DotNetSam

Capital Area MSFT Conferences

2011-09-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

Researching some upcoming local conferences. Have any interesting developer conferences I'm missing for the capital area?

http://www.nofluffjuststuff.com/conference/reston/2011/11/home - Northern Virginia Software Symposium, Nov 4-6.

http://caparea.net/ - .NET User's Group - Tyson's Corner Area
- Brian Noyes - The New UI Development World - Sept. 27, 2011
- Antonio Chagoury - Intro to DNN - Windows Oct. 25, 2011

http://novacodecamp.org/ - Northern VA Code Camp - Reston, VA Oct. 1

http://techgate.cloudapp.net/ - Cloud Computing Conference with a focus on MSFT technologies - Reston, VA Sept. 17th

TechGate Conference
Sponsoring User Group (http://www.capcloud.org/)

SQL Server equivalent of TrimStart and TrimEnd

2011-07-22T05:37:00.000-07:00

If you ever wanted an equivalent to .NET's String.TrimStart() and TrimEnd for SQL Server, here's two scalar functions that do the same thing.

-- =============================================
-- Author: DOTNETSAM
-- Create date: 07/22/2011
-- Description: Remove starting characters
-- =============================================
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[TrimStart]
(
@value VARCHAR(MAX),
@trimval CHAR(10)
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(MAX)
AS
-- TEST CASES
-- select dbo.[TrimStart](',1,2,3,,',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimStart]('1,2,3',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimStart]('1,2,3,',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimStart](',1,,',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimStart](',,1,,,',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimStart](',,1,,,',',,')
BEGIN
DECLARE @ReturnString AS VARCHAR(MAX)

IF(@trimval = LEFT(@value, LEN(@trimval))) --If trimmed val = 1st chars, then trimstart it
SET @ReturnString = SUBSTRING(@value,LEN(@trimval)+1,LEN(@value))
ELSE
SET @ReturnString = @value

RETURN @ReturnString
END

-- =============================================
-- Author: DotNetSam
-- Create date: 07/22/2011
-- Description: Remove ending characters
-- =============================================
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[TrimEnd]
(
@value VARCHAR(MAX),
@trimval CHAR(10)
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(MAX)
AS
-- TEST CASES
-- select dbo.[TrimEnd](',1,2,3,,',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimEnd]('1,2,3',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimEnd]('1,2,3,',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimEnd](',1,,',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimEnd](',,1,,,',',')
-- select dbo.[TrimEnd](',,1,,,',',,')
BEGIN
DECLARE @ReturnString AS VARCHAR(MAX)

IF(@trimval = RIGHT(@value, LEN(@trimval))) --If trimmed val = ending chars, then trimend it
SET @ReturnString = SUBSTRING(@value,0,LEN(@value)-LEN(@trimval)+1)
ELSE
SET @ReturnString = @value

RETURN @ReturnString
END

15 Reasons why ASP.NET MVC Rocks

2011-02-01T16:30:00.001-08:00

Here's my list of why ASP.NET MVC rocks.

1.) Absolute Control over HTML. Any developer from outside ASP.NET webforms response to <asp:label id="lblName" runat="server"> is WTF.

2.) Easier to make your site mobile friendly compared to web forms.

3.) Much easier to incorporate themes from template vendors. Many templates are written in php, and translating PHP into MVC is easy-peasy.

4.) Ability to break away from 3rd party component vendors. There are so many jQuery plug-ins, that you can make a kick ass site without their support.

5.) No Viewstate, much lighter pages!!

6.) jQuery Plugins - Grids, Trees, Dialogs, Accordions, Menues, Splitters, Photo Galleries, Modals, multi-upload, tabs, etc... You also get to leverage what people have done with jQuery in other languages such as PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc...

7.) Razor View Engine is tight. You have to see it to believe it.

8.) No more viewstate black box magic.

9.) Tons of support and available vendors to pick and choose components.

10.) Microsoft's great ORM support. Entity Framework rocks and Lambda expressions get you away from writing tons of SQL. Data Annotations and Validation will save you a ton of time.

11.) Templating / Scaffold support speeds you up significantly. T4

12.) So much easier to TEST!!!! Testing a ASP.NET web forms app is so awkward and often impossible to do without using a integration test suite such as Selenium.

13.) NuGet - Open Source Package Manager (http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/10/06/announcing-nupack-asp-net-mvc-3-beta-and-webmatrix-beta-2.aspx)

14.) Visual Studio 2010 is a great IDE and C# is an unbelievable language.

15.) The community. Ask a question on StackOverflow and you'll probably have an answer in less than 24 hours.

Yeah, you might cry like Smurfette when you get stuck, but believe me, you will get faster with time. Besides, you didn't pick up ASP.NET Web Forms right away...

Pick up a book, write an example app, and get to know it now.

ASP.NET MVC 3 Error: Unable to load the specified metadata resource

2011-01-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

If you look up any posts about using the POCO T4 template, and you place your entity model in a different project, your POCO's in a different project, and your site in a different project, you probably came across this error:

"Unable to load the specified metadata resource"

I overcame this issue by changing my connection string to point to the dll where my Entity framework "chinook.edmx" file was located. In my case, I placed my edmx file in a project called "Models". In your website, you will need to change the metadata portion of your connectionstring to:

metadata=res://Models/chinook.csdl|res://Models/chinook.ssdl|res://Models/chinook.msl;

Hope this works for you.

ASP.NET MVC Error: Parameterless Constructor defined for this object

2011-01-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

Avoid using FormsCollection methodology for boxing and unboxing for ViewModels, so I wanted to use my custom ViewModel I created. Initially, I was receiving this error and thought it was an issue with my controller, when in fact it was my viewmodel that had the problem:

Parameterless Constructor defined for this object

MVC uses reflection to bind models, so in your viewmodel, you need a parameterless constructor (even though you may not use that method). You can also get the error above by not creating your controller methods properly, but that is usually pretty easy to fix.

A few screenshots of JoliCloud OS

2010-04-02T09:09:00.001-07:00

Take a look here for some screenshots I uploaded to Picassa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sam.stange/Jolicloud#5455573786973069426

To get the free install:
http://www.jolicloud.com

My jolicloud and VMWare experience was pleasant. No crashes, very responsive. Apple is not the only company coming up with an innovative OS.

SQL Assistance by SoftTreeTech

2010-03-24T07:45:00.001-07:00

Website: http://www.softtreetech.com/index.htm

Download: http://www.softtreetech.com/isql_beta.htm

Wow. This is ages ahead of SQL Server's intellisense.

The good:

No false positives for errors,
no alias confusion,
great t/sql snippets,
good visualization on large procedures/views with the "birds eye" view,
bookmarks are awesome,
Really helpful highlighting of objects,
Nice auto-formatting commands.

The Bad:

You have to use the mouse too much to click on columns. As you are typing the name of the column, it will pop up the list of column names, but as you continue to type, it doesn't filter the list down or let you use the space key to automatically select the column.
Not directly related to the SQL Assistance product, but often a product's website is representative of the quality of the individual product. This is definitely not the case. The product website is awful and is in a serious need of a refresh, but don't let this sway you from this product. A twitter presence would be nice too.

For anyone that writes a lot of SQL, it's a great plug-in.

jQuery.Layout Sized Container Example

2010-02-11T05:05:00.000-08:00

Wanting to duplicate the Telerik Splitter control, but only wanting to use open source projects, I went on my search to find the right jQuery plug-in. I found a very good splitter/layout plug-in found on the jQuery website that was well documented and supported found here:

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/Layout

One of the examples that was missing on their site was a "sized" container. Almost all the examples on their site are full page width examples. So here's the example:

http://www.samstange.com/jQueryExamples/SimpleSizedContainerLayout.htm

TicketDesk Screenshots

2010-02-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

Screenshots from TicketDesk - Version 1.2.3

http://picasaweb.google.com/sam.stange/TicketDesk#

ASP.NET Dynamic Controls, PlaceHolders, and “The type or namespace name ‘ctlxxx’ could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?” panic.

2010-01-28T10:26:00.001-08:00

Hopefully this helps a few others. I have a webpage that dynamically loads controls. In the webpage, we reference the control and set some various properties as such:

ctlBenefitReview ctl = (this.LoadedControlReference as ctlBenefitReview);

ctl.UseFieldCodes = true;

ctl.Reload();

Since the project has multiple team members that are sometimes at various stages, we don't want to compile the entire website into a dll. So, we opted for dynamic compilation of the website where this occurs in the temporary asp.net folder. So the site we've been working on after a few weeks starts to crash with the following error:

The type or namespace name 'ctlxxx' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

I can see that the control is there. The name of the class is correct, but we're still getting this error. We then proceed to

Reset IIS. -> Error still exists
Rebooting the box -> Error still exists
Turn off IIS. (File permission error otherwise) and delete Temporary ASP.NET Files ->Site works!

So, we set this issue aside. 1-2 weeks later. Blam-O! Same error…. According to Microsoft defaults, CompilationMode = "Always" is supposed to be the default value, however, I noticed within the control you need to explicitly make this statement.

<%@
Control
Language="C#"
AutoEventWireup="true"
CompilationMode="Always"
EnableViewState="true"
CodeFile="ctlxxx.ascx.cs"
Inherits="ctlxxx"
%>

Top Dangerous T-SQL Commands

2009-10-05T02:00:00.000-07:00

- Scalar Functions - Row by row evaluation is never good for performance. Avoid Scalar functions if at all possible.
- Cursors - Cursor engine in SQL Server has extremely horrible performance. There are a lot of better ways to write cursors now.
- The "in" statement. Useful for a few records for a where clause, but will backfire quickly for larger datasets. Instead of using the "in" statement, use the "exists" statement.
- Dynamic SQL. Beware of SQL injection. Use sp_executeSQL and don't parse together statements.
- Lack of Indexes - Queries that don't take advantage of indexes and keys can take any server down.

Top T-SQL Commands

2009-09-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

Here are some SQL commands that can be a real life-saver that are beyond your basic CRUD statements. Also take note, for .NET developers LINQ should be used whenever possible, but when you've got something complicated, I always seem to turn to one of the commands below. Most of these features were introduced in SQL Server 2005 and 2008.

1.) Pivot and Unpivot - Flip your data around on it's head.
2.) Row_Number - sequential numbers and the ability to restart numbering under any circumstance.
3.) Aggregate Functions (CLR) - If a particular aggregate function hasn't been written yet, you can make one yourself. For example, the aggregate function, "median" or "1st Quartile" is not a built-in function to SQL Server.
4.) Table Value Functions - Incredibly useful in cases where you need to pass in an arguement, but still want the power of a view and stored procedure.
5.) Dynamic SQL - Painful, but extremely useful to build the most optimized and reusable logic.
6.) CLR - Used wisely (ie. NOT for everyday SQL), but if you wanted to do something outside the box. For example, Geo-Code your data or #3's Aggregate Function lets you really customize the database.
7.) For XML Path - Easy way to transform a set of rows into text or xml. Real world example: Use to send custom logs via msdb.dbo.send_dbmail.
8.) Database Triggers - Since Check-in/Check-out is nearly impossible in a database, a database trigger added to a database can track changes and who made the changes.

Why you should use Twitter

2009-09-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

Twitter's value is not in creating tweets, but the opposite, consuming information. Twitter offers a great variety of news resources. I think of twitter as a powerful RSS feed that you can communicate with. As a developer, I follow quite a few developer blogs. Instead of going to their blog, they often will tweet that they have a new post. Tweets provide a short description of the entry, and I can view it if I find it interesting. If you're a .NET developer, here are a few twitter accounts you should follow:

@scottgu - Scott Guthrie - When you think of .NET, you think of Scott.
@shanselman - Scott Hanselman - MSFT MVP
@rickstrahl - Rick Strahl - MSFT MVP

If you're interested in the stock markets, check out:

@WSJ - Wall Street Journal
@JimJCramer - TV Personality Jim Cramer
@stocktwits - Real-time stock conversations

Keep up-to-date on Apple's latest products and rumors, check out:

@iphoneschool - iphone updates and how-to articles
@mactweeter - Latest Apple gossip and news

Choosing the right smart phone for you - iPhone? MyTouch? Palm Pre? Blackberry?

2009-08-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

In software development, you typically don't buy a piece of software without doing some analysis on whether it will meet your needs... Your requirements. Recently, I was faced with the challenge of figuring out which smart phone to procure. Narrowing the list down of potential smart phones didn't take too much time. There's the Android MyTouch, Palm Pre, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and various blackberry phones. Price, contract length, and monthly fees are factors, however, buying the smart phone that doesn't do what you want is an even bigger waste of money.

Core Functionality - Your Must have functionality

In-Area reception must be good. Look at coverage maps to determine your eligibility.
Sync Email with Microsoft Outlook
Sync Email with gmail
Sync with Microsoft Outlook Calendar and Contacts
Internet Browsing without the horrible classic "Mobile" look and feel
Easy to download and listen to music and other multimedia
Easy to Type and Use

Nice-To-Have Functionality

Touch Screen preference, however it must be able to use Landscape/Portrait views.
Use existing libraries of Apple iTunes purchases
Lots of Applications (Facebook, Twitter Apps, News, Stocks, Games, Utilities, etc...)
Mapping and traffic notifications
Wifi capable for speedier connections
Ability to use camera to post pictures on Facebook
Memory size is upgradable
Speaker Ability (Phone, Music)
Good Battery Life
Tethering
Sync Multiple calendars

My requirements pushed me to the iPhone. However, the iPhone can't do a few things, but I can overlook them (multiple calendar syncing, expandable memory, and tethering). The competition is catching up which is great, but still think the iPhone has a commanding lead in terms of being that ONE device. What pushed you to go iPhone? MyTouch? Palm Pre? Blackberry? Win Mobile?

RAD Development - Balsamiq Review

2009-08-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

Balsamiq is a great way to speed up the development of applications for your clients. Before writing any code, Balsamiq is a great way to quickly show stakeholders your thoughts on screen design and layout. This allows you to gather invaluable feedback. By gathering feedback from users early in the process, you can gather better requirements for usability. Previously, I've used tools like PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks, and MS Visio to show my thoughts, but these tools were never designed for RAD development. Either the screen designs would look clunky or too good, which left an impression that the site was already done! The "whiteboard" design look and feel that the Balsamiq tool provides is on the level you want to be talking to users during the design and requirements phases. In addition, the control choices are well designed, plentiful, and easy to find.

Whenever you can gather better quality requirements early in the process, the probability of success is much higher.

Random Viewstate Errors? Invalid length for a Base-64 char array or Unable to validate data.

2009-08-03T17:25:00.001-07:00

I've been noticing random errors on a site and think I've finally got the answer... I've been receiving these "Invalid length for a Base-64 char array" or "Unable to validate data" errors from users in complete randomness. Specifically:

System.FormatException: Invalid length for a Base-64 char array.

System.Web.HttpException: The client disconnected. ---> System.Web.UI.ViewStateException: Invalid viewstate.

and

System.Web.HttpException: Unable to validate data.

System.Web.HttpException: The client disconnected.---> System.Web.UI.ViewStateException: Invalid viewstate.

There's no pattern. I go to the exact same page, refresh, stop, use back keys, etc... and to no avail, no error... According to other blogs and forums, they suggest turning off some security features, which was NOT an option and shouldn't be for you either. My first stop was at my system administrators office. I thought something is meddling with the viewstate. Maybe an intrusion detection or firewall setting was cleaning out some weird characters. After further investigation, nothing.

So looking through the web.config, I took a look at my http handlers. I notice I'm using the RadCompression Utility, (http://www.telerik.com/products/aspnet-ajax/compression.aspx). Apparently, this utility and other similar utilities are notorious for causing these errors. At some point, one of these handlers manipulates the viewstate incorrectly (most likely a bug in the software), that changes the viewstate by attempting to optimize it. When the viewstate is different between callbacks, you'll get on of the errors above.

What ever you do, don't disable .NET inherent security controls like event validation. These controls are there for a reason... Security should always be your #1 priority.

UPDATE: A few months later, I reproduced this problem again, but this time at home. I'm on a wireless connection, and my glorious FIOS wireless router loses connection in the middle of a page refresh.

Finances: iPhone vs. Palm Pre vs. MyTouch vs. Verizon

2009-08-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

Most people probably do this, but I wanted to paint a clear picture on how much smart phone plans cost. I've read Consumer Reports, Blogs, PC World, PC Mag, etc... and none depict how much these plans cost for a couple.

For couples:

2 iPhones: $179.98 per month or $4779 over two years.
2 Palm Pre's: $140/month or $3829 over two years.
2 T-Mobile myTouches: $159.97/month or $4309 over two years.
Pick a Verizon smart phone, you'll pay $144.98/month or $3949 over 2 years.

If I stay with my current verizon voice plan, I pay $80/month with no web or messaging capabilities. Most people at least have some capability. Since I don't really use voice too much, I could downgrade to a pay-as-you go plan, but if you call each other, you're not going to get much cost savings since your paying twice as you go. Can I ever come to a decision? I doubt it.

These plans are expensive, and the least expensive option is to buy another iTouch, cancel the home phone line, and go in with someone else to really make it a family plan. The iPhone's network appears to be so bad, that most people use WiFi anyways. In expectations of the iTouch to have some microphone capability in September, skype or hopefully google voice, the iTouch could be the winner.

I pay less than $179.98 for home phone, internet, cable, dvr boxes, and 2 cell phones combined. I love technology, but I can think of some better things to do with an additional $179.98 a month. What are your thoughts?

For a more complete analysis, click here to see a google doc spreadsheet.

FCC, Apple, AT&T, and Google Voice

2009-07-31T19:14:00.000-07:00

I'm glad the FCC is finally asking some basic questions to Apple on why they rejected the google voice application. Google Voice is by far a game changing service. AT&T is probably worried that the new iTouch will begin to compete with the iPhone. Regardless, I'd like to know why the FCC has been asleep at the wheel for so long. I haven't seen any real action to break up some of these exclusivity deals, question why apps are rejected, why features are disabled, etc... Are they still a viable organization with any teeth?

I think it would be a good thing for the iphone's ATT, Palm Pre's Sprint, and Android's t-mobile exclusivity agreements to be thrown in the trash. I think the networks don't want us to know how expensive and poor their data and voice plans are, so their last straw is to distract us with exclusivity agreements.

Wouldn't Apple make more money by having their phones on multiple networks?

The good news is the cell phone landscape will change drastically in the next 6-10 months. I think Android is really starting to ramp up and the Palm OS will finally be free from Sprint. I don't think a lot people know this, but if you want to develop apps on the iPhone, guess what, you need the Mac OS. For Android Dev, it's not tied to any particular OS. With Android coming to 18+ phones, it will be much more intriguing to developer for the Android Platform.

With all this turmoil and opportunity, It's tougher to commit to any single teleco than ever.

Modifying SiteFinity Workflow to include notifications

2009-01-28T10:26:00.001-08:00

After reading the SiteFinity knowledge base article for notifying "approvers" when a news feed is updated, I needed my site to update "approvers" when a page is updated. I saw scattered pieces throughout the telerik forums, but no good answers, hence this post... Here's my workflow with notifications in specific spots….

Send email to "approver" upon author approval
Send email to "Author" upon an approver's "decline" action stating that they need to make some modification
Send email to "publisher" upon approver's "Approver" action and CC:\\ the original author

For an image of this workflow, click here. So here's what you need to do:

1.) Go to the following page: SiteFinity\Admin\ControlTemplates\Pages\PageViewer.ascx

2.) Add the following to the 1st line:

<%@
Control
Language="C#"
AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeFile="PageViewer.ascx.cs"
Inherits="Sitefinity_Admin_ControlTemplates_Pages_PageViewer"
%>

3.) Create a code behind file called, "PageViewer.ascx.cs" here: SiteFinity\Admin\ControlTemplates\Pages\

4.) Use the following code. Also, please note that I wrote this code against SiteFinity v3.5.

Jan 16th Microsoft Developer Conference, Reston, VA

2009-01-23T14:22:00.000-08:00

Boy, does a week go by fast! I wanted to summarize my findings from this conference. I attended the following sessions:

1.) jQuery and Asp.net - David Hoerster
2.) Developing and Deploying your 1st Windows Azure Service - Andrew Duthie
3.) Silverlight in Business Applications - Pete Brown
4.) ASP.NET 4.0 Road Map - Rachel Appel

Keynote: Stephen Walther

Stephen 1st item of business was to discuss Azure Services. By leveraging Azure services, the hope is to have a truely scalable platform. As a developer or network engineer it is very difficult to develop an application quickly that is geographically dispersed. MSFT is attempting to bring their experience in hosting big apps like MSN.com or Microsoft.com to the table. The experience of developing to these services is supposed to be like developing apps previous to Azure Services or at least as close as possible.

Other demos include a "Live Mesh" demonstration which was actually really cool. Check it out here: http://www.mesh.com/. It was a cross platform syncronization service, where if you have a folder on your desktop that you wanted synced between all your devices or computers. The other aspect of the Live Mesh demo was to show virtualized applications. Stephen used the example of being able to add blockbuster rentals online through this app. The only thing I could think of that relates to this concept is that Apple's AppStore.

Other items of interest was MSFT support of jQuery and adding intellisense for this library in Visual Studio, Silverlight 2.0, and Model View Controller (MVC) capabilities. Last on the agenda was Windows 7. Stephen spoke that Windows 7 is a focus on the fundamentals.

1.) Better memory utilization
2.) Fewer amount of reads/writes to Disk
3.) Better Power Consumption
4.) Faster Boot-ups
5.) 256 Processor support (built on same framework as Windows Server 2008)

Visually

1.) Jumplists
2.) Pinning Capability
3.) Docking capability with windows
4.) "Shaking" capability that will make other windows "hide" or "reappear"
5.) Document libraries - ability to add and search network locations without indexing your entire corporate LAN.

To access information on the technologies presented at the MDC, please check out the following links:

Windows Azure
Sign up for Windows Azure http://www.azure.com/

Windows Azure SDK October CTP
htttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bb893fb0-ad04-4fe8-bb04-0c5e4278d3e9&DisplayLang=en

SQL Data Services SDK http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0B1FA5C6-EC9D-440B-939E-481DD05F2627&displaylang=en

.NET Services SDK December CTP
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=83e1e30f-bd9a-4284-80a6-388ba2e768fd&displaylang=en&tm

Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=63D0D248-1B08-4F7D-ABDE-62EB75CB1E69&displaylang=en

Tools, Languages and Frameworks

Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4.0 CTP
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=922b4655-93d0-4476-bda4-94cf5f8d4814&displaylang=en

F# Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/fsharp/default.aspx

Oslo Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/oslo/default.aspx

WCF Rest Starter Kit
http://www.codeplex.com/aspnet/Wiki/View.aspx?title=WCF%20REST

Client and Presentation
jQuery
http://www.jquery.com/

ScottGu on jQuery Intellisense in Visual Studio 2008
http://beta.weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/21/jquery-intellisense-in-vs-2008.aspx

WPF Data Grid and Ribbon Control
http://www.codeplex.com/wpf

Silverlight
http://www.silverlight.net/

Other
Visual Studio 2008 SP1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=FBEE1648-7106-44A7-9649-6D9F6D58056E&displaylang=en

SQL Server Express 2005
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=220549b5-0b07-4448-8848-dcc397514b41&displaylang=en

Visual Studio Express Editions
http://www.microsoft.com/express/

"Taking Parallelism Mainstream" Whitepaper
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc700329.aspx

Virtual PC 2007 SP1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en

Windows Live Setup
http://download.live.com/

Windows Powershell
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/default.mspx
Windows SharePoint Services VPC
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b885dce8-c93f-48aa-b798-4422febcc200&DisplayLang=en

Sharepoint 2007, FBA, and ASP.NET Site integration

2009-01-13T16:46:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of questions about integrating a simple ASP.NET website and Sharepoint 2007 using Forms based authentication or FBA. Many posts, very few answers, if any! Setting up forms based authentication in SQL Server, ASP.NET, and Sharepoint is easy and straightforward. A simple google search will find the answers you need. Integrating a seperate ASP.NET and Sharepoint or WSS site can be a little tricky. So to set-up forms based authentication:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262201.aspx

To integrate a ASP.NET website, you will need your standard web.config settings for membership, roles, profile, etc... This is also readily available on the internet. Make sure that in the sharepoint and your ASP.NET website web.config, you are using the same encryptionkey and decryptionkey. This is needed so that both sites encrypt and decrypt the cookies in the same manner. So for example, this is an example key:

Please randomize the keys, DO NOT USE THIS ONE. Here's probably the most important part... The forms tag in your ASP.NET website needs to contain the domain tag and to test, you need to be doing this between sites that use the domain name. So for example, testing this integration will NOT work between IP Addresses.

This will not work:

<authentication mode="Forms">

<forms name=".ASPXFORMSAUTH" enablecrossappredirects="true" timeout="30" path="/" protection="All" loginurl="../_layouts/login.aspx">

</authentication>

This will work:

<authentication mode="Forms">

<forms name=".ASPXFORMSAUTH" timeout="30" path="/" protection="All" loginurl="../_layouts/login.aspx" domain=".samstange.com" enableCrossAppRedirects="true" />

</authentication>

Good luck folks!

Windows 7 Beta thoughts

2009-01-09T11:12:00.000-08:00

Using VM Ware Workstation, it was my first look at Windows 7 Beta. VMWare recognized the install as Vista which was interesting. My overall experience has been very good for a beta product. Install was very smooth and without issue. So far, the OS has been very solid. No crashes yet at least.... Base installation takes about 7 GB. Here are some of my favorite items:

Remote Desktop - A lot more features! Dual desktops are now possible with a "Use all my monitors for this remote session". For those that use remote desktop, this is a great feature! A lot of other features are also available to optimize your experience.

Accessing Programs - Big difference in the way you access your favorite programs. So let's say you run Visual Studio 2008 all the time. In the task bar, just right click and say "pin" and it will be accessible from the toolbar from that point on.

Desktop Right Click - Quick access to Screen Resolution, Gadgets, and Personalization

IE 8 loaded

Snipping Tool - Similar to SnagIt, gives you the ability to make customized screen captures (by window, by selection, etc...). Didn't even know it existed in Vista! Good discovery!

Dislikes:

MS Paint uses a ribbon bar now, which is good, however it's still as limited in functionality as before. Don't expect anything with the strength of any Adobe products.

No "spaces" capability. Basically, no multiple dashboard capability. However, dashboards in Windows 7 is not subject to only being on the sidebar like Vista. There is software for Vista and Windows XP, but it's not as powerful as Apple's spaces. Clutter and ways to organize clutter would be a big help to me.

No native Photo Editing Software or movie editing software.

The subjective items MSFT needs to improve

Training. Just look at the tutorials Apple has on their software. It makes it easy to get spun up on the features quickly without signing up for some class in your local community college. Training and having users understand the product helps you to sell your product.

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#tutorial=anatomy

Good Links for spin-up:

Windows 7 wiki site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7

Those upgrading from XP might want to know what they missed out with Vista: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista

My love of Apple's iTouch

2009-01-08T17:01:00.000-08:00

This has got to be the most addictive device. Internet, VPN, remote desktop software, the App Store, music player, iTunes on the device, intuitive to use, MS Outlook integration, Google integration, facebook, twitter, weather, stocks, and hundred of more apps! It's basically a baby netbook. As a developer, I definitely appreciate the stability in the iTouch platform. I've had very few problems and am amazed at how many apps you can load on it.

Heck, even Microsoft came out with an app called "Sea Dragon", which is a debut app for Microsoft on the App Store. It's a fairly cool app based on the photosynth technology that allows you to zoom in on huge gigapixel photos.

It also has a big advantage over the iPhone because you don't have to pay the $30/month data plan with ATT and be committed to ATT for 2 years. Besides, who wants to be connected 24/7 when you've got a wifi network at home and work.

Here's the apps I've got loaded:

DashBuster - Blockbuster integrated
Facebook
Units - Conversion helper
RDP - Remote Desktop Software
Google Earth
Seadragon
TapDefense
Google
WifiTrak - wifi helper
Pandora - Internet Radio
NYTimes
Amazon.com
WebMD
Bejeweled 2 (Top Action Score: 803,300)
Bloomberg - News
BubblePro - pop bubble wrap, competition style
PBJTime - Peanut Butter Jelly Time with a baseball bat...
Labyrinth LE
iHeartRadio - Great internet radio for local radio stations

Free Microsoft Charting component

2009-01-05T16:56:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly, Microsoft published a free charting control that is actually very powerful. Scott Guthrie posted multiple links to the control with some screenshots. I think everyone was surprised to see the charts because nobody realized that MSFT acquired a lot of Dundas Intellectual property! I've had great success with Dundas components, in particular with the analysis services component (Not available for free). As you know, if you're running SQL Server 2008, you'll see a LOT of Dundas flavored components.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/24/new-asp-net-charting-control-lt-asp-chart-runat-quot-server-quot-gt.aspx

Developing charts for an application will be much easier now and will lack the cons of having another 3rd party control. Here's some history on the acquisition in regards to the chart control:

http://blogs.msdn.com/alexgor/archive/2008/11/07/microsoft-chart-control-vs-dundas-chart-control.aspx

Happy dashboarding!

HP 8710w and 6910p blue screens, docking station, and dual screens

2008-09-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

For those that suffer with Windows XP, the following fixes helped me overcome blue screens with the 8710w and 6910p HP laptop models. The issue occurs when undocking the PC, use dual screens, and waiting a minute or two, and then redocking. Sometimes it occurs on the 1st try, but it would often blue screen on the 2nd attempt. After installing the updates below, it appears to fix the issue. I had the same issue with the 6910p laptop, and the updates below fixed it. This is surprisingly not found ANYWHERE on the web. Good grief HP.

Link to HP Driver Update

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

2008-08-27T17:01:00.000-07:00

Internet Explorer 8 Videos
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/launch-videos.aspx

Here's my summary on the videos:

From a developer standpoint,

The most important topic, and the one that effects everyone is IE's quest to comply to standards. Standards compliancy is great, but could have an impact on our sites. Luckily they let us add a compatibility tag to our pages, if our sites don't work correctly or don't have the budget to make any major changes.

Some improvements can be found in the developer tools. These tools are integrated in the browser, not a separate download. The ability to debug javascript and create breakpoints is useful, but now fairly common. The new ability to add a profiler on a site should be helpful to debug performance problems.

Another cool feature I watched was the back button for AJAX events…. Basically, let's say your in google maps, and you move around a few times, the back button is still disabled. There's no way to go to the previous click or action when ajax is involved. IE8 apparently solves this issue.

From a normal browsing standpoint,

a much better "find" that highlights the words on the page (long overdue in my opinion),
web slices (ability to monitor some content, ie ~ ebay listing),
accelerators (ability to select content and do cool stuff with it, like highlight an address and display in a map, or translate something)
highlighting the primary site domain in URL bar
and oh and let's not forget the "in private" filter.

Deploying SQL Server Analysis Services across domains using Deployment Wizard

2008-08-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

Files Needed
- .asdatabase file

Permissions Needed
- Windows Authentication admin rights to SQL Server box. Note: SQL Server Authentication will not work since analysis services security model uses windows authentication (w/ possible exception of data source view connection).

Pre-Conditions
- SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services installed

- Analysis Services Database must already be created. The deployment wizard will fail if a blank database is not already created. You will not receive any legible error messages if you have not created the Analysis Services database.

Procedures
1.) In deployment wizard on server, select .asdatabase.
2.) Select "Do not bring over roles and users" must be selected. If you do not have this selected, the process will fail because it is trying to bring users from one domain to the next, where those users don’t exist
3.) After processing, (be aware that the status box isn’t always correct), re-create the necessary roles, users, and rights for the cubes.