Friday, April 30, 2010

Visual Studio 2010 support with SQL Server

Visual Studio 2010 support with SQL Server

Visual Studio 2010 support with SQL Server

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 05:35 PM PDT

We've been getting a few questions by our users about Visual Studio 2010's support for SQL Server versions. So I thought it would be good to address them here (when one person asks a question, there are probably others thinking the same question.) Visual Studio 2010 only supports SQL Server 2005+ Visual Studio 2010's design time data tooling only supports SQL Server 2005 (including express editions) or later. What this means is that you will not be able to connect through the Server/Database Explorer to any older versions of SQL Server or use any of the data design tools that require Visual Studio to connect to the database (LINQ designer, datasource wizard, table editing, etc.) This does not mean that your ASP.NET pages will stop working; the...(read more)

Ultimate PC 2010

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:51 AM PDT

I need a new PC. My current PC is based around an Intel E8400 45nm dual core chip. I had really good luck overclocking that guy, but performance is still lacking. The drives are dog slow, and the 4gb of memory (it's still running 32 bit so I see only...( read more )...(read more)

Putting the Con (COM1, LPT1, NUL, etc.) Back in your URLs

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 10:22 AM PDT

One annoyance that some developers have run into with ASP.NET MVC is that certain reserved filenames are not allowed in URLs. The specifics of this restriction are accounted for in an interesting blog post entitled Zombie Operating Systems and ASP.NET MVC . This actually wasn't a restriction on ASP.NET MVC but was built into the core of ASP.NET itself. Fortunately, ASP.NET 4 fixes this issue with a new setting. In web.config, simply add <httpRuntime relaxedUrlToFileSystemMapping="true"/> to the system.web node. Here's a snippet from my web.config. < configuration > < system.web > < httpRuntime relaxedUrlToFileSystemMapping ="true" /> <!-- ... your other settings ... --> </ system.web >...(read more)

VS2010, Silverlight, Blend, Phone 7 Upgrade

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 08:40 AM PDT

I've been holding back on moving to Visual Studio 2010 RTM because I wanted to keep all the bits that I had on my machine working including the Windows Phone 7 preview developer bits handed out at MIX10. But I was finding it more painful to stay there...( read more )...(read more)

Why Wait? Any Purchase of Microsoft Expression 3 Now Qualifies for a Free Version 4 Upgrade

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 08:20 AM PDT

Buy Microsoft Expression Studio 3 now and upgrade to Expression Studio 4 for free later.

MSDN Radio: Chatting with Scott Guthrie

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 08:20 AM PDT

Join us as we talk with Scott Guthrie about Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC) and other up-and-coming topics in the technology space. Scott's passion for software and developer tools has made him a leader in providing developers with what they need to build great applications.

TechDays UK – Windows Phone 7 Sessions Available

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 04:36 AM PDT

The sessions from the Windows Phone 7 day at UK TechDays are available online. The day had 3 components to it; Charlie Kindel giving a Technical Overview of Windows Phone 7 Me giving an Overview of Developing for the Windows Phone 7 CTP with Silverlight...( read more )...(read more)

TechDays UK – Silverlight Sessions from Day 2 and Day 3

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 04:32 AM PDT

The videos for the Silverlight sessions that I did at TechDays UK are now available. There are 3 separate recordings around this - one is a short demo ( no slides for this ) around new features in Visual Studio 2010 for Silverlight/WPF applications –...( read more )...(read more)

Introducing - TailspinSpyworks - WebForms Sample Application

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 05:17 AM PDT

iBuySpy was a very popular sample application, but a lot has changed in Web Forms development since then. ScottGu suggested that I rewrite the old iBuySpy application – so I did. It's ASP.NET 4 with CSS based layout, data access via Entity Framework, etc. The www.asp.net landing page is here http://www.asp.net/web-forms/samples/tailspin-spyworks/ I'll be adding features over time and doing videos to explain some of the cool stuff. You can download the code from CodePlex at http://tailspinspyworks.codeplex.com/ For you MVC folks, my team mate ( Jon Galloway ) has built a sample MVC Store application which you can find here : http://www.asp.net/mvc/samples/mvc-music-store/   Technorati Tags: Microsoft , ASP.NET , WebForms , Open Source Read...(read more)

Slides & Videos from Recent Events

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 01:50 AM PDT

I thought I'd bring together a the slide-decks and video recordings of a few recent events that I've done – most (all) of these are about Silverlight. MIX10 Workshop "Bootcamp" on Silverlight 4 I did 2/3rds of this workshop and have a couple of slide...( read more )...(read more)

Tech Ed North America 2010 – WCF RIA Services Talk

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:23 AM PDT

Teched 2010 is almost around the corner. It will be held in New Orleans LA from June 7-10. Details and schedule of talks are now published online. I will be attending the Conference this year and will actually be giving two talks. The first one as you Read More......(read more)

April 30th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio 2010

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:48 AM PDT

Here is the latest in my link-listing series . [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu ] ASP.NET Data Web Control Enhancements in ASP.NET 4.0 : Scott Mitchell has a good article that summarizes some of the nice improvements coming to the ASP.NET 4 data controls. Refreshing an ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel with JavaScript : Scott Mitchell has another nice article in his series on using ASP.NET AJAX that demonstrates how to programmatically trigger an UpdatePanel refresh using JavaScript on the client. ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC 2: Basics and Introduction : Scott Hanselman delivers an awesome introductory talk on ASP.NET MVC.  Great for people looking to understand...(read more)

Tip: Replacing Html.Encode Calls With New Html Encoding Syntax

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 12:09 AM PDT

Like the well disciplined secure developer that you are, when you built your ASP.NET MVC 1.0 application, you remembered to call Html.Encode every time you output a value that came from user input. Didn't you? Well, in ASP.NET MVC 2 running on ASP.NET 4, those calls can be replaced with the new HTML encoding syntax (aka code nugget). I've written a three part series on the topic. Html Encoding Code Blocks With ASP.NET 4 Html Encoding Nuggets With ASP.NET MVC 2 Using AntiXss as the default encoder for ASP.NET But dang, going through all your source files cleaning up these calls is a pretty big pain. Don't worry, I have your back. Just bring up the Find an Replace dialog ( CTRL + SHIFT + H ) and expand the Find options section and check the checkbox...(read more)

Silverlight Cream for April 29, 2010 -- #851

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 04:46 PM PDT

In this Issue: Carlos Figueira ( -2- ), Subodh Pushpak , Gergely Orosz , John Papa , Mike Snow ( -2- ), Rishi , Tim Heuer , Stefan Olson , and David Anson . Shoutouts: Josh Holmes blogged about a cool app the City of Miami has up: Miami 311: Built on...( read more )...(read more)

Consuming REST/POX and REST/JSON services in Silverlight 4

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 02:45 PM PDT

A new feature in Silverlight 4 is the ability to consume REST/POX (XML) services in a strongly-typed way, using the same programming model as the desktop framework. That includes WebGet/WebInvoke attributes, UriTemplates and body styles. By default, only...( read more )...(read more)

Tip #105: Did you know … How to include empty directory when package a web application?

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:06 PM PDT

By design, Visual Studio 2010 will skip the empty directory when packaging web application project using web deploy.  To get empty directory packaged and deployed, we can work around this by adding an empty stub file inside the directory to make...(read more)

Be careful when installing the Blend Windows Phone 7 Add-In

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 02:49 PM PDT

There was a small issue today with the release of the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (April 2010 Refresh) refresh. The issue is that the Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone (April Refresh) is not compatible with Blend 4.0.20408.0, which...( read more )...(read more)
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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Developers, UX is not UI, learn that and stop trivializing!

Developers, UX is not UI, learn that and stop trivializing!

Developers, UX is not UI, learn that and stop trivializing!

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:07 PM PDT

Rarely passes a day when I don't get invitation to some product demonstration, technology showcase claiming to be a presentation about UX. In most cases - developers show new UI controls, tech, code and claim to be „talking about UX". I say stop trivializing...( read more )...(read more)

Microsoft Surface: Announcing Online Design and Development Training

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 12:01 PM PDT

I love the Surface. I want one in my home office. Alas, that isn't going to happen any time soon, but thanks to things like the Surface SDK for Touch for Windows 7, I can play with the cool surface controls all I want. What, you don't know how to develop...( read more )...(read more)

Microsoft Surface: Announcing Online Design and Development Training

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 12:01 PM PDT

I love the Surface. I want one in my home office. Alas, that isn't going to happen any time soon, but thanks to things like the Surface SDK for Touch for Windows 7, I can play with the cool surface controls all I want. What, you don't know how to develop...( read more )...(read more)

Fundamentals of Garbage Collection

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 11:40 AM PDT

A primer of key concepts on how memory and garbage collection work in the common language runtime.

New Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 debugging content

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 05:41 AM PDT

It's been a pretty busy few weeks at work coupled with some vacation so I've been lagging a bit with the blogging, so sorry for bombarding the blog with new posts now:) As you all know, Visual Studio 2010 just released and there is a lot of new content out there and I thought I'd mention a few in the debugging/troubleshooting space. ScottGu wrote a post on the VS 2010 debugger improvements as part of his VS 2010 and .NET 4 post series where he talks about news with Data Tips and Breakpoints. The Visual Studio Profiler Team Blog has a lot of posts worth reading about profiling in VS 2010 , including Silverlight Profiling and guidance for profiling. Steve released a new version of SOSex.dll with features that work for both 2.0 and 4.0 John Robbins...(read more)

Silverlight Cream for April 27, 2010 -- #849

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 04:01 PM PDT

In this Issue: Mike Snow , Kunal Chowdhury , Giorgetti Alessandro , Alexander Strauss , Corey Schuman , Kirupa , John Papa , Miro Miroslavov , Michael Washington , and Jeremy Likness . Shoutouts: Erik Mork and crew have posted their latest This Week In...( read more )...(read more)

Silverlight Tip of the Day #6 – Toast Notifications

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 02:54 PM PDT

Toast Notifications are a new feature that is supported in Out-of-Browser Silverlight applications. Toast windows are essentially temporary notification windows that appears in the bottom right of your screen.  They are useful for providing users...( read more )...(read more)

Finding the "real" templates and generic.xaml in Silverlight core or library assemblies, by using .NET Reflector

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 12:24 PM PDT

.NET Reflector is a great tool. I would wager that most of our loyal readers (all 6 of them ;-) ) already know all about .NET Reflector. But just in case, here is how to get it: http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/ In addition to spying on the...( read more )...(read more)
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

UK and Ireland Slides and Links

UK and Ireland Slides and Links

UK and Ireland Slides and Links

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 12:45 PM PDT

I promised to post the slides I used during my SLHVP and Robust (MVVM/TDD) Silverlight Applications presentations. As noted at the time, they don't stand on their own terribly well, and beyond that, they make extensive use of images that are under license...( read more )...(read more)

Custom Build Steps, Tools, and Events

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 11:15 AM PDT

In VS 2008, Visual C++ had a couple of the simple scenarios called Custom Build Step and Custom Build Tool.  This post will discuss a couple of the simple build extension options you have, and how they've changed since VS 2008. Andrew Arnott discusses these scenarios and how they work in VS 2010 here

Debugging a classic ReaderWriterLock deadlock with SOSex.dll

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 04:07 AM PDT

I was helping out on an issue the other day where the process would stall if they added enough users in their load tests.  Btw, serious kudos to them for making load tests, so much nicer to work with a problem in test rather than when it is getting critical on a production machine. We gathered some memory dumps with debug diag of the asp.net process (w3wp.exe) and found that most of the threads were waiting in this type of callstack:  NOTE:  I have changed a lot of function names and code snippets since it is not relevant for the post. 0:071> !clrstack OS Thread Id: 0x21ac (71) ESP       EIP     1c8ceb88 7c8285ec [HelperMethodFrame_1OBJ: 1c8ceb88] System.Threading.ReaderWriterLock...(read more)

IIS and PAE

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 01:26 AM PDT

I recently got a question by one of my customers about PAE and IIS that I thought I'd share the answer to. Their environment looked something like this: 32bit OS (Windows 2003) IIS 6 with multiple application pools, where each app pool hosts a number of applications ~20 GB RAM They were having problems with out of memory exceptions and also with paging under high load.  They knew a lot about their application and memory usage in general, so they knew what they were using the memory for and why they got the OOMs , in this case, memory usage was relatively high per application (intentionally), but it remained stable so no leak.  With this in mind, we discussed solutions to the OOMs like splitting up the applications further etc. to avoid...(read more)

Floating Visual Elements

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 05:23 PM PDT

This is part 2 of the series "Silverlight in Action": Visuals staring at the mouse cursor . Floating Visual Elements. Here we're sharing our experience from the amazing CompletIT web site. As you may already know, every Silverlight application " must...( read more )...(read more)

Microsoft Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook is Out - Interview with Author Gill Cleeren

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 02:56 PM PDT

As we have recently announced , a hot book on data-driven applications with Silverlight - Microsoft Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook was expected to hit the market. The book is now out and there is a 20% price discount available exclusively for...( read more )...(read more)

Using the ChangePropertyAction

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 12:25 AM PDT

Learn how to easily change properties at runtime (and look cool) without writing code....( read more )...(read more)

3 Silverlight Free Demos

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 12:46 PM PDT

We recently added a new demo and updated 2 of our more popular Silverlight demos to use Silverlight 4 RTW (from the beta and RC bits). The Silverlight.net samples web site has all of the samples, but here are direct links to each of the demos with a brief...( read more )...(read more)

Silverlight Cream for April 26, 2010 -- #848

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 09:44 PM PDT

In this Issue: Viktor Larsson , Mike Snow ( -2- ), Jeff Brand , Marlon Grech ( -2- , -3- ), Jonathan van de Veen , Phil Middlemiss . Shoutout: Justin Angel wants everyone to know he is Joining the Vertigo Team! ... congratulations, Justin! From SilverlightCream...( read more )...(read more)

Xml Document Transform (XDT) Snippets for VS 2010

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 08:38 PM PDT

During my PDC talk I had shown some of the snippets that can come handy while using Web.Config Transformations…  This post is intended to share the XDT snippets and instructions on how to install them to use them with VS 2010… Download XDT zip file from my SkyDrive Unzip the files and copy the inner XDT folder into %Program Files%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Xml\1033\Snippets After this the XDT snippets will be available for you to use within any XML file within VS 2010… To know how to use XDTs for Web.Config file please check out the post about Web.Config Transformations Few interesting points about Transforms & Locators which are worth noting to do pretty powerful stuff with your XML are: Transforms   - Transforms act on a XML...(read more)

Box Selection and Multi-Line Editing with VS 2010

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 05:53 PM PDT

This is the twenty-second in a series of blog posts I'm doing on the VS 2010 and .NET 4 release. I've already covered some of the code editor improvements in the VS 2010 release.  In particular, I've blogged about the Code Intellisense Improvements , new Code Searching and Navigating Features , HTML, ASP.NET and JavaScript Snippet Support , and improved JavaScript Intellisense .  Today's blog post covers a small, but nice, editor improvement with VS 2010 – the ability to use "Box Selection" when performing multi-line editing.  This can eliminate keystrokes and enables some slick editing scenarios. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu ] Box...(read more)

White Paper: How the Security Development Lifecycle Helped Improve the Security of the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 06:18 PM PDT

The 2007 Office system was the first Microsoft Office release to include the standardized Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) process throughout the product development life cycle. Read this paper to understand how the SDL contributed to improving the security of the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

Silverlight 4 SDK Release Candidate Is Available

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 06:18 PM PDT

Microsoft has unveiled the Release Candidate of the Silverlight 4 SDK. This latest version delivers hundreds of features and controls that present the leading edge in rapid, powerful application development. Note: this is a developer release only that does not have "go-live" licensing available or an end-user runtime.

Tip #104: Did you know … How to view text for the ‘hint’ buttons on the Publish Web Dialog?

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 01:00 PM PDT

After the Beta 2 release of Visual Studio 2010, the Publish Web Dialog was modified to include two information buttons associated with the Service URL and Site/application text boxes. (See Figure 1) Figure 1 – New information ('hint') buttons (see circled...(read more)
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Monday, April 26, 2010

Microsoft releases Silverlight-powered Windows Intune beta

Microsoft releases Silverlight-powered Windows Intune beta

Microsoft releases Silverlight-powered Windows Intune beta

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 01:14 PM PDT

Microsoft recently released a beta of Windows Intune , a Silverlight powered Web console for midsize businesses to manage their PCs. Windows Intune simplifies how businesses manage and secure PCs using Windows cloud services and Windows 7 in order to...( read more )...(read more)

Diary of a trip to the UK & Ireland – The Final Chapter

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 05:44 AM PDT

The ferry to Belfast was uneventful, and Belfast itself is a beautiful, scarred city, caught between decades of violence and flickering hope for the future. The "troubles" are recent enough that virtually  everyone there lived through them, yet quiet...( read more )...(read more)

Diary of a trip to the UK and Ireland – Thanks for all the fish

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 12:44 AM PDT

This is the penultimate entry in my on-going diary, a 90 second recording, in which I take a moment to thank everyone and capture for a good laugh, my absurd tendency to unconsciously modify the way I speak, wherever I go....( read more )...(read more)

Walkthrough: Creating Your First Touch Application

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 12:55 PM PDT

Learn to write WPF Applications that use Touch on Windows 7.

Silverlight Tip of the Day #5 – Debugging Out of Browser Applications

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 10:33 AM PDT

By default, when debugging, Silverlight will launch your application in the browser. However, if you application is configured to run in Out of Browser (OOB) mode and is installed on the box you can configure debugging to occur directly in the OOB application...( read more )...(read more)

Silverlight Tip of the Day #4 – Enabling Out of Browser Applications

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 10:18 AM PDT

By default Silverlight applications are restricted to run inside your browser. However, you can configure your application to allow for out of browser (OOB) use. OOB Advantages include:    1. Users can run your application when they are offline...( read more )...(read more)

Building a Web Setup that configures your Silverlight application

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 11:32 PM PDT

Introduction The most common scenario for a Silverlight application is to deploy it to the web. However, when building an application that is going to be used by companies, who need to deploy it to their own servers, a decent Setup is a must have. This...( read more )...(read more)

Windows Client Developer Roundup for 4/26/2010

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 10:10 PM PDT

This is Windows Client Developer roundup #21. The Windows Client Developer Roundup aggregates information of interest to Windows Client Developers, including WPF , Surface, Windows 7, XNA, Windows Forms , Silverlight and Windows Phone. If you have something...( read more )...(read more)

Silverlight Cream for April 25, 2010 -- #847

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 10:57 PM PDT

In this Issue: Michael Washington , David Poll , Andrea Boschin , Kunal Chowdhury ( -2- ), Lee , and Chad Campbell . Shoutout: Not at all Silverlight, but Kirupa has a great article up about Elastic Collisions From SilverlightCream.com : Easily decouple...( read more )...(read more)

Windows Client Developer Roundup for 4/26/2010

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 10:10 PM PDT

This is Windows Client Developer roundup #21. The Windows Client Developer Roundup aggregates information of interest to Windows Client Developers, including WPF , Surface, Windows 7, XNA, Windows Forms , Silverlight and Windows Phone. If you have something...( read more )...(read more)

A “refreshing” Authentication/Authorization experience with Silverlight 4

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 08:35 PM PDT

At the beginning of the year, as part of a series of posts about the INavigationContentLoader extensibility point in Silverlight 4, I described a way to use a content loader to do authorization before allowing a user to navigate to a page.  With...( read more )...(read more)
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Sunday, April 25, 2010

Updated Blue and Dark Visual Studio 2010 Themes

Updated Blue and Dark Visual Studio 2010 Themes

Updated Blue and Dark Visual Studio 2010 Themes

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 10:33 AM PDT

I updated my previous dark theme for Visual Studio 2010 and added a new one with a blue background, similar to the background (but a bit lighter) to that of Visual Studio 2010's blue. I updated a few fonts to fit in with it and for the past week I have...( read more )...(read more)
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