June 2004 - Posts

29 June 2004
Whidbey (AKA VS 2005) Beta 1 Unleashed
Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 has been released (release notes are here , and amazingly, MSDN documentation is here ). I have not installed it yet, but I really hope side by side installation with VS 2003 has been enabled, the previous pre-betas have been virtually non-functional. More posts as I play around with it. Anyone have any issues/comments/etc? Read More...
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27 June 2004
Exception Management Block
I've posted code that simplifies catching and logging exceptions via a pluggable architecture (it's based on the Exception Management Application Block from Microsoft). There is a readme file in the “Misc” folder. Bear in mind that this is still a “Work In Progress”, I will release updates as I make them. Also, don't open the .sln file, instead just use the .csproj file and create your own solution. The SQLPublisher class needs a bit of work, it's just kind of a reference for now. The architecture is pretty straightforward, and it's completely pluggable for custom modules should you care to write one. As of now there are classes for SQL Server, SMTP, File I/O, WMI, and XML publishing, each deriving from a base class that takes care of the formatting. Future updates will include a more robust logging mechanism that will allow you to specify the level of exceptions to log (i.e. Information, Verbose, Error, Warning, etc...corresponding to the System.Diagnostics.TraceLevel... Read More...
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26 June 2004
Weekly Links -- New Post Category
Like most developers, I read. A lot. It comes with the job, and I really enjoy catching up on new technology, or examples of existing technology being used. As such, I am going to start a new category where I list out the stories/articles I've found most interesting for the week. Asynchronous Callbacks in Whidbey . This looks like good stuff, the ability to asynchronously call server side code from client side code, without triggering a postback. Internet Explorer is losing lots of market share to Mozilla . Certainly not news, but finally some numbers to back up that claim. Read the article. Using Object Oriented State Machines in .NET . Great example of how to really overcomplicate a recursive function call, but some good concepts are mentioned. I refactored the code supplied into a more intuitive VS.NET solution here . What's New In System.Reflection . Most interesting is Lightweight Code Generation (IMO). I wonder how the debugger will handle that one? What Not To Do With ASP . It's... Read More...
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25 June 2004
First Week Back at Work
This week was my first week back to work, and I already learned something new (that's why I love what I do...constantly learning)...that is, I learned it when I wasn't walking to and from work in the rain (5 minute walk, however it has rained here for about a week straight). The first project I've been slated to do is a small upgrade for an internal application (won't bore with details), basically a new report viewer has been written in managed code and needs to replace an existing ActiveX control hosted in IE. The current application is written in ASP, so of course the first step was to rewrite some of the pages in ASP.NET. Unfortunately, there were already a few pages that had been upgraded, and they written in VB.NET (nothing against VB, just prefer C# and am much more familiar with the syntax). That wasn't a big deal, until you introduce a few legacy COM servers they were using to generate the reports. One of the first things I like to do when rewriting existing code is write a prototype... Read More...
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17 June 2004
Wherefore Art Thou Google Ranking?
I normally wouldn't get in a tizzy about something as fickle as a Google ranking, however I did take a little pride in knowing that I owned the top spot for both “Jayson Knight” and “Jayson Blog”. Well, no longer. I don't even know what my ranking is now, I got sick of hitting the “next” button. I've also been bumped from the top 10 for both “ASP.NET Performance Tuning” and “HttpHandler Custom”. It's almost as if I've just vanished from the Google radar completely. I checked my IIS log to verify I am still getting traffic consistent with other months, and indeed I am (approximately 2000 page hits (1000 of them unique) for the month of June...which is actually more than other months, and we're just over halfway done with June). So what gives? The only thing I can think of is that moving to an aggregate blog made my blog URL suffix (jaysonblog) disappear from Google's ability to spider my blog. However, if you do a search on “Raymond... Read More...
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10 June 2004
Gainfully Employed Again
I have accepted a position with a large local financial company (if you've even heard of Charlotte, you can guess that it's one of two, and your first guess is probably correct) as a .Net developer. I'm still a little hazy on the actual details, we went over a lot of stuff during the interviews, but the technologies that I know for a fact that are involved are: C#, OOAD, SQL Server, Web Services, and ASP.NET. BizTalk Server came up during the interview, and while I don't know for sure if it's in use, I certainly hope so...BizTalk is by far and away my favorite Microsoft technology (next to C# of course). If anyone has ever seen BizTalk in action, I am sure you can see why. I'm ecstatic about going back to work, and the group I met with seems really knowledgable, and quite laid back. Of course I will post more about this as it presents itself. As a side note, I'd like to thank everyone who sent in referrals (you know who you are). Happy coding! Read More...
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05 June 2004
.Text Multiple Blog Installation Complete
I have finally set up the .Text multiple blog aggregate page . And of course, I ran into quite a few stumbling blocks along the way (and have had no replies as of yet). I'm pleased by the fact that it's finally up and running, however I am not pleased with how I had to set it up. Apparently, to run .Text in the multiple blog configuration, it needs it's own dedicated web site in IIS (I ran around in circles attempting to get it to work in a virtual directory...to no avail), and it also would appear that the multiple HttpHandlers in the web.config file hijack the entire website...no virtual directories underneath the root will work, and files cannot be downloaded from the root, it will error out as it's actually looking for blogs (I know this is a horrible explanation, but I don't really understand the issue, Scott has mentioned this will be fixed in the final release). I have multiple links on my blog that point to downloadable content and have had to move this content to an FTP site on... Read More...
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03 June 2004
How To Increase the Number of Concurrent Internet Explorer Downloads
I have had my first paying publication (it's always nice to actually get paid for stuff, and to be honest, I didn't even realize I was going to be paid for this submission until well after I submitted it...I didn't do it for the money). It's a short blurb in the June issue of “ Windows and .Net Magazine ” in the Reader to Reader department in both the online version of the magazine, as well as in the printed edition. I don't remember how I came across the solution (it was many many years ago), but it has definitely come in handy. I also do not know why IE limits the number of concurrent downloads to 2 (I think it was legal reasons, something to do with the FCC), but the registry hack mentioned in the blurb takes care of that. Oh, and yes...I am an IE user (I know, I know...security holes, rendering problems, CSS issues...old habits die hard). I do occasionally fire up Mozilla; however I am by no means a Mozilla expert. That being said, I would like to know what other people... Read More...
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02 June 2004
Which OS Are You?
Which OS are You? Hmm...interesting. Take the quiz yourself! Read More...
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02 June 2004
The Trouble with Rover Revealed
While it's hardly news (article is dated 02/20/2004), I've always wondered what happened on Mars with the rover...it just took a while to find any info about it. As is usually the norm with computers/software issues, the problem was somewhere between the chair and the computer. Favorite quote from the article: “The irony of it was that the operating system was doing exactly what we'd told it to do.” Funny how computers are good at that. Read More...
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