geeks - Page 94 - Developer IT

Code of my Azure presentation at TechDays Sweden.

- by Kurt Claeys

You can download the code (VS2010) here.

Geekswithblogs.net | Congrats to the new and renewed MVPs

- by Geekswithblogs Administrator

We just wanted to send a shout out to all those who have entered or have been renewed into the MVP program. I always wondered why they wouldn’t move the April date off of April Fool’s Day cause that would be an interesting email to get on April 1. If you are a GWB blogger and an MVP but your name does not have an MVP logo next to it on the homepage, let us know via support and we will get you added. Related Tags: Geekswithblogs.net, MVP, Microsoft

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Using the jQuery UI Library in a MVC 3 Application to Build a Dialog Form

- by ChrisD

Using a simulated dialog window is a nice way to handle inline data editing. The jQuery UI has a UI widget for a dialog window that makes it easy to get up and running with it in your application. With the release of ASP.NET MVC 3, Microsoft included the jQuery UI scripts and files in the MVC 3 project templates for Visual Studio. With the release of the MVC 3 Tools Update, Microsoft implemented the inclusion of those with NuGet as packages. That means we can get up and running using the latest version of the jQuery UI with minimal effort. To the code! Another that might interested you about JQuery Mobile and ASP.NET MVC 3 with C#. If you are starting with a new MVC 3 application and have the Tools Update then you are a NuGet update and a <link> and <script> tag away from adding the jQuery UI to your project. If you are using an existing MVC project you can still get the jQuery UI library added to your project via NuGet and then add the link and script tags. Assuming that you have pulled down the latest version (at the time of this publish it was 1.8.13) you can add the following link and script tags to your <head> tag: < link href = "@Url.Content(" ~ / Content / themes / base / jquery . ui . all . css ")" rel = "Stylesheet" type = "text/css" /> < script src = "@Url.Content(" ~ / Scripts / jquery-ui-1 . 8 . 13 . min . js ")" type = "text/javascript" ></ script > The jQuery UI library relies upon the CSS scripts and some image files to handle rendering of its widgets (you can choose a different theme or role your own if you like). Adding these to the stock _Layout.cshtml file results in the following markup: <!DOCTYPE html> < html > < head > < meta charset = "utf-8" /> < title > @ViewBag.Title </ title > < link href = "@Url.Content(" ~ / Content / Site . css ")" rel = "stylesheet" type = "text/css" /> <link href="@Url.Content("~/Content/themes/base/jquery.ui.all.css")" rel="Stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-1.5.1.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/modernizr-1.7.min . js ")" type = "text/javascript" ></ script > < script src = "@Url.Content(" ~ / Scripts / jquery-ui-1 . 8 . 13 . min . js ")" type = "text/javascript" ></ script > </ head > < body > @RenderBody() </ body > </ html > Our example will involve building a list of notes with an id, title and description. Each note can be edited and new notes can be added. The user will never have to leave the single page of notes to manage the note data. The add and edit forms will be delivered in a jQuery UI dialog widget and the note list content will get reloaded via an AJAX call after each change to the list. To begin, we need to craft a model and a data management class. We will do this so we can simulate data storage and get a feel for the workflow of the user experience. The first class named Note will have properties to represent our data model. namespace Website . Models { public class Note { public int Id { get ; set ; } public string Title { get ; set ; } public string Body { get ; set ; } } } The second class named NoteManager will be used to set up our simulated data storage and provide methods for querying and updating the data. We will take a look at the class content as a whole and then walk through each method after. using System . Collections . ObjectModel ; using System . Linq ; using System . Web ; namespace Website . Models { public class NoteManager { public Collection < Note > Notes { get { if ( HttpRuntime . Cache [ "Notes" ] == null ) this . loadInitialData (); return ( Collection < Note >) HttpRuntime . Cache [ "Notes" ]; } } private void loadInitialData () { var notes = new Collection < Note >(); notes . Add ( new Note { Id = 1 , Title = "Set DVR for Sunday" , Body = "Don't forget to record Game of Thrones!" }); notes . Add ( new Note { Id = 2 , Title = "Read MVC article" , Body = "Check out the new iwantmymvc.com post" }); notes . Add ( new Note { Id = 3 , Title = "Pick up kid" , Body = "Daughter out of school at 1:30pm on Thursday. Don't forget!" }); notes . Add ( new Note { Id = 4 , Title = "Paint" , Body = "Finish the 2nd coat in the bathroom" }); HttpRuntime . Cache [ "Notes" ] = notes ; } public Collection < Note > GetAll () { return Notes ; } public Note GetById ( int id ) { return Notes . Where ( i => i . Id == id ). FirstOrDefault (); } public int Save ( Note item ) { if ( item . Id <= 0 ) return saveAsNew ( item ); var existingNote = Notes . Where ( i => i . Id == item . Id ). FirstOrDefault (); existingNote . Title = item . Title ; existingNote . Body = item . Body ; return existingNote . Id ; } private int saveAsNew ( Note item ) { item . Id = Notes . Count + 1 ; Notes . Add ( item ); return item . Id ; } } } The class has a property named Notes that is read only and handles instantiating a collection of Note objects in the runtime cache if it doesn't exist, and then returns the collection from the cache. This property is there to give us a simulated storage so that we didn't have to add a full blown database (beyond the scope of this post). The private method loadInitialData handles pre-filling the collection of Note objects with some initial data and stuffs them into the cache. Both of these chunks of code would be refactored out with a move to a real means of data storage. The GetAll and GetById methods access our simulated data storage to return all of our notes or a specific note by id. The Save method takes in a Note object, checks to see if it has an Id less than or equal to zero (we assume that an Id that is not greater than zero represents a note that is new) and if so, calls the private method saveAsNew . If the Note item sent in has an Id , the code finds that Note in the simulated storage, updates the Title and Description , and returns the Id value. The saveAsNew method sets the Id , adds it to the simulated storage, and returns the Id value. The increment of the Id is simulated here by getting the current count of the note collection and adding 1 to it. The setting of the Id is the only other chunk of code that would be refactored out when moving to a different data storage approach. With our model and data manager code in place we can turn our attention to the controller and views. We can do all of our work in a single controller. If we use a HomeController , we can add an action method named Index that will return our main view. An action method named List will get all of our Note objects from our manager and return a partial view. We will use some jQuery to make an AJAX call to that action method and update our main view with the partial view content returned. Since the jQuery AJAX call will cache the call to the content in Internet Explorer by default (a setting in jQuery), we will decorate the List, Create and Edit action methods with the OutputCache attribute and a duration of 0. This will send the no-cache flag back in the header of the content to the browser and jQuery will pick that up and not cache the AJAX call. The Create action method instantiates a new Note model object and returns a partial view, specifying the NoteForm.cshtml view file and passing in the model. The NoteForm view is used for the add and edit functionality. The Edit action method takes in the Id of the note to be edited, loads the Note model object based on that Id , and does the same return of the partial view as the Create method. The Save method takes in the posted Note object and sends it to the manager to save. It is decorated with the HttpPost attribute to ensure that it will only be available via a POST. It returns a Json object with a property named Success that can be used by the UX to verify everything went well (we won't use that in our example). Both the add and edit actions in the UX will post to the Save action method, allowing us to reduce the amount of unique jQuery we need to write in our view. The contents of the HomeController.cs file: using System . Web . Mvc ; using Website . Models ; namespace Website . Controllers { public class HomeController : Controller { public ActionResult Index () { return View (); } [ OutputCache ( Duration = 0 )] public ActionResult List () { var manager = new NoteManager (); var model = manager . GetAll (); return PartialView ( model ); } [ OutputCache ( Duration = 0 )] public ActionResult Create () { var model = new Note (); return PartialView ( "NoteForm" , model ); } [ OutputCache ( Duration = 0 )] public ActionResult Edit ( int id ) { var manager = new NoteManager (); var model = manager . GetById ( id ); return PartialView ( "NoteForm" , model ); } [ HttpPost ] public JsonResult Save ( Note note ) { var manager = new NoteManager (); var noteId = manager . Save ( note ); return Json ( new { Success = noteId > 0 }); } } } The view for the note form, NoteForm.cshtml , looks like so: @model Website . Models . Note @using ( Html . BeginForm ( "Save" , "Home" , FormMethod . Post , new { id = "NoteForm" })) { @Html . Hidden ( "Id" ) < label class = "Title" > < span > Title < /span><br / > @Html . TextBox ( "Title" ) < /label> <label class="Body"> <span>Body</ span >< br /> @Html . TextArea ( "Body" ) < /label> } It is a strongly typed view for our Note model class. We give the <form> element an id attribute so that we can reference it via jQuery. The <label> and <span> tags give our UX some structure that we can style with some CSS. The List.cshtml view is used to render out a <ul> element with all of our notes. @model IEnumerable < Website . Models . Note > < ul class = "NotesList" > @foreach ( var note in Model ) { < li > @note . Title < br /> @note . Body < br /> < span class = "EditLink ButtonLink" noteid = "@note.Id" > Edit < /span> </ li > } < /ul> This view is strongly typed as well. It includes a <span> tag that we will use as an edit button. We add a custom attribute named noteid to the <span> tag that we can use in our jQuery to identify the Id of the note object we want to edit. The view, Index.cshtml , contains a bit of html block structure and all of our jQuery logic code. @ { ViewBag . Title = "Index" ; } < h2 > Notes < /h2> <div id="NoteListBlock"></ div > < span class = "AddLink ButtonLink" > Add New Note < /span> <div id="NoteDialog" title="" class="Hidden"></ div > < script type = "text/javascript" > $ ( function () { $ ( "#NoteDialog" ). dialog ({ autoOpen : false , width : 400 , height : 330 , modal : true , buttons : { "Save" : function () { $ . post ( "/Home/Save" , $ ( "#NoteForm" ). serialize (), function () { $ ( "#NoteDialog" ). dialog ( "close" ); LoadList (); }); }, Cancel : function () { $ ( this ). dialog ( "close" ); } } }); $ ( ".EditLink" ). live ( "click" , function () { var id = $ ( this ). attr ( "noteid" ); $ ( "#NoteDialog" ). html ( "" ) . dialog ( "option" , "title" , "Edit Note" ) . load ( "/Home/Edit/" + id , function () { $ ( "#NoteDialog" ). dialog ( "open" ); }); }); $ ( ".AddLink" ). click ( function () { $ ( "#NoteDialog" ). html ( "" ) . dialog ( "option" , "title" , "Add Note" ) . load ( "/Home/Create" , function () { $ ( "#NoteDialog" ). dialog ( "open" ); }); }); LoadList (); }); function LoadList () { $ ( "#NoteListBlock" ). load ( "/Home/List" ); } < /script> The <div> tag with the id attribute of "NoteListBlock" is used as a container target for the load of the partial view content of our List action method. It starts out empty and will get loaded with content via jQuery once the DOM is loaded. The <div> tag with the id attribute of "NoteDialog" is the element for our dialog widget. The jQuery UI library will use the title attribute for the text in the dialog widget top header bar. We start out with it empty here and will dynamically change the text via jQuery based on the request to either add or edit a note. This <div> tag is given a CSS class named "Hidden" that will set the display:none style on the element. Since our call to the jQuery UI method to make the element a dialog widget will occur in the jQuery document ready code block, the end user will see the <div> element rendered in their browser as the page renders and then it will hide after that jQuery call. Adding the display:hidden to the <div> element via CSS will ensure that it is never rendered until the user triggers the request to open the dialog. The jQuery document load block contains the setup for the dialog node, click event bindings for the edit and add links, and a call to a JavaScript function called LoadList that handles the AJAX call to the List action method. The .dialog() method is called on the "NoteDialog" <div> element and the options are set for the dialog widget. The buttons option defines 2 buttons and their click actions. The first is the "Save" button (the text in quotations is used as the text for the button) that will do an AJAX post to our Save action method and send the serialized form data from the note form (targeted with the id attribute "NoteForm"). Upon completion it will close the dialog widget and call the LoadList to update the UX without a redirect. The "Cancel" button simply closes the dialog widget. The .live() method handles binding a function to the "click" event on all elements with the CSS class named EditLink . We use the .live() method because it will catch and bind our function to elements even as the DOM changes. Since we will be constantly changing the note list as we add and edit we want to ensure that the edit links get wired up with click events. The function for the click event on the edit links gets the noteid attribute and stores it in a local variable. Then it clears out the HTML in the dialog element (to ensure a fresh start), calls the .dialog() method and sets the "title" option (this sets the title attribute value), and then calls the .load() AJAX method to hit our Edit action method and inject the returned content into the "NoteDialog" <div> element. Once the .load() method is complete it opens the dialog widget. The click event binding for the add link is similar to the edit, only we don't need to get the id value and we load the Create action method. This binding is done via the .click() method because it will only be bound on the initial load of the page. The add button will always exist. Finally, we toss in some CSS in the Content/Site.css file to style our form and the add/edit links. . ButtonLink { color : Blue ; cursor : pointer ; } . ButtonLink : hover { text - decoration : underline ; } . Hidden { display : none ; } #NoteForm label { display:block; margin-bottom:6px; } #NoteForm label > span { font-weight:bold; } #NoteForm input[type=text] { width:350px; } #NoteForm textarea { width:350px; height:80px; } With all of our code in place we can do an F5 and see our list of notes: If we click on an edit link we will get the dialog widget with the correct note data loaded: And if we click on the add new note link we will get the dialog widget with the empty form: The end result of our solution tree for our sample:

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I, Android

- by andrewbrust

I’m just back from the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). I go to CES to get a sense of what Microsoft is doing in the consumer space, and how people are reacting to it. When I first went to CES 2 years ago, Steve Ballmer announced the beta of Windows 7 at his keynote address, and the crowd went wild. When I went again last year, everyone was hoping for a Windows tablet announcement at the Ballmer keynote. Although they didn’t get one (unless you count the unreleased HP Slate running Windows 7), people continued to show anticipation around Project Natal (which became Xbox 360 Kinect) and around Windows Phone 7. On the show floor last year, there were machines everywhere running Windows 7, including lots of netbooks. Microsoft had a serious influence at the show both years. But this year, one brand, one product, one operating system evidenced itself over and over again: Android. Whether in the multitude of tablet devices that were shown across the show, or the burgeoning number of smartphones shown (including all four forthcoming 4G-LTE handsets at Verizon Wireless’ booth) or the Google TV set top box from Logitech and the embedded implementation in new Sony TV models, Android was was there. There was excitement in the ubiquity of Android 2.2 (Froyo) and the emergence of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). There was anticipation around the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). There were highly customized skins. There was even an official CES Android app for navigating the exhibit halls and planning events. Android was so ubiquitous, in fact, that it became surprising to find a device that was running anything else. It was as if Android had become the de facto Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) operating system. Motorola’s booth was nothing less than an Android showcase. And it was large, and it was packed. Clearly Moto’s fortunes have improved dramatically in the last year and change. The fact that the company morphed from being a core Windows Mobile OEM to an Android poster child seems non-coincidental to their improved fortunes. Even erstwhile WinMo OEMs who now do produce Windows Phone 7 devices were not pushing them. Perhaps I missed them, but I couldn’t find WP7 handsets at Samsung’s booth, nor at LG’s. And since the only carrier exhibiting at the show was Verizon Wireless, which doesn’t yet have WP7 devices, this left Microsoft’s booth as the only place to see the phones. Why is Android so popular with consumer electronics manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan? Yes, it’s free, but there’s more to it than that. Android seems to have succeeded as an OEM OS because it’s directed at OEMs who are permitted to personalize it and extend it, and it provides enough base usability and touch-friendliness that OEMs want it. In the process, it has become a de facto standard (which makes OEMs want it even more), and has done so in a remarkably short time: the OS was launched on a single phone in the US just 2 1/4 years ago. Despite its success and popularity, Apple’s iOS would never be used by OEMs, because it’s not meant to be embedded and customized, but rather to provide a fully finished experience. Ironically, Windows Phone 7 is likewise disqualified from such embedded use. Windows Mobile (6.x and earlier) may have been a candidate had it not atrophied so much in its final 5 years of life. What can Microsoft do? It could start by developing a true touch-centric OS for tablets, whether that be within Windows 8, or derived from Windows Phone 7. It would then need to deconstruct that finished product into components, via a new or altered version of Windows Embedded or Windows Embedded Compact. And if Microsoft went that far, it would only make sense to work with its OEMs and mobile carriers to make certain they showcase their products using the OS at CES, and other consumer electronics venues, prominently. Mostly though, Microsoft would need to decide if it were really committed to putting sustained time, effort and money into a commodity product, especially given the far greater financial return that it now derives from its core Windows and Office franchises. Microsoft would need to see an OEM OS for what it is: a loss leader that helps build brand and platform momentum for up-level products. Is that enough to make the investment worthwhile? One thing is certain: if that question is not acknowledged and answered honestly, then any investment will be squandered.

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What’s new in MVVM Light V3

- by Laurent Bugnion

V3 of the MVVM Light Toolkit was released during MIX10, after quite a long alpha stage. This post lists the new features in MVVM Light V3. Compatibility MVVM Light Toolkit V3 can be installed for the following tools and framework versions: Visual Studio 2008 SP1, Expression Blend 3 Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5 SP1 Silverlight 3 Visual Studio 2010 RC, Expression Blend 4 beta Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5 SP1 Windows Presentation Foundation 4 RC Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 RC For more information about installing the MVVM Light Toolkit V3, please visit this page. For cleaning up existing installation, see this page. New in V3 RTM The following features have been added after V3 alpha3: Project template for the Windows Phone 7 series (Silverlight) This new template allows you to create a new MVVM Light application in Visual Studio 2010 RC and to run it in the Windows Phone 7 series emulator. This template uses the Silverlight 3 version of the MVVM Light Toolkit V3. At this time, only the essentials features of the GalaSoft.MvvmLight.dll assembly are supported on the phone. New in V3 alpha3 The following features have been added after V3 alpha2: New logo An awesome logo has been designed for MVVM Light by Philippe Schutz. DispatcherHelper class (in GalaSoft.MvvmLight.Extras.dll) This class is useful when you work on multi-threaded WPF or Silverlight applications. Initializing: The DispatcherHelper class must be initialized in the UI thread. For example, you can initialize the class in a Silverlight application’s Application_Startup event handler, or in the WPF application’s static App constructor (in App.xaml). // Initializing in Silverlight (in App.xaml) private void Application_Startup( object sender, StartupEventArgs e) { RootVisual = new MainPage(); DispatcherHelper.Initialize(); } // Initializing in WPF (in App.xaml) static App() { DispatcherHelper.Initialize(); } Verifying if a property exists The ViewModelBase.RaisePropertyChanged method now checks if a given property name exists on the ViewModel class, and throws an exception if that property cannot be found. This is useful to detect typos in a property name, for example during a refactoring. Note that the check is only done in DEBUG mode. Replacing IDisposable with ICleanup The IDisposable implementation in the ViewModelBase class has been marked obsolete. Instead, the ICleanup interface (and its Cleanup method) has been added. Implementing IDisposable in a ViewModel is still possible, but must be done explicitly. IDisposable in ViewModelBase was a bad practice, because it supposes that the ViewModel is garbage collected after Dispose is called. instead, the Cleanup method does not have such expectation. The ViewModelLocator class (created when an MVVM Light project template is used in Visual Studio or Expression Blend) exposes a static Cleanup method, which should in turn call each ViewModel’s Cleanup method. The ViewModel is free to override the Cleanup method if local cleanup must be performed. Passing EventArgs to command with EventToCommand The EventToCommand class is used to bind any event to an ICommand (typically on the ViewModel). In this case, it can be useful to pass the event’s EventArgs parameter to the command in the ViewModel. For example, for the MouseEnter event, you can pass the MouseEventArgs to a RelayCommand<MouseEventArgs> as shown in the next listings. Note: Bringing UI specific classes (such as EventArgs) into the ViewModel reduces the testability of the ViewModel, and thus should be used with care. Setting EventToCommand and PassEventArgsToCommand: <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot"> <i:Interaction.Triggers> <i:EventTrigger EventName="MouseEnter"> <cmd:EventToCommand Command="{Binding MyCommand}" PassEventArgsToCommand="True" /> </i:EventTrigger> </i:Interaction.Triggers> </Grid> Getting the EventArgs in the command public RelayCommand<MouseEventArgs> MyCommand { get; private set; } public MainViewModel() { MyCommand = new RelayCommand<MouseEventArgs>(e => { // e is of type MouseEventArgs }); } Changes to templates Various changes have been made to project templates and item templates to make them more compatible with Silverlight 4 and to improve their visibility in Visual Studio and Expression Blend. Bug corrections When a message is sent through the Messenger class using the method Messenger.Default.Send<T>(T message, object token), and the token is a simple value (for example int), the message was not sent correctly. This bug is now corrected. New in V3 The following features have been added after V2. Sending messages with callback Certain classes have been added to the GalaSoft.MvvmLight.Messaging namespace, allowing sending a message and getting a callback from the recipient. These classes are: NotificationMessageWithCallback: Base class for messages with callback. NotificationMessageAction: A class with string notification, and a parameterless callback. NotificationMessageAction<T>: A class with string notification, and a callback with a parameter of type T. To send a message with callback, use the following code: var message = new NotificationMessageAction<bool>( "Hello world", callbackMessage => { // This is the callback code if (callbackMessage) { // ... } }); Messenger.Default.Send(message); To register and receive a message with callback, use the following code: Messenger.Default.Register<NotificationMessageAction<bool>>( this, message => { // Do something // Execute the callback message.Execute(true); }); Messenger.Default can be overriden The Messenger.Default property can also be replaced, for example for unit testing purposes, by using the Messenger.OverrideDefault method. All the public methods of the Messenger class have been made virtual, and can be overridden in the test messenger class. Sending messages to interfaces In V2, it was possible to deliver messages targeted to instances of a given class. in V3 it is still possible, but in addition you can deliver a message to instances that implement a certain interface. The message will not be delivered to other recipients. Use the overload Messenger.Default.Send<TMessage, TTarget>(TMessage message) where TTarget is, in fact, an interface (for example IDisposable). Of course the recipient must register to receive the type of message TMessage. Sending messages with a token Messages can now be sent through the Messenger with a token. To send a message with token, use the method overload Send<TMessage>(TMessage message, object token). To receive a message with token, use the methods Register<TMessage>(object recipient, object token, Action<TMessage> action) or Register<TMessage>(object recipient, object token, bool receiveDerivedMessagesToo, Action<TMessage> action) The token can be a simple value (int, string, etc…) or an instance of a class. The message is not delivered to recipients who registered with a different token, or with no token at all. Renaming CommandMessage to NotificationMessage To avoid confusion with ICommand and RelayCommand, the CommandMessage class has been renamed to NotificationMessage. This message class can be used to deliver a notification (of type string) to a recipient. ViewModelBase constructor with IMessenger The ViewModelBase class now accepts an IMessenger parameter. If this constructor is used instead of the default empty constructor, the IMessenger passed as parameter will be used to broadcast a PropertyChangedMessage when the method RaisePropertyChanged<T>(string propertyName, T oldValue, T newValue, bool broadcast) is used. In the default ViewModelBase constructor is used, the Messenger.Default instance will be used instead. EventToCommand behavior The EventToCommand behavior has been added in V3. It can be used to bind any event of any FrameworkElement to any ICommand (for example a RelayCommand located in the ViewModel). More information about the EventToCommand behavior can be found here and here. Updated the project templates to remove the sample application The project template has been updated to remove the sample application that was created every time that a new MVVM Light application was created in Visual Studio or Blend. This makes the creation of a new application easier, because you don’t need to remove code before you can start writing code. Bug corrections Some bugs that were in Version 2 have been corrected: In some occasions, an exception could be thrown when a recipient was registered for a message at the same time as a message was received. New names for DLLs If you upgrade an existing installation, you will need to change the reference to the DLLs in C:\Program Files\Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft)\Mvvm Light Toolkit\Binaries. The assemblies have been moved, and the versions for Silverlight 4 and for WPF4 have been renamed, to avoid some confusion. It is now easier to make sure that you are using the correct DLL. WPF3.5SP1, Silverlight 3 When using the DLLs, make sure that you use the correct versions. WPF4, Silverlight 4 When using the DLLs, make sure that you use the correct versions. Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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Windows CE and the Compact Framework are dead?

- by Valter Minute

This is one of the question that I’ve been asked more and more frequently at my public speeches and each time I meet customers. The announcement of the new Windows Phone 7 platform and the release of Visual Studio 2010 generated a bit of confusion around Windows CE and some of the technologies it supports. Windows CE is still alive and a lot of good programmers are working on the new releases (I had a chance to know some of them during the MVP summit in February). Here’s a blog post from Olivier Bloch that describes the situation and provides some good news about the OS: http://blogs.msdn.com/obloch/archive/2010/05/03/windows-ce-is-not-dead.aspx As you can read here, Windows Phone 7 keeps its “roots” inside Windows CE. Regarding the .NET Compact Framework, this article from the excellent “I know the answer (it’s 42)” blog from Abhinaba (it seems that we share a passion for photography, Douglas Adams and embedded development), explains that the .NET CF is the foundation of XNA and Silverlight implementation on the WP7 platform: http://blogs.msdn.com/abhinaba/archive/2010/03/18/what-is-netcf.aspx So Windows CE is here to stay, powering one of the most interesting smart phone platforms and ready to power also your devices. Add those blogs to your RSS reader list and stay tuned for more good news about CE and the Compact Framework!

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Knockout with ASP.Net MVC2 - HTML Extension Helpers for input controls

- by Renso

Goal: Defining Knockout-style input controls can be tedious and also may be something that you may find obtrusive, mixing your HTML with data bind syntax as well as binding your aspx, ascx files to Knockout. The goal is to make specifying Knockout specific HTML tags easy, seamless really, as well as being able to remove references to Knockout easily. Environment considerations: ASP.Net MVC2 or later Knockoutjs.js How to: public static class HtmlExtensions { public static string DataBoundCheckBox(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, bool isChecked, object htmlAttributes) { var builder = new TagBuilder("input"); var dic = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes) { { "data-bind", String.Format("checked: {0}", name) } }; builder.MergeAttributes(dic); builder.MergeAttribute("type", @"checkbox"); builder.MergeAttribute("name", name); builder.MergeAttribute("value", @"true"); if (isChecked) { builder.MergeAttribute("checked", @"checked"); } return builder.ToString(TagRenderMode.SelfClosing); } public static MvcHtmlString DataBoundSelectList(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList, String optionLabel) { var attrProperties = new StringBuilder(); attrProperties.Append(String.Format("optionsText: '{0}'", name)); if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(optionLabel)) attrProperties.Append(String.Format(", optionsCaption: '{0}'", optionLabel)); attrProperties.Append(String.Format(", value: {0}", name)); var dic = new RouteValueDictionary { { "data-bind", attrProperties.ToString() } }; return helper.DropDownList(name, selectList, optionLabel, dic); } public static MvcHtmlString DataBoundSelectList(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, IEnumerable<SelectListItem> selectList, String optionLabel, object htmlAttributes) { var attrProperties = new StringBuilder(); attrProperties.Append(String.Format("optionsText: '{0}'", name)); if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(optionLabel)) attrProperties.Append(String.Format(", optionsCaption: '{0}'", optionLabel)); attrProperties.Append(String.Format(", value: {0}", name)); var dic = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes) {{"data-bind", attrProperties}}; return helper.DropDownList(name, selectList, optionLabel, dic); } public static String DataBoundSelectList(this HtmlHelper helper, String options, String optionsText, String value) { return String.Format("<select data-bind=\"options: {0},optionsText: '{1}',value: {2}\"></select>", options, optionsText, value); } public static MvcHtmlString DataBoundTextBox(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, object value, object htmlAttributes) { var dic = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes); dic.Add("data-bind", String.Format("value: {0}", name)); return helper.TextBox(name, value, dic); } public static MvcHtmlString DataBoundTextBox(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, string observable, object value, object htmlAttributes) { var dic = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes); dic.Add("data-bind", String.Format("value: {0}", observable)); return helper.TextBox(name, value, dic); } public static MvcHtmlString DataBoundTextArea(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, string value, int rows, int columns, object htmlAttributes) { var dic = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes); dic.Add("data-bind", String.Format("value: {0}", name)); return helper.TextArea(name, value, rows, columns, dic); } public static MvcHtmlString DataBoundTextArea(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, string observable, string value, int rows, int columns, object htmlAttributes) { var dic = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes); dic.Add("data-bind", String.Format("value: {0}", observable)); return helper.TextArea(name, value, rows, columns, dic); } public static string BuildUrlFromExpression<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<T>> action) { var values = CreateRouteValuesFromExpression(action); var virtualPath = helper.RouteCollection.GetVirtualPath(helper.ViewContext.RequestContext, values); if (virtualPath != null) { return virtualPath.VirtualPath; } return null; } public static string ActionLink<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<T>> action, string linkText) { return helper.ActionLink(action, linkText, null); } public static string ActionLink<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<T>> action, string linkText, object htmlAttributes) { var values = CreateRouteValuesFromExpression(action); var controllerName = (string)values["controller"]; var actionName = (string)values["action"]; values.Remove("controller"); values.Remove("action"); return helper.ActionLink(linkText, actionName, controllerName, values, new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes)).ToHtmlString(); } public static MvcForm Form<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<T>> action) { return helper.Form(action, FormMethod.Post); } public static MvcForm Form<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<T>> action, FormMethod method) { var values = CreateRouteValuesFromExpression(action); string controllerName = (string)values["controller"]; string actionName = (string)values["action"]; values.Remove("controller"); values.Remove("action"); return helper.BeginForm(actionName, controllerName, values, method); } public static MvcForm Form<T>(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression<Action<T>> action, FormMethod method, object htmlAttributes) { var values = CreateRouteValuesFromExpression(action); string controllerName = (string)values["controller"]; string actionName = (string)values["action"]; values.Remove("controller"); values.Remove("action"); return helper.BeginForm(actionName, controllerName, values, method, new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes)); } public static string VertCheckBox(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, bool isChecked) { return helper.CustomCheckBox(name, isChecked, null); } public static string CustomCheckBox(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, bool isChecked, object htmlAttributes) { TagBuilder builder = new TagBuilder("input"); builder.MergeAttributes(new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes)); builder.MergeAttribute("type", "checkbox"); builder.MergeAttribute("name", name); builder.MergeAttribute("value", "true"); if (isChecked) { builder.MergeAttribute("checked", "checked"); } return builder.ToString(TagRenderMode.SelfClosing); } public static string Script(this HtmlHelper helper, string script, object scriptAttributes) { var pathForCRMScripts = ScriptsController.GetPathForCRMScripts(); if (ScriptOptimizerConfig.EnableMinimizedFileLoad) { string newPathForCRM = pathForCRMScripts + "Min/"; ScriptsController.ServerPathMapper = new ServerPathMapper(); string fullPath = ScriptsController.ServerMapPath(newPathForCRM); if (!File.Exists(fullPath + script)) return null; if (!Directory.Exists(fullPath)) return null; pathForCRMScripts = newPathForCRM; } var builder = new TagBuilder("script"); builder.MergeAttributes(new RouteValueDictionary(scriptAttributes)); builder.MergeAttribute("type", @"text/javascript"); builder.MergeAttribute("src", String.Format("{0}{1}", pathForCRMScripts.Replace("~", String.Empty), script)); return builder.ToString(TagRenderMode.SelfClosing); } private static RouteValueDictionary CreateRouteValuesFromExpression<T>(Expression<Action<T>> action) { if (action == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("Action must be provided"); var body = action.Body as MethodCallExpression; if (body == null) { throw new InvalidOperationException("Expression must be a method call"); } if (body.Object != action.Parameters[0]) { throw new InvalidOperationException("Method call must target lambda argument"); } // This will build up a RouteValueDictionary containing the controller name, action name, and any // parameters passed as part of the "action" parameter. string name = body.Method.Name; string controllerName = typeof(T).Name; if (controllerName.EndsWith("Controller", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { controllerName = controllerName.Remove(controllerName.Length - 10, 10); } var values = BuildParameterValuesFromExpression(body) ?? new RouteValueDictionary(); values.Add("controller", controllerName); values.Add("action", name); return values; } private static RouteValueDictionary BuildParameterValuesFromExpression(MethodCallExpression call) { // Build up a RouteValueDictionary containing parameter names as keys and parameter values // as values based on the MethodCallExpression passed in. var values = new RouteValueDictionary(); ParameterInfo[] parameters = call.Method.GetParameters(); // If the passed in method has no parameters, just return an empty dictionary. if (parameters.Length == 0) { return values; } for (int i = 0; i < parameters.Length; i++) { object parameterValue; Expression expression = call.Arguments[i]; // If the current parameter is a constant, just use its value as the parameter value. var constant = expression as ConstantExpression; if (constant != null) { parameterValue = constant.Value; } else { // Otherwise, compile and execute the expression and use that as the parameter value. var function = Expression.Lambda<Func<object>>(Expression.Convert(expression, typeof(object)), new ParameterExpression[0]); try { parameterValue = function.Compile()(); } catch { parameterValue = null; } } values.Add(parameters[i].Name, parameterValue); } return values; } } Some observations: The first two DataBoundSelectList overloaded methods are specifically built to load the data right into the drop down box as part of the HTML response stream rather than let Knockout's engine populate the options client-side. The third overloaded method does it client-side via the viewmodel. The first two overloads can be done when you have no requirement to add complex JSON objects to your lists. Furthermore, why render and parse the JSON object when you can have it all built and rendered server-side like any other list control.

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Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta2

- by Nikita Polyakov

It’s here – the brand new - Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta2. This time it has ability for your to Flash your Developer Unlocked phone to Mango Beta! How awesome is that? Mega-Ultra-Mango-Awesome!! The Windows Phone SDK includes the following Windows Phone SDK 7.1 (Beta2) Windows Phone Emulator (Beta2) Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Assemblies (Beta2) Silverlight 4 SDK and DRT Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Extensions for XNA Game Studio 4.0 Microsoft Expression Blend SDK Preview for Windows Phone 7.1 WCF Data Services Client for Window Phone 7.1 Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 The direct download link is: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26648 Official Details and instructions: http://create.msdn.com/en-US/news/Mango_Beta Official Blog Post: Windows Phone 7 Developer Blog - Developers Get Goody Basket Full of Mangos "If you're registered for Windows Phone Marketplace, you'll receive an invitation from Microsoft Connect that will provide access to a firmware update for your retail Windows Phone device" #ProTip’s: -Uninstall any Mango 7.1 Windows Phone 7 Beta tools if you already had them installed. -If you have Visual Studio 2010 RTM installed, you must install Service Pack 1 RTM before you install Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2. Please refer to the Service Pack 1 release notes for installation issues. Visual Studio 2010 SP1 RTM -If you installed Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.0, you must uninstall it before installing Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2. Uninstall the item Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools – RTW from the programs list on your computer. Visual Basic is now fully integrated into Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2; you do not need to install it separately. Follow the instructions very-very closely. Updating your phone yourself is serious business and should not be done while not paying attention!

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ASP.NET MVC Application In Action - I (DailyJournal)

- by Rajesh Pillai

Its been long due I was planning to write an article on creating some useful ASP.NET MVC application. I have code named it "DailyJournal". Its a simple application which allows creation of multiple activities and assign tasks to these activities. Its' kind of "Yet another Task/Todo application". The credentials which you can use with the attached demo application is shown below. Collapse Copy Code User Name : admin Password : admin123 Framework/Libraries Used ASP.NET MVC jQuery + jQuery UI (for ajax and UI) ELMAH for Error logging Warning Ahead This is just a rough draft and so I am putting down some of the known limitation. Some points of warning before we move further with this application. This is just an early prototype. As such many of the design principles have been ignored. But, I try to cover that up in the next update once I get my head around this. The application in its current state supports the following features Create users Assign Activities to users Assign tasks to activities Assign a status to a task The user creation/authentication is being done by the default Membership provider. Most of the activities are highly visual i.e. you can drag-drop task to different areas, in-place edition of task details and so on. The following are the current issues with the design which I promise to refactor in the second version. No Validations Fat Controller XSS/CSS vulnerable No Service model/abstraction yet. For the demo LINQ to SQL is implemented. No separation of layers UI Design et el... This is just an extract. For source code and more information proceed to http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/mvcinaction.aspx Hope you like this!

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Weird SSIS Configuration Error

- by Christopher House

I ran into an interesting SSIS issue that I thought I'd share in hopes that it may save someone from bruising their head after repeatedly banging it on the desk like I did. I was trying to setup what I believe is referred to as "indirect configuration" in SSIS. This is where you store your configuration in some repository like a database or a file, then store the location of that repository in an environment variable and use that to configure the connection to your configuration repository. In my specific situation, I was using a SQL database. I had this all working, but for reasons I'll not bore you with, I had to move my SSIS development to a new VM last week. When I got my new VM, I set about creating a new package. I finished up development on the package and started setting up configuration. I created an OLE DB connection that pointed to my configuration table then went through the configuration wizard to have the connection string for this connection set through my environment variable. I then went through the wizard to set another property through a value stored in the configuration table. When I got to the point where you select the connection, my connection wasn't in the list: As you can see in the screen capture above, the ConfigurationDb connection isn't in the list of available SQL connections in the configuration wizard. Strange. I canceled out of the wizard, went to the properties for ConfigurationDb, tested the connection and it was successful. I went back to the wizard again and this time ConfigurationDb was there. I completed the wizard then went to test my package. Unfortunately the package wouldn't run, I got the following error: Unfortunately, googling for this error code didn't help much as none of the results appears related to package configuration. I did notice that when I went back through the package configuration and tried to edit a previously saved config entry, I was getting the following error: I checked the connection string I had stored in my environment variable and noticed that indeed, it did not have a provider name. I didn't recall having included one on my previous VM, but I figured I'd include it just to see what happened. That made no difference at all. After a day and a half of trying to figure out what the problem was, I'm pleased to report that through extensive trial and error, I have resolved the error. As it turns out, the person who setup this new VM for me named the server SQLSERVER2008. This meant my configuration connection string was: Initial Catalog=SSISConfigDb;Data Source=SQLSERVER2008;Integrated Security=SSPI; Just for the heck of it, I tried changing it to: Initial Catalog=SSISConfigDb;Data Source=(local);Integrated Security=SSPI; That did the trick! As soon as I restarted BIDS, I was able to run the package with no errors at all. Crazy. So, the moral of the story is, don't name your server SQLSERVER2008 if you want SSIS configuration to work when using SQL as your config store.

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Expression Studio 4 Community Launch Event

- by Timmy Kokke

Event On June 7th Expression Studio 4 will be launched at the Internet Week in New York. One day later, on June 8th, the Dutch Silverlight and Expression User Group SIXIN organizes the Dutch Community Launch in collaboration with Microsoft and Centric at Centric's office in IJsselstein. To celebrate the 4 Expression release we have two interesting speakers. In addition, we give three packages Expression Studio and more great gifts away. Program The preliminary program for the evening is as follows: 5:45 p.m. - Food, drinks and networking 6:45 p.m. - Reception and Introduction by Koen Zwikstra, co-founder of SIXIN and Silverlight MVP 7:00 p.m. - Phone 7 Building a Windows application using the new features of Expression Blend by Loek van den Ouweland, founder and web designer for Magic Studio 8:00 p.m. - Break 8:30 p.m. - Tour Encoder and Expression Web by Antoni Dol, senior designer at Macaw 9:30 p.m. - Networking while enjoying a drink Ask your question to one of the speakers If you have a question to one of the speakers, then you can by email ([email protected]) or thru Twitter. Send an email with subject # expression4 or send a tweet @ sixinUG and use it to hashtag # expression4. Register To register for this event or to get more information you can go to the SIXIN meetings page here. Special thanks to our sponsors:

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ASP.NET Membership Password Hash -- .NET 3.5 to .NET 4 Upgrade Surprise!

- by David Hoerster

I'm in the process of evaluating how my team will upgrade our product from .NET 3.5 SP1 to .NET 4. I expected the upgrade to be pretty smooth with very few, if any, upgrade issues. To my delight, the upgrade wizard said that everything upgraded without a problem. I thought I was home free, until I decided to build and run the application. A big problem was staring me in the face -- I couldn't log on. Our product is using a custom ASP.NET Membership Provider, but essentially it's a modified SqlMembershipProvider with some additional properties. And my login was failing during the OnAuthenticate event handler of my ASP.NET Login control, right where it was calling my provider's ValidateUser method. After a little digging, it turns out that the password hash that the membership provider was using to compare against the stored password hash in the membership database tables was different. I compared the password hash from the .NET 4 code line, and it was a different generated hash than my .NET 3.5 code line. (Tip -- when upgrading, always keep a valid debug copy of your app handy in case you have to step through a lot of code.) So it was a strange situation, but at least I knew what the problem was. Now the question was, "Why was it happening?" Turns out that a breaking change in .NET 4 is that the default hash algorithm changed to SHA256. Hey, that's great -- stronger hashing algorithm. But what do I do with all the hashed passwords in my database that were created using SHA1? Well, you can make two quick changes to your app's web.config and everything will be OK. Basically, you need to override the default HashAlgorithmTypeproperty of your membership provider. Here are the two places to do that: 1. At the beginning of your element, add the following element: <system.web> <machineKey validation="SHA1" /> ... </system.web> 2. On your element under , add the following hashAlgorithmType attribute: <system.web> <membership defaultProvider="myMembership" hashAlgorithmType="SHA1"> ... </system.web> After that, you should be good to go! Hope this helps.

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Lessons Building KeyRef (a .NET developer learning Rails)

- by Liam McLennan

Just because I like to build things, and I like to learn, I have been working on a keyboard shortcut reference site. I am using this as an opportunity to improve my ruby and rails skills. The first few days were frustrating. Perhaps the learning curve of all the fun new toys was a bit excessive. Finally tonight things have really started to come together. I still don’t understand the rails built-in testing support but I will get there. Interesting Things I Learned Tonight RubyMine IDE Tonight I switched to RubyMine instead of my usual Notepad++. I suspect RubyMine is a powerful tool if you know how to use it – but I don’t. At the moment it gives me errors about some gems not being activated. This is another one of those things that I will get to. I have also noticed that the editor functions significantly differently to the editors I am used to. For example, in visual studio and notepad++ if you place the cursor at the start of a line and press left arrow the cursor is sent to the end of the previous line. In RubyMine nothing happens. Haml Haml is my favourite view engine. For my .NET work I have been using its non-union Mexican CLR equivalent – nHaml. Multiple CSS Classes To define a div with more than one css class haml lets you chain them together with a ‘.’, such as: .span-6.search_result contents of the div go here Indent Consistency I also learnt tonight that both haml and nhaml complain if you are not consistent about indenting. As a consequence of the move from notepad++ to RubyMine my haml views ended up with some tab indenting and some space indenting. For the view to render all of the indents within a view must be consistent. Sorting Arrays I guessed that ruby would be able to sort an array alphabetically by a property of the elements so my first attempt was: Application.all.sort {|app| app.name} which does not work. You have to supply a comparer (much like .NET). The correct sort is: Application.all.sort {|a,b| a.name.downcase <=> b.name.downcase} MongoMapper Find by Id Since document databases are just fancy key-value stores it is essential to be able to easily search for a document by its id. This functionality is so intrinsic that it seems that the MongoMapper author did not bother to document it. To search by id simply pass the id to the find method: Application.find(‘4c19e8facfbfb01794000002’) Rails And CoffeeScript I am a big fan of CoffeeScript so integrating it into this application is high on my priorities. My first thought was to copy Dr Nic’s strategy. Unfortunately, I did not get past step 1. Install Node.js. I am doing my development on Windows and node is unix only. I looked around for a solution but eventually had to concede defeat… for now. Quicksearch The front page of the application I am building displays a list of applications. When the user types in the search box I want to reduce the list of applications to match their search. A quick googlebing turned up quicksearch, a jquery plugin. You simply tell quicksearch where to get its input (the search textbox) and the list of items to filter (the divs containing the names of applications) and it just works. Here is the code: $('#app_search').quicksearch('.search_result'); Summary I have had a productive evening. The app now displays a list of applications, allows them to be sorted and links through to an application page when an application is selected. Next on the list is to display the set of keyboard shortcuts for an application.

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Azure Diagnostics: The Bad, The Ugly, and a Better Way

- by jasont

If you’re a .Net web developer today, no doubt you’ve enjoyed watching Windows Azure grow up over the past couple of years. The platform has scaled, stabilized (mostly), and added on a slew of great (and sometimes overdue) features. What was once just an endpoint to host a solution, developers today have tremendous flexibility and options in the platform. Organizations are building new solutions and offerings on the platform, and others have, or are in the process of, migrating existing applications out of their own data centers into the Azure cloud. Whether new application development or migrating legacy, every development shop and IT organization needs to monitor their applications in the cloud, the same as they do on premises. Azure Diagnostics has some capabilities, but what I constantly hear from users is that it’s either (a) not enough, or (b) too cumbersome to set up. Today, Stackify is happy to announce that we fully support Azure deployments, just the same as your on-premises deployments. Let’s take a look below and compare and contrast the options. Azure Diagnostics Let’s crack open the Windows Azure documentation on Azure Diagnostics and see just how easy it is to use. The high level steps are: Step 1: Import the Diagnostics Oh, I’ve already deployed my app without the diagnostics module. Guess I can’t do anything until I do this and re-deploy. Step 2: Configure the Diagnostics (and multiple sub-steps) Do I want it all? Or just pieces of it? Whoops, forgot to include a specific performance counter, I guess I’ll have to deploy again. Wait a minute… I have to specifically code these performance counters into my role’s OnStart() method, compile and deploy again? And query and consume it myself? Step 3: (Optional) Permanently store diagnostic data Lucky for me, Azure storage has gotten pretty cheap. But how often should I move the data into storage? I want to see real-time data, so I guess that’s out now as well. Step 4: (Optional) View stored diagnostic data Optional? Of course I want to see it. Conveniently, Microsoft recommends 3 tools to do this with. Un-conveniently, none of these are web based and they all just give you access to raw data, and very little charting or real-time intelligence. Just….. data. Nevermind that one product seems to have gotten stale since a recent acquisition, and doesn’t even have screenshots! So, let’s summarize: lots of diagnostics data is available, but think realistically. Think Dev Ops. What happens when you are in the middle of a major production performance issue and you don’t have the diagnostics you need? You are redeploying an application (and thankfully you have a great branching strategy, so you feel perfectly safe just willy-nilly launching code into prod, don’t you?) to get data, then shipping it to storage, and then digging through that data to find a needle in a haystack. Would you like to be able to troubleshoot a performance issue in the middle of the night, or on a weekend, from your iPad or home computer’s web browser? Forget it: the best you get is this spark line in the Azure portal. If it’s real pointy, you probably have an issue; but since there is no alert based on a threshold your customers have likely already let you know. And high CPU, Memory, I/O, or Network doesn’t tell you anything about where the problem is. The Better Way – Stackify Stackify supports application and server monitoring in real time, all through a great web interface. All of the things that Azure Diagnostics provides, Stackify provides for your on-premises deployments, and you don’t need to know ahead of time that you’ll need it. It’s always there, it’s always on. Azure deployments are essentially no different than on-premises. It’s a Windows Server (or Linux) in the cloud. It’s behind a different firewall than your corporate servers. That’s it. Stackify can provide the same powerful tools to your Azure deployments in two simple steps. Step 1 Add a startup task to your web or worker role and deploy. If you can’t deploy and need it right now, no worries! Remote Desktop to the Azure instance and you can execute a Powershell script to download / install Stackify. Step 2 Log in to your account at www.stackify.com and begin monitoring as much as you want, as often as you want and see the results instantly. WMI? It’s there Event Viewer? You’ve got it. File System Access? Yes, please! Would love to make sure my web.config is correct. IIS / App Pool Info? Yep. You can even restart it. Running Services? All of them. Start and Stop them to your heart’s content. SQL Database access? You bet’cha. Alerts and Notification? Of course! You should know before your customers let you know. … and so much more. Conclusion Microsoft has shown, consistently, that they love developers, developers, developers. What every developer needs to realize from this is that they’ve given you a canvas, which is exactly what Azure is. It’s great infrastructure that is readily available, easy to manage, and fairly cost effective. However, the tooling is your responsibility. What you get, at best, is bare bones. App and server diagnostics should be available when you need them. While we, as developers, try to plan for and think of everything ahead of time, there will come times where we need to get data that just isn’t available. And having to go through a lot of cumbersome steps to get that data, and then have to find a friendlier way to consume it…. well, that just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’d rather spend my time writing and developing features and completing bug fixes for my applications, than to be writing code to monitor and diagnose.

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Avoiding That Null Reference!

- by TheJuice

A coworker had this conversation with another of our developers. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. Clueless: hey! Clueless: I am using the ?? operator for null check below Nice Guy: hey Clueless: FundLoanRequestBoatCollateral boatCollateral = request.BoatCollateral ?? null; Nice Guy: that's not exactly how it works Clueless: I want to achive: FundLoanRequestBoatCollateral boatCollateral = request.BoatCollateral != null ? request.BoatCollateral : null; Clueless: isnt that equal to: FundLoanRequestBoatCollateral boatCollateral = request.BoatCollateral ?? null; Nice Guy: that is functionally equivalent to FundLoanRequestBoatCollateral boatCollateral = request.BoatCollateral Nice Guy: you're checking if it's null and if so setting it to null Clueless: yeah Clueless: if its null I want to set it to null Nice Guy: if it's null then you're already going to set it to null, no special logic needed Clueless: I wanted to avoid a null reference if BoatCollateral is null The sad part of all of this is that "Clueless" has been with our company for years and has a Master's in Computer Science.

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Access Services in SharePoint Server 2010

- by Wayne

Another SharePoint Server 2010 feature which cannot go unnoticed is the Access Services. Access Services is a service in SharePoint Server 2010 that allows administrators to view, edit, and configure a Microsoft access application within a Web Browser. Access Services settings support backup and recovery, regardless of whether there is a UI setting in Central Administration. However, backup and recovery only apply to service-level and administrative-level settings; end-user content from the Access application is not backed up as part of this process. Access Services has Windows PowerShell functionality that can be used to provide the service that uses settings from a previous backup; configure and manage macro and query setting; manage and configure session management; and configure all the global settings of the service. Key Benefits of SharePoint Server Access Services Easier Access to right tools: The enhanced, customizable Ribbon in Access 2010 makes it easy to uncover more commands so you can focus on the end product. The new Microsoft Office BackstageTM view is yet another feature that can help you easily analyze and document your database, share, publish, and customize your Access 2010 experience, all from one convenient location. Helps build database effortlessly and quickly: Out-of-the box templates and reusable components make Access Services the fastest, simplest database solution available. It helps find new pre-built templates which you can start using without customization or select templates created by your peers in the Access online community and customize them to meet your needs. It builds your databases with new modular components. New Application Parts enable you to add a set of common Access components, such as a table and form for task management, to your database in a few simple clicks. Database navigation is now simplified. It creates Navigation Forms and makes your frequently used forms and reports more accessible without writing any code or logic. Create Impactful forms and reports: Whether it's an inventory of your assets or customer sales database, Access 2010 brings the innovative tools you'd expect from Microsoft Office. Access Services easily spot trends and add emphasis to your data. It quickly create coordinating database forms and reports and bring the Web into your database. Obtain a centralized landing pad for your data: Access 2010 offers easy ways to bring your data together and help increase work quality. New technologies help break down barriers so you can share and work together on your databases, making you or your team more efficient and productive. Add automation and complex expressions: If you need a more robust database design, such as preventing record deletion if a specific condition is met or if you need to create calculations to forecast your budget, Access 2010 empowers you to be your own developer. The enhanced Expression Builder greatly simplifies your expression building experience with IntelliSense®. With the revamped Macro Designer, it's now even easier for you to add basic logic to your database. New Data Macros allow you to attach logic to your data, centralizing the logic on the table, not the objects that update your data. Key features of Access Services 2010 - Access database content through a Web browser: Newly added Access Services on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 enables you to make your databases available on the Web with new Web databases. Users without an Access client can open Web forms and reports via a browser and changes are automatically synchronized. - Simplify how you access the features you need: The Ribbon, improved in Access 2010, helps you access commands even more quickly by enabling you to customize or create your own tabs. The new Microsoft Office Backstage view replaces the traditional File menu to provide one central, organized location for all of your document management tasks. - Codeless navigation: Use professional looking web-like navigation forms to make frequently used forms and reports more accessible without writing any code or logic. - Easily reuse Access items in other databases: Use Application Parts to add pre-built Access components for common tasks to your database in a few simple clicks. You can also package common database components, such as data entry forms and reports for task management, and reuse them across your organization or other databases. - Simplified formatting: By using Office themes you can create coordinating professional forms and reports across your database. Simply select a familiar and great looking Office theme, or design your own, and apply it to your database. Newly created Access objects will automatically match your chosen theme.

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Free E-Book from APress - Platform Embedded Security Technology Revealed

- by TATWORTH

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TATWORTH/archive/2014/08/23/free-e-book-from-apress---platform-embedded-security-technology-revealed.aspxAt http://www.apress.com/9781430265719, APress are providing a free E-Book - Platform Embedded Security Technology Revealed. “Platform Embedded Security Technology Revealed is an in-depth introduction to Intel’s security and management engine, with details on the security features and the steps for configuring and invoking them. It's written for security professionals and researchers; embedded-system engineers; and software engineers and vendors.”

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How to Build Services from Legacy Applications

- by Chris Falter

The SOA consultants invaded the executive suite at your company or agency, preached the true religion, and converted the unbelievers. Now by divine imperative you must convert your legacy applications into a suite of reusable services. But as usual, you lack the time and resources that you need in order to develop the services properly. So you googled or bing’ed, found this blog post, and began crying in gratitude. Yes, as the title implies, I am going to reveal my easy, 3-step, works-every-time process for converting silos of legacy applications into the inventory of services your CIO has been dreaming about. So just close your eyes and count to 3 … now open them … and here it is…. Not. While wishful thinking is too often the coin of the IT realm, even the most naive practitioner knows that converting legacy applications into reusable services requires more than a magic wand. The reason is simple: if your starting point is your legacy applications, then you will simply be bolting a web service technology layer on top of your legacy API. And that legacy API is built in the image of the silo applications. Enter the wide gate of the legacy API, follow the broad path of generating service interfaces from existing code, and you will arrive at the siloed enterprise destruction that you thought you were escaping. The Straight and Narrow Path This past week I had the opportunity to learn how the FBI Criminal Justice Information Systems department has been transitioning from silo applications to a service inventory. Lafe Hutcheson, IT Specialist in the architecture group and fellow attendee at an SOA Architect Certification Workshop, was my guide. Lafe has survived the chaos of an SOA initiative, so it is not surprising that he was able to return from a US Army deployment to Kabul, Afghanistan with nary a scratch. According to Lafe, building their service inventory is a three-phase process: Model a business process. This requires intense collaboration between the IT and business wings of the organization, of course. The FBI uses IBM Websphere tools to model the process with BPMN. Identify candidate services to facilitate the business process. Convert the BPMN to an executable BPEL orchestration, model and develop the services, and use a BPEL engine to run the process. The FBI uses ActiveVOS for orchestration services. The 12 Step Program to End Your Legacy API Addiction Thomas Erl has documented a process for building a web service inventory that is quite similar to the FBI process. Erl’s process adds a technology architecture definition phase, which allows for the technology environment to influence the inventory blueprint. For example, if you are using an enterprise service bus, you will probably not need to build your own utility services for logging or intermediate routing. Erl also lists a service-oriented analysis phase that highlights the 12-step process of applying the principles of service orientation to modeling your services. Erl depicts the modeling of a service inventory as an iterative process: model a business process, define the relevant technology architecture, define the service inventory blueprint, analyze the services, then model another business process, rinse and repeat. (Astute readers will note that Erl’s diagram, restricted to analysis and modeling process, does not include the implementation phase that concludes the FBI service development methodology.) The service-oriented analysis phase is where you find the 12 steps that will free you from your legacy API addiction. In a nutshell, you identify the steps in the process that need services; identify the different types of services (agnostic entity services, service compositions, and utility services) that are required; apply service-orientation principles; and normalize the inventory into cohesive service models. Rather than discuss each of the 12 steps individually, I will close by simply referring my readers to Erl’s explanation.

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Validar Textbox para aceptar solo números

- by Jason Ulloa

Una de las necesidades más habituales en el desarrollo es poder validar los controles Textbox para que solo acepten valore numéricos. En este post eso es lo que haremos, nos apoyaremos en el lenguaje javascript para validar nuestro textbox del lado del cliente. Nuestro primer paso será crear la función JavaScript que hará el trabajo, para ello agregamos las etiquetas de javascript <script type="text/javascript"> </script> Posteriormente dentro de esas etiquetas agregaremos el script que hará el trabajo function ValidNum(e) { var tecla= document.all ? tecla = e.keyCode : tecla = e.which; return ((tecla > 47 && tecla < 58) || tecla == 46); } Por último iremos al code behind de la página y en el evento Load agregaremos un nuevo evento al textbox para que reconozca el script. protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { TextBox1.Attributes.Add("onkeypress", "javascript:return ValidNum(event);"); } Con esto, tenemos el textbox validado para aceptar solo números y el punto.

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2010 is gone and Welcome 2011

- by anirudha

last days i spent my week @ firozabadthe town is much small and near to agraso i never forget to see the taj mahal and red fort their even it’s first chance to see them.i make a plan that i go to Agra last Saturday. firstly i go to red fort and i talking with many foreigner and they love to talking with me because their is only one man who with with them who is their GUIDE a person like a book they never can talk with you but tell you about everything of the location because you buy them. their are many person come from various country such as German , Japan, Russ , Italy and many other. their is no problem to talk with them perhaps they happen with talk to me. when i completely watch the Red fort at least i see a girl who are look like a foreigner. i talk themselves where they come from they tell me Francewhen i go elsewhere i thing to propose them to be a friend of mine. i never propose any girl for friendship with me even in school and college. so i propose them to be a friend of mine. they accept it i put the email ID in their hand whenever they gone. but i still not get their mail. 2ndly i go to Taj mahal the taj experience is not so good i spent 3 or 4 hours in rush. i found their is no security even their are many army force. they all person are too slow to work. they spent 10 minute to check a person for security . their hands work very slow just like a low configuration computer. i talk many person their too. i talk to a person who tell themselves Jacob and they from Chicago. they speak very fast and i not know what they tell in speech. a another problem i got with some Chinese person. when i talking with them that i found they speak only Chinese language. Wish you a very very happy new year.

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Learn to Take a Punch, Learn to Counter, Keep Moving Forward

- by D'Arcy Lussier

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2013/10/28/154483.aspxDuring a boxing workout a few months ago our trainer had us do something called “breadbaskets”. That’s where you hold your arms up and a partner punches you in your midsection – your breadbasket. I put my arms up, and braced for impact. The trainer came over, saw I was a bit nervous, and coached me through. I can see the fear in your eyes. Don’t be afraid to take the punch. Tighten your core, breathe through the hit. Don’t panic. Over the summer we’d do counter drills as well. This is where a partner throws a punch, you defend but also throw one back – a counter punch. You never just sit back and take a beating, you deflect the blow and come back with one more powerful. These lessons on fighting can apply to all aspects of our lives and any attempts at success that we have. I saw this image recently and agree with it 100%: Success is never a straight forward line. It’s messy, its wrought with failures, its learning over time and applying those life lessons. It’s learning how to take punches and lose your fear, its seeing a punch coming and countering it, but most of all its not giving up and continually moving forward. We do stairs at boxing, which is running up and down three flights of stairs. I’m not anywhere near incredible shape and after doing multiple stairs in a single workout you can feel gassed, tired, even discouraged after hitting the second floor and seeing everyone else running by you. I read a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that I cling to throughout my day: You want to be successful? Take the punches, but learn how to take them. Counter them. and no matter what, always move forward.

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Running ASP.Net MVC3 Alongside ASP.Net WebForms in the Same Project

- by Sam Abraham

I previously blogged on running ASP.Net MVC in an ASP.Net WebForms project. My reference at the time was a freely-available PDF document by Scott Guthrie which covered the setup process in good detail. As I am preparing references to share with our audience at my upcoming talk at the Deerfield Beach Coders Café on March 1st (http://www.fladotnet.com/Reg.aspx?EventID=514), I found a nice blog post by Scott Hanselman on running both ASP.Net 4.0 WebForms along with ASP.Net MVC 3.0 in the same project. You can access this article here. Moreover, Scott later followed-up with a blog showing how to leverage NuGet to automate the setup of ASP.Net MVC3 in an existing ASP.Net WebForms project. One frequent question that usually comes up when discussing this side-by-side setup is the loss of the convenient Visual Studio Solution Explorer context menu which enable us to easily create controllers and views with a few mouse clicks. A good suggestion brought up in the comments section of Scott’s article presented a good work-around to this problem: Manually add the MVC Visual Studio Project Type GUID in your .sln solution file ({E53F8FEA-EAE0-44A6-8774-FFD645390401}) which then brings back the MVC-specific context menu functionality in solution explorer of the hybrid project. (Thank James Raden!)

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Part 1 Basic Webtrends REST Examples

- by GeekAgilistMercenary

In this entry I just want to cover some examples of how to connect to Webtrends DX Web Services. The DX Web Services use REST as the architecture, providing simple URI based end points to connect to. With the Webtrends SDK you can connect to these services with your account information. Here are the basic steps to retrieve a profile list, the reports from one of those profiles, and then the report you want from that report list. First step is to create a Webtrends User. WebTrends.Sdk.Account.User webtrendsUser = new Account.User(); webtrendsUser.UserName = username; webtrendsUser.Password = password; webtrendsUser.AccountName = account; After you create the Webtrends User, simple request a profile list by getting list of ProfileDefinition Objects. List<WebTrends.Sdk.Profile.ProfileDefinition> profiles = WebTrends.Sdk.Factory.NavigationFactory.BuildListing(webtrendsUser); Next you will want to grab a report based on the profile you are in and your credentials. List<WebTrends.Sdk.Report.ReportDefinition> reports = WebTrends.Sdk.Factory.NavigationFactory.BuildListing(profiles[i], webtrendsUser); In the code above, i would equate to the specific profile you want from the retrieved list of profiles in the profiles list. The common scenario is that one has pulled the profiles into a drop down, combo, or list box that the user can select. Then when the user selects the specific profile that profile object can then be used to pull the List of ReportDefinitions. Once we have the report definitions, all sorts of criteria can be added together to query for a specific report. This is also were things can get a little tricky. For instance, take a look at the code below. WebTrends.Sdk.Factory.ReportFactory.CreateDimensionalReport( report.ID.ToString(), profiles[i].ID.ToString(), "2010m01", webtrendsUser); The CreateDimensionalReport takes 4 parameters for this particular overload. The report ID, profile ID, the Webtrends Date Format, and the Webtrends User Object. There are a number of other overloads available within this factory's method that allow for passing the specific REST URI, and other criteria to retrieve the report of your choice. In the near future we will be adding some more to this method also, which will provide more flexibility without needing to use the full REST URI. I will have more on this, so all you Coders out there using Webtrends DX Services, I hope this is helpful! Enjoy. Original Entry

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How to clear the resent server name list in SQL Server Management Studio

- by Pavan Kumar Pabothu

If you are using SQL Server management Studio much the we can observer that the list of server names in the log in of it. As you can imagin a period of time after 6 month or 1 year you will see a long list of server names in the login dialog. How to clear this list...? I doesn't provide a mechanism to clean nor clear the list, so you'll have to do a little browsing through your file system. For SQl Server 2005 Management Studio, we should delete the below file C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Shell\mru.dat. For SQl Server 2008 Management Studio, we should delete the below file C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Shell\SQLStudio.bin. After deletion we can re-login the Management studio and can see the empty list.

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Unexpected issues with SessionPageStatePersiste

- by geekrutherford

Several iterations ago I implemented the SessionPageStatePersister in an application as a way to cut down on the size of the hidden ViewState input on aspx pages. At first it seemed utterly fantasic. The size of the ViewState appeared to be drastically reduced and the application did not appear to peform any slower than baseline. Enter the iFrame & user control. I added a user control which pings the web server every 20 seconds in order to show updated application information to the user (new messages, reports, etc.) After releasing this nifty little control into the QA environment I quickly began receiving emails from testers about "post back" related error messages which mostly centered around invalid ViewState exceptions. At first I dismissed it as something related to all of the AJAX requests happening on the page and considered turning off page event validation. However, upon further investigation I came across the following article: Things That You Should Watch Out For When Using SessionPageStatePersister In this article the author specifically states: If you application uses frames than each frame request will create a new session view state item and as before it will remove items when reaching the maximum, you come into a situation that one of the frames will probably loose it session view state because other frames did post backs. Oh snap! That is precisely what I am doing. That combined with multiple users on the application equals dropped ViewStates! The temporary fix has been to disable the use of the SessionPageStatePersister in my application. This results in a bloated hidden ViewState input, but the web server is no longer tasked with maintaing/retreiving it and the app. no longer loses ViewState information.

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