Ciprian Jichici

About the Limit of a SQL Azure Database

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:10:59 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...One of the key features of SQL Azure is its capability to store 3 different copies of your database at any given point in time. While this is not used (at least not for now) for load balancing purposes, it gives you a very strong approach in terms of robustness...While I mostly agree with the arguments presented above, I still think that Microsoft needs to address the following two issues:..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Azure

Will Kinect Be Able to Connect?

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:56:27 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...You are the controller” is the fundamental message that Kinect is carrying...despite the size, it packs a heavy load consisting of a camera, audio sensors, and motion-sensing technology. Microsoft claims that Kinect is capable of tracking as many as 48 points of movement and...The only question to be answered is..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Price of Power and Versatility is the Complexity of .NET

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:24:43 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "....NET’s complexity is not due to any kind of architectural, design, or execution flaw...I think Microsoft .NET Framework (especially version 4) is a fantastic feat of engineering, a living example on how to design and implement complex functionality. The complexity of .NET comes from the fact that it spans an amazing array of..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : NET Framework

What The Big Difference is This Time With OData

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:56:18 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...Will OData ultimately be successful? It’s probably too early to tell, but the ice has been definitely been broken here and others will follow. On the long run, there’s probably a consensus around the idea that data (in any form or format) will become a global..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Microsoft Did Not Drop the Call on WP7 it is More Than Promising

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:56:30 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...First, the user experience. This one is truly amazing...seen some demos of Silverlight-based applications...Second, access to native phone functions...these functions are going to be fully accessible from our apps...Third, developer tools...Fourth, gaming. Windows Phone 7 supports XNA. Same programming, same code, same tools. We’ve seen a true 3D game demoed on it...Fifth and final, ecosystem. I was glad to see..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Windows Mobile

Long Live Competition - Microsoft is Getting Back in the Game with Vengeance

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:36:37 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...Today Microsoft is and plays a whole different ball game. It’s open, capable of leaving hypocrisy aside, and what’s the most important thing for me, more innovative than ever. So the question popped up in my mind: what was the catalyst of this amazing transformation...pressure from...had a spectacular side-effect: not only did they change Microsoft’s products, but they did change Microsoft itself. And that’s never been so obvious as these days at MIX10...I honestly think that..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Master Data Management is Only as Good as the Consensus Across Business Units

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:59:58 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...Unfortunately, many organizations believe that by simply implementing a MDM solution all of these challenges will be addressed. That’s a big (and potentially costly) mistake...you also need a serious shift in the organization’s data management mindset. Failure to drive the mindset change will..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

After Heavy Coding My First Impressions of VS 2010 RC

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:08:06 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...I had some mixed feelings while using the preliminary releases like Beta 1 and Beta 2. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of the new VS...After one and a half day of use in heavy coding I have to say..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Visual Studio
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks

Windows Server AppFabric: The Architectural Point of View

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:37:19 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...The 2nd edition of the Microsoft Application Architecture Guide has an excellent discussion...about crosscutting concerns. It is an excellent and powerful piece of the puzzle that software architects can take into consideration when designing software solutions..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

PowerPivot Speaks Its Own Language

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:55:16 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...why do we need yet another language when we already have so many in Microsoft’s BI world?...its name is DAX (Data Analysis EXpressions). The fundamental purpose of DAX is to help you extend the basic data model of PowerPivot by defining calculated columns and measures...Microsoft faced a tough question...do we introduce yet another language? Eventually, they settled for..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

PowerPivot Yet Another Way To Get Your Data

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:59:44 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "...One particularly interesting example of ATOM feed consumer for Reporting Services is the new PowerPivot technology available in Excel and SharePoint 2010...anything that understands data feeds can benefit from this new functionality. So… how do you get the ATOM feed? It’s as simple as using an URL access string like..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Office System

Oslo Promises a Sructured, Coherent and Tool Based Approach to Modeling

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:04:48 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes ".... Think about writing a WCF service, in your own words! If that sounds SciFi, think again ...Oslo doesn't promise (yet) natural language modeling. But it sure opens a wide window towards to world of Domain Specific Languages (DSLs)...I'm not saying "Oslo" is going to simplify software development. But it sure will, at least, support a huge boost in productivity..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : NET Framework

VS 2008 RTM has support for .NET debugger symbols

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:06:05 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "....The RTM version of Visual Studio 2008 will provide support for .NET Framework debugger symbols from a web server hosted by Microsoft. All in all, this means more support for .NET developers and I dare to say, on the long term, a much more stable and robust .NET.... the release process is going to be gradual over the next months. It seems in the first wave we'll get Base Class Libraries, Windows Forms.... "

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Visual Studio

Let me save you time installing SQL Server Express on Vista

Sat, 12 May 2007 14:03:30 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes ".... some problems when installing SQL Server 2005 Express on my Vista machine, so I though I'd share some of my findings that can help you avoid spending time searching for an answer. First of all, you need SP2 of SQL Server 2005 Express on Vista "

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : SQL Server

Pretty Big Deal: BizTalk Services CTP

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:25:03 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "Connected System Division @ Microsoft just released the first CTP of Biztalk Services....There are several very interesting blog entries that explain the ISB concept and help you get started with consuming Biztalk Services. Among them,"

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici

Tracking the version-next of the version-nex: Orcas to Rosario

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:50:17 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "....With the momentum that .NET Framework is gaining as a platform, expectations are getting to higher and higher levels which puts a lot of pressure on the Visual Studio team @ Microsoft. From what I know so far, I can tell that most of those expectations will be addressed by Orcas. My personal opinion is that the pressure of expectations will be much higher on "Rosario""

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Visual Studio
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks

RD Program Enters a New Era

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 02:45:51 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "With the launch of the public Microsoft Regional Directors site, Microsoft's program enters a new era. You can now access in one place all the cool information provided by the RDs."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Excel Spreadsheets in the BI Services World

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 14:00:27 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "....In the archive you will also find the source code for the demos and also a document I am currently working on that describes all the steps you need to perform in order to redeliver the demo"

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
TechEdBloggers.net : TechEd : Tracks : Business Intelligence

Machine Translation on MSDN

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:39:24 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "Microsoft released a very interesting pilot solution for machine translations. Here you can find a bunch of Vista-related articles that passed through the translation engine."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Editors Picks

Cluj Romania at the iQuest TechForum

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:30:44 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "The main demo of my talk....combined Excel 2007, InfoPath 2007, Workflow Foundation, and some service-orientation stuff into a simple order approval system built on top of SPS and WF."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Events

Machine Translation on MSDN

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:46:25 GMT

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:57:53 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "The long awaited Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide is now available. In this 120 page long document you can find a lot of very interesting and usefull information about the behavior of the new OLAP engine in SQL Server 2005. In my personal opinion, this is mandatory read for all folks working with AS 2005."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : Suggested Reading

Now that's definetly interesting news...

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 23:41:55 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "Looks like the mothership landed one more time, as we Regional Directors use to say. This time the mothership landed for Don Ferguson...."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Microsoft Robotics Studio has been released - Cool!

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:32:44 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "just announced that Robotics Studio was released. With this new cool stuff, apps can be developed using Visual Studio, Visual Studio Express C# and VB and even IronPython...."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : TechTalk

Longhorn Server TTT in Amsterdam

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:44:13 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "Last week I participated in a very interesting train-the-trainer event organized by Microsoft in Amsterdam....I can tell you right now that it rocks. In addition to the already "classic" stuff like WFC, WF, and WCS, Longhorn Server comes with a lot of very interesting things like IIS 7, WAS, transactional file system, transactional registry (both based on the Kernel Transaction Manager - KTM), improved networking (including OOTB support for IPv6), improved file system (remote differential compression, common log file system, symbolic links), and many more. Not to mention stuff like:"

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Events

Vista - the dawn of a new era?

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:46:49 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "....a question has been bugging me lately: is Vista going to be the swan song of traditional desktop-style, client-side operating systems from Microsoft or is just another step ahead? Clearly, the Redmond giant is moving full-steam ahead, with profits raising constantly. But others (like Google or Apple) also have a strong wind in their sails. And...."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici

Microsoft and Novell: the art of compromise

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:17:39 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "I think Microsoft and Novell are doing the right thing by burying the hatchet and providing a better context for the consumer's choice. One can only hope that Microsoft and Novell are only the first from a long series of companies that realize we are sometimes too loud arguing about the closeness or openness of our solutions..."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici

Proud to be an RD!

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:00:42 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "I won one of the big prizes for the best quote....But the second surprise was even bigger than the first. During his keynote at TechEd Developers, Eric Rudder, used some of our photos in one of his slides to show the coverage of the RD program worldwide. He also took a moment to thank all RDs for their extraordinary efforts. If I remember well, this actually was the very first time when one of Microsoft's senior officials thanks the RDs during a TechEd keynote! I really felt very proud that I am part of this extraordinary bunch of people who are commonly refered as Microsoft Regional Directors."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Events

Data Mining via Romania

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 22:52:04 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "I was invited to the Academic Bootcamp organized each year by Microsoft Romania. This year, the location was the Parâng area with accommodation at Hotel Rusu, near the town of Petroşani. I participated in some panel discussions related to Vista, Office, and .NET Framework 3.0. I also talked for more than one hour about Data Mining (here is the presentation, unfortunately only in Romanian)."

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
Bloggers : Adolfo Wiernik
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : NET Framework

Save as PDF or XPS for Beta 2 TR

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 01:55:47 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "As I was playing around with the new Beta 2 TR, among the first things I noticed was that Save as PDF is missing. As you probably know, there is a war going on with Adobe on this matter. Fortunatelly, the function is available as a separate download here. "

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Topics : NET Framework

Looks like Atlas will hit the road before Orcas

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 19:21:40 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "The story we all witnessed with SQL Server Reporting Services a couple of years ago is going to be repeated. This time, Microsoft decided to release version 1.0 of Atlas before the next release of Visual Studio codename Orcas. It is yet another great example of how the voices of community and industry are able to influence decisions in Redmond. "

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici

Romania sees Vista falling in place

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 00:21:41 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "The latest Orcas CTP is available for download here. Now we have everything in place to build great Vista apps: Vista RC1, Vista RC1 SDK, and Orcas for Vista RC1. So, let the show begin :) I can't wait for the autumn roadshow to start here in Romania! "

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici

Ciprian Kicks off a Touchdown Course

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 22:09:58 GMT

Ciprian Jichici writes "It looks like it's final now, I will deliver the first Windows Vista & Office 2007 course in the first week of October together with ProManagement in Bucharest. Keep an eye on their website for the official announcement. From what we know so far, the seats are in great demand, so there is a good chance we will repeat the course at least once in the close future. "

Bloggers : Ciprian Jichici
InDepthTalk.net : Events