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If you have been following the web development sphere, you've quite possibly ran into an example application called Pet Shop. This is an Microsoft developed ASP.NET reference web application, and demonstrates the best practices for building large and complex web applications.
Now, this application is in its fourth version. This version uses ASP.NET 2.0 to the max, which means among other things better performance and fewer lines of code. The changes are actually quite dramatic. If you don't believe me, see for yourself. MSDN has the info.
I was reading the EOS 5D instruction manual while preparing for a shooting session, and I noticed the Custom Function (C.Fn) 13, "AF point selection method". So far, my "problem" with the camera has been that selecting the focus point from one of the 9 different points (or auto) has been quite difficult and slow: you first had to press the AF point selection button close to the shutter button, and then use the multi-controller to select the correct spot. When photographing fast moving subjects (such as kids) close by, this was just too slow.
But, with custom function 13 this all is made a lot easier! I immediately set the function to 1, "Multi-controller Direct" (see manual pp. 154). This allows me to use the multi-controller directly to select my focus point, and no buttons needed! And when you want to return to the point auto selection mode (all points selected), just press the AF point selection button again. Fast and easy!
Microsoft hosts a simple C# programming language FAQ on their blogs web site under the main MSDN site. The FAQ has recently been updated, but it still needs work. I have contacted one of my MVP contacts Scott Nonnenberg earlier this month to see how I could help, and got a response quickly.
I'm still in the process of compiling my own FAQ entries for the web site, but eventually I will get there. In the mean time, if you have tips and ideas you want to share, don't hesitate to post them to the FAQ page!
Today, FedEx bought me a very nice packet from Microsoft: an Visual Studio .NET Award for Customer Excellence. Thank you, Microsoft!
The award itself is a letter from S. Somasegar (whose blog by the way is here) and a very nice glass cube which contains the text "ACE" and Visual Studio 2005. I don't have a picture of it yet, but might post one eventually, since the cube is cool.
As the launch of Windows Vista is getting nearer, so is the information about its forthcoming editions. I recall blogging last year, that there will be seven editions of Vista, now Microsoft-Watch.com reports that there will be six. No surpise, really.
So far, the editions are going to be (not in any special orde):
In addition, there might be some "N" versions for the European markets; these versions ought not to include Windows Media Player. As a side-note, there's also a recent article about Microsoft's so-called "Live" products. I confess I'm a bit confused about them overall, but this article sheds some light into the subject.
To help you program secure applications, Microsoft has compiled a DVD resource called the "Microsoft Developer Security Resource Kit". This DVD contains both information and .NET sample code to get you started.
The DVD is available for ordering from Microsoft's web site for the cost of shipping. But hurry, since this is a limited time offer.
I'm sure you've heard of Symantec's Ghost, almost a legendary product for taking "images" of hard disks, and cloning these images to another PCs.
Ghost was originally a DOS-based product, with which you had to create a bootable floppy disk, and then boot your PC using that disk. Lately, Ghost got a Windows GUI, but I personally didn't prefer using it since those floppy boot disks worked okay. Until, umm, this month.
Although I'm no expert in Ghost, I've found the program to be easy to use for both workstations and servers. Installing Windows Server 2003 with Active Directory (AD) and Exchange server takes about 10 hours, but with Ghost, you can get a basic operating system image running in 45 minutes. But the problem with Ghost's floppy boot system is that it is increasingly difficult to find DOS drivers (Ghost uses PC-DOS) for modern hard disks and network cards (NICs). Also, Ghost's USB drivers don't like all new external USB hard drives or DVD burners, which is a real pain, especially when you are in a hurry.
Luckily, Symantec has a new product called LiveState Recovery (LSR), which is a great product to replace Ghost. It boots from a CD, and immediately supports your network cards, DVD and USB drives and SATA hard disks. Also, the Window client with which you take your images works like a dream. A Windows server can be backed up in less than 10 minutes, and it only takes about 20 minutes to restore an image to a working hard drive.
That's something I call a working solution to hard disks crashes. Okay, the product is more expensive than Ghost, but for the minimized hassle I'm happy to pay more. Thumbs up for this product!
We all know the oft-useful Windows API function named Sleep. This little gem allows you to block the executing of your application's current thread for the given number of milliseconds.
However, Sleep is often used to simulate improper waiting on objects. That is, instead of creating an event object for example and then using the WaitForSingleObject API function, you create a loop to poll a global flag, and then use Sleep to wait for, say, one second as not to grab the CPU for yourself only. This is very bad practice, and gets even more so if somebody installs your application on a Terminal Server or Citrix MetaFrame application server.
But, what is less known that sleeping on an UI thread can have very bad consequences, too. This is because system-wide broadcast messages get stuck with your user interface thread, which in turn can stall your whole operating system in the worst case scenario. But what's even worse, you can have problems even if you don't know it. That is because many applications today use OLE, COM or ActiveX routines. Does this ring a bell? It should. Says The Old New Thing:
"Note that many people overlook that calling CoInitialize (possibly indirectly) to initialize a thread for STA creates a hidden window in order to perform marshalling. Consequently, a thread that is running in a single-threaded apartment must pump messages. Failing to do so will result in mysterious system-wide stalls due to the unresponsive window."
Keep this in mind while you program Windows applications! Calling Sleep() has its uses, but it is often called when it shouldn't be. Take heed!
There are two short article about ASP.NET 2.0 on MSDN that I find interesting. The first one shows you how to persist the page state in your web applications and the second about encrypting the ViewState variable contents. Both these articles give you good tips and tools for your developer toolbox.
The issue 2/2006 of Tietokone popped into my mailbox today, and it contains my two-page article about shooting RAW photographs with digital (SLR) cameras.
The article appears on pages 76-77 and is titled "Raw-kuvaaja saa enemmän irti". Enjoy!
The big software development related news for today is that Borland is looking for a buyer for its IDE tools, including Delphi, C++Builder and InterBase (I don't care much about JBuilder).
Now, this may come as a shock for many, but in fact this very thing has been rumored for a long time, especially for the latest 3-4 years.
Borland has written a press release and there's also a letter from the CEO. So far, everything will continue to be/function as before, and only time will tell who is going to be the new owner (buyer).
I also compiled a short Finnish FAQ for my company, which is available at Moonsoft's web site.
I got an e-mail from Sampo today which a very welcomed message: an invitation to Microsoft's Connect 2006 event in Nice, France in the middle of March. Naturally, I'm thankful for these kind of invitations, and decided to register the same day.
I'm happy to visit France as I haven't visited that country before. Plus, Nice in March is probably quite much warmer than Helsinki in March. :-) The only problem with the trip is that I don't have a valid passport at the moment, for I let it to expire on purpose, namely to wait for the new biometric passports. But no problem, one can get a new passport in about two weeks.
UPS brought me a big packet today: yet another MSDN Welcome Kit, this time the Euro DVD version, which is twice the size of the US version!
First I have to confess one thing. I didn't recall I had two MSDN subscriptions. Yes, when I login to MSDN web site, I can select my account, and I also remember where I got the second subscription, but I always thought it would be an on-line based account only.
Of course, I won't complain, and the due thanks got to Microsoft. The best thing is that I'm now a subscriber until December, 2006. This means that I'm able to get my hands on Windows Vista and Office 12, no matter what happens. Very good!
I'm happy to announce that the U.S. based Visual Studio Magazine has published my first article for the magazine. The magazine by Fawcette is one of the leading developer magazines for Microsoft developers, and I'm naturally privileged to be on board.
My first article is titled "Lock Down Your Files" and it is about the new System.Security.AccessControl namespace in .NET 2.0. The example code is written with C#.
The cherry for the cake is this: my first article for this magazine went straight to the front cover. Not bad even though I say myself.
Visual Studio 2005 has been out and available for a while, but I haven't yet seen that many reviews from this latest and greatest development tool from Microsoft.
Not that I would need any magazine articles to reassure myself about my development tool choice for C#, but nonetheless, it is interesting to see what others think about the tool I've learned to love.
Speaking of reviews, eWeek has published one. It happens to reflect my personal opinions quite well.
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