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After being poorly (I feel a lot better more of the time now) I have had the urge to clean the house meticulously and start creating decorations and presents for Christmas. I am rather excited about Christmas this year; I am never really over-the-top excited about it, but this Christmas will be the first in our new house! I put the tree up last night… a lot of people have said that it is far too early, but my family is coming to celebrate Christmas a week early, so why cant I put the tree up a week early!? It is just inspiration standing in the corner now, I cant wait to start putting presents under it.

Yesterday Ryan came home with a new frying pan, which was on sale in Debenhams:

So this led me on to looking at all the kitchenware that Debenhams sell… There are quite a few things that I love, which I am sure you can get elsewhere too, just they are all bundled together in one shop! Here are my selections:

1. Dark grey Roast ‘n Rack by Maxim – I love making roast dinners so much, but I still dont really have the roasting trays for all the ingredients.

2. Cream plate with glass dome lid – I just love the aesthetic of having this in the kitchen with cakes under it!

3. Teal rectangular stoneware dish by Le Creuset – maybe for pasta bakes

4. Cream stove kettle by Prestige – I adore the lines and the shapes that make up these retro-style kettles. I even love the fact you have to put it on the stove, so amazing! There are some of the same/similar style that are electric, but its not really the same thing is it. We also need an upgrade from the £6 kettle I bought a few years ago from Woolworths haha!

5. Azure cast iron casserole dish By Le Creuset – for casseroles of course. Winter is drawing in and I am always a sucker for homemade comfort food. For some reason all the Le Creuset items I have picked here bar one are in blue; I actually like all and any of the colours in the range that they make.

6. Ken Hom 5 piece Wok set by Tao – because I dont have a wok, and I really feel like trying to make stir fry and chinese style chicken.

7. Teal cast iron 26cm square grillit by Le Creuset – because it would make amazing steaks, and you can pour out the juices from the pan afterwards… mmmmm!

8. Spring form cake pan by Kitchen Craft – because I have none!

9. Volcanic regular cast iron grill by Le Creuset – I believe you can either put this in the oven, or as a hot plate on the stove… I love that idea.

10. 5 piece stainless steel set by Prestige – because all of my pans are leaving black flakes in my pasta yuk! Not necessarily this set, but something similar that wont ruin my food.

11. Blue Icona 4 slice toaster by De Longhi – so yummy looking! And blue again… why!?? We need an upgrade from the £5 toaster from Woolworths I bought 3 years ago…

12. 14cm microwave saucepan – when I saw this I thought of Ryan. He always eats beans, and always cooks them in Tupperware pots without handles or spouts, and it looks like a very awkward process to try not to burn your fingers, so this could be ideal!

13. Assam teapot by Bodum – I am never any good at judging how long to leave teabags to steep in the water before pouring, and it either comes out too weak or too strong. So… if I can see what is going on inside the pot I will be ok! It also has a plunger to stop the process when it is right for you, and you can use teabags or leaves and it works!

14. Cream food mixer by KitchenAid – how gorgeous is this machine! We have one in the kitchen at the bar that I work at, I might see if they will sell it to me as it is not really in use.

.

I am also in the process of designing some quilted Christmas stockings for myself and Ryan, to hang on the wall (where the mantel should be if the house still had one), some knitted presents for my grandparents, maybe some other presents too, and some decorations for the house! I am thinking garlands, and wreaths, and paper chains of course.

Ryan is dying my hair for me tonight, so if I think I look semi-unpoorly afterwards I shall take a photo and paste it to the end of this blog.

Jenn xx

P.S I am now down to 4 hamsters… It seems to be a sad time in Hamsterville. I have not changed anything about their living conditions… maybe it is just that time of year Rest in peace crazy dude who bit me really hard…

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The web role in windows azure is limited to 2 instance only. We can configure the instance count only upto 2 in CTP, when it exceeds more than 2, it warns an error message during the updation of configuration file. The error message is “Role Instance counts are out of allowed range.”

So, try keeping the instance count only 2 before you are publishing the web role to the cloud.

Директор по планированию продукта Windows Azure Mike Wickstrand организовал сайт, на котором можно предложить свою и проголосовать за другие идеи для Windows Azure:
http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com.

Данная уникальная возможность повлиять на развитие продукта появилась после подобного успешного опыта с Silverlight.

Спешите проголосовать за функционал Windows Azure, которого Вам больше всего не хватает!

A very interesting video on the hardware architecture behind cloud computing was posted yesterday on Microsoft’s Channel9 site…  The walk-though is presented by Patrick Yantz, a Cloud Architect with Microsoft’s Data Center Services Team at PDC09.

Self contained 40-foot containers (yes the kind you see on the road)  are used to store 1000’s of motherboards and equipment that is used to drive the cloud…   Pretty Cool!

Link to  Channel9 Story   or directly to video here

Still ill, I’ll be fully recovered for Motorhead tomorrow night though

I’m having a lazy day playing Call of Duty 4 online, eating food, blogging and editing. I made a new Playstation Account, new online username is Timn96-  (Yes, with the hyphen at the end). I got fed up with my old one “breaddah” I suck at gaming, but it’s fun.

The weather is extremely bland today. This is the type of weather I hate. Completely solid grey sky. I’d prefer it if it was a huge thunderstorm. I don’t mind cold weather, it’s nice sometimes if it’s really cold but really sunny. I don’t really have anything against winter.

Motorhead tomorrow (25th Nov 09), I can’t wait. I won’t be ill tomorrow, trust me. I’m in school tomorrow, leave the house at 7:45am, won’t get back until 1am. Then I have two random days off on Thursday and Friday for some unknown reason (thanks school!) So I’ll have Thursday to be lazy and recover, then I’m supposed to be going and seeing the film 2012 with my friends on Friday o_o

Anyway, talk to you soon, Tim.

Last week i created a series of product on zazzle based on my photo, Early Morning Sun Rays #19. The early morning sun beams its rays from the azure winter sky through the leafless maples to the cedars and forest below. The sky is a pristine light blue with a hint of thin white clouds in the background. Darkened outlines of bare branches in the foreground and cedar trees in the background provide stark contrast with the early morning sun. As the rays travel from the sun through the forest, several large sunspots a of lighter and darker red radiate from the sun. One small green sunspot floats like a small orb in the midst of the trees.

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View more Forest Postage

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View more Forest Photo Cards

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Make personalized stationery on zazzle.com

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View more Forest Magnets

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View more Forest Mugs

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Many more Keychain designs at zazzle.com

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View more Forest Buttons

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
See more Forest Stickers

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Design custom tee shirts at Zazzle

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Create custom t shirts at zazzle

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Shop for another greeting card on zazzle

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Make post cards on zazzle

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Browse more Forest Mousepads

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View other Forest Aprons

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
More Forest Bags

Dawna’s Gallery of Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, and T shirts

Dawna’s Fine Art Prints at

Dawna’s Zazzle Gallery of items featuring her Art and Photography

Microsoft announced at PDC09 that they will support more platforms than just .NET on Windows Azure. Azure now has an interoperability page where they show some of the options.

SDKs’ for

• PHP
• Java
• Ruby

Tools for

• Eclipse
• Java
• Ruby
• PHP

This really broadens the potential customer base. Pair the Eclipse Tools for Windows Azure with the newly acquired TeamPrise offering and Java developers can start developing for Windows Azure today. Welcome into this cloud Javas!

To be able to access the SQL Azure instance you need to get the Management Studio. The new installer is really a pain and have taking me some hours to find out how to install using it the new improved installer.

The installation does not look as it have been doing before, you now get a whole lot of options, documentation, missing information and the lack of the management studio install option…

What can you expect when you download a file called “SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU?
 - Dont expect a SQL Manangement Studio installation 

It is for our “convenience” located under the “New SQL server…” install option

If you like me already have an instance you will see the result here:

Using the existing gets me here (with no choice of management studio):

Performing a new installation gives me these options:

The installation design doesn’t make any sense to me but the problem is solved… thanks for the new really confusing installation experience Microsoft!

Download the Management Studio tools here (there are a few different installation packs on the ms site, but this one seems to work if you want the management studio.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7522a683-4cb2-454e-b908-e805e9bd4e28&DisplayLang=en

After running it, go to installation and press “New SQL Server stand-alone…” even if you like me already have an instance.

I doubt that the experience is this bad if you do it from scratch, but doing it with a old SQL 2005 Management Studio Express installation is not possible. Also I think my named instance confused things. I do usually not install named instances on my local machine, but somehow I got this one, probably from the Visual Studio installation

amazon ec2 is to low cost servers as henry ford was to low cost motoring. both made a formerly expensive technology accesible by the masses. and every other major IT powerhouse, be it Google or Microsoft, are on board and ready to make the clouds ready for consumption.

so what exactly is cloud computing? it’s the process of relying on the internet (or “cloud”) to perform computing needs via an accessable service. in a typical cloud computing scenario you only use, and therefore pay for, what you need. it comprises of multiple levels that make it easier to comprehend ….

cloud hosting where a client can lease virtual scalable infrastructure as they need it and providing a choice of operating system, usually controlled via API or web interface.

cloud infrastructure which are the servers, networks, hardware etc. that make up the cloud service e.g. amazon web services.

cloud platform providing a computing platform or framework (e.g. .NET, Ruby on Rails, or Python) as a service or stack e.g. google appengine or microsoft azure.

cloud application where tighly controlled apps are run and interacted with.

it’s obviously not all silver linings and rainbows. cloud computing has its pitfalls. you are entirely dependant on the provider to ensure that the service is always available. there are lag times (especially in bandwidth hampered south africa) between making requests and receiving data. but in most scenarios when examining ROI with regards to cost and risks, it makes sense for most organisations to look towards cloud computing as a great way to divorce themselves from server maintenance, site issues (e.g. where do i put my data center?) etc.

for some organisations, however, cloud computing is risky and not worth the cost savings. what happens when they expose all that critical, sensitive data to someone else for safe keeping? who’s to say they won’t just turn around and sell it off to highest bidder with you none the wiser? what happens when the service DOES go down and you do more than just sell books online and the losses involved amount to millions instead of pennies?

however you look at it, cloud computing is here to stay. it will never be for everyone, but the ones that can adopt it will sleep easier knowing that their data is in relatively safe hands and at a lower cost than they could have ever envisioned a few years ago.

Centrally located in the resort, the Palm Superior Rooms offer excellent access to all facilities, or perhaps overlook the iconic Hayman Pool and gardens from the guest rooms and suites in the Pool Wing.

Featuring boutique accommodation set in tranquil surrounds, the Beach Wing comprises of Retreat Rooms set back from the beach in tropical gardens, Beach Front Rooms fronting the Coral Sea, and a magnificent, private Beach Villa on Hayman Beach.

The Lagoon Wing features larger rooms and suites than the Pool Wing, and overlooks the tranquil lagoon, tropical gardens, and the freshwater Lagoon Pool; the Penthouses offer views of Hayman Beach, a butler service and use of the Penthouse Lounge.

Providing unique culinary experiences, enjoy the fabulous restaurants, bars, lounge, and The Chefs Table, a weekly six-course banquet taking guests behind the scenes of the Main Kitchen, and visiting the Chocolate Room and La Fontaine Wine Cellar.

An ideal setting for relaxing leisure activities and exciting sporting pursuits, Hayman, Whitsundays offers three swimming pools, including the famous Hayman Pool, five tennis courts, a nine-hole putting green, and year-round water activities.

Specialties of traditional Asian cultures are prepared with innovative flare at Oriental, which can seat 10 guests for a private dinner, and tranquil garden filled with rock pools and waterfalls.

Overlooking the Hayman Beach and beyond to the Whitsunday waters and neighbouring islands, Azure presents Australian contemporary cuisine from an open show kitchen, and specialises in seafood.

The resort offer five floodlit tennis courts, two squash courts, a nine-hole putting green, a golf target range, croquet, archery, table tennis, badminton, snooker and pool, and an Activities Centre.

for more details visits hubresorts.com

Was Catalyst sein soll, habe ich hier und hier bereits erläutert. Aber eine schöne Idee ist wertlos, wenn sie nicht umsetzbar ist. Thus a few comments on the technical implementation of such a system:

Synchron und Asynchron

Der klassische und weit rezipierte wissenschaftliche Diskurs findet traditionell in asynchronen Medien statt. D.h. in Büchern und Journalen. Daneben gibt es Symposien und ihre berühmten Kaffeepausen. Catalyst sollte versuchen, beides zu bieten. Dabei müssen die Tools nicht nur leicht zu bedienen sein, sondern a) integriert, d.h. in einer Plattform und b) durchsuchbar sein.

Cyn.book

Eine Software Plattform, die das meiste bereits bietet, ist cyn.in von cynapse. Im Rahmen der #unseruni AG IT habe ich damit etwas herumgespielt. cyn.in ist tatsächlich ein sehr mächtiges Werkzeug. Aber es zielt ab auf Unternehmen mit einer festen Informations- und Workflow-Struktur. Darum bildet es herkömmliche Strukturen mit neuen Medien nach. Für ein diskursives Projekt ist das ungeeignet. Trotzdem erscheint mir cyn.in als wichtigter Bezugspunkt, gerade was den Reichtum an Tools anbelangt.
Dem ad hoc, Diskussions- und Open Space Charakter von Catalyst viel näher sind SNS wie Facebook oder Elgg. Allerdings fehlen diesen wiederum die Tools eines wissenschaftlichen Diskurses. Irgendwo zwischen diesen beiden Polen liegt Catalyst.

BuddyPress

Dazwischen liegt auch BuddyPress, eine soziale Weiterentwicklung der Blogging-Software WordPress, mit der auch dieses Blog läuft. Der große Vorteil von BuddyPress ist die Möglichkeit der Mitlgieder, sich selbst zu Gruppen zusammenzuschließen kombiniert mit dem Focus einer Blogging-Plattform. D.h. dass nicht nur jeder Nutzer ein eigenes Blog hat, sondern auch jede Gruppe. Darüber hinaus stehen mit Foren, Private Messages und Wires (vergleichbar mit Facebook Walls) weitere asynchrone Medien zur Verfügung. Und auch die Wichtigkeit von Nutzerprofilen darf nicht unterschätzt werden, denn hier stellen Studierende (und TutorInnen und ProfessorInnen) ihre Interessens- und Fachgebiete dar, sowie ihre »recent activity« auf BuddyPress.

Catalyst

Um aus BuddyPress Catalyst zu machen sind jedoch noch einige Features nötig. Zu denken wären etwa an GruppenWikis (vgl. etwa hier oder hier) oder die Einbindung von (Google) Wave. Die Verwendung intelligenter Tutoring Systeme könnte etwa notwendig werden, wenn die Zahl der teilnehmenden StudentInnen wächst. Auch sollte Zemanta Enterprise oder ähnliche Semantische Web Technologien in Betracht gezogen werden, um das finden von relevanter Information in Catalyst zu vereinfachen.
Schlussendlich fehlen noch die synchronen Medien. Hier ist zu unterscheiden zwischen Many-to-Many und One-to-One Medien. Letztere sind sehr einfach über das Chat Protokoll Jabber oder das VoIP Protokoll SIP zu implementieren. Auch Skype könnte man ohne Schwierigkeiten einbinden (SkypeMe!-Button)
Für Ersteres stehen mit dimdim und openmeetings freie Webmeeting-Server zur verfügung. Über die Verwendung von Adobe Connect lässt sich nachdenken, aber ich glaube, dass es unverhältnismäßig teuer ist. Darüber hinaus finde ich tweetboard’s Idee sehr interessant, Twitter mit anderen Websiten zu verbinden und so kontextuelle Diskussionen zu ermöglichen (vgl. tweetboard’s Website). Natürlich sollte man für Catalsyst von Twitter Abstand nehmen, und stattdessen einen eigenen Microblogging-Dienst per StatusNet oder Present.ly verwenden.

Integriert?

Der letzte Absatz hört sich zugegebnermaßen recht kompliziert an. Das sind aber nur die (semi-)technischen Details. Der große Fortschritt des web2.0 und web3.0 ist aber, die technische Natur der Anwendungen vor dem Nutzer zu verbergen. Das Ganze hat auch einen Namen: Usability. Und die muss gerade hier zentral sein! Darum auch die Wichtigkeit, die oben genannten Tools in einer Plattform, eben Catalsyst zu vereinen und optisch klar zu strukturieren.

Verlässlich?

Gerade für ein solches System ist es enorm wichtig, immer available zu sein und das auch mit entsprechender Geschwindigkeit. Darum, und wegen der Frage der (technischen) Skalierbarkeit von Catalsyst glaube ich, dass dieses System von vornherein auf einen Cluster/einer Cloud gebaut sein sollte. Das vermindert die Wahrscheinlichkeit eines temporären Ausfalls enorm und sorgt dafür, dass auch in Stoßzeiten genügend Rechenleistung zur Verfügung steht.

Gerade Canonicals Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud oder Red Hats Cloud Computing bieten sich hier an. Und mit der Öffnung von Windows Azure für freie Runtime Environments ist auch ein Microsoft Cluster denkbar. Ich bin mir aber sicher, dass es andere, möglicherweise bessere Optionen gibt.

Sicher?

Fragen der Sicherheit und Privacy sind ebenfalls zu bedenken, wenn man Catalsyst umsetzen will. Während ich glaube, dass Privacy-Concerns an dieser Stelle eine untergeordnete Rolle spielen und leicht addressiert werden können, ist die Sicherheit vor Black Hat Hackern ein Langzeitprojekt und man sollte sich überlegen, nicht eine Consulting-Firma zu engagieren um universitäre Netzwerke regelmäßig zu checken – nicht nur Catalsyst.

Hello folks,

One of the important focus of MSFT is on the next generation cloud applications. Yes it was one of the important presentations in their PDC conference in 2k8(Professional Developer Conference).

The video is just an explanation about how a cloud app can save you from spending resource overloads and most important of all “money” .

Hope this would make u familiar with what’s next in the web applications…

Regards,
Vinay

Vintage Hobe Crystal Earrings Azure And Fern Colors

These are absolutely gorgeous earrings! Vintage Hobe clip ons from the 1960s. The colors are amazing! Greens and blues…azure…teal…fern green AB crystals…

They measure approximately 3/4 of an inch in diameter. The clip on the back has a “comfort Roll”…which has yellowed over the years. Each earring is signed “Hobe”. Clips are in working order.

These are in vintage condition…some wear to the AB finish on the crystals and flea bite…tiny…teeny chips. Please see photos and use the zoom feature.

And as always…the pieces of “fuzz” that always haunt my photos are absolutely free!

Have any questions…just convo me. I am a night owl…so you will likely get a reply in the afternoon or evenings.

100% of the sale proceeds will be donated to Etsy for Charity (EFC) Charity of the Month.

Data-Intensive Computing on Windows HPC Server with the DryadLINQ Framework
John Vert in 408A on Tuesday at 3:00 PM

Come get an overview of the DryadLINQ features and runtime environment, and walk through some real-world examples of DryadLINQ programs based on the familiar declarative syntax of LINQ combined with the fault-tolerant distributed graph scheduling of the Dryad runtime. Hear how DryadLINQ provides a programming model and runtime for data-parallel programs running across large clusters and partitioned data sets.

E <http://agilecat.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/mapreduce-in-dryadlinq/>

I have one word for Microsoft on PDC 2009:

Awesomeness!

This years Product Developers Conference was much scaled back compared to last years but it had a great innovation in format that allowed people who didn’t attend the conference physically to still interact with it virtually.

And so the good folks at Channel 9 had built up a talkshow like studio at the PDC, with live streaming video through Silverlight, and the ability to viewers to ask questions live on air via Twitter.

This was immensely fun. I had the opportunity to ask questions to at least two technical fellows at Microsoft. Technical Fellow is the highest technical ranking at Microsoft besides of course Chief Technical Architect, a position which is currently held by Ray Ozzie.

I asked a question to Patrick Dussud, Technical Fellow and lead architect of the .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR), designer of the CLR GC and a member of the Windows Core Architechture team. The question was about how how parallel you could make the GC and what possible downsides this had.

I also asked a question to David Campbell, another Technical Fellow, from the Business Platform Division (BPD) where he manages Microsoft SQL Azure and .Net services in the cloud computing space. This question was about whether databases (e.g. SQL Server), programming runtimes (e.g. CLR) and … are merging. David mentiond that MSIL/CIL bytecode execution on SQL Server – “close to the data” – has improved performance of managed code accessing data greatly.

LINQ shows us where things are going: tighter and tighter integration. Erik Meijer, who is perhaps the lead architect of LINQ and whom I was also able to ask a question, also works for David Campbell on cloud programmability. The  new Reactive Extensions (Rx) for .Net is a pearl which we’ll see permeate .Net soon. It also builds smoothly on top of Parallel Extensions for .Net (Px), which is Microsoft’s near- to mid-term answer to the manycore challenge.

Parallel Extensions for .Net comes from the Parallel Computing Platform (PCP) team which is the team tasked with the strategic challenge posed by the massively parallel hardware of the future.

It gets better. I also asked a question to the director of NASA’s Mars programme as well as a NASA scientist.

I repeat: Awesomeness!

NASA had a marked pressence at this years PDC because they have offered up data on Microsoft’s new “Dallas” data marketplace. The attendees were apparently given 3D goggles and were viewing stereoscopic images of Mars. Pretty damned cool.

Supposedly recordings of the live Channel 9 stream will be available. I’d certainly like it.

This years PDC will be one tough PDC to outdo.