I’m not kidding. This story needs to be told and who better than Joe McNally, one the best photographers in the business!

Welcome Adorama!

Well. What are you waiting for? Read it!

Image copyright and courtesy of Canon USA

I’ve gone ahead and purchased a new Canon 40D body before the $200 (USD) instant rebate expires on July 17th so I’m putting my Canon 350D/Rebel XT, the kit EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM lens, and the BG-E3 battery grip with three extra Canon NB-2LH batteries as well as a brand new EF-S 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM lens up FOR SALE! 

Canon EOS Rebel XT / 350D (Black Body) - LESS THAN 1 YR OLD $300.00

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM - LESS THAN 1 YR OLD $50.00

Canon BG-E3 Vertical Grip - LESS THAN 1 YR OLD $75.00

Canon EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM - BRAND NEW $275.00

If you’re interested ping me at jeffrey.t.lynch@[nospam]mac.com!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these two diagrams (courtesy & copyright Microsoft) are worth millions! At least they are to anyone desperate to understand how the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet (BTARN 3.5) really works.

Initiator Message Flow

Don’t let the complexity of this diagram scare you. The message flow for an outbound RNIF (or PIDX) message consists of four key areas.

Area 1: The SQL Server BTARN Databases where all “lob” messages (such as a P21 – PIDX Invoice) and any attachments are stored BEFORE the outbound RNIF message flow actually begins, and the SQL Receive Location used to process the message content and attachments into the MessageBox. 

Note: If you’re not sending attachments you may elect not to use SQL for this and can substitute FILE receive locations. The SDK contains sample code and a pretty good explanation of how this may work.

Area 2: The Initiator Private Process orchestration where the actual messages and attachments are “prepared” (usually transformed into XML) for further processing by the initiator public process.

Area 3: The Initiator Public Process orchestration where the outbound message is actually formatted to meet the RNIF standard. This includes adding the required RNIF headers and other such tasks. Consider this a “Black Box” since you can’t change how this works without invalidating the RosettaNet certification.

Area 4: The HTTP/HTTPS Send Ports and the RNIFSend.aspx web application that are CRITICAL to the correct processing of the outbound messages. This is where the real work is done to validate the messages, create the correct MIME headers and add the required RNIF DOCTYPE declarations.

Just a side note. If you’re really interested in how this all works, you can look at the source code for this web application using Lutz Roeder’s Reflector. I think you’ll be amazed at how much Regex is used to “craft” these RNIF messages.

Responder Message Flow

The message flow for an inbound RNIF message (whether it’s a new message or an asynchronous response to a message you’ve already sent) consists of three key areas.

Area 1: The RNIFReceive.aspx web application which processes the inbound message, validates it and then removes all the RNIF specific headers and DOCTYPE declarations. This then passes the message along to the HTTP/HTTPS Receive Port and Pipeline which handles the non-repudiation, decodes the message, parses the message and resolves which Party it came from.

Area 2: The Responder Public Process receive the RNIF message from the MessageBox and extracts the content and attachments and sends them to the responder private process for further processing. Just like the initiator public process, the Responder Public Process should be considered a “Black Box” and left unchanged.

Area 3: The Responder Private Process then routes the inbound messages and any attachments to the SQL Server BTARN Databases where it can be further processed and sent to some “lob” back-end system.

There are a few other details involved in the message flow (signals) depending upon whether your transmission is synchronous or asynchronous, but the basics are fairly straight-forward. The best thing is that this workflow is almost entirely “configured” using the BTARN Management Console and is “message agnostic”, meaning that you can use any standard RNIF, CIDX or PIDX “PIP” (Partner Interface Process) that you and your trading partner both support.

Best of all, it’s included in the price of BizTalk Server 2006 R2!

Currently listening to Carrie Underwood’s Carnival Ride

One of the things you’ll need when working with PIDX / RNIF / BTARN projects in BizTalk Server 2006 is the actual PIDX schemas (.xsd) to be used. Luckily the American Petroleum Institute (API) has a public web site for the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX) committee which contains links to the various versions of their schemas.

Once you and your trading partner decide on which version you’ll be using, you can download the schemas and add them to your BizTalk solution in Visual Studio. When you attempt to open these schemas you’ll notice an error message that pops up as shown here.

This is a fairly common error and usually occurs when the schema you are attempting to open contains a reference to another “imported” or “included” schema and the BizTalk Schema Editor tool cannot find the file in question. The work-around for this is fairly simple and all you’ll need to do is change these two attributes.

Step 1: First you’ll need to click on the Imports attribute collection and delete the reference to the PIDX Library schema which contains the hard-coded location which is incorrect.

Step 2: Next you’ll need to import a new schema as an XSD Include and select the PIDXLib from the picker as shown here.

Step 3: Once that step is complete, you’ll also need to change the Root Reference attribute so that the BizTalk Schema Editor knows how to correctly identify your schema.

And that’s really all there is to it, except you’ll have to do this for every PIDX schema and every version. To make this easier for everyone else using PIDX schemas in BizTalk Server, I’ve gone ahead and created a BizTalk Solution that includes all the PIDX schemas for their versions 1.0, 1.2 and 1.3 and you can download the zip file below.

Currently listening to Brad Paisley’s 5th Gear.

My interest in photography really began in the mid 70’s when Canon introduced the TX with an “auto-winder” and the (ultimate) F-1 w/motor drive. They also introduced their FD line of “aspherical lenses”, which (for that point in time) were exceptionally sharp. Not quite as good as some of the more expensive Nikon gear, but much more affordable.

I began taking shots of local sporting events (high school football, basketball, track & field) in the northern suburbs of Detroit as a “student” freelance (B&W only in those days) newspaper photographer. I only made money “if” the local paper liked the shots and their own guy was covering some other event. I’d load up my TX with a (relatively) fast 50mm lens for close-up shots and my F-1 with a 70-210 zoom for everything else. All together including my shoulder bag, filters, film (Tri-X) and raincoat (it always rains in Michigan in the fall), everything must have weighed in at over 25 lbs and it felt like much more! So, I’ve just spent a huge sum of money for my gear. In ‘75, the F-1 body was over $1000 alone. It weighed a freaking ton and turning the zoom ring on the lens felt like the tranny of a 75 Firebird filled with wet sand. I’m running down the field to catch the action, reloading film on the fly, taking shot after shot praying that one of two turn out OK. I’m wet, tired and ache all over from lugging all that gear around in the rain and cold. And that’s just the fun part!

Once the event was over, I’d rush back to the darkroom and begin the arduous (and messy) process of developing the ten or so 36 exposure rolls of Tri-X, praying that I was agitating just the right amount to prevent any air bubbles from ruining my shots but not too much or the contrast and grain of Tri-X (pushed to 1600) would turn to mush. Next I would print a quick contact sheet using my enlarger while the film was still “wet” and allow my socks to dry right next to the rest of the film. When I had the time (which was really never, before the usual 4:00 AM deadline) I would also pick a few good shots and print some 5 x 7’s to take along with the contact sheet, to the paper’s sports editor.

So here I am. It’s about 3:00 AM on a Saturday morning. I’m standing in front of some guy who’s smoking one cigarette after another and he pushes my nice 5 x 7’s onto the floor, grabs the contact sheet and marks big red X’s on all but two of the 300 or so shots. These he circles, while grabbing my negs and looking at them on his light-box. All the time muttering about how spoiled we kids are today and how he used to walk to and from school in the dead of winter, up hill both ways, carrying a warm potato to keep his hands from freezing, which he then ate for lunch. He reaches into his desk, pulls out two twenties and says “Kid, those shots really suck but we’ve got nothing else so we’ll run em anyhow”. This guy was the sports editor for a small town paper acting like he ran the New York Times!

Let’s compare this to how it’s done today. Let’s say I’m a “photo enthusiast” in 2008. I go online to B&H Photo and buy a Canon Rebel XT which comes with a pretty decent 18 - 55mm, F3.5/F5.6 zoom for about $600. I also pick up a Canon 28-200mm F3.5/F5.6 USM zoom (which due to the 1.6 crop factor is really about a 48 - 320mm) for about $375, a few filters, a decent bag and some 4GB compact flash cards. All in all, I’ve spent under $1500 and gotten a camera body with superb electronics, two relatively inexpensive zoom lenses with specifications, sharpness and clarity that is “light-years” beyond what we had in the 70’s. These lenses include optic elements ground using CNC equipment and the quality is far superior to the best FD lenses made by Canon during the 70’s in my opinion.

Now, I’m walking around a local sporting event carrying a state of the art rig with incredible optics, auto-focus, and no need for a motor drive since it’s entirely digital. The entire rig weighs in at under 2 lbs and my new Lowepro Mini Mag AW fully loaded with my second body, prime lens, filters, batteries, etc. weighs in at under 5 lbs. I take on average about 500 shots (RAW) and all I had to do was pop in a new CF card once in a while.

When the event is done, I head home and import all the shots into Aperture, which runs an automatic white-balance, sharpening, saturation and color-balance workflow in about forty-five minutes. I review all the shots, add some meta-data and select the best five or six for additional processing in Photoshop Elements. These I resize, crop to fit, export as jpeg and upload to .Mac or Flicker. I may also print a few of the better shots for my friends and family.

Today’s shots are crisp, clear and (if I’m lucky) “Tack Sharp”. They exhibit vibrant, warm color tones and have captured the action in milisecond increments. They are printed (at home) on brilliantly white, glossy paper that we would have paid hundreds ($) for in the 70’s and even the bad shots look good! And I’ve done all this at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time that it took in the 70’s. No messy chemicals. No smelling like “fixer” for three days. My refrigerator is filled with food, not with three cases of Pan-X, Plus-X, Tri-X and Ektachrome film.

My point? Even the “basic” gear available today is light-years ahead of what we had in the 70’s and you don’t need to spend a small fortune to get great looking shots. So, the next time you read a review of Canon’s “consumer” versus their “luxury” (L Series) lenses and get that itch to spend $3000 rather than $400 to get that “Tack Sharp Glass”, wait a moment! Look a little more carefully at Canon’s EF specs and (if you can) compare these to the FD specs from the 70’s. I think you’ll be amazed at you find.

If you’re a working pro or a very rich enthusiast, by all means go ahead and get that L Series prime lens. They really are incredibly sharp and durable. But for most of us, the EF Series is more than adequate and it’s design, technology and workmanship are far superior to what we had in the “old days”. Use the money you save to take your wife out for a nice dinner away from the kids. It’s the least you can do after running out night after night to capture that “perfect light” at sunset!

If you’re a working pro or just a photo enthusiast like me, you know that good gear is essential to capturing great images! Once you’ve caught “the bug”, you could spend literally thousands on photographic equipment, supplies and the like. And there is always something new out there that you’ve just “got to have!”. If you’re anything at all like me, you’ve bought all Scott Kelby’s books, read every camera and lens review on the web and watch all the major “photo pro” blogs daily! And you’re just itching to buy that new Gitzo carbon-fiber tripod legs, that really cool Really Right Stuff ball head and that incredible Boda Lens Bag, not to mention the latest versions of Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, etc.

Well, take heart my friend. Good Gear Doesn’t Have to Break the Bank!

Product images copyright Manfrotto Group

Take for example your basic aluminum tripod legs with your basic quick-release ball head or your high-tech, carbon-fiber monopod with quick-release swivel head. Both of these basic setups from Bogen / Manfrotto can be found for under $250 at B&H Photo (my personal favorite for the past twenty years). You really can’t beat the the light-weight but sturdy design of these two setups or the quality of the materials and workmanship put into these by Bogen / Manfrotto. At under $250 (even without rebate), both of these are great deals and will last you for years and years on your quest to catch that perfect light!

OK, would I like a Gitzo Traveller with a Really Right Stuff ball head? Of course. But at $1100 it’s just not worth it for an enthusiast like me and given the market-share that Manfrotto currently holds, I think a lot of folks would agree.

Day 5 in my RosettaNet implementation nightmare and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Just a quick post to those of you planning to use the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 3.5. There are a few little “issues” that you need to know about before you get started.

Accounts, Hosts & Host Instances

Hosts must have the Authentication Trusted option enabled. This has to be configured BEFORE you create any Host Instances. I recommend creating a new Service Account, a new In-Process Host, a new Isolated Host and then a new Host Instance for each of these as shown in the table below. You will also need to create new HTTP and SQL Send Handlers and Receive Handlers as well.

Note: The In-Process Host Instance account and Isolated Host Instance account must be the same for BTARN to work properly!

Installation & Configuration

Don’t use “localhost” for your BizTalk Server or Web Server name when running the Configuration Wizard. Use the NetBIOS name of your BizTalk Server machine and the NetBIOS name of your Web Server machine instead. The Configuration Wizard will fail with a strange error if you use default “localhost”.

Why? I have no earthly idea but I will be submitting this to the BizTalk team as a bug!

One final note

All the BTARN bits are deployed to the BizTalk Application 1 by default. I’m still trying to find a way to isolate the RosettaNet bits (schemas, maps, pipelines, ports and orchestrations) in their own BizTalk Apllication much like the new EDI/AS2 bits are. I’ll post if I find an easy way to accomplish this.

Happy Integrations!

Update

I just want everyone to know that I’m not really all that smart. I had a ton of help setting up BTARN 3.5 and getting things working properly! I hired the folks from Microsoft Consulting Services to come in and teach me everything I could learn about using RosettaNet in BizTalk Server 2006. Special thanks to Ross Santee! A great consultant.

Currently listening to: Dave Koz – Castle of Dreams

Day 3 in my RosettaNet implementation nightmare and I still can’t see the end of the road!

As you may or may not know, the American Petroleum Institute (API) has it’s own set of XML schemas and transport standards know as the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange or PIDX for short. This is the actual “standard” that my current RosettaNet project is really all about. The interesting about these schemas is the fact that they use their own unique namespace and prefix as shown below:

xmlns:pidx=”http://www.api.org/pidXML/1.0“

Since the BizTalk Mapper tool always generates XML document with the “ns0″ prefix and there is no property you can set to change this, you’ll need to use a little “XSLT slight-of-hand” to get this to work.

Step 1: Create your BizTalk Map as you normally would using the mapper tool.

Step 2: Validate your map and open the xslt generated by BizTalk Server 2006 in your favorite text editor. This file can usually be found in the “\temp\_mapdata” folder.

Step 3: Replace all instances of the namespace prefix “ns0″ with the prefix you require (which in this case is “pidx”) as shown below.

Step 4: Save the result as an .xslt file and include it (or add it) into your BizTalk project.

Step 5: Create a new map using the same source and destination schemas you used in Step 1 but use the external xslt you generated by setting the “Custom XSLT Path” property on your new map.

The results are shown in the figure below. Viola! The “ns0″ namespace prefix has been replaced by the desired “pidx” prefix.

Click below for more information about using external xslt in your maps.

Custom XSLT in BizTalk Maps

Take Away: There is always more than one way to skin a cat! In BTS2006 it may not be obvious how to do something a little unusual.

I’m stepping on my soapbox again so be warned!

Yes, I know I’ve said this before…

I’ve recently encountered a number of well-intentioned (or perhaps not so well-intentioned) companies looking to reduce their internal costs for processing orders and invoices through some sort of “business process automation” system. Being an avid BPA developer I applaud these efforts so long as they bring “value” to everyone in the supply chain. What I see all too often is companies spending thousands and thousands of dollars on web-based initiatives where the main goal is to shift the transaction processing from themselves to their suppliers. From a business perspective, this just isn’t a wise choice and from a technological perspective, it just isn’t necessary. Having your suppliers enter their invoices first on their ERP system and then on your web-based system does not reduce the “transaction cost” it just shifts the labor from yourself to your supplier.

True B2B Integration Doesn’t Just Shift Costs, It Eliminates Them!

The Internet offers developers the unparalleled opportunity to connect disparate systems together without paying EDI “VAN” (Value Added Private Network) charges, telecom “WAN” (wide area network) charges or even leased-line charges. Basically, all the infrastructure costs are essentially free or paid for though corporate web access. All the developer (and business analyst) has to do is “connect-the-dots” using products like Microsoft’s BizTalk Server, Tibco’s iProcess Suite or Software AG’s WebMethods product to eliminate the real transaction costs. It’s never been easier or more affordable to do this and the benefits to the entire supply chain are enormous! Automating the transaction processing so that the document (purchase order or invoice) is “touched” by human hands only during it’s creation doesn’t just shift costs, it eliminates them!

Yes, I’ve heard all the arguments about how “costly” B2B integration can be and how smaller companies really can’t afford to participate but IT JUST ISN’T TRUE! Products like BizTalk Server 2006 make BPA truly affordable for companies of any size. I know of at least one very small company that used this product to integrate QuickBooks (their “ERP” system) to their much larger suppliers and customers. If they can do this without breaking the bank, anyone can!

Developer Call To Action: The next time your senior management talks about automating business processes with customers and suppliers, don’t just develop a BPA system that shifts the costs, work to eliminate them altogether!

Captain Picard - “Admiral, we’ve engaged the Borg”

Day 2 in my RosettaNet development project and all I can say is “Who Invents This Stuff”?

Yes, it’s been a glorious two days of trying to comprehend the world’s most complicated business-to-business process. Only the electronics industry could conceive of something so overly complex. Secure, internet-based transactions were never meant to be this difficult. It’s like swatting a fly with an atom bomb! After ten years of B2B development I thought I had seen it all. Boy, was I wrong!

And the worse thing is that you have to pay for the privilege of enduring this torture. Every other xml standards organization I’ve ever dealt with freely distributes their schemas and specifications for everyone to use. Not so for the folks at RosettaNet.org! You’ll have to pay anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars for the rights to use their “PIP”s (Partner Interface Process) which is really nothing for than an XML DTD or XSD (schema) and a process guide explaining the message flow. It looks like RosettaNet.org used to publish these on their web site but now you’ll have to pay for a subscription to get these.

Why on earth would so many smart B2B developers adopt such an overly complex, expensive and time consuming standard is beyond my understanding. Folks, business-to-business transactions do NOT have to be this difficult.

Stay tuned for more fun & games!