No1 Microsoft Fan

SQL Server 2008 Express RC0

2008-06-13T00:01:00Z

I'm blogging about SQL Server Express? Oh my! Truth is I would have never done this before...SQL Server 2008 Express This new version is, in a word, Sweet! http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlexpress/archive/2008/06/10/sql-server-2008-express-rc0.aspx This is by far the best Express version yet. My favorite feature by far is the added ability to Import and Export data to and from Local and Remote SQL Servers. Just like big brother SQL Server has been able to do all along, but the Express versions had to...(read more)

SQL Server 2008 rocks!

2008-06-11T20:58:00Z

Goodies from Dan the man, of Channel 9 fame, my favorite person to pick on for using the word "so", even by itself. SQL Server 2008 RC0 now available for download SQL Server 2008 RC0 is now available for download! What's new in SQL Server 2008 If you're not familiar with what's new for developers in SQL Server 2008, check out this video with Christian Kleinerman showing off new T-SQL statements, SQL IntelliSense, Geo-location, File stream support, and more. SQL Server Books...(read more)

Windows Search 4.0 released!

2008-06-03T21:33:00Z

Great news from Brandon!!! Windows Search 4.0 released! June 3, 2008 at 2:16 pm Desktop Search , Microsoft , News , Search , WDS Development , WS4 , Windows Search Blogs , Windows Shell , Windows Vista Windows Search 4.0 was released this afternoon. This release focuses on performance and reliability improvements. Here are some highlights: Faster queries, often several times faster Faster indexing / reduced resource usage Support for EFS (encrypted folders) Support for indexing delegate mailboxes...(read more)

Using Detailed Errors in IIS 7.0

2008-05-28T00:06:00Z

Using IIS 7.0 yet? If you'd like to see more about just how awesome it really is please let me know and I'll mix up some goodies. Some of the things I'm currently working on are IIS 7.0 videos for features like the new IIS Manager. OK, let's get to the point of this blog post. ( I just get a bit excited at times ....) The IIS Team has released an article on How to Use HTTP Detailed Errors in IIS 7.0 : Every Web-Site Administrator or Web Developer has seen "404 - File not found"...(read more)

Memorial Day 2008

2008-05-26T12:55:00Z

Notes from a Patriot... To all the Men and Women who have fought and died for Freedom. Thank you! To every Military Man and Woman of Valor, Integrity and Honor. Thank you! Men and Women of every nation, fighting for what is right. Thank you! To the Men and Women of the U.S. Armed Forces. Salute! (with Honors) Mark Wisecarver -= Patriot Guard =- Note: We were 1,600 Bikers strong at the Veterans Overlook yesterday. Ooh Rah! Ride began on the Sevierville TN County Courthouse Steps, to the Veterans Overlook...(read more)

Scott Guthrie's May 20th kicks for .NET developers

2008-05-22T19:02:00Z

Scott's roundup of links for ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, .NET, Visual Studio, Silverlight and WPF. I haven't pinged his links back before but this one is definitely worth checking out. Note from Scott: Apologies for the sparseness of my posting the last few weeks - work and life have been busy here lately. Below is a new post in my link-listing series to help kick things up a little. Also check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials page and Silverlight Tutorials page for links to popular articles...(read more)

Telerik Sitefinity and DiscountASP.NET Provide for .NET User Groups

2008-05-22T11:45:00Z

This is an exciting partnership. Sitefinity and DiscountASP.NET Partner to Provide a Free Website for .NET User Groups May 20, 2008. Newton, MA - Telerik, the publisher of the Sitefinity CMS and a leading vendor of UI components for .NET, and DiscountASP.NET , a Microsoft gold certified shared hosting provider, announced today the two companies have partnered to extend a unique offer to the INETA User Group (UG) community. http://www.sitefinity.com/corporate/news/b1013P-cdt.aspx User groups will...(read more)

SQL Management Studio Shows All Databases

2008-05-22T00:05:00Z

Looks like I'm not the only one. Jason N. Gaylord Blogged about something today that has bugged me for a long time. It's also something I get asked all the time in the DiscountASP.NET forums. We do our best there to provide helpful answers and solutions while remaining 100% faithful to Microsoft. From Jason: SQL Management Studio Shows All Databases This has "bugged" me for awhile. When you log into any version of SQL (2000, 2005, and even 2008) as a user with restricted access...(read more)

Overview of New Features in VS2008

2008-05-20T22:08:00Z

Just finished watching Zain's WebCast on some of the new features for Web developers in Visual Studio 2008. Wow! I'm already using VS2008 Pro but haven't had time to dive into what's new, yet. I do love some of the new features that I have already become dependant on, like the new CSS support/features. In this WebCast Zain went over the new features like a live wire...He was on fire! Excellent job Zain. If you missed it the WebCast will be posted soon, probably by the time you read...(read more)

Visual Studio SP1 Beta delima

2008-05-18T12:10:00Z

(Insert pain and suffering) Working with betas is risky, indeed. It's something I've referred to as reaching into the Lion's cage to grab candy . When SP1 Beta for VS2008 was released last week I blogged about it. After running into some odd behavior trying to install it on Vista with VS2008 Pro I removed my blog post. I didn't want to share my grief with anyone. Today I found a very interesting Blog post by Mike Taulty and felt the need to share it along with my own discoveries....(read more)

Debunking 15 Myths About Microsoft

2008-05-08T12:50:00Z

From ChannelWeb http://www.crn.com/it-channel/207501463 Debunking 15 Myths About Microsoft 1) Windows Vista Is A Bird That Can't Fly. 2) Microsoft Licensing Is A Nightmare. 3) Anyone Can Make Money Selling SharePoint. 4) Steve Ballmer Is A Wild Man. 5) Vista-To-XP Downgrades Are Embarrassing To Microsoft. 6) Microsoft and Cisco Will Play Nice In Unified Communications. 7) Microsoft Is The Virtualization Turtle To VMware's Hare. 8) Microsoft Isn't Innovative. 9) Microsoft Is Clueless About...(read more)

Links for Shutdown day.

2008-05-03T12:10:00Z

Posting these links on Shutdown day is just a coincidence. I'm not a person who is unfriendly to the environment. http://www.shutdownday.org/ Fact : In our house my lovely Brazilian wife, Leticia, and myself do all we can to teach our three children to be conservative. We do not waste any food, we recycle everything and we make it a point to have near zero trash at the end of each week. This has turned into a family activity that we all enjoy. I've added a photo of the kids to my Photos page...(read more)

Query a web site with LINQ to XML.

2008-04-30T01:39:00Z

More LINQ goodness. From the Microsoft Coding4Fun site: Scrape that screen with LINQ http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2008/04/29/8439727.aspx You have to admit Beth Massi is really kicking it. http://blogs.msdn.com/bethmassi/ Microsoft just asked me to pass this great news on to everyone. . . The new 2008 Express products are Ready, Willing and Able: http://www.microsoft.com/express/interest/ Take a look at the new Visual Web Developer 2008: http://www.microsoft.com/express/webdevelopment...(read more)

Great Espresso on the job

2008-04-15T01:58:00Z

No tricks, this Blog post is about making really good Espresso at work. I've been a developer for several companies where an Espresso machine was not allowed. That always made sense to me, from a safety standpoint, I didn't mind. But what if you can create a really great cup of Espresso at work safely, in less than 10 minutes? First of all you absolutely must start with good water. Do all you can to filter your water at work or bring in your own clean water for this. Something I did was to use those...(read more)

Beth Massi brings LINQ to the VB Gladiators

2008-04-12T18:44:00Z

Continuing my Microsoft LINQ alerts... This time LINQ to SQL for VB developers. I'm a big fan of the way Beth Massi presents these technical articles and videos. Thanks for all you do for the community Beth. LINQ to SQL N-Tier Smart Client - Part 1 Building the Middle-Tier http://blogs.msdn.com/bethmassi/archive/2008/04/12/linq-to-sql-n-tier-smart-client.aspx LINQ to SQL N-Tier Smart Client - Part 2 Building the Client http://blogs.msdn.com/bethmassi/archive/2008/04/14/linq-to-sql-n-tier-smart-client...(read more)

ASP.NET Dynamic Data Preview

2008-04-10T14:02:00Z

Oh man! This bit of news Rocks! Scott Guthrie just announced today that the ASP.NET team has released an updated ASP.NET Dynamic Data Preview . http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/04/10/asp-net-dynamic-data-preview-available.aspx Read about the changes, and download the releases: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/dynamicdata My favorite improvements are for LINQ and the awesome ListView component. Something that will probably excite a lot of developers is the Dynamic Data Website Wizard . Notice...(read more)

SharePoint SUSHI

2008-04-07T19:21:00Z

Codeplex rocks! SharePoint SUSHI – It’s not raw fish! A Good Clink and a Link about a neat little open source SharePoint Utility out on CodePlex.com. I highly recommend you take a look at this FREE tool and even the source code to get a better understanding of SharePoint Innards. Run from your SharePoint Server and it will do most of the work for you around sites, users, reports. “SUSHI is a powerful, user-friendly SharePoint application enabling you to accomplish common SharePoint administrative...(read more)

Remotely Monitoring Web 2.0 Applications

2008-04-07T14:17:00Z

Microsoft Research members Emre Kiciman , Ben Livshits and Himanshu Sharma have released a handy project... Ajax View The goal of the Ajax View project is to improve developer's visibility into and control over their web applications' behaviors on end-user's desktops. http://research.microsoft.com/projects/ajaxview/ *If Ben Livshits rings a bell it may be because of his Stanford projects: http://suif.stanford.edu/~livshits/work.html Which will be moving here soon : http://research.microsoft.com/...(read more)

Coffee May Reduce Risk of Dementia

2008-04-03T19:29:00Z

I knew it! What took so long long to prove this? Drinking that daily cup of coffee has a new benefit besides jolting you awake in the morning. It could also reduce your risk of dementia; it is being reported by BBC News. According to a study in the Journal of Neuroinflammation... Caffeine reduces the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,345531,00.html Study: http://www.jneuroinflammation.com/content/5/1/12/abstract Note:...(read more)

Visual LINQ Query Builder

2008-04-02T19:10:00Z

Soups up! Visual LINQ Query Builder http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/vlinq Visual LINQ Query Builder is an add-in to Visual Studio 2008 Designer that helps you visually build LINQ to SQL queries. Functionally it provides the same experience as, for instance the Microsoft Access Query Builder, but in the LINQ domain. The entire UI of this add-in uses Windows Presentation Foundation. The goal of this tool is to help users become more familiar with the LINQ syntax. It's also a project that could help...(read more)

Additional LINQ resources

2008-03-30T13:27:00Z

Zain, over at Second Life, just posted some of his "fundamental" LINQ learning resources : http://blogs.msdn.com/zainnab/archive/2008/03/29/collection-of-linq-resources.aspx While you're over there take a look at his Visual Studio 2008 / Framework 3.5 Learning Resources page: http://blogs.msdn.com/zainnab/pages/visual-studio-2008-framework-3-5-learning-resources-page.aspx I'm going to be posting LINQ resources from time to time. Working with LINQ is something I'm really enjoying. ( Honest ) If you...(read more)

Anders Hejlsberg and more

2008-03-29T15:41:00Z

Have you been following my friend Charlie Calvert over the years? He's known Anders for a very long time, on several campuses. Both of these gentlemen amaze me; they have for years. Well, Charlie just posted something I did not expect. Some of you may really enjoy this... Anders Hejlsberg Film Festival: http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/archive/2008/03/28/anders-hejlsberg-film-festival-the-c-and-other-vsl-teams-at-the-movies.aspx In other news... Have you been keeping an eye on Microsoft's IE team? Playing...(read more)

Big LINQ attack

2008-03-25T21:12:00Z

No, not that kind of attack... But I have to admit "attack" has its own special meaning on the Internet. Today I'm back at blogging here. Yes I did step away for a bit... No excuses but I've been recovering from damage I took to both hands. So, what better topics for my return than LINQ or Silverlight? OK, LINQ it is... But first I'd like to point out a few of my ( current ) favorite sites: Silverlight : http://silverlight.net/ Expression Community : http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/default...(read more)

Silverlight vs. Moxie?

2007-04-28T21:26:00Z

Open source Showdown. . . Microsoft has been sharing some cool technology with us, and we love MSFT for it, right? U know it baby! Ajax, the .NET 3.0 framework and Silverlight, they're each awesome. Adobe seems to be fighting back and will apparently make Flex available later this year via Open source. Moxie is the latest codename for the soon to be released open source version of Adobe Flex and the SDK. Seems Adobe will use the MPL for open-sourcing Flex and will also continue to make the Flex SDK...(read more)

Microsoft Sued Over .Net Technology

2007-04-26T14:57:00Z

Huh?!! (Sorry...Best word I could come up with to express my thoughts on this.) Article: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199200823 Vertical Computer Systems, Inc. (Company making the claim.) http://www.vcsy.com/ Anyone else find this absurd? Microsoft. . .We're behind you 100% Share this post:...(read more)