BenkoBLOG : BenkoTIPS

Win7 For Developers Part 2 – Webcast Resources

benko — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:29:52 GMT

BenkoTIPS Live & On Demand: An intro to Win7 for Developers Part 1
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032417601&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

WPF Futures Download
www.codeplex.com/wpf

Windows 7 API Integration Libraries
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack

Windows 7 Engineering Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7

Windows 7 for Developers Blog
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/developers/default.aspx

MSDN Windows Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windows

Channel 9
http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/Windows+7

Windows 7 Taskbar: Developer Resources
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Windows7Taskbar

Windows Ribbon Framework: Developer Resources
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ScenicRibbon

WPF Toolkit Webcast

benko — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:46:16 GMT

In this week's edition of BenkoTips Live & On Demand we talked about the WPF Toolkit and the Office Ribbon UI. We covered a lot of material and wrote a lot of code. To help out I'm providing a link here to both the webcast and the code so you can try it out. As usual there were a few links of interest that may help you get going including:

LINQ in C# demo code posted...

benko — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:37:05 GMT

As promised from today's webcast I've uploaded the demo code that works with LINQ in a variety of scenarios. I didn't include the database, but I can include a script to create it if anyone's interested. Let me know.

Thanks

Mike

That LINQ Error...

benko — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:33:17 GMT

In today's webcast on LINQ in C# we looked at joining XML data with SQL Server and we got the error "Local sequence cannot be used in LINQ to SQL implementation of query operators except the Contains() operator" when we tried to run it. Looking deeper into what happened, it appears that the order in which collections are joined in LINQ is important. The original code looked like this:

What I found is that we need to specify that we're working with the XML resultset v in venues first and then join to e in events...basically reverse the order that the joined set linqs the two:

Weird...

BenkoTips Webcast #9 - Tips & Tricks with Visual Studio

benko — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:04:41 GMT

Here's some links from this week's webcast with Eric Maino, Kirill Osenkov and Jason Parsons:

Eric Maino's Blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/eric
Kirill Osenkov's Blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/kirillosenkov
Jared Parsons Blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/jaredpar
Karen Liu’s TechEd talk: C# Tips and Tricks - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/karenliuTechEd08
Dustin Campbell’s PDC talk - http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL46
Keybinding poster - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E5F902A8-5BB5-4CC6-907E472809749973&displaylang=en
Source code outline power tool - http://codeplex.com/SourceCodeOutliner
Get Visual Studio 2008 SP1 - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/cc533447.aspx
Download CodeRush Xpress! - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/dd218053.aspx

DemoFest Build Notes...

benko — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:53:51 GMT

I got some questions about last week's BenkoTIPS webcast - DemoFest, and what you need to do to replicate it. Based on what I did for my version It thought I would share some notes. A couple points to successfully complete the full DemoFest application…(LINQ to Amazon to Silverlight to Web Part to SharePoint)

You’ll need VS 2008 sp1 installed along with the Silverlight Tools on the workstation you’re developing the Silverlight web part on…can be your workstation. Get all of these tools from http://silverlight.net/getstarted
To do the flip animation (can’t remember if we did that version or not) it’s much easier to build in Expression Blend…also available on the get started link
Register for an Amazon Web service key at http://aws.amazon.com
On your MOSS Server you’ll need a few things installed as well including

Same Silverlight tools as on workstation…(VS2008 sp1, Silverlight Tools)…note that I used the express version of Visual Studio on the server…get it from http://msdn.microsoft.com/express
WSS 3.0 sp1 (although sp1 is only because I was running Server 2008)
A site you want to deploy onto …

From Central Admin site create new site on arbitrary port…for example port 88…This creates a site in c:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\88

Upgrade the wss site to .net 3.5 by opening the web site with VWD from the directory (not the web server because VS can’t edit SharePoint sites from IIS)…it should prompt you to upgrade the site to the new framework…say yes
Edit the web.config in the target site to add Silverlight configuration settings (from Patrick Tissighem's post)
Add your web part assembly to the “SafeControls” section of the web.config
Create a directory for holding the Silverlight applications:

c:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\88\clientBin

Add “User” to security rights to read this directory…otherwise Silverlight app won’t work
Copy your webpart.dll to the bin directory

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\88\bin

Advertise the web part in the web part gallery by going to site settings of the target site and if you’ve got the web config correct you should see it in the list of web parts you can add…check the box and click add
Create a demo page and add your part to it

On the Misc settings for the web part change the source to include a leading \

Source: /clientBin/BookFinder.xap

Refresh the page

That should do it...

December BenkoTIPS Schedule

benko — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:28:22 GMT

We've got our first month and a half of BenkoTIPS Live and On Demand on the books and now we're looking at December. In an effort to find the best tips and tricks for developers we're going to bring in some special guests next month to talk about what they're passionate about. We're taking the last week of December off, so we've got 3 webcasts. They include:

Dec 3 - VSTO Applications with John Wiese
Why start from scratch when you can stand on the shoulders of giants? Since the introduction of Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO) developers are able to extend and expand the functionality of the most popular computer applications to build functionality their users need. In this presentation, we'll focus on the power and productivity of (VSTO) - a .NET Smart Client technology – to build an outlook add-in. We'll give you tips and tricks for designing and building smart client applications with VSTO, which allows you to create managed code applications with .NET languages including Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Visual C#. VSTO addresses some of the biggest challenges that Office solution developers are facing today, including separation of data and view elements, server-side and offline scenarios, seamless integration with the Visual Studio tools, deployment and updating. Join us for this eye-opening session and learn just how easy it is to build and deploy powerful applications with VSTO.
Dec 10 - SharePoint Features with Scot Hillier
SharePoint is a great tool for collaboration and publishing information to the web. Customizing and making it your own is where the developer really adds value to the team. This week we’re going to take a look at some features for working with SharePoint and we’ve got the man who has coordinated the project on CodePlex to make them a reality. Join Mike Benkovich as he welcomes Scott Hillier to BenkoTips Live and On Demand in this week’s edition of tips and tricks for developers. Scot will be taking a look at several of the over 30 different SharePoint Features that are available at www.codeplex.com/features. These Features solve common SharePoint problems and end-user needs. There’s bound to be a feature in this set that you can use in your SharePoint farm right away.
Dec 17 - Visual Studio Tips & Tricks from the people who wrote it
In this episode we take tips to a whole new level, we go to the farm and ask the experts. Join Mike with special guests Eric Maino, Jared Parsons and Kirill Osenkov from the C# and VB teams as we take a look at some ways that they use Visual Studio 2008 to develop, test and debug code. We’ll look at how you can get the most from Visual Studio and really make it sing. Join us for a great show on BenkoTIPS Live & On Demand

Unleashed Code is Posted!

benko — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:05:04 GMT

If you've been to a MSDN Unleashed event in Omaha, Des Moines, St. Louis, Marshall, Sioux Falls or Kansas City and are wondering where to get the demo code we wrote, I've posted it to the downloads section of www.benkoTips.com. It includes the samples we wrote for SQL 2008 as well as the Silverlight 2.0 Application. Note that to make the Linq to Amazon query work you'll need to register for Amazon Web Services and replace the key in the demo code with your own.

BenkoTIPS Live and On Demand

benko — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:38:57 GMT

I'm starting a new weekly webcast show - BenkoTips Live and On Demand (BTLOD)...a series aimed at bringing more developer event content to you in a reliable, predictable and consistent way. Starting this week on Wednesday we will begin the series, then each week we'll add another installment on a developer topic that will explore the possible. Here's the initial schedule for October and November.

10/22/08	11:00 AM (PST)	10 Ways Your Applications Can Be More Secure on Windows Vista
10/29/08	9:00 AM (PST)	ASP.NET Overview for Non-ASP.NET Developers
11/5/08	9:00 AM (PST)	Windows Presentation Foundation Demystified
11/12/08	9:00 AM (PST)	Are You Membership Aware?
11/19/08	9:00 AM (PST)	DemoFest - LINQ to PME to Silverlight to SharePoint Products and Technologies
11/26/08	9:00 AM (PST)	Security Sidebars and Hacker Tricks!

Join me live or download it later, we've got some great stuff to help developers save time and take advantage of the tools they use.

Updated the sidebar on BenkoTIPS...

benko — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:31:07 GMT

I've been running this site (www.benkoTips.com) for 3 years now, and I finally got around to updating the links on the left hand side of the screen. You will now be able to find a (more) complete list of bloggers, conferences, regional User Groups as well as some links of interest to help you find what you're looking for. If you'd like to add your user group or conference to the list, please let me know. Click the link "Talk to me" on the sidebar and you can send me a direct email.

Enjoy!

Mike

Launch Demo Code Posted

benko — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:42:28 GMT

I have been on the Visual Studio Launch Tour visiting Chicago, Des Moines, Madison, Omaha, Kansas City and St. Louis over the last couple months. As part of that we've been showing new features of Visual Studio for web development.

I've uploaded the sample web site code from the Visual Studio Launch events onto http://www.benkoTips.com/code. This includes the examples showing style sheets, LINQ and Ajax. If you were able to join me at the launch you've seen the demos, but I'm also working on some screencasts of these which registered users can view by clicking in the link below (note that you will need to have Silverlight installed to view the demos).

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: VS 2008,CSS,MSDN

Announcing - The Benko Blog-Roll

benko — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:39:32 GMT

Are you out there? Are you actually reading this? Do you have thoughts of your own that you'd like to share? Would you like to have a place where you can find out what other people who are in as similar role think about what's going in the the technology world?

I have. Since I started my site www.BenkoTIPS.com 3 years ago, I've been posting code samples, articles and links to things I've found useful in trying to keep up with technology. But for the most part it's been a one way street where I'm adding content I hope you'll find useful. Well that approach is about to change. I know the world is racked with enough spam as it is, but I needed to touch bases with the community, so this week I sent out an email blast to registered users of this site (first time for everything). My hope is to go beyond the one way reflection of my thoughts and provide an avenue for you to share your thoughts too.

I created a new menu tab - "Community" and under it I've added a page called the "Blog Roll". I've already started getting some participation from the global community of people who've got blogs they want to share. It contains the name of the blog, the author & where they're from, and a brief description of what they're trying to do with it. Of course I reserve the right to audit who is included in the blog roll, but I don't expect this to be an issue. I am currently looking for technology focused blogs, although I'm curious if adding some politically leaning ones would be ok or not. I suppose if I agree with the politics, but then maybe I'm supposed to be impartial?

Future speak - looking forward with BenkoTIPS...I've got some plans of what I want to do with it. First I am adding a community focus on content, in the sense that I will be adding pages for User Group links as well as other upcoming events. I am also going to add a calendar that will include significant upcoming conferences and events that I'll be presenting at. Finally I am making headway on making the big migration to SharePoint for hosting the site. I've been running it on DotNetNuke since I started it and I think it's about time to make the change. I've done a couple webcasts on how to customize the SharePoint sites, so that should help.

So there it is. If you're interested in being listed on the "Blog Roll", send me an email - mike@benkotips.com along with your name and description of what you're trying to do with it, and I'll add you to the list. The format of the page will adapt to the content as time goes on, but I'm interested in hearing what you've got to say.

Enjoy!

Announcing the Framework MasterClass Webcast Series!

benko — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:37:35 GMT

Class is in Back in Session!

We have the first 8 webcasts in the Framework MasterClass series scheduled as of today, and here's a quick rundown on the topics we'll be covering in September & October. This series will take a deeper dive into technologies like LINQ, WCF, Workflow, etc. and help provide insight into how get the most from them. Stay tuned for new sessions that get added each month!

Our proposed schedule runs typically on Mondays…

9/4 – LINQ Overview
Data access has evolved over time to make working with databases easier and more productive. In the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5, access to data is integrated natively into the languages. In this webcast, we look at what Microsoft .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is, and we provide an overview of how it can help developers increase productivity.

9/10 – LINQ to SQL
Microsoft .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ) provides a common way to work with data in your applications. In this session, we dive into how LINQ provides methods to work with Structured Query Language (SQL) databases, including how to query, insert, and manage data using the LINQ framework.

9/17 – LINQ to XML
In other sessions, we have already seen how Microsoft .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ) works with relational databases. In this webcast, we explore how LINQ can help you develop XML applications. We cover the basics of the XML helper functions, and we also dive into deeper topics.

9/24 – LINQ to Entities
We've explored how Microsoft .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is used for Structured Query Language (SQL) databases and working with XML. In this webcast, we connect to the data access layer, the business objects that provide the functionality of working with enterprise data. Join us to learn how you can make your LINQ applications really sing when working with entities.

10/1 – Working with WCF
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) brings tremendous power to developers and architects who are charged with creating distributed systems, but the many coding and configuration choices within WCF can be daunting. When faced with an almost infinitely configurable system, how can you be sure you are utilizing WCF effectively? Join this webcast to learn how you can solve the real-world technical problems that led you to WCF in the first place. In this session, we educate and inform both developers and architects about how to build and configure services in WCF using a variety of real-world scenarios as examples. After a brief review of the WCF code concepts, we explore techniques for building an effective messaging infrastructure, taking advantage of the many built-in WCF services, including security, transactions, reliability, and durability.

10/15 – WCF Management & Diagnostics
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) includes a strong management foundation for providing insight into the health and operational status of applications. In this session, we illustrate how you can incorporate WCF rich tracing and logging, a broad set of performance counters and tracking information, into existing management environments to build better applications. We also discuss how to use Windows PowerShell on top of the management extensions in WCF.

10/22 – WCF Custom Channels
Channel model is the layer of our architecture that is responsible for performing all of the point-to-point messaging in Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). Almost every interoperability problem and missing feature can be worked around by extending the messaging platform with a sufficiently powerful custom channel. In this session, we discuss the basics you need to get started with the channel model, and we show you how to write simple custom channels that solve problems.

10/29 – WCF Performance & Deployment
In this session, we dive into some best practices that can help you ensure the highest level of performance and availability with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). We examine guidelines for load balancing your services across a Web farm, and we take a look at various properties that are designed to help prevent undue resource consumption. Finally, we share some examples of the various hosting options for WCF services, including Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) and Windows Process Activation Service (WAS).