2010 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship – A chance to get cash grant for $200,000

Microsoft Research is inviting nominations for its Faculty Fellowship program. This program recognizes and supports exceptional early-career faculty engaged in innovative computing research. The objective is to stimulate and support the research of promising individuals who have the potential to make a profound impact on the state-of-the-art in their research disciplines and to become future thought leaders.  Each fellowship award includes a cash grant of US$200,000.

Seven Fellowships will be awarded in April 2010. No more than one nomination per research institution will be accepted.  The potential Fellows for the Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship program must be nominated by their research institutions, and their nominations must be confirmed by a letter from the head of the institution (e.g., office of the Pro-Vice Chancellor, President, and so on). Direct applications from new faculty members are not accepted.

Nominations and application deadline: Monday 16^th November 2009, 20:00 (UTC).

 Please visit http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/awards/msrff.aspx for eligibility criteria and instructions.

Exit Interview: Sam Ramji Assesses Microsoft’s Open Source Ascent

By Jeffrey Schwartz | reddevnews.com

Sam Ramji’s five-year tenure at Microsoft was marked by, among other things, the company instituting interoperability principles and more recently gaining closer ties to the Linux and PHP communities.

Shortly after Labor Day Ramji announced that he planned to depart Redmond to return to Sillicon Valley, where he would join cloud infrastructure vendor Sonoa Systems, as reported here. In his final three months at Microsoft, Ramji said he achieved his long-held goal of launching a non-profit open source foundation sponsored by Microsoft. The CodePlex Foundation was launched in conjunction with the announcement of his departure. Ramji will serve as the foundation’s interim CEO for its first 100 days.

Can you describe your last few weeks at Microsoft since your move and the foundation were announced?
I spent most of the last three weeks launching the foundation. I had very little time for anything else. I was dealing with very mundane logistics like getting a tax ID, and opening a bank account and all the things required of creating a startup that you don’t necessarily associate with a non-profit foundation. We had a ton of coverage in media, blogs, journals, Twitter and our Google group. In general people are pretty optimistic about what the foundation can represent. There are always a few people that are going to be concerned no matter what the topic if it’s something about Microsoft and open source. But that was a small minority. The majority was optimistic.

We had some people from both what I think of as the core open source community as well as specific communities like the Apache Software Community or the .NET Open Source Community, who immediately got engaged and sent recommendations and asked questions. We’ve gotten some very good advice on how to structure the foundation, on where to have our initial focus and we will continue to get out to the public and to ask questions. We will be at the MonoSpace Conference on October 29th talking about the range of .NET open source developers, and we’ll be at the Apache Conference the week of November 2.

Speaking of advice that you’ve gotten, can you discuss your reaction to Andy Updegrove’s advice and concerns, which generated a lot of discussion?
Andy made a number of salient points based on his early extensive experience with foundations for standards. I appreciated his feedback. We’ve discussed it and look forward to taking some of those steps such as becoming a membership-based organization. He had suggestions on expanding the size of the board of directors, we think that’s important. There’s a tremendous amount of open source being used in academic institutions, but also some of the challenges academic institutions have had in making contributions back to the open source community projects have echoed some of the challenges we see with software companies. So we think the foundation can serve as a useful conduit for them to be able to start to contribute back to some key projects.

Was there anything you take issue with or disagree with?
It’s an education for me, frankly. Four of us including myself are new to foundations. The amount of time you need to spend analyzing the bylaws and formulating responses, we all saw was a very useful education. The one comment I had for Andy was we didn’t plan to launch it in a perfect state. We launched it at alpha or beta, depending on your point of view. I think we are going to get more independent, different software companies and communities participating, especially sponsoring. I think he had a very good point about financial independence.

Whose idea was it to start the foundation and how much buy-in did you get from top levels at Microsoft?
Bill Staples is a key figure in the formation of the foundation, Mark Stone is our deputy director. There was a pretty good size team of people across legal, my team in the Platform Strategy Group and people in the developer division and the server and tools business. Of course, we had to plan executive sponsorship right up to the senior leadership team. Collectively there’s an open source community within Microsoft for some years. We started having this idea in earnest probably a couple of years ago.
I named Sandy Khaund. She wrote a paper called Microsoft.org, which was thinking about the great things we could do for Microsoft and for open source if we were to establish a non-profit, open source foundation. So we took a stab at starting a foundation a couple of times before, but weren’t successful getting those projects off the ground. This time around we had really strong buy-in and strong leadership from product groups from people like Bill Staple that helped make it successful at this time.

How long did it take to pull it together?
We started running in early June and we sprinted through most of the summer to reach our launch date of September 10. It was a solid three months.

What happened this time that made this effort work, where past attempts failed?
I think the idea of open source being complimentary to Microsoft has just gotten so much broader acceptance. Additionally, the work that Bill Staples’ team has been doing with the open source communities, like PHP applications, as they look at what are developers doing today, how are they building Web applications, what types of technologies and languages are based on teams. [They] built a real strong competency in understanding how open source is driving the Web application model. Everyone has gotten used to the idea that open source and Microsoft have a complimentary future and there is a real strategic push by an organization that focuses heavily on developers.

Did this reach up to Steve Ballmer?
Steve was briefed.

What was his initial reaction?
We had no resistance.

So can you say you have left Microsoft with the feeling that the company truly is grounded in this new open source mission? You didn’t leave with any frustrations that things were happening too slowly?
No, in fact in the last few years, and last few months especially, the slide wheel has been going faster and faster, and I would say we’ve gotten some of our fast results quite recently. For example, when we released the Linux kernel drivers for HyperV under the GPL, we achieved the PHP 5.3.1, which is the fastest PHP on Windows in June, so there were too big hits in a short amount of time.

I am not saying it happened overnight — it was pushing on four years or so — but more and more people have gotten on board with it and it started to go faster and faster. What I expect to see from Microsoft in the coming 12 months would probably be conservatively twice as much open source contribution activity than we saw in the previous 12 months. The open source concept is really spreading across the engineering teams inside the company. It’s really becoming part of the DNA.

Microsoft Security Essentials

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Microsoft Web Application Toolkits to the Web

For the Microsoft WebsiteSpark launch, we have released 7 Web Application Toolkits, together with an introduction to the Web Application Toolkits on Channel9 by James Senior and Jonathan Carter. The scenarios were selected based on feedback from community developers with the first 7 being detailed below.  

 

	Web Application Toolkit for Internet Explorer 8 Extensibility  Today users can access rich information and services while they are browsing a site; it’s not a trivial task to expose this content to the same users when they are not on that site. The goal of this Web Application Toolkit is to leverage the new features in Internet Explorer 8 (Web Slices, Accelerators and Visual Search Providers) to extend the reach of your web site and services also to those users that are not on your site. The Web Application Toolkit includes a set of ASP.NET Web Controls that you can use to take advantage of these IE new features in your own Web application. Check out the accompanying screencast.
	Web Application Toolkit for Bing Search  Bing is a powerful new Decision Engine designed to help consumers accomplish tasks and make faster, more informed decisions. The Bing Application Programming Interface (API) provides developers programmatic access to Bing, offering flexible options for building or enhancing your site or applications. This Web Application Toolkit shows how to take advantage of the Bing API to add search capabilities to your Web site by leveraging the various search results that the Bing API provides, including Web content, images, news and videos, among others. Through this Web Application Toolkit you will also discover how to use ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery to provide an enhanced and more interactive end user experience when using the Bing API.
	Web Application Toolkit for REST Services  Many Web applications today are starting to expose data as REST service interfaces, so it can be accessed through APIs by other tiers of the application or even by other applications. A RESTful web service is a simple Web service implemented using HTTP and the principles of REST. REST Services focus on resources; each one is represented by a unique URI, and users interact with them via their URI using the HTTP uniform interface. This Web Application Toolkit shows how to easily add REST service interfaces for an existing Web application. The Web Application Toolkit includes a sample REST service, two sample client applications that access the REST services, one using simple ASP.NET Web Forms and a second Web application using AJAX to asynchronously invoke the REST service and finally a custom project template for Visual Studio to make it very easy to build new REST Services. Check out the accompanying screencast.
	Web Application Toolkit for Mobile Web Applications  This Web Application Toolkit is designed to demonstrate how to extend an existing ASP.NET MVC Web application to provide access from mobile devices. To enable mobile access, the Web application should have views targeting each of the mobile devices to be supported. The MVC pattern helps you create applications that separate the different aspects of the application (input logic, business logic, and UI logic), while providing a loose coupling between these elements.  This Web Application Toolkit provides a component called MobileCapableViewEngine that enables the Web application to show the appropriate view depending on the device’s browser that is performing the request.   It also includes a sample site that provides different views for Windows Mobile, IPhone, and Blackberry devices.   Check out the accompanying screencast.
	Web Application Toolkit for Template-Driven Email  This Web Application Toolkit is designed to demonstrate how to generate and send dynamic, template-based emails from a web application. There are many common scenarios where notification emails need to be sent to end users. Examples of these common scenarios may involve notifying a user of their newly created account, sending a new password in respond to a forgotten password request, or emailing an alert under specific business circumstances, such as the creation of a order. Typically the E-mails sent from a Web application scenario are formatted as HTML, include CSS stylesheets, and images and need to be generated dynamically with custom or user-specific data.  This Web Application Toolkit includes samples that show how to use templates to generate these dynamic email bodies.  Check out the accompanying screencast.
	Web Application Toolkit for making Your Web Site SocialAdding social capabilities to your Web site allows you to attract new users, keep them on your Web site for longer and get them to come back more often. This Web Application Toolkit shows how, using a few lines of code with the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit, it is possible to add social capabilities to a Web site with instant messaging from a website to various client endpoints like Windows, Windows Mobile, Xbox 360 and Mac.  Behind the scenes is a powerful set of UI Controls and a JavaScript library that connect your website to the Messenger Service which is used by 330 million users around the world.  Check out the accompanying screencast.
	Web Application Toolkit for FAQs  The majority of web sites have the need to display a list of frequently asked questions to their users. Although it’s not difficult to create a simple set of FAQ pages, creating a great user experience that supports searching for FAQs, filtering, and paging, can become more difficult. Furthermore, this is often common functionality that has to be implemented repeatedly in multiple Web sites. This Web Application Toolkit is designed to provide a starting set of code including ASP.NET pages, data access logic, and database schemas, for integrating Frequently Asked Questions into your own ASP.NET MVC Web application. Check out the accompanying screencast.

 You can find the complete list of Web Application Toolkits here.

embeddedSPARK 2010 Challenge

Create an embedded project that catches the eye and brings a smile to your face and enter to win $15,000! We know you’ve got great ideas – and we want to see them in action. So go to your quiet place, think big and enter the embeddedSPARK 2010 Challenge. Register now

Microsoft’s partnership with several of the world’s premier hardware vendors gives hobbyists access to the same enterprise-class tools used by professionals. It’s just one of the ways Microsoft is nurturing its vision to grow and support this important developer community.embeddedSPARK offers a kit that combines Windows Embedded CE 6.0, Visual Studio 2005 Professional, and an embedded device. Backed by Microsoft and a large, active community of embedded developers, Windows Embedded CE provides you with industry-leading tools to help you build an endless variety of embedded solutions.Whether you’re a student who dabbled in Windows Embedded at school, a hobbyist who likes to test the latest technology in your spare time or a casual developer who wants to see what you can create with the right tools, embeddedSPARK can help you start building your vision today. Master the skills that professionals around the globe use to build smart, connected, and service-oriented devices. get your kit now

IBM, Microsoft Back Zend Open Cloud API

By Charles Babcock
InformationWeek

A group of prominent cloud vendors has banded together behind an open source project that promises to make application services available across clouds. Zend Technologies, the supplier of the PHP scripting language, launched the Simple API project Tuesday, and IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) were among the first vendors to sign on.

“We’re very excited to participate. This is a very important effort,” said Vijay Rajagopalan, principal architect for Microsoft’s interoperability strategy team, in an interview. Microsoft will supply the project with a PHP software development kit for its Azure cloud, which is due to become operative in the second half of November.

Simple API will seek to counteract the tendency of each cloud to have some proprietary parts, making it difficult for an application to work with services in more than one cloud at a time.

The Simple API is intended to provide a common API set from which developers may call application services, regardless of which cloud they reside in. Files generated by an application running in one cloud could be stored on Amazon’s S3, Rackspace’s Cloud Files, Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network, or Microsoft’s Azure Windows blobs. Rackspace and Nirvanix are also members of the project.

Simple API will also provide access to cloud document storage services, such as Amazon’s SimpleDB or Windows Azure’s tables.

In addition, in its initial phase Simple API will also provide access to simple queue services, including Amazon Simple Queue Service, which moves messages between two remote computers ensuring delivery, and Windows Azure queues, a similar message-queuing service.

“We started this open source effort to deliver sets of APIs to enable the next generation of applications,” said Andi Gutmans, CEO of Zend Technologies, in an interview. The next generation of applications will be able to make use of application services wherever they find them in the cloud, rather than being dependent on those immediately available. At the start, a limited number of cloud services are covered by the API, but Gutmans said open source development will ensure that Amazon’s EC2 is included as well.

Gutmans said the Simple API project is engaged in an ongoing discussion with Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) “and the door is always open” for Amazon to join the project. Amazon’s infrastructure APIs, the mechanisms that tell the Amazon cloud to load a job that’s arrived from an outside source and run it, have been duplicated by the Eucalyptus open source project.

The work the Simple API for Cloud Application Services project plans to do “is highly complementary” to the work accomplished by Eucalyptus, said Gutmans. Instead of enabling EC2 to run a workload, as Eucalyptus does, Simple API combined with adapters produced by the project will allow an application running elsewhere to make use of an application service in the Amazon cloud. Both the project and cloud suppliers themselves will provide adapters to allow Simple API to access a particular cloud.

Through Simple API, applications will be able to switch which service they want to use from one cloud with a different one without any changes required in the application’s interfaces, Gutmans said. “The lack of portability across cloud application services for even the most basic operations has been an impediment to broader adoption of cloud services,” he noted.

Kristof Kloeckner, CTO of IBM (NYSE: IBM) cloud computing, said Simple API’s ability to invoke services across cloud providers “can significantly reduce the costs for application development IBM will be contributing adapters for IBM’s cloud service interfaces, as well as adapters to IBM’s data storage products.”

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is contributing a PHP adapter that works with Simple API to its Windows Azure cloud.

Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer for Rackspace Cloud, said PHP, already widely used to build Web sites and in Web applications, will frequently be selected as the language for cloud applications. Rackspace is one of the leading third party providers of monitoring and management tools for Amazon’s EC2 operation, as well as offering its own cloud services.

Gutmans said an initial reference implementation of Simple API is available for review, comment, and contribution. Developers may deploy applications relying on Simple API to Amazon’s EC2 by using a freely available Zend conversion tool to create Amazon Machine Images, the virtual machine format that EC2 uses. It’s the Zend Server Community Edition Amazon Machine Image for EC2.

Both IBM and Micrsoft have lagged behind Amazon and other suppliers in getting their cloud services up and running. Microsoft will officially launch Azure at a Professional Developers Conference Nov. 16-19 in L.A. Simple API helps both Microsoft and IBM get back in the cloud computing race and ensures applications designed to work with Amazon will work in their clouds.

Simple API may also become an enabler of private clouds, where an application running on enterprise premises can call external cloud services or shift part of its workload to an external cloud.

Microsoft WebsiteSpark Program

Together with a robust community of hosters and partners, Microsoft is changing the way small businesses develop on the Web through the launch of the WebsiteSpark Program and the Microsoft Web Platform – two global initiatives designed to make it easier for Web developers and designers to build better Web experiences.

• The launch of Microsoft WebsiteSpark Program provides Web developers and designers with up to 10 members Microsoft software and solutions, as well as the training, support and market exposure they need, to help their businesses succeed.
  • Brought to life with the help of an extensive hoster and partner network, the program helps these Web professionals drive new business opportunities by providing tools, solutions, support, training, and increased visibility and connections with partners and customers around the world.
  • WebsiteSpark Program ignites the success of Web professionals three core ways:
    • Get Opportunities:  Both Web professionals and hosters will be able to expand their customer base and drive new business by connecting with an ecosystem of customers, partners, and other Web professionals with complementary technologies. Using Microsoft marketing and other business networking vehicles, they will soon be able to showcase their solutions on a marketplace portal, www.microsoft.com/web/websitespark/market, coming later this fall.
    • Get Support:  Web professionals will get focused support from Microsoft, including technical support, free online training, managed newsgroups, and access to the MSDN developer community and resources – and from a community of Network Partners around the world.
    • Get Software:  Web professionals will receive fast, easy, and immediate access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools, and Web server and database hosting production licenses, to create and deploy differentiated, innovative Internet sites and applications. They will be able to improve their productivity through cost-effective hosting solutions for their new Web sites, with no upfront cost to enroll.

 

•  The availability of the Web Platform Installer (2.0 RTM) and Windows Web Application Gallery offers developers simple ways to build, deploy and install applications.
  • The Web Platform Installer 2.0 now provides developers with a simplified installation of technologies in the Web stack, amplifying ease of use and reducing complexity
  • With the Web Application Gallery, developers can now access dozens of popular, free, ready to install Web apps to build their sites and apps using Microsoft technologies, whether they’re developing in ASP.NET or PHP.
  •  The Microsoft Web Platform is now available in nine different languages, making it easy for developers across the globe to take advantage of Microsoft Web technologies.

 

• Together with a robust community of hosters and partners, Microsoft is changing the way businesses develop on the Web. 
  • With WebsiteSpark and the Microsoft Web Platform, Microsoft is demonstrating an ongoing and unwavering commitment to fostering the success of Web professionals around the world.
  • As the latest initiative in the ‘Spark’ family of programs, including BizSpark and DreamSpark, Microsoft is building upon a legacy of working with key communities to help businesses succeed in today’s climate.

 

• Microsoft is seeing strong community and industry support for this initiative.
  • The WebsiteSpark Program provides a powerful global partner ecosystem to help support Web professionals’ success
  • More than 75 partners and hosters are part of the initiative to date, and this number is growing.

 

• Call to Action:
  • Visit www.microsoft.com/web/websitespark to learn more about the program.
  • Download Microsoft’s Web technologies today at www.microsoft.com/web.

Microsoft Pakistan to train 4500 teachers in Punjab

The Education Department, Government of Punjab, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft Pakistan under the company’s “Partners in Learning” global program. This collaboration aims to provide schools, governments and partners with resources, training, expertise and technology blueprints that will help create institutions to better prepare students for life and work in the 21st century. Both parties will work cooperatively to participate in a four-year program from 2009 till 2013.

The program recognizes the value of providing technology to schools and seeks to jointly provide access to and improve use of information and communication technology (ICT) for the support of teaching and learning.

It was decided under the MoU that Microsoft’s and the Education Department’s associates will provide a joint report to Government of Punjab and Microsoft every 90 days. The report will provide an assessment of the purpose, progress and impact of ‘Partners in learning program’ in Punjab, Pakistan.

Michael Robinson, GM Public Sector, Microsoft MEA, flew down to Pakistan to personally thank the Chief Minster and Government of Punjab to select Microsoft as their partner in this massive reform program. Michael articulated that, “Microsoft has always believed that investing in education is the best way to help young people achieve their potential. We are hand in hand in this program with the Education Department, Government of Punjab to ensure that students receive practical education of information technology that can help them get jobs in the market.”

According to the MoU, Microsoft will provide four weeks of internship to 4 students suggested by the Government of Punjab every year through Microsoft’s certified partners in Pakistan.

Sayed Hashish, Director Public Sector, Microsoft North Africa, East Med and Pakistan, stated that, “Over the past few years, technology has become a need in every field.  Microsoft, realizing the challenges that institutions in Pakistan face to implement a quality technology program, came up with a very unique plan. We believe that importance of computer literacy cannot be overstated as technology continues to accelerate globally. Hence, this partnership between Government of Punjab and Microsoft is a worthwhile approach and will help the education system here in the long run.”

Kamal Ahmed, Country General Manager, Microsoft Pakistan, while giving his views regarding the partnership remarked that, “We are thrilled to collaborate with the Punjab Government on the project that will build a knowledge economy for Pakistan. We have always believed that by working with Government to create relevant training opportunities and innovating tools for people can help foster social and economic opportunities that change people’s lives and transform communities.”

He further added that, “Microsoft aspires to introduce education related solutions which will enable the community of students and educators to realize their potential through the power of technology and to remove the barriers in the effective use of technology”.

Through its unlimited potential commitment, Microsoft is working with governments, intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations and industry partners in order to meet its first major milestone by 2015, that is, to reach the next 1 billion people who have not yet realized the benefits of technology.

Microsoft offers tools for secure app development

By Paul Krill | InfoWorld

Microsoft is introducing on Wednesday two testing tools to help Windows programmers build better security into their C and C++ applications, but an industry analyst was dismissive of how useful the tools would be for enterprise developers.

Offered at no cost, the tools enable implementation of Microsoft’s SDL (Security Development Lifecycle) process, for injecting security and privacy provisions into the development lifecycle as opposed to testing during pre- and post-deployment of an application.

One of the tools, BinScope Binary Analyzer, analyzes binary code to validate adherence to SDL requirements for compilers and linkers. It also verifies use of strong-named assemblies and up-to-date build tools. “Essentially, what it does is it checks for a variety of SDL requirements like GS flag, which is used to prevent buffer overflows,” said David Ladd, principal security program manager for the security development lifecycle team at Microsoft.

Buffer overflows enable hackers to take control of an application, Ladd said. “To the extent that you can prevent those at compile time, that’s a good thing from a security standpoint,” he said. The tool requires symbol files, providing security against hackers potentially using the tool to analyze software on the Web for weaknesses.

The second tool, Microsoft MiniFuzz File Fuzzer implements the fuzz testing technique. Testers check application behavior by parsing files that have been deliberately corrupted. Security tests are applied to take code through different flow patterns and identify whether resulting crashes should be investigated as potential application security risks.

“If you find a file failure and it has security ramifications, you want to go out and fix that problem,” Ladd said.

An analyst, however, doubted that enterprise developers would have much use for the tools. These developers are more likely to be using Java and .Net-managed code technologies with Visual Basic.Net and C# rather than C or C++, said Michael Gualtieri, senior analyst at Forrester Research. Corporate developers also do not generally develop applications for open files, which is what the fuzz-testing tool is used for, he said.

“There isn’t much of a story for enterprises for these tools themselves,” Gualtieri said.

“These tools are more helpful for systems and software vendors than they are for most enterprise IT shops,” he said. By releasing the tools, though, Microsoft continues to demonstrate its commitment to making the SDL process real for developers, said Gualtieri.

A Microsoft representative said many of the checks featured in BinScope Binary Analyzer are inherently built into .Net coding. Microsoft previously has released a threat management tool and process management template based on SDL.

Microsoft on Wednesday also is releasing a paper entitled “Manual Integration of the SDL Process Template,” to guide Microsoft Visual Studio Team System users through a manual process to incorporate elements of the SDL process template into Team System projects.

The tools and paper can be accessed through Microsoft’s Web site.

Microsoft Finds Viral-Video Success — Twice

by Abbey Klaassen
Published: September 10, 2009

AdAge.com

Microsoft is proving its staying power on the viral-video chart with two spots again this week, including the No. 2 spot “Megawoosh” and the No. 5 spot, its Project Natal trailer. Visible Measures, which compiles the chart, notes this is the 14th week in a row that Project Natal has shown up on the chart and wonders whether it might be poised to surpass Cadbury’s “Eyebrow Dance” as the chart’s longest-running campaign. Time will tell — only nine more weeks to go until it ties Cadbury.

Debuting in No. 4 is the clever Jay-Z spot from Droga5, in which the artist re-creates his past record covers to promote the release of his latest album on Rhapsody. Worth a watch, if you haven’t seen it already.

Also new and in the No. 7 spot is a video from Pizza Hut, documenting comedian and Pizza Hut pitchman Jim Breuer’s “freakout” on the set of a commercial, when a prop guy keeps snatching away his slice of stuffed-crust pizza in between takes. While it worked in this case, it’s no surefire recipe for viral success. As Matt Cutler, VP-marketing and analytics at Visible Measures, notes: “It’s becoming increasingly hard for this kind of spot to come off as authentic, as the format just seems so ripe for faux-viral exploitation.”