Map char values to enums using NHibernate Custom Types

Add paragraphs within a Word document using VBA

Know your SQL optimization tricks

Running SubVersion 1.6.2 on my Windows 7 machine

Reading List March 2009

Finally Running On Windows 7

Enjoying the Californian winter

Ajax Design Patterns

I stumbled today on this site entirely dedicated to Ajax Patterns, what they are and how to use/implement them.

Tips and Tricks : Linq to Sql Query Visualizer throws “access denied” error

I started playing around with LINQ to SQL and this is a tip I have for all those with the same error when trying the use the Linq to Sql Query Visualizer in their web application.

Create dynamic linq to sql queries

I started to play around with linq to sql this week. I must say I do have some mixed feelings about it, but that is topic for another discussion. Right now, I was just trying to accomplish the same effect that I had with writing Stored Procedures. I have to deal quite often with large procedures that build a dynamic sql query by evaluating the parameters that are parsed to the procedure.

It finally arrived

I finally received today my personal copy of visual studio 2008 pro. It has been on the way for almost 2 weeks thanks to those Norwegian customs here.

Links: blog entries I've been reading

Like most developers I “monitor” quite some blogs. With “monitoring” I mean that I have subscribed to their RSS feed, and scan on a regular basis the entries posted. I don’t say that I read every single line written, but sometimes (most of the time if you monitor the right blogs) you find articles or ideas posted by people about subjects you’re working on yourself or interested in. It keeps you up-to-date about what is “hot” at the moment, what people are writing and talking about the most etc... And I think that’s a very important aspect of being a developer.

Tips & Tricks: Accessing server controls in client script

A JavaScript tip for working with asp.net server controls.

Tips & Tricks: working offline with Visual Studio Team System 2008

An interesting feature of TFS 2008 for those working very mobile.

Cross Database SQL scripting

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you had to write a stored procedure that needed to combine data from 2 different databases? Not that difficult, is it? But what if your procedure needs to be ‘generic’ so that it can run on different environments such as developing, testing and production where they all use different database names? I found myself in this situation today and I’d like to share my experiences here.

Tips & Tricks : String.Joing()

Another tips & tricks that I learned today.

Creating an ASP.NET Feature from scratch

I wrote before a way of implementing an asp.net feature using the provider model. I created this on my own with the knowledge I had back then. I created my own provider class and did the reflection part manually. You can still read over it at my previous post. Right now, I’ve been reading a little more and I read that the asp.net framework already has the basis set up for creating your own “features” like they call it. I will now show you how to re-write the dynamic pages feature that I explained in my previous post to make full use of the asp.net framework features.

Tips & tricks: the configSource attribute in web.config

I’m running from time to time in small, probably well known, things that make developing so much easier and/or more interesting. I decided to write them down here when I run into one under the section “Tips & Tricks”.

VS2008 - it's the little things that matter

If you haven’t touched it yet, I really recommend checking out the .NET Framework Source Code Debug options in Visual Studio 2008. I tried it out right after it was released to see if it worked, but it wasn’t until last week that I really found the full potentials of it.

Loading dynamic pages from a data source through a Provider Model (part 2)

In my previous post I mentioned the ASP.NET 2.0 Provider Model and how I used it for loading dynamic pages from a data source in a portal framework. This article will go through the code and gives some technical information of how to accomplish this in ASP.NET 2.0.

.NET Framework Source Code available

I just read on Scott Guthrie's blog that the libraries of the .NET Framework are now available through Visual Studio 2008.

ASP.NET 2.0 Provider Model and more

The ASP.NET Framework makes heavy use of the provider model. That is, for every service that requires saving data or states in some data source. Using this model allows a complete separation of “using the service” and “saving and retrieving the data” from the data source. I will give here an overview of this model and how it is used in the current ASP.NET services. Later I will go deeper in how to implement a similar model for our own services.

Debug problems with a web site and IIS.

In Visual Studio 2005 you can create a web site instead of the previous web application in 2003. When you create the site, you can specify weather to use the File System or an IIS site. When you created a web site using the IIS option and later changes this to a File System website, but in the same time keep a virtual directory in your IIS linked to the application (can you still follow?)… you may have found problems in debugging the application. More specific, the application will never stop at any break point you set. If this ever happened, or happens to you, than you may find a solution in this article.

Sorting a DropDownList with Enum values

The past half hour I was looking at a solution for this problem. I have a DropDownList that is populated with values from an Enumerator. I just wanted to have the list sorted to have a better representation of it. After fruitless search on the net, I came on this article of Trent Miesner. The solution is so simple and obvious that I had to share it with others.

Web Workflow at TechEd

Yesterday at TechEd here in Barcelona I attended the talk of Paul Andrew about Workflow Foundation in Web applications.

See you at TechEd Europe 2007

Yep, I'd be shipping in next week with some colleagues. Direction: Barcelona. Destination: Microsoft TechEd Europe 2007. Duration: 1 week.
So if you're going there as well, drop a line and maybe we'll see each other there.

.net opens it's source code

I just read on the blog of Scott Guthrie, explaining that the source code of .net 3.5 will be come availble for download. It will be supported in Visual Studio 2008 Debugging.
I guess we can all start learning from the pros now :)

GetDataBack gets all your data back

Last week I experienced a disaster when my external HD failed to read the files on in. On its own, not very important, was it not that it contained all my music in mp3 format. For those who may know me, losing my music is as good as loosing my life. Luckily thanks to a friend of mine I was able to recover all my songs again.

Msc Dissertation - Bluetooth and mobile bus timetables

January 2007 was the deadline for handing in the masters dissertation witch will lead eventually to earn my masters degree at the University of Abertay Dundee, Scotland. The previous six to eight months before that final date was a very hard period of reading, researching, writing, testing, etc… Everyone who has done a masters or other research project knows what I’m talking about. A very hard period of loneliness, frustration, emotional outbreaks, going down and not seeing the end, but also of relieve and a feeling of fulfilment when the final result has been produced in the end. Especially when that final result ends up in a pass and gives you the Masters degree which you were working for during the past year and a half. I decided the place my dissertation here on my website under my portfolio work so it might be looked at or used by others doing research in the same field as mine.

Creating your own strongly typed Collections

Collections in .NET are a way of grouping objects so they become easy to manage individually without writing too much code. I came first in contact with collections while creating this blogging site. This article (which has been in mind for over a month) will give an overview of what collections are, and how to create your own personal collections with the use of the CollectionBase class.

Ajax on MSDN Live - Oslo

Microsoft organized some events on Monday in Oslo, and as I happened to be here with nothing immediately planned on Monday, I took the advantage looking around and meeting people in software developing here in Norway. Focus of MSDN Live was placed on the ASP.NET AJAX 1.0. The other conference hall hosted the Microsoft TechNet handling Exchange server 2007, Vista and their securities but I didn’t attend any presentations of those. Despites the presentations where all given in Norwegian (guess they don’t have a language problem like that other small country in Europe) I was able to follow most of it thanks to the live demos. Luckily, IT is so international.