Notes Integration from any third party application is not an easy straight forward thing. However Interop.Domino.dll provided by IBM Domino helps do all basic operations on a Lotus Notes Database.

When it comes to using BizTalk to integrate with Lotus Domino, there is no LOB Adaptors available with BizTalk. Not even 2006R2. Well, there is no even a third party BizTalk Adaptor for this purpose.
There are few providers for universal adaptors for Notes but, it takes the same effort as using Interop.Domino.dll and code out your interface.

Following link will help you get a detailed SDK typed details on each classes and its usage from the Interop assembly for Notes.
https://sametime.aspeninstitute.it/help/help65_designer.nsf/Main?OpenFrameSet&Frame=Topic&Src=%2Fhelp%2Fhelp65_designer.nsf%2FContentsIntro%3FOpenPage%26AutoFramed

Here is an example on how such a simple interface may look:

NotesSession nSession = new NotesSession();
NotesDatabase nDB;
NotesDocument nDoc;
nSession.Initialize("mypassword");
nDB = nSession.GetDatabase(@"ServerName", @"DatabasefileName", false);
if (nDB == null) throw new Exception("Notes Database not available");
if (!nDB.IsOpen) nDB.Open();

nDoc = nDB.CreateDocument();
nDoc.AppendItemValue("ItemNo", "00001");
nDoc.AppendItemValue("ItemName", "Rubber");
if (!nDoc.Save(true, false, false)) throw new Exception(@"Failed to save");

Through this write up I am trying to introduce major concepts, tools, techniques and players around the Business Rule Management System (BRMS) from my experience around this area and from materials collected from different resources. This is intended to give a head start to anyone who is trying to validate different Business Rules Engine, Expert Systems or Decision Tree Systems. References are mostly Wikipedia and product specific websites.

A BRMS or Business Rule Management System is a software system used to define, deploy, execute, monitor and maintain the variety and complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organization or enterprise. This logic, also referred to as business rules, includes policies, requirements, and conditional statements that are used to determine the tactical actions that take place in applications and systems.

To Download the article in word format click here

Microsoft announces a invitation-only technical preview of Live Mesh.
Live Mesh is a file synchronization service that will evolve into a platform for synchronizing data and applications across multiple devices.

Data synchronization across different platforms and devices over different firewalls are still an issue. Companies deal with this by having the presence of data in a centralized location and having the device always connected to it. Difficulty is when we have to work offline. Google has a solution which works fine in synchronizing data offline to online in a small scale. When it comes to difference protocols and firewall security boundaries, we need a better solution that enterprises can rely upon.

Through Live Mesh, Microsoft is tryin to achieve the same. These Device, protocol, type related Data Islands makes it challenging to deliver a solution which notices all the issues of the present world.

Following are the main features of Live Mesh

1. File and folder synchronization: User can define multiple devices in the Sync Mesh under a Live Desktop logged in using Live ID
2. Collaboration: An email invitation can be sent more devices and users to get data/infomarmation colloborated
3. Remote desktop: Users can have remote access to the devices or PCs which is part of his Live Mesh

Idea for this product from Microsoft however was proposed by a mass on the Microsoft's Live Community.

Resources

The Live Mesh home page, including links to request participation in the technical preview, is at https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/Welcome.aspx.

The Live Mesh team maintains a blog at blogs.msdn.com/livemesh/.

Microsoft's FeedSync home page, with links to blogs and more detailed technical information about the protocol, is at dev.live.com/feedsync/

Courtesy: Matt Rosoff on Directions on Microsoft

Firefox has already outperformed against all the other Web Browsers already by releasing its Beta 4.
Previously the speed list stood as follows:

1. Firefox 3.0 Beta 4
2. Safari 3.1
3. Opera 9.50 Beta 1
4. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1
5. Firefox 3.0 Beta 3
6. Safari 3.0 Beta
7. Opera 9.26
8. Firefox 2.0.0.12
9. Internet Explorer 7

Now yet again they come up with Beta 4, which performs even better.

Courtesy: www.zdnet.com (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1648)

Microsoft has announced its non-windows OS, Singularity version 1 at its Microsoft Research TechFest 2008 event in Redmond, Wash on 4th March 08.

Singularity is not based on Windows; it was written from scratch as a proof-of-concept. This Singularity OS and set of related tools and libraries that is developed completely in managed code.

Singularity was written in C#, and its easier to analyze than other non-managed operating systems. Singularity also demonstrates that software-isolated processes (SIPs) result in less performance overhead than the hardware-protection schemes commonly used by most operating systems. Singularity’s developers believe that Singularity can result in 30 percent savings in performance.
Singularity Version 2 — will focus primarily on heterogenous, multicore computing environments.

You can download Singularity Version 1 @ http://www.codeplex.com/singularity

Microsoft has invited limited techies for a test ride of IE 8 beta 1. What are the improvements we can expect? well, we gotta wait and see. Super-standard mode would enable the browser to qualify as more standards-compliant. That might be something to watchout for. Microsoft has an official show off in early March at Microsoft’s Mix ‘08 conference in Las Vegas. Official final release is not yet published. See MSDN official website for more updates: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/

LINQ comes as the most significant improvement to Visual Studio 2008 (formerly code-named Orcas) and the accompanying .NET Framework 3.5, which provides developers with the ability to write SQL-style queries directly from within the Visual Basic (VB) and C# programming languages.

With LINQ, database queries which looked like "SELECT * FROM Authers WHERE Country = 'India'" before can be coded in a more friendly manner and with intellisence using built-in language features, enabling the compiler and integrated development environment (IDE) to assist the developer with features such as statement completion and checking for potential errors before the code is run.

Microsoft includes LINQ support for several data sources, including built-in .NET data types, such as lists and arrays; SQL Server; and XML. More features of VS2008, in the next blog... Happy Coding ;) Beta 2 of VS 2008 can be downloaded, including image files for running in a virtual machine, at MSDN.