Mikael Söderström

Blog moved

Vimpyboy — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 18:46:00 GMT

I have moved my blog to http://weblogs.asp.net/mikaelsoderstrom.

New rss feed:
http://weblogs.asp.net/mikaelsoderstrom/rss.aspx

Bugfix in VS 2008 Beta 2

Vimpyboy — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:21:00 GMT

There is a bug in Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 that says you haven´t declared writeAccessProperties when you activate profileService in web.config. It´s easy to fix, though.

What you have to do is change line 4121 in %Program Files%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Xml\Schemas\DotNetConfig.XSD.

Old:
<xs:attribute name="writeAccessProperites" type="xs:string" use="optional" />

New:
<xs:attribute name="writeAccessProperties" type="xs:string" use="optional" />

Visual Studio Orcas March CTP is out!

Vimpyboy — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:31:00 GMT

I just found out that the Visual Studio "Orcas" March CTP was released yesterday. It seems like the February CTP was replaced with March, like December was replaed by January.

You can find the download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=cf76fcba-07af-47ac-8822-4ad346210670&displaylang=en&tm

Copy'n'pasted from msdn:

LINQ
The LINQ Project: this CTP represents a major milestone in the LINQ project. For more information about LINQ click here.
- VB 9.0 Language Support: This CTP contains the following language features:
  - Query Expressions: Basic querying, filtering, and ordering support
  - Object Initializers
  - Extension Methods
  - Local Variable Type Inference
  - Anonymous Types
  - XML literals
  - XML properties
  - New Line and Expression IntelliSense
- C# 3.0 Language Support: This CTP implements all of the C#3.0 language features from the May LINQ CTP including:
  - Query Expressions
  - Object and Collection Initializers
  - Extension Methods
  - Local Variable Type Inference and Anonymous Types
  - Lambdas bound to Delegates and Expression trees
  - Complete design-time support: Intellisense, Formatting, Colorization
- LINQ to ADO.NET
  - ADO.NET is fully integrated with LINQ and offers many options for using LINQ in various scenarios: LINQ to SQL provides direct access to database tables from the programming environment, LINQ to Entities enables developers to use LINQ over EDM models, and LINQ to DataSet allows the full expressivity of LINQ to be used over DataSets.
  - LINQ to Entities enables developers to program against a relational database using a view of the data that is appropriate for the application they are building, independent of the structure of the underlying database. The use of the Entity Data Model (EDM) enables developers to design models that follow the concepts built into the application, instead of having to map them to constructs available in relational stores. LINQ to Entities is built on the ADO.NET Provider model and will support working against different back end relational stores in addition to Microsoft SQL Server. This CTP includes a LINQ to Entities provider for SQL Server and SQL Server Compact Edition.
  - LINQ to SQL (previous name DLinq) has enhanced the functionality from the May 2006 LINQ CTP. You can find it in System.Data.Linq namespace in System.Data.Linq.dll. New in this release is that DataContext provides optimized modes for read-only use and serialization . Also new is that DataShape streamlines eager loading capabilities and adds the ability to set queries on relationships
- LINQ To SQL Designer
  - Methods can be created from stored procedures and functions within the designer.
  - Better handling of database schemas.
  - Improved inheritance support in the designer.
- LINQ over XML (XLinq)
  - System.Xml Bridge Classes added – There is a set of extension methods allowing XPath / XSLT to be used over LINQ to XML trees, allow XSLT transformations to produce an LINQ to XML tree, and to validate an XElement tree against an XML Schema.
  - Event Model - This allows LINQ to XML trees to be efficiently synchronized with a GUI, e.g. a Windows Presentation Foundation application
  - Class hierarchy changes - XObject class added, XStreamingElement class (temporarily) removed
  - Various understandability / usability improvements – There have been a number of relatively minor changes done in response to internal reviews, usability studies, and external feedback to make the API more clean and consistent.
- LINQ to Objects API
  - The LINQ to Objects API supports queries over any .NET collection, such as arrays and Generic Lists. This API is defined in the System.Linq namespaces inside System.Core.dll.

ADO.NET
- Extended, more powerful data APIs with the ADO.NET Entity Framework
  - With the ADO.NET Entity Framework developers will be able to model the view of the data that is appropriate for each one of the applications they are building, independently of the structure of the data in the underlying database. The use of the Entity Data Model (EDM) enables developers to design models that follow the concepts built into the application, instead of having to map them to constructs available in relational stores. Once the model is in place, the powerful ADO.NET Entity Framework API is used to access and manipulate the data as .NET classes or as rows and columns, whatever is appropriate for each application.
- Added paging and stored procedures for update (“update customization”) for ADO.NET Entity Framework:
  - Paging: the paging support in the ADO.NET Entity Framework allows developers to “page” over data in a database by indicating the start row and number of rows to be included in the result. Paging is available through Entity SQL (using the LIMIT AND SKIP keywords) and through the query-builder methods in the ObjectQuery class (Top and Skip). In a future CTP the feature will also be enabled to be used in LINQ queries by means of the standard Take and Skip LINQ operators.
  - Stored-procedures for update customization: the Entity Framework by default automatically generates SQL statements for insert, update and delete operations when processing changes to entities in memory to be sent to the database. With the stored-procedures update customization feature developers have the option to override the automatic SQL generation and instead provide stored-procedures that will perform the insert, update and delete operations, which the system will call during entity change processing. Among other things, this enables scenarios where direct access to tables is restricted in the database and the only way to make changes to the data is through stored-procedures.
- Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.NET
  - Provides an application programming interface (API) to synchronize data between data services and a local store. The Synchronization Services API is modeled after the ADO.NET data access APIs and gives you an intuitive way to synchronize data. It makes building applications for occasionally connected environments a logical extension of building applications where you can depend on a consistent network connection. For details please visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=80742 .

Web
- Improvements for web development in this CTP include:
  - New ASP.NET WebForms design-surface with advanced XHTML and CSS features
  - JScript intellisense for ASP.NET AJAX and browser DOM
  - Multi-targetting for .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 in websites and web applications
  - LINQ to SQL designer integration in websites and web applications

Client App-Level Services
- Enable client application developers to use the same user profile and login services as your Web applications. This enables customers to utilize on set of backend storage for user personalization and authentication regardless of the applications type.

C# Workflow Rules
- Workflow Rules allows users to enter rules (and conditions) in a code-like manner
  - Support the use of the new C# Extension methods features in their rules
  - Enable operator overloading and the new operators in their rules

XML
- XML Tools: XSLT Debugger
  - Enables Input Data Breakpoints allowing the user to break the execution of the style-sheet whenever a certain node in input document is hit.
- XML Editor Performance Improvements
  - Performance in the Xml Editor for Intellisense, schema validation etc is improved by implementing incremental parsing of the XML Document.
- Seamless transition between XML Editor and XSD Designer
  - Improves the experience a user has when working with an XML Schema in textual and graphical mode at the same time.

MSBuild
- Parallel/Multi-Processor Builds
  - Building multiple projects in parallel, as much as possible based on the use of dependency information in projects to parallelize
  - Allowing the developer/builder to control the parallelism by providing them the ability to specify the number of processors to use for build.

UAC Manifests in the Managed Build Process
- Support for manifests that are embedded into the final executable via the Build process.

IDE
- Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Designer (“Cider”) & Application Tools to deliver the ability to:
  - Create, edit, build, run and debug WPF projects
  - Use the WPF Designer to:
    - Preview any XAML in the designer including user defined controls and types
    - Design Windows, Pages and UserControls
    - Do basic layout tasks in a Grid
    - Do basic property editing using the new property browser
    - Easily understand and navigate “document structure” using the Document Outli
    - See changes in the designer immediately in the XAML
  - Use the XAML Editor to:
    - Edit XAML with intellisense
    - See changes in the XAML immediately in the designer
    - Build design time for WPF controls
- UAC manifests in the IDE for Windows Vista applications
  - Enable developers on Windows Vista to easily include the UAC manifest as an embedded resource.

CLR
- Add IRI support (RFC 3987) to URI related classes
  - This allows resource identifiers to be specified using a character set that supports all languages.
- New Async model on Socket class
  - A new Async model is reduces the per I/O overhead compared to the current I/O model
- Peer Networking Classes
  - Delivers a set of peer-to-peer network APIs that allow a developer to easily extend an application with compelling collaboration functionality.
- WMI.NET Provider Extension 2.0
  - WMI.NET Provider Extension 2.0 simplifies and enhances the development of WMI providers in the .Net framework to enable the management of the .NET applications while minimizing the impact on the development time.
    - Delivers equivalent access to WMI features and functions available to native code providers.
    - Exposes property updates and methods to managed code.
    - Improved scalability for large collections of WMI entities.

Office
- Enable ClickOnce deployment for Microsoft Office applications
- Developers now have an easy to use and version resilient security model for their applications that will exist for future versions of Visual Studio and Office. With full support for ClickOnce deployment of all Office 2007 customizations and applications, developers and administrators now have the right tools and framework for easy deployment and maintenance of their Office solutions.

Team Architect
- Top-down service design
  - Top-down system design allows an application architect/lead developer to perform the design of a business solution without having to be confronted with technology decisions. It enables the user to progressively refine a high-level system design, designing new sub-systems and applications in the context of the system in which they are to be used.
- Architectural Roles on System, Applications and Endpoints
  - Enables an architect, while working on the high-level design of a system’s architecture using the System Designer, to introduce elements into the design that play a specific pre-defined architectural role(s) within architectural patterns.

Team Developer
- Profiler Support for WCF Applications
  - Enable profiling of WCF based applications to improve application performance
- Customize and extend code correctness policies
  - Code Analysis Check-in Policy improvements to communicate to a developer why the check-in policy failed and to provide guidance on how to pass the policy requirements.
- Customize and extend code correctness policies
  - Code Analysis Check-in Policy improvements to communicate to a developer why the check-in policy failed and to provide guidance on how to pass the policy requirements.
- Performance tune an enterprise application
  - Enables developers to run profiling during load and test procedures for a system, to see how it behaves, and use integrated tools to profile, debug and tune. This also enables performance base-lining, so that users can save a baseline profile and then, if the performance degrades, compare up-to-date traces to identify the source of the regression

Team Test
- Unit Test Generation Improvements
  - Improvements to unit test generation provide an easy way for the user to specify what methods to test, and generate test methods and helper code to do unit testing, as well as providing unit test support for generics.
- Web Test Validation Rule Improvements
  - Web Test rules improvements enable testers to create more comprehensive validation rules for the application being tested. These improvements include the following functions:
    - Stop test on error
    - Search request and response
    - Add validation rule for title
    - Redirect validation
    - Provide test level validation rules
    - Expected HTTP code
    - Warning level for errors on dependents
- Better Web Test Data Binding
  - This feature allows users to data bind .CSV and XML files, as well as databases to a web test, using a simple databinding wizard.
- Improved Load Test Results Management
  - With this feature user can open or remove an existing load test result from the load test repository. User can also import and export load test results files.

Team Foundation Server
- Team Build
  - Support multi-threaded builds with the new MSBuild.
  - Continuous Integration – There are many components to this, including build queuing and queue management, drop management (so that users can set policies for when builds should be automatically deleted), and build triggers that allows configuration of exactly how when CI builds should be triggered, for example – every checkin, rolling build (completion of one build starts the next), etc.
  - Improved ability to specify what source, versions of source, etc to include in a build.
  - Improved ability to manage multiple build machines.
  - Simplified ability to specify what tests get run as part of a build
- Version Control support
  - Destroy- The version control destroy operation provides administrators with the ability to remove files and folders from the version control system. The destroyed files and folders cannot be recovered once they are destroyed. Destroy allows administrators to achieve SQL server disk space usage goals without constantly needing to add more disks to the data tier machine. Destroy also facilitates removing versioned file contents that must be permanently removed from the system for any other reason.
  - Annotate - Annotate is a feature that allows developers to inspect a source code file and see at line-by-line level of detail who last changed each section of code. It brings together changeset data with difference technology to enable developers to quickly learn change history inside a source file.
  - Folder Diff - Team Foundation Server now supports compare operations on folders, whereby the contents of the folder are recursively compared to identify files that differ. Folder diff can compare local folders to local folders, local folders to server folders, and server folders to server folders. It’s a great way of identifying differences between branches, files that you’ve changed locally, and files that have changed between two points in time.
  - Get Latest on Checkout - As an optional setting on a team project or on an individual basis, you can have Team Foundation Server always download the latest version of a file when you check it out. This helps ensure that you don’t have to merge your changes with somebody else’s when you check the file back in.
- Performance and Scale
  - This release includes numerous improvements in performance and scalability of Team Foundation Server.

Visual C++
- Easily add the Windows Vista “Look and Feel” to native C++ applications
  - Developers can use Visual Studio to build ISV applications that exhibit the Windows Vista “look & feel”. A number of the Windows Vista “look & feel” features are available simply by recompiling an MFC application. Deeper integration that requires more coding or design work on the part of the developer is also simplified with Visual Studio’s integrated support for the Windows Vista native APIs.

Windows Communication Foundation and Workflow Foundation
- WF Designer and Debugger integration with Visual Studio
- WF & WCF integration:
  - New WCF Send and Receive Activities
  - Enhanced Workflow and Service hosting
- Enhancement to WF Rules:
  - Added support for operator overloading
  - Added support for the “new” operator to allow users to new up objects and arrays from WF Rules
  - Added support for extension methods to make user’s experience calling extension methods from WF Rules compatible with how they code in C#
- Partial Trust support in WCF when using the BasicHttpBinding
- Enhanced REST/POX Support in WCF
- RSS and Atom Programming Model
- Atlas Integration, end-to-end programming model for building Ajax style web applications using WCF services.
- Support for OASIS specifications WS-AtomicTransaction 1.1, WS-Coordination 1.1, WS-ReliableMessaging 1.1, WS-SecureConversation 1.3, and WS-Trust 1.3
- New Templates for simplified WCF Service Authoring

So, whats up?

Vimpyboy — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:40:00 GMT

I haven´t had time to blog for a while, as you may have noticed, but I will do that asap.

I´m working on a very early alpha of a new version of the CZ Stats servce I used to work on before. For those who not know what it is, it is a web statistics service.

Some of the features I´m working on in the new version:
* RSS support with daily statistics for you site
* A windows vista sidebar gadget with daily statistics
* Weekly e-mail with statistics
* Enhanced api that allows youto show your statistics on your own site
* More detailed statistics
* Multi language support

And of course, it´s all free.

If you have any ideas, please let me now.

I'm not dead :-)

Vimpyboy — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 09:15:00 GMT

I haven´t been blogging for some days, and that´s because I have a new customer. I will get back to SandCastle Helper as far as I´m done with this.

The first thing I will do is to remake the GUI. Do you want me to use the old 2.0 way with Windows Forms or should I do it with Windows Presentation Foundation instead? You decide! :-)

I have also started a CodePlex project for this where I will post the full source code:
The CodePlex Project

And btw, I´m trying the new Windows Live Writer for this post. :)

tags: SandCastle+Helper, CodePlex

Please help me solve the problem

Vimpyboy — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 12:01:00 GMT

If you read the comments on the last post, or if you have tried the last build of the project, you may know that there seems to be problems with the generation.

To solve the problem asap I need your help. If you are interested in helping me, please add me on msn (vimpyboy@msn.com) so I can send you the latest builds and get feedback directly.

Thanks,
Mikael Söderström

SandCastle Helper now supports multiple files!

Vimpyboy — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 15:26:00 GMT

You can add multiple binaries and XML Comments files in SandCastle Helper now. I have also updated the language pack, so if you are interested in translating SandCastle Helper to your language, download the language pack and send it to vimpyboy@msn.com.

DOWNLOAD SANDCASTLE HELPER JULY CTP NOW!
Download SandCastle Helper Language Packs

New languages and localization bug fix

Vimpyboy — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 12:40:00 GMT

New languages and localization bug fix I have updated the SandCastle Helper with two new languages (german and dutch). Thanks to Jeroen Vos and Ernst Maderbacher for those!

DOWNLOAD SANDCASTLE HELPER JULY CTP NOW!
Download SandCastle Helper Language Packs

SandCastle Helper now supports multiple languages

Vimpyboy — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 14:49:00 GMT

In the latest version of SandCastle Helper there is support for different languages (only english and swedish for the moment) in both the GUI and the documentation! There is also some bug fixes and a new setup.

Interested in translating the GUI and documentation to your language?
In order to do this you must download a zip file containing the language files. When you have translated it, send it to vimpyboy@msn.com and I will put it up.

DOWNLOAD SANDCASTLE HELPER JULY CTP NOW!
Download SandCastle Helper Language Packs

Update: Seems to be an error with the localization in this release. I will post an update with the fix and two additional languages soon.

SandCastle Helper is updated with new GUI

Vimpyboy — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 19:30:00 GMT

First of all, I want to thank you all for showing interest in this tool!

I have been working on a GUI today for this, and I am releasing the first version of it now. I am going to add a lot of features in a while like adding multiple binaries and xml comments files, importing vs 2005 projects and much more. And yes, I will update the GUI. :-)

If you have any wishes, please let me know.

NEW VERSION AVAILABLE!

DOWNLOAD SANDCASTE HELPER JULY CTP V2 NOW!

Announcing SandCastle Helper

Vimpyboy — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 14:13:00 GMT

Creating documentation with the new SandCastle can be hard work. There are many steps to go through each time and you have to do this everytime you have updated the XML comments in your project.

It is because of this I created a tool called SandCastle Helper that will go through all these steps automagically and give you a fresh documentation in seconds.

Before you get started, please read the included readme file. :-)

NEW VERSION AVAILABLE!

DOWNLOAD SANDCASTLE HELPER NOW!

SandCastle July CTP

Vimpyboy — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:04:00 GMT

Microsoft is working on their own documentation builder called "SandCastle". It produces MSDN style documentation by reflecting over the source assemblies and the generated XML Documention comments.

Features:
- Works with or without authored comments
- Supports Generics and .NET Framework 2.0
- SandCastle has 2 main components (MrefBuilder and Build Assembler)
- MrefBuilder generates reflection xml file for Build Assembler
- Build Assembler includes syntax generation, transformation..etc

You can download the July CTP here.

Prerequisites:
1. .Net Framework 2.0
2. For Chm generation download HTML Help Workshop.

Bill Gates keynote

Vimpyboy — Tue, 23 May 2006 12:01:00 GMT

Countdown to Bill Gates keynote:
http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/customcounter.html?day=23&month=5&year=2006&hour=10am&min=0&sec=0&p0=234

How to watch the keynote:
http://metahost.savvislive.com/microsoft/20060523/winhec_billgates_20060523_300.asx

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 is out

Vimpyboy — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 09:51:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. I recommend you to download it in order to test your websites compatibility with it.

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 SP1

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Windows Server 2003 ia64 Edition (Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based systems)

Add-Ons for Internet Explorer 7

Checklists:

Consumers

Current Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview users

If you're running a version of the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview, follow these steps prior to downloading the latest version:

Click your Start button, then go to Control Panel
Go to Add or Remove Programs
Go to Change or Remove Programs and make sure "Show updates" is checked.
If you are running Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview, released on March 20 or later, it is no longer necessary to check "Show updates."
Scroll down on the list and highlight "Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview."
Click "Remove" to uninstall the previous version of Internet Explorer 7.
Reboot your PC and return to the download page for Internet Explorer 7 to begin downloading the latest version.

New users of Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2

After you install Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 and review the tour, make sure you:

Check out your favorite websites and see how they look in Internet Explorer 7.
Try printing a webpage from your favorite website.
Conduct a single search through multiple search providers.
Create a Tab Group of your favorite sites and check out the Quick Tabs feature.
Verify that your Favorites have migrated from your old version of Internet Explorer.
Look for the feed discovery button on your favorite websites and subscribe to those feeds.

Developers and Web Developers

Verify that your User Agent String detection recognizes Internet Explorer 7 using the procedure outlined in the Internet Explorer Blog.

Check your website for Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) filters (hacks) that may be turned off in Internet Explorer 7, using the procedures described in the MSDN Exploring Internet Explorer article Cascading Style Sheet Compatibility.

Verify that transparent images on your website are rendered correctly, using Transparent PNG, now supported in Internet Explorer 7.

Use the Application Compatibility Toolkit to evaluate changes in the behavior of your web applications.

Read an Overview of Security and Compatibility changes in Internet Explorer 7.

Verify that your website hasn't been adversely affected by these Internet Explorer 7 security changes:

SSL 2.0 Support has been turned off.
Support for HTML scriptlets has been turned off by default.
Sites using HTTPS must deliver a valid digital certificate for their DNS name.
HTTP content cannot be included in an HTTPS page (see the Internet Explorer Blog article).

Read Microsoft's Anti-Phishing White Paper to understand how the Microsoft Phishing Filter may affect your webpages.

If you develop using ActiveX controls, make sure they are installed in the "disabled" state so users will activate them only when needed and reduce their surface area vulnerable to attack. (See the Exploring Internet Explorer article on ActiveX Security.)

Make sure that your feeds are discoverable in Internet Explorer 7 by following the process in the Microsoft Feeds API Overview.

Make sure your feeds work correctly: Navigate to them in Internet Explorer 7 and refer to the Publisher's Guide to see how they should look.

Add search providers to Internet Explorer without writing executable code or mastering the registry, using the window.external.AddSearchProvider(URL) call to prompt the end user. (See the Internet Explorer Blog article for details.)

Download the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar and use it to explore the DOM tree and view and change elements on your webpage. The Developer Toolbar also provides links to the references in the W3C specifications, the Internet Explorer Blog, and other useful resources.

Check out the Information Index and Release Notes for Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 to see the most recent news about Internet Explorer 7.

IT Professionals

Verify that your User Agent String detection recognizes Internet Explorer 7 using the procedure outlined in the Internet Explorer Blog.

Verify that transparent images on your website are rendered correctly, using Transparent PNG, now supported in Internet Explorer 7.

Verify that your website hasn't been adversely affected by these Internet Explorer 7 security changes:

SSL 2.0 Support has been turned off.
Support for HTML scriptlets has been turned off by default.
Sites using HTTPS must deliver a valid digital certificate for their DNS name.
HTTP content cannot be included in an HTTPS page (see the Internet Explorer Blog article).

Read Microsoft's Anti-Phishing White Paper to understand how the Microsoft Phishing Filter may affect your webpages.

Make sure that your feeds are discoverable in Internet Explorer 7 by following the process in the Microsoft Feeds API Overview.

Make sure your feeds work correctly: Navigate to them in Internet Explorer 7 and refer to the Publisher's Guide to see how they should look.

Make sure you've tested your browser add-ins to ensure they activate correctly with the updated changes to Internet Explorer.

Validate the removal of the Intranet zone for non-domain joined machines.

Check out the Internet Explorer 7 Administration Kit (IEAK).

Check out the Information Index and Release Notes for Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 to see the most recent news about Internet Explorer 7.

Live.com is updated! Wow!

Vimpyboy — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:26:00 GMT

Microsoft have updated Live.com and.. wow! Really good job!

New things are updated themes, new manager for gadgets (HOT!), pages (you can add pages with different content, so damn good), yo can save your searches, and there are new gadgets.

I think I´m in love. :-)