Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Ultimate Beta has just become available for download. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28975 to download the bits.

Silverlight 5 got released this weekend and can be downloaded here: http://www.silverlight.net/downloads.

Summary of the features

(from the Silverlight 5 download package)

Improved media support

• Low Latency Audio Playback
• Variable Speed Playback
• H/W Decode of H.264 media
• DRM Key Rotation/LiveTV Playback
• Application-Restricted Media

Improved Text support

• Text Tracking & Leading
• Linked Text Containers
• OpenType and Pixel Snapped Text
• Postscript vector printing
• Performance improvements for Block Layout Engine.
  

Building next-generation business applications

• PivotViewer
• ClickCount
• Listbox/ComboBox type-ahead text searching
• Ancestor RelativeSource Binding
• Implicit DataTemplates
• DataContextChanged event
• Added PropertyChanged to the UpdateSourceTrigger enum
• Save File and Open File Dialog
• Databinding Debugging
• Custom Markup Extensions
• Binding on Style Setters

Silverlight 5 performance improvements

• Parser Performance Improvements
• Network Latency Improvements
• H/W accelerated rendering in IE9 windowless mode
• Multicore JIT
• 64-bit browser support

Graphics improvements

• Improved Graphics stack
• 3D

"Trusted Application" model

• Multiple window support
• Full-Trust in-browser
• In-browser HTML support
• Unrestricted File System Access
• P/Invoke support

Tools improvements

• Visual Studio Team Test support

Richard Blewett reminded me that the XmlReader.ReadSubtree method makes it even easier to use LINQ to XML with a streaming approach. The code sample below will load nodes from an arbitrary XML files and yield them to the caller as they’re read from file:

            static IEnumerable<XElement> Load(string filename, string elementName)

{

    XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();

    settings.IgnoreWhitespace = true;

            using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(filename,
settings))

    {

            while (reader.ReadToFollowing(elementName))

        {

            // build element from subtree
          

            XElement element = XElement.Load(reader.ReadSubtree());

            yield
            return element;

        }

    }

}

Just came across this great picture of what’s new in .NET Framework 4.5 (click for larger version):

I was implementing a client report (RDLC) using the Microsoft Report Viewer control and I wanted to set the background color of a table field based on value from my object source. At first I used the Color.ToKnownColor() method, but discovered that this does not work for all colors. I needed to convert to Hex. Here is the little extension method I used:

              public
              static
              class ColorExtensions

{

              #region --
Data Members --

              static
              char[]
hexDigits = {

              '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7',

              '8', '9', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F'};

              #endregion
            

              ///
<summary>
            

              ///
Convert a .NET Color to a hex string.
            

              ///
</summary>
            

              ///
<returns>ex: "#FFFFFF", "#554ECE"</returns>
            

              public
              static
              string ToHexString( this Color
color )

    {

              byte[]
bytes = newbyte[3];

        bytes[0] = color.R;

        bytes[1] = color.G;

        bytes[2] = color.B;

              char[]
chars = newchar[bytes.Length
* 2];

              for ( int i
= 0; i < bytes.Length; i++ )

        {

              int b
= bytes[i];

            chars[i * 2] = hexDigits[b >> 4];

            chars[i * 2 + 1] = hexDigits[b & 0xF];

        }

              return
              "#" + newstring(
chars );

    }

}

In the model below the phone number for an artist is actually a complex type (a little over engineered, I know, but I was just exploring how well this works).

The complex type consists of 4 ‘fields’: CountryCode, AreaCode, Number and Extension:

Each ‘field’ has properties set:

The great part is that this is fully supported by the DDL generator, so right click on the Entity Framework Designer in Visual Studio 2010 and choose ‘Generate Database From Model…’ and the ‘Artist’ table will be generated as:

              --
--------------------------------------------------
            

              --
Entity Designer DDL Script for SQL Server 2005, 2008, and Azure
            

              --
--------------------------------------------------
            

              --
--------------------------------------------------
            

              --
Creating all tables
            

              --
--------------------------------------------------
            

              --
Creating table 'Artists'
            

              CREATE
              TABLE [dbo].[Artists]
(

    [Id] intIDENTITY(1,1) NOTNULL,

    [Name] nvarchar(100)  NOTNULL,

    [IsIndividual] bitNOTNULL,

    [Phone_CountryCode] nvarchar(4)  NOTNULL,

    [Phone_AreaCode] nvarchar(5)  NOTNULL,

    [Phone_Number] nvarchar(10)  NOTNULL,

    [Phone_Extension] nvarchar(10)  NULL

);

              GO
            

              --
<snip other tables>
            

              --
--------------------------------------------------
            

              --
Creating all PRIMARY KEY constraints
            

              --
--------------------------------------------------
            

              --
Creating primary key on [Id] in table 'Artists'
            

              ALTER
              TABLE [dbo].[Artists]

              ADD
              CONSTRAINT [PK_Artists]

              PRIMARY
              KEY
              CLUSTERED ([Id] ASC);

              GO
            

              --
<snip other primary and foreign key>
            

              --
--------------------------------------------------
            

              --
Script has ended
            

-- --------------------------------------------------

Nice! My article on Amazon Relational Data Services has been published on the Amazon AWS website.

Read the article here: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/9979097549052401/177-0027339-2797707

Entity Framework 4 enables lazy loading of entities by default. I’m not going to argue about whether that is good or bad, but there is something you should be aware of. If you’re like me, then over the years you’ll have learned that most classes that implement IDisposable should be used using a ‘using’ statement. This is especially true if you’re connecting to a database. So using Entity Framework your code may look something like this:

            1:
            using
             ( MyEntities db
= newMyEntities ()
)

          

            2:
            {
          

            3:
            var
             query
= from e in db.Employees

          

            4:
            where
             e.EmployeeId
== employeeId

          

            5:
            select
             e;

          

            6:
          

            7:
            return
             query.SingleOrDefault();

          

            8:
            }
          

            9:
          

This code will run fine and return a single employee. If however the Employee entity has a relationship things get a little interesting. Suppose the Employee has a relationship with a Department entity (via a property named ‘Department’). The department does not get loaded because db.LazyLoadingEnabled is true (by default).

Now suppose the above code is part of a WCF operation. The WCF operation want to return the Employee to the caller. Here is what happens: When WCF starts serializing the Employee object it sees the Department property and will try to access the property, since it setup to do lazy loading it will now go back to the database to load the department row. BUT hold on, the ‘using’-statement has already disposed of the object context and closed the database connection. What is the error that you’ll see? Well it starts with a CommunicationException: “The underlying connection was closed: The connection closed unexpectedly”.

This may throw you off and make you look for a WCF issue, but you’ll be looking in the wrong area. The actual cause of the error is on the server and the fact that the ObjectContext has been disposed yet is being used.

One solution would be to increase the lifespan of the object context and not dispose of it. This, to me, feels wrong. So instead I’ll just disable lazy loading.This can be done in the code:

            1:
            using
             ( MyEntities db
= newMyEntities ()
)

          

            2:
            {
          

            3: db.ContextOptions.LazyLoadingEnabled
= false ;

            4:
          

            5:
            var
             query
= from e in db.Employees

          

            6:
            where
             e.EmployeeId
== employeeId

          

            7:
            select
             e;

          

            8:
          

            9:
            return
             query.SingleOrDefault();

          

            10:
            }
          

Or you can go to the designer and change the default:

Note: I’m note sure why lazy loading enabled is set to ‘True’ by default (but it is on my machine). According to the documentation ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.objects.objectcontextoptions.lazyloadingenabled(VS.100).aspx ) it should default to false.

Etienne Trembley found the solution to a problem that’s been haunting me since I installed IE9 beta. As it turns out IE9 prefers IPv6 over IPv4 AND on a Windows 7 64bit machine the hosts file (in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc) does not provide an IPV4 entry to make localhost look at 127.0.0.1. Adding the localhost entry in the host file solves the issues!

Read the full post here: http://geekswithblogs.net/etiennetremblay/archive/2010/10/07/ie-9-cassini-and-the-dreaded-dns-error-or-page.aspx

For many years the mantra for implementing business logic in your line of business application has been: “don’t put it in the database, don’t put it in the user interface”. In other words, apply the layers design pattern if at all possible, together with implementing the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) or Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. Technologies like Entity Framework help us convert data in the database to .NET objects and add logic. Life is good.

Then it is time to create a report. Traditionally reports are run against the database and any self respecting reporting technology will to this day still offer you the option of building a report by querying directly against the database. Out the door goes the reuse of your .NET based business logic, right? No need to fear, Visual Studio offers a solution. Starting with Visual Studio 2005 Microsoft started shipping the ReportViewerControl with Visual Studio. Where SQL Server Reporting Services is full fledged reporting solution, with it’s own server, scheduling engine, user interface, the ReportViewerControl is only a small part of the food chain. The ReportViewerControl will render a report defined by an RDLC file against the data you feed into it. The data can still come from a database, but also from a WCF Service, any .NET object or SharePoint.

Let’s look at a sample. The sample will work on the AdventureWorks2008R2 database which can be downloaded from CodePlex. I’ve then created two views: CustomerView and OrderView. These views limit the data to Massachusetts and join a couple of table to make for more demo-friendly data.

The following script will add the two views that we’ll be using:

              USE [AdventureWorks2008R2]

              GO
            

              /******
Object: View [dbo].[CustomerView] Script Date: 01/21/2011 05:53:18 ******/
            

              IF
              EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.views WHERE object_id
= OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[CustomerView]'))

              DROP
              VIEW [dbo].[CustomerView]

              GO
            

              /******
Object: View [dbo].[CustomerView] Script Date: 01/21/2011 05:53:18 ******/
            

              SET ANSI_NULLS ON

              GO
            

              SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON

              GO
            

              IF
              NOT
              EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.views WHERE object_id
= OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[CustomerView]'))

              EXEC dbo.sp_executesql
@statement = N'CREATE
VIEW [dbo].[CustomerView]

AS

SELECT DISTINCT Sales.Customer.AccountNumber, Person.Person.LastName, Person.Person.FirstName, Sales.Store.Name AS StoreName, Sales.Customer.CustomerID

FROM         Sales.Customer INNER JOIN

                      Person.Person ON Sales.Customer.PersonID = Person.Person.BusinessEntityID INNER JOIN

                      Sales.Store ON Sales.Customer.StoreID = Sales.Store.BusinessEntityID INNER JOIN

                      dbo.OrderView ON Sales.Customer.CustomerID = dbo.OrderView.CustomerID

' 

              GO
            

              /******
Object: View [dbo].[OrderView] Script Date: 01/21/2011 05:54:51 ******/
            

              IF
              EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.views WHERE object_id
= OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[OrderView]'))

              DROP
              VIEW [dbo].[OrderView]

              GO
            

              /******
Object: View [dbo].[OrderView] Script Date: 01/21/2011 05:54:51 ******/
            

              SET ANSI_NULLS ON

              GO
            

              SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON

              GO
            

              IF
              NOT
              EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.views WHERE object_id
= OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[OrderView]'))

              EXEC dbo.sp_executesql
@statement = N'CREATE
VIEW [dbo].[OrderView]

AS

SELECT     Sales.SalesOrderHeader.SalesOrderID, Sales.SalesOrderHeader.CustomerID, Production.Product.Name AS ProductName, Sales.SalesOrderDetail.OrderQty, 

                      Sales.SalesOrderDetail.UnitPrice, Sales.SalesOrderDetail.UnitPriceDiscount, Sales.SalesOrderDetail.LineTotal, Person.Address.AddressLine1, 

                      Person.Address.AddressLine2, Person.Address.City, Person.Address.PostalCode, Person.StateProvince.StateProvinceCode, Person.Address.SpatialLocation

FROM         Person.StateProvince INNER JOIN

                      Person.Address ON Person.StateProvince.StateProvinceID = Person.Address.StateProvinceID AND 

                      Person.StateProvince.StateProvinceID = Person.Address.StateProvinceID AND Person.StateProvince.StateProvinceID = Person.Address.StateProvinceID INNER JOIN

                      Sales.SalesOrderDetail INNER JOIN

                      Sales.SalesOrderHeader ON Sales.SalesOrderDetail.SalesOrderID = Sales.SalesOrderHeader.SalesOrderID INNER JOIN

                      Production.Product ON Sales.SalesOrderDetail.ProductID = Production.Product.ProductID ON 

                      Person.Address.AddressID = Sales.SalesOrderHeader.ShipToAddressID

WHERE     (Person.StateProvince.StateProvinceCode = N''MA'')

' 

              GO
            

Next step is to create a WCF service application, add an Entity Framework model and drag the two views onto the model:

Next we’ll implement two methods to use the Entity Framework model to select the data and return a list of CustomerView or OrderView objects. 


Note: Normally you would not select all the contents in a view, but since we know
that the number of rows in our views are already limited in numbers there is no problem
here.

            1:
            using
             System;

          

            2:
            using
             System.Collections.Generic;

          

            3:
            using
             System.Linq;

          

            4:
            using
             System.Runtime.Serialization;

          

            5:
            using
             System.ServiceModel;

          

            6:
            using
             System.ServiceModel.Web;

          

            7:
            using
             System.Text;

          

            8:
          

            9:
            namespace
             AdventureServices

          

            10:
            {
          

            11:
            public
            
              class
              
                AdventureService
                 : IAdventureService
              
            
          

            12:
            {
          

            13:
          

            14:
             #region
             IAdventureService
Members

          

            15:
          

            16:
            public
            
              List
               <CustomerView >
GetReportCustomerData()

            
          

            17:
            {
          

            18:
            using
             ( AdventureEntities db
= newAdventureEntities ()
)

          

            19:
            {
          

            20:
            var
             query
= from customer in db.CustomerViews select customer;

          

            21:
            return
             query.ToList();

          

            22:
            }
          

            23:
            }
          

            24:
          

            25:
            public
            
              List
               <OrderView >
GetReportOrderData()

            
          

            26:
            {
          

            27:
            using
             ( AdventureEntities db
= newAdventureEntities ()
)

          

            28:
            {
          

            29:
            var
             query
= from customer in db.OrderViews select customer;

          

            30:
            return
             query.ToList();

          

            31:
            }
          

            32:
            }
          

            33:
          

            34:
             #endregion
            
            
          

            35:
            }
          

            36:
            }
          

            37:
          

            38:
          

Next step is to create a report client. We can use any Windows or ASP.NET application and add start using the ReportViewerControl, but Visual Studio also offers a report application template. Very useful for quick demos:

Create the project (skip the wizard), then delete the Report1.rdlc. Add service reference to you AdventureServices and then add a new report using the Report Wizard (on my machine I’ve had poor luck adding the service reference as part of the wizard steps.

On the first screen of the wizard give the dataset a name (CustomerDataSet), select the service reference as a datasource and pick CustomerView as the available dataset.

On the next screen drag the fields we want to display to the ‘Value’ grid. More complex grouping per row and column is also possible.

Since we’re doing a very basic report the next screen offers no selectable options, although we’re starting to see part of our report.

Next we pick a style. There are a couple to choose from.

We click finish to close the wizard.  Our report looks like this:

Use the designer and the tool box to enhance the report just a little:

Now the next step is to make sure our form will display this report. Go to the Form1 designer, select the ReportViewerControl and look for the smart tag in the top right hand corner of the control.
Activate the smart tag and you’ll see that you have to option to select a report. Select the report you’ve just created:

Notice how at the bottom of the forms designer there now is a design time control:

The design time binding source allows us to feed data into the report. So far the ‘links’ that we created to the service have only been used to pull in the schema of the data to be used. The actual data needs to be fed into the report when the form is run. For this we implement a call to our AdventureService:

            1:
            using
             System;

          

            2:
            using
             System.Collections.Generic;

          

            3:
            using
             System.ComponentModel;

          

            4:
            using
             System.Data;

          

            5:
            using
             System.Drawing;

          

            6:
            using
             System.Text;

          

            7:
            using
             System.Windows.Forms;

          

            8:
          

            9:
            namespace
             AdventureReports

          

            10:
            {
          

            11:
            public
            
              partial
              
                class
                
                  Form1
                   : Form
                
              
            
          

            12:
            {
          

            13:
            public
             Form1()

          

            14:
            {
          

            15: InitializeComponent();

            16:
            }
          

            17:
          

            18:
            private
            
              void
               Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

            
          

            19:
            {
          

            20:
            using
             (
AdventureServiceReference.AdventureServiceClient client
= new AdventureServiceReference.AdventureServiceClient ()
)

          

            21:
            {
          

            22:
            this
             .CustomerViewBindingSource.DataSource
= client.GetReportCustomerData();

          

            23:
            }
          

            24:
            this
             .reportViewer1.RefreshReport();

          

            25:
            }
          

            26:
            }
          

            27:
            }
          

            28:
          

Note: Even though our service does not take any parameters to filter the data I hope you can see that it would only take a small amount of coding to add a couple of fields to the form and pass any kind of selection to the service. I leave the actual implementation of that up to you, when you’re building your ‘real’ report.

The presentation I did on 10-19-2010 at the Bangor Area .NET Developer meeting about SQL Server Reporting Services, Local Reports and Entity Framework can be found here.

I just had an email in my inbox recommending "The Art of Unit testing" by Roy Osherove. I guess I’ll put in another order at Amazon. :-)

I've been doing unit testing for a long time, but since I'm largely self-taught I can probably learn something. Perhaps I’ll even sign up for a course at DevelopMentor. I know all the basics, I feel the biggest challenge with unit testing larger applications is managing test data.

Microsoft has announced two open source solutions for accessing Outlook .pst files. Read the press release here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/may10/05-24PSTToolsPR.mspx

I’ve been able to find the following on Codeplex:

PSTViewTool : http://pstviewtool.codeplex.com/

PST SDK: http://pstsdk.codeplex.com/  [Thanks to Greg!]

Also, doing a search for Outlook on CodePlex offers a lot of solutions for looking at Outlook data or integrating with Outlook: http://www.codeplex.com/site/search?query=outlook

Update: Added the PST SDK.

Here are the two presentations I did at last weeks Augusta Developer Event.

02-24-2010 MDN - Choosing between WinForms, WPF, ASP.NET, Silverlight.pptx

02-24-2010 MDN - Silverlight and Section 508 compliance.pptx

Both Visual Studio 2010 RC as well a Team Foundation Server 2010 RC are available to MSDN Subscribers as of today.
Go to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx

If you want to provide feedback on this release then you do so by using Microsoft Connect.
Go to: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio

For any additional information about versions of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4,
Go to: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate

Time for the first Augusta Developer Event of 2010. Join us for a morning filled with information about Silverlight. Shawn, Chris and Mark will present a variety of topics and we've planned a group discussion, so make sure you come prepared with questions, examples and your experiences.

When
February 24th, 2010 at 9:00am.

What is Silverlight?
Shawn Robichaud – 15 min
Introduction to Silverlight for decision makers, architects and developers.

Choosing the right technology
Mark Blomsma - 30 min
Silverlight vs. WFP vs. Windows Forms vs. ASP.NET. A session for decision makers, architects and developers. Which technology to use for which scenario?

Choosing the right technology – group discussion
Everyone - 30 min
Silverlight vs. WFP vs. Windows Forms vs. ASP.NET. A session for decision makers, architects and developers. Which technology would YOU use for which scenario? Please come prepared with questions, examples and ready to share your experiences.

Silverlight and Section 508 compliance
Mark Blomsma – 30 min
“Section 508 requires that all Web site content be equally accessible to people with disabilities. This applies to Web applications, Web pages and all attached files. It applies to intranet as well as public-facing Web pages.” (http://usability.gov).

Silverlight architecture overview
Chris Bowen – 30 min
Introduction to XAML, Silverlight assemblies, n-tier development, asynchronous behavior, …

Silverlight + Windows Communication Foundation overview
Chris Bowen - 30 min
Introduction to WCF based on a Silverlight demo.

Silverlight + RIA Service overview
Chris Bowen - 30 min
Introduction to RIA Services based on a Silverlight demo.

Wrap up
15 minutes.

Location
The event will be held at:
State of Maine Offices
Harlow Building
First floor conference room
18 Elkins Ave
Augusta

RSVP
Please register so we can make sure we have sufficient room.
Register here: http://www.maine-devnet.org/Home/SignUpForEvent.aspx.

Whoah! Just received an email from PJ:

“We are pleased to present you with the 2010 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Visual C# technical communities during the past year.”

I’ve once again been honored with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award. This is the seventh year running that I’ve been lucky enough to receive this great award and I it’s great to be part of the group of people that receive this award.

Scott Hanselman put up a page to help you detect whether you’re running the latest version of .NET available and also helps you figure out what the smallest version is tha you can download.

Go to http://www.hanselman.com/smallestdotnet/ for more information.

Brian Harry has a post on a little gem called Team Foundation Server 2010 Basic. Price and such is not yet know, but it is set to be a replacement for Visual SourceSafe.

TFS 2010 Beta 2 is available for download (if you’re an MSDN subscriber).

Read the more here: http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2009/10/01/tfs-2010-for-sourcesafe-users.aspx

Go to: http://msdn.microsoft.com to start downloading (I’m at 15% right now :-) ).

If you’re a little confused about the rebranding, then go here for a nice overview of the new names and how they replace previous versions.

The MSDN Visual Studio 2010 page can be found here.

Registration for the 4th quarter MSDN (.NET) Northeast Roadshow has just opened up!  This totally FREE event will be held on Tuesday, December 15th.   Thankfully, we were able to secure more convenient hours this time around.  The event will run from 9:00 am thru 3:30 pm in the Florian Hall of the Central Maine Commerce Center in Augusta. (a.k.a. Public Safety/M.E.M.A)  These events target .NET developers and analysts, or those actively training to become one.  Microsoft Developer Evangelists Chris Bowen and Jim O’Neil will be making the drive up from their regional offices in Massachusetts in order to lead the presentations.

AGENDA

•    WCF (Windows Communications Foundation)
•    Silverlight RIA (Rich Internet Applications) and the MVVM design pattern (Model-View-ViewModel)
•    Where to find help when you get stuck.
•    LINQ  (Language INtegrated Query)
•    ASP .NET Webforms and AJAX

Please register in advance by using the following link:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032429336&Culture=en-US

Jim O’Neil has a great post with a list of links to resources that are useful for developers targeting Windows 7.

Go here: http://blogs.msdn.com/jimoneil/archive/2009/10/17/code-camp-12-7-on-7-resources.aspx

I just ran into a little problem when attempting to run a Visual Studio unit test on my Windows 7 machine. I downloaded log4net.dll and wanted to use it in a project, but when running the unit test I ran into the following error:

Turns out that a downloaded file is blocked. You can unblock the file by right clicking the file and choosing “Unblock”.

Make sure you remove all copies of the assembly (if you have copy local = true) and then recompile.

Chris and Jim are coming to Maine and this time their bringing their TechNet friend Dan Stolts.
Augusta will be home to the MSDN Northeast Road Show and the TechNet Unleashed tour on the same day!

More info on the event can be found at: http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen/archive/2009/07/20/announcing-the-fall-2009-northeast-msdn-roadshow.aspx

Note: You need to register separately for the MSDN and TechNet event!

Update [09-10-2009]: Corrected Jim’s name and Dan is the man that is doing the ITPro sessions :-)

Last night at the BAND (www.bangordevelopers.com) meeting we all did 10 minute presentations on the tool(s) we love as developers.

On my list were: Total Commander, LinqPad, Microsoft Office (codegen with Excel rules :-)), VMWare & VirtualPC, Live Mesh. Also on the list should have been Reflector.

Total Commander

Great tool for FTP-ing files and comparing a local folder hierarchy to the hierarchy on the ftp-server. Also much more reliable in FTP-ing large amounts of files than Windows Explorer.

See: www.ghisler.com

LinqPad

A must have for people using LINQ to SQL and Entity Framwork. Helps a lot with figuring out what the exact SQL statement is that get generated from your LINQ statement.

See: www.linqpad.net

VMWare Converter, VMWare Workstation and VirtualPC

These tools are invaluable in creating clean testing environments and separating multiple development environments on a single machine. VMWare converter allows you to grab a physical harddrive and convert it into a virtual machine. Very useful for Windows 7 migration scenarios!
See: www.vmware.com, www.microsoft.com/virtualpc

Live Mesh

Is only in beta, but already an invaluable tool for remote desktop connections across firewalls and synchronizing files across (virtual) machines.
See: www.mesh.com

Reflector

.NET Reflector is a tool any serious .NET developer cannot do without. View sources of any .NET library you use in order to track internal workings. Love it!
See: http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/

VSTO offers a number of classes to access Outlook information, but these classes do not implement IEnumerable<T> and are therefore not useable in a LINQ expression.

I wanted to be able to search for appointments using LINQ and write code that looks like this:

          var appointments = new Appointments(); var selectedAppointments
= from appointment in appointments where appointment.Start
<= end // end is parameter && appointment.End
>= start // start is parameter && appointment.Categories.Contains("Billable") orderby appointment.Start select appointment;

To do this I converted the Items collection in an Outlook Folder to an IEnumerable<Outlook._AppointmentItem>.
The code for the Appointments class looks like this:

          using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Outlook
= Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook; namespace Develop_One.OBiOne
{ /// <summary> /// Class
to wrap a collection of Outlook.Items as an IEnumerable of Outlook._AppointmentItem. /// Doing
this allows you to write LINQ queries against the Appointments. ///
</summary> internal class Appointments : IEnumerable<Outlook._AppointmentItem>
{ private Outlook.Items _items; ///
<summary> /// Default constructor will use
the items in the default Calendar folder to initialize items collection. ///
</summary> internal Appointments() { var app
= new Outlook.ApplicationClass(); var cal
= app.Session.GetDefaultFolder(Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar);
_items = cal.Items; } #region IEnumerable<_AppointmentItem>
Members public IEnumerator<Outlook._AppointmentItem>
GetEnumerator() { // use the private AppointmentsEnumerator. return
new AppointmentsEnumerator(this._items);
} #endregion #region IEnumerable Members System.Collections.IEnumerator System.Collections.IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
{ return this.GetEnumerator(); } #endregion
private class AppointmentsEnumerator : IEnumerator<Outlook._AppointmentItem>
{ private System.Collections.IEnumerator _items; internal AppointmentsEnumerator(Outlook.Items items)
{ _items = items.GetEnumerator(); } #region IEnumerator<_AppointmentItem>
Members public Outlook._AppointmentItem Current
{ get { return (Outlook._AppointmentItem)_items.Current;
} } #endregion #region IDisposable Members public
void Dispose() { return; } #endregion
#region IEnumerator Members object System.Collections.IEnumerator.Current
{ get { return (Outlook._AppointmentItem)_items.Current;
} } public bool MoveNext() { bool result
= _items.MoveNext(); while (_items.Current is Outlook._AppointmentItem == false &&
result == true) { result = _items.MoveNext(); } return result;
} public void Reset() { _items.Reset(); } #endregion }
} }

I just came across a nice add-on for Windows Live Writer which allows you to paste colorized source from Visual Studio.

Download it here: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=d8835a5e-28da-4242-82eb-e1a006b083b9&bt=9&pl=8

I’m doing some work where a user can select data based on choice like “This week” and “Last month”. I wrote a bunch of extension methods that are pretty generic and may be useful for others.

Here is is:

          public static class 
          DateTimeExtensions { ///
<summary> /// Return the date that is the
start of the week relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetStartOfWeek(this DateTime date)
{ DayOfWeek day = date.DayOfWeek; int days
= day – CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.FirstDayOfWeek; DateTime start
= date.AddDays(-days); return start.Date; } ///
<summary> /// Return the date that is the
start of the week relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetStartOfLastWeek(this DateTime date)
{ return date.GetStartOfWeek().AddDays(-7); } ///
<summary> /// Return the date that is the
end of the week relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetEndOfWeek(this DateTime date)
{ return date.GetStartOfWeek().AddDays(6); } ///
<summary> /// Return the date that is the
end of the week relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetEndOfLastWeek(this DateTime date)
{ return date.GetEndOfWeek().AddDays(-7); } ///
<summary> /// Return the date that is the
start of the month relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetStartOfMonth(this DateTime date)
{ return new DateTime(date.Year,
date.Month, 1); } /// <summary> /// Return
the date that is the start of previous month relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetStartOfLastMonth(this DateTime date)
{ return date.GetStartOfMonth().AddMonths(-1); } ///
<summary> /// Return the date that is the
end of the month relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetEndOfMonth(this DateTime date)
{ return new DateTime(date.Year,
date.Month, date.GetDaysInMonth(), 23, 59, 59, 999); } ///
<summary> /// Return the date that is the
start of previous month relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetEndOfLastMonth(this DateTime date)
{ return date.GetStartOfLastMonth().GetEndOfMonth();
} /// <summary> /// Returns
the number of days in the month of the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static int GetDaysInMonth(this DateTime date)
{ return DateTime.DaysInMonth(date.Year,
date.Month); } /// <summary> /// Return
the first day of the year relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetStartOfYear(this DateTime date)
{ return new DateTime(date.Year,
1, 1); } /// <summary> /// Return
the first day of the last year relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetStartOfLastYear(this DateTime date)
{ return new DateTime(date.Year
- 1, 1, 1); } /// <summary> /// Return
the last day of the year relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetEndOfYear(this DateTime date)
{ return new DateTime(date.Year,
12, 31, 23, 59, 59, 999); } /// <summary> /// Return
the last day of the last year relative to the specified date. ///
</summary> /// <param name="date"></param> /// <returns></returns> public
static DateTime GetEndOfLastYear(this DateTime date)
{ return new DateTime(date.Year
- 1, 12, 31, 23, 59, 59, 999); } }

I believe the URL has changed, so just in case you lost it… Keep track of blog posts from all the DevelopMentor instructors by subscribing to: http://browse.develop.com/bmsfeed/developmentor http://feeds.feedburner.com/DevelopmentorInstructors

Updated 08-19-2009: Feed is now available at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DevelopmentorInstructors

I’ve been using the ReportViewer control in Visual Studio quite a bit to create RDLC (offline) reports that are based on the result of LINQ queries against object trees. It’s been a while since there has been a new release of this control and Visual Studio 2010 did not include anything major with regards to the ReportViewer control. I asked around and got an email from Robert Bruckner answering my two main questions:

1. Yes, the ReportViewer control in VS2010 will run on both .NET 3.5 as well as .NET 4.0.
2. Yes, the ReportViewer control in VS2010 will support Export to Word for RDLC (offline) scenarios.

Thanks Robert (and the rest of the people working on this technology), great news!

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

Microsoft 70-536 Objectives

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

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

So here is one:

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

If you're using the xsd.exe tool to generate C# code from an XML Schema you'll find that an attribute defined as an integer is generated into a string field.

The reason is listed on MSDN:

The xs:integer type is specified as a number with no upper or lower bound on its size. For this reason, neither XML serialization nor validation map it to the System.Int32 type. Instead, XML serialization maps the xs:integer to a string while validation maps it to the Decimal type that is much larger than any of the integer types in the .NET Framework.

Update [02/26/2012]:
Using the xs:int will make XSD generate integers, more on http://www.w3schools.com/schema/schema_dtypes_numeric.asp. (thanks Marcus Schommler).

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.