Under the Hood: Insight from the Ironworks Technology Group

My First Time at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference

Two weeks ago, I went to Apple's 2011 Worldwide Developer Conference. WWDC happens every year in the summer time, typically early June. For the last several years, from 2007 until 2010, it was known for its keynote debuting some not very notable Apple products:

• iPhone
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4

So what was it like for a man who is a total Apple fanboy yet a Microsoft .NET developer by day? Incredible.

Come See the Real Deal (Again!)

As a quick FYI, I will be a panelist at the Richmond Mobile Monday meeting on Monday, February 7th. Myself and three other thought leaders in the mobile space will be discussing the directions and trends in mobile in 2011.

So, if you want to come say hi and meet me face to face, please register and plan to attend!

Going Mobile - Implementing Mobile Web Best Practices Using SharePoint 2010

As part of our SharePoint for Business Webcast Series, part 1 of the series covers the implementation of mobile web best practices utilizing the SharePoint 2010 platform.  Below you'll find the overview of this installment in the series and the video from YouTube.

 

With the recent proliferation of smartphones and tablet PCs, having a mobile optimized website is becoming as important to organizations as having a standard desktop website. SharePoint 2010’s mobile and collaborative features can be leveraged to engage an organization’s constituents in an entirely new way, often at the very moment they are reaching out to have their needs fulfilled. To ensure site visitors are presented with an intuitive and engaging mobile website, it is imperative that an organization apply the latest best practices when designing, implementing and enhancing their SharePoint solutions.

In this webcast, we enumerate the best practices found in some of the most effective mobile websites and show how they can be implemented using SharePoint 2010. Topics include: tailoring site layouts to handheld devices, fine-tuning navigation for mobile websites, optimizing for mobile search, and more.

 

 

 

Join us for the next webcasts in our "SharePoint for Business Webcast Series" by registering here: http://sharepointforbusiness.eventbrite.com/

Richmond Code Camp Slides

This past Saturday, October 9, 2010, I had the privilege of speaking at the 10th Richmond Code Camp. I had a blast, and am still blown away by not only how many people attended my 8:45 AM session, but also by the insightful and fantastic questions I was asked.

I've posted the slides in three formats, so I cover all my bases:

Poorly Advertised .NET 4 Features

In doing some further research for my forthcoming Code Camp presentation, I've tried to dig up any other useful .NET 4.0 tidbits to share with my audience. I have, much to my surprise, been able to come up with quite a lot of not well advertised toys and tricks. Here's a few of them.

Many relate to ASP.NET, since that's what I tend to do in my day-to-day job, but there are definitely some goodies there for other .NET developers.

Come See the Real Deal!

Just a quick note; I'll be joining two of my coworkers, Jessica Moss and Brad Stora, will be speaking at the Richmond Code Camp on this coming Saturday, October 9. I'll be doing a talk covering the new features in C# and .NET 4.0. Jessica will be talking about Data Warehousing, and Brad about SQL Server Reporting Services.

So, should you want to meet any Ironworkers in person, be sure to stop by! Details are available on the Richmond Code Camp website.

Cost Effective Solutions for SSL Certificates

Do you have a site in production for which you have purchased a Verisign SSL certificate?  Do you need a cost effective way of simulating that certificate on your development and/or staging environments? 

Typically SSL certificates average around $450 each (per year).  If you have multiple environments you need that require SSL for testing purposes or if you are tired of commenting out your https redirects so that your site will work, this article will be helpful.

You have a few options for enabling SSL on your site:

1. Verisign offers a 14 day free trial certificate.  You would utilize this trial if you are interested in purchasing a permanent one but just want to test to see that you code works appropriately once purchased.  However, you won’t be able to use this certificate permanently – it will expire after the trial period.

2. You can purchase a permanent SSL certificate from Verisign for each of your environments but this is a very expensive solution.

3. The best solution I have found is installing a self signed certificate.  These are free and with a workaround solution you are able to create multiple certificates on the same server if it houses multiple secure sites.  The instructions below are for IIS 6.0 and Windows Server 2003.

The tool that you are interested in is called SelfSSL – it comes free under the IIS 6.0 Resource Tool Kit.  Download it on http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56fc92ee-a71a-4c73-b628-ade629c89499&displaylang=en.  It is just under 6 MB and the installation is quick.

STEP 1: Run the install

 

Step 2: Fill our your user name and company information

 

Step 3: Choose Custom and then specify the directory where you want to install.  It is fine to choose the default.

Step 4: Make sure that the tool SelfSSL 1.0 is selected.

 

Step 5: Click next and then finish to complete the installation.

Step 6: Open up a command prompt and type in the path C:\Program Files\IIS Resouces\SelfSSL

Step 7: Type in selfssl ? This will bring up the help menu and list out all the options available.

Step 8: The format you will follow is “selfssl.exe /N:CN=CommonName /K:1024 /V:7 /S:1 /P:443”

- The /N:cn parameter specifies the common name you want to use.  Typically I put the name of my domain here. 

- The /K parameter specifies the key length of the certificate.  Typically, it is 1024

- The /V parameter specifies how long the certificate is valid for in number of days.  If you want it for 2 years, type in /V:730.

- The /S parameter specifies the site id.  In order to find the site id of the one you are interested in, go to IIS and click on the Web Sites folder.  A list will appear of all your sites.  The 2nd column is the site identifier.  So in this example you would type in /S:2101337811.

- The /P parameter specifies the port you would like to use.  The default is 443 for SSL.

Step 9: After you issue the command it will ask if you would like to replace the existing SSL settings.  Specify Yes.

Step 10: The self signed certificate is installed!  You can double check by opening up IIS, right click on the site and go to Properties.  Then go to the “Directory Security” tab and click “View Certificate”.

 

If you are interested in multiple SSL certificates on the same server, please read this article:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/david.wang/archive/2005/04/20/selfssl-bug-with-websites.aspx

SharePoint on the iPhone: An Introduction

Recently, I had some time between projects, and wanted to do something productive during that time. Ironworks has had an interest in mobile development for a while now, and I had been playing around with iPhone development at home.

So, I spent a little time creating an iPhone front end to our intranet portal, which we call "IDubHub".

Testing with Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010, and why you can’t look back now

As I mentioned in my last blog, I tend to jump around between Microsoft products, and so the flavors of the week are Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010.  There are some great new features for both VS 2010 and TFS 2010 that make the job of testing applications much easier; however, there are some considerations to be aware of before you take the plunge.  The first of these is that to take full advantage of all of the testing features that Visual Studio has to offer, you really need to have Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, or both Visual Studio 2010 Premium and Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional, as each provides some of the components that will be necessary for the full testing lifecycle.  VS Test Professional will provide you access to Microsoft Test Manager, a new tool that allows you to manage the testing lifecycle without the need for Visual Studio, while VS Premium allows you to write the automated Coded UI Tests, which are again new for VS 2010.  Both of these features will be covered later in this post, and both are available in VS Ultimate.  There is a great breakdown of the features within each version here: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/shair/archive/2010/04/13/visual-studio-2010-what-version-is-for-me.aspx. 

The Newest New Hotness: C# 4.0

So, Visual Studio 2010 was released last month, in April of 2010. With it comes C# 4.0, the newest edition of one of my two favorite languages. With it comes a bunch of additions, some of which I am really stoked over and some... not as much.

Rather than regurgitating what's been flying around the 'net for a while though, I thought I'd point out a couple of really good links. These links are extensive walkthroughs of the new features that I've found to be really informative.

• C# 4.0's New Features Explained, a high-level look at the new features
• An Overview of C# 4.0, a more in-depth examination

If you are a C# developer, I strongly encourage you to check those links out and get your hands on a copy of Visual Studio 2010 as soon as you can. Once you've done your examination, feel free to leave a comment and let me know what your favorite new language (or IDE) feature is. Personally, I'm a huge fan of the dynamic keyword. I can hardly wait to think of all the crazy uses for that new toy...