Archives
-
WCF and interoperability
I was trying to create an endpoint using WCF that was to look almost identical to an existing endpoint hat was created using some java tools (we were creating a new .Net app and had to mimic some older endpoints).The endpoint seemed ok at first glance according to the WSDL so I generated a client from it using the SVCUTIL.EXE tool and was going to use the interface from that to base my new service off.
-
WCF Beta Exam
I took the opportunity to sit the WCF Beta exam a few days ago and I must say, it was very hard. Being beta, I don't find out the results until about 8 weeks later, but I reckon I didn't fare too well.
-
Visual Studio 2008 - Install Problems and Solutions
Ok, maybe this has already been blogged about in various places, but I am going to list my steps that were required for me to get Visual Studio 2008 to install properly under Vista.
-
Liquid XML - The good juice
I haven't used Liquid XML in some time and had forgotten how good value this little tool is. XML editing, instance document generation, schema validation and more, XPath query tool, all for free. The schema document visualisation is really strong too.
-
Outlook 2007 - Just fix it - My Rant
Warning: Rant to follow:
-
AJAX Control toolkit and TFS Presentations
Tuesday 30th October and Wednesday 31st October, I am doing a presentation on the AJAX Control Toolkit. It is part of the readify developer network series of presentations. I am doing a primer presentation which is more introductory and runs for a relatively short period of time. Chris Burrows will then follow through with a Team Foundation server related presentation based on experiences in the field.
-
Dodgy Debugging
In a previous post, I mentioned an obscure ASP.NET issue that had me scratching my head for a while.
-
Some more JavaScript Intellisense issues in VS2008
I was experiencing the issues described here where I was getting no colourisation of JavaScript and no Intellisense. I applied the fix mentioned in the post but it didn't work.
-
Advanced Options Screen
Here is a screen shot of the only available options screen for my audio device on Vista. It just happens to be an "Advanced" options screen. Hate to see the simplified one....
-
Obscure ASP.NET Problem - AJAX Control Toolkit, CollapsiblePanelExtender, Image controls pages loading more than once....
Had an issue on a current project where a page was being loaded twice for each request, although it was a little different for each browser. Under IE, this particular page was loaded, then the 'Default.aspx' page in the same directory was loaded. In Firefox, the same page was loaded twice. This was verified by simply placing breakpoints in the Page_Load events and watching it get hit twice, in addition to seeing this via the NET monitor in Firebug (the Firefox addin).
-
RSS Feeds in Outlook 2007 - Part 2. Bye bye Outlook
The other day, I posted about my issues with Outlook 2007 and its handling of my RSS feeds. I tried a number of things to fix it, the latest effort being to export all my feeds, delete all of them from Outlook, then re-import. Didn't work, dates were still all wrong.
-
RSS Feeds in Outlook 2007 not working
There have been many posts bemoaning the RSS support in Outlook 2007 and I generally agree, however the convenience of having it nicely searchable in Outlook 2007 is a massive bonus for so I have lived with all the other issues.
-
100th Show! ASP.NET Podcast - WCF File streaming with Aaron Saikovski
-
Architecture, WCF Services and Caching
Blog Article
-
TFS Now gets launched
So here is yet another launch that occurred while I was busy being sick.
-
Readify Developer Network gets launched
I have been sick and out of action lately, and one of the things that has transpired during this period is the launch of the Readify Developer Network - RDN.
-
ASP.NET Podcasts
After going on holidays, feeling relaxed and generally not doing much tech related stuff, I have fallen behind in a number of things. One was my inbox, something like 1400+ messages I have had to wade through, and they keep coming.
-
XBox 360 120Gb Hard Disk
So I got me a 120Gb hard disk for my XBox 360 for my birthday a few days ago. Its pretty sweet and came with a transfer cable and software to migrate all my stuff from the 20Gb unit to my 120Gb unit. It feels quite a bit faster too. The demo's I have all seem to load a lot faster.
-
Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Book is out!
The past year or so I have been working with a number of excellent co-authors on another book called Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX and as you can imagine, is solely devoted to the topic of the Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions.
-
iMate Jasjar - 1 year later
I own an iMate Jasjar phone and have done for about 1 year. I recently returned from a snow holiday in the lovely snowy mountains here in New South Wales, Australia.
-
WCF and Concurrent usage throttling
Have a requirement to interface with a legacy system that exposes a set of web services. The legacy system is not terribly fast and there are concerns by the client that it cannot handle excessive load. It seems to handle the current load ok, but we have been tasked with writing a system which will interface directly with the legacy system and potentially increase that load substantially. I can neither confirm nor deny the legacy systems ability to handle our projected load as the metrics simply are not available and its not feasible to generate them at this time.
-
Windows Workflow and validation
Requirement
-
ASP.NET Podcast - Show #94 - WCF, Client Side
-
VSTS for Database Professionals on my current project
On a current project I was interested in using VSTS for Database professionals to see if it could add any value with database management. Traditionally its been a very manual process as Visual Studio has not had any real support for it.
-
Web Client Software Factory and Enterprise Library. I want to Opt-in, not Opt-out.
I am a fan of the Web Client Software factory. Its a pretty good implementation of the MVP pattern within ASP.NET. Pretty lean and clean and doesn't involve lots of effort to get the simple stuff done, unlike a lot of other MVC based implementations/frameworks.
-
LiveWriter and Blog Styles
If, like me, you like to use Microsoft LiveWriter, be aware that it does not work if you are using the Riviera style found within the admin section of this CommunityServer blog. I the JavaScript must kill it.
-
VSTS and VSTestHost.Exe - not on talking terms
Thought I would install some optional updates to try and resolve some issues I was having with Vista and Visual Studio 2005. It seems I continually get the VSTestHost.exe has stopped unexpectedly error when trying to run any tests within Visual Studio. It seems there are not too many instances of this around as I can't find too much beyond simple fix suggestions that haven't worked.
-
Silverlight Reflector
Just found a nice Silverlight tool by Ernie Booth to aid in my learning process. A plug in for Reflector that allows you to view Silverlight code (Javascript or Managed).
-
Silverlight and unsupported features
Like a lot of people lately, I have been playing with Silverlight (Alpha 1.1 version), trying to understand the nuts and bolts of it, and when that fails, just diving in and seeing how I go. I can’t say I am much of a WPF/XAML guru so things have been slow.
-
Another reason to use the AJAX Control Toolkit
Apart from the long list of great, free controls in the AJAX Control toolkit, there are numerous other reasons to use the toolkit. One of which is the great support functions that come with the toolkit.
-
External Drive Pain. FTP to the rescue.
My USB 250Gb external drive is about ready to pack it in. When I plug it into a USB port, I get the popup asking what I want do (browse, transfer files etc...). Then after not long using it, the drive "disconnects" from the system, and very quickly reconnects again, and I get the popup asking what I want to do as if I had just plugged it on. Now this is happening ever more frequently (sometimes every 10 seconds, sometimes after a few minutes).
-
ASP.NET Podcast Show #91 - ASP.NET AJAX Integration with ASP.NET Services
-
WCF Client Channel Pool - Improved Client Performance
Not long ago, I posted about WCF client performance and some work I have been doing around improving that with a "Channel Pool" type implementation.
-
Replacement XBox360 for me
I blogged just recently about my 360 getting the red ring of death after only a year and 1 month of operation. I purchased an extended warranty agreement with the retailer for on the spot replacement of the unit for 2 years from the date of purchase. So luckily, I now have a brand new Xbox360 to replace the dead one. The same hard drive was moved to the new unit so I don't lose anything which is good.
-
Sharepoint 2007 Masterclass
-
3 out of 3 Xbox units die
Just awesome. I have owned 3 Xbox units in my time. Every single unit has died a little after a year of operation. My first original XBox console died around 1 year and 2 months after I bought it. My second original XBox console died another year and a bit after purchasing it.
-
Beginning ASP.NET AJAX Book Cover
Wally thought he might offer some suggestions as to what our new book cover should be (due out very soon). You can see them here and in addition, Julie Lerman has also offered some alternatives here.
-
WCF Client Performance
One of the easiest performance traps when using WCF services is constant creation of new client proxies when accessing those services. In WSE land, this was common place:
-
WCF Atomic Transactions - GUI Configuration
If you play with WCF and would like an easy, graphical way to enable and configure basic options of the the WS-Atomic transaction support of WCF, you can do the following:
-
Windows Easy Transfer
I just got me a new Dell XPS M1710 with all the bells and whistles. I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out the Windows Easy Transfer as my old Dell had Windows Vista already installed on it.
-
Want an XBox 360?
Sonu Kapoor asked I mention a competition he has running on his DotNetSlackers site. All you have to do is write an article, and your automatically in the running to win an Xbox 360 Core system!
-
Industrial Strength WPF
readify, the people that feed my kids and keep me off the streets, are putting on another high quality Industrial Strength course around Windows Presentation Foundation.
-
CodeCampOz 2007 AJAX Demo
As part of CodeCampOz 2007, Damien and myself co-delivered a presentation on real life experiences with ASP.NET AJAX. Damien has already posted some content on what he delivered and so I thought I'd do the same.
-
WCF Performance Whitepaper - realistic?
I recently looked through a WCF Performance whitepaper published by Microsoft and was a little puzzled by some of the comparisons.
-
Its an MVP Frenzy
I'd like to congratulate my fellow readify colleagues and all round good guys for receiving MVP Awards this year:
-
CodeCampOz Presentations
Well CodeCampOz 2007 is beginning this weekend. It should be a great event with a host of good speakers. If you have the opportunity, and are somewhere in Australia, I encourage you to get toCharles Sturt Uni in Wagga Wagga, NSW for some good technical discussions.
-
"Thoughtex" released. Nice WPF App.
Joseph Cooney has released his first version of a "mind mapping" piece of software written in WPF. Joseph had me do some alpha testing on some earlier versions and its a real quality piece of code. Nice to use, nice to look at. I'd encourage you to give it a look, and provide some feedback to Joseph so that future versions are made even better.
-
Website update with AJAX, WPF Password Manager, and Web Client Factory
Couple of things in this post. Firstly (and long overdue), I have updated my personal website to get rid of the Atlas CTP functionality and replace that with ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 features. There is not much actually a few update panels, and the inclusion of an AJAX Control toolkit control, the Accordion on the front page to help with useability and screen real estate. Here is a screen shot of the new layout:
-
ASP.NET Podcast #87 - Darren Neimke Interview
-
AJAX Control Toolkit New Release and Orcas
A new release of the AJAX Control toolkit has just hit the airwaves. It contains a bunch of fixes in there, as well as some new controls, specifically the ListSearch and Slideshow controls. In addition, all release bits now use compressed javascript files stripped of xml comments and safe whitespace
-
WCF Proxy Performance vs WSE V3
Recently, I had been asked to examine a situation where WSE V3 service calls were substantially quicker than the equivalent WCF version.
-
ASP.NET Podcast/VideoCast - Show #86. Creating Extender controls with the AJAX Control Toolkit (Videocast)
-
WCF Masterclass with Juval Lowy
I have been lucky enough to be attending a WCF Masterclass this week taught by Juval Lowy and organised by readify. Its an awesome course and I am learning an incredible amount about WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). You know you’re on a good course when not only do you learn a lot about the specific topic of the course, but I am also picking up an incredible amount of useful tips and code along the way, not strictly tied to WCF.
-
A user experience only a mother could love
So I downloaded Windows Mobile Device Centre, installed it, run it. Plugged in my Windows Mobile 5 device and received the "uber" useful screen you see below. Now which option shall I choose from here.....? I wonder how long it took to design this screen? Well at least its a green screen so it can't be all bad right?
-
ASP.NET Podcast Show #85 - Chris Riccio of the ASP.NET AJAX Team
Wally does another podcast interview with Chris Riccio of the ASP.NET AJAX team. This one mostly deals with testing.
-
MVC/MVP - Overused Patterns?
I did an engagement recently where a client wanted to create a windows forms application from an existing legacy application. The existing legacy app was important but relatively simple in terms of architecture.
-
ASP.NET Podcast - show #84: Matt Gibbs Interview
This is the first in what will hopefully be a series of interviews with some of the ASP.NET AJAX team members. Wally, as usual, does a fine job of grilling Matt.
-
ASP.NET AJAX & AJAX ControlToolkit - developer.com Tool/Add-in of the year
Over at Developer.com, ASP.NET AJAX, AJAX Control Toolkit and ASP.NET AJAX Extensions have taken out the .Net Tool/Add-in developer product of the year award! Great Stuff and congratulations!. Check it out here http://www.developer.com/db/article.php/10920_3653956_2 along with all the other awards.
-
ASP.NET Podcast Show #83 - Writing a Custom AJAX Extender
Here is a videocast I did that shows you how to create a custom Extender control using the Microsoft ASP.Net AJAX Extensions. This will be the first of a series of video casts on custom ASP.Net AJAX controls. The next one will deal with extender controls using the AJAX Control toolkit and contrast the different approaches. The next one may deal with ScriptControls and so on.
-
ASP.NET Podcast #82 - Wally and Me wrap up 2006
Wally and myself did a podcast that kind of sums up the year of 2006 with respect to what technology we have seen and how the podcast has been doing. Tune in and give us your feedback.
-
ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel article
Found an article on the inner workings of the UpdatePanel by Damian Mehers today. The article can be found here (http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/atlas/The_UpdatePanel_opened_what_happens_behind_the_scenes.aspx). Its a pretty good article and Damien does a good jon of showing what goes when the UpdatePanel performs its magic.
-
ASP.NET Podcast Show #81 - AJAX Control Toolkit Intro Video
Wally is starting off the new year by continuing his Videocast frenzy. Here is one on a few controls in the AJAX Control toolkit, one of which being my very own PasswordStrength extender. I’ll be producing one myself soon on the AJAX Control toolkit so lookout for that. Also, I would be interested to hear feedback on the Videocast vs Podcast medium. Which do you prefer?
-
I got tagged - right back at ya....
So Wally has tagged me and now I must reveal 5 of my most inner deep dark secrets, well 5 things you didn’t know at least. I’ll let you decide which ones are my deep dark ones.