General This may sound like a typical noob statement, but I’m finding out in a very real way that just because you have a solution to a problem, doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best solution. This was reiterated to me when a friend of mine suggested I look at using Dictionaries instead of Lists for a particular problem – he was right, I have always just assumed that because lists solved my problem I did not need to look elsewhere. So my new manifesto to counter this ageless problem is as follows…...
I must have tried reading through the various explanations and introductions to the new Reactive Extensions for .NET before the concepts finally started sinking in. The article that gave me the ah-ha moment was over on SilverlightShow.net and titled Using Reactive Extensions in Silverlight. The author did a good job comparing the "normal" way of handling events vs. the new "reactive" methods. Admittedly, I still have more to learn about the Rx Framework, but I wanted to put together a sample project...
In this Issue: AfricanGeek, Phil Middlemiss, Damon Payne, David Anson, Jesse Liberty, Jeremy Likness, Jobi Joy(-2-), Fredrik Normén, Bobby Diaz, and Mike Taulty(-2-). Shoutouts: Shawn Wildermuth blogged that they posted My "What's New in Silverlight 3" Video from 0reDev Last Fall Shawn Wildermuth also has a post up for his loyal followers: Where to See Me At MIX10 Jonas Follesø has presentation materials up as well: MVVM presentation from NDC2009 on Vimeo Adam Kinney updated his Favorite Tool and...
This javascript adds a method to javascript arrays that returns a boolean indicating if the supplied object is an element of the array Array.prototype.contains = function(item) { for (var i = 0; i < this.length; i += 1) { if (this[i] === item) { return true; } } return false; }; To test alert([1,1,1,2,2,22,3,4,5,6,7,5,4].contains(2)); // true alert([1,1,1,2,2,22,3,4,5,6,7,5,4].contains(99)); // false...
Note: Cross posted from Coding The Document. Permalink Sometimes in order to work with Open XML we need a little help from other tools. In this post I am going to describe a fairly simple solution for marking up PowerPoint presentations so that they can be used as templates and processed using the Open XML SDK. Add-ins are tools which it can be hard to find information on. I am going to up the obscurity by adding a Ribbon button. For my example I am using Visual Studio 2008 and creating a PowerPoint...
Again, conversations give me a zillion things to write about. The recent conversation that has cropped up again is my various viewpoints of the Agile Manifesto. Not all the processes that came after the manifesto was written, but just the core manifesto itself. Just for context, here is the manifesto in all the glory. We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools...
This stuff drives me nuts. I'm all for hardening servers, and reducing security footprints, but I always want the option to allow me to get work done versus securing my system. I use Windows Server 2008 R2 as my laptop OS for a number of reasons I don't need to review here. It's pimped out to work like Windows 7 for most things. But my DVD writer is crippled, and evidently it's on purpose: http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2010/02/19/windows-server-2008-r2-no-recording-tab-for-cd-dvd-burner.aspx...
A client is using Openfire IM for their users, and would like some custom queries to audit user conversations (which are stored by Openfire in tables in the SQL Server database). Because Openfire supports multiple database servers and multiple platforms, the designers chose to store all date/time stamps in the database as 15 character strings, which get converted to Java Date objects in their code (Openfire is written in Java). I did some digging around, and, so I don't forget and in case someone...
In this Issue: Andrea Boschin, Jeremy Likness(-2-), Andrew Veresov, Nokola, SilverLaw, Gill Cleeren, Jim Wightman and Jeremy Likness, Viktor Larsson(-2-), and Walter Ferrari. Shoutouts: Viktor Larsson has a post up about Silverlight Market Penetration ... hope to meet you at MIX10, Viktor! Gergely Orosz has posted the Slides and code for the presentation “An Introduction to Silverlight” It appears that if I miss a day, I can pretty much do an all-submittal post :) From SilverlightCream.com: Writing...
Getting ready to fly to Vegas and MIX10 is really an exciting time! It is also a very busy time, because we are working on a few projects that will be shown on stage, I have my presentation to prepare, and of course as always the book… though these days it has been a bit on the back burner to be honest ;) I arrive in Vegas on Sunday evening around 10PM, so I won’t be able to make it to the traditional IdentityMine dinner this year. I am sure it will be fun nonetheless! My session: Understanding the...
When I get some time (and hell starts to look a little chilly) I would love to do a more detailed review. But I wanted to get something “out there” as I really like this book and reviews of it seem a little thin on the ground. In brief: Is it a good book? Yes Would I recommend this book to a .NET developer who was new to Ruby? Yes (This is me by the way) Would I recommend this book to a Ruby developer who was new to .NET ? Yes Would I recommend this book to a developer who sometimes does Ruby and...
[You might want to also read other GuestPosts on my blog – or contribute one?] On the 26th and 27th of March (2010) myself and Edd Morgan of Microsoft will be popping along to the Scottish Ruby Conference. I dabble with Ruby and I am a huge fan whilst Edd is a “proper Ruby developer”. Hence I asked Edd if he was interested in creating a guest post or two for my blog on IronRuby. This is the second of those posts. If you should stumble across this post and happen to be attending the Scottish Ruby...
Sometimes we got this error message when we try to validate our asp.net website on w3c. To solve this error you need to write the PreRender event. Here is the complete event: Protected Sub Page_PreRender(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.PreRender imgBtnGo.Style.Remove(HtmlTextWriterStyle.BorderWidth) imgBtnGo.Attributes.Remove("border") End Sub...
LinqPad as we all know has been a wonderful tool for running ad-hoc queries. With Windows Azure Table storage in picture LinqPad was no longer in picture and we shifted focus to Cloud Storage Studio only to realize the limited and strange querying capabilities of CSS. With some tweaking to Linqpad we can get the comfortable old shoe of ad-hoc queries with LinqPad in the Windows Azure Table storage. Steps: 1. Start LinqPad 2. Right Click in the query window and select “Query Properties” 3. In The...
1. Resist sending back scathing looks or words. There is no good to be gained by lowering yourself to their position. 2. Never, ever respond negatively in writing. 3. Should or should we not approch HR with these type of problems? 4. This is my favorite tip - Kill 'em with kindness To read more, go to: http://www.ehow.com/how_4729640_along-colleague-hate.html Technorati Tags: tutorials...
Javascript allows you to declare variables simply by assigning a value to an identify, in the same style as ruby: myVar = "some text"; Good javascript developers know that this is a bad idea because undeclared variables are assigned to the global object, usually window, making myVar globally visible. So the above code is equivalent to: window.myVar = "some text"; What I did not realise is that this applies to for loop initialisation as well. for (i = 0; i < myArray.length; i += 1) { } // is equivalent...
Effective immediately, my blog is hosted on www.dotnetdude.com. This blog will no longer be updated so please check out my new one and update your RSS feed with this link. Miguel...
As the Geriatric Geek you can understand that I’ve been writing and studying for over 60 years. That means that I’ve seen insane changes in the computer software industry. I’ve made the joke that I get a new college education every 6 months or so. Of course that’s an exaggeration but it doesn’t make the feeling go away. I have a long standing and strong relationship with Microsoft so I’m armed with virtually every tool they make. It also means that I have access to tons of training material. But...
First of all, this is going to be about my long (hopefully not) and painful (most definitely) climb back into the saddle after spending all of the intervening years between .NET 1.1 and now being a PHB. I've half-heartedly attempted to get back up to speed a couple of times, but THIS time I actually have some coding to do, AND the geeks are so amped up about all of the new technologies, I really have to do this. So... Once again, .NET 1.1. Right now I'm getting ready to work on a site that incorporates...
Are you kidding me? What a load of nutritional CRAP. Don’t buy this product. Just don’t do it. They are just like Wheaties with more sugar and fat. Awesome just what we need more sugar!! Okay now I’m not against carbs… I’m really not. Being a cyclist I realize the importance of carbohydrates in the diet… but let’s be realistic here. Even though the commercials for Wheaties Fuel say they are for athletes you know that what General Mills is really hoping for is that kids will see Payton Manning, Albert...
Symptom: After installing SharePoint Learning Kit successfully, (http://www.codeplex.com/SLK), everything works except that the SCORM package (a ZIP extension) is opening as a ZIP file instead of a course. You get the normal ZIP message "Do you want to open or save this file?" Problem: The package is zipped at the upper folder level and does not create a manifest that allows SharePoint to recognize it as a SCORM file instead of a ZIP file. Solution: Add the contents of the course to the ZIP, not...
I haven’t been using Bluetooth on my D830 before but now I got myself a Bluetooth mouse in order to get rid of the receiver for a wireless mouse. And then I discovered that Bluetooth did not work anymore after I installed Win7. Browsing Dell support pages for a a driver found me one (browsing by computer model etc..). But that drivers does not work. Installation looks ok and everything but no devices are found. i kept looking and found this driver, also at Dells site: http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R231570&formatcnt=1&libid=0&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=333170...
We are bringing back the administrator’s blog for Geekswithblogs.net as a place to get information for what is going on with GWB. Couple reasons we are doing this. One, I post a lot of information on my blog that is not Geekswithblogs.net related. Most the time it isn’t even developer related and I know I need to work on that too, but in an effort to keep the signal much higher than the noise, we are moving the information over there. The blog URL is http://geekswithblogs.net/administrator. The other...
The first suggested item (and only at this point) was a higher level of skin customization on Geekswithblogs.net. Currently we have over 10 skins to pick from and the ability to change the CSS for those skins. In the skins list, you will find one labeled Naked that doesn't add any formatting, but allows you to define what items look like and what gets displayed. I understand our skin approach is not good by any means and needs a dramatic update. Here is what we came up with in our conversation with...
So Here I am talking with my Program lead, about technology, and how while my father is the VP of a major company, he still doesn't have a blackberry, or a smart phone. and I think it's funny. Most people would say it's a generational thing. That because he's older, he dosen't accept technology, and that's why. I have trouble swallowing that because this is the same man, who bought a satellite radio for his car, and made sure that the printer for the house was networked so that his and my mom's laptop...
Recently the question came up from a close friend of mine, "will my PhD help me attain a higher income in the north west?" I had to tell him, that it might get him a little more, but it won't get him in the top income brackets for the occupation. Another time, a few days later, someone else asked this too. Then again, I see a job posting that requires a Bachelors Degree and some other nonsense. The job posting even states they want "A-Game" talent. I am almost shocked at how poorly part of this industry...
Recently I purchased 3 large volumes on using the Unreal 3 Engine to create levels and custom games. This past weekend I cracked the spine of the first and started reading. Here are my early impressions (I'm ~250 pages into it, with appendices it's about 900). Pros Interestingly, the book starts with an overview of the Unreal engines leading up to Unreal 3 (including Gears of War) and follows with some discussion on planning a mod and what goes into the game development process. This is nice for...
One thing I have learned about using a Mac is that Apple does not produce very many free applications. The ones they do are typically not full featured and to get the full feature you need to buy their upgraded version. For example, when it comes to Photo editing and cataloging, iPhoto is not a solution for large files or RAW processing, you need Aperture which is a couple hundred dollars. I am not complaining because I like it when an application has a product team who generates revenue with it,...
Well Monday was not good for me Job wise or Dare wise. Why? The Census job ended (after only two weeks!). It seems our group was too good at working our blocks and ran out of blocks in our area to work. Out of work again! Well at lest, they gave us a full days pay for Monday. As to dare wise, “Love Is Kind”. As I said, not saying any thing negative was and is easy for me (Love Is Patient). Kindness is Love in action, no I don’t have problem with doing this (Which is Gentleness, Helpfulness, Willingness...
I’m back with my Silverlight for Windows Embedded tutorial. Sorry for the long delay between step 3 and step 4, the MVP summit and some work related issue prevented me from working on the tutorial during the last weeks. In our first, second and third tutorial steps we implemented some very simple applications, just to understand the basic structure of a Silverlight for Windows Embedded application, learn how to handle events and how to operate on images. In this third step our sample application...
Right now they are ‘free’ but it is clear what the path forward is: 4.3 Advertising. The Service currently does not include advertising in the maps images. However, Google reserves the right to include advertising in the maps images provided to you through the Service, but will provide you with ninety (90) days notice prior to the commencement of advertising in the maps images. Such notice may be provided on relevant Google websites, including but not limited to the Google Geo Developers Blog and...
Well, it depends…. If you are a small company that creates a finite number of internal projects then you will find it easier to create a single project for each of your products and have TFS do the heavy lifting with reporting, SharePoint sites and Version Control. But what if you are not… Update 9th March 2010 Michael Fourie gave me some feedback which I have integrated. Ed Blankenship via @edblankenship offered encouragement and a nice quote. Ewald Hofman gave me a couple of Cons, and maybe a few...
In Windows Azure platform there are 3 storage we can use to save our data on the cloud. They are the Table, Blob and Queue. Before the Chinese New Year Microsoft announced that Azure SDK 1.1 had been released and it supports a new type of storage – Drive, which allows us to operate NTFS files on the cloud. I will cover it in the coming few posts but now I would like to talk a bit about the Table Storage. Concept of Table Storage Service The most common development scenario is to retrieve, create,...
Found an interesting resource thanks to a close friend. Ping.eu is a free service which would let you test various aspects related to networks which would typically be pain inducing doing it on your own. For seasoned network professional having a MAC address of their own instead of a name :) this might not be that useful. However for a layperson like me this an invaluable resource. These guys provide you with following services: Ping – Shows how long it takes for packets to reach host Traceroute...
My brain still thinks in C#!!! I have been looking at F# and trying to figure out the basics of it, but all the time in the back of my mind I am going – what is the C# equivalent to this or that… It’s frustrating because I almost want a F# to C# dictionary the whole time – and simply translate my C# code to F# – which would negate the main motivation for learning F# – as I want learn functional programming - if I was simply doing C# code in a F# syntax I would be gaining nothing! So I am experiencing...
Let me start by saying that I love Windows 7. I think it's the best OS that Microsoft has put out in ages, possibly ever. However, I do have one little complaint. Actually it's not that little, it's become a real pain in the butt for me. I'm talking about Forced Updates. Yes, I know it's always been a problem and that Windows would occasionally force a reboot while you were away, in order to install some important update. That's not quite what I'm referring to. I mean the new "feature" where you...
A few weeks ago we started getting complaints about performance in an application that has performed very well for many years. The application is a n-tier application that uses ADODB with the SQLOLEDB provider to talk to a SQL Server database. Our object model is written in such a way that each public method validates security before performing requested actions, so there is a significant number of queries executed to get information about file cabinets, retrieve images, create workflows, etc. (PaperWise...
One way to answer- “which one” Brew, IBM, Nokia, Android? Well lets look at the real deal- Sun Java. How will this work for embedded devices: DEFINITIONS…. The use of Software in systems and solutions that provide dedicated functionality … or designed for use in embedded or function-specific software applications, for example but not limited to: Software embedded in or bundled with industrial control systems, wireless mobile telephones, wireless handheld devices, netbooks, kiosks, TV/STB, Blu-ray...
Our March Fort Lauderdale ArcSig meeting will be on 03/16/2010 - 6:30 PM at the Microsoft Office in Fort Lauderdale. Quent Hershelman, Microsoft Developer Solution Specialist, presents: Tips, Tricks and Features for Visual Studio 2010. Register at: http://www.fladotnet.com/ - Free Pizza and soft drinks! I am looking forward to see you at the meeting! Rainer Habermann ArcSig Side Director...
One of the biggest questions I routinely get asked is how scalable Commerce Server is. Of course the text book answer is the product has been around for 10 years, powers some of the largest e-Commerce websites in the world, so it scales horizontally extremely well. One argument however though is what if you can't predict the growth of demand required of your Commerce Platform, or need the ability to scale up during busy seasons such as Christmas for a retail environment but are hesitant on maintaining...
INTRODUCTION If you are a SharePoint developer you know that there are two basic ways to develop against SharePoint. 1) The object Model 2) Web services. SharePoint object model has the advantage of being quite rich. Anything you can do through the SharePoint UI as an administrator or end user, you can do through the object model. In fact everything that is done through the UI is done through the object model behind the scenes. The major disadvantage to getting at SharePoint this way is that the...
So I was playing around with NavigationNodeCollection, which is basically like SPNavigationNodeCollection just to make sure it worked without a hitch…Here is a little sample snippet of what should work: Unfortunately, you get a nice little javascript error that does not allow you to access the child nodes. I tried a foreach() loop that gets a NavigationNode for each parent then loops through the NavigationNode.Children that did not work either. I threw in two ExecuteQueryAsync statements thinking...
This terms is often used with many meanings. For example, some people consider Flash 'open' and 'multi-platform' . But Flash is a product of Adobe systems, locked down, copy protected and distribution restricted. And versions for other than standard PC, home use, may carry licence fees. Check it out: 3.1 Adobe Runtime Restrictions. You will not use any Adobe Runtime on any non-PC device or with any embedded or device version of any operating system. For the avoidance of doubt, and by example only,...
We want to know what you are thinking bloggers and visitors of Geekswithblogs.net. If you were able to add items to the product backlog for this site, what would they be? New skins? Better search? Organic tag system? Better twitter integration? More ways to link other social media outlets to your blog like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Flickr? …. What would you like to see? You can leave feedback on this post or email me at support@geekswithblogs.com. We love this community and want to see how we can continue...
Attention Windows Mobile developers: It has been confirmed by Microsoft Corp. that Windows Phone 7 devices will not run applications written for the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system or earlier. I think this is significant enough news that may need your planning for your software future releases re-thought. The announcement was found here...
I received an email from Amazon.com today, essentially cutting off my affiliate status because I'm in Colorado. Colorado recently passed legislation that requires retailers to either collect sales tax for on-line transactions or engage in an onerous process that makes you wish you had collected sales tax. After I Tweeted this, Mike Jones tweeted a link to the legislation. Here's an excerpt from Amazon.com's email: "Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate: We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program...
In this Issue: Michael Washington, Tim Greenfield, Bobby Diaz(-2-), Glenn Block(-2-), Nikhil Kothari, Jianqiang Bao(-2-), and Christopher Bennage. Shoutouts: Adam Kinney announced a Big update for the Project Rosetta site today Arpit Gupta has opened a new blog with a great logo: I think therefore I am dangerous :) From SilverlightCream.com: DotNetNuke Silverlight Traffic Module If it's DNN and Silverlight, it has to be my buddy Michael Washington :) ... Michael has combined those stunning gauges...
This video shows the usage and the implementation of our Mobile Home Control system. Please give us feedback: baul_baumgartner@yahoo.de...
FredNUG is pleased to announce that we have an excellent speaker lined up for March. On March 16th, we’ll start with pizza and social networking at 6:30 PM. Then, starting at 7 PM, Roberto Hernandez will present “Ramp up on ASP.NET MVC2!” The scheduled agenda is: 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM - Pizza/Social Networking/Announcements 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM - Main Topic: Ramp up on ASP.NET MVC2! with Roberto Hernandez Main Topic Description: Learn about the new features in the ASP.NET MVC2 Beta release. Learn how Areas,...
I upgraded XAML2CPP to fix some bugs and support some new features that will be used in my next tutorial step (that I hope to publish very soon!). Bug fixed: the listbox selection changed event was generated with an incorrect prototype events generated by the XAML tree root element (UserControl) were not handled. New features: XAML2CPP generates panels (dynamically generated XAML subtrees that may be added to a page) and user controls (those will be the object of my next post, stay tuned!). XAML2CPPXRValue...
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!