Laurent Kempé

ASP.NET Ajax RC and Google Adsense

During the integration of ASP.NET Ajax RC on Tech Head Brothers I had issues with some javascript failing both in ASP.NET Ajax and Adsense. After a short online discussion with Cyril, he could manage to get a fix, and to identify the issue in the ASP.NET Ajax RC. You might read more about it on the forum, or on his french blog.

Adsense uses the native method Date.parse of JavaScript. ASP.NET Ajax RC overload this method changing a bit its behavior. Luckily the old method is saved in Date._jsParse. Using this code just before your first insert of the adsense script will solve the issue:

            <script type="text/javascript"><!--
                Date.__cyril_parse = Date.parse; 
                Date.parse = function(s){
                    try {
                        return Date.__cyril_parse(s);
                    } catch (e){
                        var d = Date._jsParse(s);
                        if (d) {
                            return d; 
                        } else {
                            throw e;
                        } 
                    }
                }
            //--></script>

Thanks Cyril!!!

This is a critical bug that must be corrected for the RTM!!

ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 RC Released

So they finally released a first Release Candidate of ASP.NET AJAX. You might get an overview of what did change between beta 2 and RC on this page.

Download it here!!!

ASP.NET AJAX RC is coming soon

I just connected to the site and saw the image changed from beta 2 to RC then I made a refresh of the page because the link to download was still saying Beta 2. So it seems that we will have access to this new release really soon...

Jetbrains Resharper 2.5 RTM

As you certainly know I you sometimes read my blog I am absolutely addicted to that tool and can't work without it anymore in Visual Studio 2005.

So I am happy to announce that Jetbrains finally released ReSharper 2.5. This version is for Visual Studio 2005 only. So what's new on this new version?

Main focus was on the improvement of performance; faster installation and startup, faster typing (including auto-popup on Code Completions), plus speedups for code formatting, error highlighting, Live Templates, parameter info, and more.

For sure they also added some new stuff like Navigate from here, Enable/Disable Context Actions, Go To File Member, an improved find results view, Analyze Null References.

But wait!!! You are using VB? hey Wygwam guys ;) They now support VB

ReSharper now recognizes VB code in your project and extends the following features to it:

I guess the refactoring will also come soon.

And the best for the end the upgrade is free for all users of Resharper.

Don't wait, download it here, and try it.

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

You might download a compatibility pack on this page that will let you open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 using Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003.

Interview of Christof Wittig CEO of db4o

Patrice Lamarche had the opportunity to interview Christoff Wittig, CEO of db4objects.

db4objects sponsors the open source database db4o which is a native object database engine for .NET and Java.

There are several aspects that I particularly like in what I read:

• The way the company seems to work with distributed employees all around the world
• The open source development model

And from a technical aspect I really like this kind of code:

IList<Student> students = db.Query<Student>(delegate(Student student){
    return student.Age < 20
      && student.Grade == gradeA;
  });

It is named Native Queries, and it is 100% type safe, I like when the compiler already tells me that my code has a defect.

There are other good points about it that I will have to test, when I get time...