ObjectSharp

As mentioned in the title, the @Created date field (or site column, depending on your terminology), the date of document creation, which is by default available to all pages and documents, is not replicated when you create a site variation. It is however *linked* to the original document from the original site itself. So if you ever decide to turn off site variation, you’ll lose the @Created date field on your site variation, and there’s absolutely no way to get it back, or at least I haven’t found a way to get it back without hacking it through code. So be careful when you decide to create a site variation. This “feature” caught us all by surprise, especially when variation was turned off and still wanted the persisted site. One suggestion to get around it is to create another field and set the computed value to today’s date. I’ll blog more on how we solve this problem when we actually do...

In the excitement of PDC, it slipped my mind to let everyone know that the book on which I was a co-author was actually shipped at the beginning of October. The title is the terse, yet incredibly descriptive MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-503): Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5 Windows® Communication Foundation (PRO-Certification) . There is a bidding war for the movie rights and I'm hoping that George Clooney plays me in the adaptation. :) For those of you wondering how the actual release might have slipped my mind, the reason is that I'm not involved in the steps that takes place at the end of the publishing process. Most of the book was written in the first half of the year. Since July, I have been reviewing chapters and responding to editor notes. But since the middle of August my tasks have been done. And, I'm afraid, when it comes to book writing, once I'm done, I mentally...

I've been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell since I read The Tipping Point. And after following that up with Blick, it is clear that Mr. Gladwell is a fascinating author on subjects that are quite interesting, even when it falls outside my normal range of reading material (that being mostly geeky ). Apparently on Tuesday, a new book of his entitled Outliers: The Story of Success is coming out. That in itself is enough to pique my interest. However, it turns out that, as part of his book tour, Mr. Gladwell is speaking in Toronto on Dec 1 at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Business. And the price of the tickets (only $31 and which you can get here ) includes a copy of the book. I'm signed up already and if you have found his books interesting, here is a chance to hear him in person....

I have been working on configuring high availability for SharePoint servers (MOSS or WSS), and for a little while I wasn't able to figure out the way to modify the URL for SharePoint Central Administration site. So, basically you extend the Central Administration web application (using GUI or psconfig command) to run on multiple servers, and when you click on SharePoint Central Administration icon you're still redirected to a specific SharePoint server instead of been redirected to the Load Balancing URL. Anyway, as it turns out the URL has to be changed via registry on all SharePoint servers. Weird?! To change the URL for SharePoint Central Administration URL: Open Registry editor Backup the registry before making any changes!!! Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS and change the value of CentralAdministrationURL to whatever you want to...

To change a port number that SharePoint Central Administration site is running on: Open Command Prompt Go to BIN folder in SharePoint install directory (by default, it would be "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN") To get the port number that Central Administration site is currently running on, type stsadm.exe -o getadminport To change a port number that SharePoint Central Administration site is using, type stsadm.exe -o setadminport -port <portnumber>...

I subscribe to Google Alerts. I have an alert set up to look for the word ObjectSharp . This has worked great over the years, pointing out blogs and articles where people have made reference to ObjectSharp . This morning I received an Alert that made me laugh.  I started reading a news article titled: Here's how and where 'cutters' can get help Perhaps its someone talking about our training, I thought to myself. As I began to read the article it made no sense. Then I found the source of the Alert. :) You understand, it made me laugh because of the mix up , not that the article is funny. The Article is very serious and I hope these people get some help....

It's true. We were looking at using Dundas charts for a client project. One of our associates mentioned that Dundas sold the rights to their Data Visualization packages to Microsoft last year and have added them as a separate installation for .Net framework 3.5 SP1. Read more about it here . What do I need and where do I get it? .Net 3.5 SP1 Chart Docs Chart Controls For some help using them check out Chart Forums and Chart Samples...

The client I’m currently working with needed a charting control that would allow us to create something similar to a Gantt chart.  Unfortunately the control suite we were using wasn’t quite up to the task.  Fortunately a fellow Objectsharpee (and former Dundas employee) told me that Microsoft was going to be putting the Dundas controls they had purchased into the framework, even better was that it had been released just the week previous.  I’ve never used Dundas controls previous to this, so I’m not 100% clear what the feature set differences are, or if there are any.  The MS Chart control did everything we needed and it was dead simple to do.  All you need to do is download and install the small installer and have .Net 3.5 SP1 already installed. Chart Docs Chart Controls Chart Forums – Note: Not a lot of information in the forums as of this posting, but the Dundas...

The October Team Foundation Power Tools drop includes three new features: TFS Power Shell Extensions TFS Windows Shell Extensions Team Members Tool The only one I care about is the Powershell extensions. Keith Hill has a great post with some examples. I already had a script that made some .NET assembly calls to get me the latest good build off of TFS. I converted that script to use the new snapin, and posted it below. I’m sure some of this is not best practices, feel free to let me know if you have a cleaner implementation. (Get-TfsServer -Name myTfsServer).GetService(Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client .IBuildServer]).QueryBuilds(" myProjectName ", " myBuildName ") | where { $_.BuildDefinition.LastGoodBuildUri -eq $_.Uri } | select DropLocation Two lines in my profile.ps1: [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client") [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client"...

Note to self – Before developing on SharePoint, always enable debugging on the development machine to see a “little” more verbose error messages. Edit the web.config and change the following: < SafeMode   MaxControls ="200"   CallStack ="false"   ... >   <!--   Becomes   --> < SafeMode   MaxControls ="200"   CallStack ="true"   ... >   < customErrors   mode ="On"   />   <!--   Becomes   --> < customErrors   mode ="Off"   />   < compilation   batch ="false"   debug ="false" >   <!--   Becomes   --> < compilation   batch ="true"   debug ="true" >...

Note to self - If using any external assemblies that try to access Microsoft.Sharepoint assemblies, remember to change the trust level to full in the web.config. <trust level="Full" originUrl="" /> This is only used during development. When it comes to production, install assembly into the GAC with gacutil /i to allow external assemblies access to Microsoft.Sharepoint assemblies....

For a sophisticated web application, SharePoint (WSS or MOSS) is missing a feature as simple as Deny access (Deny Read, Deny Write, Deny All). To deny access to the SharePoint for single user or a group of users, you modify Policy for Web Application in SharePoint Central Administration: Open SharePoint Central Administration Click on Application Management Then, under Application security, click on Policy for Web Application Select correct web application in the drop down Click on Add Users Select web application and the zone. Click Next Enter the username or security group. Select Deny Write or Deny All and click on Finish Note : This will deny access to the whole web application in SharePoint! There is no way to deny access to a specific SharePoint item (site, list, document library and so on) Hopefully Microsoft will fix this weakness in the next service pack or so…...

Have you heard the news? Every attendee to DevTeach Montreal will get Visual Studio 2008 Pro, Expression Web 2 and Tech-Ed DEV set in their bag! DevTeach believes that all developers need the right tool to be productive. Therefore you will get,  free software, when you register to DevTeach or SQLTeach. Yes that right! They are giving over a $1000 worth of software when you register to DevTeach. You will find in your conference bag a version of Visual Studio 2008 Professional, ExpressionTM Web 2 and the Tech-Ed Conference DVD Set. Now that is a good deal? DevTeach and SQLTeach are really the training you can’t get any other way. Register now.  ...

DevTeach Montreal is less than a month away but it’s not too late to register. This is a great conference with sessions covering .NET FX, Future, SQL Server, VSTS/Team System, Silverlight, Agile Development, Software Architecture, ASP.NET. Aside from the great content, build up your professional network by rubbing shoulders with the speakers in an intimate conference. The list of speakers is particularly impressive this year. From MS you’ll get to see Elisa Flasko and Carl Perry from the Data Programmability Team, Beth Massi and Yair Alan Griver. Of course . NET Rockers Carl Franklin & Richard Campbell will also be there with fellow MS Regional Directors Tim Huckaby , Joel Semeniuk , Stephen Forte , Jim Duffy , Guy Barrette and yours truly. But wait, there’s more. Each attendee will get Visual Studio 2008 Pro and Expression Web 2.0 full copies along with the entire DVD set covering all...

Earlier today, a colleague had an issue with the publishing of unit test results into a TFS instance. The publication process, which is typically done manually at the click of a button, was no longer available. Specifically, the Publish button was actually disabled. There was no obvious error message indicating what, if anything, was wrong. This lack of information made identifying the problem a challenge, to put it mildly. The solution, at least to identifying what the problem was, is to use the command line version of MSTest. If you execute the command MSTest /? in a command window, you will see that there are a number of options which can be used to execute a set of unit tests and publish them to a TFS server. For example, the following command will execute the unit tests in the TestLibrary.dll assembly and publish the results to the TFS server located at http://TfsServer:8080 MSTest /nologo...

At PDC everyone got a Windows 7 DVD. I used it at the conference on machines that were set up for people to use and it seemed pretty good. I have an older laptop I was going to get paved to use as a back up when this one has trouble. So I thought I would try it out on that machine, nothing to lose. I was very impressed with the easy install. I have installed pretty much every version of windows since version 3 at one time or another. I would have to say this was the quickest and most pain free ever. After playing around with it a little (keep in mind there is very little software on it to play with so far) it's snappy. I mean really responsive. It seems like a much better Vista rather then a new operating system. So far I give it a big thumbs up. :)...

On the plane going to PDC Bruce mentioned a new product from MSR that he had downloaded called Pex. Then when the Expo hall opened at PDC we eventually made our way to the MSR section of the hall. There was Pex. We watched an excellent and very enthusiastic demo, at the end we were told there would be a session first thing Thursday morning. That would be the last thing we do before heading for home. Thursday morning we arrive at the Convention centre for Breakfast, randomly select a table and settle in for breakfast with four other PDCer's. Turns out two of them work for MSR and are giving the talk on Pex this morning. :) It was meant to be, how many signs does one need. As it turned out Bruce decided to find out how MS uses VSTS internally instead of both of us attending the Pex talk. so we split up. The Pex talk turned out to be two talks. Code Contracts Code contracts will be coming in...

One of the more farsighted thoughts on the implications of cloud computing is the concern about vendor lock-in. Tim Bray mentioned it in his Get in the Cloud post Big Issue · I mean a really big issue: if cloud computing is going to take off, it absolutely, totally, must be lockin-free. What that means if that I’m deploying my app on Vendor X’s platform, there have to be other vendors Y and Z such that I can pull my app and its data off X and it’ll all run with minimal tweaks on either Y or Z. ... I’m simply not interested in any cloud offering at any level unless it offers zero barrier-to-exit. This idea was also commented on by Dare Obasanjo here . It was Dare who originally pointed me at Tim's post. My take on the vendor lock-in problem is two-fold. First is the easier one to deal with - the platform on which the application is running. As it sits right now,...

This year at PDC Microsoft Research was here in force. I have seen them at PDC before, I'm sure of it, Although they tell me it was just a smattering. This year they had a section of the Expo Hall, The Wednesday Morning key note was done completely by MSR. Here are some of the highlights for me. SecondLight This is a very cool surface project. The demonstration showed images being projected onto a surface. Where the presenter could rearrange, and resize them, using multiple touch technologies. Then it got cool. Holding a piece of tracing paper above the surface showed a second projection coming through. This image was text that explained the first image. The whole thing is done by alternating between two separate projections onto a surface that can alternate at the same time between transparent and opaque.When the surface is opaque the first image is projected onto it. When it's transparent...

So it's the last few hours of PDC for this year. Which means that pretty much all of the information that can be shoved into my brain has been. It also means that it's a pretty decent moment to be summarizing what I've learned. Obviously (from its presence in the initial keynote and the number of sessions) cloud computing was the big news. This was also one of the more talked about parts of the conference, and not necessary for a good reason. Many people that I have talked to walked out of the keynote wondering exactly what Azure was. Was it web host? If so, what's the point? It's not like there aren't other companies doing the same thing. Could it be more than web hosting? If so, that wasn't made very clear from the keynote. In other words, I was not exactly chomping at the bit to try out Azure. But it's here at the end of the week. And I've had a chance to see some additional sessions and...

I have not blogged anything for the past two days. I've had very little time between key notes breakout sessions and visiting the Microsoft Booths in the Expo Hall, I could Blog and do all that but then add client work to the mix and there goes the extra time. I sat through a session yesterday and know nothing that happened I ended up catching up on email and having several conversations with people back at home via MSN. Enough excuses, Bruce and I have split up this morning. He went to a session titled TFS: How we use it at MS and I have gone to a session put on by MS Research on PEX (More Later). Last night was the only night this week we actually went out for dinner. Attached to our hotel is a Micro Brewery  Bonaventure Brewery   So we went and had the sampler. 5 different beers served on  tray with the type of the beer written on the matt under the glass. (Nice Touch) The...

I just got out of the WPF Roadmap talk. I found the future for WPF less interesting that the present, although that could very well because the speed of innovation coming from that group has been very high over the past couple of years. In fact, the 'roadmap' is as much about the present as it is about the future. Mention was made of the fact that the SP1 version of .NET 3.5 actually included a fair bit of 'new' functionality for WPF. As well, they have just released some new controls that are in different states. There is a DataGrid, Calendar control and DatePicker that are officially released. And there is a brand new ribbon control that is (I believe) in CTP mode. As well, there is also a Visual State Manager available for WPF. This is actually quite cool, as the VSM solves a problem that WPF has (and that SIlverlight already has). Specifically, it could be challenging to get the visual...

I'm sure that you know that Silverlight was released a couple of weeks ago. ScottGu made an interesting comment indicating that Silverlight (that would be 1.0 or 1.1) was installed on 1 in 4 computers that are connected to the Internet. And that over the next month, those computers would be updated to 2.0. Also that they had already upgrade 100 million computers. These numbers surprised me, only in that I didn't expect that penetration had achieved that goal. It also provides a number that might encourage people to start developing externally facing applications using Silverlight. Which, given some of the capabilities, is a good thing....

The presenter for the development changes related to .NET and Windows 7 is ScottGu. Who else? First off, Microsoft will be releasing a WPF ribbon control later this week. That is very nice, especially since the ribbon is the new hotness when it comes to the user interface. Demos also mentioned the integration of touch and jump lists, which are Win7 specific functionality. The jump lists (which is context sensitive functionality available through the thumbnail for an application) are simply commands which are implemented and registered by the application. Touch integration includes the ability to tie gestures to commands. So, ultimately, commands become the main mechanism for integrating WPF and Win7, at least at this level. Today, some additional WPF controls are being released. This includes DataGrid and a DataPicker control, as well as a Visual State Manager (a feature that greatly improves...

A couple of notes on how Windows 7 will improve O/S and application performance and some additional features. If you reduce the granularity of a timer, you can improve power consumption. They are trying to reduce the memory and processor requirements for Windows. Sinofsky (the speaker) held up his current machine, which is a 1MHz, 1GB system on which Windows 7 uses only half the RAM when started. A VHD can be created from within Windows (yeah!!!!!). As well, a VHD can be added to a running instance of Windows. And the machine can be booted from a VHD using the boot manager. This has the potential to be quite cool, especially for people like me who go from system to system on a regular basis. Built-in zoom-in and zoom-out. Useful for me when I'm training. To give you an idea of what the release schedule for Windows 7 is, the version that is available is basically the Milestone 3 version. There...