Monthly Archives: June 2004

Fun with system.io.accesscontrol

dotNET

A few things to note with the ACL functions in Whidbey,err .NET 2.0.

– If you are using ACL for creating files, you can’t combine it’s use with the file.writeall shortcut. YOu need to use filestreaming. That’s a bummer. (Maybe a temporary one?)

– Pay attention to the complexity and combination of possibilities. FOr example, you can create a filesecurity object that denies deletion of the file. However if that user has certain permissions on that machine, they can just modify the security settings of the file in Windows Explorer and do whatever they want with the it. 

I think it would be interesting to create various objectsecurity objects and persist them (maybe just in a class) so that it would be really easy to apply combinations that you already created. 

Also you need to consider flexibiltiy in assigning these to a particular account or account group. YOu probably won’t want to get stuck hardcoding those accounts in your app.

AccessControl namespace in Whidbey

dotNET

So my little birdie also told me not to miss ACL’s in the whidbey BCL. Brad Abrams wrote about this in January.

System.Security.AccessControl is namespace with many classes is in it for dealing with ACL and not having to be a security expert to figure out how. The really pleasing classes are the FileSecurity class and DirectorySecurity class. You can create these objects, set up all of the acl that you would like and then pass them in to system.io objects as you create them. So imagine creating a new file on the client machine and setting it’s ACL at that time.

The info on the Longhorn SDK site is not up to date with what is in the May bits so I can’t provide a link that shows the reference info on these classes. But you can see the basics of the namespace online. 

Like my new colors?

Just Rambling

If you actually look at my website rather than reading my posts through an aggregator (a rarity I imagine…) did you notice that I changed the background colors of my blog and the title font?

I did this because last night as I was creating this post  and then validating the links, I couldn’t tell whose site I was on sometimes. Most of the people referred to in that post use dasBlog and of them, a good portion of us are using the basic dasBlog Theme. So I wanted to just make mine a different color in order to distinguish it a bit. I really like the color scheme of the WinXPOlive Theme that Bob Roudebush created for .Text which I am using on the “discussions on women in i.t.” blog. So I mucked with the style sheet for the dasBlog theme until I got the right settings in there to modify this page.

.NET Community….NET Neighborhood?

Just Rambling

I was musing today while hoeing the damned weeds that keep trying to take over my veggie garden about a neighborhood gathering that is happening soon on my road. Then that led to thinking about how we use the term “community” in the programming world. This made me wonder that if we are a .NET community, is something like the VB.NET Developer Center akin to a Neighborhood? How far could we take the analogy?

My use of a marble mouse for 4 years has messed up my arm and hand

Tools

If you have ever had a meal with me, you probably noticed that my right hand is really shaky. Soup is getting to be a serious problem and chopsticks, too. I have had it checked over the last two years with no recommendations oustide of take a long vacation or try a new mouse. Others have suggested the onset of carpal. The mouse suggestion was actually pretty close.

I saw a neuro-anatomist today and learned how messed up my muscles in my right hand and arm are because of the thumb driven marble track ball mouse (Logitech) I have been using. If I just rest my hand on a table, it’s natural position is now as though the mouse is under my hand. Twisted to the right etc.

Take heed! She said they have seen all kinds of new wierd problems based on the various types of mice that have been invented.

So I’m going to change my mouse plus do a lot of specific exercises to get the balance back in the muscles in my arm and my hand. Additionally I have to be very aware of how I am using my hand and arm. The shakiness is just from weakness of particular muscles.

I went to Staples and looked at the mice and keyboards, too. I think I will wait to see if my MVP award is renewed and if so, use my bucks to buy a new microsoft mouse and maybe the natural keyboard. She did say the keyboard is almost a great idea except it would be much better if it was hinged so that you could adjust the angles to suit your own needs. Hey MS Research…have I got a job for you!

Phew! A small thing considering that I have been programming for almost 20 years.

Has Deborah Kurata influenced *your* programming career?

Community Cheerleading

If you answered “yes“, you are not alone. When I made the leap from FoxPro to VB5 (well really VB4, about one month before 5 came out), I did not change my programming style very much with my first application. Kind of like coding in .NET as though it is VB6. Then I discovered Deborah’s columns in VB Magazine and her books and realized I was barely using Visual Basic. I read her book “Doing Objects in VB5“ and took a hands on class with her (just as VB6 was released) and it completely changed my outlook on software development and architecting applications rather than just building big piles of rubber bands and band-aids. I have talked to many developers who have said similar things about Deborah’s books and articles and presentations. Even today, I found a comment by someone who admits to having been a former Deborah Kurata groupie. If you know this guy at all, I think you may be in for a little surprise!

Deborah is finishing up a new book. I have seen a few of the chapters and this will definitely be another gem!

6 little words that made my day even better than before!

Community Cheerleading

Those 6 little words were “I have a blog now, too” from Cathi Gero.

So let me review. In less than 3 months some of the top women developers in our industry have started weblogs.

Prior to this recent rush, Susan Warren started a blog in November (right after PDC.)

Then spring comes with a flood of new blogs:

First Kate Gregory gets a blog.

Then Kathleen Dollard buckles and blogs.

Then Michele Leroux Bustamente starts up dasBlonde.

Earlier this week Kimberly Tripp amazed us with her new SQL blog.

And now Cathi Gero is blogging too.

For those of you who do not know Cathi, she is a serious pro with a lot of experience. Here is her bio, ripped from the DevTeach speaker page.

Cathi Gero, C.P.A., is founder and development director of Prenia Corporation, providing custom software applications, training, and architectural designing to businesses and developers. Cathi is a Microsoft C# MVP and is an active member of the .NET community. She has extensive experience developing applications using the .NET Framework, Visual FoxPro, SQL Server, and Crystal Reports as well as other technologies. She is a speaker at national conferences, author of white papers for Microsoft, and technical editor for the book ‘.NET For VFP Developers’. She also has a monthly column, “Cathi Gero’s .NET Tips” which appears in Universal Thread Magazine. Most of the year Cathi travels to various companies providing onsite training, mentoring, and development experience.

<me>grinning from ear to ear</me>

Hmmm, who’re we gonna work on next…?

asp.netPRO Reader’s Choice Awards

Community Cheerleading

So, I’m a little late to the party.

I was going thruogh the rest of my pile of mail from while I was at TechEd. I was afraid there might be some bills in there to pay!

There was the June 2004 issue of asp.netPro magazine with the Reader Awards (it took me 10 minutes to find the link to this article – that site has been in need of a major overhaul since it’s inception! and no links to the winner’s either!)

How fun to read through and see:

Scott Cate’s  and Dave Wanta’s kbAlertz get Best Community and Product of the Year

Scott Cate’s  myKB as Best Content Managment System.

Peter Blum’s Peter’s Polling Package as Best Polling Tool and his Date Package as the Best Scheduling/Calendar Tool.

Dave Wanta’s ASPNet Email as Best EMail Control

Andrew Putnam’s dotNetBB as Best Forum App

Mark Miller (and all the folks at Developer Express) ‘s CodeRush as best Add-In and numerous other products from them as well

I loved seeing these! There are other categories and other winners, but I know these guys (though I only met Mark just last week at TechEd and haven’t talked much with Andrew since our emails when dotNetBB was really taking off a few years ago). But Scott and Peter and Dave – cool, cool and cool. Congrats! 

Larry O’Brien is back with TabletPC Design Considerations

Tablet

http://www.devx.com/TabletPC/Article/21302

Larry addresses the harshest things that come up with Tablet PC App design that, believe me you would NEVER think of, until you have tried to do some of this stuff.

I wrote about a number of these while I was going through my first tablet pc app design process. I had not personal experience as a user to draw on so everything came as a surprise to me. Peter Rysvay actually encapsulated my posts very well in one – so I can point you to that if you are curious.