All the votes are in! 

  

And below are the results for the TechNet Guru Awards, January 2014!!!

  

The TechNet Guru Awards celebrate the technical articles on TechNet, contributed from valued wiki authors like YOU!

Each month, the contributions are scored by a panel of judges (5 per category, 2-3 in each are MS experts, often people working on the products), and the winners of each category are showered with love and attention from all corners of TechNet and MSDN (Forums, Blogs, Wiki, etc.).

See the links at the bottom, to find out more about the competition and how to enter.

  

We have picked the top three highest scored contributions for each category to bestow our awards upon.

The awards are in gold, silver and bronze, the gold obviously being the top winner of the category.

The last column is just a few of the comments judges made during the judging process.

In some cases, we have not obtained permission to use the judges names, so they have been reduced to initials.

 

My fellow wiki ninjas will be digging deeper into some of these articles in this blog series, so watch out for those.

Starting this month you will notice some articles are marked as failing to meet our minimum bar for quality or content.

Any of our judges can exercise their right to veto an article, if they do not feel it meets minimum requirements for a medal.  

When this is the case, we will at least give an indication of the reason, so you understand why.

  

A big thank you also to the other authors who did not make the top three of each category.

Some articles only just missed out, so we may be returning to discuss those too, in future blogs.

          

 

Guru Award BizTalk Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 René Brauwers Windows Azure BizTalk Services - Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)  TGN: "Very nice and a really really good explained article. Thumbs up! "
Ed Price: "Rene, your diagrams are awesome. Plus your tables, code, explanations... everything feels like I'm reading a professional book. Plus anything named "BAM" is good marketing. =^) The only thing I would suggest is to break up the code a tiny bit more with more explanations around each step. Thank you for this great contribution! "

Silver Award Winner

 

 Colin Meade Sysprep BizTalk Server Ed Price: "A very good look into Sysprep and kudos for reviewing the article with your peers!"

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Steef-Jan Wiggers BizTalk Services Bridges – Troubleshooting Ed Price: "BizTalk Services Bridges - this is a great topic that is explained very well by Steef-Jan with a diagram and clear screenshots. A very valuable contribution! "
TGN: "this was bound to come, and it is not strange that Steef-Jan was the one making it. Very good article Steef-Jan!"


Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:

   

Guru Award Forefront Identity Manager Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Eihab Isaac Installing BHold FIM Integration PG: "Nice article, would like to see more of these BHOLD articles."
Ed Price: "Eihab, you made your topic very clear. The Note section and images all help. Short and sweet! Great job!"

Silver Award Winner

 

 Mr X How to create a FIM Synchronization Service custom attribute Ed Price: "This is a good topic with a great introduction! The steps formatting wasn't great (four step 1's), but it's hard to format correctly in the Wiki. I recommend doing the numbers manually when they're big sections with multiple paragraphs and images. The instructions and images are well thought out, and the Important section is very well formatted. Good job on this topic!"
PG: "Needs work. Would like to see more in-depth and more accurate information."

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Mr X How to prepare a FIM Management Agent Run Profile Script to be used in a Scheduled Task PG: "Needs work. There are some more articles on managing run profiles, which can be linked to."
Ed Price: "Great script and good set of images for this scenario!"

 
 

Guru Award SharePoint 2010 / 2013 Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Rahul A Shinde SharePoint 2013: Deep integration of Yammer Search with SharePoint search Margriet Bruggeman: "Good article about the integration between Yammer and SharePoint 2013! Real-world solution for a social feature that is quite desirable. Great work!"
GO: "WHOOO! Here it is, finally a Yammer article! Absolutely great article! Love it, and I'm going to use it! We need more articles like that! GREAT!"
Craig Lussier: "Superb article Rahul! An interesting topic with a great walk through."
Jinchun Chen: "Nice!"
Ed Price: "Rahul provides another fun topic... Yammer Search! This is a great article with a well formatted TOC, descriptions, instructions, and images. My only suggestion is to break up the code blocks more with more explanations of what's happening. Great article!"

Silver Award Winner

 

 Matthew Yarlett SharePoint: Create 2000 Domain Accounts with Profile Photos for a Development Environment Jinchun Chen: "I am sure many SharePoint developers would like this article!"
Ed Price: "Another work of art from Matthew, with beautifully formatted code and images, and incredibly clear descriptions and instructions! Fantastic article with a great list of references at the bottom!"
Margriet Bruggeman: "Great tutorial, good step by step explanation! This actually saves a real-world problem and makes that part of testing a lot more fun!"
Craig Lussier: "Another great article from Matthew! Great examples with useful real world application for testing."
GO: "This is a clever way for importing/creating 2000 Domain Accounts with Profile Photos for a Development Environment. My guess is that everybody can use this document without any problem and will be very useful for the Community!"

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Daniel Christian SharePoint Online: A no-code solution to create and customize Access service app using Access 2013 Ed Price: "So you're reading a fantastic article, getting into the great descriptions, images, lists, instructions, etc. Then something astonishing happens. You get to the end of a section, and it's like, "Oh, by the way, if you didn't catch the steps above, here's a video of them." Your mouth opens. Then it happens at the end of the next section. After 7 videos from 6 sections, your jaw is resting on the ground. That's this article! If this wasn't such a competitive month, this could have been the top article. It's great to see so much quality!"
Jinchun Chen: "Nice!"
Craig Lussier: "This is a great and thoughtful article with practical scenarios, a lot of images and good descriptions. Well done!"
GO: "Great article, but seems TOO long.. Maybe work in several parts?"
Margriet Bruggeman: "Nice, there isn't that much info about Access services out there, so this is a valuable article. I have to say, personally I kinda dislike Access services and based on my personal dislike I've scored the article a little bit lower than it probably deserves, so sorry for that! I really like the fact that it also includes videos."


Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:

  • SharePoint 2010 Tutorial: Building a movie application with JEFS by Steven Andrews 
    GO: "This article has code, a tutorial, a funny image and in a very well written language! to be honest this article is more then complete! Well done!"
    Ed Price: "Steven came up with my favourite topic, which was hard to do, with some other fun topics for January. But I get to build a movie app on SP2010? That's a fun adventure! And Steven takes you through it, short and sweet, with well-formatted images, instructions, and code snippets! "
    Margriet Bruggeman: "Great article, providing a good example of how to use the JavaScript Editor for SharePoint! Didn't know too much about JEFS, and it's really handy, although one has to wonder if it's the SharePoint equivalent of Pandora's box."
    Craig Lussier: "This is a great article and illustrating a practical use of JavaScript and jQuery. I enjoyed this subject." 
  • SharePoint 2010: Reading List Items of a Large SharePoint List using Content Iterator by Chitvan Jain 
    Margriet Bruggeman: "I'm missing a TOC but besides that very useful. Great for batch processing"
    Craig Lussier: "Useful code for batch processing. Would have liked the ability to copy the code."
    Ed Price: "Good article from Chitvan! But shouldn't the code be formatted as code blocks so that the readers can try it out? Thanks!"
  • SharePoint 2010 : Create List with different list templates using ECMA Script by Nilesh Jain
    Ed Price: "Nilesh nails the code and images, but I would have liked some solid descriptions of each sample and maybe examples. Steven Andrews captured it well in the comments: "I think what would really help this article is lowering the audience profile. By this, I mean consider guiding a beginner onto how these code samples would be used. Adding the introduction and some further step-by-step additions would be helpful." Thank you for this contribution, Nilesh!"
    Margriet Bruggeman: "Nice reference, but a little bit short. Maybe there's some more in depth stuff to show here?"
    GO: "Not sure if this is the best way to do it."
  • SharePoint Site Custom Web Part SQL Report Viewer Export to Excel Error by Mohammad Nizamuddin
    Ed Price: "A very helpful solution if you find this issue!"
    Margriet Bruggeman: "Good tip when struggling with this particular problem"

   

Guru Award  Small Basic Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 LitDev Small Basic: Threading Ed Price: "I love it! Very in depth on the threading topic! Great job! The perfect amount of explanations!"
Peter Laker: "Fantastic article. Loads of meaty discussion too. Great work LitDev!"

Silver Award Winner

 

 Nonki Takahashi Small Basic: Font Ed Price: "Great use of images, descriptions, and the table! And the samples really add a lot to this!"
Peter Laker: "Very nice Font primer Nonki! Nice visuals too."


  

Guru Award SQL BI and Power BI Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Firdous S - MSFT How to generate XML files in SSIS for each row of a SQL table without any custom code (No script task) by Firdous S Ed Price: "Good formatting and great sequential steps!"

Silver Award Winner

 

 AB82 Power Pivot: Dynamic Filtering Using Slicers Post Convert to Formulas Ed Price: "The problem statement is good. This is a very important topic. It could benefit from sections, a TOC, and clearly defined formatting on the steps. The images help a lot!"

Bronze Award Winner

 

 AB82 Consume Web-Service via a SSIS Script Component Ed Price: "A good list of steps with important notes. It could benefit from sections and a TOC. Thank you for this contribution!"

 

Note from Ed: You should note that I wasn't the only judge here. Just the only judge with comments. =^)
Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:

Guru Award SQL Server General and Database Engine Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Praveen Rayan D'sa SQL Server: Misleading Database Initial Size Label DB: "Interesting sleuthing"
DRC: "• This is a very good article. • This provides more insight about the topic which we usually don’t see it in document online. • The second part of the query needs to be manually written as it is shown in the screen shot. The command needs to be added. "
Ed Price: "Good formatting on the notes, code, images, and sections. Great job going in depth on this topic!"

Silver Award Winner

 

 Shanky SQL Server Memory and Troubleshooting Jinchun Chen: "Good. There have other concepts to be included in my opinion, for example NUMA, Cache, Allocator"
Ed Price: "Incredibly detailed article! DRC has some great ideas about how to improve this article. Great job on it!"
DRC: "* Article is informative and provides basic understanding of most of the SQL server memory related topics. * There are few areas where the meaning of the statements are right but are unclear. * We need to move the 3rd party links to the reference section. * Adding few diagrams would have made the article more interesting.* Over all the article is good and can be published as wiki * Since the topics covered is already available on Internet, had to move this artice to 4th position"
DB: "Long and useful, but a bit out-of-date with emphasis on 32bit and pre-SQL2012"

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Shanky When Using DBCC SHRINKFILE for log files can we use TRUNCATEONLY OPTION DRC: "* The article looks good, simple but informative. * This can be considered as documentation bug for MSDN article and needs to be fixed. "
Ed Price: "Great job finding this documentation issue!"


Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:

  • SQL Server: Change the Login Password using PowerShell by John Sansom
    Ed Price: "Although I would have liked to see the code split up more and explained in more detail, but this is a great use of PowerShell!"  
    DRC: "The article doesn’t contain details about how to prepare the files for execution. Provide more details on how to build the required 2 files for execution (Delimiter & format of the input file). Permission required for execution as we get the below error by default:  
    PS C:\temp> .\Change_SQLLoginPassword.ps1 .\ServerList.txt SQLUser1 NewPassword1 .\Change_SQLLoginPassword.ps1 : File C:\temp\Change_SQLLoginPassword.ps1 cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system. For more information, see about_Execution_Policies at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170. At line:1 char:1 + .\Change_SQLLoginPassword.ps1 .\ServerList.txt SQLUser1 NewPassword1 + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : SecurityError: (:) [], PSSecurityException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnauthorizedAccess  
    This article provides more details about how to fix the above error: Running Windows PowerShell Scripts http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176949.aspx  • We also need to mention that the account which we are trying to connect to should be a SYSADMIN/SECURITYADMIN on the SQL server instance. • This script can be improved by prompting the user to even use SQL Authentication to connect to SQL instances. • Over all this is an interesting read."
  • SQL Server Instant File Initialization by John Sansom
    DRC: "* The article is very well written and explained as required. * We already have a good MSDN blog on this, which is why it's rated a little lower: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sql_pfe_blog/archive/2009/12/23/how-and-why-to-enable-instant-file-initialization.aspx"
    Ed Price: "Very good article! Good topic, and it's short and sweet, with great formatting! I think it's a familiar topic that's been previously explained, but you did a great job with it!"
  • How to partition an existing table in SQL Server by Sql Saga
    DRC: "* The article is good but the explaination in the 6th point is confusing "DROP AND RECREATE THE CLUSTERED INDEX. This is a very important part of our scenario. If you are working with a brand new table to partition, it is a highly recommended step. If you are partitioning an already existing table, it is a required step."  
    * Need more clarity on the reason for dropping & recreating the clustered index. * Need details on scenario where we choose a non-cluster index column for creation of partition (Do we need to recreate cluster index or non-cluster index or both??) * Provide reference about the topics which are discussed --Partition function --Partition schema --Its requirements *Sample scenario with output for partition created on non-clustered index column (for more clarity)"
    Ed Price: "You did a great job with the images and code formatting. There are several articles in the TechNet Library that also cover this topic (and I think a Books Online Tutorial, but I can't find that one). So it didn't get voted as high because similar content is available. It could benefit from a TOC. This article was very well written!"
  • SQL Server 2012 Database Partitioning by joeydj
    DRC: "* The article is very well written and explained as required. * All the required screen shots are present with explanations. "
    Ed Price: "There are some other methods to partitioning that the reader should probably try out first. But this article has some great explanations! Also, readers should check out this forum thread (created to discuss this Wiki article) and see which methodology they agree with: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/9087137b-232b-4bdf-8944-947d8876d142/table-partitioining"
    This article raised issues of concern. The comments were: "Microsoft teams do not recommend this approach to partitioning." And "See Ed's note above about the forum thread. It seems to be a debate with fair opinions."
  • Send Replication Alert along with query to find exact command by Mohan Kumar
    Ed Price: "While this is a very useful script, it would have been improved by breaking up and explaining the code more."    
    DRC: "Interesting article. Good script and makses the life of a SQL DBA much easier."  
    This article raised issues of concern. The comments were: "The article seems to be incomplete as it doesn’t explain how to implement the topics discussed. It also needs explanation of what modifications need to be done on the code in order to execute in any environments."
  • Replacing the collation of a SQL Server Database by Durval Ramos
    Ed Price: "This is a very beautiful and well-formatted article! The judges gave some feedback that this could be a bit confusing for a new user. So it would help to have more explanations to parts. Overall, this is an important topic, you did a good job in writing it up, and you did a great job with the image, section, and code formatting! Even though this is a great topic, we had a few judges rate it lower because they found it confusing. Some clarity suggestions they had: An example script with output and explanations, reworking the sequence of the queries and output (so they flow sequentially a bit more), seems to move in and out of context (honestly, I'm not sure what that one means), and maybe reworking the sentence structure. If it's English grammar, then I (and a few others) can give grammar advice on your next article for this competition, because your topic choice is fantastic and the formatting is really good!"   
    DRC: "The article discusses a great topic as we usually don't find many articles on this topic."  

   

Guru Award  Transact-SQL Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Ronen Ariely Convert VBA Code to Transact-SQL DB: "Good treatment on converting older VBA scripts"
Richard Mueller: "Potentially important. I would like to see examples of VBA code with the corresponding T-SQL."

Silver Award Winner

 

 Himanshu Sharma T-SQL: Calendar Table Richard Mueller: "Very useful. I like the idea. This is code I would use and recommend."
DB: "Another helpful treatment of calendar tables, with usable examples"

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Naomi N T-SQL: How to put Grouped Results on the Same Line Richard Mueller: "Useful code. It would help to show the results."


Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:

   

Guru Award  Visual Basic Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Paul Ishak Braille Code in .Net

Richard Mueller: "Very informative.The code could be very useful. I assume the output can be printed so a reader of braille can "read" it."  
MR: "Fun program and neat coding challenge."
Anthony D. Green: "I like the topic. I particularly like the tie in of braille to binary as it shows how a very technical concept can be applied to a very human problem. I wish the article were broken up into chunks with a description and some source code in number steps that the reader could digest individually rather than one big intro and then one huge blob of code with comments embedded. Commments are great but it's still way too much code to read through in one go. Good article though."
SB: "Like it with a practical application,"   
Ed Price: "This is awesome! What a fun topic! This would benefit from Headers and a TOC. But you have good in-code comments and images to explain it. "  
Peter Laker: "Loooove this topic paul! Nice code dump too."

Silver Award Winner

 

 .paul. DataBinding Richard Mueller: "Basic information on binding to and establishing the relationship between different tables. Why is so much code commented out?"
SB: "Databinding is an interesting topic and would like more examples with XML projects. ie. WPF/Win store or WP apps as well as highlighting a few of the benefits."
MR: "Great article to break the ice on data-binding"
Anthony D. Green: "Data binding is one of my favorite topics in UI developers. It can make a lot of things very simple with minimal code. I love that the author showed how the code/concepts could easily be applied to Access, SQL Server, and MySQL since I've seen many developers struggle with getting help from other developers using different providers from them. Kudos for being inclusive. This article could use more chunking - maybe explaining each portion of it maybe on method at a time with maybe a separate callout for each of the database providers detailing how the code is similiar and where it's different. I'm familiar with a lot of the concepts presented here but at times it feels like the author has taken for granted familiarity with a lot of comments, APIs, and technical jargon (DataTables, DataSets, DataRelations, DataMembers, BindingSource, etc). He dives into them at lightning pace and also assumes an understanding of how relational databases are designed and laid out. Obviously a full course on databases isn't the goal of this article but I would have liked just a little more exposition. As a final nitpick I'll say it's a little distracting to use the plus symbol (+) or one-digit numbers in the middle or text just because on a programming topic you mind is seeking out code and seeing those symbols can force a context switch when one isn't intended. But that's a minor thing - otherwise this is a good topic for developers to look through."

  

Guru Award  Visual C# Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Jaliya Udagedara Action, Func<TResult> and Predicate<T> Delegate Peter Laker: "Very nice article Jaliya. Plenty of explanations along the way."
Ed Price: "Fantastic formatting with some good descriptions! Please also check out Carsten's comment on the page! Great contribution!"

Silver Award Winner

 

 chilberto Comparisn between System.Xml.XmlDocument and System.Xml.Linq.XDocument Ed Price: "Great comparison! It could use headers, a TOC, and to have the code broken up a bit more with explanations. Naomi also has some good suggestions in the comments! Thanks!"
Peter Laker: "Thanks chilberto, this is a very useful resource."

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Mohammad Nizamuddin Asynchronous method call in C# Ed Price: "This is a great topic, but I'd want to see the code broken up more with explanations."
Peter Laker: "Excellent work Mohammad. Great to see download link too."


Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:

  • Braille Code in .Net by
    Ed Price: "This is awesome! What a fun topic! This would benefit from Headers and a TOC. But you have good in-code comments and images to explain it.
    Hey! You entered this in both categories (VC# and VB)! You need to pick one! Fantastic article! It was in the running for both categories, but we realized at the very end what was happening. I left its votes in VB since there were fewer articles for January in that category. I guess you figured we'd catch it sooner than we did. =^)"
    Peter Laker: "Loooove this topic paul! Nice code dump too."

   

Guru Award  Windows Phone and Windows Store Apps Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Damien Allan Windows 8.1: Creating Dynamic Live Tiles from User Controls with XAML and VB Ed Price: "This is a fun topic that's incredibly in depth! Hello world! How are you? Wait, does the world ever respond???"
Peter Laker: "Really nice primer for Live Tiles, great work Damian!"

Silver Award Winner

 

 Andrea Domenichini Windows 8.1: how to create a filters control like Health & Fitness and Food & Drink apps in XAML and C# Ed Price: "Another creative and fun example! It could use a TOC. In fact, I'm adding one now!"
Peter Laker: "Very nice article Andrea! Nice subject and great layout."

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Ken Tucker Windows Phone 8: Seeding a Lex.DB Database for a windows phone app Peter Laker: "Nice Lex.DB tutorial Ken, thanks!"
Ed Price: "Good descriptions, great code formatting, and a very intriguing topic!"


Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:

   

Guru Award  Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Magnus (MM8) WPF/MVVM: Binding to Read-Only Properties Using Behaviors Ed Price: "Great topic with good explanations. Could use better code formatting. Great job!"
Peter Laker: "Another sensational article from Manus!" 

Silver Award Winner

 

 Srithar Data Validation in MVVM Peter Laker: "Excellent topic, good spread of info and nice layout!"
Ed Price: "Very good approach and process! Could use a TOC."

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Gal Ratner Asynchronous validation in WPF using the MVVM pattern and INotifyDataErrorInfo Peter Laker: "Another great validation article, this is just what we need at TechNet Wiki!"
Ed Price: "Good topic and code! Could benefit from a TOC."


Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:

   

Guru Award  Windows Server Technical Guru - January 2014  

Gold Award Winner

 

 Mr X AdminSDHolder, protected groups and Security propagator GL: "Good presentation of a scenario and how to solve it."
JM: "Great information for Administrators, really good work."

Silver Award Winner

 

 Joseph Moody 10 Common Problems Causing Group Policy To Not Apply JM: "This is a very useful, excellent article."
GL: "This is good. I would also probably expand #5 to include conflicts and cases where GP is ignored - such as when domain GP is configured causing all settings in local GP to be ignored. Also there are instances where GP is merged. I would also just mention gpresult."

Bronze Award Winner

 

 Santhosh Sivarajan Keyboard Shortcuts and Commands - Server GL: "Very helpful!"
JM: "This is an excellent reference topic, thanks!"


Also worth a mention were the other entries this month: