Companies use Agile methods like Scrum and eXtreme Programming (XP) to deliver business value through software. Agile methods adopt an incremental approach where large complex projects are broken down into simpler mini projects that are delivered in iterations. These iterations can be one to four weeks in duration. The business person responsible for driving the project (known as the Product Owner or Customer) can align features with his/her business' strategy by prioritising them for deliver ... [Read more]

Two of Dot Net Solutions’ very own have recently been busy writing a book on Azure, which has just been published. Dan Scarfe and Marcus Tillett teamed up with Stephen Parker to write one of a new series of “Thinking of” books. The table of contents gives a brief flavour of the book, which is written in a very condensed style. Giving as much information, as quickly as possible. 1 Major players in IT are spending billions on the Cloud – why? 2 Could I have a platform in the sky? Sure th ... [Read more]

We are currently working on a cool application for the Fire Protection Association (FPA) called Robust. The goal of the application is to ensure businesses are suitably prepared when an incident occurs (e.g. a Fire) Based on information gathered from the various core business activities it aims to help minimise any business impact and provide guidance on recovery options. On a side note the technology stack used for this project is also very interesting; we are using Windows Presentation ... [Read more]

Recently I've been spending a lot of time working on various SharePoint projects, none more challenging than the Citroën site launched earlier this year. I'm going to take the time to explain how we put together our web parts and server controls, particularly from the point of view of a WCM scenario where the complexity of our mark-up was significantly greater than that of a traditional "vanilla" intranet SharePoint due to the various accessibility guidelines we needed to adhere to ... [Read more]

Before I jump too deep inside this question I should make a few points. The first is this is my first ever blog post, so please bear with me if I don't fully adhere to normal blogosphere etiquette. The second is, as I'm sure you know, Dot Net is a Microsoft partner, so I am somewhat biased in my opinions, although contrary to popular belief, Microsoft has not 'put something in the water' and our choice to go the paid-for software route when setting up Dot Net was due in large part to the argu ... [Read more]

Today Dot Net Solutions was awarded Gold Certified Partner status from Microsoft. ... [Read more]