Magenic Technologies Community Blog

Are you ready for a world without SQL?

The W Blog — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:52:00 GMT

There is a rather active anti-database movement afoot these days. I initially chalked this up to the same “XML is going to replace databases” craziness that I heard back in the 90s but you can’t argue with the successes that some Web Read More......(read more)

Certifications in Reverse

MS Innovations Blog — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:58:43 GMT

Over the past week I have taken and passed two certification exams, 70-503: WCF, and 70-529: Distributed Application Development. Rather than take the exams in the .NET framework version order of 70-529 then 70-503 for .NET 2 and then 3.5, I decided to Read More......(read more)

Working with Prism and the Blacklight Controls

Jeff Ferguson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:58:38 GMT

I recently set out to build a WPF application using the Composite Client Application Guidance (lovingly known as “Prism”) code base. Additionally, I wanted to make use of the Blacklight controls – specifically, the DragDockPanelHost and DragDockPanel Read More......(read more)

Running Your Android App on a Device

this.Reflect(); — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:30:03 GMT

I’m impressed with the Android Dev Guide . It’s fairly comprehensive guide, however, I can say from personal experience that the Dev Guide is not complete in all areas. One key example is the section on developing on a device . I followed the instructions Read More......(read more)

What we know or can infer about SharePoint 2010 - as of June 23, 2009

Blogging about SharePoint: Posts — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:05:08 GMT

Body: Although no beta code has been released to the public, and I personally have had no access to it via other channels, we know or can make some intelligent guesses about a few things. First, what we know: 64 Bit! SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64 Read More......(read more)

Entity Framework and multiple relationships between two tables

Sergey Barskiy — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:44:01 GMT

Here is a scenario – I have two tables – Users and Phones. Users table has two columns that relate to Phones table – PrimaryPhone and SecondaryPhone. If you build an EF model with these two tables, you will end up with Users entity with two navigation Read More......(read more)

Could Not Import Contacts Into G1 From CSV…

this.Reflect(); — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:49:39 GMT

This is one of those blog posts that simply exist for the simple reason that if I run into this issue again I can find it later (and hopefully someone else will find it and it will help them too). I recently got a new G1 and I exported my contacts into Read More......(read more)

Microsoft Reports using RDLC

Dan's space — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:28:55 GMT

After working with Reporting Services since the beta product when it was code named ‘Rosetta’ I finally got my first look at using the Microsoft reporting feature that is part of Visual Studio. I have used the Crystal Reports option within Visual Studio Read More......(read more)

Twin Cities Pragmatic/ALT.NET Beer Tomorrow

this.Reflect(); — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:53:02 GMT

Tomorrow we have another Twin Cities Pragmatic Beer event at the Herkimer in Minneapolis (Uptown). Another name for this same event is the Twin Cities ALT.NET Beers. For more information on where the Herkimer is and what time things are going to get going, Read More......(read more)

Columbus SQL Users Group – Slides and Code Samples

The W Blog — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:49:00 GMT

Thanks to everyone who came out to the user group meeting. It was great talking to you all. The slides and sample code used tonight are included in this post. If you have any questions please drop me a line through my contact page. ColumbusPASS_Jun23_CDC.zip Read More......(read more)

LINQ: Single() vs First()

this.Reflect(); — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:57:31 GMT

Continuing on my path to LINQ greatness, I want to cover another topic that some people get confused over: LINQ’s First() vs. Single() . Both perform a particular task for us, but just by looking at the name you’d never know which one performed the action Read More......(read more)

Planning for Team Foundation Server 2010

DanielS — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:16:00 GMT

When I speak on TFS - I always stress how important it is to keep up-to-date on the software. The features (not just bug fixes) in SP1 of TFS2008 were VERY significant. And heaven forbid being "stuck" on TFS 2005 (we all know what the conventional wisdom says about v1.0 Microsoft products...)

TFS2010 is in beta - and the improvements are even more dramatic than what we've seen with the last major and minor upgrades. Hierarchical work items alone is something that almost EVERY TFS shop I've seen has been clamoring for. And the list goes on and on. I recently installed the beta on a virtual machine and was playing with the new branching- which will REALLY make life a lot easier. I wish I had some dedicated hardware to checkout the lab management features... And the testing tools, historical debugging. There's a LOT there.

Clearly this is something that all companies using TFS need to start planning for - sooner than later. But this will be no easy upgrade. While the installation of the product itself has gotten much easier (not the best for consultant job security :) ) there are other considerations that will need to be considered.

This blog post diagrams what components are and aren't supported - and what's recommended to use TFS2010. The bottom line - if you are running your database tier on SQL Server 2005, your TFS SharePoint Portal on WSS2.0; if your clients are using Office 2003 you must upgrade those. Also - you will have to upgrade your build servers.

Furthermore, if you are running your servers on Windows 2003, running 32-bit servers or not running your TFS SharePoint portal on MOSS, you are using "supported" but not recommended configurations. At some point after the 2010 Release, Server 2003, and 32-bit servers will lose their support.

A release date hasn't been announced yet for these products - but the track record for Team System has been pretty good - so it clearly will be sometime in 2010 (if not before - TFS2008 was available in December of 2007!). So the sooner you start planning, the easier this upgrade will be.

LINQ: Any() vs. Count()

this.Reflect(); — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:23:00 GMT

In most code that you find that uses lists you will find something like this: if(products.Count() > 0) { // Do stuff } Personally, I’ve seen this literally thousands of times. While this works and gets the job done, there is one issue with this Read More......(read more)

My SPSaturday Slides & CSPUG Meeting Next Week!

Blogging about SharePoint: Posts — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:50:04 GMT

Body: Two quick items: My slides from my PowerShell for SharePoint Developers presentation is here: SharePoint Saturday Chicago 2009 - PowerShell for SharePoint Developers (4.81 MB PDF). The next meeting of the Chicago SharePoint User Group is next week, Read More......(read more)

Who is this??

The W Blog — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:14:00 GMT

A quick post of something I get asked from time to time and have to pause to remember. To get the name of the current login use SYSTEM_USER To get the security context of the current login use CURRENT_USER. This function is equivalent to USER_NAME(). Read More......(read more)

Beginning Google Android Development

this.Reflect(); — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:12:50 GMT

My wife and good friend have a G1 and I’m absolutely in love with the damn thing. I plan on getting one soon, however I’ve read a lot and some people are saying to wait for the MyTouch . However, this does not prevent me from getting my hands dirty with Read More......(read more)

Hangin’ in the Lounge

this.Reflect(); — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:15:25 GMT

I’ve death with numerous different advertisers and such over the few years I’ve had my blog. Just recently I spoke with the guys over at the Lounge and we decided to work together. I needed a low maintenance advertising system that could help with the Read More......(read more)

New DimeCast: Exploring Expressions with Spark

this.Reflect(); — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:44:38 GMT

I have another DimeCast that went live this morning. This one is entitled “ Exploring Expressions with Spark .”. Here’s what we cover: ” We are going to take a look at the various different ways you can use Expressions with the Spark View engine. We are Read More......(read more)

How Many Ways Can You Say "Database" in Metadata?

The W Blog — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:59:00 GMT

The answer, in SQL Server 2008, is quite a few. A day or so ago Paul Randall tweeted about the lack of consistency within the column naming in system objects that reference databases (id or name). It got me to thinking about the ones I knew which naturally Read More......(read more)

ASP.NET MVC without Installing the MVC Bits

this.Reflect(); — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:56:13 GMT

I was recently was helping out a collague with an ASP.NET MVC problem and I was given a link to a solution. I opened it and got this message: Which ends up giving you the following in the solution explorer. The reason I’m getting this is because I never Read More......(read more)

Problems in Switching a Virtual Machine from VirtualPC to Hyper-V

jons — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:55:57 GMT

I do a lot of development using VirtualPC images. It keeps my base laptop relatively clean and allows my VPC images to join client domains. Recently, I rolled on to a project that had a very large VHD file. The file was too large to host on my laptop, even after compressing the VHD. Initially, I created a VPC with the VHD hosted on a USB external drive but the performance was simply not acceptable. The project did have a spare machine running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise,...(read more)

Using Entity Framework as Data Access Layer in n-Tier applications

Sergey's space — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:17:49 GMT

I have been using Entity framework as DAL for a CSLA for Silverlight based application. I have player a role in uncovering a number of issues that make it very hard to use in these circumstances. Here is my (surely incomplete) list. 1. Foreign keys handling. Read More......(read more)

Getting Indexing Suggestions In Transact SQL

The W Blog — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:53:38 GMT

My current project has hit that interesting point where the database design is pretty stable and we?re starting to go at the objects in multiple directions with code. I?m really outside my comfort zone this time as we?re doing predominantly LINQ Read More......(read more)

New DimeCast: Exploring how to use Global Vars & View Data in Spark

this.Reflect(); — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:04:55 GMT

I have a new DimeCast up! The title is above. In this DimeCast I cover … how to utilize both global variables and local variables. We will also take a look at how to create and use both strongly typed viewdata and weakly typed view data. To view Read More......(read more)

SortableObservableCollection using LINQ and reflection

Jason's space — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:34:41 GMT

Hello Everyone! So im taking a break on WPF today to blog about LINQ and sorting stuff. We’ve all had to perform sorting at some point in time and sometimes a lot of adhoc, on the fly mechansims get built. So I wanted to come up with a way to provide Read More......(read more)