Chiudo quest'anno con il post #1700 che dedico a fare il punto su tutto quello che ho combinato nel 2005, in modo da prepararmi al meglio per il 2006...

In ordine sparso, ecco le cose che mi saltano di più alla mente:

• ho partecipato attivamente alla vita della nostra splendida community, ricevendo in cambio amicizia, consigli, affetto, compagnia, aiuti tecnici e non... insomma... TANTO!
• ho perso altri 10Kg, stabilizzandomi sui novanta... certo... sembrano sempre tanti... ma se considerate che a inizio 2004 ne pesavo quasi 130...
• sono riuscito a perdere i 10Kg nonostante tutte le cene con la community (sul Garda, in Valtellina, in Friuli, in Veneto, a Catania, a Roma, dopo i Workshop, prima dei Workshop, etc...), una delle cose che ricorderò per sempre di questo 2005 e che spero si rinnoveranno durante il 2006!
• ho conosciuto una marea di persone nuove, in Italia e all'estero, persone note e meno note, ma tutte molto interessanti e che mi ha fatto molto piacere incontrare
• ho festeggiato il 5' anno di matrimonio!
• ho partecipato a due TechEd, Orlando ed Amsterdam, vedendo in prima persona l'enorme differenza tra le conferenze europee ed americane
• ho tenuto una sessione BOF al TechEd di Amsterdam, ricevendo degli ottimi feedback
• ho tenuto un'altra sessione per UGI dopo quella del 2004, e stavolta pure con effetti speciali (vi ricordate le spade laser? )
• ho partecipato ad un corso a Parigi, con persone splendide, da tutte le parti d'Europa, Sud Africa e Israele
• sto tenendo i corsi su uno dei miei prodotti preferiti (Visual Studio Team System), su MSF e TFS, e... preparatevi ad altre novità in questo campo!
• ho partecipato in modo attivo a svariati programmi di beta
• ho iniziato la collaborazione con windowserver.it e con un progetto ancora "segreto" per la parte di Virtual PC e Virtual Server
• sono entrato a far parte di INETA
• ho adottato un coccodrillo in miniatura!
• dopo un inizio di anno incerto (stavo per cambiare lavoro) ho ottenuto un sacco di risultati positivi in ObjectWay
• ho già detto che sono grato a tutti voi amici della community per quello che mi avete dato quest'anno???

E infine... ma non per importanza... ho conosciuto il mio Gemello Diverso Michele e tutta la sua splendida famiglia, con cui ho passato un periodo splendido e che ringrazio ancora tantissimo!

P.s. naturalmente non sono state tutte rose e fiori, ma perchè ripensare alle cose brutte in un momento di festa?

P.p.s. restate sintonizzati perchè l'anno prossimo farò il post sui buoni propositi per il 2006!!!

E quindi...

BUON ANNO A TUTTI!!!

Per chi vuole compilare progetti per .NET 1.1 con Visual Studio 2005...

Yesterday, we sent out the first CTP for MSBee! If you sent an email asking to be an early adopter, you should already have the CTP in your inbox. If you haven't received an email, please contact us at ddcpxsln@microsoft.com and we'll make sure you get the CTP. Limited testing has been performed but the basic functionality is present:

• Building VB and C# projects that contain .NET and Project references and resource files
• Building solutions containing multiple projects

I hope you're as excited as I am that we've reached this milestone.

Fonte: MSBee - First CTP Released

Io no, ma se foste interessati... Buy Bill Gates' 1990 Lexus on eBay

Team Foundation Server può essere installato sia in modalità workgroup, sia utilizzando account di dominio.

In molti preferiscono non installare TFS nel dominio principale (soprattutto durante la beta...), e vorrebbero installarlo in un dominio/workgroup separato. Naturalmente è possibile farlo, e per semplificare la gestione degli utenti la cosa migliore è creare utenti con username/password uguali sia nel dominio aziendale, sia nel dominio/workgroup di TFS, in modo da non avere noiosi pop-up.

Per gestire al meglio casi come questo, si possono creare script o usare prodotti appositi.

Un prodotto gratuito per chi usa Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition è l'Identity Integration Feature Pack (una versione ridotta del Microsoft Identity Integration Server ).

Identity Integration Feature Pack 1a for Microsoft® Windows Server™ Active Directory® manages identities and coordinates user details across Microsoft Active Directory, Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM), Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, and Exchange Server 2003 implementations. Using Identity Integration Feature Pack, you can combine identity information for a given user or resource into a single, logical view. Identity Integration Feature Pack 1a also automates the provisioning of new and updated identity data, eliminating time-consuming, repetitive administration and the need to manually add, delete, or update identity information, groups, and user accounts.

Insomma... se non volete installare TFS nel dominio, o non volete impostare relazioni di trust fra i domini, questo prodotto fa per voi.

Richiede la Enterprise Edition di Windows 2003, e Sql Server 2000 Standard o Enterprise.

P.s. E' anche possibile creare regole personalizzate utilizzando VS.NET!

E' una domanda che mi fanno spessissimo, e ora c'è un post che spiega tutto...

Comunque nel mese di gennaio riprenderò il discorso.

Se avete dubbi, fate come me e lasciate un commento, vediamo cosa rispondono...

How much does TFS really cost?

The final product will be launched in Feb/Mar 2006.

The retail price for the server is approx $2500. Note that this product is licenced via a Server-CAL model. The retail price for a CAL is approx $500. If you have Visual Studio Team Edition for Architects/Developers/Testers OR the Visual Studio Team Suite, you DO NOT need to purchase an additional CAL; it is built into those products. If you want to use ANY other product (Excel, Project, Visual Studio Professional Edition, 3rd-party tools, etc.) to access the TFS, you need to purchase a CAL. CALs are licensed per user and not per machine. So every user accessing the TFS using some application (except VSTEs or Suite) needs a CAL.

So the TCO for the license of TFS in a team of 10 users with each user having a Team Edition or Team Suite licence = $2500

If the 10 users only have Visual Studio Professional Edition, TCO = 10 * $500 + $2500 = $5000 + $2500 = $7500

Note that these are the retail prices. Government agencies purchase via their state-wide volume licence agreements and their price is much lower than this (Nearly 30% savings).

What should you compare this to? Compare the TCO of TFS to a SDLC tool that provides you all features like source code control, build automation, check-in policies, reporting, project portals..............etc. When you do this you will be able to get an accurate estimate of which tool is more cost effective for you.

Fonte: TFS: Total cost of ownership in $$$

Oggi è proprio la giornata dei provider per source control...

As Peter Bromberg notes, we recently released an updated source control plug for gotdotnet Workspaces that enables you to work on projects stored in gotdotnet (check in, check out, and other source control operations) from the comfort of your very own VS.NET 2005 IDE. The plugin also works in Visual Studio .NET 2003.

[Peter Bromberg]
"Kudos to GotDotNet Team: VS.NET SCC Workspaces Provider and FIX for switching!

They've been making improvements over at gotdotnet.com, not the least of which is their new SCC plugin to use the GotDotNet Workspaces source control arrangement. Not only does it work very nicely in VS.NET 2005, it also works with VS.NET 2003!

It's just like working in VSS; the only difference is that since you are working via WebServices, it's a bit slower. But everything works! Really a boon to developers who like the Gotdotnet Workspaces concept and have small groups of developers who work together on a project.

The only downside is that when you want to get a project out of your regular VSS provider, IIT BREAKS and doesn't work!

But there are several fixes, the best one I've found is Soenke Schau's Sourcecode Control Switcher.

This little tray app tells you your current provider and let's you switch at will by changing the Registry entries for you. And, you don't need to leave it running. Just put a shortcut to the desktop and bring it up when you need it."

I too like Soenke's source control switcher. For other utilities that do the same thing, see How To: Switch Source Control Providers in VS.NET (ReduxRedux). I should also note that the ability to switch source control providers, say from VSS to Gotdotnet, is now baked into VS.NET. If you have more than one scc provider registered, you can now choose the one you want to use from the Source Control menu. Call me nostaligic, but I still prefer the systray utilities. Nevertheless, it's good to have options.

Fonte: Released: Visual Studio 2005 SCC Plugin for gotdotnet Workspaces

Finalmente è uscito il provider SCCI per usate Team Foundation Server come Source Control per Visual Studio 6.0.

Adesso aspetto la versione per VS2003...

Enables Visual Studio 6.0 to use Team Foundation Server Version Control

Fonte: Visual Studio Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider

O sbaglio... per fortuna da noi la struttura è molto piatta... ma ne conosco di posti così...

Fonte: Recognize your self

Ormai il mercato degli add-in per TFS sta esplodendo...

Dopo TeamPrise, TeamPlain, ecco TeamLook...

If you attended a Ready Launch 2005 tour event, you probably saw this in action. During one of the keynote demos, we showed you an Outlook add-in from Personify Design (called Teamlook) that was used to create a new work item from within Outlook. The beta is now available for download:

Teamlook is a convenient software project dashboard that enables all stakeholders in a software development project to communicate and collaborate on Visual Studio 2005 Team System projects from within Microsoft Outlook. Teamlook offers stakeholders a familiar user interface, tightly integrated with Microsoft Outlook, for managing Work Items, viewing Reports, and contributing to the overall project. With Teamlook, stakeholders can interact with Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server and:

• Connect to Team Projects through a user interface tightly integrated with Microsoft Outlook
• Create and modify new Work Items
• View reports and project status

Personify Design - Teamlook.

Fonte: Team System Outlook Add-In

Buon Natale a tutti! E scaricate la nuova versione di NUnit...

I haven’t yet jumped on NUnit 2.2.4 and not without a reason since it have been replaced by NUnit 2.2.5. Get your copy here and see the release notes here.

Fonte: NUnit labeled 2.2.5

Fatevi sotto!

I got a request from my publisher for reviewers for the third edition of my book. You would get a copy of the book, read it (that part's optional), and then write a review of it on Amazon.

So, if you'd like to participate, leave a comment with the reason I should choose you to be a reviewer, and I'll choose the 5 best in a week or so.

Fonte: Want to review my new book?

Potete trovarne uno molto interessante in promozione su Gorilla:

http://www.gorilla.it/gorilla/promo_show.asp?SessionID=t&promo%5Fid=%7BB81BA5C3%2DDD47%2D4A8A%2D8057%2D0B8AC7581F0E%7D

In Svizzera hanno un problema molto serio: produrre la moneta da 5 centesimi di franco costa 6 centesimi di franco...

Pensavo che queste cose potessero succedere solo da noi...

Riporto questo tool segnalato dall'amico Thomas Lee, sembra interessante per districarsi nel legalese...

The EULAlyzer is a tool that examinies EULA (End Userm License Agreements) and provides a detailed listing of possibly interesting words and phrases. The idea is that it can help you fo determine f the software you're about to install displays pop-up ads,

Fonte: EULAlyzer

Beh... almeno lui l'hanno messo a lavorare al posto "giusto"...

And claims another one of us. Clemens Vasters is joining Microsoft. I have know this for a long time but he has finally made it public. Clemens you are a sellout but have fun! It was even front page news!

Fonte: The Mother Ship Lands Again...

Pensavo peggio... non sono sicuro di avercela fatta, troppe domande su cose che non ho mai guardato, ma molte domande fattibili...

Boh... tra qualche mese il risultato

Stamattina esame di upgrade da MCDBA su SQL 2000 all'equivalente MCITP (o come cavolo si scrive) su SQL 2005.

Un casino di domande, ma essendo una beta è normale. Il risultato tra qualche mese, as usual...

Il difficile viene ora... un bell'esame beta sul namespace System di .NET 2.0 e sul CLR...

Sembra facile detta così... ma non credo proprio che lo sarà per me, avendo avuto pochissimo tempo per studiare tutte le novità (e solo nel namespace Security ce ne sono una marea...) mi sa che sarà una spremuta di sangue... speriamo di no ma non mi faccio illusioni.

A gennaio invece quelli più "applicativi"...

Anche questo me lo segno... al momento non mi serve... ma non si sa mai!

I’ve been using the MS www.foldershare.com for a while and was shown this: http://www.hamachi.cc/  - it allows you to create your own VPN network that will work from behind any firewall. Since no inbound connections are required, only outbound it should work from behind a firewall. The Hamachi application scans the firewall for ports that allow outbound, and the secure connection is made.

Since there is a Hamachi mediator server on the Internet, NAT isn't an issue because the mediator server negotiates the NAT and port issues. Once that negotiation is complete, the server is out of the picture and two PCs communicate directly.

Now, caveat is Hamachi is potentially a problem for a firewall admin and corporate data policies, but great for people who need anywhere, anytime access. Make sure users are aware that corporate data belongs to the corp, not to the user

Fonte: Create your own VPN network

Peccato cose del genere in Europa ce ne siano pochissime...

In spring 2004, Bjarne and I had a blast doing our first S&S event together. So much fun, in fact, that we've decided to do it again!

 

I'm happy to announce that we're doing it again in 2006. Here's the event info:

 

Stroustrup & Sutter on C++
March 13-14, 2006
Santa Clara, California, USA

 

My talks include:

• The New ISO C++ Libraries
• The Concurrency Landscape, C++0x, and the Concur Project
• Genericity in C++, .NET, and Java
• Error-Safe C++: More Than Just Exception Safety
  

See the page for the full details. We hope to see you in Santa Clara this spring!

Fonte: Coming in March: Stroustrup & Sutter on C++

Usate una feature dimenticata nel tempo... ma ancora presente!

While typing some code, I noticed that REM is still supported as a way to comment code. The only reason I can see why one would want to do this is to retain legacy code. There are some other really old features that haven't been documented since VB3, most notably the useful ERL() function. (It is back in the official documentation as well.) This means the following is valid VB.Net code:

10: REM This program doesn't do much
20: Try
30:    REM Throw an error
40:    Throw New DivideByZeroException
50: Catch ex As DivideByZeroException
60:    Console.WriteLine("Error occured in line: " & Erl())
70: End Try
80: Console.ReadLine()

The output is:

   Error occured in line: 40

The great thing about this, is that the line number is retained in a release build. I don't recommend using this globally in your applications as there is a performance hit (along with application bloat) but it is useful in selected circumstances. Naturally using the trace methods would be a better option.

Fonte: VB.ReallyOld features still in VB.2005

SCA non la conoscevo, ma questo articolo di David Chappel mette in evidenza similitudini e differenze tra i due approcci...

Last month's announcement of Service Component Architecture (SCA) suggests that, in the not too distant future, choosing between Microsoft's Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and SCA will displace significant parts of today's .NET vs. J2EE decision. The latest issue of my Opinari newsletter examines the similarities and differences between these two technologies, then takes a look at some of the challenges facing SCA's creators.

Fonte: Opinari #15 Posted: Comparing WCF and SCA

Chissà se arriverà anche in Italia... questo il programma:

Ecco quanto codice .NET c'è in vari prodotti:

• Visual Studio 2005: 7.5 million lines
• SQL Server 2005: 3 million lines
• BizTalk Server: 2 million lines
• Visual Studio Team System: 1.7 million lines
• Windows Presentation Foundation: 900K lines
• Windows Sharepoint Services: 750K lines
• Expression Interactive Designer: 250K lines  
• Sharepoint Portal Server: 200K lines
• Content Management Server: 100K lines

Fonte: Ever wondered how much managed code Microsoft uses?

Bene! Molto ma molto interessante!!! Un piccolo esempio di cosa si può ottenere con TFS... una paginetta che genera un feed RSS per gli eventi del Team Build!

1. Copy the snippet below in a file names rss.aspx and place it in your Team Foundation Server as in %Program Files%\Microsoft Team Foundation 2005\Web Services\Build\v1.0\rss.apsx
2. Add people whom you want to be able to see the feed in the Reader group for the team project.
3. Use a feed reader like RSS Bandit which supports windows authentication. And for the feed url use http://:/Build/v1.0/rss.aspx?TeamProject=ProjectName replace the part marked in blue with your TFS and project name

[CUT]

Per il sorgente e tutto il resto, andate quà: Team Build RSS Feed

Buon sniffing...

AIM Sniff is a utility for monitoring and archiving AIM and MSN messages across a network. It can be used to monitor for cases of harassment or warez trading. It has the ability to do a live dump (actively sniff the network) or read a PCAP file and parse the file for IM messages. You also have the option of dumping the information to a MySQL database or STDOUT. AIM Sniff will also monitor for an IM login and then perform an SMB lookup on the originating computer in order to match NT Domain names with IM login names (handles). MSN sniffing support was added. The code was modularized for ease of contribution and protocol development.http://freshmeat.net/projects/aimsniff

Come diceva Windows Messenger? Mai dare numeri di carte di credito?

Fonte: Security/Forensic Tool: AIM Sniff

Un po' di tempo fa qualcuno aveva postato la domanda da qualche parte... visto che non la trovo più... posto qui... per uso dei posteri:

Some of you have noticed in the beta program or when installing the final release of the .NET Framework 2.0 that there are no longer any configurations or wizards shortcuts installed into the Administrative Tools program group in .NET 2.0 like there were in 1.0 and 1.1.  The .NET Framework team decided sometime during the development cycle for .NET 2.0 that these shortcuts were not really appropriate for a runtime redistributable program, and so the shortcuts were removed from the .NET Framework 2.0 redistributable and a configuration shortcut was added to the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK.  The wizards shortcut was cut in .NET 2.0 so you will no longer see that installed by any member of the .NET 2.0 or VS 2005 product family.

Certo che dover installare tutto l'SDK...

Fonte: Administrative tools shortcut has moved to the SDK in .NET Framework 2.0

Sembra molto ma molto interessante. Non vedo l'ora!

Almeno non dovrò più switchare continuamente tra start page e calendario!

Leggete qui: Introducing the To-Do Bar

Altro giro... altra corsa...

Here's the list of changes since Alpha 1:

* Fixed crash with Reflect and Glow layer blend modes
* Desaturate adjustment was renamed to "Black and White"
* Crop to Selection added to the toolbar and given a shortcut key (Ctrl + Shift + X)
* Full installer size reduced by 5 MB
* Antialiasing and Alpha Blending settings are now remembered between sessions of Paint.NET
* Fixed a crash when opening certain older PDN files
* Fixed a crash in the Clone Stamp tool
* Fixed the problem where changing the system resolution while Paint.NET was minimized would make it difficult to restore the window
* Fixed a crash in the Image -> Resize dialog
* Fixed crashes related to loading the ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.dll assembly

This is an alpha release and will expire on January 18th, 2006, although an update will be availble before then. The final release will not expire.

Fonte: Paint.NET v2.6 Alpha 2 is now available

E forse anche per MCP...

Non so se l'URL è pubblica, l'offerta è per sei libri sistemistici... Nel dubbio... chiamate Gorilla e chiedete!

Bene... anche se ho già la mia Enterprise Edition ecco la versione anche per abbonati MSDN!

Buttatevi a scaricarlo!!! 

E' uscito un articolo di Knowledge Base per questo problema di Virtual Server 2005:

When you use Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to open a virtual machine that was created on a different computer from your Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:
- Your computer stops responding (hangs).
- An "x80 STOP" error appears on a blue screen.
- Your computer restarts unexpectedly.
- Your system event log records a "Watchdog 2" timer event.

Per la patch bisogna chiamare il PSS...

Fonte: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;891006

Bene... ormai sto perdendo il conto dei tool che ho scaricato e non ho ancora avuto il tempo di testare!

The Project Server Visual Studio Connector Application provides guidance for integrating Project Server and Visual Studio Team System. Integration provides extended value for project and resource managers, and guides developers through the process of building and customizing components that link the project management and software development tools. The connector application provides a foundation upon which partners can build integration applications that provide specialized functionality.

http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=b9f69ea5-ace1-4a21-846f-6222a507cc9c

Fonte: Project Server - Visual Studio Connector

I saved state contengono dati che cambiano da versione a versione, e da processore a processore.

Queste sono le regole:

 

• Saved states are not compatible between different products or versions. eg:

Virtual Server 2005 RTM <-> Virtual Server 2005 R2
Virtual Server 2005 SP1 Beta <-> Virtual Server 2005 R2
Virtual Server 2005 <-> Virtual PC 2004
Virtual PC 2004 RTM <-> Virtual PC 2004 SP1

• Saved states are not compatible between different processor manufacturers. (ie Intel <-> AMD)
• Saved states are not compatible across processor steppings. (eg Intel Northwood <-> Intel Prescott):

However:

• Saved states are compatible on identical hardware across different "SKUs" but identical build levels (build meaning the "Version number" under Server Properties. VS2005R2=1.1.465.292 for example). eg:

Virtual Server 2005 R2 Standard <->Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise
Virtual Server 2005 R2 Evaluation <-> Virtual Server 2005 R2 Standard

Fonte: Clarification of Moving Virtual Machines in saved states between hosts

Technorati Tags: Virtual PC, Virtual Server

Mi ricorda molto il film con Kelly Le Brook... peccato manchi la parte "implementativa"...

Damir mi perdonerà... ma non capisco un acca di tedesco...  e quindi riporto solo la foto...

Fonte: [Graphic] Want to date this beautiful model? Too bad, she does not exist.

Compilate il Call for Papers: http://content.medc2006.com/cfp/callforpapers.aspx

Visto che ieri sera ho postato sulle news di UGI della nuova versione di NUnit, per par conditio stamattina posto del converter per VSTS... è ancora una RC1, quindi non ancora pronta... ma quasi!

The first Release Candidate of the NUnit Converter has been uploaded to the GotDotNet workspace. It supports the following:

• NUnit 2.1 and 2.2
• Visual Studio 2005 Team System - Released Version
  • Developer Suite
  • Team Suite
• Guidance Automation Extensions - December 2005 CTP

You can download the release here.

In the Release Notes I have detailed the steps required to convert existing code. The document also details differences between the tools that you will need to be aware of before converting from NUnit to Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

I have had a lot of help and feedback on the tool. Thanks to the people who have participated on the workspace. Lastly, I would like specifically acknowledge Scott Densmore, Peter Provost and Brian Button.

Fonte: NUnit Converter V1.0 RC1

Beh... Leggete il post di Giada!

http://forum.ugidotnet.org/default.asp?m=56923

Non voglio dire nulla... solo segnalarlo...

The richest man in the world, Bill Gates, and his wife, Melinda, were named Time magazine's "Persons of the Year" along with Irish rocker Bono for being Good Samaritans who made a difference in different ways.

The three were chosen for their work in trying to find ways to eradicate such calamities as malaria in Africa, HIV and AIDS and the poverty that kills 8 million people a year, said James Kelly, Time managing editor. The magazine's December 19 issue comes out on Monday.
Continue to this article at Bink.nu

Fonte: Time Persons of the Year 2005: Bill & Melinda Gates and Bono

Qualcuno ha il coraggio di provarlo? Io sono rimasto molto scottato dalla 1.x che non ho il coraggio... ma chissà... la speranza è l'ultima a morire... Questo è un sunto del comunicato...

The Communtiy Server team is pleased to announce the availability of Community Server 2.0, beta 2. Community Server 2.0 beta 2 is already running www.hive.net and forums.asp.net. Beta 2 addresses many UI, bugs, and other issues found with the Beta 1 version.

Download now: Community Server 2.0 Beta 2 (Web Installer)
Use if you are installing Community Server on a remote server

Download now: Community Server 2.0 Beta 2 (Windows Installer)
Use if you are installing Community Server locally or have direct access to the server

Fonte: Community Server 2.0, beta 2 --- now available

Mi dispiace veramente tanto di non essere potuto venire oggi all'AgileDay... soprattutto per chi era interessato a MSF Agile.

Spero di non aver creato troppi disagi a Marco, a tutti gli altri speaker e ai partecipanti.

Per non fare torto a nessuno... sempre per gli stessi motivi (impegno improvviso di lavoro improrogabile e stanchezza dovuta al troppo lavoro...) non sono potuto andare neanche alle varie cene intrasettimanali...

Che dire... ragazzi... Igor ha avuto una settimana piena... ma la mia non è stata da meno...

Scoprire lunedì sera (dopo due esami Microsoft) che devi fare in un giorno il lavoro di cinque... per poi dover fare tre giorni strapieni... beh... sono sopravvissuto!

Settimana prossima in parte si replica...

Martedì una bella trasferta e giovedì altri due esami... per fortuna le ferie sono vicine!!!

Boh... a me non ha dato problemi, ma nel caso... lo riporto...

For anyone who has experienced the repeated exceptions in VS 2005, try turning off Edit and Continue. I turned it off over a week ago and have not seen the problem since. Now to fix the problem of forms not rendering in design time when using object binding and editing the object that is in a linked project...

Fonte: Turn off Edit and Continue

Stanotte mi è arrivata la mail con il download link per i partecipanti alla beta...

Bene... stasera finalmente lo scarico!!!

Che dire... concordo al 100%!!!

 

As an MSDN subscriber I'm the privileged owner off all software for development, one of these items is virtual server. The big brother of virtual PC, I have used VPC for more than a year now to test applications and setups. But VPC is not really made to support larger setups and so I tried virtual server. Well my first impression was "Why didn't I installed this yesterday ?", this tool is what every developer should have on it's workstation. It is really fast, and if I say fast I mean FAST, you don't even see that your working on a virtual machine.

Virtually every setup is possible, as a developer who takes his products serious I like to test as much as possible before I throw a new baby in production, and I see different possible setups with virtual server to help me. Let's say you want to test your new webapp for redundancy. I'm not going to build two servers from the gound up to kick one and see how my application reacts on that, no I will take an existing virtual disk, setup the virtual network and test the new webapp in virtual server. This will take about half an hour and the test is completely seperated from any network. With virtual server you could setup a complete copy of your production setup on your own workstation and test your applications there putting them into production without the cost of all that needless hardware. Just buy yourself a good dual processor workstation with a few gigs of memory and your done, tell your manager you need a workstation costing 4000 € instead of a complete copy of the production environment costing more than 100.000 €. And this setup leaves room in the budget for an Alienware notebook too, also very important. 

Probably the best feature of virtual server is that every system has a virtual disk, if your host goes crazy, can't startup anymore or get's stolen (the last one actually did happen) then you will be up and running in no time, setup a new host, this takes about an hour or two, setup virtual server another 15 minutes and start your guest os, up and running in no time, and all software installed.

The only drawback I found in virtual server is that there is no possibility to put several virtual machines in fullscreen on a multiscreen setup, it would be nice to have 2 or 3 monitors with on each monitor a virtual machine. You could then switch from machine to machine with a shortkey like HostKey + 1 for machine1, Hostkey + 2 for machine2 and so on. If this will be in the next version I would be the happiest man on earth.

It looks like virtual server isn't only fun for It Pro people, if you are a serious developer take a look at Virtual Server Home for more information, and install it.

Fonte: Virtual server = Developers tool

Dite che 3Gb bastano???

As it's nearly Christmas - forget buying a new memory stick and an Ipod - why not treat yourself to the Samsung i300 - available from today on O2! 

For £49.99 with a monthly contract it's a fabulous device that has a 3GB hard drive integrated that can store over 1,000 songs!  I've had one of these for a while and it syncs seamlessly with Windows Media Player 10 on my PC as well as my Media Center PC - I even took a whole episode of 'Desperate Housewives' to it for the train journey into London today!

It also acts in USB Host Mode which means you can take files on it with you! 

Check out the details on it at : http://shop.o2.co.uk/shop/o2uk/jsp/handsets/viewHandsetDetails.jsp?prodID=consumer:SAM:i300:GROUP

Fonte: Samsung i300 now available on O2!

I DSL sono una delle cose più belle di Visual Studio Team System.

Mi segno questo post di Don Box che mi è sembrato molto interessante... e che guarderò bene quando sarò meno stanco...

Grady Booch asks for some examples of domain-specific models in the field.

 

Here are a few examples I've encountered over the past couple of years here in the big house:

 

1. XLANG. XLang is a DSL for modeling message passing concurrent processes. We shipped it in BTS in 2000 and it (along with WSFL) were seed material for BPEL4WS.
2. MS Business Rules Engine (BRE). BRE defines a DSL for modeling event/condition/action triples that many BTS customers are quite happy with. JESS and ILOG/JRules are comps from outside of MSFT.
3. MSBUILD. MSBUILD defines a DSL for describing dependencies between artifacts and rules for producing those artifacts. Comps are ANT/NANT and the various MAKE tools that have existed for decades.
4. Windows Workflow Foundation. WF is the closest I've seen to an extensible "DSL engine" in the mainstream commercial dev universe. While it won't ship until 2006, it is used by various Office 12 applications, most notably Sharepoint.

 

All of these systems are examples in which (a) the user specifies their software at a higher level of abstraction than imperative code and (b) that specification has a data representation (often XML-based) that can be processed/visualized/interpreted without actual execution.

 

More importantly (in my mind) is that all of these systems integrated the model definitions into the actual execution of the system.

 

In my mind, the only way this stuff will get traction is if we change the runtimes to work in terms of higher-order expressions.  Otherwise we're stuck in the 1980's CASE world where box-and-arrows and code were like matter and anti-matter, despite the best attempts at roundtripping UML and code.

Fonte: DSLs in the field

A volte la guerra tra i prodotti non fa solo vittime...

My last post shared some of our conceptual designs of the feed icon and expressed some of the criteria that we are using to select the right icon.  Several of the comments liked icon #4 simply because it looked liked the Firefox icon, and many (like this one) suggested that we work with the Firefox team to standardize on an icon.

This seemed like a very good idea, so in November, Amar and I took a visit down to Silicon Valley to meet with John Lilly and Chris Beard from Mozilla to get their thoughts on it.  We all agreed that it’s in the user’s best interest to have one common icon to represent RSS and RSS-related features in a browser.  And the winner is…

I’m excited to announce that we’re adopting the icon used in Firefox. John and Chris were very enthusiastic about allowing us (and anyone in the community) to use their icon. This isn’t the first time that we’ve worked with the Mozilla team to encourage consistency between browsers, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.

We’ll be using the icon in the IE7 command bar whenever a page has a feed associated with it, and we’ll also use it in other places in the browser whenever we need a visual to represent RSS and feeds. Look for more details on the look and feel of IE7 when we post the public pre-release build next year.

Thanks again to the Mozilla team for making the icon available and helping us do the right thing for all browser users.   Many thanks to everyone who gave feedback on our earlier post; your comments and thoughts were very valuable!

- Jane

Fonte: Icons: It’s still orange

Da una mail appena arrivata:

You are receiving this notice because you registered at one of the IBM UDDI sites. The IBM UDDI Business Registry, the IBM UDDI Test Registry and the IBM UDDI Beta Test Registry web sites will no longer be available as of January 12, 2006.

In February 2005, the Version 3 of the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) V3 was approved as an OASIS standard. Having achieved that milestone, the companies hosting the UDDI Business Registry (UBR) evaluated the results of host