Archives
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Worst and Best Technologies, 2003-2004
Worst Technology of 2003 - Paperless Voting
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SQLite
SQLite is an embeddable SQL database engine which can perform upto two times faster than PostgreSQL and MySQL for many common operations. With a small memory footprint and support for databases upto 2 terabyte, its an ideal option for embedded and small to medium-scale deployments. And SQLite works like a charm with the .NET Framework. Following are some of the options available to interact with the SQLite server from your .NET code:
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Google Book Search (Beta)
Amazon.com's feature for searching within books, introduced in October, now has competition. Google, the leading search engine, is testing a similar, unnamed service, introduced about two weeks ago with no publicity. When used with regular Google searches, the feature returns links to passages within books. It can also be used separately. For example, to see references within books to quilts, a visitor would type quilts site:print.google.com
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Alternative IDEs to Visual Studio.NET
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DotNetSIG December Session (21st Dec)
The Delhi .NET Developers Group presents interactive sessions on Assemblies and .NET Remoting, on 21st December 2003.
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XP SP2, and Smallest Executables
Microsoft tech writers explain in this downloadable document (539 kb) some of the biggest changes on tap Windows XP Service Pack 2 — the first beta of which is due for unveiling any day now. [via Neowin]
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Mono Live!
mo8il seems to be one of the first real & live ASP.NET application powered by Mono. [Via Miguel]
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MSDN December Sessions in India
MSDN Sessions on ASP.NET: Best Practices and Techniques for Building Secure ASP.NET Applications are scheduled from 9th to 18th December 2003 in 6 Indian cities. More details ...
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Mystic Microsoft
Spiritual Transformation in the Halls of High Technology - Kraig Brockschmidt, former employee of Microsoft wrote this draft copy for his (new) book. Not sure if its been published yet or not but its very interesting. Its not about MS's products or about arguments over Linux/OpenSource etc. Its about the spiritual transformation which the author went through during his 8 years of work at MS. [via Ramesh]
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ASP.NET Exposed Roadshow and VS.NET Automation Samples
Maybe I've mentioned this one before but its worth it! The creators of ASP.NET are coming to a city near you. This is your chance to receive FREE, in-depth training on Microsoft's web development platform. So do go catch the ASP.NET Exposed Roadshow. Sadly I'm 7469 miles away :(
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C# Class Generator and World's Largest Databases
C# Class Generator - is a pretty simple web-based utility which automagically generates a complete C# class (and the Data Access Tier methods) from specified field inputs.
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Craftsmanship
Joel Spolsky has a very interesting new article on (Software) Craftsmanship where he rightly points-out -- “Writing code is not production, it's not always craftsmanship (though it can be), it's design.”
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Web Server Usage Survey and Comparator
Port80 Surveys the Top 1000 Corporations' Web Servers versus Netcraft Web Server Survey. So who's winning?
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Longhorn Review @ CNET
John Morris from CNET recently reviewed Microsoft Windows Longhorn. Its more of a non-developers point-of-view but a good read. John also mentions that the retail market cost of Longhorn will be the same as that of XP (according to Bill Gates). I feel that the cost & the delivery time are two sensitive issues which are by far speculative. What's intriguing is that, of the 300+ people who voted on the site only 50% recommended Longhorn (as of now - ie: Alpha build). Some have even posted their comments (positive or negative). But again, the actual product is atleast 3-4 years away.
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Software QA/Testing and UltraGird for Avalon
Rob Davis has put together an extensive and very insightful Glossary and Technical FAQs section on Software QA/Testing. [via Siva Rama Krishna]
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PDC Content and Multi-direction Treeview Control
FYI, the entire audio/visual content from PDC 2003 is available online (via Microsoft).
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PDF's on-the-fly and Code in Indigo
iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. iText# is a library that allows you to generate PDF files on the fly. It is implemented as an assembly. [via Jay R]
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Refactoring with Whidbey or is it?!?!
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SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services
Have you tried the beta release of SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services yet? If so, please leave a comment on what you think of it. How does it compare to Crystal Reports 9?
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MySQL Gotchas
Anyone using MySQL as a primary or secondary database system must checkout the MySQL Gotchas (a list of features or functions which work as advertised - but not as expected).
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.NET Tools and BizTalk
A friend from work sent me this list of Companion Tools for .NET development.
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XAML Samples
Dino Esposito provides an overview of Longhorn, focusing on the build-once, deploy n-times application model. In addition, he discusses XAML, that's used to create UI elements, then presents some working samples.
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Network Ports, LCIDs and SQL ParseName
Here's an Excel spreadsheet illustrating network ports used by Microsoft products. The spreadsheet shows what network ports are used by the system services utilized by the Microsoft Windows Server System products.
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Whitepapers written by Googlers
Although not entirely related to .NET, Google Labs has a list of some really interesting whitepapers written by Googlers on stuff like Data Mining, Search Engine Design, Algorithms, File System Design, UI Design, Natural Language Processing and much more.
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Faster Managed Code & Self-Installing Service
Jan Gray from the Microsoft CLR Performance Team wrote a while back on Writing Faster Managed Code: Know What Things Cost. A very nice article to read.
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xp_dirtree and Dynamic Page Title
The xp_dirtree extended procedure in SQL Server (7.0 and 2000) will list the subdirectories in the specified directory. Usage: EXEC master.dbo.xp_dirtree 'C:\Windows'
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Longhorn Article at CNET News
A new article (special report) on Longhorn and Microsoft's future strategy has been published at CNET News - Is Microsoft's new version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, a radical innovation or a return to the company's winner-take-all software strategy from a decade ago?
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Ask a Language Designer
“Have a question about the Visual Basic .NET language? Want to know why the language has or doesn't have a particular feature? Why something was done in a particular way? Where the language might be going? Just enter your question below and your question will be considered for a future blog entry.”
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Why not to use @@identity in TSQL?
Travis Laborde has a great tip on why not to use @@identity in TSQL code and use scope_identity() instead.
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Longhorn Goodies
Thanks to Brad Adams for posting the Longhorn Architecture Diagram and the WinFX Namespace Poster (PDF / JPG). Ofcourse, the details are as we know now (ie: post PDC 2003) and are subject to change in the coming months/years. But its all a good preview of what's under the hood.
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.NET Rocks! Hosted by MSDN
.NET Rocks! now has a mirror repository hosted by MSDN.
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Managing Windows Services
It may happen that you wish to connect to and control the behavior of a Windows Service - programatically. There's a .NET class called ServiceController just to do that. It represents a Windows service and allows you to connect to a running or stopped service, manipulate it, or get information about it. You will most likely use the ServiceController component in an administrative capacity. For example, you could create a Windows or Web application that sends custom commands to a service through the ServiceController instance. This would be useful, because the Service Control Manager (SCM) Microsoft Management Console snapin does not support custom commands.
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"... pregnant with thought ..."
Rory on PDC 2003: “Up until a couple days ago, I was a Large-Conference-Virgin. I have since been robbed of my innocence, and am now pregnant with thought ...”
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AssemblyDiff Tool
John Lam (iunknown) has developed a small utility that will diff two different sets of assemblies and calculate the diff between .NET v1.1 and v1.2 of the Frameworks. Check it out here ...
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Articles at MSDNAA
The following two articles at MSDNAA are pretty interesting:
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Longhorn and Whidbey Preview for MSDN Subscribers
MSDN Operating Systems, Professional, Enterprise, and Universal subscribers can request a set of the software that will be distributed at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2003 (PDC), including the preview versions of Longhorn, the Longhorn SDK, and Microsoft Visual Studio code-named "Whidbey."
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High-end Backend
Werner Vogels has gathered some interesting notes on the backend architecture of some largely complex and distributed database-driven systems like those at eBay, Merrill Lynch, Swab, NASDAQ etc.
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Interviews from PDC
Radio Interviews with .NET techies from PDC via SYS-CON Radio.
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Avalon Screen Saver Contest and Longhorn Installation Tips
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The Best New Technologies of 2003
Business 2.0 (November 2003 Issue) features a nice article on The Best New Technologies of 2003. “Social Network Applications” is rated as the The Technology of the Year.
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Longhorn Development Center and XAML
The Longhorn Developer Center @ MSDN is live as expected. And so is the Longhorn SDK.
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Thread Isolator
While reading an article at CodeProject, I came across AmThreader - a code generator for “converting any singlethreaded .NET class to a multithreaded one”. However, what it actually does is create a class wrapper for any .NET class (not necessarily C#) and any call of wrapper class method will be translated to original class call but in a separate thread. For independent developers AmThreader is free.
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Inno Setup
Inno Setup 4.0.9 has been released. I use and recommend it for packaging & deployment of Windows desktop and client applications. Its scripting based compiler system provides a lot of flexibility. And, it is open source (Borland Delphi).
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WinToolZone
Gaurav Khanna has published some very cool .NET articles, applications, components, presentations, source code, tips and web services on his web site - WinToolZone.com (under the .NET menu option). He has also been working on extensions and enhancements to Rotor. Great content overall!
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How did they get their names?
Where did some of the most heard and renowned computer software & hardware companies get their names from? Here's an interesting look at the origin of corporate brands from Adobe to 3M: http://scott.yang.id.au/archives/000177.php
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Free ASP.NET Training
Free ASP.NET training sessions are scheduled in the month of October and November 2003 in New York, Florida and Virginia. A great offer indeed!
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Joel on Developers and Exceptions
In his latest article, Joel Spolsky refers to the Empower Program for ISVs: “If you're a software company willing to commit to developing software for any variant of Windows, you can join the Empower Program for ISVs, which entitles you a huge pile of software at the ridiculously low price of $750.” Not to mention, the video of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in the advanced stages of ecstatic frenzy chanting the “Developers” mantra ...
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Windows Form in Full Screen "Kiosk Mode"
[Quick Tip] The following lines of code (VB.NET) will produce a full screen Windows form - like the kiosk mode in Internet Explorer (press F11 to toggle). This screen mode is quite useful in situations where full screen user interactivity is required or the GUI demands full screen usability, like in multimedia demos, POS systems, embedded kiosk applications, touchscreen-driven apps, software installer programs etc.
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India .NET Forums
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Run .NET Code from SQL Stored Procedures
The CLR Proc Container is free software that enhances the capabilities of SQL Server stored procedures by opening a door to the .NET world. Code written in any .NET language can be invoked from stored procedures, providing stored procedures all the functionality of the full .NET runtime. Named procedures can be defined in .NET, dynamic procedures can be created and run, and binary objects passed between stored procedure code and the .NET object.
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PDC Woe
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FileSystemWatcher Tips
The .NET FileSystemWatcher class makes it possible to quickly and easily launch business processes when certain files or directories are created, modified, or deleted. The FileSystemWatcher class, for example, can be quite useful in application integration, by way of monitoring incoming data files and processing it once an event is raised. It listens to the file system change notifications and raises events when a directory, or file(s) in a directory, changes. The component can watch files on a local computer, a network drive, or a remote computer.
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Rules to Better .NET Projects
Rules to Better .NET Projects by SSW.com.au. Some basic but interesting points discussed there.
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Scheduled Execution in ASP.NET
On a .NET-based project, I had the need to run scheduled maintenance tasks on the web server. My first preference was building a Windows Service or a Console Application (and scheduling it using the Windows Scheduler to run at regular intervals). However, this option was not feasible considering that the client for whom I am developing the application plans to host it in a shared hosting environment where they don't have the privilege to deploy & run a Windows Service or Console Applications. So I had to come-up with an alternate approach, something that's robust, efficient and flexible - if not as suitable for the concerned task as a Windows Service or a Console Application.
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.NET News (Portal?!?!)
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.NET India User Groups
MSDN .NET India User Groups exist to help facilitate education and knowledge exchange among developers, architects and managers (residing/working in India) with an interest in Microsoft's .NET technologies. They provide a great place for local developers to come together to learn about .NET technologies, to network with their peers and to foster a sense of community among developers learning and using the same technologies.
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VS.NET Full Screen Mode
Just discovered the full screen mode in VS.NET - Press Alt + Shift + Enter in the IDE to toggle between the normal and full screen mode. Sure looks awesome on a 17” monitor!
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Longhorn Bits
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Sample Chapters
Srinivasa Sivakumar has listed more than 500 sample chapters (in HTML/PDF format) on his resource site, from various books related to .NET. A great resource!
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Free .NET Web Hosting
Some guys at work and others online, have been asking me for some suggestions on a free .NET web host. Free hosting may be a good way to play around and learn .NET (ASP.NET in particular) but by no means is it suitable and reliable for live production-level applications. Although I strongly recommend a (paid) basic shared hosting plan for any meaningful development but I just did a bit of lookup and came-up with the following list of free .NET web hosts:
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.NET Framework Class Browser
I find the .NET Framework Class Browser very convinient. It has saved me a lot of time on a daily basis looking for namespaces, classes and interfaces. I remember the commonly used namespaces and their respective classes but information on rarely used namespaces and their classes is just a click away with this web site. Nice quick reference material!
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XML Resume Library
One of the development teams at my office recently used the XML Resume Library for a document management project in ASP.NET. Although it was a pilot project for a HR consultancy but the guys here seem to be appreciating the usefulness of the library. Earlier, we were planning to develop our own custom solution to document management but apparently the time-to-delivery was cut-short by days from using the existing library. The XML Resume Library is an XML and XSL based system for marking up, adding metadata to, and formatting resumes and curricula vitae.
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Yahoo Groups blocked in India
Lately, I haven't been able to access the Yahoo Groups (groups.yahoo.com) from back here in India. There are tons of .NET-related groups which I browse once in a while to respond to queries, get answers to my own questions and share custom code snippets. Unfortunately, following an order by the Government of India, Indian ISP's have blocked access to Yahoo Groups due to some political and anti-national content. However, I figured out a quick “hack” to still access Yahoo Groups by accessing any one of the localized gateways like groups.yahoo.co.uk or groups.yahoo.com.au.
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F# Compiler
Following an e-mail from a friend, I browsed the information on the F# compiler (a Microsoft Research project). Seems pretty cool but not something I would like to get a taste of right-away. There's already too much - more relevant (atleast for me) to soak. But its good to see that the .NET-based development context is expanding and programmers from “unmanaged” code domains can easily try-out or maybe even migrate to .NET with the help of available resources like this one.
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Unit Test Your .NET Data Access Layer
Learn how to use NUnit and some related tools for successfully support testing a Data Access Layer for ASP.NET applications. Test driven development (TDD) has grown in popularity recently, especially with the growth of the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology. NUnit is a unit testing tool built for .NET, which follows in a long line of similar xUnit testing tools built for other platforms. It provides an easy-to-use framework for writing and running unit tests for your .NET applications.
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Extreme Programming (Intro)
Just to add a quick preface to Roy's post on Engineering Notebook: An Extreme Programming Episode, for those who might wonder what extreme programming (XP) actually is, a good starting point is ExtremeProgramming.org and XProgramming.com. In brief, the XP methodology mainly emphasizes on customer-driven development and team work.
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Web-based Database Administration
Maybe this is old news for some of you guys. Anyways, I've been using two such ASP.NET applications which allow remote database administration via a web interface. It's very useful when you don't have ready access (specially on client locations) to SQL Server Enterprise Manager or when the internet connectivity is not suitable for rapid management.
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IBM Rational Solution for .NET Developers
Recently I recieved the product evaluation CD for IBM Rational XDE Developer Plus (.NET Edition). XDE combines visual modeling, runtime analysis and testing from inside the Visual Studio .NET IDE. Some other XDE features are:
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Hello World!
Just to quickly introduce myself. My name is Ashutosh Benjamin Nilkanth (aka ashben). I work as an IT consultant in India. I've been programming for a little over 6 years now - on independent projects, freelance contracts and for companies in India, Singapore and the US - primarily using the Microsoft suite of tools and technologies including .NET (ASP.NET, VB.NET, ADO.NET, Web Services), ASP, VB (6.0 and prior), SQL Server, BizTalk etc. I've been toying with .NET since 2001 and it's been a great journey so far.