MSDN Subscriptions is now Visual Studio Subscriptions

From Oct 4, 2016, MSDN subscriptions will be re-christened as Visual Studio subscriptions.

After 4 October 2016, you need to go to the new Visual Studio Subscriptions portal to access your subscription.

Please note that you will have no access to the current MSDN Subscriptions portal between 9:00 pm (PST) 3 October and 9:00 pm (PST) 4 October, while we complete the migration.

In case of any questions, check the FAQ or contact Visual Studio Customer Service

Tech Trivia

• The word 'Robot' comes from Czech word 'ROBOTA'. In English, it translates to 'forced labor'. 
• A Red Panda is an animal native to the Himalayas and Southwestern China. The English word for Red Panda is Firefox which is where the browser gets its name from. So the Firefox Logo is actually a Red Panda and not Fox as thought by many (including me!).
• Android is Andy Rubin who is the co-creator of Android. It was a nick-name given to him at Apple before he joined Google, for his obsession and love for robots.
• Creators of PNG file format wanted it to be pronounced as PING.
• Nothing can be compared to the human mind. If a computer is designed which is as powerful as the human brain, then it would be able to perform about 38 thousand trillion operations per second. Also, it will be able to hold about 3584 terabytes of memory.
• HP, Microsoft & Apple have one not so obvious thing in common - they all started in a garage.
• If you find a security bug in Facebook, they are willing to pay money ($500 and upwards) for you to tell them about it.
• 160 billion emails are sent daily, 97% of which are spam.
• Wikipedia uses an army of anti-vadal bots. These bots prevent vandalism of wiki pages. As per them, vandalism is anyone signing up and editing pages with an intent to destroy or alter content in a negative manner.
• Ubuntu is one of the most popular distribution channels of Linux. The word Ubuntu comes  from the African word meaning 'I am because of you'.
• The actual name of Android mascot is 'Bugdroid', though it is not official, the team at Google refer to it by this name.
• The first known cell phone virus, Cabir.A, appeared in 2004.

C# - Serialize Object to XML HttpResponseMessage

Sometimes we have an explicit requirement to serialize a C# object to XML HttpResponseMessage format.

This generic function can be used to achieve this conversion -

public static HttpResponseMessage CreateXmlResponse<T>(T objectToSerialize)

{

    return new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK)

    {

        Content = new ObjectContent<T>(objectToSerialize,

                                        new System.Net.Http.Formatting.XmlMediaTypeFormatter

                                        {

                                            UseXmlSerializer = true

                                        })

    };

}

The function takes an object of type 'T' as input and serializes it using XMLMediaTypeFormatter XML serializer available in .NET namespace System.Net.Http.Formatting.

A sample function call be like this - 

var response = CreateXmlResponse<ObjectClass>(object);

C# - Convert JSON string to JSON HttpResponseMessage

Use following method/function to convert string having JSON data to JSON HttpResponseMessage -

public static HttpResponseMessage CreateJsonResponse(string json)

{

    return new HttpResponseMessage()

    {

        Content = new StringContent(json, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8, "application/json")

    };

}

Following code can be used to call this method/function

var response = CreateJsonResponse(jSonString);

Following code can be used to call this method/function

Convert time-stamp in UTC format to local date time

Some times it is required to convert a time-stamp in UTC format to your local system data time.

A UTC time-stamp format looks something like this - 2016-08-23T11:59:00Z

This time-stamp is in UTC zone and following C# code can be used to convert this into local date time. As an example, here I am converting it to 'Central Standard Time (CST)'. Depending on your time zone, you can pass a different value.

public static string GetLocalDateTime(string timeStamp)

{

    TimeZoneInfo cstZone = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Central Standard Time");

    DateTime cstTime = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeFromUtc(Convert.ToDateTime(timeStamp), 

                                                       cstZone);

    return cstTime.ToString();

}

An example call will be - 

var localDateTime = GetLocalDateTime("2016-08-23T11:59:00Z");

Output will be -  8/23/2016 6:59:00 AM

Options for SMS solution

One of our clients had the following requirements around their SMS solution:-

1.       SMS Authentication
2.       SMS Sales (Ordering pay per view / adding balance)
3.       Alerts and notifications

They were currently using a messaging platform which was very specific to a particular country. To reduce the overall cost, they were looking at other solutions and wanted to make use of the open source solutions in this space to replace the their existing solution. They were interested in building a custom solution and paying to the network carrier for billing rather than using a 3rd party off the shelf solution.

We performed study and comparison of various open source and COTS SMS Gateways. Found this article useful in comparison -

http://socialcompare.com/en/comparison/sms-gateways-1odvv6xv

The final solution recommended was Kannel. It is one of the highly scalable and efficient open source SMS and WAP Gateway solution that majority of the Messaging Providers uses in their suite. It is based on C technology and supports connectivity to various SMS Centers. It also provides HTTP based API for integration with other business suites for sending and receiving messages.

Hope this helps someone who is looking for similar comparison and solution.

The Open Group Paris - Oct 24-27, 2016 - Early Bird Rate Ends Sept 16

The theme for The Open Group Paris event is e-Government. Attendees will benefit from the opportunity to learn from industry leaders, network with peers and explore content that is relevant to both themselves and their organizations.

Emphasis will be on how techniques (such as Enterprise Architecture and Business Design) and how standards (such as TOGAF® and ArchiMate®) are acting as a foundational core for enterprise transformation.

Topics include: Issues surrounding business transformation, EA in government, digital business and customer experience, IT4IT™ in Practice, professional development and cyber-security.

Early Bird Registration - Ends on Friday, September 16, 2016

Register Now

Webinar: The TOGAF® Framework and Accelerated Delivery

Date: September 9, 2016 - 3:00pm (BST), 10:00am (EDT), 7:00am (PDT)
Speaker: Alan Simmonds (Consultant, Good e-Learning)

This webinar will look into accelerated delivery (not just Agile!) and how we can start to integrate this thinking across the Enterprise Architecture development cycle. TOGAF®, an Open Group standard, is a large framework and what this provides is a number of techniques for us to use and adapt for the accelerated delivery approach.

We’ll look at what accelerated delivery means, whether it is relevant in the Enterprise Architecture world and how we can start to integrate some of this thinking into our own architecture work.

To register, click here