Connected Systems Developer Competition - Win $50,000 USD!

Find an excuse to use SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, or BizTalk: enter your project to win! If you're among the 15 finalists, you'll be invited to the joint launch event.


Connected Systems Competition Overview (http://www.csdevcompetition.com/)

Do you dare?

Demonstrate your skills with SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk by entering the Connected Systems Developer Competition. There are 15 categories that will be used to judge the competition; show us how good you are by entering an application into one or more of the competition categories.

Best Extension of a SQL Server 2005 database using the SQLCLR
Best integrated application using XML in SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005
Best Application using the Business Intelligence features of SQL Server 2005
Best extension of a video gaming experience using Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005
Best I-Worker solution using Microsoft Office System and Visual Studio Tools Office
Best integrated/SOA application utilizing SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk
Best SmartPhone application using Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server Mobile Edition
Best Tool to provide additional functionality to SQL Server 2005
Best Occasionally Connected Smart Client Application using SQL Server 2005 Data
Best use of Managed DirectX, Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server Express
Best Visual Studio 2005 PowerToy utilizing SQL Server Express
Best extension of Visual Web Developer and the Personal Web Site Starter Kit
Best sample demonstrating key functionality not already included in the BizTalk Server SDK
Best BizTalk adapter not already supplied by Microsoft or other adapter vendors
Best implementation of a generic pattern on the BizTalk Server platform

One application will be selected from each category to join the SQL Server, Visual Studio and BizTalk product teams at the Joint Product Launch, where the winners will be announced at a special dinner the evening before the launch.

If you think you’ve got what it takes to compete with the best Microsoft developers in the world and show them and Microsoft just how good you are then register now, and let the world see just how good you are!

Building Rights Management Enabled Application

A good architectural servive exposed by Microsoft to allow the developers to make their application -- rights management able.

Though WRMS is a product which automatically do this, embed an icon into the office document to make it right managed able, but now developers can also consume the RMS API for consuming this service.

For more details, click here

Regards,
Wajahat Abbas

Faster .NET 2.0

FitzBlog : Keep Writing SharePoint Web Parts Until (at least) 2006

FitzBlog : Keep Writing SharePoint Web Parts Until (at least) 2006: "Keep Writing SharePoint Web Parts Until (at least) 2006"

Bill Gates' Web Site - Speech Transcript, Microsoft CEO Summit 2005

Bill Gates recently addressed CEO summit at Redmond Washington.
In his speech which he titled as "The New World Of Work", he highlighted how information is viewed in todays world. Following in excerpt from his speech. Do follow the link and read what Microsofts Cheif Software Architect has to say

Bill Gates' Web Site - Speech Transcript, Microsoft CEO Summit 2005: "I'm bold enough to title this morning's talk 'The New World of Work,' because I really think we are at a big change point in terms of how we think of information. We're really moving from having provided tools that were really great at the individual level, if you wanted to author a document or a spreadsheet or a presentation, and we have in Microsoft Office some wonderful tools. Over the last five years, we've been making the move to look at what is that information management like as you have groups of people, and how does that information come together with all the information in your backend applications, say, SAP software, and all the other data that comes into your organization. Do we give you the rich kind of views that you need there? And how do we make sure that that unstructured world of the office work with e-mail, and faxes, and phone calls, that connects up to that very structured world. And the things we're putting together now, we see it as quite dramatic in making sure that Office gives you the right visualization and the right richness connecting up to all of those things."

All this discussion is pretty much in line with building connected systems and consalidating information views for enterprises. Thats where EAI comes into play, thats where Biz talk and Sharepoint has so much to offer and thats where we need to concentrate if we want to make any difference in todays IT world!
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Hammad Rajjoub
Microsoft MVP
XML Web Services.

MSMQ version 3.5 Beta for "Indigo"

Download details: MSMQ version 3.5 Beta for "Indigo": "Overview
MSMQ version 3.5 Beta is an update to MSMQ required for 'Indigo' queued channels to work. MSMQ version 3.5 Beta provides functionalities such as per-application dead letter queue and remote transactional read that are used by the 'Indigo' queued channel on Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP."