WebLog of Ken Cox

Make Parallel APIs Seamless and Almost Invisible

2009-11-19T23:33:00Z

Microsoft Canada’s Adam Gallant gave an excellent presentation today on ‘What’s New with Visual Studio Team System and MSDN’. Among Adam’s demonstrations were the new APIs to support so-called manycore architectures. Most of us are still writing code as if we only have one processor when it fact newer machines are likely to have four of them. The .NET Parallel Extensions supported in VS 2010 lead us into adopting these new technologies, which is fine. However, some of us at the session were wondering...(read more)

On Being Blow Away by Technology

2009-11-18T18:17:32Z

While watching Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, and Brian Goldfarb demonstrate Silverlight 4, I had a range of reactions: Wow! I’ve got to play with this stuff! I’m feeling overwhelmed by the avalanche of technology How will I find the time to do billable work and stay current with this great stuff? Maybe I can convince my client to switch the app in development from ASP.NET 3.5 to Silverlight 4? It’s all so exciting, unnerving, and, in a certain way, upsetting to be so blown away by technology. Ken...(read more)

New Machine? Nope, Just a Defrag

2009-11-16T20:10:00Z

I run Windows Server 2008 Enterprise on my quad core development workstation to take advantage of the OS’ Hyper-V support. (More info on setting this up at http://www.win2008workstation.com/ ) Anyway, Derek at Diskeeper corporation sent along an MVP freebie preview of Diskeeper 2010 so I thought I’d run a defrag overnight. This morning, it feels like I have a new machine! I know this sounds like a commercial, but I hadn’t realized how badly my system’s performance had been deteriorating over the...(read more)

It Works On My Virtual Machine - So Ship My VHD!

2009-11-14T18:42:00Z

With advances in virtualization technology, it seems like the old quip, “It works on my machine - so let’s ship my machine!” is becoming reality. In the old days, people would configure a physical box in their shop and send it out to the client or host to plug and play. With virtualization, you could configure a virtual machine – even a development machine – and upload the virtual hard drive to a data center. Taking it further, the folks running Azure could run multiple copies of the identical VHD...(read more)

Our Windows 7 Launch Party’s Over

2009-10-22T22:34:33Z

The Windows 7 launch celebration went well at our place. I installed the “Windows 7 Signature Edition” on an older (Win 95 era) Dell machine and discovered that the new OS ran quite well. Even more surprising, Dell’s audio and video drivers for Windows 2000 worked great. Because I set English (Canada) as the system language, we got the Canada background themes. I used the HD TV as a monitor and had the beautiful backgrounds rotating throughout. Does anyone know how to find the location those pictures...(read more)

VS 2010 Product Release Date? March 22, 2010

2009-10-20T00:41:00Z

I don't recall Microsoft announcing a Visual Studio release date this far in advance. The official launch is March 22, 2010 . In the past there have been two product release dates for Visual Studio. The first was soon after release to manufacturing (RTM) courtesy of MSDN Downloads. The second was the marketing release when the real sales pitch to regular purchasers got underway. Any guesses on the date for MSDN availability of the final product? I love license terms (any chance to ridicule lawyers...(read more)

Animation on MSDN Web Pages? No Thanks

2009-10-13T15:26:00Z

I may be fighting a losing battle against the Silverlight/Flash animation gurus. The Visual Basic Developer site on MSDN is showing off a preview of its proposed redesign . One of the “features” is a flashing, fading, distracting, and very annoying animation at the bottom of the page. To me, this is a case of “see what great things I can do” from an animator. Unfortunately, these moving image things set off my vertigo and I must turn away quickly. In the debate over the redesign, one option seems...(read more)

Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition w/ Party Pack

2009-10-09T21:54:00Z

Gosh, it didn’t take long for eBay to come alive with offers to sell the Not For Resale (NFR) versions of Windows 7 ! I suspect most of these “Signature Edition” versions are coming out of the Party Pack that just arrived today. The asking prices seem to range from $80 to $315 (CDN). Are these so rare as to have a premium value for collectors? Will Microsoft go after these vendors? BTW, I wouldn’t sell mine – apart from the fact that doing so would be unethical, illegal, and downright stupid for...(read more)

Fixing the ‘Telerik.WebControls.GridInsertionObject does not contain a property’ Error

2009-10-02T16:01:57Z

I really like working with the Telerik ASP.NET AJAX controls. However, I keep forgetting about a problem in the RadGrid that occurs when trying to add a new record using EntityDataSource. If there aren’t any records yet, and you click Add Record, you often get this: DataBinding: 'Telerik.Web.UI.GridInsertionObject' does not contain a property with the name ‘<fieldname>'. The workaround is to manually initialize the object being inserted. Here’s the routine (VB) for my future reference...(read more)

Congratulations Microsoft MVP!‏

2009-10-01T14:40:40Z

I received a very nice email message this morning… “Congratulations, you are one of only a few thousand people around the world who have been recognized with a Microsoft MVP Award.” I’m proud of this award, and even though I’ve received it every year for the last 10 or so years, it’s just as much an honour as the first time. Ken Microsoft Most Valuable Professional [ASP.NET]...(read more)

DropDownList Lookups Failing Due to SQL Char DataType

2009-09-30T17:34:06Z

Here’s today’s episode of “Losing Time on Something Dumb”… In my ASP.NET 3.5 project (using Telerik’s AJAX controls) I filled a RadComboBox with Items and needed to set the selected item to the current value of the object (I’m using Entity Framework). For the life of me, I couldn’t get this to work: ddlCountryOfOrigin.SelectedValue = itm.Origin The items were there in the RadComboBox, and there was definitely a value in itm.Origin. No matter what I did, the current value wasn’t selected. I neglected...(read more)

WebsiteSpark – Free Software? Not Exactly

2009-09-24T15:28:07Z

Microsoft has an interesting new initiative called WebsiteSpark that features a 7,122-word legal agreement . The attraction of the programme for small web development and design companies is obvious, starting with free licenses for development and hosting software and exposure to potential clients. As always there are catches, and some are quite amusing. “A USD $100 Program Offering Fee is due when the Web development and design company exits the Program.” Seriously? Microsoft is going to invoice...(read more)

Publishers Prepare for Year End .NET 4.0 Release

2009-09-13T18:40:04Z

While Microsoft is coy about product release plans (“When it’s ready” is a common evasive answer to the question), book publishers frequently reveal their (and Microsoft’s) plans online. If you’re curious about when software like .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 is likely to be available, the publishers’ catalogues are a pretty accurate guide. Publishers want their titles available on or shortly after a corresponding Microsoft release to grab the initial burst of consumer interest. Given that producing...(read more)

Fixing the System.Data.UpdateException – DefiningQuery and no Error

2009-09-10T01:56:00Z

Here’s another in my never-ending series of fixes for dumb mistakes. In this episode we lose time with an Entity Framework error. Here’s the error message: System.Data.UpdateException was unhandled by user code Message="Unable to update the EntitySet 'Purchases' because it has a DefiningQuery and no <InsertFunction> element exists in the <ModificationFunctionMapping> element to support the current operation." Source="System.Data.Entity" This one had me baffled because I was mainly just...(read more)

Generating PDFs in ASP.NET Pages – PDF Duo .Net

2009-09-02T16:05:34Z

In my current contract, I need to generate database-driven PDFs on the fly. I’ve done the first prototypes with my copy of Aspose.Pdf for .NET *. It’s an enterprise-ready, robust, and extremely functional component with a rich API, XML content input, good documentation and professional support. However, at $1797 for the Developer OEM Subscription (the required license for software-as-a-service apps), my client asked me to look at less-expensive options. While researching alternatives, I came across ...(read more)