John Mann's blog

ADO.NET Entity Framework

John Mann — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:07:08 -0400

I attended a Microsoft presentation last night on the new ADO.NET Entity Framework which was released on Monday (11 Aug 08) as part of VS 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.

The essential idea is to allow developers to use LINQ to work against a conceptual model of the database instead of the physical model.

The Entity Framework uses two XML mappings

SSDL - Store Schema Definition Language (the physical schema)

Microsoft and other vendor Software Release Schedules

John Mann — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:48:28 -0400

I’ve added a page to IC for recording details of release schedules for software used by iMIS – for example the next versions of Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Office.

http://www.imiscommunity.com/microsoft_and_other_vendor_software_release...

If you come across any information on release schedules for products that we use or integrate with can you update it here.

How to right click on a folder in Windows Explorer and select “Open as Visual Studio Website”

John Mann — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:26:54 -0400

I found this here - it is pretty useful

http://weblogs.asp.net/bradleyb/archive/2005/12/09/432802.aspx

This is how to add a command to the shell to open a folder as a web site in Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.

Visual Studio 2005/2008 does not support this by default but you can enable the scenario by writing a macro.

To do this, create a new macro either in an existing module or in a new module. For this example I’m going to add a module call Website to the MyMacros project.

MSDN Roadshow

John Mann — Mon, 19 May 2008 06:37:22 -0400

I recently attended a Microsoft MSDN Roadshow. The slides for the presentations are here:

http://www.msdnroadshow.co.uk/

It covered
* ADO.NEXT – Entity Framework & Data Services
* ASP.NEXT – The ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions
* Building Rich Internet UI with Silverlight 2
* Getting the most from the Visual Studio Team Suite Toolbox

Probably the most interesting area was all the tools that are now available in Visual Studio Team System for unit testing, SQL refactoring and schema versioning.

SQL Server 2008 Presentation

John Mann — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:40:54 -0500

I attended a presentation on SQL Server 2008 in Cambridge last night. I'm sure the list of features are available elsewhere so I will just add some comments on things of interest.

The presenter was Dr Andras Belokosztolszki - one of the SQL gurus at Red Gate. This was part of a series of presentations being given by NxtGenUG - coming up are:

Media Centre
ADO.NET data services
F# (presented by the Don Syme - guy who invented it)

Expression Studio now included with MSDN Subscriptions

John Mann — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:35:00 -0400

Microsoft have just announced that Expression Web and Expression Blend will now be available at no extra charge to all MSDN Premium Subscribers (this includes customers with the "VS Professional with MSDN Premium" subscription). This means many more developers will have these design tools for building ASP.NET, WPF and "WPF/E" solutions.

http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2007/04/03/listening-to-your-fee...

Team Foundation Server Web Access

John Mann — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:07:47 -0400

Microsoft recently announced that they have acquired DevBiz Solutions, the makers of Teamplain Web Access for Team System.

Teamplain is a web front end for Visual Studio Team System that enables users to access the majority of TFS functionality from within a web browser.

Teamplain is available as a free download to users of TFS.

http://www.devbiz.com/teamplain/webaccess/download.aspx

Steve McConnell's latest book

John Mann — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 09:52:02 -0400

Anyone who has read "Rapid Development" or "Code Complete" by Steve McConnell will know he is an excellent author and writes from a lot of experience in the computer industry.

His latest book is "Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art" and is a great read, full of important insights and ideas. McConnell argues that whilst the average software organization can struggle with project costs that run double their original estimates, some of the more sophisticated organizations achieve results with estimation errors as low as 5-10%. However these best-in-class organizations use scientific techniques that are not cost-effective for most software development organizations.

What is in the next Visual Studio?

John Mann — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:58:37 -0400

I attended a Microsoft MSDN Roadshow yesterday. The presentations were about what they are planning to add to the next Visual Studio, code name "Orcas".

The presentations are all available for download from:
www.roadshowresources.com

This is a list of the presentations:

Session 1 - Language Enhancements and LINQ
Session 2 - AJAX Development
Session 3 - Advances for Data in VS "Orcas"
Session 4 - Rich Client Applications with XAML

Windows CardSpace Simple Demo Walkthrough

John Mann — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:42:01 -0400

Windows CardSpace is a new feature of Microsoft Windows that helps you better manage and control your personal information and helps shield you from many forms of phishing attack as well as some common malware attacks.

This is a good demo of what it can do, plus a look at the code needed to implement it.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=291878

Searching in Vista

John Mann — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 06:52:51 -0500

Here are some interesting tips on searching in Vista.

Also did you know in Windows XP (as well as Vista) if you just type %APPDATA% in either Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer it will open your application data folder, and if you type shell:sendto it will take you straight to your sendto folder?

Here is the Vista stuff. You can read the full article at http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_05.asp

Run regsvr32.exe failed in Vista

John Mann — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:05:16 -0500

You may find that when you try to register an ActiveX component such as AsiWordInt.ocx, an error is shown,”DllRegisterServer in xxxx.dll failed.Return code was:0×80070005″.

0×80070005 means “Access Denied”, even if you are already an administrator user.

Here is the correcy way to do this:

To register activex control to local machine(not only current user) successfully, developers must right click on “Command Prompt” in Accessories and click “Run as Administrator”, then run “regsvr32 foo.dll” in the command window.

LINQ Presentation

John Mann — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 05:57:43 -0500

Before Christmas I attended a Microsoft presentation on LINQ. Attached are the screenshots and notes from the talk.

Microsoft describes LINQ as "The LINQ Project is a codename for a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that encompass language-integrated query, set, and transform operations. It extends C# and Visual Basic with native language syntax for queries and provides class libraries to take advantage of these capabilities."

Scott Guthrie's Blog on ASP.NET and .NET

John Mann — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 06:01:36 -0500

A few of us went to a Microsoft presentation at Cambridge University last night on ASP.NET and AJAX (aka Atlas). It is currently on Beta 2 and should ship by the end of the year.

The presenter recommended taking a look at Scott Guthrie's Blog on ASP.NET and .NET:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/

There is a lot of interesting stuff there.

Scott is the General Manager within the Microsoft Developer Division. He runs the development teams that build the following products/technologies:

SQL Prompt - Free

John Mann — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 06:22:50 -0400

There is still one day to get your free copy of SQL Prompt

http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Prompt/index.htm?utm_source=vbug&am...

SQL Prompt provides Intellisense® style auto-completion for Microsoft SQL Server editors. It will tell you the exact formatting you should use for your SQL commands, while you are writing them and will therefore help you write fast, perfectly formatted SQL statements. SQL Prompt improves the productivity of all SQL script creation. SQL Prompt can be downloaded free until the release of version 3, and Red Gate are providing forum support on the SQL Prompt support forum. A web help file is also available.

IE 7 Automatic Updates

John Mann — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 06:20:46 -0400

Automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7)

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5397575

Internet Explorer 7 will be distributed as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates shortly after the final version of the browser is released. Organisations can use a non-expiring Blocker Toolkit to block delivery to their users.