Claims-Based Auth with VS 2012, MVC 4, and ADFS2
Mark Johnson  
The journey to get this done was a little longer than I thought. Here are some hurdles and how high you have to jump to get over them. All the articles I found were incomplete, so after gritting my teeth for several hours putting things together, I thought I'd share my findings. This is just a quick article to point you in the right direction to get around the issues I had to resolve.

Speculations for Build 2013
John Ptacek   
Build is a Microsoft developer conference that has taken the place of their Professional Developer Conference (PDC). The first Build was held in 2011 and introduced the world to Windows 8 Preview. Last year’s Build, saw the release of Windows 8 and Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet. Microsoft has not yet announced sessions or topics for this year’s Build, which will be held June 26-28, 2013 in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. However, that is not stopping us from speculating on what we are going to see.

JavaScript in Excel?
Chris Plate  
Early on in my career, I had the opportunity to do quite a bit of work building prototypes and optimization tools using Excel, VBA, and some C/C++ libraries. Making updates to the business logic in these apps was usually a pain as users had their own copies of the installed files. So when I heard about “Apps for Office” which use the new “JavaScript API for Office”, my curiosity was piqued. This seemed like an interesting way of enabling apps that interact with spreadsheet data to live outside the spreadsheet itself and instead use something like an ASP.NET Web API instance as the home of the business logic in these apps.

Using Master Data Services to Implement Conditional Tabs in Qlikview
Eric Hyland  
Qlikview Enterprise Management Console can be used to centralize the administration of the standard Qlikview Section Access data as illustrated in the QlikView Security Video Series (6 of 8): Centralized Section Access Control video. This does provides a central and secure location for the management of users for a document but what if you wish to enable other non-Qlikview Administrators to manage their own Qlikview document access information?

The One “Right” Way
Chris Plate  
Recently I was catching up on a blog I’d lost track of lately and stumbled across a back-and-forth on the topic of software craftsmanship. There’s lots of good stuff to consider if you read through the whole exchange, but one particular aspect that was called out was the apparently prevalent idea that there is one “right” way to write software.

Querying Active Directory through SQL Server Using OpenRowset and OpenQuery
Nicki Kowalchuk  
While working with a client, I was asked to build some stored procedures that would display name and email for a user given their Windows username for use on a report. I found myself pulling together bits and pieces from many sites to get everything I needed. So I decide to put together an article with all the information I was looking for in one place. Whether or not you agree with using SQL to query Active Directory, it is an option, and this article shows how it can be done.

10 Tips for Upgrading to SharePoint 2013
Eric VanRoy  

Recently at Skyline Technologies we upgraded our intranet from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013. Based on that upgrade, I felt it useful to publish some tips that may help others looking to upgrade their environment. We consider our upgrade successful since we are up and running on SharePoint 2013 with only a few minor issues to yet resolve.

Most upgrade blogs are written in a forward –thinking fashion by telling you what you should do and what you should not do. Since we can see our successes and failure much better in hindsight, this blog is coming at it from that perspective. I’m going to share some tips that we learned by looking back at the upgrade. These may have been learned because we did them correctly and they worked out, or they may have been learned because we did not do them so well.

The Value of an ETL Framework
Cory Cundy  
​​A data warehouse project consists of a number of core parts that need to be put in place to get good analytics reporting for your users. At a high level, the parts consist of data modeling, data mapping, ETL (Extract, Transfer and Load) processes, data validation, possibly the creation of a cube and the creation of front end reporting and dashboards. Depending on the size of the project, these tasks can take a fair amount of time to implement.

​​Delivering Value Within the Healthcare Industry
Ned Haas  
​In recent years Skyline has had the privilege of working with a number of healthcare clients on some of their highest priority initiatives. This has put us in position to see, firsthand, the rapidly changing landscape they are facing, and the significant business challenges they are grappling with.

Getting Started with Azure Mobile Services
Shaun Hankermeyer  
​In my last blog post, What are Azure Mobile Services?, we began to explore what this new feature set of Windows Azure could provide. Now, in just a few steps you will begin to appreciate the speed in which you can create a Windows Azure Mobile Service and connect it to your iOS application. Some of the following steps are one time only, such as signing up for a Windows Azure account and enabling the Mobile Services feature, so subsequent development work will be even faster.