Utah .NET User Group

Running the Lightweight Test Automation Framework for ASP.NET from a separate application

Matthew M. Osborn — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:04:01 GMT

In some instances it might be best if your tests did not run in the same application as the website being tested. This is where the “IApplicationPathFinder” interface comes into play. If you implement this interface you will see that it only has one method “GetApplicationpath.” What this does is allow you to specify a prefix of sorts for the navigate method. When you call navigate on a HTMLPage it uses a ApplicationPathFinder to get the location it should look for the website at. For example, the...(read more)

Building a Databound WPF Menu Using a HierarchicalDataTemplate

Joe's Blog — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:49:00 GMT

I had a colleague ask me how he could solve a databinding problem while building a WPF Menu. The immediate answer wasn’t apparent to me, though it’s actually quite simple. A while back Karl Shifflett wrote up an excellent example of doing something similar. I take his example one step further by showing how you can easily bind properties to the MenuItem instead of assigning one-time values. Download Source: WPFDataBoundMenu.zip We’re going to use a simple Business Object which represents...(read more)

Base 30 Type in C#

tsJensen.com — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:27:19 GMT

I'm experimenting with using the Guid type in databases and applications but I don't like the string format of the Guid. It's not easily read or formatted on a report. I wanted to find a way to represent very large integers such as the Guid Read More......(read more)

UI Design Patterns Presentation Code + Slide Deck

Joe's Blog — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:24:00 GMT

Thank you to everyone who came to my presentation on UI Design patterns! It was great to see so many people interested in patterns for building user interfaces. One user group member recorded the presentation on his laptop's webcam; I should have that available for download this weekend. The video is so-so, but the audio isn't too bad. Thanks Walt! Links Download Code & Slides - http://xamlcoder.com/joe/downloads/UIDesignPatterns2008.zip Martin Fowler MVC Martin Fowler MVP ASP.NET MVP...(read more)

Utah .NET User Group Presentation - UI Design Patterns

Joe's Blog — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:39:00 GMT

Join me this week at the Utah .NET User Group where I’ll be giving a presentation on UI Design Patterns. UI Design Patterns In this session we’ll explore three UI design patterns: Model View Controller (MVC), Model View Presenter (MVP), and Model View ViewModel (MVVM). We’ll prove that you can reuse the same logic to drive a WinForms, ASP.NET, WPF, or Silverlight "View". We’ll also see how using these patterns allow the bulk of your UI to be testable using testing frameworks...(read more)

A Suggestion for Windows Live and Windows 7

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:14:16 GMT

In playing around with the Windows 7 bits I got at PDC I had a small idea that I submitted through the feedback link for Windows 7. The feedback is more related to how Windows Live works with Windows 7, but I thought I would submit it through that avenue as well as post it here. The note I sent through the feedback link was I installed the Windows Live suite of products. One of the immediate things that came to mind is I would rather have one deskbar icon rather than one for each product. It would...(read more)

Requirements Definition : The Danger of Failing Before You Have Really Started

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:07:57 GMT

Requirements, Stories, Use Cases, or whatever a team wants to call them form a key part of the execution plan for a development team. It should tell them what a customer wants. The artifacts in whatever form they are tend to have varying degrees of detail. Getting the right amount of detail at the right time is critical to the process of producing successful software. My thoughts on Requirements definition form around a process with three key elements. Development Prioritization Definition Development...(read more)

Battling SQL User Instance failures to start

Zupancic Perspective (v2.0) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:00:03 GMT

This evening, I upgraded an installation of SQL Server Express 2005 to its 2008 counterpart because I have a few small websites that I've developed that rely on SQL User Instances. The upgrade was smooth enough, but I was promptly and unexpectedly Read More......(read more)

Apple, I'm a PC and You're a Hypocrite

tsJensen.com — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:25:45 GMT

One of the latest Apple ads makes fun of Microsoft for spending more on marketing than on fixing Vista. Time for all you fruit computer junkies to face some cold hard facts: Let's take our most recent SEC filing quarter for both companies and compare Read More......(read more)

Building composite Applications Using PRISM Presentation

Joe's Blog — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:57:00 GMT

Thank you to everyone who attended my presentation on PRISM at the Utah Code Camp this past weekend. Here’s a link to my sample code and slide deck. http://xamlcoder.com/joe/downloads/PRISM-UTCodeCamp2008.zip Note that you’ll need VS2008 SP1 with the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 installed to run the Silverlight demo....(read more)

What is Enterprise Software Architecture

tsJensen.com — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:54:07 GMT

I just posted this on a linkedin group to which I belong, but I thought I'd also like to pose the question here. I'd like to get a discussion started that attempts to define enterprise software architecture. My own definition seems to be evolvoing Read More......(read more)

Meshified Car

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:02:37 GMT

I am sitting in LAX waiting for my flight home and just finished a video done by Channel 9 with Ori Amiga who is one of the stars of the Live Mesh Development team. He was showing a custom gadget that he built to integrate with his car that included integration with Live Mesh so that he had a Meshified car. It was pretty cool so I thought I would link to it – With everybody excited about the release of the Mesh client for Windows Mobile this is A different kind of Mobile Mesh ....(read more)

Watching Internet Video in double time

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:59:30 GMT

I watch a lot of podcasts and videocasts. So much so that I often wish I could watch them in a “faster” mode. Which I can do with podcasts that are in WMV format. When they play in Windows Media Player you can right click on the play button and select “fast” playback. It isn’t double time, but it certainly is sped up. I listen to all I can with that setting – it helps me get through them faster while still being perfectly understandable etc… Not all WMV support this so I suspect it may be an encoding...(read more)

Utah Code Camp Fall 2008!

.NET User Group Feed - Blog - Dukk.org — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:56:30 GMT

For those of you that don’t already know the fall 2008 Utah Code Camp is coming up on November 1st at Neumont University. It’s a good chance for some of you that didn’t get to go to Microsoft’s PDC to at least do something… You can check out the web site Read More......(read more)

Microsoft .NET gets a facelift

Matthew M. Osborn — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:19:26 GMT

For those of you who have been living under a rock today you might not have noticed that the Microsoft .NET logo got a face lift. I know it’s about time! Find out about all the new features being released at PDC08 at http://microsoftpdc.com...(read more)

Analyzing Windows Azure

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:32:26 GMT

Azure is/was the product formerly known as Red Dog. It is more than just a Cloud OS. It is a hosting platform as well (ala Amazon EC2) with components that give it S3 and Simple DB capability. The Simple DB capability comes from SQL Server Data Services which has been renamed SQL Services or SQL Server Services. The name change comes from the added capability to support Reporting Services and Analysis Services. So the Data story of Azure looks to be much deeper than Simple DB as MS fills it out....(read more)

Check out Twitter for PDC updates

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:57:18 GMT

I will try and add posts here as I can – but Twitter is much better for sharing the bite-sized updates that are captured as part of sessions. You can catch my Twitters at http://twitter.com/HintonBR . A summary post will be coming sometime soon to capture my notes from the VS2010 session I went to plus the Dublin session I am in as well as others depending on when I get it done. Technorati Tags: PDC08...(read more)

Microsoft Surface hands-on

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:50:21 GMT

Here are the pictures I took of my time hands-on with Surface Snowboard Design app App list that you can flick through Photo app grouping photos by categories Virtual Earth app – I loved it – no 3D mode yet – that would be even better – but cool to use Multi-Touch movement to navigate the map Keynote stage Technorati Tags: PDC08 , Microsoft Surface...(read more)

PDC is finally here

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:14:28 GMT

Over the last few months it has seemed like every interesting discussion about MS products has some how involved a “just wait until PDC” statement. Thankfully PDC is finally here. Tomorrow Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia kick it off with a keynote starting at 8:30 am PT. On Tuesday there are two keynotes one from 8:30-10:30 with Ray Ozzie, Scott Guthrie, and David Treadwell and then another one from 11:00-12:30 with Don Box and Chris Anderson. The second one is for sure about Oslo and demoing that. If I...(read more)

PDC 2008 - Day 01 (Silverlight 2.0)

Zupancic Perspective (v2.0) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:26:17 GMT

I arrived to PDC 2008 (Professional Developers Conference) in Los Angeles, California yesterday and I can honestly say that the women have it lucky in one regard: no bathroom lines. :) Today I had the opportunity to attend a great pre-conference session Read More......(read more)

To Outsource Or Not to Outsource, That is the Question

tsJensen.com — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:56:19 GMT

I just posted the following note on a LinkedIn group I follow in answer to a post about so called "software factories," which is a nice euphemism for overseas developers working for much less than they deserve struggling to meet the unreasonable Read More......(read more)

Composite Silverlight 2.0 Application Library Updated to RTW

Joe's Blog — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:46:00 GMT

I’ve updated my demo of the Composite Silverlight Library I built to work with Silverlight RTW. The P&P group has plans to ship the next version of the PRISM library (PRISM 2.0) that supports Silverlight, so I’ve started to use their bits instead of the ones that I built with this sample. Bellow is a screenshot of the conversion. As you can see, the default styles in Silverlight 2.0 have been changed, and the rendering is much better. Download: CompositeSilverlightRTW...(read more)

Tech·Ed EMEA 2008

Matthew M. Osborn — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:48:46 GMT

Well it’s official I will be going to Tech·Ed EMEA this year. This will be my first time in Spain so it should be fun. I will be working the ASP.NET booth for the developer portion of the conference, November 10th through the 14th. If your going to be there look me up at the booth. If there is anything you want to find out while I’m in Spain or at Tech·Ed let me know. Any ideas for a small 20-30 minute talk? If you’re interested there is still time to register and make the trip!...(read more)

The Case of the Invalid Action in Microsoft CRM 4.0

Zupancic Perspective (v2.0) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:06:29 GMT

When I awoke this morning I was greeted with a high priority email indicating that our CRM server down. I promptly discovered that we were receiving a very descriptive "Invalid Action: The selected action was not valid" error message. I quickly Read More......(read more)

How many choices are too many choices?

Bryan Hinton's space: Technology — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:44:17 GMT

Americans are constantly faced by a myriad of choices. When we go out to eat we have to pick between Italian, American, Chinese, Greek, Thai, Mexican, Indian, etc…. Once you have picked a type then you have to choose between Applebees, Chili’s, Outback, etc… The same thing happens on trips to the grocery store, picking a dentist, or what movie to go to. Many times we sit and spin on making a choice about something that likely doesn’t truly matter that much. In the technology world this problem continually...(read more)