WinFX .. What is it?

How many people know about WinFX (though not in detail but on a overview)? I was not clear till i read Ian Moulster's blog.

Moulster, discuss and explins indetail at this thread about WinFX. His tag line (Translating Microsoft Technology into plain English) suits best.

Did you read this?

New Blogs - Statistics

I can’t believe these statistics …

There were about 75,000 new blogs per day, 1.2 Million new blog posts each which means a new blog created on ever second of the day and 50,000 posts an hour… !@#$

Source: Sifry

CASE Usage in SQL

Problem: Write a query using the following table. The requirement is, result all the details " less than 20000" in ascending order and salary "greater than 20000" in descending order

Name	Salary
Karthik	25000
Samuel	32000
John	17000
Murali	28000
Syam	15000

Output should be

Name	Salary
Syam	15000
John	17000
Samuel	32000
Murali	28000
Karthik	25000

Query is:

Select * From Order by (Case When Salary <= 20000 Then -Salary Else null end) DESC,(Case When Salary > 20000 Then -Salary Else null end)

Daily Scrum Rules

Today, while reading about the patches for Teamsystem, came across of Rules to follow while conducting Scrum. This data found from Scrumforteamsuit product website. As the website says, this product is developed by Conchango in collaboration with Ken Schwaber and Microsoft. At this point of time, I need to mention about Ken Schwaber, Ken Schwaber co-developed the Scrum Process with Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990s. Visit Ken’s website to learn more on Scrum.

Here are the guidelines or thumb rules during the scrum participation. Let me see, how this will work out for me.

• Hold the Daily Scrum in the same place at the same time every work day. The best time for the meeting is first thing in the day so that Team members think about what they did the day before and what they plan to do today.
• All Team members are required to attend. If for some reason a Team member can't attend in person, the absent member must either attend by telephone or by having another Team member report on their status.
• Team members must be prompt. The Scrum Master starts the meeting at the appointed time, regardless of who is present. Any members who are late pay a fine that is donated to a worthy charity!
• The Scrum Master begins the meeting by starting with the person immediately to his or her left and proceeding counter clockwise around the room until everyone has spoken.
• Each Team member should respond to the following questions:
• What have you done since the last Daily Scrum regarding this project?
• What will you do between now and the next Daily Scrum meeting regarding this project?
• What impedes you from performing your work as effectively as possible?
• Team members should not digress beyond answering these three questions into issues, designs, discussions of problems, or gossip. The Scrum Master is responsible for moving the meeting along briskly from person to person.
• Team members should address the Team. This is not a "Reporting to the Scrum Master" meeting.
• During the meeting only one person talks at a time. Everyone else listens without any side conversations.
• When a Team member reports something that is of interest to other Team members or needs assistance from other Team members, any Team member can immediately arrange for all interested parties to get together after the Daily Scrum Meeting.
• Chickens (non Team members) are welcome to attend the Daily Scrum Meetings but they are not allowed to talk, make observations, make faces or otherwise make their presence in the meeting obtrusive.
• Chickens stand on the periphery of the Team so as not to interfere with the meeting.
• If too many chickens attend the meeting, the Scrum Master can limit attendance so that the meeting can remain orderly and focused.
• Pigs or chickens who cannot or will not conform to the above rules can be excluded from the meeting (chickens) or removed from the Team (pigs).

Source: http://www.scrumforteamsystem.com/ProcessGuidance/Process/DailyScrumMeeting/DailyScrumMeetingRules.htm

Did you try out this?

Security Related Docs

Today, while searching for information related to Phishing attacks, I came across of a white paper published by “NGS (Next Generation Software)”. The whitepapers link has great information related to Security threats and the prevention mechanisms. Great research information at single location.

Must have a copy in your library. I had one, did you?

Security Shoot Out Contest

Are you ready to secure your code? Well i'm ready and prepared to shoot out the threats to my code.

Microsoft is conducting a contest for all the developers to prove their skills on securing code. I've registered to this contest, did you?

Wish me all the best for the first round..

Building Secure ASP.NET Applications

Today, i come across of an article Microsoft Patterns & Practices about the mentioned title.

This article explains in details about developing webapps using ASP.NET in most secured way.

Along with this, i also have come across of Installing SSL Certificate with IIS on Web Servers. Great Articles.

Did you read them?

IT Capabilities Assessment Tool

Do you want to check your IT Capabilities... Try this tool. The concept of this tool is from Keystone Strategy, but developed by Microsoft under the direction of a professor of Harvard Business School... All the big names came out with a small tool to help you to assess yourself before others do.

Why are you waiting ... try out this and learn about your self.