Vermont's SQL Server group (VTSQL) has it's next meeting on October 18th at Competitive COmputing in Colchester, VT.

Here are the details.

I love the whole Imagine Cup competition and have always been excited about it in the past. The 2005 registration has just gone live. I already emailed the head of the software engineering department at the most technical of our local schools, Champlain College, to encourage a team to enter although there are no .NET courses in the undergrad level (yet...).

After 2 years of just giving up on updating my .net apps through the web server, I finally went to patterns and practices guru, Chris Kinsman who helped me figure out how to combine a feature from the AppUpdater component (that is unavailable in the Application Block) with a feature from the Application Block (that is unavailable in the component).

Basically I wanted to be able to update on demand, before my application loads and then not do any updating after that while the application is running. In addition, I wanted my updater to be able to discover dll's that it would not be able to identify through reflection within the execution path. These dll's are randomly added to the application and are loaded dynamically.

So - Chris worked out that part of it, whipped up some code for me, and I have been working out the problem of incorporating this into my application so that I can go through this process:

1) user starts up the app by way of the stub application (the appupdater program)

2) user logs in using WSE2 for authentication and authorizaton

3) upon being properly authorized, the app updater component does it's job, checking for updates and downloading them. If the user is unrecognized, it just fails. If the authorization returns some “interesting“ information about the user, something “interesting“ will happen to the application on the client machine.

4) the app udater then fires up the latest version of the program I want to run

Sounds simple - and in hindsight it will be, but it has been a bear! At some point, I will dig in to Chris' code to see what magic he worked to make the app block deal with my needs, but for now I am just happy that I have the update working!

Most of my difficulties with implementing the solution he sent revolved around the fact that the basic setup for the application block is dependent on local host. So I had some setup and configuration problems and then had to understand how to use the manifest utility to create and ecrtypted manifest that actually uses digital signing to verify the downloads to the client.

It is completely senseless to remain stuck on a problem and be so bull-headed to think that additional instances of whacking your skull on a brick wall is going to somehow solve the problem. There are some incredible resources available in our community to sub-contract even for little pieces of expertise. Chris has proven to be one of those people I know I can turn to help me solve some problems that I just don't have the skill or knowlege for.

it's FROST not SNOW! But this is what we awoke to this morning. I think I'm finally capturing that color! It's impossible to miss even with my little camera.

(click on the one below for a larger view)

Well, Duncan is going back to coding which is awesome! (And Duncan and  his wife and his son have a new baby girl in the family, too!!)

But this means Duncan is leaving behind some big shoes to fill with his job. Here is the description on Matt Powell's blog. As a person who mostly programs in VB, I have a vested interest in this site. Duncan has done an amazing thing with the MSDN VB space in the past few years. It is not a job for telecommuters, by the way.

When you create a policy in an WSE2 enabled client app in Visual Studio using the WSE Settings tool, your policycache.config file will likely be in the root directory of the application development folder because that is the default setting and I know everyone loves to just use those defaults.  Your app.config file will point to

<microsoft.web.services2>
<diagnostics />
<policy>
<cache name="../../policyCache.config" />
</policy>
</microsoft.web.services2>

So you need to remember when you deploy your application, especially if you are testing and possibly deploying manually, that the policyCache config is not in the bin folder AND that you will probably need to modify that location setting in the app.config based on the final relationship between your exe and that file.

Just a little thing...but it had me scratching my head for a few minutes.

An email just went out to the user group leaders of all NORAM (US & Canada) and APAC (Asia Pacific) user groups about filling out a VERY SHORT online survey (two whole entries to make) asking how many people attended your October meeting and how many people are on your mailing list. If you are a the leader of a user group that is an INETA member and is in one of these two regions, keep an eye out for the email. If you don't receive it, contact your INETA liaison. If you don't know who that is, then email ugrelations@ineta.org. Guess who answers (or forwards to the correct person) every single email that comes to this address which basically equates to info@? ME. So be kind.

This post says it all about why I love working with INETA.

I just realized I have been sitting at my computer for 4 hours and have not even opened up Visual Studio. I have written 40 emails all related to INETA, my user group, the and Vermont Software Developers Alliance. What's wrong with this picture. Oh and I wrote a couple of VERY SHORT blog posts.

I think I will just close Outlook for a bit.

This seems to be the new “must have” book...

OBJECT THINKING by David West (MS PRESS)

In the last two days I have heard a number of people who's opinions I have a lot of respect for talk about it.

Hmmm finally something I can get myself with my Microsoft bucks <g>

For those of you who attended the MSDN Event yesterday in Burlington, VT, I just wanted to make sure you are aware of this change from the CURRENT beta of ASP.NET 2.0 to Beta 2:

(this comes from the weblog of the Group Program Manager of ASP.NET)

Access Data Providers

In Beta 1, ASP.NET application services such as membership and roles include Access data providers, and use them by default. In Beta 2, however, we will replace this functionality with support for SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, the new version of SQL Server which combines the file-based simplicity of Access databases with seamless deployment to full editions of SQL Server.  The developer model of using the application services stays 100% the same, but the backend implementation will now be much more robust and performant.

Shawn Morrissey tells us that there is a new job opening at Microsoft:

We’re looking for a tenacious Site Manager interested in taking the MSDN and TechNet online experience to a new level.

Read more here

Really, it's the only way to get people to grok Tablets. Robert Scoble let a stranger on a plane (hopefully nothing like Strangers on a Train) play with his tablet and got the usual “wow”. I LOVE to let my friends kids play with my tablet. First of all they are astonished that I am letting them touch my computer (that buys a LOT of love) and then when I show them how to draw etc. I let the 8 yr old child of a perfect stranger draw a picture on my tablet. I actually gave it to him and then walked away (it was a the hair dressers - I hate that term..but that's what we all call it, eh?). Afterwards, I got his moms email - she was astonished that I had allowed this - and emailed her the drawing when I got home. Hmmm... I wonder if they'll buy a tablet soon.

Dare helps sort out when to use xml and let' us, by elimination, know when NOT to - when it is overkill or just not useful. This is good guidance for many. We so often learn HOW to use all of the many technologies at our disposal and are left to figure out on our own WHEN to use them. Many people don't ever even question the “when”. This blog post is a pre-cursor to Dare's next XML column in MSDN Magazine. This isn't new. He actually wrote about this in his blog a year ago, but has now expanded on that post for his column.

This feeds into the recent convesation about the use of WSE2, web services (xml services William prefers to call them) in apps where you own both ends of the pipe.

Here is a great analogy that is going to be very useful in helping people grok security tokens written by Steve Maine. I think it is immimently important for people to understand these building blocks that are being used in web service security, whether they go with WSE or not. Anything that can make folks go “ooooooooooh! NOW I get it” is so valuable.

To anyone who has never attended a presentation by Rocky you may find that post title very strange. Everyone else is probably shaking their heads in agreement. It really felt like this. I could feel the vibe and that people were on the verge of jumping up and shouting out “hallelujah“ at different times.

Rocky Lhotka presented to a packed house of 40 (that's a LOT in our small city) enchanted developers at Vermont.NET last night. We even had some non-locals with one person travelling down from Montreal and another coming from Norwalk, CT (which I believe is 300 miles away)!  Rocky came to VTdotNET as an INETA speaker so we are very grateful to have had this opportunity.

Rocky explained the good and bad and the history of distributed computing with a focus on data-centric programming vs. object oriented programming. Many people think they are doing OOP but in reality are still doing Data-Centric. Big clue here - are you passing datasets and datatables around?

We also got a lot of insight into some of the bigger picture ideas and where distributed architecture is going with Indigo (and where remoting fits in and some issues with messages coming out of microsoft). He mentioned Rich Turner and I just kept hearing “no, nein, niente, shake head vigoursly“ rapping through my head.

We got a look at the basic concept of Rocky's CSLA architecture and I have already been getting emails this morning from people saying “wow - it makes so much sense - I just ordered his book” We did raffle off a few copies at the meeting last night as well.

In the Q&A afterward I suppose it couldn't be helped that Rocky got steered into a VB/C# discussion, but finally someone pulled us back to distributed programming.

Outside of the meeting, I should mention the wonderful leaf peeping tour we took. I picked Rocky up at the airport at noon and took him to an icon of Burlington - Al's French Fries and then we hit the road. We took a 4 hour drive heading south from Burlington going over both the Middlebury Gap and Appalachian gaps. It made me sad to realize taht I had done this on my bike the year before I moved to Vermont and right now that is just not even physically possible. Anyway - though it was an overcast day - the leaves were just glowing and glorious on this entire drive. Rocky hit the absolute peak for this area of Vermont. After the meeting, a bunch of us headed to the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop in downtown Burlington (see we do have a different type of user group!) Thanks also to Gardener's Supply for not only hosting our meeting, but providing a gift certificate for us to present to Rocky in thanks.

Going to pick up Rocky Lhotka at the airport and take him on a drive through northwest vermont. I sure hope it's not as foggy as it is now because it the leaves are perfection right now.

We have a lot of RSVP's for tonight's Vermont.NET meeting.

It should be a blast.

I totally think of Christopher Reeves as a survivor and am surprised and saddened by his death. He leaves an incredible legacy.

A little cloudy but I'd say we are peaking this weekend up where I live

Click on the picture to get a larger view

When I spoke at GUVSM (and also when I attended a talk there a few years ago) I learned a great idea from Guy Barrette for the user group meeting.

He had a slide show prepared of user group information  - tonight's speaker, local events, upcoming meetings, etc. While people were settling down for the meeting, the slide show was just on a loop cycle. Then for the meeting intro, he used the slides as his talking points. Geeze, I use notes on a piece of paper.

So I put one together for Monday night's meeting of Vermont.NET with Rocky Lhotka, including, of course a slide about INETA since it's an INETA sponsored meeting.

Feel free to steal this and make it your own

http://www.vtdotnet.org/docs/vtdotnetnovemberppt.ppt