The following is a three day saga of empty 'Turn Windows Features on or off' dialog.

This dialog, as unimportant as it may seem, is the only orifice into Windows subsystem installations without having to cramp up command line msiexec.exe wizardry on obscure system installation folders that nobody wants to understand.

Empty, it looks like this:

First thing anyone should do when it comes to something obscure like this is:

1. Reinstall the OS (kidding, but would help)
2. In-place upgrade of the OS (kidding, but would help faster)
3. Clean reboot (really, but most probably won't help)
4. Run chkdsk /f and sfc /scannow (really)
5. If that does not help, proceed below

If you still can't control your MSMQ or IIS installation, then you need to find out which of the servicing packages got corrupted somehow.

Servicing packages are Windows Update MSIs, located in hell under HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Component Based Servicing/Packages. I've got a couple thousand under there, so the only question is how to get to rough one out of there.

There's a tool, called System Update Readiness Tool [here] that nobody uses. Its side effect is that it checks peculiarities like this. Run it, then unleash notepad.exe on C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CheckSUR.log and find something like this:

Checking Windows Servicing Packages

Checking Package Manifests and Catalogs
(f) CBS MUM Corrupt 0x800F0900 servicing\Packages\
Package_4_for_KB2446710~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.1.3.mum  Line 1:

(f) CBS Catalog Corrupt 0x800B0100 servicing\Packages\
Package_4_for_KB2446710~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.1.3.cat  

Then find the package in registry, take ownership of the node, set permissions so you can delete and delete it. Your OptionalFeatures.exe work again and it took only 10 minutes.

Interoperability day is focused on, well, interoperability. Especially between major vendors in government space.

We talked about major issues in long term document preservation formats and the penetration of Office serialization in real world...

.. and the lack of support from legislature covering long term electronic document formats and their use.

Here's the PPT [Slovenian].

On Monday, 05/18/2009 I'm speaking at Document Interop Initiative in London, England.

Title of the talk is: High Fidelity Programmatic Access to Document Content, which will cover the following topics:

• Importance of OOXML as a standards based format, especially in technical issues of long term storage for document content preservation
• Importance of legal long term storage for document formats
• Signature and timestamp benefits of long term XML formats
• Performance and actual cost analysis of using publicly-parsable formats
• Benefits of having a high fidelity programmatic access to document content, backed with standardization

The event is held at Microsoft Limited, Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street SW1E 5JL, London.

Update: Here's the presentation.

I'm sorry it took a week, but here we go.

This is my exit content from Bleeding Edge 2008. I'm also posting complete conference contents, just in case.

Thanks go out to Dušan, Dejan, Miha, Miha and Miha.

Downloads:

• Middle Tier Design Unleashed: PPT & Code
• Complete Conference: PPT & Code

Remark: PPT in Slovene only. Code international.

Thank you for attending. Hope to see you next year!

I'm happy to announce our organization work is coming to fruition.

Bleeding Edge 2008 is taking the stage for the autumn season.

Portorož, Slovenia, October 1^st, 9:00

Official site, Registration, Sponsors

Go for the early bird registration (till September 12^th). The time is now.

Potential sponsor? Here's the offering.

One of our core products, Gama System eArchive was accredited last week.

This is the first accreditation of a domestic product and the first one covering long term electronic document storage in a SOA based system.

Every document stored inside the Gama System eArchive product is now legally legal. No questions asked.

Accreditation is done by a national body and represents the last step in a formal acknowledgement to holiness.

That means a lot to me, even more to our company.

The following blog entries were (in)directly inspired by the development of this product:

• Laws and Digital Signatures
• Reliable Messaging and Retry Timeouts
• Approaches to Document Style Parameter Models
• XmlSerializer, Ambient XML Namespaces and Digital Signatures
• Security Sessions and Service Throttling
• Reliable Message Delivery
• Reliable Message Delivery Continued
• Durable Reliable Messaging

We've made a lot of effort to get this thing developed and accredited. The certificate is here.

This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and those are direct approvals of our correct decisions.

There is some serious pain going on when you need to add a simple custom document property into multiple Word 2007 text areas.

Say you have a version property that you would need to update using the document property mechanics. And say you use it in four different locations inside your document.

• There is no ribbon command for it. There was a menu option in Word 2003 days.
• There is no simple way of adding to The Ribbon. You have to customize the Quick Access Toolbar and stick with ugly, limited use icons forever or so.
• You need to choose All commands in Customize Quick Access Toolbar to find Insert Field option.
• This is not the only limiting option for a power user. The number of simplifications for the casual user is equal to the number of limitations for the power user. And yes, I know, casual users win the number battle.

So:

1. Right click The Ribbon and select Customize Quick Access Toolbar
2. Select All Commands and Insert Field
3. Add it to Custom Quick Access Toolbar
4. Click the new icon
5. In Field names select DocProperty
6. Select your value, in this example Version

Yes. Ease of use.

Please, give me an option to get my menus and keyboard shortcuts back.

Pretty please.

I noticed an awkwardness on my IIS6 server installation today.

All my sites were running with a US locale, thus invalidating the currency/date time/decimal calculations by an order of magnitude.

The problem was that the server was installed using the default settings, and also applied those to the Network Service account under which most of my sites work.

How do you fix this?

1. Login (RDP is OK)
2. Change the locale to your preference on the logged in account, use Control Panel's Regional Settings UI, you may need to reboot
3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International
4. Right click, choose Export
5. Open the file in Notepad, replace "HKEY_CURRENT_USER" with "HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-20", this is the Network Service account
6. Save the .reg file
7. Double click the .reg file and import the settings
8. Restart IIS

You should have your locale set.

Oh, on the other side, while investigating this, here's a scoop on how to get to clear text passwords of IUSR_MACHINENAME and IWAM_MACHINENAME accounts:

1. Go to C:\InetPub\AdminScripts and open adsutil.vbs script in Notepad
2. Change the only occurrence of "IsSecureProperty = True" to "IsSecureProperty = False". Save.
3. Run "cscript adsutil.vbs get w3svc/anonymoususerpass" in command prompt
4. Run "cscript adsutil.vbs get w3svc/wamuserpass" in command prompt
5. Don't forget to revert to "IsSecureProperty = True" in adsutil.vbs
6. Don't forget to save the file again

You should have both passwords now. This comes handy when you need to fine tune the settings of both built-in accounts.

If you need a distraction free writing environment, grab a copy of Dark Room. I found it after a few years of using WriteRoom, the original, on a Mac.

I write most of my draft documents in it. Then I move them to Word and apply formatting. I write all blog entries - exclusively in Dark Room - every post.

It does what every text editor should be doing first. It makes you concentrate on the subject.

And, best of all - it's small footprint, single .exe app. Xcopy it to your path. Bam.

I just finished presenting my talk on the October 2006 Slovenian MSDN event.

Here are the deliverables:

Code: Download
PPT: Download [Slovenian]

Solution file includes:

1. WCF service using wsDualHttpBinding for duplex session communication scenario. WCF service hosts a workflow which computes stock tax based on the current (complex) Slovenian legislation.
2. WF workflow named ComputeTaxWorkflow. Workflow calls out to our public ASP .NET WebServices: StockQuotes and ExchangeRates.
3. WCF Client, which sends requests and receives responses when the workflow is done

Check it out. It's free.

We had a nice discussion throughout the day today, together with around 50 attendees. It's hard to even cover feature changes of .NET 3.0 in a day, but we managed to cover the important things of WCF and WF, spending a complete day inside the Visual Studio.

Here are the demos: Download
And the PPT slides: Download [Slovenian]

And the link to the Tom Archer's compatibility matrix for the .NET Framework 3.0 downloads.

Thanks to everyone who attended.

This has bothered me for two weeks. There was no way to install .NET Fx 1.1 on a Vista 5456 box.

Here's the solution: http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/07/06/658484.aspx

After the permission fix, Framework 1.1 and SP1 for 1.1 install flawlessly.

Thanks Aaron Stebner!

If you happen to run Windows XP SP2 on a machine with more than a GB of RAM, you may likely see the following notification appear on the system tray:

This happens after hibernation is attempted. The error is: "Insufficient system resources exist to complete the API."

The solution is Q909095. There is a hotfix available, but you have to call Microsoft PSS to get itdownload the patch. It includes a new OS kernel which works flawlessly on my ThinkPad T60p with 2GB.

Knock knock. 

[Update 10/17/2006, Download available]

Today, Google released Google Web Toolkit, which is an alternative to Microsoft's Atlas.

Indeed, Hell is freezing over.

Industry at large is competing for every piece of programming world. The idea of having ability to influence programmers into using your platform has become eligible for every vendor.

These situations are prevalent even on smaller markets. What we see is that companies are willing to offer their frameworks to big clients for a couple of reasons:

• They can, because they own them (frameworks, that is)
• They want to, because it is, remember, free to distribute (and hell to develop)
• They want to, because addiction is good^tm

There is a special case of positive addiction present in the development world. I call it tool addiction, because it's actually not bound to a specific framework and/or platform version.

No one wants to use notepad.exe during development of a serious solution, right? We do need that Intellisense after all. Although it's just a bunch of programmatic schema definitions, one gets addicted to it. Platform vendors know this. This is the main reason tools are becoming free. The addiction flu is spreading out of the platform world, into the tool space, and as it seems to specific framework space.

Anyone who is offering anything for free has a background plan. They are not that stupid. Vendors know that once you get hooked it's not easy to be abstinent.

This has to be one of the best written analogies between current framework use cases ever.

We indeed are in a state of using ANYTHING that can make our developer lives easier, no matter what the consequences are. An often times, consequences manifest themselves in increased costs, time-to-ship prolongation, complexity and speed.

Go read it. It's worth way more than the time spent.

My current occupation leads me to spend as much time as possible in WinFX.

WinFX should stand for Windows Framework Extensions. What a Windows Framework is, I don't know. I know what .NET Framework is, but that's another drop in the ocean.

Having said that, there seems to be inconsistency between what is, will be or was inside WinFX (or WinFX Runtime Components, if you wish).

In 2003, WinFX (if you were at the majorrevealingconferenceoftheyear - PDC 2003), you would concur that WinFX will be:

• Indigo (related to everything communication)
• Avalon (related to everything presentation)
• WinFS (related to everything storage, somehow)

In 2004 things changed.

WinFX mysteriously dropped WinFS and inherited something called Workflow - Windows Workflow Services (now called Windows Workflow Foundation).

At first, Windows Workflow Foundation was acronymed WWF, which makes sense - you've got WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation - Avalon), WCF (Windows Communication Foundation - Indigo) and WWF (Windows Workflow Foundation - WWF).

It is now 2006 and WWF is acronymed WF (just Windows Workflow) and it is still a part of WinFX. WinFS is still gone (scheduled to be released after Vista ships).

What worries me the most is that the current plan precludes that this technologies won't make it into the Vista ship vehicle. They just won't be deployed with the OS. If you make all the fuss around it, invest major tolars in education budget you still won't be sure that the client supports it.

Windows Installer 3.1 is a wonderful thing, but nonetheless, if anyone can deploy groundbreaking technology in no time it's Microsoft. Sure, there are 'small footprint security implications' guidelines driving Vista, but no one is saying this beast should be deployed in active state. Make it available and make it passive. Support it via Windows Update if showstoppers arise.

There is no need to be scared of another IIS 4 story. There are mechanisms for deploying technology and not using it by default.

Please, do not make WinFX fade.

If you plan to upgrade your WinFX bits with the yesterday released January 2006 CTP of WinFX Runtime Components consider the following:

You do not need to do a fresh reinstall, even though that is what is suggested in the docs:

• Reinstall procedure works on Windows XP SP2 (x86 and x64)
• Reinstall procesure workd on Windows Vista 5270 (December 2005 CTP)

First, uninstall all December 2005 CTP bits in the following order:

1. Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation (December 2005 CTP)
2. Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WinFX (December 2005 CTP)
3. Microsoft Command Shell (December 2005 CTP, comes with Windows SDK)
4. Windows SDK (December 2005 CTP)
5. WinFX Runtime Components (December 2005 CTP)

Then, invert the installation process:

1. WinFX Runtime Components (January 2005 CTP)
2. Windows SDK (January 2005 CTP)
3. Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WinFX (January 2005 CTP)
4. Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation (January 2005 CTP)

For now, I can't see any major differences in programming model of January <> December WinFX CTP.

WinFX January 2006 CTP just went live.

With it, a Go-Live licence is available for WCF and WF. Sign and deploy.

Update: They managed to screw up the download links again. Beware: If you're downloading complete installs (and not the setup manager) use the lower links for x86 and x64 images (there are two on the get the beta page).

The following links will lead to correct complete download of WinFX January 2006 CTP Runtime Components:

• x86: http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/C/E/1CE323BD-3632-45CD-ADB3-61179B033434/winfxrc.exe
• x64: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/0/6/2065648E-444C-40A6-AE58-3F46FC8E854F/winfxrc_x64.exe

You can also check the file version. The correct WinFX RTC version for January 2006 CTP is 3.0.50727.154 (file size 44.488 KB [x86] and 84.464 KB [x64]). December CTP was 3.0.50727.151 and file sizes were a couple KB lower.

If you happen to be in the 64-bit world (read running a 64-bit OS on the x64 box, not IA64), there are two options on how your managed code runs.

It can run:

• In a 32-bit process (loads x86 CLR)
• In a 64-bit process (loads x64 CLR)

The high order bit here is the flag under which the image was compiled. Since you cannot compile for 64-bit architecture in .NET Framework 1.0/1.1, and 2.0 is your only choice, let's focus on Visual Studio 2005/.NET Framework 2.0 features.

If you look under the hood on a x64 box, you will find that VS 2005 installer will drop TWO frameworks on your machine.

The 32-bit framework will install in c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework directory, the 64-bit framework will install in c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework64 directory.

If you installed .NET Framework SDK, you will get two SDKs too. One will be in c:\program files\microsoft.net\sdk\v2.0 64bit (64-bit), the other in c:\program files (x86)\microsoft visual studio 8\sdk\v2.0 (32-bit, installed in VS 2005 base directory).

What happens at load time is the CLR runtime host decides on which CLR it needs to load based on the CLR metadata flags. Normally, if you do not change the defaults in VS 2005, your assemblies will be compiled using the 'anycpu' (also known as MSIL flag) which will allow the runtime to host the managed app in a 64-bit process on a x64 box and in a 32-bit process on a x86 box.

You can, however,  control and override this default behaviour even after your code has been compiled. There's a handy tool called corflags.exe present in the SDK that allows you to force 'anycpu' compiled code to use 32-bit process in 64-bit world.

More on that in another blog entry.

My old laptop died on me this past weekend. Even though it wasn't much of a machine lately, it was dependable to the very last moment, when it decided to stop working completely. Dell Inspiron,  RIP.

My new workhorse is a fabulous machine: Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMi

It's a 64-bit machine, based on AMD Turion 64 processor. It looks splendid, although I have to admit that if it would be possible, I would remove the Ferrari logo during my meetings - even though I am a Ferrari F1 fan.

I'm running Windows Vista December CTP x64 edition, including VS 2005 + .NET Frameword 2.0 x64, WinFX RTC December CTP x64, Windows SDK x64, etc.

Running Indigo in a 64-bit process is a breeze. :)

Anyone deciding between Pentium M and Turion 64 based machine should read: Clash of the Titans: Dothan vs. Turion

The article compares Intel Pentium M 760 (Dothan) and AMD Turion 64 ML-37. It's a great article considering the shift to 64-bit is currently underway.

If you are planning to install or have already done so, there's an issue with the automated install of December CTP of WinFX RC (Runtime Components).

The following link will install November 2005 WinFX RC:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BD3BA2D5-6ADB-4FB2-A3AA-E16A9EA5603F&displaylang=en

And to make it even more complex, if you happen to install it in Windows Vista December CTP, there is no way to remove it and have a clean machine afterwards.

Use the complete download link, ie:

• x86: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/4/9/949EEA41-364A-45DC-8F4E-47E7AC147D25/winfxrc.exe
• x64: http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/3/F/83F862AA-FF41-4D54-9567-1F37888A41DB/winfxrc_x64.exe

How do you know if this thing screwed you up? You will not be able to install a 1GB pack of Windows SDK (December 2005), which also includes WinFX docs and samples.

Another proof are filename timestamps of for example System.ServiceModel.dll and friends, which are 11/18/2005 - equaling to November 2005 CTP dates.

Today, when I was driving back home from a client of mine, I managed to squeeze some time off between the necessary phone calls to reason about the state/discrepancies of technology adoption between different businesses.

There's an obvious dicrepancy present.

There are businesses which challenge technology. There are businesses which know about Vista/Indigo/Avalon/Workflow progress. There are businesses which think they know about Vista/Indigo/Avalon/Workflow progress. And then, there are real businesses.

They don't care.

By real I don't mean successful businesses. A business can be successful and not real at the same time. What I mean by real is large, heterogeneous, multi-platform, cross-racial businesses. They just do not care.

A line of thought, which is mostly present in these scenarios is this: What and how do we use technology to drive our business opportunities? And if one thinks about it, they are right in both cases:

1. Adopting a new technology can help you increase business opportunities. It can also slow you down during the learning cycle. If there are too many learning cycles, you can be slow all the time.
2. New technology usally costs money. It costs in terms of licences, training and lost working hours trying to make it work. This is counter productive in terms of fulfilling/achieving business opportunities.

The outcome is that real businesses take wise decisions and adopt when the time comes. They do not rush it. That's one of the reasons that makes them successful.

This should not be read as if my opinion is to wait till technology matures. There are rare cases that mandate usage of new technology instantly.

Available for download for all MSDN subscribers.

Currently only Visual Studio 2005 Professional is available. Other SKUs have been pulled, probably because of bandwidth issues.

Also available: SQL Server 2005 RTM.

Now it's time to wait for the corresponding WinFX SDK to appear.

There have been quite a few book requests in the last 14 days, while I was away.

If anyone who requested the latest book still didn't receive a copy, please write another email, because it is entirely possible that it got lost somewhere.

Thanks.

A bunch of you wrote emails to get my new book. And that's great. Love it.
If you missed it, you can do it again.

I also got some strange feedback:

• "Why do you distribute it for free?"
• "I'd love it, by why do you distribute it for free?"
• "I would buy it, if you are selling it."
• "I'm gonna make sure I buy it."
• "I'm gonna make sure we buy it."
• "I can't believe that you believe in open source."

<rant mode="on">
    I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it to distribute thought, knowledge and/or religion. This book is free, as long you are not making direct profit from it without making me a part of it. You can, though, contribute to local general religion awareness anytime.
</rant>

There's another line of thought happening:

• "I have a problem with chapter X.Y.Z. I can't believe you believe this is the right way to go. In any case, I would chose B over A anytime."
• "Second paragraph in chapter X is just too general. I can't relate to that."
• "Having spent the last two months on this technology, this just can't be the best way to go."
• "There's a specific problem with X in chapter Y if you want to do it in our environment."

Over these, I have no control whatsoever. I strongly believe that scenarios are different in everyones lives.

I have to stress again that English reading/speaking audience can NOT benefit from it, since it's written in Slovene.

Having spent the last two weeks tweaking my diagrams and pictures with a book designer, I learned quite a lot about differences in a design and development environment. To get facts straight, they live in a DPI-based world, which is nasty. And since my designer uses MacOS X platform to do the design stuff, a lot of interesting issues arrised. Again.

What I wanted to convey is: The book is finally done.

Title (in Slovene): Arhitektura sodobnih rešitev Microsoft .NET - Načrtovalski vzorci

Its physical incarnation should be available to general developer/architect public in a few weeks, but most definitely here.

Everyone who managed to send me an email after my previous blog post, will be getting a copy in his/her mailbox today.

If you would like a copy (electronic one, that is), drop me an email using this link.

Here's the TOC, up to level 3, (in Slovene):

1    PREDGOVOR
2    UVOD
3    OZADJE
3.1    O PLATFORMI
3.2    O PROGRAMSKIH JEZIKIH
3.3    O NAČRTOVALSKIH VZORCIH
3.3.1    Začetniki koncepta načrtovalskih vzorcev
3.3.2    Načrtovalski vzorci v informacijski tehnologiji
3.3.3    Načrtovalski vzorec: Windows DNA
3.3.4    Porazdeljene transakcije
3.4    SPLOŠNO O PORAZDELJENIH STORITVAH
3.4.1    Strateški pomen Enterprise Services
3.4.2    Prihodnost Enterprise Services
3.4.3    Hitrost COM+
3.4.4    O .NET Enteprise Services
3.4.5    O porazdeljenem transakcijskem koordinatorju (MSDTC)
3.5    KJE SMO?
4    NAČRTOVALSKI VZORCI
4.1    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC PORAZDELJENE APLIKACIJE
4.1.1    Ideja
4.1.2    Porazdeljena aplikacija potrebuje nivo fasade
4.1.3    Porazdeljena aplikacija potrebuje nivo dostopa do podatkov
4.1.4    Objekti entitetnih storitev validirajo poslovna pravila
4.1.5    Ločeno upravljanje transakcij
4.1.6    Procesi
4.1.7    Kje smo?
4.2    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC SPLETNE APLIKACIJE
4.2.1    Namen
4.2.2    Struktura
4.2.3    Stran začasnih naročil
4.2.4    Objekt DataSet
4.2.5    DataSet <> DataTable <> DataAdapter
4.2.6    Kje smo?
4.3    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC PODATKOVNEGA DOSTOPA
4.3.1    Namen
4.3.2    Struktura
4.3.3    Razredi
4.3.4    Dodajanje novega naročila
4.3.5    Kaj pa transakcije?
4.3.6    Dostop do podatkov
4.3.7    Kje smo?
4.4    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC ENTITETNIH STORITEV
4.4.1    Namen
4.4.2    Struktura
4.4.3    Primer poslovnega pravila
4.4.4    Nivo dostopa do podatkov
4.4.5    Validacija poslovnih pravil
4.4.6    Naprednejši koncepti validacije poslovnih pravil
4.4.7    Kje smo?
4.5    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC POSLOVNE FASADE
4.5.1    Namen
4.5.2    Struktura
4.5.3    Kdaj uporabiti?
4.5.4    Razmislite o spletnih storitvah
4.5.5    Kje smo?
4.6    NAČRTOVALSKI VZOREC TRANSAKCIJSKIH STORITEV
4.6.1    Transakcije in .NET v splošnem
4.6.2    Namen
4.6.3    Struktura
4.6.4    Kako deluje?
4.6.5    Kdaj uporabiti?
4.6.6    Kako uporabiti?
4.6.7    Kje smo?
5    .NET ENTEPRISE SERVICES
5.1    KAKO UPORABLJATI .NET ENTERPRISE SERVICES?
5.1.1    Načrtovanje komponent
5.1.2    Razredni in članski atributi
5.2    NAMESTITEV KOMPONENT
5.3    KJE SMO?
6    UNIČEVANJE VIROV
6.1    METODA FINALIZE
6.1.1    Dedovanje iz System.Object
6.1.2    O finalizaciji
6.1.3    Kdaj uporabiti finalizacijo?
6.1.4    Oživljanje
6.2    METODA DISPOSE
6.2.1    Kdaj klicati metodo Dispose?
6.3    BREZ UPORABE .NET ENTERPRISE SERVICES
6.3.1    Podatkovni nivo – osnovna komponenta
6.3.2    Podatkovni nivo – ostale komponente
6.3.3    Komponente drugih nivojev
6.4    UPORABA V .NET ENTERPRISE SERVICES
6.4.1    Podatkovni nivo – osnovna komponenta
6.4.2    Podatkovni nivo – ostale komponente
6.4.3    Komponente drugih nivojev
6.5    KJE SMO?
7    VIRI

If you still don't have my previous book, Arhitektura spletnih storitev - Usmeritve za načrtovanje, you can write to me using this link.

Thanks again to all the reviewers and especially to Microsoft gals who had to read this technical, unreadable text during the proof reading process. Thanks to Mateja from Alten, for doing a fantastic design work.

As last year, I spoke on OTS 2004 too.

This time, we discussed transactional semantics in weakly bound, distributed systems.

Hope to see you on 2005's annual reincarnation of a great conference.