Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

XBox 360 Community Game Catalog (Beta) now available on XNA Creators Club

"Today Microsoft has updated the Creators Club website and has exposed the Community Games Beta platform for submitting and reviewing games for Xbox LIVE! Among the changes are a new Quick Start Guide, Educational Content, a Role Playing Starter Kit and a Community Spotlight area.

Read More about the new XNA Creators Club web site.
Visit the Creators Club web site" [Post leached in full]

XNA Team Blog = Announcing: Community Games on Xbox LIVE Beta

"Today, we delivered on the promise we made at GDC to democratize game development with the launch of the newly designed XNA Creators Club Online Web site and the highly anticipated beta of Community Games on Xbox LIVE. When we announced this new service at GDC 2008, it was met with great excitement around the world. Now we’re pleased to offer you an opportunity to interact with this new site and test out the distribution pipeline to Xbox LIVE! If you’re a already a premium member, you will be able to join us in the Community Games on Xbox LIVE Beta immediately, where you can submit your games and review others games, and enjoy playing them on Xbox LIVE! If you are not a member, sign up today and get involved in making game development history.

We’re extremely excited about what we have to offer – this effort represents, quite literally, several developer-years of work, and we’re proud to show it off!

Here are a few cool things we encourage you to check out:

..."

So much fun stuff to code, so little time...

There are two games currently in the Catalog, but I'm sure many more will be added quickly.

Since I'm a premium member I'm going to have to give the peer-review process a try this weekend... (Can't code a game as I'm still working on my Zune projects and have a ton of work to do on my other personal coding projects... oh yeah, and I have to fix my lawn sprinklers... sigh... ;)

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

How Do I Get Started with the Entity Framework? - You can watch this 9 minute video...

Microsoft Downloads - How Do I Get Started with the Entity Framework?

"In this introductory video, Alex James will show you how to build a simple Entity Data Model in a short amount of time
...
Learn how to get started with the ADO.NET Entity Framework by creating an Entity Data Model from an existing database.
..."

I am SO happy that the Entity Framework (EF) is coming as part of .Net 3.5 SP1. Having it baked into the Framework and not some optional, additional add-on is huge. This move goes a long way in resolving my product support and lifetime fears. Of course, just because it's baked in doesn't mean it won't be killed in a couple future .Net versions, but it's less likely... IMHO it takes it to a whole new level [buzzword alert]

In any case, this is a nine minute intro to the Entity Framework video. It's pretty much what you would expect in a nine minute intro video (except AdventureWorks and Northwind is NOT used ;), but if you're new to EF this is a very cool example of the EF Design Surface and a quick console code sample.

Blender 2.46 Released (Open Source 3D Tool, not "Expression Blend")

Blender.org - Blender 2.46

"The work of the past half year - also thanks to the open movie project "Big Buck Bunny" - has resulted in a greatly improved feature set, now released as Blender 2.46, the "Bunny release"!

This version supports a new particle system with hair and fur combing tools, fast and optimal fur rendering, a mesh deformation system for advanced character rigging, cloth simulation, fast Ambient Occlusion, a new Image browser, and that's just the beginning. Check the extensive list of features in the log below... have fun!

..."

3D is one of those "I really wish I could this" things. I keep hoping that lightening will strike and suddenly I'll become Mr. 3D. But instead it looks like it's going to take blood, sweet and tears... (or maybe just the "right" app? ;)

(via Slashdot - Blender 2.46 Released)

Intro to XAML in 20 Minutes (or less) - Or "What the heck is this XAML thing?" - Or "How I learned to love my zammel"

The Moth - XAML: Level 100

"Since you are reading my blog, chances are that you are a .NET developer. Do you realise that eXtensible Application Markup Language (XAML) is now part of .NET? Are you familiar with it? How would you describe XAML (pronounced "zammel") to someone that is not familiar with it if you only had 10-20 minutes? Below is my take.

Background
XAML was introduced as part of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which was released in November 2006 as part of .NET Framework v3.0. In addition, XAML is at the core of Silverlight, v2 of which will be released this year. Whilst XAML itself is independent of those two technologies, I am a practical person so I associate XAML with those two presentation technologies (WPF for the Windows desktop and Silverlight for the cross-platform browser) and have no qualms in intermixing those terms in this blog post. The XAML that Silverlight 2 will support is a subset of the XAML that WPF supports but the core principles and most capabilities are the same.

XAML is an XML language for describing a hierarchy of objects and their properties; in our concrete examples, it describes a hierarchy of visual objects that make up a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

...

Conclusion – XAML levels of competency
If you have been ignoring XAML so far, I don't think you can afford to do so any longer. IMHO there are 4 levels of XAML competency:
Level 100 – truly understand all of the above.
Level 200 – confidently read XAML (e.g. as spat out by VS2008 or Blend).
Level 300 – be able to type XAML yourself with an aim to create a structure of a bland GUI (setting basic properties and hooking events etc).
Level 400 – create styles, templates, animations and set gradient colours by hand."

The Moth is at it again, this time with a long elevator pitch as to what XAML "is".

As for my current XAML competency level... err... um... yeah... :/

ClickOnce - Getting the Application version and putting it into the Publish.htm

My.RAM.Serialize() - TeamBuild ClickOnce Versioning

"It seems many people have had issues getting the version number correctly within their tfsbuild.proj files to use in their ClickOnce html files. The solutions I've seen were very complicated, but this may be because the examples I've seen were in TFS 2005 or they were using different tasks.

My coworker added the SDC tasks to our build server because there is functionality for XML and file manipulation. From his starting point I went on to look further into two specific tasks: Xml.GetValue and File.RegEx.

...

I manually published my project to get the publish.htm file. I then made it a part of my project so that I could copy it to my published application's directory and modify the version number. I edited the html file and put a #VERSION# tag so that the File.RegEx task could find it and replace it with the $(ResultsItem) variable. We get $(ResultsItem) from the ItemName attribute of the Output element within the Xml.GetValue task element. The following is the snippet of my tfsbuild.proj file that does the versioning of the publish.htm file:

..."

I've been pushing my team into getting our apps to be built via TeamBuild, no matter their deployment target, be it MSI or ClickOnce. Peter has been blogging about the things he's learned fighting this battle (besides "I learned my boss is a [fill in the blank]" ;)

And with the above post, I believe the battle has finally been won! (Damn my guys are GOOD!)

Of course, being the manager that I am, I have now tasked them to write up a complete, start to finish, "how to" to capture and share their experience with TeamBuild/ClickOnce. My goal is not only share this with other developers in our Practice, but also with the development community via CodeProject.

If/when we publish it, you can bet I'll highlight it in a post. :)

Monday, May 19, 2008

Want to access TFS Work Items via PowerShell? Then you'll want to check out the Team Foundation Server Project Browser PowerPack for PowerGUI

Dmitry’s PowerBlog: PowerShell and beyond - TFS inside PowerGUI

"Steve Crouse has recently published his PowerGUI pack for Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server - thus, fulfilling James Manning’s long time wish.

This is a very nice tool allowing for browsing the work items for all the projects on a Team Foundation Server either by area or iteration. In addition you can view all open work items assigned to you, regardless of project. Project metadata such as the work item editing form definitions can be viewed for each project.

..."

PowerGUI - [1852] Team Foundation Server Project Browser PowerPack

"Allows browsing of TFS projects by Area Path or Iteration.
Allows execution of stored queries for any project.
Allows viewing of work item attachments.
Multi-select a group of work items and click the 'Open vs. closed chart' action to generate a simple pie chart.

Must be run from a machine with Team Explorer installed.
Will prompt for the TFS server address.
Click the 'Change server connection' node to connect to a different server.

..."

TFS Work Items and PowerShell, two things that taste better together... (sorry, it's a Monday... ;)

Virtual PC 2007 and Fedora 9 - With a little work, they can be friends...

The Sean Blog - Installing Fedora 9 (Sulphur) in Virtual PC 2007

"Fedora 9 was released last week, which you can download here: http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora.html. What's new? Highlights from the release notes include:

...

Will this be the installation that "Just Works" out of the box? Nope. Same problem that Ubuntu 8.04 has within Virtual PC... "An unrecoverable processor error has been encountered. The virtual machine will reset now." Good times!

...

Fortunately, from our work with Ubuntu, we know the solution. On the main boot screen, hit [Tab] to edit the options. Add noreplace-paravirt to the end of the boot parameters, and hit enter.

...

There we go... Fedora is able to boot the kernel and start up anaconda. The problems I noted in my previous Fedora Posts (Fedora Core 6, Fedora 7, and Fedora 8) of no mouse and messed up graphics seems to have been fixed. Very Nice!

...

One final reminder... to make sure that you do not have to enter the noreplace-paravirt each time you boot up, go edit your /etc/grub.conf file to add that parameter at the end of the line that looks something like kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25.3-18.fc9.i686 ro root=dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet. If you ever update your kernel, you'll have to do it again. Oh well... maybe Fedora 10 will fix this issue. I'll keep my fingers crossed..."

If you're interested in this, make sure to click though to Sean's post as there's more information and pretty pictures... ;)

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Dr. Deveau - That's my daughter! You go Erica!

Yesterday, was one of the proudest moments of my life. One of those life's milestones that you never forget. Yesterday, I watched my daughter step up and receive her Doctorate of Physical Therapy.

I'm finding it hard to describe just how proud of her I am. These last three years were an extremely tough battle for her, yet she hung in there, fought the good fight and made it through. She did it!

I'm proud to introduce you to Dr Deveau...

Erica during the Hooding ceremony (I need a new camera... one with auto stabilization... sigh)

Two of my favorite people in the world, Jacob and Erica (Damn, but they are good looking kids aren't they! :)

And more of my favorite people (My two hotties... my wife, Annette, and Erica)

The family picture...

The proud grandparents (my parents) and Erica.

At the Commencement...

Erica on the jumbo-tron...

Erica,
You did great honey...

Congratulations and love ya!

Entity Framework - Why use it instead of ADO.Net, Linq to SQL or other ORM?

system.data.objects dev guy - Why use the Entity Framework?

"There are a number of places where you can read an introduction to the Entity Framework, listen to a podcast about it, or watch a screen cast or video of an interview. Even with these various resources, though, there are so many different data access technologies out there that it's not uncommon for me to get the question: Why should I use the Entity Framework? Or what differentiates it from other options like just using ADO.Net SqlClient and friends, LINQ to SQL or something like nHibernate? I like the second question better, because the truth is that different problems merit different solutions. So here's just a quick take on my perspective about these

..."

I'm still a little leery about jumping into the EF boat, having been burned by jumping to early into past data access method boats...

BUT I'm seeing MS use EF in some project (ADO.Net Data Services and others) and that gives some hope. Also I like the concepts around EF, like the separation between entity and DB schema. Having written more ADO/ADO.Net glue code than I want to think about, making that easier would make me a happy camper.

I'm still likely not going to roll it into a production app on RTM day 1, but I am going to be watching it closely, considering how and where it will make my development faster, easier and applications better...

Saturday, May 17, 2008

How to not suck at Technical Presentations - (Well... 11 Technical Presentation Tips from Scott Hanselman)

Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com - 11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation

"Over five years ago I posted Tips for a Successful MSFT Presentation. Yesterday I watched the video of my Mix Presentation all the way through. It's always very painful to hear one's own voice but it's even worse to watch yourself. I never listen to my podcast and I avoid watching myself. It's like watching a person in parallel universe and it inspires self-loathing. However, if you are someone who values continuous improvement - and I am - you need to do the uncomfortable.

Here's my five-years-later Updated Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation.
..."

One of these days I may find myself giving a technical presentation (to an audience I don't know, as I currently give a good number of them to my team and coworkers) and wanted to make sure I captured this for future reference.

And there are a couple tips that will help me with my day to day presentations too... ;)

Friday, May 16, 2008

ADO.Net Data Services (fka Astoria) Casts - Bite sized videos to get you up to speed...

Murray Gordon's Blog - Great Screencasts on ADO.NET Data Services

"As one of my colleagues put it, "We all struggle to stay up to date on our new technologies." To that point, he let me know about a goldmine resource for learning ADO.Net Data Services quickly:

Great Screencasts

ADO.NET Data Services - Surfacing Data
ADO.NET Data Services - Querying with URI's
ADO.NET Data Services - A Basic .NET Client
ADO.NET Data Services - A Basic AJAX Client
ADO.NET Data Services - A Basic Silverlight Client
ADO.NET Data Services - Querying with LINQ
ADO.NET Data Services - Query Interceptors
ADO.NET Data Services - Service Operations

As Jared warned...
"These are just slightly outdated, but they’re very clear and to the point. Each is about 15 minutes long so you can become quite knowledgeable in about 2 hours.
..." [Post leached nearly in full]

As mentioned above, these are a few months out of date (most were recorded in January 2008), but still I think they are WELL worth a quick review. With so much coming in .Net 3.5 SP1 (which should have been called .Net 3.75 or something ;), I need all the help I can get to keep up...

I just wish there were an easy way to get these on my Zune. The download click, save, unzip, update zune media, etc, etc, for these are just a few too many steps...

(Note to Microsoft: Please, all recorded video, audio and webcasts from you should, at minimum, be easily downloadable to a Zune and Media Center PC, and best, any pod catcher. We're talking one-click for Zune/podcatcher... Please? I love my Zune and I just want you to help me fill it with geek goodness... :)

FeedDemon 2.7 has been released

Nick Bradbury - ANN: FeedDemon 2.7 Final Release

"...

The final release of FeedDemon 2.7 (which was called FeedDemon 2.6.1 during the beta period) is now available
As you can see from the release notes, there aren't many big new features in this version - unless, of course, you count speed as a feature :) The most significant change in version 2.7 is that it's much faster in many areas, including critical ones like synchronization and navigation.
..."

My favorite Windows RSS reader gets better and faster... My favorite kind of update. :)

Installed easily overtop my previous version and seems to be working just fine.

VisitMix now with dual stream video, video of presenter and presentation

Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com - Mix 08 Sessions available in new dual-stream versions using Silverlight

"I posted the month before last that the Mix08 Sessions, mine included, were up and available at http://sessions.visitmix.com. I posted links to the MP4, WMVs and other downloaded versions at the time as well. The Silverlight versions were the same versions, so there wasn't really a compelling reason to use Silverlight.
What I didn't know, however, is that they (the powers that be) not only recorded the slides and demos, but also had cameras going at the same time. They did some post processing (on hundreds of sessions) and those new "dual stream" sessions are up and available online in Silverlight. One stream is a camera on me, and one is the slides and demos.
..."

I dig it when Microsoft provides replays conference sessions this way... For me, it adds a whole new level to the effectiveness to the presentation. Seeing the presenter brings me one step closer to feeling like I'm actually there and makes it MUCH less dry...

Microsoft has done this in the past, for example for PDC 2005 (online videos are no longer available, but I still have my DVD's... ;) and I'm glad to see them continuing with it.

Enterprise Library 4.0 RTW (May 2008)

Microsoft Downloads - Enterprise Library 4.0 - May 2008

"...

The patterns & practices Enterprise Library is a collection of reusable application blocks designed to assist software developers with common enterprise development challenges. This following application blocks are included: Caching Application Block, Cryptography Application Block, Data Access Application Block, Exception Handling Application Block, Logging Application Block, Policy Injection Application Block, Security Application Block, Validation Application Block, and Unity Application Block.
This release includes:

Support for Visual Studio 2008.
Integration with the Unity dependency injection container.
WMI2 support and improved instrumentation.
Support for pluggable cache managers.
Performance improvements.

..."

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Virtual PC 2007 SP1 Released

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1

"Service Pack Update for Virtual PC 2007 qualifying Windows Server 2008, Vista SP1 and XP SP3

...

This update for Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 includes support for the following additional Host and Guest Operating systems:

Additonal Guest Operating System support:
Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows Vista® Business Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows Vista® Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows Server® 2008 Standard
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3

Additional Host Operating System support:
Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows Vista® Business Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows Vista® Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3

..."

Dear Virtual PC,
I've been away for a while, but never fear, I've missed you and will be coming back soon.

See you soon,
Greg

I SO need a life... LOL :)

PowerShell Scriptomatic - Scriptomatic Goodness with a PowerShell Flavor

Microsoft Downloads - Windows PowerShell Scriptomatic

"A new utility that writes Windows PowerShell scripts that harness the power of WMI (Windows Instrumentation Management) for use in system management and administration. This tool was created by Microsoft consultant and author Ed Wilson."

The original Scriptomatic helped me a number of times as I got up to speed with WMI via VB. I'm hoping lighting will strike twice with this utility...

The utility is a v1, so expect some rough edges, but if you're trying to learn PowerShell and how use it with WMI, this this utility may come in real handy.

One note, the PS1 files is generates when you click "Run" are not signed. So if your execution policy is locked down, the generated script may not work...
(So you may think about "Set_ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned" if you want to "Run" allot... but remember there's a risk in doing that...)

Related Past Post XRef:
ActiveWin.com - Scriptomatic 2.0

Office Live Workspace Office Addin v1.1 Released

Microsoft Downloads - Office Live Update 1.1

"...

The Office Live Update 1.1 installs (1) performance updates to make using Office Live Workspace with Microsoft Office programs faster, (2) the latest Office Live Add-in for Microsoft Office that enables you to access your workspaces directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and (3) the Multiple Document Upload Tool.

The Office Live Update 1.1 auto-detects and installs these necessary updates to ensure optimum performance:

...[GD: A number of Vista updates]...

The Office Live Add-in adds new menu options in the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite and a toolbar in Microsoft Office XP and Office 2003. You will be able to open documents located in Office Live Workspace directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You will also be able to save files directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to Office Live Workspace.

The Multiple Document Upload Tool lets you add multiple documents to a workspace at once and even allows users to drag and drop files directly from their desktop.

..."

I've been digging My Office Live Workspace recently...

I keep a running log of my exercise, calorie and fat intake in an Excel spreadsheet to help me change my eating habits (which has helped me go from 270 in 11/2007 to 225 today). Keeping it in a workspace makes it very easy to keep it up to date no matter where I am, work or home. As long as I've got Excel available, I can keep my log up to date... And as you all know, if it's not easy, it's hard (and thereby likely not done... ;).

Being able to directly access my Workspace from within Excel is great and makes it as easy as if the file were local... If you're using Workspace and Office, this add-in is a must.

The one thing I'm unsure of is how all these Microsoft web storage spaces will be drawn together. I have a Mesh, Workspace, SkyDrive, MSN Folders, Hotmail, etc, etc. I'm hoping that these are integrated at some point in the future.

Yes, they all have somewhat different purposes, but still I'd like to see some cross-service integration. I want to be able to access my SkyDrive from my Workspace, Mesh from SkyDrive, Workspace from Mesh, etc. I really like choice, but you and I both know not all of these are going to stand the test of time. IMHO Mesh will be king, and the rest folding into it someway (using the platform that is Mesh for their storage maybe, etc)...

Anyway, time to reboot so the setup for this addin can finish...

Getting PowerShell on Windows Server 2008 Server Core

Dmitry’s PowerBlog: PowerShell and beyond - PowerShell on Server Core

"Below is a step-by-step instruction on installing Windows PowerShell on Windows Server 2008 in Server Core mode.
Note that these are in no way official or supported by Microsoft. Microsoft is working on official version of .NET and PowerShell for Server Core installations, so eventually you will be able to get this fully supported. Until then below are the instructions you can use at your own risk, etc., etc.
...

Below are the steps you can take to create packages of these tools which can be installed. Basically the whole procedure consists of just four main steps:

Installing Visual C++ Redistributable Packages (required for .NET).
Installing .NET 2.0 SP1
Installing PowerShell.
Jumping around the computer and shouting “I’ve got it!”

So let’s get started!

..."

#4 made me laugh. When I get stuff to work I usually do the "Happy Dance" ... LOL

"New Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista" - Run as Admin for Scripting tools, PowerShell/CMD Here Explorer Context Menus and Drag and Drop Elevation Gadget.

TechNet - New Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista

"At a Glance:

Run as Administrator for third-party scripting tools
Run as Another User
Prompt Here as System for CMD and Windows PowerShell
Drag-and-drop Elevation Gadget

...
Welcome to another edition of the Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista. I took a close look at this in the June 2007 issue of TechNet Magazine. Here we are a year later. This time around, I want to show you how I expanded the Run as Administrator functionality to some of my favorite third-party scripting tools, demonstrate how you can replace a nice Windows® XP feature that was removed from Windows Vista®, and look at some of the handy tools that are included in Elevation PowerToys
...

Run as Administrator for Additional Scripting Tools
One topic I discussed in the previous article (available at technet.microsoft.com/magazine/cc162321.aspx) was enabling the Run as Administrator option for the native Windows scripting tools. For this article, I've created Run as Administrator PowerToys for some third-party scripting tools:

AutoIt v3 (www.hiddensoft.com)
AutoHotkey (www.autohotkey.com)
ActivePerl (www.activestate.com)
KiXtart 2010 (www.kixtart.org)

The code for each of these is included in the download for this article, which you can find at technetmagazine.com. ...
...

CMD and PowerShell Prompt Here as System

... "

A couple security focused powertoys that could come in handy for SysAdmin's in a Vista world.

(via TechNet Magazine Blog - Security: New Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista)

Linq DataContext.Log to Log4Net - Using Log4Net to log the SQL generated by Linq to SQL

CodeProject - Redirect LINQ to SQL DataContext Log Messages To Log4Net

"An article that shows how one can use Log4Net to capture the log messages that are generated by the LINQ to SQL DataContext classes

Visual Studio automatically generates the subclasses of DataContext class when dealing with LINQ to SQL for ORM. These auto generated classes have a property named Log of type System.IO.TextWriter. If an object of type TextWriter or its subclass is assigned to this property, then it will use that instance for writing the log messages. As Log4Net is one of the most used Logging libraries for .NET enterprise level projects, in this project I will present a solution to capture the log messages through Log4Net logging.
Background

In my project, I have a well established logging framework that uses Log4Net. Now that I moved to LINQ to SQL, I needed to get the raw SQL that is generated from the LINQ C# codes for both instrumentation and performance purposes. From MSDN, I came to know that I need to pass an instance of type TextWriter to get the log messages from the DataContext subclasses. So, I ended up writing a subclass of TextWriter called LINQLogger, which encapsulates the responsibility of using Log4Net logger under the hood as it receives the log messages from the DataContext classes.
..."

I like the architecture of this article, with its abstracting out of the logging engine, usage of patterns, etc.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Swiftword - A "Help me memorize this darn speech" utility

Follow the Heard - Swiftword Application

"A tachistoscope is a device that displays (usually by projecting) an image for a specific amount of time. It can be used to increase recognition speed, to show something too fast to be consciously recognized, or to test which elements of an image are memorable. ...

...

Swiftscope is my version of a text based tachistoscope application. Essentially it is a speed reader - you feed it a text file containing the content you want to memorise, and play the file through at progressively faster speeds. Eventually, your subconscious begins to anticipate the next word before it is even delivered as your memory begins to retain the information. This can be used to help you memorise things like speeches and course notes, and can even assist slow readers to speed up through coaching to avoid sub-vocalising words as you read.

..."

Dean just emailed me, telling me about this cool utility/application he wrote. It's deceptively simple, yet might be able to help you save your bacon one day...

Read the original post for the details, but in short the application is meant to help you remember stuff. Speeches, presentations, anything you can stuff into a text file, etc. Point it at a text file, click play and the works being appearing. Think uber-flash cards, but much cooler.

I can see using this myself as well as to help my son memorize stuff for school... Thanks for the heads up Dean!

geekSpeak TeamBuild 2008 - 57 minute geek chat (i.e. more demo's, less slides) about TeamBuild 2008, Testing, WiX and more (Level 100)

Channel 9 Forums » Screencasts - geekSpeak recording: All About Team Build 2008 with Steven Borg

"In this episode of geekSpeak, Steven Borg shares the merits of using Team Build 2008 to radically improve the quality of the code you write. Steven gives a great overview of how to set up automated builds and a build server, and the benefits of investing the time to do it right.

...

Nonetheless, things like work items, build reports, logs and changesets available with Team Foundation Server can help developers zero in on bugs that "break the build". Breaking the build is bad, and we have a good chuckle about some of the stiff "penalties" that various development teams (even some within Microsoft) come up with for that infraction.
Also in this geekSpeak, get the scoop on what's on the horizon for setup and deployment projects, and hear about a great tool called WIX which makes building projects into MSI files super easy. Steven goes so far as to say that WIX actually changed the way he works, listen to him explain why.
..."

Higher level intro to TeamBuild 2008. If you're new to TeamBuild this cast is a nice intro to it, Continuous Integration (CI), find who "broke the build", including Unit Tests in the build, etc, etc. If you've been using TeamBuild for a bit, you may want to skip ahead to the WiX (MSI) stuff (48:05).

(via James Manning's blog - screencast on using Team Build 2008)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

101 ways to "Pump you (Visual Studio) Up"

Brian Schroer - "Pimp My IDE": 101 Visual Studio tips, tricks, and add-ins

"Here are the links from my May 12, 2008 presentation at the St. Louis C# User Group:

Tons of ways to add-on, tweak, change and use Visual Studio (2003, 2005, 2008)

SnipPit - Store your VS code snippets in a central and shared SQL Database

CodeProject - SnipPit - A snippet Repository

"...

SnipPit is a Visual Studio (VS) 2008 Add-In (and a desktop application is included too) that allows for storing, retrieving, and searching for code snippets. It allows for keywords, code/language types (C#, VB, C++, etc.; you could even use this for code categories I suppose if you really wanted to) multiple users, public and private snippets. It also provides a right-click menu within VS and comes with a desktop program for use in apps. other than VS. I wrote it for my personal use, but have seen others requesting snippet functionality like this so I figured I'd share it.

..."

An interesting idea and implementation for saving and sharing code snippets.

But if I wanted to share and sync snippets, right now I think I'd give Live Mesh a go. Then again, I'm a little worried that Live Mesh is going blocked/restricted at work one day (as FolderShare has been), limiting my ability to use it (sigh...). Still I'm using Live Mesh to sync my Text Template template files and it's working great. :)

But I digress, the SnipPit project, besides having a cool name, looks like a pretty cool and complete project (written in VB.Net). I dig it's capability to share snippets. For a dev team, this could come in real handy...

With .Net 3.5 SP1 you can now launch Fully Trusted App's from your Network Shares, by default...

.NET Security Blog - FullTrust on the LocalIntranet

"We released the first beta of .NET 3.5 SP 1 this morning, and it includes a change to the default grant set for applications launched from the LocalIntranet zone. The quick summary is that as of .NET 3.5 SP1, applications run from a network share will receive a grant set of FullTrust by default, making them act the same as if they were launched off of your computer directly. Since this is an issue that I know a lot of people run into, I hope that this change makes it easier to use and deploy managed applications. ...
...
The core of this change is a modification in how we assign evidence to network launched applications. When we see an .exe launched directly off a network share, rather than giving that .exe Zone evidence of LocalInranet, we instead give the .exe Zone evidence of MyComputer. ...
...
To summarize the under the hood changes, assemblies which will now receive Zone evidence of MyComputer and therefore be fully trusted by default are:

Any managed .exe which is launched directly from a network share
Any assembly in that .exe's process which is loaded from the same directory as the .exe itself was.

Assemblies which will not see this change include:

Assemblies loaded from a subdirectory of the share where the .exe was launched from
Assemblies loaded from shares other than the one where the main .exe was launched
Any assembly loaded on a machine with the LegacyMyComputer registry value set to 1
Any assembly loaded into a CLR host, including assemblies loaded into Internet Explorer as controls.
Any assembly loaded from shares by an application that was launched from the "real" MyComputer zone."

I'm not sure how I feel about this...

On one hand, I think it's great and could help make a number of things in my life easier.

On the other hand, I liked the original restriction as I felt it helped keep my end user workstations a little more secure by lowering their attack profile (i.e. that a .Net app had to be copied to the local machine before it would have Full Trust...).

I do feel that any change to default, out of the box, security will need to be announced loud and clear. The above post is a great first notice, but I hope this change will get future focus and not be lost in all that's being included in SP1 (hence my post about it ;)

Still, all in all, I think this is a good move and one that I look forward too...

How to play with .Net 3.5/VS2008 SP1 Beta without jacking your machine - A Step By Step Guide...

MyVSTSBlog - Evaluating the VSTS/TFS 2008 SP1 Beta - How to get started

"Now that Microsoft has released the beta versions of Visual Studio 2008 SP1, TFS 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, how should you go about evaluating them? Remember - As beta products, you should NOT install these in production environments. (OK - so you're not silly enough to consider that anyway)

One of the best ways to evaluate these Service Pack 1 betas, is to use the pre-configured VSTS/TFS 2008 virtual machine which is available from the Microsoft web site. The following steps will walk you through downloading and installing the trial VPC and then adding the betas to the virtual machine.
..."

A six step guide to getting you ready to play with TFS2008/VS2008/.Net 3.5 SP1 Beta on a Virtual PC VHD.

As you know (or may not), this SP is a pretty big one, feature wise. The Entity Framework, ADO.Net Data Services, ASP Dynamic Data, new WPF stuff, faster client application startup, improved end user .Net setup experience, etc, etc. This is a .1 or almost a .5 release in its scope...

Check out Scott Guthrie's post, Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta, for more details on SP1...

Saturday, May 10, 2008

RockScroll - Turning your Visual Studio scrollbar in a thumbnail of your code

Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com - Introducing RockScroll

"...

The basic (as in "only") idea is that RockScroll extends the scrollbar in Visual Studio to show a syntax highlighted thumbnail view of your source. This is really useful for those excessively long source code files you know you have. It's just one DLL and you can turn it off from Tools|AddIns just by un-checking the checkbox.
Enjoy!

..."

What a great idea...

The one thing that confused me a little is how it currently handles collapsed regions. It shows the code in the rockscroll area but when you nav to it in rockscroll, the code remains hidden.

Here's an example. All the code collapsed, but the rockscroll area makes it seem like it's not.

In short to effectively use it, your code regions needs to be expanded...

The cool thing is that RockScroll can also work with non-code files too (but currently not XML and some other files). Below is a text file...

Also a VERY cool feature is that if you highlight a reference in your code (you double click on a variable for example), RockScroll will highlight all its instances. See the red highlighting below...

Other features the indications of breakpoints, bookmarks on right side and recent edits on the left size.

All in all a very cool and interesting way of extending Visual Studio...

(via Non-official Random .NET Ramblings - @shanselman Introduces RockScroll)

Friday, May 09, 2008

Ever wondered what a diagram of the TFS 2008 Team Build Process would look like? Wonder no more...

Willy-Peter Schaub's Cave of Chamomile Simplicity - Team Foundation Server 2008 - Build Process Quick Reference Poster

"We are excited to announce the latest quick reference poster for TFS, focused on the Team Build Process, the targets, the properties and the overall build process. We have managed to create a poster based on collaboration with MVPs and the best at Microsoft, resulting in a really comprehensive and valuable poster. Thanks guys!

You can locate the poster 0202 Microsoft Team System Build Process in our www.drp.co.za community site (recommended site for users outside of South-Africa) and our www.saarchitect.net community site (recommended site for ZA users). Happy downloading and enjoy the latest family member." [Post leached in full]

Check out this and the other VERY cool posters (and additional .Net coolness) at DRP » Media » Posters » Posters (PDF)

Video showing the Windows Workflow Foundation being used to build a Build in "Rosario"

Team System Rocks - Version Control and Build Mini-Story - Part 2 - Build

"Version Control and Build Mini-Story - Part 2 - Build"

Mickey Gousset presents Part 2 of a "Rosario" (aka Team Foundation Server vNext) mini-story screencast, focusing on building the Build using the new coolness that's coming in "Rosario"... (Distributed builds, workflow, etc)

I think the coolest part is how the TFS team is dogfooding the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).

Sure WF is in SharePoint 2007, but IMHO, WF has been kind of the red headed stepchild of the .Net 3.x wave. While it was probably the most "cooked" of the three tech's (WPF, WCF, WF) at release (with solid tooling in place, etc), it seems to have been the least talked about.

WF has the same potential of change as does WCF & WPF, yet it hasn't really caught on yet. Why? Because it's kind of hard for us (Dev's) to wrap our heads around. Where do you host it? Where does it run? Is this a thing which we run stuff through or something run on stuff? How do I let the true business user build a workflow without giving them VS? How do I wrap all this into my app? How do I move my code into a workflow? Store, version and deploy it? etc, etc, etc.

Presentation change (WPF)? Pretty easy to get the general idea as, from the highest level, it's an enhancement of something we already have and do. Communication change (WCF), again we already do communication, WCF makes it much easier, so again from a high level, easy to understand.

Workflow? That's another beast. It really requires a change in mindset. While from the highest level, almost every app has a "workflow", trying to wrap your head around a brand new way to separate the workflow from the app is what I believe is the hardest part of "getting" WF. We're so used to writing the workflow code into our apps, it is so natural and basic, that using WF is like learning to walk on the moon... taking a basic process and changing it's base rules and assumptions...

Anyway getting back to my main point, by baking WF into the TFS Build process, I think the TFS team could invigorate interest in WF. Dev's will see this, use it and say, "Wow, I want my app to do this... " Once we get comfortable with it, use it day to day, one of the bigger barriers to WF will begin to crumble...

Also check out Part 1 for an insight into the Version control changes coming as well as his other Rosario videos...

Thursday, May 08, 2008

C/C++ Developer? Live in the Southern California? Want to join an A+ Team in building an MMO? Red 5 Studio's is looking for you...

Because I have this long held secret desire to be part of the building of an MMO, when I received an email from Jeff Lawniczak of Red 5 Studio's asking if was interested in discussing opportunities, I debated replying. I'm not looking for work mind you, hence the debate, but if a perfect dream job were to fall into my lap? Well I'd be silly to not at least chat with him, wouldn't I?

After reviewing their open positions, I didn't feel I was a fit (plus the extra 40+ miles a day to my already 150 mile commute would have killed me) but Jeff still took a bit can gave me a call to chat.

It seems their team is built on a strong foundation of very experienced people with a solid vision for the future of MMO's.

"We are a MMO development studio founded by some of the creators/developers of World of Warcraft, the most popular Massive Multiplayer On Line Game in the world with annual sales exceeding one billion dollars. Our mandate is to continue to attract stellar talent to build the next generation MMOs that stretch the genre and tap into the power of the platform.
Our founders and development team were some of the key components to the immense success of WoW. Our CEO, Mark Kern was the project leader and was instrumental in shepherding it through its successful completion. ..."

Since they are here in SoCal and are building an MMO (big pluses in my book... ;), I thought the least I could do to help was give a show-out about their positions...

Red 5 Studio's - Available Jobs at Red 5

Plus positions in Art, Design, AI Development, Production and more...

If you're interested and have the skillz, shoot Jeff (jlawniczak@red5studios.com) an email... (and when it goes into beta, keep me in mind... :)

Case in point, you cannot destroy data if someone wants it bad enough... 99% of the data recovered from hard drive from Space Shuttle Columbia

Gizmodo - Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

"

It's taken four and a half years, but the data recovery specialists charged with extracting data from a cracked, charred 400MB Seagate drive aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia have done their duty, retrieving 99% of the information written to the disk. The Columbia burned up on re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003, over Louisiana and Texas. Computerworld reports that the drive was found in a dry lakebed and handed to a team at Kroll Ontrack about six months after the tragedy, but the successful recovery has only just come to light.

...

The drive, already eight years old at the time of the mission, took a beating in the crash, and took another beating during recovery. Stripped down to the platter alone, it was placed in another mechanism and "carefully aligned" with a new motor. As it spun, it sustained more damage, but didn't crap out before Kroll could get the goods. ...

..."

As I've said in the past, once you create data it's very hard to destroy it.

Look, if the data off a hard drive from a space shuttle that disintegrated on reentry from orbit can be recovered...

Enhance your SSMS - SQL Server Management Studio Tools Pack 1.0 Released

I want some Moore - Ease your SSMS experience: SSMS Tools PACK 1.0 is out!

"After a long while I've finally managed to create a release version. I've also added some cool new features.

...
In SSMS Tools Pack 1.0 you can find these features:
Uppercase/Lowercase keywords:
         Set all keywords to uppercase or lowercase letters. Custom keywords can be added.
- Run one script on multiple databases:
          Run selected or full window text on selected databases on the currently connected server.
- Copy execution plan bitmaps to clipboard:
          Copy selected or all execution plans to a bitmap that is saved on the clipboard.
- Search Results in Grid Mode and Execution Plans:
          Find all occurrences of your search string in the execution plans or in the results in datagrid mode.
- Generate Insert statements for a single table, the whole database or current resultsets in grids:
          Generate insert statement from your data.
- Query Execution History (Soft Source Control):
           Save all executed queries to file or database and easily find them.
- Text document Regions and Debug sections:
           Add Regions and Debug section in your scripts to ease development experience.
- Running custom scripts from Object explorer's Context menu:
           Speedy execution of custom scripts from Object Explorer's context menus.
- CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) stored procedure generation:
           Generate Customizable CRUD stored procedures for all tables in your database.
- New query template:
           Create a template that is shown when creating a new query window.
..." [Post leached almost in full]

The SSMS Tools Pack 1.0 adds some pretty cool features to the SQL Server Management Studio. SSMS 2008, 2005 and 2005 Express are all supported.

Oh yeah, the price? It's Donate-ware (you like it, you use it, you give to help keep it alive via a PayPal link...)

Using Stored Procedures that return multiple result sets in LINQ to SQL

DDITDev - LINQ to SQL and multiple result sets in Stored Procedures

"In this post I'm going to demonstrate how you would return and consume multiple result sets from a stored procedure in LINQ to SQL.

...

The first thing we need to do is create a partial class and define a new method returning type ‘IMultipleResults’. I’ve defined the one below to accept one parameter, which is a customerId.
...

As shown above, you call the method you defined, passing in a customer id in this case, which returns you a type of IMultipleResults. From there it’s just a case of calling the ‘GetResult’ method making sure to pass in the type of the object you want.
..."

A pretty short and sweat post on using and consuming multiple result sets from Stored Procedures in LINQ to SQL

Outlook PST Backup Utility

Microsoft Downloads - Outlook 2007/2003/2002 Add-in: Personal Folders Backup

"Backing up your Microsoft Outlook information is quicker and easier with the Personal Folders Backup feature. Personal Folders Backup creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2002 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up.

With Personal Folders Backup, you can choose which of your .PST files you wish to back up, and how often you wish to back them up.

Each .PST file contains all of your Outlook folders, including the Inbox, Calendar, and Contacts. You can have a single .PST file (usually called "Internet Folders" or "Personal Folders" in your Folder List), but you might also have an additional .PST file that you use for archiving ("Archiving Folders"). Personal Folders Backup lets you back up any or all of these .PST files.

..."

If your company is anything like mine, and you have a strict limit on the amount of email you can keep in your main Exchange Mailbox, then this utility might come in handy for you.

I have a number of PST's on my machine. About once a month I'd quit Outlook and copy all of them to a network share for backup purposes.

This utility helps automate all of that.

Accessed via the File/Backup menu, you select the PST's you want to backup (i.e. copy a backup of the PST to another location), where to copy them to and how often to remind you to back them up. Copying the backup's to UNC's worked great for me...

To actually do the backup, you click on the "Save Backup" button and then you exit Outlook (When Outlook is open a PST is locked. So you need to exit Outlook so the PST can be copied...). Then the utility will copy PST's, one after the other, naming them "[OriginalName] backup.pst".

Simple, easy and pretty painless. Much easier than manually copying the PST's to back them up, that's for sure...

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

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!

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)

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...

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

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...

Monday, May 05, 2008

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!

Sunday, May 04, 2008

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...