Since I have been getting into a habit lately of posting videos etc.. over the last few weeks, I thought I would post some links to google Videos I found today, they are from the Google Scalability Conference that was held a while back.

So here are the videos I found to date:

• Building a Scalable Resource Management
• VeriSign's Global DNS Infrastucture
• YouTube Scalability
• Lessons In Building Scalable Systemsms
• Scaling Google for Every User
• MapReduce Used on Large Data Sets
• Lustre File System
• SCTPs Reliability and Fault Tolerance
• Scalable Test Selection Using Source Code

and of course, I can't forget the links that Peter has collected over here.

hth,

/P

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 8:44:19 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

Since I have been kicking the tires on some of the new social networks over the last while, I have always wondered how much hassle would be it to delete an account and all associated data 

While I have yet to try this with the 6 or so sites I am on, I found this blog post entitled "2504 steps to closing your Facebook account" quite interesting.

Ouch!! Not that easy on Facebook I guess ;)

Sounds like a Roach Motel to me? On a Open Platform as well!! Oh my! And is it not Facebook that prides themselves on repeatly active user base? Something like 50% or so. Is this not going to negative on their numbers in the long term?  Or am I missing something?

I wonder what the rest are like? Anyone got any tales of woes to tell? I suspect all of the major players are the same to some degree?

/P

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 5:38:27 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [1] | 

A huge congrats to my good friend Marcus and all of the gang on going live with Pix.ie over the weekend.

As well as having one of the coolest names out there and still only in beta, there is some cool features already in place, with more on the way.

Cool Stuff,

/Paul 

Tuesday, July 17, 2007 3:21:40 AM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

[update] - Fixed brokern link. Thanks to Pawel for letting me know.

An excellent vidoe about the implcations of OpenID, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2288395847791059857

/Paul

ps

Cardspace gets a mention and articulates how Cardspace and OpenID can play together.

Monday, July 16, 2007 8:37:09 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [2] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Carrie Longson's session called Designing Ultimate Experiences with Expression Studio

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

This session will provide an overview of Microsoft's new Expression Studio

Carrie Longson's biography

Carrie has spent the last four years working in Microsoft Services UK as a User Experience Consultant, working on a number of large projects such as BBC JAM and the NHS CUI. Over the past year Carrie's main focus has been designing WPF applications using Expression Blend, she has worked on a number of key WPF demos, namely, Robbie Williams site, Financial Times reader, London Underground tracker, IMG Fashion/golf demonstrators and Building schools of the future showcase, to name but a few.

Monday, July 09, 2007 11:25:54 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Steve Marx's session called Visual Studio "Orcas" and AJAX

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

See how Microsoft Visual Studio codename "Orcas" takes Web development to the next level. See a demo-filled tour of all improvements in Visual Studio around ASP.NET and AJAX development. Topics covered include a new standards-based design surface for XHTML and CSS, Intellisense for javascript, tools for ASP.NET AJAX, and more.

Steve Marx's biography

Steve works at Microsoft as a Technical Evangelist for ASP.NET AJAX. #

Visit Steve's blog

Monday, July 09, 2007 11:12:33 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Tim Sneath's session called Building Silverlight Applications using .NET

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

This session demonstrates building a rich interactive application (RIA) using Silverlight and managed code. We'll cover how to use Visual Studio to create applications, how to create UI using XAML markup and code, how to build a custom control, how to retrieve data from a Web service, how to manipulate data with XML and LINQ, and how o use the available programming languages in Silverlight.

Tim Sneath is the group manager for the Silverlight and WPF technical evangelism team, based out of Microsoft’s corporate headquarters. His mission is to see developers create stunning applications built on the Microsoft platform, and to persuade his mother that computers aren’t out to get her. Amongst other strange obsessions, Tim collects vintage releases of Windows, and has a near-complete set of shrink-wrapped copies that date back to the late 80s, as well as a “museum” of Virtual PC images from Windows 1.0 to the present. Tim spent the first thirty years of his life in the UK, and his occasional attempts to speak English with an American accent for ease of comprehension cause much hilarity amongst his colleagues. His popular blog covers client platform technologies, and can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/tims.

Monday, July 09, 2007 10:06:30 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Barry Dorran's session on Hacking Websites for fun and profit

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

How safe are your web sites? Do you know what cross site scripting is? SQL injection attacks? Search engine leaks?

Barry Dorrans's biography

Barry Dorrans of idunno.org has spent 15 years cutting code, starting with mainframes, through DOS, Visual C and MFC before finally ending up on the .NET platform.
His experience has ranged from banking systems to Europe's largest streaming network.
He now mentors developers through .NET migrations with Charteris plc.

Visit Barry's blog
View Barry's Homepage
Visit the Charteris plc. web site

Monday, July 09, 2007 8:10:14 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Alan Crowley's session called Visual Studio for Database Professionals (aka Datadudes)

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

Topics covered :

• Introducing DB Pro as a part of Team System
• Overview of DDLC
• Microsoft Visual Studio for Database Professionals
• Refactoring your DB objects in DB PRO
• Data Generation Plans
• Unit Testing your DB scripts 
• Schema & Data Comparisons
• Build & Deploy to target DB schema

Focus will be on the benefits of using DB PRO in SQL development and will cover the key features available in Visual Studio for Database Professionals !

Level 200.

As technical lead on a number of different projects within DSI, Alan is a driving force behind the implementation of Microsoft patterns and practices within DeCare. Having spent over 10 years as a hands-on development consultant in the industry, he has implemented enterprise applications for large organisations in the public sector, insurance and e-commerce markets. Within DeCare, a part of his work involves spear-heading the integration of database objects with Team Foundation Server for the purposes of source control and release management.

Visit Alan's blog
View Alan's Homepage
Visit the DeCare Systems Ireland web site

Monday, July 09, 2007 7:45:59 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Dave Northey's session calledMicrosoft's Virtualisation Strategy and Products

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

In this session, Dave will explain Microsoft’s strategy around Virtualisation and the products that make up that strategy.  A few slides and a lot of demos. Microsoft’s strategy around Virtualisation is far broader than just having a server virtualisation product.  Dave will explain the strategy and cover the products that currently exist as well as the ones that are coming in future products.  Products include: Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Softgrid, Virtual Machine Manager, Windows Server Virtualisation.

Dave Northey's biography

My role is all about connecting with the IT Professionals in Ireland and helping them get up to speed on Microsoft’s latest and greatest products. I joined Microsoft Ireland eleven years ago and have worked in both Consultancy and Technical Pre-Sales.  I currently work within the Developer and Platform Group, where I focus on the underlying infrastructure (Windows Server & Client, Active Directory, Management & Security products).  My role is all about connecting with the IT Professionals in Ireland and helping them get up to speed on Microsoft’s latest and greatest products.

Visit Dave's blog
View Dave's Homepage
Visit the Microsoft Ireland web site

Monday, July 09, 2007 7:21:43 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Dominick Baier's session called Forget Password! Implementing CardSpace in Web Apps and Services

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

Getting rid of passwords (and related attacks like phishing) would be great. Making the internet more secure for online identity transaction at the same time would be even better. Unfortunately no identity system succeeded so far and could achieve that goal. But the "identity metasystem" has good chances to solve this problem. CardSpace is Microsoft's implementation of this open standard and the corresponding APIs are available to you in .NET 3.0. Learn about CardSpace, the Identity Metasystem and how to implement it (including the gotchas) in your applications and services.

Dominick Baier's biography

Dominick is the security consultant at Thinktecture (www.thinktecture.com) in Germany.
He is helping companies in secure design and architecture, content development and code reviews. In addition he is the security curriculum lead and responsible for all security and WCF related content at DevelopMentor (www.develop.com), a leading training company for developers.
Dominick is the author of "Developing more secure Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications" published by MS Press.
You can find his blog at www.leastprivilege.com.

Visit Dominick's blog
View Dominick's Homepage
Visit the Thinktecture web site

Monday, July 09, 2007 6:17:15 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is my session, WCF Essentials

[for full WMV download, click here]

Click here for session description 

Monday, July 09, 2007 5:35:10 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Hugo Kornelis's session on How to use indexes to Speed up your SQL Server Database

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

During development, testing is usually done with a limited amount of data. After deployment, the amount of data in the table can grow by an enormous amount. And all too often, that is the moment that performance problems rear their ugly head. Adding hardware is usually not the best option, as it's expensive, and offers limited improvement. Improving the indexing strategy can be a much better solution, offering performance improvements of up to thousand percent. In this session, Hugo shows what an index is, what types of indexes SQL Server has, and how they are used by the query engine. This will provide you with the knowledge required to choose the right indexes for your database. Most of the information given applies to all versions of SQL Server, but Hugo will also spend time on the new indexing features of SQL Server 2005.

Hugo Kornelis's biography

Hugo is co-founder and R&D lead of perFact BV, a Dutch company that strives to improve analysis methods and to develop computer-aided tools that will generate completely functional applications from the analysis deliverable. The chosen platform for this development is SQL Server. In his spare time, Hugo likes to visit the SQL Server newsgroups, in order to both share and enhance his knowledge of SQL Server. In recognition of outstanding expertise in the SQL Server field and his commitment to advising the SQL Server users community, Hugo received the coveted Microsoft MVP award in January 2006 and January 2007.

Visit Hugo 's blog

View Hugo 's Homepage
Visit the perFact BV web site

Monday, July 09, 2007 5:27:49 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Dave Northey's session on Windows Server codename "Longhorn"

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:

In this session, Dave will cover some of the scenarios which will make "Longhorn" Server a must-have for IT organisations when it comes out later this year.  A few slides and a lot of demos. Microsoft Windows Server code name "Longhorn" is the next generation of the Windows Server operating system that helps information technology (IT) professionals maximise control over their infrastructure while providing unprecedented availability and management capabilities, leading to a significantly more secure, reliable, and robust server environment than ever before. In this session, Dave will cover some of the scenarios which will make "Longhorn" server a must-have for IT organisations when it comes out later this year. Scenarios covered will include: Server Management, Security & Policy Enforcement, Branch Office, Centralised Application Access, Web & Application Platform, Server Virtualisation and High Availability.

Dave Northey's biography:

My role is all about connecting with the IT Professionals in Ireland and helping them get up to speed on Microsoft’s latest and greatest products. I joined Microsoft Ireland eleven years ago and have worked in both Consultancy and Technical Pre-Sales.  I currently work within the Developer and Platform Group, where I focus on the underlying infrastructure (Windows Server & Client, Active Directory, Management & Security products).  My role is all about connecting with the IT Professionals in Ireland and helping them get up to speed on Microsoft’s latest and greatest products.

Visit Dave's blog
View Dave's Homepage
Visit the Microsoft Ireland web site

Monday, July 09, 2007 5:02:21 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

For those that could not make this years IMTC here is Simon Sabin's session on Service Broker and Asynchronous processing in SQL

[for full WMV download, click here]

Session Description:
We all want to do more with our data, but sometimes we can't do it in TSQL, we also don't want to affect our users experience or affect the scalability of our database systems Whilst SQL Server 2005 bought us the CLR in SQL Server to be able to do very complex processing within the SQL Engine, many are concerned with running CLR code within the SQL Server process space, and there are still restrictions on what can be done with CLR. That also doesn't address the issue of impacting the users experience, doing complex processing synchronously is still not ideal Service Broker provides the developer with the opportunity to solve these problems. With service broker you can

perform processing asynchronously, so as to provide the best user experience

offload processing to an external process, to enable you to use what ever functionality you wish SMO, Web Services, etc

offload processing to additional servers, to allow your system to scale, allowing you external process to have it's own memory

In this session we will introduce you to the Service Broker concepts and show you how to use solve these challenges.

Simon Sabin's biography:
Simon has worked with SQL Server for since 1998 having moved over from Oracle. He currently works for Totaljobs Group the largest internet job site company in the UK, and was awarded as an MVP in April 2006 He spcialises in the development of high performance Microsoft systems utilising the SQL Server. His recent focus has been on the development of high performance search systems using SQL Server, full text and text mining. Co-author SQL Server XML Distilled.

Visit Simon's blog - http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons

Visit the Totaljobs Group web site - http://www.totaljobs.com/

Monday, July 09, 2007 4:03:26 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

Like lots of folks I have been tracking the Facebook buzz that has been taking place since they opened up their platform to 3rd party "Widgets" (known as Application in Facebook) speak.

Now the last few weeks have provided some interesting stats and tools to track the trends in growth and see if it working for facebook and is it working for those that spend the time and effort to develop a "Widget"/Application for the Facebook platform.

So firstly, the timing of the lastest report from Comscore  is just a godsend for those curious about Facebook as a platform, as the report gives traffic numbers leading to the opening up of the inviation/registration, all the way up to just before they opened up the platform to 3rd party developers. You can see lots of commentary at any of these links (link, link, link) but the overall gist on the report is that facebook has seen

• a 89% year-on-year growth on users numbers and the growth greatly accelerated post the opening of the invitation/registration process in Sept. '06
• [As posted on TechCrunch] the following breakdown
• Persons 12-17, 149% increase to 4 Millon Plus
• Persons 18-24, 38% increase to 7.8 Million plus
• Persons 25-34, 181% increase to 3.1 Millon plus
• Persons 35+, 98% incrase to 10.4 Millon plus

All I can say is WOW!!! And this is even before they had all of the buzz about the Opening up of the platform to 3rd party developers and the virtual properties of how they have developed the platform!!! A similar report from ComScore in 3-6 months time would be a very interesting read.

So is their good ways to track how the 3rd party widgets/applications are doing on a day-to-day/week-to-week basis..

Ahh yes there is and in fact there is two ways, either Appaholic.com and appsaholic.com are both excellent resources.

Note: have a look at the main page for Appaholic.com you will notice that they highlight some Applications from well known Web2.0 sites that are not doing well or going viral on Facebook, e.g. the Digg.com Application only have 20,000 users?

Interesting stuff :) Or it is to me at least ;)

/Paul

ps

Folks might find these links useful if considering build a Facebook application so I thought I would pass them on :)

• 10 Things That Would Have Been Nice to Know When Starting My Facebook Application: An Entry in padrenel's Journal and Blog at the Experience Project 
• 5 Ways to Improve the Digg App
• http://mashable.com/2007/06/29/myspace-facebook/

Sunday, July 08, 2007 1:38:43 AM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [0] | 

Thanks to MS Siegler for the Pownce invite.

So now I have 6 invites to pass on.

If folks are interested, its first come, first serve, just leave a message in the comments below and I will invite you.

/Paul

[update]

It seems that Pownce will not allow invites to email addresses from Spambox, see http://mashable.com/2007/06/30/pownce-invites/.

Saturday, July 07, 2007 6:32:40 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [7] | 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa...

/Paul

Tuesday, July 03, 2007 4:34:05 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [1] | 

Congtrats to Claudio on his ARCast fireside chat with Ron Jacobs.

For those that don't know Claudio, he is the CTO of Innerworkings, a lighthouse company for us here in Ireland. 

As well as being one of the nicest guys on the planet, he is one of the most passionate and knowledgible professionals about agile development that I know.

So go listen!! :)

/Paul

Tuesday, July 03, 2007 3:29:40 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [1] | 

:)

/Paul

Monday, June 25, 2007 6:51:51 PM UTC |  | Disclaimer | Comments [1] |