JohnPapa.net: Silverlight

Entity Framework Gotchya Revisited

John Papa — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:38:00 GMT

This is not the first time I have hit this issue, and it has been documented by people like Julie Lerman … but for my own sake I decided to blog about it in case I hit it again. It seems like I run into this issue just about the time I forget how to resolve it :)

The problem sometimes occurs with the Entity Framework where it gives an array of errors when doing simple operations. For example, I received an error about not being able to “unable to load the specified metadata resource”. Uh, the connection string information is right in the config file! The problem often can be resolved simply by:

open the EDMX file in the designer mode
go to the properties of the EDMX
set the Metadata Artifact Processing property to “Copy to Output”
build the project
go back and change the property to the appropriate setting of “Embed in Output Assembly”

I’ve only hit this a few times but when i get this error, this has always resolved the problem for me.

Kindle for the iPhone

John Papa — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

I’ve had my Kindle 2 for a week and my early impressions are favorable, though I do have some dislikes already too. Overall its a great machine that handles books very well, is easy on the eyes and very easy to hold onto (form factor is sweet). I’ll be posting a review on the Kindle 2 in the near future … I’ve been a bit sidetracked with the new birth of my son :)

In the Twitterverse today I saw Scott Watermasysk point out a new app for the iPhone titled “Kindle for iPhone”. It is a free application and is just as it appears … it allows you to read your kindle books on the iPhone. I tried it out and it is just as advertised.

Here are the details from the web site:

Kindle for iPhone

Kindle for iPhone allows Apple iPhone and iPod touch owners to read Kindle books using a simple, easy-to-use interface. You can shop for hundreds of thousands of books at www.amazon.com/kindlestore, and wirelessly transfer the books to your iPhone or iPod touch. Enjoy Amazon’s low prices on Kindle books, including New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases for $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
With Kindle for iPhone, you can:

Buy a Kindle book from your Mac, PC, or iPhone using a Web browser and wirelessly transfer the books to your iPhone

Read first chapters of any book for free before you buy

Download the Kindle books you already own for free — they are automatically backed up on Amazon.com

Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle device

Kindle for iPhone also includes Whispersync, which allows you to seamlessly switch back and forth between your Kindle device and Kindle for iPhone while keeping your bookmarks and reading location synchronized between devices. Now you can easily pick up reading right where you left off on your Kindle or iPhone.
Books you purchase can also be read on Kindle and Kindle 2, Amazon’s portable readers that wirelessly download books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs to a crisp, high-resolution 6-inch electronic-paper display that looks and reads like real paper.

Fighting Back Against the SQL Server 2005 Tools Installation Program

John Papa — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:37:00 GMT

There is a funky problem that sometimes sticks its ugly head out and bites you when trying to install SQL Server 2005 and its tools. I’ve hit this a few times when installing, but not every time. When installing SQL Server 2005, its databases and its tools sometimes the client tools do not get installed even when you check the box for this option. Then you go to the Start menu and look for the tools and they are not there! So then you go try to install them again, thinking maybe you did not check that box. This time it says the tools are already installed so there is nothing for the install program to do. Now the growling begins.

I’ve read some interesting theories behind why this happens, mostly revolving around how the main SQL installer does not run the tools installer properly. I just want my tools installed :-). I have enough to do without worrying about installing software all day long.

The solution is to go to the Tools folder on your installation CD (or DVD) and run the Tools install program directly. Your path may vary of course, but on my CD it was located at this path.

E:\ENGLISH\SQL2005\DEVELOPER\SQL Server x64\Tools\Setup\SqlRun_Tools.msi

Notice I am running the english 64bit version of SQL Server 2005 Developer edition. The executable to install the tools is named SqlRun_Tools.msi

I hope this helps someone save some time and growls :-)

Book Review: Pro ADO.NET Data Services

John Papa — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:11:00 GMT

I’ve been catching up on some reading and research lately. The blogs, articles, and books just seem to pile up, don’t they? The latest book I knocked off my reading list is Pro ADO.NET Data Services. I was really excited to read this book given my interest in Astoria (yes, I know its ADO.NET Data Services, but I like calling it Astoria still). In fact, I wrote an entire chapter in my book on a subset of Astoria … specifically in how it works with Silverlight 2. I was pretty thrilled to be able to read a book that dives into Astoria over the course of 300 pages.

The book starts off with a very good discussion of RESTful services and Astoria. The foundations are laid out quite well and I highly recommend reading this material even as a refresher. Chapters 1 and 2 are excellent at describing the fundamentals.

Chapter 3 has a lot of good material and topics, however I found it laid out in a very confusing manner. It just did not flow well for me. But I do stress that it is worth reading as there is a lot of good material in it. Still a very good chapter. One specific topic I liked was the discussion of the $value command. I admit, I was unaware of that (always nice to learn something new!)

Chapter 4 covers WCF services and APIs with Astoria. More good material here.

The remaining chapters lost a lot of steam for me. They cover the role of Astoria with AJAX, Mashups, Silverlight and BizTalk. The information is OK, but the flow and the coverage of the topics just seemed haphazard to me. Again, let me be clear …. it i all GOOD material but I found myself scratching my head on where we were going next.I also would have liked to have seen some full examples of building applications with Astoria to tie together a lot of the earlier topics.

One disclaimer … I did not read the chapter on BizTalk so my review has nothing to do with that chapter. I 'can’t comment one way or the other on it.

Chapter 9 sums up with a nice discussion of the future of Astoria.

Conclusion:

The book started out very strong for me (5/5 stars) and covered a lot of the basics of Astoria, but the flow and minimal coverage on some topics made me less content with the second half of the book. Ultimately, I do recommend buying this book if you want to learn Astoria. I rate this book with 3.5/5 stars.

Kindle 2 – Is It Worth It Now?

John Papa — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:24:00 GMT

I love to read. I don;t read enough, well, there can’t be enough :) … but I wish I had more to read as my book list keeps growing faster than I read. I’m an early adopter for many tech items, but the steep price tag for the Amazon Kindle v1 was too much for me to throw at something I had no experience with. Just like the iPhone v1, I felt it was worth waiting a year to see how it fared, to see if Amazon stuck with it, see it first hand, and make sure books were going to be available in its format.

I have had a chance to play with the Kindle and recently I decided I was going to give one a try when the net version came out. I was very happy with the feel of the Kindle and most importantly to me, it was easy on my eyes. Often with books I hold them with one hand at a time laying down, sitting, standing at the exercise machine … trying to stay comfortable. Sometimes my eyes get tired and I wish I could increase the font size. My biggest hurdle to the Kindle was my uneasiness over the strain it might put on my eyes. In the brief time I borrowed a Kindle v1, I was amazed at the screen. I am so used to LCD’s with their backlighting that I assumed my eyes would hurt, but they did not. So I will be giving the Kindle v2 a shot … I pre-ordered one on Amazon yesterday, hoping to get one when they are released on February 24th. I’ll be reviewing it on my blog as I go through the motions with it.

You can read more about the Kindle 2 at Amazon, but the highlights to me of the new version are:

- Reported longer battery life

- Reported ability to read PDF and Word documents

- More storage

- Large selection of books

- Slimmer form factor (no more angular geometric shapes. Now thin and sleek)

Sir DevFish’s Crusade of Enlightenment

John Papa — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:23:00 GMT

The economy is down, weather is cold, and dragons are roaming the earth once again. Yet even in the darkest of times, when the shadow looms over us all, sometimes a glimmer of hope peers through the clouds. Sir DevFish, Joe Healy, is riding once again this winter to bring enlightenment to all who will listen as he brings the MSDN Roadshow Tiki Hut Tour to the people. He will bring with him news of the great jQuery, the savior of client side scripting. He will bring with him news of Data Services, the vast knowledge of data from libraries long lost. And he will bring with him sight into the future of the cloud, with Azure. Join Sir DevFish and his trusty companion Squire Jeff Barnes as they journey through the land of the sunshine on their crusade.

Join Sir DevFish on his quest … come to the MSDN Tiki Hut Road Show …

MSDN Tiki Hut Roadshow

Session 1 – jQuery with ASP.NET - JQuery is an open source JavaScript library that has a passionate following among Ajax developers. Microsoft is integrating the open source JQuery library into both the ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC frameworks and providing full product support. Learn how you can take advantage of JQuery to build richly interactive client-side Ajax applications when developing either ASP.NET Web Forms or ASP.NET MVC applications. Also see how JQuery works in combination with ASP.NET AJAX to provide the best framework for building Ajax applications.

Session 2 – Data Services - OnPremise and Off - In the near future, applications will be developed using a combination of custom application code and online building block services, including data-centric services. In this session we discuss advancements in the Microsoft development platform and online service interfaces to enable seamless interaction with data services both on-premises (e.g., ADO.NET Data Services Framework over on-premises SQL Server) and in the cloud (e.g., SQL Server Data Services). Learn how you can leverage existing know-how related to LINQ (Language Integrated Query), data access APIs, data-binding, and more when building applications using online data.

Session 3 – Architecting for the Cloud using Windows Azure - This session provides a tour of the Windows Azure cloud computing platform, an overview of its various components, and explains how these fit together to provide best-of-cloud experiences. We will explore the architecture that links many of the Microsoft .NET services and lets ISVs and businesses deliver compelling solutions. Learn how to compose these services with SQL Data Services to create applications in the cloud and connect them with on-premise systems. We will also examine the next generation of messaging, data, access control, and directory services, and how they fit together to provide a seamless integration into the cloud.

Installing SQL Server on 64bit Vista – The Native Client Got Restless

John Papa — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:40:00 GMT

Sometimes things go amiss. Sometimes they work out. And sometimes we have no idea why things end up where they do. Today I was installing SQL Server 2005 developer edition on a Vista 64bit PC. I’ve done this dozens of times between 32bit and 64 bit OS’s, including Vista 64bit so there was nothing new here for me. But that did not stop the wild and wacky stuff form happening to the installation.

I ran across this issue where during the installation of SQL Server is failed to install the Database server and the tools (pretty much the keys of what I needed) due to a problem with the SQL Native Client. The error was:

"And installation package for the product Microsoft Native Client cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package 'sqlncli_x64.msi"

Now, I was installing the 64 bit OS version of SQL Server … and heck, I am human, so I even double and triple checked that. A quick google search found a few issues people have run into similar to mine. The short version of the story is that Visual Studio installed a version of SQL Native Client on my PC that SQL Server did not like. So I had to go into Add/Remove programs and remove SQL Native Client. Then I tried installing the 64bit SQL Server 2005 Developer edition and everything worked.

What Do You Develop With?

John Papa — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:17:00 GMT

Its been about 3.5 years for me since I last bought a PC. At the time it was a high end system and I am pretty happy that it lasted this long. In fact, I am hoping to get to 4 years with it. That may sound funny, but I have never gone past 3 years on a development ox before. This one, while not screaming anymore, has done a great job at an original cost of $2200 while many others of mine had really degraded the third year I had them. So this year I am starting to think its time to get a new PC … system is slower, 4 GB is my max RAM, its a dual core (nice but quads are much faster), and the overall specs can be blown away now with the newer systems. Plus, my wife gets a kick butt PC when I retire mine :)

So I’m looking at Dell, Alienware, HP, and building my own again. Probably won’t build my own even though I can spend less money and get a very nice system (done it several times), I love that when something breaks I can have a new part within 24 hours with service plans. My customers don’t want to wait for me, so the time is worth the money. That leaves Dell, HP and Alienware (any others worth looking at???) Quad core seems a must, but then the CPU choice must be made as well as Ghz speed, L2 cache, graphics card, at least 8 GB RAM, 7200 RPM SATA is likely (10,000 is nice, but too costly from what I can see). I’m looking to spend as little as possible of course, less than $2000 would be great and get 3 to 4 years out of it.

Not sure when I’ll pick up a new PC, but it will be sometime in 2009. I am at the beginning of the search cycle now and I’ll post what I find out and decide as I go. In the meantime, I am interested in any suggestions or questions you might have along the way.

So what do you develop with?

MVP for 2009

John Papa — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:14:00 GMT

This New Years Day I received a nice gift from the Microsoft MVP award program as I was renewed as a Microsoft C# MVP again for 2009. On Jan 1 Jake, my awesome program lead, notified me that I was renewed once again. I really do enjoy being part of the MVP community. This is my 4th year in the program and the best part is that I have met a lot of great people through this program throughout our profession.

Congratulations to all of those who were renewed and to those who were newly awarded the MVP this time around!

Early Peek at Resharper 4.5 Features

John Papa — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:40:00 GMT

From the JetBrains web site I grabbed this info below that explains the latest features that the next release of Resharper should have. I love this tool, personally. I’ve tried many refactoring tools and this is the only one that does not get in my way, is easy enough to learn, and offers me a big productivity boost. Now obviously everyone is different in how they like to code … some don’t like these tools at all, and some like others tools like Refactor Pro and Code Rush. Those are nice tools too, in fact I love their templates and their eye candy visuals. Its a great competition between these 2 tools, I love revisiting it each year and seeing who is better for me. R# has some great features for refactoring XAML in WPF and Silverlight too.

We're boosting performance in version 4.5 – ReSharper will feel like it's been turbocharged!

We are also unveiling a fascinating feature that deserves a special mention: Solution-Wide Analysis. In addition to the current abilities to detect errors in your entire solution, ReSharper 4.5 enables you to identify unused code, excessive access rights, overly specific types and such on.

Other feature highlights of ReSharper 4.5 include:

Better Visual Basic support: our cross-language refactorings and editing experience enhancements will better support VB code

New refactorings

Enhanced setup for naming conventions, which will be supported by all ReSharper features

Multiple new productivity enhancements

We expect first public builds of ReSharper 4.5 to be available by the end of the year, Q1'2009 bringing the release. And the upgrade will be free for ReSharper 4.0 customers.