CLaueR's Blog

this.Blog.Resume(now);

DotNET-fr — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:20:00 GMT

Hi all,

I haven't blogged here since September 2004. It's not that I haven't been blogging at all during this period, on the contrary, I moved my blog to the Microsoft France Blogs.

My last post here was titled "I won't post in French anymore on this blog...". Well, not exactly. In fact, during the next days, I'll migrate my 440+ posts from Microsoft France blogs to here. I'll try to do this in a manner that doesn't polute the main feed here.

What's next?

This blog is going to become my main and unique blog. I'll make sure that my blog now appears under http://blogs.msdn.com since I'm a Full Time Microsoft Employee. I suppose that at the same time this blog won't appear under http://weblogs.asp.net to limit annoyance. There are still a couple of things I have to check.

One other thing: as you can guess, I'll only blog in French here. I've noticed that during the two last years or so, more and more people do blog here or on http://blogs.msdn.com in their mother language, and it doesn't seem to be a problem for most of the readers.

So, Hi again and "A Bientôt" ;)

I won't post in French anymore on this blog...

DotNET-fr — Thu, 09 Sep 2004 22:41:00 GMT

Well, I decided to use a separate blog for my French posts. After a long period thinking about wether I should maintain two separate blogs or not, I finally decided to use this one for general subjects and discussions, in English, and open another one for more local news and subjects. As a result, you can expect seeing me blogging more and more in French - which is also easier to me since it's my mother language - and only post here to put my 2 cents on discussions and talk about .NET and general technology subjects that are not specific to France.

I now that no one cares, but I wanted to make this clarification though ;-)

Using Blogs.Trolls.Launcher;

Oh, by the way, we're not truncating posts or descriptions in the RSS feeds there :)

Almost Too Easy!

DotNET-fr — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 21:55:00 GMT

Almost Too Easy!

That's how begins the title of one of the latest DevX articles: "Almost Too Easy! Creating Cross-Platform ASP.NET Applications Using Mono". The article subtitle is really catchy too: "Running basic ASP.NET applications on other platforms using Novell's open-source Mono project is as easy as copying the files to the new system. For ASP.NET 1.x authors, cross-platform code is fast becoming a reality.".

You named it, the article talks about using Mono to run ASP.NET applications on non-Microsoft OSes. In the article, the author mentions weblogs.asp.net as a place containing a lot of very valuable information.

Writing the code was not that difficult. Even if you're a novice at C# you'll find lots of examples with a few simple Google queries. The Microsoft Visual Studio documentation and MSDN Web site are full of good information as well. I get a lot of good tips from reading Web logs. For example, the http://weblogs.asp.net site gathers feeds from various writers both inside and outside of Microsoft and aggregates them into a single feed.

Yes! I like reading such comments ;-)

Concerning the contents of the article, I agree with Yosi to say that the example is too simplistic, and that Mono may not be suitable for enterprise applications - at least for quite a long period of time. I'd be curious - if I had some extra time to work on this - to do an indepth study of what remains to be implemented (ie: what's missing) in Mono to build those large Enterprise applications and solutions that large ISVs need to target.

Windows Media Player 10, WMP 10 SDK and Managed Code

DotNET-fr — Sat, 04 Sep 2004 20:22:00 GMT

I've just downloaded and installed Windows Media Player 10 and it's SDK on my home PC. The SDK comes with a bunch of code samples, one of which is a fully functionnal .NET application (written in both C# and VB.NET, VB.NET developpers will appreciate ;-)) that demonstrates how to control the player, get properties like the list of titles of the songs in the music library, etc...

This very nice, since it will allow me to start the development of a system I wanted to build for a long time: exposing a bunch of Web Services on my home PC that represent Windows Media Player basic features (Play, Pause, Stop, Next, Previous, Volume Control) and titles management (Choose a preset list, choose an album from the list or a title from the list).

The client application will be written un .NET Compact Framework, running on a PocketPC with a WiFi card, and voila! The ultimate remote control that operates even through the walls, not like those dumb IR remote controls ;-)

Tomorrow is Sunday? That sounds good, I'll have plenty of time to start this project :)

[From France] Attend one of the 18 ASP.NET Roadshow sessions in a town near you

DotNET-fr — Thu, 02 Sep 2004 08:12:00 GMT

This is the second edition of the ASP.NET Roadshow in France. This year, the roadshow will visit 16 towns for 18 dates (there will be two sessions in Paris and Lyon).
If you're new to .NET and especially to ASP.NET and what to get an insight on this technology in one day, just register and attend one of these sessions. Here is the agenda:

21/09/2004 Paris
22/09/2004 Grenoble
23/09/2004 Lyon
28/09/2004 Strasbourg
29/09/2004 Nancy
30/09/2004 Niort
05/10/2004 Marseille
06/10/2004 Nice
07/10/2004 Montpellier

12/10/2004 Bordeaux
13/10/2004 Toulouse
14/10/2004 Pau
18/10/2004 Paris
19/10/2004 Brest
19/10/2004 Lyon
20/10/2004 Lille
20/10/2004 Rennes
09/11/2004 Nantes

More details and registration can be found here.

if you attend, come and say "Hello". The speakers will be Pierre Lagarde, Mitsu Furuta and myself. We do not know yet who will present where and when, but feel free to stop by and have a discussion.

Hard to believe, but true - How a very large project fails

DotNET-fr — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 04:04:00 GMT

Seen this posted on MrDave's Blog. It's about a large project in Colorado that has started in 1995 and that as of today an estimated cost of $199 million. You have to read the whole story in Gazette.com, just hard to believe.

My favorite:

“It is my understanding that the CBMS system as presently formatted still requires counties to ‘make up’ certain data, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, alien status and other personal data in order for some cases to be processed for eligibility,” Louis wrote. “The state is essentially requiring counties to enter false data into the case portfolio.”

That glitch is especially troubling because detecting false information is key to preventing welfare fraud, Drake said.

The state Attorney General’s Office responded Friday, saying concern about false information is unfounded.

“Entering false data into the system is contrary to state policy and rule,” Wade Livingston of the Attorney General’s Office wrote in a reply to Louis. “The state cannot assume any liability arising from a county employee knowingly placing false data in the system.”

Computer programers for the state have established temporary fixes for the problems, McDonough said. In case of a birth date, for example, welfare workers have been instructed to enter Jan. 1, 1851, in some records.

It seems that they have abused of the "Garbage in - Garbage out Design Pattern" ;-)

With a $199 million dollars project that has more than 84 workarounds, one of them being documented on a 300+ pages document, you don't need to find where the fraud is :)

As always, please include the standard disclaimer.

What is so exciting about GMail?

DotNET-fr — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 03:52:00 GMT

I see a lot of posts about GMail, either people offering GMail invitations, or others who look happy to have gotten one. I just don't get why there is so much excitation about a free webmail service with 1 Gb storage. May be someone can tell me?

[From France] ISV, Partners and Customers: Join the "Whidbey Ascend" Program!

DotNET-fr — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 18:36:00 GMT

Editeurs de Logiciels, Clients finaux et Partenaires Microsoft, nous vous proposons de vous inscrire avant le 30 Septembre 2004 pour participer à un programme de type "Early Adopter" autour de Visual Studio 2005 "Whidbey".

Ce programme - nommé "Whidbey Ascend" - vous permet d’accéder aux bêtas, de bénéficier d’un support technique via un newsgroup privé et également de participer à une semaine de formation début octobre à Paris. En contrepartie, nous souhaitons pouvoir communiquer avec vous sur la disponibilité de vos produits construits avec Whidbey lors du lancement de Visual Studio 2005.

En outre, Visual Studio 2005 est la première version de nos outils de développement à supporter Windows 64 bits, donc si vous souhaitez porter vos applications sur la plate-forme Windows 64 bits, vous serez certainement très intéressé par ce programme "Whidbey Ascend".

Si ce programme vous intéresse, prenez contact avec notre équipe ou directement avec moi.

[From France] Learn to know your contacts in Microsoft France DPE Organisation

DotNET-fr — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:54:00 GMT

La division "Développeurs et Plate-forme d'Entreprise" de Microsoft France - ex "Division .NET" - compte un trentaine de personnes réparties en différentes populations, principalement un groupe Marketing et Evènements dirigé par Alain le Hégarat, et deux équipes d'Evangélistes, les Evangélistes Architectes sous la responsabilité de Marc Gardette et le groupe des Evangélistes Développeurs - dont je fais parti - sous la responsabilité de Daniel Cohen-Zardi. Cette division est dirigée par Olivier Ezratty.

Prenez connaissance des bios des membres de ces équipes, et en cas de besoin, n'hésitez pas à prendre contact avec nous...

64 Bit laptops available in food stores

DotNET-fr — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 14:08:00 GMT

You do not have an AMD64 laptop yet? Stop by the grocery around the corner and grab one ;-)

In fact, this shop is known in France and Germany as a hard discount food store. A couple of month ago, they had an offering for an AMD64 desktop machine. May be in two month or so they will have a 64 bit Tablet PC ;-)

Running Windows XP for 64 Bit Extended Systems as my default machine

DotNET-fr — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 15:27:00 GMT

In the same "dogfooding" spirit as the previous experiments done by some of my colleagues how chose to switch to a Tablet PC, a Windows Server 2003 or running as non "Admin" on their default machine, I will start in September the experience of using an AMD64 laptop running Windows XP for 64 Bit Extended Systems as my default machine.

I have this Compaq Presario R3160US for a couple of months now, and I've installed nearly all what I need on it. It's running a Microsoft internal build of Windows XP for 64 bit Extended Systems, and since this morning, it is also running SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 and Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 in 64 Bit mode. Of course, the Office 2003 suite and Outlook are installed on it since day one, as well as a couple of other tools that compose my prefred toolbox.

First step, I leave on Friday on vacation, and this is the machine that I'll take with me this year. Yes, I dare :)

I'll try to blog on a regular basis to tell you the good, the bad and (hopefully not too much) of the ugly of this experience. Stay tuned.

Oh, by the way, if you actually own an AMD64 machine, chances are high that it is running a good old 32 bit Windows XP. Microsoft has announced an OS exchange program from 32 bit to 64 bit.

New technologies and Whidbey Beta 1? Not for everybody ;-)

DotNET-fr — Tue, 27 Jul 2004 08:29:00 GMT

As most of us here are excited about testing and playing with the latest toys like Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 and SQL Server 2005 Beta 2, some people seem to be living on another planet, or to have spent too much time in a cavern. There are two articles on Builder.com introducing VI for programmers.

<TROLL>

Anyway, I always prefered Emacs ;-)

</TROLL>

I cannot believe what I see...

DotNET-fr — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 16:07:00 GMT

Not a single failure in years of daily utilisation, and today, I keep having this kind of error... Do you experience the same?

DotNET-fr and Murphy's Law

DotNET-fr — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 09:33:00 GMT

My .NET news portal is offline, once again. This time, my hoster has explained me that the MySQL database that is used by the PHP-Nuke engine is corrupted, and that they' are investigating.

It's really time for me to move to the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit. I've worked on this migration last sunday, but it's still in progress. Thanks to this book, I'm now close to my goal.

[Update] Good news, my hoster has been able to restore the MySQL database. I left the parking static page, just in case... ;-))

[From France] Introducing the Microsoft 64 Bit Platform

DotNET-fr — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 08:20:00 GMT

The "Route 64" roadshow was in Los Angeles yesterday and will be in Boston tomorrow. The team was in Paris for a full day presenting the Microsoft 64 Bit Platform and Strategy on May 12th. I was there and I presented the session about managed code on Windows 64 Bit.

I wanted to widen the audience and I wrote the first of a serie of articles in French to introduce and present the platform. You can find this article here in French. An English translation is in works - thanks to Regis ;-)