BlueMetal speaking, sponsoring, and answering questions at SharePoint Saturday Boston 4/27/13
BlueMetal Architects is proud to be a Platinum sponsor of SharePoint Saturday Boston on 4/27/13 at Microsoft, 1 Cambridge Center, Cambridge MA. The event is sold out.
We will host office hours at the booth where any attendee can bring their SharePoint questions to be answered by our experts. (Office hour timing will be released once the session schedule is confirmed.)
Bob German will present Turbocharge SharePoint 2010 with SharePoint 2013 Search, jointly with Neal McFee of Harvard Business School.
Sadie Van Buren will present What’s your Social IQ? Succeeding with SharePoint Social, jointly with Chris McNulty of Dell.
On Tuesday, 16 April 2013, from 1-5 pm, BlueMetal Architects and Microsoft will jointly present a half-day of Windows 8 sessions including examples of real-world applications. The program is designed to guide attendees from understanding the Windows 8 platform to designing and developing modern Windows 8 applications. Beginning with a “Why Windows 8” overview relevant for both business decision makers as well as senior technical leaders, architects, and developers, attendees will learn the core value propositions of Windows 8, key business scenarios where Windows 8 is uniquely suited to delivering innovative solutions, and the fundamentals of developing an application using .NET or HTML/JavaScript. From there, attendees will have the opportunity to work with Microsoft and BlueMetal’s technical architects and developers to design, spec, and develop applications.
Join us for this free event; there will be a cocktail reception immediately following.
Ted Krueger will present “Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 with Limited Downtime” at SQL Saturday Madison, Saturday 4/6/13, 10:45 am, at Madison Area Technical College – Truax Campus, 3550 Anderson St, Madison, WI 53704.
Abstract: With SQL Server 2012 released and going strong, we’re all wanting the latest and greatest, high performing, SQL Engine sitting on our servers. How we do that is another question. How do you get a weekend of downtime? Do you like convincing the business you need it? I don’t, and that is why we’re going to look at methods to upgrade or migrate SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 up to SQL Server 2012 with as little downtime as possible – minutes. In this session, we’ll see how mirroring, log shipping and even replication, can make us look like DBA Rock stars at upgrade time.
Bob German and Beatrice Baciu will present Introducing the SharePoint 2013 App Model at Boston Code Camp Saturday, 3/9/13 at 2:50 pm at Microsoft’s NERD Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA.
Abstract: SharePoint is going mainstream and the new version introduces a new app model that’s based on web standards such as jQuery, OAuth, and RESTful web services. The new model also provides isolation for apps similar to what you’d find on a mobile device, and is a model for how to extend any web-based product in an isolated manner. It’s also the most comprehensive model for extending SharePoint in Office 365. In this session you’ll learn about the new app model, and how to develop client and server-side apps that talk to SharePoint and other content sources. While the new app model will be unfamiliar to many SharePoint developers, it will be more familiar to web developers in general.
Windows 8 Opportunities for Tablet Apps
Much has been written about Windows 8 and the obstacles it presents to enterprise adoption and application deployment. While these points are quite important to consider, I’d like to discuss what I think are some great opportunities for developing tablet applications that are unique to Windows 8, and why those might be especially valuable to enterprises considering adopting Windows 8.
I think the Windows 8 is a fine tablet operating system, and I think that WinRT is a fine tablet application framework. I’ve been writing tablet apps for quite some time, and have built for Windows, iOS, Android, and the Mobile Web. Working in XAML/C#, WinRT provided everything I expected and enabled me to add touch gesture, camera, and GPS support to apps without much trouble at all. These features are essential in many mobile scenarios, and their presence distinguishes mobile apps from apps that are merely accessible while mobile. WinRT isn’t the only framework that provides them (iOS and Android also do a fine job), but WinRT does this and does it well.
If you write a WinRT app, you can run on both Windows RT and Windows 8. While we’re waiting for super power-efficient Windows 8 devices to appear, Windows RT is a good choice for apps that need long battery life. Writing to the WinRT runtime abstracts the underlying platform, enabling apps to run in either place (largely) without modification making all those sandbox restrictions just a little bit more reasonable. While WinRT’s sandbox restrictions might seem arbitrary or unnecessary to enterprise developers, they aren’t much different than those imposed on iOS or Android developers. Indeed, when running on Windows RT, the whole experience is quite similar to that provided on iOS and Android tablets.
However, when running on Windows 8, solutions that aren’t possible on other tablet operating systems are available, and that’s what I think makes Windows 8 special. To my knowledge, Windows 8 is the only tablet OS that can run classic Windows apps alongside WinRT applications. This enables enterprises with significant Microsoft infrastructure investments to build solutions which blend internal apps and 3rd party apps (like Microsoft Office), and that can enable mobile workers to be significantly more productive and manageable on a Windows 8 device.
Of course, all this presumes that you have a strong use case for building a mobile app. If you’re trying to enable your sales team to capture handwritten notes as they review CRM data while visiting clients and customers, or enable your clinicians to capture voice annotations for later transcription while reviewing patient history, or enable civil engineers to check 100 and 500 year flood hazards while surveying construction sites (or any of a myriad other scenarios), you should consider writing a WinRT app for the reasons listed above. If you’re just trying to make some documents available offline on a Windows laptop, or run an enterprise app over a local database server, you should consider using a desktop framework like WPF or Winforms.
Navigating the world of mobility isn’t simple, and the introduction of Windows 8 makes navigating this world even more complicated. There are some real opportunities for those who manage this successfully, and we’d love to discuss those with you – hopefully this posting illuminates some of those opportunities for your consideration. For some slides that digest these points, please see http://www.slideshare.net/BlueMetalInc/20130312-windows-8-in-th.
Ted Krueger will present Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 with limited downtime on Thursday, March 14 2013 at 5:30 pm at Microsoft Corp, 200 E Randolph Dr, Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60601.
Abstract: With SQL Server 2012 released and going strong, we’re all wanting the latest and greatest, high performing, SQL Engine sitting on our servers. How we do that is another question. How do you get a weekend of downtime? Do you like convincing the business you need it? I don’t, and that is why we’re going to look at methods to upgrade or migrate SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 up to SQL Server 2012 with as little downtime as possible – minutes. In this session, we’ll see how mirroring, log shipping and even replication, can make us look like DBA Rock stars at upgrade time.
BlueMetal’s Information Management Practice Director, Bob German, will present two sessions at SPTechCon San Francisco on Wednesday, March 6. He’ll be giving away a copy of his book, SharePoint 2010 Development with Silverlight, at the end of each session, and he’d love to chat with you about your SharePoint experience, so please stop by and say hello! See below for session descriptions and times.
Empowering Business with Hybrid Code/No-Code Solutions – 11:15 am – 12:30 pm
SharePoint 2010 “no-code” solutions developed with tools like InfoPath, Excel and SharePoint Designer are faster to develop than custom code, and are much easier to adapt to changing business needs. Yet sometimes the technology falls short, and essential parts of your users’ requirements are missing.
In this class, you’ll learn how to minimize cost and increase business agility by designing solutions that can be updated and extended by non-developers. You’ll see live demos of solutions that are designed to deliver the best of both worlds by supplementing no-code solutions with flexible and reusable code. This class is for business analysts and architects as well as developers—no programming experience required! Participants should have a high-level understanding of SharePoint concepts and tools.
Turbo-Charge Collaboration by Automating Site Provisioning in SharePoint 2010 – 3:45 pm – 5:00 pm
For all its rich functionality, SharePoint 2010 does little to help provision and organize its sites and site collections. In this class, you’ll learn why automating this task can boost collaboration and how it can help with site discovery, governance and upgrades. You’ll learn when to provision sites vs. site collections, how to use Web templates, how to use metadata to track sites and generate a dynamic site directory, and how to design all this to work in a small, single farm or large, multi-farm environment. You’ll also see a demonstration of actual site-provisioning solutions for SharePoint on-premises and in Office 365.
We’re celebrating our first year in Chicago and the opening of our new office at 180 N. Michigan Avenue with our clients, partners, and friends. The event will take place from 5-8 pm CST. Cocktails and light hors d’oeuvres will be served. If you’re in the area we’d love for you to join us! For more information contact Matt Kestian: mkestian [at] bluemetal.com.
[Cross-posted from blog.davemdavis.net]
In my recent post, A Mobile Web Strategy, I covered some of the architectural decisions that go into building a mobile website. I glossed over the process of choosing whether to a mobile web application or build a native application because I wanted to cover the other topic first since it tends to be less controversial. The debate on mobile web vs. native application incites passion in most developers. It is my intent to take an objective stance during this post. I will save my opinion until the end.
Native Applications
A native application runs directly on the hardware of the device and not in the device’s web browser. These applications are usually delivered and updated from an app store. Here are some pros and cons of building native applications:
Pros:
- Native applications are able to access all the hardware sensors on the device.
- Native applications can work offline and may not need a connection. Data can be cached locally.
- You can usually get better performance out of native applications since they run closer to the hardware. This tends to provide better user experience.
- Most platforms offer native applications the ability to perform tasks in the background, even when the application is not running.
- Native applications can be more readily monetized. Most stores offer infrastructure for handling purchasing transactions (for a cut of the cost).
Cons:
- Changes to the application require redeployment of the applications (but most stores handle this gracefully).
- The application certification process can take time for your deployment.
- Native development requires developers skilled in working with the different platforms. Depending on how many platforms you need to target this may require many different skill sets.
Phone Gap
A caveat to the last con: there are frameworks out there that allow you to build native applications by writing an application once, usually in HTML/JavaScript, which gets compiled into native applications. Phone Gap is one such framework. The downside to these frameworks is you tend to develop to the lowest common denominator. For example on Windows phones you may not be able to take advantage of live tiles. This may be OK if the features you need for your application are available on all the target platforms and have been incorporated into your framework of choice. Also keep in mind that these applications tend to look generic and don’t embrace the design metaphors of the different operating systems.
Mobile Web Applications
Mobile web applications are web applications that have been optimized for mobile devices. These applications may be smaller versions of their desktop equivalents or completely different applications that provide functionality that makes sense for mobile devices (consider data bandwidth, power consumption and usability on a small form factor).
Pros:
- Broader pool of developers – most web developers are able to shift to mobile web development with minimal learning curve.
- Plethora of open source frameworks to help speed up development.
- Mobile web applications are able to be modified without having to release to a web store – all users access the latest build without having to manually update the application.
- Runs on most platforms, including non-smartphone devices.
Cons:
- There is still work to determine device capabilities, including which versions of HTML/JavaScript/CSS will work.
- You are limited in which device sensors you can access.
- Very limited offline/background processing (requires HTML5 at a minimum).
- You are responsible for implementing monetization infrastructure.
My Two Cents
These are just some of the things to consider when creating your mobile strategy. My preference is building native applications but I am not against mobile web development. The situation should dictate which approach you should take. Don’t build a native app just for the sake of building a native app. In the past most smartphone users avoided using the web browser. The experience was not ideal. As more sites are redesigned with mobile in mind this is steadily changing. So it is up to you to build out compelling applications that make the user want to come back.
One of my pet peeves is when a native application is a shell for web content. There is no value add except that it gets you in the app store and provides you a way to update your application with deploying a new version. In my experience these types of applications lack a robust user experience. They just don’t perform as well as pure native applications. The opposite is true too. Don’t make me install your native application when I visit your site on a mobile device.
Whichever approach you choose, you should make sure that it’s the one that best suits your needs. Build out a compelling solution so that users want to use your application. As I noted in the last post, A Mobile Web Strategy, consolidate as much functionality as you can behind a service layer. This allows you the most functionality in making your choices.
On February 20, at the Chicago .NET User Group, Mark Melsa will present SignalR, a technology from Microsoft that allows Server-based processes to push content to clients in real time.
Location: CNUG, Microsoft Downers Grove, 3025 Highland Parkway, Downers Grove, IL
Registration: free; click here to register.
Abstract: SignalR is a new technology allowing for “real-time” web based functionality without having to do call-backs or polling as many solutions have had to do in the past. Call-backs and polling mechanisms caused unnecessary traffic and still didn’t achieve real-time communication. We will walk through a discussion of SignalR and how it can be useful in your development efforts and walk through some sample code utilizing SignalR.
