Windows Vista – “Just Do It”

Its been about three months now since I started using Windows Vista for the first time. Honestly I did not wait this long because I thought it was a bad operating system, I simply don’t tend to upgrade OS’s when something works as being a developer tends to make one more careful.

Now that I work for Microsoft my machine is obviously put me in a position to run Vista and I wont bore you with some extremely late review except to say it works, and it works very well.

From a development perspective (Visual Studio 2005/2008) I can also confirm that everything works great, the system is no slower then XP (no statistics here, just how I feel) and visually its a lot more appealing!

So if this post is not a review what is it? Its a call to action. If you have a choice to move to Vista then dump XP and jump on board. You really will enjoy the small visual improvements, the start search, and a few other neat features. Once you start using Vista you will not want to go back to XP (Yes even non-Microsoft employees have said the same to me).

Related Links

• If you are thinking of upgrading your existing PC, make sure you download the Upgrade Advisor to avoid potential known issues
• You cant hang on to XP, most sales of the OS will end in June 2008

C# IN DEPTH – An amazing book by Jon Skeet

Recently my friend Jon Skeet finally released his book C# IN DEPTH. I got a copy as soon as Amazon started selling them and have already gone through a few chapters.

I must say I was expecting a lot from this book and I am NOT disappointed. Jon did an incredible, detailed and well articulated job at creating a C# masterpiece. In my opinion this book stands along side Code Complete, its simply tailored to a more specific audience.

I really do not want to say anymore, I am not the best writer and will simply ramble and do injustice to the book. Please simply take my word for it, if you are a C# developer you will be amazing at how much this book can teach you.

Here are some related links and I look forward on hearing your feedback on Jon’s book:

• Buy the book on amazon
• Publishers website for this book (with sample chapters)
• C# In Depth official book website (Additional content)

Live.com Search for your site

I am sometimes surprised how hard it is to find something Microsoft makes and Live.com site search is an example of that.

If you have a website and want a custom “search box” to let users search through your sites content (just like I have on top right) then this is the link you want to visit:

http://search.live.com/siteowner/searchboxstep1.aspx

The simple wizard can quickly help you setup the HTML needed to add a search box to your page. The results in my opinion look great, here is an example:

Try it yourself and please let me know if you have any trouble.

Changes to my blog

Today I finally found a few free minutes to makes some changes to this blog, here is a quick summary of them:

New Layout

I decided to switch the layout to a different theme. I don’t have a practical reason for this change but I just wanted a change. I look forward to feedback on how you like this alternative design.

New Slogan

Ever since joining Microsoft I have really been irritated by this notion of “Microsoft being evil”. Its really an amazing place to work with caring, dedicated, and moral people. Its time I took a stand on this and tonight changing my blog slogan to reflect this seemed like a good start.

Search Now Powered by Live.com

For a long time my blog search has been powered by Google, but finally I have made the switch to Live.com search. I have nothing against Google Search but I am going to eat my own dogfood, and I must say the Live.com site search is working very well.

Last 10 Posts

My blog was configured to display a large number of posts and I think this really hurt the page load time, especially for anyone with a slightly slower connection.

To help the situation I have configured the blog to display the last 10 posts only. I think that is more then enough as most people find the blog through search anyway.

Your Feedback

As always I look forward on hearing your feedback on any changes. I write this blog for you my friends, so keep the comments coming.

Excellent MSND Magazine Articles

While MSDN Magazine tends to have really excellent content occasionally things standout even more that I think its worth mentioning here. Two examples of such articles can be found below:

Penetration Testing (By James Whittaker)

In this installment of Security Briefs, James Whittaker explains the rules and the pitfalls of penetration testing so you'll know how to avoid them.

Passion for the Craft (By Scott Hanselman)

Scott Hanselman ruminates on the term "5:01 developer" and why success in any field requires passion and craftsmanship.

Closing

Don’t forget that all MSDN issues are available for free online at this link. Have your own favorite article? Post the link as a reply to this thread.

Error Referencing WCF Service - Vista

Problem

The other day I tried to reference a WCF project on my Vista development workstation but got this error:

An error (Details) occurred while attempting to find services at http://…

Solution

After some digging I found the fix to this problem is simple, go into add/remove windows components and add the following two items under Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 section:

• Windows Communication Foundation HTTP Activation
• Windows Communication Foundation Non-HTTP Activation

This enables WCF in Vista’s IIS 7.0 which does not seem to be enabled by default.

Error opening Silvelright 2, Beta 1 Project

The other day was “one of those days” when nothing was working. My Internet was not working, my computer almost crashed/stalled and then this…

Problem

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException

What? So here I am, opening an old test Silvelright 2.0 Beta 1 project and I get this while its loading. The SL project loaded, but its test website did not.

Being highly annoyed yet fortunate enough to be in the middle of an email exchange with some VERY NICE folks in Redmond I decided to ask this as a side question.

The reply was immediate “Do you also get this when creating a new host web project” and it hits me, I know what he is leaning towards.

Solution

Let me be honest here, I don't know what caused my problem but creating a new test web project and removing the troubled one fixed the issue.

My best guess is that I must have changed something in the IIS configuration of the test project, but I just cant put my finger on it.

This solution is perfectly fine since the test project is simplistic and only typically contains one page with object tags to host the Silverlight control. If anyone does figure out the exact reason for this please feel free to post a reply here, otherwise just accept the solution and move on.

MVC Preview 3 Released

Scott Guthrie just announced that ASP.NET MVC Preview Release 3 has been released to the public. Here is a summary of the changes at a high level:

Controller Action Method Changes

Improved HTML Helper Methods

URL Routing Improvements

Richer URL Route Mapping Features

For complete details see ScottGu’s post about this release.

CodePlex Source Code

Its also worth noting that the MVC patterns source code is made available on CodePlex in case you are really feeling adventures.

Silverlight DataGrid – Cannot create rows manually

For anyone wondering why they cant seem to add a row manually to a Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 DataGrid I have your answer: Because you cannot yet.

I would not discount this feature from future releases but currently you can only databind to a DataGrid to create rows.

Columns though are a different story, you can definitely create them dynamically and assign what their binding source will be. For some good tutorials check out Scott Morrison’s blog, specifically the Defining Silverlight DataGrid Columns at Runtime post.

Other related tutorials:

• Using The Silverlight DataGrid by Scott Morrison

Did Dmitry stop blogging? No!

I got a few emails with the same general theme, “Man you stopped blogging, what happened?” and the answer to that is no, I did not.

Unfortunately my time right now is very minimal and it might continue to be that way for another week or so. I do have some posts planned and will resume my regular broadcast shortly.

I want to thank you all for your continued readership of this blog and please don’t hesitate to email me at any time with your feedback.

Q&A: Excellent Podcasts

Today a colleague of mine from Finland asked me “What good podcasts do you listen to or know of?”. I could have sworn I posted on this topic but cannot find any reference, so here is a quick list:

.NET / Microsoft

• DotNetRocks
• Hanselminutes
• TechNet Radio
• Sparkling Client (Silverlight focused)

Security

• TWiT: Security Now

IT Pro

• RunAsRadio

General IT

• TWiT: Windows Weekly
• This Week in Tech

Tip: Use your Zune Marketplace or iTunes software to automatically deliver these podcasts to your device of choice (they both support it for free).

This of course is simply my list and I look forward to your feedback

Related Post: What is a screencast?

Popfly Game Creator

The very talented Popfly team has created another interactive way people can create their own content: Game Creator.

Powered by Silvelright Game Creator lets anyone create fun/simple games that they can share with their friends and the world. To me this is not only a very fun toy to play with but also a very serious and important demonstration of Silverlight and its capabilities. Check it out for yourself:

• Popfly Game Creator
• Vide on using Popfly Game Creator

Excellent Silverlight Blog Posts

One of my peers is a huge fan of Silverlight and has a Flash background to help make his input very valuable.

As of a few days ago he has started blogging and already has two very excellent examples of using Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 for some effects on controls like glow and shadow.

Check it out for yourself: http://blogs.msdn.com/timrule/

(His site has full sample code downloads and working prototypes)