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• Employee Info Starter Kit: Project Mission

  - by Mohammad Ashraful Alam

  Employee Info Starter Kit is an open source ASP.NET project template that is intended to address different types of real world challenges faced by web application developers when performing common CRUD operations. Using a single database table ‘Employee’, it illustrates how to utilize Microsoft ASP.NET 4.0, Entity Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 effectively in that context. Employee Info Starter Kit is highly influenced by the concept ‘Pareto Principle’ or 80-20 rule. where it is targeted to enable a web developer to gain 80% productivity with 20% of effort with respect to learning curve and production. User Stories The user end functionalities of this starter kit are pretty simple and straight forward that are focused in to perform CRUD operation on employee records as described below. Creating a new employee record Read existing employee record Update an existing employee record Delete existing employee records Key Technology Areas ASP.NET 4.0 Entity Framework 4.0 T-4 Template Visual Studio 2010 Architectural Objective There is no universal architecture which can be considered as the best for all sorts of applications around the world. Based on requirements, constraints, environment, application architecture can differ from one to another. Trade-off factors are one of the important considerations while deciding a particular architectural solution. Employee Info Starter Kit is highly influenced by the concept ‘Pareto Principle’ or 80-20 rule, where it is targeted to enable a web developer to gain 80% productivity with 20% of effort with respect to learning curve and production. “Productivity” as the architectural objective typically also includes other trade-off factors as well as, such as testability, flexibility, performance etc. Fortunately Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 includes lots of great features that have been implemented cleverly in this project to reduce these trade-off factors in the minimum level. Why Employee Info Starter Kit is Not a Framework? Application frameworks are really great for productivity, some of which are really unavoidable in this modern age. However relying too many frameworks may overkill a project, as frameworks are typically designed to serve wide range of different usage and are less customizable or editable. On the other hand having implementation patterns can be useful for developers, as it enables them to adjust application on demand. Employee Info Starter Kit provides hundreds of “connected” snippets and implementation patterns to demonstrate problem solutions in actual production environment. It also includes Visual Studio T-4 templates that generate thousands lines of data access and business logic layer repetitive codes in literally few seconds on the fly, which are fully mock testable due to language support for partial methods and latest support for mock testing in Entity Framework. Why Employee Info Starter Kit is Different than Other Open-source Web Applications? Software development is one of the rapid growing industries around the globe, where the technology is being updated very frequently to adapt greater challenges over time. There are literally thousands of community web sites, blogs and forums that are dedicated to provide support to adapt new technologies. While some are really great to enable learning new technologies quickly, in most cases they are either too “simple and brief” to be used in real world scenarios or too “complex and detailed” which are typically focused to achieve a product goal (such as CMS, e-Commerce etc) from "end user" perspective and have a long duration learning curve with respect to the corresponding technology. Employee Info Starter Kit, as a web project, is basically "developer" oriented which actually considers a hybrid approach as “simple and detailed”, where a simple domain has been considered to intentionally illustrate most of the architectural and implementation challenges faced by web application developers so that anyone can dive into deep into the corresponding new technology or concept quickly. Roadmap Since its first release by 2008 in MSDN Code Gallery, Employee Info Starter Kit gained a huge popularity in ASP.NET community and had 1, 50,000+ downloads afterwards. Being encouraged with this great response, we have a strong commitment for the community to provide support for it with respect to latest technologies continuously. Currently hosted in Codeplex, this community driven project is planned to have a wide range of individual editions, each of which will be focused on a selected application architecture, framework or platform, such as ASP.NET Webform, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, ASP.NET MVC, jQuery Ajax (RIA), Silverlight (RIA), Azure Service Platform (Cloud), Visual Studio Automated Test etc. See here for full list of current and future editions.

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• Going Paperless

  - by Jesse

  One year ago I came to work for a company where the entire development team is 100% “remote”; we’re spread over 3 time zones and each of us works from home. This seems to be an increasingly popular way for people to work and there are many articles and blog posts out there enumerating the advantages and disadvantages of working this way. I had read a lot about telecommuting before accepting this job and felt as if I had a pretty decent idea of what I was getting into, but I’ve encountered a few things over the past year that I did not expect. Among the most surprising by-products of working from home for me has been a dramatic reduction in the amount of paper that I use on a weekly basis. Hoarding In The Workplace Prior to my current telecommute job I worked in what most would consider pretty traditional office environments. I sat in cubicles furnished with an enormous plastic(ish) modular desks, had a mediocre (at best) PC workstation, and had ready access to a seemingly endless supply of legal pads, pens, staplers and paper clips. The ready access to paper, countless conference room meetings, and abundance of available surface area on my desk and in drawers created a perfect storm for wasting paper. I brought a pad of paper with me to every meeting I ever attended, scrawled some brief notes, and then tore that sheet off to keep next to my keyboard to follow up on any needed action items. Once my immediate need for the notes was fulfilled, that sheet would get shuffled off into a corner of my desk or filed away in a drawer “just in case”. I would guess that for all of the notes that I ever filed away, I might have actually had to dig up and refer to 2% of them (and that’s probably being very generous). That said, on those rare occasions that I did have to dig something up from old notes, it was usually pretty important and I ended up being very glad that I saved them. It was only when I would leave a job or move desks that I would finally gather all those notes together and take them to shredding bin to be disposed of. When I left my last job the amount of paper I had accumulated over my three years there was absurd, and I knew coworkers who had substance-abuse caliber paper wasting addictions that made my bad habit look like nail-biting in comparison. A Product Of My Environment I always hated using all of this paper, but simply couldn’t bring myself to stop. It would look bad if I showed up to an important conference room meeting without a pad of paper. What if someone said something profound! Plus, everyone else always brought paper with them. If you saw someone walking down the hallway with a pad of paper in hand you knew they must be on their way to a conference room meeting. Some people even had fancy looking portfolio notebook sheaths that gave their legal pads all the prestige of a briefcase. No one ever worried about running out of fresh paper because there was an endless supply, and there certainly was no shortage of places to store and file used paper. In short, the traditional office was setup for using tons and tons of paper; it’s baked into the culture there. For that reason, it didn’t take long for me to kick the paper habit once I started working from home. In my home office, desk and drawer space are at a premium. I don’t have the budget (or the tolerance) for huge modular office furniture in my spare bedroom. I also no longer have access to a bottomless pit of office supplies stock piled in cabinets and closets. If I want to use some paper, I have to go out and buy it. Finally (and most importantly), all of the meetings that I have to attend these days are “virtual”. We use instant messaging, VOIP, video conferencing, and e-mail to communicate with each other. All I need to take notes during a meeting is my computer, which I happen to be sitting right in front of all day. I don’t have any hard numbers for this, but my gut feeling is that I actually take a lot more notes now than I ever did when I worked in an office. The big difference is I don’t have to use any paper to do so. This makes it far easier to keep important information safe and organized. The Right Tool For The Job When I first started working from home I tried to find a single application that would fill the gap left by the pen and paper that I always had at my desk when I worked in an office. Well, there are no silver bullets and I’ve evolved my approach over time to try and find the best tool for the job at hand. Here’s a quick summary of how I take notes and keep everything organized. Notepad++ – This is the first application I turn to when I feel like there’s some bit of information that I need to write down and save. I use Launchy, so opening Notepad++ and creating a new file only takes a few keystrokes. If I find that the information I’m trying to get down requires a more sophisticated application I escalate as needed. The Desktop – By default, I save every file or other bit of information to the desktop. Anyone who has ever had to fix their parents computer before knows that this is a dangerous game (any file my mother has ever worked on is saved directly to the desktop and rarely moves anywhere else). I agree that storing things on the desktop isn’t a great long term approach to keeping organized, which is why I treat my desktop a bit like my e-mail inbox. I strive to keep both empty (or as close to empty as I possibly can). If something is on my desktop, it means that it’s something relevant to a task or project that I’m currently working on. About once a week I take things that I’m not longer working on and put them into my ‘Notes’ folder. The ‘Notes’ Folder – As I work on a task, I tend to accumulate multiple files associated with that task. For example, I might have a bit of SQL that I’m working on to gather data for a new report, a quick C# method that I came up with but am not yet ready to commit to source control, a bulleted list of to-do items in a .txt file, etc. If the desktop starts to get too cluttered, I create a new sub-folder in my ‘Notes’ folder. Each sub-folder’s name is the current date followed by a brief description of the task or project. Then all files related to that task or project go into that sub folder. By using the date as the first part of the folder name, these folders are automatically sorted in reverse chronological order. This means that things I worked on recently will generally be near the top of the list. Using the built-in Windows search functionality I now have a pretty quick and easy way to try and find something that I worked on a week ago or six months ago. Dropbox – Dropbox is a free service that lets you store up to 2GB of files “in the cloud” and have those files synced to all of the different computers that you use. My ‘Notes’ folder lives in Dropbox, meaning that it’s contents are constantly backed up and are always available to me regardless of which computer I’m using. They also have a pretty decent iPhone application that lets you browse and view all of the files that you have stored there. The free 2GB edition is probably enough for just storing notes, but I also pay $99/year for the 50GB storage upgrade and keep all of my music, e-books, pictures, and documents in Dropbox. It’s a fantastic service and I highly recommend it. Evernote – I use Evernote mostly to organize information that I access on a fairly regular basis. For example, my Evernote account has a running grocery shopping list, recipes that my wife and I use a lot, and contact information for people I contact infrequently enough that I don’t want to keep them in my phone. I know some people that keep nearly everything in Evernote, but there’s something about it that I find a bit clunky, so I tend to use it sparingly. Google Tasks – One of my biggest paper wasting habits was keeping a running task-list next to my computer at work. Every morning I would sit down, look at my task list, cross off what was done and add new tasks that I thought of during my morning commute. This usually resulted in having to re-copy the task list onto a fresh sheet of paper when I was done. I still keep a running task list at my desk, but I’ve started using Google Tasks instead. This is a dead-simple web-based application for quickly adding, deleting, and organizing tasks in a simple checklist style. You can quickly move tasks up and down on the list (which I use for prioritizing), and even create sub-tasks for breaking down larger tasks into smaller pieces. Balsamiq Mockups – This is a simple and lightweight tool for creating drawings of user interfaces. It’s great for sketching out a new feature, brainstorm the layout of a interface, or even draw up a quick sequence diagram. I’m terrible at drawing, so Balsamiq Mockups not only lets me create sketches that other people can actually understand, but it’s also handy because you can upload a sketch to a common location for other team members to access. I can honestly say that using these tools (and having limited resources at home) have lead me to cut my paper usage down to virtually none. If I ever were to return to a traditional office workplace (hopefully never!) I’d try to employ as many of these applications and techniques as I could to keep paper usage low. I feel far less cluttered and far better organized now.

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• Fake It Easy On Yourself

  - by Lee Brandt

  I have been using Rhino.Mocks pretty much since I started being a mockist-type tester. I have been very happy with it for the most part, but a year or so ago, I got a glimpse of some tests using Moq. I thought the little bit I saw was very compelling. For a long time, I had been using: 1: var _repository = MockRepository.GenerateMock<IRepository>(); 2: _repository.Expect(repo=>repo.SomeCall()).Return(SomeValue); 3: var _controller = new SomeKindaController(_repository); 4:  5: ... some exercising code 6: _repository.AssertWasCalled(repo => repo.SomeCall()); I was happy with that syntax. I didn’t go looking for something else, but what I saw was: 1: var _repository = new Mock(); And I thought, “That looks really nice!” The code was very expressive and easier to read that the Rhino.Mocks syntax. I have gotten so used to the Rhino.Mocks syntax that it made complete sense to me, but to developers I was mentoring in mocking, it was sometimes to obtuse. SO I thought I would write some tests using Moq as my mocking tool. But I discovered something ugly once I got into it. The way Mocks are created makes Moq very easy to read, but that only gives you a Mock not the object itself, which is what you’ll need to pass to the exercising code. So this is what it ends up looking like: 1: var _repository = new Mock<IRepository>(); 2: _repository.SetUp(repo=>repo.SomeCall).Returns(SomeValue); 3: var _controller = new SomeKindaController(_repository.Object); 4: .. some exercizing code 5: _repository.Verify(repo => repo.SomeCall()); Two things jump out at me: 1) when I set up my mocked calls, do I set it on the Mock or the Mock’s “object”? and 2) What am I verifying on SomeCall? Just that it was called? that it is available to call? Dealing with 2 objects, a “Mock” and an “Object” made me have to consider naming conventions. Should I always call the mock _repositoryMock and the object _repository? So I went back to Rhino.Mocks. It is the most widely used framework, and show other how to use it is easier because there is one natural object to use, the _repository. Then I came across a blog post from Patrik Hägne, and that led me to a post about FakeItEasy. I went to the Google Code site and when I saw the syntax, I got very excited. Then I read the wiki page where Patrik stated why he wrote FakeItEasy, and it mirrored my own experience. So I began to play with it a bit. So far, I am sold. the syntax is VERY easy to read and the fluent interface is super discoverable. It basically looks like this: 1: var _repository = A.Fake<IRepository>(); 2: a.CallTo(repo=>repo.SomeMethod()).Returns(SomeValue); 3: var _controller = new SomeKindaController(_repository); 4: ... some exercising code 5: A.CallTo(() => _repository.SOmeMethod()).MustHaveHappened(); Very nice. But is it mature? It’s only been around a couple of years, so will I be giving up some thing that I use a lot because it hasn’t been implemented yet? I doesn’t seem so. As I read more examples and posts from Patrik, he has some pretty complex scenarios. He even has support for VB.NET! So if you are looking for a mocking framework that looks and feels very natural, try out FakeItEasy!

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• Announcing Monthly Silverlight Giveaways on MichaelCrump.Net

  - by mbcrump

  I've been working with different companies to give away a set of Silverlight controls to my blog readers for the past few months. I’ve decided to setup this page and a friendly URL for everyone to keep track of my monthly giveaway. The URL to bookmark is: http://giveaways.michaelcrump.net. My main goal for giving away the controls is: I love for the Silverlight Community and giving away nice controls always sparks interest in Silverlight. To spread the word about a company and let the user decide if it meet their particular situation. I am a “control” junkie, it helps me solve my own personal business problems since I know what is out there. Provide some additional hits for my blog. Below is a grid that I will update monthly with the current giveaway. Feel free to bookmark this post and visit it monthly. Month Name Giveaway Description Blog Post Detailing Controls October 2010 Telerik Silverlight Controls –RadControls http://michaelcrump.net/archive/2010/10/15/win-telerik-radcontrols-for-silverlight-799-value.aspx November 2010 Mindscape Mindscape Mega-Pack http://michaelcrump.net/archive/2010/11/11/mindscape-silverlight-controls--free-mega-pack-contest.aspx December 2010 Infragistics Silverlight Controls + Silverlight Data Visualization http://michaelcrump.net/mbcrump/archive/2010/12/15/win-a-set-of-infragistics-silverlight-controls-with-data-visualization.aspx January 2011 Cellbi Cellbi Silverlight Controls http://michaelcrump.net/mbcrump/archive/2011/01/05/cellbi-silverlight-controls-giveaway-5-license-to-give-away.aspx February 2011 *BOOKED*     To Third Party Silverlight Companies: If you create any type of Silverlight control/application and would like to feature it on my blog then you may contact me at michael[at]michaelcrump[dot]net. Giving away controls has proven to be beneficial for both parties as I have around 4k twitter followers and average around 1000 page views a day. Contact me today and give back to the Silverlight Community.  Subscribe to my feed

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• Exciting New Job Announcement!

  - by John Blumenauer

  I’m extremely excited to announce that I’ve accepted a position with Applied Information Sciences (AIS).  The innovative work and company values at AIS are aligned with what I was seeking in my next position.  Also, over the past year or so, I’ve met some really talented individuals who work at AIS, so when the opportunity presented itself, I decided it was time to make a change. I look forward to the challenges ahead and working with a team of highly talented and motivated individuals.

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• I&rsquo;ve moved out&hellip;

  - by Michael Cummings

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Mathoms/archive/2013/06/21/irsquove-moved-outhellip.aspxGeeksWithBlogs has been a great property ever since I decided to start bloggging, however I have outgrown it and am moving to a new location. Please visit me at http://michaelcummings.net from now on. The RSS feed has been updated so that should automatically update to the new address. I’ll miss GWB, but my new property is hosted on Azure using Orchard and I have been really enjoying it so far.

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• APress Deal of the Day 9/August/2014 - Pro SharePoint 2013 Administration

  - by TATWORTH

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TATWORTH/archive/2014/08/09/apress-deal-of-the-day-9august2014---pro-sharepoint-2013.aspxToday’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/9781430249412 is Pro SharePoint 2013 Administration. “Pro SharePoint 2013 Administration is a practical guide to installing, deploying, and implementing SharePoint 2013 for intermediate to advanced administrators. ”

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• FileOpenPicker/FileSavePicker doesn't allow *.* wildcard file associations

  - by mbrit

  On Twitter, Matthias Jauernig commented that the FileOpenPicker and FileSavePicker doesn't allow *.* wildcard file associations. I was relaxed about this and wrote back that it was related to sandboxing implying it was a "good thing", however as Matthias commented back, perhaps it's not.In Metro-style the sandboxing works that if something gives you a file (e.g. the picker, or a share operation), you can access it regardless of where on the system. If you find the file yourself, you have to declare the type.The reason why I think it's related to sandboxing is because if you work with files programmatically you have to be explicit about the file types. This is to stop malware that you think is only interested in - say .PDF files, scanning and uploading any .EML files that it can find on the machine. It follows then on the pickers that restriction would continue. It allow's the retail store team to validate that an app is likely to behave itself. If it's an app that works with images, locking down the picker so that it can only access image file types makes sense.However Matthias mentioned that he has an app that should allow files of any arbitrary file. That fits more into the "if the user selects it, it must be OK" camp than the "programmatic scanning" camp. So now I'm left wondering why the picker doesn't allow any type to be selected.I think then maybe the decision comes down to simplicity. A lot of the decisions in Metro-style design relate to ideas about "zero intimidation". Allow the user to select any file is too much like Old Windows, and not enough like Reimagined Windows. What happens in Matthias's app if the user selects Explorer.exe as the file he or she wants to work with? I guess it's fine if you expect your user to know what they're doing (Old Windows), but not so fine if you're expecting a three year old to work with it (Reimagined Windows).

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• Having fun with Reflection

  - by Nick Harrison

  I was once asked in a technical interview what I could tell them about Reflection.   My response, while a little tongue in cheek was that "I can tell you it is one of my favorite topics to talk about" I did get a laugh out of that and it was a great ice breaker.    Reflection may not be the answer for everything, but it often can be, or maybe even should be.     I have posted in the past about my favorite CopyTo method.   It can come in several forms and is often very useful.   I explain it further and expand on the basic idea here  The basic idea is to allow reflection to loop through the properties of two objects and synchronize the ones that are in common.   I love this approach for data binding and passing data across the layers in an application. Recently I have been working on a project leveraging Data Transfer Objects to pass data through WCF calls.   We won't go into how the architecture got this way, but in essence there is a partial duplicate inheritance hierarchy where there is a related Domain Object for each Data Transfer Object.     The matching objects do not share a common ancestor or common interface but they will have the same properties in common.    By passing the problems with this approach, let's talk about how Reflection and our friendly CopyTo could make the most of this bad situation without having to change too much. One of the problems is keeping the two sets of objects in synch.   For this particular project, the DO has all of the functionality and the DTO is used to simply transfer data back and forth.    Both sets of object have parallel hierarchies with the same properties being defined at the corresponding levels.   So we end with BaseDO,  BaseDTO, GenericDO, GenericDTO, ProcessAreaDO,  ProcessAreaDTO, SpecializedProcessAreaDO, SpecializedProcessAreaDTO, TableDo, TableDto. and so on. Without using Reflection and a CopyTo function, tremendous care and effort must be made to keep the corresponding objects in synch.    New properties can be added at any level in the inheritance and must be kept in synch at all subsequent layers.    For this project we have come up with a clever approach of calling a base GetDo or UpdateDto making sure that the same method at each level of inheritance is called.    Each level is responsible for updating the properties at that level. This is a lot of work and not keeping it in synch can create all manner of problems some of which are very difficult to track down.    The other problem is the type of code that this methods tend to wind up with. You end up with code like this: Transferable dto = new Transferable(); base.GetDto(dto); dto.OfficeCode = GetDtoNullSafe(officeCode); dto.AccessIndicator = GetDtoNullSafe(accessIndicator); dto.CaseStatus = GetDtoNullSafe(caseStatus); dto.CaseStatusReason = GetDtoNullSafe(caseStatusReason); dto.LevelOfService = GetDtoNullSafe(levelOfService); dto.ReferralComments = referralComments; dto.Designation = GetDtoNullSafe(designation); dto.IsGoodCauseClaimed = GetDtoNullSafe(isGoodCauseClaimed); dto.GoodCauseClaimDate = goodCauseClaimDate;       One obvious problem is that this is tedious code.   It is error prone code.    Adding helper functions like GetDtoNullSafe help out immensely, but there is still an easier way. We can bypass the tedious code, by pass the complex inheritance tricks, and reduce all of this to a single method in the base class. TransferObject dto = new TransferObject(); CopyTo (this, dto); return dto; In the case of this one project, such a change eliminated the need for 20% of the total code base and a whole class of unit test cases that made sure that all of the properties were in synch. The impact of such a change also needs to include the on going time savings and the improvements in quality that can arise from them.    Developers who are not worried about keeping the properties in synch across mirrored object hierarchies are freed to worry about more important things like implementing business requirements.

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• Entity Framework - Single EMDX Mapping Multiple Database

  - by michaelalisonalviar

  Because of my recent craze on Entity Framework thanks to Sir Humprey, I have continuously searched the Internet for tutorials on how to apply it to our current system. So I've come to learn that with EF, I can eliminate the numerous coding of methods/functions for CRUD operations, my overly used assigning of connection strings, Data Adapters or Data Readers as Entity Framework will map my desired database and will do its magic to create entities for each table I want (using EF Powertool) and does all the methods/functions for my Crud Operations. But as I begin applying it to a new project I was assigned to, I realized our current server is designed to contain each similar entities in different databases. For example Our lookup tables are stored in LookupDb, Accounting-related tables are in AccountingDb, Sales-related tables in SalesDb. My dilemma is I have to use an existing table from LookupDB and use it as a look-up for my new table. Then I have found Miss Rachel's Blog (here)Thank You Miss Rachel!  which enables me to let EF think that my TableLookup1 is in the AccountingDB using the following steps. Im on VS 2010, I am using C# , Using Entity Framework 5, SQL Server 2008 as our DB ServerStep 1:Creating A SQL Synonym. If you want a more detailed discussion on synonyms, this was what i have read -> (link here). To simply put it, A synonym enabled me to simplify my query for the Look-up table when I'm using the AccountingDB fromSELECT [columns] FROM LookupDB.dbo.TableLookup1toSELECT [columns] FROM TableLookup1Syntax: CREATE SYNONYM  TableLookup1(1) FOR LookupDB.dbo.TableLookup1 (2)1. What you want to call the table on your other DB2. DataBaseName.schema.TableNameStep 2: We will now follow Miss Rachel's steps. you can either visit the link on the original topic I posted earlier or just follow the step I made.1. I created a Visual Basic Solution that will contain the 4 projects needed to complete the merging2. First project will contain the edmx file pointing to the AccountingDB3. Second project will contain the edmx file pointing to the LookupDB4. Third Project will will be our repository of the merged edmx file. Create an edmx file pointing To AccountingDB as this the database that we created the Synonym on.Reminder: Aside from using the same name for the Entities, please make sure that you have the same Model Namespace for all your Entities  5. Fourth project that will contain the beautiful EDMX merger that Miss Rachel created that will free you from Hard coding of the merge/recoding the Edmx File of the third project everytime a change is done on either one of the first two projects' Edmx File.6. Run the solution, but make sure that on the solutions properties Single startup project is selected and the project containing the EDMX merger is selected.7. After running the solution, double click on the EDMX file of the 3rd project and set Lazy Loading Enabled = False. This will let you use the tables/entities that you see in that EDMX File.8. Feel free to do your CRUD Operations.I don't know if EF 5 already has a feature to support synonyms as I am still a newbie on that aspect but I have seen a linked where there are supposed suggestions on Entity Framework upgrades and one is the "Support for multiple databases"  So that's it! Thanks for reading!

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• Adding Async=true to the page- no side effects noticed.

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  Recently I needed to implement PageAsyncTask  in .Net 4 web forms application.According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.pageasynctask.aspx"A PageAsyncTask object must be registered to the page through the RegisterAsyncTask method. The page itself does not have to be processed asynchronously to execute asynchronous tasks. You can set the Async attribute to either true (as shown in the following code example) or false on the page directive and the asynchronous tasks will still be processed asynchronously:<%@ Page Async="true" %>When the Async attribute is set to false, the thread that executes the page will be blocked until all asynchronous tasks are complete."I was worry about any site effects if I will set  Async=true on the existing page.The only documented restrictions, that I found are that@Async is not compatible with @AspCompat and Transaction attributes (from @ Page directive  MSDN article). In other words, Asynchronous pages do not work when the AspCompat attribute is set to true or the Transactionattribute is set to a value other than Disabled in the @ Page directiveFrom our tests we conclude, that adding Async=true to the page is quite safe, even if you don't always call Async tasks from the page

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• Amanda Todd&ndash;What Parents Can Learn From Her Story

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Amanda Todd was a bullied teenager who committed suicide this week. Her story has become headline news due in part to her You Tube video she posted telling her story:   The story is heartbreaking for so many reasons, but I wanted to talk about what we as parents can learn from this. Being the dad to two girls, one that’s 10, I’m very aware of the dangers that the internet holds. When I saw her story, one thing jumped out at me – unmonitored internet access at an early age. My daughter (then 9) came home from a friends place once and asked if she could be in a YouTube video with her friend. Apparently this friend was allowed to do whatever she wanted on the internet, including posting goofy videos. This set off warning bells and we ensured our daughter realized the dangers and that she was not to ever post videos of herself. In looking at Amanda’s story, the access to unmonitored internet time along with just being a young girl and being flattered by an online predator were the key events that ultimately led to her suicide. Yes, the reaction of her classmates and “friends” was horrible as well, I’m not diluting that. But our youth don’t fully understand yet that what they do on the internet today will follow them potentially forever. And the people they meet online aren’t necessarily who they claim to be. So what can we as parents learn from Amanda’s story? Parents Shouldn’t Feel Bad About Being Internet Police Our job as parents is in part to protect our kids and keep them safe, even if they don’t like our measures. This includes monitoring, supervising, and restricting their internet activities. In our house we have a family computer in the living room that the kids can watch videos and surf the web. It’s in plain view of everyone, so you can’t hide what you’re looking at. If our daughter goes to a friend’s place, we ask about what they did and what they played. If the computer comes up, we ask about what they did on it. Luckily our daughter is very up front and honest in telling us things, so we have very open discussions. Parents Need to Be Honest About the Dangers of the Internet I’m sure every generation says that “kids grow up so fast these days”, but in our case the internet really does push our kids to be exposed to things they otherwise wouldn’t experience. One wrong word in a Google search, a click of a link in a spam email, or just general curiosity can expose a child to things they aren’t ready for or should never be exposed to (and I’m not just talking about adult material – have you seen some of the graphic pictures from war zones posted on news sites recently?). Our stance as parents has been to be open about discussing the dangers with our kids before they encounter any content – be proactive instead of reactionary. Part of this is alerting them to the monsters that lurk on the internet as well. As kids explore the world wide web, they’re eventually going to encounter some chat room or some Facebook friend invite or other personal connection with someone. More than ever kids need to be educated on the dangers of engaging with people online and sharing personal information. You can think of it as an evolved discussion that our parents had with us about using the phone: “Don’t say ‘I’m home alone’, don’t say when mom or dad get home, don’t tell them any information, etc.” Parents Need to Talk Self Worth at Home Katie makes the point better than I ever could (one bad word towards the end): Our children need to understand their value beyond what the latest issue of TigerBeat says, or the media who continues flaunting physical attributes over intelligence and character, or a society that puts focus on status and wealth. They also have to realize that just because someone pays you a compliment, that doesn’t mean you should ignore personal boundaries and limits. What does this have to do with the internet? Well, in days past if you wanted to be social you had to go out somewhere. Now you can video chat with any number of people from the comfort of wherever your laptop happens to be – and not just text but full HD video with sound! While innocent children head online in the hopes of meeting cool people, predators with bad intentions are heading online too. As much as we try to monitor their online activity and be honest about the dangers of the internet, the human side of our kids isn’t something we can control. But we can try to influence them to see themselves as not needing to search out the acceptance of complete strangers online. Way easier said than done, but ensuring self-worth is something discussed, encouraged, and celebrated is a step in the right direction. Parental Wake Up Call This post is not a critique of Amanda’s parents. The reality is that cyber bullying/abuse is happening every day, and there are millions of parents that have no clue its happening to their children. Amanda’s story is a wake up call that our children’s online activities may be putting them in danger. My heart goes out to the parents of this girl. As a father of daughters, I can’t imagine what I would do if I found my daughter having to hide in a ditch to avoid a mob or call 911 to report my daughter had attempted suicide by drinking bleach or deal with a child turning to drugs/alcohol/cutting to cope. It would be horrendous if we as parents didn’t re-evaluate our family internet policies in light of this event. And in the end, Amanda’s video was meant to bring attention to her plight and encourage others going through the same thing. We may not be kids, but we can still honour her memory by helping safeguard our children.

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• Learning Resources for SharePoint

  - by Enrique Lima

  SharePoint 2010 Reference: Software Development Kit SharePoint 2010: Getting Started with Development on SharePoint 2010 Hands-on Labs in C# and Visual Basic SharePoint Developer Training Kit Professional Development Evaluation Guide and Walkthrough SharePoint Server 2010: Advanced Developer Training Presentations

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• 10 Best Programming Podcast 2010 Edition

  - by mbcrump

  This list is in no particular order. Just the 10 best programming podcast that I have found so far. Stack Overflow Podcast -  Jeff Atwood (of codinghorror.com) and Joel Spolsky (of joelonsoftware.com) discuss the development of their new programming community, StackOverflow.com. [This Podcast hasn’t been updated in a while, but its always great to hear more from Jeff Atwood] Hanselminutes - Hanselminutes is a weekly audio talk show with noted web developer and technologist Scott Hanselman and hosted by Carl Franklin. Scott discusses utilities and tools, gives practical how-to advice, and discusses ASP.NET or Windows issues and workarounds. [This Podcast has recently started talking about random topics like diabetes, plane travel and geek relationship tips.  I am not sure if Scott is trying to move to a more mainstream audience or not] Herding Code - A weekly discussion featuring K. Scott Allen (odetocode.com), Kevin Dente, Scott Koon (lazycoder.com), and Jon Galloway. [Great all all-around podcast that I would recommend to all] Deep Fried Bytes - Deep Fried Bytes is an audio talk show with a Southern flavor hosted by technologists and developers Keith Elder and Chris Woodruff. The show discusses a wide range of topics including application development, operating systems and technology in general. Anything is fair game if it plugs into the wall or takes a battery. [This is one that just keeps getting better] Dot Net Rocks - .NET Rocks! is an Internet Audio Talk Show for Microsoft .NET Developers. [One of the first and usually very high quality content] Connected Show - Connected Show Podcast! A podcast covering new Microsoft technology for the developer community. The show is hosted by Dmitry Lyalin and Peter Laudati. [This and Polymorphic are one of my favorite podcast – Dmitry is a great host and would recommend this to all] Polymorphic Podcast - Object oriented development, architecture and best practices in .NET [Craig is a ASP.NET MVP and a great presenter. His podcast is great and it could only be better if he recorded it more often] ASP.NET Podcast - Wallace B. (Wally) McClure presents interviews and short technical talks on .NET Technologies. [Has great information on ASP.NET of course as well as iPhone Dev] Ruby on Rails Podcast - News and interviews about the Ruby language and the Rails website framework. [Even though I am not a Ruby programmer, I’ve found this podcast very interesting] Software Engineering Radio - Software Engineering Radio is a podcast targeted at the professional software developer. The goal is to be a lasting educational resource, not a newscast. Every ten days, a new episode is published that covers all topics software engineering. Episodes are either tutorials on a specific topic, or an interview with a well-known character from the software engineering world. All SE Radio episodes are original content ? we do not record conferences or talks given in other venues. Each episode comprises two speakers to ensure a lively listening experience. SE Radio is an independent and non-commercial organization. [Another excellent podcast – I would recommend any programmer add this to his/her drive home] If I have missed something, please feel free to email me and it might make the 2011 list. =)

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• Prevent your Silverlight XAP file from caching in your browser.

  - by mbcrump

  If you work with Silverlight daily then you have run into this problem. Your XAP file has been cached in your browser and you have to empty your browser cache to resolve it. If your using Google Chrome then you typically do the following: Go to Options –> Clear Browsing History –> Empty the Cache and finally click Clear Browsing data. As you can see, this is a lot of unnecessary steps. It is even worse when you have a customer that says, “I can’t see the new features you just implemented!” and you realize it’s a cached xap problem.  I have been struggling with a way to prevent my XAP file from caching inside of a browser for a while now and decided to implement the following solution. If the Visual Studio Debugger is attached then add a unique query string to the source param to force the XAP file to be refreshed. If the Visual Studio Debugger is not attached then add the source param as Visual Studio generates it. This is also in case I forget to remove the above code in my production environment. I want the ASP.NET code to be inline with my .ASPX page. (I do not want a separate code behind .cs page or .vb page attached to the .aspx page.) Below is an example of the hosting code generated when you create a new Silverlight project. As a quick refresher, the hard coded param name = “source” specifies the location of your XAP file.  <form id="form1" runat="server" style="height:100%"> <div id="silverlightControlHost"> <object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%"> <param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication2.xap"/> <param name="onError" value="onSilverlightError" /> <param name="background" value="white" /> <param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="4.0.50826.0" /> <param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" /> <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149156&v=4.0.50826.0" style="text-decoration:none"> <img src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=161376" alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" style="border-style:none"/> </a> </object><iframe id="_sl_historyFrame" style="visibility:hidden;height:0px;width:0px;border:0px"></iframe></div> </form> We are going to use a little bit of inline ASP.NET to generate the param name = source dynamically to prevent the XAP file from caching. Lets look at the completed solution: <form id="form1" runat="server" style="height:100%"> <div id="silverlightControlHost"> <object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%"> <% string strSourceFile = @"ClientBin/SilverlightApplication2.xap"; string param; if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached) //Debugger Attached - Refresh the XAP file. param = "<param name=\"source\" value=\"" + strSourceFile + "?" + DateTime.Now.Ticks + "\" />"; else { //Production Mode param = "<param name=\"source\" value=\"" + strSourceFile + "\" />"; } Response.Write(param); %> <param name="onError" value="onSilverlightError" /> <param name="background" value="white" /> <param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="4.0.50826.0" /> <param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" /> <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149156&v=4.0.50826.0" style="text-decoration:none"> <img src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=161376" alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" style="border-style:none"/> </a> </object><iframe id="_sl_historyFrame" style="visibility:hidden;height:0px;width:0px;border:0px"></iframe></div> </form> We add the location to our XAP file to strSourceFile and if the debugger is attached then it will append DateTime.Now.Ticks to the XAP file source and force the browser to download the .XAP. If you view the page source of your Silverlight Application then you can verify it worked properly by looking at the param name = “source” tag as shown below. <param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication2.xap?634299001187160148" /> If the debugger is not attached then it will use the standard source tag as shown below. <param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication2.xap"/> At this point you may be asking, How do I prevent my XAP file from being cached on my production app? Well, you have two easy options: 1) I really don’t recommend this approach but you can force the XAP to be refreshed everytime with the following code snippet.  <param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication2.xap?<%=Guid.NewGuid().ToString() %>"/> NOTE: You could also substitute the “Guid.NewGuid().ToString() for anything that create a random field. (I used DateTime.Now.Ticks earlier). 2) Another solution that I like even better involves checking the XAP Creation Date and appending it to the param name = source. This method was described by Lars Holm Jenson. <% string strSourceFile = @"ClientBin/SilverlightApplication2.xap"; string param; if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached) param = "<param name=\"source\" value=\"" + strSourceFile + "\" />"; else { string xappath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(@"") + @"\" + strSourceFile; DateTime xapCreationDate = System.IO.File.GetLastWriteTime(xappath); param = "<param name=\"source\" value=\"" + strSourceFile + "?ignore=" + xapCreationDate.ToString() + "\" />"; } Response.Write(param); %> As you can see, this problem has been solved. It will work with all web browsers and stubborn proxy servers that are caching your .XAP. If you enjoyed this article then check out my blog for others like this. You may also want to subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter.   Subscribe to my feed

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• TechEd India 2010 - my first session on developing an IPL Portal using Visual Studio 2010

  - by Harish Ranganathan

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• SyncToBlog #11 Stuff and more stuff

  - by Eric Nelson

  Just getting more stuff “down on paper” which grabbed my attention over the last couple of weeks. http://www.koodibook.com/ is live. This is a a rich desktop application built in WPF by some ex-colleagues and current friends :-) Check it out if “photo books” is your thing or you like sweet WPF UX. Study rates Microsoft .NET Framework rated top, Ruby on Rails 2nd bottom. I know a bit about both of these frameworks. Both are sweet for different reasons. .NET top. Ok – I liked that. But Ruby on Rails 2nd bottom just blows away the credibility of the survey results for me. Stylecop is going Open Source. Sweet. ”…will be taking code submissions from the open source community” VMforce for running Java in the cloud. Hmmmmm… Windows Azure Guidance Code and Docs available on patterns and practices. Download both zip files. – One is just the code and the other is 7 chapters of the guide to migration. UK Architect Insight Conference post event presentations are here including a full day track of cloud stuff. http://uxkit.cloudapp.net/ This appears to be a well-kept secret but the Silverlight Demo Kit is on-line in Windows Azure. You already knew! Ok – just me then :-) 3 day Silverlight Masterclass training in the UK from people I trust and like :-) http://silverlightmasterclass.net/ (£995) SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0 CTP adds PHP's PDO style data access for SQL Server/SQL Azure A Domain Oriented N-Layered .NET 4.0 App Sample from Microsoft Spain. Not looked at it yet – but had it recommended to me (tx Torkil Pedersen) You might also want to check out delicious stream – a blur of azure, ruby and gaming right now http://delicious.com/ericnel :-)

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• Prologue…

  - by Chris Stewart

  Hi all,                 This is the beginning of my blog. I have been a software developer for going on 11 years using the Microsoft toolset (primarily VB 5, VB 6, VB.net and SQL Server 6, 7, 2000, 2005, 2008). My coding interests are C#, ASP.net, SQL and XNA. Here I will post my musings, things of interest, techie babble and sometimes random gibberish. My hope for this blog is to document my learning experiences with C#, help, encourage and in some way be useful to those who come after me. Thanks for reading!

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• Pondering New Technology

  - by MOSSLover

  So I have been standing at the end of a fork for a year peering down a corner looking at this way and that way trying to figure out where I fit in.  I was so enthusiastic and excited about Silverlight when it came out.  It was this amazing awesome technology that had this really cool animation and webcam/multimedia piece.  I thought if I put my money on Silverlight it’s going somewhere, then HTML 5 came out and the wind shifted.  I realized times were changing. I have been working with web technologies since I was 15 years old.  Playing with html and javascript and even css back when it first came out.  In tech years 15 years is forever.  Things change so quickly and so often.  So I guess the question is where am I heading?  The answer is mobile technology.  For some reason I was resisting change and I have no idea why.  I guess I really wanted to see more than one player.  I didn’t quite feel that Microsoft was ready with Windows Phone 7.  It was a great start, but it just didn’t feel like they went all the way.  Now with Windows 8 it feels like they are at version 2.0.  It’s like hitting Silverlight 2.0 where they finally added the .Net bits.  The path is paved, but we don’t know where it’s leading.  Then we had 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 to mature the technology into what it is today (man I’m hoping they are going to roll some of the cool bits into other tech if they don’t exist). Anyway, I’m on board, but I’m not buying a Windows Tablet just yet.  I was hoping for a 7 inch screen from Apple around $300 or just above and a 7 inch screen from the MS side around the same price.  What I got was the Apple side, but nothing from Microsoft.  I was pretty disappointed with the $500 market price on the RT version.  I realized Microsoft is close, but not quite where Apple is today.  Yes the devices have Office that they are offering, but the sticker is just too much for a first generation device.  If you guys remember correctly the first generation iPad was quite expensive.  I guess for a 1st generation device $500 is pretty good. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I am shifting my focus entirely away from Silverlight and more towards mobile.  I will be doing a lot of postings on iOS, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8 with SharePoint 2013.  Since I don’t have a tablet and don’t foresee myself buying one just yet it might be mostly on the phones for right now.  I want to do a bunch of testing on various devices on what needs to be done in apps on each device.  I might add a bit on porting code from one to the other.  I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and make things flow a little better for me.  In a way it’s kind of like Star Trek 6 where they talk about the Undiscovered Country.  I’m going to jump forward completely and see where I land. Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2013,Mobile,Windows 8,iOS

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• Files for .NET Montreal and VTCC4 conference

  - by Vincent Grondin

  Hi,  here are the files for both the .NET Montreal presentation made Sept the 24th and at the Vermont Code Camp #4 on Sept the 22nd regarding Architecture problems and solutions linked to EF4.0, Async-await keywords and the Task Parallel Library. This zip file includes both power points in french and english and the DemoApplication which is I REMIND YOU VERY DEMO-WARE and doesn't handle task level exception and context switching.  ZipFile Enjoy

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• Silverlight Cream for May 29, 2010 -- #872

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Michael Washington, Chris Koenig, Kunal Chowdhury, SilverLaw, Shayne Burgess, Ian T. Lackey, Alan Beasley, Marlon Grech. Shoutouts: Ozymandias has a post up that's not Silverlight necessarily, but it's pretty cool: Typeface Selection Flowchart Damian Schenkelman posted about the latest: Prism 2.2 Release available. Get it at Codeplex. From SilverlightCream.com: Silverlight 4 OData Paging with RX Extensions Michael Washington continues with this OData and Rx post using the View Model Style. Michael has some good external links, good info, and all the code. WP7 Part 4: Morphing and Mapping Chris Koenig has the 4th in his WP7 series he's doing, and this one is on MVVMLight and BingMaps ... code included. Silverlight 4: Interoperability with Excel using the COM Object Kunal Chowdhury has a post up about Excel Interoperability using the COM object including opening an Excel Workbook and writing data out, then modifying the data in the spreadsheet and seeing it updated in the app. Creating A Flexible Surface Effect – Silverlight 4 (Part 1) SilverLaw put up a demo of an awesome 'water ripple' SL4 demo a couple days ago, and now he's got part 1 of a great tutorial explaining it all. Service Operations and the WCF Data Services Client Shayne Burgess has a post up about Service Operations and how they can be used by the WCF Data Services client. Role Based Silverlight Behaviors Also from the Open Light Group, Ian T. Lackey has a post up about Behaviors that takes a list of roles and updates the UI appropriatetly. How to Toggle (Show/Hide) using Behaviours (Behaviors) between Visual States or Storyboards in Expression Blend for Windows Phone Alan Beasley has a quick post up talking about the solution he found to a problem he was having with state switching in a WP7 app. MEFedMVVM: Testability Marlon Grech has another MEFedMVVM post up and he's discussing Testability all rolled in there with everything else :) Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Windows Azure Service Bus Scatter-Gather Implementation

  - by Alan Smith

  One of the more challenging enterprise integration patterns that developers may wish to implement is the Scatter-Gather pattern. In this article I will show the basic implementation of a scatter-gather pattern using the topic-subscription model of the windows azure service bus. I’ll be using the implementation in demos, and also as a lab in my training courses, and the pattern will also be included in the next release of my free e-book the “Windows Azure Service Bus Developer Guide”. The Scatter-Gather pattern answers the following scenario. How do you maintain the overall message flow when a message needs to be sent to multiple recipients, each of which may send a reply? Use a Scatter-Gather that broadcasts a message to multiple recipients and re-aggregates the responses back into a single message. The Enterprise Integration Patterns website provides a description of the Scatter-Gather pattern here.   The scatter-gather pattern uses a composite of the publish-subscribe channel pattern and the aggregator pattern. The publish-subscribe channel is used to broadcast messages to a number of receivers, and the aggregator is used to gather the response messages and aggregate them together to form a single message. Scatter-Gather Scenario The scenario for this scatter-gather implementation is an application that allows users to answer questions in a poll based voting scenario. A poll manager application will be used to broadcast questions to users, the users will use a voting application that will receive and display the questions and send the votes back to the poll manager. The poll manager application will receive the users’ votes and aggregate them together to display the results. The scenario should be able to scale to support a large number of users.   Scatter-Gather Implementation The diagram below shows the overall architecture for the scatter-gather implementation.       Messaging Entities Looking at the scatter-gather pattern diagram it can be seen that the topic-subscription architecture is well suited for broadcasting a message to a number of subscribers. The poll manager application can send the question messages to a topic, and each voting application can receive the question message on its own subscription. The static limit of 2,000 subscriptions per topic in the current release means that 2,000 voting applications can receive question messages and take part in voting. The vote messages can then be sent to the poll manager application using a queue. The voting applications will send their vote messages to the queue, and the poll manager will receive and process the vote messages. The questions topic and answer queue are created using the Windows Azure Developer Portal. Each instance of the voting application will create its own subscription in the questions topic when it starts, allowing the question messages to be broadcast to all subscribing voting applications. Data Contracts Two simple data contracts will be used to serialize the questions and votes as brokered messages. The code for these is shown below.   [DataContract] public class Question {     [DataMember]     public string QuestionText { get; set; } }     To keep the implementation of the voting functionality simple and focus on the pattern implementation, the users can only vote yes or no to the questions.   [DataContract] public class Vote {     [DataMember]     public string QuestionText { get; set; }       [DataMember]     public bool IsYes { get; set; } }     Poll Manager Application The poll manager application has been implemented as a simple WPF application; the user interface is shown below. A question can be entered in the text box, and sent to the topic by clicking the Add button. The topic and subscriptions used for broadcasting the messages are shown in a TreeView control. The questions that have been broadcast and the resulting votes are shown in a ListView control. When the application is started any existing subscriptions are cleared form the topic, clients are then created for the questions topic and votes queue, along with background workers for receiving and processing the vote messages, and updating the display of subscriptions.   public MainWindow() {     InitializeComponent();       // Create a new results list and data bind it.     Results = new ObservableCollection<Result>();     lsvResults.ItemsSource = Results;       // Create a token provider with the relevant credentials.     TokenProvider credentials =         TokenProvider.CreateSharedSecretTokenProvider         (AccountDetails.Name, AccountDetails.Key);       // Create a URI for the serivce bus.     Uri serviceBusUri = ServiceBusEnvironment.CreateServiceUri         ("sb", AccountDetails.Namespace, string.Empty);       // Clear out any old subscriptions.     NamespaceManager = new NamespaceManager(serviceBusUri, credentials);     IEnumerable<SubscriptionDescription> subs =         NamespaceManager.GetSubscriptions(AccountDetails.ScatterGatherTopic);     foreach (SubscriptionDescription sub in subs)     {         NamespaceManager.DeleteSubscription(sub.TopicPath, sub.Name);     }       // Create the MessagingFactory     MessagingFactory factory = MessagingFactory.Create(serviceBusUri, credentials);       // Create the topic and queue clients.     ScatterGatherTopicClient =         factory.CreateTopicClient(AccountDetails.ScatterGatherTopic);     ScatterGatherQueueClient =         factory.CreateQueueClient(AccountDetails.ScatterGatherQueue);       // Start the background worker threads.     VotesBackgroundWorker = new BackgroundWorker();     VotesBackgroundWorker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(ReceiveMessages);     VotesBackgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync();       SubscriptionsBackgroundWorker = new BackgroundWorker();     SubscriptionsBackgroundWorker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(UpdateSubscriptions);     SubscriptionsBackgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync(); }     When the poll manager user nters a question in the text box and clicks the Add button a question message is created and sent to the topic. This message will be broadcast to all the subscribing voting applications. An instance of the Result class is also created to keep track of the votes cast, this is then added to an observable collection named Results, which is data-bound to the ListView control.   private void btnAddQuestion_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     // Create a new result for recording votes.     Result result = new Result()     {         Question = txtQuestion.Text     };     Results.Add(result);       // Send the question to the topic     Question question = new Question()     {         QuestionText = result.Question     };     BrokeredMessage msg = new BrokeredMessage(question);     ScatterGatherTopicClient.Send(msg);       txtQuestion.Text = ""; }     The Results class is implemented as follows.   public class Result : INotifyPropertyChanged {     public string Question { get; set; }       private int m_YesVotes;     private int m_NoVotes;       public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;       public int YesVotes     {         get { return m_YesVotes; }         set         {             m_YesVotes = value;             NotifyPropertyChanged("YesVotes");         }     }       public int NoVotes     {         get { return m_NoVotes; }         set         {             m_NoVotes = value;             NotifyPropertyChanged("NoVotes");         }     }       private void NotifyPropertyChanged(string prop)     {         if(PropertyChanged != null)         {             PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(prop));         }     } }     The INotifyPropertyChanged interface is implemented so that changes to the number of yes and no votes will be updated in the ListView control. Receiving the vote messages from the voting applications is done asynchronously, using a background worker thread.   // This runs on a background worker. private void ReceiveMessages(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) {     while (true)     {         // Receive a vote message from the queue         BrokeredMessage msg = ScatterGatherQueueClient.Receive();         if (msg != null)         {             // Deserialize the message.             Vote vote = msg.GetBody<Vote>();               // Update the results.             foreach (Result result in Results)             {                 if (result.Question.Equals(vote.QuestionText))                 {                     if (vote.IsYes)                     {                         result.YesVotes++;                     }                     else                     {                         result.NoVotes++;                     }                     break;                 }             }               // Mark the message as complete.             msg.Complete();         }       } }     When a vote message is received, the result that matches the vote question is updated with the vote from the user. The message is then marked as complete. A second background thread is used to update the display of subscriptions in the TreeView, with a dispatcher used to update the user interface. // This runs on a background worker. private void UpdateSubscriptions(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) {     while (true)     {         // Get a list of subscriptions.         IEnumerable<SubscriptionDescription> subscriptions =             NamespaceManager.GetSubscriptions(AccountDetails.ScatterGatherTopic);           // Update the user interface.         SimpleDelegate setQuestion = delegate()         {             trvSubscriptions.Items.Clear();             TreeViewItem topicItem = new TreeViewItem()             {                 Header = AccountDetails.ScatterGatherTopic             };               foreach (SubscriptionDescription subscription in subscriptions)             {                 TreeViewItem subscriptionItem = new TreeViewItem()                 {                     Header = subscription.Name                 };                 topicItem.Items.Add(subscriptionItem);             }             trvSubscriptions.Items.Add(topicItem);               topicItem.ExpandSubtree();         };         this.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Send, setQuestion);           Thread.Sleep(3000);     } }       Voting Application The voting application is implemented as another WPF application. This one is more basic, and allows the user to vote “Yes” or “No” for the questions sent by the poll manager application. The user interface for that application is shown below. When an instance of the voting application is created it will create a subscription in the questions topic using a GUID as the subscription name. The application can then receive copies of every question message that is sent to the topic. Clients for the new subscription and the votes queue are created, along with a background worker to receive the question messages. The voting application is set to receiving mode, meaning it is ready to receive a question message from the subscription.   public MainWindow() {     InitializeComponent();       // Set the mode to receiving.     IsReceiving = true;       // Create a token provider with the relevant credentials.     TokenProvider credentials =         TokenProvider.CreateSharedSecretTokenProvider         (AccountDetails.Name, AccountDetails.Key);       // Create a URI for the serivce bus.     Uri serviceBusUri = ServiceBusEnvironment.CreateServiceUri         ("sb", AccountDetails.Namespace, string.Empty);       // Create the MessagingFactory     MessagingFactory factory = MessagingFactory.Create(serviceBusUri, credentials);       // Create a subcription for this instance     NamespaceManager mgr = new NamespaceManager(serviceBusUri, credentials);     string subscriptionName = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();     mgr.CreateSubscription(AccountDetails.ScatterGatherTopic, subscriptionName);       // Create the subscription and queue clients.     ScatterGatherSubscriptionClient = factory.CreateSubscriptionClient         (AccountDetails.ScatterGatherTopic, subscriptionName);     ScatterGatherQueueClient =         factory.CreateQueueClient(AccountDetails.ScatterGatherQueue);       // Start the background worker thread.     BackgroundWorker = new BackgroundWorker();     BackgroundWorker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(ReceiveMessages);     BackgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync(); }     I took the inspiration for creating the subscriptions in the voting application from the chat application that uses topics and subscriptions blogged by Ovais Akhter here. The method that receives the question messages runs on a background thread. If the application is in receive mode, a question message will be received from the subscription, the question will be displayed in the user interface, the voting buttons enabled, and IsReceiving set to false to prevent more questing from being received before the current one is answered.   // This runs on a background worker. private void ReceiveMessages(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) {     while (true)     {         if (IsReceiving)         {             // Receive a question message from the topic.             BrokeredMessage msg = ScatterGatherSubscriptionClient.Receive();             if (msg != null)             {                 // Deserialize the message.                 Question question = msg.GetBody<Question>();                   // Update the user interface.                 SimpleDelegate setQuestion = delegate()                 {                     lblQuestion.Content = question.QuestionText;                     btnYes.IsEnabled = true;                     btnNo.IsEnabled = true;                 };                 this.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Send, setQuestion);                 IsReceiving = false;                   // Mark the message as complete.                 msg.Complete();             }         }         else         {             Thread.Sleep(1000);         }     } }     When the user clicks on the Yes or No button, the btnVote_Click method is called. This will create a new Vote data contract with the appropriate question and answer and send the message to the poll manager application using the votes queue. The user voting buttons are then disabled, the question text cleared, and the IsReceiving flag set to true to allow a new message to be received.   private void btnVote_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {     // Create a new vote.     Vote vote = new Vote()     {         QuestionText = (string)lblQuestion.Content,         IsYes = ((sender as Button).Content as string).Equals("Yes")     };       // Send the vote message.     BrokeredMessage msg = new BrokeredMessage(vote);     ScatterGatherQueueClient.Send(msg);       // Update the user interface.     lblQuestion.Content = "";     btnYes.IsEnabled = false;     btnNo.IsEnabled = false;     IsReceiving = true; }     Testing the Application In order to test the application, an instance of the poll manager application is started; the user interface is shown below. As no instances of the voting application have been created there are no subscriptions present in the topic. When an instance of the voting application is created the subscription will be displayed in the poll manager. Now that a voting application is subscribing, a questing can be sent from the poll manager application. When the message is sent to the topic, the voting application will receive the message and display the question. The voter can then answer the question by clicking on the appropriate button. The results of the vote are updated in the poll manager application. When two more instances of the voting application are created, the poll manager will display the new subscriptions. More questions can then be broadcast to the voting applications. As the question messages are queued up in the subscription for each voting application, the users can answer the questions in their own time. The vote messages will be received by the poll manager application and aggregated to display the results. The screenshots of the applications part way through voting are shown below. The messages for each voting application are queued up in sequence on the voting application subscriptions, allowing the questions to be answered at different speeds by the voters.

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• Silverlight 4 on Visual Studio 2010 RC

  - by Sayre Collado

  Hello Guys, The default silverlight on VS 2010 RC is silverlight 3. Why there's no SL4?

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• Bug with Set / Get Accessor in .Net 3.5

  - by MarkPearl

  I spent a few hours scratching my head on this one... So I thought I would blog about it in case someone else had the same headache. Assume you have a class, and you are wanting to use the INotifyPropertyChanged interface so that when you bind to an instance of the class, you get the magic sauce of binding to do you updates to the UI. Well, I had a special instance where I wanted one of the properties of the class to add some additional formatting to itself whenever someone changed its value (see the code below).   class Test: INotifyPropertyChanged {     private string_inputValue;     public stringInputValue     {         get        {             return_inputValue;         }         set        {             if(value!= _inputValue)             {                 _inputValue = value+ "Extra Stuff";                 NotifyPropertyChanged("InputValue");                     }         }     }     public eventPropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;     public voidNotifyPropertyChanged(stringinfo)     {         if(PropertyChanged != null)         {             PropertyChanged(this, newPropertyChangedEventArgs(info));         }     } }   Everything looked fine, but when I ran it in my WPF project, the textbox I was binding to would not update? I couldn’t understand it! I thought the code made sense, so why wasn’t it working? Eventually StackOverflow came to the rescue, where I was told that it was a bug in the .Net 3.5 Runtime and that a fix was scheduled in .Net 4 For those who have the same problem, here is the workaround… You need to put the NotifyPropertyChanged method on the application thread! public string InputValue { get { return _inputValue; } set { if (value != _inputValue) { _inputValue = value + "Extra Stuff"; // // React to the type of measurement // Application.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke((Action)delegate { NotifyPropertyChanged("InputValue"); }); } } }

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• Lazy coding is fun

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  Every once in awhile I get the opportunity to write an application that is important enough to do, but not important enough to do the right way -- meaning standards, best practices, good architecture, et al.  I call it lazy coding.  The industry calls it RAD (rapid application development). I started on the conversion tool at the end of last week.  It will convert our legacy data to a completely new system which I'm working on piece by piece.  It will be used in the future, but only the new parts because it'll only be necessary to convert the individual pieces of the data once.  It was the perfect opportunity to just whip something together, but it was still functional unlike a prototype or proof of concept.  Although I would never write an application like this for a customer (internal or external) this methodology (if you can call it that) works great for something like this. I wouldn't be surprised if I get flamed for equating RAD to lazy coding or lacking standards, best practice, or good architecture.  Unfortunately, it fits in the current usage.  Although, it's possible to create a good, maintainable application using the RAD methodology, it's just too ripe for abuse and requires too much discipline for someone let alone a team to do right. Sometimes it's just fun to throw caution to the wind and start slamming code.

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