November 2004 Entries
What an action packed weekend! I started out the weekend by running in the Miami Runners Turkey Trot. I've got a lot to say about this so that will be another post. Lucy and I also had a great Thanksgiving day spending alot of time with family. We also spent black Friday shopping where we bought a great new camera. We bought the Canon EOS Digital Rebel. I must say that it does everything that I want and about 100 things I know nothing about. On Sunday, I ran 10 miles (again more on this later) and spent some time with...
Microsoft has recently released the final version of the Issue Tracker Starter Kit. The kit was built using asp.net and allows projects to track outstanding issues. I know there are much better solutions out there but you can't beat the price (free). Since I have been using the Issue Tracker Starter Kit when it was in beta and I needed to move my current project data to the new issue tracker database. Luckily for me no data structure changes were made so that made my SQL script really simple. If you need to use this script replace IssueTrackerOld with the name of...
Found this nice article on MSDN on Windows Forms Dialog Boxes. It includes loads of helpful code.Now Playing: Denison Marrs - Send Me an Angel
Today I spent most of my day integrating the Updater Application Block into the Windows app that I'm creating. I must say it works quite well. Here are some of the resources that I found useful in implementing the block.
MSDN Updater Application Block Webcast: This webcast was presented by Chris Kinsman. Excellent webcast. Chris goes through loads of demos to accompany the standard MS presentation. Start here first.
How-To for the Updater Application Block: Nice blow-by-blow walkthrough for integrating the Updater in your application. It's not 100% correct but it's the most complete how-to that I found.
Keep your Apps Fresh with the...
I really think that SQL Server 2005 will change the way we think about storing our data and how we use it. If you're interested on what SQL Server 2005 can do tune into these webcasts. Maybe if you're lucky you'll see me. I'm the idiot changing my status color to make my seat "blink". (Thanks to G. Andrew Duthie for the heads up.)
Overview of the new Developer features in SQL Server 2005—Level 200Monday, December 6, 200410:00–11:00 A.M. Pacific Time, United States and Canada (UTC-8)The release of SQL Server 2005 brings with it many new productivity enhancements for the database...
I'm on the air right now! So listen in on www.callfm.com.
Call FM is once again having their Fund Drive to raise the budget for the next six months. I'll be on the air today from 5:00 PM to 8:00-ish. So if you're in to listening to train wrecks on live radio tune in!
I'm thinking about modifying the list control in the IssueVision application to use data binding. Then I find this article Creating a Data Bound ListView Control by Rocky Lhotka. Perfect. If I decide to make the modification I'll post my notes.
Update: I've abandoned my generalizing efforts for now. I got the control to work with our custom object by replacing all references to DataRowView with our object. I think I'm going to take a look at this later though.
Now Playing: John Reuben - Do Not
Just in case you've been under a rock for the past few months Half-Life 2 will be released tomorrow. GameSpot has posted the Final Hours of Half-Life 2. It's an interesting read. The article follows the times and trials of the development of Half-Life 2. The effort put to one game is simply amazing. I also ran across this post highlighting the details of Valve's, the developer of Half-Life, downloader/updater/server browser client Steam.Now Playing: The Beatles - Glass Onion
Halo 2 is awesome. I'm not saying this because it introduces some incredible new game play features. Nor does it have jaw dropping effects or graphics. It's pretty much the same Halo that you know and love. I think that Halo 2 is going to do for Xbox Live what Halo did for the Xbox. Halo 2 is the perfect Xbox Live game. Last night I dropped in a quickmatch and threw down for a couple of games and got fragged pretty hard. Later, I logged into bungie.net to check my stats. Not only did it have the games that...
Sometimes you hit gold after you've sold the property. I just found a survey application in .Net called NSurvey. "NSurvey is a free, open source web based survey and form engine toolkit for Microsoft's .NET." Eighteen months ago we implemented Ultimate Survey, a classic ASP surveying tool. Of course we had to modify the application to use our security model which has prevented us from upgrading the app. Ultimate Survey has worked well but I've wanted a tighter solution. It might just be that NSurvey is it.
Now Playing: Peace 586 - Here for Years
DevConnections is currently being held in Vegas. TheServerSide.Net has posted coverage of the day one and day two of the conference. The one thing that peaked my interest was the feature list of SQL Server 2005. Pretty impressive
I've been prototyping an application for work and had a slight problem. I needed to get the column position of the caret in a RichTextBox. To determine the column position I had to subtract the number of characters in the lines before the caret from the caret character position. The RichTextBox.SelecionStart property gives the caret character position so I'm halfway there. But I couldn't figure out how to compute the number of characters in the lines before the caret. The RichTextBox methods don't give that information. So after some investigation I had to go somewhere where I don't like to go,...
It's here ladies and gentlemen the trailer for Star Wars, Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. I'm not going to say anything like "It Rocks!" or "I want it now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now!". Just see for yourselves.Now Playing: Tan Dun & Yo-Yo Ma - In The Old Temple
Which File Extension are You?
Now Playing: Jed Brewer - Look For Me (demo)
Props to Scott.
Now Playing: Sixpence None the Richer - Meaningless
Scott Guthrie is on fire! Recently, he's posted updates on the development of ASP.Net 2.0. His first post is an enlightening look on the Microsoft development process. His second post goes in to to the intricacies of the testing process. Here's the amazing part, they track and test 105,000 test cases and 505,000 test scenarios. Simply amazing.
UPDATE: He's clarified how his team tracks bugs.