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  • BizTalk 2009 - Custom Functoid Categories

    - by StuartBrierley
    I recently had cause to code a number of custom functoids to aid with some maps that I was writing. Once these were developed and deployed to C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\Developer Tools\Mapper Extensions a quick refresh allowed them to appear in toolbox.  After dropping these on a map and configuring the appropriate inputs I tested the map to check that they worked as expected.  All but one of the functoids worked as expecetd, but the final functoid appeared not to be firing at all. I had already tested the code used in a simple test harness application, so I was confident in the code used, but I still needed to figure out what the problem might be. Debugging the map helped me on the way; for some reason the functoid in question was not shown correctly - the functoid definition was wrong. After some investigations I found that the functoid type you assign when coding a custom functoid affects more than just the category it appears in; different functoid types have different capabilities, including what they can link too.  For example, a logical functoid can not provide content for an output element, it can only say whether the element exists.  Map this via a Value Mapping functoid and the value of true or false can be seen in the output element. The functoid I was having problems with was one whare I had used the XPath functoid type, this had seemed to be a good fit as I was looking up content in a config file using xpath and I wanted it to appear the advanced area.  From the table below you can see that this functoid type is marked as "Internal Only", preventing it from being used for custom functoids.  Changing my type to String allowed the functoid to function as expected. Category Description Toolbox Group Assert Internal Use Only Advanced Conversion Converts characters to and from numerics and converts numbers from one base to another. Conversion Count Internal Use Only Advanced Cumulative Performs accumulations of the value of a field that occurs multiple times in a source document and outputs a single output. Cumulative DatabaseExtract Internal Use Only Database DatabaseLookup Internal Use Only Database DateTime Adds date, time, date and time, or add days to a specified date, in output data. Date/Time ExistenceLooping Internal Use Only Advanced Index Internal Use Only Advanced Iteration Internal Use Only Advanced Keymatch Internal Use Only Advanced Logical Controls conditional behavior of other functoids to determine whether particular output data is created. Logical Looping Internal Use Only Advanced MassCopy Internal Use Only Advanced Math Performs specific numeric calculations such as addition, multiplication, and division. Mathematical NilValue Internal Use Only Advanced Scientific Performs specific scientific calculations such as logarithmic, exponential, and trigonometric functions. Scientific Scripter Internal Use Only Advanced String Manipulates data strings by using well-known string functions such as concatenation, length, find, and trim. String TableExtractor Internal Use Only Advanced TableLooping Internal Use Only Advanced Unknown Internal Use Only Advanced ValueMapping Internal Use Only Advanced XPath Internal Use Only Advanced Links http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.biztalk.basefunctoids.functoidcategory(BTS.20).aspx http://blog.eliasen.dk/CommentView,guid,d33b686b-b059-4381-a0e7-1c56e808f7f0.aspx

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  • Multiple validation using jquery

    - by Prasenjit
    <script type="text/javascript">           $(document).ready(                 function() {                     $("input[id$='btnOK']").click(function(event) {                         $("#form1").validate({                             rules: {                                 txtName: { required: true },                                 txtEmail: { required: true, email: true },                                 txtPostalAddress: { required: true, maxlength: 50 }                             },                             messages: {}, onsubmit: true                         });                     });                     $("input[id$='Button1']").click(function(event) {                         $("#form1").validate({                             rules: {                                 txtName: { required: true }                                                             },                             messages: {}, onsubmit: true                         });                     });                 });                             </script>

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  • Announcing the Winnipeg VS.NET 2012 Community Launch Event!

    - by D'Arcy Lussier
    Back in May 2010 the local Winnipeg technical community got together and put on a launch event for VS.NET 2010. That event was such a good time that we’re doing it again this year for the VS.NET 2012 launch! On December 6th, the Winnipeg .NET User Group is hosting a full day VS.NET 2012 Community Launch Event at the Imax theatre in Portage Place! We have 4 sessions planned covering dev tools, ALM/TFS, web development, and cloud development, presented by Dylan Smith, Tyler Doerksen, and myself. You can get all the details and register on our Eventbrite site: http://wpgvsnet2012launch.eventbrite.ca/ I’ve included the details below as well for convenience: Winnipeg VS.NET 2012 Community Launch Event Join us for a full day of sessions highlighting the new features and capabilities of Visual Studio .NET 2012 and the .NET 4.5 Framework! Hosted by the Winnipeg .NET User Group, this community event is FREE thanks to the generous support from our event sponsors: Imaginet Online Business Systems Prairie Developer Conference Event Details When: Thursday, Decemer 6th from 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM Where: IMAX Theatre, Portage Place Cost: *FREE!* Agenda 8:00 - 9:00 Continental Breakfast and Registration 9:00 - 9:15 Welcome 9:15 - 10:30 End-To-End Application Lifecycle Management with TFS 2012 10:30 - 10:45 Break 10:45 - 12:00 Improving Developer Productivity with Visual Studio 2012 12:00 - 1:00 Lunch Break (Lunch Not Provided) 1:00 - 2:15 Web Development in Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 2:15 - 2:30  Break 2:30 - 3:45 Microsoft Cloud Development with Azure and Visual Studio 2012 3:45 - 4:00 Prizes and Thanks Session Abstracts End-To-End Application Lifecycle Management with TFS 2012 Dylan Smith, Imaginet In this session we'll walk through the application development lifecycle from end-to-end and see how some of the new capabilities in TFS 2012 help streamline the software delivery process. There are some exciting new capabilities around Agile Project Management, Gathering Feedback, Code Reviews, Unit Testing, Version Control, Storyboarding, etc. During this session we’ll follow a fictional software development team through the process of planning, developing, testing, and deployment focusing on where the new functionality in VS/TFS 2012 fits in to make teams more effective. Improving Developer Productivity with Visual Studio 2012 Dylan Smith, Imaginet Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 enables developers to take full advantage of the capability of Windows using the skills and technologies developers already know and love to deliver exceptional and compelling apps.  Whether working individually or in a small, medium or large development team Visual Studio 2012 sets a new standard for development tools, helping teams deliver superior results for their customers that help set them apart from their competitors.  In this session we’ll walk through new features in Visual Studio 2012 specifically focusing on how these improve Developer Productivity. Web Development in Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 D’Arcy Lussier, Online Business Systems It’s an exciting time to be a web developer in the Microsoft ecosystem! The launch of Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 brings new tooling and features, and the ASP.NET team is continually releasing updates for MVC, SignalR, Web API, and other platform features. In this session we’ll take a tour of the new features and technologies available for Microsoft web developers here in 2012! Microsoft Cloud Development with Azure and Visual Studio 2012 Tyler Doerksen, Imaginet Microsoft’s public cloud platform is nearing its third year of public availability, supporting web site/service hosting, storage, relational databases, virtual machines, virtual networks and much more. Windows Azure provides both power and flexibility.  But to capture this power you need to have the right tools!  This session will demonstrate the primary ways you can harness Windows Azure with the .NET platform.  We’ll explain cloud service development, packaging, deployment, testing and show how Visual Studio 2012 with the Windows Azure SDK and other Microsoft tools can be used to develop for and manage Windows Azure.Harness the power of the cloud from the comfort of Visual Studio 2012!

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  • How to create a virtual network with Azure Connect

    - by Herve Roggero
    If you are trying to establish a virtual network between machines located in disparate networks, you can either use VPN, Virtual Network or Azure Connect. If you want to establish a connection between machines located in Windows Azure, you should consider using the Virtual Network service. If you want to establish a connection between local machines and Virtual Machines in Windows Azure, you may be able to use your existing VPN device (assuming you have one), as long as the device is supported by Microsoft. If the VPN device you are using isn’t supported, or if you are trying to create a virtual network between machines from disparate networks (such as machines located in another cloud provider), you can use Azure Connect. This blog post explains how Azure Connect can help you create virtual networks between multiple servers in the cloud, various servers in different cloud environments, and on-premise. Note: Azure Connect is currently in Technical Preview. About Azure Connect Let’s do a quick review of Azure Connect. This technology implements an IPSec tunnel from machines to to a relay service located in the Microsoft cloud (Azure). So in essence, Azure Connect doesn’t provide a point-to-point connection between machines; the network communication is tunneled through the relay service. The relay service in turn offers a mechanism to enforce basic communication rules that you define through Groups. We will review this later. You could network two or more VMs in the Azure cloud (although you should consider using a Virtual Network if you go this route), or servers in the Azure cloud and other machines in the Amazon cloud for example, or even two or more on-premise servers located in different locations for which a direct network connection is not an option. You can place any number of machines in your topology. Azure Connect gives you great flexibility on how you want to build your virtual network across various environments. So Azure Connect makes sense when you want to: Connect machines located in different cloud providers Connect on-premise machines running in different locations Connect Azure VMs with on-premise (if you do not have a VPN device, or if your device is not supported) Connect Azure Roles (Worker Roles, Web Roles) with on-premise servers or in other cloud providers The diagram below shows you a high level network topology that involves machines in the Windows Azure cloud, other cloud providers and on-premise. You should note that the only required component in this diagram is the Relay itself. The other machines are optional (although your network is useful only if you have two or more machines involved). Relay agents are currently available in three geographic areas: US, Europe and Asia. You can change which region you want to use in the Windows Azure management portal. High Level Network Topology With Azure Connect Azure Connect Agent Azure Connect establishes a virtual network and creates virtual adapters on your machines; these virtual adapters communicate through the Relay using IPSec. This is achieved by installing an agent (the Azure Connect Agent) on all the machines you want in your network topology. However, you do not need to install the agent on Worker Roles and Web Roles; that’s because the agent is already installed for you. Any other machine, including Virtual Machines in Windows Azure, needs the agent installed.  To install the agent, simply go to your Windows Azure portal (http://windows.azure.com) and click on Networks on the bottom left panel. You will see a list of subscriptions under Connect. If you select a subscription, you will be able to click on the Install Local Endpoint icon on top. Clicking on this icon will begin the download and installation process for the agent. Activating Roles for Azure Connect As previously mentioned, you do not need to install the Azure Connect Agent on Worker Roles and Web Roles because it is already loaded. However, you do need to activate them if you want the roles to participate in your network topology. To do this, you will need to click on the Get Activation Token icon. The activation token must then be copied and placed in the configuration file of your roles. For more information on how to perform this step, visit MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg432964.aspx. Firewall Rules Note that specific firewall rules must exist to allow the agent to communicate through the Relay. You will need to allow TCP 443 and ICMPv6. For additional information, please visit MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg433061.aspx. CA Certificates You can optionally require agents to sign their activation request with the Relay using a trusted certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). Click on Activation Options to learn more. Groups To create your network topology you must first create a group. A group represents a logical container of endpoints (or machines) that can communicate through the Relay. You can create multiple groups allowing you to manage network communication differently. For example you could create a DEVELOPMENT group and a PRODUCTION group. To add an endpoint you must first install an agent that will create a virtual adapter on the machine on which it is installed (as discussed in the previous section). Once you have created a group and installed the agents, the machines will appear in the Windows Azure management portal and you can start assigning machines to groups. The next figure shows you that I created a group called LocalGroup and assigned two machines (both on-premise) to that group. Groups and Computers in Azure Connect As I mentioned previously you can allow these machines to establish a network connection. To do this, you must enable the Interconnected option in the group. The following diagram shows you the definition of the group. In this topology I chose to include local machines only, but I could also add worker roles and web roles in the Azure Roles section (you must first activate your roles, as discussed previously). You could also add other Groups, allowing you to manage inter-group communication. Defining a Group in Azure Connect Testing the Connection Now that my agents have been installed on my two machines, the group defined and the Interconnected option checked, I can test the connection between my machines. The next screenshot shows you that I sent a PING request to DEVLAP02 from DEVDSK02. The PING request was successful. Note however that the time is in the hundreds of milliseconds on average. That is to be expected because the machines are connecting through the Relay located in the cloud. Going through the Relay introduces an extra hop in the communication chain, so if your systems rely on high performance, you may want to conduct some basic performance tests. Sending a PING Request Through The Relay Conclusion As you can see, creating a network topology between machines using the Azure Connect service is simple. It took me less than five minutes to create the above configuration, including the time it took to install the Azure Connect agents on the two machines. The flexibility of Azure Connect allows you to create a virtual network between disparate environments, as long as your operating systems are supported by the agent. For more information on Azure Connect, visit the MSDN website at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg432997.aspx. About Herve Roggero Herve Roggero, Windows Azure MVP, is the founder of Blue Syntax Consulting, a company specialized in cloud computing products and services. Herve's experience includes software development, architecture, database administration and senior management with both global corporations and startup companies. Herve holds multiple certifications, including an MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from Indiana University. Herve is the co-author of "PRO SQL Azure" from Apress and runs the Azure Florida Association (on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4177626). For more information on Blue Syntax Consulting, visit www.bluesyntax.net. Special Thanks I would like thank those that helped me figure out how Azure Connect works: Marcel Meijer - http://blogs.msmvps.com/marcelmeijer/ Michael Wood - Http://www.mvwood.com Glenn Block - http://www.codebetter.com/glennblock Yves Goeleven - http://cloudshaper.wordpress.com/ Sandrino Di Mattia - http://fabriccontroller.net/ Mike Martin - http://techmike2kx.wordpress.com

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  • Welcome Back !!!

    - by sanket
    Well, its been quite sometime since I have been able to post anything significant.Have been quite busy with some personal stuff, which required more immediate attention. Finally, got the time today to log about something. I have switched companies, I have been cussed about and world seems to have gone awry to awesome for me in the meanwhile. Any ways, back to my blogging ways again and soon I would be starting a series of blogs about WCF, and Networking stuff. Till Then, - Happy Coding!

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  • My Codemash 2011 Retrospective

    - by Greg Malcolm
    I just got back from Codemash yesterday, and still on an adrenaline buzz. Here's my take on this years encounter: The Awesome Nearly everybody in one place Codemash is the ultimate place to catch up with community friends. This is my 3rd year visiting and I've got to know a great number of very cool people through various conferences, Give Camps and other community events. I'm finding more and more that Codemash is the best place to catch up with everybody regardless of technology interest or location. Of course I always make a whole bunch more friends while I'm there! Yay! Open Spaced I found the open spaces didn't work so well last year. This year things went a lot smoother and the topics were engaging and fresh. While I miss Alan Steven's approach of running it like an agile project, it was very cool to see that it evolving. Laptops were often cracked open, not just once but frequently! For example: Jasmine - Paired on a javascript kata using the Jasmine javascript test runner J - Sat in on a J demo from local J enthusiast, Tracy Harms Watir - More pairing, this time using Ruby with the watir-webdriver through cucumber. I'd mostly forgotten that Cucumber runs just fine without Rails. It made a change to do without. The other spaces were engaging too, but I think that's enough for that topic. Javascript Shenanigans I've already mentioned that I attended a Jasmine kata session. Jasmine is close to my heart right now every since I discovered it while on the hunt for a decent Javascript testing framework for a javascript koans project earlier this year. Well, it also got covered in the Java Precompiler and Pillar's vendor session, which was great to see. Node.js was also a reoccurring theme. Node.js in a nutshell? It's an extremely scalable Event based I/O server which runs on Javascript. I'd already encountered through a Startup Weekend project and have been noticing increasing interest of late. After encountering more node.js driven excitement from my peers at codemash I absolutely had to attend the open space on it. At least 20 people turned up and by the end we had some answers, a whole ton of new questions and an impromptu user group in the form of a twitter channel (#nodemash). I have no idea where this is going to go or how big it is going to become, but if it can cross the chasm into the enterprise it could become huge... Scala Koans I'm a bit of a Koans addict, and I really need more exposure to functional languages so I gave the Scala Koans precompiler a try. Great fun! I'm really glad I attended because I found I had a whole ton of questions. Currently the koans are available here, and the answers are here. Opportunities While we're on the subject can we change the subject now? Hai Gregory, You really need to keep the drinking for later in the day. I mean seriously, you're 34 and you still do this every single time! Sure, you made it to Chad Fowler keynote ok, but you looking a rather pale weren't you? Also might have been nice to attend 'Netflicks in the Cloud' instead of 'Sleeping It Off For People Who Should Know Better'. Kthxbye PS: Stop talking to yourself Not that I entirely regret it, I've had some of my greatest insights through late night drunken conversations at the CodeMash bar. Just might be nice to reign it in a little and get something out of the next morning too. Diversity This is something that is in the back of my mind because of conversations at Codemash as well as throughout the year; I'm realizing more and more how discouraging the IT profession is for women. I notice in the community there has been a lot of attention paid to stamping out harrasment, which is good, but there also seems to be a massive PR issue. I really don't have any solutions, but I figure it can't hurt to pay more attention to whats going on... And in Other News I now have a picture of Chad Fowler giving me more cowbell! Sadly I managed to lose the cowbell later on. Hopefully it's gone to a Better Place. The Womack Family Band joined in with the musicians jam this year. There's my cowbell again! Why must you hide from me? I also finally went in the water for the first time in all the I've been coming to codemash. Why did I wait so long?!?

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  • A little tidbit on Team Build 2010 and error MSB3147

    - by Enrique Lima
    The problem? Performing a build on a ClickOnce solution would not be successful due to the setup.bin not being located. Ok, now what? Researched from corner to corner, install, re-install, update.  Found some interesting posts to fix the issue, but most of them were focused on Team Foundation Server/Team Build 2008, and some other on 2005.  The other interesting tidbit was the frequent indication to modify the registry to help Team Build find the bootstrapper. Background info:  This was a migration I posted about a few days ago, a 32 bit TFS implementation to a full 64 bit TFS implementation.  Now, the project has binaries and dependencies on X86 (This piece of information became essential to moving from a failed build to a successful build). So, what’s the fix? The trick in this case was to go back into the Build Type and check the properties/configuration.  Upon further investigation, I found the following:  Once you Edit the Build Definition, then select Process, expand 3. Advanced and look for MSBuild Platform, switch from Auto to X86.  Ran the Build, and success!

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  • RoundhousE now supports Oracle, SQL2000

    - by Robz / Fervent Coder
    RoundhousE, the database migration software that is based on sql scripts has added support for Oracle and SQL 2000.  There have also been numerous other little things, including better logging and a script run errors table. The script errors table captures what went wrong when/if your scripts are not quite up to par or there is some other issue. A special thanks goes out to http://twitter.com/PascalMestdach and http://twitter.com/jochenjonc. They worked hard on this and all I did was provide guidance and help bring it back to the trunk. This is what an entry in the database looks like: This is a preview of new log: ================================================== Versioning ================================================== Attempting to resolve version from C:\code\roundhouse\code_drop\sample\deployment\_BuildInfo.xml using //buildInfo/version. Found version 0.5.0.188 from C:\code\roundhouse\code_drop\sample\deployment\_BuildInfo.xml. Migrating TestRoundhousE from version 0 to 0.5.0.188. Versioning TestRoundhousE database with version 0.5.0.188 based on http://roundhouse.googlecode.com/svn. ================================================== Migration Scripts ================================================== Looking for Update scripts in "C:\code\roundhouse\code_drop\sample\deployment\..\db\TestRoundhousE\up". These should be one time only scripts. -------------------------------------------------- Running 0001_CreateTables.sql on (local) - TestRoundhousE. Running 0002_ChangeTable.sql on (local) - TestRoundhousE. Running 0003_TestBatchSplitter.sql on (local) - TestRoundhousE. -------------------------------------------------- But what are you waiting for? Head out and grab the latest release today!

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  • Configuration Manager Setting Causing Error PRJ0019

    - by Jeff Paterno
    Recently I ran into an issue with a project failing to build on an automated build server using CruiseControl. When I looked into the build log I saw that the Post-Build project was failing with the error message: "error PRJ0019: A tool returned an error code from "Performing Post-Build Event..." This was most frustrating especially since the solution was building without issue on my local development environment. The Post-Build project was a C++ project that basically called several batch files to unregister/register assemblies, copy resources and supporting files, and place other dependencies in the GAC. I decided to run each of the batch files manually to see if that would provide more information as to why this project was failing. This lead me to determine that the batch file that was placing assemblies in the GAC was the culprit and that it was failing to find a particular assembly. The missing assembly was the output of another project. The project that was not producing the expected output was another C++ project that called a batch file. This batch process was actually embedding resource files into an assembly and then copying the assembly to the expected location. The real confusion started when I looked back into my Subversion log and noted that nothing had changed in this project in more than 2 months! It was almost as if the project had stopped building altogether. But what would cause that?! The Configuration Manager, obviously! Checking the solution's Configuration Manager settings, I found that the project that was not producing any output was in fact not selected to be part of the build process when the "Any CPU" platform was selected. This was the problem! I had recently updated the CruiseControl configurations to force the solution to be built targeting the platform "Any CPU". As a result, the project that was at the root of the problem was not configured to be built and the post-build process was failing when it couldn't find what it needed.

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  • Invitation for the ArcSig meeting on 03/16/2010

    - by Rainer
    Our March Fort Lauderdale ArcSig meeting will be on 03/16/2010 - 6:30 PM at the Microsoft Office in Fort Lauderdale. Quent Hershelman, Microsoft Developer Solution Specialist, presents: Tips, Tricks and Features for Visual Studio 2010. Register at: http://www.fladotnet.com/  - Free Pizza and soft drinks! I am looking forward to see you at the meeting! Rainer Habermann  ArcSig Side Director

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  • System Center Service Manager 2010 SP1 Resource Links

    - by Mickey Gousset
    System Center Service Manager is a new product that Microsoft released last year to handle incident/problem/change management.  Currently the latest version is System Center Service Manager SP1, and there is a Cumulative Update for SP1 that you should grab as well. A strong ecosystem is starting to spring up around this product, with tools and connectors that fill needs not build into the product.  To find the latest list of these items, you need to do to the SCSM 2010 Downloads page.  Here you can find a list of the latest tools and add-ons from Microsoft, as well as third-party vendors.  The Microsoft Exchange connector, and the Powershell Cmdlets are definitely worth it to download and install.

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  • SSIS Technique to Remove/Skip Trailer and/or Bad Data Row in a Flat File

    - by Compudicted
    I noticed that the question on how to skip or bypass a trailer record or a badly formatted/empty row in a SSIS package keeps coming back on the MSDN SSIS Forum. I tried to figure out the reason why and after an extensive search inside the forum and outside it on the entire Web (using several search engines) I indeed found that it seems even thought there is a number of posts and articles on the topic none of them are employing the simplest and the most efficient technique. When I say efficient I mean the shortest time to solution for the fellow developers. OK, enough talk. Let’s face the problem: Typically a flat file (e.g. a comma delimited/CSV) needs to be processed (loaded into a database in most cases really). Oftentimes, such an input file is produced by some sort of an out of control, 3-rd party solution and would come in with some garbage characters and/or even malformed/miss-formatted rows. One such example could be this imaginary file: As you can see several rows have no data and there is an occasional garbage character (1, in this example on row #7). Our task is to produce a clean file that will only capture the meaningful data rows. As an aside, our output/target may be a database table, but for the purpose of this exercise we will simply re-format the source. Let’s outline our course of action to start off: Will use SSIS 2005 to create a DFT; The DFT will use a Flat File Source to our input [bad] flat file; We will use a Conditional Split to process the bad input file; and finally Dump the resulting data to a new [clean] file. Well, only four steps, let’s see if it is too much of work. 1: Start the BIDS and add a DFT to the Control Flow designer (I named it Process Dirty File DFT): 2, and 3: I had added the data viewer to just see what I am getting, alas, surprisingly the data issues were not seen it:   What really is the key in the approach it is to properly set the Conditional Split Transformation. Visually it is: and specifically its SSIS Expression LEN([After CS Column 0]) > 1 The point is to employ the right Boolean expression (yes, the Conditional Split accepts only Boolean conditions). For the sake of this post I re-named the Output Name “No Empty Rows”, but by default it will be named Case 1 (remember to drag your first column into the expression area)! You can close your Conditional Split now. The next part will be crucial – consuming the output of our Conditional Split. Last step - #4: Add a Flat File Destination or any other one you need. Click on the Conditional Split and choose the green arrow to drop onto the target. When you do so make sure you choose the No Empty Rows output and NOT the Conditional Split Default Output. Make the necessary mappings. At this point your package must look like: As the last step will run our package to examine the produced output file. F5: and… it looks great!

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  • Atlanta Code Camp 2012

    - by SURESH GIRIRAJAN
    It was really exciting weekend at Atlanta code camp 2012. This was my first code camp, I presented on “Windows Kinect for Enterprise”. Walked through couple of demos, how we can integrate Kinect with WPF application. One of the demos I walked thorough how you can integrate Kinect with Microsoft Lync 2010 and other one on Car console app.   You can check the uploaded code here. I appreciate all the folks attended my session and thanks for all the organizers. Windows kinect for enterprise View more PowerPoint from sureshgiriraja

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  • PowerShell &ndash; Recycle All IIS App Pools

    - by Lance Robinson
    With a little help from Shay Levy’s post on Stack Overflow and the MSDN documentation, I added this handy function to my profile to automatically recycle all IIS app pools.           function Recycle-AppPools {     param(     [string] $server = "3bhs001",     [int] $mode = 1, # ManagedPipelineModes: 0 = integrated, 1 = classic     )  $iis = [adsi]"IIS://$server/W3SVC/AppPools" $iis.psbase.children | %{ $pool = [adsi]($_.psbase.path);    if ($pool.AppPoolState -eq 2 -and $pool.ManagedPipelineMode -eq $mode) {    # AppPoolStates:  1 = starting, 2 = started, 3 = stopping, 4 = stopped               $pool.psbase.invoke("recycle")      }   }}

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  • EF4 Code First Control Unicode and Decimal Precision, Scale with Attributes

    - by Dane Morgridge
    There are several attributes available when using code first with the Entity Framework 4 CTP5 Code First option.  When working with strings you can use [MaxLength(length)] to control the length and [Required] will work on all properties.  But there are a few things missing. By default all string will be created using unicode so you will get nvarchar instead of varchar.  You can change this using the fluent API or you can create an attribute to make the change.  If you have a lot of properties, the attribute will be much easier and require less code. You will need to add two classes to your project to create the attribute itself: 1: public class UnicodeAttribute : Attribute 2: { 3: bool _isUnicode; 4:  5: public UnicodeAttribute(bool isUnicode) 6: { 7: _isUnicode = isUnicode; 8: } 9:  10: public bool IsUnicode { get { return _isUnicode; } } 11: } 12:  13: public class UnicodeAttributeConvention : AttributeConfigurationConvention<PropertyInfo, StringPropertyConfiguration, UnicodeAttribute> 14: { 15: public override void Apply(PropertyInfo memberInfo, StringPropertyConfiguration configuration, UnicodeAttribute attribute) 16: { 17: configuration.IsUnicode = attribute.IsUnicode; 18: } 19: } The UnicodeAttribue class gives you a [Unicode] attribute that you can use on your properties and the UnicodeAttributeConvention will tell EF how to handle the attribute. You will need to add a line to the OnModelCreating method inside your context for EF to recognize the attribute: 1: protected override void OnModelCreating(System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.ModelBuilder modelBuilder) 2: { 3: modelBuilder.Conventions.Add(new UnicodeAttributeConvention()); 4: base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder); 5: } Once you have this done, you can use the attribute in your classes to make sure that you get database types of varchar instead of nvarchar: 1: [Unicode(false)] 2: public string Name { get; set; }   Another option that is missing is the ability to set the precision and scale on a decimal.  By default decimals get created as (18,0).  If you need decimals to be something like (9,2) then you can once again use the fluent API or create a custom attribute.  As with the unicode attribute, you will need to add two classes to your project: 1: public class DecimalPrecisionAttribute : Attribute 2: { 3: int _precision; 4: private int _scale; 5:  6: public DecimalPrecisionAttribute(int precision, int scale) 7: { 8: _precision = precision; 9: _scale = scale; 10: } 11:  12: public int Precision { get { return _precision; } } 13: public int Scale { get { return _scale; } } 14: } 15:  16: public class DecimalPrecisionAttributeConvention : AttributeConfigurationConvention<PropertyInfo, DecimalPropertyConfiguration, DecimalPrecisionAttribute> 17: { 18: public override void Apply(PropertyInfo memberInfo, DecimalPropertyConfiguration configuration, DecimalPrecisionAttribute attribute) 19: { 20: configuration.Precision = Convert.ToByte(attribute.Precision); 21: configuration.Scale = Convert.ToByte(attribute.Scale); 22:  23: } 24: } Add your line to the OnModelCreating: 1: protected override void OnModelCreating(System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.ModelBuilder modelBuilder) 2: { 3: modelBuilder.Conventions.Add(new UnicodeAttributeConvention()); 4: modelBuilder.Conventions.Add(new DecimalPrecisionAttributeConvention()); 5: base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder); 6: } Now you can use the following on your properties: 1: [DecimalPrecision(9,2)] 2: public decimal Cost { get; set; } Both these options use the same concepts so if there are other attributes that you want to use, you can create them quite simply.  The key to it all is the PropertyConfiguration classes.   If there is a class for the datatype, then you should be able to write an attribute to set almost everything you need.  You could also create a single attribute to encapsulate all of the possible string combinations instead of having multiple attributes on each property. All in all, I am loving code first and having attributes to control database generation instead of using the fluent API is huge and saves me a great deal of time.

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  • Silverlight Cream for December 08, 2010 -- #1005

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Peter Kuhn, David Anson, Jesse Liberty, Mike Taulty(-2-, -3-), Kunal Chowdhury, Jeremy Likness, Martin Krüger, Beth Massi(-2-, -3-)/ Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Rebuilding the PDC 2010 Silverlight Application (Part 1)" Mike Taulty WP7: "WP7: Glossy text block custom control" Martin Krüger Lightswitch: "How to Create a Screen with Multiple Search Parameters in LightSwitch" Beth Massi From SilverlightCream.com: Requirements of and pitfalls in Windows Phone 7 serialization Peter Kuhn discusses Data Contract Serializer issuses on WP7 and how to work around them. Managed implementation of CRC32 and MD5 algorithms updated; new release of ComputeFileHashes for Silverlight, WPF, and the command-line! David Anson ties up some loose ends from a prior post on hash functions, and updates his CRC32 and MD5 algorithms. Windows Phone From Scratch #9 – Visual State Jesse Liberty's latest Windows Phone from Scratch tutorial up... and is on the Visual State... he extends a Button and codes up the State Transitions. Rebuilding the PDC 2010 Silverlight Application (Part 1) Mike Taulty has taken the time to rebuild the PDC2010 Silverlight App that folks wanted the source for... and he's taking multiple posts to explain the heck out of it. This first one is mostly infrastructure. Rebuilding the PDC 2010 Silverlight Application (Part 2) In the 2nd post of the series, Mike Taulty is handling the In/Out of Browser business because he eventually is going to be going OOB. Rebuilding the PDC 2010 Silverlight Application (Part 3) Part 3 finds Mike Taulty delving into WCF Data Services and getting some data on the screen. Paginating Records in Silverlight DataGrid using PagedCollectionView Kunal Chowdhury continues with his investigation of the PagedCollectionView with this post on Pagination of your data. Old School Silverlight Effects If you haven't seen Jeremy Likness' 'Old School' Effects page yet, go just for the entertainment... you'll find yourself hanging around for the code :) WP7: Glossy text block custom control Martin Krüger's latest post is a very cool custom control for WP7 that displays Glossy text... it ain't Metro, but it looks pretty nice... some of it almost like etched text. How to Create a Screen with Multiple Search Parameters in LightSwitch Looks like Beth Massi got a few Lightswitch posts in while I wasn't looking. First up is this one on a multiple-parameter search screen. Adding Static Images and Logos to LightSwitch Applications In the 2nd post, Beth Massi shows how to add your own static images and logos to Lightswitch apps... in response to reader questions. Getting the Most out of LightSwitch Summary Properties In her latest post, Beth Massi explains what Summary Properties are in Lightswitch and how to use them to get the best results for your users. 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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  • Thoughts on Build 2013

    - by D'Arcy Lussier
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2013/06/30/153294.aspxAnd so another Build conference has come to an end. Below are my thoughts/perspectives on various aspects of the event. I’ll do a separate blog post on my thoughts of the Build message for developers. The Good Moscone center was a great venue for Build! Easy to get around, easy to get to, and well maintained, it was a very comfortable conference venue. Yeah, the free swag was nice. Build has built up an expectation that attendees will always get something; it’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft maintains this expectation over the next few Build events. I still maintain that free swag should never be the main reason one attends an event, and for me this was definitely just an added bonus. I’m planning on trying to use the Surface as a dedicated 2nd device at work for meetings, I’ll share my experiences over the next few months. The hackathon event was a great idea, although personally I couldn’t justify spending the money on a conference registration just to spend the entire conference coding. Still, the apps that were created were really great and there was a lot of passion and excitement around the hackathon. I wonder if they couldn’t have had the hackathon on the Monday/Tuesday for those that wanted to participate so they didn’t miss any of the actual conference over Wed/Thurs. San Francisco was a great city to host Build. Getting from hotels to the conference center was very easy (well especially for me, I was only 3 blocks away) and the city itself felt very safe. However, if I never have to fly into SFO again I’ll be alright with that! Delays going into and out of SFO and both apparently were due to the airport itself. The Bad Build is one of those oddities on the conference landscape where people will pay to commit to attending an event without knowing anything about the sessions. We got our list of conference sessions when we registered on Tuesday, not before. And even then, we only got titles and not descriptions (those were eventually made available via the conference’s mobile application). I get it…they’re going to make announcements and they don’t want to give anything away through the session titles. But honestly, there wasn’t anything in the session titles that I would have considered a surprise. Breakfasts were brutal. High-carb pastries, donuts, and muffins with fruit and hard boiled eggs does not a conference breakfast make. I can’t believe that the difference between a continental breakfast per person and a hot breakfast buffet would have been a huge impact to a conference fee that was already around $2000. The vendor area was anemic. I don’t know why Microsoft forces the vendors into cookie-cutter booth areas (this year they were all made of plywood material). WPC, TechEd – booth areas there allow the vendors to be creative with their displays. Not so much for Build. Really odd was the lack of Microsoft’s own representation around Bing. In the day 1 keynote Microsoft made a big deal about Bing as an API. Yet there was nobody in the vendor area set up to provide more information or have discussions with about the Bing API. The Ugly Our name badges were NFC enabled. The purpose of this, beyond the vendors being able to scan your info, wasn’t really made clear. An attendee I talked to showed how you could get a reader app on your phone so you can scan other members cards and collect their contact info – which is a kewl idea; business cards are so 1990’s. But I was *shocked* at the amount of information that was on our name badges! Here’s what’s displayed on our name badge: - Name - Company - Twitter Handle I’m ok with that. But here’s what actually gets read: - Name - Company - Address Used for Registration - Phone Number Used for Registration So sharing that info with another attendee, they get way more of my info than just how to find me on Twitter! Microsoft, you need to fix this for the future. If vendors want to collect information on attendees, they should be able to collect an ID from the badge, then get a report with corresponding records afterwards. My personal information should not be so readily available, and without my knowledge! Final Verdict Maybe its my older age, maybe its where I’m at in life with family, maybe its where I’m at in my career, but when I consider whether a conference experience was valuable I get to the core reason I attend: opportunities to learn, opportunities to network, opportunities to engage with Microsoft. Opportunities to Learn:  Sessions I attended were generally OK, with some really stand out ones on Day 2. I would love to see Microsoft adopt the Dojo format for a portion of their sessions. Hands On Labs are dull, lecture style sessions are great for information sharing. But a guided hands-on coding session (Read: Dojo) provides the best of both worlds. Being that all content is publically available online to everyone (Build attendee or not), the value of attending the conference sessions is decreased. The value though is in the discussions that take part in person afterwards, which leads to… Opportunities to Network: I enjoyed getting together with old friends and connecting with Twitter friends in person for the first time. I also had an opportunity to meet total strangers. So from a networking perspective, Build was fantastic! I still think it would have been great to have an area for ad-hoc discussions – where speakers could announce they’d be available for more questions after their sessions, or attendees who wanted to discuss more in depth on a topic with other attendees could arrange space. Some people have no problems being outgoing and making these things happen, but others are not and a structured model is more attractive. Opportunities to Engage with Microsoft: Hit and miss on this one. Outside of the vendor area, unless you cornered or reached out to a speaker, there wasn’t any defined way to connect with blue badges. And as I mentioned above, Microsoft didn’t have full representation in the vendor area (no Bing). All in all, Build was a fun party where I was informed about some new stuff and got some free swag. Was it worth the time away from home and the hit to my PD budget? I’d say Somewhat. Build is a great informational conference, but I wouldn’t call it a learning conference. Considering that TechEd seems to be moving to more of an IT Pro focus, independent developer conferences seem to be the best value for those looking to learn and not just be informed. With the rapid development cycle Microsoft is embracing, we’re already seeing Build happening twice within a 12 month period. If that continues, the value of attending Build in person starts to diminish – especially with so much content available online. If Microsoft wants Build to be a must-attend event in the future, they need to start incorporating aspects of Tech Ed, past PDCs, and other conferences so those that want to leave with more than free swag have something to attract them.

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  • Thou shalt not put code on a piedestal - Code is a tool, no more, no less

    - by Ralf Westphal
    “Write great code and everything else becomes easier” is what Paul Pagel believes in. That´s his version of an adage by Brian Marick he cites: “treat code as an end, not just a means.” And he concludes: “My post-Agile world is software craftsmanship.” I wonder, if that´s really the way to go. Will “simply” writing great code lead the software industry into the light? He´s alluding to the philosopher Kant who proposed, a human beings should never be treated as a means, but always as an end. But should we transfer this ethical statement into the world of software? I doubt it.   Reason #1: Human beings are categorially different from code. They are autonomous entities who need to find a way of living happily together. To Kant it seemed this goal could only be reached if nobody (ab)used a human being for his/her purposes. Because using a human being, i.e. treating it as a means, would contradict the fundamental autonomy and freedom of human beings. People should hold up a symmetric view of their relationships: Since nobody wants to be (ab)used, nobody should (ab)use anybody else. If you want to be treated decently, with respect, in accordance with your own free will - which means as an end - then do the same to other people. Code is dead, it´s a product, it´s a tool for people to reach their goals. No company spends any money on code other than to save money or earn money in the long run. Code is not a puppy. Enterprises do not commission software development to just feel good in its company. Code is not a buddy. Code is a slave, if you will. A mechanical slave, a non-tangible robot. Code is a tool, is a tool. And if we start to treat it differently, if we elevate its status unduely… I guess that will contort our relationship in a contraproductive way. Please get me right: Just because something is “just a tool”, “just a product” does not mean we should not be careful while designing, building, using it. Right to the contrary. We should be very careful when writing code – but not for the code´s sake! We should be careful because we respect our customers who are fellow human beings who should be treated as an end. If we are careless, neglectful, ignorant when producing code on their behalf, then we´re using them. Being sloppy means you´re caring more for yourself that for your customer. You´re then treating the customer as a means to fulfill some of your own needs. That´s plain unethical behavior.   Reason #2: The focus should always be on your purpose, not on any tool. But if code is treated as an end, then the focus is on the code. That might sound right, because where else should be your focus as a software developer? But, well, I´d say, your focus should be on delivering value to your customer. Because in the end your customer does not care if you write a single line of code. She just wants her problem to be solved. Solving problems is the purpose of any contractor. Code must be treated just as a means, a tool we know how to handle very well. But if we´re really trying to be craftsmen then we should be conscious about exactly that and act ethically. That means we must never be so focused on our tool as to be unable to suggest better solutions to the problems of our customers than code.   I´m all with Paul when he urges us to “Write great code”. Sure, if you need to write code, then by all means do so. Write the best code you can think of – and then try to improve it. Paul has all the best intentions when he signs Brians “treat code as an end” - but as we all know: “The road to hell is paved with best intentions” ;-) Yes, I can imagine a “hell of code focus”. In fact, I don´t need to imagine it, I´m seeing it quite often. Because code hell is whereever two developers stand together and are so immersed in talking about all sorts of coding tricks, design patterns, code smells, technologies, platforms, tools that they lose sight of the big picture. Talking about TDD or SOLID or refactoring is a sign of consciousness – relative to the “cowboy coders” view of the world. But from yet another point of view TDD, SOLID, and refactoring are just cures for ailments within a system. And I fear, if “Writing great code” is the only focus or the main focus of software development, then we as an industry lose the ability to see that. Focus draws a line around something, it defines a horizon for perceptions and thinking. So if we focus on code our horizon ends where “the land of code” ends. I don´t think that should be our professional attitude.   So what about Software Craftsmanship as the next big thing after Agility? I think Software Craftsmanship has an important message for all software developers and beyond. But to make it the successor of the Agility movement seems to miss a point. Agility never claimed to solve all software development problems, I´d say. So to blame it for having missed out on certain aspects of it is wrong. If I had to summarize Agility in one word I´d say “Value”. Agility put value for the customer back in software development. Focus on delivering value early and often – that´s Agility´s mantra. All else follows from that. And I ask you: Is that obsolete? Is delivering value not hip anymore? No, sure not. That´s our very purpose as software developers. So how can Agility become obsolete and need to be replaced? We need to do away with this “either/or”-thinking. It´s either Agility or Lean or Software Craftsmanship or whatnot. Instead we should start integrating concepts and movements. Think “both/and”. Think Agility plus Software Craftsmanship plus Lean plus whatnot. We don´t neet to tear down anything from a piedestal and replace it with a new idol. Instead we should do away with piedestals and arrange whatever is helpful is a circle. Then we can turn to concepts, movements for whatever they are best. After 10 years of Agility we should be able to identify what it was good at – and keep that. Keep Agility around and add whatever Agility was lacking or never concerned with. Add whatever is at the core of Software Craftsmanship. Add whatever is at the core of Lean etc. But don´t call out the age of Post-Agility. Because it better never will end. Because once we start to lose Agility´s core we´re losing focus of the customer.

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  • Visual Studio Extensions

    - by Scott Dorman
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/sdorman/archive/2013/10/18/visual-studio-extensions.aspxAs a product, Visual Studio has been around for a long time. In fact, it’s been 18 years since the first Visual Studio product was launched. In that time, there have been some major changes but perhaps the most important (or at least influential) changes for the course of the product have been in the last few years. While we can argue over what was and wasn’t an important change or what has and hasn’t changed, I want to talk about what I think is the single most important change Microsoft has made to Visual Studio. Specifically, I’m referring to the Visual Studio Gallery (first introduced in Visual Studio 2010) and the ability for third-parties to easily write extensions which can add new functionality to Visual Studio or even change existing functionality. I know Visual Studio had this ability before the Gallery existed, but it was expensive (both from a financial and development resource) perspective for a company or individual to write such an extension. The Visual Studio Gallery changed all of that. As of today, there are over 4000 items in the Gallery. Microsoft itself has over 100 items in the Gallery and more are added all of the time. Why is this such an important feature? Simply put, it allows third-parties (companies such as JetBrains, Telerik, Red Gate, Devart, and DevExpress, just to name a few) to provide enhanced developer productivity experiences directly within the product by providing new functionality or changing existing functionality. However, there is an even more important function that it serves. It also allows Microsoft to do the same. By providing extensions which add new functionality or change existing functionality, Microsoft is not only able to rapidly innovate on new features and changes but to also get those changes into the hands of developers world-wide for feedback. The end result is that these extensions become very robust and often end up becoming part of a later product release. An excellent example of this is the new CodeLens feature of Visual Studio 2013. This is, perhaps, the single most important developer productivity enhancement released in the last decade and already has huge potential. As you can see, out of the box CodeLens supports showing you information about references, unit tests and TFS history.   Fortunately, CodeLens is also accessible to Visual Studio extensions, and Microsoft DevLabs has already written such an extension to show code “health.” This extension shows different code metrics to help make sure your code is maintainable. At this point, you may have already asked yourself, “With over 4000 extensions, how do I find ones that are good?” That’s a really good question. Fortunately, the Visual Studio Gallery has a ratings system in place, which definitely helps but that’s still a lot of extensions to look through. To that end, here is my personal list of favorite extensions. This is something I started back when Visual Studio 2010 was first released, but so much has changed since then that I thought it would be good to provide an updated list for Visual Studio 2013. These are extensions that I have installed and use on a regular basis as a developer that I find indispensible. This list is in no particular order. NuGet Package Manager for Visual Studio 2013 Microsoft CodeLens Code Health Indicator Visual Studio Spell Checker Indent Guides Web Essentials 2013 VSCommands for Visual Studio 2013 Productivity Power Tools (right now this is only for Visual Studio 2012, but it should be updated to support Visual Studio 2013.) Everyone has their own set of favorites, so mine is probably not going to match yours. If there is an extension that you really like, feel free to leave me a comment!

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  • Is Java Open?

    - by EmbeddedInsider
    One way to answer- “which one”  Brew, IBM, Nokia, Android?   Well lets look at the real deal- Sun Java.  How will this work for embedded devices: DEFINITIONS…. The use of Software in systems and solutions that provide dedicated functionality … or designed for use in embedded or function-specific software applications, for example but not limited to: Software embedded in or bundled with industrial control systems, wireless mobile telephones, wireless handheld devices, netbooks, kiosks, TV/STB, Blu-ray Disc devices, telematics and network control switching equipment, printers and storage management systems, and other related systems are excluded from this definition and not licensed under this Agreement. http://www.java.com/en/download/license.jsp Now, the interesting thing is the license between Sun and the people with Java clones.  Does that pass on this exclusion? Lawrence Ricci www.EmbeddedInsider.com

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  • Howto: Using DotNetOpenAuth v3.4.x with ASP.NET MVC2

    - by David Christiansen
    When targeting ASP.NET MVC 2, this assemblyBinding makes MVC 1 references relink to MVC 2 so libraries such as DotNetOpenAuth that compile against MVC 1 will work with it. <runtime><legacyHMACWarning enabled="0" /><assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"><dependentAssembly><assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" /><bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0" newVersion="2.0.0.0" /></dependentAssembly></assemblyBinding></runtime>

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  • Craftsmanship Tour Day 0: New York

    - by Liam McLennan
    Arriving at JFK, at dawn, is beautiful. From above 1,000ft I can see no crime, poverty or ugliness – just the dark orange sunrise-through-smog. The Atlantic appears calm, and I take that as a good sign. Today is the first day of my software craftsmanship tour. I will be visiting three of the shining lights of the software industry over five days, exchanging ideas and learning. Arriving on the red eye from Seattle I feel like hell. My lips, not used to the dry air, are cracked and bleeding. I get changed in the JFK restroom and make my way from the airport. Following Rik’s directions I take the airtrain to Jamaica. Rik is an engineering manager at Didit in Long Island, the first stop on my tour. From Jamaica I take the Long Island Rail Road train to Rockville Centre, home of Didit.

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  • What I&rsquo;m Reading &ndash; Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner&rs

    - by Dave Campbell
    I don’t have a lot of time for reading lately, so James Patterson and all those guys are *way* ahead of me … but I do try to make time to read technical material. A couple books have come across just recently and I thought I’d mention them one at a time. The book I want to mention tonight is Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner’s Guide : by Cameron Albert and Frank LaVigne. Cameron and Frank are both great guys and you’ve seen their blog posts come across my SilverlightCream posts many times. I like the writing and format of the book. It leads you quite well from one concept to the next and for a technical book, it holds your interest. You can check out a free chapter here. I have the eBook because for technical material, at least lately, I’ve gravitated toward that. I can have it with me on a USB stick at work, or at home. Read the free chapter then check out their blogs. Even if you think you know a lot of this material, I think you’ll find yourself learning something, and besides, it’s a great one-place reference. Good work guys! Technorati Tags: Silverlight 4

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  • How Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server enable Compliance

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    One of the things that makes Team Foundation Server (TFS) the most powerful Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) platform is the traceability it provides to those that use it. This traceability is crucial to enable many companies to adhere to many of the Compliance regulations to which they are bound (e.g. CFR 21 Part 11 or Sarbanes–Oxley.)   From something as simple as relating Tasks to Check-in’s or being able to see the top 10 files in your codebase that are causing the most Bugs, to identifying which Bugs and Requirements are in which Release. All that information is available and more in TFS. Although all of this tradability is available within TFS you do need to understand that it is not for free. Well… I say that, but if you are using TFS properly you will have this information with no additional work except for firing up the reporting. Using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server you can relate every line of code changes all the way up to requirements and back down through Test Cases to the Test Results. Figure: The only thing missing is Build In order to build the relationship model below we need to examine how each of the relationships get there. Each member of your team from programmer to tester and Business Analyst to Business have their roll to play to knit this together. Figure: The relationships required to make this work can get a little confusing If Build is added to this to relate Work Items to Builds and with knowledge of which builds are in which environments you can easily identify what is contained within a Release. Figure: How are things progressing Along with the ability to produce the progress and trend reports the tractability that is built into TFS can be used to fulfil most audit requirements out of the box, and augmented to fulfil the rest. In order to understand the relationships, lets look at each of the important Artifacts and how they are associated with each other… Requirements – The root of all knowledge Requirements are the thing that the business cares about delivering. These could be derived as User Stories or Business Requirements Documents (BRD’s) but they should be what the Business asks for. Requirements can be related to many of the Artifacts in TFS, so lets look at the model: Figure: If the centre of the world was a requirement We can track which releases Requirements were scheduled in, but this can change over time as more details come to light. Figure: Who edited the Requirement and when There is also the ability to query Work Items based on the History of changed that were made to it. This is particularly important with Requirements. It might not be enough to say what Requirements were completed in a given but also to know which Requirements were ever assigned to a particular release. Figure: Some magic required, but result still achieved As an augmentation to this it is also possible to run a query that shows results from the past, just as if we had a time machine. You can take any Query in the system and add a “Asof” clause at the end to query historical data in the operational store for TFS. select <fields> from WorkItems [where <condition>] [order by <fields>] [asof <date>] Figure: Work Item Query Language (WIQL) format In order to achieve this you do need to save the query as a *.wiql file to your local computer and edit it in notepad, but one imported into TFS you run it any time you want. Figure: Saving Queries locally can be useful All of these Audit features are available throughout the Work Item Tracking (WIT) system within TFS. Tasks – Where the real work gets done Tasks are the work horse of the development team, but they only as useful as Excel if you do not relate them properly to other Artifacts. Figure: The Task Work Item Type has its own relationships Requirements should be broken down into Tasks that the development team work from to build what is required by the business. This may be done by a small dedicated group or by everyone that will be working on the software team but however it happens all of the Tasks create should be a Child of a Requirement Work Item Type. Figure: Tasks are related to the Requirement Tasks should be used to track the day-to-day activities of the team working to complete the software and as such they should be kept simple and short lest developers think they are more trouble than they are worth. Figure: Task Work Item Type has a narrower purpose Although the Task Work Item Type describes the work that will be done the actual development work involves making changes to files that are under Source Control. These changes are bundled together in a single atomic unit called a Changeset which is committed to TFS in a single operation. During this operation developers can associate Work Item with the Changeset. Figure: Tasks are associated with Changesets   Changesets – Who wrote this crap Changesets themselves are just an inventory of the changes that were made to a number of files to complete a Task. Figure: Changesets are linked by Tasks and Builds   Figure: Changesets tell us what happened to the files in Version Control Although comments can be changed after the fact, the inventory and Work Item associations are permanent which allows us to Audit all the way down to the individual change level. Figure: On Check-in you can resolve a Task which automatically associates it Because of this we can view the history on any file within the system and see how many changes have been made and what Changesets they belong to. Figure: Changes are tracked at the File level What would be even more powerful would be if we could view these changes super imposed over the top of the lines of code. Some people call this a blame tool because it is commonly used to find out which of the developers introduced a bug, but it can also be used as another method of Auditing changes to the system. Figure: Annotate shows the lines the Annotate functionality allows us to visualise the relationship between the individual lines of code and the Changesets. In addition to this you can create a Label and apply it to a version of your version control. The problem with Label’s is that they can be changed after they have been created with no tractability. This makes them practically useless for any sort of compliance audit. So what do you use? Branches – And why we need them Branches are a really powerful tool for development and release management, but they are most important for audits. Figure: One way to Audit releases The R1.0 branch can be created from the Label that the Build creates on the R1 line when a Release build was created. It can be created as soon as the Build has been signed of for release. However it is still possible that someone changed the Label between this time and its creation. Another better method can be to explicitly link the Build output to the Build. Builds – Lets tie some more of this together Builds are the glue that helps us enable the next level of tractability by tying everything together. Figure: The dashed pieces are not out of the box but can be enabled When the Build is called and starts it looks at what it has been asked to build and determines what code it is going to get and build. Figure: The folder identifies what changes are included in the build The Build sets a Label on the Source with the same name as the Build, but the Build itself also includes the latest Changeset ID that it will be building. At the end of the Build the Build Agent identifies the new Changesets it is building by looking at the Check-ins that have occurred since the last Build. Figure: What changes have been made since the last successful Build It will then use that information to identify the Work Items that are associated with all of the Changesets Changesets are associated with Build and change the “Integrated In” field of those Work Items . Figure: Find all of the Work Items to associate with The “Integrated In” field of all of the Work Items identified by the Build Agent as being integrated into the completed Build are updated to reflect the Build number that successfully integrated that change. Figure: Now we know which Work Items were completed in a build Now that we can link a single line of code changed all the way back through the Task that initiated the action to the Requirement that started the whole thing and back down to the Build that contains the finished Requirement. But how do we know wither that Requirement has been fully tested or even meets the original Requirements? Test Cases – How we know we are done The only way we can know wither a Requirement has been completed to the required specification is to Test that Requirement. In TFS there is a Work Item type called a Test Case Test Cases enable two scenarios. The first scenario is the ability to track and validate Acceptance Criteria in the form of a Test Case. If you agree with the Business a set of goals that must be met for a Requirement to be accepted by them it makes it both difficult for them to reject a Requirement when it passes all of the tests, but also provides a level of tractability and validation for audit that a feature has been built and tested to order. Figure: You can have many Acceptance Criteria for a single Requirement It is crucial for this to work that someone from the Business has to sign-off on the Test Case moving from the  “Design” to “Ready” states. The Second is the ability to associate an MS Test test with the Test Case thereby tracking the automated test. This is useful in the circumstance when you want to Track a test and the test results of a Unit Test designed to test the existence of and then re-existence of a a Bug. Figure: Associating a Test Case with an automated Test Although it is possible it may not make sense to track the execution of every Unit Test in your system, there are many Integration and Regression tests that may be automated that it would make sense to track in this way. Bug – Lets not have regressions In order to know wither a Bug in the application has been fixed and to make sure that it does not reoccur it needs to be tracked. Figure: Bugs are the centre of their own world If the fix to a Bug is big enough to require that it is broken down into Tasks then it is probably a Requirement. You can associate a check-in with a Bug and have it tracked against a Build. You would also have one or more Test Cases to prove the fix for the Bug. Figure: Bugs have many associations This allows you to track Bugs / Defects in your system effectively and report on them. Change Request – I am not a feature In the CMMI Process template Change Requests can also be easily tracked through the system. In some cases it can be very important to track Change Requests separately as an Auditor may want to know what was changed and who authorised it. Again and similar to Bugs, if the Change Request is big enough that it would require to be broken down into Tasks it is in reality a new feature and should be tracked as a Requirement. Figure: Make sure your Change Requests only Affect Requirements and not rewrite them Conclusion Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server together provide an exceptional Application Lifecycle Management platform that can help your team comply with even the harshest of Compliance requirements while still enabling them to be Agile. Most Audits are heavy on required documentation but most of that information is captured for you as long a you do it right. You don’t even need every team member to understand it all as each of the Artifacts are relevant to a different type of team member. Business Analysts manage Requirements and Change Requests Programmers manage Tasks and check-in against Change Requests and Bugs Testers manage Bugs and Test Cases Build Masters manage Builds Although there is some crossover there are still rolls or “hats” that are worn. Do you thing this is all achievable? Have I missed anything that you think should be there?

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  • Quick and Dirty way to search for characters in a string

    - by mbcrump
    I saw this today on StackOverflow, all credit goes to Jon Skeet. I have always used RegEx or loops to check for special chars. This is a more human-friendly way of doing it.   Code Snippet using System;   class Program {     //field     private static readonly char[] SpecialChars = "!@#$%^&*()".ToCharArray();       static void Main(string[] args)     {         //text to search for         string text = "michael";         int indexOf = text.IndexOfAny(SpecialChars);               if (indexOf == -1)             {                 Console.WriteLine("no special char");             }               Console.ReadLine();     } }

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