Typed DataSets offer a great way to implement the interaction with a database. When using typed datasets in conjunction with source control, like Team Foundation Server, then things get a little tricky. TFS offers optimistic check out (a.k.a. side by side checkout), which means that multiple persons can work on a file at once. If a conflict is detected upon checking in, then the user has the option to use a mergetool to resolve the differences. This works great for most source files, but not so good on designer generated files. This problem manifests itseld a lot around typed datasets, where merging the designer generated files can wreak havoc on your sources and 'break' the designer.

Instead I prefer to use exclusive checkout when editing typed datasets.

To set your source control to allow exclusive checkouts go to the Options page in Visual Studio and set 'Editing' to 'Prompt for exclusive checkouts':

Next time when you are editing a source controlled typed dataset you will get the following question:

Choose the second option (outlined in red) and you'll be fine when checking in.

I just reinstalled Plaxo for Outlook 2007. A great tool which I used to use for Outlook 2003, but initially I had some problems running the integration on Vista with Outlook 2007. A couple of versions down the line these problems appear to be solved and my address book now synchronizes quite smoothly with my Plaxo account. The great thing about Plaxo is that it will automatically update all the contact info of my friends and contacts as soon as they make a change in their info, assuming ofcourse that they also run Plaxo.

To join the social network frenzy there is now also something called 'Plaxo Pulse' a kind of Facebook like way of keeping track what your friends and contacts are doing. It's interesting and since I upgraded to the latest version of Plaxo I seem to automatically be on Pulse. So I'll give it a try and see how it compares to Facebook.

As far as I can tell there is no Pulse API available yet. Although several parts of Plaxo are accessible through the Plaxo developer API. Personally I believe the Open Facebook API to be a great part of Facebooks succes.

Here are some events that I'm involved in, either as speaker, and/or as (co)organizer:

• iSDC Master Class (by iSDC & RONUA), 10-nov-2007, Cluj, Romania.
• VO/Vulcan & FoxPro Software Development Event (by SDN), 12-nov-2007, Ede, The Netherlands.
• MDN Usergroup meeting (by the Maine Developer Network), 29-nov-2007, Waterville, ME, USA.
• December Software Development Event (by SDN), 14-dec-2007, Ede, The Netherlands.

I just finished my sample of the week for my AOL blog. This week I created code to upload a file to XDrive using the HttpWebRequest object. The sample is also useful if you're trying to find out more about uploading a file using C# (or the .NET Framework).

The majority of the time when we look at AJAX we look at making websites more responsive, prettier, faster. Rarely do we (or at least I) think about accessibility features for people that are visually impaired, or deaf or otherwise less able to read my, usually, small print on a website.

Chris Blouch has released a JavaScript library which focusses on making the web 2.0 generation of website more accessible. He has posted a slidedeck from his session at the Ajax Experience Boston (October 26, 2007) online, and the library, including documentation, can be found here.

I particularly found his statistics slide an eye-opener...

Among adult computer users in the US:

• 1 in 4 has a vision difficulty
• 1 in 4 has a dexterity difficulty
• 1 in 5 has a hearing difficulty
• Projected to be 70M users by 2010

After taking a look at becoming an Amazon.com affiliate last week, I decided to place some Google Ads on my blog page as well.

Steps to take:

1. Sign up to Google AdSense.
2. Confirm account.
3. Use the Google site to create a banner appropriate for this blog, then copy and paste the JavaScript code into my site. For DasBlog I modified the 'homeTemplate.blogtemplate' file of the theme that I use for this blog.

It's pretty interesting, the first two or three hits on my site generated pretty random ads, but now they all seem to be IT related. Nifty!

Hurray, I just upgraded this blog to version 2.0.7226.0 of DasBlog. Pretty painless install. The 'dasBlogUpgrader' program worked smoothly

When installing Vista it will, by default, enables shadow copy and system restore points. While definately very useful (and I DO use these on my host OS) I don't like the overhead they create, so I disable this for my virtual machines.

.NET 2.0 has no special support for REST and JSON. That doesn't mean you can't call a REST resource and pass it a JSON object. In my weekly AOL post I demonstrate how to use WebRequest, WebResponse and basic string manipulation to call a REST resource and pass a JSON object.

The Amazon associate program also offers to provide links to specific product. Ofcourse I can't help but put up a link to my book

The way it all works is pretty clever. Using the Amazon tools I search and select a product, then have them generate a little bit of HTML. The HTML is actually an iframe which displays content generated by Amazon. Cool!

 

Today I've signed up for theAmazon.com associates program. I'm trying to learn more about making money on the web and trying to see what vaious parties have to offer. Part of the program that Amazon offers includes being able to place a cloud of tags on your webpage. The tags in the cloud automatically relate to the content on this blog.

Making money through advertising is considered an important revenue model for 'the Web 2.0'. I guess I belong now

Shop at Amazon.com!

I was under the impression that VS2008 would allow you to develop .NET 2.0 applications. This is true, but with one footnote: .NET 2.0 SP1 is supported (from Brock Allen).

My XDriveInfo Vista gadget can now be downloaded from Windows Live Gallery. Go to: http://gallery.live.com/LiveItemDetail.aspx?li=a1c68b35-d3e4-4958-bf0f-90744a8d93f5

I just claimed my blog on Technorati

Here is my Technorati Profile

Exciting! I've been invited by iSDC to do a presentation for RONUA, the ROmanian .NET User Association.

So I'll be in Romania in November. Land of Dracula?!?! 

 

Maine Developer Network on Facebook. In following of the Chris and Bob roadshow we've created an online group on Facebook for our group. Go to http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6451457651 to join.

I did some more research on the settings part of Windows Vista gadgets and storing username/passwords in plain text in your settings is not a smart thing to do.

You can use the JavaScript code below to do basic encryption and decryption.

        function encrypt( plainString )
	{
            if ( plainString == "" ) return "";

            var xor_key = 2;
            var result = "";
            for( i = 0; i < plainString.length; ++i)
            {
		result += String.fromCharCode( xor_key ^ plainString.charCodeAt(i) );
            }
            return result;
	}

	function decrypt( encryptedString ) 
	{
            if ( encryptedString == "" ) return "";
            var xor_key = 2;
            var result;

            for( i = 0; i <  encryptedString.length; i++)
            {
		result += String.fromCharCode( xor_key ^ encryptedString.charCodeAt(i));
            }
	    return result;
	}

Read more background info here.

A Windows Vista gadget is just a zipfile with at a specified location the 'gadget.xml' file.

A mistake I've been making repeatedly is that I right click the folder with my sources and choose 'Send to|Compressed Folder'. Doing this adds the selected folder to the zip. I rename the zip to have the '.gadget' extension and then install the gadget.

Result: nothing happens. :-(

At the 'root' of the zip is a folder with the name of the folder I selected, my sources are one level too deep for Vista to find?!

There is however zero feedback from Vista. Very frustrating. A message saying something like 'Invalid gadget: gadget.xml not found.' would be a big help.

I just finished working on my first Windows Vista gadget.

It's a small gadget which sits in the sidebar and shows the amount of free space on you AOL XDrive (5GB of free online space).

Download the gadget here.

Read more about the making of... on my AOL blog.

This week we, the SDN, organized the SDC 2007 (Software Developer Conference 2007). It's the 16^th time we organized this two day conference and this year, like the years before, was a great success!!! We had 450 people at the conference with 30 internationally acclaimed speakers and great sponsors like Microsoft and Ordina.

Below a couple of pictures to give an impression of the event.

Full rooms, people watching, listening, learning, absorbing, captured by the speaker.

Speakers in the speakerroom getting ready for their next
session (Kevin McNeish, Stephen Forte, Chad Hower, e.a.).

Carl Franklin missed 2 flights and couldn't make it to the conferece, so no .NET Rocks show,
but the crew of the Internet show Mondays was on site to provide entertainment on the
Monday night of the conference (Richard Campbell, Mark Miller, Karen Greenwald).