I had been thinking that I don't want to write up a whole story about our year to put into the christmas cards for those distant relatives that we hardly ever see, yet I wanted to at least have a little something to share with them.

Then today, I got the perfect solution in the form of a friend's holiday letter - she created a comic strip from a handful of pictures using Comic Life from plasq. THere are versions for WIndows and Mac. We printed out a bunch and also exported it to a jpg. Mine's a little lame, but you can get very creative. Definitely a fun tool!

Click on the mini version to see it full size.

1-2 inches tonight

7-11 tomorrow

4-8 tomorrow night

We are at a higher elevation so generally we trend toward the higher side which adds up to 21"!

I know where I'm going to be on Monday!

One of the new features in Entity Framework Beta3 is the ability to embed the csdl, msl and ssdl schema files into the assembly which contains the model.

This is useful in scenarios where, like in a few of my solutions, you want to have a separate project to host the model and then use that project in various applications. In that case you need to make a reference to the dll with the model and the application using the model will need to know where to find the schema files through the metadata property of the special connection string.

At design time, you work with the EDMX file in the designer and you can also manually edit it's XML if and when necessary. When the project is compiled, the 3 key sections of the EDMX file are spit out to the separate schema files (*.csdl, *.mls, *.ssdl) which are used by the EF APIs.

With the schema files embedded into the dll, we don't have to keep track of the files.

Here's how to pull it off. Note that there is a workaround in these instructions for a known bug.

My project that hosts the model is called AdventureWorksModel. In it are the model as well as some additional code that extends the functionality of the code generated classes.

By default, the EDMX file's Build Action property is set to "EntityDeploy". This is important to note in case you change it for some reason. It does need to be "EntityDeploy". (I learned that the hard way, which is why I make a point of mentioning it.

Open the EDMX file in the design window and then you will see a new property in the property window called Metadata Artifact Processing. The default of this is "Copy to Output".

To get around a current known bug, build the project with the property set to "Copy to Output". Then change the Metadata Artifact Processing property to "Embed in Output Assembly". Eventually you won't need to build with Copy to Output first.

Build the project. After building, if you use a tool like Reflector, you can see the files have been compiled into the dll as in the screenshot below.

If you check the connection string in the app.config for the project you will see that there is a reference to the projects resources in the metadata properties, rather than to a file path.

<add name="Entities"
connectionString="metadata=res://*/AWModel.csdl|res://*/AWModel.ssdl|res://*/AWModel.msl;
provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string=&quot;
Data Source=127.0.0.1;Initial Catalog=AdventureWorksLT;Integrated Security=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />

Now you can reference the project or the dll directly, I have been successful with both methods.

The connection string in the model's project needs to get copied into the config file of the app.

Then you should be good to go.

I did deploy the solution copying only the exe, the dll for the model and the app.config for the exe and it worked like a charm. No ssdl, csdl or msl files came along for the ride.

Thanks to Mike Kaufman and some others on the team for help as I tried to figure out how to get through this.

An arhitectural note... embedding the files will be useful in a number of scenarios. However there will also be many scenarios in which you do not want the schema files compiled into the dll so that you can replace them easily as needed without having to redeploy a dll. Granted with .NET, deploying a dll can be just as easy as deploying a new xml file, but I know there will be cases where I will prefer the loose coupling.

For those cases, I'll want to work with the EntityDeploy msbuild task directly so that I can define the output location of the files that are built and easily maintain a common location as I did in this blog post which showed how to do it in Beta 2 (though that particular solution is no longer applicable). I'll be fiddling with the msbuild task shortly.

Scott Guthrie has a post on Dynamic Data Support for ASP.NET that's in the Extensions CTP. Based on my little rant from yesterday, I wanted to point out this:

One of the cool new features is something we call "ASP.NET Dynamic Data Support".  In a nutshell this enables you to really quickly build data driven web-sites that work against a LINQ to SQL (and in the future LINQ to Entities) object model - and optionally allows you to-do this without having to build any pages manually.

I have been a fan of this show for a loooong time. It comes to Vermont occasionally, but I seem to miss it. I just learned it will be here August 23, 2008 and already bought a pair of tickets! So now, I have no excuses.

The tickets officially go on sale on Monday and you can get them through the Flynn Theater Box Office.

VSM has a new website and it is finally possible to find content! Hooray. Nice job folks.

Geek story of the day!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/12/13/northern.lights.ap/index.html

When I was at ReMix Boston in early October, I remember that Stan Shultes told me that someone was doing user group presentation on Entity Framework in Florida but couldn't think of the person's name at the moment. Shortly afterwards, I had an email conversation with someone who had asked an interesting question on the ADO.NET forums and when he said he lived in Florida, I correctly put two and two together. It was Jonathan Carter who had been doing the presentations.

I met Jonathan a few weeks later at an SDR at Microsoft and, although I'm used to how young many programmers seem to me now (it's all relative ... only because I"m so friggin' old now ), I was surprised how young he was, but oh so smart. And of course, we had our passion for Entity Framework and Astoria in common!

This didn't go unnoticed and now Jonathan is wearing a blue badge! He is now the technical evangelist for Visual Studio and .NET Framework - a pretty impressive position to start with.

You can read more about Jonathan's new job here and then check out the rest of his blog because he's been blogging up a storm.

I've been using the GetObjectStateEntry method for a while so that I can view and interact with the state of a particular entity that I have in hand.

Today I used the plural version of this method for the first time and boy do I like it!

GetObjectStateEntries takes as a parameter an EntityState enum: Added, Modified, Deleted, Unchanged or Detached.

It provides a perfect opportunity to do some work on entities prior to hitting the datastore during a save changes event.

For example, if you have an entity with a property to track the modification date you could update that property any time any other property in the entity is changed which might be wasteful. But with the GetObjectStateEntries method, I am able to just update the Modified Date property on all changed objects at once just before I save changes.

Here's some code for dealing with the Customer entity that is derived directly from the customer table in the AdventureWorks database.

Now, this poses an architectural question and you may want to put this particular business logic elsewhere, but it's merely a demonstration of what you can do with this method.

Because the generated classes are partial classes, I just create another partial class for my AdventureWorksLTEntities class and intercept the SaveChanges method. Then I grab all of the modified objects, use the Entity property to filter just Customers, then changed the Modified Date property. Next I grab the Added objects, change the Modified Date and also add in a default password hash and password salt. These are required for customer rows. (Read more about hashing passwords here on Beth Massi's blog.)

Namespace AdventureWorksLTModel
 
  Partial Public Class AdventureWorksLTEntities

    Private Sub AdventureWorksLTEntities_SavingChanges(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.SavingChanges
      Dim changedEntities = Me.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(EntityState.Modified)
      For Each stateEntryEntity In changedEntities
        If TypeOf stateEntryEntity.Entity Is Customer Then
          Dim cust As Customer = stateEntryEntity.Entity
          cust.ModifiedDate = Now
        End If
      Next
      Dim addedEntities = Me.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(EntityState.Added)
      For Each stateEntryEntity In addedEntities
        If stateEntryEntity.Entity.GetType() Is Customer Then
          Dim cust As Customer = stateEntryEntity.Entity
          cust.ModifiedDate = Now
          'password hash cannot be null
          'for demo purposes just put a default string in there
          Dim strPassword As String = "p@ssw0rd"
          Dim encoder As New System.Text.UTF8Encoding()
          Dim SHA1Hasher As New Security.Cryptography.SHA1CryptoServiceProvider
          Dim hashedBytes As Byte() = SHA1Hasher.ComputeHash(encoder.GetBytes(strPassword))
          cust.PasswordHash = Convert.ToBase64String(hashedBytes)
          'customer table also needs salt for hash
          Dim buffer() As Byte = New Byte(5) {}
          Dim rng As New System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider()
          rng.GetBytes(buffer)
          cust.PasswordSalt = Convert.ToBase64String(buffer)
        End If
      Next
    End Sub

  End Class
End Namespace

I have a feeling that this existed in Beta2, but I have updated both of my boxes and don't feel like digging into a VPC just to verify.

One of the changes with the new CTP release of ADO.NET Data Services (formerly Astoria) is that you can create a service against any iQueryable, not just Entity Framework. This is huge.

Roger Jennings points to Guy Burstein's how-to with Astoria (I guess it's time to update my own now outdated posts) and makes the following comment:

"Like Andy Conrad, Guy uses LINQ to SQL instead of the Entity Framework as the data source. I have the feeling this substitution will become universal, at least until RDBMS vendors other than Microsoft deliver EntityClient data providers."

So this bugs me a little. Why? Because the issue is that right now, Entity Framework only works with SQL Server. But hello, what do you people think LINQ to SQL works with? It's called LINQ to SQL for a reason!

Okay, rant over, back to work...

I've done this demo many times in conference and user group sessions. Someone on the ADO.NET forums asked how to do it and I thought I would just do a quick tutorial with screenshots.

What this Tutorial does is demonstrate how to create and use a data source from a particular entity in the model. I'm just doing simple drag and drop and no filtering or anything here with the goal of just a quick basic walkthrough for getting started.

Start by creating a Windows Application.

Add an Entity Data Model.

Select Data from the menu and choose Add New Data Source

In the first page of the wizard, choose Object as your Data Source Type.

The next screen of the wizard will show the namespaces in the current solution. Open up the namespace for the application

then choose the entity which you want to use as a Data Source. I will pick customer.

Then you can Finish the Wizard.

Now to get easy access to the datasource, go back to the menu and choose Show Data Sources from the Data menu.

The DataSources Window will be placed in your IDE in it's default location. Mine docks with the windows on the left.

When it's not pinned it gets tucked away with the others. You can undock it and put it wherever you want.

I can now drag and drop the customer data source onto the windows form to get the automatic DataGridView and Navigation toolbar (this is normal behavior for DataSource and not specific to Entity Framework).

There are a few more steps to actually getting user interaction with this. You need to populate the Binding Source and if you want to edit, you'll need to add a little code to the save button on the toolbar.

You'll need to enable the BindingNavigatorSaveButton (just click the save icon on the navigator toolbar and change it's Enabled property to True). Additionally, you'll probably want to format the grid which you can do easily from it's SmartTag and more thoroughly through the properties window.

Here's what the code behind looks like in my form enabling me to view, add, delete, edit and save data.

Imports WindowsApplication1.AdventureWorksLTModel
Public Class Form1
  Private aw As AdventureWorksLTEntities
  Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
    aw = New AdventureWorksLTEntities
    CustomerBindingSource.DataSource = aw.Customer.OrderBy(Function(cust) cust.CompanyName)
  End Sub

  Private Sub CustomerBindingNavigatorSaveItem_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles CustomerBindingNavigatorSaveItem.Click
    aw.SaveChanges()
  End Sub
End Class

Note that because the AdventureWorks Customer table has the following constraints: ModifiedDate must be a valid date value and the PasswordHash and PasswordSalt fields cannot be Null, I have extended the entity class to take care of these things when SaveChanges is called.

Ann DeMarle is the director of the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College in Vermont. She has started blogging at http://emergentmediacenter.blogspot.com  and I look forward to her great insights!

I was honored to be invited by Ann to participate in a Degree Advisory Council for this program.

Finally it's real live production bits to play with!!

In addition to finally using real bits, key to this release are the finalization of response formats (XML by way of ATOM and JSON), security, an AJAX client, querying with LINQ when you are using one of the clients. THere's a lot more.

Mike Flasko published 4 blog posts on the Astoria Team weblog yesterday:

ADO.NET Data Services ("Project Astoria") CTP is Released

ADO.NET Data Services Dec2007 CTP - Validation and Access Control

LINQ to ADO.NET Data Services

While I was at my parent's house helping out with their THIRTY-FOUR new newfie pups, Tasha was at home hitting an amazing milestone! She turned 14 years old. This is very old for a newfie. While she isn't the athletic young girl she used to be thanks to arthritis, she is still full of it! Barking every morning to make sure everyone in the neighborhood knows "I'm still here!", eating like a champ and full of desire (though not the ability) to go down to the road and see what there is to see. I spent years keeping her from getting hit by cars. Now that she's old, I finally don't have to worry about that any more. Her eyesight and hearing seem to be fine and she gets acupuncture to help out with the arthritis since her back legs are quite stiff. It's hard to get up, get down and to walk. Not so hard that she's not willing though although she hasn't been doing stairs for a few years now. Every day I watch her so carefully to make sure that I'm not being selfish.

Here's a picture of her today. A little scruffy because it's basically impossible to give her a bath as we can't make her stand for a long time. We can't get her upstairs to our easy access shower to try to bathe her there either and now it's too cold to bathe her outdoors. But she doesn't mind and neither do we. She's 98!

A little less than four years ago, I took some pics when we were giving Tasha a bath at our local (wonderful) pet store that has a great setup. Even then she was old for a newf at 10 and standing for a long time was a little problematic. But look how cute she is!

No less amazing is Daisy who will be 13 in a few more weeks.

At the Mix n Mash  earlier this week, I asked Scott Guthrie what his opinion was about developers having to deal with SO many new technologies coming out from Microsoft at such a rapid pace.

His recommendation was to pick what is core to your work, or what you are really good at or really vested in and then ignore the rest.

Easier said than done.

Even if we follow ONLY his blog, we have myriad technologies in our faces. It's very hard to predict the future. I am currently "ignoring' .NET 3.0 (WPF, WCF & Workflow), MVC, AJAX Control Kit, SQL Server 2008, a huge chunk of Silverlight. Granted MVC is far out. Volta just showed up. Astoria is plowing ahead without me at the moment. Surface is astounding. And there's so much more.

It's very frustrating because this isn't Lays potato chips. The one I ignore may have been the one that will make a difference in my ability to support a future client.

What Scott is suggesting is akin to watching t.v. without a remote! We'll see how it goes...

We just got a call from my mom on her way home from the vet with the last of the three litters! Bumper had eleven puppies. We can't wait to see them.

You can keep an eye on things at my parent's website: Blue Heaven Kennels.

Here's a picture of the mommy, Bumper, at a dog show.

It's feeding time again! These are Celeste's 6 puppies.

(On going... you can catch up at www.blueheavennewfoundlands.com)

The second litter was born yesterday. I'm helping to watch over them today. Celeste has to feed them every two hours and they nurse for over 1/2 hour. In between everyone rests up and the puppies get a Snuggle Puppy to curl up with. These are more than toys as they have a heartbeat and are warm. Sometimes they are all underneath it. Here's what they are doing right now (there are 6 total but you can't see them all here). The upstairs puppies (the litter of 17 that is now two weeks old) get two Snuggle puppies!

At the recent Mix n Mash 08, Bill Gates talked about how Microsoft creates their vision for software and computing and the acts upon that vision. Read more...

[A New DevLife Post]

Although I wasn't able to be in Vermont on Thursday for the Bob & Chris Roadshow or the VS2008 Installfest, I have gotten emails from Chris Bowen and others letting me know that it was a great success. Over 40 people showed up for the installfest, and I learned from Dave Burke's blog that they also had TWO XB0X 360's set up for folks to play with.

Larry Keyes blogged his extensive notes from the day.

Sorry to have missed it.

What I really enjoyed reading was Dave Burke's epiphany about VS2008. The sessions from Bob & Chris really made things click for him and he's ready to get in bed wiht VS2008. I was thinking about that becasue he said he's seen LINQ 4 times before, but not until Thursday did he finally get to his AHA! moment with it. I believe this may have a lot to do with the fact that it's finished, it's deployed and in hand, rather than seeing very early bits (we've had 3 LINQ talks at VTdotNET in the last 1 1/2 years).