Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati has a book on LINQ that he wrote against very early bits. When the March 2007 CTP came out, he blogged a list of things that he discovered had changed in LINQ syntax that required updates to his book. The list is handy if you have code even from the January CTP.

I used to hate flying. It still terrifies me to tempt gravity and nature so. But I have to fly a lot since I go to conferences and user groups all over the place. One of my tricks is that I love to get a window seat and look out at the amazing view.

Today I flew back from Orlando where I had just been at DevConnections (which I wrote about here). I flew from Orlando to Washington Dulles, then from there a short 1 hour flight home to Burlington, Vermont. Because it was a short flight, we were in a small plane and flying low. It was a fabulously goregous sunny day. I slept for the first bit of it but then woke up whe the pilot said "if you look to your right, you'll see a great view of NYC". I was on the left so I was looking at Newark. However as we got a little further north, it got better and better.

I lived in the Hudson Valley for 8 years prior to moving to Vermont. I was also quite in love with the Hudson River. My favorite bike rides were ones where I rode my bike across some of the many bridges that span the Hudson. Eventually, we were following the Hudson as we headed north and it was right out my window. By the time we got over Poughkeepsie, I was able to identify so much of what I was seeing because they were places I have spent a lot of time. I was able to see New Paltz and the Shawagunks. Then Rhinebeck which led to something that made my heart jump. I quickly followed the road out of Rhinebeck with my eyes and made my way to the house that I lived in for a very wonderful 6 years of my life (okay, that's discounting an icchy boyfriend that lived there with me for a short while (but hindsight's 20-20, right?). I couldn't really see the house, but I saw what was my pond when I lived there and filled in the rest of the view from memory.

I kept my eyes peeled to the landscape all the way to Burlington. Up the Taconic and Hudson river, the Hudson bridge and the town of Hudson. The Castskills (where I have spent a lot of time not only hiking and winter climbing, but bicycling through as well in my "former life") then Albany , the Adirondacks, Lake George and finally Lake Champlain. Even flying over Vermont, it was easy to pick out the place we put in to paddle Dead Creek, the Addison County Fairgrounds, Snake Mountain, Vergennes, Shelburne Bay and Shelburne Farms. Then finally Burlington. It was a pretty boundy landing due to some strong winds, but we did it safely and I got to drive home on some of the same roads that I had been watching from my birds' eye view.

I wish I could have filmed the entire thing, but hopefully by blogging it, I'll be able to come back and enjoy the memory here.

I was heads down prepping for DevConnectiosn last week and missed this post from Beth Massi. This is fabulous news, not just for Beth but for anyone who is a fan of the VB Developer Center (and all the new fans that I'm sure she will attract). Beth is one of the most energetic people I know and she's scary smart, too!

Congrats Beth!!

Thursday, March 22, 2007 6:27 PM
Yes, I swallowed the red pill, drank the koolaid, been assimilated, whatever...
That's right folks, I joined Microsoft on Monday! (Right after the MVP summit, of course.) I'm very excited about my new position writing content for the Visual Basic Developer Center and promoting the Visual Basic language in the community. I'm still getting all set up over here but stay tuned!!!...

Here's her new blog: blogs.msdn.com/bethmassi

I am at DevConnections where I was VERY excited to see Brian Dawson (ADO.NET team) do not one but TWO Entity Framework talks on Monday.

Brian has a newer build than what we are working with in the March CTP and I saw some stuff that made me wanna whine "gimme gimme".

• SPAN - calling span on an entity sql query will force the ObjectContext to load up an object's entire hieriarchy without having to call Load after the fact to get related data. This seems to be available in Object Services but not through Linq to Entities. Hopefully an Extension Method will be created for Linq to Entities to give us access.
• The EDM Wizard will display Views and Stored Procedures when building an EDM from a database. Then these will be part of the schemas.
• Referential Contraints will work the way you would expect. For example if your db has a referential constraint to delete child records when a parent is deleted, EDM will pick those up. I don't know the details here but am assuming we will have some granular control over this.
• ToList may not be necessary in the future and serialization will be implicit.
• Beta 2 will have something (new to me) called IPOCO... Interface for Plain Old CLR Objects
• QueryViews - ooh baby ooh baby. Create your own views in the mapping layer.
• Associations between sub types.
• There will be a way to convert existing strongly typed datasets to entity schemas. Unfortunately either Erick (who I got this from) misunderstood the question or I misunderstood the question or I misunderstood the answer. Darn.

At the same time as DevConnections, VSLive was happening in San Francisco. (Quite unfortunate scheduling...) Britt Johnston did a keynote and showed [a video of] the latest prototype of the EDM Modeler and also let us know that it won't be ready for Orcas but they plan to release it shortly (?) (well the quote from the ADONET blog post is literally "sometime") after Orcas. This is really frustrating, but it is just the reality and as developers we know the difficulties of designing tools... so it is what it is and until we have it, I will learn a LOT with the XML and personally hold off on doing any seriously complex modeling.

See the ADONET Team blog and Data Blog for more on Britt's keynote and links to the screencast on where the modeler is at today.

I did my ADO.NET Orcas overview talk yesterday to a full room (not a huge room, but still all the seats were filled which was great given that Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell were doing a live DotNet Rocks show with Scott Guthrie at the same time!). I love talking about this stuff even if I never seem to have enough time for all the cool stuff I wish I could show.

If you forget to run particular apps (and I'm talking about key development tools) as an administrator,  you may find yourself, as I did, spending a lot of time trying to solve the wrong problem! Read more

[A New DevLife Post]

I want to preface this by saying that I worked at Synergy when I first moved to Vermont and think the world of this company!!

--------------------------------

Synergy Software Technologies Inc. is a dynamic, fun and exciting software company located just outside of Burlington, Vermont.   Synergy has been in business since 1992 and is a leader in software for human services organizations with over 5000 installations across the country.  We are rapidly expanding our product line and have an immediate opening for an experienced MS SQL Server DBA. 

This position requires a strong knowledge of MS SQL Database Administration on Windows 2003 platforms running in a clustered environment.  Responsibilities include optimization and performance tuning, monitoring and maintenance of customer databases, development of scripts, documentation and procedures for database administration within testing and production environments and working with our development and technical support departments on resolution of database-related issues.  The successful candidate must be a self-starter with the ability to establish priorities and work independently.  Crystal Reports experience a plus.

Synergy offers a relaxed, fun working environment, and an opportunity to be part of a team working with the latest technologies in a high-growth area.  We are leaders in the market segment that we serve, and expect continued rapid growth over the next several years.  This is an opportunity for a creative, aggressive DBA to have a significant impact on our business.  Come grow with us!

Interested candidates must submit a complete package, including cover letter, resume, and salary requirements to ddap@synergysw.com.  Incomplete packages will not be considered.  Please do not submit system generated resumes.  Due to the typical volume of applicants, we will only be in contact with those candidates that we wish to interview.

Synergy Software Technologies Inc is an Equal Opportunity employer.

Dominick Baier posted this 3 months ago, but I only needed it for the first time today. It's quite handy having the SLN files as shortcts when doing conference presentations, and I am preparing my new Vista laptop for next week's DevConnections.

Dominick created a little tool that you can use to run as admin from a file shortcut (not an default option in Vista). I added the tool as a SEND TO option which, while not being as great as having the shortcut run as admin on it's own, is still very helpful.

If you havne't discovered how to have application shortcuts always run as admin (so that you don't have to remember to right click and choose that option each time), there's a checkbox to force this in the shortcut's properties on the Compatibility tab.

Activation by phone solved a strange problem which was suggesting that I had activated Office 2007 with my product key WAY too many times. Read more...

[A New DevLife Post]

I decided that I'm finally ready to make the move to a PocketPC Phone. This means buying a new phone and upgrading from a $40/month plan to an $80/month plan. But Verizon just does not seem to want my extra $40/month. I re-upped with them for another 2 year contract last summer (there was a mixup which is why my phone's end date and my contract's end date are not in synch) and if I want the upgrade discount on the phone I have to wait until June 2007. If I want to upgrade my monthly contract I have to wait until June 2008.

I understand the 2 year contract is a good thing for discouraging clients from cancelling, but I just don't get Verizon telling me that my options are either to purchase a second plan while continuing to pay for my $40/month plan for another 18 months and paying $250 for a phone when NEW customers that have NO history with them and NO loyalty can get the phone for $79.

Sounds ass-backwards to me.

Think Mobile apps are cool? Wanna win a UMPC (now that's cool, too!)

From the mobility folks:

Today’s apps must work in an increasingly mobile environment and must allow new means of input: ink, touch, and more. Build a great application that encompasses these needs, write an article about what you’ve done, and you may win one of three cool Samsung Ultra-Mobile PCs. One winner per month, 3/15/07–6/15/07.
Check out Code Project for more details.

Hmm, now that I've got my own TOUCH SCREEN tablet, all I need to do is find some free time, and I'm so there....

My DevLife blog that has been on the DevSource blog since June 2005, has been consolidated wtih the other Ziff-Davis blogs onto Movable Type. The old blog was on an OLD version of .Text and the comnent spam had gotten way out of control. I asked if they could just update to Community Server, but it made a lot more sense to move me onto the same blogging engine as all of the other ZD bloggers. MT is so different to use and I will miss all of the great formatting features that I'm used to having easy access to in .Text and in dasBlog which I use for THIS blog. Oh well.

But the spam situation was unbearable and it was impossible to keep up wtih attempting to delete 100 new spam comments a day. We had to turn off the comments which also meant hiding all of the valid comments, too, which was a bummer.

Anyway, here's the new blog:

http://blogs.devsource.com/devlife

This is a great thing that DevConnections has been putting together for the past few conferences. There will be a separate luncheon area on one day for women attendees to get together and gab away. In the fall, we did it on the last day and everyone said they wished they had been able to meet each other at the start of the conference, not just as they were getting ready to go home.

So that has been accommodated. I'm looking forward to it yet again.

It will be on Monday in the Crystal Ballroom. There is no formal presentation, it is purely social.

There are two bumps in the road of debugging ASP.NET in Vista. The first is enabling Windows Authentication, which depends on properly installing IIS on your computer. The second is an issue with the debugger not being able to automatically attach to the process that is running your website. This is gotten around either by manually attaching each time (a huge pain in the rear that I got sick of in less than 30 minutes) or applying a quick patch that Mike Volodarsky, on Microsoft's IIS team whipped up.

Mike's blog post shows how to get past these bumps and more.

Rich and i have weekday passes to Mad River so when I work all weekend long and work at night, I won't feel too guilty cutting out for a few hours and today is the day! Even if you don't have a pass, you might want to consider it. Here's from MRG's website this morning:

Starting today we will be switching to special Spring hours and rates. We will be spinning the lifts from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM and midweek lift tickets are a mere $29 for the rest of the season.  Today will simply be the best $29 you ever spent! Bluebird skies and temps in the upper 20's. The skiing, in a word, is unbelievable, with 28"-36" of Champlain Powder during the St. Patty's Weekend "snow event"!   The skiing is downright ludicrous with some of the fluffiest powder this side of Utah.  You absolutely owe it to yourself to make the pilgrimage to Mad River Glen right now. you won't be disappointed. The grooming "fleet" has been out in force pinning down the fluff on the novice and intermediate terrain.  It will be a corduroy paradise out there today  for those who like that kind of thing. The legendary steeps and bumps are about as good as they get and our glades, those famous glades, well you can only begin to imagine how good they are skiing. During the midweek period we will spin the Single Chair, the Sunnyside Double and the Callie's Corner Handle Tow from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM.   Obviously 100% of our fabled main mountain terrain is wide open with some of the finest conditions in recent memory.

Perfect snow. We got about 18" of dense snow between Friday and Saturday. (I know, bad for drivers, bad for travellers, bad for a lot of people, but suh-wheeeeeet for skiers!) Then overnight last night we got another 8+ inches of the lightest fluffiest snow in the world. Yesterday Rich and I went out in our snowshoes and packed our ski trail down in the woods. Today will be the payoff as we get to ski in the fluffy fluffy fluff this afternoon.

Now that I have Vista on my main development machine, I have had a chance to test out the variety of collaboration tools that I use in my work. Here's a post I wrote about what is compatible, what isn't and the status of compatibile updates from vendors.

[A DevLife post]

Last week, I inaugurated my ADO.NET Orcas Overview at the TEchValley.NET User Group in Albany NY (with thanks to INETA!!). It was a serendipitous night for me to present there as they had just moved to new digs for their meeting, a very convenient, spacious and high tech location, so they packed the room!

The purpose of this presentation is to introduce developers to the Entity Framework and to LINQ for ADO.NET (that's the umbrella term for LINQ to SQL, LINQ to DataSets and LINQ to Entities) and while it sounds like a short list, it's a LOT to cover in one session. Especially if you don't want to just do some marketing. Developer's want to see code, but there is a lot of high level explaining to do up front, which takes time. Yet, I can't help wanting to desconstruct the Entity Data Model schema files, try to show different ways of designing a conceptual layer, and then the many ways of getting data out of the entity framework as well as using LINQ to SQL (a huge topic all on it's own) and LINQ to DataSets (another good sized topic, if you like DataSets, which I do!). Minimally, a day would be good to start with.

Before I opened up the schema files, I asked "so, who here is comfortable working with XML, anyway?". I was surprised that 1/3 of the hands went up. This is a smart group of developers who challenged me with a lot of awesome questions! (Though there was a big sigh of relief when I mentioned LINQ to XML and LINQ to XSD for those of use who live in fear of XPath!)

I laughed at John Papa's recent blog post where he bemoans the difficulty of cramming the same list of info into an article he is writing for MSDN Magazine. John and I have been providing lots of moral support to each other as we attempt to wade through Entity Framework and the LINQ flavors that are involved with data access. I was happy to finally meet John in person at the meeting, as well. (A local yokel!)

The most laughable part of my session was when, after constantly checking my watch to gauge how much time I had left (and being surprised, at each check, how well I was doing with the time), I realized that I hadn't changed the time on my watch for the early daylight savings time. I didn't have 1.5 hours to go, but only 1/2 hour! While I had planned to do a 2 hour session (user groups are a little more amenable to this than conferences where you are on a tight schedule), I think that, not counting the short break we took, I managed to wrap up in 2 hours and 15 minutes - and nearly everyone stayed! But what's new? (Hey, you've got me there, take advantage of it! )

The next day, I had a three hour drive home, immediately followed by a GeekSpeak webcast on the same topic, but for only one hour. My favorite part of this format was that whenever I was starting to go on and on about one particular piece of the Entity Framework (can't be helped as I find it fascinating - sick, huh?), Susan would steer me to the next stage of the discussion. Boy, would I love to have Susan with me while I'm presenting at a conference. "Okay Julie, I think 5 minutes looking at XML is more than enough... let's go look at something a little sexier, like the LINQ to SQL designer, huh?"

So next up is DevConnections, where I will be doing this session in 75 minutes (less, if I want to be able to answer questions), then on to Code Camp in Waltham, then the South Sound User Group in Olympia (after talking about LINQ to SQL In Bellingham, WA - both INETA gigs) and DevTeach in Montreal. I'm excited about all of these opportunities to introduce developers to these very cool technologies!

There is a woman in France who owns three of my parent's newfies (see them at TadoussacNewfs.com) . She is very serious about training and showing them.  These dogs have so much fun doing lots and lots of water training and showing and Bouba, the youngest of the three that came from my parents, has made a big name for himself in Europe! Today my parents told me that he is now ranked as the #2 Newfie in all of France, which in the crazy world of dog showing is a really big deal.

From the forums (this thread):

A future version of SqlMetal.exe will generate DataContract and DataMember attributes on your entities for you.  Putting them on the DataContext won't work because the DataContext is not serializable.  (Matt Warren, Microsoft)

I was looking at Vista side bar gadgets on live.com and noticed gadgets for 2008 presidential hopefuls. While Hillary and Obama's are for your myspace or live blogs where others may be somehow inspired by your early choice in candidates, the mcCain one is a sidebar gadget. So if I were a McCain supporter, i could share that fact with my dogs, cat and husband who are the only ones that might be in my office.