Jeff McWherter wrote an article on ASPAlliance called Six Quick Crystal Reports Design Tips.

When I first read through them I laughed at two in particular.

One was how to get check boxes to appear on a report. I struggled with this one a few years ago and now use it frequently. Why didn't I just ask Jeff back then? (Oh yea, I didn't know him)

The other is using a DRAFT watermark. I have been doing this for a long time, however I am using a jpeg and because of the way CR handles embedded images, the JPEG (even one that is 24kb) adds about 100 - 300 KB to the DLL. I spent a LOT of time trying to deal with this. Jeff shows how to just use text. TEXT! I never even thought of this! I will definitely be changing those reports.

The other four were all new to me!

While many of us are still struggling to get our entity objects across tiers, keep change tracking in place, keep graphs together, DevForce seems to have figured it out.

They are now touting their new DEF (DevForce Entity Framework) which going into Beta 1 soon.

You can sign up for the beta and check out some of their resources here.

Me? I'll still struggle. I want to  figure (and lavish the process of figuring) out how it works. Really, I don't want to ski; I don't want to hang out with my dogs or hubby; I certainly don't EVER want to go on a vacation. Nope, no shortcuts for moi!

There's more to tell, but I'm supposed to be prepping for my user group presentation that's tonight.

What I'm happy about is that it's that this can be done in a flexible, reusable way; even if it's still a little (yes, I know that's probably a bit of an understatement, as was that) hard right now.

I thought that this was worth highlighting.

ADO.NET Data Services has a newer moniker:

ADO.NET Data Services Framework

While I still prefer "Astoria", adding "framework" now encompasses the fact that there are client APIs as well, not just the services.

Last fall, I presented a 3 hour workshop at DevConnections, comparing and contrasting ADO.NET, LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework's LINQ to Entities, Object Services and EntityClient as well as comparing LINQ to Entities to Entity SQL, then providing recommendations for when one makes sense over the others in various scenarios. It was a really fun session to present.

It was a little daunting to pull together, though, because even Microsoft hadn't provided this guidance at that point beyond "LINQ to SQL is for RAD and EF is for the Enterprise". There were a few great forum comments by Mike Pizzo which were helpful.

Coincidentally, (definitely coincidence, I'm not trying to suggest otherwise) Diego Vega, a PM on the EF team, wrote a great post on the the API part of the topic three days after I did the session. And then followed it up in December with a post about LINQ to Entities vs Entity SQL. I laughed that it was in response to a question by John Papa and emailed John to say "geeze, man, you were at the conference, and you were a speaker. You could have come to my workshop for free!" John had presented two great intro sessions on Entity Framework as part of the Data Access track.

So, I am presenting this as a shorter talk at Vermont.NET tomorrow night. We'll see how short. I may just have someone lock the doors when I get started.

I'll be doing this session again in May at DevTeach and June at TEchEd. I expect it to evolve by June.

Ahh - but who needs data anyway, right?

Everybody!

There's a new website in town filled with news from teh blogosphere, articles, tutorials and an extensive list of resources for doing Data Access.

It's called DataDeveloper.NET and can be found at http://datadeveloper.net (leave out the www)

Yours truly has had fun writing bunches of Entity Framework tutorials.

There's also a great article by Matthieu Mezil called Entity Data Mapping, Beyond the Basics.

I think the appropriate mourning period is over.

Last week when Alex Homer and I were discussion the Data Access track at the upcoming DevConnections conference, he told me that he's going to work for THE MAN. He's taken a job on the Patterns and Practices Team for whom he has been contracting for a few years.

The next day there was a post on his blog called "Selling my soul".

It's not like I've been reading Dave & Al's books since I was in diapers or anything (I believe Dave is younger than me anyway) but it's definitely a huge deal for them and for anyone who has known them as Dave and AL or Al and Dave for such a long time. Sniff sniff.

It's not a drama or anything so don't' watch for it to show up in the next issue of Soap Opera Digest. Just a big change for both of them who have teamed up for years.

Dave follows up on this blog post, The End of an Era.

My biggest worry is not being able to count on hanging out with Alex at future DevCOnnections. This has always been a problem when friends who I see at conferences go to work for Microsoft. They aren't free to travel about quite as much. But at least I'll still have Dave.

They'll always be Dave and Al, to me.

Okay I have to get back to the kleenex now.

Charlie Calvert has created a new CodeGallery project to centralize blog posts and articles about some of the things that the C# and VB teams are working on for the next version(s) of their languages. You can read about and discuss (and influence) the direction of these features. Read more ....

[A New DevLife Post]

One or two C# developers needed for a one+ year project with our client in Montpelier.  Experience with C# and Visual Studio needed; knowledge of SQL Server 2005 helpful.  This is a contract position with hourly rate appropriate to experience.  Please send resumes and contact information to Marge Kolkin (recruiter@compass-sys.com) and reference position #719.  No resume is EVER submitted for a position without explicit permission from the candidate.  We do our best to acknowledge all responses. 

Last week, I pointed out a screenshot in Expression Blend from Scott Guthrie's post about Silverligth 2.0, showing a lot of new controls. Roger Jennings asked - so where's this datagrid I keep hearing about? I thought perhaps it was in the additional tools that were not visible in the screenshot, since there was a scrollbar.

I installed Silverlight 2.0 and the March Preview of Expression Blend 2.5 (oh dear, another ".5" version) and opened up to see what else was there. Here's the default view.

Here are all of the controls in the asset library.

No DataGrid.

BUt then I created a new Silverlight app in VS2008. I can't get over the Blend designer actually being right there inside of the VS IDE! And there is the DataGrid. But alas, no InkPresenter.

I spent some time (even digging around the dlls in Reflector) trying to find the SL version of the InkPresenter but finally decided to just give in.

[update: hmmm, I gave up trying to get the app working and started a new one from scratch, so "good to go" was only relative!]

The MSBuild files for Silverlight 1.1 were tucked inside of the MSBuild's Visual Studio folder. Now they are in their own folder.

If you try to open up a project created with Silverlight 1.1 in VS2008, you will get a message that the C:\program files\msbuild\microsoft\visualSutiod\v9.0\Silverlight\Microsoft.Silverlight.Csharp.targets (or VisualBasic.targets) file can't be found and you won't be allowed to open the project.

Click OK to let the solution load.

In the Solution Explorer you should seethe project listed but unavailable. Right click on it and choose the Edit option. The project's MSBuild file will open.

Scroll down until you find the Import Project= element that points to the targets file.

All you should have to do is replace

"VisualStudio9.0\Silverlight\"

with

"Silverlight\v2.0\"

Then you can reload the project after saving.

[continuing...]

Next steps are to get the right APIs referenced. Add references should show you relevant Silvelright 2.0 APIs. You'll see that the old ones are no longer valid (the warning icon). YOu can delete them. In there place you need to ref:

• System [in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\2.0.30226.2]
• System.Core [in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\2.0.30226.2]
• System.Windows [in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\2.0.30226.2]
• System.Windows.Browser [in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\2.0.30226.2]
• System.WIndows.Controls [in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v2.0\Libraries\Client]System.Windows.Controls.Extended [in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v2.0\Libraries\Client]
• System.XML [in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\2.0.30226.2]

I'm down to one error and when I figure it out I'll append again.

At the last minute, I had to forego heading out to Las Vegas for MIX but thanks to streaming, I was able to watch the 3 hour keynote given/hosted by Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie. I say "hosted" becasue there were many many amazing demos of work different companies have been doing.

There will be so many people blogging about the keynote that I don't want to reiterate everything. A few highlights were seeing some major innovation in IE8 (along with Dean's cool t-shirt - the ie logo and the e in "eight" result in a clever image) and  Silverlight 2 goodness - especially Vertigo's silverlight app for Hard Rock Cafe (go Scott (even if he doesn't post a lot on his blog!)). Thanks to Guy Burstein who posted all of the critical links in a few blog posts this morning, there's also one to the technology that Vertigo used called Deep Zoom.

Okay, Scott Guthrie juggling for a Cirque du Soleil audition was pretty cute, too.

The real goods are:

• IE8 Beta
• Silverlight 2 Beta and dev tools and SDK
• Expression Studio Beta (don't forget Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview)
• A passing mention that the next preview of MVC is available.

Because he did such a good job at it, I'm going to take advantage of Guy's posts with lots and lots of links.

I missed the discussion of the one DATA related thing because of a phone call! "SQL Server Data Services: Microsoft announced a preview of SQL Server Data Services, a building block service designed for developers and businesses that need scalable, easily programmable and cost-effective data storage with robust database query capabilities. " Sheesh. Roger Jennings has blogged about this particular piece.

When I wrote my Intro to ADO.NET Entity Framework article for CoDe Magazine last year, I was told I had to keep it under 5000 words. That was painful. There was so much I left had to leave out that I still thought was part of an intro. I have had to get the hook quite a few times when presenting on EF. I have so much I want to share.

Now that I'm writing a book, nobody is telling me that I have to squeeze all of my thoughts into a little box and I can write and write whatever I want.

I knew this was ready to spill out of me. I already have 100 pages. Who knew!

It won't all come so easily, and some of those 100 pages didn't since I was forced to look carefully at things I have glazed over previously. But I am enjoying this part of the process while it lasts!

I just happened to walk into the room where Rich and our neice were watching t.v. last night, just as a Surface computer made its appearance! Very cool. Read more here...

[A new DevLife post]

I actually received a postcard in the mail from FedEx Ground asking me for directions to my house so they could deliver a package.

To be fair, I think perhaps the fact that the bridge on my road is closed so they have to come up another road could pose some confusion to a driver new to our area (if that's the case), but you'd think they might be able to figure that out.

Most of the 35 puppies from my parents' three recent litters are now at their new homes. The owners have been sending lots of pictures of their new beloved babies and they are collected on the home page of my parents' website: www.blueheavennewfoundlands.com

For example, here's Hank who went to live with a family in Akron, NY. I'm definitely in love with this little guy already. The name's pretty good, too. 

Confession: I had never heard of Microsoft Master Data Management before seeing Jamie Thompson's blogpost, MDM -> Entity Framework -> ADO.Net Data Services. Better together?. MDM is a BI tool created by a company called Stratature, which Microsoft acquired in June. Jamie writes more about that in Microsoft purchases Stratature. Notice which technology MDM is listed under on Microsoft's website.

Jamie sees a strong connection between MDM and entity framework's capabilities, however he points out one big disconnect which is that EF can't create EDMs on the fly at run time.

But can't it? We've actually seen some explorations into this with the long ignored Jasper project, an incubator project that was previewed at last year's MIX conference. I wrote an article about Jasper for OReilly which you can read to get an idea of what that's all about: Build Dynamic Database Applications in .NET with Project Codename "Jasper" .

The short explanation is that Jasper dynamically generated an EDM on the fly at runtime by pointing to a database. Then some intelligent dynamic controls use Convention over Configuration to make assumptions about what you want to do with whatever data model was created. Dynamic languages are core to how Jasper works.

Jamie points out that Brian Dawson and Jeff Derstadt both expressed interest in his questions about bridging the two and providing the ability to dynamically create EDMs. Well, they've already got some of that work done. Maybe it will revive some interest in the ideas that were being put forth with Jasper.

I also grinned when Jamie said he had "cheated" by manually adding associations into an EDM based on an MDM database because MDM didn't infer the relationships. That's not cheating; that's what the conceptual layer is for!

Scott Guthrie has written about Using Expression Blend with Silverlight 2.0 in this blog post.

I just wanted to highlight one of the screenshots from his blog post.

Ooooh - look at ALL of those controls!!!

Andy Conrad shares with us another preview of what's coming at MIX08.

Windows Live Services will now have AtomPub payloads. These will match the ADO.NET Data Services payload format and therefore you will be able to use the various client libraries for ADO.NET Data Services (.NET, ASP.NET AJAX nad Silverlight .NET) to consume the Windows Live Services.

Sure makes it handy when things align like this.

Early on in the Astoria life cycle, they were talking about having a common format with WIndows Live, but at that time it was variation on POX (plain old xml) they were calling Web3S.

Then they bagged that and settled on ATOM and JSON.

Earlier this month, Pablo Castro wrote about AtomPub support "From our (Microsoft) perspective, you could imagine a world where our own consumer and infrastructure services in Windows Live could speak AtomPub with the same idioms as Astoria services".

So here is that world.

See more at MIX!

I give in.

For years, every time a publisher has asked me "so Julie, when are you going to write a book for us?" I had my answer ready. "I'll do it when you are prepared to give me a $50,000 advance, come to my house weekly to cook dinner and clean the house and also pay for a full year of marriage counseling." So they finally go the point of my not-really-that-funny joke and stopped asking.

Then Microsoft went and created this thing called Entity Framework which intrigued me... a lot. I played with it and learned plenty about it. I wrote some articles which were extremely frustrating because they have a limitation on how long they can be. I have been speak at conferences and user groups about it for over a year, but can never fit everything I want to say in a 60 or 75 minute slot (finally I'm doing full day sessions at a few conferences!). I have written a gazillion blog posts about it and answered lots of questions in the forums.

But still I wasn't happy. Entity Framework was leaking out of me and I could not satisfy my need to talk and write about it.

So I finally gave in and talked to a few publishers and said that it was time.

I am now writing a book for O'Reilly called "Programming Entity Framework". I have actually started writing it already and am hoping to have it in print in October. This gives me a short time frame to write it in since there are about 3 monhts needed for the actual production of the book so it has to be done by then.

Call me crazy. But, really, I was going to self-combust otherwise. I'm so happy having a valid excuse to play with Entity Framework every day now.

There is a much bigger problem though with this. It's not that my husband and I will probably be eating spaghetti for the next 4 months or the dust bunnies that will be taking over our house.

The problem is that the animal which I really want to have on my cover has been used already for a VBA book (which I have). Of course, that would be a Newfoundland dog. How perfect is a dog? Isn't data an old faithful friend? And we're teaching it some new tricks with Entity Framework! Maybe we could have a write-in campaign to convince them to let me have another Newfie!

Anyway, until there is an official cover, I have invented this one for myself:

While I will always promote the value of being able to read C# and mentally convert it to VB  and being able to read VB and mentally convert it to C# is a skill I think all VB and C# developers should try to have, admittedly, having to do it with a whole book does sometimes get tiresome.

If you are a VB programmer and constantly plagued with having to translate from C# when you are reading advanced programming books, this list is for you.

Chris Williams has just added a page to his I LOVE VB.net website called Serious VB Booklist.

These are not books filled with Hello World samples.

He is just building up the list now, so it's light. That doesn't mean there aren't very many published, just not very many on his list yet. Let him know if you have any additions.