Tag Archives: windows

Global Windows Azure Bootcamp – 27th April

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On April 27th, 2013, you’ll have the ability to join a free Windows Azure Bootcamp at Persistent on SB Road. This is a one day deep dive class that will get you up to speed on developing for Windows Azure. The class includes trainers with deep real world experience with Windows Azure:

Agenda

  • Session 01: 10:00 AM-11:00 AM Windows Azure Overview – by Laxmikant Bhole from Accenture. Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is a mature and enterprise ready cloud for various solutions. This session will be a overview of various offerings in the Microsoft Azure platform including hosting, storage, database, media, networking, messaging, routing , authentication services. Come and join this session to see Windows Azure in action and get an complete overview along with internal specifics & latest enhancements on the platform.
  • Tea Break : 11:00 AM – 11:15 AM
  • Session 02: 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM Windows Azure IaaS: Technical Overview – by Aviraj Ajgekar from Microsoft. Join us for a tour of the features that make up the Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks offerings, which collectively make up Windows Azure’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) support. Using demonstrations throughout, we will cover the Virtual Machine storage architecture and shows how to provision and customize virtual machines, configure network connectivity between virtual machines, and configure site-to-site networks that enable true applications that span from on-premises to Windows Azure. In this session we cover the significant investments that Microsoft is making in our Windows Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution and how it works. We discuss how you provision, deploy, and manage Virtual Machines and Applications in Windows Azure. The session spends time covering both the new management portal and PowerShell management options.
  • Session 03: 12:15 PM – 1:15 PM: Storage Options in Windows Azure. – by Vikram Pendse & Kiran Khambete from Accenture. In this session you will learn various Storage Options provided by Windows Azure.This session will be an overview of various Storage offerings like Blobs,Queues,Tables and SQL Azure.This session gives a guideline to leverage these Storage options especially in Enterprise and Large Scale Line Of Business Applications.We will also discuss about scenarios of storing Structural,Relational Data and Nonstructured Data followed by Demos.
  • Lunch Break: 1:15 PM – 2:00 PM.
  • Session 04: 02:00 PM – 3:00 PM Deep Dive into Windows Azure Mobile Services. – by Mayur Tendulkar from Zevenseas. In this session, attendees will get to introduce to about Windows Azure Mobile Services. Attendees will get to know feature provided by Azure Mobile Service like Data, Push Notifications, Email Service, etc.. Using these services, we’ll build a Windows Phone application and leverage these platforms to create nice mobile applications.
  • Session 05: 03:00 PM – 4:00 PM: BigData analysis with HD Insights for Windows Azure and Windows Server – by Monish Darda from Icertis. In this session, Monish will discuss how BigData is changing the world and introduce you to some exciting things that you can do with BigData using HDInsight and Microsoft Business Intelligence. He will also demonstrate how PolyBase can be used to enable integrated querying across Hadoop and relational data with SQL Server 2012.
  • Tea Break: 04:00 PM – 4:15 PM
  • Session 06: 04:15 PM – 5:15 PM: Building Hybrid Cloud Environment using Windows Azure & System Center – by Aviraj Ajgekar from Microsoft. In this session we will explore how can you build a true hybrid cloud solution using Microsoft solutions. We will leverage best of both the worlds & explore some of the scenarios where you can leverage System Center 2012 SP1 along with Windows Azure to build a hybrid cloud solution. We will discuss how can you build & manage different workloads in Windows Azure & System Center 2012 SP1 to build your hybrid cloud strategy.

About the Speakers

Aviraj Ajgekar

Aviraj is a Computer Engineer from Mumbai and is currently working with Microsoft Corporation India as a Technology Evangelist. In his present role he is working with IT Professionals across India evangelizing Microsoft Technologies. Primarily he focuses on Microsoft Core IO Technologies such as Windows Client Platform, Windows Server System, Virtualization, System Center, Private Cloud & Public Cloud.

A real blogger, he is very compulsive about adding his thoughts to online blogs, forums, community and media. He blogs regularly at http://blogs.technet.com/aviraj He a regular speaker at various Microsoft events such as Microsoft TechEd, MS TechDays, Virtual TechDays, Microsoft India Webcasts etc.

In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, hang out with friends & listen to rock music. He’s also passionate about photography and long drives. You can follow him on twitter @aviraj111

Kiran Khambete

Kiran is Technology Architect working with Accenture India Development Center,He has around 13 yeards of industry experience with proficiency in various Microsoft Technologies. He is passionate about Microsoft Technology and core member of AUG (Avanade User Group) within Accenture India. He is also responsible for architecting and implementing various solution based on Microsoft Technologies.

Laxmikant Bhole

Laxmikant is a Technology Architect at Accenture, India and has about 17 years of industry experience with proficiency in various Microsoft Technologies. In his current role, he leads Windows Azure capability in Accenture India and is accountable for architecting and implementing Azure-centric solutions. Laxmikant is as well active in technology community and have been participating and presenting in multiple technology events on Windows Azure topics.

Mayur Tendulkar

Mayur Tendulkar works as a Local Type Inference (for outsiders: Consultant) at Zevenseas, Pune (India). As a Local Type Inference, he has worked in various technologies like .NET, ASP.NET, Windows Mobile/Phone, SharePoint, HTML5, JQuery and currently Windows 8. He has been an active volunteer/member of Pune and Mumbai User Group. He was a Microsoft Student Partner and Lead from 2008-2010. He has delivered numerous sessions at various colleges and corporate trainings at various organizations. He has been a speaker at Microsoft Community Days, TechDays, Virtual TechDays, DevCons, and many others. He loves listening to 80s/90s Angrezi and Bollywood songs. He always say that, “My first crush is .NET, first love is Windows Mobile. But I’m married to Windows Phone and having an affair with SharePoint”

Monish Darda

Monish is the CTO and co-founder of Icertis, a leading provider enterprise solutions on the Microsoft Cloud. Monish has more than 20 years of experience in application and systems software development and the architecting of enterprise distributed systems. Along with Unmesh, he co-founded Websym Technologies in 1998. He set up and headed the India R&D operation of Storability, an enterprise storage management startup from Boston. Storability was eventually acquired by Sun Microsystems and Monish then founded and led the India R&D of BladeLogic, another East Coast startup, helping build a highly scalable enterprise platform for server management in the data center. BladeLogic was acquired by BMC Software after a successful IPO, and Monish contributed to BMC’s cloud management vision, laying the foundation for some of the early pioneering work on cloud resource management and provisioning, and is co-inventor of two patents in this area.

Vikram Pendse

Vikram is SME working with Accenture AIR Capability, He has around 6 years of industry experience with proficiency in various Microsoft Technologies such as .NET Web Platform, Silverlight, Windows Phone and Windows Azure. He is Microsoft Most Valuable Professional since 2008 and One of the Core Member of Pune User Group. In his current role, he works as SME in Azure Integration Renewal (AIR) Capability of Accenture India and is accountable for implementing Azure-centric solutions and Migration Solutions for legacy Apps to New .NET Framework. He is passionate about Windows Azure, Windows Phone and Windows 8 Application Development.

Giveaways from Global Sponsors

  • JetBrains: ONE (1) winner at each event gets a license of one of their products. The winner may choose from ReSharper, dotTrace, dotCover, PhpStorm, PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA, AppCode, WebStorm.
  • PluralSight: ONE (1) winner at each event will get a 1 Year Annual Subscription. ALL Attendees will get a 7 Day training pass via an unique code.
  • Telerik: ONE (1) winner at each event will get a DevCraft Complete (all their products).
  • Cerebrata: ALL Attendees will get a license to the new Azure Management Studio product. There will be an email address they can use to request it.
  • Blue Syntax: ONE (1) winner at each event can win a Cloud Backup Advanced Edition license.
  • MyGet: ONE (1) winner at each event can win a 1 year Starter Subscription. ALL Attendees will get a 1 month starter subscription redeemable via an online sign up form.
  • Cloud Berry: FIVE (5) winners at each event can win a Cloud Berry Explorer License. FIVE (5) winners at each event can win a Cloud Berry Drive License.
  • AzureWatch: ALL Attendees will get a free 30 day unlimited license, redeemable via an unique code..
  • Inner Workings: ALL Attendees will get 90 days Free Training, redeemable online.
  • Zudio: ALL Attendees will get a 3 month free trial redeemable via an unique code. ALL Organizers will get a 1 year subscription.

Register

The event is free, and anybody can attend. But registration is required

The event is on Saturday, 27th April, 2013 from 09:30 AM – 05:30 PM, at Dewang Mehta Auditorium, Persistent Systems Ltd. Bhageerath, 402, Senapati Bapat Road.

Persistent

Twitter

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use this # tag while you twit about this event. Do mention #PuneUG or @PuneUserGroup in your twit if you participating in Pune event and twiting about Pune Event

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Event Report: TechWeekend Pune 7 – Mobile Application Development

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TechWeekend Pune 7, on Mobile Application Development was held on Saturday, 19th Feb. These are the live-tweets, collected here for your benefit. Remember, they are live-tweets that were being typed while the event was happening, so they’re not necessarily as coherent and as well-organized as a regular article.

Windows Phone 7 by Mayur Tendulkar

The first talk was by Mayur Tendulkar talking about Windows Phone 7

  • This talk is a basic overview of Windows Phone 7. Important now, because Nokia has now thrown its weight behind it.
  • “If windows is not behaving well, you format your drive and start again. MSFT did same with its Mobile OS. Win Phone 7 is completely new”
  • Mobile phone world suffers from large number of devices of different resolutions that behave differently. This is not true of Win Mobile 7. Windows Phone 7 insists on a standardized hardware & screen configuration. So your Win Phone 7 will always look and behave the same.
    • WinPhone7 screen config: 480×800 or 320×480. No other sizes allowed. S-LCD/AMOLED capacitive touchscreen. 4-point multi-touch
    • WinPhone7 will always have these sensors: A-GPS, proximity sensor, accelerometer, compass, light.
    • All WinPhone7 devices must have these three buttons: Start, Back, Search. (As usual, to shutdown, you press Start 🙂
  • App Development for WinPhone7: regular apps using Silverlight, and game apps using XNA.
    • “Silverlight is just like Flash”. Modern app UI framework. Apparently has 500,000 developers spanning windows, web (and now mobile)
    • Visit the Tata Nano site or the Hard Rock Cafe New York site to see some cool uses of Silverlight
    • The XNA framework for game development is mature and widely accepted – because it was in XBox 360, Windows and Zune.
  • WinPhone7 developers get all the goodness of Visual Studio for developing mobile apps with Visual Studio 2010 Express for WP.
  • Other developer tools: Silverlight Dev Kit. XNA Game Studio 4.0. Expression Blend 4.0. Also VB for WinPhone7.
  • All these development tools for WinPhone7 are free.

This was followed by a walk through of building a WinPhone7 app using Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight.

Some interesting audience Q&A:

  • Q: What languages are supported for WinPhone7 development? A: At this point, only Visual Basic and C#
  • Q: Does WinPhone7 support multi-tasking. A: No. Some standard system services can run in the background; but apps don’t multitask.

Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development by Rohit Ghatol

Next up: Rohit Ghatol talking about cross-platform mobile app development using phonegap, titanium etc.

  • Two ways of developing cross-platform apps. 1. Develop html5 apps for webkit. 2. Use a translator that translates your app to native code.
  • For now, all major mobile platforms have a webkit based browser (except WinPhone7). So writing an app targeting webkit is “cross-platform”
  • Q: Will a webkit based app work with WinPhone7? A: No. But Mango release of WinPhone7 will support html5, so you should be close.
  • Translating common codebase to different native apps – Titanium. Write in JavaScript, and translate to Native.
  • PhoneGap = HTML5 + CSS3 + JavaScript + special ability to make calls to access phone sensors etc.
    • Note: HTML5/CSS3 development for mobile apps works because all phone browsers are much more advanced on this issue than desktop browsers
    • Features supported by phonegap: accelerometer, camera, compass, contacts, file io, geolocation, audio recording, sound, vibration, storage. Note: not all these features are supported on all mobile phone platforms
    • PhoneGap prerequisites: Need to be a html/javascript expert. Also, it doesn’t help you with UI, you need to be able to develop that
    • So with PhoneGap app development, you’ll probably be doing UIs by using JQueryUI or something like that.
    • Note: PhoneGap ultimately creates a native app that users install. Not just a website that they visit in the browser.
  • At this point, Rohit, showed actual PhoneGap code for a mobile app – to write an app that shows a google map of my current location.
  • Big challenge of PhoneGap is that you need to bring your own UI development framework. This is an advantage also! – PhoneGap allows you to have same UI framework for website as well as your mobile app.
  • Rohit’s suggestions for UI framework – 1. GWT 2. jQueryMobile
  • With Titanium, you write apps in Javascript. This is interpreted by MozillaRhino on Android, and by Webkit JavascriptCore on iOS
    • You have two different directories for images – one for Android, & one for iPhone, because they handle images differently.
    • iPhone requires just one size of images. Android allows different images for different screen sizes/resolutions/orientations.
    • Titanium problem – layout is absolute. For people used to the great layout capabilities of Android, this is a big step down
    • Titanium uses native UI (iPhone and Android), where are PhoneGap uses non-native (html/css) UI. Former gives better experience…
  • PhoneGap/Titanium both use Javascript Interpretation, so both can’t do multi-threaded apps
  • Building your own webkit based cross-platform framework makes sense if you want to overcome limitations of phonegap/titanium.
  • This won’t be as clean as phonegap/titanium, but might be good for your specific case. Steal phonegap/titanium code if required!
  • Comparison of PhoneGap vs Titanium. Titanium more proprietary, limited UI, …
    html5/css3/javascript is the future; but not there yet. Until then, write to webkit specs…

Android Performance Tuning by Anand Hariharan

Next speaker was Anand Hariharan talking about Android Performance tuning.

  • For app performance: first focus on what the user wants, don’t just improve performance for the sake of improving performance. Optimize only after measuring performance, and having specific performance goals. A lot of performance tuning, is really about managing user perception. When doing something that will take time, keep user engaged.
  • Don’t optimize everything for performance – you don’t have the time. Focus on the most important user visible features and fix those. In mobile world – reduce features and use the time saved on fixing performance.
  • Manage user perception better: e.g. Apple’s use of loading a bitmap image of app at beginning to give impression that app has loaded. At app startup time, load a bitmap that looks like your app without the latest data. Gives impression that app load is fast.
  • Performance tips: All platforms have a “recommended best practices” doc. Read that – many developers dont 🙂 e.g. Android best practice: for tasks that take time, use a background service (not an activity).
  • Anand talking about how to avoid an “Application Not Responding” (ANR) dialog for your app
    • An android app is single-threaded. So don’t do io (network or disk) synchronously. Use an async mechanism.
  • Keep activities small. Don’t overload activities. Use different activities to do different things.
  • Use the minimum number of views. Do not use a deeply nested view hierarchy. Your view hierarchy shouldn’t be more than 3 levels deep. If you’re views are getting complicated, consider writing custom views.
  • Track memory allocations. Garbage collection happening during user activity causes slowdowns.
  • Close your cursors. Otherwise garbage collector cannot reclaim memory. Then you get GC cycles, and slowdowns.
  • use onRetainNonConfigurationInstance() to retain large amounts of data between device orientation changes (landscape to portrait)
  • Use SoftReferences to cache data so that the garbage collector can reclaim the memory when required.
  • Avoid database writes as far as possible. Writes take 5ms to 200ms. And full SD card has slower writes.
  • Avoid using data from mutiple tables in a single list (AdapterView). First copy data from multiple tables to a single table and show that. e.g. in Email app, subject and body came from different tables. This really slowed down the inbox view (which shows first line of body).
  • Tools to help with android app optimization: Fix your views using: hierarchyviewer, layoutopt. Check flow & times using: traceview. Use zipalign to optimize your apk (improves app load time).
  • Above all, you must understand what you’re optimizing and why. Measure, measure, measure.