At my company we we're looking at creating a generic STS that does not require Active Directory Federation Services 2.0, and we were also thinking about putting it up on CodePlex. Dominick Baier from Thinktecture beat us to it with StarterSTS. He's also posted some webcasts on how to use it. Good stuff, so instead rolling our own, we'll be using/extending this one.

A while back I blogged about testing VirtualBox. At the same time we've tested Windows Virtual PC, and it's been disappointing pretty much across the board:

1. It doesn't run on our company's Lenovo T61's, which displays some vague error message. Since most of our developers have a T61, this means they can't use it at all. Virtual PC 2007 and VirtualBox run fine, so it isn't clear why WVPC can't. We have some different machines where it does work, so we went on testing on those to see how well it works, in case Microsoft steps up and fixes the T61 problem and starts supporting 64-bit guests. See the remaining points for my experience...
2. The integration features of WVPC suck. Even something simple like dragging a file from the guest to the host or vice versa doesn't work. The reason is that with Integration Mode enabled, you're actually connected to the guest through Remote Desktop Connection. Microsoft has done this to leverage some of the advantages of RDP (as Ben Armstrong explains), but IMHO they should find a different way to do so.
3. Starting/stopping a guest takes forever, and renders my laptop inoperable while doing so. With VPC 2007 hibernating or restoring a hibernated VPC with 1.5 GB of memory takes several tens of seconds, but I can easily use all other applications while doing so. WIth WVPC just restarting a hibernated image tages 3-5 minutes and during that time my other applicaties are pretty much frozen. I can get a cup of coffee (if I'd drink coffee), eat a sandwich, and go to the John, during the wait. I have no clue why this works as bad as it does, because VPC does this perfectly fine.

The only thing that's been a positive experience is the performance once it has started. That said, I can't really tell if VPC 2007 or VirtualBox work better or worse, so I can't even praise WVPC on this point.

So for now it is back to VPC 2007, with our final decision on switching to VirtualBox postponed until we really need 64-bit support.

On a side note, we've been trying to get the open source version of VirtualBox working, and that appears to be quite a challenge. There are no binaries, so you need to compile yourself. Even though we have a recent build, getting all the prerequisits is hardly possible. Some of the needed SDKs are no longer available. Our conclusion up until now: the open source version is  not really viable (at least for Windows), and possible only there for marketing reasons ("see, we do open source").

Windows Identity Foundation introduces a new ClaimTypes class. It contains predefined claim type URIs for claims defined by OASIS and Microsoft. In the WIF SDK project templates for a custom STS this ClaimTypes class is mixed with the one already in System.IdentityModel.Claims, which is rather confusing. So, what's the difference?

Functionally: None. All claim type URIs in Microsoft.IdentityModel.Claims.ClaimTypes are identical to corresponding types in System.IdentityModel.Claims.ClaimTypes. That said, Microsoft.IdentityModel.Claims.ClaimTypes adds a few new claim types.

Technically: Claim types in System.IdentityModel.Claims.ClaimTypes are defined as static read only string properties, whereas in Microsoft.IdentityModel.Claims.ClaimTypes the claim types are string constants.

My advice: for clarity always use Microsoft.IdentityModel.Claims.ClaimTypes.

Soms verandert de realiteit zo snel dat iets wat in een magazine bij mensen op de deurmat valt alweer verkeerde informatie staat (tja, dat heb je als op de PDC weer van alles aangekondigd wordt). In mijn artikel voor SDN Magazine 103 - ASP.NET onder de motorkap: ASP.NET op bezoek bij de browser staat een link naar de ASP.NET AJAX Library die inmiddels al verouderd is en een foutmelding oplevert. Je kunt nu naar http://ajax.codeplex.com/. Met dank aan Leo Broos die me liet weten dat de oude link niet meer werkt.

Earlier this year I was pretty negative about the Azure story from Microsoft. My main gripe was that (from my perspective at the time) it was not a write-once, run-anywhere story, so you couldn't run your current apps in Azure without modification. I'm very pleased about what I've seen now from PDC. Microsoft has opened up Azure in many ways, giving you much more control over what's happening. In fact, you can get your own virtual machines and have complete remote admin access. Also, they've been really thinking about how to tie your existing hosting environment to Azure and vice versa. It will be possible to connect a web app inside Azure securely to a database server in your own data center.

I must say I'm impressed at how well Microsoft has listened to all the feedback about Azure. With all the changes they've implemented I feel that it has now become interesting for some of the services my company is implementing, whereas previously we weren't even considering Azure.

Windows Identity Foundation, formerly known as "Geneva", has shipped. I've been talking about Geneva/WIF on several occasions and I absolutely love it. It opens the door for a whole new realm of authentication/authorization scenario's. SharePoint 2010 will be the first Microsoft Product to support it, apart from the new Active Directory Federation Services 2.0, which was part of the development effort and was formerly known as "Geneva" Server. Be sure to check it out!