DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by adron

How I'm Using BlogEngine.NET Part 1

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:27:54 GMT

BlogEngine.NET does not currently do multiple blogs per installation of the web application. I know this is supposed to change in the future, but I needed a solution now. The easiest fix really, and the previous Community Server Engine installation lent itself well to this, was to just create a web application for each blog I was going to have.

Your Agile and The Flow

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:43:05 GMT

Not sure how many people do or don't get into a good flow at work.  I wonder how many do versus how many don't. Currently I imagine that not many places have a good development flow.  Instead they have more of the wait, talk, wait, wait, wait, now develop really fast type flows.

Bad advice on exceptions from Joel

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:46:02 GMT

Starting from some comments on my exception handling series of articles I run into a couple of blogs pointing to this post on joelonsoftware.com. I think this is the worst advice on exception handling I have ever read, sorry Joel. I know this is an old post, I know Joel is entitled to his own opinion and I know he has the right to write his code as he sees fit. But as an opinion leader he influences others.

Setting Sail with the Smuggling Pattern :: Part 1

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:04:38 GMT

Maybe because I'm often entertained by the geekiest of things, I've started usage of the Smuggling Pattern named after a fellow software architect Matt Davis's terminology of smuggling data into and out of Excel. It is something that I've lately needed to do on a regular basis, get data into and out of Excel without Excel, or at least the evil COM Interop Model, really knowing what is going on. In other words, I want total programmatic control over data so I can trust it versus Excel mangling my poor data up. This is what the Smuggling Pattern is going to do for me, and it is doing it well. Now you might think, "WTF!" But just to clarify, the Smuggling Pattern is really the Builder Pattern that we architects know and love with a cooler more fun more pirate like name! So with that, here's some of that code, and the TDD process I undertook to get this sucker built to set sail.

Setting up IoC/DI for your Controllers in ASP.Net MVC

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:00:57 GMT

One of the really great things about the ASP.Net MVC framework is how extendable it is. One area of extension is in the area of controller creation. The framework allows you to replace the default ControllerFactory with your own factory and because of this we can incorporate Inversion of Control/Dependency Injection (IoC/DI) into our controller.

Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse - Behavior Driven Development Part I

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:16:18 GMT

Behavior driven development example using the walking dead.

Mocking and IOC in Silverlight 2, Castle Project and Moq ports

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:38:21 GMT

A port of parts of the Castle Project and the Moq framework to Silverlight 2. Mocking and IOC/DI in Silverlight 2!

IoC By Way Of Simple Event Raising: Part 1

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:20:23 GMT

Does dependency injection really have to be that hard?? I don't think so.

Accessing the Windows RSS Platform with C#

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:46:54 GMT

Internet Explorer 7 introduced the Windows RSS Platform. The Windows RSS Platform will be a core part of Windows Vista, but with IE7 it is now avilable on XP as well. The new functionality in IE7 to consume RSS feeds is made capable by the Windows RSS platform. This new functionality exists in Outlook 2007 also, giving you the ability to consume RSS feeds in Outlook folders ala Newsgator style, which can also synchronize with the Windows RSS Platform.

Implementing a Repository and Specificaiton pattern using Linq

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:31:03 GMT

In my previous post I put down some thoughts on the Repository and Specification patterns and in the end said that with the introduction of Linq and the growing popularity of ORM frameworks and their support for Linq, it's time to look back at these two patterns and see how we can leverage Linq to simplify the patterns and make them infrastructure agnostic.

WPF SplashScreen Template

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:10:35 GMT

WPF SplashScreen Template release

Bundle SQL script with build process using MSBuild

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:37:54 GMT

We are making a sample application , demo or startup kit or a toolkit with test project that requires some sql script. We generally ship in a readme.txt that says it all. But hey, how about having the script under automated process , like if my sql server and VS 2008 is in place, with the click of Ctrl + Shift + B everything gets ready. Here, we will do just right that. ...

Expression Blend tutorial videos on Microsoft.com

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:22:00 GMT

Load of great videos on how to use Expression Blend, Design and their siblings in Expression Studio are up on the Microsoft.com Videos site (currently in Beta).

Top .NET Developer Resources

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:10:40 GMT

A comprehensive list of resources which can be utilized to keep skills sharp and stay on top of the latest industry trends.

Cool Silverlight Splash Screen Concept Demo (including Source Code)

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:45:00 GMT

In this tutorial: Creating a cool (and easy) Vista-like "ray of light" effect in Silverlight Creating images for splash screens The demo below shows a "core" that emits rays of light as a hypothetical download progresses.

Do you know Silverlight has an inbuilt native RSS Reader?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:44:33 GMT

Interesting, I keep asking this question a lot and the responses I get are something that un-nerves me. In that, in Silverlight there is a native RSS Reader built in, so the ability to consume an RSS Feed is so easy, it's almost cheating (Sharepoint readers, pay attention here). The secret to this can be found in the namespace:

Lean Software Development

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:40:16 GMT

Very good article and some good steps on Lean Software Development

12 Unit Testing Tips for Software Engineers

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:01:18 GMT

"In this post we look at a dozen unit testing tips that software engineers can apply, regardless of their programming language or environment."

WPF Datagrid (part3): styling.

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:16:29 GMT

In this third and final part of the datagrid series ( part1, part 2) we get into styling the datagrid a little bit. This part is not an all comprehensive tutorial on styling datagrids, I will just touch on what we did for my sample and share a few tips & tricks. Here is the final look.

WPF datagrid (part 2) -- Show me some code.

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:15:44 GMT

In part 1, I walked through some of the features in datagrid. The source for the series is here. In this part, we will create a UI that looks like this:

dabbling around the new WPF datagrid (part 1)

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:14:45 GMT

On Monday, the WPF team released the CTP of their new datagrid control. You can download it from here. [Note that it requires .NET 3.5 SP1, released monday too] I have been playing with it so I created this 3 part series. Part 1 (this write-up) is about the features in the grid and the ones missing from it. Part 2 is a hands-on exercise to apply the features to customize the presentation of data (aka view) of the datagrid. Part 3 includes a few tips & tricks on customizing/styling the datagrid. The source for this sample is here. Getting Started was trivial. I got the bits from codeplex, created a new WPF application, and added a reference to the WPFToolkit.dll. From my Window1.xaml, I added the xmlns declaration so I could refer to the datagrid. No need to map the assembly, the tools do that for you.

WPF Datagrid CTP

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:51:12 GMT

WPF Datagrid CTP released

Naming Conventions: Are They Really That Important?

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:23:24 GMT

Why are we so obsessed with naming conventions?

The WPF DataGrid is finally here

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:01:02 GMT

The CTP of the WPF DataGrid is finally released!!!

IntelliSense for Expression Blend

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:16:05 GMT

An add-in for Expression Blend 2.5 that adds IntelliSense for editing of XAML files.