I tend to spend a lot of time performance optimizing my code on a website using fiddler to make sure it's loading as fast as it possibly can.

On one of my latest sites, hitting the site using http://<domain> responded significantly slower than hitting the domain with http://www. <domain>.

If you find this happening I believe part of the solution is to check your nameservers for the domain, as it turns out I was using SSL on the site, and as such had used a different IP address than my other sites (xxx.xxx.xxx.199), so my nameservers directed the browser to the first name server which was xxx.xxx.xxx.198 then the second nameserver which was xxx.xxx.xxx.199.

After switching these around on the domain - it actually increased the speed dramatically.

Microsoft Research has released their WorldWide Telescope program, avaliable in the link below;

http://worldwidetelescope.org

It's pretty unreal!

Mike

my belfast based web design company, advancedworks has officially launched.

We do web design & development in DHTML, C#, ASP.NET 2.0/3.0/3.5, SilverLight, AJAX + SOAP.

http://www.advancedworks.co.uk

Belfast Web Design

Belfast Web Development

Well QuMIX went down a treat, a big thanks to Queens for the fantastic food and the great equipment in the room!

 I'd also like to thank the speakers, who presented some great stuff - which I'll try to follow up here on my blog.

 most of all, of course - I'd like to thank everyone who came and made it a great event! Here's to next years QuMIX!

QuMIX, supplemental ;)

Martha Rotter Introduction

Martha is a DPE in Microsoft Ireland, and has a great background in the company. She previousily worked as a Lead SDET (Software Developement Engineer in Test) for WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), and a Lead SDET for Silverlight. She has a great enuthasium for technology, and if you have any deep questions about Silverlight - shes the girl to ask!

XNA

XNA Game Studio Express is a new game development solution targeted primarily at students, hobbyists, and independent game developers. XNA Game Studio Express is based on Visual C# Express 2005 and lets developers create games for both Windows and Xbox 360. XNA Game Studio Express contains the following:

• The XNA Framework, a set of managed code development libraries that make it possible for game developers to be more productive when creating games for Windows and the Xbox 360.
• The XNA Framework Content Pipeline, a set of tools that allow developers to more easily incorporate 3D content into their games
• XNA Game Studio Express also contains a full set of documentation, how-tos, and starter kits that demonstrate how best to use the content pipeline and XNA Framework.
• XNA Game Studio Express runs side-by-side with other versions of Visual Studio without interference
• XNA Game Studio Express has now been released, and can be found here. It supports both Windows and Xbox 360 game development.

Robotics Studio

The Microsoft Robotics Studio is a Windows-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. It's also the source of Martha's Power.

Second part of this three part series ;)

Vincent Vergonjeanne Introduction

'Programming from the age of 12 year old, spending my adolescence coding Video Games in the basement of a friend artist, I created my own company at the age of 19 year old, during the Internet Bubble. Not a strong commercial success but an extremely valuable experience. I then worked for the Video Game and the Internet industry. After 2 years, I decided to stop working and finish my studies to get my Bachelor/Master degree at EPITA (Famous French IT University).

Diploma in pocket, I travelled in Australia where I worked for the mobile phone and the automation industry. Finally today I'm working for Microsoft in Ireland on the competitive and challenging field of Web Analysis.

Specialties:

Advanced Visualizations, Video Game Development, GDI+, Silverlight, WPF, DirectX, .NET, C#, AJAX, DirectX, J2ME ...'

Silverlight

Silverlight is a cross-platform, cross-browser plugin for delivering rich media content over the internet. It's 1.0 version is programmed in XAML and Javascript, while its latest version, 1.1 can be developed using Microsofts C# programming language.

Basically put, its Microsofts version of FLEX, but if your used to VisualStudio and C# - its so much better!

So on the run up to QuMIX I'll be putting up some quick profile information and a bit about what the speakers will be talking about!

Liam Cronin Introduction

I first met Liam it was before the ImagineCup 2007 finals and he was talking to us about promoting and entering the event, of course I had my eyes set on winning when later we were told anyone involved with Microsoft couldn't enter... but its ok... I forgive him... After a phenomenal job with the ImagineCup in Ireland and huge success in the finals, Liam was interested in setting up an All Ireland Student Partner Programme, and met up with a couple of us Interns in Microsoft.

Liam is a driven, geninue and bright person [I accept cash or blank cheque's Liam] who has a great ability to get you excited about something - his talk will definately be one to watch! I also found this photo of him!

Imagine Cup

If there ever was something for students to be excited about, its the ImagineCup. The ImagineCup is the olympics of computer science students around the world, a chance to show off your talents on an international stage and represent your country!

http://www.bebo.com/ImagineCup

http://www.imaginecup.ie

"Thousands of students from all over the world have competed in the Imagine Cup. Beyond the numbers, it is the power of the ideas, the energy, and the enthusiasm of the competitors that make the Imagine Cup the world’s largest and most inclusive student technology competition. The Imagine Cup challenges students to imagine a better world enabled by their own genius, creativity and energy, and provides opportunities for participation in the future of technology, software and computing. Teams develop innovative projects that offer practical applicability and present real-world solutions to real-world problems.

One world. Unlimited possibilities.

Let’s face it — the world needs help. The kind of help that happens when you take the top young minds from around the globe and turn them loose on solving the world’s toughest problems. That’s what the Imagine Cup is all about. This is your chance to innovate and create, show the world what you’ve got, and win some serious prizes. Simply put, it’s your chance to use the power of technology to change the world—and have some fun while you’re at it.

You win. We all win.

Imagine Cup contestants have the chance to give their ideas exposure, make critical contacts, and feel a true sense of friendship with people around the world. Want more? Well, if you make it to the worldwide finals, you’ll also score an all-expense paid trip to Seoul, Korea, and a shot at some great cash prizes: $8, 000 for winning one of eight invitationals or even $25, 000 for winning the Software Design invitational. Help the world and win money? It doesn’t get any better than that.

What does education mean to you?

The theme of this year’s Imagine Cup is "Imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all." We invite you to take on the challenge of using technology to improve education around the world. For some this may mean ensuring equal access to education around the world. For others it may mean the next great breakthrough in science, medicine or even art. Anyway you look at it, you get to decide how technology can help solve this problem for yourself, your country, and yeah…even the planet.

Nine ways to step up to the challenge.

The Imagine Cup started four years ago, and already more than 100, 000 students from over 100 countries and regions have competed. This year, more students than ever will be looking for victory in the nine competitions set up under three main categories, each reflecting this year’s theme. To learn about the different competition categories check out www.imaginecup.ie"

Hi Guys,

I'm pleased to announce that Queens will be holding a reMIX event on Campus on November 28th, I'm calling it QuMIX which is technically not an offical name but I'm using it anyway :)

In a run up to the event date I'll be hoping to post some information about the people talking, as well as some information about what they will be talking about. The first thing I'm going to do in this blog post is point to a session done in UCC which is just 1/3 of what will be happening in Queens!

The Multi-National, Multi-Talented, Multi-Lingual, Multi-Skilled All Star lineup for the QuMIX event is:

Vincent Vergonjeanne

Martha Rotter

Liam Cronin

Schedule and Info to come!

Thanks,

Mike

Well technically our last day in Teched was a bit slow largely down to us 'networking' until the early hours of the morning. We had a fantastic night with the Ireland guys, as well as some real amazing guys from Redmond that we had met on monday. Early hours early hours...

We did take the opportunity to go see a bit of Barca, Kieran has some great photos and I've got a few myself which I'll upload and tag.

So writing this on our last night of our amazing TechEd trip I'd like to thank Microsoft for giving us an awesome opportunity to come out here, representing Ireland. Don't worry - we were the last to leave the bar the last 3 nights running - now thats how you represent Ireland =)

Mike signing off from the amazing city of Barcelona!

well day 3 was pretty productive if you ask me! I completed a great Hand's on tutorial for both c# 3.0 and Silverlight 1.1. I'm actually really looking forward to trying to build some 1.1 apps now! One of the talks I went to inparticular was excellent called Top Ten ASP.net Scaling Tips by Stephen Forte.

 Stephen is a big player in large scalable systems, having experience with NFL super bowl sunday sites and the NASDAQ - it's a pretty impressive resume. Below are some of the key parts:

 What is Scalability - A system is scale if we can add more workload to a system without increasing the cost of the system per unit of workload.

 Characteristics of a Scalable System

• It can ramp up to a large number of users quickly
• It can do so without increasing the cost per use (CPT)
• It can do so while keeping the cost per user as low as possible

Top 5 Key ways to increase performance via code

1. Eliminate view state - Reduce data sent to and from client
2. Eliminate session state - use as few session variables
3. Output caching - use caching
4. Fragmented Output caching - put anything that can't be cached normally into a user control, then cache that.
5. SQL Server Query notification - check SQL Performance

Images 

Every file on your server that you access is counted as a 'round trip', so if you have 20 images it does a request 20 times. So if you have a site thats got a 100ms overhead it'll be 20x100ms. By using a single image with

Session State

Try to store alot of none-secruity information in hidden fields on your web page. Try to remove session view state by using tools like strangeluke

•  R = (payload/bandwidth) + Round Trip Time+ (AppTurns(RTT)/Concurrent Requests) + Cs(Server Side Compute time) +Cc (Client Compute time)
• App Turns = Http Requests
• RTT Round Trip TimeTry PayLoad/Bandwidth first then Compute Time

Datasets

Try using stored procedure algrorithms that return items in ranked order. So first 100 items, then next 100 etc. Be sure to do this on the sql server

LINQ

Stay away from LINQ in large sites, stick to using stored procedures. use linq on quick sites.

Stored procedures

Really good performance, very secure. Ideal database should have all its I-O's threw stored procedures, and only those stored procedures are allowed to run select/update statements.