NinethSense

Most of us are very enthusiastic in technology and want to keep knowledge update-to-date. But in this fast moving world it is very difficult. You may think about a subject and may plan to reach/learn about it ‘sometime later’. And you know that wont work well. Here are some basic tips I follow and I would like to suggest.

• When ever you come across a technical article, post or any piece – read right away. You might be busy but open it in a browser and keep it until you finish reading ‘some day’
• You might have subscribed to many technical blogs and websites and you might be getting mails everyday. You know you are not going to read these mails so you will simply delete them. Instead, read it right away. A quick glance is far enough. Automatically you will give more attention if a topic of more interest get caught.
• If you are a programmer, always keep an express version of Visual Studio or PHP or Java in your laptop.
• I am a fan of DropBox. You can keep some kind of cloud based file storage. When ever you get some ebook or links, store it there so that you can access it from your iPad or any other PC. Some software support browser interface so you don’t have to install the software. Hands-on experiments will stay more time in memory than what you read.
• Be in a company of ‘similar thinking’ people. Reading an article 3 time is equal to discussing same with another person.
• At least occasionally visit home pages of major technologies and forums. Knowledge sharing is the best method to gather knowledge.
• Join social network sites (LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter etc.) – but make sure you make friends with Technies more than junk friends. What techies usually share are valuable stuff for other techies.
• Try to attend webinars, podcasts etc.

This article describes software boundaries and limits of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. These include the following:

• Boundaries: Static limits that cannot be exceeded by design
• Thresholds: Configurable limits that can be exceeded to accommodate specific requirements
• Supported limits: Configurable limits that have been set by default to a tested value

Read it here – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx

- iOS – being a Microsoft guy, it is sad that I have to say iOS development is now a days a hit in India, especially for small to medium companies. Even though iPad and iPhone did not yet prove they are good for more than any average applications, many firms in India celebrates with their handful of mobile projects. Windows Mobile application development is so far dull. Hope Windows-8 will change this trend. Saw an article that our laptop screens and PC monitors will soon be replaced with touch screen. This will indeed a good change. Wi-fi was a luxury item in India, but now it is becoming a common man’s thing which helps tablets and mobiles to get popularity

- Cloud – Companies started recommending ‘hosting in cloud’ just as a trend – mainly because of its cheap in price nature. For many companies it is just another form of hosting. Microsoft Partner companies are indeed trying to promote Azure services but the cost factor prevents them from choosing this. Big companies really understands its potential and they forcefully move to Azure.
 
- Social Networking – After the demise of Orkut, every Tom, Dick and Harry are members of FaceBook which made it now changing to be a non-reliable platform?. Even though there are lot of frauds, viruses and privacy issues, FB is a good online marketing and SEO platform. Youtube also is now a days a good ‘generic search engine’.  Most brands publish applications as a part of their campaigns and promotions. Because of this, Social Networking API development is a good revenue stream in India.

- HTML5 – Most companies try to achieve something in HTML5 but seems taking time. But everybody will be forced to use this as Flash is vanishing (Apple already abandoned it, MS will stop from IE10). Silverlight is also in that category but WPF is still a hit. Introduction of new windows OSs will give WPF more value in coming days. I think lack of HTML5 WYSIWYG IDEs are a reason for this slow movement. Earlier, designers did not have to think much about logic – JavaScript etc. but now they will have to learn it to survive.

-  SharePoint – still continues to be a major reliable, scalable…. Platform. Big companies use it even for small projects and small companies recommend it for big projects. Small to medium markets use Umbraco like small CMS systems also successfully.

- Database – Microsoft is releasing SQL Server’s 2012th major version next month March, 2012. But companies still use 2005 or 2008. I do not see a change in this trend this year because, for ordinary market, any of these versions serve same purpose. Oracle continues to be the reliable database system in Banking Sector – because of influence of ‘Java Architects’

- NoSQL – People started about NoSQL (Eg: MangoDB) but did not see anybody actually using it in real world applications in a meaningful way

- Mobile Payments – People started talking about payments via mobile/portable devices. Need to wait and see. When coming to mobile commerce, Tesco’s QR code public stores were a hit but for India, it will take some more years as not much online-shops yet started shipping items which common men daily use.

- Vanishing CD/DVD – Like Floppy disks, optical drives also started disappearing. USB is the trend. Need to see what’s next.

- Microsoft .NET & PHP – seems getting more and more fans. Java is still an enterprise choice even though Micorsoft now have similar capabilities. PHP continues to be a medium company’s choice mainly due to its scalability limitations.

More to come…

Please share if have different opinions. I like to do R&D always

Here is an article from 2006, but still work reading as the topic is still young.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb190165.aspx

Here is the Enterprise Architecture home on MSDN which is a home for architecture I would say – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa286495.aspx

Here is a good reading with practical C# examples on design patterns – http://oosystems.blogspot.com/2012/02/business-logic-patterns-explained.html

Here is a cool article with source code for learning how to build a highly scalable platform for consumer devices.

URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh781021.aspx

Here is an awesome website for web designers to generate layouts easily.

http://pageblox.com/