Blogger now schedules future-dated posts

Scheduled post publishing, which we talked about testing on Blogger in draft last month, is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.

Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks? Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.

Scheduling a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the “Post Options” toggle to show the “Post date and time” fields. Then, type a post date and time that’s in the future. When you click the “Publish” button, your post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post arrive, it will be automatically published to your blog.


“Scheduled” posts appear in your Edit Posts list alongside your drafts and published posts. To un-schedule a post, simply save it as a draft any time before it gets published.

One quick note: If you want to give a post a date in the future but have it appear on your blog now, you’ll need to add in an extra step. First, publish your post with the current date and time. This will make it appear on your blog. Then, edit the post to change the date into the future and publish it again.

We don’t re-schedule posts that are already published, so the post will stay on your blog but sort to the very top. The same is true of future dated posts you’ve already made, so there’s no need to worry about your existing posts disappearing, or having your blog assaulted by unplanned entries in, say, 2027.

P.S.: Thanks to everyone who tested this out on Blogger in draft and posted comments! We appreciate your time and effort.

Source: blogger

New book Teaches You to Set up & Develop your own Internet Community with phpBB

Create a thriving online community for your website by setting up and running your own online discussion forums using phpBB, the free, open source bulletin board package.

phpBB is a standard among web hosting companies throughout the world, and is one of the most widely used bulletin board packages in the world. phpBB short-circuits the need for you to be a web development master in order to create and manage massive online communities.

One of the benefits of phpBB is that with the right guidance, anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML and a willingness to learn will be able to create, customize and manage their own Internet community. Packt Publishing have just announced a new book �Building Online Communities with phpBB,� that is ideal for those who are just starting out or looking to take phpBB further. Written for new and intermediate users, the authors, each an experienced phpBB administrator and enthusiast, take you through the whole process of setting up your own phpBB site, helping you to create, customize and manage your online community with phpBB.

�Building Online Communities with phpBB� begins with the initial installation and configuration of phpBB on your system, with troubleshooting tips to help you through. You will then go on a tour of phpBB and its features, stepping you through the basic tasks, growing your understanding and familiarizing you with the power of phpBB.

Everybody wants their community to look special, and customizing your forum is the next stop in the book. Beginning with a detailed rundown of styles and themes, you will then see how to customize your forum by first modifying existing styles, adding new elements, and even creating a new style from scratch.

The book then goes onto cover further administration of your community, creating hacks or "modifications" for phpBB, custom PHP programming with phpBB, and reference appendices with more phpBB resources, the phpBB file and directory structure, guides to the BBCode and permission systems, and the phpBB database structure round off this book.

The emphasis is on simple and practical guidance for you to get the most from phpBB. This book is available now through Packt Publishing, for more details,
please visit: www.PacktPub.com/book/phpbb

Beta of BizTalk Server R3 Expected Later This Year

Later this year, Microsoft will deliver the first preview of the new release of its BizTalk Server middleware platform that supports Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, and the ।NET Framework 3.5, with general availability during the first half of 2009, a Microsoft product manager said on his blog last week.

BizTalk Server is Microsoft's core business process management (BPM) middleware platform for integrating enterprise applications, synchronizing the flow of data with external systems, and sending and receiving business documents as part of a supply chain। In short, if it's B2B processing you need on a Windows Server, BizTalk Server is a good start.

There has been some concern among Windows customers that Microsoft had not yet communicated its plans to support the new Windows Server stack--anchored by Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, and the ।NET Framework 3.5--with a new release of BizTalk Server.

Those fears were addressed last week by Steven Martin, director of product management for the Connected Systems Division, on his blog, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Simple Middleware

"Once SQL Server 2008 . . . becomes generally available, we will follow with an updated version of BizTalk Server designed for the latest versions of Windows Server, the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, and SQL Server," Martin wrote on his blog.

The new release will be called BizTalk Server 2006 Release 3, and the first community technology preview (CTP) will go out later this year, with a release to manufacturing (RTM) expected during the first half of 2009, according to Martin

Here's what else you can expect, in addition to expanded platform support: support for UDDI 3।0, the Web services repository; new adapters for ERP systems, databases, and legacy hosts; enhanced support for RFID devices through BizTalk RFID Mobile, a new product Microsoft announced last week and which will ship later this year; better support for B2B protocols like SWIFT and EDI; and support for SOA patterns and best practices.

source=http://www.itjungle.com/

Microsoft's Enterprise Project suite isn't just for the enterprise

Keeping track of a project -- any project -- can be an overwhelming task, especially if you're dealing with multiple teams, various funding expenditures, and the ever-popular string of setbacks and delays that haunt projects

Microsoft has continued to roll out products to help take control of projects। In addition to unleashing the latest project flavor last year, Redmond ripped Project Server in two, creating Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007. Each offers complementary and useful features to help users organize and control the flow of a project.

Both servers (with their client counterparts) are part of what Microsoft calls the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution, which has been designed to help "you gain visibility, insight, and control across your project, program, and application portfolios"

Project Server 2007 allows you to access and manage a project through different methods: Among them, there's Project Professional, the client application sold separately or as part of Office 2007, as well as Project Web Access, which allows users to connect to Project Server from a Web browser

With Project Server, users can track project planning through the approval process। The activity plan can show users where a project stands at any given moment. Through the Resource Center, you can get quick reports as to where resources are allocated. Moreover, you can analyze timesheet management, as well as cross-project dependencies, on a project-by-project basis, allowing for more efficient use of time and money. In terms of security, admins can establish permission settings for users, allowing them access only to the resources they need to see and work with.

Project Portfolio Server 2007 lets you go one step further in creating an entire portfolio of projects or sub-projects। The server analyzes work flows and displays them graphically so you can see ways to optimize the project plan and execution. Through the Dashboard Module, you can see and track multiple portfolio scorecards for managing and tracking active portfolios. You can use the Optimizer Module to put your project portfolios through various what-if scenarios; you can also build out informational charts about your portfolio as it currently exists.

But this really becomes interesting when you compare Microsoft's EPM solutions to the project management products on the market -- and there are plenty of out there. On the upscale side, we have Oracle Fusion, and IBM Rational as well as Niku from Computer अस्सोसिअतेस

But Microsoft is also seeing competition for the smaller project management market from companies such as Clarizen and LiquidPlanner

How can Microsoft respond in the mini-market of project management when its offerings of Project Professional, Project Server, and Project Portfolio Server all seem so gi-normous to the average user?

The project servers allow for Project Web Access and therefore also allow for hosted solutions through a cornucopia of different vendors. So, the high-end features of an EPM solution don't necessarily require in-house servers or the administrative skill necessary to handle the dedicated hardware and software that come with such high-end project management solutions

Does this mean Microsoft Project is for everyone? Not quite। Many will argue that aside from the cost for infrastructure (which would be removed somewhat by the hosted solution path), there is still a valid reason to consider other solutions due to the unnecessary complexity of Project and concerns that it actually doesn't handle projections reasonably.

What solutions are you currently working with to handle project management?

source=http://weblog.infoworld.com/

Glue and Mortar

Zend co-founder talks about the new PHP framework, Yahoo! and open Web standards।

As university students, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski discovered PHP/FI-predecessor to PHP -- while working together on a "shopping cart" project for extra credit। They rewrote the PHP core engine and started their own company, Zend Technologies Inc.

As university students, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski discovered PHP/FI-predecessor to PHP -- while working together on a "shopping cart" project for extra credit। They rewrote the PHP core engine and started their own company, Zend Technologies Inc.

What does the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern let you do in Zend Framework?
What Zend Framework has already had for the last year and a half is a really respectable MVC pattern, and what that allows you to do is to separate your business logic from the presentation layer। That's kind of the simple thing it allows you to do, but in most cases -- including ours -- it also allows you to create composite views. So if you have an app that has two or three different pieces of information on the same Web page, it allows you to build those kinds of Web pages in a very modular way. Also, our MVC supports AJAX, so if you're writing a rich Internet app with JavaScript on the client, there's already the right plumbing in our MVC framework to communicate with the browser and respond to AJAX requests from the browser.

What advantages does PHP offer for a Microsoft shop?
I think the main difference to customers who choose PHP -- and we have a lot of enterprise customers that have very heterogeneous environments -- is that they can use PHP on all of their systems। A Fortune 500 customer of ours -- a very big Microsoft and IBM customer -- they have mainframes, System i [IBM midrange server], Unix and Windows and they can now put PHP on System i, expose a Web service with PHP, put PHP on Windows and consume it on Windows.

What's the latest on your interoperability partnership with Microsoft?
In the past year and a half, we've really been working closely with Microsoft to make sure that PHP works well on the Windows platform, and as part of that work they implemented FastCGI support for IIS and we optimized PHP on Windows। And with the release of Windows Server 2008, both of these efforts come together -- FastCGI ships with Windows 2008. And we have a product called Zend Core, which is our certified PHP distribution. We've worked with Microsoft to make sure that Zend Core is certified to work with Windows Server 2008. Now customers can come to Microsoft or Zend and get a PHP stack that's ready for running business-critical apps on Windows.

In your blog, you talked about MIX08 and your fears that technologies like Silverlight and Flex might work against an open Web.
The risk with something like Silverlight succeeding too much is that it's not an open standard। Microsoft decides which platforms are supported. So today, it's really Windows and Mac, and kind of Linux with the Novell relationship, but it wasn't planned last year when they announced Silverlight 1.0. So it means that if you're on a mainframe or System i, or any other Unix system, you might not have that available. I really think the foundation for the Web -- whether it's HTML, JavaScript or whatever comes afterward -- [we] should make sure those things are open standard so that all the different browser implementations can support them.

Someone at MIX08 described Web development as building the Taj Mahal out of wire and Popsicle sticks -- making older technologies do things they weren't meant to do. What's your view of Web development today, and how do the different versions of PHP fit into it?
In general, we've always viewed PHP as a glue language। One of the reasons that PHP has become so successful is that it's very easy for people to adopt. You can develop object-oriented with it or you can develop in a functional paradigm with it, so anyone can pick it up. And it's very easy with PHP to get at any database, any Web service, any information assets in your company. And so this whole notion of gluing your various assets together has always been PHP's main strength, which is why it's so dominant today.

Where we're going is, we're continuing down the same path। So we're continuing to extend how you glue all your various assets together: the interoperability with the browser with AJAX, the interoperability with Web services. With PHP 6, we're going to have more internationalization support. The world is becoming flatter; a lot of companies are global businesses today. They need to be able to expose data and content in multiple languages. A lot of it is really more of the same, but we're continuing to evolve as the Web is evolving.

If Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! is successful, what are the implications for PHP development within Yahoo! and in the community at large?
I do think that over time, it's probably likely that Microsoft's influence will trickle over। You might see more use of Microsoft servers in production, so they might start running PHP on Windows. You might see more with Silverlight and, who knows, eventually over time, when they start a new big project and it's rewritten, there's probably a likelihood that they might choose ASP.NET before PHP. So I do think long-term it could affect how PHP is being used at Yahoo!. I think for the next couple of years, there probably won't be a lot of influence there.

source = http://reddevnews.com

New version of Enterprise Service Bus software extends the Microsoft .NET Platform

/PRNewswire/ -- Neudesic, a leading provider of business solutions that leverage the capabilities of the Microsoft product line, announced today the release of version 2।0 of Neuron-ESB. Neuron-ESB is an Enterprise Service Bus that extends the Microsoft Platform by providing real-time messaging, integration and web service management. Neuron-ESB accelerates SOA adoption by helping companies successfully implement real-time integration across their enterprise, allowing timely response to changing events within their business.

Neuron-ESB is built on the Microsoft Windows Communication Framework (WCF) technology to provide real-time reliable messaging options for companies adopting SOA। Neuron-ESB manages all communication over the bus by sending messages over "Topics" using a publish-subscribe pattern and supports federated, geographic deployments। Neuron-ESB helps companies administer and automate complex tasks and is proven to significantly reduce the infrastructure, development, training and long term support costs for businesses developing SOA solutions.

"Neuron-ESB provides the messaging backbone for all of our critical applications," said Jeffrey Sullivan, Chief Information Officer of ThinkCash. "Neuron-ESB allowed us to leverage our developers much more effectively while providing us the ability to go to market quickly with new solutions. We were able to shift our service development from the architect role to the more ubiquitous developer role while, decreasing our deployment time of new services by 50%. We started with just 1 developer who received 4 days of Neuron-ESB training. Within 6 months and no additional training, we had a 15X increase in the number of our internal developers who were able to use Neuron-ESB."

Neuron-ESB 2।0 delivers a unique set of capabilities that extend and combine key strategic Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 & RFID, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 3.0, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Office, .NET 3.0/3.5, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), WCF Line of Business Adapters and MSMQ. The synergy between Neuron-ESB and these products empower companies to develop more robust and business-aware applications with far less effort and complexity.

"Neuron-ESB 2.0 represents a significant evolution for the Microsoft Platform while addressing the Enterprise Service Bus needs of every customer running Microsoft Windows. Our technology allows businesses to effectively leverage their Microsoft investments to deliver real-time solutions," stated Marty Wasznicky, Vice President of Product Development. "Our product provides a new level of flexibility and ease of use that will help companies increase their productivity while reducing their development and operational costs. Moreover we have formed a strategic partnership with SOA Software and achieved certification as a Governed Service Platform through the Open Governance Initiative. Our customers can be confident that Neuron-ESB will enhance the fidelity of their Governance initiatives."

"The Open Governance Initiative is rapidly gaining momentum amongst platform vendors, Governance solution providers, and end-user customers," said Frank Martinez, Executive Vice President of SOA Software। "The addition of Neuron-ESB, as a Microsoft .NET and WCF based ESB to the list of Governed Service Platforms highlights the importance of this certification for platform vendors."

source=http://www.earthtimes.org/

Auto-ID vendors reveal Microsoft BizTalk connectivity

Microsoft BizTalk 2006 R2 extends core process management technologies to connect real-time business processes and leverage intelligent RFID data।

Avery Dennison Printer Systems Division, a front-runner developer of UHF and HF RFID printer/encoders, item-level smart tags and labels, and compliance shipping labels, says BizTalk Server 2006 R2 users now can leverage Avery Dennison’s printing/encoding capabilities, as well as its smart tags and labels।

Additionally, SATO, a leading supplier of bar-code printing, labeling, and EPC/RFID solutions, offers expanded integration with BizTalk 2006 R2 within SATO's iTRAK application suite, which tracks assets, equipment, parts, documents, and many other items in real time using active, semi-active, and passive RFID. The iTRAK Asset Management system allows RFID devices to be managed easily and with immediate visibility to the client’s host ERP, warehouse management, or transportation management system.

BizTalk Server for Windows Server 2008 not till 2009

When Microsoft launched Windows Server 2008 in February, company officials shared timetables for how long it might take the company to make available compatible versions of its various business applications. But it wasn’t until this week, the company finally shared information on how and when it will release a Windows-Server-2008-compatible version of its integration server, BizTalk Server.

Users had been wondering when and whether Microsoft might port BizTalk Server 2006 to its Windows Server 2008 platform। On April 23, Microsoft Connected Systems Division Director of Product Management Steve Martin blogged that Microsoft will release an updated version of BizTalk some time in the first half of 2009 for Windows Server 2008. That release will be called BizTalk Server 2006 Release (R) 3.

Microsoft is limiting the feature changes it is making to BizTalk for the R3 release, Martin blogged। The included changes will include UDDI 3.0 support; enhanced support for B2B protocols like SWIFT and EDI; and new and updated adapters for business apps and databases. Martin blogged:

“To ensure existing BTS (BizTalk Server) applications continue to run without changes, we are taking an incremental approach and limiting the changes to the items listed above। Because this release build on existing bits, the name of this release will be BizTalk Server 2006 R3. Refreshing the bits (instead of applying a large Service Pack) provides for the best update experience. You should expect to see a CTP (Community Technology Preview) of BizTalk Server 2006 R3 later this year (with an RTM planned in H1 CY09).”

One Microsoft partner said BizTalk isn’t the only Microsoft application lagging well behind Windows Server 2008।

“System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 just released on April 1 2008, but it was developed and tested ONLY on a W2K3 platform and domain (plus it needs WINS too),” said Scott Hill, CIO of RightSize IT, a Microsoft Gold reseller partner based in Texas। “It will not be supported on a W2K8 platform or ‘native mode’ domain until the Service Pack at year end.

“Another application has the same issues – OCS (Office Communication Server)2007। That team is now stating that they will not have a fix this month as discussed in January, but are delaying until that service pack in December 2008,” Hill said.

Any other users running into other Windows Server 2008 compatibility snags with Microsoft and/or third-party apps?

source=http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1363

Microsoft Adds Mobile RFID To Biztalk

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) is adding support for mobile RFID readers to its BizTalk Server product with a goal of enabling these devices to transmit data to back-end स्य्स्तेम्स

Microsoft BizTalk RFID Mobile works in conjunction with BizTalk Server 2006 R2, the business process management and service-oriented architecture offering Microsoft launched last Fall, to allow workers to make realtime decisions based on the data they gather in the field using mobile RFID readers।

For example, a service technician on a factory floor can walk up to a piece of malfunctioning equipment, and using an RFID reader, pull maintenance history and diagnostic information onto the device, and then transmit that data back to headquarters।

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 introduced support for fixed RFID readers, and BizTalk RFID Mobile expands this to mobile environments, said Steve Sloan, lead product manager in the Connected Systems division at Microsoft।

"Connecting the data coming off that reader to backend SAP (NYSE:SAP)-type systems has been a challenge, but it helps make data relevant to the business," Sloan सैद।

Microsoft on Thursday kicked off a beta of BizTalk RFID Mobile and is recruiting customers and partners to take part in its BizTalk RFID Mobile Technology Adoption Program।

source=http://www.crn.com/software/207400388

Azaleos Betas New Remote Monitoring Service for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Azaleos has announced the beta of a new remote monitoring service for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, called OneStop ViewPoint।

The company said the service offloads 90 percent of the tasks associated with SharePoint monitoring to Azaleos। The OneStop service allows organizations to deploy SharePoint without increasing IT staff, or to re-assign SharePoint IT personnel to other strategic projects.

Azaleos touted its ability to remotely manage Exchange Servers and Blackberry Enterprise Servers deployed on a customer s premises। The Azaleos management services include, but are not limited to, archiving, e-mail security and business continuity. With the addition of OneStop ViewPoint, Azaleos is expanding its portfolio to cover the entire breadth of the Microsoft enterprise stack and extending the unique Azaleos services value proposition to SharePoint Server customers.

iStar Financial, a publicly traded finance company focused on the commercial real estate industry, relies on SharePoint to manage the collaboration process for financing projects that span multiple documents as well as internal and external contributors।

According to Chris Beach, Vice President of Information Technology for iStar Financial, SharePoint helps us organize and manage documents and communications for complex business transactions that can take months to complete। However, monitoring and maintaining SharePoint is equally complex and requires significant time, effort, and expertise. We wanted to focus our core IT resources in other areas, so we turned to Azaleos. Their ability to keep our confidential SharePoint data and records on-premise and on our network was a key selling point for us.

ViewPoint adds SharePoint Services to the modular lineup of Azaleos OneStop Managed Services। OneStop offerings are delivered in conjunction with OneServer appliances, which serve as on-premise service endpoints inside the customer s firewall. Azaleos offers a virtual OneStop server appliance as well as several physical appliance options for both Exchange and SharePoint.

With nearly 100 million users, SharePoint is rapidly emerging as the de facto collaboration platform and document storage location for mission-critical projects। To ensure that SharePoint is always available and running at peak performance companies are asking Azaleos for assistance, said Keith McCall, Chief Technology Officer of Azaleos. With ViewPoint we provide 24x7 remote monitoring, maintenance, and upkeep of SharePoint by a team of experts in our network operations center.

As SharePoint continues its rapid growth, services are becoming an increasingly important focal point for SharePoint and this is underscored by our recent launch of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Online offering, said Thomas Rizzo, Microsoft s Director of Product Management for SharePoint। Azaleos has now created an innovative new hybrid services approach for SharePoint which further underscores and augments Microsoft s services commitment to SharePoint. The Azaleos service breaks new ground in assisting IT by remotely managing and monitoring on-premise SharePoint performance and uptime.

source=http://www.tradingmarkets.com/