# Monday, October 24, 2005
Deployment issues with the Compact Framework v2.0... (Sorta)
I just tried to deploy an application to a customer's PPC device and was very frustrated because the app looked like it installed and even put a shortcut in the "Program Files". However, when I clicked on it, nothing happened. No error message, nothing. Just silence. Wow, that's informative. The good news is that I called John Hopkins, one of my sub-contractors, and he asked something about the framework version and it hit us both - v2.0 of the Compact Framework was not on the device. Install it and it works great now... :)

The thing that made this blogworthy was the lack of error messages. That was the astounding thing. I'd expect some error message on install or something that would prompt me that I needed to install something else. Oh well. I guess that we can't have everything. It's a fabulous environment to develop in and is light years ahead of previous development environments so I'm grateful for that but it just points out this type of little inconstancy that much more.
Compact Framework
Monday, October 24, 2005 10:44:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

Toledo Talk Tomorrow (10/25/2005)
Join me tomorrow at the Northwest Ohio .NET Users Group at 333 N Summit St, Toledo, OH 43604 at 6:00 to hear about Data Binding and Caching in ASP.NET 2.0.
Speaking | User Groups
Monday, October 24, 2005 3:25:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

# Friday, October 21, 2005
Generating Bar Codes
I thought that http://www.barcodesinc.com/ was a pretty cool site (the barcode printer: free barcode generator). I needed a couple of sample bar codes to use in some testing so created them on this site and printed them off.


Josh Holmes as a bar code

Friday, October 21, 2005 4:40:54 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

# Friday, October 14, 2005
Connecting VS.NET to Windows CE

My current contract is a Compact Framework application for a LXE device running Windows CE 4.2. I was having some issues connecting to it from VS.NET and so I asked my good friend Google what he knew about it with this query - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=VS.NET+Compact+Framework+Device+Connection+Issue. Wouldn’t you know that it pops up with my good friend Doug Reilly when he posted about VS.NET Compact Framework Deployment Issues. It turns out that I didn’t have the exact same issue as Doug, but it did fix me because in the download that me pointed me to (Windows CE Utilities for Visual Studio .NET 2003 Add-on Pack 1.1). In there they mentioned that you have to configure VS.NET for the processor type that you are using with Windows CE with ActiveSync.

That’s a real pain, but it fixed me…


Compact Framework | Hardware
Friday, October 14, 2005 7:39:57 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

log4net on the Compact Framework

I was reminded of log4net today when working on a project. The client asked a logging framework and the cool part is that it’s a Compact Framework application. Sure enough log4net supports the Compact Framework.

There are a couple of minor differences that you should be aware of if you are interested in using log4net on the Compact Framework. First of all, not all of the appenders make sense – like the RemotingAppender, the EventLogAppender and the OracleAppender. Secondly, there is no mechanism for retrieving assembly level attributes so you have to explicitly initialize and shut down the log4net engine.

 

static void Main()

{

      try

      {

            //This line configures the log4net engine.

log4net.Config.DOMConfigurator.Configure(

new FileInfo(@"\log4net.config"));

 

            frmLogin loginForm = new frmLogin ();

            loginForm.ShowDialog();

                  Application.Run(new frmMain());

            }

      }

      catch (System.Exception e)

      {

            _log.Error("Main", e);

      }

      finally

      {

            //This line shuts down the log4net engine

            log4net.LogManager.Shutdown();

      }

}

 

The other thing that was interesting is that the online help on http://logging.apache.org/log4net showed conversion patterns with %message%newline to print the message and then put a newline in the file. I had to use %m%n because the first one there printed as

 

My stringessage

ewline

 

which was not quite what was expected.

 

Have fun with log4net, it’s a great lightweight logging framework for the compact framework.


Compact Framework | Development | Utilities
Friday, October 14, 2005 12:47:18 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

# Monday, October 03, 2005
The Origional Dancing DE firesback: Drew Robbins in encore

Since Andrew Duthie fired off his rendition of "Love Shack", Drew Robbins had to come back with his Karaoke rendition of this MC Hammer Song.

MC Hammer he's not but I gotta say that he's learned a step or two since TechEd (The origional Dancing DE). Maybe I should start trying those dancing machines...

I'm not sure who that is singing in the background but they are not bad - not up to Duthie standards (remember that he's damn good) - but trust me there were worse performances at the Karaoke bar at the MVP party at the Science Fiction Museum.

The Dancing DEs

Picture of the Dancing DEs: Andrew Duthie on the Left and Drew Robbins on the right.

So far the count is:

1 to Andrew Duthie for the singing
0.5 to Drew for attempting to Dance
1 to Drew for dancing the second time

Gotta Vote for who's the best - use the comments to vote for your favorite!

So it's Drew up by half a point. Any other contestants out there? Gotta great Dancing DE moment on video that you'd love to share with the world? Let me know and I'll make sure that it's posted!


Dancing DE | Microsoft
Monday, October 03, 2005 10:12:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

Another Dancing DE: Andrew Duthie

Drew Robbins was the first Dancing DE... Andrew Duthie has raised the bar with his rendition of Love Shack! I wish that I could have gotten the whole thing on video but I did the best that I could here. This was at the MVP Summit 2005. There was a party at the Science Fiction Museum with a kareoke bar upstairs.

Two extra fun bits:
1) That's his boss, Kim, with him. She's the manager for all of the DE's in the Eastern District of the US.
2) He's pretty good - in fact, he used to have a band before Microsoft took all of his spare time. Oh yeah and he had children so he didn't have time anyway...

Update: I've been corrected - he's damn good!


Dancing DE | Microsoft
Monday, October 03, 2005 9:02:15 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

# Thursday, September 22, 2005
VS.NET Launch in November == Free Goodies!

If you attend the VS.NET Launch in November you’ll get a free copy of VS.NET 2005 and a free copy of SQL Server 2005!

 

Oh yeah – and you’ll get some great content on how to use those two products.


Speaking | SQL Server
Thursday, September 22, 2005 8:07:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

# Thursday, September 15, 2005
Bill Steele helps out Katrina hit areas

Bill Steele, our Microsoft Developer Community Championin the "Heartland District", did something very cool. He's a private pilot and donates his time to Angel Flight and the Air Care Alliance.

He took off on his own time to fly 45 trips down to the hardest hit places to take down 17,500 MREs and other stuff. I think that's cool and that it should be commended.

Now, it costs a lot of money to do all of that flying. According to Bill's post, it's between $200-$400 per flight. That tells me that it was between $9,000 and $18,000 for Bill to deliver all of that food and supplies. Really, that's reasonable because about a dollar or less for each of those meals to be delivered. If that's all that you tipped the pizza guy - he'd be pissed. In the mean time, we need to help out by visiting the links below and donating.


Microsoft
Thursday, September 15, 2005 2:29:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

# Tuesday, September 13, 2005
One More GANG Item: a Survey

Hello Listeners,

If you are in the Detroit area, please fill out our survey to help me and the rest of the board guide the group in the ways that can best server the South-Eastern Michigan area. We are doing what we think is best, but we'd all like some feedback, especially from those that are not coming currently.

If you are not coming, please let us know why and what would entice you to come.

If you are coming, please let us know what we are doing right and what we are doing slightly less that perfectly.

Either way, please pass this URL around to all of your friends, co-workers and anyone else that might be in our demographic. That includes .NET Developers (Obviously), those interested in .NET, managers who managed developers and so on. Post this on your blogs, email it, tell people about it and other mechanisms that you can think of to get it around to your friends.

Thank you,
Josh Holmes
VP of GANG
Program Chair of GANG


User Groups
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 3:12:06 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

Great Lakes Area .NET Users Group (GANG) on 9/21/2005

Tim Landgrave, Regional Director from Kentucky and a great speaker, will be doing the main presentation on "Developing Enterprise Class Web Services using the .NET Framework" starting at 7:00.

I'm going to give the tutorial session on "Introduction to Web Services" starting at 6:00.

We will also be doing unprecedented giveaways as we give away a copy of VS.NET 2003 Professional, a number of books including Writing Secure Code 2, ASP.NET 2.0 books and more, t-shirts and more.

Bring a friend to increase your chances of winning!


User Groups
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 2:58:58 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

# Tuesday, September 06, 2005
INETA Speaker Bureau

I’m honored to be in INETA Speaker Bureau with such influential developers as Martin L. Shoemaker, Michele Leroux Bustamante, Rocky Lhotka and Juval Lowy, just to name a few. INETA helped get the Great Lakes Area .NET Users Group (GANG) off the ground by supplying great speakers, such as Richard Hale Shaw, Chris Kinsman and Tom Barnaby (Now with Microsoft and I can't find his new blog), as well as advice on logistical setup of the meetings and the user group leaders forums. My goal is to help other user groups as much as these great speakers have helped my group.

There were 9 of us added at the same time:

John Alexander
Miguel Castro
Bill Evjen
Julie Lerman
Chris Menegay
Ted Pattison
Les Pinter
Bill Vaughn
Me

It gets better as I've already been scheduled to speak through INETA at the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group on October 25th.


Speaking | User Groups
Tuesday, September 06, 2005 12:57:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0]