CristiPotlog

RONUA.RO launches Visual Studio 2010 in Romania at its annual Summer Codecamp Tour

Highlights:

• What's new in Visual Studio 2010 and has improved since the 2008 version!
• .Net has hit 4.0 version mark with ASP.NET 4.0, Entity Framework 4.0, ASP.NET 4.0, MVC 2.0! No marketing - Just technoly!
• Silverlight 4, Windows Phone 7, Expression Studio 4, SketchFlow, TFS 2010 - evaluated and inside out!
• BONUS: You can talk with other developers from the community, make new friends, and find new opportunities!

More on RONUA.RO's site (romanian only)

Labels: Microsoft, Programming, Visual Studio

I am working on a new project using NHibernate, Spring.NET and even trying to port Envers from Java to .NET. We are using Visual Studio 2010 (RC) UML Modeling Tools to desing our class model and to generate C# code annotated with NHibernate mappings attributes.

The short story is that I got stocked when trying to apply custom defined stereotypes on UML relationships' MemberEnds as I described in this post on Stack Overflow. Sadly, no answer there.

I went then to Cameron Skinner's Blog, who is product unit manager on the Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) team, overseeing the Visual Studio Architecture product line, and I received this answer to my question:

Unfortunately, this is a bug in our code. We need to fix this one, but until then, I don't have a good story for you. :(

The even sadder part is that I contacted the man offline as he suggested and all I could get from him was that this bug will be fixed as soon as SP1 (meaning a 6-9 months time span). Needless to say that I wasn't happy with the answer.

We got a workaround for this and I'm not going to comment any further on the particular issue. I just want to say that since delving into open-source software I came to enjoy the bug fixing speed of the open-source communities. There are bugs in open-source software too, even some nasty ones, but at least you can hope for a quick fix, and if nobody helps and time is not pressing you can contribute yourself.

Labels: Microsoft, Open Source, Programming, Software

Thinking to put more time into blogging. I neglected this blog for quite a while. It was a pretty intense year, the last one. Most importantly, I expanded my family with a little boy, and this is an accomplishment enough for me.

So my personal life was evolving rather great last year, taking more time for itself than previously. This not being a bad thing after all. My son is now almost 3 months old, so the hard part has passed. Now I'm eagerly expecting him to grow up. My little daughter and wife also complete my life, and I am just happy in that way.

At work it was a tough year, struggling with old projects in maintenance that were getting nowhere and hoping to start new ones. But the crisis hit the economy and new projects were hard to find, if not impossible.

As for blogging, last year I dedicated more time reading other blogs than writing on this one. I realized that simply echoing tech news from established blogs was not enough to build an audience. In fact I didn't had much to say, but I hope that I will be able to improve in this area. I'm not saying I have a dull life, with nothing to say, but just that I don't easily find the right words to put it into text, nor I make time for writing.

The other blog I started last year was not gaining any traction either. Even though I thought that simply posting photos captured with my phone would be less time consuming, after some posts I lost interest.

This year started rather slow, giving me time to gather some momentum, so I am restarting this blog on a new ground, hoping that I will fill this space with more personal stuff and let the others talk about the news. I am hoping to start some new projects this year. Maybe they would be interesting enough to blog about them. That's what the new blog will be all about.

Labels: Blogging, Life

Since first unveiling the project back in May, Google has remained quiet about Wave.

Today, September 30 Google announced ot will be sending out more than 100,000 invitations to preview Google Wave to:

• Developers who have been active in the developer preview we started back in June
• The first users who signed up and offered to give feedback on wave.google.com
• Select customers of Google Apps

I'm not yet among those few, but I'll get back with first impressions when my chance will come.

Google has been kept developers in touch with it's plans hoping to build an apps ecosystem around Wave. The ongoing developer preview has enabled developers to extend and embed Wave. Even more, Google has started an open-source project called Google Wave Federation Protocol that aims to enable developers to build their own Wave clients.

To get a taste of what developers have been working on, you can check the Wave's developers blog.

Labels: Google, Internet, Software

A few days ago Google has launched Google Chrome Frame, an open source plug-in that brings HTML5 and other open web technologies to Internet Explorer.

The intended purpose of this plug-in to help web developers deliver faster, richer applications like Google Wave. Using Google Chrome Frame, developers will be able to take advantage of the latest open web technologies, even in Internet Explorer. Developers may choose to use it, but the success of builing an app with features like HTML5's offline capabilities and <canvas> or modern CSS/Layout handling will depend on whether users that have IE will have this plug-in installed too.

I think though this starts a new trend for Google, by helping Microsoft to be more standards compliant instead of waiting for Microsoft to make up its mind. This will also help the addoption of Google's new apps, such as Google Wave, developed based on new HTML5 standards.

Labels: Google, Internet, Microsoft, Open Source

Everybody I know is starting photoblogs:

• photoblog.e-nabled.ro
• ciprianpripoae.blogspot.com

Maybe this is the winning trend. Maybe is something I should consider for myself.

Here are some shots I took with my mobile phone:

What do you think? Am I worthy?

UPDATE: after some consideration and a long weekend I decided to start a photoblog.

Labels: Life, Photos

Microsoft has released Glimmer, a tool that allows you to easily create interactive elements on your web pages by harnessing the power of the jQuery JavaScript library.

Without having to hand-craft your JavaScript code, you can use Glimmer’s wizards to generate jQuery scripts for common interactive scenarios. Glimmer also has an advanced mode, providing a design surface for creating jQuery effects based on your existing HTML and CSS.

You cand download it for free (as in open source) here.

If you like to see what the tool is capable of, please review the samples:

1. Multiple/"Freestyle" Animations
2. Image Sequence / Rotating Banner
3. Custom Tooltip
4. Dropdown Navigation
5. Click to fade item or multiple items
6. Click to fade paragraphs

Labels: jQuery, Microsoft, Open Source, Software

Here it is: http://microsoft.com/ie

Labels: Internet, Microsoft

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 has been released today at MIX09!

Here's the download link.

Phil Haack explains on Channel 9 what makes this version 1.0 of the MVC Framework for ASP.NET and spends a little time explaining the MVC pattern. Phil then demos the scaffolding functionality which allows you to quickly build a functional website based on your existing data services.

Labels: ASP.NET, Microsoft, MVC, Programming

After the second release candidate of ASP.NET MVC, Scott Guthrie is publishing a step-by-step tutorial on the theory and approach for using this new technology that enables you to build Model View Controller (MVC) applications by using the ASP.NET framework.

Well, actually, the free eBook is a single chapter of 185 pages, filled with screen-shots from NerdDinner.com a complete ASP.NET MVC reference application. It begins by using the File->New Project menu command within Visual Studio to create a new ASP.NET MVC Application. And then incrementally adds functionality and features. Along the way it covers how to create a database, build a model layer with business rule validations, implement listing/details data browsing, provide CRUD (Create, Update, Delete) data form entry support, implement efficient data paging, reuse UI using master pages and partials, secure the application using authentication and authorization, use AJAX to deliver dynamic updates and interactive map support, and implement automated unit testing.

This is an unedited draft, the rest of the book being still in production. The free chapter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives 3.0 license.

You can download a copy from http://tinyurl.com/aspnetmvc, or you can use this direct link.

You can also download NerdDinner.com application from CodePlex.

Labels: ASP.NET, Microsoft, MVC, Programming