It's been nearly 3 months since the disasterous tsunamis destroyed many countries, killed nearly 200,000 people and displaced millions. In the weeks after this happened I was very involved with an organization in Bali, Indonesia that was doing amazing relief work in Aceh Province. They continue to go strong but have shifted their efforts to Recovery. I was their "website medic" for the first month and was doing what I could in Frontpage to be posted to their Linux server, basically taking little pleas for this getting this and that information quickly onto the site. Now they have a real web designer on board, Sylvia Tu, as well as some breathing room to think the content through rather than just be doing crisis management on the site. The website is looking fantastic and there is all kinds of excellent information and stories about what they are accomplishing. I know most of the world has gone on with their lives and forgotten the millions still in need. Keep track. Pay attention. Maybe they'll again need something that you can help with.

www.AcehAid.org

http://www.AcehAid.org

Thanks Mike G for pointing this out.

With verification/validation from Brad Abrams (Microsoft), Paul Vick (Microsoft), Tyler Whitney (Microsoft) and Erik Porter (MVP), Cory Smith has put together an excellent document on VB.NET Coding Guidelines. We all tend to get lazy and should probably take a look at this monthly!

Why this is on his blog and not on the VB Developer Center, I'm not sure. Yo, Brad!!! Lookee here...

http://www.AcehAid.org

I don't remember seeing this in the past, but the Feb CTP bits have a hissy fit if you change the name of a control on a web form or windows form. Web Forms want to refactor your code behind for you. Sometiems it hangs. WinForms throws a whole lot of compile time errors to the Error reporting system, but then gives control back with nothing lost. Beware...

http://www.AcehAid.org

I'm fiddling around with nullable types in Whidbey and just discovered a DataRow property that is not even new, but I had never known was there (or maybe it flew by me once but it didn't stick in my brain):

DataRow.IsNull("mycolumnname")

Obviously invaluable when dealing with value types.

I guess in the 3 years I have been doing .NET, I just hadn't needed it. My main production app has a sql server database that started out being used by VB5 then VB6, so I was used to not creating DateTime columns as nullable, or dealing with nulls directly in the stored procedures. Well, I'll be!

http://www.AcehAid.org

So I popped over to blog feed reader and I see "Got Indigo Day" in Boston. I can't see the whole post and I can't help thinking "who the heck is gonna do that?". Who in Boston knows Indigo well enough already to present on it on behalf of Microsoft? Will they just be reading a script or something? Then I scroll down and get a big aha! moment -- it's David Chappell. Okay, I'm conviced!  

http://www.AcehAid.org

Rod has his downloads from Code Camp on his website (www.dashpoint.com). The SQL Server 2005 DataTypes with VS2005 presentation he did at VTdotNET on Monday night are included in the MSDN Code Camp downloads.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I'm curious to see if anyone that I know who is coming to DevConnections is signed up for my pre-con workshop. It is a special workshop, not included with the regular conference. I am *so* looking forward to this session!!

http://www.AcehAid.org

I want to keep reminding folks attending DevConnections that my talk titled "C# for VB6 Programmers" will be just as useful for VB.NET programmers (who likely came from VB6 anyway).

I got more confirmation of this when doing it to a packed room at Code Camp III which chose to stay an extra 45 minutes during lunch just so we could experiment some more.

http://www.AcehAid.org

I just bought more memory for both of my laptops.

I removed 256 chips from each of them. I can't think of anything to do but throw them in the garbage except that I see crucial sells the one I just took out of my Toshiba M200 for $43.00 and the ones I took out of my compaq are also $43 each. So that adds up to $129 and suddenly maybe I don't know if I should just chuck 'em. Perhaps I'll give  them a try on ebay...

Posted from BLInk!

The INETA Newsletter archive page also now has links to watch

the INETA Video

INETA on MSDN TV

and listen to INETA on DotNetRocks

more to come...

 

http://www.AcehAid.org

Alex P doesn't like this book. He is absolutely entitled to his opinion. What I don't understand is his position that Francesco Balena has no credibility and that his position as an RD is of little value. Balena is a well known and respected author in the .NET world as well as pre-.NET Visual Basic. And RD's aren't selected based only on their good looks. Many of them also happen to be some of the top in their field technically, which is why Microsoft allows them to represent MS as such. I see nothing wrong with expressing one's opinion, but I think the [unjustified and unqualified] personal attack is pretty crappy.

http://www.AcehAid.org

If you have been and continue to be using pre-release versions of .NET 2.0, Kit George has pointed to this download which will list the APIs that are in existing bits that will not make it to the final RTM version. Definitely pay attention to this!

Clarification for those who may need it: These are NOT v1.x APIs, but APIs that are new to .NET 2.0 that have been in the current beta and other pre-release bits and will probably be in the Beta 2.0 as well. But they won't make it to the final release.

http://www.AcehAid.org

well, a simulator - but the thrill is far from simulated. Here's Jeff's post. I love reading about his passion for planes.

http://www.AcehAid.org

• Avoiding Boxing in Classes Implementing Generic Interfaces through Reflection [Dave Fetterman]
• How Did System.Decimal Change from V1.0 to V1.1? [Anthony Moore]
• CodeDom now supports a way to generate code for CodeTypeMember [Vinaya Bhushana Gattam Reddy]
• Regex and Balanced Matching [Ryan Byington]
• Potential additions to the Math class [Katy King]
• RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitspace [Ryan Byington]
• DirectoryInfo.Name lacks security checks [Ravi Krishnaswamy]
• What are the New DateTime Features in Whidbey [Anthony Moore]
• IO Exceptions will now reveal FullPath (if you have PathDiscovery access) [Ravi Krishnaswamy]
• A Tracing Primer - Part I [Mike Rousos]
• Writing a Useful Windows Service in .NET in Five Minutes [Dave Fetterman]
• Testing Managed ACL for IO [Lakshan Fernando]
• Synchronization in Generic Collections [Brian Grunkemeyer]
• Fixing bugs with compatibility in mind - an IO experience [Lakshan Fernando]
• Best V2.0 feature in the .NET Framework: A BCL Poll [Kit George]
• Come and Meet the CLR team! [Kit George]
• The .NET Vision (aka: the big picture): what are we working towards? [Kit George]
• An intro to CodeDom [David Gutierrez]
• SafeHandles: the best V2.0 feature of the .NET Framework [Ravi Krishnaswamy]
• The Base Class Library Program Manager (PM): a job description [Kit George]
• PerformanceCounters: reading the disk counters [David Gutierrez]
• The SLAR on System.Convert [Brad Abrams]

http://www.AcehAid.org

"SQL Server Setup could not connect to the database service for server
configuration. The error was: [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source
name not found and no default driver specified"

I had this problem and found the solution the other night over on Niko P's blog...

His blog is a great resource for SQL Server 2005 setup issues.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Friday, March 18th at 10 AM PST

This session focuses on the InfiNotes Note Taking Framework built by Agilix Labs Inc. as an extension to the Tablet PC SDK and Visual Studio .Net Development environment. Agilix InfiNotes is a collection of .NET controls that add rich ink note-taking functionality to new and existing applications. Simply drag the control from the toolbox and begin adding digital ink to your application immediately! You'll be amazed at how quickly you can develop ink note-taking features in your .NET application. InfiNotes Standard Edition is available free from http://www.infinotes.com and should be installed on your development environment along with the Tablet PC SDK, available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/tabletpc. (You do not need a Tablet PC to develop Tablet apps, this can be done right from your existing Windows development environment).

http://www.AcehAid.org

Boy did we have a blast! Rod  Paddock flew into Boston for Code Camp III where he did 3 back to back sessions on Sunday. He drove back to Vermont with Laura Blood and I. We forgot to pause in NH so he could "touch down" and claim he has been to NH, now. We met up for dinner at my favorite Montepelier restaurant, Sarducci's, with Mario Cardinal and Eric Cote, our GUVSM.NET buddies who were also at Code camp and on their way back to Montreal.

Yesterday Rod treated me to my first Best Buy experience. I have never been there before! Then I toured him around Burlington a bit and off we went to the meeting.

Rod did a talk on creating custom data types for SQL Server 2005 using VS 2005. He is a fantastic presenter.. I could tell that the VTdotNET members were  very interested and engaged because of the many questions. Jean Rene Roy came down from Montreal to pick up Rod since he was heading there next on his world tour. After the meeting Rod, Jean-Rene and Marc Heinzer who is doing awesome work at Gardener's Supply (the largest mail order and online ordering gardening supply company in the country), had a little more geeking out at The Daily Planet and off they went to Montreal.

Rod is speaking tonight at Montreal's Foxpro User Group and then tomorrow night in Toronto at the Toronto VB User Group. He started at home in seattle so he will have a lot of miles under his belt at the end of his mini-world tour.

http://www.AcehAid.org

http://www.AcehAid.org

Database Production Support Consultant (1 year)

• At least 4-5 years combined using both MSSQL and Oracle RDBMS
• Experience with performance tuning and integrity via indexing, normalization/de-normalization, constraints, triggers, etc.
• Understanding of database security and implementation using views, column level permissioning, and roles.
• Experience with DTS, creation/maintenance of SQL jobs, and security from server to database (including use of NT Authentication as well as standard SQL login/password security)
• Excellent debugging and communication (both written and verbal) skills required
• Excellent organizational skills
• Windows command line scripting and UNIX shell scripting including Awk
• Ability to communicate technical issues in an understandable way to non-technical end users, and keep management informed of the status of issues.
• Database maintenance including backup and recovery, space management, and consistency checks
• Responsibilities to include monitoring existing production processes, identification of performance improvement opportunities in existing processes, completion of audits (daily through monthly), creation/maintenance of desktop procedures/instruction manuals for existing processes, assisting during testing of new processes, and maintenance of data dictionaries

 

Database Consultant (1 year)

• At least 4-5 years combined using both MSSQL and Oracle RDBMS
• Creation and maintenance of large data warehouse databases (up to 1TB)
• Extensive development of stored procedures (containing complex business logic) and views
• Experience with performance tuning and integrity via indexing, normalization/de-normalization, constraints, triggers, etc.
• Understanding of database security and implementation using views, column level permissioning, and roles.
• Excellent debugging and communication (both written and verbal) skills required
• Excellent project management and organizational skills
• Experience creating and updating technical documentation and following development methodology
• Windows command line scripting and UNIX shell scripting including Awk
• Experience acting as a liaison between non-technical business users to create appropriate business requirements
• Data analysis experience helpful
• Database maintenance including backup and recovery, space management, and consistency checks
• Responsibilities to include monitoring existing processes to populate data warehouse, improving performance of existing SQL processes, assisting in the development of new processes for data gathering, completing project documentation, and development and maintenance of data dictionaries

 

For immediate consideration, please contact:

Anne Keehan

Partner

Brandywine Technology Partners

Phone: 302.656.6100 x225

Email: akeehan@btpartners.net

http://www.AcehAid.org

wowee! what a fun fun weekend. Even with a snowstorm there were a good 300 people at code camp on saturday. More on Sunday. There were even speakers who came from afar - Seattle (Rod Paddock who is speaking at Vermont.NET tonight), Chicago (Raj Das), North Carolina (Rob Zelt and Josh Carlisle), NJ (DonXML).

There were a lot of first time speakers and that went great! Dave Burke gave his presentation on Customizing .Text , which I couldn't attend as I had a talk at the same time, and really enjoyed presenting. Dave got in a very scary accident on his way down and we were all happy to have him there and well.

Sam Gentile had to deal with my low powered laptop to do his .NET 2.0 demos since he had problems with his machine - but at least it worked!

I had fun with my talks. I did the security fundamentals talk again with a look at wse2.0 and love doing that one! I also got to try out two new talks. What's new in ADO.NET 2.0 and  C# for VB programmers. They were both fun.

I know that during the ADO.NET talk, there was something I said, "hmmm - will have to check that out and blog it, but someone has to remind me" - I need the reminder because, as I expected, I don't remember what that was - outside of checking the perf differences between using row add to add many rows to a table or using dataset merge and modify row state - as expected - no difference. I tried it with 400 new rows. So I have to find a better scenario for my demo!

The C#/VB talk was a total blast. Although the sessions were a generous 90 minutes, mine was before lunch. So at the point my talk was supposed to end, everyone just went and grabbed their lunch and came back and we played for another 45 minutes. Even though I don't know the ins and outs of CodeRush too well, I spent about 10 minutes demoing it. I think it is a great tool for people who are used to one language and have to do some coding in the other. We got a little deeper into delegates than I meant to. I believe that delegates are the A#1 biggest hard to grok thing for VB programmers but I have found a way of explaning it that I think works. I think that I will get myself better versed in them and put together a session on delegates and event handling in .NET for VB programmers.

Thom Robbins did an extraordinary job putting this together!

http://www.AcehAid.org