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Just a note for all JAXDUG members.... Do you want a blog spot? Send me your JAXDUG account username (the one for the cs.jaxdug.com, not the main web site) to brady @ merkel.net--I'll enable the blog engine to allow you to blog here). Then you can download RSS Feeder free from Sourceforge to use as your RSS aggregator (with Outlook integration and newspaper too, as well as a nifty client-side interface to author and post your blogs--Thanks Dennis!)

Join the fun! Get On the Map! Participate and Contribute! Share your breakthroughs and impact the Jacksonville technology community by raising the bar! Learn new things, write better code. :-)

posted by bpmerkel | 0 Comments

Top 10 Reasons NOT to attend Code Camp

Top 10 Reasons NOT to attend Code Camp

10. You already know it all, and besides, your momma told you there's no such thing as a free lunch.

9. You figured out how to reconcile SOA and OOP, so you need the day to post your findings on wikipedia.

8. You want a complete Customer Relations Management solution on your DotNetNuke site, and it'll take you all day to do it.
 
7. You are still trying to figure out whether you're a C# or VB.Net programmer, and you want to use the day to reflect on the My namespace, and whether you can accept a pay cut.
 
6. You plan on helping John Milligan install a firewall over at Clara White Mission to help Project Backyard make a difference for the community.
 
5. You will be too busy studying for your MCSD at Panera's in Orange Park that morning. You know, so you can learn new things and write better code.
 
4. You are still working on passing the Joel Test, and you're stuck on item #1 (do you use source control?)
 
3. You attended the last Code Camp, and you think that by some kind of inheritance/polymorphism/abstraction/encapsulation relationship, this one will be the same.
 
2. Some AJAX bozo pushed the business logic into the presentation layer and you need the day to re-implement so your web service can use it.
 
1. You have seen the MSN Butterfly, and it won't be much of a fashion stretch for Dennis or Joe.
posted by bpmerkel | 2 Comments

Reflector Disassembler and SQL 2005 CLR Peek-a-boo

I remember when I first downloaded Lutz Roeder's .NET Reflector (FREE!) and inspected my own code and some of the 3rd party controls I depend on. Reflector is an awesome tool to peek at classes in DLLs and see the logic behind (in C# or VB.Net!). This was especially helpful recently when I needed to look back at an old released DLL and see if it included a specific enhancement (prior to my use of an appropriate source control solution :-).

Now, from the great mind of Denis Bauer are two great Reflector plug-ins that deserve an extended look (also both FREE):

  • Reflector.FileDisassembler. Dump the decompiler output to files of any Reflector supported language. This is extremely useful if you are searching for a specific line of code as you can use VS.NET's "Find in Files" or want to convert a class from one language to another. http://www.denisbauer.com/NETTools/FileDisassembler.aspx
  • Reflector.SQL2005Browser. Browse .NET assemblies stored in a SQL Server 2005 (Yukon) database. You can connect your local Reflector installation to a remote SQL Server instance, list the databases and its assemblies and download them directly into .NET Reflector. http://www.denisbauer.com/NETTools/SQL2005Browser.aspx

BEAUTIFUL!

posted by bpmerkel | 0 Comments

Bitten by the AJAX Bug

Okay, okay. Sure it would be nice to have that GUI integration and responsiveness in my web applications that WinForm developers enjoy. I'd like not to have to craft specialized logic to maintain the focus and scroll position between autopostbacks... And, as I've heard (thanks Dave!) and read, there's a lot of history with XML data islands and Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX).

Surfing recently I found a gold mine: a cool marriage of AJAX onto ASP.Net (and, BTW, Microsoft recently announced plans to incorporate AJAX-like remote scripting into the .Net framework. See http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1832167,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535 and http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/06/28/416185.aspx.)

Check it out. Looky here. (Both of these phrases will get you kicked out/hung up by Lex and Terry :-)

Download and play with "Ajax.NET - A free library for the Microsoft .NET Framework" at http://ajax.schwarz-interactive.de/csharpsample/default.aspx. It uses a kewl blend of reflection and maps nicely between javascript and .Net classes.

Sweet.

Update: AJAX.Net is now available as an open source project on SourceForge. See http://sourceforge.net/projects/ajaxnet-library. PHANTASTIC!

posted by bpmerkel | 0 Comments