I will be presenting a session titled “ Access Any Data Any Where”. This is the same topic I had presented at GIDS 2012. Plan is to introduce techies here in Kerala to a whole new data exchange protocol – OData. Within 45 minutes will try to cover the basics of OData to producing OData to Consuming OData. Here is a sneak peek at the slide deck cover for the talk.

To know more about the event head over to http://k-mug.org/events/devcon2012/

Here is the session details of the event:

Looking forward to meet new people and do the networking. Thanks to KMUG organizers for providing me with an opportunity to speak at this event.

If you are attending this event, come and say hello to me.

Till next time – Happy Coding, Code With Passion, Decode with Patience.

Michael Crump is a Microsoft MVP, INETA Community Champion and an author of Several .NET Books. He has been seen speaking at a variety of conferences including: CodeStock, DevLink, and TechDays. Michael has also written dozens of articles on .NET development including Visual Studio Magazine, DevProConnections and Silverlight Show. He currently works at Telerik as XAML Advocate/Evangelist.

As usual I shoot the following questions to Michael:

• About his Roles & Responsibilities at Telerik
• His area of focus being a XAML evangelist
• His perspective on Windows Phone & Windows 8
• His perspective on Silverlight & XAML
• His involvement with community

Here is the interview video:

I had a great time with Michael at the Insiders Meet. Hope you enjoy the interview.

As usual Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.

Fritz is the co founder & Editor in Chief at Pluralsight. This episode was recorded on Mar 22 when Bangalore hosted Microsoft Tech Ed 2012. Pluralsight will be at Tech Ed every year – at least that’s what I have seen so far. So this year too Pluralsight was with their team at the event. I managed to get Fritz out of his booth for a while and record this interview.

Here are the usual 5 questions to my guest:

• About Fritz Onion
• As Editor In Chief, how does he go about getting new course
• Does he handpick courses/curriculum
• Life cycle of one course from conception to release
• About Pluralsight course players
• Future Goals of Pluralsight

Here is the interview video:

You will hear a lot of background noise as this was recorded at the venue which is Hotel Lalit Ashok and TechEd means flooding of techies . So bear with the background noise.

As usual, till next time – Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.

Overview:

Recently, on Apr 9 2012 Microsoft released WCF Data Service 5.0 RTM. As part of this new release there is whole new plethora of features that comes into OData. Here is the official release blog post from the WCF Data Services Team http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astoriateam/archive/2012/04/09/wcf-data-services-5-0-rtm-release.aspx.

What I wanted to do was – to try out the spatial capability that now comes into V3 of OData. I was playing around with a service and wanted to know what service version it is supporting. Thus this blog post so that if anybody else has the same inquisitiveness, read till the end.

OData Service Identification Rules:

Before we actually look at the ways, lets understand some of the Rules which have been defined as part of the protocol itself that makes a Service – OData Service. If you head over to the following URL, complete rules have been posted there: http://services.odata.org/validation/roadmap.htm#rules.

Rules which are in question to detect the OData Service Versions are as follows:

As you can see a OData Service must have the DataServiceVersion attribute in the metadata and in an element <edmx:DataServices>. Now that we know the rule, lets see how we can identify the Service Version in various ways.

Ways to check the Version:

I found 4 ways to find version of an OData Service. They are:

• Looking at the metadata of the OData Service
• Using Fiddler
• Using Internet Explorer

We will look at one by one in coming sections.

OData Service Metadata Check:

Every OData Service must describe its Data Model using what is known as Service Metadata Document. The Metadata Document describes its data model in EDM format using XML language for describing models called Conceptual Schema Definition Language (CSDL). The metadata of a OData Service is accessible by appending $metadata to the service root URI. For e.g. Netflix OData Service is found at http://odata.netflix.com/v2/catalog/. So to know the metadata we need to append the $metadata string to the end of the URI i.e. http://odata.netflix.com/v2/catalog/$metadata

So open a browser of your choice and issue a request to http://odata.netflix.com/v2/catalog/$metadata. You will be presented with the metadata. Look out for edmx:DataServices element. It should contain a attribute DataServiceVersion. And that will be the version of the OData Service. Below is a screenshot of the same:

Inspecting Response Header Using Fiddler:

In previous section we saw how to find out the Data Service Version using metadata. In this section we will use Fiddler a HTTP debugging tool to inspect the response headers from a Data Service and figure out the version.

- First, open Fiddler and select Composer tab (will be on the right side).
- In the Parsed tab, provide the URL Netflix OData without the $metadata string i.e. type http://odata.netflix.com/v2/catalog/.
- Next click on execute to set the request.
- In the left hand side you will see web sessions and our request will be listed with a status of 200 which means success. Double click on the entry.
- In the right hand side you will see Request and Response Details.
- In the bottom section of the right hand side, select Headers. Those will be the Response Headers.
- If you go through the headers we will see a Response Header by name DataServiceVersion. The value of this header will identify the Data Service Version

Here is a screen shot of the same:

Inspecting Response Header Using Internet Explorer 9:

Internet Explorer 9 comes with a handy & nifty tools called Developer Tools. This has a new feature which will allow you to capture Network interaction on a web page. So we will make use of this feature and try to figure out the DataServiceVersion response header.

- Open Internet Explorer 9 & navigate to http://odata.netflix.com/v2/Catalog/
- Press F12 to get the developer tools
- Select Network tab & click on start capturing

- Refresh the page
- The network interaction from the page will be captured and shown in the grid below
- Double click the entry
- Select tab named “Response Headers”. This will show a Key-Value pairing of all the response headers. You will see DataServiceVersion as one of the key and its value being shown.

Conclusion:

In this blog post I try to touch upon the rules that govern a OData Service. The protocol has a clear cut guidelines for OData Producers as to what they should be doing to identify the service as OData Service. There are many rules which needs to be satisfied if you want to call yourself an OData Service. We looked upon one such rule to identify the Data Service Version. Also it was interesting to note the fact that the same version information is also pushed in Response as an Header. For some clients this may be a easy way to track the version.

Hope this post was useful and you learned something new today.

Till next time, as usual, Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.

GIDS is the gold standard for India’s software developer ecosystem for gaining exposure to and evaluating new projects, tools, services, platforms, languages, software and standards. Packed with premium knowledge, action plans and advise from been-there-done-it veterans, creators, and visionaries, the 2012 edition of Great Indian Developer Summit features focused sessions, case studies, workshops and power panels that will transform you into a force to reckon with.  

I am very excited to share the news that I am one of speaker in this prestigious event. I have been given an opportunity to present a session in GIDS 2012. This is a very global event in nature because many International speakers are presenting this GIDS. I am looking forward to this very much. Here are my session details:

http://www.developermarch.com/developersummit/sessions.html#session125

If you are attending GIDS too, do drop by in SD Hall at 12:00 PM on Apr 18 2012. Here is the official website for GIDS: http://www.developermarch.com/developersummit/index.html.

Here is my power point slide deck starting slide:

Catch you there

Till next time as usual, Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.

In my endeavor to explore Open Data Protocol – I have been writing a blog series titled Tool Spotlight. In these series I try to take a tool which supports OData and play around with the tool. Today we will be checking out one such tool. The tool is known as “PowerPivot for Excel 2010”. So rest of this post will be to know more about PowerPivot. Lets start

Here is what MSDN documentation says about PowerPivot:

PowerPivot for Excel is an add-in to Excel 2010 that is used for adding and integrating large amounts of data in Excel workbooks. The data that you add to the workbook is stored internally, as an embedded PowerPivot database inside the .xlsx file.

As the documentation says this is an Add-In to Excel. Although this add-in is intended to be used with large amounts of data, it does have a feature to play around with OData. We will see in further sections as to how to do this.

PowerPivot for Excel 2010 is available as a free download at the following location:

www.powerpivot.com 

Once you install the add in Excel will now get a new Ribbon Tab by name “PowerPivot”. Here is a snap shot of excel after the add in has been installed:

If you click the “PowerPivot Window” button which is the first button on the left hand side, a new window will open up. This is the PowerPivot add in. Here is the snapshot of the same:

PowerPivot allows us to work with OData feeds in two ways. They are:

• OData Data Feeds – publicly available OData Feeds like NetFlix
• Azure DataMarket DataSets – Azure DataMarket exposes the datasets as OData

We will see how to work with above data sets one by one.

First open excel, select powerpivot tab and click on the powerpivot window button. In the powerpivot window, in “Get External Data” tab group click “From Data Feeds”.

We will be presented with “Table Import Wizard”. Provide a name in the “Friendly connection name” textbox. For my example I will be using publicly available OData feed from Netflix. Provide the URL in the “Data Feed Url” text box. The Netflix OData feed is available at http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog. Note that “/Catalog” is terms of OData protocol is known as service root document or in terms of ATOM is a ATOM service document. PowerPivot is intelligent enough to detect that and will provide the options accordingly. Here is a screen shot of Table Import Wizard:

Note the options in this window. Browse button will allow us to select a locally stored Atom Service Document (*.atomsvc) or locally stored Atom Feed (*.atom).

Test Connection button will try to connect to the data source and will let us know whether it was a success or not. The Advanced button will let us play around with advanced properties which we can set on the request.

Now if the data feed URL is set to http://odata.netflix.com or http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog here is what clicking the next button will look like:

Note that PowerPivot was able to detect that the URL provided was a service root document and it has figured out the DataSets available. Genres, Languages, People, TitleAudioFormats, TitleAwards, Titles, TitleScreenFormats are all datasets available as aprt of Netflix. Here we can select all or one of the dataset and get the data down to powerpivot. There is a Preview & Filter option available. With this we will be given a sample data from the dataset selected and we can filter the columns we need.

As you can see there is a checkbox on each column. This allows you to either bring in the column or not for visualization. When we click Finish on the Table Import Wizard the selected data set will be pulled down from the source to inside the PowerPivot.

For the example I will be working with Titles dataset and since Netflix has huge collection, I will be bringing down only 100 titles. Here is the URL I am using: http://odata.netflix.com/v2/Catalog/Titles?$top=100&$orderby=ReleaseYear desc

Here is what the data looks like after pulling it down to PowerPivot:

Connecting to Azure DataMarket Data Feeds:

About Azure Data market:

If your first question at this moment is “what is Azure Data Market”, here is the official definition:

The Windows Azure™ Marketplace is an online market buying, and selling finished Software as a Service (SaaS) applications and premium datasets. The Windows Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative cloud based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use.

Azure Data Market originally known as Azure Marketplace allows you to browse premium datasets which are all exposed as OData. You can browse for a dataset which is offered free of cost. Log in to data market with your live id and subscribe for a data set. Once you sign up for data market you will be getting your own Account Key. This is required to consume the data sets that you subscribe. You can browse for data sets here: https://datamarket.azure.com/browse/Data. I will be using the following data sets for this post: https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Data.ashx/StockViz/CapitalMarketAnalyticsIndia/LivePrices?$top=100

Use Power Pivot to connect to Data Feed:

In Power Pivot Window, click on the button “From Azure DataMarket”. Check the below screenshot:

You will be presented with “table Import Wizard”. You will need to have your Data Market data set feed URL handy now. Also you need to have your account key. Here is the Table Import Wizard:

This is the same Table Import Wizard we saw in the previous section. So you will find the same features here like – Advanced Properties, Browse, Test Connection. Only change is the Security Settings section where you need to provide your account key. Once you finish the import the data set will be pulled into the power pivot. Here is the screenshot:

As you can see, importing data into Power Pivot whether from a Public Feed or Azure Data Market is a seamless experience. Now lets see what we can do with the data.

Pivot Charting:

After you have pulled down the data from the feed to Power Pivot, you can use Pivot Table option and create a Pivot Chart from the data you just downloaded. In this example I am using the Netflix data that we pulled in the first section. Here is how you add a Pivot Chart:

The Pivot Char will be added to your main workbook. Here is a chart I was able to design from the data we downloaded. I have plotted a graph for Average Rating Vs. Number of Movies under that rating. I have also added slicer like Rating i.e. Parental Guidance, Universal etc. and Release Year. Here is the screenshot of the pivot chart:

Summary:

In this blog post we took an overview of how easy it is to use Power Pivot Add In for Excel 2010 to consume OData. We saw how Power Pivot provides us with an option to preview and filter the data before consuming it. We also saw how Power Pivot makes the experience of connecting to a public feed Vs connecting to a Data Market feed so seamless. Also if you a person who is entitled with creating meaningful charts out of the data you download, Power Pivot gives you the ability to create Pivot Charts and within no time you have a meaning to the data you downloaded. I highly recommend playing around with Power Pivot. I certainly believe OData and Power Pivot make it a deadly combination for Business Intelligence on the fly.

Hope this blog post provides you with some learning on OData and Power Pivot. Do let me know of your feedback if any.

As usual, till next time – Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.

Bangalore Dot Net (BDotNet) & Bangalore IT Pro (BITPro) are pleased to present 2 of the best sessions from TechEd 2012 as part of the User Group meet. Yes you heard it right – 2 of the best sessions which was literally sold out in terms of space i.e. house full in TechEd – will be presented by the same Author in our UG meet. The presenter is none other than our very own Vinod Kumar – Technology Specialist, Microsoft India.

We are very thank full to Vinod Kumar who has accepted to present two of his best session from TechEd 2012 back to back for the community. We were just chatting and many of us said we couldn’t see his sessions in the TechEd because of the house full scenario and would love to listen to it again. And he immediately proposed a combined UG meet by BDotNet & BITPro and he will do his 2 sessions back to back. So thanks to Vinod for this.

Here are the session details:

This is a community event and anybody can walk in. But would request you to please register at this Facebook event page – so that we get to know how many heads are attending the session.

https://www.facebook.com/events/139444029517882/

Here is the venue details:

Microsoft Corporation, Krishna Hall, Embassy Building, 3rd Floor, Domlur.

Not to forget the goodies – we have goodie bags from Telerik & 5 one month subscription to Pluralsight worth $29.

I will be there for sure. What about you? If you are coming, do say an Hi. See you at 10:30 AM.

Till next time, Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.

Richard is well known for one of the famous Podcast that he co hosts with Carl Franklin. The Podcast is named “.NET Rocks” – it’s a  Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers.

Here is what Dot Net Rocks is all about:

.NET Rocks! is a weekly talk show for anyone interested in programming on the Microsoft .NET platform. The shows range from introductory information to hardcore geekiness. Many of our listeners download the mp3 files and burn CDs for the commute to and from work, or simply listen on a portable media player.

Here is a little bit of background about Richard:

Richard Campbell is one of the co-founders of Strangeloop Networks and today serves as product evangelist, introducing the company’s unique story to advisors, investors, patent attorneys, beta-customer candidates, potential employees, etc. Richard has more than 30 years of high-tech experience and is both a Microsoft Regional Director and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). He has consulted with a number of leading North American organizations; Barnes&Noble.com, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson Health Care Services, Reuters, Subaru/Isuzu and the U.S. Air Force.
In addition to speaking at conferences around the world, Richard is co-host of “.NET Rocks!, the Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers” and the host of “RunAs Radio, the Internet Audio Talk Show for IT Professionals.”

I was fortunate enough to catch up with Richard Campbell when I went to Telerik Insiders meet in the month of January which was held at Orlando Florida.

Here is the usual 5 questions to Richard that I put across during the interview:

• His background – what does he do, roles, responsibilities
• His perspective towards Microsoft .NET Technology
• His perspective on HTML5 Vs. Silverlight
• His perspective on Windows 8
• His involvement with community
• His involvement with .NET Rocks

Here is the interview video:

I had an absolute fun and excitement when I was doing the interview. Richard is a veteran in the industry with over 3 decades of experience. I also had the opportunity to visit Kennedy Space Center – Orlando, with Telerik Insiders and Richard. I was surprised to see Richard’s knowledge on Rockets. Kennedy Space Center has a Rocket garden and he was able to tell us each and every rocket in there – when it was used and when it was retired and what does it made of. Thanks Richard for an wonderful guide.

Till next time, as usual – Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.

I was fortunate to have met Todd at Telerik Insiders meet held in January at Orlando, Florida. In spite of his busy schedule we had during the meet, he promised me his 10 minutes for my show and we finally made this interview. This interview was shot on January 28. Todd is responsible for all things happening on HTML5, Web and Mobile developments within Telerik. He did release beta version of Kendo UI – a new library for developing HTML5/CSS3/Javascript based application. Do check out this product from Telerik. It seems to be fantastic.

I ask Todd the following question as part of the interview:

- About his Roles & Reposnibilities at Telerik
- About Kendo UI – new product line for HTML5 & Javascript space
- About Kendo UI Licensing
- About different form factors getting mainstream
- About Kendo UI’s differentiating factor
- A day in the life of VP

Here is the interview video:

Hope you enjoy the show.

Till next time, as usual – Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.

TechEd 2011 I was just an ordinary audience and was sponsored by my company. But TechEd 2012 I will be attending as an MVP. In TechEd 2011 I had the privilege to meet many of the India MVP’s and this time I will be one among them and super excited to be meeting them again. 

This time the session at TechEd are all new topics which ranges from Windows 8, Windows Phone 7, Windows Azure and SQL Server 2012 to name a few. All new content and too many option to choose for attending a session. I am pretty sure I will be lost in selecting which session to attend. Here is my preparation to TechEd 2012. Just now got back my 2 new T-Shirts which had given for custom printing. Here is a look at them:

As you can see – it will be very easy to spot me at the TechEd. I will be wearing these tees on all days of TechEd. Last year too I had a t shirt printed and I decided to continue the legacy. If Bengaluru is fortunate enough to get one more TechEd next year I will be continuing my legacy of printing tees and wearing them. So now you know how to catch me and say an Hi. Will be hoping some of you will recognize me my tees .

Now here is the TechEd India 2012 website to know more details of the event:

https://india.msteched.com/

Telerik Presence at TechEd India 2012:

As you all know I am a Telerik Insider. So it gives me at most pleasure to say that Telerik family will be represented by following people at TechEd:

Here is the official post from Telerik on their participation in TechEd India 2012: http://blogs.telerik.com/telerikmarketing/posts/12-03-08/meet-telerik-at-microsoft-teched-india-live.aspx

And not only that – Telerik and Pluralsight are extending an exclusive invite to all Architects attending TechEd India 2012 for a high tea on Wednesday, Mar 21 @ 18:30hrs. There will be a brief Q&A round table on industry trends that effect our profession. So if you are an architect do stay back after the day long session attendance for a high tea at Siddhartha 1.

I am super excited to be attending TechEd. India 2012 Hope to catch up with some India MVP friends and may be make a video of all of them if time permits for Uncut & Unedited. Excited about the lobby discussion we may have, excited about the round table conferences I will be sharing with all of them and more over the networking and the quality time I will have with some of the Most Valuable Persons of India.

See you all @ Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru on Mar 21 9:00 AM.

Till then as usual, Happy Coding. Code with Passion, Decode with Patience.