Sunday, July 20, 2008

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR July CTP Released

Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR July CTP is available for download

In addition to providing support for SQL Server 2008 database projects, this release incorporates many previously released Power Tools as well as several new features. The new features include distinct Build and Deploy phases, Static Code Analysis and improved integration with SQL CLR projects.

Database Edition no longer requires a Design Database. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to install an instance of SQL Express or SQL Server prior to using Database Edition.

Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Thursday, July 17, 2008

44 Amazing Silverlight 2.0 Screencasts

Mike Taulty recently uploaded and amazing collection of Silverlight 2.0 screencasts on how Silverlight works, controls, File IO, networking, UI design, data-binding, interacting with HTML pages, and more. If you want to learn about Silverlight, this set of screencasts should definitely help!

1. Silverlight - Hello World
2. Silverlight - Anatomy of an Application
3. Silverlight - The VS Environment
4. Silverlight - Content Controls
5. Silverlight - Built-In Controls
6. Silverlight - Width, Height, Margins, Padding, Alignment
7. Silverlight - Using a GridSplitter
8. Silverlight - Grid Layout
9. Silverlight - StackPanel Layout
10. Silverlight - Canvas Layout
11. Silverlight - Databinding UI to .NET Classes
12. Silverlight - Simple Styles
13. Silverlight - Custom Types in XAML
14. Silverlight - Binding with Conversion
15. Silverlight - List Based Data Binding
16. Silverlight - Simple User Control
17. Silverlight - Templating a Button
18. Silverlight - Resources from XAP/DLL/Site Of Origin
19. Silverlight - Animations & Storyboards
20. Silverlight - Uploads with WebClient
21. Silverlight - Downloads with WebClient
22. Silverlight - Calling HTTPS Web Services
23. Silverlight - Calling Web Services
24. Silverlight - Making Cross Domain Requests
25. Silverlight - Using HttpWebRequest
26. Silverlight - File Dialogs and User Files
27. Silverlight - Using Sockets
28. Silverlight - Using Isolated Storage
29. Silverlight - .NET Code Modifying HTML
30. Silverlight - Using Isolated Storage Quotas
31. Silverlight - Calling JavaScript from .NET
32. Silverlight - Evaluating JavaScript from .NET Code
33. Silverlight - Handling HTML Events in .NET Code
34. Silverlight - Handling .NET Events in JavaScript
35. Silverlight - Calling .NET from JavaScript
36. Silverlight - Displaying a Custom Splash Screen
37. Silverlight - Passing Parameters from your Web Page
38. Silverlight - Loading Media at Runtime
39. Silverlight - Dynamically Loading Assemblies/Code
40. Silverlight - Reading/Writing XML
41. Silverlight - Multiple Threads with BackgroundWorker
42. Silverlight - Insert/Update/Delete with the DataGrid
43. Silverlight - Getting Started with the DataGrid
44. Silverlight - Embedding Custom Fonts

Get it all here: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Dan/Mike-Taulty-44-Silverlight-20-Screencasts/

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Awesome Collection Of ASP.NET Hacks, Tips and Tricks

We added a bunch of ASP.NET Hacks, Tips and Tricks , below is the full list

Applications

* ASP.NET: Environment Details
* ASP.NET: Encrypt your applications settings
* ASP.NET: Launch an external application
* ASP.NET: Display Version Information

Caching

* ASP.NET: Clear all Cached objects
* ASP.NET: Data Caching

Controls

* ASP.NET: Access Master Page controls from the Content Page
* ASP.NET: Maintain an entered password in a TextBox
* ASP.NET: Apply a Please Wait message to a Button
* ASP.NET: Clear all TextBox values
* ASP.NET: Creating an accessible label
* ASP.NET: Add dynamic controls with events
* ASP.NET: Get a list of all selected items in a CheckBoxList
* ASP.NET: Find which control caused a postback
* ASP.NET: Limit selections for the Calendar
* ASP.NET: Add a confirmation popup to a Button
* ASP.NET: Insert a ListItem into a DropDownList
* ASP.NET: Add paging to a repeater
* ASP.NET: Append client side functions with Attributes.Add
* ASP.NET: Add a total row to a GridView
* ASP.NET: How to export a GridView to Excel
* ASP.NET: Render a control to a string

Database

* ASP.NET: Convert a DataSet to a DataView
* ASP.NET: Extract data from a SQLDataSource to a DataTable
* ASP.NET: Insert data into SQL Server
* ASP.NET: Loop through data in a DataTable
* ASP.NET: Loop through data using a DataReader
* ASP.NET: Storing connection strings in the web.config file

Dates

* ASP.NET: Calculate a person's age from their date of birth
* ASP.NET: Calculate the difference between two dates
* ASP.NET: Simple date and time methods

Debugging

* ASP.NET: Enabling page tracing
* ASP.NET: Simple debugging tips

Email

* ASP.NET: Send an email

Encryption

* ASP.NET: Encrypt a string using MD5

Files

* ASP.NET: Files and Path information
* ASP.NET: Rename a directory
* ASP.NET: Reference files with relative paths
* ASP.NET: Read and display a text file

Images

* ASP.NET: How to crop an Image
* ASP.NET: How to save a remote image
* ASP.NET: Drawing images and bar charts with System.Drawing

Javascript

* ASP.NET: Register a javascript function

Objects and Classes

* ASP.NET: Accessing the Response object in a Class
* ASP.NET: An introduction to classes and properties
* ASP.NET: Looping using an Enumerator
* ASP.NET: Use Response.Filter to intercept your HTML
* ASP.NET: Use C Sharp and VB.NET in the same project
* ASP.NET: Using Generics to create a property list

Pages

* ASP.NET: Change the current Master Page
* ASP.NET: Nested Master Pages

Sessions

* ASP.NET: Redirect the page when the session ends

Strings

* ASP.NET: Filter words
* ASP.NET: Remove the last character from a string
* ASP.NET: Reverse a string
* ASP.NET: String Concatenation
* ASP.NET: Strip HTML tags from a string
* ASP.NET: Truncate a string to a set number of whole words

Validation

* ASP.NET: Using Page.IsValid

Visual Studio

* ASP.NET: Changing the default browser
* ASP.NET: Keyboard Shortcuts
* ASP.NET: Using a task list

Web

* ASP.NET: Access the web via a proxy server
* ASP.NET: Convert HTML tables to a DataSet
* ASP.NET: Retrieve data from a web page
* ASP.NET: Create an RSS Feed
* ASP.NET: Custom Error Pages
* ASP.NET: Find out where a visitor came from
* ASP.NET: Using an AppOffline.htm file for updates
* ASP.NET: XHTML Strict Validation




The URL to these hacks is here: http://wiki.lessthandot.com/index.php/ASP.NET_Hacks

Bookmark that URL because we will be adding more hacks, tips and tricks

Interview With SSIS Guru Jamie Thomson

As promised yesterday, here is the link to the interview I did with jamie Thomson: Interview With SSIS Guru Jamie Thomson

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

I tried to keep it a secret but it is all over the internet: I am a SQL Server MVP

So all over the internet is exaggerated, I became a SQL Server MVP today and was not going to do a blog post about it. However some other people had other ideas

Congratulations, Denis!
SQL Server MVP - Denis Gobo

and even an announcement on lessthandot

My profile is here: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile=BCCF7416-DA4E-4D73-83E2-65FD61BAB16D

Stay tuned, I will have an interview with Jamie Thomson tomorrow