Copied from : http://www.proprofs.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11932

Microsoft 70-536 Objectives

Objectives as updated on Microsoft's Web site: March 29, 2007

Developing applications that use system types and collections
Manage data in a .NET Framework application by using the .NET Framework 2.0 system types (Refer System namespace)

• Value types (More info: Value Types C#)
  • Nullable type
• Reference types
• Attributes (More info: Attributes C# / Attributes Visual Basic)
• Generic types (More info: Generics C# / Generics Visual Basic)
• Exception classes (More info: Exceptions C# / Exceptions Visual Basic)
• Boxing and UnBoxing
• TypeForwardedToAttribute Class:

Manage a group of associated data in a .NET Framework application by using collections. (Refer System.Collections namespace)

• ArrayList class
• Collection interfaces
  • ICollection interface and IList interface
  • IComparer interface and IEqualityComparer interface
  • IDictionary interface and IDictionaryEnumerator interface
  • IEnumerable interface and IEnumerator interface
• Iterators
• Hashtable class
• CollectionBase class and ReadOnlyCollectionBase class
• DictionaryBase class and DictionaryEntry class
• Comparer class
• Queue class
• SortedList class
• BitArray class
• Stack class

Improve type safety and application performance in a .NET Framework application by using generic collections. (Refer System.Collections.Generic namespace)

• Collection.Generic interfaces
  • Generic IComparable interface (Refer System Namespace)
  • Generic ICollection interface and Generic IList interface
  • Generic IComparer interface and Generic IEqualityComparer interface
  • Generic IDictionary interface
  • Generic IEnumerable interface and Generic IEnumerator interface
  • IHashCodeProvider interface
• Generic Dictionary
  • Generic Dictionary class and Generic Dictionary.Enumerator structure
  • Generic Dictionary.KeyCollection class and Dictionary.KeyCollection.Enumerator structure
  • Generic Dictionary.ValueCollection class and Dictionary.ValueCollection.Enumerator structure
• Generic Comparer class and Generic EqualityComparer class
• Generic KeyValuePair structure
• Generic List class, Generic List.Enumerator structure, and Generic SortedList class
• Generic Queue class and Generic Queue.Enumerator structure
• Generic SortedDictionary class
• Generic LinkedList
  • Generic LinkedList class
  • Generic LinkedList.Enumerator structure
  • Generic LinkedListNode class
• Generic Stack class and Generic Stack.Enumerator structure

Manage data in a .NET Framework application by using specialized collections. (Refer System.Collections.Specialized namespace)

• Specialized String classes
  • StringCollection class
  • StringDictionary class
  • StringEnumerator class
• Specialized Dictionary
  • HybridDictionary class
  • IOrderedDictionary interface and OrderedDictionary class
  • ListDictionary class
• Named collections
  • NameObjectCollectionBase class
  • NameObjectCollectionBase.KeysCollection class
  • NameValueCollection class
• CollectionsUtil
• BitVector32 structure and BitVector32.Section structure

Implement .NET Framework interfaces to cause components to comply with standard contracts. (Refer System namespace)

• IComparable interface
• IDisposable interface
• IConvertible interface
• ICloneable interface
• IEquatable interface
• IFormattable interface

Control interactions between .NET Framework application components by using events and delegates. (Refer System namespace)

• Delegate class
• EventArgs class
• EventHandler delegates

Implementing service processes, threading, and application domains in a .NET Framework application
Implement, install, and control a service. (Refer System.ServiceProcess namespace)

• Inherit from ServiceBase class
• ServiceController class and ServiceControllerPermission class
• ServiceInstaller and ServiceProcessInstaller class
• SessionChangeDescription structure and SessionChangeReason enumeration

Develop multithreaded .NET Framework applications. (Refer System.Threading namespace)

• Thread class
• ThreadPool class
• ThreadStart delegate and ParameterizedThreadStart delegate
• Timeout class, Timer class, TimerCallback delegate, WaitCallback delegate, WaitHandle class, and WaitOrTimerCallback delegate
• ThreadState enumeration and ThreadPriority enumeration
• ReaderWriterLock class
• AutoResetEvent class and ManualResetEvent class
• IAsyncResult interface (Refer System namespace)
• EventWaitHandle class, RegisteredWaitHandle class, SendOrPostCallback delegate, and IOCompletionCallback delegate
• Interlocked class
• ExecutionContext class, HostExecutionContext class, HostExecutionContext Manager class, and ContextCallback delegate
• LockCookie structure, Monitor class, Mutex class, and Semaphore class

Create a unit of isolation for common language runtime in a .NET Framework application by using application domains. (Refer System namespace)

• Create an application domain.
• Unload an application domain.
• Configure an application domain.
• Retrieve setup information from an application domain.
• Load assemblies into an application domain.

Embedding configuration, diagnostic, management, and installation features into a .NET Framework application
Embed configuration management functionality into a .NET Framework application. (Refer System.Configuration namespace)

• Configuration class and ConfigurationManager class
• ConfigurationElement class, ConfigurationElementCollection class, and ConfigurationElementProperty class
• ConfigurationSection class, ConfigurationSectionCollection class, ConfigurationSectionGroup class, and ConfigurationSectionGroupCollection class
• Implement ISettingsProviderService interface
• Implement IApplicationSettingsProvider interface
• ConfigurationValidatorBase class

Create a custom Microsoft Windows Installer for the .NET Framework components by using the System.Configuration.Install namespace, and configure the .NET Framework applications by using configuration files, environment variables, and the .NET Framework Configuration tool (Mscorcfg.msc).

• Installer class
• Configure which runtime version a .NET Framework application should use.
• Configure where the runtime should search for an assembly.
• Configure the location of an assembly and which version of the assembly to use.
• Direct the runtime to use the DEVPATH environment variable when you search for assemblies.
• AssemblyInstaller class
• ComponentInstaller class
• Configure a .NET Framework application by using the .NET Framework Configuration tool (Mscorcfg.msc).
• ManagedInstallerClass class
• InstallContext class
• InstallerCollection class
• InstallEventHandler delegate
• Configure concurrent garbage collection.
• Register remote objects by using configuration files.

Manage an event log by using the System.Diagnostics namespace.

• Write to an event log.
• Read from an event log.
• Create a new event log.

Manage system processes and monitor the performance of a .NET Framework application by using the diagnostics functionality of the .NET Framework 2.0. (Refer System.Diagnostics namespace)

• Get a list of all running processes.
• Retrieve information about the current process.
• Get a list of all modules that are loaded by a process.
• PerformanceCounter class, PerformanceCounterCategory, and CounterCreationData class
• Start a process both by using and by not using command-line arguments.
• StackTrace class
• StackFrame class

Debug and trace a .NET Framework application by using the System.Diagnostics namespace.

• Debug class and Debugger class
• Trace class, CorrelationManager class, TraceListener class, TraceSource class, TraceSwitch class, XmlWriterTraceListener class, DelimitedListTraceListener class, and EventLogTraceListener class
• Debugger attributes
  • DebuggerBrowsableAttribute class
  • DebuggerDisplayAttribute class (More info: Using DebuggerDisplay Attribute)
  • DebuggerHiddenAttribute class
  • DebuggerNonUserCodeAttribute class
  • DebuggerStepperBoundaryAttribute class
  • DebuggerStepThroughAttribute class
  • DebuggerTypeProxyAttribute class (More info: Using DebuggerTypeProxy Attribute)
  • DebuggerVisualizerAttribute class

Embed management information and events into a .NET Framework application. (Refer System.Management namespace)

• Retrieve a collection of Management objects by using the ManagementObjectSearcher class and its derived classes
  • Enumerate all disk drivers, network adapters, and processes on a computer.
  • Retrieve information about all network connections.
  • Retrieve information about all services that are paused.
• ManagementQuery class
  • EventQuery class
  • ObjectQuery class
• Subscribe to management events by using the ManagementEventWatcher class.

Implementing serialization and input/output functionality in a .NET Framework application
Serialize or deserialize an object or an object graph by using runtime serialization techniques. (Refer System.Runtime.Serialization namespace)

• Serialization interfaces
  • IDeserializationCallback interface
  • IFormatter interface and IFormatterConverter interface
  • ISerializable interface
• Serilization attributes
  • OnDeserializedAttribute class and OnDeserializingAttribute class
  • OnSerializedAttribute class and OnSerializingAttribute class
  • OptionalFieldAttribute class
• SerializationEntry structure and SerializationInfo class
• ObjectManager class
• Formatter class, FormatterConverter class, and FormatterServices class
• StreamingContext structure

Control the serialization of an object into XML format by using the System.Xml.Serialization namespace.

• Serialize and deserialize objects into XML format by using the XmlSerializer class
• Control serialization by using serialization attributes.
• Implement XML Serialization interfaces to provide custom formatting for XML serialization.
• Delegates and event handlers are provided by the System.Xml.Serialization namespace

Implement custom serialization formatting by using the Serialization Formatter classes.

• SoapFormatter class (Refer System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Soap namespace)
• BinaryFormatter class (Refer System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary namespace)

Access files and folders by using the File System classes. (Refer System.IO namespace)

• File class and FileInfo class
• Directory class and DirectoryInfo class
• DriveInfo class and DriveType enumeration
• FileSystemInfo class and FileSystemWatcher class
• Path class
• ErrorEventArgs class and ErrorEventHandler delegate
• RenamedEventArgs class and RenamedEventHandler delegate

Manage byte streams by using Stream classes. (Refer System.IO namespace)

• FileStream class
• Stream class
• MemoryStream class
• BufferedStream class

Manage the .NET Framework application data by using Reader and Writer classes. (Refer System.IO namespace)

• StringReader class and StringWriter class
• TextReader class and TextWriter class
• StreamReader class and StreamWriter class
• BinaryReader class and BinaryWriter class

Compress or decompress stream information in a .NET Framework application (refer System.IO.Compression namespace), and improve the security of application data by using isolated storage. (Refer System.IO.IsolatedStorage namespace)

• IsolatedStorageFile class
• IsolatedStorageFileStream class
• DeflateStream class
• GZipStream class

Improving the security of the .NET Framework applications by using the .NET Framework 2.0 security features
Implement code access security to improve the security of a .NET Framework application. (Refer System.Security namespace)

• SecurityManager class
• CodeAccessPermission class
• Modify the Code Access security policy at the computer, user, and enterprise policy level by using the Code Access Security Policy tool (Caspol.exe).
• PermissionSet class and NamedPermissionSet class
• Standard Security interfaces
  • IEvidenceFactory interface
  • IPermission interface

Implement access control by using the System.Security.AccessControl classes.

• DirectorySecurity class, FileSecurity class, FileSystemSecurity class, and RegistrySecurity class
• AccessRule class
• AuthorizationRule class and AuthorizationRuleCollection class
• CommonAce class, CommonAcl class, CompoundAce class, GenericAce class, and GenericAcl class
• AuditRule class
• MutexSecurity class, ObjectSecurity class, and SemaphoreSecurity class

Implement a custom authentication scheme by using the System.Security.Authentication classes. (Refer System.Security.Authentication namespace)
Encrypt, decrypt, and hash data by using the System.Security.Cryptography classes. (Refer System.Security.Cryptography namespace)

• DES class and DESCryptoServiceProvider class
• HashAlgorithm class
• DSA class and DSACryptoServiceProvider class
• SHA1 class and SHA1CryptoServiceProvider class
• TripleDES and TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider class
• MD5 class and MD5CryptoServiceProvider class
• RSA class and RSACryptoServiceProvider class
• RandomNumberGenerator class
• CryptoStream class
• CryptoConfig class
• RC2 class and RC2CryptoServiceProvider class
• AssymetricAlgorithm class
• ProtectedData class and ProtectedMemory class
• RijndaelManaged class and RijndaelManagedTransform class
• CspParameters class
• CryptoAPITransform class
• Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC)
  • HMACMD5 class
  • HMACRIPEMD160 class
  • HMACSHA1 class
  • HMACSHA256 class
  • HMACSHA384 class
  • HMACSHA512 class

Control permissions for resources by using the System.Security.Permission classes. (Refer System.Security.Permission namespace)

• SecurityPermission class
• PrincipalPermission class
• FileIOPermission class
• StrongNameIdentityPermission class
• UIPermission class
• UrlIdentityPermission class
• PublisherIdentityPermission class
• GacIdentityPermission class
• FileDialogPermission class
• DataProtectionPermission class
• EnvironmentPermission class
• IUnrestrictedPermission interface
• RegistryPermission class
• IsolatedStorageFilePermission class
• KeyContainerPermission class
• ReflectionPermission class
• StorePermission class
• SiteIdentityPermission class
• ZoneIdentityPermission class

Control code privileges by using System.Security.Policy classes. (Refer System.Security.Policy namespace)

• ApplicationSecurityInfo class and ApplicationSecurityManager class
• ApplicationTrust class and ApplicationTrustCollection class
• Evidence class and PermissionRequestEvidence class
• CodeGroup class, FileCodeGroup class, FirstMatchCodeGroup class, NetCodeGroup class, and UnionCodeGroup class
• Condition classes
  • AllMembershipCondition class
  • ApplicationDirectory class and ApplicationDirectoryMembershipCondition class
  • GacInstalled class and GacMembershipCondition class
  • Hash class and HashMembershipCondition class
  • Publisher class and PublisherMembershipCondition class
  • Site class and SiteMembershipCondition class
  • StrongName class and StrongNameMembershipCondition class
  • Url class and UrlMembershipConditon class
  • Zone class and ZoneMembershipCondition class
• PolicyLevel class and PolicyStatement class
• IApplicationTrustManager interface, IMembershipCondition interface, and IIdentityPermissionFactory interface

Access and modify identity information by using the System.Security.Principal classes. (Refer System.Security.Principal namespace)

• GenericIdentity class and GenericPrincipal class
• WindowsIdentity class and WindowsPrincipal class
• NTAccount class and SecurityIdentifier class
• IIdentity interface and IPrincipal interface
• WindowsImpersonationContext class
• IdentityReference class and IdentityReferenceCollection class

Implementing interoperability, reflection, and mailing functionality in a .NET Framework application
Expose COM components to the .NET Framework and the .NET Framework components to COM. (Refer System.Runtime.InteropServices namespace)

• Import a type library as an assembly.
  • Add references to type libraries.
  • Type Library Importer (Tlbimp.exe)
  • Generate interop assemblies from type libraries.
    • Imported Library Conversion
    • Imported Module Conversion
    • Imported Type Conversion
    • Imported Member Conversion
    • Imported Parameter Conversion
  • TypeConverter class
• Create COM types in managed code.
• Compile an interop project.
• Deploy an interop application.
• Qualify the .NET Framework types for interoperation.
• Apply Interop attributes, such as the ComVisibleAttribute class.
• Package an assembly for COM.
• Deploy an application for COM access.

Call unmanaged DLL functions in a .NET Framework application, and control the marshaling of data in a .NET Framework application. (Refer System.Runtime.InteropServices namespace)

• Platform Invoke
• Create a class to hold DLL functions.
• Create prototypes in managed code.
  • DllImportAttribute class
• Call a DLL function.
• Call a DLL function in special cases, such as passing structures and implementing callback functions.
• Create a new Exception class and map it to an HRESULT.
• Default marshaling behavior
• Marshal data with Platform Invoke
• Marshal data with COM Interop
• MarshalAsAttribute class and Marshal class

Implement reflection functionality in a .NET Framework application (refer System.Reflection namespace), and create metadata, Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL), and a PE file by using the System.Reflection.Emit namespace.

• Assembly class
• Assembly attributes
  • AssemblyAlgorithmIdAttribute class
  • AssemblyCompanyAttribute class
  • AssemblyConfigurationAttribute class
  • AssemblyCopyrightAttribute class
  • AssemblyCultureAttribute class
  • AssemblyDefaultAliasAttribute class
  • AssemblyDelaySignAttribute class
  • AssemblyDescriptionAttribute class
  • AssemblyFileVersionAttribute class
  • AssemblyFlagsAttribute class
  • AssemblyInformationalVersionAttribute class
  • AssemblyKeyFileAttribute class
  • AssemblyTitleAttribute class
  • AssemblyTrademarkAttribute class
  • AssemblyVersionAttribute class
• Info classes
  • ConstructorInfo class
  • MethodInfo class
  • MemberInfo class
  • PropertyInfo class
  • FieldInfo class
  • EventInfo class
  • LocalVariableInfo class
• Binder class and BindingFlags
• MethodBase class and MethodBody class
• Builder classes
  • AssemblyBuilder class
  • ConstructorBuilder class
  • EnumBuilder class
  • EventBuilder class
  • FieldBuilder class
  • LocalBuilder class
  • MethodBuilder class
  • ModuleBuilder class
  • ParameterBuilder class
  • PropertyBuilder class
  • TypeBuilder class

Send electronic mail to a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server for delivery from a .NET Framework application. (Refer System.Net.Mail namespace)

• MailMessage class
• MailAddress class and MailAddressCollection class
• SmtpClient class, SmtpPermission class, and SmtpPermissionAttribute class
• Attachment class, AttachmentBase class, and AttachmentCollection class
• SmtpException class and SmtpFailedRecipientException class
• SendCompletedEventHandler delegate
• LinkedResource class and LinkedResourceCollection class
• AlternateView class and AlternateViewCollection class

Implementing globalization, drawing, and text manipulation functionality in a .NET Framework application
Format data based on culture information. (Refer System.Globalization namespace)

• Access culture and region information in a .NET Framework application.
  • CultureInfo class
  • CultureTypes enumeration
  • RegionInfo class
• Format date and time values based on the culture.
  • DateTimeFormatInfo class
• Format number values based on the culture.
  • NumberFormatInfo class
  • NumberStyles enumeration
• Perform culture-sensitive string comparison.
  • CompareInfo class
  • CompareOptions enumeration
• Build a custom culture class based on existing culture and region classes.
  • CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder class
  • CultureAndRegionModifiers enumeration

Enhance the user interface of a .NET Framework application by using the System.Drawing namespace.

• Enhance the user interface of a .NET Framework application by using brushes, pens, colors, and fonts.
  • Brush class
  • Brushes class
  • SystemBrushes class
  • TextureBrush class
  • Pen class
  • Pens class
  • SystemPens class
  • SolidBrush class
  • Color structure
  • ColorConverter class
  • ColorTranslator class
  • SystemColors class
  • StringFormat class
  • Font class
  • FontConverter class
  • FontFamily class
  • SystemFonts class
• Enhance the user interface of a .NET Framework application by using graphics, images, bitmaps, and icons.
  • Graphics class
  • BufferedGraphics class
  • BufferedGraphicsManager class
  • Image class
  • ImageConverter class
  • ImageAnimator class
  • Bitmap class
  • Icon class
  • IconConverter class
  • SystemIcons class
• Enhance the user interface of a .NET Framework application by using shapes and sizes.
  • Point Structure
  • PointConverter class
  • Rectangle Structure
  • RectangleConverter class
  • Size Structure
  • SizeConverter class
  • Region class

Enhance the text handling capabilities of a .NET Framework application (refer System.Text namespace), and search, modify, and control text in a .NET Framework application by using regular expressions. (Refer System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace)

• StringBuilder class
• Regex class
• Match class and MatchCollection class
• Group class and GroupCollection class
• Encode text by using Encoding classes
  • Encoding class
  • EncodingInfo class
  • ASCIIEncoding class
  • UnicodeEncoding class
  • UTF8Encoding class
  • Encoding Fallback classes
    • EncoderFallback
    • EncoderFallbackBuffer
    • EncoderFallbackException
    • EncoderReplacementFallback
    • EncoderReplacementFallbackBuffer
    • EncoderExceptionFallback
    • EncoderExceptionFallbackBuffer
• Decode text by using Decoding classes.
  • Decoder class
  • Decoder Fallback classes
    • DecoderFallback
    • DecoderFallbackBuffer
    • DecoderFallbackException
    • DecoderReplacementFallback
    • DecoderReplacementFallbackBuffer
    • DecoderExceptionFallback
    • DecoderExceptionFallbackBuffer
• Capture class and CaptureCollection class

Today I’m switching my default search provider in Internet Explorer over to the new Microsoft Search Engine: Bing.

It seems fast, perhaps even faster than Google and with the few searches I’ve done it seems to provide the right results.

Did some quick looking around, there is a Bing developer page and Bing API as well.

Links:

• Bing: www.bing.com
• Bing Developer Center: http://www.bing.com/developers/
• Bing API: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd251056.aspx
• Bing SDK (beta): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0F513086-078B-47A8-A889-842DC93A69AB&displaylang=en

I’m playing around with code generation using Visual Studio 2008 T4 and I needed to pull in some data. Easiest way to create the data is using Excel and then pull it into a dataset. Using the right connection string this becomes very easy.

The code below shows how to select the data from a worksheet.

public class Excel2007Reader

{

    private static string BuildExcelConnection( string filename )

    {

        return @"Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=" + filename + @";Extended Properties=""Excel 12.0;HDR=YES;""";

    }

    public static DataSet Read( string filename, string worksheet, string range, string tableName )

    {

        DataSet result = new DataSet();

        string connectionString = BuildExcelConnection( filename );

        string select = @"SELECT * FROM [" + worksheet + "$" + range + "]";

        using ( OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection( connectionString ) )

        {

            conn.Open();

            using ( OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand( select, conn ) )

            {

                OleDbDataAdapter da = new OleDbDataAdapter( cmd );

                da.Fill( result, tableName );

            }

            conn.Close();

        }

        return result;

    }

}

In our Maine Microsoft Certification Study Group we recently had a discussion about using regular expression. Today I found myself writing a RegEx to check for illegal characters in a formula (string). I thought I’d share the solution:

private bool FormulaContainsIllegalCharacters( string formula )

{

    bool result = false;

    try

    {

        Regex r = new Regex( @"(!)|(@)|(#)|(\$)|(%)|(&)" );

        result = r.Match( formula ).Success;

    }

    catch { } // ignore any regular expressions errors -> return false

    return result;

}

In my case I’m not interested in handling exceptions. If a technical error occurs I will accept the input. Notice that I needed to put a “\” before the $ sign, since the $ is a reserved character marking the end of a line.
I don’t need to put each character in “( )” brackets, but for personal preference I just find it easer to read.

Whenever I need one I always need search for a good ASII table.

So here is one:

Another little extension method. This one allows easy rounding to a specific number of decimals:

double d = 0.66782423;
string s = d.ToString(3);  // s = “0.668”

This is done by the following method:

public static class DoubleExtension

{

    public static string ToString( this double value, int decimals )

    {

        StringBuilder format = new StringBuilder( "0" );

        if ( decimals > 0 )

        {

            format.Append( "." );

        }

        for ( int i = 0; i < decimals; i++ )

        {

            format.Append( "0" );

        }

        return value.ToString( format.ToString() );

    }

}

The leading event for C#, VB.Net, ASP.NET, DotNetNuke and Delphi developers is now open for registration!

For the 18th year running the Software Development Network will organize this 2 day event (on October 19th and 20th, 2009) with sessions about :

• .NET (C#, VB.Net, F#, etc.)
• User eXperience (ASP.Net, Silverlight, Expressions, Flash, etc.)
• Information Worker (MOSS, BizTalk, OBA, etc.)
• DotNetNuke (OpenForce Europe ’09 conference)
• Delphi
• Architecture
• Core Systems (C, Cobol, NonStop, IDMS, PL/1, DB2, CICS, TSO, ISPF, etc.)
• Databases

Don’t miss out! Click here to register.

Today I had to fix a bug in some code involving a program creating multiple files where each file needed to have a unique machine generated filename. I was building my own unique name using the DateTime.Now.Ticks().ToString() as part of the name. Apparently on some machines the Ticks are not going to be unique. So I looked at the Path.GetTempFile() method, but I needed to control the location of the temporary files. Next stop: Path.GetRandomFileName().

Documentation:
The GetRandomFileName method returns a cryptographically strong, random string that can be used as either a folder name or a file name. Unlike GetTempFileName, GetRandomFileName does not create a file. When the security of your file system is paramount, this method should be used instead of GetTempFileName.

Works great!

Yeah, my last Training Kit is shipping!

Get a copy now at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/dxwdz5

The documentation doesn't specifiy it but in the Entity Framework when you call ObjectContext.SaveChanges the update is 'wrapped' in a transaction.

NorthwindIBModel model = new NorthwindIBModel();

Guid id = Guid.NewGuid();

model.AddToCustomer(new Customer() { CustomerID = id, ContactName = "Andrew", CompanyName = "Northwind Traders" });
model.AddToCustomer(new Customer() { CustomerID = id, ContactName = "Aikido", CompanyName = "Northwind Traders " });

model.SaveChanges(); // exception duplicate key - transactional -> no changes to the database

I had to find out which platform supports which version of the .NET Framework. The information is a little fragmented, but here is the overview I came up with.

Windows 95
The .NET Framework cannot be installed on Windows 95.

Windows 98
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0

Windows 98 SE
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0

Windows ME
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0

Windows NT 4.0 SP6a
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1

Windows XP
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1

Windows XP SP2
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5

Windows 2000
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1

Windows 2000 SP4
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0

Windows Vista
.NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5

Windows 2000 Server SP2
.NET 1.0, .NET 1.1

Windows Server 2003
.NET 1.1, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0

Windows Server 2003 SP1
.NET 1.1, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5

Windows Server 2003 R2
.NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5

Windows Server 2008
.NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5

Just to be clear, .NET 3.5 cannot be installed on:

• Microsoft Windows 95
• Microsoft Windows 98
• Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
• Microsoft Windows NT Server
• Windows NT Workstation
• Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Windows 2000 Server
• Windows 2000 Advanced Server
• Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
• Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems
• Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition for Itanium-based Systems

References:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973853.aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229068(VS.80).aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb882520.aspx

[UPDATE: .NET 3.0 will not run on Windows 2000 or Windows 200o SP4]

I regularly get asked for references on which books are interesting for people starting with C# and .NET. I'm not good at remembering books, but usually squeeze out a reference. Today I ran across a good list of Essential Reading compiled by my DevelopMentor colleague Tony Sneed. I'm shamelessly copying it here since I concur with his list.

Essential .Net 2.0 Reading

The C# Language

• Essential C# 2.0 by Mark Michaelis

.Net in General

• CLR via C#, Second Edition by Jeffrey Richter
  
• Programming .NET Components, 2nd Edition by Juval Lowy

Windows Forms

• Windows Forms 2.0 Programming 2nd Edition by Chris Sells
  
• Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0 by Brian Noyes
  
• Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce by Brian Noyes

Web Apps

• Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C# by Fritz Onion
  
• Essential ASP.NET 2.0 by Fritz Onion and Keith Brown

Essential .Net 3.0 Reading

Presentation Foundation

• Essential Windows Presentation Foundation by Chris Anderson
  
• Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed by Adam Nathan
  
• Programming WPF by Chris Sells and Ian Griffiths

Workflow

• Programming Windows Workflow Foundation by K. Scott Allen
  
• Essential Windows Workflow Foundation by Shukla, et al

Communication Foundation

• Learning WCF by Michele Bustamante
  
• Programming WCF Services by Juval Lowy

CardSpace

• Understanding Windows CardSpace by Bertocci, et al

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and .NET 3.5 SP1 offer an extensive list of enhancements, but also of bug fixes, here are the links in case (like me) your looking for a specific fix:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950263/ - List of changes and fixed issues in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951845/ - List of changes and fixed issues in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 for Team Editions 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950264/ - List of changes and fixed issues in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 for Express Editions

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951847/ - List of changes and fixed issues in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 for the .NET Framework 3.5

My article on combining AIM Call Out with geocoding a phone number to display the location of the person you're trying to call has gone live on the AOL Developer Network.

I think it turned into a very cool sample application.

Dial a number and see the location of the person you're calling!

The article I wrote about building a Voice over IP .NET application using AIM Call Out and the AOL Open Voice API has just gone live on the AOL Developer Network. Read it here.

A lot is being blogged about the availability of VS 2008 SP1 and TFS SP1. It contains fixes and many new features and sound almost too good to be true, but I checked, it's not an April fool's joke

A little lost in the noise about new features is the fact that .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 will include .NET CLR 2.0 SP2. I've been unable to find anything about this other than this one post by Eric Eilebrecht, but any CLR update is significant.

In the .NET Framework, most of the time, the name of an assembly matches the namespace of the classes in that assembly.

Since WCF is kind of an add-on to the .NET 2.0 Framework this is not quite true for the assembly System.ServiceModel.Web.dll

Below a screenshot of what .NET Reflector shows to be inside this assembly.

As you can see this assembly extends a number of namespaces like System.Runtime.Serialization and System.Collections.ObjectModel.

The Json serialization classes are also in this assembly.

The last couple of weeks I've been working on migrating an ASP.NET application from using a Visual FoxPro database to using SQL Server 2005. My application has it's logic in library DLL and with some layering uses Typed DataSets to connect to the database.

Typical code within the data access layer looks like this:

internal ViewDataSet.RequestViewDataTable GetViewByPrimaryUser( string user )
{
    using ( ViewDataSetTableAdapters.RequestViewTableAdapter _adapter 
             = new ViewDataSetTableAdapters.RequestViewTableAdapter() )
    {
        ViewDataSet.RequestViewDataTable table;
        table = _adapter.GetByPrimaryUser( user.Trim() );
        return table;
    }
}

The method 'GetByPrimaryUser' is defined on the TableAdapter and using the GUI designer in Visual Studio I manage my typed datasets. All SQL is stored within the Typed DataSets. There is very limited use of stored procedures.

Migrating the .NET code from using a Visual FoxPro database to using SQL Server 2005 has involved the following:

• Change the connection string property on every datatable to use the SQL Server connection string instead of the FoxPro connection string.
• Opening every single query and changing the SQL parameters from question marks '?' to named parameters like '@user'.
• Rechecking the mapping of the columns in the datatable, sometimes these would get messed up. Especially in cases where non-database columns where added to the datatable.
• Rechecking column expressions.
• Some areas of the code accessed the OleDbDataAdapter and OleDbConnection within the typed dataset, this had to be replaced with SqlDataAdapter and SqlConnection.
• FoxPro does not support the .NET light weight transactions, so code to custom manage the transaction could be deleted and a simple 'using( TransactionScope tx = new TransactionScope() )' could be implemented.
• There where several areas where 'adapter.Update(row)' did not work with FoxPro, so the Insert/Update/Delete had to be called manually in the data access layer. With SQL Server there are no problems and this 'fix-it' code could be removed.

After following these steps some of the datatables would generate unexplicable validation errors. Not wanting to waste too much time I just re-created those typed tables and re-added the queries on those tables.

Since the advent of cheap web hosting, we have had more development in the field of SEM. Thanks to features like internet phone, managing internet network marketing is a lot more feasible now. Marketing strategies like cpc, ppi and pay per click can be managed with much more comfort now. Usually regular advertising agencies miss out on this since they concentrate more on building links through email marketing.

Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite has just become available on MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

Another gem in .NET 2.0. Parsing a string to get a datetime used to be pretty complex. But now with the DateTime.ParseExact(...) method you can specify the exact format of your string.

string s = "20071231T214559";
DateTime d = DateTime.ParseExact( s, "yyyyMMddTHHmmss", null );
this.textBox2.Text = d.ToString();  // this will print: 31-12-2007 21:45:59

Steve Tibbet has a post describing all the options for specifying the format.

The .NET Framework is huge and I still frequently find new things in .NET 2.0 which I had not seen before. Last week I stumbled across the update in Math.Round(...).
In .NET 1.x the .NET Framework would only support the American way of rounding numbers. This means that:

decimal y = 2.5M;
decimal x = Math.Round(y, 0);     // x = 2

For Dutch people this wrong. We would expect x to be '3'.
In .NET 2.0 there is a new overload, allowing you to specify how the Round method should work.

decimal y = 2.5M;
decimal x = Math.Round(y, 0, MidpointRounding.AwayFromZero);     // x = 3!