And so it goes... CodeGear (the Dev/IDE/Delphi/etc biz spun off of Borland) has been sold to Embarcadero Technologies.

Dr.Bob's Delphi Notes - Borland Q1 2008 results - CodeGear sold to Embarcadero Technologies

"Borland has announced its preliminary financial results for Q1 2008, and also announced a definitive agreement to sell the assets of its individual developer tools unit, CodeGear, to Embarcadero Technologies. The transaction is expected to close by June 30, 2008." [Post leached in full]

CodeGear - Community Letter: Embarcadero Technologies agrees to acquire CodeGear from Borland

"Abstract: In a letter to the CodeGear developer community, David Intersimone "David I" talks about today's announcement that will create the world’s largest, platform-independent software provider of database and application development tools.

Dear CodeGear Community:

Back on February 6, 2006, Borland announced its intent to sell the developer tools and database business. As many of you know, the planned transaction was never consummated. In the meantime, we at CodeGear have continued to drive our business forward delivering new and updated innovative products.

Today, May 7, 2008, Borland and Embarcadero Technologies announced that Embarcadero Technologies has signed a definitive asset purchase agreement to purchase CodeGear. Together, Embarcadero and CodeGear are expected to create the world’s largest, independent software provider of development and database tools. Here is more information on the announcement: http://www.codegear.com/about/news/embt

..."

That kind of makes me sad... The Borland of old will really, truly be gone.

It's been well over a decade since I fired up a Borland IDE or compiler, but the Borland of old still holds a special place in my heart. Kind of said to see the old Borland gone.

But then again, it's been on life support for how long now? Let's hope Embarcadero will breath some live into it... 

(via A Continuous Learner's Weblog - Links (5/7/2008))

 

Related Past Post XRef:
"Borland to exit IDE business, focus on ALM"

Problems Installing XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP? Running on Vista? Log file contains an "Error 1722"? Try "Unblocking" the downloaded EXE...

Summary

If you are running Vista and are having a problem installing the XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP, have followed all the instructions in the Readme, try right clicking on the EXE you downloaded, select Properties and click on the Unblock button.

This seems to have fixed my issue. Once I did that the install went right through...

I found this suggestion in the comments of this post, PaulWh's Tech Blog - Installing XNA Game Studio on Windows Vista

 

Full Story

[Environment]
OS: Vista Ultimate x86 SP1 (Fully patched)
VS2005 Team Suite, VS2008 Team Suite (Both fully patched)
XNA 2.0, Robotics's 2008 CTP
Office 2007 (fully patched)
Zune 2.5
Tons of other crud... (but everything in a working state)

Being the geek that I am, I just couldn't wait to get XNA Game Studio 3.0 up and running... There's just something I find too cool about being able to .Net on my Zune.

So anyway during lunch I downloaded it, uninstalled the "Games for Windows - Live" (per the instructions in the readme), kicked off the setup and waited... Looks good, stuff is installing, okay... Wait, what's this "Rolling back install"? Doh. No install and no joy.

Reboot (in case there was a pending change and it had been awhile since a reboot... I love that about Vista. I reboot maybe once a month... maybe) and try again. Get to the "Setting up for VS2008" part and... Rollback. sigh

Time to hunt down the log files.

The setup logs seem to be verbose by default, which is nice (and makes sense for a CTP). I found the logs here, "C:\Users\[YourUserID]\AppData\Local\Temp\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v3.0\Setup\Logs\"

There are a number of files, but the primary one seems to be "GameStudioSetup-[DateOfInstallAttempt].[TimeOfInstallAttempt].LOG" Opening that, I dig through it for errors and find the failure point, "Error 1722. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. ... "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\DevENV.exe" /Setup"

Um... A problem with running the VS IDE with the Setup parameter? Um... Ok... So I launch a Admin Command Prompt and run that manually. No errors, no issues it seems...

Okay, web search time.

I didn't find much that was relevant, but in scanning this post, PaulWh's Tech Blog - Installing XNA Game Studio on Windows Vista, a commenter mentioned that in 2.0 he was having a similar problem and that Unblocking the EXE fixed it for him.

Okay, worth a right. Right click on the downloaded EXE, Properties, click Unblock.

Run the EXE, UAC "Allow", Next, next game...The installer is working and...

YES! It got past the VS2008 step and finished!

 

Let's see if it works...

 

F5... Deploying to the Zune (It's cool weird to see "Deploying MSCORLIB3_5.DLL" in my Zune... :)

And it's running! ROCK ON! And with full debugging support in the IDE, break points, etc.

Oh my, my weekend is toast! 

 

Related Past Post XRef:
XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP Available (Get your Zune Gaming on! :)

XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP Available (Get your Zune Gaming on! :)

XNA Team Blog - Announcing: XNA Game Studio 3.0 Community Technical Preview (CTP)

"Today, we are delivering the first Community Technical Preview (CTP) of XNA Game Studio 3.0, giving you the ability to build games for the entire family of Zune media devices.  This feature gives you access to the majority of the XNA framework APIs while retaining a seamless sense of integration with the Zune media experience.  In addition, this release now requires either Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition and higher (C# language support must be installed), or Visual C# 2008 Express Edition.

Keeping with Zune media experience, the XNA Game Studio 3.0 integration includes discoverability/access to user’s non-DRM music – allowing you to customize background soundtracks or create real-time visualizations.  In addition, we’ve announced the ability to have multiple nearby Zunes wirelessly engage in an ad-hoc social gaming experience. 

A preview release of XNA Game Studio 3.0 is now available through the XNA Creators Club Online site (http://creators.xna.com), with a final release scheduled for the holiday 2008 season.  For those of you that prefer the shortest path to happiness, the direct link to the XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP is here.

..."

I know what I'm doing this weekend!  (I didn't want to fix the front sprinklers anyway... ;)

Important note: You can't build XNA games for the 360 with this CTP. You've need to keep Game Studio 2.0 around for now (but they will be addressing that in a future release).

Also here's the 3.0 CTP Readme, http://creators.xna.com/XNA3CTP/readme_xna.htm

(via The Z Buffer - XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
All sorts of XNA Goodness Announced - Community XNA Games via XBox Live and XNA on the Zune!

System.Addin Overview and Usage CodeProject - More help for the System.Addin learning curve

CodeProject - AddIn Enabled Applications

"This article is all about using the .NET 3.5 System.Addin namespace. This article owes much to the fabulous WPF book by Mathew McDonald (Who is an uber genius in my opinion).
What this article is attempting to demomstrate is fairly simple actually.

There is 1 AddIn contract (INumberProcessorContract implementing IContract) that defines how all addins should do. There is also another Contract that specifies how the AddIn should communicate back to the Host application. This Contract is called IHostObjectContract which again implement IContract.

There is a pipeline to support the AddIn model, and finally there is a host application that will host the AddIns. In essence that is all this article is about.

Before I start diving into the details its probably worth mentioning what the AddIn(s) provided by the demo application actually do. ..."

This CodeProject provides a very nice overview of System.Addin as well as using it via a simple sample application.

Due to it's power, level of abstraction and versioning support, the using System.Addin is complicated and there's a something of a learning curve. This article, along with the below screencasts, should help you a good bit with this curve...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Managed Addin Framework (MAF) Screencast Follow-up - If thinking about adding Addin/Plugin support to your .Net application then you need to watch these two screencasts by Daniel Moth...
.Net 3.5 Managed Addin Framework Screencasts by Daniel Moth
Managed Extensibility and Add-In Framework CodePlex Project - Meet .Net 3.5 System.Addin and Friends
Managed Addin Framework (MAF)

Find those WEP/WPA keys stored on your PC with WirelessKeyView and Six Other Free Tech Tools...

Kent J. Chen's WebLog - 7 Free Geek Tools

"Stole from PCWorld.ca's one of latest article.  Check it out.  The Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool from Microsoft and NirSoft's free WirelessKeyView are quite interesting.

...

WirelessKeyView is a free tool from NirSoft, that reveals all the WEP/WPA keys stored on the computer and save them to text/html/xml file.  It should be quite handy for people like me who often brings my laptop to various places.

"

Oh yeah, I'll be able to use that... (In my "Tech Support for My Daughter" biz  ;)

The other tools mentioned in the PC World article are the (Tech) World Famous SysInternals tools and the command line FSUtil utility...

Fix your Vista Folder Views - A batch file to un-"Photo" your Vista Folders

Peter Bromberg's UnBlog - FIX: Windows Vista Folder View Issue

"I don't know about you, but in our "Things I hate most about Windows Vista" poll, one of the most frequently ticked topics was "Folders that refuse to remember the view settings you've set".  If you set a Details View with "All Items" on a folder and then drop a couple of jpegs in there, Vista tries to "help you" by changing the view. Well, I don't WANT Vista to help me! I don't want Documents, I don't want Pictures and Videos, and I don't like Green Eggs and Ham! (In the forums they are calling it "VisDUH").

Here's a fix from the TechNet forums, converted into a batch file:

..."

I run into this every couple months it seems. Where Vista wants to make every folder into a "Photo's" folder... And every time I end up hunting down the info included in the above post.

Now, I'm just going to add this batch file to my Quick Links... :)

[Humor] Microsoft will be build for cross platform when pigs fly...

Being Cellfish - When pigs fly

"There are probably a lot of people out there that would say that Microsoft will develop stuff for Unix the day pigs fly. Well in that case you better start looking out for those flying pigs! If you somehow missed last weeks announcement I've collected a few links (and still collecting) regarding System Center Cross Platform Extensions.

The pig in the picture is one of all the flying pigs thrown out to the audience during break out sessions and handed out in the information booth during MMS 2008. It was quite popular I've heard...

...

"

That killed me... Say what you will about Microsoft, but there's got to be hope for a company that can laugh at itself...

Spring Amazon Tech Book Sale - Up to 60% off Recent Tech Book Titles...

Amazon - Spring Tech Sale: Save up to 60% off

"Spring Tech Sale: Save up to 60% off

For a limited time, shop our Tech Sale for the latest information technology titles at savings of up to 60% off. Shop our booklists and discover great deals on topics ranging from Sharepoint and Visual Studio 2008 to new certification guides.

..."

For example, ASP.Net 3.5 for $16.49... (normal price $54.99)

Tons of other books, from ASP.Net, VB, .Net, Linux, Windows Server, Cisco, SharePoint, Java, IT Pro, Certification books, etc, etc.

This is a limited time offer, your mileage may vary, yada, yada, yada...

(via D'Arcy from Winnipeg - Amazon.Com Offering Huge Savings on Tech Books)

New MSDN Subscriber Downloads List Feed now available

The  MSDN Subscription "New Subscriber Downloads" list (off the primary MSDN Subscription Download site and not the Top Subscriber Downloads list.. yeah I know.. it's confusing...) is now available via a RSS feed.

MSDN Subscriber Downloads - product availability depends on your subscription program details

Looks like there were additional changes to the MSDN Subscription download site, like a new A-Z Product Family List...

SQL Server 2008 Page Compression and Multiple Processors (More is better... mostly)

Linchi Shea - SQL Server 2008 Page Compression: Using multiple processors

"SQL Server 2008 has introduced a long sought after feature -- Data Compression. This is a great feature, and I have no doubt it'll be widely used. The key compression method is called page compression, which uses the following three techniques to reduce the space taken up by duplicates on a page:

• Row compression. This technique changes the storage formats of many fixed-length datatypes (e.g. char, int, money, binary, datetime, and so on) so that they occupy only the required number of bytes plus a small overhead.
• Prefix compression. This technique finds duplicate prefixes on a page for each column , and replaces each duplicate with a small reference number.
• Dictionary compression. This technique finds duplicate values on a page, collects them into a dictionary stored after the page header but before the data rows, and replaces the duplicate values with their corresponding offsets in the dictionary.

You can read more about SQL Server 2008 data compression in SQL2008 CTP6 Books Online.

In this post, I'll focus on a very specific question: How does the number of processors impact rebuilding a table with page compression? Note that one way to enable page compression on a table is to rebuild it with the option data_compression set to page. The following is an example:

..."

I thought this was a very nice and well focused post on SQL Server 2008's new Page Compression feature and the effect multiple processors have on the compression time.

Mostly, more is better, to a point...

Xobni - Now Open Beta

Xobni - Xobni Launches Public Beta

"Today is an exciting day for everyone at Xobni. After seven months of invite-only beta, and over two years of product development, we’re proud to announce that Xobni is now publicly available for anyone to download. Xobni can be downloaded for free here.

The official press release for our launch can be found here.

...

For Current Xobni Beta Users

If you are currently running Xobni it will automatically update to the latest version. If you need to re-download Xobni, you can download it instantly here.

..."

The interesting Xobni Outlook addin is now in open beta... And is not even reg-ware (i.e. just download it, install it and go)

I run this at home and sometimes at work. Why sometimes at work? I have over 7+GB in work emails in different PST's and older versions of it seemed to slow down Outlook... where as if it wasn't installed, Outlook was fine... But I keep coming back every other version to see if it's better as I dig it so...  ;)

(via Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew - Dew Drop - May 5, 2008)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
[Gone] Xobni Invites... Going, going... Gone!

Linq to RDF

The Wandering Glitch - Announcing LinqToRdf v0.6

"I’ve just uploaded LinqToRdf v0.6 with improved designer support for Visual Studio .NET 2008.

The release includes the following high-points:

• LinqToRdf Designer and VS.NET 2008 extension completely rewritten
• LinqToRdf Installer now includes the installer of LinqToRdf Designer (at no extra cost)
• Project and Item templates now installed as part of LinqToRdf Designer
• Generated object and data properties now get their own EntitySet or EntityRef.
• Generates LINQ to SQL-style DataContext objects to hide query creation. Much Cleaner.

..."

Google Code - LinqToRDF

"LinqToRdf provides a full-featured LINQ query provider for .NET using both local triple stores with Graph Matching and SPARQL queries on remote stores. It also provides graphical design tools for visual studio 2008 that provide a UML style design surface for the production of both ontologies and .NET domain models.

..."

Having some Web 3.0 thoughts recently, this caught my eye...

While I doubt I'll start playing in the Web 3.0 space soon, I found this project interesting in that it also seems to provide an nice example of writing a complete Linq Query Provider...

JPL Open House This Weekend (May 3rd & 4th)

JPL - JPL Invites Public to Open House

"NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will welcome members of the public to its Open House on Saturday, May 3, and Sunday, May 4. Children will be able to participate in many hands-on activities.

At this free, all-day event, visitors can watch 700-pound robots glide under artificial stars in JPL's Robodome, get an up-close view of full-scale models of Mars rovers, and learn how spacecraft are prepared for their journeys in special clean rooms.

They will see numerous solar system, robotics and Earth science exhibits and learn about various space missions, including the Mars Phoenix Lander, scheduled to land on the Red Planet on May 25. Visitors can also see how NASA instruments measure greenhouse gases, which will help scientists better understand global climate change.

..."

How awesome is that? I wonder if I can talk my son into going with me...

 

(via LAMetblog - it’s a damn geeky weekend in los angeles [by Wil Wheaton...])

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.1 - Now with Vista/ Windows Server 2008 and x64 Support

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.1 (for IT Professionals)

"...

In response to direct customer need for a streamlined method of identifying common security misconfigurations, Microsoft has developed the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA). It includes a graphical and command line interface that can perform local or remote scans of Windows systems.

MBSA 2.1 extends previous versions by adding support for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008. MBSA 2.1 also provides full 64-bit installation, scan tool and vulnerability assessment (VA) checks, improved SQL Server 2005 checks, and support for the latest Windows Update Agent (WUA) technologies. More information on the capabilities of MBSA 2.1 is available on the MBSA Web site.

MBSA 2.1 runs on Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP and Windows 2000 systems and will scan for common security misconfigurations in the following products: Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0, and 6.0, SQL Server 7.0, 2000 and 2005, Internet Explorer (IE) 5.01 and later, and Office 2000, 2002 and 2003. MBSA also scans for missing security updates, update rollups and service packs published to Microsoft Update.

Choose the appropriate download below for English (EN), German (DE), French (FR) and Japanese (JA) for x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) platforms. [Overview leached in full]

..."

Installed smooth and easy on my Vista x86 and run pretty quickly...

Sometimes it's good to have a second pair of eyes (well zero's and one's) look over my systems and make sure I haven't jacked up the security at some point in the past...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.0 (MBSA 2.0) shipped
Download details: Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer v1.2 (for IT Professionals)

Expression Studio 2 RTM's Today

Somasegar's WebLog - Expression Studio 2 RTMs today!

"Last year the Microsoft Expression team shipped a new suite of tools for creative professionals. This first release of Expression Studio marked a significant milestone in the history of development tools at Microsoft, delivering superior designer-developer workflow and providing designers a set of interaction design, graphic design, Web design, digital asset management and video production tools to deliver better user experiences on Windows and the Web.

I am pleased to announce, just one year later, the team has done it again with today’s release of Microsoft Expression Studio 2. [GD: emphasis added]

I wrote about the beta release of Expression Studio 2 announced earlier this year at MIX08. Since then, the team has put the final touches on Expression Web, Expression Blend,  Expression Design, Expression Media, and Expression Encoder delivering over 100 new features ranging from support for Silverlight, .NET Framework, Office 2007, and Office for Mac 2008 to PHP and Adobe Photoshop import capabilities. You can learn more about the latest Expression Studio features here.

..."

It's not yet on MSDN Subscribers Download (Universal Subscription). When it is I'll update this post...

 

Update #1 5/6/2008:

It's available for download from MSDN, if you have the right subscription... BUT not yet via the "normal" MSDN Downloads site (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx), but instead via the Top Subscribers Download list.

Downloading it now... :)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Microsoft Expression Studio now available via MSDN Subscription Download
Expression Web and Blend Available for MSDN Premium Subscribers (and the Entire Suite to Team Suite MSDN Subscribers)!

SQL Server 2008 FILESTREAM Attribute from Start to C#

MSSQLTips.com - Using FILESTREAM to Store BLOBs in the NTFS File System in SQL Server 2008

"Problem
SQL Server 2008 provides the capability of storing BLOBs (e.g. MP3, Word, Excel, PDF, etc.) in the NTFS file system rather than in a database file.  I am interested in how to configure the FILESTREAM technology in Management Studio.  Could you help us to understand the benefits and provide details on how to implement this new feature in SQL Server 2008?  Further, I am interested in how to use this functionality with the C# programming language.

...

In this tip we are going to gain an understanding of FILESTREAM by walking through a simple code sample to demonstrate the steps to:

• Configure FILESTREAM
• Add a BLOB from T-SQL code
• Add a BLOB from C# code

..."

A nice start to finish FILESTREAM article.

I wonder how many code wrappers are going to be written to encapsulate the required .Net code? (i.e. this looks like a wheel we're going to be recreating for every project/group/company/etc...)

Also I wonder what the Linq to SQL/Linq to Entities and the FILESTREAM attribute story is going to be?

 

Related Past Post XRef:
SQL Server 2008, the FILESTREAM Attribute and Partitioning - Apparently not as easy as it looks (yet at least)...
A future world without the SQL Server Image/Text/NText data types. Now's the time to start planning for that future...
SQL Server 2008 FILESTREAM - Writing a file to a FILESTREAM column
More SQL Server 2008 FileStream Fun
Playing with the SQL Server 2008 FileStream Attribute

Storing and using a Password with PowerShell - Fun with ConvertTo-SecureString and ConvertFrom-SecureString

Rob Costello - Powershell Tip - Storing and Using Password Credentials

"So I've been doing quite a bit of Powershell scripting lately, and this little tid-bit came in very handy, so I thought I'd share it with you all.

In Powershell you can use the Get-Credential cmdlet to get alternate logon credentials when you need to perform a task from the shell.  But the Get-Credential cmdlet won't accept a hardcoded password in a script.  So, how do you write a script that needs to run without user intervention and needs to use credentials other than those of the account used to run it?

Well, here is the answer.

..."

A seemly safer approach to storing a password in an external file for later usage by Get-Credential. Much better than hard coding a plaintext password in the script (if you could do that...).

I'm not sure if this scares me or not (i.e. the saving of the password to a file)... but I still like it.

New "Level 200" Threading and Synchronization Article

Microsoft.Net Technology Blog - Vikas Goyal - Master Managed Threading and Synchronization Techniques

"Check out my latest article on Devx.com.

It starts from the basics of Threading & Thread Management, and dives deep into various synchronization
techniques available in .NET framework which includes inter-thread and inter-process synchronization.

The synchronization techniques discussed are:
 Locks / Monitors
 Mutex
 Interlocked
 Read-Writer Locks
 Semaphores
 EventWaitHandle" [Post leached in full]

Another great article by Vikas Goyal. 13 printed pages, with simple, yet effective, examples and code snips throughout.

We're living in a brave new multi-core world and until higher level help is in place (like the Task Parallel Library, CCR, PLinq, etc), we need to start getting comfortable with threading, locking and such.