These are the first two. I’ve got more coming!

Perhaps the title of this blog post will suffice, but I just wanted to highlight this problem. If you were to look up the timestamp data type in the SQL Server 2008 documentation, this is waht you will find within the topic article: “The timestamp syntax is deprecated. This feature will be removed in a future version of Microsoft SQL Server. Avoid using this feature in new development work, and plan to modify applications that currently use this feature.” It’s been there for quite some time. ... [read more]

With a recent case that I need to design the system infrastructure as well as the hardware specification of a SharePoint farm for a client, so I go and find the SharePoint Capacity Planner (CP) 2007 to stimulate a user model.Before installting the SharePoint CP 2007, System Center CP is a prerequisite but unfortunity the Microsoft download page is _blank_:  Alternatively, I get the installer from a colleague. However, I face another problem while installing it: The ins... [read more]

We've just pushed live an update to the http://www.asp.net site. This is the first of a series of updates to the site we'll be making this year. The home page for the site was getting bogged down with info and was too visually busy. It was too complex for beginners and too intense for advanced folks. Our focus with today's update is to make it easy for new folks to get started, but still make it easy for advanced people to get what they want in few clicks. Getting Started The Get Started... [read more]

My two-hundred-and-fourth podcast is up. This week Scott talks to new media consultant Liz Burr about working in Social Networking. What does a social media consultant do? Is it PR or marketing? How much is science and how much is gut? Are social media people more than just the popular kids from High School? Liz helps Scott work out his school issues. Also: People of Color and their role in Social Media. Subscribe: Download: MP3 Full Show Links from the Show Liz's Blog Liz Burr on Tw... [read more]

Still working on getting a TeamCity build working (see my last post).  Latest exception is: C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\TeamData\Microsoft.Data.Schema.SqlTasks.targets(120, 5): error MSB4018: The "SqlDeployTask" task failed unexpectedly. System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.Data.Schema.Common.ConnectionStringPersistence.ExtractPassword(String partialConnection, String dbProvider)... [read more]

Setting up a TeamCity build and got this error: C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\TeamData\Microsoft.Data.Schema.SqlTasks.targets(80, 5): error MSB4018: The "SqlSetupDeployTask" task failed unexpectedly. System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'Microsoft.Build.Framework.BuildEventContext' from assembly 'Microsoft.Build.Framework, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'. at Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.TaskExecutionModule.... [read more]

I traded up my crutches for a wheelchair today as our credit card came under heavy fire taking advantage of the strong Australian dollar and getting down to some serious shopping. My strong suspicion is that the only reason Shelley suggested the wheelchair was so that she would have someone to pile the boxes of [...]

I often do development, testing or troubleshooting where I want to see all server variables available to a site.  For example, when using a reverse proxy for load balancing, SERVER_ADDR, HTTP_HOST and other variables can change. Whenever I run into that situation, I write out a simple script that displays all server variables.  I thought I would share it here. Create a file on your server called serversvariables.aspx, test.aspx or whatever you want to call it.  Place the followi... [read more]

The #1 complaint I hear about WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) is that many fonts end up looking "blurry." It's a darned shame because really great applications like Evernote get criticized because of this one issue*. The blurriness happens on .NET 3.5 and below because WPF's graphics system is "device independent" so rendering happens independent of resolution. It makes apps DPI-aware for free and scales them nicely. Unfortunately MOST people are running on 96dpi scre... [read more]

I've been presenting for a long time. It's great fun, mostly it's stand-up comedy with code and PowerPoint. I also keep everything, always, so earlier today when I was asked by a friend to find some ten year old code, I found a few 10 year old "Company Confidential" PowerPoint presentations. Not only was I shocked and offended by my sense of style (what was I thinking) but the scope of "Ten Years" really hit me. Ten Years is no time at all. Here's a bit of what I found from... [read more]

If you installed Visual Studio 2008 on a 64-bit operating system, you may have trouble when you try ad add or remove functionality by inserting the disk (or remounting the ISO image).  I believe this is because of the path used to install the 32-bit Visual Studio program.  When you run the setup.exe off of the disk, you get this: Clicking on Change or Remove Visual Studio 2008 brings up this dialog: But not long after it appears, it disappears to be replaced with: Microsoft... [read more]

Well here we are in Las Vegas. We landed in Los Angeles yesterday and drove the 136km to Victorville. We were a bit tired after the flight so this was as far as we could make it before my blackouts became dangerous Along the way we stopped off in San Bernardino at Papa [...]

Software Engineers Competitive Computing, aka C2, is seeking Software Engineers to design, architect, and maintain .NET applications to support our clients’ eCommerce business requirements. The successful candidates will create high-quality ASP.NET web and eCommerce sites using web-based tools and techniques. Experience with languages including C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, and JavaScript are a must. The ideal candidate will have a thorough understanding of internet and database architecture, and a hig... [read more]

This last week over a 7 day period, I went to Munich, Cairo and Dubai. I presented in three keynotes and did a total of 10 sessions. I crossed 12 time zones and missed my kids. I talked to/with/at about 3000 people. I'm utterly shattered. I took some video while I was travelling with my Creative Vado HD and slapped it into Windows Live Movie Maker just now. Here's my trip montage. You could call this either "The Glamourous Life of a Technical Speaker" or "If this is Tuesd... [read more]

Today Shelley and I are off on a three week holiday to the USA, doing a bit of a drive around the western states. We booked the flights over six months ago on V Australia. Right now we are sitting in the Malaysian Airlines Lounge because V Australia doesn’t have one yet. The big drama on [...]

My two-hundred-and-third podcast is up. I was in Egypt and had the opportunity to sit down with Lamees and Abeer, two successful women in IT. Lamees is a programmer transitioning to Systems Analysis, and Abeer is a veteran Senior Systems Analyst and Agile Project Manager at Dashsoft. Nearly 50% of the people at Cairo Code Camp are women. What is Egypt doing right to encourage so many women to choose technology as their career? Subscribe: Download: MP3 Full Show Do also remember the complet... [read more]

The third annual Toronto SharePoint Camp will deliver over 20 sessions by the best Canadian and international SharePoint experts on a wealth of topics. Whether you're a developer, server administrator, architect, power user, or business sponsor; whether...(read more)

David has written a great post on thinking in RegEx.  I have seen this many times with different languages or platforms where a shift in thinking is required to really use the language/platform effectively.  Ones that spring to mind: SQL (set based thinking) NAnt (tag based thinking) Bash (process/task based thinking) Read David’s post and please comment on any other language/platform that made you shift your mind.

As a software developer you probably know how to get the latest version of your code from the source control repository, make a few changes and be able to debug it effectively. This is a muscle that we exercise every single day and we get pretty good at it. Something that we do less often [...]

Moving along in my adventure with my Home Theatre PC I decided to add in support for my D-Link DCS Wireless Cameras.  Here are the steps that I took in order to get that online. 1. Install the Cameras, and configure them appropriately. 2. (Optional) Install the WHS Add-In [More Info].  This allows for Snapshot/Video storage. 3. On your HTPC, run the D-Link D View Cam installation [Direct Download], [Product Page]  (See bottom of this post for v3 Info) 4. Walk through the wizar... [read more]

Well, unfortunately my previous series is a bit derailed. I started working on an all new MongoDB driver and I hated to write up a whole series of post using a driver I didn’t really believe in. So, for those of you reading and waiting on that, please be patient with me – it’s coming, [...]

When connecting to a SQL Azure Database using SQL Server Enterprise Manager you will get a “Cannot connect” error if you have not configured the SQL Azure firewall to let your IP address through. To configure the firewall, log into the Windows Azure portal at http://windows.azure.com and then select the SQL Azure tab on the left navigation: And then choose the project you are connecting to.  This will bring you to the Server Administration panel where you can select the Firewall Set... [read more]

I upgraded my computer to Windows 7 and now my Screenpresso image editor is not working.  After grabbing a screen capture I get an error dialog with just a path and the caption “UpdateToobarButton” (yes, there is a typo; Toobar instead of Toolbar): And then the image editing buttons in the history panel are grayed out: I browsed to the “C:\Program Files\Windows Photo Gallery” folder but it was empty which probably explains the error (most likely File Not Found). I did find the Photo... [read more]

Working with IIS as your web server, or working with Azure projects, are two examples of situations in which Visual Studio (2008+) needs to be running as Administrator (on Windows Vista or Windows 7).  If you don’t run it as such, you may be faced with a dialog like this one (for Azure): Now of course if you have Visual Studio pinned to your taskbar or start menu, you can launch it as admin by right-clicking and selecting Run As Administrator, as Jeff Blankenburg shows here.  That’... [read more]