May 2005 - Posts - CodeBetter.Com Link Blog

Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library

A workaround for this is to use the ~ character in your file paths. This character references the application's root. Therefore, you can refer to the file using ~/DirName/FileName, and things will work even if the application root changes or if the ASP.NET page referencing the file is moved. Many ASP.NET server controls allow for this type of syntax. For example, in the HyperLink and Image controls you can set the NavigateUrl and ImageUrl properties using the ~. If you need to programmatically resolve a URL that starts with ~ you can use the ResolveUrl(string) method, which can be found in the Control class. Example syntax:

Posted May 27 2005, 02:13 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

CodeSmith 3.0 Released

A tool you can’t afford to be without:

CodeSmith Tools, LLC is pleased to announce the immediate availability of CodeSmith 3.0. CodeSmith 3.0 is the latest version of the most powerful code generation tool on the market. With features such as template based code generation, a rich integrated template development environment, highly extensible metadata system that includes database schema and XML sources standard, and now statement completion all make building custom templates that much easier.

Visit http://www.codesmithtools.com to download!

Posted May 26 2005, 10:44 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Jeff Atwood - Success Through Failure

Jeff Atwood has some really interesting links in : Success through Failure

Software development is difficult in the best of conditions. You should always be failing some of the time, and learning from those failures in an honest way. Otherwise, you're cheating yourself out of the best professional development opportunities.

But, I’m actually getting rather tired of feeling compelled to link to Jeff’s posts, since they’re all so damn good! He even recently quoted my favorite line from Scrubs:

Cox: Thanks to your little gesture, she (Dr. Clock) actually believes that the Earth is full of people who are deep down filled with kindness and caring!
Kelso: Well that's absurd. People are *** coated bastards with *** filling.

So instead of me linking to every post he makes here, go read his blog every day, okay folks? Don’t waste your time here at CodeBetter, ‘till you’ve checked in there!

Posted May 25 2005, 01:32 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Simple Talk » Blog Archive » Managing database changes

In a recent article, I noted that I have had great success in using stored procedures to isolate client applications from database changes. Ensuing reader comments make it clear, however, that using or not using stored procedures to isolate applications from database changes is a hot topic. With that in mind, below are some real-life examples of changes made to a database that do not break client applications.

Posted May 23 2005, 01:27 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

List of AJAX downfalls

Alex Bosworth has a list of of areas where ajax has been misused or abused, he's right on, IMHO.

-ben

Posted May 19 2005, 09:12 PM by cblinkblog with no comments

Jake's Weblog: Create Your Own Sprint Ringtones

For the past couple of weeks now I've been looking off and on about how to make my own ringtones for my Sprint PCS phone. I've managed to find some resources that said my Sanyo PM-8200 phone will support polyphonic ringtones. These are essentially just MIDI files and thus can't do anything more than notation. Nice, but they can hardly compare with the ringtones that are available for $2.50 apiece from Sprint's site that expire in 90 days. I wanted something of that quality, but without the price or the expiration. So I kept looking. What I discovered was that those fancy rigntones were in a QCP file format. I also discovered a simple command line application, PureVoice that can convert a WAV file into QCP format. Now the only thing I had left to discover was how to get that QCP file to my phone. In looking for that, I discovered a Free Mobile Phone Uploader site that will either send a text message with a link to download your file or give you a Jump Code to allow you to download it.

This works like a charm. What’s my ringtone you ask? The Pixes – Hey! -B

Posted May 19 2005, 11:02 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

More On Why I Don't Use DataSets in My ASP.NET Applications

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article here on 4Guys titled Why I Don't Use DataSets in My ASP.NET Applications. At the end of that particular article I provided a link to a blog entry of mine where a small discussion on this topic had already started. As of May 16th, 2005, that blog entry has racked up over sixty comments from readers, ranging from gung-ho agreement to cogent arguments against my thesis. In any event, I thought it would be worthwhile to highlight some of the more eloquent feedback along with correcting some misconceptions found in the feedback. Read on to learn more!

Posted May 19 2005, 10:05 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Coding Horror: Stored Procedures vs ad-hoc SQL

I agree with Doug when he says the answer is "it depends." However, as I've said before, I think it's generally better to err on the side of simplicity whenever possible. Writing a bunch of mindless stored procedures to perform every database operation you think you may need is definitely not what I'd call simple. Parameterized SQL, on the other hand, really is simple. Safe and fast too. I'm certainly not ruling out the use of stored procedures, but to start with procs? That seems like a fairly extreme case of premature optimization to me.

Posted May 18 2005, 04:07 PM by Brendan Tompkins with 1 comment(s)

James Newkirk's Blog : Change is good

I will be joining Sandy’s team to lead the next generation of the GotDotNet workspaces. I have already hit the ground running and you should be seeing more posts going forward as we articulate a vision for the next version of workspaces. I realize there is a lot of competition out there (I know I used Sourceforge to build NUnit V2) and some of you have not been satisfied by the current version of the workspaces.

W00T

Posted May 16 2005, 09:12 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Clemens Vasters: Enterprise Development & Alien Abductions - \SOA\ doesn't really exist, does it?

But none of the SO tenets really speaks about architecture [Sidenote: The “autonomy” is about autonomous development teams and not about autonomous computing]. When you look at what’s being advertised as “serviced oriented architecture”, you see either the marketing-glorified repackaging of Ethernet, TCP/IP, and LDAP (“Enterprise Service Bus”), or architectural blueprints that looks strikingly similar to things that people have been doing for a long time with DCE, CORBA, J2EE, COM, or mainframe technologies. What’s different now is that it is easier, cheaper and likely more productive to create bridges between systems. And even that comes at a significant price at this point. Realistically, the (web) services stacks yet have to catch up with these “proprietary” stacks in terms of reliability, security, and performance.

Posted May 16 2005, 09:09 AM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

VARBusiness | Two Web Services Specifications To Come Together

According to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), the two different groups of vendors behind the overlapping specifications WS- Reliability and WS-ReliableMessaging have agreed to work together to end duplicate efforts.

Posted May 12 2005, 01:42 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

SQL Reporting services support

The hitchhiker's guide to sql reporting services has a wealth of support for Reporting services. Good content and clear answers.
They also have a forum.

Posted May 11 2005, 02:34 AM by pvanooijen with no comments

InformationWeek > Messaging Software > Messaging For Web Services > April 25, 2005

InformationWeek > Messaging Software > Messaging For Web Services

Available in May, WebSphere version 6.0 can send and receive Simple Object Access Protocol messages, which are often used in establishing Web services between applications running on disparate systems. Previously, WebSphere MQ required an update with support pack to read Soap messages. It's priced at $6,000 per processor on Unix; for IBM's zSeries, it starts at $9,500 a month for 100 million service units.

Posted May 10 2005, 01:24 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

InformationWeek > Security > 'Extremely Critical' Bugs Found In Firefox > May 9, 2005

A pair of unpatched vulnerabilities in Mozilla's Firefox Web browser -- rated as "extremely critical" by one security firm -- could allow an attacker to take control of a PC simply by getting a user to visit a malicious Web site, Mozilla said Sunday.

Because proof-of-concept code has been leaked -- as were the vulnerabilities -- before a patch was ready, Mozilla recommended that Firefox users either disable JavaScript or lock down the browser so it doesn't install additional software, such as extensions" or themes, from Web sites.

Ouch!

Posted May 10 2005, 01:23 PM by Brendan Tompkins with no comments

Coding Horror: When writing code means you've failed

My Busy Box recommendation came after that team made several abortive attempts to implement different kinds of progress feedback. And this got me thinking: sometimes, writing code means you've failed. So much of what we do already exists, and in more mature, complete form. The real challenge in modern programming isn't sitting down and writing a ton of code; it's figuring out what existing code or frameworks you should be hooking together.