August 2008 Blog Posts

ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 is out

And there are a few new and really neat features in the latest preview (ASP.NET MVC @ CodePlex). Next release will be the official Beta according to Phil: ASP.NET CodePlex Preview 5 Released Let me just point to a few things from the release notes that caught my attention: The IViewEngine interface now has a RenderPartial method that support the concept of rendering partial views. This is used in tandem with the Html.RenderPartial helper method. The important part is that your partial view can be rendered by a different view engine than the containing view. Say you have...

Dynamic Data on regular ASP.NET pages

Dynamic Data is only for crazy auto generated sites where you expose too much functionality and allow stupid unskilled programmers to do stuff they shouldn't! Well... I've heard this objection a few times now and I recognize that this is a very valid concern. However there are a few more things, very useful things, that you can do with Dynamic Data! (Dynamic Data shipped with .NET Framework 3.5, SP1) You should not add a data context to your site with all tables and register this model with ScaffoldAllTables = true! That would be a bad thing to put into...

Adding Feedburner & FeedFlare to your Subtext site

I activated FeedBurner for my feed. It's really Sweet with all of the cool features they have! I added lots of tweaks to my feed including the most important one MyBrand. It makes it possible to keep your url as the source of your feed while it still being a feedburner feed. Your readers will never know the difference! And since I have blog using Subtext that support FeedBurner simply through configuration it was real easy to set it up. The one thing that had me puzzled for a while was that access to the MyBrand feature was not...

Visual Studio Open Space in Gothenburg - Feedback

Our Visual Studio and .NET Framework 3.5 Open Space event in Gothenburg turned out quite different compared to our Malmo event on Monday (Visual Studio Open Space in Malmo - Feedback). I think the key difference was that we were a few more participants and so could form more than one discussion group. An Open Space is typically organized (not so much but still) around some main topic but discussions branch out in many smaller groups where people flow from one group to the next and topics vary over the course of the happening. We branched out to many different...

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 (Installing and uninstalling)

The new beta of Internet Explorer is out - (Internet Explorer Beta 2). As must-test-everything-first-especially-betas freak geek naturally I had to install it and take it for a spin. But how do you uninstall a beta of IE? This is not one of the common tasks since normally betas are not part of the OS integrated features. Normally you find uninstalls in the Programs And Features section. You almost do here too. What you have to do is switch to "View installed updates" view: Then you find the beta in the updates list: ...

Enterprise Library Policy Injection Block supports Composite Oriented Programming

My last post Composite Oriented Programming spike on Unity Application Block turned out rather lengthy. Yet I forgot to embellish one thing: I don't only use the Unity Application Block to make it work. I also use a couple of methods from the Policy Injection Application Block which is one of the Application Blocks in Enterprise Library. It's not a lot I use. Actually I used it more as a roadmap in my spike than anything else. Yet I felt that it was better to copy some behavior from the PI block rather than implementing the same things in...

Composite Oriented Programming spike on Unity Application Block

Suddenly the coolness of Qi4j starts seeping into the .NET community. There are now several proofs of concept available. And here is one more. There are two major differences with this post compared to the other ones out there: This spike does not rest upon the obvious and very suitable Castle project. This implementation uses another DI framework which I've learn to use and really like. It is not as evolved for sure but neither is it HUGE and complex. I used the Unity Application Block from Patterns & Practices. I...

Microsoft Gold Sponsors Øredev 2008

This just in: Microsoft Gold Sponsors Øredev 2008! Wohooo! We the organizing founders of Øredev, particularly Dotway and the Øredev program committee are proud, happy and try to appear humble on this VERY great day!   I don't know if you understand how great grand super HUGE this is for us! Cheers, /Magnus Technorati Tags: Øredev,.NET,Microsoft

Visual Studio Open Space in Malmo - Feedback

Technorati Tags: .NET,AJAX,Agile,ASP.NET,MVC,Tools Our Visual Studio and .NET Framework 3.5 Open Space event in Malmo was a success! It did draw a small crowd this first time but those who came were very happy with the outcome and based on initial feedback they want this to reappear another time! I can only agree on the positive sentiments and add how interesting it is to share knowledge (like we do at Øredev) and learn what challenges colleagues in the community have. The evening turned out to become a veritable link feast where everybody wanted to know tips n tricks...

Plug Live Writer to format code sections

Naturally you want to an easy way to insert code fragments in your blog post. Just pasting them does not work. You need a plugin (Windows Live Writer Extensions). I've tested two: Insert Code for Windows Live Writer This plug allows you to paste code that you've copied from anywhere. This is useful when you are not copying from Visual Studio. There's a pop-up window where you paste and possibly edit your code before it's inserted. As it seems however this plug formats the background white. Unless you're OK with this use the other plug below and copy form Visual...

I am now LIVE with my new Subtext blog!

Very cool day today since I've gone live with my new blog. Surf in at blog.noop.se and have a look at it! For those who are on the old feed still (might be seeing a message above stating in bold something about this blog being moved) please update your feeds to point here: blog.noop.se/rss.aspx As you might have read or are about to... I wrote a little something to keep my old feed URL intact (Keeping the old feed intact when moving your blog) when I switched from dasBlog to Subtext. I totally recommend you move...

Keeping the old feed intact when moving your blog

Here's how you move to Subtext while keeping your old feed - with a twist: My old feed is the same as the new but it is prefixed in every post with the message: "The feed for Techie.notepad has moved! Please update your aggregator to this url: http://blog.noop.se/rss.aspx" Scenario: I am moving my blog from one blog engine to another. Not that I fantasize that my blog has that many readers, but call me vain, I'd like to keep my old feed with a forward to the new one. dasBlog published my blogs feed at this url:...

Exporting dasBlog to BlogML

This part of my moving to Subtext was easy! Just download the dasblogml application and run it. A few minor snags: Tuns out that in BlogML has definitions for both title: <title type="text"><![CDATA[See you at the PDC 2008!  ]]></title> and post name:<post-name type="text"><![CDATA[See you at the PDC 2008!]]></post-name> But the dasbloml generator only generated empty post names. This became a problem when importing. It could be that my version of dasBlog didn't contain post names in the source files. Doesn't matter. Now I'm exported! Cheers, /Magnus Technorati Tags: blogging,subtext

Presented MVC and Dynamic Data at the MSDN Summer Camp today (Slides, Demos etc.)

I was part of Swedish MSDNs Summer Camp events today and was on stage with Robert Folkesson to present news for Web Developers in Visual Studio 2008. My part was to present the MVC framework and Dynamic Data. Below are the slides and demos! First of all... it was mostly demos on my part. So there aren't many slides. Second: Is there a point to developing your own slides when Microsoft's own program managers and evangelists already have done it? Of course not! These slides are a compilation of Scott Hanselmans slides on MVC and Scott Hunters...

Move from DasBlog to Subtext

I am determined (finally) to move to another blog engine. DasBlog is fine but development on that code base is slow and some features that I want are just not there. Also the code base could be in better shape since I want to go in and hack some myself. Now I've found a blog engine worth the name; Subtext  ...

See you at the PDC 2008!

Just 'blinged my blog' with the fact that I AM GOING! To the PDC 2008! (And I added a new tag for all the posting I will be doing about the event!) Get your own PDC bling here and I'll see you there! Sound off in the comments if you want to hook up at the event! Cheers, /Magnus Technorati Tags: PDC08,Microsoft