April 2006 - Posts
Here is a quick function I put together:
'Name is the name of the virtual machine itself
'ISOPath is the full file path to the ISO
function AttachISOAsDVD(Name, ISOPath)
on error resume next
Set objVS = CreateObject("VirtualServer.Application")
Set objVM = objVS.FindVirtualMachine(Name)
'add the new DVD ROM
set objDVDDrive = objVM.AddDVDROMDrive(0,1,0)
'attach the ISO
objDVDDrive.AttachImage(ISOPath)
'clean up
set objDVDDrive = nothing
set objVM = nothing
set objVS = nothing
end function
More scripts can be found here at the Script Repository: Virtual Server. If you notice there is a link in the Script Repository under Virtual Hard Disks to Add a DVD Drive to a Virtual Machine which is broken, it forwards you to the "Add a Hard Disk Connection to a Virtual Machine". The function I posted above should be good enough to help with that if you need it.
So this evening I'm scheduled for my first talk of many for this semester for the COMP 3870 (Advanced ASP.NET with C#) course. Tonight’s topic is Deployment of Web Applications and ClickOnce Deployment for Windows Applications. The instructor and I decided to bunch these together just to give the student a full view of their deployment options, advantages and disadvantages of each method.
There has been a conversation on the CCNET Users mailing list regarding deployment and change management via continuous integration and recommended practices for dealing with source control and such. I think I will throw a couple of slides together for this as well.
To my shock the course doesn’t even cover anything to do with source control, let alone unit testing, code coverage, etc. The instructor and I have adjusted the plan for this semester and will be including these topics.
Sign Up!
SMB Nation Workshops
May 10, 2006 9:00 AM - May 10, 2006 2:00 PM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)
Welcome Time: 8:30 AM
Language: English Microsoft Canada Suite 1100 - 1111 West Georgia Street (Terasen Building)
Vancouver British Columbia V6E 4M3
Canada (MAP) |
General Event Information
Products: Small Business Server.
Recommended Audience: Partner.
Microsoft and HP proudly present SBS author Harry Brelsford in a Canadian workshop tour for technology partners, consultants, VARs and VAPs.
• SBS 2003Exam Cram: Qualify for the Microsoft Small Business Specialist title. The technical component of the workshop will prepare you for the 70-282 “Designing, Deploying, and Managing a Network Solution for a Small- and Medium-Sized Business” certification exam. This is the popular EXAM CRAM you've heard so much about!
• Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community: Learn about running your business more efficiently and profitability, selling SMB technology solutions to customers, and overcoming sales objections. The business topics will help you pass the Small Business Sales and Marketing Assessment required of all Microsoft Small Business Specialists.
• New HP Channel Programs: Hear about new HP programs designed to help you maximize your sales to small businesses, including:
o HP’s Registered Partner Program: This newly launched channel program provides open access to a select group of HP products that are ideal for small business customers including servers.
o HP Reseller Option Kits (ROK) for Windows Server 2003 Standard and Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard: The Reseller Option Kit allows customers to match their preferred operating system with their chosen server hardware.
Plus, all event attendees will receive:
• Microsoft Small Business Specialist Primer & 70-282 Exam Preparation Guide book authored by Harry Brelsford and Beatrice Mulzer - a $49.95 value!
• “Time Is Now” Kit, an integrated marketing initiative designed to support your business with training, collateral and thru-partner marketing resources
• IDC Blueprints for Driving Revenue with SBS 2003 and Microsoft Small Business Products CD – a collection of recent whitepapers containing prescriptive guidance on running a successful SBS practice
Complimentary breakfast and lunch will be served. Spaces are limited.
Its 8 days until the next Vancouver PASS Chapter Meeting.
Last month’s Demo & PowerPoint files on Service Broker are now available on the Chapter website. Even if you missed Roger Wolter’s presentation, the Sample Scripts and PPT files should be easy enough to understand on their own.
Login & click the colourful bull’s-eye icon to download the zipped files
That’s Thursday (April 27th). Santeri (Santtu) Voutilainen, Developer, SQL Server Lock Manager will be coming up from Redmond to make a presentation.
Please go to the Vancouver PASS Chapter Site for full details of the event.
You will need to login to see the details, so you will be required to register on the site.
RSVP is required.
Just a quick reminder that tomorrow - Wednesday, April 19th -
Dave Howard and his team from Vancouver based "
Circle Learning" will give a talk about Visually Rich e-Learning with Flash, MySQL and XML.
Please refer to
http://www.vanx.org for further details. The evening will be kicked off as usual at 6:00pm with networking and pizza, having the talk starting around 6:30pm.
Abstract:Dave Howard, president of Circle Learning, will discuss their soon to be unveiled Flash based e-learning interface called LEARN. This innovative interface provides a rich media learning environment with
easy content updating using MySQL and XML. Dave will demonstrate the system at it's beta stage and discuss the value of such an application in the online learning environment. Flash and the MySQL database make extensive use of XML for the transfer of data, interface design elements and commands.
Meetings are held at ActiveState at 580 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC
I love this stuff.
A bit of history why...
During the last MVP/AspInsiders summit I had a chance to talk to a few of my peers (Wally, Ambrose, Jason, Plip, to name a few) about their community efforts and contributions. One thing I discovered is how many of them are really focused on their local community. And I mean LOCAL, which is quite different than what Microsoft defines as “Regional” (nothing to do with geographical region –that’s a story for another day).
This is such a great idea.
So since then, I have really focused my efforts locally here in Vancouver BC. For example, I’m sure many of you noticed all of my chatter about the Vancouver Code Camp back in March. I also started to work (Part Time, evenings) at BCIT helping with a few course on Beginners level ASP.NET and this semester it is the advanced course for ASP.NET and .NET itself. Next semester I plan on taking over as instructor for the advanced course. I started to attend local events like .NET BC, AgileVancouver, and the local SqlPass chapter. The list goes on.
One of my “Regional” community points of contact that we have in Canada that actually works for Microsoft is John Bristowe. He lives (Calgary, Alberta) about 14 hours drive away from Vancouver but I consider him my Most Valuable Canadian contact from MSFT. He pulled through with a solid presentation for the Code Camp and has always been very open and honest with me since day one. A great guy all around.
He recently contacted me with an idea about featuring Canadian developers via podcasting. Literally his idea, at that time, was to podcast Canadian developers in the community and do an interview style discussion about recent events which they are doing. I was very humbled that he chose my as his guinea pig for the podcast and my experiences with the Code Camp.
Today he announced the podcasting project, named Developer Night in Canada. Check it out and subscribe.
Yes, I still believe that Google is just another Yahoo and today they take just another step towards this with the release of their new free Calendar service. I have actually used my Yahoo calendar service since Jan 21, 2001 and I know I will not make the switch.
Whats next for Google? Sports scores, weather, horoscopes... Oh wait they already have that as well dont they? Ever click the "Personalize Home" link on the top right? Yup, its there. I wonder if I can add a view of my calendar and email to that personalized home as well, just like Yahoo.
Maybe I can save them the time in dreaming up new crap. Follow this link and here is a complete list of crap they can rip off to target the web user.
So now that they are almost caught up to what the industry was doing 5 years ago lets see what NEW stuff they can bring to the market...
This just in from the Atlas Team at Microsoft...
The "Atlas" Control Toolkit is collection of samples and components that makes it easier then ever to build and consume rich client-side “Atlas” controls and extenders. The toolkit provides both ready to go samples and a powerful SDK to simplify the creation and re-use of your own custom controls and extenders.
Download it here
Try it here
We got a sneak preview of the toolkit a few weeks ago, and I had the chance to play around with it. I really like what MSFT is doing with this (old) technology and pushing into deeper and more useful implementations with it. As long as they remain true to the expectations of keeping things cross platform, cross browser compatible (to a larger degree) Atlas will have a strong future ahead of it.
Features included in the Toolkit (shamelessly stolen from the download page):
CascadingDropDown: Easily link drop downs, complete with asynchronous population and no postbacks! CollaspiblePanel: This extender allows panels on your page to collapse and expand with no code ConfirmButton: This extender adds a confirm dialog to any Button, LinkButton, or ImageButton control DragPanel: Makes any panel into an object that you can drag around the page. HoverMenu: Allows UI to pop up next to a control when the user hovers over it. PopupControl: This extender turns any panel into a popup. ReorderList: This control is a full-featured data-bound control that allows it's elements to be reordered on the client via drag and drop. TextBoxWatermark: This extender adds "watermark" prompt text to TextBoxes on the page. ToggleButton: This extender turns an ASP.NET CheckBox into an image checkbox.
Topic: The Safe Bool Idiom
by Michael Borghardt
Abstract:Learn how to validate objects in a boolean context without the usual harmful side effects. In C++, there are a number of ways to provide Boolean tests for classes. Such support is either provided to make usage intuitive, to support generic programming, or both. We shall examine the popular ways of adding support for the popular and idiomatic if (object) {} construct. To conclude, we will discuss a new solution, without the pitfalls and dangers of the others.
Speaker bio: Michael Borghardt is the founder of the Vancouver C++ Users Group and has been a software development consultant for over 15 years. He has worked in a number of industries include robotics, power electronics, banking, and semiconductors. Michael's goal in using C++ is to make writing software as type-safe as possible and getting the compiler to do as much work as it can while leaving the creative side of software development to the developer.
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