Visual Studio
We’re getting ready for the next version of MvcConf on Tuesday, 2/8/2011 from 8AM-5PM CST! What is MvcConf? MvcConf is a virtual conference focused on one thing: writing awesome applications on top of the ASP.Net MVC framework. Your brain will explode from taking in so much hard core technical sessions. Sounds fun eh? This is a community event and we want the best and brightest sharing what they know. We intend to record each session and make them available online for viewing. We intend to make the videos available free of charge, depending on conference sponsorships. ...
Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting at DevConnections at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV. I had a total blast interacting with attendees, fellow speakers and checking out the vendor hall. The logistics for the conference were remarkable given there was approximately 2,800 people in attendance! For those of you that attended my presentations, thank you! I hope you were able to get something out of them; I had a blast presenting and interacting with you in each of them. Also, I had a great time with the open spaces sessions. There was lots of good...
Recently my good friend and fellow C4MVC junkie, Eric Hexter blogged about an event the ASP.NET MVC community is putting together called, MvcConf. What is MvcConf? MvcConf is a online conference where you can learn about real experiences creating MVC applications as well about what the future holds for creating asp.net apps based on MVC. We have scheduled community members to present on intro and advanced topics using MVC2 and we have some Microsoft product members who will talk about some of the new stuff coming out soon. Why should I care? If you’re interested in...
Last week, it was tweeted that MVC Turbine v2.1 had reached RTM. Release Notes The released bits can be downloaded from the main project site; the features it provides are (same as v2.0 RTM plus these): Instance Registration to IServiceLocator You can now add an instance of a type to the underlying container so you can address the single instance context. IServiceLocator is registered into the container ...
The MVC Turbine bits are now compiled against ASP.NET MVC 2 RC2 which runs on .NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008. You can get the bits by going to the CodePlex site. Please note that this the same feature release as MVC Turbine v2.0 RTM. The following is compiled and upgraded to work with .NET3.5 in VS2008: VS2008 Templates Runtime binaries Feature Samples Nerd Dinner Sample Okonau Sample Again, as I mentioned before, the main...
The MVC Turbine bits are now compiled against ASP.NET MVC 2 RC which runs on .NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008. You can get the bits by going to the CodePlex site. Please note that this the same feature release as MVC Turbine v2.0 RTM. The following is compiled and upgraded to work with .NET3.5 in VS2008: Runtime binaries Feature Samples Nerd Dinner Sample Okonau Sample Again, as I mentioned before, the main development will take place onVS2010 and...
I would like to thank Rob Conery for posing the question:
As the project’s portal states:
MVC Turbine is a plugin for ASP.NET MVC that has IoC baked in and auto-wires controllers, binders, view engines, http modules, etc. that reside within your application. Thus you worry more about what your application should do, rather than how it should do it.
Let’s see how this plays out for your application…
Plain Old MVC Application
If you create an MVC application by using File –> New, you get the full power of the MVC framework but your application is not yet setup to take full advantage...
I’ve blogged in the past about the extensible component model for MVC Turbine, this post is a continuation on that concept, except with views as embedded resources. Virtual Path Provider: The Secret Sauce Not sure how many of you know this, but a VirtualPathProvider (VPP) is a way to provide the ASP.NET runtime with resources from a virtual file system. In other words, you can provide files such ash web forms, scripts or anything else that’s served to the ASP.NET run time to process. To learn how to this more in detail, check...
Well, here’s the official blog post for the tweet I did last night: I figured, I should tweet the release and have people get an early access to it, then blog the same (plus more) information here. :) What is MVC Turbine? I’ve been asked many times for the 140 char description of Turbine, so here it is for the record: MVC Turbine is a plug-in for ASP.NET MVC that has IoC baked in and auto-wires controllers, binders, view engines, http modules, etc. that reside within in your application. Thus...
The whole purpose of MVC Turbine is to make the development of an MVC application easy and streamlined. This can be done through the use of a new feature of V2 called “Blades”. Essentially, a Blade is nothing more than a component (or slice) of a Turbine application since it provides a layer of abstraction to a concern of the application. For example, a Turbine MVC application ships with three core blades out of the box: MvcBlade – Performs all ASP.NET MVC related work, i.e., setup of Controller factories, View Engines, etc. ...
That’s right, get the v2 RC release while it’s hot! Version 2 of MVC Turbine, is a complete re-write of the plug-in that allows these features: New runtime framework that allows extensibility Blades (components) that are auto-registered and loaded at runtime. Introduced the Core Blades to setup the basic runtime of an MVC application: MvcBlade -- wiring for MVC related components (Controllers, View Engines, etc). ...
This past weekend while working on my talk for the Heartland Developer's Conference, I toyed with the idea of showing multiple ASP.NET MVC View Engines (VE) ‘co-existing’ within the same application. Why do that? Well, I wanted to show how using open source tools like MVC Turbine, MVC Contrib and Spark within your application, you can assemble some pretty cool stuff. And most important, it made for a really cool demo. :) Please note that this concept is not anything new. Phil has blogged about a similar topic in the past. However, this approach extends what Phil...
For those of you that follow me on twitter, you’ve noticed that I’ve been tweeting a lot about a new side project called MVC Turbine.
MVC Turbine is a simple way to provide flow and plumbing within ASP.NET MVC applications, or as its tag line suggest, it converts flow into useful work. A few weeks ago, I had a quick poll on twitter that asked:
As you can see, from the results, 50% of the responses where “Yes, always!” which means that you’re wanting more out of your MVC application.
Please, don’t get this the wrong way: I’m not saying that Phil...
As some of you already know, I blogged about my reaction to the Oxite MVC sample from the MIX Online Labs. Also, I started blogging some of my ideas for refactoring the source to make it a bit more streamlined. More importantly, I want use these posts as a way to share my ideas on how to use the new ASP.NET MVC framework. Not that I am “the source” for the right implementation, but I do want to provide another insight to the problem. Anywho…
Instead of keeping my source in zip files and bits and pieces, I created a fork...
Can't make it to the Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) in LA? Well, we've started a new group called NotAtPDC! Chris Love is the genious behind this movement! Here's some info from him:
We are going to have live meeting sessions, links to Blogs, Podcasts and any other .NET related content featured this week. Right now we are trying to get things organized better. We will have a site live in the morning. If you want to schedule a session or something DM http://twitter.com/NotAtPDC.
Chris is in the process on getting a website up to aggregate some of the content that the...
For those of you doing MVC out there you've probably noticed that every time you create a new view within your project, the template that VS uses creates a both a .aspx.cs and a .aspx.designer.cs file for your view. A group of mvps/insiders have been talking about this topic for a bit. A small group of us feel that providing this file is a temptation that can lead to world of hurt. To us, the this code behind file is a honeypot asking for bad practices. The fact that you have a codebehind file and that you can put...
For those of you that attended one or both at of my talks at VSLive Las Vegas or HDC Omaha 2008, I just want to say, thank you! And for the VSLive folks, I do apologize for cutting my open source tools talk short by 10 minutes. I had to jet out of the Mirage so I can make the plane back to the Midwest!
As promised, I upgraded my code to run with Beta 1 of the ASP.NET MVC Framework! So, if you want to get the latest bits go to: http://jglozano.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/presentations
You will find my slide deck as well as...
A couple of weeks back, I recorded a podcast with, our community MS Developer Evangelist, Jeff Brand for his Spaghetti Code series. I was informed by Jeff, today that he finally posted it! I had a heck of a time recording this podcast with Jeff, the hour just flew by! If yo have the time, download the podcast and check it out!
Links:
Direct Download - click here
Subscribe - click here
iTunes - click here
So, here's a little shameless self plug for a book that Bryan Sampica and I are writing...also, I'm using this blog post as a warm up for my writing this evening! Yes, like I just mentioned, I'm co-authoring a book for Wrox with Bryan entitled, ASP.NET 3.5 Programmer's Reference. The purpose of the book is to get you the novice/beginner introduced to the features of ASP.NET 3.5, and hopefully teach you a few tricks things along the way. The book is due out in November, so that means that my summer (evenings) is pretty much booked up. I must...
For those of you that attended my Silverlight presentation yesterday at the Twin Cities Code Camp, I just want to say, "Thanks for coming! I hope you enjoyed it!" As promised, you can download the presentation slides and source code from Google code using TortoiseSVN. Again, thanks for coming to my presentation and thanks to Jason Bock for allowing me to come up and be part of a great event!
That's right! We're having another ASP.NET Expert Live Chat on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 6 PM PST. Here's more info on the event: Get your tough development questions answered by Microsoft MVPs, Regional Directors, and other industry experts. Community experts will be on hand to answer your .NET- and Visual Studio-related questions. No off topic questions please. Please note that questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs might not be answered. Would you like to participate as an expert? Contact Ryan Olshan at Ryan[dot]Olshan[at]strongtypes[dot]com. MSDN Online Chats - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx Chat Room...
As you recall, we cancelled last month's UG meeting due to weather. For this month, we're having Bryan Sampica, an ASP.NET MVP from Cedar Falls, come talk to us about WPF! The info for the meeting is below. Hope to see you there! Utilizing WPF as a Business Application Platform Bryan Sampica, ASI Computer Systems With the emergence of WPF and XAML as a UI framework, we've seen lots of demo's and examples on animating birds, and playing video clips. In this session we'll examine the business...
That's right, there will be a HEROES happen {here} event in Des Moines on 4/24! Here's some info on the event: The Des Moines event will celebrate the launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. The event will bring together IT Pros and Developers to get an in-depth, up-close look at the new products and will give attendees an opportunity to meet with our Partners as well as members of the development teams who created the cutting-edge technologies. And all attendees will get a promotional pack containing all three new products....
I'm not sure how many of you out there have heard of Video.Show, a ready to run solution for hosting video on the web. It's a great video sharing web site blue print built by the guys at Vertigo. I've been looking at this app since it's RC (or beta) release and it's pretty sweet. The display and interaction of HD video is pretty awesome!
Jon Galloway, one (if not the) developers, of the application has a great write up of the features of this application out on his blog. If you want more detail info on the features of...
That's right, remember a while back when I blogged about FlickrNSurface? Well, since then, I've been showing people the demo code and some of them have been wanting to know how they can get their hands on it for their own website/projects. At that point, I thought to myself, what is the best way to share the code and any changes that I make to it? That's when I realized I should make this into an open-source project! What better way to share ideas and implementations with community than by allowing them to contribute directly to it! Again, I've...
Wow! I stumbled into this "blast from the past" the other day, I just had to share it with you. Here's the background story...
A couple of years ago, I encountered some source for a C# compiler written in pure C# by Mike Stall. I downloaded the source and started messing around with it seeing how it worked. At around the same time, I had a conversation with Nick about how English is the dominant language for technology and that most (if not all) programming languages are written in English. Granted, this is a good thing since it establishes a convention...
Thanks to Mitchel Sellers from IowaComputerGurus for presenting to our user group last night! We had a pretty great turn out and some really nice swag to give away! For those of you that were there, thanks for your support! As I mentioned during the meeting, we're going to try something a little different for distributing demo materials (code, ppts, etc.). I've setup a iadnug, a Google Code open source project, to host our code. (yeah, clever name I know...) So for those of you that have SVN or TortoiseSVN installed, you can check out the code. If you...
Running a user group is not easy. It takes quite a bit of coordination to get sponsorships, line up the venue, line up speakers, find swag, schedule the logistics and the most important, order pizza...just to name a few. At times we've been contacted by our members asking when the website will be updated with the meeting info or when will Levi send out the email blast reminder. Well, I'm sorry to say, but we get busy with our jobs/families and we end up dropping the ball at times. Wouldn't it be nice we had a tool to...
A couple of weeks ago, I spent a good part of a day troubleshooting an issue with creating persistent cookies from ASP.NET 2.0 and how they're handled by IE7. Fortunately for us (specifically me), this occurred in our test environment so only developers in the project were affected by it. Background Info Our application is using a custom authentication cookies to help reduce the request overhead to our database (pretty common scenario). This can be done by implementing your own IHttpModule and within it's Init method, register to the HttpApplication's AuthenticateRequest Event. My good friend Heath Stewart wrote...
Well, we can finally get our hands on the ASP.NET MVC bits! They're being released as part of the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP. This release includes: ASP.NET AJAX Improvements: New ASP.NET AJAX features in the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions release include better browser history support (back/forward button integration, and server-side history management support), improved AJAX content linking support with permalinks, and additional JavaScript library improvements. ASP.NET MVC: This model view controller (MVC) framework for ASP.NET provides a structured model that enables a clear separation of concerns within web applications, and makes...
Well, it's been over a month since the I did my Silverlight presentation at the IADNUG November meeting and I've realized that I've forgotten to post my demo code. Well, sorry about that. For those of you that are interested, you can download it from the link below. Sorry! Files: silverlight_presentation.zip (~20 MB - it include videos).
That's right, PDC has been rescheduled to Oct. 27-30 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Here's the info from their site: PDC 2008 October 27–30, 2008 Pre-conference October 26, 2008 Los Angeles, California OK, OK. We are delighted to announce the date and location of the next Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC): October 27–30, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. PDC is the definitive Microsoft event for software developers and architects focused on the future of the Microsoft platform. Mark your...
Well, as I previously blogged about it, the details are done for our demo contest during the VS2008 InstallFest in Des Moines are finalized. Here they are: Visual Studio 2008 Demo Contest! Want to show off your VS2008 or .NET 3.5 skills? If you answered, yes, this is your opportunity to strut your stuff! During the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest & Holiday Party on December 12, 2007 at the DMACC West Campus, we'll be having a demo contest in the auditorium. Here's the scoop ... What do I need to...
I am not sure how many of you out there were planning on attending the VS2008 InstallFest in Des Moines next week. I completely neglected the fact that because I had registered for the event I would "take" a VS2008 license from the pile. Well, I already have VS2008 (through MSDN subscription) so I don't need my free license. So if anybody wants it, be the first to comment on this post and it's yours. Yeah, it's that simple.
That's right, the InstallFest event in Des Moines has SOLD OUT! As of today, there are 13 people on the waiting list. For all of you that signed up, thanks! It is because of you that this event will be a success! Also, if you're interested, you should sign up to do a demo during the event! Those of you on the waiting list, you will be notified of an open spot if someone on the main list cancels. So if you're on the main list but can't make it, please cancel so somebody on the waiting list can...
Alright, earlier this evening I blogged about the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest that our Des Moines .NET UG is hosting on December 12th, 2007. If you're interested in coming, please sign up!! If you would like to ensure a copy of VS2008, it is REALLY IMPORTANT that you sign up at
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360733&Culture=en-US
Now the contest info! Have you been playing around with VS2008 beta1/beta2/RC1 or .NET 3.5 for a while? If you answered yes, then I recommend you strut your stuff by coming up with a 10-15 minute presentation you can share with the group during the InstallFest!
What do I need to...
Everyone in the Des Moines, sign up for this great event our UG is hosting in conjunction with Microsoft! We're also planning on having a presentation contest to see who can show off the best features VS2008. More to come on this, so stay tuned!!
Visual Studio InstallFest - Des Moines
Event Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360733...
ATTENTION DEVELOPERS! Are you ready to be one of the first to get their hands on Visual Studio 2008 when it RTMs? Join Microsoft and the Iowa DNUG for a Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest and Holiday Party on December 12th, 2007 at the Des Moines Area Community College!...
That's right, you can now download the Silverlight 1.1 Tools Alpha for Visual Studio 2008 RTM. Get it while it's hot!! One thing to notice is that this release does not work with the Express Editions.
I would like to apologize for those who wanted to attend my presentation on Software Factories at Tulsa TechFest, but unfortunately due to technical difficulties, I missed my stand-by flight into Tulsa. When I spoke with the nice people at American Airlines they couldn't guarantee me making into Tulsa into sometime late this evening. However, for those of you wanting my slides, you can download them from the link at the bottom of this post. Also, as I mentioned on my HDC post, I will be doing a webcast series on the Software Factories on Code To Live.
First, to all of you that attended my HDC presentation on Software Factories, THANK YOU! I hope that as promised, the "Ah, Ha!" factor was high. Also, I would like to apologize for the issues I ran into with the VPC and the demos. I had tried the demo before with only two VS2005 instances running and had no issues with it...Apparently, four instances of VS2005 running concurrently is too much for VPC. Right after my presentation, I confirmed with Steve Loethen, a co-host of Code To Live, about coming up with the webcast series on Software Factories. I still to work out...
Today Microsoft is announcing that Popfly will be going into public beta. So for those you that had requested to sign up for the beta, no worries! You can automatically login without a hassle! (Pretty sweet, huh?) And for those of you that haven't signed up or don't know anything about it, just to go http://popfly.com and login with Passport.
Here's a brief description of what Popfly:
It's a Silverlight 1.0 application to create a really slick UI that allows you to use drag-and-drop tools to build some cool things. It also includes support for Vista Sidebar and Live Gadgets. For those...
That's right, John Lam has his team have put the latest release of IronRuby out on RubyForge (this took place on 8/31/07). Fellow rubydoes.net blogger, Aaron Junod, has a great post on getting IronRuby from RubyForge with TortoiseSVN. I'm personally looking forward to this evening's coding "festivities" as I try to integrate some code into the project. Good times!
Just a reminder about the live ASP.NET "ask an expert" chat this Thursday, the 23rd of August at 7 PM CDT (5 PM PDT). Come join the fun. Here are the links. Main announcement - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/24/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat.aspx Prize announcement - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/26/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat-prizes.aspx Chat experts - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/30/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat-experts.aspx
A while back, I blogged some examples on how you can use .NET types within your IronRuby (IRuby) applications. So after playing around with it a bit, I wanted to do something pretty basic, inheritance. Here's what I tried:# Basic inheritance from a dynamic type
# to a static type.
class MyForm < System::Windows::Forms::Form
end
When you try running this through the interactive console, you get this error:
System.InvalidOperationException: superclass must be a Class (DynamicType given)
Nice and descriptive, huh? Well, essentially this means that your superclass needs to be a type that IRuby can understand, that is a class-type of DynamicType. While looking around at the source...
That's right, if you have a question that needs answering come check out our "Ask An Expert" live chat on August 23rd, 2007 at 5 PM PDT. Please note that this chat is not being hosted by Microsoft and as such questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs may not be answered. To see the main announcement, check out Ryan's blog for the info. Also there seems to be a prize give away for this chat! How cool?! Here's the list of experts involved in the chat. It's quite the line up! Calendar: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx ICS: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0823_msdn_aspnet.ics Hope to see...
Brian Harry has a great post with all the links you will need to download the latest bits for VS2K8 beta2. Also, in this related post he lists some of the nice features they've added to TFS 2008. One interesting thing about the "new" TFS options is the VSTS Web Access (aka TeamPlain) that they're planning to release here shortly (Yes, it works both for TFS 2005 & 2008).
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about David Anson's surface-like Silverlight application that functions like Microsoft Surface. Well, earlier this week, I created what I call FlickrNSurface (pronounced: "flickering surface"). Essentially, it's a mashup of flickr and Anson's Silverlight application. To retrieve the images from flickr, I used FlickrNet and an interesting post back mechanism. I will have more posts talking about the design of the application and how you can do the same thing with your Silverlight applications. For now, take a look at it and let me know what you think! You can download the code by going here:...
I submitted the title and abstract for my HDC presentation. Here's the info: The Taming Of the Oracle: A .NET Developer's Guide to Working With Oracle In this session you will learn how you can use the Oracle Data Provider for .NET, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, and Visual Studio tools to get the most out of your experience with Oracle. If you're a .NET developer that needs to work with Oracle as your primary database, this is a session that will getyou up and running in time for your project. Is there anything else you guys want to find...
No, I did not decide to un-install IE7 and re-install IE4 ... although, it would be cool to reminisce the old days ... but while re-installed Visual Studio 6.0 (yeah, we still have VB6 applications), I encountered this screen: (Yeah, I know it's fuzzy) Oh, let the good times roll... Alright, I confess!! I'm doing some Visual J++ on the side!! I CAN'T KICK THE HABIT!! ;-)
Well, it looks like Nick and Jeff have beat me to the punch of announcing ReSharper 3.0. For you VB.NET-ers our there, GET THIS TOOL! OMG, it's the sweetest thing that ever happened to VB since .NET!!
That's right, I received word from Phil Wolfe earlier this week that I've been accepted to be a speaker (this is my third year!) for the Heartland Developer Conference in Omaha, NE on Oct. 18-19th. If you check out the speakers page, you won't see my info there but I'm sure it's coming. For those of you that like my presentations, here's a list of topics I've been kicking around: .NET Tooling for Oracle - There's some applications out there that need talk with Oracle. How do I make things as easily as possible to get my work done?...
I just ran into this pretty nice tool called eScrum for end-to-end Scrum management that runs on top Team Foundation Server (TFS). Pretty nice for those of you out there doing (or trying to do) Scrum and have adopted TFS. Here's the info from the download page: eScrum is a Web-based, end-to-end project management tool for Scrum built on the Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server platform. It provides multiple ways to interact with your Scrum project: eScrum Web-based UI, Team Explorer, and Excel or Project, via Team Foundation Office Integration. In addition, it provides a single place for...
I'm not sure how many of you have heard of the new Microsoft Surface product (if you haven't, are you living under a rock?!?! ;-) ), but in one of the demo videos, they show how you can take images and resize/rotate them by using your fingertips. Well, the same thing can be done using Silverlight through a web application. Delay has posted a great sample Silverlight application that does the same thing! It's pretty awesome app that shows the power of Silverlight! If you have the time, check out the live demo or get its source code (you'll need Orcas...
Yesterday, Levi sent me a link to this add-in for Reflector that disassembles a Silverlight applications and shows your the JavaScript to run it. I must say, it's a pretty nice little add-in (that includes its source) for Reflector. Below is a picture of the disassembled Silverlight Airlines demo given at MIX '07:
Check it out if you have the time, it's pretty sweet!
From the looks of it (via Phil Haack), CodePlex will be supporting SVN (both svn.exe and TortoiseSVN) for all of their projects. Here's the converstaion Jim Newkirk and Phil had: Haacked wrote Mon at 8:24 PM So I can download svn.exe from http://subversion.tigris.org/ and manage my CodePlex source code repository, yes? So are you rolling out Subversion? Or a Subversion facade into TFS? Anything you can reveal? :) jimnewkirk wrote Mon at 7:41 PM To clarify: it's our intention to support the functionality of the command-line Subversion client as well as TortoiseSVN. jimnewkirk wrote Mon at 7:40 PM Phil,...
I would like to thank Denny, our breadth AE, for doing a great job at our first ArcReady event last Friday in Des Moines. During the event, Denny mentioned that Des Moines will be a regular stop on the quaterly ArcReady visits. If you would like to attend, please post your email on this post (through comments) and I'll make sure that Denny gets you added to the list. Also, after the event, we held our first ArcCouncil event. ArcCouncil is an open forum were we discuss various topics dealing with software development. For example, the meeting started by...
I'm not sure how many of you out there are aware of the ASP.NET Futures section of the ASP.NET website. Here's the description of the section from the website: ...contains an early developer preview of features providing a wide range of new functionality for both ASP.NET and Silverlight. The Futures release includes early experimental versions of features currently being considered for future versions of ASP.NET and the .NET Framework. The May 2007 Release contains the following components: ASP.NET AJAX Futures Silverlight Controls for ASP.NET Dynamic Data Controls for ASP.NET ASP.NET Application Services Dynamic Languages Support for ASP.NET (sans IronRuby,...
Denny Boynton, our regional Architect Evangelist, has just blogged information on how you can get free MS eLearning passes valued at $159. If you have the time, and don't want to miss out on this opportunity, go check out his post.
Wow, it appears that "WPF/E" has a better RTM name than the other W*F parts. That's right, "WPF/E" is now called Silverlight (via Soma's blog). Also, don't let the name confuse you, if you have already the "WPF/E" Feb CTP, you already have Silverlight installed. They've just renamed the install packages.
That's right, we're at it again! We're signed up to answer your ASP.NET related questions for two hours on April 19th at 11:30 PST (1:30 CST).
The chat format is as follows: You post your questions and the panel of experts answers them. We're using the Microsoft Chat Software (MVP’s only, sorry!) to grab questions and answer them. The first chat did not have this software working well and was kind of chaotic (MSN Messenger & Conference Call). The software is now working, so it should be a very smooth flow of questions and answers. We're still doing the conference call so that when...
I've been meaning to blog about this for a while, but for some reason I keep forgetting (sorry, I've been busy at work). If you're wondering on how WCF compares performance wise to existing distributed communication technologies (ASMX, WSE, Enterprise Services, .NET Remoting) you should definitely check out this white paper on MSDN: A Performance Comparison of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) with Existing Distributed Communication Technologies
We have this document generation app that uses WCF for connecting to our middle-tier server. In order for users to run the application, they need .NET Framework 3.0 installed on their machines. To accomplish this task, I decided to use ClickOnce since it will download the pre-requisites during the installation process. However, when I tried publishing the application, to our intranet, I ran into this issue with the process: No 'PublicKey' or 'Hash' attribute specified for file 'NETFX30\Dotnetfx3.exe' in item '.NET Framework 3.0'. No 'PublicKey' or 'Hash' attribute specified for file 'NETFX30\Dotnetfx3_x64.exe' in item '.NET Framework 3.0'. Yeah,...
I know this is old news, but I'm extatic that Microsoft has acquired DevBiz and consequently, TeamPlain for TFS. You can read more about it over at Brian Harry's blog. Back when I was evaluating TFS for work, I installed TeamPlain and was pretty amazed what the application did. Back then, the licensing was ~$100 per client, but now that MS has acquired it, it's now FR-EE!! Check out the screen shot below to see TeamPlain's coolness:
So, a couple of days ago while sitting at the lobby of my hotel for the MVP Summit, I decided to come up with a simple Smart Client shell for the LOB Windows application my company uses. So there I am minding my own business when along comes Jean-Paul Boodhoo, James Kovacs, David Laribee, DonXML and ask what I was working on. After some explaining of my intentions for replacing our legacy VB6 application with a brand new .NET one, JP couldn't resist the opportunity to do some TDD and Pair Programming. I must say, that I've always been of the...
I would like to thank Paul Sheriff for taking the time to speak to our user group. He did an excellent job on presenting an intro to OOP. In case you were not there, he has offered a free eBook for our UG members. Go here, to get it. Once again, thanks Paul!
Thanks all that attended my CRINETA presentation Applied .NET 2.0 Programming! I'm pretty impressed on the level of interaction we had throughout the presentation. To me, this is what made it really memorable for me! Once again, thanks for attending!
I was asked today if there's a metric for determining whether an business application should use Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) or roll its own workflow plumbing. Here's my extended answer... As far as a metric of qualification, I can't say there is one (or that I have found one). Besides deciding whether or not to use a technology (or any type of plumbing) as an aide for development can't be (and shouldn't be meausered) by a number. It's not the number of lines of code, methods, classes, assemblies, etc. that decide whether or not you should use workflow. It all comes down to...
By the way, I posted about this chat a while back....
but if you don't recall and are free tonight from 7-8 PM CST (8-9 PM EST, 5-6 PM West Coast Time), come check out our ASP.NET MVP Public Chat! Check out the line-up of MVPs that are ready to answer your ASP.NET questions!
You can join the chat by going to the MSDN Chat Center.
PluralSight's own Fritz Onion will hosting 8 ASP.NET webcasts next week. If you're interested in checkin them out, you can register here.
ScottGu has blogged about the new features of the next version of Visual Studio (codename Orcas). Right now if you can get access to the bits (they're available through MSDN) you can start playing with it. I'm looking forward to see what kind of bult-in support they have for LINQ (released with .NET Framework v3.5). The web (CSS, Multi-Target .NET Frameworks, JavaScript & Ajax) support sounds pretty cool too. I will make another post as soon as I get a chance to play with the bits.
So, this is an 'archaic' method of doing a silent MSI install/uninstall but it worked for us! We have an "updater" VB6 applications that checks files on our test server and compares them to the files on your hard drive. If the application detects a change, then it updates your file with the version on the server. This application only deals with OCXs, EXEs and DLLs. Since our new environment is all .NET, I needed to add MSI packages to the list (I know I could've done a straight copy but I need to do some COM registration for interop). ...
That's right! ASP.NET AJAX v1.0 is now live! So if you've been doing work with any of the CTPs, stop! Go the final bits and start enjoying the RTM goodness!
For those of you that are interested in this kind of stuff, there is a list of the bugs (398 of them) fixed by installing SP1 for Visual Studio 2005. Go and see if any bugs that you have experienced has been fixed.
Check out this cool Channel9 video interview with Rory and ScottGu. Should help light up some of the future paths the technology (ASP.NET and other MS Web Techs) are taking on the near future.
I just downloaded the PowerToys for the Visual Studio 2005 Class Designer and Distributed System Designers. The Class Designer has the following enhancements: Export Diagrams for Web Display Xml Comment Command Documentation Tool Window Filtering Appearance Filtering Lines Filtering Members Fast Navigation Interface Lollipop Labels Commands Inheritance Visualization Commands Show Type Command Association and Inheritance Line Dongles Type Creation Commands Add Member Commands View Class Diagram Command Improvements Go download this powertoy and start enjoying its goodness!
That's right, it's out! Microsoft has released SP1 for Visual Studio 2005, Team Foundation Server, Express Editions and Vista Beta. Here's some info from Microsoft: Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 continues Microsoft’s investment in market leading development tools. Service Pack 1 addresses issues that were found through a combination of customers and partner feedback, as well as internal testing. The issues addressed range in severity from places where the syntax coloring was incorrect to customer reported crashes in various scenarios. In some areas, more than 50% of the bugs addressed were reported by customers through the MSDN Product...
A couple of days ago, I finally installed Vista Ultimate on my laptop! What can I say? ... it's not too bad. After getting pretty tired of all the security prompts, I disabled the User Account Control (UAC). From there, it was off to get my Windows Experience Index! Needless to say, the laptop didn't do too well. This is due to the fact that my graphics card is the standard Intel embedded chipset. Hopefully tomorrow, I will have a chance to install Vista Business on my work laptop so I can see how well it performs. For now,...
That's right, if you're planning on doing some development with the .NET Framework 3.0, you don't have to use CTPs, any more! They've shipped the product! This is the beginning of a brand new approach of application development for the Windows platform. Great job, teams!
Thanks to those of you that attended the meeting this evening! We had 29 people that made for a pretty good crowd. Please note that we WILL take into consideration the moving of the meeting place to West Des Moines. Like I mentioned several times, we just need a home that is not willing to charge us for the room. To get the slides and demos for the meeting, go here. Some one after the meeting asked, Why would I store my pages in the database? Well, all I can say is that it depends. If you need to interact with...
My good friend (and former manager) Heath Stewart has a couple of great posts covering different issues (multiple installs, high disk space and long install time) customers have encountered while installing VS 2005 SP1. This is great stuff, way to go Heath!
Microsoft has released a beta version of SP1 for Team Foundation Server through Microsoft Connect. In SP1 there are a lot enhancements to the system, specially when it comes to performance. The TFS team has updated a lot of the sprocs dealing with version control, workitem tracking and the datawarehouse components. In this post, Brian Harry has listed some (if not all) of the bug fixes in TFS SP1. Check it out if you have time. Also, go and sign up to get SP1 (for both TFS and VS2005) and try it out...hopefully on your TEST TFS box!
Check out this great post by ScottGu on optimizing web project performance within VS2005. Tons of great information on how minor tweaks can make the project experience a lot better.
Do you have legacy VB6 applications that need a little .NET in them? Don't want to mess around with the fun of COM interop? Now, you don't have to with the Interop Forms Toolkit! The toolkit allows you to have a phased upgrade of your VB6 applications to .NET by allowing your to have both VB6 and VB.NET forms running within the same VB6 process. I downloaded the toolkit earlier this week to check it out and I was pretty impressed in how it made the accessing of .NET objects within VB6 pretty easy. Go check it out!