Windows Azure Fieldnote Summary Windows Azure Drives [1] provide a means to represent a file based (disk drive) persistent storage option for the various role types within Windows Azure Compute. Each of the roles within Windows Azure can mount and utilize for persistent storage (that survives reboot, reimaging, and updated deployments, of a role instances). During the mounting of a VHD as a CloudDrive, the managed classes have no means to control the drive letter assignment this directly through...
JetBrains have recently released ReSharper 6.1, along with compatible updates to dotCover (version 1.2) and dotTrace Performance (version 4.5.2). Here is a list of common developer tasks that ReSharper 6 helps handles better than previous versions: Improve Visual Studio responsiveness: While developing ReSharper 6.0 and 6.1, Jet Brains have fixed more than 200 performance and memory consumption issues, as well as over 2900 bugs!Use proper tooling for web development: ReSharper 6 introduces extensive...
I was trying to port an old app from c# 2.0 to WPF in 4.0. In one place I was using a Timer to handle filtering of a list from a text box. This kept the list from constantly being updated while the user is typing because it was getting data from the database. I set a 250 millisecond interval so whenever they paused it would update the list. The Timer class apparently got completely redefined in .Net 4.0. It used to have a Tick event, but this was changed to Ellapsed. Also I found out that it didn't...
The current version of MVVM Light had a couple of issues in the project templates. The most annoying one was causing a problem when creating new projects: The GUIDs used to uniquely identify the project were in fact not re-generated properly every time, and we ended up with the same GUID in every new project. The symptoms are the following: If you side-load an MVVM Light application, and then side-load another one, you will see that the first one is overwritten. Note however that this is only an...
The latest release of the Community TFS Build Extensions include a brand new tool called Community TFS Build Manager and has been created for two reasons: An implementation of the Team Foundation Build API which is referenced by the Rangers Build Customization Guidance V2 (available H1 2012) Provide a solution to a real problem. The Community TFS Build Manager is intended to ease the management of builds in medium to large Team Foundation Server environments, though it does provide a few features...
Wishing a very happy and blessed New Year to you in advance! A new release of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is available on December 29th. We expect that its 11 new code samples covering typical programming scenarios in Windows Phone 7, ASP.NET, WPF, Windows Shell, and WDK would ease your development in the coming New Year. You can download the code samples using Sample Browser or Sample Browser Visual Studio extension. They give you the flexibility to search samples, download samples on demand,...
Everyone has an opinion. When you embark upon your first real job as a programmer you will find this out very quickly. I have found that software developers can be some of the most opinionated and dogmatic people you will ever meet. This certainly is not a bad thing. However, young programmers will need to cultivate the ability to make their own minds up when it comes to how to write software. There are those who start out in a corporate environment where the styles and conventions used have already...
I just pushed two big updates to MVVM Light setup components. MSI installers with Silverlight 5 support The MSI installers are available on Codeplex. The current version supports Silverlight 3, Silverlight 4, Silverlight 5 (new), WPF 3.5 SP1, WPF 4, Windows Phone 7.0 and Windows Phone 7.1. The installer for V3 is available, as well as the one for V4 beta. NuGet support including Silverlight 5 I also pushed a new version of the NuGet packages which includes Silverlight 5. To install MVVM Light into...
What could you build with the XBox Kinect? Well we want to know! Connect your Kinect to your PC and build an application using your favorite .NET language. Kinect for Developers is a 2-day workshop for developers, artists and technicians interested in Kinect hacking or 3D scanning. This hands on workshop will teach you the basics of programming for Kinect and the potentials for developing on video and depth sensor cameras. Expect live demonstrations, presentations, food, and lots of hacking. You...
Don’t miss out on these great session with Markus Egger in the Dallas office! Where: Microsoft Dallas Office – 7000 SR-161 (George Bush Turnpike), Dallas, TX 75039 When: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 – 1:30 – 4:30 PM Signup for this FREE event in Dallas Join Markus Egger, Microsoft RD and one of the longest running MVPs, for an afternoon of free information. CODE Magazine and EPS Software are in a unique position to share information based on real world experience in projects that are either our own...
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in;...
Microsoft just released the version 5 of Silverlight! It’s a great news and I really want to congratulate the whole team on this impressive collective effort. The official announcement is on the Silverlight team blog! The purpose of this article is not to be exhaustive about the list of features (there have been, and will be, many more very detailed articles such as this series on the Silverlight blog) but rather to explain why this version in particular makes me happy to be a Silverlight developer...
One of the main attraction points to this offering in my review is how does it fit into the work I do and solutions I recommend. Right off, the fact it has capabilities described as Silverlight focus/MVVM , makes it something that intrigued me. I tested the different capabilities it has from using it in WinForms and WPF as well, and Silverlight. One of the main points is the C1DataSource, it shows a level of simplicity through the property dialogs that allows you to move right along with, for example,...
While working on a WPF application, I had a need to show the wait cursor while performing a long running operation. You would expect the code to look as follows: System.Windows.Input.Cursor previousCursor = someWindow.Cursor; someWindow.Cursor = System.Windows.Input.Cursor... try { LongRunningOperation(); } finally { someWindow.Cursor = previousCursor; } However, I didn't want the long running process tying up the UI thread. I needed to run the long running operation on its own thread. I decided...
Today is the first day of my fourth year at IdentityMine. I can hardly believe how fast it went, and how exciting the trip has been so far. In the past three years, I have had the chance to work on exciting technologies like Windows Presentation Foundation (which is still very much active, and even more exciting since we now have the possibility to add Kinect interactions to any WPF application!), Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 (for which we have a lot of work right now), Microsoft Surface (for which...
One of the sites I go to frequently is www.silverlight.net/showcase. Theres always new stuff showing up here and it gives me tons of ideas. The business section is also awesome because it has tons of samples of great applications that should really jog your brain for ideas. One of the great things about SL and WPF is how we can break the mold of application design and come up with truly great new applications for our users. That’s one are where the showcase can help to get new ideas on things you...
I was poking around today and found this cool 3D library from the great Josh Smith. You can get the source here: http://thriple.codeplex.com/ Its got some pretty cool stuff there. Se the Panel3D_Demo project to startup and run it. Then you can play around with the sample shown below: Its pretty cool stuff...
I was just pointed to comment on my friend Andrew Brust’s blog about Silverlight versus HTML 5. Andrews blog is here: http://geekswithblogs.net/a... You can get another idea from another friend of mine Billy Hollis here: http://geekswithblogs.net/j... The commenter is raving about HTML 5 and how that’s the...
So I was tasked with looking at converting 10 million tracks from mp3 320k to AAC and also Converting from mp3 320k to mp3 128k After a bit of hunting around the tool you need to use is FFMPEG Download x64 WindowsAlso for the best results get the Nero AACEncoder Download Now the command line STEP 1(From Flac)ffmpeg -i input.flac -f wav - | neroAacEnc -ignorelength -q 0.5 -if - -of output.m4aor (From mp3)ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -f wav - | neroAacEnc -ignorelength -q 0.5 -if - -of output.m4aNow the output.m4a...
While I have always been a fan of libraries that improve coding efficiency and reduce code redundancy I have mostly been using ones that were in the public domain. As part of the Geeks With Blogs Influencers program a got my hands on ComponentOne’s Studio for Entity Framework. Below are my thought after working with the product for several weeks. My coding preference has always been maintainable code that is reusable across an enterprises protfolio. Because of this my focus in reviewing this product...
The software industry lives within an interesting paradox. IT in the enterprise moves slowly and cautiously, upgrading only when safe and necessary. IT interests intentionally live in the past. On the other hand, developers, and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) not only want to use the latest and greatest technologies, but this constituency prides itself on gauging tech’s future, and basing its present-day strategy upon it. Normally, we as an industry manage this paradox with a shrug of the shoulder...
Moved from Home to work and went to fire up my project and after long pause "The provider did not return a ProviderManifestToken string" or even More Abscure ProviderIncompatable Exception Now after 20 mins of chasing my tail re different ver of EntityFramework 4.1 vs 4.2...blahblahblah Look inside at the inner exception A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible DOH!!!! Or a clean translation...
So I thought I would change the name of my machine so that the other devs can find the TFS server easily. TFS 2005 would use the cool cmd line util tfsadminutil.....alas he is now gone HERE Are the steps to complete Edit the web.config and is usually located on default install C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Application Tier\Web Services\web.config <add key="applicationDatabase" value="Data Source=JUSTIN\SQLI01;Initial Catalog=Tfs_Configuration;I... Security=True;"...
GoodToGo :) Best XML Editor is Altova XMLSpy 2011 http://www.torrenthound.com... For whatever reason Piratebay has trojans and other nasties..Search in torrent.eu for Altova XMLSpy Enterprise Edition SP1 2011 v13.0.1.0 Also if you like the product purchase it in a Commercial Enviroment Any well structured/complex XML can be parsed @ the speed of light using XPATH querys and not...
On November 12th 2011, I gave a presentation at Chippewa Valley Code Camp titled, “Kinecting the Dots with the Kinect SDK”. As promised, here is the Slides / Code / Resources to my talk. (click image to download slides) The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a starter kit for applications developers that includes APIs, sample code, and drivers. This SDK enables the academic research and enthusiast communities to create rich experiences by using Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect sensor technology on computers...
Introduction Microsoft recently released the Kinect for Windows SDK Beta 2. It contains many enhancements and fixes that can be found here. The only problem with it is that a lot of current demo applications no longer function properly. Today, I’m going to walk you through a typical scenario of upgrading a Kinect application built with Beta 1 to Beta 2. Note: This tutorial covers WPF, but you can use the same techniques for WinForms. 1) Fix the references Let’s start with a fairly popular Kinect...
Mounting a Drive in a VMRole is a little more complicated then a web or worker. The Web and Worker roles offer OnStart and OnStop events, which you can use to mount or unmount your drives. The VMRole does not have these same events so you have to provide another way for the drives to be mounted or unmounted. The problem I have run into is what if you have multiple drives and you only want to mount certain drives. How do you let your user mount the drive. I am not going to go into details on what...
Developer’s Guide To Collections in Microsoft® .NET, by Calvin Janes, discusses the various collections available in the built-in NET libraries, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using each type of collection. Other areas are also covered including how collections utilize memory, how to use LINQ with collections, using threading with collections, serializing collections, and how to bind collections to controls in Windows Forms, WPF and Silverlight. For developers looking for a simple...
The latest version of the AppFabric ServiceBus now has support for queues and topics. Today I will show you a bit about using queues and also talk about some of the best practices in using them. If you are just getting started, you can check out this site for more info on Windows Azure. One of the 1st things I thought if when Azure was announced back when was how we handle fault tolerance. Web sites hosted in Azure are no much of an issue unless they are using SQL Azure and then you must account...
Check out the Fault Tolerance Framework: http://windowsazurecat.com/... This is really sweet. You can download the source code, then open it in VS and build it. Then plug into your app to get fault tolerance for SQL Azure, Windows Azure storage, Service Bus and Caching Service. Once you have it built and referenced in your project, it only takes a few minutes to plumb your application to use it. Next week (hopefully) I will post a new WPF app that uses ServiceBus...
It is always difficult to find a job during recession. One of the drastic effects of recession is that companies are having a hard time earning or posting a profit. This means that they have to make some adjustments in their business operation and one of those adjustments is to terminate employees. Keeping employees during recession is seen as a bad business move because they have to be given salaries which do not really reflect the earnings of the company. If employees are terminated, the company...
Silverlight 5 provides graphics capabilities which you can use to enrich your applications and make them more attractive. While graphics support in Silverlight is not as comprehensive as in WPF, it is still useful in many scenarios. This article describes the built-in support in Silverlight 5 for graphics. This article will not go into XNA or gaming related graphics. Graphics can generally be categorized as two-dimensional (2-D) and 3-D. Read more of this article at: http://www.c-sharpcorner.co...
Today's $10 APress Deal of the day at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Practical WPF Charts and Graphics. "Whether you are an engineer, a quantitative analyst, a teacher, or a student, you will end up dealing with charting applications to some degree, and Practical WPF Charts and Graphics will help you in this endeavor."...
For those that attended my session on the complexities of asynchronous programming in WPF & Silverlight, find below the latest slide deck and code samples for download...
I am really proud to be part of the SolidQ BI Center of Excellence and work with Carl and others on the team. Check out the press release on Carl and the COE. In the future there will lots more info I am blogging about that the COE uncovers. Expect to see lots of stuff continue here on MVC, SL, WPF and Windows Azure. Ken...
You must have heard about it. Windows 8 will all about Metro. Sure, you can run ‘old-school’ applications on the platform, but most attention these days is about the new user interface. The UI is based on the design language Metro, a design philosophy we first saw in Windows Phone. Nowadays you see more and more of Metro. The Microsoft website is loosely based on it, the Zune mediaplayer uses it and so on. So it wasn’t a surprise to see that Windows 8 is all about Metro. In this screenshot you see...
With TechEd Africa starting in two days time I thought I would briefly blog about two useful extensions I use for VS2010 when presenting. They are Presentation Zoom by Chris Granger ZoomEditorMargin by Benjamin Gopp The Presentation Zoom extension creates a global zoom level so that if you zoom a single window, all editor instances will be updated to that zoom level. Before I had this extension I had a few circumstances where I was not aware of the resolution restrictions of the projector until 5...
So, my excursion in the web world continues… One of the issues I have coming from silverlight / wpf is that I’m very used to the XAML, MVVM approach to developing, I can knock up a passable interface in XAML in very little time (note, I didn’t say a good interface), but I really don’t know how to do this in CSS.. OK, not totally true, I have a rough guess, I have played with things like Firebug, and modified existing css in the past, but the problem with that, is that I’m just tinkering. With this...
In the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of familiarising myself with various async patterns in C#. After going through the different approaches one gets a feel for how far we have come since the .Net 1 days. One particular pattern that I was not familiar with implementing but which has been available since the beginning of .Net is what I call the Async Begin / End Pattern. Since my interest is really making calls asynchronously so that I don’t block the UI thread - from what I can tell this...
Welcome back, in part 1 of what is new in VS TFS 2011 I talked about the offering from a developers perspective. In this blog post I’ll be discussing the new features available for Business Analysts and Testers. While working on various ALM implementations the biggest challenge has been to strike the right balance between tools and processes, it is important to re-enforce that there is no substitute for communication. The delivery of a project on time and on budget are not the sole indicators of...
OOook, those who know me, or have read my blog probably have a pretty good idea that I’m a silverlight, wpf, wcf, c#, xamly kinda guy. I’ve never really done anything webby, the closest I’ve gotten is doing a bit of backend stuff, well, times change, and quite frankly I wanted to do something new… soooo I’ve opted to go down the MVC route, for two main reasons – 1, I figured I may as well learn a good framework, 2, Matt Abbott told me that MVC lets you get dirty with HTML, and that’s one of the things...
I have dabbled in async programming in the past but never put any real effort into understanding how things worked. With the new async features in .Net 5 I thought I would give it a look. Here is a quick example of one of the features you can expect in the new framework and how it can make our life easier. The best way to illustrate this is to make a simple WPF application as follows… In the past If we had the following small WPF application with just one window / form… The XAML code for the window...
Today, we reached a new milestone of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework. It gives me great pleasure to announce our newest Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework Sample Browser - v4 available to the globe. With this release, we embrace the hope of giving global developers a completely new and amazing experience to enjoy over 700 Microsoft code samples. Compared with the previous version, this new version of Sample Browser is completely redesigned from tip to toe. We heard lots of users’ voices about...
I was very optimistic when I first saw Metro style apps coded in C# on Windows 8, because for the most part they are not much different than the well known XAML/C# pair on Silverlight or WPF. This led me to brag a bit about probably having a port of MVVM Light ready “in a few days”. Of course I didn’t take in account that I would have a great time the week after //build in Seattle, with fantastic weather and tons of friends to have dinner and conversations with. Needless to say, the few days turned...
In this Issue: Colin Eberhardt, Dennis Doomen, Lazar Nikolov, András Velvárt, Rudi Grobler, Jeremy Likness, Derik Whittaker, Morten Nielsen, Sumit Dutta, Asim Sajjad, Ollie Riches, Kunal Chowdhury, and Beth Massi. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Simulating rain in Silverlight Part 3 - Adding wind effect" Lazar Nikolov WP7: "Developing Windows Phone 7 HTML5 apps with PhoneGap" Colin Eberhardt LightSwitch: "LightSwitch Community & Content Rollup–September" Beth Massi Metro: "Lighting up your C# Metro...
Check out the Top Five most popular news at SilverlightShow for SilverlightShow Top 5 News for September 19 - 25, 2011. Here are the top 5 news on SilverlightShow for last week: Why John Papa is leaving Microsoft? The future of Silverlight The MVVM Dashboard Good News about Silverlight and WPF for a Change Win8, Metro Apps and Silverlight Visit and bookmark SilverlightShow. Stay in the 'Light...
In the developer preview of Windows 8, I just noticed a breaking change in the way that data bindings react to the PropertyChanged event. First a bit of background: Often, objects that are databound to the UI are simple data objects (also called ViewModels) that implement the INotifyPropertyChanged interface. This interface is very simple and defines just one event, the PropertyChanged event, that needs to be raised by the ViewModel when one of its property changes. It is what makes the ViewModel...
Microsoft loves MVVM and INotifyPropertyChanged so much that they included this very useful interface twice in the new WinRT framework. Unfortunately, only one of these is working correctly (and the other one is likely a bug, remnant from the past ) When implementing INotifyPropertyChanged, make sure that you select the correct one! The one you want to use is into Windows.UI.Xaml.Data. The old one, the one you DON’T WANT is into System.ComponentModel (the same namespace it was in WPF and Silverlight)....
So its been a few weeks since Microsoft’s Build conference, where they unveiled Windows 8 and shared what the developer story will be. I had blogged about Day 1 of the conference here, but I wanted to share some video I took with my colleagues Winson Woo and Jim Russell as my thoughts now that a bit of time has lapsed. So first, a video captured right after we got our hands on the Samsung tablet given to all attendees. Yes the tablet is nice, but this conference is all about the OS. Windows 8 as...
One of the very useful features of the MVVM Light toolkit is to help with the creation of design time data, in order to give something to see on the design surface (Expression Blend, Visual Studio designer). This is especially useful when designing list controls such as ListBox, ComboBox, etc. Without design time data, these controls will remain empty, and the designer will not see what he is working on. This can cost a lot of time and cause frustration. Detecting design mode was always incompatible...