Walt Ritscher blogs

My New WPF blog and site

Walt Ritscher — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 07:55:00 GMT

2007 is going to the year of WPF for me. I've got a lot of projects pending, I'll tell you more about them as I get the details worked out. But I can tell you this....

I started a new blog at wpfwonderland.wordpress.com that's dedicated to WPF topics. I'll have a companion website up and running sometime this month too.(www.wpfwonderland.com )

Please check it out. I'm really excited about WPF. Can't wait to talk to you about all the cool bits.

Walt

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 is Released

Walt Ritscher — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 16:51:00 GMT

Hooray! Microsoft released the service packs for Visual Studio today. These are a MUST INSTALL for anyone using VS. There are plenty of bug fixes. The two that I'm most excited about are the Visual Basic background compiler fix and the performance fix for compiling large projects. Both of these issues have slowed my daily development consistently during the last year.

If you are an ASP.NET developer you'll be happy that the Web Deployment and Web Application projects are now included.

Microsoft has added some interesting new features in the SP too.

Multicore support for profiling
Multicore support for code gen
Team Server performance improvements
See the Microsoft website for more details

There are several version of the SP. Pick the one that matches your version of Visual Studio.

Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite SP1 (includes SP1 updates for Standard, Professional, and Team Editions of Visual Studio 2005)
Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server SP1
Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions SP1
Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista Beta

Seriously, if you are using Visual Studio 2005 you should install this SP as soon as possible.

Is this for real? - Free copy of Windows Vista and Office 2007 from Microsoft

Walt Ritscher — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:25:00 GMT

Would you like a free copy of Windows Vista? You have to spend a few hours looking at some webcasts and fill out some information. Doesn't seem like much work for $300 worth of software.

Wait, there's more. A free copy of Office 2007 Pro ($500) if you watch some marketing videos for Office. So far I haven't seen the catch, unless it's a fake site.

I don't understand the reasoning behind the offer or the odd marketing videos on YouTube.com but do you care? Nah, it free. If you haven't tried Vista you really should. This just makes it easier.

Offer expires the end of February 2007

Legal description below

The Power Together Campaign consists of two (2) offers, the Windows Vista Business Offer and the Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Offer, and is open only to legal residents of the 50 United States (includes District of Columbia) 18 years of age or older.

You are not eligible to receive these offers if you or your employer is a participant in the Microsoft Partner Program or the Microsoft Developer Network.

To be eligible to receive Windows Vista Business, you must register at www.powertogether.com and participate in at least three (3) qualifying web casts and/or virtual lab sessions within 30 days of registration.

To be eligible to receive Microsoft Office Professional 2007, you must register at www.powertogether.com and participate in at least three (3) qualifying web casts and/or virtual lab sessions within 30 days of registration.

In order to register at www.powertogether.com, you may be asked to provide personal information including name, telephone, and address. All personal information gathered during registration will be subject to Microsoft’s privacy policy.

Limit one gift per person per Offer.

These offers are non-transferable.

These offers expire on February 28, 2007, or while supplies last, and are not redeemable for cash.

Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient. If you are eligible for and register to receive both gifts, you must complete a W-9 (Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification) form prior to receipt of the second gift.

Any gift returned as non-deliverable will not be re-sent. Please allow 6 - 8 weeks for shipment of your gift(s).

Government Customers: Microsoft intends that use of the services and products offered as part of this promotion comply with applicable federal, state, provincial, and local government gift and ethics rules.

If you are a government employee (including an employee of a public education institution), these services and products may be used for evaluation purposes only, solely for the benefit of your agency or institution, and not for the personal use or benefit of any individual.

You should consult with your agency or institution counsel or ethics officer prior to use of these services or products. You may return the products to Microsoft at its expense.

What's different in Office 2007?

Walt Ritscher — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 00:24:00 GMT

I installed Office 2007 a couple weeks ago. Sorry, I'm not going to call it by its new name (2007 Office System). That name seems backwards to me.

If you are using Office 2007 you've undoubtedly said “where did they put that?' a time or two. Tech-Net has a nice overview of all the changes you'll need to learn.

What is WPFe anyway?

Walt Ritscher — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 01:02:00 GMT

WPF shipped last week as a part of .NET 3.0. I'm really excited about WPF as I think it is a much needed upgrade in Microsoft graphics programming tools. GDI is not going to disappear overnight of course and DirectX is still viable for many companies needs.

There is another version of WPF coming soon. It's called Windows Presentation Foundation everywhere, or WPFe, and it's suffering from an inferiority complex when compared with its older sibling.

What is WPFe?

WPFe is a subset of the WPF functionality. It runs via a browser plug-in and is targeted to work with Linux, Mac and Windows browsers. It does nearly everything the WPF does with the exception of 3D and advance page layout and pagination.

Supported systems

Windows XP, 2000, 2003 and Vista
Mac OSX
Linux
Solaris

Supported Browsers

IE 5-7
Safari
Firefox

Microsoft finally starts giving us preinstalled software on Virtual Harddrives (VHD)

Walt Ritscher — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 18:41:00 GMT

I'm a big advocate of Virtual Machines. I've been using VM's for a number of years, starting with VMwares great offerings back in 2000. The last few years I've used both VMWare and Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server. My friend know that I'm always trying to convince Microsofties to ship trial/beta software as VPC images. I won't say that I'm responsible for this :). I'm sure that pressure from VMWare had more to do with it. But I'm still happy!

In the last year Microsoft has started releasing beta software preconfigured on VHDs(Virtual Hard Drives).

Recently Microsoft announced the same VHD support for more current products.

The VHD Test Drive program is a first for Microsoft software and the more than 7,000 software vendors who can now deliver pre-configured mainstream applications within Windows Server-based virtual machines to their customers. Microsoft partners can now offer their prospective/current customers greater choice during the software evaluation process for mainstream applications and make it easier to evaluate complex solutions through the distribution of pre-configured virtual machines that can run on Virtual Server 2005 R2. You can also use System Center Virtual Machine Manager, now available as a beta, to manage all the virtual machines in your environment.

I think that they'll only be offering trial versions, but that is still a great deal. The best part, at least for me, is that it takes only a few minutes to setup the VHD on my system. Download the file, open VPC manager, add new Virtual PC, use the VHD provided. Done!

Contrast that 3 minute scenario with your scenarios of the past. Have you ever tried to setup an Exchange Server?

ASP.NET 2.0 "Generation of designer file failed: ConnectionString error fixed

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 07:59:00 GMT

Tonight I was converting an ASP.NET 2.0 Website to a Web Application Project. There is a nice step-by-step guide that I was using to walk me through the process. I ran into troubles as soon as I ran the “Convert to Web Application” menu.

I tracked the trouble down to four files in the project. All of them were failing with this message.

Generation of designer file failed: The expression prefix “ConnectionStrings” was not recognized. Please correct the prefix or register the prefix in the <expressionBuilders> section of configuration.

The first place I looked was a dead end. I looked in the web.config, thinking that was the configuration file in the error message. Wrong!

Next I looked at the html on one of the problem pages.

<asp:SqlDataSource ID="dsUsers" runat="server" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:aspnetdbConnectionString %>"

There was the ConnectionStrings text!

The Fix

Cut everything between the quotes for value of the ConnectionString attribute.
Do the same for any other ConnectionString attributes on the same page.
Run the “Convert to Web Application” for the current page.
Restore the ConnectionString value and save the file.

Seattle Code Camp 2006 (October 28,29)

Walt Ritscher — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:35:00 GMT

It's only three weeks away and coming to Seattle. That's right, the Seattle Code camp is looking for camp counselors (speakers). If you want to talk tech to a room full of eager participants this is the event you've been waiting for.

Last year we had over 50 presenters and 250+ attendees.

http://seattle.techevents.info/codecamp/2/default.aspx

End of Summer Blues - Putting away the yard furniture

Walt Ritscher — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 05:33:00 GMT

Fall started last week of course. Here in the Puget Sound region we don't have the vivid fall colors on our trees. Some of the vine maples are pretty, most deciduous trees haven't started turning color yet. The days have been bright and glorious this week. Temperatures in the 70's every day. I spent most of the week indoors, teaching and programming ,but I did walk outside everyday for a few minutes.

This weekend it hit me that summer is over. Why? Because I put away the lawn furniture. We have a lot of outdoor furnishing scattered about the property. There are so many places in our yard to enjoy the view of Liberty Bay. We have huddles of chairs in some areas, benches and porch swings at other vantage points. Putting them away was sad. There won't be anywhere to sit. I was quite melancholy this morning. Bleak thoughts of rain and cold weather for the next 5 months sifted through my head.

All was not dreary though.

Taking my three year old to the pumpkin patch this afternoon helped. She ran around the corn-maze for an hour, chatting and singing. Telling me every 5 steps about something new she had discovered. The farmer and his wife are wonderful, down home folks. We chatted with them for an hour, ate fresh dark purple grapes ( the heirloom types - small, sweet and tasty) . We watched them unload their new goats from the neighbors truck.

It was a nice afternoon.

Bug Fix: Disappearing Intellisense in ASP.NET web.config

Walt Ritscher — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 17:53:00 GMT

I really like the Visual Studio 2005 intellisense (See here) . There is a bug in the VS however that can stop it from working. I believe it will be fixed in the VS 2005 service pack coming in December but in the meantime here are some things to help fix the problem. Thanks to ScottGu and others for the ideas. I'm posting here so I don't forget.

Configuration Element troubles

The main thing that causes the intellisense to stop working is adding a xmlsn attribute to the root <config> element.

From Scott

There is one gotcha to be aware of, though, that can sometimes cause intellisense for the web.config file to stop working in the IDE. This happens when a default namespace is added to the root <configuration> element. For example, like so:

<configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">

This doesn’t cause any runtime problems – but it does stop intellisense completion happening for the built-in .NET XML elements in the web.config file.

The bad news is that the built-in web admin tool (launched via the WebSite->ASP.NET Configuration menu item in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer) always adds this xmlns namespace when it launches – so if you use this tool to manage users/roles you’ll end up having it added to your web.config file for you.

To get intellisense back when you are editing the web.config file in the IDE, just delete the xmlns reference and have the root configuration element look like so:

<configuration>

Everything will then work fine again.

Changing WebAdmin Tool

A quick fix to the WebAdmin tool will prevent your config file from getting hammered.

Go to %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\ASP.NETWebAdminFiles\App_Code
Open the WebAdminPage.cs file
Edit the config.NamespaceDeclared line.

Thanks to Massimo Prota

Intellisense in ASP.NET web.confg

Walt Ritscher — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 17:29:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2005 improves on the intellisense in many file-types. One of my favorites is the support for intellisense in XML and .config files. You get a listing of what elements and attributes are available for the current config section.

It's also smart enough to know when you've used a element and not show it in the list (if it is restricted to one instance in the schema).

First Time

Second Time

Ruby in Steel - Writing Ruby code in Visual Studio 2005

Walt Ritscher — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 18:00:00 GMT

It seems that a lot of my colleagues are intrigued with Ruby and it's web cousin Ruby on Rails. I have to admit I'm intrigued with the language, I just haven't had the time to look into the benefits of Ruby first hand.

A couple of people/companies are working on .NET implementations for Ruby. Last week at the Portland Code Camp I sat in on IronRuby session. A very interesting look at how Wilco Bauwer is building a version of Ruby that runs on the .NET CLR. Wilco is an intern on the ASP.NET team and still finds spare time to work on the Iron Ruby project.

Another interesting find is Ruby in Steel. This is a Visual Studio implementation of Ruby on Rails from a company name SapphireSteel. You can use all the tools you know and love from Visual Studio to build, modify and test Ruby on Rails code. They're still in early beta releases but it looks very interesting to me. According to their web site SapphireSteel will release a commercial version and a free standard edition.

I might be learning Ruby on Rails sooner than I thought.

Updated Portland Code Camp 2006 code

Walt Ritscher — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 17:00:00 GMT

For anyone at the Portland Oregon Code Camp

I updated my ASP.NET tips code this week and uploaded to my website. Thanks for coming to my talk.

Get the code.

Glean Programming Knowledge from Paul Sheriff

Walt Ritscher — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 03:06:00 GMT

Paul Sheriff is always thinking of new ways to share his enormous knowledge of .NET and other programming skills with the world. Every-time I have dinner with him or see him at a conference he's bubbling with energy and enthusiasm over some new idea. I'm always probing and mulling new ideas too, my wife will tell you that she can't get me to shut up , but I have a hard time keeping up with Paul.

His latest idea sound exciting. He has started a subscription website that shares his catalog of tools, utilities, books, articles and web-casts. It's called Paul Sheriff's Inner Circle and it launched today. For as little as $9.00 a month you can tap into a wealth of knowledge.

I've previewed the site and I think you'll like it. Check it out.

Microsoft buys Wininternals/Sysinternals

Walt Ritscher — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 22:48:00 GMT

Oh my....

I love the Sysinternals tools. I use some of them almost everyday. They are wonderfully useful tools, that solve a real problem and many of them are free.

Mark Russinovich has just announced that Microsoft is buying his company. Oh my...

I'm torn. One the one hand Microsoft is getting some great software. If they bundle these tools with Windows and continue to offer them for free then it will be a good addition to the Windows world.

On the other hand, if they get sucked into the black void of lost software at Microsoft then it is a sad day. Time will tell.

I can tell you one thing though. I'm going to go to Sysinternals site today and download all the latest builds and burn them on a DVD. Just in case!

I'm an MVP again

Walt Ritscher — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:17:00 GMT

Microsoft decided to make me a Visual Basic MVP again this year!

Vast Library of Data Models Available for Free

Walt Ritscher — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 16:46:00 GMT

We all have our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to developing software. It's widely known, for instance, that most developers are crummy at UI design or making their application look good. Some programmers, on the other hand, are really good at data structures and normalizing data for relational databases. I worked on a project this year with a fellow who could instantly see the way complex data should be represented in the data model. I have to think about it much longer, and even then I'm sometimes not sure if I've picked the best approach. Guess which one of us did most of the database design work?

Other peoples work

Looking at another programmers source code can be educational. Reading an existing database schema can also be helpful. Barry Williams has a huge library of free database schemas for you to look at. Over 300 sample databases in all.

Examples

Payrolls
Permits and Licenses
Car Dealership
Real Estate Rentals
Global Law Firm
City Tourist Guide
Data Warehouses
Law Enforcement - Case Management
Landscape Gardening

Free Programming Language conference in August

Walt Ritscher — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 23:18:00 GMT

This looks interesting.

Microsoft is sponsoring a free, three day conference for people and companies that create computer languages and compilers. There will be a large academic crowd there too.

More at http://blogs.msdn.com/mglehman/archive/2006/06/20/640555.aspx

Stock Photos - Inexpensive Licensing for Your Web Sites

Walt Ritscher — Sun, 28 May 2006 19:05:00 GMT

You need a picture or two for your next project mock-up.
You need it now.
You don't want to pay a lot, it's only a mock-up!

There are several websites that will sell you a nice, high-resolution image for cheap. Todays find:

http://www.dreamstime.com/

Web licensing for as low as $0.74 per picture. They also give you seven free pictures every week.

Tip: ASP.NET 2.0 Treeview - Expanding Nodes when Bound to SiteMap

Walt Ritscher — Fri, 19 May 2006 05:32:00 GMT

The new ASP.NET 2.0 TreeView control is pretty handy. It can function as a normal treeview - where you can add/remove treenodes to the nodes collection. It can also serve as a site navigation tree. In this mode each node on the tree becomes a hyperlink to another webpage. The hyperlink gets its Href from the treenodes NavigationUrl property which in turn gets its Url from the web.sitemap file.

Today I finally solved one of the annoying dilemmas that crops up when using the Treeview.

The problem

A treenode can be selected or expanded. Selecting the node causes the SelectedNodeChange event to fire if the Treeview is configured correctly. Clicking the + icon on a node causes the TreeNodeExpanded event to fire. The selected event will not fire if the node is in Navigation mode. This behavior makes sense most of the time. The node is acting as a navigation link - it causes the browser to take you to a new page which means there is no postback. Your are going to a new page, without returning to the server first.

If the node has its NavigationUrl property set to an empty string, the node is in Selection mode. If the NavigationUrl is a non-zero length string ,the node is in Navigation mode.

For our project I wanted the children nodes to expand whenever the user selects a parent node. Yes, the user can click the + symbol to expand it, but our testing showed that many users expect the node to expand by clicking the node text instead. Since the nodes are in Navigation mode I couldn't put the code in the SelectedNodeChanged event.

My solution? Use the TreeNodeDatabound event to examine each node as it is being bound to the tree. If the current page URL matches the treenode NavigationUrl I expand all the of the current nodes children. It solves my problem. It still doesn't cause the SelectedNodeChanged to fire so it may not solve all your troubles. At least it's a start.

Protected Sub treeMainMenu_TreeNodeDataBound _
           (ByVal sender As Object, _
            ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.TreeNodeEventArgs) _
             Handles treeMainMenu.TreeNodeDataBound

       ' other binding code here...

        If Request.Url.PathAndQuery = e.Node.NavigateUrl Then
            e.Node.ExpandAll()
        End If
End Sub

Tip: ASP.NET 2.0 Login Control Not Redirecting

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 18 May 2006 20:56:00 GMT

I fixed a bug this morning on our clients ASP.NET 2.0 website. The site uses the ASP.NET 2.0 Login control. If the user logged in with one account, logged out and attempted to login again they were not redirected to the destination page.

I coded the following in the Login control Authenticate event and it appears to solve the problem.

Protected Sub Login1_Authenticate _
     (ByVal sender As Object, _
      ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.AuthenticateEventArgs) _
     Handles Login1.Authenticate

   ' validation code here...

    If e.Authenticated Then
        If Request.QueryString("ReturnUrl") IsNot Nothing Then

            FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(Login1.UserName, False)
        Else
            FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(Login1.UserName, False)

            ' we shouldn't have to do this
            ' but I'm  finding that the page doesn't always redirect
            Response.Redirect(Login1.DestinationPageUrl)
        End If
    End If

End Sub

VSLive 2006 Toronto Code is online

Walt Ritscher — Tue, 02 May 2006 08:15:00 GMT

I finally finished the zips of my talks from VSLive Toronto.

http://www.waltritscher.com/Default.aspx?tabid=55

Enjoy

Cheap 19" LCD Dell Monitors - $219.00 with coupon

Walt Ritscher — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 05:24:00 GMT

WOW.

Dell is having a sale this week on their 19” flat screen monitors.

Free standard shipping
25% off the list price of the 1907FP monitor
3 year warranty included
Coupon code (QFTPZQCNBRH9TD ) for an additional $35 bucks off.

My total came to $219.00. That's an incredible price for a 19 inch screen. I bought a couple to replace some of our aging monitors.

The coupon code is only good for the first 1000 customers. Snoop around the monitor home page though and you might find other coupon codes to use.

Yes, I've heard the Dell stories about bad customer service. We haven't had one whiff of trouble with Dell. Someday I'll tell you story about how they replaced my laptop hard drive while I was on vacation. The catch... I was in New Zealand at the time.

Toronto VSLive - After the conference

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 21:56:00 GMT

I had a great time at the VSLive conference.

I met a lot of interesting people. Most of the attendees I talked to were local to the Toronto area. Some of the projects they were working on sounded very exciting. The biggest take-away I heard was that they can't wait to get started using the new .NET 2.0 features.

My talks all went well. I had a few glitches. This morning I couldn't get my databinding code to work for my Advanced User Controls talk. It was working yesterday. I made no changes to the project, but the complex binding control just wouldn't work. I had other code to show though and I knew ahead of time. In other words, it didn't blow up during the talk.

My friend Josh Holmes didn't get off so well. In two of his talks the projector quit working the last 10 minutes of each talk. Too bad! He's a funny guy so I'm sure he had something amusing to say.

Didn't see one sight in Toronto this time. Our hotel was out at the airport. I was so busy with work and the conference that I never made it more that 3 blocks from my hotel. While the conference was fun, I always hate it when I can't spend some time site seeing and enjoying the local area. One of the reasons I love to travel is to see what the world has to offer. Maybe next year!

Toronto VSLive 2006 - Talk #4 - Advanced Custom Windows Forms Controls

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 21:45:00 GMT

Abstract

Creating your own controls is a great way to augment your UI development. There's more to creating user controls however than dropping a few constituent controls on a designer and crafting a few properties or methods. This session illustrates the techniques you need to elevate your user controls to the next level. Since other developers use your control, you need a firm grasp on how to make your control interact with the Visual Studio Forms designer. Learn how to decorate your control with design time adornments (example: Visio-style shape spinners). We'll look at several powerful tools - Property Browser integration, Extender Property Providers, Type Converters, Designer Verbs, Custom Designers and UI Type Editors - that make your control easy to use, work effectively in the Visual Studio IDE and also look professional. Bonus tip #1: Add data-binding to your control. Bonus tip #2: Learn how to debug your control effectively.

What it's about

When I create a Usercontrol for a .Net Windows Forms application I need to consider two different audiences. First is the end user. When I think about the person who will be opening the form and interacting with my control the most important consideration is how my control looks and works.

The second person to consider is the developer who places my control on their form. Quite often this is the same person creating the control, me. But not always. If you sell a package of controls or create reusable controls for your team then another set of eyes and hands will be working with your control.

The developer needs to have a control that is easy to use, easy to understand and helpful in every part of the development process.

This talks addresses all the design-time, IDE tools that you can add to your control.

Toronto VSLive 2006 - Talk #3 - Avalon - Vector Graphics Come Alive

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 21:33:00 GMT

Alright, I love giving this talk. I've always liked graphics programming, wrote my first animation piece on an Apple II. Avalon, now with BORING and DRAB name Windows Presentation Framework (WPF), is very cool. The places where Avalon touches your UI is everywhere.

Abstract

The next version of Windows (Windows Vista) will include a completely new graphics engine. This engine, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), will change the way you think about user interfaces. WPF (formerly called Avalon), soon to be retro-fitted onto Windows XP and Windows 2003, is a major shift in Windows graphics platform. Built, in part, on a new vector API, WPF blends traditional two-dimensional and three-dimensional systems, transparencies, animation, integrated multi-media and more in a single unified managed code model. Join me to see how WPF is controlled through XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) or via code. See how incredibly easy it is to create three-dimensional applications (including controlling lights, camera and sprites). Examine the significant advances in color, printing, remoting, and audio processing that are included. Immense changes are coming. Be among the first to see what the WPF engine can do.

What it's about.

Graphics. Plain, complex, 3D and 2D. Every kind of graphic programming you can think of.

Are most Web Developers Incompetent?- Credit Card Validation Sucks

Walt Ritscher — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:13:00 GMT

I am stunned at how many websites have absolutely dreadful credit card handling. Pathetic, unhelpful, and just wrong sometimes. I have a litany of gripes about existing sites. It's embarrassing to be part of a group of software engineers that just can't get the basics right.

Todays example? United Airlines Easy Checkin page (see screenshot below). What's wrong with the error message? Not all credit cards have sixteen digits. This website has just annoyed or peeved any customer who used an American Express - 15 digits, Diners club - 14 digits, and some Visa cards - 13 digits. It took me two minutes to look up this info in my credit card processor documentation. Too bad United Airlines developers don't know how to look up this simple information.

What's your favorite online credit card validation story?

Toronto VSLive 2006 - Talk #2 - Async Triple Threat

Walt Ritscher — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 05:40:00 GMT

Time to explain what I'm doing with my second talk at Toronto VSLive 2006.

Abstract

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) has been getting lots of press lately. It provides a very Windows-like experience for web applications. AJAX is a mixture of technologies (DHTML, script, XML and more) that produce highly-performant and scalable UI's by leveraging asynchronous callbacks to your webserver. Did we mention that they look good too? A number of high profile sites including Google maps, Gmail, A9 and Flickr are built with AJAX tools. You can build similar apps in ASP.NET 2.0 because .NET introduced a handy API for out-of-band calls back to the server. After this session you'll know how to exploit callbacks to build smooth, responsive interfaces too. If that's not enough for you we'll also take a quick tour of Atlas. Microsoft is quietly working on a new application framework (Atlas) that combines client side/server side development into a single useful library. See how Atlas extends Javascript with numerous useful classes, interface enums and coordinates the traffic back to your server code.

What it's about

AJAX is the hot web buzzword for 2006. Every web developer is trying to figure out how to incorporate the asynchronous back channel into their applications. AJAX is simply a way to send a request back to the server without refreshing the whole web page. When the asynchronous call returns to the browser it has a payload (string argument) that we can use to update a portion of the existing page. The X in AJAX stands for XML and it is one of the preferred methods for formatting the return text from the server. There are other possibilities too: (example: Simple strings and JSON - Java Script Object Notation)

I proposed this talk for a couple of conferences. VSLive is the first conference to put it on their agenda. The reason for the title - Async Triple Threat? I noticed that there are three major ways to handle Async if you work for Microsoft technology shop. Roll your on - AJAX. Use the limited async features of ASP.NET 2.0 or experiment with the upcoming Atlas (AJAX extensions) bits. So I put examples of all three into the talk

I've got some mixed emotions about this talk. One the one hand I'm really excited about simplicity that Atlas brings to AJAX web development. On the other hand Atlas is brand new and an ever evolving platform. Which means I'm playing catch-up with Microsoft every week to stay on top of the latest releases. I just put the finishing touches on the Atlas demo last night. Knowing myself, I'll probably fiddle and fuss over the demo during the next couple days.

I'm going to be showing the ultra-cool Atlas April CTP features. See you at the talk.

Free, free, Visual Studio Express Edtions are forever free.

Walt Ritscher — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 20:58:00 GMT

Five million copies of the Visual Studio Express Editions have been downloaded and registered. FIVE MILLION in only five months. The original plan from Microsoft was to have these editions free for the first 12 months, then to sell them for $49.00US. Not anymore

Yesterday Microsoft broadcast the good news that they will NEVER charge you for any of the express versions. Can you say “yeah”.

Toronto VSLive 2006 - Talk #1 - Smart Data Clients 2.0

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:13:00 GMT

I thought I would write about each of the talks I'm giving next week at VSLive Toronto. My first talk is Smart Data Clients 2.0. It's part of the Smart Client track, a track that focuses on building applications that run on your OS. Yes, I'm talking about Windows applications here.

Abstract

Working with data is a necessity for every business application. ADO.NET 2.0 is chock full of improvements and the Windows Form team has been steadily improving the data-binding pieces. We’ll start this data tour by looking at the new drag-and-drop data-binding features of Visual Studio. We see how easy it is to bind to databases, business objects, and Web services. Next we’ll look at the enhanced data controls (DataContainer, GridView, DataConnector, DataNavigator). Each of these controls is completely new and loaded with lots of new enhancements. We’ll walk you through a detailed exploration of these new data controls including: UI look and behavior, data-binding support, improved validation and formatting features, and better Null binding. Last on the agenda is a tour of the SQLClient changes—asynchronous data and data paging.

What it's about

This is my oldest talk on the agenda and still one of the most popular. What I try to show is how Microsoft has made data-binding usable in Windows Forms. Really usable. As in - you might really use data-binding to build production applications.

I start by showing the whole binding process - start to finish - withing Visual Studio 2005. Then I show a bunch of the improvements in the data controls, like the GridView control. Then I focus for a few minutes on binding to sources that have Null values. Remember the old days when your application would throw an exception you you tried to show a Null value in a bound control. No more.

Finally I show how to dynamically page data into a grid, pulling just enough rows to satisfy the bound controls current needs.

Heading for Toronto VSLive

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 07:57:00 GMT

Next week I will be in Canada, more precisely I'll be in Toronto. I'm going to be talking at the VSLive conference there. This is my second trip to the city. Last year, I was there and spent a a day hanging out with Jeremy Wright. Another night I wandered about the city with a group of speakers from the conference. Scott Allen documented the evening walk and has the pictures here. I had a great time and am looking forward to my second time in the city.

I have four talks this time. I'll be very busy during the three days I suspect. What am I talking about this time? Glad you asked.

Async Triple Threat — ASP.NET 2.0 Async APIs, Atlas and AJAX
Smart Data Clients 2.0
Avalon: Vector Graphics Come Alive
Advanced Custom Windows Forms Controls

http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/vslive/2006/toronto/asp-sessions.aspx

http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/vslive/2006/toronto/smart-sessions.aspx

Refactor Bug - Local Project Items - Fix

Walt Ritscher — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:46:00 GMT

I use the DeveloperExpress Refactor tool frequently when working in Visual Studio 2005. I suspect a lot of other developers use it too, especially since it is available for free - for Visual Basic programmers.

There is a consistent bug in Refactor that hasn't been fixed yet. It's more of a petty annoyance than a serious bug but I found a fix for it anyway.

The problem

When adding a class, user control or other item to a project the Add New Item dialog opens in the wrong folder. The dialog should open in the Visual Basic folder. Instead it opens in the Visual Basic/Local Project Items folder

Steps to fix.

Close Visual Studio 2005
Delete the "Local Project Items" folder that is under VBProjectItems in your install directory (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VB\VBProjectItems by default).

Change in policy - Microsoft Virtual Server now Free

Walt Ritscher — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:46:00 GMT

I've been saying for the last year that Microsoft would be including virtual services with Windows Vista. The first proof to surface is todays announcement that Microsoft Virtual Server is now free. Is this because of the competitive offer from VMWare early this year? According to Ben Armstrong, Virtual PC PM, this is not the primary reason. The main reason? Because Vista will include free virtual services as part of the package. Whatever the reason, you gotta like the price. VMWare or Microsoft Virtual Server -- your choice for free.

Real Avalon Apps - iBloks

Walt Ritscher — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 03:59:00 GMT

I'm really liking the new Avalon (Windows Presentation Foundation) layer in Windows Vista and WinFX. I've been working with it for the last six months and have developed a couple talks that I give about the technology. It's going to change the face, no kidding, of Windows development over the next five years. Imagine a tool that lets you easily mix 2D, 3D, Rich Text, Video, Multimedia and more into a single API.

I tell people about how cool its going to be, but it's not easy to visualize. If you don't have the Avalon beta bits on your computer you can't run any of the demos. So a lot of people think it just going to be eye candy and some transparent windows. So watch a video and decide for yourself.

iBloks is a new game/toy application built with Avalon. You can animate pictures, mix sound and more. Watch the video here.

Window Sizing Utility

Walt Ritscher — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 01:59:00 GMT

I'm working on a website project for the next month or so. I was told that the site needs to look good in 800 x 600 resolution. Thats about half the size of my laptop monitor! I need to quickly size a window to a known size. I used to use a tool (BrowserSizer) but I wasn't really happy with it. Today I found a simple utility that does what I need.

Sizer, works on any window not just browser windows.

Heres what I like about Sizer

Does one thing really well
Free
Adds a tooltip to the mouse whenever you size a window.
Comes with prebuilt sizes
I can add custom window sizes to the app
Simple