Tools

MvcConf 2– February 8th, 2011

We’re getting ready for the next version of MvcConf on Tuesday, 2/8/2011 from 8AM-5PM CST! What is MvcConf? MvcConf is a virtual conference focused on one thing: writing awesome applications on top of the ASP.Net MVC framework. Your brain will explode from taking in so much hard core technical sessions. Sounds fun eh?  This is a community event and we want the best and brightest sharing what they know. We intend to record each session and make them available online for viewing. We intend to make the videos available free of charge, depending on conference sponsorships. ...

posted @ Thursday, January 20, 2011 12:38 AM | Feedback (1932)

MVC Turbine v2.0 for MVC2 (.NET3.5)

The MVC Turbine bits are now compiled against ASP.NET MVC 2 RC which runs on .NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008.  You can get the bits by going to the CodePlex site. Please note that this the same feature release as MVC Turbine v2.0 RTM.  The following is compiled and upgraded to work with .NET3.5 in VS2008: Runtime binaries Feature Samples Nerd Dinner Sample Okonau Sample Again, as I mentioned before, the main development will take place onVS2010 and...

posted @ Monday, February 1, 2010 11:51 PM | Feedback (618)

MVC Turbine Redux

A few days ago, I blogged a response to Rob Conery’s question entitled, Why MVC Turbine? Since then, Rob has been so kind to send me an email saying Thanks for the blog post, but…Dude, I still don’t get it. Help me reach the ‘aha!’ moment. As I told Rob, after I re-reading the blog post and the tone it had, I whole heartedly agree with him: The post did not answer his question. So Rob… My apologies, mea culpa, lo siento. I really appreciate your feedback and your assistance with developing a valid message for MVC Turbine...

posted @ Monday, January 11, 2010 11:33 PM | Feedback (621)

Why MVC Turbine?

I would like to thank Rob Conery for posing the question: As the project’s portal states: MVC Turbine is a plugin for ASP.NET MVC that has IoC baked in and auto-wires controllers, binders, view engines, http modules, etc. that reside within your application. Thus you worry more about what your application should do, rather than how it should do it. Let’s see how this plays out for your application… Plain Old MVC Application If you create an MVC application by using File –> New, you get the full power of the MVC framework but your application is not yet setup to take full advantage...

posted @ Thursday, December 31, 2009 12:14 AM | Feedback (625)

MVC Turbine v2.0 RTM

Well, here’s the official blog post for the tweet I did last night: I figured, I should tweet the release and have people get an early access to it, then blog the same (plus more) information here. :) What is MVC Turbine? I’ve been asked many times for the 140 char description of Turbine, so here it is for the record: MVC Turbine is a plug-in for ASP.NET MVC that has IoC baked in and auto-wires controllers, binders, view engines, http modules, etc. that reside within in your application. Thus...

posted @ Tuesday, December 1, 2009 11:58 PM | Feedback (618)

MVC Turbine

For those of you that follow me on twitter, you’ve noticed that I’ve been tweeting a lot about a new side project called MVC Turbine. MVC Turbine is a simple way to provide flow and plumbing within ASP.NET MVC applications, or as its tag line suggest, it converts flow into useful work.  A few weeks ago, I had a quick poll on twitter that asked: As you can see, from the results, 50% of the responses where “Yes, always!” which means that you’re wanting more out of your MVC application. Please, don’t get this the wrong way: I’m not saying that Phil...

posted @ Friday, September 25, 2009 1:55 PM | Feedback (280)

Views, Models and ViewModels - Part 1

Not sure how many of you read my first post on my thoughts on Oxite. Well, here's my offering on trying to make things a little closer to MVC by offering my perspective on the code.  Please note that I want to keep these simple refactorings as conversational as possible, so if you see something that offends or upsets you with my interpretation/implementation, PLEASE COMMENT. :) Let's examine the SignIn action under the AccountController: [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)] public ActionResult SignIn(string username, string password, bool rememberMe, string returnUrl) { PageTitle.AdditionalPageTitleSegments = new string[] { "Sign In" }; ...

posted @ Tuesday, December 23, 2008 10:56 PM | Feedback (622)

Thanks, VSLive Las Vegas and HDC Omaha '08!

For those of you that attended one or both at of my talks at VSLive Las Vegas or HDC Omaha 2008, I just want to say, thank you!  And for the VSLive folks, I do apologize for cutting my open source tools talk short by 10 minutes.  I had to jet out of the Mirage so I can make the plane back to the Midwest! As promised, I upgraded my code to run with Beta 1 of the ASP.NET MVC Framework!  So, if you want to get the latest bits go to: http://jglozano.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/presentations You will find my slide deck as well as...

posted @ Sunday, October 19, 2008 7:05 PM | Feedback (770)

Spaghetti Code Podcast - Ruby, RoR and ASP.NET MVC

A couple of weeks back, I recorded a podcast with, our community MS Developer Evangelist, Jeff Brand for his Spaghetti Code series.  I was informed by Jeff, today that he finally posted it!  I had a heck of a time recording this podcast with Jeff, the hour just flew by!  If yo have the time, download the podcast and check it out! Links: Direct Download - click here Subscribe - click here iTunes - click here

posted @ Tuesday, May 27, 2008 9:00 PM | Feedback (611)

New Wrox Title: ASP.NET 3.5 Programmer's Reference

So, here's a little shameless self plug for a book that Bryan Sampica and I are writing...also, I'm using this blog post as a warm up for my writing this evening! Yes, like I just mentioned, I'm co-authoring a book for Wrox with Bryan entitled, ASP.NET 3.5 Programmer's Reference.  The purpose of the book is to get you the novice/beginner introduced to the features of ASP.NET 3.5, and hopefully teach you a few tricks things along the way.  The book is due out in November, so that means that my summer (evenings) is pretty much booked up.  I must...

posted @ Tuesday, May 13, 2008 11:21 PM | Feedback (612)

MVP Summit Highlights

Well, I had a great time meeting old friends and making new ones at this year's summit.  There were so many things going on and so many people to see and talk to, that it's next to impossible to consume everything at once!  So, to keep things simple, here are of the highlights per day: Sunday Although, I was not there until late (way late), it was a lot fun hanging around the Westin's lobby and talk about how a chicken takes a dookie.  Yeah, that's right.  Keith Elder had the great intentions of recording a podcast that...

posted @ Sunday, April 20, 2008 11:08 AM | Feedback (741)

Ask An Expert Live Chat: May 1st, 2008

That's right!  We're having another ASP.NET Expert Live Chat on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 6 PM PST.  Here's more info on the event: Get your tough development questions answered by Microsoft MVPs, Regional Directors, and other industry experts. Community experts will be on hand to answer your .NET- and Visual Studio-related questions. No off topic questions please. Please note that questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs might not be answered. Would you like to participate as an expert? Contact Ryan Olshan at Ryan[dot]Olshan[at]strongtypes[dot]com. MSDN Online Chats - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx Chat Room...

posted @ Saturday, April 5, 2008 12:47 AM | Feedback (643)

ASP.NET Web Service Serialization Proxy Bug

Long blog title, I know.  Yesterday, I ran into a issue/bug that I've never encountered during my years of being an ASP.NET developer.  The error message is below: The interesting thing about this error, is that it's occurred so often that there's a KB article (KB896181) for it that tells you how to fix it.  Fortunately for me, I didn't have to apply the fix in the KB.  I just had to change some of my security settings to give the account hosting the website the right permissions. Here's how the errors occurs: So you have an ASP.NET page that calls a...

posted @ Saturday, March 8, 2008 3:17 PM | Feedback (640)

Des Moines HEROES Happen Here Launch Event

That's right, there will be a HEROES happen {here} event in Des Moines on 4/24!    Here's some info on the event: The Des Moines event will celebrate the launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. The event will bring together IT Pros and Developers to get an in-depth, up-close look at the new products and will give attendees an opportunity to meet with our Partners as well as members of the development teams who created the cutting-edge technologies. And all attendees will get a promotional pack containing all three new products....

posted @ Friday, February 22, 2008 11:14 PM | Feedback (611)

Video.Show 1.0 Released

I'm not sure how many of you out there have heard of Video.Show, a ready to run solution for hosting video on the web. It's a great video sharing web site blue print built by the guys at Vertigo.  I've been looking at this app since it's RC (or beta) release and it's pretty sweet.  The display and interaction of HD video is pretty awesome! Jon Galloway, one (if not the) developers, of the application has a great write up of the features of this application out on his blog.  If you want more detail info on the features of...

posted @ Monday, February 18, 2008 9:01 PM | Feedback (613)

The Zen of ASP.NET MVC

Earlier today, Scott provided us with, what I think is, a pinnacle post on getting people to understand the Zen of the new ASP.NET MVC framework. Scott says, This is a not just a different tune, but a whole different band playing all new music. Not everyone will like the music, and that's why the world has more than one band. This is a Good Thing. I like to think of ASP.NET MVC as the raw, acoustic version of the more heavily produced and multi-layered ASP.NET WebForms we use today. ...

posted @ Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:53 PM | Feedback (611)

flickrNSurface: The Open Source Project

That's right, remember a while back when I blogged about FlickrNSurface?  Well, since then, I've been showing people the demo code and some of them have been wanting to know how they can get their hands on it for their own website/projects.  At that point, I thought to myself, what is the best way to share the code and any changes that I make to it?  That's when I realized I should make this into an open-source project!  What better way to share ideas and implementations with community than by allowing them to contribute directly to it! Again, I've...

posted @ Sunday, January 20, 2008 9:37 PM | Feedback (613)

Hot Backups for SVN

For a while now, we've been using "hot" backups for our SVN repositories using the hot-backup.py Python script file that is part of the Subversion tools and contrib project.  A "hot" backup is a way to take a complete snap shot of the repository so in case your repository goes awry, you cake take the hot back up and drop it straight in!  For those of you interested in learning more about the backup features of SVN, check out Repository Backup section of the online SVN Book. Here's an excerpt from the SVN book that describes what hot-backup.py provides for you: This...

posted @ Monday, January 14, 2008 1:26 PM | Feedback (612)

Favorite OSX Applications

I've been using my MacBook over 4 months now and I must say that I'm pretty impressed with the experience. By no means do I consider my self an expert on the Mac, it's still a journey. ;-) For those interested, here's a list of my top tools that I use everyday on my Mac. VMWare Fusion -- This is a most have for those of you doing WoM (Windows on Mac)! If you have a bootcamp partition, then it's just as easy as pie to get Windows up and running on...

posted @ Sunday, January 13, 2008 9:45 PM | Feedback (611)

Iowa Code Camp

That's right!  The University of Iowa:ITS, CRIneta and Iowa .NET user groups are joining forces to bring the first code camp to Iowa on 5/3/2008 at the University of Iowa Conference Center in Iowa City, IA!! You might be asking, what is a code camp? Well, here are some of the basic ideas: Its for and by developers Free (for attendees) All about code, not PowerPoint presentations What you present on should be available to share with people who attend Never during...

posted @ Friday, January 11, 2008 12:29 PM | Feedback (611)

IADNUG Meeting: Developing Modules with DotNetNuke

Thanks to Mitchel Sellers from IowaComputerGurus for presenting to our user group last night!  We had a pretty great turn out and some really nice swag to give away!  For those of you that were there, thanks for your support! As I mentioned during the meeting, we're going to try something a little different for distributing demo materials (code, ppts, etc.).  I've setup a iadnug, a Google Code open source project, to host our code.  (yeah, clever name I know...)  So for those of you that have SVN or TortoiseSVN installed, you can check out the code.  If you...

posted @ Thursday, January 10, 2008 1:59 PM | Feedback (611)

ASP.NET MVC CTP Download

Well, we can finally get our hands on the ASP.NET MVC bits!  They're being released as part of the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP.  This release includes: ASP.NET AJAX Improvements: New ASP.NET AJAX features in the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions release include better browser history support (back/forward button integration, and server-side history management support), improved AJAX content linking support with permalinks, and additional JavaScript library improvements. ASP.NET MVC: This model view controller (MVC) framework for ASP.NET provides a structured model that enables a clear separation of concerns within web applications, and makes...

posted @ Monday, December 10, 2007 9:14 AM | Feedback (769)

IADNUG Silverlight Presentation Demos

Well, it's been over a month since the I did my Silverlight presentation at the IADNUG November meeting and I've realized that I've forgotten to post my demo code.  Well, sorry about that.  For those of you that are interested, you can download it from the link below.  Sorry! Files: silverlight_presentation.zip (~20 MB - it include videos).

posted @ Saturday, December 8, 2007 11:05 PM | Feedback (623)

PDC 2008 Announced

That's right, PDC has been rescheduled to Oct. 27-30 2008 in Los Angeles, California.  Here's the info from their site: PDC 2008 October 27–30, 2008 Pre-conference October 26, 2008 Los Angeles, California OK, OK. We are delighted to announce the date and location of the next Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC): October 27–30, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. PDC is the definitive Microsoft event for software developers and architects focused on the future of the Microsoft platform. Mark your...

posted @ Friday, December 7, 2007 3:18 PM | Feedback (612)

Visual Studio 2008 Demo Contest

Well, as I previously blogged about it, the details are done for our demo contest during the VS2008 InstallFest in Des Moines are finalized.  Here they are: Visual Studio 2008 Demo Contest! Want to show off your VS2008 or .NET 3.5 skills?  If you answered, yes, this is your opportunity to strut your stuff! During the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest & Holiday Party on December 12, 2007 at the DMACC West Campus, we'll be having a demo contest in the auditorium.  Here's the scoop ... What do I need to...

posted @ Friday, December 7, 2007 2:42 PM | Feedback (611)

First Comment, First Serve

I am not sure how many of you out there were planning on attending the VS2008 InstallFest in Des Moines next week.  I completely neglected the fact that because I had registered for the event I would "take" a VS2008 license from the pile.  Well, I already have VS2008 (through MSDN subscription) so I don't need my free license. So if anybody wants it, be the first to comment on this post and it's yours.  Yeah, it's that simple.

posted @ Wednesday, December 5, 2007 9:16 AM | Feedback (614)

Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest Des Moines SOLD OUT!

That's right, the InstallFest event in Des Moines has SOLD OUT!  As of today, there are 13 people on the waiting list.  For all of you that signed up, thanks!  It is because of you that this event will be a success!  Also, if you're interested, you should sign up to do a demo during the event! Those of you on the waiting list, you will be notified of an open spot if someone on the main list cancels.  So if you're on the main list but can't make it, please cancel so somebody on the waiting list can...

posted @ Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:53 AM | Feedback (612)

VS2008 InstallFest - Des Moines - Strut Your Stuff

Alright, earlier this evening I blogged about the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest that our Des Moines .NET UG is hosting on December 12th, 2007.  If you're interested in coming, please sign up!!  If you would like to ensure a copy of VS2008, it is REALLY IMPORTANT that you sign up at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360733&Culture=en-US Now the contest info!  Have you been playing around with VS2008 beta1/beta2/RC1 or .NET 3.5 for a while?  If you answered yes, then I recommend you strut your stuff by coming up with a 10-15 minute presentation you can share with the group during the InstallFest! What do I need to...

posted @ Tuesday, November 27, 2007 7:47 PM | Feedback (612)

Visual Studio InstallFest – Des Moines

Everyone in the Des Moines, sign up for this great event our UG is hosting in conjunction with Microsoft!  We're also planning on having a presentation contest to see who can show off the best features VS2008.  More to come on this, so stay tuned!! Visual Studio InstallFest - Des Moines Event Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032360733... ATTENTION DEVELOPERS! Are you ready to be one of the first to get their hands on Visual Studio 2008 when it RTMs?  Join Microsoft and the Iowa DNUG for a Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest and Holiday Party on December 12th, 2007 at the Des Moines Area Community College!...

posted @ Tuesday, November 27, 2007 4:20 PM | Feedback (611)

Silverlight 1.1 Tools Alpha for Visual Studio 2008

That's right, you can now download the Silverlight 1.1 Tools Alpha for Visual Studio 2008 RTM.  Get it while it's hot!! One thing to notice is that this release does not work with the Express Editions.

posted @ Monday, November 26, 2007 9:33 PM | Feedback (616)

IADNUG Meeting: Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight

On Wednesday, November 7th, I will be presenting about Silverlight to our user group in Des Moines.  Here's the info: Abstract: This is an overview presentation of the feature set that both Silverlight v1.0 and v1.1 have to offer to developers. We will also cover some of the current tools available for both designers and developers to create Silverlight applications. What is Silverlight? Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.  Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#,...

posted @ Sunday, November 4, 2007 9:14 PM | Feedback (613)

MS Popfly and Yahoo Pipes Comparison

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the opening of Popfly beta to public use.  One of the first things that I thought about Popfly is how are other people out there (both technical and non-technical) are going to use it.  I've been looking at Yahoo! Pipes for a while and thought it was a pretty cool way to gather information.  To me the one thing it lacked was the presentation of the information (what good is the info if I can't get to it effectively?).  So last night I decided to do a little video that compares both Popfly and Yahoo! Pipes trying to "solve" the same...

posted @ Friday, October 19, 2007 1:52 PM | Feedback (612)

Software Factories at Heartland Developer Conference

First, to all of you that attended my HDC presentation on Software Factories, THANK YOU!  I hope that as promised, the "Ah, Ha!" factor was high.  Also, I would like to apologize for the issues I ran into with the VPC and the demos.  I had tried the demo before with only two VS2005 instances running and had no issues with it...Apparently, four instances of VS2005 running concurrently is too much for VPC. Right after my presentation, I confirmed with Steve Loethen, a co-host of Code To Live, about coming up with the webcast series on Software Factories. I still to work out...

posted @ Thursday, October 18, 2007 8:01 PM | Feedback (613)

Microsoft Releases Popfly Public Beta

Today Microsoft is announcing that Popfly will be going into public beta.  So for those you that had requested to sign up for the beta, no worries!  You can automatically login without a hassle! (Pretty sweet, huh?) And for those of you that haven't signed up or don't know anything about it, just to go http://popfly.com and login with Passport. Here's a brief description of what Popfly: It's a Silverlight 1.0 application to create a really slick UI that allows you to use drag-and-drop tools to build some cool things.  It also includes support for Vista Sidebar and Live Gadgets.  For those...

posted @ Thursday, October 18, 2007 6:45 PM | Feedback (564)

IronRuby on RubyForge

That's right, John Lam has his team have put the latest release of IronRuby out on RubyForge (this took place on 8/31/07). Fellow rubydoes.net blogger, Aaron Junod, has a great post on getting IronRuby from RubyForge with TortoiseSVN. I'm personally looking forward to this evening's coding "festivities" as I try to integrate some code into the project.  Good times!

posted @ Saturday, September 1, 2007 11:39 AM | Feedback (611)

Live ASP.NET Chat

Just a reminder about the live ASP.NET "ask an expert" chat this Thursday, the 23rd of August at 7 PM CDT (5 PM PDT).  Come join the fun.  Here are the links. Main announcement - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/24/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat.aspx Prize announcement - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/26/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat-prizes.aspx Chat experts - http://community.strongcoders.com/blogs/ryan/archive/2007/07/30/august-23-2007-ask-an-expert-live-chat-experts.aspx

posted @ Monday, August 20, 2007 10:14 PM | Feedback (546)

IronRuby: .NET Type Inheritance Via Extension Classes

A while back, I blogged some examples on how you can use .NET types within your IronRuby (IRuby) applications.  So after playing around with it a bit, I wanted to do something pretty basic, inheritance.  Here's what I tried:# Basic inheritance from a dynamic type # to a static type. class MyForm < System::Windows::Forms::Form end When you try running this through the interactive console, you get this error: System.InvalidOperationException: superclass must be a Class (DynamicType given) Nice and descriptive, huh?  Well, essentially this means that your superclass needs to be a type that IRuby can understand, that is a class-type of DynamicType.  While looking around at the source...

posted @ Tuesday, July 31, 2007 10:46 AM | Feedback (619)

Ask An Expert Live Chat On August 23, 2007

That's right, if you have a question that needs answering come check out our "Ask An Expert" live chat on August 23rd, 2007 at 5 PM PDT.  Please note that this chat is not being hosted by Microsoft and as such questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs may not be answered. To see the main announcement, check out Ryan's blog for the info.  Also there seems to be a prize give away for this chat! How cool?!  Here's the list of experts involved in the chat.  It's quite the line up! Calendar: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx ICS: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/07_0823_msdn_aspnet.ics Hope to see...

posted @ Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:03 AM | Feedback (611)

Visual Studio 2008 Beta2 Downloads

Brian Harry has a great post with all the links you will need to download the latest bits for VS2K8 beta2.  Also, in this related post he lists some of the nice features they've added to TFS 2008.  One interesting thing about the "new" TFS options is the VSTS Web Access (aka TeamPlain) that they're planning to release here shortly (Yes, it works both for TFS 2005 & 2008).

posted @ Friday, July 27, 2007 12:44 PM | Feedback (611)

More IronRuby Examples!

Looks like Nick has also posted his findings on IronRuby ... what can I say, it was just released today!! Anyway...I was playing around with IronRuby earlier this evening trying to see how it handled generics...well, currently it doesn't (remember, the code is alpha...but pretty sweet!).  I created a sample C# class (cleverly) called, MyClass:using System; namespace CSharpClass { public class MyClass { // Currently this event type cannot be called from IronRuby. public EventHandler<CustomArgs> Custom; ...

posted @ Monday, July 23, 2007 10:16 PM | Feedback (612)

Using The Windows Live Writer API To Retrieve Your Blog Password

Ok, so I'm really, really, really stupid!  I like other people out there suffer from the always popular I-have-too-many-passwords (IH2MP) syndrome.  Earlier this past weekend, I was trying to administer my blog and managed to forget the editor password so I could access the website.  After several failed attempts, I searched the application folders of Windows Live Writer to see where my password was kept.  It appears that by default, Live Writer stores its configuration information under the registry.  To retrieve the configuration information correctly, you need to use their API.  Here's a sample on how you can accomplish this:using...

posted @ Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:54 PM | Feedback (616)

FlickrNSurface

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about David Anson's surface-like Silverlight application that functions like Microsoft Surface.  Well, earlier this week, I created what I call FlickrNSurface (pronounced: "flickering surface").  Essentially, it's a mashup of flickr and Anson's Silverlight application. To retrieve the images from flickr, I used FlickrNet and an interesting post back mechanism.  I will have more posts talking about the design of the application and how you can do the same thing with your Silverlight applications.  For now, take a look at it and let me know what you think! You can download the code by going here:...

posted @ Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:40 PM | Feedback (611)

Heartland Developer Conference Presentation Submitted!

I submitted the title and abstract for my HDC presentation.  Here's the info: The Taming Of the Oracle: A .NET Developer's Guide to Working With Oracle In this session you will learn how you can use the Oracle Data Provider for .NET, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, and Visual Studio tools to get the most out of your experience with Oracle.  If you're a .NET developer that needs to work with Oracle as your primary database, this is a session that will getyou up and running in time for your project. Is there anything else you guys want to find...

posted @ Friday, July 6, 2007 11:23 AM | Feedback (611)

Greetings, Old Friend

No, I did not decide to un-install IE7 and re-install IE4 ... although, it would be cool to reminisce the old days ... but while re-installed Visual Studio 6.0 (yeah, we still have VB6 applications), I encountered this screen: (Yeah, I know it's fuzzy) Oh, let the good times roll... Alright, I confess!!  I'm doing some Visual J++ on the side!!  I CAN'T KICK THE HABIT!! ;-)

posted @ Friday, June 29, 2007 6:34 PM | Feedback (611)

JetFuel - Silverlight Plugin for Windows Live Writer

While playing around with Silverlight during lunch, I ran into this plugin for Windows Live Writer (WLW) called JetFuel.  It takes the creation of Silverlight applications to the next level.  It's a nice little package of the steps outlined in the SDK into a wizard.

posted @ Friday, June 22, 2007 2:23 PM | Feedback (611)

ReSharper 3.0 Released

Well, it looks like Nick and Jeff have beat me to the punch of announcing ReSharper 3.0.  For you VB.NET-ers our there, GET THIS TOOL!  OMG, it's the sweetest thing that ever happened to VB since .NET!!

posted @ Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:37 PM | Feedback (614)

Heartland Developer Conference, I'll be there. Will you?

That's right, I received word from Phil Wolfe earlier this week that I've been accepted to be a speaker (this is my third year!) for the Heartland Developer Conference in Omaha, NE on Oct. 18-19th.  If you check out the speakers page, you won't see my info there but I'm sure it's coming.  For those of you that like my presentations,  here's a list of topics I've been kicking around: .NET Tooling for Oracle - There's some applications out there that need talk with Oracle.  How do I make things as easily as possible to get my work done?...

posted @ Friday, June 15, 2007 11:43 AM | Feedback (613)

eScrum for Team System

I just ran into this pretty nice tool called eScrum for end-to-end Scrum management that runs on top Team Foundation Server (TFS).  Pretty nice for those of you out there doing (or trying to do) Scrum and have adopted TFS.  Here's the info from the download page: eScrum is a Web-based, end-to-end project management tool for Scrum built on the Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server platform. It provides multiple ways to interact with your Scrum project: eScrum Web-based UI, Team Explorer, and Excel or Project, via Team Foundation Office Integration. In addition, it provides a single place for...

posted @ Friday, June 15, 2007 10:20 AM | Feedback (611)

Surface-like Experience Using Silverlight

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of the new Microsoft Surface product (if you haven't, are you living under a rock?!?! ;-) ), but in one of the demo videos, they show how you can take images and resize/rotate them by using your fingertips.  Well, the same thing can be done using Silverlight through a web application.  Delay has posted a great sample Silverlight application that does the same thing!  It's pretty awesome app that shows the power of Silverlight!  If you have the time, check out the live demo or get its source code (you'll need Orcas...

posted @ Sunday, June 3, 2007 5:10 PM | Feedback (556)

Silverlight Add-In for Reflector

Yesterday, Levi sent me a link to this add-in for Reflector that disassembles a Silverlight applications and shows your the JavaScript to run it.  I must say, it's a pretty nice little add-in (that includes its source) for Reflector.  Below is a picture of the disassembled Silverlight Airlines demo given at MIX '07: Check it out if you have the time, it's pretty sweet!

posted @ Tuesday, May 22, 2007 9:45 AM | Feedback (613)

Support for Subversion on CodePlex

From the looks of it (via Phil Haack), CodePlex will be supporting SVN (both svn.exe and TortoiseSVN) for all of their projects.  Here's the converstaion Jim Newkirk and Phil had: Haacked wrote Mon at 8:24 PM So I can download svn.exe from http://subversion.tigris.org/ and manage my CodePlex source code repository, yes? So are you rolling out Subversion? Or a Subversion facade into TFS? Anything you can reveal? :) jimnewkirk wrote Mon at 7:41 PM To clarify: it's our intention to support the functionality of the command-line Subversion client as well as TortoiseSVN. jimnewkirk wrote Mon at 7:40 PM Phil,...

posted @ Tuesday, May 22, 2007 9:13 AM | Feedback (611)

New Release of ASP.NET Futures CTP

I'm not sure how many of you out there are aware of the ASP.NET Futures section of the ASP.NET website.  Here's the description of the section from the website: ...contains an early developer preview of features providing a wide range of new functionality for both ASP.NET and Silverlight. The Futures release includes early experimental versions of features currently being considered for future versions of ASP.NET and the .NET Framework. The May 2007 Release contains the following components: ASP.NET AJAX Futures Silverlight Controls for ASP.NET Dynamic Data Controls for ASP.NET ASP.NET Application Services Dynamic Languages Support for ASP.NET (sans IronRuby,...

posted @ Thursday, May 17, 2007 6:30 AM | Feedback (611)

Free eLearning Passes From Microsoft

Denny Boynton, our regional Architect Evangelist, has just blogged information on how you can get free MS eLearning passes valued at $159.  If you have the time, and don't want to miss out on this opportunity, go check out his post.

posted @ Wednesday, April 18, 2007 9:40 PM | Feedback (632)

Microsoft Silverlight

Wow, it appears that "WPF/E" has a better RTM name than the other W*F parts.  That's right, "WPF/E" is now called Silverlight (via Soma's blog).  Also, don't let the name confuse you, if you have already the "WPF/E" Feb CTP, you already have Silverlight installed.  They've just renamed the install packages.

posted @ Monday, April 16, 2007 9:32 AM | Feedback (549)

WCF Performance Benchmarking

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while, but for some reason I keep forgetting (sorry, I've been busy at work).  If you're wondering on how WCF compares performance wise to existing distributed communication technologies (ASMX, WSE, Enterprise Services, .NET Remoting) you should definitely check out this white paper on MSDN: A Performance Comparison of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) with Existing Distributed Communication Technologies

posted @ Tuesday, April 10, 2007 7:21 PM | Feedback (611)

ArcReady Tour Coming To Des Moines

That's right, if you're interested in learning about becoming a more effective architect, you should check out the ArcReady event that will at the Embassy Suites on May 18th (5/18/2007).  The theme for this ArcReady is entitled "Architecting for the User Experience", how does the role of user experience take part in architectural designs?  More specifically, how you can use WPF, WPF/e, XAML and the Expression suite to enhance your applications. If you have the time, you should check it out.  I'll see you there!

posted @ Friday, April 6, 2007 9:23 PM | Feedback (612)

Microsoft Acquires TeamPlain

I know this is old news, but I'm extatic that Microsoft has acquired DevBiz and consequently, TeamPlain for TFS.  You can read more about it over at Brian Harry's blog. Back when I was evaluating TFS for work, I installed TeamPlain and was pretty amazed what the application did.  Back then, the licensing was ~$100 per client, but now that MS has acquired it, it's now FR-EE!! Check out the screen shot below to see TeamPlain's coolness:

posted @ Wednesday, March 28, 2007 10:51 AM | Feedback (619)

TDD, I Think I Love You

So, a couple of days ago while sitting at the lobby of my hotel for the MVP Summit, I decided to come up with a simple Smart Client shell for the LOB Windows application my company uses. So there I am minding my own business when along comes Jean-Paul Boodhoo, James Kovacs, David Laribee, DonXML and ask what I was working on.  After some explaining of my intentions for replacing our legacy VB6 application with a brand new .NET one, JP couldn't resist the opportunity to do some TDD and Pair Programming. I must say, that I've always been of the...

posted @ Saturday, March 17, 2007 9:52 PM | Feedback (621)

Thanks CRINETA!

Thanks all that attended my CRINETA presentation Applied .NET 2.0 Programming! I'm pretty impressed on the level of interaction we had throughout the presentation.  To me, this is what made it really memorable for me! Once again, thanks for attending!

posted @ Tuesday, March 6, 2007 9:39 PM | Feedback (614)

Blog Update: ISAPI_Rewrite

When I first read Scott's post on it, I decided to give ISAPI_Rewrite a try.  I've been thinking for a while to re-direct the end-point of my blog from http://lozanotek.com http://www.lozanotek.com to http://blog.lozanotek.com Why?  Well, I've always been a fan of subdomains that define a purpose rather than the typical /InsertYourAppNameHere.  Technically they're the same, but it's just nice to "package" your web application under it's own subdomain.  I mean, come'on, you spent the time working it, why shouldn't it have it's own spot?  Remember, when you buy a domain name, you buy *.mydomainnamehere.com not just the www subdomain. I agree...

posted @ Friday, February 23, 2007 10:35 AM | Feedback (616)

Reflector 5.0

That's right!  It's hard to believe that such an awesome tool it's on version 5.0!  Scott has a pretty awesome blog post talking about the new/existing features of Reflector.  I'm totally hooked into the .NET protocol handler feature!  This is reminiscence of what MSDN has done with the .NET 2.0 documentation through the VirtualPathProvider class. Lutz Roeder, you're the man!

posted @ Tuesday, February 20, 2007 10:06 PM | Feedback (616)

LightBox.NET Source Code

FYI.  I've created a CodePlex project or LightBox.NET.  To find the latest source, please go check it out there! Someone asked if I would post the source code for LightBox.NET.  Well, here it is.  Enjoy!  If you have any ideas for extending it, please let me know!

posted @ Wednesday, May 10, 2006 10:56 PM | Feedback (628)