Sunday, August 21, 2005

I was looking at some of the links of the TechEd Worldwide page for upcoming events.

TechEd Taiwan I can't make heads or tails of :-)

Tech Ed South Africa is sold out already and it's not for two more months.

TechEd Asia features four talks by my pal who goes by "Softwaremaker" who is becoming an Indigo guru!

There are 3 TechEd events in China (big country, lots of people!) BeijingGuangzhou and Shanghai.

Australia is in only a few weeks. Charles is blogging up a storm about it.

There are more, but the links are a little harder to find....



www.acehaid.org
Sunday, August 21, 2005 5:32:11 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

Have you tried out the new ASP.NET 2 Migration tool that the ASP.NET team was hoping to get feedback on? Time is running short. I tried a small app. It's small, but criticial to a client and does file transfers, file reads and writes, database access, forms authentication and a huge amount of inspection of very complex xml files.

If you don't count the time I took to recreate my database on the test machine, setting all the proper permissions etc, the migration took about 30 seconds and then another 5 minutes to test all of the functions of the application which worked perfectly.

Great job folks.

If you have some free time in the next few days,  go run the tool and send your feedback (including the conversion.txt file) to webwish at microsoft.com. Here is Scott Guthrie's post with more info and the links for the downloads.

The more complicated your application is, the more useful your feedback will be.

www.acehaid.org
Sunday, August 21, 2005 5:21:02 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

Microsoft's Channel 9 has announced the winners of two contests: Cod'n My Way to PDC and Blog'n My Way to PDC that rewarded airfare, hotel and conference passes. The first contest: Cod'n My Way to PDC has two winners: my buddy casey chesnut (he's a big fan of lower case letters) who I have never met in person (so I'm really happy about this) and Peter Jousovec from [read more...].

[A DevLife post]



www.acehaid.org
Sunday, August 21, 2005 11:10:17 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

Microsoft is pushing a lot of great info out on ASP.NET 2.0 for the imminent November 7th release of VS2005. Here are some documents that went public recently: [read more]

[A DevLife post]



www.acehaid.org
Sunday, August 21, 2005 9:25:23 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

Every time my husband or parents have to update their Norton Anti-Virus subscriptions I get irate. Their upgrade process is so confusing and I am confident that iit s inentionally designed to get people to buy more than they need when they upgrade. For example, when Rich gets into the upgrade path from NAV 2003 it shows him only three options: 1) update NAV2003 subs for $24.95 with no more tech support, 2)update to NAV 2005/ PasswordMinder bundle for $39.95 or 3) a 3-pack of NAV 2005. There is no link anywhere on that page to find any other options. He doesn't need Password Minder. So instead we go directly to the Symantec site and choose Products then Upgrades. We say we have NAV 2003 and want to upgrade. It shows us our options. NAV2005 and Norton Internet Security. In the NIS block it says "protect yourself from x y and z viruses" as though you get that with NIS and not with NAV. Additionally, NIS basically does what Windows Firewall does, doesn't it?

In the grid showing differences it does not have "windows 2000/NT/XP" checked for NAV 2005 but it does for the other. I patiently make my way through to order the upgrade to NAV 2005 with subscription and it's only $5 more than renewing the NAV2003 subscription. That's cool. Then it shows him another option - renew for 2 years, not just one, for only $5 more. That's good. We won't have to go through this nonsense again for 2 years. Then the checkout screen finally arrives and it is $41.95 instead of $35.95. They ahve added a 60 day download option in case I don't download it today. I uncheck that and update the cart back to $35.95.

This is just SO aggravating and they have used this trickery for years. Remember when you bought the program and paid $3.95/year for virus subscriptions?  I know there are SO many more viruses for them to keep up with and I don't have a problem with paying more for the virus subscriptions. But it ticks me off that it's this confusing for someone like me - imagine what an average home user goes through.



www.acehaid.org
Sunday, August 21, 2005 9:11:57 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
 Saturday, August 20, 2005

Brian Goldfarb points to this just released document: Major Changes for Visual Web Developer 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0 from Whidbey Beta 2 to RTM . Thanks for keeping us up to speed!!

Here's one that I've been waiting for.

SqlCacheDependency.Start method required for cache dependencies based on SQL Server 2005. If you are creating cache dependencies based on SQL Server 2005, you must call the System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDependency.Start method to initialize SQL Server 2005-based dependencies.

 I am still on Beta2 and will be downloading the August CTP as soon as it's available because I have great faith that the issues of using SQLDependency as a non-admin will be worked out. A number of us have been tearing our hair out about this one. Don't worry, I'm not bald yet.



www.acehaid.org
Saturday, August 20, 2005 9:25:36 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
If you are planning to program with Virtual Earth, I highly recommend having a JavaScript reference handy! I have definitely been making use of  the O'Reilly JavaScript Pocket Ref by David Flanagan though it looks like I'm behind a few editions.

www.acehaid.org
Saturday, August 20, 2005 3:49:38 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
Last week, Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael Allen Benson of St. Albans, a 40 year old who spent half of his life in the army, died as a result of a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad. Benson is the 18th Vermonter to die in Iraq since the war began. more

www.acehaid.org
Saturday, August 20, 2005 12:57:54 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
From what I have heard, Fletcher Allen, Vermont's largest hospital which is in Burlington, is one of the few places in Vermont where I.T. people get paid salaries that are more in line with Boston or even NYC. So it is notable to learn that they will be laying of 10 IT people - software analysts, programmers and a project manager. This article in the Burlington Free Press says that FAHC will help these people find new jobs. I'm skeptical about them finding that many comparable positions in the Burlington area. The sad part is that the IT department is probably downsizing is because they have done there jobs too well. I absolutely wish these guys luck. There is an amazing number of health care related software companies in Vermont, so hopefully, their background will be a benefit in that regard.

www.acehaid.org
Saturday, August 20, 2005 12:54:06 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
 Friday, August 19, 2005

Channel 9 gets the inside scoop on Virtual Earth from the VE team. Watchiing this video really opened my eyes up to the amazing capabilities of this technology. I have barely tapped it in my Virtual Earth does Ink application.

There is a website at www.virtualearthinfo.com with a compilation of links and info regarding VE. And MSN is hiring!



Posted from BLInk!
Friday, August 19, 2005 6:38:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

I cannot believe that ___________ has now purchased my airplane tickets to bring me to the ___________ conference to present 3 sessions (WSE3, ADO.NET 2.0 and one other one :-) ) but it's still not official and I still can't blog about it.

Oh, the frustration!



www.acehaid.org
Friday, August 19, 2005 2:29:44 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

I have added ink to Virtual Earth. It wasn't easy, but I'm a bit of a pitbull when the computer tells me "no you can't!". Thanks to Dr. Neil Roodyn and ViaVirtualEarth for lots of help with building in additional features like zooming, panning and searching, to my application. ViaVirtualEarth is already a phenomenal resource for working with Virtual Earth and also has a great gallery of other applications people have written.

check it out

www.thedatafarm.com/virtualearth

A few caveats:

  • Requires  the TabletPC 2005 Edition (on a tabletpc or with the TabletPC SDK install)
  • It won't work with a full zoom out (showing the entire world) and I have to build something in there to prevent users from doing that
  • Pushpins won't get carried over to the inking page
  • There are probably more. It is a work in progress...


www.acehaid.org
Friday, August 19, 2005 11:45:48 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

Technical Connection seeks to employ an experienced VB.net programmer for approximately 6 to 8 weeks.  It would require on site presence at their Addison county office.

For more information contact:

Vermontjobs@aol.com

802-658-TECH



www.acehaid.org
Friday, August 19, 2005 8:22:42 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
 Thursday, August 18, 2005
Every time I have considered leveraging Active Directory in my VB6 or .NET applications, I have laughed the thought away - too hard. But not any more! Andrew Duthie walks us through how to use the Active Directory membership provider for ASP.NET 2.0.

www.acehaid.org
Thursday, August 18, 2005 7:35:07 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
 Wednesday, August 17, 2005
I just came across this utility that looks like something great for professors using their tablet to ink via projector. It's called Lecture Pen and actually displays an image of a pen at the mouse cursor so that the ink doesn't look to be like ghost writing. I haven't tried it out.

www.acehaid.org
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 2:51:57 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

I have been working with Virtual Earth some more. I wrote recently about the tiles that make up the map image and have made some new discoveries.

When you create a new map, the tiles collection has the tiles in the order of their placement in the grid, by column, as opposed to by row, like a <table> object builds a grid. So in a map of 12 tiles, map.tiles[0] through map.tiles[11] are placed like this.

0 4 9
1 5 9
2 6 10
3 7 11

However as you pan (scroll) around the map image, VE just keeps adding tiles to the end of the collection based on your movement. Therefore, when you stop scrolling, the tiles will no longer be in any order that you can count on, which is not good if you have code depending on the above order.
To rectify this you can use two methods of the map control to jiggle the tiles back into "proper order".
Capture the onEndContinusPan event of the map and then use the SetCenter method followed by the _UpdateMap method.


map.onEndContinuousPan = function(e)
{
map.SetCenter(e.latitude,e.longitude);
map._UpdateMap();
}


I had originally tried to just create a new map when the panning ended, but I was unable (by hook or by crook) to get the compass control, zooming controls, etc to interact with the new map.
Thanks to ViaVirtualEarth for the lesson on how to capture map events.



www.acehaid.org
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 12:24:52 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
 Tuesday, August 16, 2005

very nice, Dr. Neil!

www.viavirtualearth.com



www.acehaid.org
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 1:11:52 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

William lives in Singapore so I'm so happy to see that he'll be at PDC. We talk a lot on i.m. and have never met!



www.acehaid.org
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 8:33:36 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 

The agenda for Code Camp 4 is coming together as people send in their sessions. I can see we will have some travelling speakers again, like Raj Das coming from Chicago (yeah!).

I sent Thom Robbins a gaggle of talks to choose from and he selected four. Eeek! ;-)

I will be doing

ADO.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005

Web Service Security Basics – Demystifying the cryptography tools used in WSE, Indigo and Beyond (just a new title for my favorite talk)

Programming with Virtual Earth

Overview of WSE 3.0

Better get crackin'....

Register Here



www.acehaid.org
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 7:20:32 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  | 
Chances are, anything you can ask is likely to be answered in this just-released extensive PAG guide to ASP.NET 2.0 Security! What a fantastic compilation. Thanks PAG.

www.acehaid.org
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 7:08:34 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)  #     |  Comments [0]  |