Learn MS .NET

Well after receiving Visual Studio 2008 yesterday.  I proceeded to get my update done and see how the final product compared to the last Beta of the product I had used.

Prior to me receiving my copy of Visual Studio 2008 I had read Scott Guthrie's Blog post on "Steps to Uninstall VS 2008 Beta2 before installing the VS 2008 Final Release". This had given me a head start or preparing to do the upgrade.

Although even with this knowledge I did forget to uninstall one of the components from the Beta 2 build.  I was impressed when the install caught this and let me know about it prior to allowing me to install the RTM version.  I had forgotten to uninstall the MSDN Library.

After installing I ran visual studio and have not had any issues with the product so far as any bugs have been found, but I have ran across an issue with developing modules for DotNetNuke which I will be addressing in another blog post later today or tomorrow.

After being involved in the IT business for close to 15 years now.  It continues to baffle me at how few businesses in Nova Scotia actually get technology.

With the use of such sites as Facebook and MySpace getting such wide spread use in our homes today.  The use of Messaging services such as MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger or the use of such VOIP services as Skype.  These services can make working with people all over the world much easier and faster then previous generations.

As a small business owner and developer of web technology, the use of these types of technologies is a daily habit.  Add in the advances in wireless technology and mobile devices it becomes very easy to see that IT is very important.

Blogs are helping businesses reach customers very quickly with employees within organizations not only spouting the praises of their employers or their business but also responding to the negatives that can be found about your business on the Internet.

The wave of the future is to develop a market for your business and to make it a global business.  The technology to do this is available today and much more.

On Monday November 19, 2007, Mozilla released Firefox version 3.0 beta 1. The initial schedule was to release version 3 to beta in July. 

The beta release includes several interesting features

• ability to use web applications to handle protocol handlers ie: using google mail to handle mailto: tags.
• the addition of one click bookmarking .
• direct typing in the address bar searches your history and favorites as well and displays those as choices.
• new download manager with the ability to resume previous downloads will be a real time saver.

More information about the release and access to the download can be found here.

I've been using the new beta for a few hours now and not ran into any issues as such it seems to be a good alternative to Internet Explorer.  Although some of my previous add-ons were disabled when running this version of Firefox.

Yesterday, marked the RTM release of Visual Studio 2008 Standard, Professional and Team System to MSDN subscriptions.  This edition makes some significant improvements to developing applications for the web.  They have integrated the editor that is used within the expressions web tool to allow split window development of code viewing and WYSIWYG editing at the same time.

With the release of Visual Studio 2008, they also released .NET Framework 3.5 as well.  Version 3.5 includes the much talked about LINQ (Language Integrated Query) and data awareness.  This allows you to write queries in LINQ enabled languages to fully manipulate SQL Data, collections, XML and DataSets.

The following Express editions are now available for download:

• Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition
• Visual C# 2008 Express Edition
• Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition
• Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition

The express editions allow for hobbyists or students to get interested in creating applications and has a great way to see some of the improvements in the products.

Scott Guthrie provided a great listing of the features and capabilities of Visual Studio 2008 yesterday in his blog.

All in all this was an important release for anyone that is heavily involved in web application development with some of the advances that have been added to this edition it will make a much needed upgrade from previous versions.

Error: File Manager is currently unavailable.
DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.ModuleLoadException: C:\intranet\Admin\Files\FileManager.ascx.vb(780): error BC30560: 'ZipEntry' is ambiguous in the namespace 'ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip'. ---> System.Web.HttpCompileException: C:\intranet\Admin\Files\FileManager.ascx.vb(780): error BC30560: 'ZipEntry' is ambiguous in the namespace 'ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip'. at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CompileWebFile(VirtualPath virtualPath) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultInternal(VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultWithNoAssert(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) at System.Web.UI.TemplateControl.LoadControl(VirtualPath virtualPath) at System.Web.UI.TemplateControl.LoadControl(String virtualPath) at DotNetNuke.UI.Skins.Skin.InjectModule(Control objPane, ModuleInfo objModule, PortalSettings PortalSettings) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

What a nasty message to receive within your portal as your trying to upgrade to a new version of the software.

I searched the Internet and found a few articles that explained a few things.  In my particular case I simply had to delete the ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.dll file in the bin folder.  This allowed me access back to the file manager.

Hope this helps some people with the issue.

Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 to the public for anyone interested in testing out what is coming to developers in the future.

Their download page found here, contains information about the new visual studio as well as downloads for the Standard, Professional, Team Suite and Team Foundation Server.  They have provided installation images as well as VPC images to get you up and running quickly with the product.

Scott Guthrie one of my favorite Microsoft employees, provides us with his insight into not only the new Visual Studio, but also the new features of the .NET languages.  In his blog series this summer he has been discussing LINQ which is an overall querying programming model.

His most recent blog post, found here, discusses and an add-in to the new Visual Studio 2008 which can be downloaded from his post.  This add-in allows the visual debugging and testing of your LINQ statements in your code.

If your interested in LINQ this is a must to take a look at.

Woke up this morning with a great email in my inbox.  I"ve been working with a client on getting their web site launched and providing them with a new piece of storefront software.  And this morning I woke to them sending me and email about their site and business being mentioned in the provincial paper under the business section

Net assets produce profitable business is the title of the article.  The business Bay Hammocks has only been online for approximately 6 months and have gone from relative unknowns in the hammock industry to being a very popular site.

When I started working with Bay Hammocks they were located at about page 30 or so on a search for hammocks or hammock.  The are now located at page 1 or 2 on any of the major searches for hammocks.

So I think this raises the bar on small town Nova Scotia and how local businesses can grow to be large international businesses in a short period of time.  For more information about what I can do check out Shancer Software's website to see if we can be of benefit to your business.

Well here goes my first post to my blog from Windows Live Writer. I'm hoping to be able to use this editor as my default editing tool for my blog.  The install went fantastic and the configuring of the tool was great.  They even have an option for working with DasBlog within the configuration.

So far it's great lets see how it goes

Well I said I would write a bit about me.  I've been programming computers now for approximately 15 years professionally.  Prior to this I had played with programming while I was in school. 

I have two beautiful children of my own Shanda and Spencer as well as my future wife Melissa who has three children of her own, Jody, Cheyenna and Nikita.  Makes for a large family and out goes the purchase of a sports car.  We have a lot of fun together.

I currently train in Chito-Ryu Karate and have been off and on for approximately 16 years.  Currently getting ready for my next grading which is about 9 months away.  More about this as the time comes along.

Well I'm sure I'll reveal more of myself as I develop this and get it rolling.