aebe's thoughts in the life of .net / AJAX / IT business

.net SxS explained

2011-05-25T10:28:00.001+02:00

.net Side by Side explained (.net 4.0)
Hopefully this piece adds a puzzle piece
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clrteam/archive/2009/06/03/in-process-side-by-side-part1.aspx

to VSOT (Visual Studio Tools for Office) Runtime versions / .net Versions and 32/64bit hosts.

WP7 - have it & deployment

2011-01-30T21:17:00.003+01:00

short: Got a Windows Phone, which is frighteningly fun to use and almost addictive.
And i realized that Microsoft has spun a pretty impressing web of social websites, all accessible with a Live Id. I am sure their servers will hit bottlenecks, and usage of MS sites raise quite a bit.
Deployment is tricky. nicely guided by several MS tools and sites, but do I really need to send in a physical tax declaration form to MS before I can test-deploy my App ?
Phew...

AMQP - a new Message Bus Standard on it's way ?

2010-10-01T14:10:00.002+02:00

Loving Message Buses and Messaging in General (so far favourite: Tibco - so far least favourite, Oracle), I was delighted to hear about AMQP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Message_Queuing_Protocol).

A new Messaging Protocol, made also to integrate with Tibco and other (proprietary) systems. Backed by the Finance Industry which undoubtedly is a good case for a reference project, setting the stakes high and surely resulting in a performant system.
Hopefully it'll become available, replacing the Oracle Message Bus, soon enough !!

MCP-Test passed ! 70-536

2010-03-06T00:19:00.002+01:00

I passed ! Unexpected, but efficiently ;-)

Lunch Driven Development

2010-02-02T17:09:00.001+01:00

Grin, somewhat aligned with my views, I found a blog that talks about a Lunch Driven Development Methodology.

Read for yourself and be amazed how much speed your development can gain just by making sure your team eats lunch under certain conditions ;-)

According to Heise, IT jobs are particularly stressful

2009-11-04T11:29:00.000+01:00

Interesting study revealed. do you agree or disagree ?
In german only, sorry !

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Studie-IT-Jobs-besonders-stressig-847283.html

Erste Microsoft Certified Prüfung steht bevor

2009-09-04T13:20:00.003+02:00

... gut Ding will Weile haben - die Anmeldung zur ersten Microsoft Certified Prüfung ist gemacht, im Oktober ists soweit. *freu*
Ziel: Microsoft Certified Trainer...

Adding custom Prerequisites to Visual Studio 2010

2009-08-14T16:14:00.002+02:00

While developing my Joinup Outlook Add-In with Visual Studio 2010, I intended to add my own Prerequisite to the Installer Project (yes, VSTO solutions do need quite a few of those..).
I did find information about how to add them to Visual Studio, but not about 2010.
So here it is, prominent actually, but due to a pretty different folder path to previous VS versions, I mistakenly thought this to be the wrong information.

In short, Custom Prerequisites go here:
\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\Packages

Deploying VSTO Solutions (Outlook Add-Ins, Office extensions) & prerequisites

2009-08-14T14:52:00.004+02:00

I am currently developing an Outlook Add In to synchronize Joinup.ch events to your Outlook calendar. While development is getting more and more streamlined (event with Visual Studio 2010), deployment was and still seems to be difficult.

Unfortunatly, depending on Office Versions you are targeting, prerequisites differ, and even more unfortunate is that the installer which is added to your VSTO solution doesn't seem to check for those prerequisites.

An extensive blog article / walk through can be found here.
Still not the easiest thing on earth, this walk through provides alot of necessary background information.

Good luck !
Denis

Coalescing operator in C#: ??

2009-07-22T22:35:00.002+02:00

It's been a long time ! But another hopefully handy link about the maybe-not-so-well-known (At least by my I must admit) coalescing operator in C#.

return myObject ?? new MyObject();

basically returns myObject if it's not null. If it is, a new Instance of MyObject is returned..

http://www.sturmnet.org/blog/2005/06/15/doublequestionmark

Handy, no ?

Ruby On Rails

2009-02-16T17:11:00.003+01:00

Just a short one: Until today I tried to get to like Ruby On Rails, and among other (really nice) ideas, RoR tells you in its log files which calls/functions/syntax's are deprecated - and it also shows you a link to an official site listing all deprecated items to the current version. But the link was/is broken. I keep mentioning and advising that RoR seems too young (ie. too many minor and major revisions being pushed out at the moment). But finding that even a deprecation link seems deprecated didn't make me more confident.

Windows 7 IS indeed very cool

2009-02-01T03:02:00.003+01:00

After installing every version of Vista, starting at PDC Beta 1, keeping up my hope for improvements, i was very sceptic. There it was, Microsoft's offer of downloading Windows 7 Beta 1. After some blog-researching and reading raving comments about Windows 7, i started to hesitate. I bought a new notebook harddrive, an external drive, none of which enabled me to do an easy backup to recover from a bad problem with Windows 7 (the installation seems non-revertable).
Finally, I was brave, installed Windows 7 on top of my Vista (which is used for Software Development of various kinds) and prayed... I knew, would my installation fail, i'd be left with a unusable partition to be installed with a fresh Vista Installation. And days of development work lost.
It took about four hours, migrated 360'000 settings (of any kind) and booted up nicely ! And: Ever since, I've enjoyed using Windows 7 ! It's responsive, it looks nice and consistent. All my settings, last used files and so on, all still here. And if you ever read the manual (yeah, sometimes even IT people do that) about the new (requiring some time to getting used to) task bar, you'll be impressed. Microsoft seems to have put every thought in assigning many sensible key-combinations with NICE window and task functions.
I didn't thing MS was able to perform so well. Unfortunate that this requires a real disaster like Vista, but good to see that MS can do it and indeed did it ! After .net, this is a MAJOR winner !

Year of IT

2008-09-17T14:48:00.002+02:00

As you might already know, in Switzerland, we're holding the Year of IT, with an IT-fair Informatica 08 held by major Swiss IT players like Google, Credit Suisse and others.

This is really cool and for me as an IT guy, being really glad that I chose to work in IT (there ARE a lot of downsides too, but you often get to see many interesting things thanks to IT), but it seems that the whole event has been set up mainly to attract to IT people and give them the impression of being a particularly good employer.

And particularly now, one major bank that co-sponsored this whole event dictates (again) freelancer salaries by advising all agencies that bring in IT-freelancers. The company requires those agencies to reduce agreed hourly rate by about 8%. This after this bank has, together with another major bank, dictated hour-salaries in the past. Even worse, currently employed freelancers were forced to accept a lower salary or leave with short notice.

In this sense, I say thanks to that company for organizing such an Event that should improve the reputation of IT (it's being thought as boring, corny and stressful). But to me this company rather seems to piggyback, hoping to attract some more of those rare IT people ( I wonder how they communicate those even lower salaries to them..) Are they really that rude ? (erm, yes, they are.. that's how things work). It's just always again difficult to see such little morale and ethics.

Anyway, I've worked 14 months for that company, and ever since try to avoid them (successfully so far :-) )

Good IT-Year !!
Denis

inMind GmbH - officially founded

2008-06-24T13:01:00.004+02:00

There it is:
inMind GmbH

After another twenty days wait for officials to confirm, inMind has been founded ! Let's see how the future develops - surely joinup.ch is now backed by a company to avoid legal problems. So all future plans are possible :-)

Another step in an eventful life !
Keep watching :-) and use joinup.ch
Thanks !
Denis

Founding a company

2008-06-05T23:12:00.002+02:00

Finally it has happened ! On June 4, 2008, I and my business partner when it comes to joinup.ch founded the company under which name our web application will operate. This is a very important moment for me, as it is a clear step forward and besides - offers yet again new possibilities ! Let's hope that all goes well, and for a start, that the founding papers find their snail mail way :-)

SQL Server: Temporarily disable constraints for data Load

2008-05-16T14:16:00.001+02:00

for data loads that replace referenced data by new data (that validates against constraints of course), you can quickly disable constraints checking like this:

http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/roman/archive/2005/01/30/7037.aspx

DataSet Enforce Constraints - Detailed error messages (quick post)

2008-04-18T11:05:00.009+02:00

Did you ever set EnforceConstraints to true and encountered an exception and tried to find out which constraint exactly failed ?

Dave has written a small function that simply but cleverly iterates over all tables/columns in case of an exception and displays the exact locations constraints couldn't be enforced:

If you prefer C#:

/// Safely tries to enable constraints, and if not possible returns detailed error
public static void TryEnforceConstraints(DataSet ds)
{
try
{
ds.EnforceConstraints = true;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Debug.WriteLine("DataSet errors: " + ds.DataSetName);
foreach (DataTable table in ds.Tables)
{
DataRow[] ErrorRows = table.GetErrors();
foreach (DataRow row in ErrorRows)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Table: " + table.TableName);
Debug.WriteLine(" Row Error: " + row.RowError);
DataColumn[] ErrorColumns = row.GetColumnsInError();

foreach (DataColumn column in ErrorColumns)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Column: " + column.ColumnName);
Debug.WriteLine(" Error: " + row.GetColumnError(column));
}
}
}
}

}

Not advanced magic here, but practical coding help :-) Happy Coding !

CSS tips - the whole collection

2008-01-28T13:32:00.000+01:00

I haven't been liking CSS but it's something inavoidable (and once - after years- I got my head round it, actually even useful and maintainable ! ;-) )

Just a short one: find the cooles tips about CSS here:
http://pooliestudios.com/projects/iconize/

2008 - this is IT!

2008-01-25T15:03:00.000+01:00

I was looking forward to this year - PDC is taking place, which is clearly a spot/moment where each IT worker, or at least each .net / MS afficiando, can enjoy the fact that she's working in IT. It's definitely one of the many highlights that you only get to see when you are working in Software Development / Architecture or something similar.

In general, what i find very very cool about working in IT is that there is a lot of responsibility that waits to be taken over - and usually even a beginner willing to accept responsibilities is getting those. So the possibilities to develop personal skills are almost endless.
Also, rather quickly, IT enables workers to see more places, in more detail, and in a number of locations one doesn't usually get to see so quickly.
Reflecting back on my almost eight years of IT work results in huge amount of incredible memories, in a number of locations and/or companies all over this world. Also, I've met colleagues from several cultures, giving me an insight into work-procedures and lifestyles I'd hardly get to know, had I not a Job as a (C#) Software Developer.

Then, one could ask, why does IT have such a bad reputation - and why, besides all those benefits, are there so many young 'work forces' that don't want to bother with IT ?

Let me speculate about some of those reasons - in one of my next post, which is hopefully to come soon. (there's plenty in my mind, but I haven't enough time to finish this post then..)

PDC 2008

2007-12-18T17:01:00.000+01:00

It's announced ! PDC 2008 is planned to take place next Autumn in Los Angeles !
Let's hope it does take place, and let's hope i can go (any sponsors ? ;-))) ).

You you have the choice, DO NOT MISS this opportunity. It's an awesome experience !

Check out details here : http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/events/bb288534.aspx

ASP.NET File Upload Content Type variations on CSV Upload

2007-11-28T01:41:00.000+01:00

My object was to enable web users using http://www.joinup.ch to import their CSV-exported contacts into the application.

So I implemented a FileUpload via ASP.NET and checked for the content type to distinct between a 'real' excel file that was being uploaded, and a CSV file (exported by Outlook).

The content type for my own CSV file showed up as application/octet-stream, and the import worked nicely (http://www.joinup.ch/ImportInvitees.aspx), while files uploaded by a test user on two other PCs seemed to crash.

Please note that during all the tests, everyone was using Firefox, and not IE.

After some investigation, I found out that my browser/OS sent the ContentType 'application/octet-stream' for the CSV file i was uploading, others were sending
Content type: application/vnd.ms-excel

Now, that seemed quite strange to me. But apparently, depending on the Office/Excel version a user has installed, the content-type changes. Having installed Office (2002) on my own PC, my browser sent 'application/octet-stream' for the CSV text file I uploaded. If there is a newer version installed, the ContentType seems to change to the one mentioned above.

Why Firefox sends a different content-type depending on the Office version puzzles me a littlebit, but this can be handled, once aware.

So if you ever need to upload/import a CSV file to a web application, don't rely on the content type to be the same.

Finally, I kept checking for the content type value, but I also checked for the file extension to make sure to use the right import procedure.

I admit that application/Octet-stream doesn't help much for Content-Type. But the fact that the contenttype value changes depending on the installed application seems a bit scary to me. But then again, most of us have already got used to the fact that MS Software affects many System settings, and this one seems to be one of those. Sad but true.

I will futher investigate on this topic and try to find the definite and clear reason for this.

ClickOnce - move install/update location

2007-09-27T17:09:00.000+02:00

After having used ClickOnce with the Smart Client Software Foundation Framework, we had to move the installation location, as the server was replaced and re-organised.

We were assuming that our customers who use the client, which is currently only partially rolled out, will have to manually reinstall the client by calling the appropriate new URL, as simply changing the update location in the Manifest file doesn't impress the client and doesn't cause any action.

After some HTTP sniffing, I found out that the ClickOnce client does, as hoped, check back on the installation server and opens the .application file, which is already good but obvious as well. As I wrote, simply changing the update/install location in this manifest file doesn't lead to any updating (which makes sense, keeping in mind that this is the first ClickOnce version and a beefed up release is on its way). So I tried and updated the "Required Version" setting in the server manifest file and re-started the application on a client. Again, it opens the now updated manifest file, triggers an update and thus causes the app to start downloading a new version (which in the meantime needs to be around on the new server).

Conclusion: Also installed clients can be pushed to accept a new install location, without manually touching all client instances.

Requirements:
- New version needs to be published (to new location)
- All clients need to be updated prior to disabling the old install location

Steps (for the more efficient reader in short form):
- Publish a new ClickOnce version to new install/update location
- Edit application_name.manifest file on old/current install location to reflect new install location AND
Increase Minimal Required Version to indicate version published on new location
- Make sure that all installed clients update themselves
- (NOT TESTED) Switch off old install location

Two interesting / curious C# links

2007-09-26T17:28:00.000+02:00

Due to constrained time situation, I am simply posting two links that are related to .net / C# software development.

1) After having implemented a BindingListView for custom data object class including operators for >=, <=, begin with and end with operators myself, i found an article online outlining exactly this. :-)
Jesse Johnsons BindingListview implementation for custom objects

2) Admittedly, some things i still can't understand in the .net Framework: One of those i just found today is that the DataGridView DOES support DoubleBuffering (as it is inherited from Control), but that property is not public. Maybe i am a bad software designer, but why wouldn't one make that Property public right from the start ?
No explanation here, just a confirming my words

Showing/Hiding DataGridViewImageColumn Image

2007-07-12T14:11:00.000+02:00

While developing an overview page that displays orders and their state, I needed to display a "Has been printed" Image after the order confirmation papers had been printed out. The intuitive thing to do for me was either to write a custom DataGridView cell type, or to use the DataGridViewImageColumn/Cell type. I was confident that the latter would lead me closer to my solution, although already suspecting that the Cell-Value would not be a boolean that indicates wether or not to show the image. So easily hiding the image wouldn't work.

So the only option i could come up with was to use (like in typical Web applications) a spacer image that simply consists of transparent pixel(s).

As the column was data-bound, I implemented a property that returned an image stored in my resources. It all might sound too simple and plain stupid, but there are quite a few people asking that question on the Net. So i post my property here, maybe it helps somebody:

public System.Drawing.Image WasPrintedImage
{
get
{
// Boolean property indicating the print-status
if (WasPrinted)
return ((System.Drawing.Image)(XY.Properties.Resources.PrintingDone));
else
return ((System.Drawing.Image)(XY.Properties.Resources.Spacer));
}
}

Safari Browser for Windows !

2007-06-12T11:44:00.000+02:00

Kind of an unexpected news item: Apple is releasing Safari Public Beta 3 of their up until now Mac-only Safari Browser for Windows !
Even though i am not a huge Apple-fan (yes, their iPod was a revolutionary invention and so is Mac OS X), I immediatly wanted to look at this new enemy after the two main competitors (IE and Firefox) sort of became friends (MS is very much embracing Firefox these days and seems to be doing quite a lot to accommodate other browsers as well. In my opinion, the last months have been the most promising for Web Developers).
At first, I was thrilled knowing that there would soon be a different browser in the game, but after installing it, I must say that I am WORRIED!

a) Apple continues to dictate more and more their terms: Downloading the browser is not possible without leaving your email address. Not a real issue, and fake addresses are accepted as well. The iPhone will (rumours tell) have a permanent SIM-card, thus Apple dictates which Networks you can use - and even makes money with each conversation you hold through your iPhone...
b) Apple is trying wherever possible to include Quicktime in your download. iTunes requires you to install Quicktime (i forgot to mention that I do not need Quicktime, find it a memory hog and for a Windows Application, the User Interface is just not to my taste). And at the moment, they offer a download link for Safari including Quicktime, and one link with just Safari. I assume that the second option will be gone soon.

c) The browser displayed most of my test websites I looked at (www.news.com, www.mozilla.org, www.cnn.com, www.joinup.ch) in a horrible layout, leaving even news headlines on www.cnn.com completely unreadable (several lines of text on CNN only rendered as a single pixel line !

d) The User Interface looks like the typical Apple User Interface (take iTunes or Quicktime).
Nielsen or any other Usability-geek probably starts to shiver as we speak.

e) Installing Safari went smoothly (without Quicktime of course :-)) on my Office PC (standard-config), but launching Safari twice resulted in two crashes after visiting a few Web Sites, having used it for merely three minutes.

Granted, it's a beta, but it's a public beta, and it's beta three.
But it's public.
It does look good for everyone who likes it - but it doesn't at all fit into any Windows UI. And it doesn't work. Crashes and very very obvious rendering issues (big parts of Web Pages were simply missing!) don't speak for Apple this time.
Every Beta 1 Microsoft for example releases is much more stable than Safari Beta 3. So for now, i'd recommend to either use it on a Mac or not at all. Take Firefox or even IE7, you'll be much happier.

It remains to be seen how this all affects Web Developers. Will the have to embrace yet another browser that renders completely different ? Or will Apple manage to adhere to Standards at least in the area of a Browser like Firefox or Opera ?
I hope so - otherwise, developing Web Applications will get even more costly on the part of CSS and styling then it already is. And that can not be in any interest, not even in the Google/Apple/Yahoo conglomerate.

Let's see - it definitely won't be as peaceful anymore as it has been in terms of browser-war.
:-)

PDC 2007 postponed & Excel Autofilter DataGridView Column

2007-05-29T15:11:00.000+02:00

As usual - shortly the two most important news and discoveries of today:

Microsoft is postponing its PDC 2007 !
It's a real pity (and a bit very short-noticed at least for non-US citizens), but Microsoft just announced that it's postponing the PDC 2007. It was forseeable that I won't have the time to attend anyway this year, so I am rather happy than angry (fortunatly I haven't already booked anything) because that leaves me the option to attend at an easier point in time.

.net: Building a DataGridView AutoFilter HeaderCell
Check out this MSDN article, which helped me alot building a AutoFilter header cell for the DataGridView (Windows Forms). I have to admit (coping with Windows Forms for a bit more than a year) that the article is very well written and the result is quite cool and adheres to OO-principles perfectly imo. But in a not so quiet office, fully understanding everything takes a bit, but gives much-needed and very interesting insights into some key-concepts of the whole .net Framework.

My first TechDays 2007 Zurich visit

2007-04-14T09:55:00.000+02:00

TechDays 2007 in Zurich is over and it was definitely a very interesting event with lots of impressions and many things to learn.
While I found that many sessions were rather general and tried to focus on all Developers, Decision Makers and Sales People, there were still quite a few sessions that gave good insights on common problems a developer faces almost daily.

Particular highlights i found were
- the keynote about security, held by Rafal Lukawiecki (whom i funnily enough knew from years ago from London already). Prior to the keynote we all found the topic 'Security' a bit of a wrong choice to listen to for 90 minutes. Sure, security is a key topic in our work, it's hardly ever an interesting topic. But I was proved wrong - Rafal managed like nobody i've seen before to make it a very entertaining, interesting keynote and dug up some very interesting facts that got me thinking - hopefully our future regarding security and malicious attacks is not as dark as it can possible become (although trying to be a realistic person, my hopes might go unheard).
- Ingo Rammer impressed with his in-depth knowledge of Windows Workflow Foundation and Hardcore debugging. While i have been paying attention to Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) for more than 2 years now (starting at PDC 2005), the product is just about starting to get to a stage that can be used for production, but has some very nice concepts. I was definitely encouraged by this session to finally try it sometime soon.
Hardcore debugging was VERY impressive. I would definitely not say about myself that I don't know alot about technical and internal details of .net and ASP.net. But what Ingo showed off here was a) very very geeky, which has become rare and thus a very welcome change every now and then for me and b) will definitely proof very helpful in the near future. To almost completely debug a compiled application on a production machine without installing Visual Studio, without adding log messages until the database is flooded with such messages, will certainly make it easier to find nasty production-only bugs in an application.

About the location: Why Microsoft chose our very old-fashioned (and due to rebuilding) congress hall is still a riddle to me. The location of the event hall is definitely awesome (in the heart of downtown Zurich, just next to the see, making it easy to enjoy a short stay off any session, enjoying the sun lying on the lake), the rooms were small, cramped and with hardly any leg space, which made it very difficult to sit still for 75 minutes or more. Why not choose the new exhibition and fair center that is modern and spacious and convenient ?

Anyway, it was a nice event with a good mix of visitors - and now it's time to look forward to PDC 2007 ;-) which i can hopefully attend.

TechDays start tomorrow !

2007-04-10T11:36:00.000+02:00

The TechDays 2007 in Zurich/Switzerland start tomorrow ! It's my second 'Microsoft' event after PDC 2005 in Los Angeles.

It should be interesting to see the difference to LA (which will be substantial), but it will be good to meet local people and do some networking here as well.
More during/after the event, which will definitely be filled with new impressions and opinions to state here on my blog.

Visual Studio 2005 Team - get rid of all the Wizards and magic and fix the Windows Forms designer !

2007-03-05T15:00:00.000+01:00

After working with Visual Studio 2005 for almost three years now (approximately), having used ASP.net (C#) extensively as well as Windows Forms (C# as well), I think I am able to compare support for those two very different technologies when it comes to Visual Studio support.
After being pretty impressed by ASP.net Support in Visual Studio 2005 (already without the patch), expectations were high when starting to plunge into the WinForms world (i did get in touch with the Designer every now and then, and especially in 2000, when working on a Visual C++ Windows Forms project in study, so i definitely expected more out of the designer than it offered 7 years ago).

First glimpse suggest that the Winforms Desiger is pretty much full-fledged, supports a variety of functions and special tasks, can generate data-bound forms out of a database scheme and so on and so on.

Having said this, generating data bound forms (apart from the fact that i in general rather go for manually coding the data binding) mostly results in a crash, at least with Oracle 9.

Other annoyances include (but are not limited to):
- Selecting and moving controls is not possible while they're set to "Dock = Full" - makes absolutely no sense to me
- The designer recreating .designer code upon compile. Out of several tens of forms, one certain form that is set up of a table layout and an embedded DataGridView spaning 2 rows, is modified by Visual Studio 2005, and the rowspan of that datagridview is lost - so it's being reset to 1. Happens ALWAYS and to always the same form..
- Occasional error messages when open in design view - closing the form and reopen it again usually helps - occured a lot with CAB projects.

And yes, i am talking about Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 !
For a software development application with which probably most Windows Applications are being developed, such issues seem sort of ok in a first version to me. But if one includes Visual Studio 2003, VS 2005 SP1 is the "third" evolution of this breed. Now all i can hope is that customers buying the Team Edition (for quite some money...) DO have a better designer - although out of experience, i highly doubt that.

So not much has changed compared to pre Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2005 - i still look forward to the Visual Studio Service Pack, which is desperately needed (even after SP1).

(Don't get me wrong, out of the available Software Development tools out there, Visual Studio is definitely most advanced and convenient, though the priciest as well i assume).

Selling (Windows Vista) Digital Rights Management

2007-02-28T11:19:00.000+01:00

Pheeeew. DRM (Digital rights management) has been on the market now for quite some time, but apart from the content industry, nobody likes it.

Why is that ?

- Worst of all, the product "DRM" doesn't deliver anything 'positive' to the user. By having it, you get more hassles and less control than you do by not having it (hence my avoidance of anything that only smells like containing DRM).
- Almost as bad: "DRM" can not be touched - sounds silly but imo is a major drawback. How can a product like DRM be anyone's friend when it's not controllable ? How do I know how much of that thing is in my PCs ? There is no real control panel, no statistics about how much content i was only able to listen to THANKS to DRM. There is nothing positive communicated to the user. and that when every marketing department emphasizes on User Experience.
- Content companies have pretty much (and one could really think deliberatly) ruined their reputation. and it's exactly them who push DRM into Vista. From broken CDs, hidden root kits that cause Windows machines to become (even more) unsecure to buggy drivers being installed silently, little good has been heard in that area recently.

Obviously, Microsoft had to cope with DRM in some why while developing Windows Vista. The rumours around might be true (but definitely help to make customers rather hesitant) or false, or both, but they don't help to boost Vista sales, and show how difficult the whole DRM discussion is.

It's a shame really. Vista is beautiful and i'd consider installing it on my PCs too, but DRM is the one best reason not to do so. And getting facts about what is in Vista and what is not consists of asking two big brothers: Microsoft and the content/music/movie industry. Now do you trust any of those two to deliver a true answer ?

Blog discussion about conflicting DRM & Vista 'facts'

TechDays 2007 in Zurich - Registration open !

2007-02-21T14:16:00.000+01:00

My second "big" Microsoft Event: TechDays 2007 in Zurich/Switzerland ! Registration is now open, and i am already looking forward to it quite a bit ! Won't be anything like the PDC 2005, or at least I don't expect as much, but it will be good to meet people and learn about the latest plans and ideas MS is coming up with !

ASP.NET AJAX "Compatibility" Validator errors

2007-01-30T22:47:00.001+01:00

The final version 1.0 has been released and ASP.net AJAX (notice the vanished ATLAS, although i'll miss it..)is out ! It is and has been fun to update pages to use AJAX, which usually went somewhat smooth and - the effect gained by some rather little work was worth every line of additional code. It was a bit of a pain though to migrate ATLAS to AJAX, but it took less than expected (about 1.5 hours for a medium-sized small Web Application) and it's well documented. Just look for the MS Word ATLAS to AJAX Migration documentation. Thanks to Microsoft and the involved developers for all that, it has been a really fun time to watch the toolkit progress and to use it.

Unfortunatly, it's not all bushes and roses.. After migrating the application, installing an extra DLL in the bin folder on the hoster's web server (it's being installed to GAC locally, which in my opinion doesn't make sense (from a not so experienced developer's point of view), the app seemed to be fine and i went off on a holiday. I was not convinced though, that the application would now run fine inluding the migrated code/web.config and the new DLLs it would give me in a new AJAX project.

After a few days, a friend called to say that one rarely used page wouldn't work anymore, it used CompareValidator amongst others. Fortunatly and fascinatingly enough, a wireless network was around (and although being at the other end of the world on a beach vacation, how could i resist to fix that issue... :-) next time i'll leave my notebook at home... NOT) and i decided to look for others having the same problem. And Voilà, even an MS blog writer blogged about this exact problem, and pointend me to an additional download to store into the BIN folder.

Well, it all works, which is cool. But the aforementioned issue seems typical (sorry MS but that's my opinion). Apparently when MS released the ASP.net AJAX final release, they decided to take out the DLLs for AJAX Validators within UpdatePanels. The DLL was supposed to be shipped by Windows Update as we speak. But MS got delayed and silently postponed that work to some later time. So the DLL wouldn't be installed anywhere, leaving one unable to use AJAX Validators, among other controls, anymore... Now, the twist is that that DLL will (...) come out in the next two weeks. Why MS had decided not to communicate the substantial mishap to their "user-experience" conscious users probably remains a riddle...

You can get an extra DLL, don't worry, and using that one seemed appropriate and hassle-free.

(see http://blogs.msdn.com/mattgi/archive/2007/01/23/asp-net-ajax-validators.aspx)

Just how can it be that MS cancels a rather important and widely used DLL, doesn't mention it (at all ?) in the CES consumer show or in the migration document ?!

Also, it's being promised that on the servers, a replacement DLL will be installed (into GAC i assume) by Windows Update, but MS couldn't make it in time.

.net DataView Filter conditions and ignorecase & oracle

2007-01-09T14:19:00.000+01:00

First of all, Happy New Year and all the best for 2007 ! It all looks fairly good around here and plenty of work is around.

To start off in the new Year, while developing a CAB / Smart Client Software Factory application based on Oracle, I was facing the same problem twice and can't wind myself out of solving it.
The problem is simple: A DataView containing several rows with columns holding Integer (numerical) values and strings. For one certain Use Case, the application needs to go through the Table and create a DataView that filters out rows that don't contain a certain string. As the user is always King and thus can enter lower- or uppercase search terms, we want to ignore the case and return everything that just matches his query. In SQL Server, you'd enter a Filter a la: " searchColumn LIKE 'searchTerm'". SQL Server knows by itself that it should ignore the case in this case.
(column = 'xY' takes case into account, while column LIKE 'xY' returns everything from xy to XY etc.).
Oracle doesn't... Even using the keyword LIKE causes Oracle to care about case. Now you'd say:" Ha, just uppercase both the search term and the column a la UPPER(column) LIKE (searchTerm)". Simple enough... BUT: Microsoft doesn't support such a keyword in the filter pseudo-query language...

There seems to be no decent solution for this so far... Well done Microsoft..... Parts of the .net Framework and the ideas behind it are truly great and awesome, but on some other ends, some developers/marketing guys definitely should have been a bit more attentive.

Maybe someone knows a solution that can be used for dataview filters in .net 2.0 ? i doubt it... unfortunately.

Check out this cool (ASP.net 2.0 / AJAX) website :-)

2006-12-20T15:21:00.001+01:00

My latest hobby-project:
www.joinup.ch - invite for a party

Simple but handy web site to invite friends for any kind of party by email. The website always shows the event summary and responses to the automatically invited friends.
Add more friends later on, receive custom messages from your friends concerning the event and store your event into outlook. Even monitoring your event by RSS feed is possible.

Let me know what you think, otherwise i'm getting bored :-)

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 BETA

2006-11-23T11:23:00.000+01:00

At last, the long awaited Service Pack 1 is out for Visual Studio 2005. BUT: It's BETA !! After trying out several new technologies and "packages" from Microsoft (ClickOnce, Composite Application Blocks and Smart Client Software Factory, Visual Studio 2005 and 2003, themselves, some time ago (which are all not beta)), every final V1 product being released by Microsoft recently rather felt like a Beta product, and the service pack made it then feel like a final version at last.

But the fact that the service pack itself is called BETA version seems like a desperate measure to release the long-awaited piece of code faster than it should be. Of course everyone has been waiting for that service pack and that's why probably most developers including me are installing it. I just hope that the beta version of this service pack rather feels like RTM Version or a release candidate. I would otherwise expect a software company to not at all release BETA Service Packs and rather get their job done right.

I'll see.. The beta SP1 is currently installing, and will either even more "increase my productivity" and remove really annoying and obvious bugs, or will cost me a day of non-productivity. Also, I hope this service pack doesn't break my ClickOnce Deployment configuration for my CAB application i am currently working on.

UPDATE:
The Service Pack is here, a surprisingly short time after the Beta Release. Have quite some disk space ready (particularly on your Windows partition) and get accustomed to watching Visual Studio 2005 being updated for 30-45 minutes, but it's worth it ! You're in for quite a few performance-improvements, bug fixes and usuability improvements (among others "Find throughout the whole Solution !")

MVP Pattern - overview and differences to MVC Pattern

2006-11-21T09:02:00.000+01:00

Are you working with the Composite Application Blocks Library from Microsoft and are wondering yourself what the difference between the MVC (Model-View-Controller) and MVP (Model-View-Presenter) Pattern is ? If you are like me and know the MVC Pattern but have missed the introduction of the MVP Pattern, here's a short summary of the differences and how to change MVC to become MVP:

Chillout Lounge Blog Article

Windows Vista

2006-09-08T12:53:00.000+02:00

I have now been looking at EVERY release of a new Vista beta or Release Candidate, including installing the first version that we got at the PDC 2005 in my hotel room just after receiving the long-awaited DVD set. Latest installation experience is RC1 of Windows Vista. Expectations were mixed,as the previous versions all had some oddities. But this version is fast and responsive, although i am not sure about the broad acceptance of the new UI. Also, increased security features are great, but it should be kept in mind that the huge installation base of Windows probably exists due to the ease-of-use (no root accounts, no "switch user" like with unix, no file permission settings etc.). After experiencing frequent DNS timeouts today, Windows couldn't repair the network, but Windows Help then told me to open the network properties window, open TCP/IP settings and enter "root" credentials if requested. THEN close the window again without modifying anything.... That means to me that regardless of all the security popups (which are a bit annoying at times, but a good thing security-wise), the Network connection apparently couldn't acquire administration rights and needs the user to just open properties. Apart from the fact that it was real luck that i've for once looked at the help text, this action makes neither sense nor can it in ANY way explained to an average user. Why doesn't a network connection ask for Administrator details when set up by Vista automatically ?
But apart from that, using Windows Vista is much more fun, especially for the eyes. i'll keep evaluating ;-)

Remote Debugging with ASP.net 2.0 / 3.0

2006-07-28T12:31:00.000+02:00

So far, remote debugging has been cumbersome - connecting to a remote server failed with weird errors, software had to be installed on servers (yes, also our IT admins didn't like that at all !) and i was thus expecting the worst, or maybe a slight improvement in Visual Studio 2005.

By default, remote debugging would still not work, as the Server wouldn't run the Debug Monitor, which is perfectly fine and understandeable. But VS 2005 would now tell me, that the monitor is simply not running on the server, and would not just fail either silently or with some odd message that it not at all appropriate ! Cool !

After finding out how exactly that Monitor needs to be started/installed, this (german) MSDN article explains how to start the process on the server and guess what: You don't need to install ANYTHING on the server, no VS 2005, not even parts of it as the article clearly points out that the monitor can even be started from a network share ! This is awesome - so you just connect to your server through remote desktop (with drive sharing enabled), open the shares that RDP creates that point to your local PC (where VS 2005 is installed) and start MSVSMON from your local PC's hard drive on the server - no installation, a GUI, and clear messages, and even a debug mode that needs no authentication whatsoever (be sure though that this mode is only for corporate or private networks, as it's unsafe and MS clearly tells you so).

Thanks Microsoft, this is for once a really cool step forward !

Declarative programming in ASP.net 2.0 - good or bad ?

2006-07-19T12:14:00.000+02:00

Since ASP.NET 1.1, i have not been a friend of declarative programming in ASP.NET pages. Coming from a C++/ Java/Unix Environment originally, I like to know what happends behind the scenes of a programming statement. Declarative programming to me seems like handing control to same "magic" component (ASP.NET in this case) that makes SOMETHING out of the declared code. What it exactly creates is, at least that's how i feel, unknown to the programmer and very difficult to find out (is it even possible ? Maybe in the class .net compiles the ASPX/ASCX into ?). While developing ATLAS/AJAX controls recently, i stumpled across one more declarative language - xmlscript, i'll first have to figure out what it exactly is. If that's the case for you as well or if you're just curious about the concepts and wether it's useful or wether it puts more obstacles in the way, read this blog entry

Telecommuting (working from home is now officially confirmed to improve productivity)

2006-06-19T15:02:00.000+02:00

While a difficult and often discussed-about (at least in small- to mid-sized companies) topic, telecommuting or working from home / anywhere for a limited time/amount of days does seem to have more benefits for everyone than it has drawbacks.

I have been agreeing to that conclusion since i first tried telecommuting, and even more have i noticed that not being able to telecommute is way less fun, either in the office as well as out of the office (i don't believe in fully separating work and life from each other).

It is true as well that letting your people telecommute poses some risks, for example do you have to be capable of finding and managing employees that organize themselves autonomously and don't just sit around waiting for their next tasks. On a personal level, such an employee can be harder work, but the results he yields are in my opinion often better.

On the other hand, you get employees that are usually willing to work and be in charge at times a normal employee would already have gone home and doesn't pick up when called by the employer.

Just a few thoughts.. Now finally the document I'm writing about :-)
Here's the article that analyzes a few pros and cons of telecommuting.

It happened (Riddle!)

2006-05-23T12:09:00.000+02:00

We've worked for almost a year on this, it was the final big open issues (in order to see many more of those in front of us, but all manageable :-) ). Today we learned that this obstacle will have been left behind us in the near future - which makes us ready to move from there very soon and with full energy !
!!! Congratulations and thanks to all !!!

Debug ASP.NET ATLAS/Ajax controls

2006-05-16T12:32:00.000+02:00

ATLAS development is an interesting task and offers some new challenges. Debugging ATLAS control was such for me - how would one debug a webservice call done by an ATLAS/AJAX control if the call is not making it to the web application sitting on your server ?

XMLHttpRequest Debugging for IE (don't click, but add this link to your favourites)

XMLHttpRequest Debugging for Firefox (Requires Greasemonkey)

Once you have set the bookmark/favourite, go to the page that uses Xml Http Calls to get data from your web application, click the bookmarklet/favourite and a nicely done layer pops up that traces Javascript calls to the server and also displays the response. VERY VERY neat !

Thanks a lot Julien ! This little tool helped me save hours.
Check for updates on Julien's blog

Exception Handling best practice

2006-04-07T08:57:00.000+02:00

Sounds pretty basic, but i believe that for every developer not thinking about Exception Concepts each day, this is a good refresher or for starters, a perfect introduction about how to handle (or not handle) exceptions in an application.

Karl Seguin on Understanding and Using Exceptions

The Ultimate Asp.net 2.0 Security, Role, Membership and Profile Provider List V1.0

2006-03-31T13:29:00.000+02:00

Just a cheap blog entry to make sure that you know this page in case you work with .net 2.0 Roles, Membership, Profiles and Security. If you can't find what you need to know here, don't look any further.. ;-)

http://arnonel.com/blogs/arnonel/archive/2006/03/28/12.aspx

Are you a leader ?

2006-03-22T16:52:00.000+01:00

Are Web Developers/Web Project Managers that have been working on/for/with the web for years (since 1995 here, which is ELEVEN years already !! Woah, I'm getting real old real quick..), the future leaders in terms of Internet strategies and so on ? Exactly that thought crossed my mind last weekend, and i have not been sure whether working on the Internet is rather something seen as "trivial" compared to a proper Software Engineer, doing Java or something similar. Software Developers still seem to have less reputation than Java developers. But on the other hand, they have to know many (rapidly advancing) technologies. Granted, most of these technologies only now start to mature (in terms of OO, compatibility), but all these technology-layers a Web Project incorporates have all still a certain complexity.

Anyway, make your mind up for yourself and
see if you'll be a leader :-)

Has Microsoft lost confidence in .net ?

2006-03-20T15:09:00.000+01:00

Having been at PDC 2005 and seen the praising of .net myself, I felt clearly confident that Microsoft and .net would be a marriage that lasts for years, with the inventor supporting the technologie virtually forever.

But Richard Grimes collected indicators that it wouldn't be so. Searching Windows XP and it's various successors for traces of OS-shipped applications, tools and (who knows) core services of the Operating System that rely on the .net Framework. He couldn't find much that encouraged him in thinking that Microsoft would indeed trust in it's new (cool !) technology.

Having said that, it also need to be stressed that the core developers that work on the Windows-core having been developing unmanaged (thus non .net) code for a long time. The risk of scraping everything they did (like Windows explorer) and start anew would be tremendous. But even then, Microsoft can be expected to be more honest to at least it's developer base, like PDC 2005 etc.

Read and decide for yourself: http://www.grimes.demon.co.uk/dotnet/vistaAndDotnet.htm

Visual Studio likes to work disconnected, but how to reconnect ?

2006-03-15T23:47:00.000+01:00

I like to work on my notebook and work when- and wherever i can, like when in the train or plane etc. That did mean to work without any internet access and thus working on a checked-in C# project. Now fortunatly, both Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 nice let you know that it can simulate a check out and let you work disconnected. Very useful and just a confirmation click away. I might have been the only one expection it to nicely ask me to work connected again as soon as VS would start and find a connection to the VSS server again.

It didn't, and it took my at first quite a bit of time and hassle to reconnect AND be sure that no updates on my (faked checked-out) files at first.
While I could see that Visual Studio 2003 was a first of its kind, VS 2005 certainly isn't (I do definitely believe that MS did a good and extensive job with both versions, though). So I was again naive and looked forward to making reconnecting the project much easier, but I was in for a suprise - it did exactly what it's predecessor (?) did - nothing !

So whether you're in the fortunate situation to already work with VS 2005 or still stick to VS 2003, you still have to open "File" menu, go to Source Control and indicate to "Change Source Control" (which is not quite what I really want to do, but well..). You'll find your projects being disconnected, and have to check the box for each (and usually all listed) projects, which then causes VS to (most of the times, but you might even there run into trouble) connect again and let you know about next steps. For me, doing a GetLatest while not letting it overwrite writable files did the trick.

Resources in ASP.net 2.0 and Design time support

2006-03-14T10:25:00.000+01:00

Today I noticed that the CreateUserWizard control I am working on throws an exception once switching to Design View of Visual Studio 2005, by saying "Error Creating Control - Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

The reason is that i declaratively reference my Global Resources for labelling ToolTip and CreateUserButton Text, which seem to be null during design time (which seems perfectly understandable).
But what can I do against that ? Finding out hopefully..

Update: 2 days later after investigating, I didn't find any clear documentation on that, but just moved the late-bound stuff like setting control properties to resource-texts form ASPX to the code-behind. Since the designer doesn't have to render these calls like this anymore, it's all fine. And although it would be nice to access resource texts including designer support and without using code, i can perfectly live with that. And I still suspect that there is a CustomAttribute or something like that to include Designer-support. Anyone ? ;-)

ASP.net User Controls - CreateUserWizard customization

2006-03-13T13:01:00.000+01:00

Currently i am trying to get my head round .net 2.0 / ASP.net 2.0, which is indeed an interesting journey. Overall, also I have to express my admiration to what Microsoft has accomplished with .net 1.1, continuing pretty much the right path (imho) with .net 2.0 (I used to be a huge fan of Java, and had no sympathies for MS pre-.net)

While trying to customize the CreateUserWizard control in Terms of appearance and steps, some confusion came up. Not in general a fan of tiny things that generate themselves to some big magic balloon noone can look into/debug and grasp why things are rendered and why not.

To make things short, whenever i added a CompleteWizardStep

<wizardsteps>
<asp:createuserwizardstep>
</asp:createuserwizardstep>

<asp:completewizardstep>
</asp:completewizardstep>

<contenttemplate></contenttemplate>

</wizardsteps>

ASP.net 2.0 would still render my complete step and then additionally the default complete step. Anyway i was wondering how asp.net should know i intend to REPLACE the default complete step and not add my own.
After browsing through loads of (repeating) documentation and samples, i got suspicious that your step to overwrite the default one, it has to be called exactly like the default step, in my case "CompleteWizardStep1" which i found a bit strange and/or weird. But it's the first version of the control after all ;-)

Just in case somebody has a similar issue.

Happy coding
Denis