At nsquared we are focused on adding value. We work in a way that helps identify the most value up front and deliver on it. Our Traditional Development team utilizes an agile approach to deliver solutions to meet your most pressing needs first and then work through the value chain to always remain focused on what adds the most value now.
We never ask a client to commit to large scale projects, our approach allows our clients to control their budgets and determine the direction of the project more closely.
While we can't disclose all the details of the projects we work on here are some links to technology areas that we are involved with:
nsquared Welcomes you to Liberation Day!
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Join us today at Liberation Day to bring in a new dawn for developers with the freedom of software + services! nsquared will be there and we’re hiring!
Liberation Day 2008 presents Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer as the key speaker in A Live Web Rally. Steve B will specifically address the subject of Cloud Computing. He is joined by Gianpaolo Carraro (Microsoft Senior Director) who will guide attendees through the Microsoft Azure Platform realities and possibilities, and Tim Sneath (Microsoft Director) who will speak on how you can use liberating technologies such as Windows 7 to build application for Windows and the web.
nsquared contributed to Liberation Day by building a WPF application just for this event. If you aren’t able to join us at the event but want to watch the live stream, read the speakers blogs or participate in a real time chat, go to the main Live Rally site and follow the links under Enhance the Experience section.
The download and install link will ensure you have the minimal dependencies installed (Client only components of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1), before installing and launching the Event Client. Once downloaded, you will see the window for the web stream. 
· Click the MORE link in the window to change the resolution or view additional videos.
· Click on the CHAT button at the top of the screen to start chatting.
· Supply a nickname and away you go!
· Click the button to see who else is online.
 Look out for the nsquared crew either in the chatroom or at the event.
See you at Liberation Day!
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PDC: Celestial Afterthoughts
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
If not at the opening address, PDC wreaked tangible excitement by the end of Day 4. Developers left upbeat and charged, ready to start grappling with the new concepts and tools at home. Though there was much pre-release content, we can expect to see more tools emerging in the next 6-12 months around these.
Windows Azure, interesting if not quite new, left me begging for an answer... What will they charge for it? Will it prove valuable and worth the cost no matter what they decide? The market will determine the value – but which market? The price, in fact, will determine the market.
The overall opinion of the Microsoft Directors seems to be that Windows 7 is a strong offering. While Vista was a nice change and brought many enhancements to Windows, I agree that there are definitely places for improvement. Windows 7 looks like it will do at least one trick by reducing the drag on system resources.
Microsoft Surface will have people creating a business need for it where there wasn’t one before, if only because it is so cool. The Day 3 Keynote (absolutely magical) demonstrated some research technology transporting Surface into the 3D world. Amazing.
By the way, nsquared built the labs for Surface which were well received at the conference. nsquared also contributed by acting as the technical advisors for the Windows Live Framework and Windows Live Services, 2-sided poster, and working on the Visual Studio Tools for Windows Azure.
All in all, the conference delivered on its promise and reputation, that of being the champion gathering of developers and architects worldwide...on the surface... and in the clouds.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Day Two PDC Keynote - Rock and Roll to the Epic Saga of Misunderstanding
The initial pump and excitement was certainly there this morning as opposed to yesterday’s slightly lackluster performance.
It should not be surprising that Windows 7 gets the rock star treatment on stage. It is the bus that drives the cash to Microsoft's front door every day.
Ray's introduction to the session was a perfect pull back and setting to the scene. Explaining the history of Windows, positioning the PC, the phone and web platforms from Microsoft's perspective was perfect. This is the theatre you need in a keynote, and the scene was set for Steven Sinofsky to get on stage and start showcasing Windows 7 and the features being improved.
It is clear that a lot of work has gone into the user experience for the client, and there is an understanding that Windows is now (and has for a long time been) a consumer operating system not just a business operating system.
Windows 7 is about much more than the user experience. The core technologies have had some great improvements at a power management and networking device management level. Goals for Windows 7 have been around performance and responsiveness; Windows 7 now supports 256 processors, boots faster, uses less memory and reduces the power consumption on the device.
Today all attendees get a copy of the win7 pre-beta (milestone M3 ) build. Beta will be delivered early CY 09.
This is where the keynote should have ended but Microsoft VPs rather appreciate long-winded tales, so it must have made sense to them to continue telling stories. Feedback for anyone putting together a presentation - tell one story, create a beginning, middle and an end. Perhaps learn from theatre and movie makers – please keep it short and simple next time, folks.
The next story was presented by the great Scott Guthrie. The new features in WPF, .NET 4 and VS 2010 were briefly covered by Scott, and the developer focused audience loves the fact that now more average developers can write code. Again a democratization of software development continues, allowing more mediocre software to be built and shipped. You have to hand it to Microsoft for enabling software development to be done by unexceptional members of the world’s population; leading to even more rubbish software in the world. Personally I think this may be great, it will allow the people that really know what a computer is doing to build fantastic software that will really differentiate from the rest.
Two hours in and the Day Two PDC keynote kept going and the audience got restless, the exodus started from the keynote room as David Treadwell came on stage to disclose information on how to build software using the Live Services. David discussed the concept of the internet as a bridge to allow users to see the same data and share data between users and devices. Mesh is now a key component of Live Services, mesh is the experience built on top of Live Services. The Live Services is now a platform for S+S, making it easy for developers to build applications that utilize the Live Services via the Live Framework.
Live Operating Environment is akin to the CLR in .NET. A set of open, consistent interfaces are provided in the Live Framework. Live Framework comes with a set of API kits including a .NET API kit making it easy for .NET developers to build Live Services enabled applications. Now your applications can tap into the user data, devices and social relationships.
Dr. Neil
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Monday, October 27, 2008
PDC Keynote Day 1 – Developer View
During the PDC2008 Keynote this morning, the secret about Microsoft “Cloud OS” was finally revealed. The platform, called Windows Azure, offers scalability and on-demand resources to host and manage Web applications on the cloud. Along with these platforms, they also announced a few other Microsoft Online Services that utilize the Azure platform.
The most exciting news about the Azure platform is that developers can use their existing skill set to take advantage of it right away. There will be a SDK released in a few hours which contains a new Visual Studio project to create and deploy Web applications to the cloud. All of the configuration files use XML-based syntax so that, for instance, if you need to scale up the computing resources of your application, all you need to do is make a one-line change against the xml. They said, “Even a CEO can do it”. However, if you are not comfortable with XML, there is good news - Microsoft will be shipping a GUI to make this configuration process even more seamless. Azure platform supports SOAP and REST protocol for communication purposes. The fact that it is an open platform which is targeted for both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages (e.g.: Java, Ruby, Python, etc) makes it even more compelling.
Moving on, I was thrilled to hear the announcement of the first Online service - .NET Services. This service addresses most, if not all the hurdles and issues that Enterprise application suffered from. Federated Authentication has been a nightmare for Enterprise class hosted solution. Traditionally, it requires the Service provider to maintain a set of client credentials on top of the ones that the client already has in their Active Directory, resulting in duplicates and painful maintenance. With .NET Services Access Control, the authentication can be federated with options to use either Enterprise Directories or Web Identity System such as Windows Live ID. Then, the authorization decision can be made based on the set of rules and claims that can be changed easily. No hassle at all!
The next component of the .NET Services is the Service Bus. They demonstrated a product to manage the product recall. Traditionally, to accomplish this task, each consumer and publisher needed to have a dedicated connection (e.g.: VPN) to manually connect the 2 networks together. Using the Service Bus, as developers, we can lift those boundaries by having our centralized services available at internet-scale without any corporate restrictions, and yet automatically get the scalability and on-demand benefit of the Azure platform.
The last component of the .NET Services is the Workflow Service. This service provides a mechanism to construct, deploy, and run workflow on the cloud platform. It uses XML –based configuration file to build the action flow. Microsoft promised to have it integrated with the Visual Studio 2008 Workflow Designer soon.
The last service they announced was the SQL Services. As the name suggests, it allows you to store data (using SQL Data Services), run reports, and do analytical processing on the cloud. However, at the moment, they only have SQL Data Services up on CTP release. I had a play with SQL Data Service since it was on the Preview mode. I admitted that there are a LOT of improvements from back then. I’ve just browsed the latest SDK on MSDN and now they’ve supported the JOIN and ORDER BY feature. Although these features might be far from new for developers who work on the on-premise SQL Server, this proves that Microsoft took feedback from developers and implemented it. The other new feature from SQL Data Services is the support for external Authentication Services. By default, it will use the Token Service, but alternatively, developers can pass on the Authentication endpoint to the SQL Data Service.
Personally, I am glad to see the improvements and vision from Microsoft for the months ahead. The cloud services indeed will benefit the majority of businesses, from small, medium to enterprise. Looking forward for the announcement for Day 2, which I’ve heard will be mainly around Live Services (including LiveMesh). :)
Dimaz Pramudya
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nsquared press announcement
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The nsquared group has announced the acquisition of the staff and client pool of Cybner Pty Ltd which will increase its offering in the growing Microsoft business dynamics market.
nsquared solutions delivers leading edge software in a way that helps identify the most value up front and deliver on it. The nsquared development team utilises a responsive approach to deliver solutions to meet the most pressing needs first and then works through the value chain to always remain focused on what adds the most value now.
Cybner provides innovative solutions to the CRM product space and has grown to be a recognised name in dynamics space. nsquared’s goals have been focused on the technical challenges faced by software businesses to overcome the hurdles of delivering high quality solutions to tight time frames.Catherine Eibner, CEO of Cybner Pty Ltd, said she was excited to pursue some new opportunities while Cybner’s clients will be able to have the ongoing support of the great nsquared development team.
“Working with nsquared ensures that our customers are able to take advantage of the amazing wealth of knowledge nsquared already has in the industry, as well as their proven and consistent approach to deliver value to their clients” she said.
James McCutcheon, co-founder of nsquared, feels this new addition to the nsquared development offering is an exciting opportunity and looks forward to continuing the Cybner tradition of quality solutions to the Microsoft business products market.
“This new acquisition allows nsquared to increase its development offerings to the market and I am excited with the new opportunities this will bring”.
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Several members of the nsquared development team have been working with Microsoft on building the Windows Live Tools for Visual Studio 2008.
We have created a mini-series of getting started videos for developers to learn how to use the tools.
