John Howell

I don’t know how I missed this posting in the Microsoft fourms from this past February, but this is a great posting about how to create workflow rules from CodeDom.  This is some exciting stuff.  The flexability that Microsoft is building within their tools is an unbelievable gem within the development world.  Keep up the great work guys!  Happy coding!

As most of you know, I feel Silverlight is going to changes the face of the Internet as we now know it.  However, as with most new technologies, there is always a bit of fun to be had.  So I thought I’d share with you this link from Chad Brooks blog listing just a few of the games that were put together on Silverlight 1.1. 

It’s a bit of fun, but underneath is an Alpha version of Silverlight that people are already starting to use!

After delivering an unbelievable product in SQL Server 2005, the SQL team is preparing to up the ante even further.  They have released the June CTP of SQL Server 2008!  This means it’s close guys!

For those of you who haven’t been watching "Katmai" progress here are just a few of the great features on the way!

• Encrypt and enter database, data files or log files with out the need for changes to your application.
• More comprehensive data auditing (ex. What data was retrieved?).
• Policies for Database Operations (ex. query optimizations, naming conventions, backup and restore operations and index management) that can be enforced and monitored.
• Seamless Database Mirroring and simplified Recovery.
• Highly Scalable.
• New data types to store unstructured data (ex. documents and images).
• Resource Governor to prioritize and define limits for different workloads.
• ADO.Net improvements such as the new Entity Data Model to retrieve entities natively within .Net using LinQ).
• Change Data Capture functionality for real-time data warehouse update support.
• New Spatial Data Types for building location-aware applications.
• Support for occasionally connected applications.
• More improvements to SQL Server Reporting Services and SQL Server Analysis Services.
• Office Sharepoint Server integration!

Most of you have been victim of a computer virus or malware at some point and probably have just chalked it up to chance. Here is hard evidence that malicious hackers are greatly increasing their arsenal and the intelligence of their methods. Just five years ago, it seemed that viruses were just an anomaly that would soon be contained. The fantasy technology in Johnny Mnemonic is coming closer faster than anyone expects. Have you checked your firewall lately? Are your virus scans current? What about that wireless router you use at home? Do you use the security and encryption on it or did you leave an open door for just anyone driving by to basically come into your home? Take care of yourself and those around you by insisting on firewalls, current virus protection that includes email and internet scanning and finally, use the internet with this information in mind. If you go to sites that you feel or know are unsafe, you’re not just putting a bulls eye on the information stored on your computer, you’re putting an open call for people to come get it. These malicious hackers are determined, intelligent and dangerous!

My apologies for the non .Net related posting, but this is an extreemly important topic and everyone needs to be informed, aware and watchful.

Back to regular programming with the next post.  Thanks for listening and please take your precautions.

I have been trying to tell everyone I know that Silverlight will have as much impact on our lives as HTML!  And a company has allready implemented Silverlight alpha on Winforms!

That should capture your attention.  Anybody who has dealt with resource files across projects has been easily frustrated because there is no directly visible way to share resources across projects.

Well, surprise, there is.  There is a simple entry in the AssemblyInfo.cs that you can use to allow one project to access the internals of another.   The first step is to compile the project (FriendProject) you want to be able to see the internals of another project (ResourceProject).  Then use reflection to retrieve the public key of your FriendProject assembly (you do sign your assemblies don’t you).  Then using the entry below, fill in the FriendProject assembly name and its public key and away you go:

[assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("FriendProject, PublicKey=<key goes here>")]

Happy coding!

MSDN has a great article on Mass-Hosting High-Availability Architectures.  Anyone who has been even close to MH-HA environments knows the complexity (not to mention pain) that comes with living in this space.  However, for those not as familar with this space, this article offers a great overview of many of the ‘ingredients’ that have to be dealt with and why.   It’s not a a cookbook nor is it the ‘silver bullet’ (doesn’t exist), but for those uninitiated, it provides great info.  Pay special attention to the discussion of App Pools.  You’ll thank me later.  Check it out.

Silverlight v1.1 Alpha is available and includes the full CLR running in the browser!  Check out the Hanselminutes postcast with extra info.  Very worth putting on your Zune and listening to.  (Notice I didn’t say the "I" word).

If you are running v1.0 Beta, don’t forget that it only comes with JavaScript.  v1.1 includes the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) to run dynamic/script languages on top of the CLR.  I think the languages for v1.1 that will be available upon delivery is JavaScript, Iron Python, Iron Ruby and a dynamic VB.   What they hey?  Where is dynamic C#?

Sometimes the developer within us gets so excited and wrapped up in doing a project that we don’t always keep the lines of communication going.   Even worst, we see an easy project and we don’t make sure the customer is on the same page with us before we get started.

You’ve heard me say this before and I’ll say it a million more times because we forget it all to often.  "Manage the expectations!" The success or failure of a project is defined in reference to the customer’s expectations.   You may (should) have a very clear understanding of the project and it’s scope but if you don’t make sure that your understanding matches the customer’s expectations, you are starting the project with unacceptable risks before the first line of code is written!

That’s not to say you give in to the customer’s every expectation, you merely have to make sure that they’re not expecting something you’re not planning on delivering.   If you don’t clarify that with them up front, they will come up expectations all on their own!  So clarify up front, get it written down and as the project progresses and the customers expectations magically seem to change, you gently refer back to the scope document.  That’s what we call Managing the Expectations.   Good luck and happy coding!