Welcome to MSDN Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

April 2009 - Posts

Thursday, April 30, 2009 5:25 PM

The weekly SyncToBlog: #5

Development related: Persistence ignorance in the Entity Framework discussed with reference to the EFPocoAdapter http://railsenvy.com/ Lots of Ruby and Rails stuff – and some good podcasts and video Scott Hanselman has listed his “must haves” on a machine
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 3:23 PM

UK MSDN Flash Poll: As a developer, what do you think of IE 8?

I don’t do much web development these days (with the exception of when I am thinking about Windows Azure) and I certainly haven’t battled with complex html+JavaScript across multiple browsers for a long, long while. On the other hand, my colleague Mike
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under: ,
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 1:38 PM

Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 is one part of the compatibility story for old applications

I recently posted about Windows 7 application compatibility which was aimed at giving developers a steer on what they need to consider to make sure applications originally built for Windows XP work great on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. However there is
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 12:05 PM

FREE Windows 7 Application Compatibility training and drop-in clinic in the UK in May

I have been thinking about Windows 7 application compatibility this week and that included an interview with Dave Allen in the partner team which touched on the labs he is running in the UK. The next lab starts May 11th and is split into: Monday 11 th
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 11:28 AM

Interview with Dave Allen on Windows 7 compatibility

Dave Allen works in Microsoft UK helping partners build solutions which take advantage of the latest technologies from Microsoft. He also happens to be a mate, a jolly nice chap and is  leading our efforts in the UK to help partners get their applications
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 11:28 AM

What developers should be doing in readiness for Windows 7

I apologise. I’m sorry. I sympathise. I do, really. I completely understand that: Discovering an application is broken that previously used to work great is simply not fun and Fixing the application to work again is also simply not fun Especially if you
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 9:51 AM

Are you a UK startup interested in FREE software, FREE briefing (5th May, 9th June) + FREE interesting geeks?

Then I have a great offer for you. It includes: Two  Microsoft UK geeks. Well used, odd scratch but still in good working order. Choice of two 10am to 4pm technical days in London in May and June presented by the above geeks Information on the day
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under: ,
Monday, April 27, 2009 11:24 PM

Dependency Inversion Principle from SOLID – in a picture :-)

I started reading into the SOLID Principles in March bit didn’t get very far before I moved on to do some other stuff (sound familiar?). Then today I stumble across a site with a bunch of motivational pictures based on the SOLID Principles and I have
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Saturday, April 25, 2009 4:54 AM

4am UK time – and I just spotted Windows 7 Release Candidate should be with us for April 30th

The Windows team blog have news of the Windows 7 RC: “….. RC is on track for April 30th for  download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers . Broader, public availability will begin on May 5th .” I though the beta was great. My dad thought the beta was
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Friday, April 24, 2009 10:20 PM

A little MVC Humour – Controller Obesity

Of late I have been looking at Ruby which has the widely liked Model View Controller (MVC) framework Rails and I just posted on Open Source with reference to both IronRuby and our own MVC framework, the ASP.NET MVC . All serious stuff.  However what
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Friday, April 24, 2009 2:21 PM

I see a rosy future ahead for Microsoft and Open Source

Before I joined Microsoft I worked at a software development company that focused on delivering large, mission critical systems on… Unix. My work environment included Gnu Emacs, Gnu C and C++ and Gnu Make, all products from the Free Software Foundation
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 4:37 PM

FREE .NET eBook now online with Slideshare

I blogged on Monday about the new UK MSDN Flash eBook . It is now on Slideshare which IMHO does a really nice job of hosting pdf files. Enjoy. NB: you can view it full screen – bottom right icon. UK MSDN Flash eBook Best Technical Articles #1 View more
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 2:15 PM

MSDN Flash Podcast Pilot – April 22nd 2009

This is a pilot podcast to accompany the fortnightly MSDN Flash newsletter. I would appreciate feedback on what you liked and what you didn’t – and even whether you managed to make it through the 20minutes. Things I already plan to do: More formally split
Posted by Eric Nelson | 3 Comments
Filed under:
Monday, April 20, 2009 5:11 PM

FREE MSDN Flash eBook with 13 technical articles spanning dynamic languages to game development to cloud computing

[The official announcement is in this Wednesdays MSDN Flash – but why wait!] Every two weeks we send an email out to tens of thousands of UK based developers. This email is called the MSDN Flash. The Flash contains many useful sections including a 400
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
Monday, April 20, 2009 4:50 PM

Is 2010 the year of C# and … BBC Basic?

I did a poll on the 8th of April which asked the question: What language would you choose to use 12 months from today if you were given the chance to develop a brand new application and you were allowed to choose the programming language? The result was
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
Filed under: ,
Monday, April 20, 2009 4:24 PM

UK MSDN Flash Poll: How good are your estimating skills?

A long, long time ago I used to take pride in my ability to estimate how long it would take to code something (which worked well!) and be pretty much spot on. With older eyes I suspect I used to overestimate how long it would take and then pad the time
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under: ,
Sunday, April 19, 2009 10:22 PM

Just back from holiday… and great “I’m a PC” adverts :-)

I spent last week enjoying the sun (and rain and wind and fog) in Yorkshire and managed to pretty much avoid email/work all week which was great. I did manage a little “evangelism” during the week though. My dad has an old compaq notebook which has been
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under: ,
Thursday, April 09, 2009 4:23 PM

A random but interesting bunch of Visual Basic .NET reads

Nothing special – just a list of good Visual Basic .NET articles I read over the last month. Enjoy: Visual Basic Lambdas are not quite the same as C# Lambdas. This article explains how to work around the differences . Visual Basic needs a hand with iterators
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, April 09, 2009 3:52 PM

I need to let this sink in… but interesting stuff. try/catch and filters

Somebody posted a comment up my blog which contained something along the lines of  “and VB .NET does the clever try catch stuff that C# can’t” . That got parked at the back of my brain and I finally went off looking for what this was. Turns out there
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, April 09, 2009 3:19 PM

Visual Basic books in the UK were top sellers in the lead into Christmas

I was looking at some statistics on developer book sales in the months leading up to Christmas 2008. Overall C# outsold VB (there are a lot of C# books to choose from!) BUT VB 2008 had three of the top five slots including the number one slot. Unfortunately
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under: ,
Thursday, April 09, 2009 3:05 PM

How much does Team Foundation Server REALLY cost vs SourceSafe?

I was discussing with one of our TFS specialists the costs of going down the route of Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server – specifically in the context of comparing it with purchasing Visual SourceSafe (VSS). This conversation was kicked
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
Filed under: ,
Sunday, April 05, 2009 9:19 PM

Feedback wanted on the February Microsoft UK training offer with InnerWorkings

Back in February 2009 I worked with Sarah Roxburgh in my team and InnerWorkings to deliver a great free training offer on .NET training to UK developers. The offer opened up a huge chunk of the InnerWorkings learning catalogue for free and for a limited
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under: ,
Friday, April 03, 2009 10:48 PM

Entity Framework Books (with Amazon UK links)

Having been asked 5 times today for recommendations, I figure this post is long overdue: There are several books out there but IMHO these are the two you should purchase. Julia is focused entirely on Entity Framework (all 800+ pages!) and Roger takes
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under: , ,
Thursday, April 02, 2009 7:55 PM

UK MSDN Flash Poll April 8th 2009: What language would you like to be using in April 2010 for new applications?

I am busy assembling next Wednesdays MSDN Flash as the technical editor and general copy/paste monkey :-) I am also just back from delivering three sessions at Devweek 2009 where I fell in love with IronRuby . IronRuby is only at version 0.3 right now
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Filed under: ,
Thursday, April 02, 2009 4:30 PM

My thoughts post Devweek 2009. Or rather my one thought – Ruby Rocks

Devweek is my fave multi-day developer conference in the UK and attracts great speakers such as Aaron Skonnard , Neal Ford and Tim Ewald. Which is why I always feel a little humble that I get the chance to present there. This time around I delivered three
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Filed under: , ,
Thursday, April 02, 2009 4:06 PM

The weekly SyncToBlog: #4

Development related: Extend IE7 and IE8: Make extending IE7 and IE8 that much easier with a little spicIE :-) With SpicIE you can develop your own event handlers, toolbar buttons, menu entries, toolbars and more. Free software for students: UK secondary
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, April 02, 2009 4:04 PM

MSDN Library Low Bandwidth Option

While chatting with Tim Ewald last week at Devweek we got onto the topic of “ways to improve the MSDN experience” (Tim sits in that team). Part of that discussion was the “Low Bandwith” option for MSDN which has been around for many months. What I had
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:48 PM

This blog is being brought out of mothballs

Well, it sort of is :-) Eight weeks ago I made my primary blog http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable/ for a variety of reasons . I have no plans to change that as geekswithblogs.net is a great service. However I always had at the back of my mind the intention
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Filed under:
 
Page view tracker