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Microsoft has released a new set of tools called the Visual Studio 2008 AJAX Profiling Extensions. These tools help in profiling your AJAX code in your ASP.NET web applications. So far, not that many tools have existed for profiling JavaScript code, but as AJAX becomes more mature and wide-spread, these tools have their place.
The download is available on MSDN Code Gallery. Happy May Day!
Sometimes, it's good to focus a little bit on the business-side of software development as well. With that in mind, Developer.com has published my latest article about software licensing, titled "Don't Forget About Software Licensing”.
As Developer.com doesn't have a group named "Miscellaneous", my article went to the Java section of the site, but is nonetheless available from the front page (at least presently).
The article talks about different software licensing models and also touches the topic of software activation and trial downloads and resellers.
Let me know what you think!
This year, I again had the pleasure to attend the Intel Software Conference 2009, which was this time being help in Salzburg, Austria. A lovely country, and although I was a bit sceptic at first, a train-trip from Munich to Salzburg proved to be a very nice one indeed. What a lovely countryside this country has! You can see that from an airplane.
Speaking of the conference, I enjoyed learning more about Intel Software's newest product, Parallel Studio. Shortly put, if you are a C/C++ native code developer and using Visual Studio, then there isn’t a more suitable set of tools to help developing multi-threaded applications to squeeze the power out of the latest multicore processors.
Looks like a flood of new articles! For some reason, articles I prepared already a long time ago, seem to be all becoming published in April. But that's good, as the information needs to be flowing!
This time, the Finnish Tietokone magazine has published two of my articles, titled "Näytä digikuvasi verkossa" and "Optimoi web-sivusi hakukoneita varten". Both can be read from the April issue of the magazine (Issue 4), or online if you have registered for an account.
Happy reading!
Earlier, I published a short screencast video about ASP.NET Dynamic Data. This time, the video is titled "Dynamic Data Application Structure", and is available as a direct link from here.
Enjoy!
PS. A similar video about ASP.NET MVC is also on the works. Stay tuned.
Developer.com has published my latest article about SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition's Change Data features Change Tracking (CT) and Change Data Capture (CDC). The article talks about the basics and then dives into the SQL syntax details. A C# sample application to retrieve the changes is discussed.
The article is available on Developer.com. Happy reading, and let me know if you use the technology in your own applications. Thanks!
If you are writing code for the .NET platform with Visual Studio and SQL Server and are doing heavy testing on multiple (virtual) computers, then you might yourself repetitively configuring the Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 firewall to for instance allow communications to SQL Server.
For instance, I'm often enabling PING (ICMP Echo Requests) on the testing virtual machines, as this helps to troubleshoot the occasional network and IP address problems. Secondly, you also need a quick way to allow the installed SQL Server instance to be contacted over the network. By default, all these Windows NT 6.x versions have firewall settings to hinder such communications.
Of course, you can easily start the graphical advanced firewall configuration utility, and create two new inbound rules there. But, this gets a bit boring after settings up half-a-dozen virtual machines. Luckily, you can solve the problem with two (longish) command-line commands using NETSH.
For instance, if you wanted to enable PING and SQL Server for the local subnet on TCP port 1433 (which I always use instead of dynamic ports), then you could execute the following commands on an elevated command prompt (command splitted into shorted lines for clarity):
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Allow PING" dir=in action=allow enable=yes profile=any localip=any remoteip=any protocol=icmpv4:8,any interfacetype=any netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Allow SQL Server (TCP 1433)" dir=in action=allow enable=yes profile=any localip=any remoteip=localsubnet protocol=tcp localport=1433
If you fail to run the command prompt with proper administrative rights, you will get an error message saying "The requested operation requires elevation". On the other hand, if these commands work as they should, then you will simply see "Ok." at the prompt. Terse, yes, but enough!
Are you interested in Visual Studio Team System and living in Finland or speaking Finnish? Join us on 20th of April, 2009 to form a Visual Studio Team System User Group, of VSTS UG Finland for short.
The aim of this user group is to gather together, share ideas and best practices in using Visual Studio Team System to the products fullest potential, and also to learn how application lifecycle can benefit software development teams, companies and customers. The event will be held at Tammasaarenkatu 1-5, Helsinki starting at 08:30 am. The event registration can be done here.
Welcome!
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has today gotten its first service pack, SP1. You can download it from Microsoft Downloads starting today.
This service pack contains bug fixes and some new features like slipstream setup support, and the ability to deliver Report Builder 2.0 using ClickOnce.
The release notes are available here.
If you have used SQL Server 2008 Management Studio, you might have noticed the handy Template Explorer feature. This allows you to quickly run T-SQL scripts by starting from ready-written templates, where you can
In addition to the Template Explorer window, you can find the templates from a file system folder. For instance on a Windows Server 2003 system, the path would be:
"C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\ Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\ 100\Tools\Shell\Templates\Sql"
This location is handy, if you want to share templates or write your own.
It's the beginning of April again, and for me, it means both the end, and, hopefully, the beginning of a Microsoft MVP award cycle.
I'm happy to announce that Microsoft has awarded me once again for the prestigious MVP award for the year 2009.
Thank you Microsoft, it's a pleasure to be on board for another year!
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