September 2006 - Posts
Amazon.com: Zune 30 GB Digital Media Player (White): Electronics.
Well, I have my order in. Even though I work for Microsoft, it doesn’t get me to the beginning of the line. Something you learn early here at Microsoft is that the “real” customer comes first.
Been running with Vista for a bit and initially the first thing that bites you is all the additional protection. Don’t get me wrong, this is all good and should squash many of the complaints about security, elevated attacks, and the Shatter Attack problem. But, I’m sure people will find something else to complain about.
Good thing is, with the namespace ACL issue, there’s been a utility floating around called HttpCfg.exe. Comes with the support tools for Windows 2003 & XP SP2. This command simply allows you to add an ACL to the allowed reservation of that namespace withing the Http API/Kernel level listener. Usually it’s only for Local Administrators, but even if you’re logged onto Vista as an administrator, you’re still not running with elevated privileges. Again, this is all good – you get used to it quick.
So, my problem is I have a new Vista build (clean wipe) no access to HttpCfg.exe. Well there’s a command built in to Vista to do this for you. The NetSh (NetShell).
Just open up a command prompt (as Administrator/Elevated) and for your service enter the following:
netsh http add urlacl url=http://+:8001/MyService user=<domain>\<user>
You need to modify the port, Uri as required for your service. And obviously the user information at the end.
To unwind this you enter the following:
netsh http delete urlacl url=http://+:8001/MyService
Check out how this guy created a BOT to help him schedule programs on his Windows Media Center
Sitting at the back end is a Windows Workflow Foundation workflow that do the scheduling. He’s also got Speech Server 2007 in the mix to allow scheduling via telephone.
http://www.brains-n-brawn.com/default.aspx?vDir=mobilerecord
The WF team has really got it together. I’m looking through the Rules Drive UI sample that I mentioned in another post and saw in the Form constructor the addition of a FileTraceListener – and running through the sample, saw some Rule execution information being written to the file.
I noticed no Trace code inside of the sample. Turns out, the WF team instrumented for trace the Workflow Rules that gives you something like the following:
System.Workflow.Activities.Rules Verbose: 0 : 9/22/2006 8:02:54 PMRule Set "UIRulesScenario": Rule "HighPri" Condition dependency: "this/priComboBox/Text/" 9/22/2006 8:02:54 PM
System.Workflow.Activities.Rules Verbose: 0 : 9/22/2006 8:02:54 PMRule Set "UIRulesScenario": Rule "HighPri" THEN side-effect: "this/shipMethodComboBox/Text/" 9/22/2006 8:02:54 PM
System.Workflow.Activities.Rules Verbose: 0 : 9/22/2006 8:02:54 PMRule Set "UIRulesScenario": Rule "HighPri" THEN side-effect: "this/dateTimeRequired/Text/" 9/22/2006 8:02:54 PM
This is enabled by adding the TraceSwitch setting either through code or config as follows:
7 <switches>
8 <add name="System.Workflow.Activities.Rules" value="All" />
9 </switches>
The trace switch supports the TraceLevel enum allowing you to tone down the level of tracing as needed.
Re: Rules Driven UI using WF.
Someone I used to work with @Avanade (Al) called me yesterday asking about some WCF security stuff. We got onto Workflow and he started asking questions about how to leverage the WF Rules engine from outside of the Workflow runtime.
Al, in the past, had leveraged the BizTalk rules engine from outside of BTS Orchestration on a few projects. This is a common question and the market is usually looking for Rules engines that can be leveraged in other applications.
So, I didn’t have the answer for him when we were on the phone, but did some investigation and looking through some of the samples I did find a way to inject (update) my own rules.
Then, this morning I found this great video on Channel9 that does a walkthrough of using the Rules engine from a Winform application along with a pointer of a nice demo application that provides Rules editing (hosting the Rules designer).
Rules Drive UI using WF
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=221326
Demo for Above
http://wf.netfx3.com/files/folders/rules_samples/entry5040.aspx
External Ruleset Demo (using SQL Server for Rule persistence)
http://wf.netfx3.com/files/folders/rules_samples/entry309.aspx
Today's SpeedTest..
Well, it's still reeling it's ugly head. Was able to get beta firmware from DslReports.com as Netgear is slow to release the update nor the firmware through support. Odd. Here's a thread on DslReports.com that lists the issue and a link to the Firmware http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16160212?hilite=3945abg+netgear
The new M5 got here yesterday. Booted it up and went through the XP SysPrep setup from the factory. Just want to make sure everything is OK, burn it in over the next few days before a wipe and installing Vista RC1.
So, darn thing, everytime it's on crashes my Wireless router. The Router doesn't reboot, just becomes totally unresponsive to Http, Wireless, routing, and even Ping. Finally isolated it a setting on the Intel Drivers for QoS (explained here ).
Apparently Netgear, from postings on some message boards, is vetting a Firmware update that will address this issue. Frankly, don’t care about the setting, I’m never in Ad-hoc mode. I wonder if that’s how I’ll communicate with my new Zune?
My new M5 notebook is on it’s way. So, I decided to check out the UPS tracking.
The thing shipped from Shanghai, China on 9/13. UPS says it will be here today!!! If it makes it I’m impressed… My guess it will get hung up in customs…
| Location |
Date |
Local Time |
Activity |
| ANCHORAGE, AK, US |
09/14/2006 |
1:47 P.M. |
REGISTERED WITH CLEARING AGENCY;SHIPMENT SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY |
|
09/14/2006 |
1:47 P.M. |
REGISTERED WITH CLEARING AGENCY;RELEASED BY CLR AGENCY. NOW IN-TRANSIT |
| SHANGHAI, CN |
09/14/2006 |
10:01 P.M. |
DEPARTURE SCAN |
|
09/14/2006 |
1:13 A.M. |
EXPORT SCAN |
| CN |
09/13/2006 |
7:22 A.M. |
BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED |
 |
|
Tracking results provided by UPS: 09/14/2006 2:50 P.M. Eastern Time (USA)
|
A known gap in the Visual Studio Team System / Team Foundation Server coverage of Application Life Cycle Management (“ALM”) is requirements.
This tool facilitates the story-boarding (scenario) aspect of requirements. That in conjunction with the “list” oriented requirements gives good coverage of what’s needed and now provides full capabilities for the full ALM.
I’ve been doing Agile oriented software development for 6 years, even though we didn’t have names like “Agile” and “XP” when we started. Getting good ideas of the scenarios down and visible to both users and implementers is a key benefit and critical success factor. Doing mockups, scenarios, etc. in unmanaged tools makes keeping these things tracked, updated, and consistent that much harder. This is why VSTS exists, get it all down in a full-round-trip tool (at least for the static stuff) that takes most of the administration headaches away from people trying to get things done.
Elaborate and validate software requirements in Team System projects, and generate storyboards, specifications, work items and tests
stpsoft - the software requirements company.