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• Silverlight for Everyone!!

  - by subodhnpushpak

  Someone asked me to compare Silverlight / HTML development. I realized that the question can be answered in many ways: Below is the high level comparison between a HTML /JavaScript client and Silverlight client and why silverlight was chosen over HTML / JavaScript client (based on type of users and major functionalities provided): 1. For end users Browser compatibility Silverlight is a plug-in and requires installation first. However, it does provides consistent look and feel across all browsers. For HTML / DHTML, there is a need to tweak JavaScript for each of the browser supported. In fact, tags like <span> and <div> works differently on different browser / version. So, HTML works on most of the systems but also requires lot of efforts coding-wise to adhere to all standards/ browsers / versions. Out of browser support No support in HTML. Third party tools like  Google gears offers some functionalities but there are lots of issues around platform and accessibility. Out of box support for out-of-browser support. provides features like drag and drop onto application surface. Cut and copy paste in HTML HTML is displayed in browser; which, in turn provides facilities for cut copy and paste. Silverlight (specially 4) provides rich features for cut-copy-paste along with full control over what can be cut copy pasted by end users and .advanced features like visual tree printing. Rich user experience HTML can provide some rich experience by use of some JavaScript libraries like JQuery. However, extensive use of JavaScript combined with various versions of browsers and the supported JavaScript makes the solution cumbersome. Silverlight is meant for RIA experience. User data storage on client end In HTML only small amount of data can be stored that too in cookies. In Silverlight large data may be stored, that too in secure way. This increases the response time. Post back In HTML / JavaScript the post back can be stopped by use of AJAX. Extensive use of AJAX can be a bottleneck as browser stack is used for the calls. Both look and feel and data travel over network.                           In Silverlight everything run the client side. Calls are made to server ONLY for data; which also reduces network traffic in long run. 2. For Developers Coding effort HTML / JavaScript can take considerable amount to code if features (requirements) are rich. For AJAX like interfaces; knowledge of third party kits like DOJO / Yahoo UI / JQuery is required which has steep learning curve. ASP .Net coding world revolves mostly along <table> tags for alignments whereas most popular tools provide <div> tags; which requires lots of tweaking. AJAX calls can be a bottlenecks for performance, if the calls are many. In Silverlight; coding is in C#, which is managed code. XAML is also very intuitive and Blend can be used to provide look and feel. Event handling is much clean than in JavaScript. Provides for many clean patterns like MVVM and composable application. Each call to server is asynchronous in silverlight. AJAX is in built into silverlight. Threading can be done at the client side itself to provide for better responsiveness; etc. Debugging Debugging in HTML / JavaScript is difficult. As JavaScript is interpreted; there is NO compile time error handling. Debugging in Silverlight is very helpful. As it is compiled; it provides rich features for both compile time and run time error handling. Multi -targeting browsers HTML / JavaScript have different rendering behaviours in different browsers / and their versions. JavaScript have to be written to sublime the differences in browser behaviours. Silverlight works exactly the same in all browsers and works on almost all popular browser. Multi-targeting desktop No support in HTML / JavaScript Silverlight is very close to WPF. Bot the platform may be easily targeted while maintaining the same source code. Rich toolkit HTML /JavaScript have limited toolkit as controls Silverlight provides a rich set of controls including graphs, audio, video, layout, etc. 3. For Architects Design Patterns Silverlight provides for patterns like MVVM (MVC) and rich (fat)  client architecture. This segregates the "separation of concern" very clearly. Client (silverlight) does what it is expected to do and server does what it is expected of. In HTML / JavaScript world most of the processing is done on the server side. Extensibility Silverlight provides great deal of extensibility as custom controls may be made. Extensibility is NOT restricted by browser but by the plug-in silverlight runs in. HTML / JavaScript works in a certain way and extensibility is generally done on the server side rather than client end. Client side is restricted by the limitations of the browser. Performance Silverlight provides localized storage which may be used for cached data storage. this reduces the response time. As processing can be done on client side itself; there is no need for server round trips. this decreases the round about time. Look and feel of the application is downloaded ONLY initially, afterwards ONLY data is fetched form the server. Security Silverlight is compiled code downloaded as .XAP; As compared to HTML / JavaScript, it provides more secure sandboxed approach. Cross - scripting is inherently prohibited in silverlight by default. If proper guidelines are followed silverlight provides much robust security mechanism as against HTML / JavaScript world. For example; knowing server Address in obfuscated JavaScript is easier than a compressed compiled obfuscated silverlight .XAP file. Some of these like (offline and Canvas support) will be available in HTML5. However, the timelines are not encouraging at all. According to Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML5 specification, the specification to reach the W3C Candidate Recommendation stage during 2012, and W3C Recommendation in the year 2022 or later. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5 for details. The above is MY opinion. I will love to hear yours; do let me know via comments. Technorati Tags: Silverlight

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• Building a &ldquo;real&rdquo; extension for Expression Blend

  - by Timmy Kokke

  .Last time I showed you how to get started building extensions for Expression Blend. Lets build a useful extension this time and go a bit deeper into Blend. Source of project  => here Compiled dll => here (extract into /extensions folder of Expression Blend)   The Extension When working on large Xaml files in Blend it’s often hard to find a specific control in the "Objects and Timeline Pane”. An extension that searches the active document and presents all elements that satisfy the query would be helpful. When the user starts typing a search query a search will be performed and the results are shown in the list. After the user selects an item in the results list, the control in the "Objects and Timeline Pane” will be selected. Below is a sketch of what it is going to look like. The Solution Create a new WPF User Control project as shown in the earlier tutorial in the Configuring the extension project section, but name it AdvancedSearch this time. Delete the default UserControl1.Xaml to clear the solution (a new user control will be added later thought, but adding a user control is easier then renaming one). Create the main entry point of the addin by adding a new class to the solution and naming this  AdvancedSearchPackage. Add a reference to Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility and to System.ComponentModel.Composition . Implement the IPackage interface and add the Export attribute from the MEF to the definition. While you’re at it. Add references to Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface, Microsoft.Expression.FrameWork and Microsoft.Expression.Markup. These will be used later. The Load method from the IPackage interface is going to create a ViewModel to bind to from the UI. Add another class to the solution and name this AdvancedSearchViewModel. This class needs to implement the INotifyPropertyChanged interface to enable notifications to the view.  Add a constructor to the class that takes an IServices interface as a parameter. Create a new instance of the AdvancedSearchViewModel in the load method in the AdvanceSearchPackage class. The AdvancedSearchPackage class should looks like this now:   using System.ComponentModel.Composition; using Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility;   namespace AdvancedSearch { [Export(typeof(IPackage))] public class AdvancedSearchPackage:IPackage {   public void Load(IServices services) { new AdvancedSearchViewModel(services); }   public void Unload() { } } }   Add a new UserControl to the project and name this AdvancedSearchView. The View will be created by the ViewModel, which will pass itself to the constructor of the view. Change the constructor of the View to take a AdvancedSearchViewModel object as a parameter. Add a private field to store the ViewModel and set this field in the constructor. Point the DataContext of the view to the ViewModel. The View will look something like this now:   namespace AdvancedSearch { public partial class AdvancedSearchView:UserControl { private readonly AdvancedSearchViewModel _advancedSearchViewModel;   public AdvancedSearchView(AdvancedSearchViewModel advancedSearchViewModel) { _advancedSearchViewModel = advancedSearchViewModel; InitializeComponent(); this.DataContext = _advancedSearchViewModel; } } }   The View is going to be created in the constructor of the ViewModel and stored in a read only property.   public FrameworkElement View { get; private set; }   public AdvancedSearchViewModel(IServices services) { _services = services; View = new AdvancedSearchView(this); } The last thing the solution needs before we’ll wire things up is a new class, PossibleNode. This class will be used later to store the search results. The solution should look like this now:   Adding UI to the UI The extension should build and run now, although nothing is showing up in Blend yet. To enable the user to perform a search query add a TextBox and a ListBox to the AdvancedSearchView.xaml file. I’ve set the rows of the grid too to make them look a little better. Add the TextChanged event to the TextBox and the SelectionChanged event to the ListBox, we’ll need those later on. <Grid> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="32" /> <RowDefinition Height="*" /> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <TextBox TextChanged="SearchQueryTextChanged" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="4" Name="SearchQuery" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" /> <ListBox SelectionChanged="SearchResultSelectionChanged" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="4" Name="SearchResult" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Grid.Row="1" /> </Grid>   This will create a user interface like: To make the View show up in Blend it has to be registered with the WindowService. The GetService<T> method is used to get services from Blend, which are your entry points into Blend.When writing extensions you will encounter this method very often. In this case we’re asking for an IWindowService interface. The IWindowService interface serves events for changing windows and themes, is used for adding or removing resources and is used for registering and unregistering Palettes. All panes in Blend are palettes and are registered thru the RegisterPalette method. The first parameter passed to this method is a string containing a unique ID for the palette. This ID can be used to get access to the palette later. The second parameter is the View. The third parameter is a title for the pane. This title is shown when the pane is visible. It is also shown in the window menu of Blend. The last parameter is a KeyBinding. I have chosen Ctrl+Shift+F to call the Advanced Search pane. This value is also shown in the window menu of Blend.   services.GetService<IWindowService>().RegisterPalette( "AdvancedSearch", viewModel.View, "Advanced Search", new KeyBinding { Key = Key.F, Modifiers = ModifierKeys.Control | ModifierKeys.Shift } );   You can compiler and run now. After Blend starts you can hit Ctrl+Shift+F or go the windows menu to call the advanced search extension. Searching for controls The search has to be cleared on every change of the active document. The DocumentServices fires an event every time a new document is opened, a document is closed or another document view is selected. Add the following line to the constructor of the ViewModel to handle the ActiveDocumentChanged event:   _services.GetService<IDocumentService>().ActiveDocumentChanged += ActiveDocumentChanged;   And implement the ActiveDocumentChanged method:   private void ActiveDocumentChanged(object sender, DocumentChangedEventArgs e) { }   To get to the contents of the document we first need to get access to the “Objects and Timeline” pane. This pane is registered in the PaletteRegistry in the same way as this extension has registered itself. The palettes are accessible thru an associative array. All you need to provide is the Identifier of the palette you want. The Id of the “Objects and Timeline” pane is “Designer_TimelinePane”. I’ve included a list of the other default panes at the bottom of this article. Each palette has a Content property which can be cast to the type of the pane.   var timelinePane = (TimelinePane)_services.GetService<IWindowService>() .PaletteRegistry["Designer_TimelinePane"] .Content;   Add a private field to the top of the AdvancedSearchViewModel class to store the active SceneViewModel. The SceneViewModel is needed to set the current selection and to get the little icons for the type of control.   private SceneViewModel _activeSceneViewModel;   When the active SceneViewModel changes, the ActiveSceneViewModel is stored in this field. The list of possible nodes is cleared and an PropertyChanged event is fired for this list to notify the UI to clear the list. This will make the eventhandler look like this: private void ActiveDocumentChanged(object sender, DocumentChangedEventArgs e) { var timelinePane = (TimelinePane)_services.GetService<IWindowService>() .PaletteRegistry["Designer_TimelinePane"].Content;   _activeSceneViewModel = timelinePane.ActiveSceneViewModel; PossibleNodes = new List<PossibleNode>(); InvokePropertyChanged("PossibleNodes"); } The PossibleNode class used to store information about the controls found by the search. It’s a dumb data class with only 3 properties, the name of the control, the SceneNode and a brush used for the little icon. The SceneNode is the base class for every possible object you can create in Blend, like Brushes, Controls, Annotations, ResourceDictionaries and VisualStates. The entire PossibleNode class looks like this:   using System.Windows.Media; using Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface.ViewModel;   namespace AdvancedSearch { public class PossibleNode { public string Name { get; set; } public SceneNode SceneNode { get; set; } public DrawingBrush IconBrush { get; set; } } }   Add these two methods to the AdvancedSearchViewModel class:   public void Search(string searchText) { } public void SelectElement(PossibleNode node){ }   Both these methods are going to be called from the view. The Search method performs the search and updates the PossibleNodes list.  The controls in the active document can be accessed thru TimeLineItemsManager class. This class contains a read only collection of TimeLineItems. By using a Linq query the possible nodes are selected and placed in the PossibleNodes list.   var timelineItemManager = new TimelineItemManager(_activeSceneViewModel); PossibleNodes = new List<PossibleNode>( (from d in timelineItemManager.ItemList where d.DisplayName.ToLowerInvariant().StartsWith( searchText.ToLowerInvariant()) select new PossibleNode() { IconBrush = d.IconBrush, SceneNode = d.SceneNode, Name = d.DisplayName }).ToList() ); InvokePropertyChanged(InternalConst.PossibleNodes);   The Select method is pretty straight forward. It contains two lines.The first to clear the selection. Otherwise the selected element would be added to the current selection. The second line selects the nodes. It is given a new array with the node to be selected.   _activeSceneViewModel.ClearSelections(); _activeSceneViewModel.SelectNodes(new[] { node.SceneNode });   The last thing that needs to be done is to wire the whole thing to the View. The two event handlers just call the Search and SelectElement methods on the ViewModel.   private void SearchQueryTextChanged(object sender, TextChangedEventArgs e) { _advancedSearchViewModel.Search(SearchQuery.Text); }   private void SearchResultSelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e) { if(e.AddedItems.Count>0) { _advancedSearchViewModel.SelectElement(e.AddedItems[0] as PossibleNode); } }   The Listbox has to be bound to the PossibleNodes list and a simple DataTemplate is added to show the selection. The IconWithOverlay control can be found in the Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface.UserInterface.Timeline.UI namespace in the Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface assembly. The ListBox should look something like:   <ListBox SelectionChanged="SearchResultSelectionChanged" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="4" Name="SearchResult" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Grid.Row="1" ItemsSource="{Binding PossibleNodes}"> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> <tlui:IconWithOverlay Margin="2,0,10,0" Width="12" Height="12" SourceBrush="{Binding Path=IconBrush, Mode=OneWay}" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}"/> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox>   Compile and run. Inside Blend the extension could look something like below. What’s Next When you’ve got the extension running. Try placing breakpoints in the code and see what else is in there. There’s a lot to explore and build extension on. I personally would love an extension to search for resources. Last but not least, you can download the source of project here.  If you have any questions let me know. If you just want to use this extension, you can download the compiled dll here. Just extract the . zip into the /extensions folder of Expression Blend. Notes Target framework I ran into some issues when using the .NET Framework 4 Client Profile as a target framework. I got some strange error saying certain obvious namespaces could not be found, Microsoft.Expression in my case. If you run into something like this, try setting the target framework to .NET Framework 4 instead of the client version.   Identifiers of default panes Identifier Type Title Designer_TimelinePane TimelinePane Objects and Timeline Designer_ToolPane ToolPane Tools Designer_ProjectPane ProjectPane Projects Designer_DataPane DataPane Data Designer_ResourcePane ResourcePane Resources Designer_PropertyInspector PropertyInspector Properties Designer_TriggersPane TriggersPane Triggers Interaction_Skin SkinView States Designer_AssetPane AssetPane Assets Interaction_Parts PartsPane Parts Designer_ResultsPane ResultsPane Results

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• Performing a clean database creation using msbuild

  - by Robert May

  So I’m taking a break from writing about other Agile stuff for a post. :)  I’m still going to get back to the other subjects, but this is fun too. Something I’ve done quite a bit of is MSBuild and CI work.  I’m experimenting with ways to improve what I’ve done in the past, particularly around database CI. Today, I developed a mechanism for starting from scratch with your database.  By scratch, I mean blowing away the existing database and creating it again from a single command line call.  I’m a firm believer that developers should be able to get to a known clean state at the database level with a single command and that they should be operating off of their own isolated database to improve productivity.  These scripts will help that. Here’s how I did it.  First, we have to disconnect users.  I did so using the help of a script from sql server central.  Note that I’m using sqlcmd variable replacement. -- kills all the users in a particular database -- dlhatheway/3M, 11-Jun-2000 declare @arg_dbname sysname declare @a_spid smallint declare @msg varchar(255) declare @a_dbid int set @arg_dbname = '$(DatabaseName)' select @a_dbid = sdb.dbid from master..sysdatabases sdb where sdb.name = @arg_dbname declare db_users insensitive cursor for select sp.spid from master..sysprocesses sp where sp.dbid = @a_dbid open db_users fetch next from db_users into @a_spid while @@fetch_status = 0 begin select @msg = 'kill '+convert(char(5),@a_spid) print @msg execute (@msg) fetch next from db_users into @a_spid end close db_users deallocate db_users GO Once all users are booted from the database, we can commence with recreating the database.  I generated the script that is used to create a database from SQL Server management studio, so I’m only going to show the bits that weren’t generated that are important.  There are a bunch of Alter Database statements that aren’t shown. First, I had to find the default location of the database files in the install, since they can be in many different locations.  I used Method 1 from a technet blog and then modified it a bit to do what I needed to do.  I ended up using dynamic SQL because for the life of me, I couldn’t get the “Filename” property to not return an error when I used anything besides a string.  I’m dropping the database first, if it exists.  Here’s the code:   IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = N'$(DatabaseName)') BEGIN drop database $(DatabaseName) END; go IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath') BEGIN DROP DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath END; -- Create temp database. Because no options are given, the default data and --- log path locations are used CREATE DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath; DECLARE @Default_Data_Path VARCHAR(512), @Default_Log_Path VARCHAR(512); --Get the default data path SELECT @Default_Data_Path = ( SELECT LEFT(physical_name,LEN(physical_name)-CHARINDEX('\',REVERSE(physical_name))+1) FROM sys.master_files mf INNER JOIN sys.[databases] d ON mf.[database_id] = d.[database_id] WHERE d.[name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath' AND type = 0); --Get the default Log path SELECT @Default_Log_Path = ( SELECT LEFT(physical_name,LEN(physical_name)-CHARINDEX('\',REVERSE(physical_name))+1) FROM sys.master_files mf INNER JOIN sys.[databases] d ON mf.[database_id] = d.[database_id] WHERE d.[name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath' AND type = 1); --Clean up. IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM [master].[sys].[databases] WHERE [name] = 'zzTempDBForDefaultPath') BEGIN DROP DATABASE zzTempDBForDefaultPath END; DECLARE @SQL nvarchar(max) SET @SQL= 'CREATE DATABASE $(DatabaseName) ON PRIMARY ( NAME = N''$(DatabaseName)'', FILENAME = N''' + @Default_Data_Path + N'$(DatabaseName)' + '.mdf' + ''', SIZE = 2048KB , FILEGROWTH = 1024KB ) LOG ON ( NAME = N''$(DatabaseName)Log'', FILENAME = N''' + @Default_Log_Path + N'$(DatabaseName)' + '.ldf' + ''', SIZE = 1024KB , FILEGROWTH = 10%) ' exec (@SQL) GO And with that, your database is created.  You can run these scripts on any server and on any database name.  To do that, I created an MSBuild script that looks like this: <Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="4.0"> <PropertyGroup> <DatabaseName>MyDatabase</DatabaseName> <Server>localhost</Server> <SqlCmd>sqlcmd -v DatabaseName=$(DatabaseName) -S $(Server) -i </SqlCmd> <ScriptDirectory>.\Scripts</ScriptDirectory> </PropertyGroup> <Target Name ="Rebuild"> <ItemGroup> <ScriptFiles Include="$(ScriptDirectory)\*.sql"/> </ItemGroup> <Exec Command="$(SqlCmd) &quot;%(ScriptFiles.Identity)&quot;" ContinueOnError="false"/> </Target> </Project> Note that the Scripts directory is underneath the directory where I’m running the msbuild command and is relative to that directory.  Note also that the target is using batching to run each script in the scripts subdirectory, one after the other.  Each script is passed to the sqlcmd command line execution using the .Identity property on the itemgroup that is created.  This target file is saved in the file “Database.target”. To make this work, you’ll need msbuild in your path, and then run the following command: msbuild database.target /target:Rebuild Once you’ve got your virgin database setup, you’d then need to use a tool like dbdeploy.net to determine that it was a virgin database, build a change script based on the change scripts, and then you’d want another sqlcmd call to update the database with the appropriate scripts.  I’m doing that next, so I’ll post a blog update when I’ve got it working. Technorati Tags: MSBuild,Agile,CI,Database

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• Great Silverlight User Group meeting last night - Thanks Joel!

  - by Dave Campbell

  Last night's Silverlight User Group meeting in Phoenix went really well. We had about 15 in attendance, and everyone seemed engaged with Joel Neubeck's great Windows Phone 7 presentation. When it was over, we gave away a couple copies of Windows 7 Ultimate, one copy of the Expression Suite, an Arc Mouse, a web cam, a bunch of books, other assorted software and some TShirts.  All-in-all I think it was a good time had by all. Thanks to Joel Neubeck for the time and presentation and to Joe's mom for the babysitting! See you all next month.

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• IIM Calcutta &ndash; EPBM 14 &ndash; Campus Visit &ndash; Day 4 &ndash; Managing Self, SDCC and Gari

  - by Ram Shankar Yadav

  …I’m becoming more of an addict of writing about my experiences, here in Kolkata! Today we started a bit of late at around 8 AM, did our breakfast and reached in class a bit late at around 9:50 AM, and here goes the surprise…. Today we had two lectures on “Managing Self” and two lectures on “Sustainable Development and Climate Change” (SDCC). Some of us got few self discipline lessons the moment they entered class and asked to “get out” :D So frankly speaking it was a nostalgic moment, which reminded us of Collage ;) We did a FIRO-B test as and got very good tips on managing ourselves and differentiate between “manager” and “leader” After the lunch we had our session on SDCC, in which the prof started by explaining “Credit Crisis”, and moved on to Sustainable Development and few great examples from industry and life~! After the class we went for shopping at Garihat Market, we ate Pani Puri and Moodi :P ..one more surprise…my room got flooded with lot of my new ePBM friends to take the copy of the pictures and we did lot of chit chat around anything and everything :D …so far so good…it’s an amazing experience for me and hopefully for others….who came out of their daily chores and went back to the nostalgic lanes of friendship, learning and most importantly “Happyness” ~~~ Cheers, ram :) EPBM 14 pics : http://epbm14.shutterfly.com/pictures

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• More Chicago Code Camp Information

  - by Tim Murphy

  It seems the guys have posted the venue.  The Chicago Code Camp will be held at the Illinois Institute of Technology on May 1, 2010.  Sign up and join in. IIT- Stuart Building 10 West 31st Chicago, IL 60616   del.icio.us Tags: Chicago Code Camp

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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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• Yes WinRT Devices Have a Desktop&hellip;But Not For Us

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  So tonight this convo happened: Intrigued, I viewed the video Lee mentions and found that its the now infamous Brent Ozar video which shows a bug in Word on the Surface RT (you can read this article which talks about the tempest in a teacup that ensued). But Lee is correct – in the video, when Brent starts up Word 2013, we see this: That sure does look like a desktop doesn’t it! But…aren’t Windows RT devices *not* supposed to come with a desktop? Actually, it does. However, it’s not a *full* desktop. From Seth Rosenblatt’s fantastic Windows RT FAQ article: Windows RT will have a Desktop mode, but it will be restricted to pre-installed, Microsoft-produced software. This will include touch-optimized versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote as the new Microsoft Office So yes, there’s a desktop mode in Windows RT but no, you won’t be able to install apps to it. Confused yet? Read the rest of the Seth’s FAQ – it does a great job clearing the haze of confusion that Microsoft Marketing Merlins have cast upon all of us. D

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• ADDS: 1 - Introducing and designing

  - by marc dekeyser

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} What is ADDS?  Every Microsoft oriented infrastructure in today's enterprises will depend largely on the active directory version built by Microsoft. It is the foundation stone on which all other products (Exchange, update services, office communicator, the system center family, etc) rely on to get their information. And that is just looking at it from an infrastructure perspective. A well designed and implemented Active Directory implementation makes life for IT personnel and user alike a lot easier. Centralised management and the abilities opened up  by having it in place are ample.  But what is Active Directory Domain Services? We can look at ADDS as a centralised directory containing all objects your infrastructure runs on in one way or another. Since it is a Microsoft product you'll obviously not be seeing linux or mac clients listed in here (exceptions exist) but in general we can say it contains everything your company has in place in one form or another.  The domain name services. The domain naming service (or DNS for short) is a service which translates IP address (the identifiers for each computer in your domain) into readable and easy to understand names. This service is a prequisite for ADDA to work and having wrong record in a DNS server will make any ADDS service fail. Generally speaking a DNS service will be run on the same server as the ADDS service but it is worth wile to remember that this is not necessary. You could, for example, run your DNS services on a linux box (which would need special preparing to host an ADDS integrated DNS zone) and run the ADDS service of another box… Where to start? If the aim is to put in place a first time implementation of ADDS in your enterprise there are plenty of things to consider depending on what you are going to do in the long run. Great care has to be taken when first designing and implementing as having it set up wrong will cause a headache down the line. It is for that reason that I like to start building from the bottom up and start with a generic installation of ADDS (which will still differ for every client) and make it adaptable for future services which can hook in to the existing environment. Adapting existing environments is out of scope for this document (and series) although it is possible to take the pointers and change your existing environment to run in a smoother manor. Take great care when changing things as one small slip of the hand can give you a forest wide failure… Whenever starting with an ADDS deployment I ask the client the following questions:  What are your long term plans and goals?  How flexible do you want it? Are you currently linux heavy and want to keep this or can we go for an all Microsoft design? Those three questions should give some sort of indicator what direction can be taken and if the client has thought about some things themselves :).  The technical side of things  What is next to consider is what kind of infrastructure is already in place. For these series I'll keep it simple and introduce some general concepts without going in to depth on integrating ADDS with other DNS services.  Building from the ground up means we need to consider our layers on which our infrastructure will rely. In my view that goes as follows:  Network (WAN/LAN links and physical sites DNS Namespacing All in one domain or split up in different domains/forests? Security (both for ADDS and physical sites) The network side of things  Looking at how the network is currently set up can potentially teach us a large deal about the client. Do they have multiple physical site? What network speeds exist between these sites, etc… Depending on this information we will design our site links (which controls replication) in future stages. DNS Namespacing Maybe the single most intresting thing to know is what the domain will be named (ADDS will need a DNS domain with the same name) and where this will be hosted. Note that active directory can be set up with a singe name (aka contoso instead of contoso.com) but it is highly recommended to never do this. If you do end up with a domain like that for some reason there will be a lot of services that are going to give you good grief in the future (exchange being one of them). So one of the best practises would be always to use a double name (contoso.com or contoso.lan for example). Internal namespace A single namespace is just what it sounds like. You have a DNS domain which is different internally from what the client has as an external namespace. f.e. contoso.com as an external name (out on the internet) and contoso.lan on the internal network. his setup is has its advantages in that you have more obscurity from the internet in the DNS side of this but it will require additional work to publish services to the web. External namespace Quite like the internal namespace only here you do not differ the internal namespace of the company from what is known on the internet. In this implementation you would host your own DNS servers for the external domain inside the network. Or in other words, any external computer doing a DNS lookup would contact your internal DNS server for the resolution. Generally speaking this set up is a bad idea from the security side of things. Split DNS Whilst using an external namespace design is fairly easy it involves a lot of security risks. Opening up you ADDS DSN servers for lookups exposes your entire network to the internet and should be avoided at any cost. And that is where the "split DNS" design comes in. In this setup up would still have the same namespace internally and externally but you would be using different DNS servers for lookups on the external network who have no records of your internal resources unless you explicitly publish them. All in one or not? In determining your active directory design you can look at the following possibilities:  Single forest, Single domain Single forest, multiple domains Multiple forests, multiple domains I've listed the possibilities for design in increasing order of administrative magnitude. Microsoft recommends trying to use a single forest, single domain in as much situations as possible. It is, however, always possible that you require your services to be seperated from your users in a resource forest with trusts set up between the different forests. To start out I would go with the single forest design to avoid complexity unless there are strict requirements to have multiple forests. Security What kind of security is required on the domain and does this reflect the physical security on the sites? Not every client can afford to have a domain controller in a secluded server room on every site and it is exactly for that reason that Microsoft introduced the RODC (read only domain controller). A RODC is a domain controller that has been limited in functionality, in essence it will only cache the data you explicitly tell it to cache and in the case of a DC compromise (it being stolen) only a limited number of accounts will need to be affected. Th- Th- Th- That’s all folks! Well at least for now! In future editions of this series we’ll be walking through the different task that need to be done and the thought which needs to be put in to it. But for all editions we’ll be going from the concept of running a single forest, single domain with a split DNS setup… See you next time!

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• Database .NET

  - by Guilherme Cardoso

  Database .NET is an awesome tool that allow us manage several database in simultaneous (SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, etc). What lead me to install this tool was an problem that must be shared by must developers. Tools like SQL Server Management Studio consume to many resources, and if you don't have a decent computer you'll get problems in performance, and that's my case! With Database .NET we can access an SQL Server for example, and make several actions to database (crud operations, manage procedures, etc).Of course that this tool can replace the use of SQL Server Management Studio for example!  But it's really usefull if  you just need to perform small operations because it consumes many fewer resources. This tool don't need to be installed (it can be used as an portable application). One tip: if you are using SQL Server Express for example, don't forget to check the server name in Database .NET connection. In my case i've to change from GUILHERM-196634 to GUILHERM-196634\SQLExpress. Project: http://fishcodelib.com/Database.htm Download: http://fishcodelib.com/files/DatabaseNet3.zip

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• New York City!!

  - by Chris Williams

  I'm headed to NYC to speak at the NYPC VB SIG (user group: http://www.nypcvb.org) on Monday Feb 7 at 6pm. I'll actually be arriving on Saturday (2/5/11) and hanging around through the weekend until the meeting. It's my 3rd time in New York City, but the first time was 20 years ago, so I'm not sure that one counts. Aside from the usual touristy things to do, like seeing the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building (both of which are on my list), what are some other cool things to check out? Got a favorite pizza place? A cool comic shop? Local hangout... Tell me about it!

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• New Home

  - by Douglas Marsh

  This blog has moved to http://www.douglasmarsh.net You will be redirected in 10 seconds.

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• SOLID Thoughts

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  SOLID came up again in discussion.  What is SOLID?  Well, glad you asked, because I am going to elaborate on the SOLID Principles a bit. Initial Concept S Single Responsibility Principle O Open/Closed Principle L Liskov Substitution Principle I Interface Segregation Principle D Dependency Inversion/Injection Principle The Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) is stated that every object should have a single responsibility and should be entirely encapsulated by the class.  This helps keep cohesion.  Here is a short example, starting with a basic class. public class Car { decimal Gas; int Doors; int Speed; decimal RampJumpSpeed; } Now I will refactor a little bit to make it a bit more SRP friendly. public class Car { decimal Gas; int Speed; }   public class DuneBuggy : Car { decimal RampJumpSpeed; }   public class EconomyCar : Car { int Doors; } What we end up with, instead of one class, is an abstract class and two classes that have their respective methods or properties to keep the responsibilities were they need to be. The Open Closed Principle (OCP) is one of my favorites, which states simply, that you should be able to extend a classes behavior without modifying it.  There are a couple of ways one can extend a class, by inheritance, composition, or by proxy implementation.  The Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP) states that a derived class must be substitutable for their base classes. The Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP) states that one should depend on abstractions and not on concrete implementations. Finally, the Interface Segregation Principle (ISP) states that fine grain interfaces should be client specific. So hope that helps with kicking off a basic understanding of SOLID Principles.  I will be following this entry up with some new bits in the near future related to good software design and practice. Original post.

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• Silverlight Cream for May 22, 2010 -- #867

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Michael Washington, Xianzhong Zhu, Jim Lynn, Laurent Bugnion, and Kyle McClellan. A ton of Shoutouts this time: Cigdem Patlak (CrocusGirl) is interviewed about Silverlight 4 on Channel 9: Silverlight discussion with Cigdem Patlak Timmy Kokke has material up from a presentation he did, and check out the SilverAmp project he's got going: Code & Slides – SDE – What’s new in Silverlight 4 Graham Odds at ScottLogic has an interesting post up: Contextual cues in user interface design Einar Ingebrigtsen is discussing Balder licensing and is asking for input: Balder - Licensing SilverLaw has updated two of his stylings at the Expression Gallery to Silverlight 4: ChildWindow and Accordion Styling Silverlight 4 Keep this page bookmarked -- it's the only page you'll need for Silverlight and Expression links.. well, that and my blog :) .. from Adam Kinney: Silverlight and Expression Blend Jeremy Boyd and John-Daniel Trask have some sweet-looking controls in their new release: Introducing Silverlight Elements 1.1 Matthias Shapiro entered the Design for America competition with his Recovery Review: A Silverlight Sunlight Foundation Visualization Project be sure to check out his blog post about it -- there's a link at the bottom. Koen Zwikstra announed a new release: Document Toolkit 2 Beta 1 available ... built for SL4 and lots of features -- check out the blog post. From SilverlightCream.com: Simple Example To Secure WCF Data Service OData Methods Michael Washington has a follow-on tutorial up on WCF Data Security with OData -- essentially this is the 'securing the data' part ... the Silverlight part was in the previous post... all code is available. Developing Freecell Game Using Silverlight 3 Part 1 Xianzhong Zhu has the first of a two-part tutorial up on building Freecell in Silverlight 3 ... yeah... SL3 -- oh, can you say WP7?? :) Silverlight Top Tip: Startup page for Navigation Apps Jim Lynn has detailed how to go straight to a specific page you're working on in a complex Silverlight app say for debug purposes rather than page/page/page ... I was just thinking yesterday about putting a shortcut on my taskbar for something similar in .NET :) Handling DataGrid.SelectedItems in an MVVM-friendly manner Laurent Bugnion responded with code to a question about getting a DataGrid's SelectedItems into the ViewModel in MVVMLight. Demo code available too. RIA Services and Windows Live ID Kyle McClellan has a post up discussing using LiveID and RIA Services and Silverlight. Lots of external links sprinkled around. 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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• Hyper-V for Developers - presentation from London .NET Users and VBUG Bracknell

  - by Liam Westley

  Thanks to both London .NET User group and VBUG Bracknell for allowing me to present my Hyper-V for Developers talk last week.  A weekend at DDD Scotland followed by two user group presentations means I'm a bit late getting the presentations uploaded to the blog, so many apologies if you've been waiting.   LDNUG - www.tigernews.co.uk/blog-twickers/LDNUG-HyperV4Devs.zip   VBUG - www.tigernews.co.uk/blog-twickers/VBUG-HyperV4Devs.zip Also, at VBUG Bracknell I was asked if you could configure a Hyper-V server to user wireless networking (which might be useful if you have a laptop for demonstrations).  Well here's the post from Ben Armstrong (Virtual PC Guy) which details how that can be configured,   http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/01/09/using-hyper-v-with-a-wireless-network-adapter.aspx ... and it's also detailed on the TechNet wiki as part of running Hyper-V on a laptop,   social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/hyper-v-how-to-run-hyper-v-on-a-laptop.aspx

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• Dealing With Table Borders In OOXML

  - by Tim Murphy

  Note: Cross posted from Coding The Document. Permalink Formatting tables in a document programmatically can be a very complex task.  This is the major reason which we start our document generation projects with templates instead of building components in a document by hand. Borders are on aspect of a table that you may want to fomat.  Borders are used to make certain content in a table stand out.  If you need to conditionally set and remove borders there is something that you need to be aware of.  Even in OOXML you have the concepts of styles, inheriting styles and overriding styles. When Word defines a table it will reference a global style such as “TableGrid”.  This style will include the borders for the table.  Specifically the InsideHorizontalBorder and InsideVerticalBorder define the borders for the cells.  These can be overridden by the TableCellBorders collection of a particular cell.  Adding a double right border on a cell is as easy as the couple of lines of code below. wordprocessing.TableCellBorders borders = new wordprocessing.TableCellBorders(); borders.RightBorder = new RightBorder(){Val = BorderValues.Double, Color = "000000", ThemeColor = ThemeColorValues.Text1, Size = (UInt32Value)4U, Space = (UInt32Value)0U }; cell.TableCellProperties.Append(borders); If I want to revert back to the table’s style for cell borders I simply need to remove all children from the TableCellBorders collection.  It is like removing a class identifier from a TD tag in HTML.  The style in the parent object takes back over. With the knowledge of how the borders work you can take the concept and apply it to other effects of styles. del.icio.us Tags: OOXML,Office Open XML,Microsoft Office 2007,Microsoft Word 2007,table,style,border

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• Chicago Code Camp Recap

  - by Tim Murphy

  My presentation on leveraging Open XML was a great experience and the attendees were very gracious.  I was pleasantly surprised to have a full room.  There was even one person sitting on the floor.  You can check out some pictures here.  I have posted my slides and code.  If anyone has any feedback or questions feel free to contact me. del.icio.us Tags: Chicago Code Camp,OOXML SDK 2.0,Office Open XML,slides,code

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• Call for authors for new eBook on the Windows Azure Platform

  - by Eric Nelson

  I intend to pull together a FREE eBook on the Windows Azure Platform – but I need your help to make it rock! If you have detailed experience of any aspect of the Windows Azure Platform and can spare a few hours of time to turn that into a short article (400 to 800 words) then please get in touch. This is not a big commitment but my suspicion is the end result will make for a cracking good read. I am hoping for a mix – everything from lessons learnt from early adopters to introductions to elements of the platform to getting technologies such as Ruby up and running on Azure. 10 to 20 articles sound about right – which means I am after 10 to 20 authors :) All I need from you right now is: One or two suggestions of topics you would like to cover A pointer to any example of your previous work – which could be as simple as a blog post or a work document. For simplicity, just drop me an email direct to eric.nelson A@T microsoft.com. BIG THANKS! Eric The provisional dates are: Confirm authors and topics by 3rd May Get first draft from all authors by 10th May Complete reviews by 17th May Final versions by 24th May Published by 31st May And finally, an example: To give you an idea of what I have in mind, check out the eBook we pulled together last December which has had several thousand downloads. However I’m thinking of making this one a little bit more fun/informal. More on that later. UK MSDN Flash eBook Best Technical Articles #2 - ericnel Related Links: Spread the word – 6 Weeks of FREE Azure Training UK Azure Online Community – join today. UK Windows Azure Site Start working with Windows Azure

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• Microsoft hosting free Hyper-V training for VMware Pros

  - by Ryan Roussel

  Microsoft will be hosting free training for virtualization professionals focused on Hyper-V, System Center, and virtualization architecture.  Details are below:   Just one week after Microsoft Management Summit 2011 (MMS), Microsoft Learning will be hosting an exclusive three-day Jump Start class specially tailored for VMware and Microsoft virtualization technology pros.  Registration for “Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals” is open now and will be delivered as an online class on March 29-31, 2010 from 10:00am-4:00pm PDT.    The course is COMPLETELY FREE and OPEN TO ANYONE!  Please share with your customers, blog, Tweet, etc. – help us get the word out to strengthen support for Microsoft’s virtualization offerings. What’s the high-level overview? This cutting edge course will feature expert instruction and real-world demonstrations of Hyper-V and brand new releases from System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta (many of which will be announced just one week earlier at MMS).  Register Now!   Day 1 will focus on “Platform” (Hyper-V, virtualization architecture, high availability & clustering) 10:00am – 10:30pm PDT:  Virtualization 360 Overview 10:30am – 12:00pm:  Microsoft Hyper-V Deployment Options & Architecture 1:00pm – 2:00pm:  Differentiating Microsoft and VMware (terminology, etc.) 2:00pm – 4:00pm:  High Availability & Clustering Day 2 will focus on “Management” (System Center Suite, SCVMM 2012 Beta, Opalis, Private Cloud solutions) 10:00am – 11:00pm PDT:  System Center Suite Overview w/ focus on DPM 11:00am – 12:00pm:  Virtual Machine Manager 2012 | Part 1 1:00pm –   1:30pm:  Virtual Machine Manager 2012 | Part 2 1:30pm – 2:30pm:  Automation with System Center Opalis & PowerShell 2:30pm – 4:00pm:  Private Cloud Solutions, Architecture & VMM SSP 2.0 Day 3 will focus on “VDI” (VDI Infrastructure/architecture, v-Alliance, application delivery via VDI) 10:00am – 11:00pm PDT:  Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Architecture | Part 1 11:00am – 12:00pm:  Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Architecture | Part 2 1:00pm – 2:30pm:  v-Alliance Solution Overview 2:30pm – 4:00pm:  Application Delivery for VDI     Every section will be team-taught by two of the most respected authorities on virtualization technologies: Microsoft Technical Evangelist Symon Perriman and leading Hyper-V, VMware, and XEN infrastructure consultant, Corey Hynes Who is the target audience for this training? Suggested prerequisite skills include real-world experience with Windows Server 2008 R2, virtualization and datacenter management. The course is tailored to these types of roles: · IT Professional · IT Decision Maker · Network Administrators & Architects · Storage/Infrastructure Administrators & Architects How do I to register and learn more about this great training opportunity? · Register: Visit the Registration Page and sign up for all three sessions · Blog: Learn more from the Microsoft Learning Blog · Twitter: Here are a few posts you can retweet: o Mar. 29-31 "Microsoft #Virtualization for VMware Pros" @SymonPerriman Corey Hynes http://bit.ly/JS-Hyper-V @MSLearning #Hyper-V o @SysCtrOpalis Mar. 29-31 "Microsoft #Virtualization for VMware Pros" @SymonPerriman Corey Hynes http://bit.ly/JS-Hyper-V #Hyper-V o Learn all the cool new features in Hyper-V & System Center 2012! SCVMM, Self-Service Portal 2.0, http://bit.ly/JS-Hyper-V #Hyper-V #Opalis What is a “Jump Start” course? A “Jump Start” course is “team-taught” by two expert instructors in an engaging radio talk show style format. The idea is to deliver readiness training on strategic and emerging technologies that drive awareness at scale before Microsoft Learning develops mainstream Microsoft Official Courses (MOC) that map to certifications.  All sessions are professionally recorded and distributed through MS Showcase, Channel 9, Zune Marketplace and iTunes for broader reach.

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• How to nest transactions nicely - &quot;begin transaction&quot; vs &quot;save transaction&quot; and SQL Server

  - by Brian Biales

  Do you write stored procedures that might be used by others?  And those others may or may not have already started a transaction?  And your SP does several things, but if any of them fail, you have to undo them all and return with a code indicating it failed? Well, I have written such code, and it wasn’t working right until I finally figured out how to handle the case when we are already in a transaction, as well as the case where the caller did not start a transaction.  When a problem occurred, my “ROLLBACK TRANSACTION” would roll back not just my nested transaction, but the caller’s transaction as well.  So when I tested the procedure stand-alone, it seemed to work fine, but when others used it, it would cause a problem if it had to rollback.  When something went wrong in my procedure, their entire transaction was rolled back.  This was not appreciated. Now, I knew one could "nest" transactions, but the technical documentation was very confusing.  And I still have not found the approach below documented anywhere.  So here is a very brief description of how I got it to work, I hope you find this helpful. My example is a stored procedure that must figure out on its own if the caller has started a transaction or not.  This can be done in SQL Server by checking the @@TRANCOUNT value.  If no BEGIN TRANSACTION has occurred yet, this will have a value of 0.  Any number greater than zero means that a transaction is in progress.  If there is no current transaction, my SP begins a transaction. But if a transaction is already in progress, my SP uses SAVE TRANSACTION and gives it a name.  SAVE TRANSACTION creates a “save point”.  Note that creating a save point has no effect on @@TRANCOUNT.  So my SP starts with something like this: DECLARE @startingTranCount int SET @startingTranCount = @@TRANCOUNT IF @startingTranCount > 0 SAVE TRANSACTION mySavePointName ELSE BEGIN TRANSACTION -- … Then, when ready to commit the changes, you only need to commit if we started the transaction ourselves: IF @startingTranCount = 0 COMMIT TRANSACTION And finally, to roll back just your changes so far: -- Roll back changes... IF @startingTranCount > 0 ROLLBACK TRANSACTION MySavePointName ELSE ROLLBACK TRANSACTION Here is some code that you can try that will demonstrate how the save points work inside a transaction. This sample code creates a temporary table, then executes selects and updates, documenting what is going on, then deletes the temporary table. if running in SQL Management Studio, set Query Results to: Text for best readability of the results. -- Create a temporary table to test with, we'll drop it at the end. CREATE TABLE #ATable( [Column_A] [varchar](5) NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GO SET NOCOUNT ON -- Ensure just one row - delete all rows, add one DELETE #ATable -- Insert just one row INSERT INTO #ATable VALUES('000') SELECT 'Before TRANSACTION starts, value in table is: ' AS Note, * FROM #ATable SELECT @@trancount AS CurrentTrancount --insert into a values ('abc') UPDATE #ATable SET Column_A = 'abc' SELECT 'UPDATED without a TRANSACTION, value in table is: ' AS Note, * FROM #ATable BEGIN TRANSACTION SELECT 'BEGIN TRANSACTION, trancount is now ' AS Note, @@TRANCOUNT AS TranCount UPDATE #ATable SET Column_A = '123' SELECT 'Row updated inside TRANSACTION, value in table is: ' AS Note, * FROM #ATable SAVE TRANSACTION MySavepoint SELECT 'Save point MySavepoint created, transaction count now:' as Note, @@TRANCOUNT AS TranCount UPDATE #ATable SET Column_A = '456' SELECT 'Updated after MySavepoint created, value in table is: ' AS Note, * FROM #ATable SAVE TRANSACTION point2 SELECT 'Save point point2 created, transaction count now:' as Note, @@TRANCOUNT AS TranCount UPDATE #ATable SET Column_A = '789' SELECT 'Updated after point2 savepoint created, value in table is: ' AS Note, * FROM #ATable ROLLBACK TRANSACTION point2 SELECT 'Just rolled back savepoint "point2", value in table is: ' AS Note, * FROM #ATable ROLLBACK TRANSACTION MySavepoint SELECT 'Just rolled back savepoint "MySavepoint", value in table is: ' AS Note, * FROM #ATable SELECT 'Both save points were rolled back, transaction count still:' as Note, @@TRANCOUNT AS TranCount ROLLBACK TRANSACTION SELECT 'Just rolled back the entire transaction..., value in table is: ' AS Note, * FROM #ATable DROP TABLE #ATable The output should look like this: Note                                           Column_A ---------------------------------------------- -------- Before TRANSACTION starts, value in table is:  000 CurrentTrancount ---------------- 0 Note                                               Column_A -------------------------------------------------- -------- UPDATED without a TRANSACTION, value in table is:  abc Note                                 TranCount ------------------------------------ ----------- BEGIN TRANSACTION, trancount is now  1 Note                                                Column_A --------------------------------------------------- -------- Row updated inside TRANSACTION, value in table is:  123 Note                                                   TranCount ------------------------------------------------------ ----------- Save point MySavepoint created, transaction count now: 1 Note                                                   Column_A ------------------------------------------------------ -------- Updated after MySavepoint created, value in table is:  456 Note                                              TranCount ------------------------------------------------- ----------- Save point point2 created, transaction count now: 1 Note                                                        Column_A ----------------------------------------------------------- -------- Updated after point2 savepoint created, value in table is:  789 Note                                                     Column_A -------------------------------------------------------- -------- Just rolled back savepoint "point2", value in table is:  456 Note                                                          Column_A ------------------------------------------------------------- -------- Just rolled back savepoint "MySavepoint", value in table is:  123 Note                                                        TranCount ----------------------------------------------------------- ----------- Both save points were rolled back, transaction count still: 1 Note                                                            Column_A --------------------------------------------------------------- -------- Just rolled back the entire transaction..., value in table is:  abc

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• Team Foundation Server 2012 Build Global List Problems

  - by Bob Hardister

  My experience with the upgrade and use of TFS 2012 has been very positive. I did come across a couple of issues recently that tripped things up for a while. ISSUE 1 The first issue is that 2012 prior to Update 1 published an invalid build list item value to the collection global list. In 2010, the build global list, list item value syntax is an underscore between the build definition and the build number. In the 2012 RTM this underscore was replaced with a backslash, which is invalid.  Specifically, an upload of the global list fails when the backslash is followed at some point by a period. The error when using the API is: <detail ExceptionMessage="TF26204: The account you entered is not recognized. Contact your Team Foundation Server administrator to add your account." BaseExceptionName="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server.ValidationException"><details id="600019" http://schemas.microsoft.com/TeamFoundation/2005/06/WorkItemTracking/faultdetail/03"http://schemas.microsoft.com/TeamFoundation/2005/06/WorkItemTracking/faultdetail/03" /></detail> when uploading the global list via the process editor the error is: This issue is corrected in Update1 as the backslash is changed to a forward slash. ISSUE 2 The second issue is that when upgrading from 2010 to 2012, the builds in 2010 are not published to the 2012 global list.  After the upgrade the 2012 global lists doesn’t have any builds and only builds run in 2012 are published to the global list. This was reported to the MSDN forums and Connect. To correct this I wrote a utility to pull all the builds and recreate the builds global list for each project in each collection.  This is a console application with a program.cs, a globallists.cs and a app.config (not published here). The utility connects to TFS 2012, loops through the collections or a target collection as specified in the app.config. Then loops through the projects, the build definitions, and builds.  It creates a global list for each project if that project has at least one build. Then it imports the new list to TFS.  Here’s the code for program and globalists classes. Program.CS using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Common; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Server; using System.IO; using System.Xml; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client; using System.Diagnostics; using Utilities; using System.Configuration; namespace TFSProjectUpdater_CLC { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { DateTime temp_d = System.DateTime.Now; string logName = temp_d.ToShortDateString(); logName = logName.Replace("/", "_"); logName = logName + "_" + temp_d.TimeOfDay; logName = logName.Replace(":", "."); logName = "TFSGlobalListBuildsUpdater_" + logName + ".log"; Trace.Listeners.Add(new TextWriterTraceListener(Path.Combine(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["logLocation"], logName))); Trace.AutoFlush = true; Trace.WriteLine("Start:" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); Console.WriteLine("Start:" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); string tfsServer = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TargetTFS"].ToString(); GlobalLists gl = new GlobalLists(); //replace this with the URL to your TFS instance. Uri tfsUri = new Uri("https://" + tfsServer + "/tfs"); //bool foundLite = false; TfsConfigurationServer config = new TfsConfigurationServer(tfsUri, new UICredentialsProvider()); config.EnsureAuthenticated(); ITeamProjectCollectionService collectionService = config.GetService<ITeamProjectCollectionService>(); IList<TeamProjectCollection> collections = collectionService.GetCollections().OrderBy(collection => collection.Name.ToString()).ToList(); //target Collection string targetCollection = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["targetCollection"]; foreach (TeamProjectCollection coll in collections) { if (targetCollection.Equals(string.Empty)) { if (!coll.Name.Equals("TFS Archive") && !coll.Name.Equals("DefaultCol") && !coll.Name.Equals("Team Project Template Gallery")) { doWork(coll, tfsServer); } } else { if (coll.Name.Equals(targetCollection)) { doWork(coll, tfsServer); } } } Trace.WriteLine("Finished:" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); Console.WriteLine("Finished:" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached) { Console.WriteLine("\nHit any key to exit..."); Console.ReadKey(); } Trace.Close(); } static void doWork(TeamProjectCollection coll, string tfsServer) { GlobalLists gl = new GlobalLists(); //target Collection string targetProject = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["targetProject"]; Trace.WriteLine("Collection: " + coll.Name); Uri u = new Uri("https://" + tfsServer + "/tfs/" + coll.Name.ToString()); TfsTeamProjectCollection c = TfsTeamProjectCollectionFactory.GetTeamProjectCollection(u); ICommonStructureService icss = c.GetService<ICommonStructureService>(); try { Trace.WriteLine("\tChecking Collection Global Lists."); gl.RebuildBuildGlobalLists(c); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine("Exception! :" + coll.Name); } } } } GlobalLists.CS using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Common; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Server; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client; using System.Configuration; using System.Xml; using System.Xml.Linq; using System.Diagnostics; namespace Utilities { public class GlobalLists { string GL_NewList = @"<gl:GLOBALLISTS xmlns:gl=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/workitemtracking/globallists""> <GLOBALLIST> </GLOBALLIST> </gl:GLOBALLISTS>"; public void RebuildBuildGlobalLists(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs) { WorkItemStore wis = new WorkItemStore(_tfs); //export the current globals lists file for the collection to save as a backup XmlDocument globalListsFile = wis.ExportGlobalLists(); globalListsFile.Save(@"c:\temp\" + _tfs.Name.Replace("\\", "_") + "_backupGlobalList.xml"); LogExportCurrentCollectionGlobalListsAsBackup(_tfs); //Build a new global build list from each build definition within each team project IBuildServer buildServer = _tfs.GetService<IBuildServer>(); foreach (Project p in wis.Projects) { XmlDocument newProjectGlobalList = new XmlDocument(); newProjectGlobalList.LoadXml(GL_NewList); LogInstanciateNewProjectBuildGlobalList(_tfs, p); BuildNewProjectBuildGlobalList(_tfs, wis, newProjectGlobalList, buildServer, p); LogEndOfProject(_tfs, p); } } // Private Methods private static void BuildNewProjectBuildGlobalList(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, WorkItemStore wis, XmlDocument newProjectGlobalList, IBuildServer buildServer, Project p) { //locate the template node XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(newProjectGlobalList.NameTable); nsmgr.AddNamespace("gl", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/workitemtracking/globallists"); XmlNode node = newProjectGlobalList.SelectSingleNode("//gl:GLOBALLISTS/GLOBALLIST", nsmgr); LogLocatedGlobalListNode(_tfs, p); //add the name attribute for the project build global list XmlElement buildListNode = (XmlElement)node; buildListNode.SetAttribute("name", "Builds - " + p.Name); LogAddedBuildNodeName(_tfs, p); //add new builds to the team project build global list bool buildsExist = false; if (AddNewBuilds(_tfs, newProjectGlobalList, buildServer, p, node, buildsExist)) { //import the new build global list for each project that has builds newProjectGlobalList.Save(@"c:\temp\" + _tfs.Name.Replace("\\", "_") + "_" + p.Name + "_" + "newGlobalList.xml"); //write out temp copy of the global list file to be imported LogImportReady(_tfs, p); wis.ImportGlobalLists(newProjectGlobalList.InnerXml); LogImportComplete(_tfs, p); } } private static bool AddNewBuilds(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, XmlDocument newProjectGlobalList, IBuildServer buildServer, Project p, XmlNode node, bool buildsExist) { var buildDefinitions = buildServer.QueryBuildDefinitions(p.Name); foreach (var buildDefinition in buildDefinitions) { var builds = buildDefinition.QueryBuilds(); foreach (var build in builds) { //insert the builds into the current build list node in the correct 2012 format buildsExist = true; XmlElement listItem = newProjectGlobalList.CreateElement("LISTITEM"); listItem.SetAttribute("value", buildDefinition.Name + "/" + build.BuildNumber.ToString().Replace(buildDefinition.Name + "_", "")); node.AppendChild(listItem); } } if (buildsExist) LogBuildListCreated(_tfs, p); else LogNoBuildsInProject(_tfs, p); return buildsExist; } // Logging Methods private static void LogExportCurrentCollectionGlobalListsAsBackup(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs) { Trace.WriteLine("\tExported Global List for " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\tExported Global List for " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private void LogInstanciateNewProjectBuildGlobalList(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tInstanciated the new build global list for project " + p.Name + " in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tInstanciated the new build global list for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " in the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogLocatedGlobalListNode(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tLocated the build global list node for project " + p.Name + " in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tLocated the build global list node for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " in the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogAddedBuildNodeName(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tAdded the name attribute to the build global list for project " + p.Name + " in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tAdded the name attribute to the build global list for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " in the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogBuildListCreated(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tAdded all builds into the " + "Builds - " + p.Name + " list in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tAdded all builds into the " + "Builds - \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " list in the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogNoBuildsInProject(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tNo builds found for project " + p.Name + " in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tNo builds found for project " + p.Name + " \n\t\t\tin the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private void LogEndOfProject(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tEND OF PROJECT " + p.Name); Trace.WriteLine(" "); Console.WriteLine("\t\tEND OF PROJECT " + p.Name); Console.WriteLine(); } private static void LogImportReady(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tReady to import the build global list for project " + p.Name + " to the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tReady to import the build global list for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " to the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogImportComplete(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tImport of the build global list for project " + p.Name + " to the " + _tfs.Name + " collection completed."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tImport of the build global list for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " to the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection completed."); } } }

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• WPF: Timers

  - by Ilya Verbitskiy

  I believe, once your WPF application will need to execute something periodically, and today I would like to discuss how to do that. There are two possible solutions. You can use classical System.Threading.Timer class or System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer class, which is the part of WPF. I have created an application to show you how to use the API.     Let’s take a look how you can implement timer using System.Threading.Timer class. First of all, it has to be initialized.   1: private Timer timer; 2:   3: public MainWindow() 4: { 5: // Form initialization code 6: 7: timer = new Timer(OnTimer, null, Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan, Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan); 8: }   Timer’s constructor accepts four parameters. The first one is the callback method which is executed when timer ticks. I will show it to you soon. The second parameter is a state which is passed to the callback. It is null because there is nothing to pass this time. The third parameter is the amount of time to delay before the callback parameter invokes its methods. I use System.Threading.Timeout helper class to represent infinite timeout which simply means the timer is not going to start at the moment. And the final fourth parameter represents the time interval between invocations of the methods referenced by callback. Infinite timeout timespan means the callback method will be executed just once. Well, the timer has been created. Let’s take a look how you can start the timer.   1: private void StartTimer(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: timer.Change(TimeSpan.Zero, new TimeSpan(0, 0, 1)); 4:   5: // Disable the start buttons and enable the reset button. 6: }   The timer is started by calling its Change method. It accepts two arguments: the amount of time to delay before the invoking the callback method and the time interval between invocations of the callback. TimeSpan.Zero means we start the timer immediately and TimeSpan(0, 0, 1) tells the timer to tick every second. There is one method hasn’t been shown yet. This is the callback method OnTimer which does a simple task: it shows current time in the center of the screen. Unfortunately you cannot simple write something like this:   1: clock.Content = DateTime.Now.ToString("hh:mm:ss");   The reason is Timer runs callback method on a separate thread, and it is not possible to access GUI controls from a non-GUI thread. You can avoid the problem using System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher class.   1: private void OnTimer(object state) 2: { 3: Dispatcher.Invoke(() => ShowTime()); 4: } 5:   6: private void ShowTime() 7: { 8: clock.Content = DateTime.Now.ToString("hh:mm:ss"); 9: }   You can build similar application using System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer class. The class represents a timer which is integrated into the Dispatcher queue. It means that your callback method is executed on GUI thread and you can write a code which updates your GUI components directly.   1: private DispatcherTimer dispatcherTimer; 2:   3: public MainWindow() 4: { 5: // Form initialization code 6:   7: dispatcherTimer = new DispatcherTimer { Interval = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 1) }; 8: dispatcherTimer.Tick += OnDispatcherTimer; 9: } Dispatcher timer has nicer and cleaner API. All you need is to specify tick interval and Tick event handler. The you just call Start method to start the timer.   private void StartDispatcher(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { dispatcherTimer.Start(); // Disable the start buttons and enable the reset button. } And, since the Tick event handler is executed on GUI thread, the code which sets the actual time is straightforward.   1: private void OnDispatcherTimer(object sender, EventArgs e) 2: { 3: ShowTime(); 4: } We’re almost done. Let’s take a look how to stop the timers. It is easy with the Dispatcher Timer.   1: dispatcherTimer.Stop(); And slightly more complicated with the Timer. You should use Change method again.   1: timer.Change(Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan, Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan); What is the best way to add timer into an application? The Dispatcher Timer has simple interface, but its advantages are disadvantages at the same time. You should not use it if your Tick event handler executes time-consuming operations. It freezes your window which it is executing the event handler method. You should think about using System.Threading.Timer in this case. The code is available on GitHub.

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• Fixing Chrome&rsquo;s AJAX Request Caching Bug

  - by Steve Wilkes

  I recently had to make a set of web pages restore their state when the user arrived on them after clicking the browser’s back button. The pages in question had various content loaded in response to user actions, which meant I had to manually get them back into a valid state after the page loaded. I got hold of the page’s data in a JavaScript ViewModel using a JQuery ajax call, then iterated over the properties, filling in the fields as I went. I built in the ability to describe dependencies between inputs to make sure fields were filled in in the correct order and at the correct time, and that all worked nicely. To make sure the browser didn’t cache the AJAX call results I used the JQuery’s cache: false option, and ASP.NET MVC’s OutputCache attribute for good measure. That all worked perfectly… except in Chrome. Chrome insisted on retrieving the data from its cache. cache: false adds a random query string parameter to make the browser think it’s a unique request – it made no difference. I made the AJAX call a POST – it made no difference. Eventually what I had to do was add a random token to the URL (not the query string) and use MVC routing to deliver the request to the correct action. The project had a single Controller for all AJAX requests, so this route: routes.MapRoute( name: "NonCachedAjaxActions", url: "AjaxCalls/{cacheDisablingToken}/{action}", defaults: new { controller = "AjaxCalls" }, constraints: new { cacheDisablingToken = "[0-9]+" }); …and this amendment to the ajax call: function loadPageData(url) { // Insert a timestamp before the URL's action segment: var indexOfFinalUrlSeparator = url.lastIndexOf("/"); var uniqueUrl = url.substring(0, indexOfFinalUrlSeparator) + new Date().getTime() + "/" + url.substring(indexOfFinalUrlSeparator); // Call the now-unique action URL: $.ajax(uniqueUrl, { cache: false, success: completePageDataLoad }); } …did the trick.

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• Passing text message to web page from web user control

  - by Narendra Tiwari

  Here is a brief summary how we can send a text message to webpage by a web user control. Delegates is the slolution. There are many good articles on .net delegates you can refer some of them below. The scenario is we want to send a text message to the page on completion of some activity on webcontrol. 1/ Create a Base class for webcontrol (refer code below), assuming we are passing some text messages to page from web user control  - Declare a delegate  - Declare an event of type delegate using System; using System.Data; using System.Configuration; using System.Web; using System.Web.Security; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts; using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls; //Declaring delegate with message parameter public delegate void SendMessageToThePageHandler(string messageToThePage); public         } class ControlBase: System.Web.UI.UserControl { public ControlBase() { // TODO: Add constructor logic here }protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { base.OnInit(e); }private string strMessageToPass;/// <summary> /// MessageToPass - Property to pass text message to page /// </summary> public string MessageToPass { get { return strMessageToPass; } set { strMessageToPass = value; } }/// <summary> /// SendMessageToPage - Called from control to invoke the event /// </summary> /// <param name="strMessage">Message to pass</param> public void SendMessageToPage(string strMessage) {   if (this.sendMessageToThePage != null)       this.sendMessageToThePage(strMessage); } 2/ Register events on webpage on page Load eventthis.AddControlEventHandler((ControlBase)WebUserControl1); this.AddControlEventHandler((ControlBase)WebUserControl2); /// <summary> /// AddControlEventHandler- Hooking web user control event /// </summary> /// <param name="ctrl"></param> private void AddControlEventHandler(ControlBase ctrl) { ctrl.sendMessageToThePage += delegate(string strMessage) {   //display message   lblMessage.Text = strMessage; }; } References: http://www.akadia.com/services/dotnet_delegates_and_events.html     3/

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• Tech Ed India 2010 - Live Interview with VJ Nikhil Chinnappa

  - by Harish Ranganathan

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