May 2005 Entries
Well, I just finished my job at StormId (got a lovely bottle of whisky as a leaving present, yum!), I now have just under two weeks before I head down to Reading to start my new job with Microsoft. I intend to spend my time shedding a few pounds, getting as much driving tuition as possible (driving test on June 22nd…gulp!) and working on a few projects I’ve been neglecting. Hopefull you’ll notice improvements to this blog as well as a few other super-secret bits .Anyone got any good books they’ve read recently…fiction or non?
Look, I have to do it, I’m easily influenced and continually swept up by random waves of meme action…
I am an Asteroid.I am a drifter. I go where life leads, which makes me usually a very calm and content sort of person. That or thoroughly apathetic. Usually I keep on doing whatever I'm doing, and it takes something special to make me change my mind. What Video Game Character Are You?
This is a brilliant little server control from Rob van der Veer (found here) – which I’ve found lots of uses for but keep having to spend time tracking it down…so here it is, mainly for me but partly for you too
///
/// A templated databound repeater that dynamically determines which
/// template to use based on the class of the object in the collection.
///
[ParseChildren(false)]
[ControlBuilder(typeof(ObjectRepeaterControlBuilder))]
public class ObjectRepeater : System.Web.UI.Control, System.Web.UI.INamingContainer, IParserAccessor
{
private Hashtable _templates = new Hashtable();
private string _defaultTemplateName = null;
private IEnumerable _dataSource;
public ObjectRepeaterDetermineTemplateDelegate DetermineTemplate;
...
Well, it’s officially 1 week before I finish here…I currently have the problem of overcoming the apathy of working on a project which I’ll not see deployed before I leave. So far, refactoring to make it more straightforward to use by ‘those who will come after me’ (kind of like Deep Thought designing it’s replacement..only…not so impressive) has used up a fair bit of time, as has getting the system to be a bit more organised…Ah well, I suppose I’d better revel in my current easy life – it certainly won’t be that way with my new employers .
Been using this a fair bit recently, allows complete control over the way a class serializes to XML – especially useful when using Dictionaries!
public class CountryDictionary : DictionaryBase, IXmlSerializable
{
public bool requiresSave = false;
public Country this[long key]
{
get { return ((Country) Dictionary[key]); }
set { Dictionary[key] = value; }
}
public ICollection Keys
{
get { return (Dictionary.Keys); }
}
public ICollection Values
{
get { return (Dictionary.Values); }
}
public void Add(long key, Country value)
{
...
I do intend to post this in the CommunityServer forums; just want to check I’m not being really dumb . Ok, this CS installation is at OrcsWeb so I have the default (System->Configuration) timezone set to -7…my user timezone (for myself) is set to GMT…problem is that my posts are taking 7 hours to appear…so my own timezone is ignored…anyone encountered this issue??? (Oh, I’ve set the time on this post to now-7 hours so it appears straight away…)
Despite the probability of being labelled a Microsoft Fanboy, I am becoming less and less impressed with Slashdot (or more and more disappointed…same thing ). Now, I know that it’s really just an Linux propoganda outlet but I do still retain the vain hope that some balance can be found there (there’s VERY few blogs which are rabidly pro-microsoft and anti-linux for example…well Scoble excepting). The latest is an article on the MSN desktop search stuff, at the time I’m reading it there’s a bunch of comments for people who clearly haven’t even downloaded the tool with comments like this:...
Finally got comments working again for anonymous users…feel free to rant
uber:asp.net- Rewriting the URL using IHttpHandlerFactory
This is a nice article on a technique I’ve used for a while not…and it’s really the only decent way to do this in ASP.NET…
Just a lot going on in my life at the moment…will get back to this as soon as I can!
The Code Project - Indigo Transactional Web Services using Microsoft WinFX CTP March 2005 - C# WebServices
Very cool stuff…get the feeling that .NET 1.1 was just a prelude
I know that 8 years ago, Microsoft bought $150m in Apple shares…at a time when the share price was VERY low; and effectively this purchase saved Apple. What I don’t know is whether MS sold it’s shares???
Asynchronous Client Script support Control for ASP.NET V2.0
Really nice Async Client Script control for ASP.NET 2.0 – now why isn’t this in the core ASP.NET 2.0 framework?
Brain.Save() - NPerfing Activator.CreateInstance()
Really nice comparison of the various methods of runtime creation of objects…
Slight wierdness with posts…another ‘glitch’ work out (probably something to do with timezones at a guess…)
This is the first post on the new server…any glitches will be worked out over the weekend…
Few glitches which I’ll get sorted this weekend…
So, I think I’ve got this sucker working with CommunityServer ahead of my planned migration to a *proper* host this weekend. A few issues still – mainly around design and custom page elements I had on the old site…so an exciting weekend is ahead
Well, I’ve finally decided that I need to move this blog to a more reliable provider, with that in mind I’ve bought hosting on OrcsWeb (most of my readers are in the states anyway…), plan is that I’ll spend a part of this weekend migrating the site content over to CommunityServer ; between studying for my driving theory test next week.So there *might* be some downtime this weekend while the domains shuffle around – but the result should be a far faster response and more bells and whistles on the eventual site (the Community server ‘pimpin’ scene has really taken off!)
Well, it’s 26 days until I officially clock off for the last time at my current employer, unfortunately I’m now in that wierd period called ‘notice’. What makes this time so strange is that I still have a project to work on…the focus of which has changed now that I’m leaving – so obviously the focus is now getting it to a point for handover rather than finishing it.So I’ve just had a bit of a ‘discussion’ with my manager over this – essentially I’m trying to do the best thing to try and get the project as far as...
I’ve written about this topic in the past but by far the best resource for finding out about System.Transactions is this whitepaper by Juval Lowy.