Archives
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CommentSpam.org RBL Fixed
After my massive update of the CommentSpam.org database last week, I accidentally posted a couple of entries without an IP address. That broke the Real-Time Blacklist CVF file. I added some logic to my CVF handler to check for DBNull before adding a node to the XML document. I should have done that earlier <smacks forehead> but it's working now.
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I'm so happy I could cry...
Well, ok I'm not THAT happy ;). But I am really excited. I've been working at a client's for the past three weeks rebuilding their network. The viruses and spyware just got so bad that everything had to be wiped, and we started from scratch. It consisted of:
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Hey Java Devs: Game On
Is that a challenge? Hmmm.... <sly grin>
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.Text Performance Tip - JIT Debugging
I was going through my websites recently, and I noticed something curious about the .Text default web.config files that are chipped with the bits. The <compilation> tag has the "debug" attribute set to true. If you're running a large .Text community (as I am), this can have a very serious impact on performance. Make sure you check your settings and set debug="false" if you have not already sone so. I would restart IIS also, just for good measure.
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Halo 2 and Xbox Live - .NET Programmer Clan
I've had Xbox live for a couple weeks now, but I haven't been on it very much since no one ever seems to be on for NFL Fever 2004. But I bought Halo 2 yesterday, and been playing deathmatches nonstop ever since. Regrettably, the only person's butt I kicked was Scott Hanselman. Had a blast last night though.
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A "Barter" Proposition
I have a 1U Dual 2.4 GHz Xeon server that has been sitting dormant for a while. I got it in exchange for some Classic ASP work a while back, and it retailed for $2K at the time. It's about a year old, and it's in excellent condition. The only thing wrong with it is the cd tray's face is missing. It popped off a couple months ago. I'd sell it on eBay but I don't think I'll get anything decent for it. I wouldn't mind keeping it because it's a hefty machine that would be useful later, but is there anyone out there that has a use for it with something to trade? I'd be interested in entertaining offers.
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Frontpage Extensions, Oh How I Loathe Thee
Yeah. Whoever decided that delete commands sent through Frontpage Extensions should bypass the Recycle Bin should be drug out into the street and shot (Ok, it's a line from "Garfield", I don't really want to shoot him/her). Am I the only one that thinks this is a really bad idea? Man, I can't wait for ASP.NET 2.0's GoLive license in February so that I can skip all this FPSE BS.
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ComponentArt is at it again...
Do these guys ever quit? Seriously, I don't think they ever sleep.
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CommentSpam.org - Taking The Fight To The Spammers
Three days ago I officially put comment spammers on notice. I said I wasn't waiting around for a solution anymore, and I meant it. I spent the past few days putting together a little something together, and I'd like some feedback.
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Question on Caching an HttpHandler for Speed
Ok, I need some help with something. I'm building a HttpHandler that uses an XmlTextWriter to output some custom-generated XML to a requester. I'd like to be able to cache the generated document, because chances are good that the data won't change for a while, and I don't want to hit the DB every time. The problem is, with the following code, I don't think I can do it:
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This Election Day - Please Vote for LonghornBlogs.com
I just found out thet LonghornBlogs.com is a finalist for CMP Media's "2004 Best Tech Blog" award. I won't lie to you... I really really want that $500 Starbucks card. But unlike the other election today, this one can be voted on by anyone in the world. It would be really awesome if you guys went and voted for the site. We just celebrated our one-year anniversary last month and things are only gonna get better. You're the best. Please vote for us!
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VSLive 2005 - San Francisco... See You There!
Earlier this month, Visual Studio Magazine was requesting ideas for session topics for VSLive! 2005. I took a few minutes and made some suggestions, and last week they made an offer to me to run a session. I just accepted that offer, so on Tuesday, Feb 8th, 2005 from 5:45 - 6:45pm I'll be giving a presentation on "Building Complex Server Controls in Visual Studio 2005". I'll basically be discussing composite control development, the capabilities of the new CompositeControl base class, and the new design-time capabilities, along with therest of the features common to all new server controls.
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Provider Model MSDN WebCast
Been so busy preparing for it, that I forgot to mention that tomorrow Jeff Julian and I are hosting an MSDN webcast on the Provider Model in ASP.NET 2.0. I have a special announcement planned for the end of the presentation, so if you're into the Provider Model at all, you'll want to be there.
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Hey, The Test Said It, Not Me
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Visual Studio 2005 Delay Rumors
TheServerSide.net posted news that SQL Server 2005 is being delayed. Frans and Fabrice have weighed in. It's my turn. Here it goes...
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Has Scott McNealy Learned His Lesson???
<Skit in Robert's head...>
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The Provider Model: Usage Guidelines
Ryan Whitaker wants you all to stop the Provider Model madness that apparently is about to explode. Kinda funny. A preventative strike against Provider Terror throughout the world. Heh.
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MSBuild Toolkit Passes 300 Downloads
Wow, lots of people are using the MSBuild Compatibility Toolkit I put out a couple weeks ago. Awesome! I hope it is working for you guys. I'm working on improving the .Targets files to support more of the older compiler options, and I'll be working on releasing those, along with tutorials on how the compilation variables work, very soon. I'm also planning a few nifty additions, but tracking down the code in the VSIP 2005 package has been difficult. Hopefully I'll have some answers back from the VSIP guys soon, and I'll be able to really make the thing sweet. Plese let me know if you guys have any suggestions on how to make this system better.
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Chris Pirillo is at it Again!
The Channel 9 Guy tours Silicon Valley with Scoble progeny Patrick. Hilarious.
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Easiest Way To Tell if a Site is Running ASP.NET
... when it errors out. Chalk one more major corporation on ASP.NET... now if only they'd get their site working...
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Eagerly Awaiting Today's Deliveries
I'm supposed to get 2 big things delivered to my doorstep. The first is the new processor/RAM/and keyboard upgrades I picked up on eBay for dirt-frickin-cheap. The second is my MVP package, which was renewed again this year. I made the smart call and switched to DVDs for the MSDN subscription... but that's not what I'm waiting for. Susan Bradley alluded to it... could it be? Is it possible? Does it have a Windows logo on it and play TV shows? Oh man, I hope it gets here soon. I don't know that I should get my hopes up. And don't anyone tell me, either! I wanna be surprised. <crosses fingers>
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Fixing the ASP.NET Authentication Vulnerability
I'm not going to jawjack about how important this fix is, blah blah blah. Microsoft's working on a patch. In the meantime, EVERY ASP.NET developer should add this information to their Global.asax file ASAP. If you add it to the ASAX file and not the code-behind, you won't even have to recompile the app. DO THIS NOW. Please. More Info Here.
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Announcing the MSBuild Compatibility Toolkit 1.0
This is a long post, so I'll give an intro at the top. I've created a simple system for supporting all versions of the .NET Framework from VS2005. Click through to keep reading about the process, and download the redistributable.
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Visual Studio 2005 Build Compatibility
I just successfully made VS2005 compile an application to all versions of the .NET Framework. In the next few days, I'll be cleaning up this process, and building an installer for the required files. I'll detail everything here shortly. But it IS possible with a couple miniutes worth of work, which should be great news for control vendors and others who want to save a bunch of time.
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Complex DataBinding with Date Formats in .NET 1.1
Did you know that you can do some pretty complex things with .NET's late binding in ASP.NET 1.X? I had a problem where I needed to be able to kick out dates in a specific format. I didn't want to use a helper method, which involves compiled code, so I found a solution.
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Help The Hurricane Victims
All I can say is, I'm really glad that I don't live in Florida. But the people that do live there need your help. I can't even imagine what it would be like to live through four hurricanes within the same six weeks. The shelters are packed, and people need food and supplies. So please be as generous as you can, the holidays are coming soon. Click the links below to donate.
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Tell MS To Put a Standard Icon Package in VS2005
Microsoft hasn't updated their icon redistributables since VB4. There is a suggestion in the MSDN Product Feedback Center for Microsoft to add the Office 2003 / VS2005 icons to the installer, so that people can build standardized GUIs. Since Microsoft bases their priorities on votes, you can help us put it on Microsoft's radar by voting for it. It would be really nice of that made it into the RTM version.
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User Group Presentation Tomorrow Night
Tomorrow night I'll be giving a two-part presentation on the Provider Model for the Arizona .NET Users Group in Phoenix. Here's what I have on tap:
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Phoenix Geek Dinner
Hey all you victims of the "dry heat". I've started a "Nerd Dinner" blog for Phoenixites over at Jim Blizzard's NerdDinner.com. I want to set up dinners for once a month, starting sometime in mid-October. I'm open to suggestions on day of the week and venue... right now I'm thinking Thursday nights at Arizona Mills Mall.
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OT: Want To Win $100,000?
I know you do. Jim and James, those enterprising guys that brought you HotOrNot.com, are running VoteOrNot.org. It's a twist on the old fashioned "get-out-the-vote" drive. It's pretty much a bribe to get voters registered, but hey, whatever works. You gotta love democracy. At any rate, it's for US Citizens only, and you have to be a registered voter of any party. If you're not registered, they provide links to do it electronically. There are only 47 days until the election, and you have to be registered soon. So what are you waiting for? Get started here, and we both could win $100,000.
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Team System - WHY Active Directory?
Hey Microsoft... WTF? What is the deal with forcing companies to have Active Directory deployed to use Team Foundation Server? Why not just use ADAM and make it transparent to the deployment process?
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Programmatically Loading TemplatedControl Templates
One of the tricks I learned a while back was that, when using any kind of templated server control, you can put the template definition in a user control, and load it programmatically using Page.LoadControl(controlLocation). This is particularly useful in large web applications, where you may use the same template over and over again. This way, if you make a change to one, it gets propagated to all instances.
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ComponentArt Releases Web.UI 2.0
In all the hubub of late, I forgot to give mention to the fact that ComponentArt has released Web.UI 2.0, their new component suite. I've been working with this version for almost 6 weeks now, and I have to say that these guys really know how to do things right. Their stuff just keeps getting better all the time. They've completely re-written ASPnetMenu, which is now Menu 2.0 for ASP.NET, and it's really a pleasure to program against. The really awesome thing about it is, now you can nest User Controls as menu elements. It's wild some of the things you can accomplish now.
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Changes On This Site
Scott pushed new changes to weblogs.asp.net sometime earlier this week. I
hatevery strongly dislike them. I don't hate them because the posts are shorter. I don't hate them because they make you click through to the posts. Ihatevery strongly dislike them for 3 reasons: -
I LOVE the new MSN Music Store
The verdict: WAY better than iTunes. I just spent some time surfing the new beta site, and I'm floored. My favorite parts:
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Interesting Research Programs @ ASU
ASU's been doing some interesting things with technology lately. Kenneth Spector is an ASU student who completed an internship this summer as an SDET on the Office team. Channel9 recently did a profile on his work at Microsoft. Why was his experience different? Because he's blind.The video's about 12 minutes long, and it's worth watching.
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Speaking of Service Packs...
When the heck is .NET 1.1 Service Pack 1 supposed to be released? I though it was supposed to be "synched with Springboard"?
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.NET 1.1 By Default on Windows XP SP2?
I recently wiped my system and installed a clean copy of Windows XP with Service Pace 2 slipstreamed into the install. I didn't get the chance to check this after the install was done, but there is a DOTNETFX folder in the root of the CD. It's in the SP2 CD that MSDN just shipped me as well. Which leads me to ask the question...
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eWeek Blogs Running.... You Guessed It: .Text (Oops, CS::B)
Check it out for yourself. .Text is everywhere. Awesome.
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Running Windows Media Player 10 on Windows XP Service Pack 2
I came across this problem while I was beta testing the XP SP2 release candidates. Every build starting with RC2 and later would not let me reinstall WMP10. It was very frustrating. Well, tonight I came across a solution in the WMP10 Beta Newsgroups. It involves removing specific keys from the registry. The problem is, those keys may vary by name, so a simple registry script will not work. So I whipped up a simple command-line program that will cycle through the proper Registry key, and delete all its subkeys.
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Provider Model Misconceptions
Paul van Brenk does not understand the Provider Model that is built into .NET 2.0. I don't think a lot of other people really get it either. His argument against using abstract base classes is a common one for anyone that has been doing COM/COM+/C++ development.
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Windows XP Service Pack 2 Available Now
News.com is reporting that XPSP2 has officially RTMed, and the final build is available on the WindowsBeta site for all Windows beta testers. Since it has RTMed, I can finally say that I have been beta testing these builds since LONG before the release candidates, and Microsoft has done an AMAZING job with this pack. Personally, I consider it a new version of Windows.
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XP2 RTMs Tonight, MSDN Access Tomorrow
Neowin is reporting that the final Windows XP Service Pack 2 (or XP2 as I like to call it) will be compiled this evening. The Network Install should be available tomorrow for Microsoft.com users and MSDN subscribers, and will be available via the next version of Windows Update on August 25th.
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Microsoft Enters Blog Fray Against Blogger.com in Japan
Hot off the presses: MSNBC is reporting that next week Microsoft will launch a free blogging service in Japan. This service will allow users to update entries from a PC or mobile device. The Reuters report did not mention which back-end engine the service will be using, nor did it mention if the service would be available in the US anytime soon.
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ScrollingGrid 2.0 RC1 Released
I've just sent out the e-mails to all of our ScrollingGrid customers with test copies of ScrollingGrid 2.0. This has been a long time coming, and I'm very excited about reaching this milestone. My partners and I still have a lot of work to do on the Road to RTM, but we're well on our way. This release is private, but it marks that we're almost ready for public release, which should come in about two weeks at this point. That is always subject to change, but I'm pretty confident that we'll get there.
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Documenting .NET Components
I feel the need, once again, to preface this entry with a few disclaimers. One: this is my opinion. Two: I'm not just saying that this stuff sucks, I'm trying to be constructive with the criticism so that problem areas can be improved. Three: It's a much-needed venting of frustration. Please interpret as such.
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Channel9 Tours MSR with Kevin Shofield
Scoble and Co. take us on a tour of the Microsoft Research facilities. It starts out with the extremely bright Lili Cheng from the Social Computing Group, talking about the app that made waves at PDC'03: Wallop. She still won't let me get an account, but that's another story for another day.
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Done Blogging? Try Flogging!
What is a Flog? Well, according to the Republican National Convention's website at GOP.com, it's a Fact Log. And what is GOP.com's Flog running on? None other than .Text. I had a hint based on the layout, but my suspicion was confirmed by clicking on the "Flogger" link under the definition. You're taken to http://www.gop.com/flog/Skins/Marvin3/newpost.aspx. Marvin3 is one of the skins that comes with .Text.
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You Can't Judge a Party By Its' Software, Or Can You?
News.com has an interesting rundown of the use of technology by this year's Presidential candidates. Interesting. Very interesting indeed. A few people pointed this out a while back, but it's good that the mainstream media picked up on the current incarnations of politics and technology.
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Why The Redistributable?
I'm still at a loss as to why the J# Redistributable is required for VS2005, even when I don't want J# as a language. Is there any explanation as to why the install process has to be longer because of this? I'd really rather it not be installed if it doesn't have to be.
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Sun Offers Solution for "v1 Uncertainty Theorem" - Screw Version Numbers
What is the "v1 Uncertainty Theorem". It's a term I've created to explain a common phenomenon in the sofware industry. It states "The rate of adoption for any software product will be minimal as long as it is still the first major release." In a nutshell, it means that harly anyone uses v1.0 of a product, no matter how cool it is.
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Initial VS2005B1 Feedback: Efficient CD Use
So I've downloaded all of the VS2005 ISOs, and they're all burned to CDs. Here's my first bit of feedback. Microsoft: Why did you make a 3MB ISO (AmberPoint)? Isn't that a waste of, among other things, a CD? My suggestion for the final release is to combine the Visio Tools, AmberPoint Express, and the Remote Debugger into one CD. Make it the "Visual Studio 2005 Extras" disc, and bring the CD count down from 8 to 6.
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VS2005 on MSDN - Gentlemen, Start Your Downloads!
Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 is now live on MSDN. Get it while it's hot.
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New VisualBlogger Build (2412) Available
Addressing some of Matt's issues with the last B3 build, I've updated the download. Anyone who was using the 2407 build, just use the same download link to download the updated zip file. Fixed in this build:
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Irresponsible 'Journalism'
I'm really pissed off. This comes as news to probably about 3 people, but this time, I have good reason. It's about 11am Europe time and the announcements are all up on the MSDN home page, so I'm finally able to talk about this without breaking all my NDAs (I'm currently under 7 different Microsoft NDAs).
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VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 3 Released
Just posted the latest public build of VisualBlogger 2004. Lots of changes are packed into this build, and I'll post a changelog later today. I've already updated the home page with new information and screenshots, and I'll be adding more screenshots over the next few days.
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More VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 3 Screenshots
Matt wanted me to post some screenshot of the new Options dialog for VisualBlogger 2004. You'll find this new dialog under "Tools | Options" in the new ToolMenu. I like this method a lot better. It organizes the settings into categories, and is much more scalable. If I need to add more settings, I can just add another node in the TreeView, and its' corresponding panel.
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Beta 3 Wraps
I just finished the coding cycle for VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 3. I posted some screenshots a few days ago, and I'm getting ready to post a few more soon. The goal of this cycle was to make the UI more usable while not intruducing any functionality regressions. This entailed several goals:
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The Skype Blog
Betcha thought this entry was going to talk about Skype getting a blog. Didn't mean to get your hopes up. They don't have one, and they need one. Why? Well, for starters, because I want to know when new builds get released. They launched a new version a few days ago that contains hooks for soon-to-be-released Skype-to-Phone service called SkypeOut. Good to see that they're actually looking to make money on this cool service. I'd pay for it.
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WinForms PropertyGrid
I'm probably the last person on earth that didn't know that you could use the PropertyGrid in WinForms apps. Well, I found out today, and I'm liking it so far. It doesn't show up by default in the Toolbox, but you can add it with the "Add Items" dialog.
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Design Concept for VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 3
I keep getting all this flak that my UI design skills suck. My only response thus far has been... "DUH!" So I've been working on some new UI, the first of which I showed off last week. I call it the "sexification" of VisualBlogger (sexification being a word I just made up meaning "to make sexy.") My CEO keeps telling me that I should stop using the word "sexy" in relation to software. I told him that if a computer program was 1/10th as sexy as a woman, more people would be happier using their computers.
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How To Piss Off Thousands In One Fell Swoop
Leave it to Dave Winer to figure out how to do it...
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Windows XP Service Pack 2 - RC2 Issues
Alright. I just spent like 3 hours downloading, burning, and installing the latest Release Candidate from the WindowsBeta site. From what I hear, the rest of you will get access to RC2 later today. Anyways, so I'm running the latest build, and I have good news and bad news. First, the good news. RC2 can be installed over RC1 without issue. I was worried about this, because I was expecting to have to uninstall RC1 first.
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Microsoft History Through the Eyes of the C# Guy
Anders Hejlsberg gave Charles Torre a tour of the Microsoft Museum, and how his work fits in with the history of the industry. If you've never been on campus, it's quite a sight. Check it out over on Channel9.
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First Look at VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 3
Lots of people have been complaining at how poor the design of the Blog Configuration dialog for VisualBlogger 2004 is. For the record, I hated it too, it was just in there because it was quick-and-dirty. Well, I just finished the redesign, and posted a screenshot over on my other blog. I'd love your feedback, tell me what you think.
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WMP10 and the Blogging Plugin
I've been using the WMP blogging plugin with the latest technical beta, and I've uncovered a bug. The temporary registry key that used to be deleted upon WMP's exit is now not getting deleted. Therefore, if you're using the plugin and VisualBlogger 2004, it will add the information from the key, even if WMP10 is closed.
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Welcome to Atom.NET
I have a great deal of respect for Sam Ruby and the work he is doing with Atom. But his C# Atom client is convoluted and a pain to work with. David Stewart, a Microsoft empoyee on the Windows Mobile Devices group, came up with a class library that works with Atom in an intelligent way, using web requests instead of Web Service proxies. Best of all, he has the source code and samples as well. If you're working with Atom at all, this is a must have.
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Thank You Mr. President
Read my thoughts here.
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Windows Media Player 10 Technical Beta Review
Today Microsoft released the Windows Media Player 10 Technical Beta. I got my first sneek peek at it during the MVP Summit in April. Jim Allchin was really excited about it. Now I can finally discuss why. After you install it (link at the bottom of the page) you'll be asked to restart your computer. When you launch it after restarting, you'll be greated with this:
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Whitehorse in the May CTP?
Anyone know how to access the application designer in the May CTP bits? It seems to have changed since the March bits, and I can't find it at all. I need to finish a diagram for a client, and I wanted to use it instead of Visio. Any ideas?
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Seeing The Future, No Seance Required
Recently, Paschal and Matt have been asking me for clarification on my earlier comment that we would be charging for VisualBlogger 2004. Truth be told, I had written a post about this a few days ago, but my computer froze, and I lost the post. At any rate, I've clarified it over on my corporate blog. Please let me know what you think.
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VS2005 MAY 2004 CTP: What Happened To My DefaultInstance?
One of the coolest new features iI saw in the March 2004 CTP bits was the new "DefaultInstance" property in WinForms design. Well, I just installed the May 2004 CTP bits, and when I went to recompile my app, it threw an error. I go ti investigate, and the DefaultInstance property, and it's associated attribute, have been removed. What gives?!?!?? That was a great idea, and should have stayed in. Where did it go?
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New VisualBlogger 2004 Build Posted - Beta 2a
Wanted to give you guys a heads-up and let you know that I've posted a new build of VisualBlogger 2004. I'll post the official fix list tomorrow for the Support Feed, but for now here is a brief overview:
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GO TEAM ASU!!!
Just found out through Scott Mitchell that Team ASU tied for 3rd Place with the University of Illinois - Champaign at the Imagine Cup 2004 finals. They worked really hard, and came up with an awesome solution that used RFID tags to help blind people learn more about their environment.
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VS2005 Favorites: XML/XSD Heaven
Visual Studio 2005 has some really awesome new features. My favorite so far is the new XML/XSD designer. Working with XML is a lot more intuitive now, and they've made it dirt simple to create a schema from a given XML file.
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The REAL Reason Behind the ObjectSpaces Furor
So I've read the news over the past few days about the delay of ObjectSpaces until the Longhorn wave, and a lot of people seem to be upset by it for various reasons. I've been watching this play out with interest, and made a few interesting observations about the situation.
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Whidbey Hates Me
I've been trying to convert a Windows application from VS.NET 2003 to VS.NET 2005 - March CTP, and I haven't had the best of luck. First, the installation I did was running RIDICULOUSLY slow. Every time I made a code change, it took in upwards of 4 minutes to recompile a 4 project solution (on a dual proc, hyperthreaded 2.4GHz Xeon box). Then, I kept getting COM errors in the designer. I saw some cool new properties in the "Project Properties" dialog, like "Make Single Instance Application" and "Show Splashscreen At Startup", but none of them were enabled in the upgraded project, which made ma kinda mad. So I finally said "screw it", reformatted the box, reinstalled Windows XP and VS.NET 2005, and tried to start designing a Windows application from scratch.
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Gates Talks Empowerment Through RSS
MaryJo has an interesting article about BillG's comments at the 8th Annual CEO Summit. His message: "bottoms-up empowerment".
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VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 2 Released, and a Contest
This morning, we officially launched VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 2. I talked about it a bit earlier over on my corporate blog. We've made some nifty changes, so if you want to find out more, head on over. I did want to mention here that we now support dasBlog, Radio, TypePad, and BlogWare, with more to come.
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Cyberakt Becomes ComponentArt.com
I am very excited today to announce that my very good friends over at Cyberakt, the makers of ASPnetMenu and RichContentRotator, have changed their name to ComponentArt, and launched a brand new website and new products. Man, this new site is sexy as hell. The quality of the site design is far better than any other component vendor out there, myself included. It's not too cluttered, it's easy on the eyes, and it makes excellent use of blacks, whites, and reds. As any decent graphic design book or magazine will tell you, these are the three best colors for designing things for readability, especially in print.
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TabletPC Videos up on Channel 9
The just posted a new video from Peter Loforte on some of the new things you'll see in Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 or whatever the hell they're calling it now. It's good stuff, you should check it out. The TabletPC he's using? It's a slate-vertible from HP. It works like a regular convertible, moving from Notebook node to the "flip-around-and lock" convertible mode, but with one KILLER exception. You can also completely remove the keyboard and it tirns into a slate. How cool is that. Now if it were as powerful as the Portege 4000, I'd get one.
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Word Up To My Boyz
[Now Playing: Black Eyed Peas - Where's The Love?]
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TechEd 2004 BOFs: Things To Remember
I was looking over the list of BOFs for this year's TechEd (I won't be going after all, unfortunately), and it looks like there's going to be a great set of sessions. Having ran 2 sessions and PDC and attended several others, I wanted to give a few tips for everyone running one at the end of the month.
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AtomAPI Problems and the Road to Beta 2
Sorry about the radio silence the past week or so. It's been really hectic around here. Several of my friends graduated from college the past 2 weeks, so my weekends have been full of partying ;). But I've been working on VisualBlogger 2004 very heavily, walking down the long road to Beta 2. I've made a ton of progress, and the client is much more stable now. We have a complete implementation of the Provider Model, a la .NET 2.0, which I am extremely excited about.
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Downloading Longhorn?
Here's a few things you could do while you wait.
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Longhorn WinHEC Build Now Available on MSDN
Go get it now!
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Exclusive Setup Screenshots on LonghornBlogs.com
One of the benefits of installing Longhorn over an RDC connection is the ability to grab screenshots easily of the setup process. In a LonghornBlogs.com EXCLUSIVE, I walk you through the setup process step-by-step. The process is basically unchanged from the PDC bits, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. Head on over and check it out.
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A Simple Error Trapping Utility
Brady Gaster took my implementation of error handling in VisualBlogger 2004 and turned it into a general WinForms error handling tool. It's a lot easier to use that the Exception Management Application Block. Check out ErrorTrapper on CodeProject.
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Curse You, Rob Howard!!!
I spent the past 2 weeks reverse-engineering the .NET Framework 2.0 so that I can get in-depth and understand how the Provider Model works. Then, I started adapting my knowledge to v1.1 of the Framework for VisualBlogger 2004. So then I get online today, and Rob Howard posted a new article on MSDN on the Provider Model, complete with a .NET 1.1 implementation in downloadable source code! AGGGH, Man, if I had this two weeks ago...
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Calling a WinForms app from another app?
OK. So I want to implement a new feature in VB2004 that I'm not ready to talk about yet. You may be able to infer what I want to do from the situation I'm about to describe, but I won't give any specifics until the next beta release. Here's what I need to do:
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VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 2 Status Report
I just spent the better part of 4 hours working on some major modifications to VisualBlogger. I heard your struggles, I felt your pain. I made configuration much simpler. Instead of using a config file for some global settings, I'm pulling from the registry. You should no longer get any errors when the application loads. The Configuration.xml file has been renamed to Blogs.config, and the default location is prespecified to be relative to the executable. Should make life TONS easier.
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Responses to some VisualBlogger Feedback
Josh, thanks for the feedback. I'll address them point by point.
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New VisualBlogger 2004 Beta Posted
I just posted a new build of VisualBlogger 2004. This build fixes the following issues:
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Some Notes About the VisualBlogger 2004 Beta
Just wanted to say a few things based on the initial feedback on VisualBlogger 2004 before I go to sleep. First off, PLEASE read the readme.txt file before starting to use the program. It has very useful information about configuration and known issues. If you get an error as soon as you run it, you haven't read the readme file very thoroughly.
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Announcing VisualBlogger 2004 Beta 1
OK guys, here it is. The moment one or two of you have been waiting for. The VisualBlogger 2004 Beta is finally available for download.
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FINALLY! The Help Integration Wizard Is Here!
Some of you may have noticed this, but a while back on MSDN, there was an article posted on this cool new toy called the Help Integration Wizard. A team at Microsoft had FINALLY made it dirt-simple to create an integrated VS.NET help collection, without making it ridiculously convoluted, aka the VSHIK.
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One Last VisualBlogger Test Post Before Beta
Testing a fix for a bug in .Text's category posting ability. There WILL be a be a beta before the end of the day tomorrow. I spent all day today tying up loose ends, and making sure that, in most cases, posts won't get lost. I also had to move some of the settings to an app.config file. I have a lot more work to do in the "Settings" capabilities, but that will have to wait.
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Inconsistencies in .NET 2.0 (Build 40301)
So over the past 48 hours, I've been really diving into the Framework 2.0, looking at how the Provider Model is architected and implemented. There is one point that kind of confuses me, and I'm hoping that since there are so many Microsoft voices here, someone can give me an answer.
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The Decentralized Nature of Microsoft
I got the monthly ServiceProviders e-mail newsletter today, and while I was skimming through it, at the bottom I caught this article:
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MS Provider Model Implementation Test Post
Working on VB2004 again, and I just moved the providers outside the main assembly, and I'm now using the Provider Model the way Microsoft intended it to be used. (I think). We're about to find out if I did it right. There were no compile-time errors, now lets see if there were any run-time errors.
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Neat ASP.NET Tip for Templating
At the AZDNUG Meeting tonight, Jason Beres of Infragistics gaveus a really cool tip for templating data repeaters based on a user profile or some other changable setting. Just create a separate user control that has your repeater template in it, and give it the name of your profile... something like "manager.ascx". Then, in the code behind of the page with the repeater, use this code:
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One Note SP1 Preview - NEW API Support
I was just reading last night about how people were wanting the OneNote team to open up the API. Well, ladies and gentlemen, here it is! Get more details on SP1, and download the preview today!
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ASU Going to Imagine Cup Nationals!
Vish just e-mailed me to let me know that his team (the winners of the Arizona State competition) took second at the Imagine Cup Western Regionals in LA, and they'll be going to Nationals on May 23rd. YAY! I'm so excited. I'm hoping to visit with him in the next few days and see how they progressed since the last time I saw their project. Congratulations guys, and good luck at Nationals!
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ASU Programming Competition
So I'm here at ASU, waiting for the students to start submitting their answers. With me are two people fresh from Redmond. Anand Vijay and Rowena Patrao. Anand is an SDET on the Exchange team, and Rowena is an SDET on the Windows Media Core Team - Setup. They graduated from ASU, and flew down from Redmond just for this competition. It's been fun talking shop while we're waiting. I love making new Microsoft friends. Maybe by 5pm they'll start blogging ;).
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Chillin with the Channel 9 Crew
While the MVP Summit officially ended on Wednesday, I took advantage of the opportunity and stayed in Redmond an extra day to meet with different people on campus about some of Interscape's endeavors. Wednesday night, I as lucky enough to stay with Jeff Sandquist and his family. Before heading back to his place, though, I got to hang out with Jeff, Lenn Pryor, and Robert Scoble. What followed was a rather unique experience: I was one of the only guys to see the Channel 9 team at launch + 24 hours. I just sat on Jeff's couch in his office, watching Jeff and Lenn respond to all the different conversations that were flying around the site.
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600th post, and OneNote coolness
For my 600th post, a rave about OneNote.
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Reserachers Develop 3-D Search Engine
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ComponentOne FollowUp
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Reflector for 2.0?
Anyone know of a tool a la Reflector that I can use to dive into to see the code for the .NET 2.0 assemblies? Need to start digging heavy into the Provider Model.
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Visual Studio 2005 CTP - Initial Observations
Well, since the Community Previews are publically available, I'm going to go ahead and talk a bit about my personal observations regarding the CTP DVD.
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Back from the MVP Summit
I got back from the Summit last night, after a very long and hectic week. Today is filled with meetings, catching up, and getting ready for next week. As soon as I get a chance, I'll respond to all the posts about my ComponentOne experience, talk about my overall experiences at the Summit, thank everyone that needs to be, and give an update on what the next month is going to look like. For now, I have to run. Gotta get my new laptop set up, and my new development network configured.
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Skype for PocketPCs - No More Roaming?
Skype announced today that they have released a version for the PocketPC called PocketSkype. It allows you to make free calls to any other Skype user on the peer-to-peer network. You can download it here.
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Another "I'm Off to the MVP Summit" Post
Yep, here I am . T-minus 6 hours and counting. I can't wait. I hear Microsoft is really rolling out the red carpet for us. Looking forward to getting to see some of my friends from PDC again. I have a killer camera this time, and I intend to take lots of pictures.
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Imagine Cup Competition at ASU & a Lesson for Life
So last week, I was the sole non-Faculty judge at the ASU Imagine Cup. Thanks are in order to Jason Beres and Jeff Julian for putting the INETA - Imagine Cup Matchup system in place. I went in with no real expectations, and had no idea how it was all going to work. What followed was some of the coolest stuff I had ever seen.
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ASU Student Programmer Gets Slashdotted
Anil Kandangath of Arizona State University was /.'ed today. I met him last week at the Imagine Cup competition. His friend Sushant showed me his graduate school project today, and I'll talk more about that a bit later this evening. After seeing some of the work that these guys did at that competition, I have a whole newfound respect for Indian programmers. More on that later this evening as well.
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McNealyisms - Thankfully not as hazardous as McCarthyisms
I was watching the video of MS and Sun this morning, and thanks to News.com, reading some McNealyisms, quips from Sun CEO Scott McNealy about former archrival and new Microsoft charity benefactor. FUNNY STUFF. My favorite, on Microsoft's efforts to entice developers: "You can take the offer from the dark side. The first hit of heroin is free." They missed the ones in my post from March 19, 2003, when I asked "someone get this guy his pacifier already“. Ironically, it was the first time I got Scoblized. Ah, the memories.
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Sun Eats Crow, Feathers Pass Without Incident
Today, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems announced a 10 year, 1.9 Billion (that's with a "B") deal that would put all litigation behind them. This comes on the heels of an announcement that Sun will lay off 3,300 employees, and that Sun's losses in the previous quarter were deeper than expected, around $800 Million.
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Longhorn Beta in 2005, XP Reloaded Clarified
Head on over to LonghornBlogs.com for an update on the Longhorn schedule, Windows XP Reloaded, and Windows XP SP2.
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A Word From BillG
This little blurb was missed by most of the news organizations covering Bill Gates' Executive e-mail this morning...
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VisualBlogger Beta 1 This Weekend!
I'm wrapping up the last features for the first beta of VisualBlogger 2004. Wanted to give a brief status report on where I am at, what features it has, and what features are left to be done before the final release.
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My First (And Last) Experience With ComponentOne
I'm going to take off my component vendor hat for a minute, and talk about my experience as a customer of ComponentOne. I'm going to try to be objective about this here, and over on my corporate blog, I'll talk about how that experience will alter the way my own company does business.
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Provider Model Test Post
This is a post testing the new provider model usage in VisualBlogger 2004. I've abstracted the system out, using a modified version of ScottW's .Text object model, so that I can map internal Entry objects into external objects as necessary. This particular test is using the primary DotText95BlogProvider, which uses the http://weblogs.asp.net/yourblog/services/aspnetweblog.asmx web service entry point. This one is still live in all distros, and has more functionality than the SimpleBlogService. It will be superceded by the dottextapi.asmx web service in .Text 0.96, but for now this works well.
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Imagine Cup Competition Today @ ASU
Just wanted to give a shoutout to Andy Lim at ASU. He's putting together the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition for Arizona State University, which I have the pleasure of judging in about 5 hours. I'm looking forward to seeing what the students come up with. I'll be gone the rest of the day, but when I get back, I'll blog about the experience, what I saw, who won, etc. Andy's worked hard to put it together. Good luck today guys!
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Screenshots and Update for VB2004
Made some major headway in the past 24 hours, so I thought I'd show off where we're at so far. As soon as Jamie Cansdale gets back from his week-long ski trip (lucky bastard), I can wrap up the VS.NET integration code. Just so you know, VisualBlogger 2004 will operate in two modes: Standalone and IDE Integrated. You'll be able to use this program just like Microsoft Word if you want, or you can dock it in the same place as the Output window in VS.NET, and blog from the dev environment. You could even use it as a real simple HTML editor if you want. We don't have any table support yet (don't know if we ever will) but you could always add those in manually.
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VisualBlogger CategoryPost Test #9
The WinForms adventure continues. The CheckedListBox control has been giving me all sorts of problems. For one thing, if you put one in a TabControlPage, and then switch pages, it doesn't hold its state. It took me a little bit of experimentation, but I came up with the following code to help out:
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And tonight on the Countdown...
"Never mess with techies, because they know more ways of messing with you than you know of messing with them"
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Real Nasty Virus Alert
I was just notified by MailStreet, my Hosted Exchange provider, that there is a horrible new virus going around. I haven't heard of a virus this bad before. It brought down an entire Exchange 2003 server cluster this morning, and 50 other servers in their datacenter. I'll let the Washington Post fill you in on the details:
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Walking the Call Stack
Does anyone know how to walk the call stack on a calling assembly? I blogged earlier about a new limit I was writing for XHEO|Licensing. Basically I want to limit an assembly's use at runtime, but I don't know what that assembly is going to be at compile time. I have written some code that loads up all the running assemblies into an array, and walks the array to see if the assembly is loaded. That is not the optimal way however, because someone could just reference and load the required caller, then execute my assembly separately, because the licensed caller is loaded into the AppDomain.
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Just When I Thought I Had Mastered DTC...
...it kicked my butt again. Last week, we migrated to new servers. Well, MSDTC reared it's ugly head again. I spent 6 hours tonight tryint to track down why the DTC transaction keeps dropping the connection. The answer? I still had the old server VPNed into the network. Disconnected the old server from the network, and BAM, my SQL transactions are working again. The problem? Damned if I know. DTC wasted ANOTHER 6 hours of my life... <sigh> :(
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Useless Error Message of the Month
"An unknown error has occurred while processing the request. The transaction has already been implicitly or explicitly committed or aborted."
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The REAL reason for Whidbey/Yukon delays
It's funny to me how something can get twisted and turned around without the proper facts in place. I've seen quotes from Tom Rizzo up the yang about the Whidbey/Yukon delay, but I never really heard a decent explanation until I cracked open this week's edition of CRN magazine. Page 8 says:
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Passport Is Down
While far from a comprehensive study, I just tested computers on 3 different networks, and none can currently access the Passport service. Attempting to access http://messenger.msn.com returns a "Server is too busy" page. Any corroboration?
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Typed DataSet Goodness
I was working on VisualBlogger once again, and I was really getting frustrated with using app.config to store blog configurations. Using a ConfigSections wrapper was kind of overkill, and so was having the app dependent on an Access database. Andy Smith turned me onto the idea of using a Typed DataSet... something that I had never done before. I had no idea how cool these things are. I just built an XML file with the desired elements, loaded them up into a DataSet, spit out the schema XSD file using the DataSet.WriteXmlSchema method. Using the VS.NET Schema editor, I was able to change the data types, set constraints, and even create automatically incrementing primary keys. From there, I generated a DataSet using the Schema | Generate Dataset option, and voila! Now I have a simple method for accessing typed data, without having to use a database.
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Shared Hosting Best Practices from Microsoft
Like, Oh My God. I have been waiting for this document from Microsoft for AGES! There is soooooooo much good information in here about configuration, security, and coding best practices if you manage your own web servers. And best of all, it doesn't make any assumptions about your level of knowledge. It's straighforward, not heavy on jargon, has lots of cross-references, and is a real gem. Congratulations to whatever team at Microsoft put this together... it should set the standard for documentation from here on out. I'll wait patiently for this kind of quality docs from any MS team that puts this much effort into their docs. Hey, if you guys put this into some kind of reference manual, I'd buy it in a stone cold second.
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VisualBlogger 2004 Teaser Shots
I've been working non-stop on VisualBlogger 2004, my new blogging add-in for VS.NET. I got the really nasty code out of the way today, and there isn't much left to do. I wanted to tell you a bit about her, but she's very independent right now, so I'll let her do it instead. Hope you like.
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Elaborating on an Earlier Post
I wanted to take a second and defend my earlier post about WindowsForms. Had quite a few people point out how obviously stupid I was for not looking deeper into the system. So, I thought I would take a few minutes and point out what my specific beefs are, coming from the ASP.NET world. Just because I am normally a WebForms developer does not make my arguments any less valid, nor does it mean that this is my first time building a WinForms app. This is my first super-complicated WinForms, and I don't like the hoops that I had to jump through to make it work.
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Wouldn't it be great....
If there was a way to use TSQL syntax to query against a loaded DataSet? Something like:
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WinForms Development Rant
So I'm working on StudioBlogger today, and I have to say that as a WebForms guy, I'm really frustrated at the WinForms architecture. It's extremely obvious that this whole WindowsForms thing was not throught out as well as the ASP.NET side was, and the two teams definitely did not talk to each other. I'm trying to cycle through a CheckedListBox to populate another CheckedListBox with the categories from the selected blogs, and there are like 9 different properties for accessing selected items. None of these properties have any examples whatsoever in the MSDN documentation, and information on the web is scarce at best. Even with all these MSDN developers blogging on this site, real-life WinForms scenarios are not being addressed. They're too busy writing YAGA (Yet Another Generics Article) to pay attention to the basic everyday stuff that app devs need to be able to do. What's the deal?
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Common Sense, Free Speech, and Blogging
Brian Desmond posts about a student at his school that was is now involved in quite a controversy because of her comments in her weblog. The Chicago Sun-Times picked up the story. Microsoft's Mac blogger redux. Just another instance in how free speech does not negate the freedom (and responsibility) to practice common sense.
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ASP.NET Roadshow In Phoenix!
WOO HOO! Brian Goldfarb tells us that he got the ASP.NET Roadshow extended to 6 new cities, including Phoenix. They say the dates are TBD, I just hope that it's not during the MVP Summit. That would really suck. At any rate, Rob Howard's giving this presentation, and it should be a blast.... Rob's a great guy.
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OT: Cool Moon Shot
I try not to post off-topic here, but my friend recently took a really cool picture of the moon.
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'Test Post' Origins and a Status Update
Yesterday I posted a test from a new tool I was working on. Well, over on my corporate blog, I let the cat out of the bag, along with some details on why I've been AWOL lately. If you were curious as to what my 'Test Post' yesterday was all about, head on over for more info.
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Security, Service Packs, and Simplification
Wednesday, I sat down with Ryan Nariane of InternetNews.com and we had a lengthy discussion about security. He caught wind of PatchDayReview.com from Robert Scoble, and wanted to get the skinny on how it came about. It was my first real big interview, and I had a blast. It's a great shot in the arm for PatchDayReview, as we're working on some new technologies to help increase patch awareness. Towards the bottom, I gave a little hint on some of the stuff we're working on. Go check it out!
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Test Post
This is a test post from a new blogging tool I'm writing. What is it? I'll give you a hint. It's called
BlogStudio(name already taken). You figure out what it is from there. -
Working with .Text Web Services
Did you know that you have web service access to your blog? You can find it at http://weblogs.asp.net/yourblog/services/simpleblogservice.asmx. I've been experimenting with it for my new BlogStudio tool, and I wanted to inform you of a couple things you'll need to know to get it working.
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Happy Patch Day!
For those of you that don't know, every 2nd Tuesday of the month is Microsoft Patch Day. While this may sound fun at first, it is definitely not a holiday for network admins. There is a simple website that I put together to keep you notified about those patches. Sort of a poor-man's KBAlertz. It's called PatchDayReview.com, and it's where I give you all the patches, without the jargon. I try to keep the categories pretty consistent, and each one has it's own RSS feed. If you hate keeping up with patches, point your aggregator here, and let me do the work for you.
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NEWS ALERT: Eolas Patent Invalidated
The US Patent and Trademark office has filed an initial ruling claiming that the Eolas browser patent is invalid, according to News.com. This move means, if upheld, that Microsoft will not have to make any changes to Internet Explorer.
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Getting an Assembly's Public Key the Programmatic way
I have been struggling with the dumbest problem all day. I have been working with extending the XHEO|Licensing system with a new licensing limit for a new product that I'm working on. Basically, it limits the assembly to be used only by a specific calling assembly. Anyways, I was looking for a way to get the public key and public key token of an assembly programmatically, and after some hunting through the System.Reflection namespace, I found it. It really sucks though, because I went through the MSDN docs for the AssemblyName.GetPublicKeyToken, and it had an example of almost exactly what I needed The problem is, it didn't work
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.NET App in CRN Magazine
I'm flipping through this weeks issue of CRN Magazine, and I see the first mention of a .NET application. The only problem is, it's in the “Hacker Tracker” callout of the Security section. It seems that DotNetNuke had 2 vulnerabilities that allowed hackers to access files located outside teh web directory, as well as an XSS attack could allow user data to be stolen. It was skocking to me to even see a .NET community app mentioned in this mag, but here it is. Hopefully the DNN team got the problem solved. Hopefully I'll see some better .NET news in there in the future.
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From The 'Wouldn't It Be Great' Files
Woudln't it be great if Orkut and Plaxo teamed up, so my Orkut friends automagically showed up in my Outlook contacts? That would be frickin swell. Would save me a buttload of time updating my Outlook contacts from my Orkut profile.
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Optional Parameters in SQL Stored Procedures
Want to create a stored procedure that searches for specific, but optional, values? I had to do it today for a web project I'm working on (I hate not being able to talk about projects I'm working on) and Terry Denham, the SQL Guru without a blog, came to my rescue yet again.
Because the WHERE clause has secluded OR statements buttressed by a "trueism" (Terry's term) of 1 = 1 (does anyone know of a case where one DOESN'T equal one?), the statement will always execute, even if you don't pass anything in.Pretty cool, huh? Thanks Terry! Saved my butt again. -
DEMO in Phoenix???! WTF?
I had no idea that the DEMO conference was here in Phoenix. GRRR. If anyone is still around, e-mail me at robert@interscapeusa.com. Lets go grab a beer or something.
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asp.netPRO Reader's Choice Awards
I just found out that both of Interscape's products are listed in the asp.netPRO Magazine Reader's Choice Awards. I wanted to take a minute and point out the other sites/components that are available for you to vote on:
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PatchDayReview Massive Update
Over the past few months, I let PatchDayReview.com get way too far behind. It took me nearly 7 hours to update, but the site is now current with all known security updates through this Tuesday. One change of note is that I am no longer allowing comments on bulletins themselves. If you want to comment on a specific patch, there is a link to that bulletin's forum on the PatchDayReview Forums. If you'd like to discuss patches, please do it there. At any rate, sorry to kill your aggregators, but most of you subscribe to Scoble, so you're used to it by now.
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All's Quiet On The Western Front
It's been awful quiet on my blogs lately, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about what I've been working on this month.
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You Gotta Rip It Off Like A Band-Aid
Mike Kolitz says that MS should take the 16-bit subsystems out of Longhorn. I agree completely. Chris Anderson had a different opinion at PDC about this, but I still don't agree with his position. Microsoft needs to not enable the crap of yesterday in the OS of tomorrow. Break stuff if you have to. Put VPC in Longhorn and disable it by default. I can understand leaving the 32-bit native stuff in there, but the 16-bit stuff too? Come on. Move forward, and don't look back.
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Rampant Patch Retardation
Companies are advising customers to hack their registry in order to circumvent the latest IE patch. Head on over to PatchDayReview.com to get my opinion of this idea, and what you should do if it is suggested to you.
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Broadband Through Sewers
I'm surprised this idea hasn't caught on sooner. Sewers are a natural place to run infrastructure. Sure, installing the cables would be kinda shitty (pun intended), but isn't that why a cabling installer's natural tendancy is to run cables through ventilation shafts? Infrastructure costs would plummet, and our streets wouldn't have to be dug up so much.
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Site Broken Again...
Out of common courtesy to everyone else, will people PLEASE check how their post renders on the home page directly after posting? Someone thought put a scrollable area in their title. Now. I'm a big fan of those, believe me, but the whole rest of the site is unreadable now.
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.Text Tip: Non-Mapped Folders
One of the things that I've wanted for a long time with .Text is the ability to have folders that are not mapped to the .Text blogging engine. Well, I had a great idea while I was in the shower this morning (all great ideas come while bathing, at least in my experience), and it proved to work famously. Create your directory, create a new web.config file, and add the following information only:
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Hosted Microsoft Exchange
I'm looking at moving to a Hosted Exchange solution for managing Interscape's collaboration needs... I'd love to hear some experiences with some good Exchange 2003 hosting providers. I'll move forward with my research based in part on your recommendations. If any of you have a few minutes, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
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Man Takes Title of World's Geekiest Dad
Shane Bauer pointed me to this article. This is very very sad. Parents have no frickin clue sometimes. I mean, how messed up is this kid gonna be? I'd have my name changed as soon as I could. I sure hope his job brings in enough that he can afford his kid's therapy. He'll need LOTS of it.
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Why Are Many Coders Mediocre?
Last week, following the publication of this article on Builder.com, I was approached by an editor at Wiley & Sons (Makers of the “...For Dummies” books) in the UK about reviewing a draft of a book they are working on. I agreed, and the past two weeks have been fabulously interesting. I can't discuss the book yet (BELIEVE ME, when I can, I will) but I can say that it now comes in #2 on Robert's List of Books Every Programmer Should Read™, right behind Writing Secure Code, Second Edition.
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IE Flaw Explained - Patch On the Way
News.com has a great article on the IE “address spoofing flaw”, and the forthcoming patch to solve it. It's a must read, so go check it out.
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Microsoft: Eolas Changes Won't be in XPSP2
News.com is reporting that Microsoft has made a statement saying that it will hold off on Eolas-related Internet Explorer modifications until after the appeals process is over. Microsoft is currently awaiting the results of a Patent Office review of the Eolas patent, based upon several possibilities of prior art.
"The action by the patent office may result in the cancellation of the Eolas patent," according to the Microsoft statement. "Given these circumstances, and after consulting industry colleagues and developers, Microsoft, for now, will not be releasing an update to Internet Explorer and does not plan on making the changes it announced in October to Windows XP Service Pack 2."
It will be interesting to see how all this plays out. They already have the changes in the SP2 code that I'm running... I feel bad for the guy that has to go back and comment that all out. -
PDC DVD Materials Arrived
I finally got the DVDs for PDC 2003. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but I'll manage. See, I don't have a DVD-ROM drive in my computer yet. I know, isn't it a shame? Anyways, I was hoping (nievely, maybe) that the DVD would be something that I could stick in my Xbox and watch in the comfort of my living room. Well, you can... if you have a Media Center PC. The videos are WM9 encoded, so you have to run them off of your PC. I guess I have another reason now to pony up and buy one.
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Make Your WinForms Apps Stand Out
My favorite cross-dresser Martin Spedding pointed me to a guy out of the UK by the name of Tim Dawson that has made some killer WinForms controls. His controls add Office 2003 stylings to any app, and are completely customizable. I'd gladly pay $100 bucks a pop for these controls, but he gives them away for free. Awesome! Make sure you put a few bucks in his tip jar and pay the man for his efforts. Martin's putting together a really cool RSS application that's really going to make some waves. Can't wait to see the final version.
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Combating MyDoom.A in Outlook 2003
I had over 80 e-mails in my inbox when I woke up this morning, most from this wonderful new virus that some schmuck that can't get a girlfriend decided to write in his ample spare time. I hope someone nails this jerk. As you can already tell, this virus thing is really starting to tick me off. Since my e-mail server's antivirus filters have not updated yet, I started fighting it the good-ole-fashioned way: Rules in Outlook 2003.
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Advertising In RSS Feeds - My Take
Tim Marman points to a Mike Gunderloy post about advertising in RSS Feeds. This is a subject that I've been grappling with for a few months now, so I'll give you my perspective on it.
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Mars Rover Problems - Update
NASA is now saying that the problem with the Spirit rover is due to the fact that it is “trying to keep track of too many files”. There are many lessons to be learned here. First, humans are no longer the only ones that suffer from this problem. Maybe if Spirit had been running WinFS it wouldn't have been so much of an issue. I'll need to ask Don Box if Indigo communications can be piped through the Deep Space Network. Anyways, the second lesson is simple: Regular maintenance of your computer is key. Defragment your hard drive once a week, and make regular backups, deleting files you no longer use on a regular basis. Whether it's a Martian rover or the family computer, taking these routine steps will ensure your system doesn't melt down at the most inopportune of times.
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Mars Rover Problems
NASA said today that the Mars rover “Spirit“ was online and recovering from its earlier problems. They said they had narrowed the problems down to the Flash memory unit and the file system that manages it. A Microsoft Representative directed JPL personnel to KB Article 743382 - “File Access Causes System Reboot on Windows Mobile 2003 - Interplanetary Rover Edition”. The KB article calls for the rover operator to bypass the Flash memory and access the RAM directly by playing Timothy Busfueld's violin solo from “Revenge of the Nerds“ backwards while holding down the “Ctrl“, “Ins“, “F9“ and “Esc” keys simultaneously.
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Sharepoint Observations - Installation
There has been an explosion in recent days regarding the number of people blogging about Sharepoint, and having just spent 4 days testing and installing the system on my own servers, I thought I'd throw my observations into the ring.
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Dude, Where's My Reference?
My next Builder.com article is finally online. This one talks about how to deploy server control files, and how to make sure they show up in the “Add References” dialog box. It's one of those steps that is often overlooked, but critical to customer usability. If server controls are your thing, then this article is for you. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.
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PatchDayReview.com Update
I just spent the past day or so on some new updates to PatchDayReview.com, so I thought I'd give everyone a quick rundown.
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Microsoft Security Strategies Roadshow
Just came across this in the MVP newsgroups, thought you all should be aware:
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Control Confusion
Why is it that no one expects a server control to register information in the Start Menu? I get support questions all the time asking where they can find the docs. I say “Did you check the Start Menu - Start | Programs | Interscape Technologies | ScrollingGrid 1.1 ?” Is it just because few other control vendors do this?
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Sued By IP Address
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MySQL ADO.NET Provider
Look no further than ByteFX. From what I understand, it's the best ADO.NET MySQL Provider out there. And it's already 100% compatible with my DTS Engine for the .NET Framework.
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VB.NET Encryption
ScottC gave me another killer tip for encryption in VB.NET. Good read.
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SQL Identity
Before I forget, I found a great post on @@Identity this morning, and I wanted to get it in my links before I forget. Thanks Duncan!
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Blogging the AZDNUG: CodeSmith - Part 2
[7:15pm]
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Blogging the AZDNUG: CodeSmith - Part 1
[6:45pm]
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LiveMeeting Free for 30 Days
You can get a free 30 day trial of Microsoft Office LiveMeeting here. I've used it with some teleconferences with Microsoft, and it's pretty cool. I highly recommend it. You gotta go through that link though, if you just sign up on the home page, you only get 15 days.
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Neat VS.NET Trick
Scott Cate, leader of the Arizona .NET User's Group (meeting tomorrow night, I'll be there) gives us a neat tip for editing in Visual Studio .NET.
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Smoking Kills
One of my .NET buddies just sent me this. It's made by a Russian ad firm, and is quite funny. Check it out.
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Special Characters in .NET
Soneone a few weeks ago showed me a nifty enumeration in .NET that helps out with dealing with special characters. The trouble is, I can't find it now. It was something like Characters.Quote.
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MS: We Like Win98 After All
Microsoft is extending its support for Windows 98, Windows 98SE, and Windows ME through June 30, 2006. The reason, this article sites, is that developing countries were not as aware of their lifecycle plans as they would have liked. Interesting.
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MSN Missed the RSS Boat
News.com tells us that Yahoo will start testing RSS support in MyYahoo. This report says that a public test date has not been set yet, but this much is clear. With Microsoft's release of the new MSN portal late last week, they completely missed the RSS boat. Not even the efforts of Robert Scoble were enough to convince MSN that they needed RSS support. Now, any addition of RSS to MyMSN will look like a “MeToo” feature.
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XmlConverter for .NET Objects
In this new era, is very important the easy understanding of data transfer. For this reason Devshock developed the XmlConverter tool that hides the complexity of the serialization and deserialization of objects.
I'll be trying this out later tonight, and I'll let you know how it works out. It's free, so you can't beat it.
Xml serialization and deserialization is a very useful tool of the .NET framework that permit us the creation of any kind of objects, convert it to XML (Extensible Markup Language) for the easy manipulation, but in some cases is complex to use.
Now forget of complex translations and just say "Convert this object to XML" or "Convert this XML to this Object"... sound easy no?
Use it too for load configuration from files
Assembly Properties
- Written fully in C#, 100% manage code.
- XML conversion from String and StringBuilder source
- Easy conversion of objects
- All functions are static (Shared in Visual Basic), so don't need to make a new instance of the XmlConvert
- Support thousands of conversions in seconds
- Very useful for data transfer in Server/Client applications
- Convert any type of objects including images
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Yahoo Dropping Google
This is the first I've heard about it.... MSNBC.com
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Everyone's a Critic
Geez. You know, forget the fact that Microsoft was able to fit an FM radio antenna and hardware, and advanced LCD display, and an UltraCompact .NET Framework onto a watch, Gary Krakow's biggest beef is that he thinks the watch models are ugly. Gosh dude, if that's your only beef, then I think we have a real winner here. I bet if you took the word “Sunnto” off the front and replaced it with “Rolex” he would probably think it wasn't so ugly. Personally, I like Sunnto's Copper/Slate look. I think it would go well with most any attire.
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Web Server Certificates
For any of you that run your own web server, VeriSign's Intermediate certificate expired today. Many people need to upgrade their intermediate certs.... if that's you, then check this out.
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Taskline 2.0 for Outlook 2003
OH MY GOSH. I have been waiting for this product for ages. Taskline 2.0 is available for Outlook 2003, and it adds stuff to the MS Outlook task list that MS should have added in Outlook 2000. I won't talk about it too much, save for the fact that I ponied up the $50 on sight, as it will save me countless hours on managing my time (I'm pretty sure that tasks show up on your PocketPC too, as appointments, but I have yet to verify this.). Instead, I'm going to let three screenshots speak for themselves:
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Scrollable Grid Woes
Dino Esposito talks about another reason why building a Scrollable DataGrid isn't all it's cracked up to be. You would never think such a simple concept could be so complicated, and yet it is. That's HTML for ya. I'll have to have Andy check and see if ScrollingGrid suffers from the same problem. It sure is nice having someone work for you that's smarter than you are, don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.
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New Builder.com Article Out
In my last article, I talked about managing your source code when you deal with different versions of the Framework. Well, while great in theory, this technique sucked in practice. Here's why.
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The New MSN
I opened my browser a second ago, and a butterfly busted out of the page. What are they feeding that thing? At any rate, I like the new MSN.com. I was a beta tester for MSN9, so I finally get a chance to talk about it a bit. MS really puts a lot behind MSN... I was surprised when three weeks ago, a limited edition gold-plated MSN 9 CD showed up on my doorstep (It's real gold, I had it checked). That's one hell of a beta tester thank you. And all I got for Office 11 was a lousy keychain.
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WOO HOO! My XBOX will stream content from my computer!
MSNBC today reports that Bill Gates showed of a new technology today at CES called Windows Media Center Extender, as well as the Xbox Media Extender Kit.
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Linux Learning Some Manners?
This morning I came across these two links, which amount to etiquitte lessons for Linux bigots (don't jump down my throat, the links say that). I thought it was pretty cool that at least SOME people see how their “Linux is the answer to everything, period.” crap does more harm than good. Here's a sample:
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ASPnetMenu 1.2 Released
My friends over at Cyberakt have released a new version of ASPnetMenu. This is by far my favorite menu control, and they've worked for a few months now to make it even better.
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Get The Presents, Get The Presents!
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Secrets Revealed!
Chances are that you've used one of his controls before. His website lists nearly 30 different server controls that do everything from an emulation of the WinForms UpDown control to finding new ways to subclass the <asp:HyperLink> control. I'm pretty sure the only one that knows more about server controls is Nikhil Kothari.
Well, here we are: the moment three or four people have been waiting for. Interscape's secret employee is.....
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I'm a DropLoad fan!
A few days ago, I saw a post from someone about DropLoad.com, a website that lets you leave files for people, and gives them a 48 hour window to download it. It's done in PHP, but what the heck, it's a great system. I hope they add some reporting features and what not... I'd gladly pay a monthly fee to use it. I'm using it to distribute the source code for Interscape's products when they are purchased. What a killer idea!! Thanks DropLoad!
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OPML Fix for .Text 0.95.2004.102
I was working on more upgrades to LonghornBlogs.com tonight, and decided to post a fix for the OPML.aspx bug that I blogged about earlier. This one is an ASPX page that uses inline script instead of a compiled class to do its dirty work. Just tate the “.txt“ off the end of the file name, and drop it into your .Text root folder, and you're golden until the next drop.
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IIS6 Wildcard Mappings and FrontPage Extensions
I was just setting up a new blog site to start working on a global admin console for .Text (adding, editing, deleting blogs, sending bulk e-mails to blog owners, configuring blog groups, etc) when I came across a problem. Though I had set up FrontPage Extensions on that virtual web, VS.NET could not connect to it. When I RDC'd into the desktop to try to access the site's FPSE page, I got an ASP.NET error page, telling me that the FPSE DLL was not found.
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CSS Help Needed
I'll give hyperlink space on Interscape's blog site, a shoutout in my blog here (major GoogleJuice), and a Enterprise Edition of ScrollingGrid to anyone who can fashion me a .Text skin for our corporate blogs that looks similar to our corporate site, only way better than the pitiful attempt I made. Must use .Text 0.95 skins, be clean, and visually appealing, while retaining an Interscape “feel” (doesn't need to be a carbon-copy of the home page).
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Scott Watermasysk is the MAN
Have you seen his new site yet? I'm so freakin jealous man, he's using the .Text API to power his whole site. I want it... REALLY bad. I'm going to have to dive into it and see what I can come up with. Also, ScottW has upgraded this site with my custom FreeTextBox build, so no more HTML errors when you edit a post. YAY! Two of my biggest .Text peeves are eliminated. Seriously Scott, can you be any cooler?
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Shoutout to FirstSay.net
I've been getting a lot of hits from FirstSay.net lately, so I figured I'd give them a shot of GoogleJuice. I'm not sure who runs the site, but he/she must be nuts because they have had three or four of my posts on the front page. It's a pretty nifty web-based RSS aggregator, the only problem it's in PHP... arrgh! (psst.. the name of the platform you should be using is in the last 4 characters of your name...shh!) At any rate, it's a cool site, and a decent source of news from around the web. Lots of javascript going on too. Show the love... go check it out!
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My Experience Upgrading to .Text 0.95
Well, it has been an interesting evening indeed. I just spend the past 4 hours picking apart .Text 0.95, and upgrading LonghornBlogs.com. I figured I might as well start with the hardest upgrade, since it uses all custom skins. I've been waiting for this upgrade for a very long time, so after upgrading Interscape's Support Site yet again, I decided to make plenty of backups, and dig in.
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MSN Messenger Virus Alert
A new virus is being sperad over MSN Messenger. Find out more about it here.
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BACK ONLINE!!!
<whew> Our servers are FINALLY back online. InterscapeUSA.com, LonghornBlogs.com, and PatchDayReview.com are now alive and kicking. You can read more about it here. Sorry for the inconvenience. Hopefully it won't happen again. -
Still More Work To Do
Here's another example of why developers are far from outliving their usefulness. An article on MSNBC describes a digital warfare system that the 4th ID uses to battle insurgents in Iraq. The quote that caught my attention:
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News Section
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<a href="http://blogs.interscapeusa.com/robert">My Corporate Blog</a><br>
<a href="http://www.robertmclaws.com/blog">My Personal Blog</a><br><br></font>
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You should feel free to challenge me, disagree with me, or tell me I'm totally wrong in the comments section of each blog entry, but I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever. That said, I will most likely only delete abusive or profane comments, so keep it polite, please.</font><br><br> -
Ring In The New Year With .Text 0.95
ScottW has posted the binaries and source to .Text 0.95 on the GotDotNet Workspaces. This release has a ton of new features, and Scott is using a Wiki to put together an installation guide. It's had a lot of new content posted, so I'd recommend you go check it out. As soon as my servers are back up, all of my blog systems will be updated.
