Archives
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Top 10 Things to be Thankful for in .NET
www.theserverside.net/cartoons/Top10_NET_Thankful/Top10_NET_Thankful.swf
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Productivity and the Tyranny of Email
I have been trying to be more productive during my usual working hours lately. Coincidently, I came across this article via SQLServerCentral.com. It is a clear article, focusing really on productivity - of which email/blogs/surfing is probably the biggest productivity waster for us tech-types. Another key point is that we really need a solid, focussed window of at least 3 hours in order to really get anything done.
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Microsoft Executive ISV Briefing
If you are an ISV in Israel, you definitely want to check out this upcoming special event for ISVs on January 10. After the keynote from 2 senior managers from MS Corp and EMEA, there will be two tracks - one for CEOs and one for CTOs. I'll be doing 2 presentations on Visual Studio .NET, one for each track. See you there!
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December CTP of Visual Studio 2005 Enterprise Architect available for Download
MSDN subscribers can now download the December CTP of Visual Studio 2005 Enterprise Architect.
Be sure to check out the deployment diagrams and updated installation instructions.
This version is compatible with SQL Server 2005 Beta2 (only). This must be downloaded seperately. -
Tracking down managed memory leaks
Here is a useful post on tracking down .NET memory leaks, by Rico Mariani from the .NET Performance team. His blog is a wealth of practical information on performance issues - subscribed. (I was particularly impressed by the fact that he and I have the exact same first rule about calling GC.Collect - Don't !)
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11 Hours of Juval Lowy
Yes, that is how I spent my day yesterday - listening to and learning from Juval Lowy. First was a full-day seminar on Advanced .NET Programming Techniques. And then was a combined C# and VB User Group meeting where he spoke for a few hours more. I have known Juval for several years and I have had many conversations and heard many of his presentations at conferences where we are both speakers. I don't always agree with everything he says, but I always learn something (usually alot) new from him.
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ASP.NET Params collection caveat
One of the nice little features in ASP.NET is that the HTTPRequest object has a Params property that I can access to get the values of the parameters of a request, without having to explicity know or specify whether those parameters are part of a QueryString, Form, Cookie, or Server Variable. However, like most convenienes, this comes with a price - or at least a caveat as pointed out in this post by Scott Hanselman.
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Get Binary Serialization of DataSets today!
In my article on new DataSet features in ADO.NET 2.0, I highlight the performance gain obtained when using the new binary remoting format. However, as Beth Massi points out, there is some code (written by her) up on GetDotNet that you can use to do this today with ADO.NET 1.1.
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What's on your keychain?
Mike Gunderloy has an interesting and thought provoking list of things that he carries around on his disk on key.
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How old am I ?!?
I just have to share this afternoon's experience. I will omit the company's name to protect the guilty (maybe I shouldn't ?)
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VSLive! San Francisco 2005
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Sometimes we forget that we're living on the leading edge
Last week I gave a presentation on .NET for Microsoft at a seminar for representatives from various groups within the Israel Air Force. It was one of those moments, and over the courseof the year there are alot of these moments, where I am reminded just how skewed my perspective on Microsoft techologies is. I have been using and teaching about .NET for well over 4 years now, but that is definitely not the norm within the industry at large. Despite the large percentage of .NET adoption, I need to remind myself every so often that things that I have been talking about for years, is still brand new to alot of developers out there.
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The Power of Blogging and Channel 9
Just a small, personal anecdote on the power of blogging and Channel 9.
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Juval Lowy to Speak at this month's Israel Visual C# Users Group
I normally only post the announcements of my Israel VB User Group in my blog, because posting the announcements of all of the monthly Microsoft developer and IT user groups would almost become a full time job! The Microsoft User Group community in Israel has really come a long, long way since I convinced them of my crazy idea to start a VB User group over 7 years ago...For the full list and details of the various User Groups, check here.
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Dates and Location Announced for MS PDC 2005
It looks like it is back to LA for this this year's PDC. You can get the details and sign up for details here.
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SQL Server 2005 for Developers Webcasts this Week
There is a whole slew of webcast on SQL Server 2005 for Developers this week (mainly level 200). Here is the schedule:
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December CTP - SQL Server 2005 (various flavors)
Various different versions of SQL Server 2005 are now available for download to MSDN subscribers at http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/. This is a CTP (Community Technical Preview) which means that it is essentially a snapshot of the build on a particular day and it does not undergo the same level of testing (or support) of a Beta version. It includes both 32- and 64-bit versions, as well as a new version of SQL Server Express (replaces MSDE).
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Overview of SQL Server 2005 Express on MSDN
Rajesh George from the SQL Server Express (SSE) team has posted a nice, clear article on MSDN with an overview of the main features and differences of SQL Server 2005 Express. You should walk away with a good understanding of how it differs from the standard SQL Server 2005 product as well as how it differs from MSDE (SQL 2000).
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Feedback on .NET Deep Dive Event (Israel)
If you attended the MS Israel .NET Deep Dive event last week, please take a moment to fill out this speaker feedback form. Please forward this link to any friend or colleagues that you know attended as well. I very much value attendee, even if they don't take the take (as many do) to send a personal email.
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Are You Getting Phantom Errors When Compiling Large VB.NET Solutions ?
If your VB.NET 2003 solution has more than about 100K lines of code and you get phantom (i.e. false) error messages when compiling, there is now a hotfix available for this, as decribed in this KB article.
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Throw vs. Throw ex
One of the more interesting and surprising feedbacks that I got from my presentation on .NET Worst Practices at the .NET Deep Dive developer event was how many experienced .NET developers didn't realize the significance of the difference between "throw" and "throw ex" (both in C# and VB). I thought that I would explain and show it here, but one of the conference attendees (and an XML MVP) already did it forme on his blog - so check out Oleg's entry that summarizes my explanation of this issue. He also includes a comparison to the Throw keyword in Java.
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December IVBUG Meeting
November's Israel Visual Basic User Group Meeting will be held on December1, 2004:
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Microsoft Israel .NET Deep Dive Developer Day
Yesterday we broke a new record for a single-day Microsoft developer event in Israel. It was tagged .NET Deep Dive and consisted of 2 parallel tracks: (1) Practices and Utilities and (2) Hardcore Programming, preceeded by a keynote on some new Team System features of VS2005. What was amazing was the number of attendes that showed up - over 1,600 !!
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Catching Up
I have fallen behind a bit on my blogging - but that is good news. Business activity is really picking up and keeping me very, very busy. I was in New York to formally sign a contract for a new project that will be developed with VS2005 and have several other potential projects in various stages of negotiations that need to be attended to. Upon my return I also had to finish up final preparations for the Microsoft Israel .NET Deep Dive event which I helped manage and spoke at. More on that in my next post.
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New DataSet Features in ADO.NET 2.0
My article on the new DataSet features in ADO.NET 2.0 has gone live on MSDN.
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Comparing the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Data Provider for Oracle and the Oracle Data Provider for .NET
I almost never need to program against an Oracle database, but I get asked alot of questions by people who do. This new article compares the Microsoft .NET Data Provider for Oracle against the Oracle Data Provider for .NET. It is a long, comprehensive and well laid-out article and is definitely one you want to review before choosing an Oracle data provider.
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IVBUG Celebrates its Seventh Birthday
Last night, the Israel Visual Basic User Group (IVBUG) celebrated its seventh birthday! I'll include some pictures from our meeting/party at the end of this post.
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Has blogging gone too far ?!
Earlier this week I send out an email to numerous friends and colleagues with a great cartoon on blogging. I have since seen it on at least one recipient's blog, so I figured I should post it here as well.
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Microsoft Products Developed with .NET code
Yag has a post with a list of Microsoft products that are developed, at least partially, with .NET code. The list is actually somewhat longer than I had realized. His post is in response to a claim that .NET Winforms is not really "ready for prime time" since MS isn't developing all of their products in .NET. His counter-claim is most reasonable - if not obvious.
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Sample Compilers Written in .NET
In my post last night, I mentioned that I had written a compiler in VB6. If the idea of writing your own compiler intrigues you, you can see some (rather simple) examples that come with the .NET Framework SDK. Look for them at
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Fundamental Rules of Performance
Eric Gunnerson had a good post on performance here. He is addessing the specific issue of the performance of generics, but lays out general principles:
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Fascinating, but useless: x86 ASM to IL Compiler
Yes, you read correctly. A tool to compile x86 assembly language code to .NET IL.
You can download it from here. -
Using SQL Server 2005 Express with VB6
You know that I have always been a big proponent of using MSDE, and now SQL Server Express, in low-end systems (I think my first-ever VSLive presentation was on MSDE 1.0). Hey - the price is right and the upgrade path is simple !
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Keeping Things in Perspective - From a Technical Expert
I have had several blog postings in the past that point to some great material by Pat Helland.
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November IVBUG Meeting
November's Israel Visual Basic User Group Meeting will be held on November 3, 2004:
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C# catching up to VB
It was recently announced that as of the last CTP drop, C# 2.0 now supports Edit and Continue ! It is good to see the C# guys learning from the VB team and implementing some of eh really cool features. What is next - C# developers using the My classes ?!?!
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I am back again...
Its been almost three weeks since my last blog entry. This is the result of being ovewhelmed with work, trying to finalize & sign three new contracts and going on a trip with my son where I had no internet/email access for 9 days. You can only imagine how long it took me to recover from that backlog of email !
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Best Kept Secrets in .NET
Best Kept Secrets in .NET is the latest book by Deborah Kurata and covers some very practical, but often uverlooked or unknown, features of .NET. I must admit that I have not yet gotten a copy of this book, but it is definitely at the top of my list and should be on yours as well. I became a fan of Deborah's as soon as I read her first Doing Objects with VB book and have since developed both a professional and personal relationship with her. I have had many conversations with her and know her thoughts and approaches. Her teaching style has already proven itself and speaks for itself. Combine that with the topics covered in this book and I am sure that this is another "keeper"
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Using an ADO.NET DataSet as a Reporting Services Data Source
Christa has posted one of her own articles on the MSDN Data Access and Storage Dev Center. This is a neat and thorough article that takes you through using a ADO.NET DataSet as the source of data for SQL Server Reporting Services reports. It explains and shows you what you need to know about implementing and using the simple data processing extension for SQL Server Reporting Services.
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Thirty Years of Backwards Compatibility
Eric Lippert, who works on the Visual Studio Tools for Office team at Microsoft, has a great blog entry showing how the error codes and descriptions for VB6 and VB Script go all the back to the original Altair BASIC (Microsoft's first product) written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen back in 1975 for the Altair 8080.
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An Introduction to the Web Services Architecture and Its Specifications
This new article on MSDN is a long, comprehensive overview of Web Services and their various specs.
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Pat Helland on SOA
I think I have mentioned Pat Helland previously in my blog postings. He's a good guy, who's been around and knows his stuff. Check out his new paper on SOA: Data on the Outside vs. Data on the Inside. It is very extensive, but organized and clear.
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Learn about .NET - Israel Style !
If you haven't signed up yet, make sure you register for next week's .NET on the Beach event in Herzeliya (Israel). I can't promise you "Fun 'n Sun" since it is starting at 7:00 in the evening, but there will be lots of fun, networking, swimming and a look at future .NET and Visual Studio technologies.
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It's Good to be Home Again
It is good to be home again. Even for a pretty heavy traveller like me, being away from Home for 3 full weeks is a long time. Other than that, it was a good trip. A week in New York, visiting family and clients was good and productive (respectively). After that, 2 full weeks in Seattle/Redmond was also great, albeit pretty intense. Very long days of training/briefing sessions and lots of meetings. I certainly learned alot - and may even have gotten a feature request incorporated into VS 2005! I also found time to speak at the Seattle User Group on campus and to have a really fun Sunday afternoon at Paul Allen's Experience Music Project.
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.NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 released
You can download the .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 here.
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New and Improved VB Community Site on MSDN
The VB Community area of the MSDN web site is undergoing some major changes. Although this area has been around for a while and contained good content, it now has a new owner - Robert Green. Robert is a Program Manager on the VB Team (and an all-round great guy :-) ) and is responsible for VB community. Expect to see this area evolve and grow over the coming months.
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Thoughts on VB.NET Migration/Adoption
A while back, an MS Product Manager asked me for my thoughts on the current state of VB.NET migrations and adoption. I thought I would share my thoughts here and see if others think my thoughts are brilliantly insightfull, stupid, or just plain useless...Please let me know what you think !
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Blog listed on MSDN Data Access Dev Center
I just noticed that my blog is listed on the MSDN Data Access and Storage Developer Center.
If you're not familiar with it, you should definitely check out this very usefull resource, run by Christa Carpentiere -
Did I really see that ?!!?!
So yesterday I am sitting in the lobby of a building on the Microsoft campus, since I arrived a few minutes early for a meeting. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice what I think is a familiar figure entering the building. Yes, it was Bill Gates - reminding me that this building also has the executive offices. But I've seen Bill up close before, so this is not what this posting is about.
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Presentation at Seattle .NET Developers VB User Group
On Monday night I was the guest speaker at the Seattle .NET Developers VB User Group meeting. This is a group run by Robert Green of the VB team and meets monthly on the Microsoft campus. Robert had asked me to come and speak next time I was in town - so there I was !
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Migrating from VB6 to VB.NET Content Available Online
As many of you probably know, one of my main areas of interest and expertise is migrating both applications and developers from VB6 to VB.NET. It is a topic that I have spent alot of time researching, thinking, and presenting.
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ADO.NET 2.0 Comings and goings
I thought I would share with you some of the significant changes that I have encountered in the course of some work that I am currently doing with ADO.NET 2.0.
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Speaking at Seattle .NET Developers Association
I'll be spending the last 2 weeks of August out in Redmond and I am starting it off by doing the main presentation at the Seattle .NET Developers Association VB meeting on August 23 (at the Microsoft campus). Here are the details:
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Rocky Lhotka on When to use ASMX, ES or Remoting
Two weeks ago I posted a reference to Don Box's thoughts on when to use ASMX, ES or Remoting. Although Don's post included references to several other people, including Rocky Lhotka, Rocky has just come back with another, more extensive posting, outlining his thoughts on the subject. A good read.
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The worst of all worlds
Addy Santo points out a very distrubing proposition by Luke Hutteman - that we should promote a chain letter / spam between blogs in order (ostensibly) to gain visibility for blogs. I agree with Addy, and the numerous commentors on his and Luke's blogs, that this is a bad idea. I do not need more noise and useless emails/postings in my inbox.
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Advanced Data Access with ADO.NET and Oracle
As someone who gets called upon alot for data access issues, but admits to knowing close to nothing about working with Oracle databases, I am glad to see this new article on accessing complex Oracle data types from ADO.NET 1.1
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Pat Helland - Sings Bye Bye to Mr CIO Guy
Who says technical superstars don't have any other interest or talents ?!
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Practicing Safe Computing !
Scoble has reminded me of what my friend Dan Appleman is up to these days. Dan has alot of cool stuff to credit (besides beign a really nice guy), but is probably best known to VB developers as the author of the “bible” for accessing the Win32 API from VB and for the development tools and controls developed by his company Desaware. When we last had a chance to chat, he was preparing to hit the road to promote his new book on computer security Always Use Protection: A Teen's Guide to Safe Computing. For an educational, although perhaps humbling experience, check out his quick security quiz.
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When to use ASMX, ES or Remoting
I am a very believer that engineering, and life, is about tradeoffs. It is rare indeed when there is an “alway true” right answer. Ask anyone who has taken any of my training courses - the answer to almost any question, expecially if if begins with “Which way is better...”, is “it depends” ! The answer to all other questions is “XML” ! :-)
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Overview of the new XML Tools in Visual Studio 2005
Here is an excellent overview to the new XML and XSL editing and debugging tools in VS 2005. The blog post includes links to addtional information, including a more detailed white paper on MSDN.
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SQL Server 2005 ("Yukon") Beta 2 and SQL Server 2005 Express Beta 2 now available
If you are an MSDN Subscriber, SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 is now available for you to download on the MSDN Subscriber Downloads site.
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How SQL Express XCopy Deployment Works
Here is a link to a posting on how SQL Express Xcopy Deployment works.
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The Visual Studio 2005 Express products are cool - SQL Server 2005 Express is really cool
You have probably heard already about the Visual Studio 2005 Express family of products that were publicly revealed at TechEd Europe. This is a set of 6 products (VB, C#, J#, C++, Web Developer, SQL Server) that will be available for very low cost. More important, however, is the fact that each of these versions goes out of its way to make it easier for the inexperienced .NET developer to quickly be productive. It starts with the fact that the download size is significantly smaller, setup time is fast, and the IDE is designed to make the first experience(s) as smooth as possible. Another cool feature are the Starter Kits that are included. The VS team is taking a page out of the ASP.NET playbook and providing their own starter kits. These are fully functional sample applications that come with tutorials, along with the source code. The Beta 1 version of VB Express already comes with the My Movie Collection starter kit. Of course, the idea is not only to learn from the starter kit, but also to take it further and extend/modify it to meet your own needs.
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TechEd Amsterdam 2004
Although this year's annual TechEd Europe event is a few weeks behind us now, I am just now finally catching up from it. While other speakers also felt that this year was unusually hectic and pressured, I know that for me it particularly so. This was mainly due to the fact that my schedule was REALLY packed. First of all, I was giving 5 different sessions - 2 of them at 8:30 in the morning ! It was a nice mix of 2 "regular" presentations, 2 Birds Of a Feather sessions, and 1 Chalk & Talk.
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"Hello, It's Me" (Apologies to Todd Rundgren)
Well, it is long, long overdue - I am finally writing my first blog entry. I have a feeling that my relationship to my blog will be similar to that with my cell phone: I was not an early adopter, but within a very short period of time, I was unable to imagine life without it !