Archives
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Using ILMerge on Compact Framework Applications
Neil Cowburn has a very interesting post on using ILMerge with Compact Framework apps. It seems that, by default, ILMerge always uses the .NET Framework Assemblies. Neil talks about the targetplatform and platformdirectory command-line arguments that can be used to tell ILMerge to use the proper assemblies (the Compact Framework Assemblies in this case).
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Windows Service stops updating event log
I've got a small project that involves a windows service. The service is still in the development stages so I'm using the Application event log to keep track of what it's doing. There's a lot of messages that get sent to the log right now (and yes, I know there's better ways to log but for this work, the EventLog is quick and easy).
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SVN and BerkeleyDB.
In my post on setting up Subversion, I had written to use FSFS as your repository type because "I've been told the Berkeley DB version is a little buggy". I have no experience using BerkeleyDB with SVN (or BerkeleyDB by itself) so I was going on information I had heard.
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Setting up Subversion
As noted in a previous post, I'm now using Subversion (SVN) for source code control of my mobile blogging app (along with a couple of other projects sitting on my hard drive). Here's a quick "how to" on getting Subversion running under Windows XP with VS.NET integration.
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My First Amazon Order
After reading Steve Makofsky's post about his first Amazon order, I checked out my order history. To make it interesting, here's the first three books I purchased at Amazon:
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Codemash: Off with the hair!
Alexey Govorin posted a comment about the shaving of Josh Holmes and Brian Prince at Codemash. Alexey has posted a video so you can see them keep their promise of shaving their heads! Thanks Alexey!
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Update on Mobile Blogging App
Although Keith Elder recommended I put my mobile blogging app up on CodePlex, I'm going to hold off on that for a while. Here's why:
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Claiming my blog on Technorati
As part of getting better exposure of my blog, I'm updating it more often (January has already been better than any month in all of 2006), I'm also "claiming my blog" on Technorati. As part of this process, I need to post a special link on my blog.
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Codemash: Putting a face to the name
Thanks Keith Elder -- I made it on his "Who's Who at CodeMash" list. Scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see me slouching in my chair. I also made a brief appearance in his Zune Squirt Video with Jason Follas -- I'm the guy sitting behind Keith unpacking my lunch and getting ready to feed my face... :)
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The iPhone. I don't get it...
Thursday night, after the first day of Codemash sessions, I was sitting around with fellow SRT consultants Alex Gheith, John Hopkins, co-founder Bill Wagner and Microsoft DE Jennifer Marsman. The subject of the iPhone came up. My response -- "I don't get it". Steve Jobs is a master at marketing and getting people "pumped up". We all agreed that the iPhone has some interesting capabilities (like automatically switching between portrait and landscape modes when you flip the phone or turning speaker-phone on and off when it detects it's proximity to you). But as a whole, it's not a revolutionary device. According to Apple's website, the iPhone is a combination of three devices:
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Codemash: Follow up
Ok -- back home and back blogging on a regular keyboard again!
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Codemash: Summary on Scott's Keynote
Fantastic!
LINQ is really cool. I've read about it a little bit, but after today's keynote I'm going to download the CTP.
How will DBA's accept LINQ? Will they accept some "tool" generating the complex queries that can be easily built with LINQ? What about DBA's that require all DB access to go through a stored proc?
It will be interesting to see how all this plays out. -
Codemash: Scott Guthrie Keynote
Scott Guthrie is about to give his keynote on LINQ. I'm excited! So far, Codemash has been a very enjoyable experience.
Josh Holmes just made a reference to Codemash 2008! Can't wait! -
Codemash: A crowd gathers around Dustin Campbell
Dustin Campbell is showing off DevExpress' tools. He's got quite a crowd gathered! And these people are missing out on free food so it must be good stuff!
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Codemash: End of the white board?
Christopher Gant is fielding questions on SCCM with Subversion. He's got a tablet PC and is marking up his slides with ink as he explains branching, merging and versioning. How elegant. No worries about having a whiteboard available, having pens/eraser, etc...
Most presentation facilities have some sort of video projection equipment. Not all have a whiteboard. Sure, you can do the same thing with a mouse, but using the stylus on a tablet is so much more intuitive. -
Codemash: "You will respect my unit tests!"
Ben Carey is talking about TDD and is using Southpark characters in some of his slides! It got my attention!
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Codemash: Bruce Eckle Keynote
As I finish lunch (sitting with Keith Elder and Jason Follas), I'm listening to Bruce Eckle talk about why we should get together in this type of format (i.e. Codemash) when much of this information is already available on the web.
Great pictures from Bruce's recent trip to Burning Man. He's talking about early assumptions when designing software -- and how they're usually wrong! -
Codemash: Josh Holmes' Appointment for a Shave
Microsoft AE Josh Holmes has agreed to shave his head onstage at the end of Codemash if we get 500 blog posts about Codemash (as counted by Techboratii).
Get blogging! :) -
Codemash: Keith Elder & Smart Clients
Keith Elder had to wait for a video cable before starting his presentation, but the wait was worth it! His slide deck and demos on Smart Clients was awesome. I think I'll be attending his second session where he's going to get more in-depth on the technology.
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Codemash: Blogging
By the way, I left the laptop in my room. All of my Codemash blogging is being done from my Samsung i730 and my PPC blogging app.
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Codemash: Keynote
Great keynote by Neal Ford. He talked about Domain Specific Languages and how we as developers can use these to increase our communication with business analysts.
Off to a Smart Client session. -
First Official Post
This is the first post from my new PocketPC blogging app -- last night was from the emulator.
I've got a few options for URL inserting (Weblogs.asp.net) and setting styles. -
Test Post
A test post for my new PocketPC blogging utility. We'll see how well it works if this actually gets posted!
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Blogging in the car.
Test post using Diarist. And no, I'm not doing this while driving!
Updated: 1/15/07 11:18:30 PM -
Women, Beer and C#
I'm a simple man so I couldn't think of any way to mix these three (especially since I've cut back on beer consumption as it can aggravate my heart arrhythmia). However, local blogger David Redding (VP of the Ann Arbor .NET Developers) has found one. And to top that, he's even weaved it into a wonderful tutorial on C#'s "yield return" feature. Check it out!
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Documenting Private Methods
At my current contract, I've done three brand new applications from scratch and have been involved in modifying a couple of others. Every developer has their own coding style and it can be sometimes difficult to come up to speed on how someone else has decided to code a particular application. What I've found myself doing more and more is documenting (using XML comments) the private methods of these apps I need to modify. When I find a method and the name isn't descriptive (to me) as to what it is doing, I jump to it, review the code to see what it's doing and then add an XML comment for the method. The next I run into a call to this method, Intellisense will pop up my summary description and I won't need to leave my current spot. This gets me up to speed quicker on how the app is architected and makes it quicker for me to do my modifications.
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New Thumbdrive
Yeah, I know. These days, new thumbdrives are about as exciting as a new tank of gas. But I thought it was kind of cool since it's coming from the company I'm subcontracting with, SRT Solutions! SRT is going to have a booth at CodeMash next week and I'll probably be there from time to time. Stop by and say "Hi" if you get a chance.
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CodeMash Attendee Google Group Created!
I just got an email regarding next weeks CodeMash:
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My Copy Arrived!
Today, I received my copy of Windows Developer Power Tools. It was a "thank you" for contributing to the book (<shamelessplug>I wrote an ILDASM section for Chapter 16.</shamelessplug>). Thank you to Jim Holmes for inviting me to contribute to this project. It was fun and I really enjoyed it!
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CCW's and Duplicate Names
I had a short project during the Christmas/New Year's break. I had to create some CCW's (COM Callable Wrappers) for a client that wanted to replace some existing COM objects with new .NET objects. The requirement was that the existing COM clients (built with early-binding) would not need recompiling. They have a product that allows their customers to write their own extensions. So requiring hundreds of clients to recompile all of their extensions was something they wanted to avoid.
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Mike Calligro from the Windows Mobile Team blog
After getting my new phone in November, I started searching all over for information about mobile development. I ran across the Windows Mobile Team Blog and was fascinated by the articles written by Mike Calligro (or "MikeCal" as displayed on the blog). I read one and had to read his next, and next, etc... With titles like "The Emporer Has No Close" and "Paging Dr. RAM", how could you go wrong? The articles are a fun and entertaining look into the mobile form factor and the issues Microsoft has worked on for many years.
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Making IE7 more palatable
I switched to Firefox about 8 months ago. That was after using Firefox and IE6 together for a month or two to determine if I liked Firefox. I haven't used IE6 much since then.