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Google Labs has some more new experiments [ via Kiruba.com - Weblog of Kiruba Shankar]

The Google Labs has two new experiments, Google Viewer and Google WebQuotes. While I don't quite understand the relevance and usefulness of the WebQuotes, Google Viewer can be useful if you have lots of time to watch slideshow and don't want to use keyboard. Google Viewer does not use the stylesheets of the original site, so the results may not be exactly what you will see when you go to that site by clicking the link. Not quite for me, nice toys for some.

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Lots of Good Stuff at MSDN

Web Services Enhancements 1.0 for Microsoft .NET (WSE) is released. This provides advanced Web services functionality for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and Microsoft .NET Framework developers to support the latest Web services capabilities. Previously known as Web Services Development Kit Technology Preview (WSDK), this version allows Enterprise ready applications to be developed quickly with the support of security features such as digital signature and encryption, message routing capabilities, and the ability to include message attachments that are not serialized into XML. Functionality is based on the WS-Security, WS-Routing, WS-Attachments and DIME specifications.

Also a new article on What's New for "Office 11" Developers?, Some salient features: XML as Native File Format, Support for XML Schemas, and the biggest one, Visual Studios Tools. Visual Studio.Net 2003 will allow developers to write code for Office 11. See this animation preview to understand what I am writing.

Last, a guide on debugging .Net Applications in guess what, Production Environment. One good thing about these Patterns and Practices documents is that they are also available in PDF form to be downloaded.

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Jakob Nielsen: In the Future, We'll All Be Harry Potter

In his latest Alertbox article, Jakob writes:

Much of the Harry Potter books' charm comes from the quirky magic objects that surround Harry and his friends. Rather than being solid and static, these objects embody initiative and activity. This is precisely the shift we'll experience as computational power moves beyond the desktop into everyday objects.

Then he is quick to point out the wicked wizards....:)

Every page that doesn't conform to expected behavior and design conventions undermines users' ability to build a conceptual model of the Web, and thus reduces their ability to use other sites with ease, confidence, and pleasure. Designers who inflict poor usability on the world and its Muggles are wicked wizards indeed.

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COM Interop

Sam Gentile has a very good COM Interop presentation at his website. One thing I noticed, Sam mentions three ways to create the RCW, but I could not find any example of using the System.Runtime.InteropServices.TypeLibConverter class to do the same. I understand that the VS.NET and TlbImp.exe use this class internally but are there any examples. So, Sam this could be one area where we will like to see an article coming from you...:)

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Evolving Languages

Really good stuff on the few choices for Language evolutions. The languages being discussed are VB.Net, MC++ and C#. Read the threads here, here and here.

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IBM to buy Rational Software

Reuter reports:

International Business Machines Corp. on Friday said it would buy Rational Software Corp. for about $2.1 billion, expanding IBM's role in the market for tools companies use to make customized software.

Interesting.

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News.com Vision Series

In this five-day report, 20 top entrepreneurs and researchers share their views on the future of some of the most rapidly evolving industries: security, Web services, open source, personal technology and wireless communications.

Interesting read if you have time.

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Java Blogs

java.blogs - A blog community for blogs which discuss Java regularly. Anybody knows if we have anything similar for .Net blogs.

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Little Nybbles of Development Wisdom [via vsbabu.org]

While building and running jGuru for the last three years, Terence Parr documented some thoughts about his experiences running the jGuru site.

In this document, I have tried to remember and distill my hard-fought 3-year experience as I evolved into a programmer capable of building a commercial product, http://www.jguru.com. Naturally this is a not complete list of programming advice, but rather what I learned on this project.

A very relevant document for anyone in the IT/Software business either coding or managing.

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Water: Simplified Web Services Programming Language

SD Magazines's DevTalk newsletter's november issue talks of a new Web Services programming language, Water.

Water™ is a new Web services and general-purpose programming language that allows you to program in ConciseXML syntax. It is an open, object-oriented language designed to simplify the creation of new Web services. Water is extremely flexible and adheres to a "Learn Once, Use Everywhere" philosophy where data, logic, and presentation have a uniform representation. Water leverages your existing investment in processes, tools and platforms, and lets you incrementally adopt a Web service architecture. A thin-client development environment is freely available and services are easily deployed on a standard industry platform.

You can try out the Steam IDE and the runtime engine from Clear Methods for non-commercial use. Water's available for most platforms including Windows, Linux and Mac. I tried it out and am really impressed by the simplicity it offers.

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RSS as Web Service

After reading an article by Timothy Appnel, I am left wondering if RSS can be considered a kind of web service (or is it a web service and I quite didn't knew it). It does follow RESTian approach. If any of you know the answer to this or have some ideas, do let me know?

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MSDE 2000

MSDN has a new article on how to get MSDE, install it, and use it as your application's database engine: integrate it with Access or SQL Server, manage it with OSQL, implement security and authentication, and do backups and replication. MSDE 2000 does not provide a human interface like SQL Server does with Enterprise Manager/Query analyzer. Users interact with MSDE 2000 through the application in which it is embedded. This article points to resources on how to interact with MSDE server and how to manage it with OSQL.


There is also a GUI tool at The Code Project website which you can download. The source code is also available. I have tried this tool and it's a pretty decent one and allows you to edit your tables, run queries, execute stored procs etc.

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GoogleShare

Steve Johnson has come up with a cool idea, Googleshare.

Search Google for a specific word, and get back the total number of results. Then you search that set for someone's name. Divide the second number by the first, and you get a percentage that shows you how much the person "owns" the word. Call it semantic mindshare. Or lexical penetration. Or whatever.

And guess what, Rael has a Googleshare implementation using Google API to do just that. All you need is your Google API key.

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W3C defines Web Services

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published its first working draft of the Web Services Architecture document and the fourth of Web Services Architecture Requirements. W3C also published the first working draft of the Web Services Glossary. It would be very interesting to see how far the consortium goes with the glossary.

Web Services Architecture Requirements - W3C Working Draft
http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-wsa-reqs-20021114
Web Services Architecture - W3C Working Draft
http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-ws-arch-20021114/
Web Services Glossary - W3C Working Draft
http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-ws-gloss-20021114/

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Unleashing the Ideavirus

Finally, I've been able to put up a small review of Seth Godin's book, Unleashing the Ideavirus in the book reviews section. Actually I finished reading this book sometime back and was trying to find time to write this small review, which I got today. This is the first marketing book that I've ever read and Guess what, I liked it. The book is also available online.

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W3C recommends XForms

W3C has published the XForms specification as a candidate recommendation. From the W3C Recommendation:

XForms is an XML application that represents the next generation of forms for the Web. By splitting traditional XHTML forms into three parts—XForms model, instance data, and user interface—it separates presentation from content, allows reuse, gives strong typing—reducing the number of round-trips to the server, as well as offering device independence and a reduced need for scripting.
XForms is not a free-standing document type, but is intended to be integrated into other markup languages, such as XHTML or SVG.

Related Articles:
W3C Advances XForms 1.0
Captured in XML