At http://panasonic.net/eclips... there is a web cam for tonight's anuular eclipse.The broadcast starts at 22:00 UT tonight...
Today's $10 deal from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is HTML5 and JavaScript Projects"HTML5 and JavaScript Projects shows you how to build sophisticated applications using the core technologies of HTML5, including databases, localStorage, geolocation, video, and audio."...
At http://shop.oreilly.com/pro... Microsoft Deal are offering an excellent deal on Programming Windows®, 6th Edition"Reimagined for full-screen and touch-optimized apps, Windows 8 provides a platform for reaching new users in new ways. In response, programming legend Charles Petzold is rewriting his classic Programming Windows—one of the most popular programming books of all time—to show developers how to use existing skills and tools to build Windows 8 apps. (See the book's "Description"...
Ive been speaking to a few people starting their organisations first BizTalk projects recently and talking about Host setup and what is a good intial setup and how it may change over time. Normally you see companies go one of two ways to begin with:1. They just have one BizTalk host with an instance on each server and use it for everything2. They have many instances for everything and use way more than they need to.Im a big believer that a little thought about this and how your company plans to use...
Since I have been interested in cross-platform mobile application development, but reluctant to leave behind the IDE goodness that is Visual Studio, I was invited to participate in a private early beta program for VSNomad and asked to share my thoughts. One of the coolest things about the tool is that there is hardly anything to it, so most of this blog entry will be focused around the motivations for a tool like VSNomad rather than "all the things it does". Access to the early beta program is "by...
Have you ever gotten errors when working with WCF services? Open up your web.config/app.config on the server side and add the following<system.diagnos... <!-- This logging is great when WCF does not work. --> <sources> <source name="System.ServiceModel" switchValue="Information, ActivityTracing" propagateActivity="true"> <listeners> <add name="traceListener" type="System.Diagnostics.Xm... initializeData= "c:\traces.svclog" /> </listeners>...
Entity Framework is an object-relational mapping framework that can be used to work with data as objects. While you can run the ADO.NET Entity Data Model wizard in Visual Studio to handle generating the Entity Model for yourself, this can put you at a disadvantage if there are changes in your data source or if you want more control over how the entities operate. In this article we will demonstrate a Code First approach to accessing your QuickBooks Data using the RSSBus ADO.NET Provider. Even though...
Following on from my previous post, I needed also to get my key for Microsoft Office. I found http://www.magicaljellybean... downloaded it and run it...
One of the problems that I face is having to periodically rebuild my development PCs. When preparing for a re-build it is important to plan on having the right licence key to hand, and a complete list of programs to install. It also helps if like me you keep downloaded installs in a known place as that make re-installation very easy.So given that I have a number of licence keys for Windows 7 Ultimate, how did I find the one that was used for this PC? I located a very useful article at http://pcsupport.about.com/...
short url for my blog address. hehe...
At http://storm.codeplex.com/ there is a free tool for testing Web Services and WCF services.STORM allows you to 1. Test web services written using any technology (.NET , Java, etc.) 2. Dynamically invoke web service methods even those that have input parameters of complex data types 3. Save development time and money. Creating throw-away test client apps just to test the web service is just too wasteful 4. Test multiple web services from within one UI. 5. Edit/Manipulate the raw soap requests. 6...
SharePoint 2010 provides a number of templates for creating new sites. Most organizations will decide for you which SharePoint templates you're going to use; it’s usually either a Team Site template or a Publishing Site template. The other templates are specialized. Product Available Site Templates Typical Usage Scenarios SharePoint Foundation 2010 Team Site, Meeting Workspace, Blog More people contribute content than read it; also when you want basic layouts SharePoint Server 2010, Standard license;...
If you did not pay attention to the last step before publishing an InfoPath 2010 form to a SharePoint server and you are facing a lot of problems because the publish created duplicate columns. Look no further, this post will make your life easier.A lot of us use InfoPath and have to deal with its annoying bugs day in and day out. But we just have to be more careful and aware to avoid any situations where there's no second option.Today, I was working with an InfoPath form, and was converting a regular...
Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. We’ve talked about the Select() and Where() LINQ extension methods before. The Select() method lets you project from the source type to a new type, and the Where() method lets you filter the list of items to the ones you are interested in. Most people know of these...
This might not be news to you but for me this was a discovery i made only this week, yes how did i not know this before! So I discovered how to pin any folder to the Windows Explorer jump list on the Windows 7 task bar. Any entries in the 'Frequent' menu can be pinned using its context menu, but a folder that does not appear in the 'Frequent' menu can still be pinned just by dragging its path from the address bar in the Explorer window onto the task bar icon. The pinned folders can then be accessed...
I've used this enum helper from time to time to get an enum value from attributes such as Description and XmlEnumAttribute. Maybe you can find it useful? public static class EnumEx { public static T GetXmlEnumValue<T>(st... name) { var type = CheckEnum<T>(); var val = (from f in type.GetFields() let attribute = f.GetCustomAttributes(typeo... true).FirstOrDefault() as System.Xml.Serialization.Xm... where attribute != null &&...
Get ready for a cool event on June 7th. Register to watch live (starting at 1PM PDT): here – The event will be presented by Scott Guthrie. To keep updated on this event follow the twitter conversations @WindowsAzure, #MEETAzure, #WindowsAzure. You can also register for the social meetup on Twitter event, organized by MVP Magnus Martensson. I assure you; you don’t want to miss this event… MEET Windows Azure Blog Relay: Roger Jennings (@rogerjenn): Social meet up on Twitter for Meet Windows Azure on...
We’re having a shindig at my work today, Online Business Systems, to celebrate making the “Best Workplaces in Canada” list for the 6th consecutive year. This is a big deal for us, as we put a lot of work and effort into ensuring that our workplace is attractive to top talent, offers fantastic professional development opportunities, and provides challenging & meaningful work. I’ve worked at a lot of technology consulting companies in Winnipeg, and I can honestly say that Online is hands down the...
I was setting up a search service application today and enabling search and crawling content sources.But i decided to test the "Web Analytics Web Part".But when i added it i got the error: There are no addresses available for this applicationCheck that you started the “Managed Metadata Web Service”. This can be found here: Central Admin > System Settings > Manage Services On ServerCheck that you started the “Managed Metadata Web Service”. Hope that helps...
Hi,The recording of the webinar we did with Forrester Research recently is now available. At this opportunity I would like to thank Jefferey Hammond of Forrester who did a great job in discussing the Open Web, Cloud computing and Mobility trends and presenting the new development challenges they bring and why organizations need to rethink their application development strategies. The 2nd part of the webinar is a presentation from Gizmox, discussing the Instant CloudMove assessment and transposition...
Stylecop 4.7.22.0 has been released at http://stylecop.codeplex.co... included a fix to a problem I reported at http://stylecop.codeplex.co... well done Andrew and team...
It’s a Friday evening and you have just checked in that last bit of code, you are waiting for the build to go all green so that you could call it a day. Just then the build summary page comes back red on the test results section. The build summary page tells you that 1 of the test namely HelloWorld.Tests.UnitTest1.... has failed… To know why the test has failed, you have no option but to click on View Test Results link which in turn downloads the trx file...
When installing SQL Server 2008 R2 (Developer, Standard, or Enterprise) within a Virtual PC you may suffer the following problem: “The following error has occurred: The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2337.” The error occurs in the following package: sql_engine_core_shared It turns out that this problem is with the DVD/ISO Mounting Feature in Windows Virtual PC. To workaround the problem you need...
Recently I had a need to write some tests making Web Api calls that would be deployable to the build server without any special configuration.What I did was utilize the Self Hosting feature in the Asp.NetWebApi. First, I created a simple Api controller . // GET /api/values public class ValuesController : ApiController { public SomeObjects GetByName(string firstName, string lastName) { var someObjects= new List<SomeObject>() { new SomeObject { FirstName = "Tom", LastName = "Jones", Id= 1213...
Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 provided support for system testing. Test cases were added as a work item type. But test plans and suites are not work items and this greatly limits the visibility into the management of test artifacts. For example, there is no easy way out-of-the-box to find test cases that don’t belong to a test plan. Here’s the SQL that creates a list of test cases providing the test case: ID Title State Assigned To Area Path Iteration Path Plan and Suite Path...
Although it doesn’t have any specific tools to help responsive or mobile site design this is still possible in Expression Web and I’ve created a number of snippets to help the process. HTML5 and CSS3 are the key to responsive design, so the snippets cover the new HTML5 layout elements, form input types and microdata tags, and the CSS3 snippets cover box-radius, box-shadow, gradients etc. The mobile snippets include the CSS3 media queries, mobile meta tags and the responsd.js shim that enables older...
So as you know I am yet again involved in SPS NYC with my awesome teammates, Greg Hurlman, Jason Gallicchio, Tasha Scott, and Tom Daly. The speakers have finally been picked and a first draft schedule has been posted at http://www.sharepointsaturd... We are also still looking for sponsors if you guys are interested you can also click on the link to grab the form, sign it, and send it to sponsors@spsnyc.com. We are also looking for volunteers and you can fill out the form at the same place...
So as you can see this blog has not been the best in the world lately. Life changes and burn out are killing me lately. Don’t get me wrong I love my job. I love writing things in Visual Studio, in fact this week I got to work with MVC3 for the first time ever. I am completely hooked on MVC3 and will further explore that in the upcoming months. I have entertaining a completely different idea, because I think it would be fun and interesting. The downside is it involves me buying an Apple computer....
Microsoft had just released a new website http://www.meetwindowsazure... which announced an outstanding event named “MEET Windows Azure”. There will be some awesome new features and releases being published around the Windows Azure Platform, the cloud computing platform and cloud-based technologies Microsoft offers. From what I know, this might be the biggest innovation in Windows Azure till now. The event will be hosted at 1pm PDT, June 7th at the Madrone Studio in San Francisco with limited sites....
public static class QueryableExtensions { public static IQueryable<T> Filter<T>(this IQueryable<T> queryable, IEnumerable<KeyValuePair... string>> filters) where T : class { foreach (var filter in filters) { var propertyName = typeof(T).GetProperties().S... => x.Name).SingleOrDefault(x => x.ToLower() == filter.Key.ToLower()); if (propertyName.IsNullOrWhite... continue; var parameterExpression = Expression.Parameter(typeof... var propertyExpression...
I came across this the other day. Using SQL 2000 I could not get a Top statement to work with a variable. I had forgotten that only with SQL 2005 and higher could you do this trick. I found a good way around it, you can read about it here. Anyway this works on SQL 2000: declare @top intset @top = 5 BEGINset rowcount @top select Some_ID from tblStuffset rowcount 0END The code above would return the first five records from tblStuff. For any of the newer SQL Server version you can simply use the @top...
I know there are afew places where you can check out the differences between Sass or Less, but I thought it may be helpful for others to know why I chose one over the other.Here are some of my sources:http://sass-lang.co... my main decision was affected by my IDE I need to mention my development environment:Visual Studio...
There is some helpful information from Ewald Hofman on passing in parameters to the TFS SQL Server Analysis Services OLAP reports. But, the 2010 schema has changed. You can use the SQL Server Mgmgt Studio to access the metadata and query the tables to seee the new schema and record values. As an example of the Task Burndown report on the TFS 2010 Project Portal, here's the URL that worked in a browser: http://{your tfs server}/Reports/Pages/Repor...
My goal was to have the burndown chart on the team project portal main page display the current iteration. The default report displays the tasks for the entire team project starting 5 days before the current date and ending 25 days after the current date. FRUSTRATING, to say the least! I mean, what a useless report! Who's Agile book did they get that one from? What I wanted was to see the burndown for the current iteration. That is, tasks for that iteration only and that iteration starting on a fixed...
We don’t use the term “Bug,” rather we use “Software Action Request” or “SAR.” I renamed the Bug WI definition from Bug to SAR. I added a few custom fields to our SAR WI definition, but all the Microsoft fields are used and unchanged. What I want is for the MTLM client to be configured to open a SAR rather than a Bug. In other words, out-of-the-box when a user is manually executing a test case with the MTLM Test Runner client and one of the steps fail, the user clicks a button to create a Bug or...
When using TFS work items you may find that when you transition from one state to another that you selected the wrong reason code, or you found out shortly afterwards that the reason code you selected is incorrect. Well, you may be surprised to find that reason codes (System.Reason) cannot be updated within the same state. After some looking into, I came to understand the intent of reason code is to document the "reason" the state changed. As opposed to indicate within state changes. However, it...
Tomorrow I will be presenting “Building Scalable Apps in Windows Azure” at VS Live in New York City. I will be co-presenting with my colleague Vishwas Lele of Azure fame. Should be a great event...
I loved RIL Pro for iPad and used it every day, but about a month ago I was forced to upgrade to new version, named Pocket.The new version has so many problems, that it's almost unusable.The main issue is that iPad app doesn't show many of the saved links. I've posted my opinion that it would be better to have Pocket as a new separate application and recommend users to install it side by side with RIL Pro and try before replace at Pocket forum APR 20, 2012 http://help.getpocket.com/c...
Since the 2012 Transit of Venus is the last transit of Venus across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth, for many years, being able to locate a web cam feed that will be in clear daylight for the whole of the transit period. So far I have only located one. This is at: http://www.transitofvenus.c... the transit of Venus was very important for determining the absolute size of the solar system, however high power radar has allowed direct measurement of distance at any time...
Stepping through IWindsorInstaller implementations in web services created using the WcfFacility[1] is not as immediately accessible compared to debugging the start up of a console application. Just pressing F5 with the web service set as a start up project causes the start up code to have already been run before the debugger attaches to the IIS worker process. Fortunately there is a simple way of causing the start up code to be re-run whilst remaining attached to the IIS worker process, so that...
I'm running Mahara in a Windows Server 2008 environment using Apache web server and just for fun I wanted to enable SSL :-). I setup SSL and tested the setup using a self-signed certificate, all good, SSL was working. I requested a server certificate from our corporate CA, which is an intermediate CA for GlobalSign, this was done using an online MS certificate server service. When the certificate was ready, I revisit the site, and the certificate is installed automagically into the current user certificate...
After configuring user profile you get the correlation id and in event logs you get The Forefront Identity Manager Service cannot connect to the SQL Database Server. The SQL Server could not be contacted. The connection failure may be due to a network failure, firewall configuration error, or other connection issue. Additionally, the SQL Server connection information could be configured incorrectly. Verify that the SQL Server is reachable from the Forefront Identity Manager Service computer. Ensure...
Everyone has done it, you know you have too. When someone asks you for a status update on a new feature you just finished coding, you say "That's Done!" Think about what you just said for a minute, is it really done? Can someone use that feature in production for its intended purpose? That's really what done means, right? To the end user, done means its up and running, in production, providing value. Code complete is just another stage in the pipeline getting us out to really done. You may say, that...
In answering this question it helps to look at the overall creation of a website and the processes involved.The term 'web design' still in common use, is something of a misnomer. 'Web creation' seems to be a better term and it involves three distinct processes.The design of the ‘look and feel’ of the site or the ‘UI’. This is often (and best) done by someone with artistic or graphic design skills, but with an appreciation of what is possible on the web. This is the real ‘design’ activity.The translation...
Stylecop 4.7.20.0 has been released at http://stylecop.codeplex.co... Notes Compatible with the Visual Studio 11 Preview.Install order should be : VS10VS11R#6.1.1 msi (for VS10)R#6.1.1 vsix (for VS11)StyleCop 4.7 This version is now compatible with R# 5.1 (5.1.3000.12), R# 6.0 (6.0.2202.688), R# 6.1 (6.1.37.86) and R# 6.1.1 (6.1.1000.82).Here are the bug details for fixed in 4.7 and closed in 4.7 issues (over 100 issues fixed since 4.6)Here are the bug details for all issues...
So I have decided to hold a community dinner the first week of June. I invited a bunch of MS community members who run user groups or contribute a lot in the NYC Metro area. If anyone is interested drop me comment on this blog with your email address. I won’t publish the comment with your email in case you don’t want everyone to see your address. I just figured that some people might see this blog that I missed via email. I am also going to spam the main community list for njny metro area. Hopefully,...
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of being able to participate in Conestoga College’s Software Engineering Technology project demo day as a guest judge, along with 4 other members of the IT community. This event is held every year at the end of April, and provides graduating students the opportunity to present their group projects to those in attendance, discussing the business problem it solved, the challenges they faced, how they addressed those challenges, and the future direction they have...
Here's a short tutorial on how to use log4net in C#1. Get log4net from the apache website.2. Open your project with visual studio.3. Add the reference to your project: You find the reference in the zip that you just downloaded: \bin\net\xxx\release\log4ne... xxx is your .net version.4. Add the Appender section to your app.config. The following code uses a file for the logging: <configuration> <configSections> <section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4Ne...
Today is a day to celebrate mother’s everywhere. There will be breakfasts cooked, cards opened, gifts given, brunches and dinners shared. There will be church services where mothers are given flowers from their children and sermons will talk of the blessings mothers are. People who aren’t even related will wish others who are mothers a “Happy Mother’s Day”. And all of this will go on without any consideration or thought to the forgotten mothers in our midst. For many, mother’s day (and father’s day)...
Photo quality aside, it seems that Canon DSLRs are more popular than Nikon DSLRs right now based on Flickr stats.Below is a ranking of popularity based on daily users (taken from Flickr.com)Canon Camera (Average daily users)EOS 5D Mark II (4350) $2500EOS REBEL T2i / 550D (3908) $500-$600EOS 7D (3577) $1500-$1800EOS REBEL T1i / 500D (2507) $400-$500EOS 60D (2219) $800-$1300Nikon Camera (Average daily users)D90 (3985) $1000-$1200D7000 (2664) $1200-$1500D3100 (2173) $500-$700D700 (1912) $2200-$3000D5000...
Geekswithblogs Gets a Facelift
Celebrating the five year anniversary of the first post on Geekswithblogs, the GWB team has launched a new look and functionality for the community designed to help the community continue to grow and increase interaction amongst bloggers.
The new design offers bloggers and readers the ability to quickly check recent posts, popular posts, Twitter users from the community, community news, and featured bloggers.
The redesign also makes it easier for bloggers to find tutorials on how to get the most from their blogs, support information, and a community-wide tag cloud.
We hope that you will enjoy the new features and look. Here’s to another five years and to everyone that makes up Geekswithblogs!
GWB Goes to PDC ’08 – Let Us “Tag Your Top”
Geekswithblogs is proud to be a Silver Media Sponsor for the upcoming PDC ’08! This will be a great opportunity for face-to-face interaction with the developer community.
If you happen to be going to Los Angeles for the PDC, and we highly suggest you do, make sure to swing by the Geekswithblogs booth (#100) in the Expo Hall to say hi! We will have some amazing looking Geekswithblogs stickers hot off the press ready to “tag your top” – so bring your laptop by to take it from drab to fab!
GWB Podcasting from PDC ‘08
Make sure to look for fellow Geekswithbloggers Chris Williams and D’Arcy Lussier roaming around the floor. They will be playing the part of on-site GWB ambassadors and roving reporters; stop and chat with them!
We’d like to know what you think about the upcoming podcast. We are thinking of firing PodcastStudio.net (the official podcast of GWB) back up after the event and would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions.
GWB and PDC ’08 – We’ll Make You Famous!
A major part of our display at our PDC booth is going to include a video featuring none other than the Geekswithblogs community members! We’re proud to have you as contributors to a large, healthy blogging community and want to give you some additional exposure.
Here’s what to do; record yourself saying “I’m a geek with a blog, and I…”. Simply fill in the rest with something interesting about yourself. It could be anything from what technology you love, what you like to do in your spare time, where you live, etc.
Examples include:
- I’m a geek with a blog, and I rock at ASP.NET.
- I'm a geek with a blog, and I support my development community by presenting at user groups.
- I'm a geek with a blog, and I love playing guitar.
- I’m a geek with a blog, and I volunteer to help the homeless.
- I’m a geek with a blog, and I chug energy drinks.
First 30 bloggers that send in a video with at least 5 statements get a ultra-stylish Geekswithblogs t-shirt with their blog URL on the back!
Stay tuned for FTP information for uploading your files!