Jim Jackson

New Blog

axshon — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 15:48:00 GMT

So if anyone is still following me (what the heck were YOU thinking?) you can continue to my new blog. It's a Wordpress site hosted with an ASP.NET provider so it's a little slow but I plan to transition it to Azure some time soon. My current project...(read more)

Entity Framework 4 and “New transaction is not allowed because there are other threads running in the session” Exception

axshon — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:26:00 GMT

I’ve been working through a server-side process with Entity Framework wherein an uploaded file must be updated after initial entry. I have a multi-stage process that goes out to multiple other affinity web services to get complimentary data. Here is code...(read more)

Uploading a File to SQL Server via Silverlight, WCF and EF

axshon — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 23:20:00 GMT

Note: Some of the code presented here does not conform to standard security practices. The goal is to show the relevant methods to accomplish the requirements, not to present a production-ready solution. The requirements: ü Upload individual large files...(read more)

SQL 2008 Geography - Combine Data Points into a Geography Line

axshon — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:27:00 GMT

I have encountered many instances where having the decimal values for coordinates in a line is more useful than the having the Geography value for that same line. Likewise, in some instances a Geography value is more appropriate. Here is what I mean:...(read more)

Entity Framework ObservableCollection Add Method - Unexpected Behavior

axshon — Wed, 26 May 2010 01:28:00 GMT

The documentation for Collection<T>.Add specifically states that when calling the Add method, the new item is appended to the end of the collection. This is not necessarily true. I haven't tested it in all it's incarnations yet but it appears to...(read more)

Using the BackgroundWorker in a Silverlight MVVM Application

axshon — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:16:00 GMT

With Silverlight 4 and the Entity Framework you get a lot of work done on your behalf in terms of standard UI CRUD-style operations. Validations and I/O are pretty easy to accommodate out of the box. But sometimes you need to perform some long running...(read more)

Silverlight Adventures - The Process So Far

axshon — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:43:00 GMT

I’m currently in the process of rebuilding my Silverlight application. The initial beta of this app was somewhat underwhelming in that the problems it solved were those I found most interesting, not necessarily those the beta testers were looking for...(read more)

RIA Services - Iterate Items in EntityQuery Object

axshon — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:55:56 GMT

I’m trying to get EF working with SL3, SSL, RIA Services et al. It’s a long road and I know there are issues with any route you decide to take when building a business app in Silverlight 3. In building previous iterations of my little program I used straight...(read more)

Good Documentation…

axshon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:28:27 GMT

Getting nationalized health care: + $3,000,000,000,000.00 Socializing the United States of America: + $10,000,000,000,000.00 Tax Hike to 'Evil Rich People' to raise less than 20% of funds needed for health care: 5.4% Good documentation about how the new...(read more)

Small Person, Big Life

axshon — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:16:03 GMT

My friends and a few work associates know some of the details of my last trip to China to adopt my second daughter. While there my first adopted daughter, then 4 years old, got mysteriously sick. Very very sick. My wife and I spent a lot of time and obscene...(read more)

Silverlight 2 Drag and Scroll Image

axshon — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:36:54 GMT

This is somewhat based on Shawn Wildermuth’s blog post for drag and drop. I had two problems with his post. I’m not scrolling a canvas. If your mouse leaves the control with the button down you are still dragging when your mouse reenters the control....(read more)

Silverlight 2 Sys.InvalidOperationException: ImageError error #4001 in control Xaml1

axshon — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:42:35 GMT

I got this last night while trying to load 2,150 images into a grid. I’m working on a map tiling control for my application because the maps are very large and custom stitched for my application. Incidentally, when loaded up, my IE windows consumes 1...(read more)

Using Linq to XML with C# to Read Gpx Files

axshon — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:10:00 GMT

GPX is the standardized file format for GPS file exchanges. A GPX file can contain a lot of different kinds of information. Take a look at the schema here . In general, the major things that you will work with are: Waypoints A waypoint is a specific position...(read more)

SQL 2008 Geography and Geometry Data Type Problems

axshon — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:28:42 GMT

My plan was to take my application into SQL 08 from 05 since my hosting service now has it available. I was intent on killing all of my lat/long information and storing my geospatial data in geography columns. Here is what I’m finding about the Geography...(read more)

Beyond Compare 3

axshon — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:55:00 GMT

A substantial part of a developer’s job seems to be the logistical details of getting ‘it’ from here to there. When you run a team the problem becomes larger. Even with source control, there are documents that should be updated that aren’t and things...(read more)