Sanjay's Coding Tips: "Nice little Ask Slashdot thread today about free software for use in diagramming and modelling (essentially Visio clones). I found some nice new tools from the responses:
Visual Thought 'is a cross-platform diagramming & flowcharting tool for the enterprise that runs on Windows 95/NT and UNIX. It lets you effortlessly create technical and documentation graphics, network diagrams, flowcharts, org charts, software design diagrams (UML, Booch, OMT, Objectory, etc.), circuit & logic diagrams and business and presentation graphics.'
Dia is a gtk+ based diagram creation program released under the GPL license. It has also been ported from Linux to Windows and a single-click installer is available for it now. Much emphasis placed on UML modeling here.
ArgoUML is a Java-based software modeling environment. It looks very professional and fairly powerful. "
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
iunknown.com - Home of the Practical Eye for the .NET Guy
iunknown.com - Home of the Practical Eye for the .NET Guy: "So far, and in no particular order, these are my top five favorite features in VS.NET Whidbey:
Refactoring support in C#, especially ExtractMethod()
Word-wrap for both comments and code
MSBuild file format for .proj files
Intellisense support for generics
WebBrowser control built-in; no more PIA hell. "
Refactoring support in C#, especially ExtractMethod()
Word-wrap for both comments and code
MSBuild file format for .proj files
Intellisense support for generics
WebBrowser control built-in; no more PIA hell. "
Longhorn SDK
MSDN - Longhorn SDK "Longhorn" comprises multiple technologies. This page contains links to general and detailed overviews for each technology.
Delegates, Components, and Simplexity
Delegates, Components, and Simplexity: "In Part I: The C# Design Process, Hejlsberg discusses the process used by the team that designed C#, and the relative merits of usability studies and good taste in language design.
In Part II: The Trouble with Checked Exceptions, Hejlsberg discusses versionability and scalability issues with checked exceptions.
In this third installment, Hejlsberg discusses delegates and C#'s first class treatment of component concepts. "
In Part II: The Trouble with Checked Exceptions, Hejlsberg discusses versionability and scalability issues with checked exceptions.
In this third installment, Hejlsberg discusses delegates and C#'s first class treatment of component concepts. "
Chris Brumme - Common Language Runtime
Technical Blog: "Advice is:
1) If you are a server application, calling ReleaseComObject may be an important and necessary requirement for getting good throughput. This is especially true if the COM objects live in a Single Threaded Apartment (STA). For example, ASP compatibility mode uses the DCOM STA threadpool. In these scenarios, you would create a COM object, use it, then eagerly call ReleaseComObject on each request.
2) If you are a client application using a modest number of COM objects that are passed around freely in your managed code, you should not use ReleaseComObject. You would likely inflict Disconnected errors on parts of the application by doing so. The performance benefit of eagerly cleaning up the resources isn�t worth the problems you are causing.
3) If you have a case where you are creating COM objects at a high rate, passing them around freely, choking the Finalizer thread, and consuming a lot of unmanaged resources� you are out of luck."
1) If you are a server application, calling ReleaseComObject may be an important and necessary requirement for getting good throughput. This is especially true if the COM objects live in a Single Threaded Apartment (STA). For example, ASP compatibility mode uses the DCOM STA threadpool. In these scenarios, you would create a COM object, use it, then eagerly call ReleaseComObject on each request.
2) If you are a client application using a modest number of COM objects that are passed around freely in your managed code, you should not use ReleaseComObject. You would likely inflict Disconnected errors on parts of the application by doing so. The performance benefit of eagerly cleaning up the resources isn�t worth the problems you are causing.
3) If you have a case where you are creating COM objects at a high rate, passing them around freely, choking the Finalizer thread, and consuming a lot of unmanaged resources� you are out of luck."
Sam Gentile's Blog
Sam Gentile's Blog: "the article 'Smart Cleanup: Achieve More Reliable Resource Management with Our Custom C++ Classes.' This article blew me away. Eric Niebler of Microsoft says 'Resource Management in C++ is hard. To automate my housekeeping chores, I developed a generic resource management library which I call SmartAny.' Okay, so now you are saying, 'there you go Sam with that dead C++ stuff again' but wait, listen to this: '...running finalizers nondeterminstically in a seperate thread thread can actually make it harder to clean up these resources (handles, etc) correctly. ...In managed code, it complements and integrates seamlessly with the garbage collector so I can have deterministic finalization when I need it and let the garbage collector handle the rest.' "
.NET Undocumented: Deterministic Finalization
Tech Blog: "One of the features that developers have missed moving to .NET framework is deterministic finalization. If you followed some of the internet discussion and even some of the comments from Microsoft developers, you would even be lead to believe that deterministic finalization within the .NET framework is impossible.
Well, I have long suspected that deterministic finalization was not incompatible with the implementation of garbage collection in .NET. If you closely at the new Whidbey feature list for Managed C++ in TLS310, you will find that Managed C++ gains a new feature�deterministic finalization."
Well, I have long suspected that deterministic finalization was not incompatible with the implementation of garbage collection in .NET. If you closely at the new Whidbey feature list for Managed C++ in TLS310, you will find that Managed C++ gains a new feature�deterministic finalization."
Cook Computing: Deterministic Finalization
Tech Blog: "smart pointers are of no use because destructors are called non-deterministically for managed types and so there is no way of knowing when a reference to a managed type has gone out of scope.
The lack of DF, while adding extra work around resource management, does not bother me unduly. My experience with large-scale C++ projects is that memory corruption is a much bigger long-term problem and we can avoid that completely if we stick to verifiable managed code (bye bye C++, though I remember reading that a future version of Managed C++ will be able to generate managed code, presumably allowing only a small subset of C++). Failure to release resources is detected fairly early on during system testing whereas memory corruption can lurk for a very long time before showing itself, usually at an important customer site."
The lack of DF, while adding extra work around resource management, does not bother me unduly. My experience with large-scale C++ projects is that memory corruption is a much bigger long-term problem and we can avoid that completely if we stick to verifiable managed code (bye bye C++, though I remember reading that a future version of Managed C++ will be able to generate managed code, presumably allowing only a small subset of C++). Failure to release resources is detected fairly early on during system testing whereas memory corruption can lurk for a very long time before showing itself, usually at an important customer site."
Microsoft Developer Tools Roadmap 2004-2005
Microsoft Developer Tools Roadmap 2004-2005: "C++/CLI also streamlines the manner in which managed data types are defined and consumed. The new standard introduces keywords that are more intuitive to C++ developers than the underbar-underbar keywords of current Managed Extensions. In C++/CLI, the ref keyword is used in a manner similar to the Managed Extensions __gc keyword to define a garbage-collected class:
ref class MyRefClass { /* … */ };
In addition, C++/CLI introduces a new category of type, the handle, which is used to signify the use of automatic garbage collection. Handles borrow the syntax of pointers, but use the carat (^) in place of the asterisk (*). The keyword gcnew is used to create these garbage collected objects, and returns a handle:
MyRefClass ^ c = gcnew MyRefClass();
With C++/CLI, developers will also be able to incorporate traditional C++-style deterministic finalization for handle types. This means that a reference type may be optionally instantiated as an object using normal C++ stack-allocation syntax. In doing so, the object will automatically have its destructor called when it falls out of scope. This feature enables a style of programming not available in other languages targeting the CLR."
ref class MyRefClass { /* … */ };
In addition, C++/CLI introduces a new category of type, the handle, which is used to signify the use of automatic garbage collection. Handles borrow the syntax of pointers, but use the carat (^) in place of the asterisk (*). The keyword gcnew is used to create these garbage collected objects, and returns a handle:
MyRefClass ^ c = gcnew MyRefClass();
With C++/CLI, developers will also be able to incorporate traditional C++-style deterministic finalization for handle types. This means that a reference type may be optionally instantiated as an object using normal C++ stack-allocation syntax. In doing so, the object will automatically have its destructor called when it falls out of scope. This feature enables a style of programming not available in other languages targeting the CLR."
Microsoft Developer Tools Roadmap 2004-2005
Microsoft Developer Tools Roadmap 2004-2005: "C++/CLI also streamlines the manner in which managed data types are defined and consumed. The new standard introduces keywords that are more intuitive to C++ developers than the underbar-underbar keywords of current Managed Extensions. In C++/CLI, the ref keyword is used in a manner similar to the Managed Extensions __gc keyword to define a garbage-collected class:
ref class MyRefClass { /* … */ };
In addition, C++/CLI introduces a new category of type, the handle, which is used to signify the use of automatic garbage collection. Handles borrow the syntax of pointers, but use the carat (^) in place of the asterisk (*). The keyword gcnew is used to create these garbage collected objects, and returns a handle:
MyRefClass ^ c = gcnew MyRefClass();
With C++/CLI, developers will also be able to incorporate traditional C++-style deterministic finalization for handle types. This means that a reference type may be optionally instantiated as an object using normal C++ stack-allocation syntax. In doing so, the object will automatically have its destructor called when it falls out of scope. This feature enables a style of programming not available in other languages targeting the CLR."
ref class MyRefClass { /* … */ };
In addition, C++/CLI introduces a new category of type, the handle, which is used to signify the use of automatic garbage collection. Handles borrow the syntax of pointers, but use the carat (^) in place of the asterisk (*). The keyword gcnew is used to create these garbage collected objects, and returns a handle:
MyRefClass ^ c = gcnew MyRefClass();
With C++/CLI, developers will also be able to incorporate traditional C++-style deterministic finalization for handle types. This means that a reference type may be optionally instantiated as an object using normal C++ stack-allocation syntax. In doing so, the object will automatically have its destructor called when it falls out of scope. This feature enables a style of programming not available in other languages targeting the CLR."
Introduction to The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers
The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers
The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction
[Note: Though many of you are probably in job search rather than
career, I thought that I would share this with you. Below is a
Business Week best seller. What I would recommend is that you look at
the Five Patterns take the quiz and use the results in your
job/career to guide you o the next position--not necessarily the one
you have or had. Good Luck! ]
Why is it that some people's careers just seem to soar while
others — who are equally talented — see their careers stagnate?
You might think it is just dumb luck, but there are actually distinct
patterns that distinguish those at the top from the rest of the pack,
James M. Citrin and Richard A. Smith write in their new book, The
Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers.
If you want to take a career quiz and see how you stack up against
top professionals, go to http://www.fivepatterns.com.
Here is an excerpt of the book:
Introduction to The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers
You don't just luck into things as much as you'd like to think you
do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or
opportunities. — Barbara Bush
— We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of
those we don't like? — Jean Cocteau
The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers reveals the subtle yet
powerful factors that determine career success: why some people
ascend to the top and prosper, while others who are equally talented
never reach their expectations. The latter was a fate Timothy
Reynolds suddenly feared might have fallen upon him.
For many years, Tim Reynolds had every reason to think he was on the
path of an extraordinary career. After all, he seemed to have it all —
three kids, a beautiful wife, a four-bedroom house in a leafy
Chicago suburb, and a good job as vice president of marketing at a
leading consumer-products company, all before the age of forty. But
standing beside his classmates at his fifteenth college reunion on an
unseasonably warm spring day, Tim began to feel a little unsettled.
That's no surprise. Reunions are famous for making ordinary people
feel rather unsure of themselves. Especially disconcerting is facing
the former classmates who have somehow blossomed into the next
generation of leaders. But Tim wasn't just one of those people who
always see the grass as greener on the other side. He was someone
everyone admired and considered successful and put together. Yet over
the course of this particular weekend, Tim found himself going into a
full-scale reexamination of where he was with his career and life and
what he had accomplished.
Early in his career, Tim had been a star in his corporation's
management training program, which led to rapid promotions and
increasing responsibilities. Throughout the first dozen years of his
working life, he was spontaneous, optimistic, energetic, and
confident, feeling that continued professional success was almost
inevitable. But now that he thought about it, he realized that more
recently, he wasn't feeling quite as sure of himself — or of his
professional direction. He had survived two rounds of layoffs at the
company, but it was always possible that more were to come. The
prospect of being forced into the job market in a difficult economy
was a grim scenario for Tim to consider. Even more disquieting,
however, was a growing sense that he was on a path that wasn't
leading him exactly where he wanted to go. He had never even thought
about this consciously before. After all, Tim had been on a well-
defined career track and he had progressed steadily, achieving many
of the milestones for position and compensation that he had set for
himself. But as he reflected, he found that the responsibilities,
daily activities, and politics associated with his job were
increasingly debilitating. Whatever happened to his starry-eyed
dreams of becoming an ambassador, a university professor, or a public
servant?
Tim had suppressed these feelings, but now that he'd let them out of
the cage, he was beset with a sense of being ensnared in a direction
that he could not change. He was actually unsure if he even wanted to
be promoted again, fearing that this might move him still further
away from the things that mattered most to him — a strong family,
making a positive impact on society, being passionate and proud about
his work, and continuing to develop a broader set of skills and
knowledge. On that particular spring day at the reunion, all of this
pent-up anxiety surfaced as Tim was reunited with old friends and
classmates. The alumni association had organized a panel, "Career
Success and Satisfaction," that included some of Tim's most
successful peers. The star-studded panel went something like this:
John recently had been appointed the president of a television
group for one of the major broadcast networks after a five-year run
developing critically acclaimed and commercially successful
television shows. John had begun his career as a lawyer and migrated
into the entertainment business by coming to represent actors,
directors, and writers in Los Angeles.
Martha was a professor of law and history at an Ivy League
university, specializing in the areas of property, religion, and
legal history in the university's law school. Before joining the
faculty, Martha had served as a clerk in the United States Court of
Appeals, which she joined after having been an associate at a
Washington, D.C., law firm.
Stephen was a senior vice president of the National Association of
Securities Dealers, with the responsibility to develop programs,
services, and technological innovations to benefit the entire
securities industry. He had joined the industry trade association
after the emerging technology company that he co-founded in 1999 ran
out of capital and was liquidated.
Todd was the founder of a small specialty restaurant company in
Chicago that was generating profit in each of its seven locations.
Previously he had co-founded and built a natural foods supermarket
company over seven years into a twenty-store chain serving five
metropolitan areas, which he sold to a major food company. Before
moving into the food business, he had been an account executive with
a major Wall Street brokerage firm.
Lynn was a doctor of audiology and president of the parent/teacher
association at her daughters' private school in Manhattan, now
working three days a week. She had worked full time in private
practice for twelve years after medical school.
As Tim listened to each of their stories, he wondered why these folks
had met with such good fortune. Thinking back to school, he realized
that none of them were necessarily smarter, more energetic, or more
charismatic than he, nor did they seem to have any special
connections. This certainly wasn't the group the graduating class
would have predicted as most likely to succeed. But they seemed to
have it nailed.
While Tim thought that his career seemed to have become more
complicated and difficult to manage, this group seemed not only
successful, but also fulfilled by their personal and professional
lives.
Somehow they had apparently gained control over something Tim
increasingly believed was uncontrollable — their careers.
As his peers told their stories on the panel, Tim took copious notes.
He wanted to find clues into the surprising success of his
classmates. Each panel member discussed how, over time, he or she had
gained command of the job and became valuable within his or her
organization or profession. John, Stephen, and Lynn all pointed out
how they had benefited from working with exceptionally talented
mentors and co-workers. All the panelists hinted at having found
themselves in the right place at the right time and having gained
access to the kinds of opportunities that mattered most. Todd and
Martha articulated how they never took their job descriptions too
literally and had always found ways to expand their responsibilities
within their organizations. And slowly it became apparent to Tim that
each of these individuals was not only highly skilled in his or her
chosen field, but also truly passionate about their work. Together,
the enthusiasm for their jobs was undeniable, and seemed to provide
each with a sense of purpose, belonging, and power that Tim longed to
attain. Each had gained a level of control over his or her career
direction that Tim so desperately sought.
Just then Tim had an epiphany. As he listened closely, he came to the
blinding insight that the key was not the uniqueness of the
panelists' careers, but their surprising similarity. Although their
careers were completely different, each of his successful classmates
had followed a path that twisted and turned, had setbacks and
accomplishments and changes of direction. But somehow, each of them
kept getting closer and closer to the mark — employing similar
strategies and actions to achieve success.
Intrigued, Tim wondered whether the similarities were just
coincidence. Or rather, was what he was observing actually the result
of cause and effect? And if so, was there specific knowledge that
could be harnessed and actions that could be taken to create similar
success in his own career?
Do successful careers possibly follow a pattern?
The idea that there are patterns in extraordinary careers is not the
conventional wisdom. Many believe that success is the result of
either luck or larceny.
Luck, however, is a convenient excuse for a lack of success. A
colleague gets a promotion — how lucky. An acquaintance gets a huge
bonus — dumb luck. Everyone assumes that he works just as hard as the
next guy. So what else could separate those who are successful from
those who are less so? It must be good fortune and impeccable timing.
If not luck, then perhaps it is political savvy, or worse, something
we may refer to as "assmosis," the process by which some people nab
success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than earning
it. Fueling myths about luck is that many high-performing executives
make career success seem relatively easy, reinforcing the idea that
they haven't done anything special to hoist themselves up the
corporate ladder.
The other commonly held belief is even more disheartening — the
feeling that high-flying executives are nearly as successful as they
are greedy. With the string of corporate scandals and criminal
activities of some executives, many have come to assume the worst
about what it takes to ascend to the pinnacle of the business world
and that ethics run in inverse proportion to success.
The truth is, a successful career is not the result of one critical
lucky break, like an actress waiting tables when a star movie
producer walks in. It results from a consistent series of
opportunities and performance over time. It cannot be faked. And
professionals who lack character and ethics and are still able to
rise to and remain at the very top are in fact extremely rare. When
they do attain career successes, their grasp on what they've achieved
is tenuous and ephemeral.
It turns out that extraordinary careers follow a strikingly
consistent trajectory, marked by five distinct patterns that
distinguish the very top from the rest of the pack. There are two
foundations for this judgment. The first is our observation and
distillation of these patterns through the lens of our experience at
Spencer Stuart, the preeminent global executive search firm. When,
over a decade's time, your firm conducts approximately 60 percent of
all Fortune 1000 CEO searches (including the CEOs of IBM, AT&T,
Honeywell, Merck, Gillette, Hershey Foods, Albertson's, WorldCom,
JCPenney, Tyco International, Reader's Digest, and Yahoo!), you gain
a front-row seat to study some of the most successful people of our
time. We have also recruited board directors, presidents, and general
managers of global companies and CEOs of venture-capital-backed start-
ups, as well as conducted searches for CFOs, marketing executives,
human resource professionals, and nearly every functional role in
companies today. Our work has crossed every major industry, ranging
from manufacturing and health care to technology and energy. Thanks
to our reach and our intensive process of identifying, interviewing,
and placing the elite of the global corporate world, we collectively
engage in an estimated four hundred thousand conversations each year
with professionals about careerrelated issues. But we didn't stop
there.
THE RESEARCH BEHIND THE FIVE PATTERNS
Building on this experience, we conducted exhaustive research on who
exceptional executives really are and how they achieved their
success. Our goal was to get beyond anecdotes that describe career
events and discover the factors that actually cause them. What
emerged from our analysis was surprising clarity and commonality from
diverse individuals.
Our research followed a three-pronged approach. First, we segmented
and analyzed Spencer Stuart's 1.2-million-member proprietary
executive database, QuestNT. This state-of-the-art system contains
detailed employment histories, qualitative information, references,
board and other professional affiliations, and a rich contact history
of all interactions that our firm has had with these individuals. The
database is coded in such a way to permit sophisticated extracting
and manipulation. From QuestNT, we constructed a representative
sample of executives to survey. Our survey, which formed the heart of
our research, asked each participant eighty separate questions about
his beliefs, actions, and career. (The survey is available online,
along with an instantaneous analysis of results, at
www.5patterns.com.)
Relying on the advice of the statistical experts who counseled us in
the survey's creation, we were looking to garner one thousand
completed surveys to analyze (actually, they felt that four hundred
would be more than enough from which to draw conclusions, but we
wanted to be sure and therefore set a goal of obtaining more than
double the required amount). Based on projected response rates, we
would need to invite sixteen thousand executives to participate. So
as not to clog up the e-mail system, we decided to send the survey
out in two equal and representative waves, eight thousand each.
But it turned out that the response was beyond anything we could have
hoped for (or the statisticians would have believed) — the survey was
completed by more than two thousand of the initial eight thousand
individuals, a staggering 25 percent response rate. We also received
hundreds of cover letters and notes passionately expanding on the
topics queried. Clearly we had touched a nerve! It turns out that
people — even the most successful — want to think about, learn about,
and talk about what makes for career success in these volatile times.
The respondents, whose careers represented hundreds of industry
sectors and more than a thousand different companies, completed the
survey in mid-2002.
The third step in our research was conducting more than three hundred
in-person interviews of executives over a two-year period. Through
these discussions, we attempted to uncover their thoughts, beliefs,
goals and aspirations, motivations, turning points, actions, and
behaviors. The goal was to identify and explain those factors that
really distinguish the different trajectories of the ordinary from
the extraordinary executive.
To analyze the information, we segregated the survey respondents into
three groups.
Average employees, professionals who have worked for at least
twenty years but have not reached a senior professional or executive
level
Successful professionals, those individuals who have attained
positions within executive management of their organizations or who
were top-level contributors, such as senior partners, at professional
services firms
Extraordinary executives, executives hand-selected by us and our
research team for their documented, consistent, and exceptional track
record of success, stellar reputation, value in the marketplace, and
impact on their organizations
These three groups provided a distinctive comparison for our
research, and we refer to them throughout the book. What
distinguishes extraordinary executives from the wanna-bes is not
advantaged connections, higher levels of intelligence, or social
connections (although these rarely hurt), but rather the occurrence
of the five specific patterns discussed in this book. Executives such
as Larry Bossidy, the highly regarded longtime leader of Honeywell,
and Lou Gerstner, the former chairman of IBM, intuitively used the
patterns to manage and gain control over their careers. Their results
in terms of control and compensation speak for themselves.
The extraordinary executive is not the son or daughter of the boss
and is not more likely to have an IQ in the 99th percentile than
other professionals. The vast majority of executives in the world
today began their careers like most others — with a good education, a
lot of ambition, and precious little relevant experience. In a
process similar to compound interest, the extraordinary executives
achieved success slowly and consistently, with each phase building on
the prior one. They did not rely on luck, engage in illegal activity,
betray their colleagues, or sleep with their bosses. The occasional
executive who did get ahead in these ways is, not surprisingly, juicy
prey for the media, and surely makes for great fodder around the
office or golf club. But this type is exceedingly rare in the real
professional workplace.
THE FIVE PATTERNS OF EXTRAORDINARY CAREERS
So what are the five patterns of extraordinary careers? As the five
chapters that follow will detail, they are to:
1. Understand the value of you. People with extraordinary careers
understand how value is created in the workplace, and they translate
that knowledge into action, building their personal value over each
phase of their careers.
2. Practice benevolent leadership. People with extraordinary careers
do not claw their way to the top; they are carried there.
3. Overcome the permission paradox. People with extraordinary careers
overcome one of the great Catch-22s of business: You can't get the
job without experience, and you can't get the experience without the
job.
4. Differentiate using the 20/80 principle of performance. People
with extraordinary careers do their defined jobs exceptionally well
but don't stop there. They storm past predetermined objectives to
create breakthrough ideas and deliver unexpected impact.
5. Find the right fit (strengths, passions, and people). People with
extraordinary careers make decisions with the long term in mind. They
willfully migrate toward positions that fit their natural strengths
and passions and where they can work with people they like and
respect.
MANAGING COMPLEXITY VIA PATTERNS
The five patterns are not a simplistic formula for distilling the
complexities of a career into a set of rules. Many of us desperately
yearn for a set of simple rules for dealing with the complexity of
our working lives: Do these ten things, avoid these five. If this,
then do that. The problem is that in managing a career in real time,
where you have to make important decisions without all of the facts,
where there are important and sometimes painful trade-offs, cookbook
rules are simply not effective.
Careers, like weather systems or financial markets, contain patterns.
When a cold front collides with a warm front, thunderstorms are
likely to appear. When interest rates decline, the stock market tends
to rise. In any complex system, there are usually a handful of
factors that govern the vast majority of the behavior of that system.
So while in situations with great complexity, such as careers, there
are no easy, rational answers that will always lead to the most
positive outcomes, there are patterns that correlate very strongly
with success over time.
Careers based on success patterns are quite different from those most
people feel they are in. Many believe that success is out of their
control. Yet careers guided by success patterns are understandable,
predictable, and manageable over the long run. Our goal in this book
is to answer two questions that lie at the heart of what you would
presumably like to accomplish on your lifelong career journey: How
are extraordinary careers really achieved? And what deliberate
thoughts and actions can you institute to create extraordinary
success and ful- fillment in your own career?
WHAT PROFESSIONALS ARE UP AGAINST: CAREER UPHEAVAL
This isn't your parents' career ladder anymore. Gone are the days of
The Organization Man and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which
described a world in which you moved steadily up a preset career
ladder at the same company until you retired with a gold watch and a
pension. While large corporations historically attempted to create
career opportunities for their employees, today we are all on our own
to navigate an increasingly complex and competitive business
environment, as well as a daunting number of career choices and jobs
along the way. Four of the most important forces at play:
Executive turnover is at an all-time high. Fifty-eight percent of
large and medium-size companies changed CEOs from 1998 to 2001,
according to an international study of 481 corporations by management
consulting firm Drake Beam Morin. The median tenure for CEOs is now
2.75 years (down about a year from 1999), and only 12 percent of CEOs
have held their position for 10 years or longer. Low-performing
companies have nearly twice as much turnover among top-performing
employees as high performing companies, according to the consulting
firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
Career choices are much more unclear. There is no single perfect
job out there, and in a world of increased specialization, there are
many more forks in the road and avenues to take. This means many more
career decisions, with each one potentially leading you down a
slightly different path. And with an increasing number of choices
comes the danger of career drift along with the vagaries of the
market. For example, in the mid and late 1990s Internet and
technology companies were hot and drew hundreds of thousands of
people. Subsectors such as technology consulting firms or outsourced
customer service providers also flourished. When the recession hit,
traditional corporations with perceived stability came back in favor,
so back many people went — or tried to go there. Other sectors, such
as pharmaceuticals and private companies, are coming into vogue and
will certainly attract many of the most opportunistic professionals.
But keep this Ping-Pong game going and you risk a severe case of
career vertigo.
You are going to move through more jobs in a decade than
executives did in a lifetime thirty years ago. The average
professional with thirty-five years of experience has worked for just
over six different companies during his or her career. Yet those with
only ten years of experience have, on average, already worked for
four companies. This trend is likely to persist for two major
reasons. On one hand, companies are going to continue to be rigorous
about their cost management and efficiency drives, making reductions
in force a normal part of doing business. On the other hand,
individuals are going to feel simultaneously less loyal to their
companies in the face of potential layoffs and increasing career
alternatives, and liberated by the portability of their IRAs, 401-K
plans, and pension plans. Addressing individuals' deeply held desire
for stability in an environment of unrelenting uncertainty and change
will require new guideposts and principles for successful career
management. Specifically, managing the experiences and perceptions
associated with working for many employers, including those who are
viewed as arch competitors, is a challenge that today has no simple
solution.
There is no safety net. Until recently, if you or your company
stumbled and you lost your job, there was a long list of companies
that would be interested in hiring you. Now, with huge waves of
corporate downsizing and the fall of once high-flying companies,
nothing is guaranteed. The seemingly safe company you join today
could possibly turn into tomorrow's downward spiral. As the Internet
boom and bust illustrated, one can go from MVP to persona non grata
in a matter of months.
Your individual career is becoming more complex, and so is the
overall business world. Competition is driving every business to
lower costs, wring out inefficiencies, compete globally, and
outsource noncore activities. "The rapidity of change has clearly
raised the level of anxiety and insecurity in the workforce," said
Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.
Even the factors that are positively impacting the value of
individual professionals, such as the increasing competition for top
executives, often are accompanied by additional challenges and
complexity. With a shrinking pool of people between thirty-five and
fifty-five — the future generation of top executives in the years
ahead — companies are becoming more sophisticated and creative about
attracting talent, and navigating the many forms of incentives,
compensation, and opportunities will only become more complex.
The good news is that despite what you may be feeling in these
volatile times, your actual value is higher than at almost any other
time in modern history. As the complexity and specialization of the
business world increases, more value is placed on intellectual
property and specialized skills such as financial acumen, direct
marketing, and turnaround expertise as well as intangible factors
like teamwork and the ability to work across organizational lines.
Consequently, companies are investing more time and money to seek out
executive talent.
THE ULTIMATE PAYOFF
Career success is not achieved easily. Like all things of value, it
requires significant investment-in time, effort, focus, emotional
exertion, and personal sacrifice. Yet as Tim Reynolds realized
longingly during his college reunion weekend, and as our own research
clearly confirmed, those achieving the highest levels of professional
success are more satisfied with their jobs, their lifestyle, their
compensation, and the balance in their lives.
Understanding the five patterns of extraordinary careers and
tailoring them to you — your personality, aspirations, personal
situation, and strengths and weaknesses — is well worth it and will
help you accomplish the ultimate payoff: career success and
satisfaction, under your control, and beyond your grandest
expectations.
The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, by James M. Citrin and
Richard A. Smith. Copyright (c) 2003 by James M. Citrin and Richard
A. Smith. Published by arrangement with Crown Business, a division of
Random House, Inc.
The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction
[Note: Though many of you are probably in job search rather than
career, I thought that I would share this with you. Below is a
Business Week best seller. What I would recommend is that you look at
the Five Patterns take the quiz and use the results in your
job/career to guide you o the next position--not necessarily the one
you have or had. Good Luck! ]
Why is it that some people's careers just seem to soar while
others — who are equally talented — see their careers stagnate?
You might think it is just dumb luck, but there are actually distinct
patterns that distinguish those at the top from the rest of the pack,
James M. Citrin and Richard A. Smith write in their new book, The
Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers.
If you want to take a career quiz and see how you stack up against
top professionals, go to http://www.fivepatterns.com.
Here is an excerpt of the book:
Introduction to The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers
You don't just luck into things as much as you'd like to think you
do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or
opportunities. — Barbara Bush
— We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of
those we don't like? — Jean Cocteau
The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers reveals the subtle yet
powerful factors that determine career success: why some people
ascend to the top and prosper, while others who are equally talented
never reach their expectations. The latter was a fate Timothy
Reynolds suddenly feared might have fallen upon him.
For many years, Tim Reynolds had every reason to think he was on the
path of an extraordinary career. After all, he seemed to have it all —
three kids, a beautiful wife, a four-bedroom house in a leafy
Chicago suburb, and a good job as vice president of marketing at a
leading consumer-products company, all before the age of forty. But
standing beside his classmates at his fifteenth college reunion on an
unseasonably warm spring day, Tim began to feel a little unsettled.
That's no surprise. Reunions are famous for making ordinary people
feel rather unsure of themselves. Especially disconcerting is facing
the former classmates who have somehow blossomed into the next
generation of leaders. But Tim wasn't just one of those people who
always see the grass as greener on the other side. He was someone
everyone admired and considered successful and put together. Yet over
the course of this particular weekend, Tim found himself going into a
full-scale reexamination of where he was with his career and life and
what he had accomplished.
Early in his career, Tim had been a star in his corporation's
management training program, which led to rapid promotions and
increasing responsibilities. Throughout the first dozen years of his
working life, he was spontaneous, optimistic, energetic, and
confident, feeling that continued professional success was almost
inevitable. But now that he thought about it, he realized that more
recently, he wasn't feeling quite as sure of himself — or of his
professional direction. He had survived two rounds of layoffs at the
company, but it was always possible that more were to come. The
prospect of being forced into the job market in a difficult economy
was a grim scenario for Tim to consider. Even more disquieting,
however, was a growing sense that he was on a path that wasn't
leading him exactly where he wanted to go. He had never even thought
about this consciously before. After all, Tim had been on a well-
defined career track and he had progressed steadily, achieving many
of the milestones for position and compensation that he had set for
himself. But as he reflected, he found that the responsibilities,
daily activities, and politics associated with his job were
increasingly debilitating. Whatever happened to his starry-eyed
dreams of becoming an ambassador, a university professor, or a public
servant?
Tim had suppressed these feelings, but now that he'd let them out of
the cage, he was beset with a sense of being ensnared in a direction
that he could not change. He was actually unsure if he even wanted to
be promoted again, fearing that this might move him still further
away from the things that mattered most to him — a strong family,
making a positive impact on society, being passionate and proud about
his work, and continuing to develop a broader set of skills and
knowledge. On that particular spring day at the reunion, all of this
pent-up anxiety surfaced as Tim was reunited with old friends and
classmates. The alumni association had organized a panel, "Career
Success and Satisfaction," that included some of Tim's most
successful peers. The star-studded panel went something like this:
John recently had been appointed the president of a television
group for one of the major broadcast networks after a five-year run
developing critically acclaimed and commercially successful
television shows. John had begun his career as a lawyer and migrated
into the entertainment business by coming to represent actors,
directors, and writers in Los Angeles.
Martha was a professor of law and history at an Ivy League
university, specializing in the areas of property, religion, and
legal history in the university's law school. Before joining the
faculty, Martha had served as a clerk in the United States Court of
Appeals, which she joined after having been an associate at a
Washington, D.C., law firm.
Stephen was a senior vice president of the National Association of
Securities Dealers, with the responsibility to develop programs,
services, and technological innovations to benefit the entire
securities industry. He had joined the industry trade association
after the emerging technology company that he co-founded in 1999 ran
out of capital and was liquidated.
Todd was the founder of a small specialty restaurant company in
Chicago that was generating profit in each of its seven locations.
Previously he had co-founded and built a natural foods supermarket
company over seven years into a twenty-store chain serving five
metropolitan areas, which he sold to a major food company. Before
moving into the food business, he had been an account executive with
a major Wall Street brokerage firm.
Lynn was a doctor of audiology and president of the parent/teacher
association at her daughters' private school in Manhattan, now
working three days a week. She had worked full time in private
practice for twelve years after medical school.
As Tim listened to each of their stories, he wondered why these folks
had met with such good fortune. Thinking back to school, he realized
that none of them were necessarily smarter, more energetic, or more
charismatic than he, nor did they seem to have any special
connections. This certainly wasn't the group the graduating class
would have predicted as most likely to succeed. But they seemed to
have it nailed.
While Tim thought that his career seemed to have become more
complicated and difficult to manage, this group seemed not only
successful, but also fulfilled by their personal and professional
lives.
Somehow they had apparently gained control over something Tim
increasingly believed was uncontrollable — their careers.
As his peers told their stories on the panel, Tim took copious notes.
He wanted to find clues into the surprising success of his
classmates. Each panel member discussed how, over time, he or she had
gained command of the job and became valuable within his or her
organization or profession. John, Stephen, and Lynn all pointed out
how they had benefited from working with exceptionally talented
mentors and co-workers. All the panelists hinted at having found
themselves in the right place at the right time and having gained
access to the kinds of opportunities that mattered most. Todd and
Martha articulated how they never took their job descriptions too
literally and had always found ways to expand their responsibilities
within their organizations. And slowly it became apparent to Tim that
each of these individuals was not only highly skilled in his or her
chosen field, but also truly passionate about their work. Together,
the enthusiasm for their jobs was undeniable, and seemed to provide
each with a sense of purpose, belonging, and power that Tim longed to
attain. Each had gained a level of control over his or her career
direction that Tim so desperately sought.
Just then Tim had an epiphany. As he listened closely, he came to the
blinding insight that the key was not the uniqueness of the
panelists' careers, but their surprising similarity. Although their
careers were completely different, each of his successful classmates
had followed a path that twisted and turned, had setbacks and
accomplishments and changes of direction. But somehow, each of them
kept getting closer and closer to the mark — employing similar
strategies and actions to achieve success.
Intrigued, Tim wondered whether the similarities were just
coincidence. Or rather, was what he was observing actually the result
of cause and effect? And if so, was there specific knowledge that
could be harnessed and actions that could be taken to create similar
success in his own career?
Do successful careers possibly follow a pattern?
The idea that there are patterns in extraordinary careers is not the
conventional wisdom. Many believe that success is the result of
either luck or larceny.
Luck, however, is a convenient excuse for a lack of success. A
colleague gets a promotion — how lucky. An acquaintance gets a huge
bonus — dumb luck. Everyone assumes that he works just as hard as the
next guy. So what else could separate those who are successful from
those who are less so? It must be good fortune and impeccable timing.
If not luck, then perhaps it is political savvy, or worse, something
we may refer to as "assmosis," the process by which some people nab
success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than earning
it. Fueling myths about luck is that many high-performing executives
make career success seem relatively easy, reinforcing the idea that
they haven't done anything special to hoist themselves up the
corporate ladder.
The other commonly held belief is even more disheartening — the
feeling that high-flying executives are nearly as successful as they
are greedy. With the string of corporate scandals and criminal
activities of some executives, many have come to assume the worst
about what it takes to ascend to the pinnacle of the business world
and that ethics run in inverse proportion to success.
The truth is, a successful career is not the result of one critical
lucky break, like an actress waiting tables when a star movie
producer walks in. It results from a consistent series of
opportunities and performance over time. It cannot be faked. And
professionals who lack character and ethics and are still able to
rise to and remain at the very top are in fact extremely rare. When
they do attain career successes, their grasp on what they've achieved
is tenuous and ephemeral.
It turns out that extraordinary careers follow a strikingly
consistent trajectory, marked by five distinct patterns that
distinguish the very top from the rest of the pack. There are two
foundations for this judgment. The first is our observation and
distillation of these patterns through the lens of our experience at
Spencer Stuart, the preeminent global executive search firm. When,
over a decade's time, your firm conducts approximately 60 percent of
all Fortune 1000 CEO searches (including the CEOs of IBM, AT&T,
Honeywell, Merck, Gillette, Hershey Foods, Albertson's, WorldCom,
JCPenney, Tyco International, Reader's Digest, and Yahoo!), you gain
a front-row seat to study some of the most successful people of our
time. We have also recruited board directors, presidents, and general
managers of global companies and CEOs of venture-capital-backed start-
ups, as well as conducted searches for CFOs, marketing executives,
human resource professionals, and nearly every functional role in
companies today. Our work has crossed every major industry, ranging
from manufacturing and health care to technology and energy. Thanks
to our reach and our intensive process of identifying, interviewing,
and placing the elite of the global corporate world, we collectively
engage in an estimated four hundred thousand conversations each year
with professionals about careerrelated issues. But we didn't stop
there.
THE RESEARCH BEHIND THE FIVE PATTERNS
Building on this experience, we conducted exhaustive research on who
exceptional executives really are and how they achieved their
success. Our goal was to get beyond anecdotes that describe career
events and discover the factors that actually cause them. What
emerged from our analysis was surprising clarity and commonality from
diverse individuals.
Our research followed a three-pronged approach. First, we segmented
and analyzed Spencer Stuart's 1.2-million-member proprietary
executive database, QuestNT. This state-of-the-art system contains
detailed employment histories, qualitative information, references,
board and other professional affiliations, and a rich contact history
of all interactions that our firm has had with these individuals. The
database is coded in such a way to permit sophisticated extracting
and manipulation. From QuestNT, we constructed a representative
sample of executives to survey. Our survey, which formed the heart of
our research, asked each participant eighty separate questions about
his beliefs, actions, and career. (The survey is available online,
along with an instantaneous analysis of results, at
www.5patterns.com.)
Relying on the advice of the statistical experts who counseled us in
the survey's creation, we were looking to garner one thousand
completed surveys to analyze (actually, they felt that four hundred
would be more than enough from which to draw conclusions, but we
wanted to be sure and therefore set a goal of obtaining more than
double the required amount). Based on projected response rates, we
would need to invite sixteen thousand executives to participate. So
as not to clog up the e-mail system, we decided to send the survey
out in two equal and representative waves, eight thousand each.
But it turned out that the response was beyond anything we could have
hoped for (or the statisticians would have believed) — the survey was
completed by more than two thousand of the initial eight thousand
individuals, a staggering 25 percent response rate. We also received
hundreds of cover letters and notes passionately expanding on the
topics queried. Clearly we had touched a nerve! It turns out that
people — even the most successful — want to think about, learn about,
and talk about what makes for career success in these volatile times.
The respondents, whose careers represented hundreds of industry
sectors and more than a thousand different companies, completed the
survey in mid-2002.
The third step in our research was conducting more than three hundred
in-person interviews of executives over a two-year period. Through
these discussions, we attempted to uncover their thoughts, beliefs,
goals and aspirations, motivations, turning points, actions, and
behaviors. The goal was to identify and explain those factors that
really distinguish the different trajectories of the ordinary from
the extraordinary executive.
To analyze the information, we segregated the survey respondents into
three groups.
Average employees, professionals who have worked for at least
twenty years but have not reached a senior professional or executive
level
Successful professionals, those individuals who have attained
positions within executive management of their organizations or who
were top-level contributors, such as senior partners, at professional
services firms
Extraordinary executives, executives hand-selected by us and our
research team for their documented, consistent, and exceptional track
record of success, stellar reputation, value in the marketplace, and
impact on their organizations
These three groups provided a distinctive comparison for our
research, and we refer to them throughout the book. What
distinguishes extraordinary executives from the wanna-bes is not
advantaged connections, higher levels of intelligence, or social
connections (although these rarely hurt), but rather the occurrence
of the five specific patterns discussed in this book. Executives such
as Larry Bossidy, the highly regarded longtime leader of Honeywell,
and Lou Gerstner, the former chairman of IBM, intuitively used the
patterns to manage and gain control over their careers. Their results
in terms of control and compensation speak for themselves.
The extraordinary executive is not the son or daughter of the boss
and is not more likely to have an IQ in the 99th percentile than
other professionals. The vast majority of executives in the world
today began their careers like most others — with a good education, a
lot of ambition, and precious little relevant experience. In a
process similar to compound interest, the extraordinary executives
achieved success slowly and consistently, with each phase building on
the prior one. They did not rely on luck, engage in illegal activity,
betray their colleagues, or sleep with their bosses. The occasional
executive who did get ahead in these ways is, not surprisingly, juicy
prey for the media, and surely makes for great fodder around the
office or golf club. But this type is exceedingly rare in the real
professional workplace.
THE FIVE PATTERNS OF EXTRAORDINARY CAREERS
So what are the five patterns of extraordinary careers? As the five
chapters that follow will detail, they are to:
1. Understand the value of you. People with extraordinary careers
understand how value is created in the workplace, and they translate
that knowledge into action, building their personal value over each
phase of their careers.
2. Practice benevolent leadership. People with extraordinary careers
do not claw their way to the top; they are carried there.
3. Overcome the permission paradox. People with extraordinary careers
overcome one of the great Catch-22s of business: You can't get the
job without experience, and you can't get the experience without the
job.
4. Differentiate using the 20/80 principle of performance. People
with extraordinary careers do their defined jobs exceptionally well
but don't stop there. They storm past predetermined objectives to
create breakthrough ideas and deliver unexpected impact.
5. Find the right fit (strengths, passions, and people). People with
extraordinary careers make decisions with the long term in mind. They
willfully migrate toward positions that fit their natural strengths
and passions and where they can work with people they like and
respect.
MANAGING COMPLEXITY VIA PATTERNS
The five patterns are not a simplistic formula for distilling the
complexities of a career into a set of rules. Many of us desperately
yearn for a set of simple rules for dealing with the complexity of
our working lives: Do these ten things, avoid these five. If this,
then do that. The problem is that in managing a career in real time,
where you have to make important decisions without all of the facts,
where there are important and sometimes painful trade-offs, cookbook
rules are simply not effective.
Careers, like weather systems or financial markets, contain patterns.
When a cold front collides with a warm front, thunderstorms are
likely to appear. When interest rates decline, the stock market tends
to rise. In any complex system, there are usually a handful of
factors that govern the vast majority of the behavior of that system.
So while in situations with great complexity, such as careers, there
are no easy, rational answers that will always lead to the most
positive outcomes, there are patterns that correlate very strongly
with success over time.
Careers based on success patterns are quite different from those most
people feel they are in. Many believe that success is out of their
control. Yet careers guided by success patterns are understandable,
predictable, and manageable over the long run. Our goal in this book
is to answer two questions that lie at the heart of what you would
presumably like to accomplish on your lifelong career journey: How
are extraordinary careers really achieved? And what deliberate
thoughts and actions can you institute to create extraordinary
success and ful- fillment in your own career?
WHAT PROFESSIONALS ARE UP AGAINST: CAREER UPHEAVAL
This isn't your parents' career ladder anymore. Gone are the days of
The Organization Man and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which
described a world in which you moved steadily up a preset career
ladder at the same company until you retired with a gold watch and a
pension. While large corporations historically attempted to create
career opportunities for their employees, today we are all on our own
to navigate an increasingly complex and competitive business
environment, as well as a daunting number of career choices and jobs
along the way. Four of the most important forces at play:
Executive turnover is at an all-time high. Fifty-eight percent of
large and medium-size companies changed CEOs from 1998 to 2001,
according to an international study of 481 corporations by management
consulting firm Drake Beam Morin. The median tenure for CEOs is now
2.75 years (down about a year from 1999), and only 12 percent of CEOs
have held their position for 10 years or longer. Low-performing
companies have nearly twice as much turnover among top-performing
employees as high performing companies, according to the consulting
firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
Career choices are much more unclear. There is no single perfect
job out there, and in a world of increased specialization, there are
many more forks in the road and avenues to take. This means many more
career decisions, with each one potentially leading you down a
slightly different path. And with an increasing number of choices
comes the danger of career drift along with the vagaries of the
market. For example, in the mid and late 1990s Internet and
technology companies were hot and drew hundreds of thousands of
people. Subsectors such as technology consulting firms or outsourced
customer service providers also flourished. When the recession hit,
traditional corporations with perceived stability came back in favor,
so back many people went — or tried to go there. Other sectors, such
as pharmaceuticals and private companies, are coming into vogue and
will certainly attract many of the most opportunistic professionals.
But keep this Ping-Pong game going and you risk a severe case of
career vertigo.
You are going to move through more jobs in a decade than
executives did in a lifetime thirty years ago. The average
professional with thirty-five years of experience has worked for just
over six different companies during his or her career. Yet those with
only ten years of experience have, on average, already worked for
four companies. This trend is likely to persist for two major
reasons. On one hand, companies are going to continue to be rigorous
about their cost management and efficiency drives, making reductions
in force a normal part of doing business. On the other hand,
individuals are going to feel simultaneously less loyal to their
companies in the face of potential layoffs and increasing career
alternatives, and liberated by the portability of their IRAs, 401-K
plans, and pension plans. Addressing individuals' deeply held desire
for stability in an environment of unrelenting uncertainty and change
will require new guideposts and principles for successful career
management. Specifically, managing the experiences and perceptions
associated with working for many employers, including those who are
viewed as arch competitors, is a challenge that today has no simple
solution.
There is no safety net. Until recently, if you or your company
stumbled and you lost your job, there was a long list of companies
that would be interested in hiring you. Now, with huge waves of
corporate downsizing and the fall of once high-flying companies,
nothing is guaranteed. The seemingly safe company you join today
could possibly turn into tomorrow's downward spiral. As the Internet
boom and bust illustrated, one can go from MVP to persona non grata
in a matter of months.
Your individual career is becoming more complex, and so is the
overall business world. Competition is driving every business to
lower costs, wring out inefficiencies, compete globally, and
outsource noncore activities. "The rapidity of change has clearly
raised the level of anxiety and insecurity in the workforce," said
Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.
Even the factors that are positively impacting the value of
individual professionals, such as the increasing competition for top
executives, often are accompanied by additional challenges and
complexity. With a shrinking pool of people between thirty-five and
fifty-five — the future generation of top executives in the years
ahead — companies are becoming more sophisticated and creative about
attracting talent, and navigating the many forms of incentives,
compensation, and opportunities will only become more complex.
The good news is that despite what you may be feeling in these
volatile times, your actual value is higher than at almost any other
time in modern history. As the complexity and specialization of the
business world increases, more value is placed on intellectual
property and specialized skills such as financial acumen, direct
marketing, and turnaround expertise as well as intangible factors
like teamwork and the ability to work across organizational lines.
Consequently, companies are investing more time and money to seek out
executive talent.
THE ULTIMATE PAYOFF
Career success is not achieved easily. Like all things of value, it
requires significant investment-in time, effort, focus, emotional
exertion, and personal sacrifice. Yet as Tim Reynolds realized
longingly during his college reunion weekend, and as our own research
clearly confirmed, those achieving the highest levels of professional
success are more satisfied with their jobs, their lifestyle, their
compensation, and the balance in their lives.
Understanding the five patterns of extraordinary careers and
tailoring them to you — your personality, aspirations, personal
situation, and strengths and weaknesses — is well worth it and will
help you accomplish the ultimate payoff: career success and
satisfaction, under your control, and beyond your grandest
expectations.
The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, by James M. Citrin and
Richard A. Smith. Copyright (c) 2003 by James M. Citrin and Richard
A. Smith. Published by arrangement with Crown Business, a division of
Random House, Inc.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
'Shocking' Turner art on show
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | 'Shocking' Turner art on show: "An exhibition of art by this year's Turner Prize nominees has opened amid controversy over its shock value.
A statue of a naked couple in a sex act and a sculpture of bodies being eaten by maggots, both by Jake and Dinos Chapman, are among the works on show. "
A statue of a naked couple in a sex act and a sculpture of bodies being eaten by maggots, both by Jake and Dinos Chapman, are among the works on show. "
The "Longhorn" Opportunity
Developer Guide to Migration and Interoperability in "Longhorn": Chapter 1: The "Longhorn" Opportunity (The Developer's Guide to Interoperability and Migration in "Longhorn"): "'Longhorn' is optimized for a new class of applications that is emerging. These new applications are characterized by the combination of network awareness and local resource utilization. They communicate with other nodes (server or other clients) in a network (the Internet or intranet) participating in larger service-oriented architecture. They use local resources (CPU, GPU, storage, bandwidth, and more) to deliver an efficient and effective end-user experience, and can function offline or online. "
Indigo in LongHorn
Longhorn Developer Center: Code Name Indigo: A Guide to Developing and Running Connected Systems with Indigo: "One of the key benefits of Indigo is that it provides a unified programming model and protocol stack for all common language runtime (CLR)-based remoting technologies. Indigo marries the best of .NET Remoting, ASMX, System.Messaging, and .NET Enterprise Services into a single framework, allowing developers to freely combine features such as declarative transactions, pluggable interceptors and transports, and XML Schema-based serialization."
Academia gets creative with Web services
Academia gets creative with Web services | CNET News.com: "A Web service can help you catch a bus. Or test an electronic circuit from a dorm room. Or even take English writing tests in a new way.
The ideas for tracking bus locations or performing technical experiments over the Web came out of a joint research program between Microsoft and MIT. The goal of the initiative, called iCampus, is to improve the quality of campus life through technology. Although the five-year, $25 million program has been in place since 1999, the broad industry support of Web services standards over the past two years is giving professors and students the means to unlock access to hitherto hard-to-access information--and change the learning experience in the process."
The ideas for tracking bus locations or performing technical experiments over the Web came out of a joint research program between Microsoft and MIT. The goal of the initiative, called iCampus, is to improve the quality of campus life through technology. Although the five-year, $25 million program has been in place since 1999, the broad industry support of Web services standards over the past two years is giving professors and students the means to unlock access to hitherto hard-to-access information--and change the learning experience in the process."
Job seeker hopes to stand out with billboards on Seattle buses
Mercury News | 10/25/2003 | Job seeker hopes to stand out with billboards on Seattle buses: "Torsten Reinl, 33, paid $888 -- a third of what was left in his bank account -- to have his picture and 2-foot-by-6-foot ``Hire Me!'' ad cruise the streets of Seattle for the next month."
Monday, October 27, 2003
How do I start my own blog?
How do I start my own blog?: "It's a new medium finally finding a unique voice. Stay tuned as that voice gets louder and louder. "
Hair salons offer short films
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio: "
Customers will have their own screens
Hair salon customers will soon be able to watch films rather than flick through magazines during appointments. "
Customers will have their own screens
Hair salon customers will soon be able to watch films rather than flick through magazines during appointments. "
A Tight Job Market Dampens Ivy League Hopes
A Tight Job Market Dampens Ivy League Hopes: "Six months after graduation, many recent graduates from the nation's most elite colleges have still not found work in their chosen careers. The job outlook is likely to remain difficult for the next batch of graduates, although colleges say they are seeing a slight increase in on-campus recruiting activity right now.
"
"
Friday, October 24, 2003
Web Services Architectures and Best Practices
IBM's take on Web Services Do-s and Don'ts: "In this chapter we'll cover some of the architectural challenges posed by Web Services, examine how to use (and not to use) Web Services, and see some best practices in applying Web Services for solving tough architectural problems."
Thursday, October 23, 2003
BizTalk: Implement Design Patterns for Business Rules with Orchestration Designer -- MSDN Magazine, October 2001
BizTalk: Implement Design Patterns for Business Rules with Orchestration Designer -- MSDN Magazine, October 2001: "Christian Thilmany is President of the eTier Group Inc. a consulting firm in Houston, TX. He specializes in distributed application architectures for Internet, Intranet, and client/server development. He can be reached at christian@etier.com."
.Net Magazine - Gear Up for Web Services
.Net Magazine - Gear Up for Web Services: "Christian Thilmany has more than 12 years of experience in distributed architectures using .NET, Java, C++, and VB, specializing in component, messaging, and service technologies. He is an object-oriented designer experienced in utilizing standard processes, models, and patterns. He has written for MSDN Magazine, MIND, and Java Developer Journal and his .NET design book is due to be released in summer 2002. You can reach him by e-mail at christian@etier.com. "
Applying Patterns to JDBC Development
Java Developer's Journal - Thilmany: "Developers at some point in their careers will find themselves standing at the whiteboard, trying their best to regurgitate some complex development design they've spent all night working on. This is usually done with a series of strange symbols, arrows and scribblings in an attempt to convey the clarity that may lie in the head of said developer (unless of course he or she doesn't know what exactly the design is supposed to look like). Either way, you have the same problem."
Yahoo! Groups : MustHaveBooksForAspNetProgrammers Messages : Message 116 of 124
Yahoo! Groups : MustHaveBooksForAspNetProgrammers Messages : Message 116 of 124: "Physically, the book�s paper is study, and the book closes and sits well. The binding is tough and won�t break easily, leaving you with and ugly demarcation point after one interactice reading-while-coding-with-the-book-in-your-lap session (sorry...this type of stuff is important to me about books). :)"
Thilmany presentations
Microsoft: "Microsoft holds hundreds of events each quarter around the country. Find the presentation materials associated with an event you attended, or locate materials from events held around the country: "
Robert Hurlbut's .Net Blog
Book Review: "In the tradition of the GoF Book (Design Patterns) and the new .Net Patterns and Practices site, this book presents the most common architectural patterns for .Net Development.
I received my copy a couple of days ago, and I am thoroughly enjoying reading it. Highly recommended. "
I received my copy a couple of days ago, and I am thoroughly enjoying reading it. Highly recommended. "
Rational XDE Professional for .NET 2.1
ASP.NET PRO magazine: "XDE also includes some great capability for implementing and defining patterns in your designs. Patterns allow you to share not only code, but documentation, design, and higher-level knowledge, as well. XDE ships with wizards for all the well known Gang-of-Four (GOF) patterns, and Rational is cultivating a developer exchange community for making other patterns available on its http://www.rational.net site. One pattern of interest available there now is the WebServiceWrapper pattern that lets you create wrappers quickly for library classes that you want to expose as a Web service.
As with most complex products, it is very difficult to do it justice with a short review like this. Overall, I have been very impressed and pleased with XDE. The tight integration of the tool with the VS .NET IDE greatly decreases the conceptual distance between your design and your code, which not only matches a programmer's thought process better, but it makes the modeling process more achievable as well. It is still a fairly new product and has a few rough edges here and there that you might stumble upon, such as some cryptic error messages during drag-and-drop operations that are not allowed. But if you put it up against your other modeling options out there, I think Rational XDE Professional for .NET is a clear winner as the best UML modeling tool available for .NET development."
As with most complex products, it is very difficult to do it justice with a short review like this. Overall, I have been very impressed and pleased with XDE. The tight integration of the tool with the VS .NET IDE greatly decreases the conceptual distance between your design and your code, which not only matches a programmer's thought process better, but it makes the modeling process more achievable as well. It is still a fairly new product and has a few rough edges here and there that you might stumble upon, such as some cryptic error messages during drag-and-drop operations that are not allowed. But if you put it up against your other modeling options out there, I think Rational XDE Professional for .NET is a clear winner as the best UML modeling tool available for .NET development."
Barnes�&�Noble.com - .NET Patterns: Architecture, Design, and Process
Review Comments: "Also recommended: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, Martin Fowler, Opdyke, Roberts, Brant Microserfs, Douglas Coupland"
.NET Patterns: Architecture, Design, and Process
Amazon.com: Books: .NET Patterns: Architecture, Design, and Process: "This book is a great resource for .NET Framework developers, with patterns that are very useful and nicely solve many common .NET Framework design challenges. In particular, I like the composite 'Poly Model' pattern for a flexible data access layer.
Unfortunetely, the code is full of typos and just plain errors. It is frustrating to see a piece of code querying for the number of rows effected by a query, when the count was already returned to another variable just one line above! Terrible editing has taken much pleasure out of discovering the interesting and effective patterns.
I am most disappointed in the fact that there is no downloadable code samples that show the sample implementations in their entirety, and working (which would at least force the author to make sure the code can compile).
The only reason why I am giving 3 stars is because the patterns presented are excellent overall, but this book is like reading a first draft."
Unfortunetely, the code is full of typos and just plain errors. It is frustrating to see a piece of code querying for the number of rows effected by a query, when the count was already returned to another variable just one line above! Terrible editing has taken much pleasure out of discovering the interesting and effective patterns.
I am most disappointed in the fact that there is no downloadable code samples that show the sample implementations in their entirety, and working (which would at least force the author to make sure the code can compile).
The only reason why I am giving 3 stars is because the patterns presented are excellent overall, but this book is like reading a first draft."
.NET Patterns: Architecture, Design, and Process
Sorce Code for the Patterns Book on .NET: "Was both insightful and comprehensive. It's great to see these patterns presented within the context of many architectural dilemmas facing the vastly interconnected enterprise. Web service architects are sure to see enormous value in this text"
Plug-Ins: Let Users Add Functionality to Your .NET Applications with Macros and Plug-Ins
MSDN Magazine, October 2003 --> Most user applications benefit from the ability to be extended by other developers. It's often easier and more efficient to extend an existing application that users are already familiar with and trained on than it is to develop one from scratch. Thus, extensibility makes your application more attractive. You can build extensibility into your application by supporting features like plug-ins or macros. This is easily accomplished using the .NET Framework even if the core application isn't a .NET Framework app. In this article, the author describes extensibility features of the .NET Framework including late binding and reflection and how to use them, along with plug-in security considerations.: "The CLR runs managed code in a Win32® process and the granularity of it is finer than what you would find in unmanaged applications. For example, a single managed process can contain multiple AppDomains which you can think of as a sort of sub-process or lightweight application container.
Assemblies are the managed version of DLL and EXEs and they contain reusable object types such as class library types as well as your application code. Additionally, any extensions or plug-ins to your application would also live in an assembly (most likely a DLL). Assemblies are loaded into one or more AppDomains in your managed process.
Each managed process has at least one default AppDomain, and also contains certain shared resources such as the managed heap, the managed thread pool, and the execution engine itself. In addition to these logical components, a managed process can create any number of additional AppDomains. "
Assemblies are the managed version of DLL and EXEs and they contain reusable object types such as class library types as well as your application code. Additionally, any extensions or plug-ins to your application would also live in an assembly (most likely a DLL). Assemblies are loaded into one or more AppDomains in your managed process.
Each managed process has at least one default AppDomain, and also contains certain shared resources such as the managed heap, the managed thread pool, and the execution engine itself. In addition to these logical components, a managed process can create any number of additional AppDomains. "
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Cyber women test what's real
BBC NEWS | Technology | Cyber women test what's real: "Software cyberbabes, created by powerful computers, sophisticated modelling packages and active imaginations are getting extremely human-like. "
Association of Hindu Jain Temples of Metropolitan Washington
Association of Hindu Jain Temples of Metropolitan Washington: "Hindu & Jain Temples in DC Area"
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Rehman for Lord of the Rings
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | Bollywood composer for Rings show: "The West End version of Tolkien epic Lord of the Rings will have a score written by a top Bollywood composer.
AR Rahman, who also wrote the music for Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit Bombay Dreams,has been commissioned to produce a raft of original songs. "
AR Rahman, who also wrote the music for Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit Bombay Dreams,has been commissioned to produce a raft of original songs. "
Antivirus Software Turned Upside Down
Stop Virus Attacks: Antivirus software exists because viral code and malware exist. Malware signature databases coupled with antivirus (a/v) software provide what I'll call
"matter of fact, after the fact" security. It is a matter of fact that bytes matching an a/v vendor's malware signature must have malicious potential resembling a known virus, worm, Trojan, or other code analyzed in the past by the a/v software vendor and labeled as harmful. While false positives do occur in practice, a irus scanner wouldn't be useful if it constantly failed to distinguish between malware and user data or desirable code. Therefore, a/v software becomes the best proof, in practice, that particular bits are hostile.
Antivirus software vendors are in the business of selling virus signature updates. They sell content more than software, and it is content updates that drive
their profits. Updates to virus definitions occur after the fact, so everyone is always out-of-date and must keep paying in order to feel protected. This
makes for a good business, but it doesn't make for very good security. In fact, it's completely backwards. Think about it for a moment, why should anyone go through the expense and the trouble of keeping a running list of all bad code ever encountered? We can prove that something is good just as easily as we can prove that something is bad, but publishing a list of all known good software wouldn't be very profitable. Few people would ever have a need for the entire database. Most people would have no need for updates unless they planned to install more software.
Restricting the execution of code by a CPU to a small list of known good programs that the owner of the computer chooses to trust would basically
kill the antivirus industry. Such a deny-first security policy would give computer owners the kind of control over their boxes that the introduction of
automobile ignition keys gave to early motorists. The fact is that today's computers are still designed to accommodate arbitrary drivers as though the absence of security is a feature demanded by the marketplace.
This brings to mind the purportedly true story of the evolution of the automobile seatbelt. Consumers apparently resented the addition of seatbelts, and
manufacturers didn't want to install them because they gave the impression that there was danger involved in driving a car. Compared to the seatbeltless horse or bicycle, a car with a seatbelt looked scary, and car manufacturers weren't in the fear business, they sold convenience and other delightful things. Whether this version of automotive history is indeed accurate, the point is still valid:
Computing can't continue without seatbelts. We should not let our CPUs continue to execute whatever happens to come along each day. If you've ever tried to assemble a list of the processes normally executed by one of your Windows boxes, so that you might be able to spot a suspicious process that wasn't there before, you've probably realized that a malicious process can come and go faster than the Windows Task Manager will refresh. And Task Manager doesn't bother to keep a record of past program executions, so you'll only spot a suspicious process in this way if it happens to be long-lived or if you audit process execution at just the right time. Putting aside for a moment the obvious need for better low-level hardware-based controls over code execution, is there really any reason for Windows to allow programs to execute without first requiring the end-user or an administrator to authorize them in advance using a simple software control?
If we add even the simplest software seatbelt to the boxes we drive every day, we can turn antivirus software upside down, replacing it instead with
anti-software software. Not unlike the anti-driver purpose served by automobile ignition keys, or the anti-death purpose served by seatbelts, we must redesign our infosec safety precautions around the idea that the bad things that can happen are worse than the protections we must have to guard against them. Nobody would accept an out-of-date list of ways in which one can die in an automobile in lieu of a seatbelt, so why do we accept that an out-of-date list of bad code is a viable way to protect ourselves while we drive a computer?
To complete what turned out to be a three-part-series on using hash algorithms for code authentication and containment, I offer a working prototype of a
software seatbelt for Windows (available online at ftp://ftp.wdj.com/pub/webzip/newsletters/20031017sec_listing.txt ). The last two articles in this newsletter laid the foundation for forensic hash sets produced using the MD5 or SHA-1 hash algorithms and comprehensive, full-file hash digests as a replacement for digital signatures. Software vendors should communicate hash sets to users, and users should assemble and periodically verify hash sets of code modules installed on Windows boxes.
But we also need runtime verification of hashes against our trusted hash sets. That's what the prototype available from download is designed to accomplish, albeit very crudely. The best way for runtime hash verification to occur is doubtless with the assistance of hardware enhancements to CPU and motherboard architecture. No add-on, after-the-fact technique to inject hash verification (or antivirus scanning, for that matter) into Windows will ever be as good as a simple kernel modification. Still, the code provided in the download isn't a complete waste of time. I've been using a precursor to this code for a while, without the hash verification feature, and feel that it gives a valuable log of executable modules that are invoked on a box, if nothing else. By adding hash code profiling and verification based on the work shown in the last two newsletters, this code begins to look more promising--at least as a source of ideas and code.
The code in the download compiles into a DLL. If you prefer to use the MD5 hash algorithm instead of SHA-1, simply adjust the value of the ALGORITHM #define as shown. Installation is done by placing a copy of the binary in the Windows System directory and editing the following Registry value located in the specified HKLM\Software Registry key. Type the name of the DLL without its path when you edit or create the "AppInit_DLLs" Registry value.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\AppInit_DLLs
Next, create a folder under the Windows System directory named "AppInitProfile" such as: c:\winnt\system32\AppInitProfile
Finally, place an empty text file in the AppInitProfile directory named "ProfileMode." The presence of this file indicates that the code should operate in
profile mode rather than protect mode. No process will be terminated while the ProfileMode file is present. Instead, each process that launches and that links either statically or dynamically with user32.dll will generate a corresponding text file in the AppInitProfile directory. The hash code of the executable module responsible for creating the process is stored, with winsha1sum-compatible formatting, for later use. Delete, or rename, the ProfileMode text file to switch to protect mode, where any executable module not previously profiled will be hashed, logged in a text file beginning with the word BLOCKED, and its process will be abruptly terminated. Although there are many limitations to the AppInit_DLLs feature of user32.dll (you can read more about them with a search through the Microsoft Knowledge Base) there is certainly nothing wrong with having a little more control over the code that executes under Windows. And having a record of code that executed in the past, or tried to execute and was blocked, is as basic to information security as any safety feature in a car is to driving, and arriving alive, when you're on the road.
Download the source code for the DLL at ftp://ftp.wdj.com/pub/webzip/newsletters/20031017sec_listing.txt
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Coombs works as forensic analyst and expert witness in court cases involving digital evidence. Information security and network programming are his areas of special expertise. He can be reached at jasonc@science.org. Read previous newsletters online at http://www.windevnet.com/newsletters.
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"matter of fact, after the fact" security. It is a matter of fact that bytes matching an a/v vendor's malware signature must have malicious potential resembling a known virus, worm, Trojan, or other code analyzed in the past by the a/v software vendor and labeled as harmful. While false positives do occur in practice, a irus scanner wouldn't be useful if it constantly failed to distinguish between malware and user data or desirable code. Therefore, a/v software becomes the best proof, in practice, that particular bits are hostile.
Antivirus software vendors are in the business of selling virus signature updates. They sell content more than software, and it is content updates that drive
their profits. Updates to virus definitions occur after the fact, so everyone is always out-of-date and must keep paying in order to feel protected. This
makes for a good business, but it doesn't make for very good security. In fact, it's completely backwards. Think about it for a moment, why should anyone go through the expense and the trouble of keeping a running list of all bad code ever encountered? We can prove that something is good just as easily as we can prove that something is bad, but publishing a list of all known good software wouldn't be very profitable. Few people would ever have a need for the entire database. Most people would have no need for updates unless they planned to install more software.
Restricting the execution of code by a CPU to a small list of known good programs that the owner of the computer chooses to trust would basically
kill the antivirus industry. Such a deny-first security policy would give computer owners the kind of control over their boxes that the introduction of
automobile ignition keys gave to early motorists. The fact is that today's computers are still designed to accommodate arbitrary drivers as though the absence of security is a feature demanded by the marketplace.
This brings to mind the purportedly true story of the evolution of the automobile seatbelt. Consumers apparently resented the addition of seatbelts, and
manufacturers didn't want to install them because they gave the impression that there was danger involved in driving a car. Compared to the seatbeltless horse or bicycle, a car with a seatbelt looked scary, and car manufacturers weren't in the fear business, they sold convenience and other delightful things. Whether this version of automotive history is indeed accurate, the point is still valid:
Computing can't continue without seatbelts. We should not let our CPUs continue to execute whatever happens to come along each day. If you've ever tried to assemble a list of the processes normally executed by one of your Windows boxes, so that you might be able to spot a suspicious process that wasn't there before, you've probably realized that a malicious process can come and go faster than the Windows Task Manager will refresh. And Task Manager doesn't bother to keep a record of past program executions, so you'll only spot a suspicious process in this way if it happens to be long-lived or if you audit process execution at just the right time. Putting aside for a moment the obvious need for better low-level hardware-based controls over code execution, is there really any reason for Windows to allow programs to execute without first requiring the end-user or an administrator to authorize them in advance using a simple software control?
If we add even the simplest software seatbelt to the boxes we drive every day, we can turn antivirus software upside down, replacing it instead with
anti-software software. Not unlike the anti-driver purpose served by automobile ignition keys, or the anti-death purpose served by seatbelts, we must redesign our infosec safety precautions around the idea that the bad things that can happen are worse than the protections we must have to guard against them. Nobody would accept an out-of-date list of ways in which one can die in an automobile in lieu of a seatbelt, so why do we accept that an out-of-date list of bad code is a viable way to protect ourselves while we drive a computer?
To complete what turned out to be a three-part-series on using hash algorithms for code authentication and containment, I offer a working prototype of a
software seatbelt for Windows (available online at ftp://ftp.wdj.com/pub/webzip/newsletters/20031017sec_listing.txt ). The last two articles in this newsletter laid the foundation for forensic hash sets produced using the MD5 or SHA-1 hash algorithms and comprehensive, full-file hash digests as a replacement for digital signatures. Software vendors should communicate hash sets to users, and users should assemble and periodically verify hash sets of code modules installed on Windows boxes.
But we also need runtime verification of hashes against our trusted hash sets. That's what the prototype available from download is designed to accomplish, albeit very crudely. The best way for runtime hash verification to occur is doubtless with the assistance of hardware enhancements to CPU and motherboard architecture. No add-on, after-the-fact technique to inject hash verification (or antivirus scanning, for that matter) into Windows will ever be as good as a simple kernel modification. Still, the code provided in the download isn't a complete waste of time. I've been using a precursor to this code for a while, without the hash verification feature, and feel that it gives a valuable log of executable modules that are invoked on a box, if nothing else. By adding hash code profiling and verification based on the work shown in the last two newsletters, this code begins to look more promising--at least as a source of ideas and code.
The code in the download compiles into a DLL. If you prefer to use the MD5 hash algorithm instead of SHA-1, simply adjust the value of the ALGORITHM #define as shown. Installation is done by placing a copy of the binary in the Windows System directory and editing the following Registry value located in the specified HKLM\Software Registry key. Type the name of the DLL without its path when you edit or create the "AppInit_DLLs" Registry value.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\AppInit_DLLs
Next, create a folder under the Windows System directory named "AppInitProfile" such as: c:\winnt\system32\AppInitProfile
Finally, place an empty text file in the AppInitProfile directory named "ProfileMode." The presence of this file indicates that the code should operate in
profile mode rather than protect mode. No process will be terminated while the ProfileMode file is present. Instead, each process that launches and that links either statically or dynamically with user32.dll will generate a corresponding text file in the AppInitProfile directory. The hash code of the executable module responsible for creating the process is stored, with winsha1sum-compatible formatting, for later use. Delete, or rename, the ProfileMode text file to switch to protect mode, where any executable module not previously profiled will be hashed, logged in a text file beginning with the word BLOCKED, and its process will be abruptly terminated. Although there are many limitations to the AppInit_DLLs feature of user32.dll (you can read more about them with a search through the Microsoft Knowledge Base) there is certainly nothing wrong with having a little more control over the code that executes under Windows. And having a record of code that executed in the past, or tried to execute and was blocked, is as basic to information security as any safety feature in a car is to driving, and arriving alive, when you're on the road.
Download the source code for the DLL at ftp://ftp.wdj.com/pub/webzip/newsletters/20031017sec_listing.txt
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Coombs works as forensic analyst and expert witness in court cases involving digital evidence. Information security and network programming are his areas of special expertise. He can be reached at jasonc@science.org. Read previous newsletters online at http://www.windevnet.com/newsletters.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Kannan in an American Museum
Seattle Art Museum: Stories of Krishna - The Adventures of a Hindu God: "Who is Krishna? Why is he blue? And why do women find him so attractive? Step into his world and join the adventures of a Hindu god.
This interactive web site allows you to explore a selection of the paintings featured in the exhibition Painted Visions from India and Pakistan, Past and Present."
This interactive web site allows you to explore a selection of the paintings featured in the exhibition Painted Visions from India and Pakistan, Past and Present."
Overcapacity Stalls New Jobs
A glut of investment during the recent boom era is weighing down the process of American job creation. : "Much of the public outcry over America's failure to generate jobs has focused lately on a surge in the outsourcing of work to China and India. But another dynamic closer to home is weighing on job creation -- the slow process of working through a glut of boom-era investment that continues to litter the economy with underused factories."
'Survivor' Meets Millionaire, and a Show Is Born
A new TV reality show about the shark-infested world of business needed a star. Who better than Donald Trump? "Mr. Trump, sitting in his office on the 26th floor of the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, recalls the moment. 'Mark came up to me and said, 'You know, I was selling T-shirts on Venice Beach and I read 'The Art of the Deal,' and it had a very profound effect on me.' ' The approach worked. 'I said to myself, 'Boy, this guy's really smart, because he's trying to get to me and he's saying just the right things.' And he said, 'I really want to see you about an idea.' ' "
President's Bodyguard in for tough times
The President's Bodyguard has four officers, 14 junior commissioned officers and 161 soldiers. : "The President's Bodyguard is the cynosure of all eyes at major national ceremonies. But the gang rape in the capital's Buddha Jayanti Park on October 6 has raised questions about the elite unit's discipline."
The story of Diwaali
How does an American Born Confused Desi explain to his younger brother the
topic - When and how did Diwali begin? This is how he goes about it...
So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked
him. But,like, his step mom, or somethin', was kind of a bitch, and she
forcedher husband to, like, you know, send this cool dude, he was
Ram, to some national forest or reserve or somethin'.
Since he was going, for like, somethin' like more than 10 years or
so, he decided to take his wife and his bro along. You know... so
thatthey could all chill out together. But dude, the forest was
reeeeeealscary shit, really man, they had monkeys and devils and
shitlike that. But this dude, Ram, kicked their ass with darts,
bowsand arrows, so it was fine.
But then some bad gansta' boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his
babe(Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, were our man,
andhis bro Lakshman, pissed! And you don't piss this son-of-a-gunz
'coz, he just kicks ass and like, all the gods were with him. So
anyways, you don't mess with gods.
So, Ram and his bro get an army of monkeys. Dude, don't ask me how
theytrained the damn monkeys, just go along with me, OK. So, Ram, Lakhs,
andtheir monkeys whip this gansta's ass in his own hood. Anyways, by
now, their time's up in the forest and anyways, it gets kinda boring. You
knowno TVs or malls or shit like that. So, they decided to hitch
backhome.
His bro and the wife are backhome. People thought, well, you know,
atleastthey deserve somethin' nice and they didn't have any bars
andclubs in those days. So they couldn't take them out for a drink,
sothe people decided to smoke or shit. And they also had some
lamps, they lit the lamps too.
So it was pretty cooool... you know with all those fireworks really,
theyhad some local band play along with the fireworks, and you know
what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding, that was the very
firstmusical-synchronized fireworks. You know, like the 4th of the July
stuff, but just more cooler and stuff, you know. And, so dude, that
washow, like, this festival started.
Cool!!! Diwali Rocks Maaaan!
topic - When and how did Diwali begin? This is how he goes about it...
So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked
him. But,like, his step mom, or somethin', was kind of a bitch, and she
forcedher husband to, like, you know, send this cool dude, he was
Ram, to some national forest or reserve or somethin'.
Since he was going, for like, somethin' like more than 10 years or
so, he decided to take his wife and his bro along. You know... so
thatthey could all chill out together. But dude, the forest was
reeeeeealscary shit, really man, they had monkeys and devils and
shitlike that. But this dude, Ram, kicked their ass with darts,
bowsand arrows, so it was fine.
But then some bad gansta' boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his
babe(Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, were our man,
andhis bro Lakshman, pissed! And you don't piss this son-of-a-gunz
'coz, he just kicks ass and like, all the gods were with him. So
anyways, you don't mess with gods.
So, Ram and his bro get an army of monkeys. Dude, don't ask me how
theytrained the damn monkeys, just go along with me, OK. So, Ram, Lakhs,
andtheir monkeys whip this gansta's ass in his own hood. Anyways, by
now, their time's up in the forest and anyways, it gets kinda boring. You
knowno TVs or malls or shit like that. So, they decided to hitch
backhome.
His bro and the wife are backhome. People thought, well, you know,
atleastthey deserve somethin' nice and they didn't have any bars
andclubs in those days. So they couldn't take them out for a drink,
sothe people decided to smoke or shit. And they also had some
lamps, they lit the lamps too.
So it was pretty cooool... you know with all those fireworks really,
theyhad some local band play along with the fireworks, and you know
what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding, that was the very
firstmusical-synchronized fireworks. You know, like the 4th of the July
stuff, but just more cooler and stuff, you know. And, so dude, that
washow, like, this festival started.
Cool!!! Diwali Rocks Maaaan!
The stuff of dreams | CNET News.com
What makes researchers giddy about nanotubes? "They are stronger than steel and as flexible as plastic, conduct energy better than almost any material ever discovered and can be made from unexotic raw materials such as methane gas. "
Monday, October 20, 2003
Interoperability with COM and Win32
Interoperability with COM and Win32: "How does a Microsoft .NET application connect to unmanaged code, including COM libraries, ActiveX controls, and native (Win32) DLLs? This section includes links to resources to help you connect your .NET code to unmanaged components. "
Enterprise Development Technology Map
The Enterprise Development Technology Map is your guide to getting started with the Microsoft® .NET platform for enterprise development.: "
Technical Overview of the .NET Platform
Windows Server System
Enterprise Integration
Microsoft Solutions Framework
Moving Your Teams to .NET
Modeling and Design
Application Architecture
Componentization and Distribution
Security
World-Ready Applications
Development
Building, Debugging, and Testing
Deploying Applications and Components
Deploying Applications
.NET Framework Deployment Guide
Microsoft Operations Framework"
Technical Overview of the .NET Platform
Windows Server System
Enterprise Integration
Microsoft Solutions Framework
Moving Your Teams to .NET
Modeling and Design
Application Architecture
Componentization and Distribution
Security
World-Ready Applications
Development
Building, Debugging, and Testing
Deploying Applications and Components
Deploying Applications
.NET Framework Deployment Guide
Microsoft Operations Framework"
Microsoft .NET/COM Migration and Interoperability
Microsoft .NET/COM Migration and Interoperability: "It is likely that you have traditional Active Server Pages (ASP) and Component Object Model (COM) applications that you will want to use for some time after the Microsoft® .NET Framework and common language runtime (CLR) are released. You will want to take advantage of new functionality exposed by the CLR, and reuse existing components from the managed code that you develop.
The interoperability features of .NET allow you to work with existing unmanaged code (that is, code running outside the CLR) in COM components as well as Microsoft Win32® DLLs. It also allows you to use managed components from your unmanaged, COM-based code. These features allow you to choose if and when to migrate existing unmanaged code to .NET. "
The interoperability features of .NET allow you to work with existing unmanaged code (that is, code running outside the CLR) in COM components as well as Microsoft Win32® DLLs. It also allows you to use managed components from your unmanaged, COM-based code. These features allow you to choose if and when to migrate existing unmanaged code to .NET. "
Despite Widespread Poverty, a Consumer Class Emerges in India
Despite Widespread Poverty, a Consumer Class Emerges in India: "Of course, truisms about what holds India back have not disappeared. The shortfalls in infrastructure, particularly power and education, are staggering. Twenty-six percent of Indians still live in poverty, and data suggest inequality is widening even as the poverty rate falls. Overall employment is essentially stagnating.
The heavy dependence on agriculture, which still accounts for 25 percent of gross domestic product and 70 percent of employment, means that a bad monsoon, like the one last year, can hobble the economy."
The heavy dependence on agriculture, which still accounts for 25 percent of gross domestic product and 70 percent of employment, means that a bad monsoon, like the one last year, can hobble the economy."
Despite Widespread Poverty, a Consumer Class Emerges in India
Despite Widespread Poverty, a Consumer Class Emerges in India: "Inside the malls, young people sipped coffee at Barista Coffee, the Starbucks of India. They wandered through Indian department stores, Marks and Spencer, Lacoste and Reebok. Families took children to McDonald's, or the Subway sandwich shop. Moviegoers chose between 'Boom,' a Bollywood film with a decidedly Western touch of vulgarity, and '2 Fast 2 Furious.'
This is no longer the India of Gandhi, among history's most famous ascetics."
This is no longer the India of Gandhi, among history's most famous ascetics."
Do Errant Executives Deserve a Second Chance?
Do Errant Executives Deserve a Second Chance?: "At some point in our lives, as imperfect human beings, we find ourselves in need of forgiveness,' says Barry Minkow. In 1989, at age 23, Mr. Minkow was sentenced to 25 years in prison for defrauding investors in ZZZZ Best, a carpet-cleaning company he started when he was 16. All told, he fabricated more than 20,000 documents related to the business, which grew into a public company worth more than $200 million. "
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Microsoft unpacks details of Longhorn storage
CNET News.com: "What's new:
Microsoft said it plans to make its new version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, work better with older versions of the operating system and existing software programs.
Bottom line:
The software maker is hoping that a backward-compatible Longhorn will be an easier sell to IT departments and will be more appealing to software developers building new applications. "
Microsoft said it plans to make its new version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, work better with older versions of the operating system and existing software programs.
Bottom line:
The software maker is hoping that a backward-compatible Longhorn will be an easier sell to IT departments and will be more appealing to software developers building new applications. "
The Top Books of all time in UK - The Big Read
BBCi - The Big Read: "
1984, George Orwell
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë "
1984, George Orwell
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë "
Friday, October 17, 2003
Review It: Expert Tips for Finding Security Defects in Your Code
Review It: Expert Tips for Finding Security Defects in Your Code -- MSDN Magazine, November 2003: "Reviewing code for security defects is a key ingredient in the software creation process, ranking alongside planning, design, and testing. Here the author reflects over his years of code security reviews to identify patterns and best practices that all developers can follow when tracking down potential security loopholes. The process begins by examining the environment the code runs in, considering the roles of the users who will run it, and studying the history of any security issues the code may have had. After gaining an understanding of these background issues, specific vulnerabilities can be hunted down, including SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting, and buffer overruns. In addition, certain red flags, such as variable names like 'password', 'secret,' and other obvious but common security blunders, can be searched for and remedied."
Obfuscate It: Thwart Reverse Engineering of Your Visual Basic .NET or C# Code
Obfuscate It: Thwart Reverse Engineering of Your Visual Basic .NET or C# Code -- MSDN Magazine, November 2003: "One of the advantages of the .NET architecture is that assemblies built with it contain lots of useful information that can be recovered using ILDASM, the intermediate language disassembler. A side effect, though, is that someone with access to your binaries can recover a good approximation of the original source code. Here the authors present program obfuscation as a way to deter reverse engineering. In addition, they discuss the different types of obfuscation technologies available and demonstrate the new obfuscation tool that is included in Visual Studio .NET 2003."
C# for Java Developers
Amazon.com: Books: C# for Java Developers: "This guide will help Java developers master .NET programming with C#. It reveals similarities and differences between the two platforms these languages support, and shows how to draw on knowledge of Java to get up to speed in C# development. After a brief overview of the .NET platform, the book explains the syntax and features of the C# language, discusses how to use C# and the .NET Framework to accomplish common programming tasks, and introduces advanced programming areas such as threading and networking. "
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000 Operations
BizTalk Messaging Services and BizTalk Orchestration Services concepts: "Understanding the eight major areas of administration related to BizTalk Server and understanding the concepts behind how BizTalk Messaging Services and BizTalk Orchestration Services work can help system administrators manage and configure BizTalk Server to boost performance for their particular installations. Understanding these concepts also helps the system administrator troubleshoot more effectively. "
Orchestrating XML Web Services and Using the Microsoft .NET Framework with Microsoft BizTalk Server
How to deploy scalable, highly available XML Web services using BizTalk Orchestration and the .NET Framework.: "Pipeline component AICs support the same interfaces as Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 pipeline components. They were originally derived from the Microsoft Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition Order Processing pipeline (OPP) and Commerce Interchange pipeline (CIP) components. BizTalk Server 2000 itself was derived from the CIP and the Commerce Interchange Pipeline Manager (a free add-on to Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition, available from Microsoft). Because BizTalk Server supports these Commerce Server 2000 pipeline components, integration components written for the CIP and OPP are compatible. In fact, BizTalk Server and Commerce Server 2000 share the same Microsoft Commerce Pipeline Components Type Library (Pipecomplib.tlb). "
The Man Booker Prize 2003
DBC Pierre for his novel Vernon God Little: "Vernon God Little tells the story of a fifteen year old boy who stands accused of a high school massacre. An unforgettable innocent, Vernon is surrounded by a cast of grotesque adults, all of whom are determined to see him as a scapegoat for their own failings.
Professor John Carey, chairman of the Booker judges, describes DBC Pierre's unique novel as " a coruscating black comedy reflecting our alarm but also our fascination with modern America".
Other prize winners include:
Life of Pi, the 2002 Man Booker winner by Canadian writer Yann Martel, has been optioned for film by Fox 2000, a division of Twentieth Century Fox.
Film rights have been obtained by Irish director, Neil Jordan, to adapt Peter Carey's 2001 winning novel, True History of the Kelly Gang.
Ian McEwan's bestselling 2001 shortlisted novel, Atonement, is being adapted for the silver screen by director and former National Theatre supremo, Sir Richard Eyre."
Professor John Carey, chairman of the Booker judges, describes DBC Pierre's unique novel as " a coruscating black comedy reflecting our alarm but also our fascination with modern America".
Other prize winners include:
Life of Pi, the 2002 Man Booker winner by Canadian writer Yann Martel, has been optioned for film by Fox 2000, a division of Twentieth Century Fox.
Film rights have been obtained by Irish director, Neil Jordan, to adapt Peter Carey's 2001 winning novel, True History of the Kelly Gang.
Ian McEwan's bestselling 2001 shortlisted novel, Atonement, is being adapted for the silver screen by director and former National Theatre supremo, Sir Richard Eyre."
British visa regime affects Indian nationals
Flying British Airways? Get UK Visa!: "Nationals from India, Pakistan and four other countries would now need a visa to even travel through the UK on their way to a third country, the Home Office announced on Wednesday."
Creating an Intelligent and Flexible Solution with BPM, Business Rules, and Business Intelligence
This is the first of a series of articles that will look at several scenarios for creating flexible, dynamic, and responsive solutions through the integration of BPM, business rules, and business intelligence: "BI+BPM. It is business activity monitoring
Recognition,
Response
Resolution
Review to function
Delivering ROI
"
Business Process Management: There are multiple benefits of BPM:
It creates a common process base independent of any application.
It allows people to organize their business processes and observe them visually.
It facilitates the formalization of business processes that previously had been undocumented and sometimes ad hoc.
It provides a vehicle for instituting conformance of behavior where conformance is beneficial to the organization and flexibility where conformance is not necessary.
It allows people to model, simulate, and analyze business processes so they can create a business process that maximizes their objectives.
It serves as a way to speed up the implementation of process changes. As Fingar and Smith put it in their book, BPM the Third Wave - "BPM doesn't speed up applications development; it eliminates the need for it."1
It allows an organization to focus on processes that are "Core" and even to consider offering those processes as services to trading partners.
Recognition,
Response
Resolution
Review to function
Delivering ROI
"
Business Process Management: There are multiple benefits of BPM:
It creates a common process base independent of any application.
It allows people to organize their business processes and observe them visually.
It facilitates the formalization of business processes that previously had been undocumented and sometimes ad hoc.
It provides a vehicle for instituting conformance of behavior where conformance is beneficial to the organization and flexibility where conformance is not necessary.
It allows people to model, simulate, and analyze business processes so they can create a business process that maximizes their objectives.
It serves as a way to speed up the implementation of process changes. As Fingar and Smith put it in their book, BPM the Third Wave - "BPM doesn't speed up applications development; it eliminates the need for it."1
It allows an organization to focus on processes that are "Core" and even to consider offering those processes as services to trading partners.
BizTalk: Implement Design Patterns for Business Rules with Orchestration Designer
MSDN Magazine, October 2001: "This article describes several traditional design patterns including the Observer pattern and the Dispatcher pattern, elaborates on their structures, what they're used for, and how they can help you build a BizTalk-based solution. Following this is a discussion on using the BizTalk Orchestration Designer to build designs and integrate existing business processes. "
Using EDI with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002
Learn how Microsoft BizTalk Server can help both large businesses that are currently using EDI and smaller businesses that do not use EDI but that want to trade with larger businesses. : "BizTalk Server can help a company that uses EDI in the following ways:
Enabling enterprise application integration (EAI).
BizTalk Server automates the exchange of internal business data as well as accepting EDI data and automatically integrating it with internal systems.
Creating new relationships with smaller trading partners.
BizTalk Server provides a cost-effective way to exchange electronic documents with companies that choose not to use EDI.
Facilitating future growth.
BizTalk Server provides a cost-effective way to handle the expansion of a company's messaging and document interchange requirements. "
Enabling enterprise application integration (EAI).
BizTalk Server automates the exchange of internal business data as well as accepting EDI data and automatically integrating it with internal systems.
Creating new relationships with smaller trading partners.
BizTalk Server provides a cost-effective way to exchange electronic documents with companies that choose not to use EDI.
Facilitating future growth.
BizTalk Server provides a cost-effective way to handle the expansion of a company's messaging and document interchange requirements. "
Building a Scalable Business Process Automation Engine Using BizTalk Server 2002 and Visual Studio .NET
Covers design and implementation of a scalable BizTalk automated business process application using BizTalk Server 2002, Visual Studio .NET, and SQL Server 2000.: "
Dynamically alter the business process based upon upstream information.
Quickly alter the production business process with a minimum amount of coding changes.
Progressively update the business process step from informant, to facilitator, to automator. "
Dynamically alter the business process based upon upstream information.
Quickly alter the production business process with a minimum amount of coding changes.
Progressively update the business process step from informant, to facilitator, to automator. "
The Top 10 Questions Most Often Asked by Interviewers
Net-Temps: "Judging your adaptability, Checking your administration, communication, Decision making and management skills, Seeking initiative, ensuring Integrity, Checking your judgment, evaluating Leadership, Investigating your learning ability and organizational cooperation!!! "
The .NET Connection Pool Lifeguard
Prevent pool overflows that can drown your applications
: "you need to know about many scalability and performance details when you use connection pooling. Remember that you need to monitor and manage two essential factors: the number of connections each pool manages and the number of connection pools. In an efficient production system, typically the number of pools is low (1 to 10) and the total number of connections in use is also low (fewer than 12). An efficient query takes less than a second to complete and disconnect. So even if hundreds of customers are accessing your Web site simultaneously, relatively few connections can often handle the entire load. To make your applications run efficiently, you must keep connection resources under control and monitor your pools' status so that you'll have some warning before they overflow and your customers start to complain—or go elsewhere."
: "you need to know about many scalability and performance details when you use connection pooling. Remember that you need to monitor and manage two essential factors: the number of connections each pool manages and the number of connection pools. In an efficient production system, typically the number of pools is low (1 to 10) and the total number of connections in use is also low (fewer than 12). An efficient query takes less than a second to complete and disconnect. So even if hundreds of customers are accessing your Web site simultaneously, relatively few connections can often handle the entire load. To make your applications run efficiently, you must keep connection resources under control and monitor your pools' status so that you'll have some warning before they overflow and your customers start to complain—or go elsewhere."
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Her Story So Far: Tales of the Girl Child in India
SiliconIndia.com - Books: "A girl should walk so softly that there shouldn�t be any noise of her footfall. She should be so humble as to fit into a ring without disharmony.�
Her Story So Far showcases the most sensitive short fiction on the subject of the girl child by some of India�s finest writers�Phakirmohan Senapathy, Ashapurna Devi, Kamala Das, Indira Goswami, Amrita Pritam, Mrinal Pande, Pratibha Ray, Mahasweta Devi, Ambai, Ismat Chughtai and others. Compiled and edited by Monica Das, these stories cut across social, economic and regional divides to reveal what life is like for a girl growing up in India. And they raise a crucial question: will our society ever rise above its innate hypocrisies and change the way it regards its women?"
Her Story So Far showcases the most sensitive short fiction on the subject of the girl child by some of India�s finest writers�Phakirmohan Senapathy, Ashapurna Devi, Kamala Das, Indira Goswami, Amrita Pritam, Mrinal Pande, Pratibha Ray, Mahasweta Devi, Ambai, Ismat Chughtai and others. Compiled and edited by Monica Das, these stories cut across social, economic and regional divides to reveal what life is like for a girl growing up in India. And they raise a crucial question: will our society ever rise above its innate hypocrisies and change the way it regards its women?"
Indian American Senate hopeful sues Chicago Tribune
siliconindia: "Indian American Chirinjeev Kathuria, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, has filed a $100 million lawsuit against The Chicago Tribune for publishing a front-page article that cast doubts on his resume. "
Valassis Home Page
Valassis Home Page: "Valassis, (NYSE: VCI)was honored by Crain’s Detroit Business in their 2003 “Best Places to Work” list. Placing among the top 20 employers, Valassis was judged in ten categories including quality of organizational performance, work-life benefits and retirement-related benefits. "
Cancer fears over baby food jars
BBC NEWS | Health | Cancer fears over baby food jars: "Baby food manufacturers have been urged to change the way they package their products amid fears over cancer."
Swiss diplomat 'raped in Delhi'
BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Swiss diplomat 'raped in Delhi': "The attacks come just days after a university student was allegedly raped by bodyguards of the Indian president."
Microsoft Solution for Intranets Prescriptive Architecture Guide
Microsoft Solution for Intranets Prescriptive Architecture Guide: "The MSI helps you to create an infrastructure for productivity, collaboration, and knowledge management. This includes collaboration workspaces, general-purpose portals, portals geared to specific business functions, document management, enterprise-class search, the ability to create additional team sites, and real-time or on-demand access to digital media content.
The MSI integrates the following Microsoft products: Office XP, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server version 2001, SharePoint Team Services, Microsoft Windows Media and Microsoft SQL Server version 2000. The MSI includes:
Immediate solutions for document management search, subscriptions, digital media broadcast, and project or small team-based collaboration sites for your organization.
An open-ended portal architecture providing the facilities for constructing Line of Business (LOB)-integrated portals, executive information systems, business analytic solutions, and many other applications combined to help you and your business work smarter. "
The MSI integrates the following Microsoft products: Office XP, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server version 2001, SharePoint Team Services, Microsoft Windows Media and Microsoft SQL Server version 2000. The MSI includes:
Immediate solutions for document management search, subscriptions, digital media broadcast, and project or small team-based collaboration sites for your organization.
An open-ended portal architecture providing the facilities for constructing Line of Business (LOB)-integrated portals, executive information systems, business analytic solutions, and many other applications combined to help you and your business work smarter. "
Microsoft Solution for Internet Business
Microsoft Solution for Internet Business: MSIB provides the following:
Integration components. MSIB is specifically designed for corporate Web sites and for government and education portals. You can tailor these types of sites to accommodate your specific requirements, from basic to enterprise-level sites, with and without product catalogs.
Proven prescriptive guidance. MSIB is extensively tested by Microsoft and implemented at customer sites to ensure high quality.
Delivery by experienced consultants. & Post-implementation support.
Integration components. MSIB is specifically designed for corporate Web sites and for government and education portals. You can tailor these types of sites to accommodate your specific requirements, from basic to enterprise-level sites, with and without product catalogs.
Proven prescriptive guidance. MSIB is extensively tested by Microsoft and implemented at customer sites to ensure high quality.
Delivery by experienced consultants. & Post-implementation support.
Microsoft Solution for Supplier Enablement Operations Guide
Microsoft Solution for Supplier Enablement Operations Guide: The Microsoft® Solution for Supplier Enablement (MSSE) integrates a number of different Microsoft products into a solution that allows suppliers of various sizes to begin trading electronically with their trading partners. These products include Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2002, Microsoft® Commerce Server 2002, Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000, and Microsoft® BizTalk® Accelerator for Suppliers (AFS) Service Release 1.
BizTalk Best Practices for EAI
Applying Microsoft Patterns to Solve EAI ProblemsDiscover a solution pattern for enterprise application integration (EAI) using Microsoft technology. The architecture of this pattern is built around the Microsoft Pattern Reference Model.
MugShots.com - Mugshots.com - Biggest Directory of Mugshots on the internet
MugShots.com - Mugshots.com - Biggest Directory of Mugshots on the internet: "Three things you can count on in life: death, taxes, and screwing up. Don't feel badly, though. Everyone does it, including your favorites from the worlds of business, television, music, and film.
What do Bill Gates, Martin Luther King, Jr., Anna Nicole Smith, John Dillinger, and Sean "Puffy" Combs have in common? Rightly or wrongly, they've all been arrested and had their mug shot snapped. Sometimes the charges were dropped, as with Larry King. Other times, the arrest inspired the perpetrator to clean up their act, as with Keanu Reeves. Some crimes are heinous, like those of Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson. Others are ludicrous, like the four teens busted for stealing videotapes of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Flip through and you're sure to see a range of faces, some famous, some infamous. "
What do Bill Gates, Martin Luther King, Jr., Anna Nicole Smith, John Dillinger, and Sean "Puffy" Combs have in common? Rightly or wrongly, they've all been arrested and had their mug shot snapped. Sometimes the charges were dropped, as with Larry King. Other times, the arrest inspired the perpetrator to clean up their act, as with Keanu Reeves. Some crimes are heinous, like those of Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson. Others are ludicrous, like the four teens busted for stealing videotapes of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Flip through and you're sure to see a range of faces, some famous, some infamous. "
Words Without Borders: OCTOBER 2003
Words Without Borders: OCTOBER 2003: "This literary site culls the best works from international writers to present a different sensibility than that to which you're accustomed. One couldn't possibly appreciate all the gems found here without the help of translators, and although no translation is perfect, these tales from the Pacific Rim, plains of Europe, and global village give you a taste of voices that are distinctly foreign yet similar. The poem "Nothing But Iraq" retains its Arabic soul, while "The Hopes for Good Fortune" offers us a peek into Korean matchmaking. In the current issue, Sherko Fatah's tale of smugglers on the Turkish border and Najem Wali's story of a Basra soldier present a look into the literary tradition of Iraq. With the promise of more exciting and eclectic reads, feedback is encouraged to ensure nothing is lost in translation. "
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991: "
Since the early days of photography, the sweeping beauty of panoramic images have mesmerized us. Expansive vistas and sprawling cityscapes seem to be the perfect subjects for this long, narrow format. Sit back and enjoy this Library of Congress collection containing some 4,000 images taken from 1851 to 1991, featuring all 50 U.S. states and more than 20 countries. Start with a brief history of panoramic photography, and learn how they're shot, developed, and printed today. Because of their unique format, these photos can show changes in a city over time and uniquely chronicle disasters such as floods and earthquakes in great detail. The wonders of nature in Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, the Grand Canyon, and Mt. Rainier seem larger than life. While early 20th-century pictures of Naples, Seattle, Paris, Belize, Montgomery, and New York City offer a wide window to a bygone world.
The Panoramic Photograph Collection contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. These panoramas offer an overview of the nation, its enterprises and its interests, with a focus on the start of the twentieth century when the panoramic photo format was at the height of its popularity. Subject strengths include: agricultural life; beauty contests; disasters; engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams; fairs and expositions; military and naval activities, especially during World War I; the oil industry; schools and college campuses, sports, and transportation. The images date from 1851 to 1991 and depict scenes in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. More than twenty foreign countries and a few U.S. territories are also represented. These panoramas average between twenty-eight inches and six feet in length, with an average width of ten inches. "
Since the early days of photography, the sweeping beauty of panoramic images have mesmerized us. Expansive vistas and sprawling cityscapes seem to be the perfect subjects for this long, narrow format. Sit back and enjoy this Library of Congress collection containing some 4,000 images taken from 1851 to 1991, featuring all 50 U.S. states and more than 20 countries. Start with a brief history of panoramic photography, and learn how they're shot, developed, and printed today. Because of their unique format, these photos can show changes in a city over time and uniquely chronicle disasters such as floods and earthquakes in great detail. The wonders of nature in Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, the Grand Canyon, and Mt. Rainier seem larger than life. While early 20th-century pictures of Naples, Seattle, Paris, Belize, Montgomery, and New York City offer a wide window to a bygone world.
The Panoramic Photograph Collection contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. These panoramas offer an overview of the nation, its enterprises and its interests, with a focus on the start of the twentieth century when the panoramic photo format was at the height of its popularity. Subject strengths include: agricultural life; beauty contests; disasters; engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams; fairs and expositions; military and naval activities, especially during World War I; the oil industry; schools and college campuses, sports, and transportation. The images date from 1851 to 1991 and depict scenes in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. More than twenty foreign countries and a few U.S. territories are also represented. These panoramas average between twenty-eight inches and six feet in length, with an average width of ten inches. "
Booker battle reaches final moments
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Booker battle reaches final moments: "13/8 - Monica Ali, Brick Lane
2/1 - DBC Pierre (above), Vernon God Little
5/1 - Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
6/1 - Damon Galgut, The Good Doctor
7/1 - Clare Morrall, Astonishing Splashes Of Colour
8/1 - Zoe Heller, Notes on a Scandal
Source: Ladbrokes "
2/1 - DBC Pierre (above), Vernon God Little
5/1 - Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
6/1 - Damon Galgut, The Good Doctor
7/1 - Clare Morrall, Astonishing Splashes Of Colour
8/1 - Zoe Heller, Notes on a Scandal
Source: Ladbrokes "
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Getting lost in the translation
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Getting lost in the translation: "Earlier this month the small German town of Homberg-an-der-Efze, north of Frankfurt, had to pulp an entire print run of its English-language tourism brochure - after officials used an internet translating tool to translate the German text.
Tourists were promised 'casual value', the literal translation of the German word for 'leisure potential', at venues such as the 'free bath' - better known as an 'open-air swimming pool'. "
Tourists were promised 'casual value', the literal translation of the German word for 'leisure potential', at venues such as the 'free bath' - better known as an 'open-air swimming pool'. "
SOA: The Process Development Paradigm
Intelligent Enterprise Magazine � SOA: The Process Development Paradigm: "Leaving software development's dysfunctional legacy behind, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is gathering momentum as the paradigm for developing process management applications. Using Microsoft's BizTalk Server 2004 as an example, here's a look at how SOA works "
Intelligent Enterprise Magazine - The Portal Reborn
Intelligent Enterprise Magazine - The Portal Reborn: "choosing the correct strategies for PM portal applications isn't easy. There are no cookie cutters available. However, paying careful attention to the following important principles of design and development of PM portals can help significantly in creating high-value PM implementations that can ensure the ability of corporate employees to improve their efficiency and effectiveness, as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of the whole enterprise."
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Error Messages
Error Messages: "Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 - Error Messages (BizTalk Server 2002)
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 provides tools for developing and executing integrated business processes in the form of XLANG orchestrations within and between companies. Version enhancements include event management and XML Web Services support.
"
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 provides tools for developing and executing integrated business processes in the form of XLANG orchestrations within and between companies. Version enhancements include event management and XML Web Services support.
"
Yahoo! Groups : biztalkers
Yahoo! Groups : biztalkers: "If you are looking for help on your BizTalk schemas or you are having trouble designing your Visual orchestration designs... then this is the group for you. "
BizTalk Server Support Center
BizTalk Server Support Center: "Step-by-Step Instructions & How To Articles"
.NET: Introducing Generics in the CLR -- MSDN Magazine, September 2003
.NET: Introducing Generics in the CLR -- MSDN Magazine, September 2003: "Those of you who are familiar with templates in C++ will find that generics serve a similar purpose in managed code. "
Implementations
Implementations: "Microsoft .NET Architectural Sample Applications and Application Blocks for .NET"
:: CoDe Magazine ::
:: CoDe Magazine ::: "the state of VS .NET vs. other more 'mature' technologies."
DeKlarit turns Visual Studio .NET into a RAD tool for building database applications.
DeKlarit turns Visual Studio .NET into a RAD tool for building database applications.: "DeKlarit turns Visual Studio .NET into a RAD tool for building database applications."
Oak Leaf Enterprises
Oak Leaf Enterprises: "Mere Mortals .NET Developer�s Guide
It contains both high-level �best practices� information that helps you design solid, object-oriented applications, as well as detailed, step-by-step instructions demonstrating how to best use our Framework classes and tools."
It contains both high-level �best practices� information that helps you design solid, object-oriented applications, as well as detailed, step-by-step instructions demonstrating how to best use our Framework classes and tools."
Naming Guidelines
Naming Guidelines: "A consistent naming pattern is one of the most important elements of predictability and discoverability in a managed class library. Widespread use and understanding of these naming guidelines should eliminate many of the most common user questions. This topic provides naming guidelines for the .NET Framework types. For each type, you should also take note of some general rules with respect to capitalization styles, case sensitivity and word choice."
Saturday, October 11, 2003
BBC NEWS | Magazine | 10 things we didn't know this time last week
BBC NEWS | Magazine | 10 things we didn't know this time last week: "More from the poor old battered world of weblogs. Only a few weeks ago, 10 Things told how only 21% of Americans with internet access knew what a blog was. Now a survey by Perseus has found that of the estimated four million weblogs that have ever been created, one million had not been updated since the day they were made. 2.7m had not been updated in two months. Fewer than 50,000 blogs were updated every day. "
Advanced Web Services: Secure, Reliable, Transacted Web Services: Architecture and Composition (Web Services Technical Articles)
Advanced Web Services: Secure, Reliable, Transacted Web Services: Architecture and Composition (Web Services Technical Articles): "Composability enables incremental consumption or progressive discovery of new concepts, tools and services. "
WS-Addressing, WS-Security and WS-ReliableMessaging elements are independent and these elements can be used independently without altering the processing of other elements.
WS-Policy supports a grammar for aggregating policy statements and allows the construction of more flexible and complete sets of policy. WS-PolicyAttachment specifies how to associate a policy set with XML messages and WSDL elements (operations and portTypes). WS-PolicyAssertions provides a foundational set of common policy statements that can be used to achieve interoperability.
Together WS-Policy and WS-PolicyAttachment provide the framework. Individual specifications define their domain specific policy statements
WS-Trust defines an extensible model for setting up and verifying trust relationships.
use WS-Security with public keys to start a "conversation" or "session," and use WS-SecureConversation to agree on session specific keys for signing and encrypting information.
WS-MetadataExchange specification enables a service to provide metadata to others through a Web services interface. Given only a reference to a Web service, a potential user can access a set of WSDL/SOAP operations to retrieve the metadata that describes the service. Clients can use WS-MetadataExchange at design time, when building their clients, or at runtime.
WS-Federation allows a set of organizations to establish a single, virtual security domain.
WS-ReliableMessaging defines mechanisms that enable Web services to ensure delivery of messages over unreliable communication networks.
WS-Addressing provides an interoperable, transport independent approach to identifying message senders and receivers. WS-Addressing also provides a finer grain approach to identifying specific elements within a service that send or should receive a message.
WS-Coordination is a general mechanism for starting and agreeing on the outcome of multiparty, multi-message Web service tasks.
WS-AtomicTransaction defines a specific set of protocols that plug into the WS-Coordination model to implement traditional two-phase atomic transaction protocols. It
WS-BusinessActivity defines a specific set of protocols that plug into the WS-Coordination model to implement long-running, compensation-based transaction protocols. While BPEL4WS defines a transaction model for business processes, it is WS-BusinessActivity that specifies the corresponding protocol rendering. This, again, is an example for the composability of the Web services specifications.
The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) specification supports service composition. It enables developers to define the structure and behavior of a set of Web services that jointly implement a shared business solution. Each element of the set of services defines its interface using WSDL and WS-Policy. The composed solution is itself a Web service, which supports HTTP/SOAP messages and defines its interface using WSDL and WS-Policy.
Composition has three aspects: structure, information and behavior. BPEL4WS introduces three constructs supporting each composition aspect.
WS-Addressing, WS-Security and WS-ReliableMessaging elements are independent and these elements can be used independently without altering the processing of other elements.
WS-Policy supports a grammar for aggregating policy statements and allows the construction of more flexible and complete sets of policy. WS-PolicyAttachment specifies how to associate a policy set with XML messages and WSDL elements (operations and portTypes). WS-PolicyAssertions provides a foundational set of common policy statements that can be used to achieve interoperability.
Together WS-Policy and WS-PolicyAttachment provide the framework. Individual specifications define their domain specific policy statements
WS-Trust defines an extensible model for setting up and verifying trust relationships.
use WS-Security with public keys to start a "conversation" or "session," and use WS-SecureConversation to agree on session specific keys for signing and encrypting information.
WS-MetadataExchange specification enables a service to provide metadata to others through a Web services interface. Given only a reference to a Web service, a potential user can access a set of WSDL/SOAP operations to retrieve the metadata that describes the service. Clients can use WS-MetadataExchange at design time, when building their clients, or at runtime.
WS-Federation allows a set of organizations to establish a single, virtual security domain.
WS-ReliableMessaging defines mechanisms that enable Web services to ensure delivery of messages over unreliable communication networks.
WS-Addressing provides an interoperable, transport independent approach to identifying message senders and receivers. WS-Addressing also provides a finer grain approach to identifying specific elements within a service that send or should receive a message.
WS-Coordination is a general mechanism for starting and agreeing on the outcome of multiparty, multi-message Web service tasks.
WS-AtomicTransaction defines a specific set of protocols that plug into the WS-Coordination model to implement traditional two-phase atomic transaction protocols. It
WS-BusinessActivity defines a specific set of protocols that plug into the WS-Coordination model to implement long-running, compensation-based transaction protocols. While BPEL4WS defines a transaction model for business processes, it is WS-BusinessActivity that specifies the corresponding protocol rendering. This, again, is an example for the composability of the Web services specifications.
The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) specification supports service composition. It enables developers to define the structure and behavior of a set of Web services that jointly implement a shared business solution. Each element of the set of services defines its interface using WSDL and WS-Policy. The composed solution is itself a Web service, which supports HTTP/SOAP messages and defines its interface using WSDL and WS-Policy.
Composition has three aspects: structure, information and behavior. BPEL4WS introduces three constructs supporting each composition aspect.
Advanced Web Services: Secure, Reliable, Transacted Web Services: Architecture and Composition (Web Services Technical Articles)
Advanced Web Services: Secure, Reliable, Transacted Web Services: Architecture and Composition (Web Services Technical Articles): "Composability enables incremental consumption or progressive discovery of new concepts, tools and services. "
WS-Addressing, WS-Security and WS-ReliableMessaging elements are independent and these elements can be used independently without altering the processing of other elements.
WS-Policy supports a grammar for aggregating policy statements and allows the construction of more flexible and complete sets of policy. WS-PolicyAttachment specifies how to associate a policy set with XML messages and WSDL elements (operations and portTypes). WS-PolicyAssertions provides a foundational set of common policy statements that can be used to achieve interoperability.
Together WS-Policy and WS-PolicyAttachment provide the framework. Individual specifications define their domain specific policy statements
WS-Trust defines an extensible model for setting up and verifying trust relationships.
use WS-Security with public keys to start a "conversation" or "session," and use WS-SecureConversation to agree on session specific keys for signing and encrypting information.
WS-MetadataExchange specification enables a service to provide metadata to others through a Web services interface. Given only a reference to a Web service, a potential user can access a set of WSDL/SOAP operations to retrieve the metadata that describes the service. Clients can use WS-MetadataExchange at design time, when building their clients, or at runtime.
WS-Federation allows a set of organizations to establish a single, virtual security domain.
WS-ReliableMessaging defines mechanisms that enable Web services to ensure delivery of messages over unreliable communication networks.
WS-Addressing provides an interoperable, transport independent approach to identifying message senders and receivers. WS-Addressing also provides a finer grain approach to identifying specific elements within a service that send or should receive a message.
WS-Coordination is a general mechanism for starting and agreeing on the outcome of multiparty, multi-message Web service tasks.
WS-AtomicTransaction defines a specific set of protocols that plug into the WS-Coordination model to implement traditional two-phase atomic transaction protocols. It
WS-BusinessActivity defines a specific set of protocols that plug into the WS-Coordination model to implement long-running, compensation-based transaction protocols. While BPEL4WS defines a transaction model for business processes, it is WS-BusinessActivity that specifies the corresponding protocol rendering. This, again, is an example for the composability of the Web services specifications.
The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) specification supports service composition. It enables developers to define the structure and behavior of a set of Web services that jointly implement a shared business solution. Each element of the set of services defines its interface using WSDL and WS-Policy. The composed solution is itself a Web service, which supports HTTP/SOAP messages and defines its interface using WSDL and WS-Policy.
Composition has three aspects: structure, information and behavior. BPEL4WS introduces three constructs supporting each composition aspect.
WS-Addressing, WS-Security and WS-ReliableMessaging elements are independent and these elements can be used independently without altering the processing of other elements.
WS-Policy supports a grammar for aggregating policy statements and allows the construction of more flexible and complete sets of policy. WS-PolicyAttachment specifies how to associate a policy set with XML messages and WSDL elements (operations and portTypes). WS-PolicyAssertions provides a foundational set of common policy statements that can be used to achieve interoperability.
Together WS-Policy and WS-PolicyAttachment provide the framework. Individual specifications define their domain specific policy statements
WS-Trust defines an extensible model for setting up and verifying trust relationships.
use WS-Security with public keys to start a "conversation" or "session," and use WS-SecureConversation to agree on session specific keys for signing and encrypting information.
WS-MetadataExchange specification enables a service to provide metadata to others through a Web services interface. Given only a reference to a Web service, a potential user can access a set of WSDL/SOAP operations to retrieve the metadata that describes the service. Clients can use WS-MetadataExchange at design time, when building their clients, or at runtime.
WS-Federation allows a set of organizations to establish a single, virtual security domain.
WS-ReliableMessaging defines mechanisms that enable Web services to ensure delivery of messages over unreliable communication networks.
WS-Addressing provides an interoperable, transport independent approach to identifying message senders and receivers. WS-Addressing also provides a finer grain approach to identifying specific elements within a service that send or should receive a message.
WS-Coordination is a general mechanism for starting and agreeing on the outcome of multiparty, multi-message Web service tasks.
WS-AtomicTransaction defines a specific set of protocols that plug into the WS-Coordination model to implement traditional two-phase atomic transaction protocols. It
WS-BusinessActivity defines a specific set of protocols that plug into the WS-Coordination model to implement long-running, compensation-based transaction protocols. While BPEL4WS defines a transaction model for business processes, it is WS-BusinessActivity that specifies the corresponding protocol rendering. This, again, is an example for the composability of the Web services specifications.
The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) specification supports service composition. It enables developers to define the structure and behavior of a set of Web services that jointly implement a shared business solution. Each element of the set of services defines its interface using WSDL and WS-Policy. The composed solution is itself a Web service, which supports HTTP/SOAP messages and defines its interface using WSDL and WS-Policy.
Composition has three aspects: structure, information and behavior. BPEL4WS introduces three constructs supporting each composition aspect.
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