All posts by : Jon Flanders Blog

1 of 41 | SharePoint, Silverlight, and Virtual Earth - I've been doing a number of project lately for the SharePoint and SharePoint online teams.  Mostly around services and integrating SharePoint services with Silverlight.  One of these projects was pretty cool so we decided to put it up on CodePlex - http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointsilverligh  (yes I can spell Silverlight - CodePlex seems to not like long project names in its URIs ;-)). The basic idea is a Silverlight control that coordinates data between a SharePoint List (using the SharePoint List Web Service) and the Virtual Earth map control in the browser.  You can point it at any list that has columns containing longitude and latitude data (it should ......

2 of 41 | SharePoint, Silverlight, and Virtual Earth - I've been doing a number of project lately for the SharePoint and SharePoint online teams.  Mostly around services and integrating SharePoint services with Silverlight.  One of these projects was pretty cool so we decided to put it up on CodePlex - http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointsilverligh  (yes I can spell Silverlight - CodePlex seems to not like long project names in its URIs ;-)). The basic idea is a Silverlight control that coordinates data between a SharePoint List (using the SharePoint List Web Service) and the Virtual Earth map control in the browser.  You can point it at any list that has columns containing longitude and latitude data (it should ......

3 of 41 | IntelliPad (IPad): adding commands - Last week at the PDC was Oslo's big coming out party.  If you haven't heard Oslo is a new set of technologies from Microsoft relating to model-driven development.  The three main parts of Oslo are: 1) A language:  The M language is a language for writing stuff down.  You write down the things you need to drive your application.  The things could be application configuration data, or application specific data, or data which is actually your application.  How exactly you use M is largely up to you.  There is also MGrammar which I'll be covering more in future posts. 2) A repository: There needs to be a place to hold all this data, so Oslo ......

4 of 41 | PDC Keynote - Windows/.NET platform in the "Cloud" - Windows Azure - So I'm here at PDC - I plan to post nuggets of data here to my blog.  I am going to keep a running count of new stuff announced relating to REST thought. All the APIs for this new platform (Windows Azure): storage, queues for communication are all RESTful endpoints. REST FTW! I've been talking about REST  -  and as I've been doing it, I've been hinting that more and more stuff from MS would be based on the principles of REST.  9:30 - one hour into the PDC and already a big announcment IMO. Check out my new book on REST. ...

5 of 41 | Code and links from my webcast - Thanks to those of you that attended my web cast today.  Here is the link to a book that has coverage of .NET 3.5  - http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Windows-Communication-Foundation-WCF/dp/0321440064/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215632437&sr=8-3 For learning about WF - here is the MSDN WF developer center - which is a good place to start for info about WF - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663322.aspx And here is the code that I used today - WCFWFWebCast.zip (273.37 KB) Thanks again to the all attendees! Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

6 of 41 | It feels like this webcast has been pimped enough but.. - If you haven't seen it advertised - I am doing a WebCast on WCF/WF integration next Wednesday at 10 am Pacific time. Signup link : http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032381608&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US Hope to see many of you virtually there :) Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

7 of 41 | I guess I should be flattered - That some spammer thought my wiki pages where hit enough to warrant modifying them on a daily basis with links to various "odd" sites ;-) Thanks to Craig I've upgraded to FlexWiki 2.0 and now those pages are locked down - I apologize if you've visited them and they haven't been right,  should be ok from now on. My Workflow Sample Page My BizTalk Sample Page   Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

8 of 41 | Ok - semi-technical post - Mostly this post is here to motivate me to actually get this book done ASAP - http://www.amazon.com/RESTful-NET-Jon-Flanders/dp/0596519206/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214538175&sr=1-2  Yes - I am writing a book on WCF and REST.  Not a big suprise ;-) Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

9 of 41 | Silverlight calling Workflow Services - One question I was asked during my web cast yesterday about calling WCF services from Silverlight is if the service could be a workflow service.  I said - "Of course" - not knowing that it was a little more complex than that :) That said - here is a sample. SilverLightUsingWorkflow.zip (535.08 KB) Unfortunately I don't have time to go into the details right now - working on another project at the moment. The key to making it work is setting the instanceid context to null on the server when the "last" operation is called - in this case the operation implemented inside of the eventhandler which causes this state-machine workflow to move to the completed state......

10 of 41 | Code from my webcast earlier today - I did a webcast on using WCF from Silverlight 2.0 this morning - I think you can see the replay here in about 24-hours - http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032380766&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US If you watched (or watch the replay) here is the code: webcastcode.zip (3.46 MB) Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

11 of 41 | Blatant ad for upcoming courses - As a break from your normally scheduled technical content (or I guess abnormally scheduled considering my blogging habits lately), here are some classes I am teaching in the near future. #1 - If you are in So Cal or you just feel like getting away from whatever cold, snowy local you are living in - I'll be teaching BizTalk Server 2006 R2 in Irvine, CA - https://www.pluralsight.com/registration/register.aspx?offeringid=267. #2 - Again  in (sunny) Irvine - Aaron Skonnard and I will be doing a WCF/WF "Double-Feature" https://www.pluralsight.com/registration/register.aspx?offeringid=268  If you are interested in knowing all the new stuff in .NET 3.5 - we'll be coverin......

12 of 41 | How to use BizTalk Services with BizTalk Server 2006 R2 - I put together this video because a number of people have asked me how to make this work http://pluralsight-free.s3.amazonaws.com/jon-flanders/biztalkservices.wmv.  I apologize for the audio - I'm not sure what happened - but I unfortunately don't have time to re-record :( Rest assured I'll test my setup next time :) Here is the code associated with the demo - SendAndReceiveFromBizTalkServices.zip (51.27 KB) Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

13 of 41 | On my way to TechEd EMEA - At MSP right now - will be in Barcelona tomorrow (tuesday) morning.  My session is on Friday at 9:   SBP302 Building an Enterprise-Wide Instrumentation Solution Using the Microsoft BizTalk BAM Infrastructure   Jon Flanders Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is a powerful feature of BizTalk Server and is often marketed as allowing "the business" to understand what is happening within your BizTalk solution. BAM does this really well, but it can in fact be used in a variety of other ways which can deliver huge value to customers and address a number of issues they have with BizTalk based solutions and non-BizTalk based solution......

14 of 41 | My Workflow to BizTalk (XLANGs) Wizard as been released - Download it here - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b701c00f-cdc1-4edb-a975-b9412263ec6e&displaylang=en Feel free to send me feedback - I should be blogging and posting more information about it RSN. Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

15 of 41 | XML Snippet's for BAM WCF Interceptor - If you were in my presentation yesterday on the BAM interceptor for WCF (or if you are coming to the repeat session today at 2:30) here are the snippets. Unzip them and put them in \Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Code Snippets\XML\My Xml Snippets (or 2008 if you want to edit the XML files in 2008) bamsnippets.zip (4.25 KB) Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

16 of 41 | The simple story of why I like REST - So I've been dabbling with REST (Astoria among other things built on .NET 3.5).  I've been reading the stuff on Steve Vinoski's blog, and actually have had some good conversations with Sam Gentile  (and one tonight with him and Gar) the last few days about the subject. When I read Steve Vinoski's blog post tonight - it hit it home for me again (this is the story I told Sam and Gar over drinks about why I like REST).  I feel like REST actually gives me way more architectural guidance about how my service should be built than SOAP.  With SOAP  I have Actions (which generally in WCF map to methods) and messages, but there isn't any *Zen* or guiding ......

17 of 41 | Oslo is more than a city in Norway - MS is announcing Oslo today - http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-30OsloPR.mspx. I'm here at the SOA/BPI conference listening to Don Ferguson and Robert Wahbe - and I think they are about to announce. Oslo is going to bring a pretty interesting time in Services development over the next few years.  The thing I am most happy about is the continued investment in the technology I love - BizTalk.   I also think BizTalk Services is going to be really big - and not to leave out the modeling.  For those of you have seen me talk about BizTalk and WF - I always emphasize the power of having a model of your business process.  Now we......

18 of 41 | BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Capabilities Poster - I normally don't just link to announcements from MS - but this poster http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=34F41573-C552-466F-B531-32CB09A57CDD&displaylang=en is very very cool. Every person I've shown it to wanted a copy immediately. I'm actually working on a whitepaper that goes along with it - with links to the pertinent documentation.  I'll post that link when that piece is done.   Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

19 of 41 | Two day Pluralsight "pre-conference" event - If you are coming to the SOA/BPI conference in October - consider coming two days early and hearing Aaron, Matt, and I do a deep technical presentation on all the cool new stuff coming out from the Connected Systems Division at MS. Details are here - http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/WhatsNewInCSD.aspx   Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

20 of 41 | Using WCF WebHttpBinding and WebGet with nicer Urls - I've been playing with the REST support in .NET 3.5.  I'm really enjoying the programming model, but I am not enjoying the .svc file extension in my URLs (I'm not the only person I know who has felt this way for quite some time). IMO (from what little I know about the REST style) URLs shouldn't have things like extensions in them (or preferably not).  So with they way WCF endpoint hosting in IIS works (obviously if I am hosting a webHttpBinding in a non-IIS host I can totally control the URLs, but I am writing a REST API to something where I plan to be hosting inside of IIS).  This would end up being my url: http://host/albumn.svc/instance/ and I want:......

21 of 41 | WF Down-under - I've had alot of people ask when I am teaching WF next - if you are interested in sitting through me talking about WF for four intense days - come to laid-back Australia.  Pluralsight is teaming up with Readify to offer the course.  I'm super excited since this will be my first trip to Australia.  I can't wait.  If you are in the area - or just want an excuse to come to Australia - sign up ;-) Applied Windows Workflow Foundation in Australia Nov 13-17th   Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

22 of 41 | Harry sticks up for the magic method - Here  - I can certainly understand his points.  For me it comes down to two things: 1) The design of ServiceHostBase isn't as clean as I think it should given its intended purpose (to allow WCF Services to be exposed w/o a .NET Type associated with it). 2) The exception.  I wouldn't hate the design as much if a) the exception wasn't a blatant lie, and b) they actually documented that you need to call InitializeDescription from your constructor. Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

23 of 41 | Magic Methods (or the basics of deriving from ServiceHostBase) - Considering my history using ASP and COM – you can imagine I’ve always been a fan of interface-based design.  Of course, I’m not a religious zealot of any sort, so I’ve always been comfortable with the idea of abstract base classes as another perfectly valid way to create pluggable, extensible systems.  This post is about one such pluggable system which utilizes abstract base classes – and how that kind of design can just be stupid (not based on the concept of abstract base classes, but just based on dumb design of such a system). Harry has been bugging me to post about creating classes that derive from ServiceHostBase, which I have done quite a few times in the ......

24 of 41 | Another update to CallWorkflow - So I started this sample  out as an off-the-cuff kind of thing and it seems a number of people are using it.  Lenny Fenster from Microsoft found another bug - when the child workflow would terminate with an exception - the CallWorkflowService was sending the exception to the Queue - but the custom Activity listening for the message wasn't re-throwing the exception.  Its been fixed - so if you are using this sample - you should download the new code.  Orginal Post. My samples page. Check out my BizTalk R2 Training. ...

25 of 41 | Workflows are not java - its not write once run everywhere - Having spoken, taught, and consulted about Windows Workflow Foundation for over two years I've run into a number of common misconceptions about WF. One common misconception is that WF is a write-once run-anywhere technology.  Some people feel like if they write a workflow to run inside of a particular host (let's take SharePoint) - that those workflows will be able to run inside of another host (let's imagine the next version of BizTalk which has already been announced will run WF workflows natively as its "Orchestration" engine).  The answer is almost *all* cases is a resounding NO (there are a few small exceptions to this rule but they are hardly worth mentioning).......

26 of 41 | Happy and honored to be going to TechEd Hong Kong again this year - I have to say - TechEd Hong Kong has been one of the best conferences I've ever been to.  The hospitality shown by the people from Microsoft is really second to none.  Hong Kong is a beautiful city to visit and the people (not just from Microsoft) were very accomodating.   This year, not only do I get to hang out with my old friend Bob Beauchemin - I also get to bring Shannon with me this year. I am sure we'll have a blast. And - I get to do talks on WF/WCF (one of my current favorite topics). BAM (always one of my favorite topics) - and its integration in BizTalk Server R2. Plus - I get to do two talks on new features in Orcas and ASP.NET! Should b......

27 of 41 | Synchronous CallWorkflow sample revisited - A while back I built a sample of how you might make a synchronous call between a Parent Workflow and a Child Workflow. The OOB InvokeWorkflow Activity is asynchronous, and a number of people on the workflow forums were interested in how to make this work, so I coded up a quick and dirty sample which a lot of people have used. The problem with the sample (and this is a pretty common problem that is very easy to have with Windows Workflow) is that it didn't work in the face of persistence. If the host instance went away, the workflows could persist – but the CallWorkflowService wouldn't respond properly because of all its state was kept in local variables. I knew this was a pr......

28 of 41 | Hosting workflows in BizTalk - I've been pretty quiet lately - mostly because I've been working on this project for hosting workflows inside of BizTalk 24x7 (well more like 16x7  - I'm too old to do 24x7 anymore even with RedBull).  Its been really fun getting this code to work (generating orchestrations from workflows). Feel free you can feel free to contact me if you have question and look for more posts about this sample and how it works. ...

29 of 41 | TechEd Session - I just got done with my TechEd session on using WF and WCF - if you attended the session - here is the code: teched2007.zip (474.59 KB).  If you didn't attend my session "This is not the code you are looking for ....." ;-) Thanks for everyone who came (295 people - wow!).  BTW - here are the three best and worst thing about teched 2007 according to the people in my session: BEST 1)HOL (hands on labs) 2)Just the Information 3)BOF (birds of a feather sessions) Worst 1)Bathrooms (this was the men only of course) 2)Buses(slow/scalable) 3)Session are too short ...

30 of 41 | Another new Pluralsight course - Pluralsight and I  are excited to announce another new BizTalk Server 2006 R2 course - one specifically geared toward RFID!  Check it out here - http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/AppliedBizTalkRfid.aspx  no public offerings schedule yet - but there should be one RSN. ...

31 of 41 | Orchestration performance - So I had to fire up my XP laptop today because my new Rode Podcaster microphone (which is otherwise is totally awesome) won't start on Vista despite getting a usbaudio.sys hotfix from MS Support (which was a suprisingly painless experience).  Anyway - cleaning out my old harddrive I found this picture:   This is a picture of the BAM portal.  What I was doing was using BAM to give me some rough performance metrics between two version of an orchestration.  In the "XmlDocument" version of the orchestration I was reading in a 9MB Xml file into BizTalk.  In the orchestration I was passing the document to a .NET component as "XmlDocument" an......

32 of 41 | My upcoming schedule - A few people have asked me about what courses I am teaching in the near future. Coming up in June - I'll be teaching Pluralsight's Applied BizTalk Server 2006 in Dallas - http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/appliedbiztalkserver2006.aspx In July - I'll be teaching the R2 version of the same course in Los Angeles - http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/appliedbiztalkserver2006.aspx.  Come and we'll have a big party - the course starts on my birthday! ...

33 of 41 | San Diego .NET UG - Thanks to my friend and fellow BizTalk MVP Brian Loesgen - I'll be speaking May 22nd at the San Diego .NET User Group on two of my favorite technologies - WF and WCF and how to use them together successfully today - even without Orcas!   Come out if you are in the SD area. ...

34 of 41 | WF and WCF - So if you are interesting in how to integrate WCF and WF today (yes all the cool new WCF/WF stuff in Orcas is really cool - but still some number of months away) - please come to my pre-con at TechED US - https://www.msteched.com/public/precons.aspx#PRCN15  I'll be doing it with my good friend Richard Blewett - which should be a good combination of technical learning and fun. ...

35 of 41 | My first Pluralsight course - Sorry for the lack of blogging - I have a bunch of good posts on WF/WCF and BizTalk R2 planned -but I've been busy flying around the world running Microsoft's jumpstart program on BizTalk R2.   I am excited to announce Pluralsight's Applied BizTalk R2 course  (I think the first public course offering of a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 course - although I could be wrong)/   The first offering will be in my home town of LA - http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/AppliedBizTalkServer2006R2.aspx  - on my birthday no less!.  Come to LA - learn about BizTalk R2 and we'll go hang out in Hollywood with Paris Hilton for my birthday (oh wait - maybe not)... how ......

36 of 41 | Aaron's new article on WCF - If you are working on BizTalk R2's WCF adapter - Aaron's article about WCF messaging is essential reading. ...

37 of 41 | 2007 is the year for big changes I guess .... - On the personal front - I'm getting married in March - big personal change (well - not really when you've been engaged for over 5 years! - LOL)!  On the technology front - I've decided to join Pluralsight!  Aaron just made the announcement on his blog - http://pluralsight.com/blogs/aaron/archive/2007/02/19/46155.aspx I'm very excited to get to work with the team of guys I used to work with (Aaron, Fritz, Keith, Ted, Ian, Craig, Kirk, Mike, Joe, Dan, and Brian) as well as the guys at Pluralsight I haven't worked with yet (Matt and Scott).  We will have a pretty formitable team of BizTalk and Workflow talent, so if you are looking for training on those te......

38 of 41 | User Group talk in So Cal - I love doing User Group talks - nothing better than doing one less than 10 miles from home! Anyone in So Cal - please come here me talk about WF at the San Gabriel Valley .NET Developers Group on January 17th. ...

39 of 41 | Workflow consultantcy - So the company I did some Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) consulting for last summer has recently gone public with how they are using WF in their SaaS application.  You can watch a set of videos here - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb190630.aspx. I helped them with their basic WF architecture, as well as with a custom Root model (the part where they talk about a top-level Sequential  Model that runs StateMachine workflows as children activities), as well as their Workflow Designer for their end-users. I think they are a great example of the power of using WF in your application and the benefits you get from using WF to build a cusotmizable pluggab......

40 of 41 | Workflow and BizTalk Sample Wiki Pages - I just created a Wiki page to supplement my BizTalk Samples page - this one is a list of my workflow samples and posts.  It isn't complete  - but you can see the beginning of the list here....

41 of 41 | WF tour of Ireland! Yippee - So I currently am doing a tour of user groups in Ireland talking about WF.  Could not be a better combo - one of my favor countries in the world - plus one of my favorite technologies!  Yipee!!!! Anyway if you are in Ireland and reading this - here are the dates:     Galway; Thur, Dec 7th, 7:30pm – Harbour Hotel Cork; Mon, Dec 11th, 7pm – Imperial Hotel Limerick; Tue, Dec 12th, 7pm – Pegasus Suite, Clarion Hotel, Steamboat Quay, Limerick Dublin; Wed, Dec 13th, 7pm – Morrison Hotel Belfast; Thurs, Dec 14th, 7:30pm - Queen's University: Please come.  And yes blogging will continue on technical topics soon - I felt sympathy for Kimberly Tr......