Category Archives: Just Rambling

Pre-Con Drive

Just Rambling

I’m heads down doing my ado.net 2.0 demos. I added a little extra pressure by loading the Feb CTP on my test box yesterday. So much for my demo that returns a DataTable from a Web Service and then does a DataTable.Merge with cached data on a web page. (Hopefully the DataTable’s iXMLSerializable functions are only temporarily broken – or maybe I’m just being really dumb. Or maybe Scott Hanselman put a hex on that demo because I was returning a DataTable from a Web Service…how know.)

Luckily Rich is around. He finally walked the dogs, took care of the screaming cat (“where’s my dinner?”), is now feeding the dogs and if I’m lucky making dinner, too!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Ahh the bleeding edge

Just Rambling

Can someone explain to me what drove me to uninstall the November VS2005 and SQL Server 2005 bits that were running all of my ADO.NET 2.0 demos perfectly well, and replace them with Feb CTP bits? Two days before I have to do a presentation that requires those demos? I’m not the bungee jumping type…really!

update: just to test my nerves a little, the new sql server bits wouldn’t install. Said I didn’t have the minimum config. I finally discovered that somehow it forgot about some of it’s RAM. I thought maybe the virtual DVD ROM was responsible but even disabling all of the drives didn’t help.

Finally I took the box apart and pulled the ram chips out and put them back in and started up. Now I was down to 256. I moved them around and got the beep beep beep (you know – moved them into bad spots) so I put them back in the original positions , restarted and my memory was back and my install went fine.

Over now to my compaq evo laptop which I use to demo whidbey stuff since I have to start updating that now, too. I haven’t used it in november. I couldn’t remember the password! Finally I got in as admin and changed the user password so that it matches my other computers. Oh lordy lord. What a fun night. 🙂



http://www.AcehAid.org

simple html web designers – where are they?

Just Rambling

Why is it not possible to find someone who is able to make simple changes in Frontpage to websites and knows how to FTP them, has a “good eye” (RISD diploma is unecessary) and doesn’t charge $80/hr? This is a $25/hour job, don’t you think? It’s pretty basic. Some simple html. I’m always frustrated by this. When people ask me “oh do you do websites?” and I know they just want something easy and don’t want to pay a lot of money. I can’t afford to do these favors too much anymore.Where does one go? Where does one send these people, my friends, my family, to someone who can be trusted to take good care of them?

http://www.AcehAid.org

ADO.NET 2 article in MSDN Magazine

Just Rambling

I finally got my copy of the April 2005 issue of MSDN Magazine in the mail this afternoon and am very proud to have my first article for them in there. It’s on ADO.NET 2.0. I wrote this article in July against the May bits.I had to update the article for the October bits and then again for the November bits. Then I had to go through it one last time before it went to press in early February.  I learned soooooo much in the process of doing this as some of you may have seen by my frequent posts about different things in ADO.NET 2.0. I also had a lot of help from the very patient Pablo Castro, the PM on the ADO.NET team. No amount of Lake Champlain Chocolates can readily repay him, but I did try.

I do not envy people writing books during alpha and betas of a product. 🙂

http://www.AcehAid.org

New England’s Code Camp III this weekend!!

Just Rambling

sure to be fun!

I’m doing 3 talks – two are brand new talks that I am warming up for DevConnections – “What’s New in ADO.NET 2.0” (with a slant towards asp.net development since it is for ASP.NET Connections) and “C# for VB(6) Programmers”. I just decided at this moment to put the “6” in parens because this is just as easily C# for VB.NET programmers (my original intent), but I make special accomodation to focus on things that are specific to VB6 programmers who are new. This talk is mostly about syntax. A lot of fun. I’m thinking of letting the attendees challenge me to try to code an if statement or a new class in C# from scratch and see how much I rely on the compile time errors to show me where I have forgotten the special syntax – left parens out of a method call or something! But at least I can decipher the error messages really quickly! Here’s a crazy example:

Correct:
string[] names;
names=new string[5] {“John”,”Mary”,”Rich”,”Julie”,”Kat”};

Incorrect:
string() names;
names=new string(5) {“John”,”Mary”,”Rich”,”Julie”,”Kat”};

The incorrect syntax throws SIXTEEN build errors and none of them say anything about ( ) or [ ]!

 I am also going to do what I think is a very important talk – “Getting Ready for WSE 2.0: Security Fundamentals and a Brief Intro”. This is where I focus on explaining things like encryption, hashing, digital certificates, digital signatures, etc. I LOVE doing this talk. I will be doing this as the first part of my 3 hour pre-con workshop at ASPConnections on March 20th.

http://www.AcehAid.org

Still contemplating the end of mainstream VB6 support

Just Rambling

This happens on March 31 – a few weeks away.

I’m still thinking about how this affects me and trying to keep in mind how it will affect many companies still on VB6. Remember, that not all support is going away. We still have a chunk of it for 3 years.

Although all of my development since spring 2002 is in .NET, I do have 2 big VB6 legacy applications for two separate clients that I have no intention of porting to .NET. Client A has a ton of new stuff in .NET but the VB6 app is at the center of their core day to day operations. Client B only has their VB6 app, nothing new. But they use it also in their day to day operations. Both clients could not function without these applications. Client A’s VB6 app has minor mods made to it every once in a while. Client B’s app has been static for a long long time. I have never needed to go beyond google, msdn online or the newsgroups to do any troubleshooting for the VB6 applications.

For both clients, financially there is just NO reason to port the applications. Client A’s app is huge and would cost a fortune (this is relative of course to the size of the company). CLient B is a small company and it would be awful for them to have to port the application over. Sure they could be better, but they are very good and run their businesses and there really is no justification.

I have actually emailed some software companies that I know that are still dependent on VB6 to see how this affects them. And I even emailed the entire VTdotNET member list to get their comments as well.



http://www.AcehAid.org