Dennis J. Bottjer | MVP ASP.NET

Reviewed: Get Connected with the .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio® 2005 (and Beyond)

2006-08-31T03:33:00Z

On Tuesday August 29, 2006, just three days after our 2^nd Annual Jacksonville Code Camp, Microsoft’s Russ Fustino rolled into town to deliver another quality MSDN event. http://www.msdnevents.com/ Russ introduced us to the new namespaces in .NET 3.0. In the first session he took us through the System.NET namespace. The highlights of this session were being able to detect the presence of a network and FTP capabilities. The second session focused on WCF and I was really impressed by how easy it is to switch between communication end points. The last session was Atlas and Russ gave a good intro to this technology. Russ always fields audience questions very well. He uses break time between sessions to look up answers for people and then addresses them at the beginning of each session. Finally, Russ always gives plenty of attention to the local community and highlights all the events within the local community.

Russ thanks for visiting JAX!

ASP.NET 2.0 College Level Tutorial

2006-08-25T04:26:00Z

http://msconline.maconstate.edu/tutorials/ASPNET20/default.htm

Seems like a nicely prepared material for a college level course studying web development using the ASP.NET 2.0 platform.

Is this anything like being on the cover of Rolling Stone?

2006-08-23T17:29:00Z

http://www.gotdotnet.com/

Jacksonville Code Camp 2006: Will you be there?

2006-07-18T14:46:00Z

http://andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2006/07/18/3248.aspx

Great Typed DataSet Tutorial

2006-06-30T12:39:00Z

www.ASP.NET is quite a resource for learning the .NET 2.0 Framework in general and of course all things ASP.NET. The team has added a well done tutorial on Data Access. My two favorite tutorials are http://www.asp.net/learn/dataaccess/tutorial01cs.aspx?tabid=63 which covers building a Data Access Layer with Typed DataSets and http://www.asp.net/learn/dataaccess/tutorial02cs.aspx?tabid=63 which covers building a Business Logice Layer with Typed DataSets. Essentially, the second tutorial expands on and consumes the work begun in the first.

Until recently, my general opinion of DataSets was rather low. This was mainly due to the fact that in .NET 1.x their were some performance serialization issues associated with DataSets. Furthermore, I really didn't like the late binding promoted by DataSets. Typed DataSets used with Table Adapters in .NET 2.0 have really changed my opinion. First, Typed DataSets are just that Strongly Typed. Second, serialization performance has been vastly improved. Next, if you really dive in to the DataSet Designer and Table Adapters I think you will find them to be quite powerfull. By default these tools can help you generate the SQL Statements necessary to query the database. However, you can also use existing stored procs or even generate stored procs.

VS 2005 Spell Checker Add-In

2006-06-30T12:31:00Z

I found this neat, free, add-in on www.dotnet2themax.com that allows you to spell check your comments and such. http://www.dotnet2themax.com/ShowContent.aspx?ID=ded748ac-f681-4976-9623-71f5f3e3ea8f. There is a VS 2003 and VS 2005 version available.

Successful Software Development

2006-06-09T04:51:00Z

Software Development tries to mimic the real world in many ways. Unfortunately, with the good comes some bad. Specifically, I am referring to the many great “Software Holy Wars.” Geeks passionately take sides on such issues as using Data Sets vs. Objects, DTO vs. Domain Model, or Contract First vs. Code First Development. In many situations each side has merit and one must ask in which direction are the requirements leading us? For example, I don’t like to use Data Sets for Data Set sake. However, if I am building a Smart Client Application that must have disconnected capabilities using Typed Data Sets brings much power to the table. In this case Type Data Sets have several baked in features that make data persistence and state easy to track. So keep an open mind and look at development tasks on a case by case basis. On CSI Las Vegas they always say “… let the evidence guide you,” in our case as developers it is that requirements that should guide us.

The above statements are fine and dandy but I already imagine some critics picking away at my suggestion to follow the requirements because the requirements may not always be complete or clear. Here I suggest it is our jobs as developers to help flush out unclear requirements. Developers, raise questions about the code they are writing and help develop a solution. Developers also make suggestions to the stake holders. Once a decision is made it is our job to carry out those decisions.

So far I have proposed letting the requirements help resolve architecture design conflicts and to identify and help resolve missing requirements. Next, I would like discuss the importance of a positive team environment. So is this where I start advocating all the HR hyped retreats and team building exercises. If you think so then you don’t know me to well. Blah! I’ve worked in what I consider both positive and negative team environments and the difference comes down to a few simple points. They are as follows:

Every one will eventually have a bad day, just remember to treat others with respect and follow the GOLDEN RULE.
Assume everyone was hired for a reason and has something valuable to contribute. Great ideas come from all skill levels, genders, races, etc.
Share your ideas.
Sometimes you may be asked to prove your idea. This is an opportunity to shine. If you realize the idea is flawed you’ve learned something in process and thus still succeeded.

While nothing I’ve outlined is revolutionary or earth shattering, it is my best advice for successful software development based on my experiences in the work force.

Florida Makes Business 2.0

2006-05-02T13:28:00Z

The current newstand issue of the magazine Business 2.0 has an article listing the 10 hottest jobs and 10 hottest cities. Anyway, 6 of the 10 top job are in the IT field and 3 of the top cities are right here in Florida. They include Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. So here is more proof for all the times you've heard people like Joe Healy telling you Florida has a great development community.

Source: www.business20.com

IIS Virtual Directory File Size Limit

2006-03-07T03:38:00Z

Recently I ran into an issue where cetain images served from a virtual directory, mapped to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device via a UNC path would not display. After quite a bit of detective work I noticed that the images failing to display where those of about 600KB in size. If I resized the images they under 200KB they dispalyed fine. I found some information on MSDN that states that IIS the remote files for faster delivery. Periodically, IIS poles the remote locations (UNC Paths) for file changes. I found the following registry entry which I believe to be the cause:

MaxCachedFileSize
Registry Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\InetInfo\Parameters
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Default Value: 256 KB (262,144 bytes)
Controls the maximum size of cache files. The default is 256 KB if no value is present.

MaxCachedFileSize

Registry Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\InetInfo\Parameters

Data Type: REG_DWORD

Default Value: 256 KB (262,144 bytes)

Controls the maximum size of cache files. The default is 256 KB if no value is present.

Visual Studio 2005 Tips

2006-03-07T03:16:00Z

I find myself using Visual Studio 2005 more and more to help edit HTML files. The IDE has some very nice features that make validating doctypes and cleaning up old HTML a snap. For example, if you right click on an HTML document while in HTML Source Mode and choose "Formatting and Validation" you can set the doctype the IDE uses to validate your HTML. After opening the "Formating and Validation screen choose the Validation menu option then select your doctype.

8 Tips to Become a Better Developer commented on by Jonathan Bates

2006-02-09T03:51:00Z

Jonathan posted this on the forums. Thought is was a really good read and wanted to make sure it got plenty of attention. Do check it out:

http://cs.jaxdug.com/forums/1352/ShowThread.aspx#1352

An Incredible AJAX Implementation

2006-01-26T01:25:00Z

http://osx.portraitofakite.com/ I heard about this on www.hanselminutes.com, a great show by the way.

ZoneStripper

2006-01-19T02:22:00Z

The project location is not fully trusted by the .NET runtime. This is usually because it is either a network share or mapped to a network share not on the local machine. If the output path is under the project location, your code will not execute as fully trusted and you may receive unexpected security exceptions.

I have received the above error several times when opening solutions off a local drive. This happens on projects downloaded from the web. Anyway I found a great post discussing the problem. The post also includes a utility that fixes the problem.

http://www.jameskovacs.com/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=6985963b-3d85-41ae-bca8-5f9efe2a79c7

Microsoft WSDLs Found

2006-01-19T01:38:00Z

I found the following two Microsoft WSDL's

http://terraserver-usa.com/TerraService.asmx?wsdl Terra Services.

http://staging.mappoint.net/standard-30/mappoint.wsdl Mapoint

There are for the http://schneider.blogspot.com/ "Great Microsoft WSDL Hunt"

CSS For Windows Controls (Part II)

2006-01-16T03:18:00Z

In my last post I through out a simple idea for making the physical styling of WinForm controls an easier task. It seems that it is necessary to further clarify where I was going with this thought. In a comment posted despite obvious "...restrain," I feel several VERY incorrect conclusion were jumped to. So let's begin:

In my previous post I was specifically presenting an idea to control the physicall appearance of WinForm controls. Now a common practice when implementing either WEB or WinFom controls is to use inheritence to extend an already existing control. For example, you may wish to inherit from the standard texbox control and extend the control to only accept valid US Phone numbers. The validation could be handled using a regular expression. While the graphical look and feel can be controlled via inheritance there remains one gaping hole. The developer is responsible for deciding how the control looks.

My point is to seperate the developer from controlling the appearance of the controls. Under this model the same WinForm controls could be used in multiple WinForm applications or Smart Client Applications and the appearance can be easily changed per application via CSS. If a company develops applications for both the Web and Windows then the talents of the Web Designer could be put to good use styling WinForm and/or SmartClient Controls. To revamp the look of an application just apply a new CSS.

Once again this is only an idea but it seems to have potential XAML.