Need test/sample/demo data that’s safe for public (and/or client) consumption? Then GenerateData.com!

DevCurry - Generating Test Data For Your Applications

“Sometimes on the internet you find websites that are extremely useful. The other day I stumbled upon one such site called generatedata.com. This website does exactly what the URL suggests, it generates test data for you. This is great if you're in I.T. because invariably for a project, you need test data to demonstrate features to your users.

…”

GenerateData.com

“Ever needed custom formatted sample / test data, like, bad? Well, that's the idea of the Data Generator. It's a free, open source script written in JavaScript, PHP and MySQL that lets you quickly generate large volumes of custom data in a variety of formats for use in testing software, populating databases, and scoring with girls.

This site offers an online demo where you're welcome to tinker around to get a sense of what the script does, what features it offers and how it works. Then, once you've whet your appetite, there's a free, fully functional, GNU-licensed version available for download. Alternatively, if you want to avoid the hassle of setting it up on your own server, you might want to consider donating $20 or more to help support the project. …

 

 

A simple, but cool, means to generate some sample/test/demo data…

Heard from someone about the just released VS2010 B2 VM’s? Would like to get them but hate downloading them via the web site? Brian Keller has a download solution for you (and 7 Hands-on Labs too!)

Brian Keller: Technical Evangelist for Team System - Now Available: Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Virtual Machines with Sample Data

“…

We also have a preliminary set of 7 hands-on labs (which also double as demo scripts) that you can go through with this VM, with more in the works. Note that each lab/demo is designed to work in isolation from the other labs/demos, so be sure to have a rollback strategy in place (VPC undo disk / Hyper-V snapshots) prior to working on a lab/demo. To download these labs please visit http://cid-8c96cc4d0756cacb.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Blog%20Attachments/2010%20Beta%202%20Labs?uc=3 (you can click on “Download as ZIP file” to grab everything at once). These labs will be making their way into a refresh of the Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit soon. The “Working with the Visual Studio 2010 Virtual Machine” document is a work in progress and will be updated in the coming days, but for now it should have everything you need to get started. Any questions, just ask… feedback on these labs/demos is welcome!

…

I suggest using a download manager for these files since they are very large. My download manager of choice is Free Download Manager. You can use your own favorite download manager, but you may need to adapt the instructions below as appropriate.

1. Download and install Free Download Manager. This utility provides:
   • Auto-resume support for interrupted downloads.
   • Multiple simultaneous download streams for (usually) a much faster download experience.
   • As the name implies, it's completely free.
2. Select the appropriate URL’s depending on your preferred virtualization platform and copy (CTRL+C) them to your clipboard.

…

…”

Nice! Two rock’n tips for the price of one blog post read… ;)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Visual Studio 2010 B2 VM’s - The virtual machines have arrived with Hyper-V, Virtual PC 2007 and Windows Virtual PC flavors
VS2010/.Net 4 release date slips and we get a public RC in February to make up for it (and I’m okay with it)
Visual Studio 2010/.Net 4.0 B2 now available via MSDN Subscribers Download, new SKU names (Ultimate, Premium, Express Combo) and VS2010 launch dates announced
VSTS/TFS2010 Beta 2 coming “real soon” and will have a “Go Live” license (i.e. Now’s the time to start getting ready…)

Visual Studio 2010 B2 VM’s - The virtual machines have arrived with Hyper-V, Virtual PC 2007 and Windows Virtual PC flavors

Microsoft Downloads -

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 and Team Foundation Server® 2010 Beta 2 virtual image for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 and Team Foundation Server® 2010 Beta 2 virtual image for Windows Virtual PC
Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 and Team Foundation Server® 2010 Beta 2 for Microsoft® Virtual PC 2007 SP1 Image

“Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate simplifies solution development, lowering risk and increasing return. The virtual machine image in this download contains both Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta2 and the requisite trial software. …

…

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate provides an integrated environment of tools and server infrastructure that simplifies the entire application development process. Deliver business results using productive, predictable, customizable processes and increase transparency and traceability throughout the lifecycle with detailed analytics. Whether creating new solutions or enhancing existing applications unleash your creativity with powerful prototyping, architecture and development tools that let you bring your vision to life targeting an increasing number of platforms and technologies including cloud and parallel computing. Realize increased team productivity by utilizing advanced collaboration features and use integrated testing and debugging tools to find and fix bugs quickly and easily ensuring high quality solutions while driving down the cost of solution development. For more information on Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4 visit http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/products/2010/default.mspx This virtual machine does not have anti-virus installed. It should not be connected to any network until it has anti-virus installed. In addition, the operating system and programs installed were patched with all updates as of December 10, 2009.

…”

Added bonus;

Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 and Team Suite SP1 Hyper-V Image (Trial)

Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 Hyper-V Image (Trial)

 

The VM’s are large, with the VS2010 weighing in at 7.3GB, the VS2008 7.5GB and TFS2008 3.4GB. All are also broken into multi part RAR’s.

Still once downloaded and setup these are a great way to test the .Net 4/VS2010 waters without the risk of installing it. 

Update #1 @ 12/24/2009 @ 10:45 PST:
Make sure you check out Brian Keller’s Now Available: Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Virtual Machines with Sample Data post for information about 7 Hands-on labs and tips for making the downloading of these a piece of cake…

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Heard from someone about the just released VS2010 B2 VM’s? Would like to get them but hate downloading them via the web site? Brian Keller has a download solution for you (and 7 Hands-on Labs too!)
VS2010/.Net 4 release date slips and we get a public RC in February to make up for it (and I’m okay with it)
Visual Studio 2010/.Net 4.0 B2 now available via MSDN Subscribers Download, new SKU names (Ultimate, Premium, Express Combo) and VS2010 launch dates announced
VSTS/TFS2010 Beta 2 coming “real soon” and will have a “Go Live” license (i.e. Now’s the time to start getting ready…)

Must have movie app!? RunPee!

Life Hacker - RunPee Adds Offline Alerts for Timed Movie Bathroom Breaks

“iPhone/iPod touch: We thought RunPee was a clever site and iPhone app that picks dull movie moments for bathroom breaks. The iPhone app can now store your chosen movies for offline use, and quietly vibrate an alert at break times.

…

The RunPee.com web site has also added support for more languages, and a non-Flash mobile site for scoping out key non-action points right before a flick. Finally, there's a $1 Android app in the market, and other mobile apps are expected to come along soon. RunPee's iPhone app costs 99 cents, requires an iPhone or iPod touch.

…”

RunPee.com

“RunPee.com has undergone a huge update. Best of all RunPee now supports multiple languages and regions. You can now read the PeeTimes in many different languages, like: Spanish, German, French, Russian, and Portuguese. With more to come shortly, like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Danish, etc.
And you can set the region to your local area so that you see the movies that are showing near you. read more on the blog.

…

I have created m.RunPee.com for those who would like to access RunPee.com from their Blackberry, or practically any other mobile phone. m.RunPee.com is a simple HTML version of the website that will let you navigate to the movie you are seeing and view the PeeTimes.

The site is free for all movies that have been out for more than a month. To see the newer movies you need to register and pay $1/year. I would love to offer this for free but I spend a lot of time watching movies to get the PeeTimes so I need to make a few dollars from the site…

…”

RunPee.com - Avatar

 

A dollar a year (for first run movies, free for slightly older flicks)? To help me determine the best time to make a mid movie run (where I’ve invested 12-15 bucks to attend)? No brainer!

I love living in our current “age”.   :)

PowerShell v2 SDK Released - Lot’s of C# based PowerShell sample goodness, one small MSI

Microsoft Downloads - Windows PowerShell 2.0 Software Development Kit (SDK)

“Windows PowerShell 2.0 SDK contains sample code and reference assemblies that allow you to build applications based on Windows PowerShell

File Name:	PowerShellV2_SDK_Samples.msi
Version:	2.0
Date Published:	12/22/2009
Language:	English
Download Size:	2.4 MB

This SDK contains reference assemblies and samples that demonstrates how to use the Windows PowerShell 2.0 APIs to build a rich set of applications. In this package, you will find sample code which shows how to use the new PowerShell class, how to write cmdlets that supports eventing, transactions and jobs. In addition, there are examples of host applications that connect to remote computers using individual runspaces and runspace pools. This SDK also includes modified Windows PowerShell 1.0 samples using the modified and improved Windows PowerShell 2.0 APIs.

…”

Here’s a snap of the folders post install. Each folder has a readme.txt which describes the given sample.

If Santa were a .Net Developer, this might be his “I wish I knew about all these” .Net dev tools list

Dynamic Binding - My favorites .Net development toolkits

Many I’ve seen before, but there were some that were new to me (which gives me that warn fuzzy feeling of discovery ;). Yet best is having this kind of list .Net goodness all in one place…

Creating a WPF Outlook 2010 addin with VS2010 without writing one line of XAML

Beth Massi - Sharing the goodness that is VB - Build WPF Data Controls for Outlook Addins Easily with VS2010

“Last post I showed how to migrate our Northwind Outlook client to .NET 4 and Office 2010. This Outlook Add-in displays order history information in an adjoining form region so sales associates can see that data immediately when communicating with customers. When we originally built this with Visual Studio 2008, we used a WPF user control to display the data so that we could better match the look and feel of Outlook 2007. However we had to manually figure out the colors we needed and bind the data to the controls by writing XAML by hand.

Today I want to show how we can use drag & drop data binding and the new WPF designer in Visual Studio 2010 to quickly create this control without writing one line of XAML ourselves.

Displaying WPF Controls in Form Regions with ElementHost

Office clients by default work with Windows Forms controls. If you create a new Form Region you can add any Windows form control from the toolbox onto it. If you want to add WPF controls you simply add what’s called an ElementHost control which you find in the WPF Interoperability tab on your toolbox. This allows you to select from and host WPF User Controls in your project.

…

This is the same technique in VS2008 and VS2010. However, VS2010 makes it much easier to create the WPF User Control in the first place because you can now use the data sources window to design and data bind WPF controls. The WPF designer is also much easier to use. Let’s see how we can build a WPF control that displays Order information and have Visual Studio generate all the XAML we need automatically for us, and have it look good too.

…

…”

You had me a “without writing one line of XAML…” 

Also shown is how you can host WPF in a plugin host that only supports WinForm controls (say for example, Windows Live Writer ;)

Subst to the Windows Virtual PC Host<->VM folder sharing rescue

Windows Virtual PC - Folder Sharing between Windows 7 and VM

“Virtual PC 2007® SP1 allowed users to share a particular folder with the Virtual Machine (VM). In Windows® Virtual PC, users can enable sharing at drive level only.

Sharing a Folder on Windows 7 Desktop with a VM

To share a particular folder with the VM, follow steps as below

1. Shutdown or Hibernate the VM (assuming you have Integration features enabled)
2. Open command prompt on Windows7 host. Let’s say you want to share folder C:\MySharedFolder with the VM.
3. subst S: C:\MySharedFolder. This subst command will create a virtual drive “S:” which is mapped to C:\MySharedFolder. Make sure the drive letter is free for use.
4. …

…”

Ah, Subst… an oldie but a goodie. Talk about invoking DOS days flashbacks! Next thing you know I’ll be “COPY CON CONFIG.SYS”’ing or something! lol…

Still it’s funny how many uses we still find for subst.

Blob, SQL, Message and Fabric – A short intro to Azure storage choices

InfoQ - Azure Storage Options

“First some terminology. The term Windows Azure Platform covers all of Microsoft’s cloud offering. Within the Windows Azure Platform are three principal offerings. The virtual machine component is called Windows Azure. Also know as compute, it supports web roles for hosting web sites and worker roles for back-end processing. SQL Azure is based on SQL Server and has many of the same features. Finally there is Windows Azure platform AppFabric, which shouldn’t be confused with Windows Server AppFabric. Azure AppFabric is a message bus, with the goal of making authentication and message passing easier, especially across firewalls.

Azure Platform offers a plethora of storage options, making choosing which to use potentially quite difficult. …

…”

I thought this post provided a nice overview of the many Azure storage choices and options…

Looking for that perfect icon? Search a repository of 125,723 or easily browsing 331 icon sets at Icon Finder

Icon Finder

 

 

Now that’s cool. A quick, easy and focused way to search for icon’s. Much easier than doing a image search…

(via Dave Burke - Everyman Links for December 19, 2009)

A Feed You Should Read #16 - Nutrition Diva

The holidays are here and with them the tendency to throw our well meant and intended eat habits out the window (fudge… Fudge… FUDGE!!!!  ;)

Today’s feed/podcast is one that can help all of use fight the battle of the bulge…

Nutrition Diva :: Quick and Dirty Tips for Eating Well and Feeling Fabulous

Background:

Okay so nutrition is not the most sexy of topics, but it’s also something that impacts every single one of us in one or more ways. This short, 5-10 minute, weekly podcast is one that I’ve been listening to for the last couple years. It’s one that I very quickly moved to the very top of my listening list.

While not sexy, the way its presented in this podcast makes it very palatable and easy to digest. I have learned a great deal via this quick and dirty podcast series; also unlearned a number of things too.

Some past topics include;

• Caffeine, good or bad for you?
• Fiber, what is it and why should you care?
• What are Transfats?
• Is your drinking water safe?
• etc, etc.

Best of all this is one of those rare podcasts that you walk away from actually feel good. You feel motivated and just want to eat healthy… At the end of almost every cast I find myself smiling and generally feeling fabulous ;)

Why do I like this feed and think you might also?

Are you a human and currently inhabit a living body?

Do you eat?

Want to help keep that flesh engine working well?

Have 5 minutes a week?

Listen to this podcast…

Snap of the latest post:

Blog Information:

Name:	Nutrition Diva :: Quick and Dirty Tips for Eating Well and Feeling Fabulous
URL:	http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/
Feed:	http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/xml/nutrition.xml
Post Types:	Short, 5-10 minute nutrition tip podcast