MindReef SoapScope v4 is out

Tools

I just checked my link on the previous post to Mindreef’s site, and was suprised to see that the version just changed from 3.0 to 4.0 since I looked at the site last week. Copying & pasting a list of new features as I have not had time to look more carefully yet!

  • SOAPscope Workspace: Gather Web services resources for a particular test or problem. Focus on the relevant resources viewing, testing, analyzing and annotating within the workspace environment.
  • SOAPscope Packaging: Workspaces may be saved to a package file for archival and sharing. Use Packaging to create artifacts of your testing process or capture and share problems between customers, support, operations, test, and development.
  • WSDL Closures: WSDL documents may reference other documents, which may also reference documents. The complete hierarchy is called a WSDL closure. SOAPscope 4.0 is the first tool that can compare, analyze or graphically view a WSDL closure.
  • Testing Secure Services: WSDL Invoke and Message Resend can now utilize SSL client certificates for mutual authentication. WS-Security compliant user and password header info can be included when invoking or resending messages.
  • Support for New Standards and Technologies: Industries first product to support test against the newest WS-I standards including the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 and WS-I Attachments Profile 1.0. Attachments support includes features to test, debug and support services that employ SwA/MIME attachments.
  • Eclipse 2.x/3.0 Plug-in Support: Use SOAPscope directly within the popular Eclipse IDE without having to leave the IDE. New support for Eclipse 2.x makes the plugin available to a broader audience.
  • Improved Scalability: As the sophistication of Web Services increases customer demands on SOAPscope are scaling as well. Release 4.0 is tuned for better thoughput, memory utilization, reliability and performace to meet the growing demands of our customers.

Michele Leroux Bustamante at Vermont.NET this Monday

dotNET

Very excited to have Michele coming to Vermont to speak to Vermont.NET on Monday. Luckily she comes in Sunday night, and the leaves are already turning, so I plan to show off a bit of our beautiful little state to her before she heads right back to Boston as she has an 8:30 am talk at  SD East in Boston on Tuesday morning. Although we had planned a more leisurely Vermont trip for Michele, her hectic schedule has put her in the tough position of having to do a lot of travelling in a short amount of time that I do not envy and that I am so grateful she is doing. She is also speaking at the NH .NET Group on Thursday.

Michele lives in California, so this is a long trip for her. Her Vermont.NET and NHDNUG talks are both thanks to INETA.

At Vermont.NET, Michele will be doing a talk on leveraging HTTP Handlers and SOAP extensions to extend ASP.NET. I saw part of this when she did it for a WebCast in the early spring and have been very much looking forward to having her do it for Vermont.NET (and seeing the rest of it myself, as well). 

We are also fortunate to have a license of MindReef’s SoapScope to raffle off at the meeting, thanks to Scott Gagnon of MindReef.

Note to self – write a post about contracts vs. letters of agreement

Just Rambling

I meant to do this after talking with a friend who has been contracting for only 2 years.

Except for a project that was through a consulting company, I have used the same base letter of agreement with clients for almost 20 years. I even used it when working with G.E. Capital – oh but maybe not 3M. It’s easy to understand. No lawyers need be deeply involved. It has been enough for everyone I have worked for.

I’ll try to remember to write more about it at some point.

Vay-Kay-Shun

Purely Personal

First real break in three years – even if it’s only for 4 or 5 days.

YES: My hubby, Maine, ocean , camping, kayaking, lobster, steamers, beer, fudge

NO: Computer, email, blogs, cell phone, clients

imagine! Not leaving till tomorrow and will work until I get shoved into the car, but getting used to the concept.

Common problem faced by new Microsoft hires

Purely Personal

Reading this (touching) post by Peter Provost who recently moved with his family (including a newborn) from Denver to Seattle for a hot job at Microsoft, struck a chord. I remember having a  conversation with another person and his wife who recently moved from Florida (where he was already a Microsoft employee) to Seattle. They have young children. They were having a difficult time figuring out where to live (that was affordable as well as commutable) where his wife and children would be able to re-create their social world that they had to leave behind (along with family) when they moved. These are obviously huge and difficult choices to make. Quite different than when you are young and single and without a lot of ties.

Organizing WS Security

Just Rambling

I was having a hard time putting the different pieces of WS Security into buckets so that they are easier to explain.

The problem was authentication. I finally realized how I wanted to explain it. Authentication is done with security tokens, but authentication does not really belong in a bucket. It is done in tandem with all of the other processes – authorization, encryption, signing. Now it makes more sense to me.

I am starting to realize that one of the reasons that I have had such a difficult time with WSE is because I am not really a linear thinker. I’m more, well, spherical. But I was somehow unable to take wse as a whole and shove it into my brain. I really have had to go through this detailed process of breaking it apart, analyzing it’s pieces and then seeing how they fit back together.

And the sad part is all of this effort has only been for grokking the security stuff. There is a lot more to WSE than security.

The happy happy part is that I do really have a handle on this and one that I know I can easily share with other people who feel about this info the way I have for the past few years!

I seriously need to shout out to Don Smith for some hefty support over the last bunch of days. He’s been amazing in helping me clarify some of the things that I was still fuzzy with. THANKS DON!