It looks like a lot is happening on the web related to Silverlight. It's pretty difficult to keep track of all the websites, blogs, videos, del.icio.us links that get published every day or so. So, I created a Silverlight Pagecast (www.pageflakes.com/silverlight) to stay on top of everything's related to Silverlight. In one page, you get to see Silverlight.net website, MSDN's Silverlight Page, read most popular blogs on Silverlight, rss feeds from Silverlight websites, delicious bookmarks made by community on Silverlight, any blog mention on the web about Silverlight, videos on Silverlight and many more. As I discover more and more stuffs, I will keep adding them on this pagecast.

It's your one stop shop for all Silverlight action on the web.

You can also checkout my other pagecast where I have added lots of .NET related stuffs including many .NET related Podcasts.

www.pageflakes.com/omar

Feel free to recommend stuffs to put on these pagecasts.I would love to showcase your own work also.

If you're like me and dabble in everything, then you might have Visual Studio 2005 installed along with VisualSVN (a plug-in to integrate Subversion source control access with Visual Studio). The latest version of XNA Game Studio (2.0) now allows you to build XNA projects inside of any flavor of Visual Studio. Previously you could only use C# Express Edition, which meant you couldn't use any add-ins (the license for C# Express forbids 3rd party addons) which meant I couldn't use ReSharper. Anyone who's watched my XNA demos knows this peeves me to no end as I stumble pressing Alt+Enter to try to resolve namespaces or Ctrl+N to find some class.

Oh yeah, getting back to the point. If you've installed the latest Game Studio 2.0 you can now use it with Visual Studio 2005 (not 2008 yet). And if you've got the combo I mentioned installed (VS2005, GS2.0, and VisualSVN) you might see this when you create a new XNA project:

It's a crazy bug but I tracked it down via the XNA forums. Apparently there's a conflict if you're running the combination I mentioned. Don't ask me why a source control plugin would affect a project creation template. I just use this stuff.

Anyways, you can fix it with the latest version of VisualSVN (1.3.2). I was running 1.3.1 and having the problem, you may be in the same boat. Here's the conversation on the problem in the XNA forums; here's the bug listed on the connect site; and here's the link to VisualSVN 1.3.2 to correct the problem. All is well in developer land again as we enter the world of ReSharper goodness sprinkled with a topping of XNA.

Happy gaming!

Just a quick update to TreeSurgeon as we've been working on some plans on updating the tool to have a more flexible framework for adding new tools and updating the output for newer versions of the .NET framework.

Donn Felker added VS2005 support so that's in right now. If you grab the latest from source control or download the latest ChangeSet from CodePlex here, you can get TreeSurgeon spitting out VS2005 and .NET 2.0 solutions. I'm just finishing up VS2008 support now and that'll be in the planned 1.2 release that we're coming out with shortly (probably by the end of the week). In addition, based on votes from the Issue Tracker (which we use as a Product Backlog) I'm looking to add MbUnit support so that will probably get into this release.

The UI is pretty ugly and could use some graphical loving. I'm not going to get all stoked about the UI right now but it does need something. I've been meaning to talk to Jay Flowers as he pinged me awhile back about hooking up and seeing if there's some crossover between CI Factory and TreeSurgeon. I'm not so sure as I still have yet to get my head wrapped around CI Factory (nothing against Jay but if I can't grok an install in 5 minutes I usually move on until I can come back and kill some time figuring out how it works). To me a CI Factory and TreeSurgeon is like Marvel vs. DC (or Mac vs. PC) as I'm not sure I see the synergies but we'll see where that goes.

We're also looking at doing some kind of plugin pattern for creating different type of tree structures. The original structure Mike Roberts came up with is great, but as with anything evolution happens and we move on. I personally use a modified structure that's based on Mikes, but accomodates different features. JP Boodhoo has a blog entry here on his structure, again, slightly different. In addition to the updates on the tree structure, we're looking at adding better support in the generated build file (and options for it in the ugly UI) for choosing what unit testing framework and how to compile using it (straight, through NCover, or NCoverExplorer). Again, some stuff is solid; others are up in the air but feel free to hook up on the forums here with your thoughts and ideas as we're always open to drive this the way you, the community, want it to go.

Like I said, you can grab the 2005 support right now from here and the 2008 support will be up on the server when we do the 1.2 release later this week.

Back to the grind.

Yesterday, Volta was made publicly available for the first time.  It is an experimental project in the early stages of development.  The team decided to release an early technology preview so that developers everywhere can help guide the project through experience and feedback.  We want your feedback.

The first release provides the basic feature set that will be improved upon with time.  It has some obvious shortcomings that we are aware of and are actively addressing.  But really, at this stage, the preview is more concerned with sparking your imagination about what is possible than ironing out all of the details.

Perhaps you disagree.  Maybe the most important feature to you is the completeness of a final product.  If that is the case, then say so and we will seriously consider making it a higher priority for the upcoming early experimental releases.

At some point, Volta may become, feed into, or inform a product, but that is a little way off yet.  So let's enjoy the unique opportunity of working together to make something great.

In the coming months, I will alternate between three types of posts:

1.  Volta focused posts: explaining the motivation, features, and technical details

2.  C#: this includes both 3.0 and eventually 4.0 features

3.  Random thoughts: like it says; two that will be discussed soon are programmer tests and continuations

I hope you enjoy the posts and I look forward to engaging with you in discussion.

Mike Volodarsky has post a list of breaking changes for ASP.NET 2.0 application running in integrated mode on IIS 7.0

read them here http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/12/08/IIS-7.0-Breaking-Changes-ASP.NET-2.0-applications-Integrated-mode.aspx

Out of curiosity, does anyone have invite codes this year for the Mix conference? It's still a bit pricey for those of us who like to attend such things on our dime. 

In a recently job I wanted to package as much as possible common items of the web layer (WebControls, BasePage, HttpHandlers, Js, Css, etc...) in a class library project, so I can share the dll across several ASP.NET apps.

As I use the CSS Friendly Control Adapters to change the asp:menu rendering, I could easily factorize adapters class, css, pictures and Js as embedded resources in the external dll, but I end up with the browser file in App_browsers folder (that maps webcontrols to their adapters).

Good news is you can set adapters by code in the PreInit event of your BasePage, sample for the Menu :

C#:

HttpContext.Current.Request.Browser.Adapters
[typeof(System.Web.UI.WebControls.Menu).AssemblyQualifiedName] =
    typeof(YourNameSpace.MenuAdapter).FullName;

VB:

HttpContext.Current.Request.Browser.Adapters
(GetType(System.Web.UI.WebControls.Menu).AssemblyQualifiedName) =
    GetType(YourNameSpace.MenuAdapter).FullName()

The AJAX integrated support in ASP.NET 3.5 is nearly identical to ASP.NET AJAX Extensions with the significant exception of WCF services. I noted, though, also a slightly different behavior in the ScriptManager class as far as error handling for partial rendering operations is concerned.

When an exception is thrown during a partial rendering operation the HTTP request returns a regular HTTP 200 status code but instead of the updated markup, it includes a full description of the error.  In ASP.NET AJAX Extensions for ASP.NET 2.0, the default error handler pops up a client-side message box with the exception message or any text you assign to the AsyncPostBackErrorMessage property. In ASP.NET 3.5, instead, you get a JavaScript exception. 

Microsoft’s developer division has, at least publicly, been placing a lot of emphasis on making it easier for C# and VB developers to build scalable applications more easily. The Parallel Extensions CTP for .NET 3.5 is clear evidence of their commitment to the C# and VB developer. Why C# and VB and what about C++? Is C++ not getting the attention it needs in the age of parallel programming?

There are many ways to answer that question, but the thing to remember about C++ and specifically Visual C++ on the Window platform is that it has always been very amenable to parallel programming. After all, incredibly parallel programs like SQL Server and Windows itself are developed using Visual C++. Microsoft is spending a lot of effort at the moment making it easier to develop parallel programs in C# because it just isn’t very easy to do in that environment but no such problem exists for the C++ developer. In fact, Visual C++ introduced facilities that made it trivial to apply parallel programming techniques to .NET code years ago in the Visual C++ 2005 release while C# is only now getting similar functionality in the Parallel Extensions CTP. So whether you’re looking for parallel programming techniques for native or managed code Visual C++ is ready and willing today.

In my latest series of articles to be published here on my blog I’m taking a look at parallel programming with C++. I’ll start with the fundamentals of creating responsive client applications and scalable services and along the way look at various techniques and technologies to make it happen. Many are provided by Windows while others are provided directly by Visual C++. I may even cover some of the more enterprise-oriented techniques such as clustering and grid computing if there is enough interest and I have enough time.

Keep in mind that I’m writing this series in my spare time, in the evenings, of which I have surprisingly little these days. My kids want their dad around after all! We also still don’t have Internet access so articles in this series will appear whenever I happen to find the time to write and posted whenever I find an Internet connection. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this new series!

Read part 1 now: Asynchronous Procedure Calls

If you’re looking for one of my previous articles here is a complete list of them for you to browse through.

© 2007 Kenny Kerr

While reading  R.C. Martin's book converted to C# by M. Martin "Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#" I could not ignore the fact that the Java notation for interface naming was used all over the place. Trying to be open-minded (or should I use "pragmatic" these days) I want to pop a question what is the benefit of dropping the I-prefix and how it does or does not influence the daily work.

For myself, having an "I" prefix in front of the name not only tells me that this is an interface, but also that this is a pure "contract" (Design by Contract is something I start to like).

   1:  public interface ICustomer

   2:  {

   3:    // ...

   4:  }

   1:  public interface Customer

   2:  {

   3:    // ...

   4:  }

So what do you have to say about it? To "I" or not to "I"?

Reuters - Media conglomerate NBC Universal will offer television programming for a Web-based service from SanDisk Corp that lets viewers download shows from the Internet and play them on a TV set-top, the companies said on Tuesday.