My Opinion
My Opinion
The week starts with two good things for me.
Microsoft rewarded me as MVP for Team System, which I'm very happy about because my MVP collegues are are great and smart community of TFS experts that I am always happy to talk with.
And I passed the beta exam on TFS Configuration & Deployment and may call myself now a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist.
Congratulations to all the new MVP-collegues as well as the other guys participating in the beta exam.
Well, I guess we all knew it somehow that we waste time when working on more than one project. Jeff Atwood has the proove and some interesting figures on his blog [1].
[1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000691.html
Not only that the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file format is now part of the Open Specification Promise (OSP), there is also a program that allows you to give a VHD to your customers with Microsoft and your software installed for evaluation purposes [2].
I think that is really cool and hat makes it very easy and comfortable for the potential buyer: no more installations, and you can put some sample data in there as well.
[1] www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx
[2] www.microsoft.com/technet/try/vhd/partners.mspx
After finally arriving to Barcelona for TechEd: Developers 2006 I turned on the TV in my hotel room and was a bit surprised when all what I saw was this JScript error:
Technorati tags:
TechEd-Developers
Since Microsoft introduced free versions of the well-known Visual Studio-IDE and SQL Server under the name "Express Editions" other software vendors took the idea and integrated it into their product lines as well. The recent addition is Vanatec's OpenAccess Express [1]: a free version of the professional O/R mapping tool for Visual Studio.
Limitations compared with full version: It supports free databases (SQL Express, Oracle Express, MySQL) only.
[1] www.vanatec.com/express
I's an honor beeing re-awarded as an Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Visual Studio Team System - as I think one of the most interesting products released for software development in the last years, and laying a foundation for future products in the next years. It makes me proud beeing part of the 'VSTS champs' as we are called internally at Microsoft - an exciting group of intelligent and experienced people within and outside of Microsoft. And I am very happy to see Ognjen Bajic – the first Team System MVP in Croatia - on board as well! The combined knowledge in forms of blogs can be found here.
Today I worked so hard I even got the code churn percentage over 100! That probably means I changed more than every line of code... or what should this value tell me?
Although I really prefer talking to humans this virtual guy I found at Chris Sells' blog knows a lot and comes quite handy.
Use IM to Ask Encarta
If you add encarta@conversagent.com to your MSN IM contacts list, you can ask it questions, e.g.
- What is the size of Mexico?
- When was Leonardo da Vinci born?
- How many calories are there in an orange?
- I want to see the map of Italy.
- When was Abraham Lincoln born?
- Solve 2x^2+7x=5
I especial love the "solve" thing. If I could figure out how to give it simultaneous equations, most of my boys' math home would be solved in IM...
Versants object-relational-mapping (ORM) tool Open Access is now available
for .NET. Fully integrated in VS Studio, it provides features like level 1/2
object and query cache, reverse mapping, database independence and supports
disconnected application scenarios. MVPs can register for a free license at
http://www.versant.com/products/openaccess/dotnet/mvp.
Looks like I'm actually the first to blog that:
Windows Notepad turns 20 this year!
Enough reason for me to sit down and create a page with facts, features and tips about the best Windows text editor ever written.
Check out my Notepad page at http://www.dotnet-online.com/notepad/ and the legendary NOTEPAD.ORG.
I still haven't discovered who at Microsoft developed our beloved Notepad. Anyone has a clue?
Have you asked yourself what No-Touch Deployment (NTD) really is (in practical means)? There is no assembly like System.NoTouchDeployment.dll. There is no class "offering" NTD. It is not even a technology itself. So what is it?
Well, a small part of No-Touch Deployment is the .NET assembly loader (downloads the required assemblies; local cache logic [often the real cause for a lot of problems]) and the major part is Code Access Security (CAS) - which actually is a technology. But really, you have to read Michael Willers' - "the" German security guy btw - thoughts on this topic.
Why should I use No-Touch Deployment since there is ASP.NET?
There is a bunch of reasons why you would choose a Windows Forms application rather than a web application. However if you need to create an OS-independent software you will have to stick to ASP.NET.
ASP.NET is great and it will get even better in future versions, but it also has it limits. With ASP.NET the client is the Browser and Browser are “stupid”, because they just display what is described in a meta language – such as HTML. As a developer you have to ability to do client processing using a script language like Jscript which is unmanaged – and therefore potentially unsafe as you can see from the amount of security updates released.
When you need cutting-edge performance, want to use of the local resources efficiently (e.g. DirectX), want to integrate with local applications / APIs a “rich” GUI with a high responsiveness (no postbacks to the server), ASP.NET is simple the wrong choice.
And if you decide to create a Windows Forms application it should not fail due to the complex deployment such applications typically involve. This is exactly the vision of No-Touch Deployment: Deploy your Windows Forms applications as simple as Web applications.
On more information about No-Touch Deployment visit www.dotnet-online.com/notouch/.
Dies behauptet zumindest Roger Ebert, welcher diesen Tend in den Kinofilmen der letzten Jahre bemerkt haben will. Demnach sollen die "Bösen" in Kinofilmen wie "24", "Austin Powers" und "Legally Blond" PCs verwenden, wobei die guten "schicke" Apple-Computer einsetzen.
Online lesen: http://www.suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert24.html
Als ich entdeckt hatte, dass die .NET ImageList für ein Image kein Key mehr speichert, war die Situation für mich klar: Es musste eine eigene Ableitung her, die mir den aus VB6-Zeiten gewohnten Komfort wieder ermöglicht. Dann die große Überraschung: Die Klasse ImageList ist "sealed" (VB.NET: NotInheritable) und somit kann man von dieser auch nicht ableiten.
Mein Unverständnis legte sich nachdem ich den Artikel "Sealed" is Good! von Ingo Rammer gelesen hatte. Danach wird einem klar, dass "sealed" alles andere als Böse ist und .NET ohne eine "sealed"-ImageList möglicherweise ähnliche Performanceprobleme wie Grafikbibliotheken anderer VMs haben würde.