I have found myself with no travel plans for the entire summer and I am thrilled. Last summer I was hardly in Vermont with a hectic travel schedule that began, well, in March with DevConnections, then two trips in April, a user group and DevTeach in May, TechEd and then my Moncton/Nova Scotia/Newfoundland trip in June, 3 user groups in July, 1 in August, 3 in September, Bulgaria and more user groups in October, DevConnections in November and then Redmond to visit Microsoft  in December. That's not just the summer, it was the whole year, wasn't it? So now that I have finished up my crazy spring 2007 travelling (DevConnex in late March, then Seattle area in mid April and Las Vegas (MIX) in late April and Montreal for DevTeach last week) I am done.

No TechEd.

No user group trips.

No conferences.

It will all start up again in the fall, but for now I am looking forward to a long and beautiful summer in the place I love with the man I love and the doggies I love.

We'll see how long this plan stays in tact....

The Universal Thread "offical coverage" of DevTeach provides writeups of a variety of sessions from the conference. Those are now available. Read more ....

[A New DevLife Post]

Yesterday, I presented a session at DevTeach called Hacking ClickOnce. I have lived the web based deployment pain for many years and finally found success with ClickOnce after I worked out some unsupported scenarios with ClickOnce. I wrote about this in an article in CoDe Magazine's Nov/Dec 2006 issue called Real World ClickOnce. I then decided to turn my lessons into a talk for DevTeach.

At the end of March, I got a new laptop that has Vista on it and have been using it for presenting ever since. Unfortunately, I discovered an unsurmountable problem with one of my hacks when trying to emulate deploying apps via IIS7 (it is locked down much more tightly than IIS6, even when using the "classic .net" app pool) on the Vista machine. But since my hacks work perfectly well in IIS6 and that is still the current web server technology for Windows, I went forward with my presentation; working around the IIS7 issues because the lessons are still totally valid.

It was definitely a little frustrating but hopefully worth the effort.

I have posted an updated version of the Powerpoint along with the demos onto the DevTeach site for attendees as well as on my TALKS page for others to check out.

[7/13/07: See this post for the solution!]

I have run into a bizarre problem with ClickOnce that is occuring with IE7 on both of my Vista computers.

Both computers have Visual Studio 2005 SP1 and the special vista version of VS2005 SP1. And on both of these, I can't use clickonce to install apps from  Internet Explorer. The ClickOnce mechanism wants me to install .NET.

Firefox doesn't have this problem. (Check out this earlier post.)

Here is a SIMPLE little nothing Hello World app. The only thing in it is this form which has ZERO .NET 3.0 stuff in it. It is pure .NET 2.0.

When I set the publish properties with NO prerequisites at all:

it still wants me to install .NET (on a Vista machine with .NET 2 and .Net 3 already there by default!)

I get the same effect if I run the publisher saying "yes, build a setup exe" with NO prerequisites installed.

If I give in and Install anyway, it gets stranger. It is installing WinFX Beta 2! I have actually let it go all the way through prior to this, which is why in this case it is saying "repair,etc...".

Even if I follow through the installation, ClickOnce continues to insist that I install it (again and again) so I can never launch /install my application.

This partciular computer has a new hard drive that I bought a few months ago on which I installed Vista Ultimate RTM, VS2005 and the service packs. No beta software has ever touched this metal.

I have done the same tests on my 2 month old laptop which also has Vista. I get the exact same results.

I have been at DevTeach for most of this week. A number of very (very) smart people who were at the conference looked at this and were equally mystified.

Brian Noyes created a hello world app in front of me and ran it with no problems.

John Bristowe pointed out the fact that it says "The following preqrequisites are required:" with nothing listed below. WIth no pre-reqs, that statement shouldn't exist. He checked the manifest and researched the schema of the manifest and still remained mystified.

Derek Hatchard spent some time looking at the page headers to see why IE and FF behaved differently.

Prior to DevTeach, I spent many hours trying to figure this out because it was having a pretty bad effect on the demos for one of my talks at DevTeach. At DevTeach, I spent every free minute trying to solve this problem (oh and another annoyance that has to do with IIS7 being super-secure...).

I left a post in the ClickOnce forum on Monday and it has qquickly gotten buried under two pages of questions that have been asked since then, and gone unanswered. It's a little scary how many questions people are asking on that forum.

So, I am putting it here in case anyone recognizes this problem and knows what to do about it. It sure made doing my ClickOnce session at DevTeach challenging, to say the least!

Update: at this point, I can tell the problem is not about IIS7, but it must be my computers. Once the problem began on these boxes, it now happens when, from either of these computers, I try to hit a ClickONce deployment site that is on an IIS6 server.

On Wednesday, I presented a session on Asynchronous Programming for ASP.NET 2.0 Developers. The purpose of this talk is to introduce programmers to the new async features for ASP.NET 2.0 (Async Pages, Asyn Tasks, Event Based Async Web Services, Async DataBinding and when there is time a little pet feature of mine: PostCache Substituion). These are some simple functions that programmers can use to go after the "low hanging fruit"

Since I have modified the powerpoint for this talk, I put a newer version on the DevTeach site for attendees and also uploaded the newer version to my TALKS page on my own website.

The demos are also zipped up and on my website and the DevTeach website.

Once again, INETA is coordinating and leading a full day meeting of .NET User Group Leaders at TechEd. While budget no longer allows INETA to fund bringing many leaders from across the US and Canada to the event (as they have done in the past), TechEd is an event attended by many u.g. leaders, so it remains the best opportunity for congregating.

Over the years. my best source of information and inspiration for leading Vermont.NET has come from talking to other user group leaders and learning from their experiences.

If you are planning to go to TechEd and you are a user group leader or interested in learning more about helping your local user group (or just interested), the summit will be on Saturday, June 2nd in Orlando.

You can register and find more information at summit.ineta.org.

There is an Israeli contingent of speakers at DevTeach this year, bringing Udi Dahan, Oren Eini and Roy Osherove.  I was especially happy to meet Roy because after so many years of blogging, he is someone I feel like I've known for a long time! Here's proof that we were not only on the same continent, but in the same room!

I guess we can't call it ADO.NET Orcas any more.... I guess the right name will just be ADO.NET 3.5.

The DevTeach pre-con workshops are today. I am heading up tonight as the main conference is Tuesday through Thursday. Montreal in the spring - aaaah!

There's so much going on at DevTeach.

Tomorrow morning, Pablo Castro will be doing his keynote, which I'm looking forward to. He will follow up wiht a focus group on Entity Framework in the afternoon.

There is going to be a lively panel on OpenSource on Wednesday night as well as two Birds of a Feather sessions.. one on pair programming with Oksana Udovitsdka and Wendy Friedlander of Oxygen Media in NYC. I'm looking forward to meeting these two hip young women programmers even though I know I will stand next to them feeling like a frumpy old middle aged lady programmer.

I'll be doing three talks. One is on Hacking Click Once, based on my experiences I wrote about in this CoDe Magazine article. It's been hell getting this to gel with IIS7. I will also be doing a presentation on using the asynchronous features of ASP.NET 2.0 and then I will be talking about Entity Framework on Thursday afternoon.

I'm also looking forward to seeing Kate Gregory, who I haven't seen in way too long. Kate and I first met at the first DevTeach. We had each been told "you should meet..." and without having seen pictures of each other, we recognized each other immediately when we passed in a hallway. In fact there are many people that I met at DevTeach who have since become friends. It is a conference I truly look forward to every year.

In my short span betwee MIX and DevTeach (leaving tonight), I've been heads down playing with Silverlight's Inking capabilities and preparing for my DevTeach sessions and avoiding dealing with the delay of EF.

In the meantime, Roger Jennings continues to organize all of the info about ADO.NET Entity Framework into comprehensive posts such as this one.

Mike Taulty's library of LINQ to SQL videos has grown by orders of magnitude. Now he's posting LINQ to XML. When I see how many 15-20 minute videos it is taking Mike to demo and explain LINQ to SQL in a way that is satisfactory, it keeps making me laugh at the absurdity of covering whatever I can manage to squeeze into conference sessions that range from 60 - 90 minutes. Mike definitely has the right way to acheive this!!

An amazing panel of local experts will congregate  at Wednesday's Vermont Software Developer Alliance meeting.

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

12pm - 2pm, Courtyard Marriott Williston, Vermont

A discussion on climate change and what software companies can do to help slow it

This month's meeting brings together a panel of speakers who are experts in helping businesses to:

• Reduce energy consumption
• Recycle computers
• Properly dispose of electronic waste
• Leverage greener transportation options
• Buying greener products
• and more

More info at www.vtsda.org

Tonight we have two presentations at Vermont.NET.

Laura Blood from Blue Note Computing will present on Windows Services.

Mike Soulia, a guy of many hats: Vermont Tech teacher, owner of two great stores in Burlington (Apple Mountain and Kiss the Cook) and a consultant, will dig further into WPF and Expression.

Free pizza and soda sponsored by MyWebGrocer (who is actively looking for .NET developers).

It should be a fun meeting.

It will be the first meeting ever (5+ years) that I will miss since I am driving up to Montreal for DevTeach.

I've spent the good part of this lovely spring Sunday trying going around in circles with this problem. At least I have a workable solution for now.

[A new DevLife post]

We are a small design & development studio in Burlington, Vermont seeking a part time contract .NET mobile application developer (~20 hours/month on average). You would be responsible for helping to develop and maintain a mobile application using the .NET Compact Framework 2.0. Specific skill we are looking for include:

• C#
• .NET Compact Framework 2.0
• Mobile Client Software Factory
• Object-oriented analysis and design (OAD)
• Test-Driven Development (TDD)
• SQL Server 2005 Mobile
• Subversion/Trac

If you are a .NET developer interested in learning mobile application development, we may be willing to spend time training you on the specific skills above. Please email your resume and hourly contract rate to jobs@foundline.com.

MyWebGrocer seeks bright, motivated, energetic and inquisitive software developers. Projects vary from E-Commerce and Social Networks to Website development. We are a small dedicated team that is looking for both entry level and experienced developers which share our enthusiasm and dedication to developing market leading solutions. Areas in which we work involve ASP.NET, C#, SQL and scripting. Exposure to Web Services, SQL DTS, Flash and/or C++ considered a plus. Salary commensurate with experience.
 
Please send your resume and salary requirement to careers@mywebgrocer.com
 
MyWebGrocer, a privately held LLC, is the leading independent E-Commerce service provider to the American Grocery marketplace serving hundreds of retailers nationwide.

I've been heads down since MIX07 playing with the new ink object in silverlight. I have posted a sample with my tests and some of the code. Read more here.

[A New DevLife Post]

Inntopia is the leading provider of central reservation software solutions for the mountain travel market. Our rapidly growing client list includes the leading central reservation services in Telluride, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Winter Park, Crested Butte, Stowe, Lake Tahoe and many more.

Inntopia team members share a passion for their work, a love of outdoor adventures and a sense of humor.   We are experiencing explosive growth, and are looking to grow the team.

Inntopia offers a great benefits package, flex-time scheduling and highly competitive wages in our Stowe, Vermont office.

If you enjoy a fast-paced, fun work environment and think you are a good fit for our team, email a cover letter and resume to lisa@inntopia.com.

APPLICATION DEVELOPERS

REQUIRED TECHNOLOGY EXPERTISE

4+ years experience in a majority of the following technologies:

• ASP.NET/C#
• SQL/T-SQL
• XML
• XSL/XPath
• AJAX / JavaScript
• XHTML/DHTML
• COM/DCOM
• SOAP/Web Services

SOFTWARE TOOLS

Familiarity with the at least 2 of the following development applications:

• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003/2005
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2005
• XMLSpy
• Visio

REQUIRED SKILLS

• Ability to design, develop and maintain software on Microsoft .NET platform.
• Ability to design and develop software in a group or independently.
• Comfort with direct communication with all levels of technical and business resources.
• Self-managing, self-motivated learner with good written and oral communication skills.

ADDITIONAL BENEFICIAL SKILLS

• Travel/hospitality industry experience

• Experience with high-volume transactional accounting systems (accounts receivable and accounts payable)
• Experience with complex pricing and commission structures
• Experience with security protocols (i.e. PCI Compliance and data encryption standards)
• Experience with software development process management.
• Experience developing multi-lingual web applications.

SENIOR SYSTEMS AND NETWORK ENGINEER

Inntopia is taking its infrastructure to the next level by implementing clustering technologies and moving to a multi-homed environment.  We are seeking an individual to help us design, implement and support this new infrastructure. 

REQUIRED TECHNOLOGY EXPERTISE

4+ years experience in most of the following technologies:

·         Microsoft server operating systems and application servers (Windows 2003 Server, IIS 6.0, SQL Server 2000/2005, Exchange 2003)

·         Microsoft infrastructure support applications such as ADS, DNS, FRS

·         Microsoft clustering technologies

·         Microsoft .NET web application configuration and deployment

·         Layer-3 switched networking technologies and other related technologies (VLAN, HSRP, spanning tree, etc)

·         Firewall and other network security technologies

·         Routing technologies including WAN Routing Protocols such as BGP, OSPF and EIGRP

·         Hardware and software load balancing

·         Common network-based services such as LDAP, DNS, SNMP, SMTP, etc.

·         Linux operating system

·         Storage Area Networking (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS)

·         Application and SLA monitoring and reporting

·         SourceSafe

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

·         Serve as the lead technical role in the design, implementation, and maintenance of network hardware and related software and services

·         Participate in a team responsible for the design, implementation, and maintenance of network hardware and related software and services

·         Act as a subject matter expert on all networking-related technologies used in the Inntopia systems infrastructure, as well as a broad knowledge of applications and server-related technologies in place.

·         Contribute to the infrastructure design and planning process by delivering technical requirements and capacity analysis.

·         Coordinate with Software Development, Release Management teams and others to draft & approve detailed work plans and deployment schedules.

·         Work with vendors to help Inntopia.com maintain supported configurations for key platforms.

·         Provide technical advice and support for integrated third-party services such as credit card and payment processing and business partner data exchange.

·         Serve a significant hands-on role in implementation and ongoing support activities, including highly technical problem solving and/or performing technical direction for work done by Inntopia.com staff and vendors.

REQUIRED SKILLS

• Ability to negotiate with customers and business partners
• Ability to perform a combination of lead and supporting technical roles in multiple simultaneous projects
• Microsoft certifications (MCSE, etc) and Cisco certifications (CCNA, CCNP, etc) preferred

USER SUPPORT SPECIALIST

User Support Specialists are available to provide phone and email support to Lodging Companies, Activity Providers and Central Reservation Agents.

REQUIRED TECHNOLOGY EXPERTISE

General familiarity with Internet Applications (Explorer, Outlook, etc)

SOFTWARE TOOLS

• Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, etc)

REQUIRED GENERAL SKILLS

• Certain degree of technical savvy.
• Great interpersonal and communication skills.
• Attention to detail.

ADDITIONAL BENEFICIAL SKILLS

• Travel/hospitality industry experience.
• Experience as a user of the Inntopia system.
• HTML or graphic design skills.

Esther Schindler sent me this link since she saw it came from a library in a small town in Vermont.

I never even heard of this linux based o/s (only because I really don't pay much attention... there's already too much for me to learn.). But the video says it all. Happy happy librarian.

IronPython, IronRuby, VBx.. what? "I-can't-get-no-respect"-VB is one of the cool new languages? Read more

[A New DevLife Post]

The Silverlight Beta 1.0 (golive) has a problem wtih Firefox and apparently it's a FF bug that creates the problem. It completely prevents the embedded Silverlight app from being displayed on a web page.

Eric Sowell has a post explaining the problem and points to this MSDN forum thread which suggests a workaround which is a temporary hack.