a lot of requests for when/where these are on, so we’re off and running next week in Brisbane with 2 seats left.

Just a quick blurb on the course -

The Breeze SharePoint 2010 Bootcamp has been designed to provide just that. Our customers asked for an in-depth, technical, customized course that, if they were to spend $$s on just one SharePoint 2010 course this year, would give them enough knowledge of the technology to build real world solutions.

These bootcamps have been written for the ITPro & Developer who need to upgrade their SharePoint skills, or are just starting out with SharePoint 2010.

Check them out HERE

BizTalk 2010 Saturday coming to a city near you…

Mick Badran — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 23:40:56 GMT

With Microsoft close to releasing BizTalk 2010 (the 7th release) your local BizTalk techies & trainers have put our heads together – big thanks to BizTalk Bill for being instrumental in getting this off the ground!

Starting from October the fun begins. BizTalk 2010 training will be on in a city near you!

The event will be a Saturday event in many cities around Australia and New Zealand showcasing the new features of BizTalk Server 2010. The day will consist of short talks about the new feature and then hands on labs to allow you firsthand experience with the new features.

Cost: $200 per person (to cover a couple of flights and food)

Further details can be found HERE – BizTalk Saturday

Sydney

Saturday, October 16, 2010

The agenda for the day can be found here

To Register for the event click here

TechEd 2010: Mastering Microsoft Integration Solutions

Mick Badran — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:40:00 GMT

Well as TechEd 2010 draws to a close this year in Australia, I had a great time getting away from it all and certainly experiencing a couple of firsts. For me this was one of the better TechEd’s I had been to – the sessions were a little light on, but the labs + exams made up for that big time.

So Scotty and I developed an Integration Pre Conference Training Session aimed at working out which MS Integration technology to run where – unscrambling the mess. We got a great turn out for the training in terms of numbers – we beat SharePoint 2010 dev + admin!!! :)

For all of you whom I had the pleasure of training this week – well done! I hope you enjoyed it and it was great sharing that time with you. The sun, sand, BizTalk and Azure…what could be better?? :)

As promised – here are the slides from those two days.

Keep smiling,
Mick.

World Cup is on – England's only chance of winning

Mick Badran — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:17:10 GMT

Sorry I’ve been quiet folks – I’ve been sleep deprived, not really knowing which day is what and…I guess it’s like having a new born again. :)

My extended family is English and they sent through a cracker….

See you soon,

Mick.

TechEd 2009 – Exam Cram Night - 70-630 MCTS- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Mick Badran — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:12:42 GMT

Last night we had an exam cram, where keen and interested delegates bunkered down and got their neurons firing.

I went through this exam with them giving them tips and sharing my general SharePoint knowledge around this.

Today – the good news was that I passed three delegates whom took the exam *today* and all passed!!! Well done guys!

Here’s the ppt deck that I used – enjoy and well done all!

PPTs

TechEd 2009 – SOA314 – BizTalk Goes Mobile

Mick Badran — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:50:01 GMT

We’re in the thick of TechEd 2009 here in Australia on the Gold Coast (tough place to have a conference ;) Sun, sand and a beach that stretches for miles 1 block away)

Big thanks to those of you that attended my session – great turn out and all my demos worked like a charm…that doesn’t happen every day :)

Here’s the powerpoints and demo files:

PowerPoints -

MicksDemoFiles.zip

Mar 11th – Examining .NET 4.0 Integration Technologies Recording Available

Mick Badran — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:19:27 GMT

Hi guys thanks for the turnout tonight :-)

Here's the link to download the presso

https://www311.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/view?cn=&id=HK55JF-1&pw=

I should have allowed all access :)

SharePoint Efficiencies Seminar - Powerpoints

Mick Badran — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:53:55 GMT

Thanks to all of you who joined me recently for Shannon & my seminar around Gaining Efficiencies in SharePoint.

We had a great turn out and I hope you found it useful - we had around 60 mins....the clock was ticking.

As promised - here's the PowerPoint slides I used in the presentation.

SharePoint Efficiencies (Zip 2MB)

Take care and enjoy.

Mick.

Complete PDC08 List of Sessions and Powerpoint Decks

Mick Badran — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:48:17 GMT

UPDATED - thanks to Luciano Evaristo Guerche he's come through with the super trump of all of this - grab the slides/sessions with his easy technique -
http://weblogs.asp.net/guerchele/archive/2008/10/29/how-to-download-pdc-sessions-using-downthemall-firefox-addon.aspx

You get session titles and the whole works.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A big thanks to my good friend Thiago (runs the NZ CSD User Group) as he provided us on the OzTalk mailing list (list dedicated to BizTalk/CSD user group members) with a list of URLs to grab all the sessions + ppts.

Load these URLS into something like Free Download Manager and go surfing :)

Thanks Thiago! My ISP isn't happy with me at the moment.....over my limit....wonder why :-)

Keep an Eye on PDC 08 here

Mick Badran — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:11:12 GMT

Hi guys - there's a bunch of stuff going on right now at PDC 08 in LA.

What's hot:

(If you're on a PDA/Mobile - grab a the PDC from here - http://www.microsoftpdc.com/mobile/)

Here's a select set of recorded sessions up on Channel 9- http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/PDC08/
OSLO

Oslo” is the code name for our platform for model-driven applications. The goal of “Oslo” is to provide a 10x productivity gain by making model-driven applications mainstream with domain-specific models, languages and tools.

Public Oslo(BizTalk vNext next) Site - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/oslo/default.aspx
Oslo Downloads here - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/oslo

WCF 'REST' Services

MSDN WCF REST-ful Starter Site - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/netframework/cc950529.aspx
I've got no idea what REST is -REST WIKI, A great article outlining REST
WCF REST Starter Kit(on CodePlex at the moment) - http://www.codeplex.com/aspnet/Wiki/View.aspx?title=WCF%20REST

So if you can't sleep then there's going to be some interesting reading coming up for us all. :-)

Enjoy.

TOT 334 - Building RFID Solutions with BizTalk

Mick Badran — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:31:22 GMT

From another session Breeze jointly did with Kenetics whom supplied the hardware for the entire TechEd 08.

It was a great session Scotty & myself did around demo-ing the bits that were used to build the system.

TechEd_2008_RFID.zip

BTSUG Aug27th - A4SWIFT and BizTalk

Mick Badran — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:42:17 GMT

Hi folks,

Have I got a deal for you.... no seriously we’ve got a great night planned leading up into TechEd. I’m really looking forward to it.
(ok let me get my dates right)

On August 27^th Wednesday night (Wednesday week from now) we’re lucky enough to get....

Angelo Laris from Decillion(seasoned member of our user group) lined up to talk to us about A4SWIFT (which is basically what Angelo and Decillion roll out). Decillion are formally recognised by Microsoft as being experts in this area and are also a member of the Microsoft BizTalk Virtual Technology Specialist Program.
(I’ve also got a couple of house keeping tasks to mention…..first the great stuff…)

Angelo sent me through his outline:

1. Introduction to SWIFT 5min

2. What is a SWIFT Message. 5min

3. The Schema Definitions. 10-20 min

4. The HTML Form Generator (Young Youn will present or help me out here) 20min

5. The Business Rules Engine – HOW to validate a SWIFT Message. 30-60min

6. The Message Repair using Infopath and BAS.30-60min 30-60min

Looks fantastic – what you are going to see is how BizTalk can be extended, Angelo is talking about a mature product base and it’s great to see just how others are using and extending BizTalk while adhering to industry standards.

One of the main questions I get is “What can I use the BizTalk Rules Engine for?”…..ask no further.

What is in store for our Aug 27th Session

Where:
Microsoft, North Ryde
1 Epping Road

When:
6pm - Beer + Pizza
6.30pm - Kick off

Aug 27^th -

Feel free to forward this to any of your colleagues/friends I may have missed (tell them to register on the Sydbiz.org site to be included)

Other Business:
* TechEd 2008 – We’ve finally got RFID end-to-end at the conference (See my blog post here – had the media interested and lots of interviews, Breeze got the green light 40 days out from TechEd......no pressure)
Some quick stats:

1. Over 70 RFID Readers (fixed + windows mobile based) with 118 Antennas.

2. Lots of Intelligent information surfacing.

3. BizTalk Server, BizTalk RFID, BizTalk RFID V1.1, MOSS + good old Silverlight 2 b2 is pretty much running the show.

4. We’re ‘printing’ (or encoding is the tech term) over 5500 tags – the hardest part was to actually print a corresponding barcode so other systems can handle the badge.

5. I’m due for a holiday at the end of this.....(this is why I couldn’t squeeze a meeting in last month)

So A BIG THANK YOU for those that helped out with the testing of the system (fingers crossed on show day) at previous user group meetings.

* Call for Speakers/Other People to take Tyre Kicking Sessions
If you’ve got any aspect of BizTalk (& related) that you want to share with us....let me know, love to hear what you’ve got to say.
* Don’t forget – we’ve launched an email forum group ‘oztalk@groups.yahoo.com’
Great to see a lot of you already joined – it’s a *private* group open to BizTalk User Group members (we currently have Brisbane, Auckland and Sydney on)
Invite only – send me an email if you want to join and I’ll send you out an invite. (Thanks to all the guys on it so far)

Love to see you there – and reply to this email to let me know for catering.
Cheers,

Mick Badran (MVP - BizTalk) | Microsoft Readiness Instructor
Collaboration and Integration Specialist

Breeze Training Pty Ltd | m: +61 404842 833

http://blogs.breezetraining.com.au/mickb

TechEd 08 - see you there - RFID and Workflows....

Mick Badran — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:36:10 GMT

Register - here

Folks I hope you're heading to TechEd this year - it's a brand new breed! Why....????

Because myself and my team are covering the entire event with RFID tags, we'll give you tags - enabling you the delegate to 'live' the technology!!! (seen Tron lately) we'll set up some great RFID interactive capabilities.

Sample card TechEd tag

It all started when... I went to MS and said..."I've got an idea...." and the teched committee(s) saw the plan and loved it (there were some sleepless nights there as well :).

I've been to over 10+ yrs of TechEd (sometimes 3 a yr, US, Oz + NZ) and I figured it should be a chance to play with the technology! Hands on - get dirty. Build, break, play + learn...all that stuff.

As a MS Ptr Readiness trainer/Regular teched speaker - I appreciate the value of sessions but as a delegate I would be looking for the show me/talk to me/let *me* see how it's done.... a bit like plasticine to mould and meld the way that I (as a delegate) would need it!!!!!

So in light of this - Breeze is providing a (huge) BizTalk RFID based RFID Event System that you guys can interact with/we'll walk you through the making of, setup & how the system is put together. We're getting some posters made up and myself as a trainer, would want to share the knowledge around this system.

Let's see what the system does.....(as of 5pm today...nothing like moving targets... :)

The vision we have is:

You walk into a room and the welcome screen will say "Hi Paul" (and you'll fade out, do something special...we've got a couple of ideas here). This component actually is a 'real-time visual display' of out in the field events. In our case it's people walking past readers...or it could be boxes, trucks, palettes etc. Built in Silverlight 2 harnessing the WCF Eventing Services in real time. (We've been able to crank our code up to 150 people walking past *exactly* the same spot)

Fellow Breezer.... Scotty (a member of the BizTalk Virtual TS team) has a blurb on some of the details on the initial RFID/Silverlight nuts 'n bolts

(we've also got a webcast on how this is created)
So you guys as an interactive experience as you walk in the room with various graphs (developers in the room, it pros...) and charts - some DRAFT IDEAs
All done in Silverlight

We've actually got MS Shane Morris on the case here - he never gives up a chance to get down and dirty with Silverlight.
Check out his thoughts at the moment - big thanks Shane :)

So there may be an 'Avatar' thingy that gets displayed up on the screen (as Shane mentions).....a quiet secret .....you want to 'pimp your avatar'???? Come and see the Breeze room and we'll make it happen...only those who rock up - I've got a Windows Mobile App that will do it for you.....
Some other areas that may/may not make the final show are having things like:
1. 'Information Points' - areas that you could simply be standing near, talking to someone and a screen may show where your collegues are, or what you may have in common with the person you're talking to. e.g. belong to community User Groups; where the next sessions of interest are for you.
  These may be distributed throughout the conference.
2. As you go to a session - if you stay longer than 15 mins (for e.g.) the system contacts Commnet and makes a session eval available for you to fill out (could be done while you're sitting in the session :-)
3. Breeze will have a room that will be driving all this - be sure to come and see us. Our guys will be more than happy to take you through 'the bunker'
4. No more hold ups at the doors (hopefully :) with people individually reading your barcodes, you can just walk straight in (imagine if skiing chairlift lines were like that :)
The other major component to the system is an Exhibitor System which is run on a PDA equipped with a Kenetics RFID Reader built on BizTalk RFID 1.1 Mobile (still in beta - nervous who me?). The Kenetics crew have been very helpful and when I embarked on this application I was given the H/W and a C++ DLL....."What..you don't know C++?" - not since uni folks....developed the RFID component in 4 days!!!
1. The application is for when exhibitors on the floor, they scan your RFID Tag and you can continue the conversation. The scan range is around 2-10cms.
2. There is also local SqlCe storage, with store/fwd capabilities. I'm using SqlCe merge replication to keep the data safe centrally - which proved to be interesting.
3. Currently - the MS Stand and the HP stand will have the devices, the RFID Reader + this mobile App (the other exhibitors are still reading barcodes)
TechEd Event information is to be made available through Analysis Cubes so you guys can pull up a pivot table (looks impressive to your boss) and play with the event data. Things like attendance in sessions, audience breakdown by interest or by technology etc. - it would be great to do something like an 'Amazon' - such as if you're a .NET developer having.... "Other people who are also .NET developers went to these other sessions...."

So as a delegate I can get a 'group feel' for what sessions I should be seeing next - sometimes there's a time where non of the sessions are on my immediate agenda, it would be great to have this information available to help me make my decision on what session I should see in that time slot.
(e.g. 85% of SQL developers chose this session....)
There's a whole bunch of H/W coming from Kenetics which we'll be giving a session at TechEd on how we built it all!!!
Lastly I thought I'd just mention a quick blurb on the RFID info.
- there *may* be some apprehension about a delegate getting a 'tag' and the whole "big brother is watching" thing. Let me dispel a couple of rumours
1. tags are similar to barcodes - they simply contain a number. read differently but from that respect the same (imagine if you could go into your favourite sporting store, and say "I'll have a new shoes" and they knew your size, your brand, and whether it's in stock instantly - now you could even have a self-serve kiosk around that as well!!!)
2. Your tag can't be read from satellites - lots of physics comes into play here...namely a big one of power. If you think about when TV stations need to broadcast to space, they have a large dish somewhere, 50 guys peddling bikes to generate the power and then they transmit bursts.
  
  So...no. - simply cover the tag with your hand and you can't be read. (water and radio waves don't go that well)
3. My vision is to make this *your* teched - as you can see we're being transparent and open about the system and how it works. Any time drop in and we'll show you through.

ON ANOTHER NOTE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT - my workflow session I'm delivering - you've got rare oppty....

SOA305
Getting Workflows Running and Talking in Your Applications
04/09/2008 2:00PM-3:15PM

Once you understand the basics of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and can put together a workflow using the built-in activities, you will need to know how to get that workflow running in a variety of hosting environments and communicate between the workflow and the host application or the outside world. This session gives you a solid foundation to get started with these techniques. Gain a better understanding of how workflows exist in a hosting process and how to control the hosting services. Learn about the various forms of communication that can exist between a running workflow and the hosting application as well as with outside Web and WCF Services. Also, learn about the persistence and tracking features of WF.

- I've got a technical session on Workflow Foundation.
- Of course you're planning on seeing my session :) - WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO COVER? WHAT DO *YOU* WANT TO KNOW ABOUT?

(You've got the opportunity to provide feedback and while I'm still 'building' the session - hopefully I can incorporate your needs!)

More later and I'd love to hear your thoughts on above with a comment or two.....be great to see you at TechEd!!!!

Over and out

Mick.

.NET 3.5 Framework WebCasts for the Month of July

Mick Badran — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:41:05 GMT

There's a great line up this month that are too good to keep secret.

Some fellow CSD experts are lining up for some great topics to give all around Workflow and WCF!!!

Does it get better? Get on and register.

For more, check out the Live Calendar

Live Webcasts

MSDN Webcast: Transactional Windows Communication Foundation Services with Juval Lowy (Level 200)

Monday, July 7, 2008

10:00 A.M.–11:15 A.M. Pacific Time

MSDN Webcast: Using Windows Workflow Foundation to Build Services with Jon Flanders (Level 300)

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

10:00 A.M.–11:00 A.M. Pacific Time

MSDN Webcast: WCF Extensibility Deep Dive with Jesus Rodriguez (Level 400)

Friday, July 11, 2008

10:00 A.M.–11:00 A.M. Pacific Time

MSDN Webcast: Bringing Enterprise Data to Life with SharePoint Server and Windows Communication Foundation (Level 300)

Friday, July 18, 2008

10:00 A.M.–11:00 A.M. Pacific Time

Silverlight 2.0 (beta 1) Download and Install Links

Mick Badran — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:56:53 GMT

If you're thinking about cracking on with Silverlight - then here's the place to start.

This was covered earlier today(yesterday) in MIX08

http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2008/03/05/download-links-for-mix08-announcements.aspx

BizTalk RFID Solution Days Wrap Up (and a some play time)

Mick Badran — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:40:08 GMT

I've now managed to get a moment to share a fantastic experience with you.

What a trip!!! I was away for 2 weeks in total with the first week spent in San Jose at the Office Developer Conference (ODC) 2008 which as good to touch base with some of the Sharepoint folks and see how others solve challenges that drive me up the wall.

Being in a hotel in the middle of 'Silicon Valley' Clayton and I were struggling to find Wireless internet access - the frustrating thing was that everywhere else in the town there were at least 20 networks on offer....except in our hotel room. We found a spot on the window ledge.

Then I flew up to Seattle to meet up with my enthusiastic cousin which resulted in a sneaky trip up to Whistler skiing
The snow was absolutely fantastic!!!!>

The second week of my trip turned to the Business end where I had to step up, be prepared and present.
Enter BizTalk RFID Solution Days!!!

The first face I saw when I walked into the Conference was Anush's down in the foyer - Well done Anush for such a great conference!

The way the week was to play out:

First two days was the conference with sessions and presentations
The second two days was the training where I had 102 students and fortunately we planned that I was co-presenting with Venkatesh who was the BizTalk RFID Product Architect (he's moved on now and started S3Edge.com). He is a wealth of knowledge and a great person to ask all the 'Why' questions to.
(he's also related to a great friend of mine here in Australia which was a total surprise!!!)

From the conference (2 days prior to training) I caught up with a buddy of mine Scott Allen (Microsoft App Plat TS - BI, BTS, SQL guru) who has just successfully completed building a 'RFID Lab' within Microsoft NZ. I've got to check it out sooner rather than later - sounded fantastic.

Scotty inspired me with his take on BizTalk RFID - he said "If you tell clients we've got a show on BizTalk RFID, they think they need to have supply chains and infrastructure - it becomes very specialised they feel. If you pitch BizTalk RFID at something around How to reduce the carbon footprint of your production line or increasing production efficiencies then the whole world comes running"

That said - he was getting huge amounts of CEOs from the big end of town to these sessions with a tour of the BizTalk RFID Lab. Well done Scotty!

So Anush grabbed center stage at the beginning of the conference and there were some great messages coming out of the speakers. One of the most noticeable messages for me was "Everyone is waiting for the Wallmart mandates to drive the RFID space, that may have been the case 2 yrs ago. Now we have reached enough critical mass in the industry to really see the explosion in RFID that is occurring"

Australia has been using RFID for years in cattle, lifestock, shipping and now wheat. What Microsoft BizTalk RFID has done is to 'domesticate' the whole process of getting connected and responsive. I was talking to a local CEO of a International Meat exporting business on the weekend - he was very interested in the BizTalk RFID story as his main concern facing his company is traceability. Everyone involved in the supply chain wants traceability - by the time the consumer sits down and uses the product, they want to know everything about it. In this case the meat.

Onward to the Training Arena (held on the MS campus) - training 102 people on Microsoft BizTalk RFID I needed to be prepared the best I could which involved a couple of trips to the MS Technical Services Group (TSG) to get things 'just right' for classroom setup.

Firstly - I want to say "WELL DONE TO ALL THE CREW who sat the course". In 12+yrs of teaching, I was amazed at your ability and enthusiasm!!!
(We actually created the RFID course from scratch and it's amazing to see what's in your head play out better than you expect)

I made a pledge to the class from the outset - From 102 students, I was going endeavor to help get 102 students across the line so they all had working BizTalk RFID Solutions in front of them.

What a great class - I enjoyed it as much as what they did. Out of 102 students I fully expected some students to come up to me by lunch time on the first day and say "Mick, you know this course - it's not what I envisaged etc etc" - 102 completed the course!!!

Let me share some interesting facts:

102 students started.... 102 students completed a working BizTalk RFID end-to-end solution.
Some students had 1+yrs experience in BizTalk RFID.....others were seeing it for the first time.
One lady hadn't cut a line of code in 15yrs and was very excited.
Many different industries were represented in the room, from medical foundations to services to agricultural.....
I had to run around with a USB key only once - fortunately I had help.
One the first day students were still doing labs at 7pm.
Two days is not long enough :)
It was absolutely fantastic to have the major players from the BizTalk RFID Product group there in the room and on hand. Anush, Sudhir, Rama and of course Venkatesh (who has a great needed sense of humour for a trainer) - big thank you guys. Wouldn't have been the same without you.
Reporting Services reports worked really well.....note - getting the right connection string is key.
Mick - please connect power to your laptop when presenting and running VPCs off it.....otherwise we all get an early coffee break

Fantastic and a big thank you to all that were responsible for much making it better than I imagined!!!

Day 2 - Office Dev Con in San Jose

Mick Badran — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:27:23 GMT

The conference is going well and it's good to catch up with some familiar faces such as Angus Logan and Andrew Connell.

Basically a message that I'm getting out of the conference so far is that to do Development in/for Sharepoint is to grab a collection of 'helper tools' (that each presenter has built or partially built) to do a little bit along the way.
Collectively they do things like:

Create Feature/Element XML of your current project getting ready for deployment.
Packaging a VSNET Project into a Sharepoint Solution
Easy Solution Deployment
Visual Studio Extensions for Sharepoint 1.1 (should have a VSNET2008 version in June)

All in all there's a bunch of little tools needed (some I mentioned in a previous post) in and outside of VSNET. So I'd imagine it's a bit of a 'watch this space' with respect to Microsoft and their 'official toolset' for developers.

Off to catch some more sessions and will report back soon.....

Office Developer Conference 2008 - San Jose

Mick Badran — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:58:30 GMT

I'm currently off at ODC2008 here in the heart of Silicon Valley with Clayton James and pre-conference sessions have started.

Free WiFi networks are everywhere on the streets and just about everywhere.....except for our Hotel!! Where it seems to be the only place in Silcon Valley where there is no *free* Wi-fi...nearly all the hotels have some kind of free WiFi in their foyers...except ours. Very bizarre.....

I had a session about the BizTalk Adapter Pack (blogs.msdn.com/adapters)

We're in a session where they mentioned a few 'must' have deployment tools:

SPDeploy - gives you a new Sharepoint Project Option, psexec commands to remotely execute commands.
STSDev - Andrew Connell and co. have come up with their bits and pieces - that go away and 'create' projects in line with what you want to do. So probably a good idea to do run these first.
WSPBuilder
SharepointInstaller

BizTalk RFID Solution Days - here I come!

Mick Badran — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:57:30 GMT

I'm off on a US Road trip today - landing in San Fran tomorrow and catching a train down to San Jose for the Office Dev Con conference (as an attendee this time :). I'll be meeting up with a great Sharepoint developer/instruction Clayton James (fellow Microsoft Readiness Instructor) who has attacked Sharepoint with such a passion - I swear he studies the APIs at night. He's developed some brilliant solutions in the last couple of years - great knowledge.

With a 'brief' bit of skiing in between I'm off to Redmond for the RFID Solution Days where the focus will be:

Real-time software solutions for enterprise deployments, across verticals
Hardware innovation and changes driving mass adoption of RFID with focus on performance and price
Cross Industry-Priority solution efforts at Microsoft that will utilize RFID and sensor data to deliver efficiencies for a People-Ready business across the value chain
Microsoft’s platform vision, deliverables, and roadmap for RFID and Sensor based solutions

Breeze is running the two day BizTalk RFID training course 'post-conference' where last count I had 80+ students........worried....hmmm.....love a helper or 10!

Wish me luck folks........if you're attending.....don't be a stranger!

Mick.

Australia's First MCT Summit is coming to town...

Mick Badran — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:44:41 GMT

Hi you hard working (non-surfing, bbq-ing) MCTs who dedicate a good portion of your life ensuring that your classes run smoothly; no one runs out of the room crying; all labs are do-able with work arounds when needed; notes have your scribble all over them; some courses (of late) you may teach saying one thing on the title, only to have an entirely different course between the covers :)

.... all in all as we all know, people in the class never get to see the work that goes on in the 'background' (unless you're prepping for a first teach each night of the course and your eyelids are being held open by matchsticks :)

So come along and meet the others in MCT land.
Meet:
(a) the dinosaurs... who start off every sentence with "I remember when..."
(b) those that are passionate about the MCT program and have big voices.. (Steve did I say that? :)
(c) other MCTs teaching MODL courses.
(d) and even more MCTs doing 'secret squirrel' stuff in Europe that could be a 'new form of learning'....(Kyle - I swear that was the truth serum working from my current interrogators)
(e) other MCTs who find beds on top of grand pianos in lobbies.......I'm not going there :-)

What ever your reasons - it's Christmas (or a little after), it's holidays and Santa's been and gone.

See you there,

Mick.

Microsoft have announced a MCT summit
(from the Horse's mouth)

..... For the very first time, Australia will be hosting its very own MCT Community gathering to gain and share knowledge!

This exciting Event is from Jan 29 – 31^st 2008.

For more information, https://www.local.microsoft.com.au/australia/events/register/home.aspx?levent=993019&linvitation

BizTalk RFID is making huge waves.....

Mick Badran — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:26:10 GMT

Well what a week.....I've finally put a media interview that I originally started with Steve Sloan and Christine Bishop for Aussie FEN Magazine. I was there representing the local industry topology around RFID and MS RFID Services.

It was one of those things that as we were all talking, I did have a thought flash across my mind - "Mick if that comment is taken the wrong way, or you say the wrong thing......then you'd better cherish your last MVP year :)"

Coming through the other side and a Podcast later - it's all looking very cool. There's some great news to be released in this space....more on this later.

Anush Kumar Mr RFID Services himself - had a ball at the R2 Launch and we got to once again hang out. All superb!
There's a handful of people who you meet in your travels that are just great guys.....he's one! And I'm overlooking the fact he wants to get out there on the cricket pitch and play for India!
http://blogs.msdn.com/biztalkrfid/archive/2007/09/28/other-biztalk-rfid-ers-in-blogosphere.aspx - it's all true folks :)

Another guy who's making huge leaps and bounds in the RFID space is our very own Scott Scovell. Scott and I are working on some serious RFID stuff at the moment and he also has a wealth of stories/knowledge from right down at the coal face in not only implementing BizTalk RFID Services but a very good head for the whole integration environment. Stay tuned....... I promise we'll share soon :)

Rocking and rolling.....

Oct31st - SydBTSUG Meeting: Designing and Developing a Reusable BizTalk Framework

Mick Badran — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:46:58 GMT

It’s been a little while since we’ve got together with TechEd, APEC + the launch of R2...but I’m pretty certain we’re all in a great space going forward J

The launch of BizTalk 2006 R2 was a pretty special event. – What’s new in R2 (ms technet article) for more info.

Big thanks to those of you that came along, hope you got alot out of it (not to mention a copy of Vista Ultimate).
What was the best part for you? For me personally was the fact that so much of the BizTalk product team made the trip across and was there. There to talk to and listen. Hope you had an opportunity to make the most of that.

What’s cooking this month for the group?
You may remember before the launch I had lined up a session on Designing and Building a Reusable BizTalk Framework.

I also want to kick some tyres with you guys and hear how things are progressing along your BizTalk (+ related) journey

Main Event on the night:
- Designing and Building a reusable BizTalk Framework(in R2)

BizTalk 2006 R2 is almost upon us, so this month we’re going to cover a couple of important areas:
1. Designing and develop a reusable BizTalk Framework. This approach will allow you to leverage previous investments within your company’s BizTalk implementations. There are huge benefits in being able to re-apply existing BizTalk applications that have been tested and are known quantities within your solution. The solution we will examine together will leverage EDI/AS2 document processing as well as XML Messaging solutions involving various Messaging Patterns (e.g. Request/Response).
This solution is based on a ‘Process Manager’ Pattern and it’s something I’ve refined over the last 2 years of experience on the coal face.

Meeting details:

When: Oct 31, Food at 6pm, kick off 6.30pm. Finish up around 8pm.
Where: Microsoft
1 Epping Road
Riverside Corporate Park
North Ryde NSW 2113 Australia. (parking available)
Speaker: Mick Badran (your trusty User Group Host)

Add to your calendar from HERE

Reusable Framework Focus Details:
Come and see how to ‘dynamically’ wire your BizTalk Solutions based on message content, rules or specific environmental properties. Being able to accept a wide array of message types is another key element in making these solutions successful.

What’s happening in the BizTalk Community:
BrizTalk.Org – the Brisbane BizTalk user group is always full of new ideas – Dan up there is always doing a great job.
MelBiz.Org – the Melbourne BizTalk user group run by Bill Chesnut (fellow BizTalk MVP) is always doing great things down there.
If you’re in their areas you’re always welcome to pop along.

Share the User Group Soap Box:
I always welcome a new voice and ideas at our group – if you want to share your experiences, thoughts, “I wish I can do..... for my solution...”. Then contact me and I’ll be more than happy to slot you in.
Q. Do you need to have presentation skills: No (just look at me) – can you tell a story in the office or at the pub? Or at a 3 yr old b.day party? – then I want you.
Q. Do I need a PowerPoint Slide Deck? – no!!! death by powerpoint is a painful way to go......
Q. Can you capture my ‘best’ side? We take you whichever way you are. J

We’re up for a great night – come along and learn how to make your BizTalk solutions go a long way.
(p.s. Warning: If you’re a consultant this session may reduce you to tears J)

See you there and let me know your coming
Mick (mb: 0404 842 833)
http://sydbiz.org

BizTalk 2006 R2 Launch in Sydney - recap

Mick Badran — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:36:12 GMT

What a great event - BizTalk, BizTalk and more Biztalk.

It was great to see all those who attended and especially those from the user groups (Sydney, Brisbane and Melb)

I personally had a great day - the weather was great. It was sunny, it hailed and then in true fashion the sun was out again.

So this means that BizTalk 2006 R2 is now RTM - grab it from here

Scott (another BizTalk super hero) & I put together a great RFID Demo (I can say *great* being not too bias).

Come 2am the morning before the launch Scott & I were wondering 'was there going to be a demo?'. In true show style it all came off on the day :)
I'll blog about the demo shortly....it went down a treat

There were some great sessions (I wasn't able to get to them as I was a 'booth babe' for the day).

The thing that I was most impressed about on the day......was the amount of support from the Corp BizTalk team. Well done guys!!!
The team had been on the road launching R2 in 3 world wide locations (in Taipei they were treated almost like rock star status!).

We had Oliver Sharp (BizTalk PM) and major figures in his team - the guys were great and always willing to lend an ear. (Some of them were off surfing at Bondi the following day - that's the way it's done !! :)

In mentioning the team I can't fail to mention MR. RFID of MS - Anush Kumar. What a great genuine guy. He's always got a brilliant story to tell around Microsoft RFID Services. RFID, Integration, surfacing, WCF, BizTalk, BAM, TagEvent data - these are all words he uses. This is a huge Microsoft story - and what the RFID team has achieved it the last 3-4 years both on the hardware/software space is amazing. Standardising readers (c.f. ODBC and ODBC drivers) and providing momentum to standards bodies on various tags and their formats.

R2 here we come....time to update some VPCs.

BTSUG - 5th Sept - Cancelled due to APEC

Mick Badran — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:37:41 GMT

Some information I got just recently is that MS will be locked down for during APEC.

So I guess......there's no user group there this week......

BUT......we've moved it

At the R2 Launch(14th Sept) we'll having a special session at the end of the day in Darling Harbour - with members of the product team.

See you there for a great Q&A Session with the Product team.

BTSUG - 5th Sept - Cancelled due to APEC

Mick Badran — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:30:19 GMT

Some information I got just recently is that MS will be locked down for during APEC.

So I guess......there's no user group there this week......

BUT......we've moved it

At the R2 Launch we'll having a special session at the end of the day in Darling Harbour - with members of the product team.

TechTalk Bloggers here I come..... :-)

Mick Badran — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:57:01 GMT

The ever vibrant Andrew Coates pinged me an email yesterday asking for my involvement in becoming a TechTalk Blogger........

I'm currently on this Island called 'Hamilton' at a 'Partner' Conference (yeah right!!! :)) so naturally I said 'yes!' (not too many people are saying 'no' around here)

I've got some great stories around RFID, BizTalk R2 and obvious integration into WSS/MOSS and what that means.

Hope you're going to join me on a great journey together! Gotta dash the scuba diving boat is waiting for me... (erm...the next 'partner activity')

Mick.

BizTalk 2006 R2 Launch - Sept 14th.

Mick Badran — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:18:56 GMT

The launch has been set and I couldn't have it better as the BizTalk World Wide launch is based in Sydney!!! Cool.

The Event is Free and would be a great chance for you to come on down and talk to members from the BizTalk Product Group that are flying over.

We'll all be there and looking forward to the event.

Remember that an upgrade path exists from 2004, 2006 and 2006 R2 B2 to the release of BTS.

OFC409 - Workflow in Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2007: Deep Dive for Developers - Session Wrap up

Mick Badran — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:01:42 GMT

Wow what a session!! Being a Level 400 session my expectation (from those who make teched) was to go reasonably deep. I had a fantastic crowd with standing room only in the theatre room - my last session of the day (being my 3rd) I was knackered and ready to go out with a bang.

So I decided to jump into the Workflow Foundation and discuss *what is actually done behind the scenes* with Sharepoint's WF management. This was well received (and I'm sure a few people in the audience were saying 'So I just want to know how to approve something'....we got onto that later) and opened up a few concepts explaining why we do the things we do within our Sharepoint Workflows. e.g. Task Correlation Tokens and new Task IDs, why we need to generate new ones if we handle a task changed event.

I then got onto some of the Sharepoint Workflow Implementations and wanted to highlight the use of a State based workflow as opposed to the usual SequentialWorkflow.

*** DEMO CODE WILL BE POSTED SOON FOLKS *** (don't have my vpc with my to extract out my projects for you right now)
Slide Deck:OFC409_Mick_Badran_Workflow_Deep_Dive.v1.2.pdf (977.98 KB)

CON309 - Advanced BizTalk R2 Concepts - my TechEd 2007 Session Wrap Up

Mick Badran — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:26:34 GMT

Having 3 sessions in 1 day at the conference, this was session number 2.

We had a great session here and all my demos came off again!!! Except for the screen size and the projector this particular 'room' used.
I was presenting at 800x600 - talk about feeling techno chlostrophobic. I feel like I was in quick sand, trying to gasp for air...but we use what we have.

I was hoping to do an RFID demo but 'last minute technical difficulties' forced that one on the back burner - I had more than enough demos for this session.

Thanks to all the folks that attended this - I had fun as I hope you did. This session made the top ten sessions at TechEd! Whooo hooo

The demos went something like:

Publishing and Consuming WCF Services from R2 - published a couple of Orchestrations and consumed the published WCF WS Service from a basic client app.
I then moved the published IIS WCF WS Service into the BTS Instance host by using a custom WCF Adapter and configuring it accordingly.
Next I exposed the same service as a Socket Address - all called from the same client with no code recompile. Which is what we want to highlight using WCF Services.

I then fired up a WCF WF Webservice and consumed it from BizTalk - all pretty simple, but good to highlight.
For the second major demo I created a WF workflow and using the BizTalk Extensions for Workflow, hosted this within BizTalk.

Slide Deck: CON309 - Mick_Badran_Advanced BizTalk R2 Concepts.pdf (595.48 KB)
Demos: BizTalk TechEd2007 demos.zip

GeekSpeak goes Down Under........BizTalk meet Workflow, Workflow meet BizTalk

Mick Badran — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:19:50 GMT

Hey folks, I've been flat chat lately burning the candle at both ends getting ready for my sessions at TechEd/Deep Dives.

In a *spare* moment - I am asked to do a Channel9 GeekSpeak session - talking about Workflow and BizTalk Integration.
(I've had my xbox360 confiscated for 1 month to help me get through this month - that's a story for another time :)

This session is on tomorrow morning - so for those of you feeding babies, can't sleep etc. I'd love to have you along for moral support as this will be my very first session in Geek Speak.

So if you're up for a 5am - 6am start Thursday morning I'll see you there. Put something Aussie in your nick name!

Update: The Results have come in.......well this was done at 4am my time in the morning and all I can say is thanks to the folks that attended for being understanding :)

Customer satisfaction scores are based on a scale from 0 to 9 points.
The average score for a webcast is 7.8.

Usefulness of Information: 8.0
Speaker Presentation Skills: 7.8
Effectiveness of Demonstration: 8.0
Overall Presentation Rating: 7.8

Link to see the webcast over and over again
Looks like I got around the average at 4am in the morning.....I'm amazed I even made sense!!!:)

TechEd2007 MOSS Workflow Session

Mick Badran — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:47:04 GMT

Hi folks, I'm busily preparing for TechEd2007 and one of my session is developer focused about Workflow in Microsoft Sharepoint.

This will be where all my slides and sample code will be shortly :)

See you soon.....

Mick's Breeze Blogs - Biztalk/Sharepoint/... - Events

General: Handy little Command line tip for Restarting Services from a Batch File

Azure: Windows Azure Community Conference–Chit Chat.

BizTalk 2010: Bootcamp - Sydney - Coming up.

Partner of the Year 2012 Winner

Breeze: Thank you!–WPC 2012–We won Application Integration Partner of the Year

Azure: Azure 1.7 SDK tid bits

Azure: Connecting Cloud and On-Premises Applications Using Windows Azure Virtual Network - Breeze

Azure: Presentation - Managing Windows Azure Applications

LIVE Meeting: Managing Windows Azure Applications

Event ID: 1032500972

Azure: 2 live Meeting Presentations this week! Ten Must-Have tools for Windows Azure

LIVE Meeting: Ten Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure

Event ID: 1032500970

VTSP Summit: Feature decision making with Hybrid IT Solutions

General: Can Too Swimming to Cure Cancer–Me!

SQL Server 2012: Licensing based on a PER CORE basis!!

Azure: How the “Cloud" can help you integrate–we’re doing another session–come along.

Breeze Azure Sessions: Recordings Now Available

Breeze Azure Sessions: Overview of upcoming sessions

SharePoint 2010: Sydney Bootcamp a couple of seats left….

BizTalk 2010: Integration Roadshow hits Sydney

SharePoint 2010: Australian SharePoint Conference 2011

SharePoint 2010: Getting Started – Navigation and Sharing

SharePoint 2010: Breeze SharePoint 2010 Bootcamp in Brisbane next week.

BizTalk 2010 Saturday coming to a city near you…

TechEd 2010: Mastering Microsoft Integration Solutions

World Cup is on – England's only chance of winning

TechEd 2009 – Exam Cram Night - 70-630 MCTS- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

TechEd 2009 – SOA314 – BizTalk Goes Mobile

Mar 11th – Examining .NET 4.0 Integration Technologies Recording Available

SharePoint Efficiencies Seminar - Powerpoints

Complete PDC08 List of Sessions and Powerpoint Decks

Keep an Eye on PDC 08 here

TOT 334 - Building RFID Solutions with BizTalk

BTSUG Aug27th - A4SWIFT and BizTalk

TechEd 08 - see you there - RFID and Workflows....

.NET 3.5 Framework WebCasts for the Month of July

Live Webcasts

Silverlight 2.0 (beta 1) Download and Install Links

BizTalk RFID Solution Days Wrap Up (and a some play time)

Day 2 - Office Dev Con in San Jose

Office Developer Conference 2008 - San Jose

BizTalk RFID Solution Days - here I come!

Australia's First MCT Summit is coming to town...

BizTalk RFID is making huge waves.....

Oct31st - SydBTSUG Meeting: Designing and Developing a Reusable BizTalk Framework

Main Event on the night: - Designing and Building a reusable BizTalk Framework(in R2)

Meeting details:

We’re up for a great night – come along and learn how to make your BizTalk solutions go a long way. (p.s. Warning: If you’re a *consultant* this session may reduce you to tears J)

BizTalk 2006 R2 Launch in Sydney - recap

BTSUG - 5th Sept - Cancelled due to APEC

So I guess......there's no user group there this week...... BUT......we've moved it At the R2 Launch(14th Sept) we'll having a *special session* at the end of the day in Darling Harbour - with members of the product team. See you there for a great Q&A Session with the Product team.

BTSUG - 5th Sept - Cancelled due to APEC

So I guess......there's no user group there this week...... BUT......we've moved it At the R2 Launch we'll having a *special session* at the end of the day in Darling Harbour - with members of the product team.

TechTalk Bloggers here I come..... :-)

BizTalk 2006 R2 Launch - Sept 14th.

OFC409 - Workflow in Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2007: Deep Dive for Developers - Session Wrap up

CON309 - Advanced BizTalk R2 Concepts - my TechEd 2007 Session Wrap Up

GeekSpeak goes Down Under........BizTalk meet Workflow, Workflow meet BizTalk

TechEd2007 MOSS Workflow Session

Main Event on the night:
- Designing and Building a reusable BizTalk Framework(in R2)

We’re up for a great night – come along and learn how to make your BizTalk solutions go a long way.
(p.s. Warning: If you’re a consultant this session may reduce you to tears J)

So I guess......there's no user group there this week......

BUT......we've moved it

At the R2 Launch(14th Sept) we'll having a special session at the end of the day in Darling Harbour - with members of the product team.

See you there for a great Q&A Session with the Product team.

So I guess......there's no user group there this week......

BUT......we've moved it

At the R2 Launch we'll having a special session at the end of the day in Darling Harbour - with members of the product team.