a Professor some day ...

I have always had an inherent gravitation towards speaking my mind, especially towards a higher cause ,simply said - giving advice to people when

• 1) the situation demands even a single hint of something i pride in having - "clarity of thought"
• 2) when i am approached to assist with some issue particularly involving introspection,innovation
  

And so ,i guess it did not come as a harsh shock that I wouldnt ming seeing myself someday as a teacher ,an inspirer ,a professor at a leading business /technology school . Yes, it would take considerable amounts of resources ,time and blah blah ;but i think doing an MBA ,rather a post graduation in a management course sounds a logical step in reaching my dream of becoming a Professor someday.

Here are links that I can look back at ,couple of years from now .(Hi there ,me ! )

1.Kick off with B-School E-zines
I started off with four online resource heavens from the dens of the ivy -league
source

Site	What it's good for	Don't waste your time if	What our CEOs had to say	What you should know
Knowledge@ Wharton, http://knowledge .wharton .upenn.edu	Timely, topical, and insightful business writing. Plenty of useful information taken from academic research.	You want hard-core theory. This site is not for academic purists.	Atre liked the articles on finance and investment, and Weathersby praised the coverage of copyright protection and international trade.	If you like the format, it's worth knowing that Knowledge@ Emory ( http://knowledge .emory.edu) is a clone of this E-zine.
Working Knowledge, www.hbsworking knowledge .hbs.edu	Interviews with top professors and industry leaders on entrepreneurial issues; news of Harvard B-school events.	You want pure academic research.	Brigham praised the site; Atre called it her favorite. But Weathersby suspected it would interest only Harvard M.B.A.'s.	A redesign is planned to boost the site's interactivity.
Stanford Business, www.gsb.stanford .edu/community /bmag/sbsm.htm	Learning about the Stanford B-school.	You need quick access to useful information; there's no index.	Atre found "gems" but not enough real-world coverage. Brigham liked the case studies.	An overhaul of the site is planned; the goal is to create an easy-to-use portal.
Capital Ideas, http://gsbwww. uchicago.edu/ news/capideas	Summaries of research in economics and finance, conducted by some of the country's top business professors.	You're looking for E-commerce, benefits-plan, and technology insights that you can put into practice today.	Though our CEOs found two useful articles (out of a total of four), all said that the site had little relevance for entrepreneurs.	If you're interested in venture capital, read the article "Six Degrees of Separation."

2.Fame academies
A few star professors in the US now command salaries and perks to die for, as rival universities bid for their services. .....more here

3.A reluctant superstar
Henry Mintzberg may be the most celebrated business academic in Canada, but don't treat him like a rock star ......more here

4.Browsing through the Faculty pages of top B-schools
It might sound a little too early to call them role-models.Especially for a person who is still in his year of Undergraduate Study ;but hey ,it does make sense to check out what 's in the offering ,and how i can emulate them in any way possible that suits my way of eventual decission-making.I went through the IIM's and the IIT-m b school faculty pages. I noticed had done their studies at some point of time at either of the IIT's and surprisingly low number of faculty graduating from US B schools. I did not see any emphasis on Entreneurship either,which is what i want to teach eventually.

Well i guess,they can wait for me 8 )

Keep Clicking,
Bhasker V K ,
Aspiring Entrepeneur ,& Professor

10 links to better Coding

1.The Joel Test

Quote:

1. Do you use source control? 2. Can you make a build in one step? 3. Do you make daily builds? 4. Do you have a bug database? 5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code? 6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule? 7. Do you have a spec? 8. Do programmers have quiet working conditions? 9. Do you use the best tools money can buy? 10. Do you have testers? 11. Do new candidates write code during their interview? 12. Do you do hallway usability testing?

2.12 Commandments for Startup Projects ,form a blog on theSpoke

Quote:

1. TAKE IT SERIOUSLY 2. SOFT WARS - ATTACK OF THE CLONES 3. BRAINSTORM FOR IDEAS 4. COMMUNICATE YOUR IDEAS AND THOUGHTS 5. SCAVENGER HUNT 6. CHART-OUT A PROJECT PLAN 7. ASSIGN ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 8. DO PARALLEL PROCESSING OF CODING AND READING 9. BE WELL INFORMED AND UPDATED 10. START EARLY AND FINISH EARLY 11. LEAVE ENOUGH TIME FOR DOCUMENTATION 12. PRESENT YOUR PRODUCT WITH PASSION

3.Nine Steps to Delivering Defect-Free Software

Quote:

1. Believe Defect-Free Software is Possible 2. Think Defect-Free Software is Important 3. Commit to Delivering Defect-Free Software 4. Design Your Code for Simplicity and Reliability 5. Trace Every Line of Code When Written 6. Review Code by Programmer Peers 7. Build Automated QA into Your Code 8. Build and Test Daily 9. Use Automated Checking Wherever Possible

4.Steps to Program Development

Quote:

* System Analysis * Specification and Design * Program * Debug * Alpha Test * Beta Test * Deliver the Software

5.Five Easy Steps for Making Your Code Run Faster

Quote:

Step 1: Analyze the code Step 2: Design for threads Step 3: Code the threads Step 4: Debug for correctness Step 5: Tune for performance

6.Project Management,From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
7.12 Steps To Better Security
8.Software Development: Steps To Better Ensure Success
9.The Programmers' Stone
10.Painless Functional Specifications

Misc Links
- The Net's Best Programming 'Hang-Outs'
- Directory of Programming Languages from Dmoz
- What is Extreme Programming
- Single list of HOWTOs ,in Linux
- Finding the Best Programmer's Font,Good Programming Font Criteria

Keep Clicking,
Bhasker V Kode

Visual Studio Evolution : too much ,too fast ?!

Interestingly , Microsoft has spent the past few years encouraging Visual Basic 6 programmers to migrate to the new Visual Basic .Net platform, which has had its share of complications. Microsoft’s plan to stop support has been discussed for almost three years and the deadline already has been extended once, said the press representative, who requested anonymity. Visual Basic 6 has been supported longer than any other Microsoft product, according to the representative. “Extended” support, which is fee-based, will continue through 2008.

So I wonder if the next version,would add some refuge for the classical VB 6 developers.Especially with the Visual Studio Future and Live being talked bout.


source


Visual Studio Future ?!

Microsoft may have just shipped Visual Studio 2005, but the company is already starting to discuss its future plans for the development suite. Service Pack 1 is in the works for next summer, says Visual C# product manager Scott Wiltamuth, and Orcas -- the next VS release -- is being hashed out. The first service pack for the older Visual Studio 2003 will also ship in the first half of next year, with Wiltamuth estimating an April release. Soma Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Developer Division, echoed those timeframes, saying the company would provide hotfixes in the interim. "My current thinking is that we will target the first service pack for Visual Studio 2005 around summer next year," Somasegar wrote on his Web log.

"We have learned a lot from the previous 3 versions of Visual Studio that were built around the .NET Framework, the biggest lesson that we learned on this most recent version was that we were not agile enough and we took too long to ship." Malno added, however, that "MQ is not about servicing Whidbey.
After MQ, Orcas will begin to swim. "Orcas is all about enabling platform adoption for Windows Vista, for Office 12 and for WinFX," says Somasegar. "You can use Whidbey today to build Vista applications, for example. But Orcas will make it a whole lot easier for people to build Vista applications through easy to use designers and the like."

In a growing trend at the once-secretive company, Microsoft will boost transparency during the development of Orcas. The company will share specific feature plans and request feedback from customers before details are set into stone.

Somasegar also says his division will begin work on a number of incubation experiments -- a concept that has become a veritable requirement within MSN and Microsoft search rival Google. "In light of the 'Live' announcements last week, we are starting to think about what it means for us in the Developer world," he explained. "There are two things that we need to think about -- the kind of tools support that we need to provide for our 'Live' services platform and what does 'Visual Studio Live' look like."

Resources
1. Microsoft Talks Up Visual Studio Future
2.A PETITION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNMANAGED VISUAL BASIC AND VISUAL BASIC FOR APPLICATIONS
3.Campaign to save Visual Basic 6 gathers support
4.Microsoft MVPs revolt

No matter what the result, it will turn out a a telling tale of the VS avtars ... Visual Basic ,Visual Studio Express and Visual Basic Future. Thats not keeping in mind the compact and devices versions !

Keep Clicking,
Bhasker V K ,Microsoft Student Champ - SVCE

READY Launch Tour -Microsoft Product launch across Indian cities

Ever wanted to get a feel of being at a new product launch amid all the glitz and hype,with all the executives and buzz ,product launches and free goody give aways ?!

Well ,heres your chance for developers ,MS watchers and enthusiasts to experience the launch with the Microsofts Ready Launch 2005 .It hits Bangalore,Mumbai,Pune,Chennai , New Delhi,Hyderabaad,Kolkatta in that order starting from December 9th to 21st ,so register soon.Heres more details below of what to expect.

Quote:

General Event Information Products: BizTalk Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio. Recommended Audience: Architect, Developer and IT Professional. Be there to witness the launch of SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006!

CLick here to go to the MS Events page and register for free in a city near you.

Related links on TE
1. Get Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions for FREE!!
2. Microsoft Talks Up Visual Studio Future

TechEnclave is recuiting !

Below is a copy of the announcement made on TechEnclave ,India's fastest growing online Technology Forums .And as a Staff Member and Super-Moderator ,it gives me great pleasure to announce the growing demands that our little community is going through.

Dear Members,
As you must have noted the recent promotions of Moderators to Global Moderators, we have a few vacancies created. One of the major vacancies is that of News Posters. Thus, we are now looking for a good news poster with excellent sources of news and good writing skills (not mandatory, is preferred).

Over the next few weeks we will be on a constant lookout for talent in members who submit good quality news. We shall select a handful of the best ones, out of which 2 members will get to join the TE Staff as News Posters.

Please note:

* The Decision of TechEnclave Staff in this regard is final and cannot be contested.
* By participating here, you are bound by the terms and conditions of the site. Specifically you will respect our site rules and the privacy policy.
* While we will not pay you for this job, But by becoming a TE staff member, a lot of benefits will open up for you. Become one to find them out.
* You are required to be a TechEnclave member to participate in this recruitment drive.
* If you have past history of working elsewhere, or are currently working in other forums/sites, kindly PM a Global Moderator or Admins about the same.
* All members wishing to participate in the recruitment drive are expected to reply here.
* Submissions from members not replying in this thread will not be considered.
* All submissions must be made in the Latest News Section section and spamming will not be tolerated. While the news may be approved, it is not necessary that it will make it to the portal.
* Please read the guide by Safin to get knowldge of how to post news. The link to the same is HERE
* TechEnclave holds the right to edit the rules of this recruitment with or without any prior notification at any stage. This cannot be contested. However, participants will get a notification of the changes if any via PM or via this thread and are thus required to check this thread constantly.
* All members replying below agree to abide by the rules mentioned above failing to do so can have action initiated against them.

So get ready and get clicking.

Keep Clicking,
Bosky,
Staff Member & Super-Moderator - TechEnclave.com

Writing a good Statement of Purpose

Firstly ,let me clarify that I am not attemptin GRE or writing my own Statement of Purpose ,commonly associated with the admission procedure to get into universities in the US.

But I thought I'd discuss some key points ANYONE can use in writing their "Statement of Purpose" if they have the facts and are looking for points for cohesion :

-do u have any1 person/subject teacher in particular u want this reco to be from ?
-ur fav areas of interst in engg.
-any spl awards /papers / contests
-any sympo work,give info here bout leadership abilities
-ur max marks ever (in any subj) that might come in handy
-number of students in ur class
-favourite company / dream company
-role model ?
-fav subj in school
-interests
-give 2-3 fav subj's from over the years
-mark in 12th ,avg now ,any ranks,highest mark in which sem,which subjects
-what area of work do u want for MS?
-what u want to do after MS ?

stunning photos on way back from svce one evening

Hey,
Just wanted wanted to share some of the snaps taken on a beauuuutiful cloudy evening on way back from college ,on oct 21 st 2005 . the weathers really awesome ,and i happened to bring my canon 5.1 megapixel baby! . Some of the snaps have turned out really stunning ,considering they were taken off a moving bus . 8 )

Check them out here.


Keep Clicking,
Bhasker

Generating SP scripts with VS.NET 2003 ,SQL Server 2000

1)It seems that the dependencies for stored procedures relies on the sysdepends table which doesn't always have the proper relational keys. If the source code for the stored procedure exceeds the maximum allowed bytes in the syscomments table, SQL Server spreads the source code across multiple records and uses sp_helptext to combine the code back into one long string again. This is dealt with and explained by an MVP with sample script where he has also specified what to custom edit at http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/20030609.asp

2)By the way, SQL-DMO uses the Microsoft® SQL Server ODBC driver to connect to and communicate with instances of SQL Server. If you have installed SQL Server Enterprise Manager then you should have the SQL DMO installed on your system.I found the following article that takes a preview into one such capability of DMO to script out table description from SQL Server. The following code helps you script the table definitions from the database you choose. You have an option to script out Indexes and Triggers associated with the tables.

http://www.codeproject.com/database/sqldmo.asp

3 a)You might also find the following utility interesting .

Interactive SQL Tool (using ADO)
http://www.codeproject.com/database/isqlado.asp

Description
Query Tool (using ADO) is an Universal Data Access tool that allows you to query OLE DB data sources, author SQL scripts and queries, return query results to a grid or free-form text, retrieve provider properties, execute multiple SQL scripts or stored procedures simultaneously, retrieve multiple result sets depending on the data source, etc.

3 b) Stored Procedure Class Wizard (SPCW)
http://www.codeproject.com/database/spcw.asp

SPCW is a development tool that can be used exclusively to generate class files (.cpp and .h) derived from MFC’s CRecordset for stored procedures.

4)You might also find it interesting that ,If you have made an application that uses an SQL database that needs to be located on the client server, rather than go for a InstallShield or another product you can use the Installer class ,and make a class derived from System.Configuration.Install ,then add two Embedded Resources named install.txt & uninstall.txt to the solution. The install.txt will contain the SQL script for your database and uninstall.txt the drop script.

More info on the Install class from MSDN here

PS: SQL2000 permits an XML file to be passed as the argument of a stored procedure. and u can check out an example of that install class mentioned above ,at http://www.codeguru.com/Csharp/Csharp/cs_misc/sampleprograms/article.php/c9601/

Using XML as a source for Application Configuration ettings.

A question at CNUG
spurred me to find the possible solutions .You have all the right reasons to choose XML for application configuration settings.Storing this information in an XML file will not only increase speed,but also with the data in XML, implementing the code in new applications is a breeze.For this you can apply the following options:

1)Configuration Setting using ConfigurationSettgins.AppSettings object

string ConnectionString = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["ConnectionString"];

2)You can also implement a wwAppConfiguration subclass with custom config settings.The wwAppConfiguration class which works in conjunction with the .NET ConfigurationSettings class provides the following improvements:

* A typed interface to configuration settings
* Default values that also get written to the config file
* Read and Write access to keys
* Error handling for invalid entries
* Encryption for specific keys
* Ability to use non .config files for storage

More at this "excellent read" here

3)Also check out how to store the state and province information in an XML file, and to create a StateManager module from which you could easily extract the state information.

4) A sample of using the StateManager and programmatically accessing the State Information is available here

As for the XML files,there are more ways than one to read XML data elements using .NET .

1) Use the XMLTextReader to extract the element names and text strings from an XML file as follows :

Private Sub ReadXMLFromFile()
Dim reader As New System.Xml.XmlTextReader("c:\XMLInput.xml")
Dim contents As String = ""
While reader.Read()
reader.MoveToContent()
If reader.NodeType = Xml.XmlNodeType.Element Then
contents &= reader.Name & ": "
End If
If reader.NodeType = Xml.XmlNodeType.Text Then
contents &= reader.Value & _
Microsoft.VisualBasic.ControlChars.CrLf
End If
End While
End Sub

NOTE : The following conditions may cause an exception:
-file exists and is read-only
-disk is full
-The path is too long
-file does not contain well-formed XML
source:

2)Reading XML with the XmlReader
The XmlReader class enables you to:
* Verify that the characters are legal XML characters, and that element and attribute names are valid XML names.
* Verify that the XML document is well formed.
* Validate the data against a DTD or schema.
* Retrieve data from the XML stream or skip unwanted records using a pull model.

More here (although this is ocated at the winffx repositary,you shudnt have problems using the same concepts)

3) PS : the XmlValidatingReader class is obsolete in the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0. so i suggest not to prefer concentrating on this option .

4) Reading XML Data into a Dataset
ADO.NET provides simple methods for working with XML data that allow you to load XML data into a dataset. The dataset will then be displayed in a DataGrid control. Finally, an XML Schema based on the contents of the XML file can be displayed in a text box.

More here

5)The following link would be useful as well:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vbcon/html/vboriVisualBasicInActionEndtoEndSolutions.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vbcon/html/vboricreatingschemasdatasets.asp

Keep Clicking,
Bhasker V K ,
Microsoft Student Champ,SVCE

Looking back at a few "Hands on Lab" .Net sessions

I'm back from Bharath College of Engg, where myself and reza took a really convincing and inspiring intro session and Hands on labs ,with the material that we prepared for the SRM and MIT held CNUG Training Meet earlier in last month.we dint use it for Abdul Hakeem or VIT ,those were more casual talks .So,coming back to what we did ,we talked bout the CLR and platforms over which the languages are complied into assemblies ,the manifest ,opened up a few dll's and exe's with ildasm and worked with notepad for some 'nascent' notepad coding with the VS 2003 Command prompt.Again lotta theory ,and history through evolutions made in the programming models and methodologies.Moving over to winforms and simple file operations and dialog controls ,comparing with VB 6.0 and java ,some thing on the string and text reader helper classes ,and the code interoperability and emphasis on the CLR handling the output be it a vb.net or C# form. Then went into ado.net and the various theory again ,the namespaces for the managed providers like Sql and oracle as well as oledb and their namespaces. After some troubleshooting finding out the right connection server and login parameters,we got thru examples for both disconnected and connected architecture . Then we moved into a slow and low stress ride with XML and were on the white board a lot for that. Ended up with a simple xml node traversal,search and display within the app,after explaining ze rules for creating xml files. Break ke bad... moved into webservices and ended up with implementing database and xml applications for the pocket pc .One thing that always tends to get me ot go on and on ,are the "magic of web services and xml" . Still under the influence of Jean 'XML' Paoli 's video from channel9 on xml's histroy and future ,i had all the more reason to. Tried the smsindia webservice from uddi,unfortunately wasnt able to send,i think my operator's not included.Either that ,or i'll be hapy to bu spammed by my sms's when i make up tomorrow :P .

Anyway,thought i'd quickly elaborate on few other common checks ive noticed you can do,so that you can avoid any future problems deadling with asp.net or webservices and so on after someone in CNUG, reminded me of the debugging days form lat years Microsoft Student Project program on asp.net .

1.Error as soon as you attempt opening up an asp.net or webservice

Usualy IIS is installed before installing the .net sdk ,but when you do happen to install IIS after installing the VS, then theres some mapping to be done to "set things right again " . So if you do find an error bang on initially after u attempt to create a new asp.net app or webservice ,then do as follows :

navigate to dotnetv1.~dir/aspnet_regiis -i

eg: C:/ windows / microsoft.net / framework / v1.1.4322 / aspnet_regiis.exe -i

(ive just addes white spaces to make it more readable )

2.IIS service not running or disabled

This also throws an error box when u start an iis related app.Simply enable and start the iis service as follows:

Start->Run -> services.msc

,then right click on iisadmin service, and enable and again right click start. If your worried about resource hogging (like me) then make it manual instead you could make a bat file add a line :

net start "iis admin service" , so that before running ur iis relted app, run the bat file ,it does the start service for you .For that matter you can even start and stop a lot of other services to reduce your resource hogging while gaming or listenting to multimedia / resource heavy apps .but beware ,that closing networking related services assumes that you wont be going online. so pick and choose depending on the occasion . ive attached my gamingstart.bat that i used to have long time back. no time to game nowadays ....8 )

3.Internet eplorer is working offline

Simply make sure taht while running ur asp.net apps , that :

Internet Explorer ->File -> working offline ,is not ticked.

if you do a aspnet_regiis without the -i ,and maybe with a |more ,you can see what it actually does and that -i installs the asp.net version and sets things ok.

PS: the reason im telling you this is that this is one of the most common ,yet unnoticed reason contributing factor to get everyone going - "its not woorkinggg" in your Hands on labs sessions and help to know why it did .... 8 )

Keep Clicking,

Bhasker V Kode

Microsoft Student Champ - SVCE , Chennai

Building A Great DevelopmentTeam

Found this interesting yet understated piece in the transcripts of Boyd Multerer's video on Building a Great Development Team
Channel9 Wiki: BuildingAGreatDevelopmentTeam: "BM: I have some ideas about how to go about building an effective development team.

When you look at the releationship between developers on a team and also between your development team and your test team there are certain personalities that really stand out, and the thing to remember is that people on the team are people and they have to communicate with each other and they suffer all the normal problems that people have when they are communicating.

So, when I think of building my team. It starts by reminding my of an old guitar player joke:

- What do you call a guy who hangs out with three musicians?

- The drummer.

So, the guitar players are looking down on the drummer and they are thinking 'this guy is not a real musician, we're musicians'. But if you didn't have the drummer in the band you totally lose the beat and they would be all over the place and it would be a mess. If the band was all drummers, they would have a great beat but it wouldn't be very musical.

You need to have all the elements, all the musicians, in the band in order for it to be cohesive, have a good groove and make some really good music and a development team is the same way. You need to have the guy who is really good at double checking his work, really good at double checking everyone elses work and really good at doing schedules. You need to have the guy who is really good at 'Gee this is a really vague and ambiguous problem, we don't have a clear answer and there are competing interests in it' and he's able to listen to the various sides of the story and he's able to come up with some good directional answers. But maybe that's not the person who's going to spit and polish the schedule and make sure you're going to deliver on time. You need to have the person who goes really deep, the engineer who you give a specific really hard problem to. You know they don't care about all the other stuff tha"
source>

got the ipod nano as well !

Now got both the ipod mini as well as the nano two days after its release in the US





will post more later ,(my bro just back from NY,chicago where it was bought from for 200$).



Check out more on ipod nano on techenclave

End of my "Drag 'n Drop" development phase - Part 1.

I spent a good amount of the weekend "soul searching" and evaluating my perception ,and those around me , of where i was heading with all the seminars , hands on labs ,and other iniatives that came along with being a "Microsoft Student Champ". Now i know most of you are going to be wondering - "so what ?!" .As Sriram put it very well the other day,compare majority of the regions MS student developer space with their Linux counterparts and you cant stop to wonder what the very purpose of these advocates are if :

 (a) Dont have passion for technology
(b) Are in it for something good on their resume, CDs and t-shirts

It is also true that knowing how to create applications ,however new the API or technology was still not peanuts.and whats the big deal in just knowing how to do something without understanding the underlying funda's .Now hold on here .If you think knowing how the data is represented or the various layers of business logic or knowing the syntax for comppiling on the command line is is 'geeky thoery' - then you are so so wrong . Like i was .

Because like i found out later - any one with a encouraging learning curve would in a week or two be able to :

• connect to a DB and give security
  
• make ur app talk to a webservice
• xml feed or data representation for ur mobile devices
  
• windows forms !
  

arrghgh !!!! Please i repeat ,this is not anywhere close to development.The only thing you will efectively do with a stint in these is to probably have a fair edge at the sniper maps in Counterstrike or so .

For all those who thought .net was all there was going on ,and that developers cant live without the wizards .Other notions that spring up are that ppl in MS have no clue of what the hell is happening outside windows, cant live without a pretty looking IDE , and are basically guys who found this the easiest thing to do .

NO ....i repeat NO way. And i wish i could explain in details with each of you who think otherwise.I'd probably try to elaborate on why i say so. Take a look at some of the developer tools ,contrary to pupoular belief that the work that happens in MS ,is done on VS.

•
.NET Framework 1.1
•
.NET Framework
•
.NET Passport 2.5
•
ADO.NET 1.1
•
Application Center 2000
•
ASP.NET 1.0
•
ASP.NET 1.1
•
Collaboration Data Objects 2.0
•
Data Access Components 2.7
•
Data Access Components 2.8
•
DirectX 9.0b
•
MapPoint Web Service 3.0
•
Mobile Internet Toolkit 1.0
•
Software Development Kit for Java 4.0
•
Virtual PC 2004
•
Virtual PC for Mac Version 6.1
•
Virtual PC for Mac Version 7
•
Visual Basic .NET 2002
    
•
Visual Basic .NET 2003
•
Visual Basic 6.0
•
Visual C# .NET 2003
•
Visual C++ .NET 2003
•
Visual C++ 6.0
•
Visual FoxPro 8.0
•
Visual FoxPro 9.0
•
Visual InterDev 6.0
•
Visual SourceSafe 6.0
•
Visual Studio .NET 2002
•
Visual Studio .NET 2003
•
Visual Studio 6.0
•
Windows Software Development Kit 3.1
•
Windows XP Driver Development Kit
•
XML Parser 3.0

( NOTE : Also check out the complete list of pre-release products included in the Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 Go-Live License )

For Office and Business solutions and products tht have interesting API 's spaning across :

• Access
• Data Analyzer
• Excel
• FrontPage
• InfoPath
• Information Bridge Framework
• Live Communications Server 2005
• Live Communications Server 2003
• Office
• Office Developer
• OneNote
• Outlook
• PowerPoint
• Project
• Publisher
• Visio
• Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office
• Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2003
• Word

In fact Sriram tells me that ,the good ol 'command line' makes a comeback for him at Hyderabad for his work But the topics that got me really all excited were :

• Virtual Device Drivers for MS-DOS Applications or Special Hardware
  
• Microsoft STI : Still Image Device
  
• Microsoft Windows Internals
  
• Writing Windows Wdm Device Drivers ( PS: you can check out more on Getting Started with Windows Drivers and the Windows Driver Model (WDM))
• Developing Drivers with the Windows Driver Development Kits(DDK's)
  
• Writing Windows VxDs & Device Drivers
• Hardware ,Display Compatibility Test kits & DVD Test Annex
  
• Windows Native API References
• Microsoft Active Accessibility 2.0 Software Development Kit Tools ( check out accesability code samples here , and a gr8 list of resources here )
• The Real-time Communications (RTC) Client
  
• Rotor and so on

Will take me some time to go through each of the above.So while im at it , ive decided to go back in time and anayse how it all evolved. Starting with the windows version history for DOS , tried finding the first API call ever ,but i cudnt find it :( . But i found this worth a look

A model of an API call

What Are the Differences Between a 16-Bit Windows API and a 32-Bit Windows API?
* Case sensitivity.
* Unicode or ANSI options.
* Parameter data types.

...more here

Then found this dated to 1994,that talked bout Creating Useful Native Visual Basic and Microsoft Access Functions.For Getting started with System programming in Windows ,you can check out WHDC for :

System and Device Design - Designing for Windows compatibility and reliability from the beginning prevents much rework later.

Driver Development - Microsoft provides the Windows Driver Development Kit (DDK) and a collection of testing tools to help you build reliable, stable, and secure drivers.

Logo Program Testing - To supplement your company's quality assurance practices, the Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) testing programs and the Windows Hardware Compatibility Tests (HCT) will help ensure that your hardware and drivers qualify for the "Designed for Windows" logo.

Qualification Service - Windows Quality Online Services provides the Web site infrastructure that you use to qualify your products for Microsoft logo programs and to list them in product catalogs and directories.

Product Maintenance - Windows Quality Online Services offer several methods for maintaining and distributing drivers, including the ability for your company to view Windows Error Reporting (WER) data associated with driver failures.

Well heres to the start of some serious and exciting stage of system level programming  ... Cheers to that .
End of Part - 1 .

Collaboration and the win32 for msn

Mark jen 's blog talked bout how the win32api for msn about ,turns out that :

"MSN has been operating in a walled garden. Most of their services do not have accessible developer APIs (there are exceptions I'm sure, Virtual Earth comes to mind). They have put the onus upon themselves to create the Internet experience that they think consumers want. The MSN backend infrastructure is completely closed from what I can tell; there is no Win32 of MSN."

He goes on to ask why MS havnt concentrated on a distributed concept of an OS ,where you simply load /boot up backed by a gigabit connection .

There must be some reason. in the first place,ive alwasy wondered how MS has managed to collaborate not make anything redundant with all the projects they have ,be it a common feature from any two office products or some dicision of whether to choose the feature from say a mappoint or a virtual earth . All very subtle and important decision that gravitate towards consolidating their existing services . gr8 effort ,u got to say.Im sure billyG aka Bill Gates has something in mind. The windows media centre ,microsoft automative and windows embedded all go to say that. To have converged and seamless integration .so im guessing that wer not going to see a deviation from the pc to a networked pc ,but from devices part from pcs using this model .

He also talks bout how MS could blow away the competition if
1.) provide the platform for free.
2.) charge consumers for enhanced platform
3.) consumers get it fo free,business's pay

well....this discussion can and will go on for long long time im sure so im not even gonna get started with it :)

Google zeitgeist - the keyword repository.

Enter Google Zeitgeist...the quest for Search patterns, trends, and surprises straight from the horses's mouth - Google !

Interesting to see whatindians have been looking for in June,July
India Popular Queries

June 2005 1. sania 2. air deccan 3. aishwarya 4. tsunami 5. india times 6. mumbai 7. kindfisher 8. harry potter 9. ndtv 10. ssc result July 2005 1. tsunami 2. indian railways 3. sania mirza 4. trisha 5. aishwarya rai 6. anara gupta 7. ignou 8. bollywood 9. ndtv 10. australian open

IP rights & sourcecode protection

After announcing several steps to strengthen the intellectual property (IP) protection it provides to PC manufacturers,partners and independent software which account for for more than $18 billion also called indemnification,i set out looking for one thing alone .

Tools,ways to protect source code from physically stealing ,transfering to other accounts,and so on .this was a thought immediately after A Forrester Research report has warned that what looks like just another theft might curb the booming Indian BPO industry's growth by as much as 30 per cent.

Remotesoft .NET protector
Tool to protect your intellectual properties. It transforms your .NET assemblies (.EXE or .DLL) into a new format that completely stops decompilation and disassembling .

Dotfuscator
Dotfuscator is a .Net Obfuscator and Compactor that helps protect programs against reverse engineering while making them smaller and more efficient.

Then you have your virtualsafe,CVS,et all. fine.

Now im a student ,thinking about doing a project on IP rights and protection for the .net IDE .One Question : what would be a wishlist for such a purpose .Im not a regular at cvs or ip tools. im even thinking of having a voice based security mechanism ,where i could use a speech server to parse and report certain

so what would a wishlist for IP & sourcecode protection look like (apart from "protect violation " or "protect code" pls :P )

eg: check clipboard maybe ?
a service that checks the files moved ?

Protocol 8e - the Techfest hosted by my Department

Hi,
I'd like to invite all of youto the website of
"Protocol8e", the annual symposium hosted by the IT
Dept and the Association of Information Technologists
of Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering
,sriperumbudur.

The website is http://svce.ac.in/~protocol or visit
http://protocol.glwb.info/start.htm

Check it out for information on the events ,viewing
the promotional poster,registering your own blog at
the site,polls,forums,and other info related with the
event.

On behalf of the Protocol Team and students of IT
Dept,SVCE.

Bhasker V K,
Administrator- Protocol8e site

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

My nerd score

Quickstart Guide To Open Source Development With CVS and SourceForge

Resources

1.on windows
2.winCVS client installation instructions

My 7th sem Mini-Project in college

My initial proposal for the mini project at moi college (where i study the final year - Dept of IT,Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering )was blankly refused. Come to think of it ,i was sort of trying to complicate a seemingly subtle process.It goes somethign like this.

Centralising the sources of content from various sources (say teachers in a e-learning environment) where they would simply add the links to a central structure (an xml file ideally ,if not a database) so that despite where the source of the content is ,it can all be aggregated and thendelivered to whatever front end is used.Thats how its used conventionally.So what i did was apart from the XML structure mentioned above, made a desktop application that sits in the system tray,then dynamically gets the content say...subject wise.

eg:he chooses math...the app(TE_Tray) i called it ,first connects to a universal location that has the xml file,finds out that it had to read maths today ... then parses the links,which in turn reads the contents at the given location.

Unfortunately, our college specified that we could not have have plain-vanilla applications ,and moreover had to deal at a more pre historic(read low tier ) level .I tried talking the mentor into adding complexity like a encryption for the content,or a telnet enabled session.But No,wasnt complex enough and she felt I could finish it in a fortnight,while the time dedicated was atleast 10 times that amount. I dont blame her.Which meant we would have to probably think at the likes of some scheduling optimising algorithm, or offlate what i thought to be worth a try ... a search engine for atleast documents.Going through the Stanford paper that went on to become Google, i realised that even though the motivation was quite simple - to search fast ! Which meant optimizing the parsing and movement across gb's and gb's of nodes,trees ,stacks ..or whatever is being used.

Continuing on the lines of a search tool,led me to investigate more on the possibilites of venturing into the often overlooked world of bots - not just search spiders,but as described in my article on Bots on TechEnclave, the categories of Bots and their applications.

More on the lines of bots,led me to the concepts used in artificial intelligence across projects such as ALICE, and other VRL and bot based work which reintroduced me to the fundamental concepts used in developing AI and other engines such as Evolutionary and Recursive Programming, Self Learning systems and Expert systems, Neural networks and genetic algorithsm, pattern matching,and so on.All really interesting areas that still have plenty of research potential.Which now brings me to my latest idea in mind. :)

Another endeavour

While reading up on decission making trees and thier formation from data matrices, it was evident that most often the questions that were asked while deciding the path and depth of the node thereafter would be directly related to the effectness and perfection on the part of choosing and asking the right questions early on ,so that the depth would be reduced to a relatively low degree without having to pass through the last leaf which meant the worst case scenario and lowest search effectiveness.

So now,that meant using recursive programming to make sure that priorities were made withini the questions asked by the means of a metric called - "purity measures" so that the decissions could then take the route of the most effective decission making questions or rahter those with the maximum puruty measure .But the disdvantage of using recursive algorithm in the decission making is that it is quite probablt to miscalculate the priority of the purity measurs,by simply assigning the wrong purity measures which would again turn out the worst case scenario of reaching the last leaf to find the right path.Evolutionary programming offers the solution to this problem ,by learning and manipulating the root nodes by calulating and assigning metrics to the purity measures,then bein able to change the purity based on the end result of using the various paths.

eg: if path1 which started with a root node of maximum purity measure,then if another node over a period of time gets shorter paths to the solution,then its purity measure dynamically and correspondingly increases till it reaches a point when it is higher than one above ,so that it can substitute that node with itself.

So there you have it ... Optimizing decission-trees from data matrices using evolutionary algorithms .

My first sanctioning review for this tentative project is tomorrow, and hopefully this one will see the light of atleast the initial stages of the SDLC !