Speaking at CodeStock 2012

It’s that time of year again… the CodeStock session line up has been announced and – much like years past, it is looking to be a great conference. If you’ve not attended CodeStock before, or are not familiar with what it is, it’s a great regional developer conference hosted in Knoxville, TN early each summer. You can see a list of the content that will be covered at this year’s conference here: http://codestock.org/Sessions/Default.aspx – that’s a lot of content crammed into two days – and a great value at only $60.

I’m quite excited have been selected to speak at CodeStock this year… probably more than I have in the past. The reason is that I chose a topic that I’ve been studying and enjoying, but not one that is typical for this sort of conference. Over the past three years, I’ve spoken at CodeStock on topics including SharePoint, Team System, Amazon Web Services, Windows Azure, and GPGPU computing with CUDA. This year, however, the talks I’m giving (buffer overflow detection/exploitation and wireless network security) affect developers but are often considered topics for security-specific conferences. What is great, is not only did these talks make the cut, but the buffer overflow talk was #12 in the list of top vote getters (CodeStock lets registered attendees vote on what sessions they’d like to see). If you happen to be in the Knoxville area in the middle of June I hope you’ll consider attending the conference.

Anatomy of a Buffer Overflow Attack - You've heard of "buffer overflows" and maybe you've even been the cause of a few, but do you understand why they are bad? Maybe you're a ".NET developer" and you've never really thought about them. In this session we'll discuss how attackers discover buffer overflows, how they interrogate them, and, finally, how they are exploited. We'll walk through a live demonstration from fuzzing through obtaining a remote shell. You'll leave with a better understanding of how they work, and why you should ensure your code is protected from them.

WiFu - so you think your wireless connection is safe? - In this session we'll discuss various wireless security techniques including common misconceptions and mis-configurations. We will demonstrate how easy it is to compromise even "secured" connections and what the implications are for you as an IT professional. Using free software and inexpensive hardware (~$30), we'll demonstrate a number of attacks and highlight the vulnerabilities that are present in the behavior of many wireless devices.

A Comparison of AWS and Azure

This past weekend at CodeStock, I gave a double-length session that was a side-by-side comparison of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Windows Azure. The objective was to introduce the products, walk through the similarities and differences, and have a discussion around where the different offerings fit various needs better than the other (or not). 

The sessions were fairly well attended and we had some good conversations. The slides from both sessions are provided below and, if you attended, I’d appreciate it if you’d also take a minute to rate the sessions (button below) and provide feedback as to how they might be improved for the next time.

A Comparison of AWS and Azure - Part 1

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A Comparison of AWS and Azure - Part2

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At the end of the second session, we walked through some code that demonstrated a guestbook on both the Amazon and Azure platforms. The source code bundles are available here:

• Amazon
• Azure

Introduction to GPGPU Programming with CUDA

[Updated 6/7/2011 with embedded video]

This past weekend I had the honor of giving a talk at CodeStock 2011 here in Knoxville. This was the third year I’ve participated in this conference and I really enjoy it. I decided to “step out” a bit and do a talk that was a bit outside of my norm and tackle a topic of interest to me – GPU computing. The talk seemed to go OK, and there was some good conversation in the room. The slides are provided below and, if you attended, I’d appreciate it if you’d take a moment to rate the talk (button below) and provide feedback on how it might be improved for the next time. I’ve also included a rough video of the session at the bottom for those who are interested.

Intro to GPGPU Programming with Cuda

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Amazon Web Services for the .NET Developer

I spoke at CodeStock (http://codestock.org) a few weeks ago and one of my talks was focused on AWS from the perspective of the .NET developer. The slides are available here:

Amazon Web Services for the .NET Developer

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And the video of the session is available here:

Codestock Session

I’d like to thank all of you who attended my session today at CodeStock. I had a great time talking with you all and sharing my experiences with SharePoint and TFS with you all.

Downloads from today’s session:

• Powerpoint Deck
• My customized version of STSDev
• The Samples I built in prep for today
• The samples we built during the session today

Also, I promised a collection of links for the tools I had installed.

• STSDev on CodePlex (this does *not* contain most of the fixes demonstrated today)
• SharePoint Installer
• Sand Castle
• Sand Castle Help File Builder
• Zoomit – Utility for zooming in and out during a presentation
• Smart Tools Enhanced Site Actions

Customizations to STSDev 1.3

As part of my session on Deployment and build using TFS and SharePoint for CodeStock 09 I took the source code from the STSDev project on CodePlex (http://stsdev.codeplex.com) and made a number of modifications. Some of these I would classify as clearly bugs, but most of them are simply adjustments to the core to fit my needs/desires. I’m documenting them here and providing a zip of the source for the benefit of those attending my session. These changes and source code are completely unsupported and you use them at your own risk. That being said, I hope that they are helpful and speed you in your integration between SharePoint and TFS. NOTE: unless specified, all of these changes are to the “Core” project.

1. First minor change is that I moved the solution file up one level to the parent folder. This is truly nothing but a nit-pick but seems to make source control trees happier and therefore something that I almost always do.
2. Upgraded the projects/solutions to Visual Studio 2008
3. Added an app.config file with an assembly binding redirect pushing old references to Microsoft.Build.Framework to utilize version 3.5.0.0. This is one of the changes needed to get support for .NET 3.5 working properly.
4. Changed the target framework property for the stsdev.csproj to .NET Framework 3.5. This change, in concert with the previous, allows the 3.5 selection in the UI to work properly.
5. Major Change: Support for alternate bin paths. The 1.3 version as published on CodePlex always uses the compiler output in projectdir\bin\debug when assembling the *.wsp file. This happens regardless of what build configuration you have selected (yes, even release). This doesn’t work for TFS builds since the output is, by default, in a different location on the build server. To support this use case, the following changes were made:
   • Program.cs: Changes were made prior to calling SolutionBuilder.RefreshDeploymentFiles to support the passing in of an additional parameter indicating the alternate bin path.
   • Changed the Create method of Builders\DeploymentFiles\CabDdfBuilder.cs to accept the alternateBinPath as an additional parameter.
   • Changed the Create method of Builders\DeploymentFiles\CabDdfBuilder.cs such that, if an alternate bin path is provided, it will use that value when adding references to assemblies rather than the otherwise-hard-coded /bin/debug/
   • Updated the first overload of the RefreshDeploymentFiles method in SolutionBuilder.cs to pass the alternate bin path to the second overload of RefreshDeploymentFiles.
   • Updated the second overload of the RefreshDeploymentFiles method in SolutionBuilder.cs to build the TargetPath from the alternateBinPath if provided and otherwise to use the default.
   • Updated the second overload of the RefreshDeploymentFiles method in SolutionBuilder.cs to pass the alternateBinPath parameter to CabDdfBuilder.Create().
   • Updated the CompleteSolution method in SolutionBuilder.cs to pass an empty value for alternateBinPath to RefreshDeploymentFiles since, during the initial project creation, it is ok to utilize the default /bin/debug path.
6. Major Change: When creating a project, always create a parent solution directory in the same way that Visual Studio defaults to. This is helpful when working in a source controlled environment with multiple projects in the same solution. To support this feature, the following changes were made:
   • Changed the <REFRESH /> property in Resources\Common\Microsoft.SharePoint.targets.xml to utilize the $(ProjectDir) variable rather than $(SolutionDir).
   • Changed the Create method of SolutionFiles\SolutionFileBuilder.cs to accept the solution directory as an additional parameter.
   • Changed the Create method of SolutionFiles\SolutionFileBuilder.cs to change the directory for where the solution file is created
   • Changed the Create method of SolutionFiles\SolutionFileBuilder.cs to reference the *.csproj file in subdirectory rather than in the same directory as the *.sln file.
   • Added  a property called ProjectDirectory to SolutionBuilder.cs to hold the full path to the project directory (now distinguished from SolutionDirectory).
   • Updated the RunCreateSolutionWizard method in SolutionBuilder.cs to set the Project Directory property.
   • Updated the InitializeSolution method of SolutionBuilder.cs to create the new (child) project directory and update the location appropriately
   • Updated the InitializeSolution method of SolutionBuilder.cs to set the SolutionBuilder.TargetPath based on the ProjectDirectory property rather than the SolutionDirectory value.
   • Updated the CreateDeploymentFiles method of SolutionBuilder.cs to use the proper path for the files (based on ProjectDirectory).
   • Updated the RefreshDeploymentFiles() (first overload) method of SolutionBuilder.cs to optionally set the ProjectDirectory property if it isn’t already set.
   • Updated the second overload of the RefreshDeploymentFiles method of SolutionBuilder.cs to set the current directory to the value of ProjectDirectory if it is set, and otherwise to use the SolutionDirectory value.
   • Updated the second overload of the RefreshDeploymentFiles method of SolutionBuilder.cs to utilize the ProjectDirectory value rather than the SolutionDirectory path.
   • Updated the LoadSolutionConfigFile method in SolutionBuilder.cs to use the ProjectDirectory property and remove the pathing ambiguity that was leading to incorrect path lookups.
   • Updated the CompleteSolution method in SolutionBuilder.cs to pass the SolutionDirectory property to SolutionFileBuilder.Create() since it can no longer assume that the solution file should be in the same directory as the project file.
7. Major Change: Added support for the Release|AnyCPU project configuration to support integration with TFS Build. In support of this feature, the following changes were made:
   • Added <REFRESH-TEAMBUILD> property in Resources\Common\Microsoft.SharePoint.targets.xml file. The value of this property is similar to that of <REFRESH /> but has an additional parameter referencing the alternate bin path that TFS creates by default.
   • Added a Release target in Resources\Common\Microsoft.SharePoint.targets.xml. This is targeted specifically at the TFS build and is therefore similar to the ReleaseBuild target but calls the $(REFRESH-TEAMBUILD) exe rather than $(REFRESH)
   • Added a “Release” value to the Configurations string array in SolutionBuilder.cs. This causes the release config to be added to the generated solution and project files.
8. Major Change: We utilize SharePoint Installer to create a nicely-packaged version of the resulting solution making it nearly brain-dead easy to install a new solution. The only real thing unique or project-specific in a SharePoint Installer package is the setup.exe.config file that passes a number of parameters to the executable allowing it to adapt for your particular solution package. This feature change causes STSDev to generate the initial draft of this file and to add it to the solution items. To this end, the following changes were made:
   • Created a new file, SolutionFiles\SetupConfigFileBuilder.cs to represent the template and logic for the SetupConfigFileBuilder class.
   • Updated the CompleteSolution method in SolutionBuilder.cs to call SetupConfigFileBuilder.Create and create the new config file.
   • Updated SolutionFiles\SolutionFileBuilder.cs to include a pointer to setup.exe.config and thereby include it in the solution.
9. Major Change: We utilize Sand Castle and Sand Castle Help File Builder to produce developer-targeted API documents for our projects. Sand Castle Help File Builder needs a configuration file (xml) with a number of property values to configure it to run properly. This feature allows the basic file to be generated by STSDev and for it to be added to the solution items collection. To this end, the following changes were made:
   • Created a new file, SolutionFiles\SandcastleHelpFileBuilder.cs to represent the template and logic for the SandcastleHelpFileBuilder class.
   • Updated the CompleteSolution method in SolutionBuilder.cs to call SandcastleHelpFileBuilder.Create and create the configuration file.
   • Updated SolutionFiles\SolutionFileBuilder.cs to include a pointer to the generated *.shfb file and thereby include it in the solution.
10. Major Change: By default, STSDev would not only generate manifest.xml and the ddf file, but it would add these files to the project. While in many cases this is innocous, it causes heartburn in a source-controlled environment. Firstly, purely generated files have no business being in your source tree. Secondly, since the user doesn’t edit them, once they are checked in, they are most often left as such, resulting in errors on compile because the files are marked as read only, preventing stsdev.exe from updating them properly. To this end, the CreateDeploymentFiles method of SolutionBuilder.cs has been updated to remove the calls to ProjectBuilder.AddSourceFile() following ManifestBuilder.Create() and CabDdfBuilder.Create().
11. Added an image, PlanetIcon.gif to the resources section and replaced all hard-coded references to africanpith.jpg with references to PlanetIcon.gif. This is nothing more than a branding change for the output projects and has no other affect on the program’s functionality. Affected files include: stsdev.csproj, SolutionProviders\SimpleFeatureSolutionProvider.cs (AddSolutionItems method), Builders\SourceFiles\FeatureBuilder.cs (Create method)
12. Adjusted the InitilaizeSolutionProviders method of  UserInterface\SelectSolutionType.cs to select by default the Web Part Solution (C# Assembly) project type on load rather than the empty solution. This change is nothing other than a convenience feature during testing and use (that’s almost always the project type I use).
13. Adjusted the RefreshDeploymentFiles method of SolutionBuilder.cs to fix some seemingly obvious bugs in Console output using incorrect values.

Following the session on Friday, I’ll update this post with the actual source code and any other changes made during the presentation.

Speaking at CodeStock

I’m privileged to have been given the opportunity to speak at CodeStock (details below) this coming Friday. I’ll be speaking on the topic of Deploying and Packaging SharePoint solutions using TFS. The abstract for my session is:

Have you been using the VS Extensions for SharePoint to create SharePoint packages and found yourself wondering how best to integrate with your source control platform and build system? Consistent packaging of SharePoint solutions can be a challenge and is not for the faint of heart. Come to this session and learn how our team utilizes TFS, Team Build, SandCastle, SharePoint Installer, and STSDev in concert to produce consistent installation packages for our SharePoint/MOSS environment.

CodeStock is about Community. For Developers, by Developers (with love for SysAdmins and DBAs too!). Last year an idea started at CodeStock to mix Open Spaces within a traditional conference. This year we're going to crank things up to 11 and rip off the knob - and you're being drafted to help!

• Keynote by Microsoft RIA Architect Evangelist Josh Holmes
• From Developer to Business Owner roundtable with guest Nick Bradbury creator of HomeSite, TopStyle, and FeedDemon
• 50+ break out sessions + Open Spaces (self-organizing sessions)
• Grand Prize: VSTS 2008 Team Suite with MSDN Premium
• Virtual sessions with Jeffery Richter and John Robbins

Space is limited so register today at CodeStock.org