Microsoft launches Windows smartphones : My view on it

Microsoft is in a battle to reincarnate its dinosaur mobile OS with launch of its own smartphone.The phones, which combine the ability to make calls, surf the internet and view videos, carry Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.I know you will go like Hey don't we already have that. Don't you think it is too little too late !!! The smartphone market is already saturated with lots of different OS and the major ones like Apple's iPhone system, Plam OS, Google's Android (which is a free platform) and Symbian OS. The new venture Microsoft is attempting is just a desperation to gain market that it already lost to big guys like Google and Apple. In a official launch Mr. Ballmer said "We have taken the Internet Explorer browser technologies, and we rebuilt them for the first time for these Windows phones. So you can get the same experience on these phones that you will get on your windows PC." (Hey watch out, The Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) is coming to your smartphones !!!) Is that the way you promote your technology. A reincarnated IE ??? Lets face it IE is no where near the facilities provided by other browsers like Mozilla Firefox and with the new kid on the block called Crome which is improving at a speed of light (Well that is an exaggeration but you know what I mean !!!). Microsoft needs to come up with something new that is authentic and that can make others to follow it rather than just trying to get the market that is already saturated. Get a life Microsoft and you really needs some great minds to think of products Mr. Ballmer !!!

Google Wave: What is it ?

There is a new Google product called Google Wave currently under limited preview. Some of you may have already tried it or at least looked at its video or you may not have any idea about whatsoever. In a simple term it a mashup of emails,documents and social networking. Don't scratch your head. Just go to google and google it! (How ironic !!!). You can look at a video on youtube that explains it in a simple terms. and if you want to get a detailed explanation of it go to Google Wave's website and spare yourself an hour of amazement.

Here is a simple explanation of what you can do with google wave.
For Example you want to know more about Sydeny Opera House. So you start a new wave with this topic and invite your friends. Once they join the wave they can comment on it and everyone who are in the wave can view it and provide their opinion. You will go so whats a big deal here ? You can also share photographs and documents. It can be a really good collaboration platform.

So head out to Google Wave and enjoy it.

Microsoft's Bing search engine comming soon

Did you heard the news ? What news ? Hey don't worry its not new development in Swine Flue pandemic ! Microsoft is launching its new search engine. You will say don't they have one called "Live". "May be its time for Live to be dead and get reincarnation as a Bing." The reason they are coming up with new search engine is the Live search is not giving them revenue they are expecting and Google is dominating the search engine market and certainly making its more than 90% revenue out of it. So the big guy (Microsoft) want big chunk of the pie rather then just a piece.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in San Diego during D7 Conference officially launched its new search engine called Bing that previously code named as "Kumo". Microsoft is calling it a decision engine rather than a search engine. Hey don't worry it gives you the search result only not the decision on what to eat today !!!

I have a look at its video and first impression was really awesome.I am not exaggerating.Check out its video Here . You can get more information on Bing Here.


It may be the time for Google to worry a bit. Well it takes a really big effort to get people to use new search engine. "Google become more of a verb than a noun in last decade." Google will certainly reply back to Bing with whatever it takes to sustain its position. Microsoft is also launching $80 to $100 million advertising campaign to promote Bing. By the time, lets enjoy this new battle as it progress and get the most out of it.

Google's new features : Wonder wheel

Hey, Did anyone noticed Google's new feature when you search something. It gives you more control over your search query. You can see the hyperlink came up when you search something called Show options.... You click on it and magic happens.... well you will say what is new with that options panel. But as you can notice it allows you to filter your result with regards to the time articles published, if you want to see only videos or forums or reviews and there is something very special called wonder wheel. You click on it and it gives you the options to further refine your result. It is really cool.!!!



For example you search for car dealers in sydney and click on the wonder wheel and it automatically refine your search result and allow you to pick up options to go for particular area in sydney and when you choose something it further gives you the options to choose type of car you want. I find it really cool and I am sure you will also enjoy it. Though it is a good option for end users it is a pain in ass for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) guys as they have to take into account this new feature and try to rank their websites for all possible keywords. It will certainly take time for people to get used to with this new feature and use it more frequently and by that time SEO guys needs to come up with solutions to fool this wonder wheel. I hope they will find out something very soon otherwise they are in trouble.
By the time enjoy coffee... and think of ideas.....

Serialization in .NET

This article is about serialization facility in .NET framework and particularly Object Serialization. So lets start from scratch and define first what is serialization ?

Serialization is the process of storing objects to the file or isolated file and later use it in the same application or same process or in another application on remote machine. It is just like you store data to a file and later use it in another application or same application. The difference here is you are storing objects not some random data and later recreate same object via deserialization.

This process is made simple via .NET frameworks serialization classes. The namespace we are looking here is System.Runtime.Serialization. Serialization save a lot of development time. There are three different kind of serialization provided by .NET framework.

1. Object Serialization
2. XML Serialization
3. Custom Serialization

In this article we will look at Object Serialization.

To serialize an object is very simple process.
1. Create a stream object that can hold the serialized object.
2. Create a BinaryFormatter object (namespace System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary).
3. Call BinaryFormatter.Serialize method to serialize the object and output it to a stream.

Lets see it in example. I use C# as a programming language here.

// string object data that is to be serialized.
string data = "This data is to be serialized";

// Create a file stream to save data.
FileStream fs = new FileStream("mySerialiedData.dat",FileMode.Create);

//Create BinaryFormatter object
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();

// use bf object to serialize data.
bf.Serialize(fs,data);

//close file stream
fs.Close();

That's it the data object is serialized and stored in file mySerializedData.dat.

You can deserialize it using BinaryFormatter's Deserialize method. You need to cast the object back to proper data type.

FileStream fs = new FileStream("mySerializedData.dat",FileMode.Open);
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
string data = (string) bf.Deserialize(fs); // cast it back to string object
fs.close();

You can serialize and deserialize any object using same technique.

You can make the custom class Serializable and Deserializable by using [Serializable] attribute.

For example:

[serializable]
class Product
{
public int id;
public string name;
public float price;
public double tax;
}

If tax is calculated using value of price than there is no need to serialize it to reduce the size of serialized object. To do this declare it as a [NonSerialized] attribute and implement IDeserializationCallback interface to calculate it when deserializing the object.


For example:

[serializable]
class Product : IDeSerializationCallback
{
public int id;
public string name;
public float price;
[NonSerialized]public double tax;

void IDeserializationCallback.OnDeserialization(object sender)
{
tax = price*0.1;
}
}

Now the value of tax will be available to the application that deserialize the object of Product class via OnDeserializing callback method.

This is how the serialization works in .NET environment. Isn't it really simple? So enjoy serializing. And by the way the closest resemblance to serialization is the teleportation in science fiction !

Windows 7 Release Candidate

Hi All,

Watch out !!! Windows 7 is on its way. Release Candidate is available for download now. Though its not final version yet RC is more close to the final version. Those who may have used beta or wants to check whats new can download it from Microsoft Windows 7 official website. Have a look at the systems requirements.


A PC for testing that meets these minimum system requirements (specific to Windows 7 RC and subject to change in the final version of Windows 7):

*1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
*1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
*16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
*DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

One thing is sure it is going to be the big installation. So those who are using XP on old systems might be disappointed. And one advise those who are buying PC or Notebook at the moment. Wait for a while or ask your dealer if you can get the free upgrade to Windows 7 in future.

Oracle to buyout Sun Microsystems

Yesterday Oracle Corporation formally announced its intention to buy Sun Microsystems. This is bit of a shock news for me and sure for lot of those who follow Sun closely. Hey my concern is not about dog eat dog situation here. The big question that concern me is that Is it the end of open source era? I hope certainly not. As Sun Microsystems is the biggest Open Source solutions and products provider and lots of penetration in the market this potential take our will create big concern in the market. Lets See how this goes as the Oracle still have to overcome stakeholders approval of this big transaction. Can Oracle really be the Oracle (the one that can see in future) and snatch the deal? You can read the story on Oracle Press release.