Back to Blog index.
I found a nice Windows 7 tips page today: it list no less thatn 70 tips for the new operating system version.
Go check the post out at gnoted.com.
October 22nd, the Windows 7 shelf availability date, is soon here. Unless you already haven't, now is a good time to start investigating the new APIs that are available to developers once Windows 7 hits the streets. For instance, Windows 7 has a completely new taskbar, and it also gives new options to developers. For instance, in the shell only, you can create custom jump lists, manipulate the recently opened list of files, and so on. A good overview of the available features can be found from the Windows 7 Developer Guide.
If you are interested in the new APIs and are using C#/.NET, then you should learn about the Windows API Code Pack. This set of managed classes helps you access the new Windows 7 features from managed code. The Windows API Code Pack is available from MSDN, and the latest version is from June 12th.
If you are interested in taking the best out of Windows 7, then go and download the pack today!
If you are updating web sites with Expression Web 2 that run on a virtualized Windows Server 2008/IIS 7.0 systems. On these systems, it is possible to create FTP account names (usernames) which contain the pipe character |. Unfortunately, Expression Web 2 (EW2) gets confused with this character, and won't allow you to connect.
On IIS.NET, there's a description of the problem on a blog post. It suggests changing IIS settings with the "useDomainNameAsHostName" option in applicationhost.config. This option is available starting with FTP 7.5 extension to IIS.
If you cannot get to this config file (your hosting provider might not let you change it), then the other workaround is to add another FTP user account, which doesn't contain the pipe character in the username.
Finally, this problem should be fixes in forth-coming Expression Web 3.
The age-old problem of all developers and software developers is the "no-repro" problem, also known as "it works on my PC just fine". Well, end-users are not always very good at describing errors, or the steps required to reproduce them. Luckily, the situation is getting better once Windows 7 will become available: it will have a feature called Problem Steps Recorder.
With this tool, the user can start recording of his or her screen, then work through your application, and compile the results to an HTML file which you as a developer can then process. As a developer, you should learn how to use this tool, and also educate users of it's existence once they start to migrate to Windows 7. Remember, the tool is there to help solve issues. So use it.
The screencast available on TechNet is part of the Springboard series. Check it out!
In addition to MSDN and its sub-sites, Microsoft has many different web sites that share developer information. In this blog post, I'm sharing some of the recently updated sites that have content about things such as Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
Although Microsoft doesn't very widely promote these sites, I suggest that you give them a regular visit. Some sites provide a convenient RSS feed, so be sure to check them out.
Web applications are what most developers seem interested in, and this interest also raises the need to write single-person ASP.NET web applications. For instance, you might run your site on a service provider that doesn't include a full-blown SQL Server installation. But with SQL Server Compact, you can simply copy your database .SDF file to the server, some additional DLLs, and you are set.
Except that if you try this, your ASP.NET application will fail with the following error message:
System.NotSupportedException was unhandled by user code Message="SQL Server Compact is not intended for ASP.NET development." Source="System.Data.SqlServerCe"
Darn! What now? Luckily, there's a solution: add some code to your application's Application_Start event handler in Global.asax.cs, and you can work with SQL Server Compact databases even in your web applications.
void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData(
"SQLServerCompactEditionUnderWebHosting", true);
}
With this code, you won't see the error again. Of course, you should remember that SQL Server Compact was not designed for multi-user web applications, and thus the error message is valid. But, if you are sure only a single user (you) will access the database at one time, then it's OK to work around the error.
Developer.com has just published my latest screencast about using SQL Server's tracing features to log SQL statements and see how the database responds. Tracing is also useful for application developers, as the tracing features in SQL Server also calculate the duration of the operations. This can be used as a simple profiling utility both at production environments and at development time.
The running length of the cast is about six minutes. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
Microsoft has just recently released a new Windows 7 RC Training Kit for Developers. The kit "includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is based on Windows 7 RC and provides an early peak to our final training".
To install the kit, you will need Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2008, plus the Windows 7 SDK kit. The easiest place to download all these is from MSDN.
Developer.com has published my latest article about ASP.NET development. This time, the article introduces you to ASP.NET Dynamic Data, which is part of .NET 3.5 SP1. The article is titled "Create Quick Database Interfaces with ASP.NET Dynamic Data".
Of course, later once .NET 4.0 is here, we will also have a new version of ASP.NET Dynamic Data. If I have the chance, I might write another article to show what's new in ASP.NET DD 4.0.
In the meantime, enjoy this article!
If you are developing applications for, say, the desktop, you might occasionally need to create a new SQL Server Compact Edition database, i.e. the .SDF file to store you data into. Although there are many ways to do this, one easy way to do this is directly from Visual Studio 2008. Here’s how to do it.
First, go to Visual Studio's Server Explorer window. Right-click the Data Connections node, and choose Add Connection from the popup menu. The Add Connection dialog box now opens. Next, unless the selection is already correct, click the Change button next to the data source field. Another dialog box opens, titled Change Data Source.
From this dialog box, select the Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 source (or whichever version you happen to have). Then click OK, and you will return to the previous Add Connection dialog box. The dialog box layout has changed slightly, and now contains a Create button in the Connection Properties section.
Click the Create button, specify the necessary options, and finally click OK to create your .SDF file, and then start adding tables and data to it. Easy!
Sometimes, developers as me what is different between SQL Server Compact 3.5 and SQL Server Express Edition. Shortly put, the idea with Compact is to be an embedded, application-managed database, while Express is meant to be a regular, but simple solution for generic SQL needs.
Although the material covers SQL Server version 2005 only, Microsoft has written a nice paper in Word format about these differences, and also gives ideas on how to select the correct database for your needs. Recommended reading, if you are interested in SQL Server Compact edition. Coming up is a quick tip about this embedded database.
Welcome June! If you are using Microsoft Expression Web to develop your web sites and find testing your site with different versions of Internet Explorer browser a bit problematic, then you might enjoy Expression Web SuperPreview. SuperPreview allows you to simulate two Intenet Explorer versions on a single computer.
Specifically, you can preview your site in Internet Explorer 6 and either IE 7 or IE 8, depending which of these two latest versions you have installed.
SuperPreview is a downloadbale add-on to Expression Web, and can be downloaded here.
› Blog Archive