If you have ever used a SqlDependency in .NET 2.0, have you ever inspected the object before you execute your command?

In the object is a property called Callback ID. When I am running both the .NET code and SQL Server on the same machine or same network, this is set up to traverse back through TCPIP.

 "<MachineAddress>tcp://192.168.0.5:58343</MachineAddress>
<AuthType>None</AuthType>
<Key>a55f6539-5d30-4e67-b87a-a4e3ebb85131</Key>" 

192.168.0.5 is the address of the client machine and 58343 is one of the ports that SqlDependency is pre-defined to use. This is using Beta2 bits and I expect that this will change when I load the next CTP onto my computer. But for now, it's interesting to see.

I am now curious to see what the message looks like when it arrives in SQL Server's clutches, before it strips out the query and sends it off to be processed.

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I learned on the WSE newsgroup that there will be an August CTP for WSE 3.0 to go with the August CTP of VS2005, though it will be a "couple of weeks".

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I noticed this on the Tablet PC home page, but finally checked it out when I saw a link to a Channel 9 video on Loren Heiny's site.In it Emily Rimas, a PM on the Tablet PC Team demo's the (free) product for Robert. It has features from Agilix' GoBinder Lite in there and definitely looks like bits of xThink's equation translators. I wonder if the FlashCards are from Loren? I remember he was working on something a while back. There's more in there. I just sent the link off to my friend who is the Dean of a local college (part of UVM) where all of the students are required to have TabletPCs. Here is a post by Loren where you can get a quick overview of what's in the pack.

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Fabulous ad for Australia's Carlton Draught beer. Thanks to Esther Schindler of www.devsource.com for sending it my way.

By the way, Carlton Draught's website is asp.net (which is why I moved this out of the Purely Personal category ).

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Now this is exciting. Somasegar announces that RC1 will be coming out in September. That means we're almost there! It gets the heart patternig a little faster than “CTP”, doesn't it? 

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Essex High School is looking for

"Microcomputer Specialist to perform a variety of specialized computer installation and support functions"

They are also looking for an AV Technician

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Vermont Energy Investment Corp has two job openings

more info here

DBA and Senior Applications Programmer

Work as part of our IT team to specify, design, develop, and support databases and database applications. Requirements: 3 Years experience designing and administering SQL based commercial database system, and 5 years experience developing database applications. Experience with MS Access, SQL, at least one SQL Programming Language, and VBA required. Oracle & Delphi experience preferred.

Applications Programmer

Work as part of our IT team to design, develop, and support database applications. Requirements: 2 years experience developing database applications. Experience with MS Access, SQL, at least one SQL Programming Language, and VBA required. Delphi experience preferred.

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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!) Beijing, Guangzhou 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....

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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.

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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]

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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]

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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!

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!

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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...

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