DonXML Blog

I just published the most recent session list for NJ Code Camp 2.  Some of the the regular NJ developer community speakers have asked for slots, but haven't submitted abstracts yet, so they are listed as TBD.  With 6 confirmed sessions on Orcas timeframe technologies (with at least a few more abstracts to come), this event definitely has a more future vision flavor.  We will wind up with 16 to 20 one and a half hour sessions, starting at around 8:30AM and ending before 8PM (depending on how many sessions).  We will have 4 rooms (just like last time), each with 4 or 5 sessions for the day.

It has been a long time coming, but NJ will finally see the return of a SQL Server User Group.  I’ve been trying to get this group going for about a year now, and the biggest hang-ups has been trying to get a location, and finding volunteers to help run the group.  Well, we solved both issues with the help of the great folks at SetFocus (who run the Northern NJ .Net User Group N3UG).  My wife, Melissa (aka SQL Diva), is going to run the user group, and SetFocus will let us hold the meetings in their facility in Parsippany, NJ (which is very close to where I live, and makes it possible for Melissa to run the group).  The meeting will be held the 3rd Tues. of the month (a week after the .Net User Group), and will start on  Jan. 17th.  Informal networking begins at 6PM and the presentation starts at 6:30 (until about 8PM).

Just a little reminder that the N3UG meeting is on Tuesday, July 12 at 6PM, presentation at 6:30PM.  This month is the ever popular Birds Of A Feather style meeting, some come, hang out, network, and maybe even get a couple of your buring .Net questions answered.  I might have missed ScottW’s talk last month, but I’m not going to miss 2 meetings in a row.  I’ll be presenting at the August meeting (I haven’t figured out what I’ll talk about yet, so let me know what you are interested in, and maybe I’ll do that next month).

If you happen to be in NJ, and want to hang out at a cool brewpub with some fellow developers, you are welcome to stop by The Harvest Moon Brewery, New Brunswick on Wed. June 22nd.  I’ll be getting in around 6PM, and should be there for at least a couple hours (free wireless internet access and fresh brewed beer, great combination).

One of the things that was discussed between Stan and some of the presenters at the Philly Code Camp was the task of getting more people from the local community, and focusing less on “well known” speakers.  Someone (and I can’t remember who) suggested that the problem with getting people new to presenting to volunteer is the lack of some sort of a mentoring program.  The idea is to get people who are out in the field every day and help them present some of the new/interesting things that they are doing with .Net.  Local user groups are a good way to start (that is how I started), but Code Camps are also attracting folks that don’t normally attend user groups.  To help them get over any fear/uncertainty, it was suggested that the Code Camps offer a mentoring service to people that haven’t presented before.  Now, I’m not Scott Hansleman or Don Box, but I have done a few presentations (and I’m definitely not bashful about speaking in public, it’s getting me to shut up that can be the problem), so if anyone feels like presenting at a Code Camp, and would like someone to bounce questions off of, I’m offering my services.  If you don’t already have my email address, just use my contact page.

Here’s a note to myself (and for anyone else that is doing Test Driven Development).  If you are using the Application.LocalUserAppDataPath property, when running tests, the properties value will not be the same as if you are running in the application.  That’s because LocalUserAppDataPath is built the following way: Base Path\ CompanyName\ ProductName\ ProductVersion, and the CompanyName, ProductName, and ProductVersion are all derived from the AppDomain.  The AppDomain gets this info from the AssemblyInfo attributes of the exe, not the dll.  Since I was testing a dll, the tests failed, since the exe that created the AppDomain was generated by my testing tool (TestDriven.Net), which did not have any of the AssemblyInfo attributes set.  The result was that the Application.LocalUserAppDataPath was User\1.0.0.0.  I’ve got to send a request to Jamie, and see if we can update the ProcessInvocation.exe to reflect the AssemblyInfo in the dll that is being tested.

OK, another rant on why I can’t stand the way VB.Net does things differently from the way C# does them (and usually for some sort of backward compatibility to VB6).  This time the weirdness came by way of trying to using binary serialization on a class that listens to events on a class that isn’t marked serializable.  Recently another developer on my team add events to a class that is marked serializable, and then added listeners to the UI class by marking the class with the WithEvents attribute.  He then added event handlers by way of the handles attribute on the sub.  The problem is that since VB.Net uses hidden multicast delegate fields when you use this VB-centric method of handling events, the binary serializer will try to serialize the UI class listening in on the events.  Prior to adding this bit of code, binary serialization worked fine.  Now with the new code, binary serialization fails with an error saying that the UI class isn’t marked serializable.  So I had to search around trying to figure out what broke, and how to fix it. 

If you are like me, you get a couple phishing scams every week.  Where most folks just delete them, I like to report them to the company they are trying to impersonate.  Microsoft has this page dedicated to helping individuals determine phishing scams, and how to report them.  The problem is that most of the phishing emails contain images, which Outlook will, rightfully, not download (so that the person that sent the email doesn’t get a ping that you actually read the email).  If you try to forward the message, Outlook requires you to download the images (thus alerting the phishing party that you read the email).  So in the Microsoft guide, they tell you to create a new email, include the suspected email as an attachment, and manually copy the headers over to the new message.  But, to report a phishing email to EBay or PayPal they want you to forward the email to them, not send it as an attachment, which is the exact opposite of the MS guide.  If you try to follow Microsoft’s suggested method, and report the email to EBay or PayPal, you will get a response asking you to forward the original email, not include it as an attachment.  Do you see where I’m going?  You can’t use Outlook to forward the email without downloading the images, and EBay and PayPal will not accept it any other way.