After removing SQL Server 2005 (SQL Server 2005 management tools cause the SQL 2008 install to bork) and installing SQL Server 2008 – it all went a little pear shaped………..

SQL Server 2008 worked ok but none of the database libs existed – so projects against file-based SQL 2005 databases could no-longer connect. Not good.  VS 2008 couldn’t connect to SQL 2008 and I couldn’t create a SQL 2008 file based database with Visual Studio.  As a last ditch attempt I attempted to use the OLEDB DB drivers – again without luck.

After a few hours of trying to get to the bottom of the problem and to get things working – I decided to install SQL Server 2005 express again side-by-side with SQL 2008.  The install worked ok – and I could open the SQLExpress instance with the SQL 2008 management tools.  Cool – so back to the projects and try again with the file-based SQL database…

Some progress but I started getting a weird error ”filename.MDF’ cannot be opened because it is version 639. This server supports version 612 and earlier. A downgrade path is not supported.’.

Hummm.  It appears an update has been installed and the database version had changed.

Windows Update didn’t find anything – so it looked like it was gonna be grim…

Finally I attached the database in question to SQL 2008 and then exported, via the management console, the database to the SQL Express 2005 instance installed.  Then it was a simple process of detaching the database from the SQL 2005 instance and copying the DB files to the project.

5 mins later – the application was running again.

Whew!

It’s a little odd that the native SQL Database drivers weren’t compatible with either SQL 2005 databases and that VS 2008 couldn’t create or connect with SQL 2005 databases.  With the amount of advice we’re given about side-by-side assemblies and SOA contracts that both VS 2008 & SQL 2008 found it all such a stuggle.

Visual Studio 2008 has RTM’d – if you’re a lucky MSDN subscriber (alas I’m not ) you can download it from the subscriber site.  Luckily you can download a 90 day trial of VS 2008 Team Server (basically VS 2008 with a few extra bells and whistles) from here.

Initial impressions are that it’s stable and pretty functional.  I’m in the middle of a WPF application for a client and the rtm is holding up better than the Beta 2 did.

I’m a little disappointed with the visual designer for WPF – it doesn’t really help much in terms of productivity.  The xaml editing is responsive and in a limited way helpful – but could do with a little more oomph added to the intellisense.  The intellisense is  lacking a bit with binding statements (in bold) such as:

<ListBox Grid.Row="1" Name="lstContacts"
  IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True"
  ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource contactsViewSource}}" />

You often find yourself wanting to quickly filter data based on a criteria defined by a user in an application.  A classic example is filtering what’s shown in a listbox by what a user has typed into a textbox.

There are many approaches to solving the problem but a quick and simple approach is: (first the xaml):

<Window x:Class="Window1" 
  xmlns=http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation 
  xmlns:x=http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml 
  xmlns:local="clr-namespace:contactManager" 
  xmlns:system="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib"
  Title="Window1" Height="598" Width="1015">
  <Window.Resources>
     <local:contacts x:Key="myContacts" />    
     <CollectionViewSource x:Key="contactsViewSource"
         Source="{StaticResource myContacts}" Filter="CollectionViewSource_Filter" />

  </Window.Resources>
  <Grid Name="Grid1">
    <Grid.RowDefinitions>
      <RowDefinition Height="60*" />
      <RowDefinition Height="423*" />
    </Grid.RowDefinitions>
    <TextBox Margin="62,26,16,0" Name="txtSearch" Height="23" VerticalAlignment="Top"
     AcceptsReturn="True" FontStyle="Italic" KeyUp="txtSearch_KeyUp" />
    <Label Margin="12,12,66,0" Name="Label1" Height="28" VerticalAlignment="Top">Search</Label>

    <ListBox Grid.Row="1" Name="lstContacts" IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True" 
      ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource contactsViewSource}}" />
  </Grid>

</Window>

The local resource contacts is a class that is defined in the application.  The namespace is imported into the XAML with ‘xmlns:local=”clr-namespace:contactManager“‘.  The class itself is referenced in XAML by ‘<local:contacts x:Key=”myContacts” />‘.

The class itself inherits from an observableCollection – although the approach would work with any datasource that can be bound to the listbox. After contacts has been imported – we setup a collectionViewSource – rather than using the default viewSource provided by WPF.

The code behind to connect the filter text with the filter applied to the listbox is:

Partial Public Class Window1
  Private Function findString(ByVal haystack As String, ByVal needle As String, _
                                 Optional ByVal comparison As StringComparison _
                                    = StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) As Integer
    ' We are using string.indexOf rather than string.contains as string.contains
    ' doesn't allow us to specify CurrentCultureIgnoreCase
    Return haystack.IndexOf(needle, 0, comparison) 

  End Function 

Private Sub CollectionViewSource_Filter(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
                                    ByVal e As System.Windows.Data.FilterEventArgs)
   ' Cast the listbox item to the type used
  Dim thisContact As contact = CType(e.Item, contact) 

  If (thisContact IsNot Nothing) Then  ' Handle an empty item 

    If String.IsNullOrEmpty(txtSearch.Text) Then
      ' Make sure we have some text that we wish to filter

      e.Accepted = True
      ' If we don't then we want all items to appear in the listbox

    Else
      ' findString returns the index of the needle (search text) in
      ' the haystack (text to be searched)
      ' IndexOf returns -1 if the needle isn't found in the haystack 

      If (findString(thisContact.firstName, txtSearch.Text) > -1) _
               Or (findString(thisContact.lastName, txtSearch.Text) > -1) Then 

        ' The needle exists in the haystack - so accept this entry
        e.Accepted = True 

      Else
        ' This item doesn't contain the needle we are looking for

        e.Accepted = False

      End If 

    End If

  Else
    ' thisContact IS nothing - so don't bother displaying it 

    e.Accepted = False 

  End If 

End Sub 

Private Sub txtSearch_KeyUp(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
                                ByVal e As System.Windows.Input.KeyEventArgs)
' This event will be raised whenever the keyUp event occurs on the
' textbox that we are using to filter
' Do a simple refresh on the listbox 

    CType(Me.FindResource("contactsViewSource"), CollectionViewSource).View.Refresh() 

  End Sub 

End Class 

  And that's it - a listbox containing items is filtered based on the text typed by the user in a search box.

Technorati Tags: wpf,livesearch,dynamic filtering

Watch out for the code you place in your sub New() of the ObservableCollection – it can cause the WPF designer problems as the designer will attempt to execute the constructor during design time.  If you’re trying to populate the collection from a file based database then the connection string, in some situations, VS 2008 will look in the wrong place for the database.  It appears that using the |Data Directory| prefix for the database causes VS 2008 (RTM) to look in the working directory of VS – rather than the project directory.

Symptoms of this kind of problem are VS reporting:

“Could not create an instance of type ‘abc’. …Window1.xaml 8 3″ and your XAML reference will be squiggily underlined.
A solution to this problem is wraping the constructor of the object implementing the ObservableCollection in a try/catch and swallowing the error (suggested only during the development cycle) or by detecting if you’re in designtime.

A simple way to detect if you’re in designtime with WPF is:

If DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode(Application.Current.MainWindow) Then
  Add(New contact("DesignTime", "Detected"))
Else
  Try
    oContactsTA.Fill(oContacts)
    For Each thisRow In oContacts
      Add(New contact(thisRow))
    Next
  Catch ex As Exception
    Add(New contact("DesignTime", "NotDetected"))
  End Try
End If


If you’ve not seen or heard about Microsoft Surface yet then you need to visit: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Prepare to be gob-smacked!

It’s slated to hit the high-street at the end of this year (2007 for future readers) and the rumour mill put the price somewhere in the region of 5,000-10,000 USD.  

If it works anything like the demos suggest, and there’s no reason why it wouldn’t with the functionality available in supporting devices (mobile phones, cameras, PDA’s, etc), then it will change the way we interact – no only with computers but with each other.

After reading Robert Scoble comments on FOG & DOG I found myself wondering how far it could go.

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that you might be able to ask Google ‘What Job I should do tomorrow?’ or ‘Should I work for Company Bob?’

…..taken to it’s logical conclusion then I can imagine hiring managers asking Google, ‘Should I employ Fred?’ (which if Google suggested that Fred apply to Bob, the answer would be an unequivocal ‘Yes’).  Maybe one day it’ll remove the interview from the equation!

Maybe Google could start providing pre-emptive answers to questions (saving the need to actually ask the question)….

…. after all – with the volume of information they have on you, gathered over the years, they could know you better than you know yourself….

Technorati: space odyssey

For those Visual Studio and PHP developers out there - 2.3RC1 for VS.PHP is out from JCXSoftware. 

Initial testing has gone well and it’s looking like a good release so far.  Found a few problems with formatting when editing Smarty templates – but it’s just an annoyance than a problem.

PHP Visual Studio VS2005

Anybody know the fate of BlackBytes?  They have some great .NET components on their site but don’t appear to be operating anymore – I’ve sent a number of emails and tried to contact them on their forums but they appear to have becomes ghostware.

One of the problems with automated systems – as can be found when you download and request trial keys – is that the system responds – giving the appearence of activity…

It’ll be a shame if they have folded – their DNS API is the only one available.

Comment & Blog Spam is an annoying aspect that tries to exploit Search Engines to improve rankings.  Driving more traffic to the spammers website to generate more revinue – either directly through PPC ads – or indirectly by driving up the value of the domain name.

It’s not just Blogs that are suffering – wiki pollution is a growing problem with poorly secured or badly implemented Wikis.  SpamHuntress wrote recently about a massive wiki spam issue on one of the sites she manages.  It’s a tough nut to crack – there isn’t a clear definition or deliniation of responsabilities on who is responsible for what.  Is it the responsibility of the site owner to make sure their site is secure?  Some would say so… but when you try to operate a large community effort (such as managing or maintaining a wiki where you want to promote community participation) implementing extras controls (such as user authentication & validation) dissuade people from participating.

SpamHuntress has a policy of contacting the network manager of the domain the spammers direct traffic to – which is a good policy – but is it their responsibility to do something about it?

I can’t help thinking that the true responibility should come back to Arpa and DNS – and their should be some tie in with the DNS environment.

The specific problems with managing spam for users of WordPress.com are exacerbated by the comment management interface – which don’t allow grouping of messages based on the senders email, IP address or the senders web-address.  Instead you have an endless list to step through when trying to pick out a comment or trackback.

It would be helpful in weeding out the good from the bad if you could select from a list of grouping options.

I’ve started a blog:aside on VoIP and it’s issues in the real world on http://blog.sipx.ws - initially we’re looking at dealing with the problems of VoIP Peering. 

In ‘Plain Speak’ TM this is a way for userA@Boston.com to call userB@Rome.com.

Ok. I’m a few days away from finishing my RSS Client. So far the features are:

• Add/Remove Feeds
• Check/View Feeds (auto update every x mins)
• View Posts, mark posts with a flag (important, etc)
• Assign your own categories to posts
• Virtual views of posts based on post category and your categories
• Grab the comments from posts & post a comment directly from the client
• Auto add your comments to CoComment
• Import/Export to OPML
• OPML navigation
• Search for Posts/Authors/URLs/categories/tags via technorati, etc
• Submit Posts to your Blogs (WYSIWYG, Images, Etc)
• Standard Blog Management (Posts/Categories/etc)
• POP Email to RSS – So you can view your email as an RSS Feed
• Skinable and define your own templates for layouts of Posts/comments/etc

Anything else you want to see in it? Oh – for those of you on the move – it’s a smart client application – so it’s aware of when it’s connected to the network and will act accordingly.

The Enterprise Library for .NET 2.0 installs ok although building the Enterprise Library will fail as it won’t have permission to the target directory unless you are logged in as an Administrator.

To get around this (you’ll need to have set or know the Administrators password):

• Drop to the cmd prompt (WinKey + R cmd)
• runas /noprofile /user:\Administrator \BuildLibrary.bat
• I prefer to deal with any errors in realtime so I use: “runas /noprofile /user:\Administrator cmd” and then navigate to the directory and run the batch command.
• (Enter the Administrators password)

Note: I haven’t yet checked this on other Vista builds!

When installing Visual Studio 2005 — it’s best to install Visual Studio BEFORE you add/remove programs.  Things can get messed up really quickly if you don’t (hence todays Vista reinstall).  The .NET Framework 2 comes preinstalled with the OS and if something else you have installed touches the framework in any way or installs a previous version of the framework – Visual Studio just won’t install.

I had a whole host of problems getting VS 2005 installed and it turned out that another app had installed the 1.1 NET Framework.  As .NET 2 was installed by the OS – I wasn’t able to reinstall or update it.

I have noticed some differences between Vista Business and Vista Ultimate (such as how the sidebar gadget operated) – weird because the media was the same – only the license key differed.

Took the plung today and installed the x64 version of Windows Vista (build 5308)  on my machine.  I had a spare 3 GB of disk space that I thought would be enough..  10 mins later I was running Acronis disk manager from CD (nobody appears to have Partition management software for Windows XP Pro x64) to steal some space from another partiton.  I needed a  min of 11 GB of disk space to install Vista.

After a relatively painless install process (damn machine wanted to boot from the DVD each time) – I was up and running.  My initial impression: Hubba hubba hubba!!!

Nice look, great feel – and felt a little lost.  Everything has changed.  It took about 15 mins to find my bearings – and altering my mind map of how to navigate the OS.  Windows popped up as smooth as silk sheets with a hot redhead.

However quite quickly I was having problems.  Network problems…

I installed the network drivers from Intel (who fantastically have a simple single install for all their x64 drivers – so you don’t have to worry about finding the right download) as Windows didn’t ship them with the Beta.  A quick test – update the system clock against time.windows.com – all was looking good.

Happy – I tried the internet (taking a few mins to admire IE 7 – there isn’t a general beta for XP Pro x64)… And it all came crashing down..  No internet access with IE.. 

Damn Weird…  The time updated ok – and dropping to the cmd prompt (which took a little figuring) found I could ping good old cisco (who actually respond to pings).

Humm… IP was running, DNS was ok.  So why wasn’t IE displaying any websites.

Looking around – nothing obvious struck me.  The new networking interfaces confused me much at first – wonderful colours and layout – but nothing that helped much in working out what the problem was.  There are 2 troubleshooting wizards – one for networking and another in IE that are supposed to help track down problems.  None did anything much apart from look pretty.  (I’ll find out if I’m allowed to post some screen shots – they are worth a look).

After an hour of hunting around- and using a spare machine to surf for mesages that might indicate where the problem might be – I found a short post on Google Newgroups from somebody who had a similar problem.  Theirs disappeared after upgrading their router.  Taking a look at the – always reliable – NetGear DG832 found that I had uPNP running and Trends Security Services enabled on the router.  Turning off the uPNP and rebooting the router and Vista didn’t help..  Turning off the Trend Micro Security Services on the router and trying IE again however fixed my problem.

God knows what it was doing to block IE but it fixed my problem.

Alora as they say in Italy (anyway)…

Since then I have played about a bit – tweaking performance, working out what is what.  A great way to figure out the OS and to loose 6 hours.

Before I can do anymore with it – I need to resize some partitions and give vista some more space.  Then it’s the great install procces (Office, VS 2005, Infragistcis components – who have some of the best .NET controls here that save me a bunch of time in dev, and the rest of the tools I depend on while working).  Another 6 hours and I should be able to get back to work.

A friend stumbled over Paint.Net and sent me the link. 

Simply: WOW!

Includes x64 support!

If you’re into web services and you develop using Visual Studio – then here is a must have tool.

Version 0.6 is fresh out of the stalls and it’s looking as smooth as an espresso on a monday morning.

It’s an Addin & common line tool for Visual Studio 2005 for Contract First Web Services.  It helps streamline the development of web services allowing you to focus on what’s important – the service you are offering – rather than the technical plumbing of web services.

These guys have some cool and handy utils – take a look at their GACUtil – a shell provider for registering assemblies in the GAC.

The new approach by Microsoft to produce regular updates to their Customer Technology Previews (CTPs) is much needed.  No longer do we have to wait months (or years) between releases to find code that we have developed left limping along or just plain hosed – a gibbering wreck due to namespace or library changes.

There are still changes – but with the frequency of the new drop schedule it’s easier to deal with (although with the number of CTP’s and SDK’s coming out it can be a little overwhelming).

With regards to WinFX – Rob Relyea has a cool tool that helps carry the load that can be found here. 

Daniel Lehenbauer has also updated his 3D tools for WPF against the WinFX Feb CTP which includes his Blender Export tool.  Ths allows you to export 3D images from Blender for use within your WinFX applications.  Daniel has some great explanations and demos of using 3D with WinFX – it’s worth checking out.

Dmitryr has released a superb RSS toolkit for generating and consuming feeds available here and works with Forms and ASP applications.

Watch out!

The WinFX Runtime uninstall tool can knock your Visual Studio install for six.  On one of the test machines we have for WinFX development – the uninstall tool turned Visual Studio 2005 into a gibbering wreck.

The machine was running the final version of VS 2005 (press release versions of VS 2005 are also uninstalled by the WinFX uninstall tool) with the Jan WinFX CTP installed.

The Feb WinFX CTP is available for download from here (x64) and here (x86).

You’ll need to remove previous versions of WinFX before installing – MS have released a tool to make things painless here.

Now if I could only get invited to the Vista Feb CTP due out today…