Archives
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Travelling MVP #4: DevReach 2012
Our next stop after Varna was Sofia where DevReach happens. DevReach is one of my favorite conferences in Europe because of sensible prices and strong speakers line-up. Also they have VIP-party after conference and this is good event to meet people you don’t see every day, have some discussion with speakers and find new friends.
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Travelling MVP #3: Community event in Varna, Bulgaria
Second stop in my DevReach 2012 trip was at Varna. We had not much time to hang around there but this problem will get fixed next year if not before. But still we had sessions there with Dimitar Georgijev and I had also chance to meet local techies. Next time we will have more tech and beers for sure!
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My Sessions
Here you can find the sessions I have made or prepared.
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Session: ASP.NET MVC 4 Overview
This is ASP.NET MVC 4 Overview session support page.
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Windows Azure development storage and StorageServerException (Error 500)
When preparing my Sinergija12 code examples I ran into interesting problem. Windows Azure local development storage hangs for about minute and gives StorageServerException stating that there was problem in web server. A little surf in search engines gave me solution.
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Session: Cloud-enabling ASP.NET MVC Applications
This page contains all materials and links related to my Cloud-enabling ASP.NET MVC applications session.
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List of Microsoft training kits (2012)
Some years ago I published list of Microsoft training kits for developers. Now it’s time to make a little refresh and list current training kits available. Feel free to refer additional training kits in comments.
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Speaking at Sinergija12
Next week I will be speaker at Sinergija12, the biggest Microsoft conference held in Serbia. The first time I visited Sinergija it was clear to me that this is the event where I should go back. Why? Because technical level of sessions was very well in place and actually sessions I visited were pretty hardcore. Now, two years later, I will be back there but this time I’m there as speaker.
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Generating radial indicator images using C#
In one of my projects I needed to draw radial indicators for processes measured in percent. Simple images like the one shown on right. I solved the problem by creating images in C# and saving them on server hard disc so if image is once generated then it is returned from disc next time. I am not master of graphics or geometrics but here is the code I wrote.
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Travelling MVP #2: Community event at Bucharest, Romania
My second trip was to DevReach with two stops. My first stop was at Bucharest where I met with my friend Dimitar Georgiev who is one of authors of Gym Realm service. Romanian MVP Andrei Ignat was our host there and organized meeting with local community guys. With me – it was first time in my life – was one more guy from Estonia visiting DevReach and he made the whole trip with me.
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Travelling MVP #1: Visit to SharePoint User Group Finland
My first self organized trip this autumn was visit to SharePoint User Group Finland community evening. As active community leaders who make things like these possible they are worth mentioning and on spug.fi side there was Jussi Roine the one who invited me. Here is my short review about my trip to Helsinki.
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Session: Optimizing performance of public SharePoint sites
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Session: Deep-Dive to ASP.NET Web API
This is the support page for my ASP.NET Web API deep-dive session.
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Hosting WCF service in Windows Service
When building Windows services we often need a way to communicate with them. The natural way to communicate to service is to send signals to it. But this is very limited communication. Usually we need more powerful communication mechanisms with services. In this posting I will show you how to use service-hosted WCF web service to communicate with Windows service.
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Reading OpenDocument spreadsheets using C#
Excel with its file formats is not the only spreadsheet application that is widely used. There are also users on Linux and Macs and often they are using OpenOffice and other open-source office packages that use ODF instead of OpenXML. In this post I will show you how to read Open Document spreadsheet in C#.
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Adding multiple data importers support to web applications
I’m building web application for customer and there is requirement that users must be able to import data in different formats. Today we will support XLSX and ODF as import formats and some other formats are waiting. I wanted to be able to add new importers on the fly so I don’t have to deploy web application again when I add new importer or change some existing one. In this posting I will show you how to build generic importers support to your web application.
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Using AutoMapper to build base class for mappers between domain classes and models
It is often good idea to isolate our domain model from consuming applications by using service layer and data transfer objects (DTO) or application specific models. Using DTO-s means that we need two-way mapping between domain classes and DTO-s. In this posting I will show you how to use AutoMapper to build generic base class for your mappers.
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ASP.NET MVC: Creating user configurable charts
Although summer here is awful and nice at same time it’s time to blog. Couple of years ago I wrote about how to use MS Chart control in ASP.NET MVC projects. Now let’s extend my solution and let’s add support for simple chart modifications. I used this solution in one of my projects to let users visualize their data better.
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Using SocialCounter.NET with ASP.NET MVC
I found small library called SocialCounter.NET that is able to display some data from popular social sites. Although it is possible to use widgets offered by social networks there are also scenarios when you don’t want or can’t use these JavaScript based widgets. In this posting I will show you how to use SocialCounter.NET.
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Cone of Uncertainty in classic and agile projects
David Starr from Scrum.org made interesting session in TechEd Europe 2012 - Implementing Scrum Using Team Foundation Server 2012. One of interesting things for me was how Cone of Uncertainty looks like in agile projects (or how agile methodologies distort the cone we know from waterfall projects). This posting illustrates two cones – one for waterfall and one for agile world.
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Session I plan to visit at TechEd Europe 2012
TechEd 2012 at Europe is on next week. As I’m going there I already took a look at sessions and made my own favorites list of these. For every time slot I selected more than one session because if one session is not what I’m expecting I can always go to another.
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Consuming ASP.NET Web API services from PHP script
I introduced ASP.NET Web API in some of my previous posts. Although Web API is easy to use in ASP.NET web applications you can use Web API also from other platforms. This post shows you how to consume ASP.NET Web API from PHP scripts.
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ASP.NET MVC–How to show asterisk after required field label
Usually we have some required fields on our forms and it would be nice if ASP.NET MVC views can detect those fields automatically and display nice red asterisk after field label. As this functionality is not built in I built my own solution based on data annotations. In this posting I will show you how to show red asterisk after label of required fields.
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Using TPL and PLINQ to raise performance of feed aggregator
In this posting I will show you how to use Task Parallel Library (TPL) and PLINQ features to boost performance of simple RSS-feed aggregator. I will use here only very basic .NET classes that almost every developer starts from when learning parallel programming. Of course, we will also measure how every optimization affects performance of feed aggregator.
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ASP.NET Web API: Query string based content formatting
My previous post about Web API content negotiation showed how to add support for new content formats. As our API may have consumers who prefer query for data using GET requests we have to offer something for these dudes too. In this post I will show you how to make life easier for our Web API consumers by using query string mappings.
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ASP.NET Web API: Extending content negotiation with new formats
My last post about ASP.NET Web API content negotiation support gave you basic idea about what content negotiation is and how it works out-of-box. In this post I will show you how to extend Web API content negotiation support and make Web API to output contact data in vCard format.
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ASP.NET Web API: How content negotiation works?
One cool new feature that ASP.NET Web API introduces is support for content negotiation. Content negotiation is mechanism that allows web server to serve content in different format using same URL. In this posting I will show you how to use ASP.NET Web API to serve content in JSON and XML formats.
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ASP.NET MVC 4: Short syntax for script and style bundling
ASP.NET MVC 4 introduces new methods for style and scripts bundling. I found something brilliant there I want to introduce you. In this posting I will show you how easy it is to include whole folder with stylesheets or JavaScripts to your page.
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Windows 8 Metro development–are they serious?
When Windows 8 Consumer Preview came out I downloaded it same day and installed on virtual machine. Of course, I also installed new Visual Studio 11 beta on it. Then I started playing with metro applications and I am very confused and a little bit disappointed about how broken and limited everything will be on WinRT right now. Here are some of my thoughts.
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Creating gadget-like blocks for Windows Home Server 2011 web add-in user interface
To keep user interface of your Windows Home Server 2011 (WHS) web add-in similar to other parts of UI you may need styled blocks like shown on WHS web interface home page. In this post I will show you HTML mark-up and CSS you need to create your own gadget block.
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Writing simple named pipes server in C#
I solved a little problem last night when playing with named pipes. I created named pipe that writes all output to file. Named pipe is opened for all users in machine. In this posting I will show you simple class that works as pipe server.
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Setting up Windows Home Server 2011 development environment
For Windows Home Server 2011 (WHS) there are new API-s available you can use to extend WHS web and desktop interfaces. Actually there is no Windows Home Server SDK anymore – now we have common Windows Server Solutions (WSS) SDK that works also for Windows Small Business Server, Windows Storage Server and Windows MultiPoint Server. In this posting I will show you how to create development environment for Windows Home Server 2011.
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Just released: WHS YouTube Downloader beta
I just released to Codeplex the first beta of my Windows Home Server 2011 web add-in called WHS YouTube Downloader. Log in to WHS web interface, add YouTube videos to download queue, do something useful while home server downloads videos and watch them later when downloads are done. Sounds easy? Well, okay, it is easy!
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Windows Home Server needs new licensing scheme
Fast development of technology and quickly spreading fast internet with new devices and technology open new ways for us to connect our homes with other family members. Windows Home Server is product that needs heavy refresh and one thing that Windows Home Server team must take seriously is changing current very limited licensing scheme. Here is the overview of situation and what needs to be done to get better licensing that fits for families better today.
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Creating dynamic pivot reports on SQL Server
In one of my current projects I have some pivot reports that show count of issues in different states. Grouping depends on report. States are dynamic – admins can define new states and save them to states table. This means that I cannot hardcode names of states to queries. Instead I need dynamic pivots. In this posting I will show you how to write reporting procedures that offer dynamic pivoting capabilities.