DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by vistadb

VistaDB two day sale July 3-4, 2009

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:01:12 GMT

You want to the source code added on to your Small Business or Corporate account we are offering it for 50% off these same two days. Open a ticket with your information request and we will take care of you. Visit the online pricing page for more information.

Entity Framework support - Be there first, or getting it right?

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

An in depth look at the issues surrounding VistaDB publishing an EF provider, and why we may just skip it and wait until .Net 4 if Microsoft has changed the model significantly enough.

Walking the Walk - Gibraltar Moves You Down the Path

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:22:04 GMT

Behind the scenes story of the design decisions and process that went into developing a just-launched .NET development tool. Gibraltar helps software teams test and support .NET applications with a compelling mix of logging, profiling and application monitoring capabilities.

How VistaDB Enabled Gibraltar to be Twice as Good

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:54:09 GMT

VistaDB is a lightweight embedded SQL database engine for .NET developers. We needed a fast, multi-user, easily deployable (i.e. no service), redistributable database to include within our product. We had some demanding requirements, but VistaDB shines above everything else we looked at. And, the VistaDB team is incredible to work with.

VistaDB 3.6 Alpha Released

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:47:34 GMT

VistaDB 3.6 includes a number of new features and changes. The first Alpha release has been done today. Only existing customers may download prerelease builds.

Microsoft deprecating Oracle client in Dot Net 4

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:30:00 GMT

Microsoft has announced through a blog that the ADO.NET 4 spec will mark the Oracle client as deprecated with plans for removal. They are also recommending that users go to a third party Oracle provider. Stop Helping the Competition? Wow, this will mark the first time an ADO.NET provider has been removed from the .Net framework. Is this a case of Microsoft trimming the fat, or pushing Oracle? I always thought it a bit of a free ride that Microsoft was helping Oracle by building their provider for them...

The "Sim City" effect

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:30:00 GMT

What happens when you turn your back on a software development project.

VistaDB 3.5 Express, Embedded SQL Database for .Net

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:40:40 GMT

The update to VistaDB Express to the 3.5 product line is now available. VistaDB allows you to embed our entire SQL database engine into your app for a truly xcopy deployable database solution written in 100% .Net. Deployment is a single under 1 MB dll for both 32 and 64 bit systems. VistaDB Express is a free edition of VistaDB for non commercial use.

Overview of ADO.NET

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:55:53 GMT

ADO.NET is a set of libraries included in the .Net framework to facilitate the communication of applications with various data storage mechanisms. These libraries form the basis for all third parties to provide data access services to users of .Net applications. Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 did not change the data access model. In fact ADO.NET 2 is the longest running Microsoft data access technology without a major revision. I don't know if this is going to change in .Net 4, but the stability of ADO.NET is a major reason for its adoption in VistaDB. In this article I going to give a high level overview of the ADO.NET object model and how VistaDB supports that model. I will then follow up with more articles discussing specifics for this model.

The right SQL goes a long way

Sat, 23 May 2009 06:39:51 GMT

I got a query from a customer this week that was taking a long time to run. <br/><br/> When I first looked at the query my first thought was that the indexes were wrong, or just the joins across 4 tables were killing the performance. But almost all of the lookup tables were really simple value lookups. <br /><br />The submitted query took 1 minute 55 seconds on my machine with his data. After rewriting the query, and adding a few indexes I was able to get it to run in 0.86 seconds. That is an AMAZING performance change ...

.Net Frameworks - how many distros are there?

Fri, 22 May 2009 23:27:05 GMT

What is Microsoft up to with .NET on the new Server Core distributions?

LINQ to SQL and alternate Providers

Fri, 22 May 2009 22:39:06 GMT

Alternate way to get L2S to load an ADO.NET connection object as a part of its context rather than using the built in SQL provider.

Don't use Response.End() with OutputCache

Fri, 22 May 2009 15:33:05 GMT

Very good post about OutputCache in APS.NET

Very Common SQL Server Errors Part 1

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:01:12 GMT

In this article I would like to list out the Top 5 errors that we get when working with DML commands. These errors looks very complicated but in reality they are very simple and i am sure with out getting these errors we can't write a SQL statement. This article also provides work arounds.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 for MSDN Subscribers

Tue, 19 May 2009 07:46:09 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is now on MSDN along with .Net 4 Beta 1. Some highlights from the information: .Net 4.0 Cloud Development - Windows Azure which is basically utility computing where you pay by the hour for your usage. Parallel Development - Not sure if this only means PLINQ for .Net developers or if they are only talking about C++ devs. TDD Improvements - Editor changes for building test cases first, and then writing the code. ASP.NET - CSS grids and design surfaces changes, more Javascript debugging improvements. C++ Compiler - Lots of changes for C++ development, including MFC. Sharepoint templates New Project Templates Windows 7 - MFC updates for Ribbon UI, and WPF changes. Application Model Changes - Reverse existing codebases, and lots of changes in Architect Edition to support more model types (including Class Libraries finally). Test Runner - This is potentially huge as it allows testers to submit bug reports complete with callstacks and traces that you can actually use to resume an app at the error point to avoid the dreaded No Repro on bug reports. I have seen this demo and it is quite impressive. We will see how it actually works though.

Software Wallpaper - Good and bad reasons for adding another layer

Mon, 18 May 2009 18:55:24 GMT

"When I was growing up I spent a lot of time with my father doing woodworking. One lesson you pick up pretty quick when woodworking is that you have to keep the work clean at each step... When you create a new layer on top of existing layers you are often digging your project into trouble, both now and downstream. In addition to problems with each layer creating a leaky abstraction, deploying and supporting these highly layered systems is extraordinarily challenging. It becomes prohibitively expensive to make changes in lower layers because of the high chance of unexpected side effects showing up as defects in dependent applications. More often than not, each layer has to be held static with any changes accommodated by creating new queries or items at each layer to be served in parallel with the older methods. Before you go ahead, be sure you look at the total lifecycle cost of that decision, including support and maintenance. "

Gibraltar opens beta to new logging and reporting tool

Sun, 17 May 2009 10:26:07 GMT

Gibraltar Software has announced Beta 4 of their new application logging and reporting product as a public beta. Gibraltar is an end to end solution for logging, managing and reporting on your application. What you log is entirely up to your application. The product includes the ability to add trace listeners, log4net, and custom metric recording through custom code.

Social Bookmarking Extension for BlogEngine.Net - AddThis (Updated)

Fri, 15 May 2009 13:05:02 GMT

Nice article about creating an AddThis.com bookmark generator for BlogEngine.net.

Open Source or Die - The Real Future of Graffiti?

Tue, 12 May 2009 12:16:02 GMT

Telligent's Graffiti hasn't quite flatlined yet, but the signs aren't looking too good. Could OSS be the way to breathe life back into this once-promising CMS platform?

Top 5 SQL System stored procedures every developer should know

Wed, 13 May 2009 17:31:02 GMT

There are a number of documented and undocumented system stored procedures in MS SQL Server that are helpful for every web developer working with databases. From the developer's perspective, here's a list of 5 System stored procedures that are my favorite.

Start plus two years, how are we doing?

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:40:03 GMT

Wow, two years since I acquired VistaDB. How did the time go by so fast? I thought it would be fun to reflect on what all has happened over the past two years, and to measure how we have done. At the time I acquired the company I had a list of items that I felt were the keys to making VistaDB a success. Somewhere along the way I lost that list, but found it again this week. It is interesting to go back and see how we got here.

IntelliSense Driven API Design

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:01:26 GMT

Article walks through a real-world example of simplifying an application programming interface (API) to maximize the discoverability and usability of the API via Visual Studio IntelliSense. Includes code snippets and generalizes findings into principles you can apply to your own code.

Beta testers wanted for .NET logging & profiling tool

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:43:40 GMT

This article describes the positive experiences VistaDB had testing the beta version of a .NET application monitor tool called Gibraltar. Free beta copy of Gibraltar available for anonymous download at http://www.gibraltarsoftware.com/Support/Gibraltar_Latest_Version_Download. Gibraltar is particularly well suited to improving customer support for desktop applications and also works well with ASP.NET web applications and Windows services.

Gibraltar Software has announced open Beta for logging and reporting

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:39:21 GMT

Gibraltar Software has announced Beta 4 of their new application logging and reporting product as a public beta. We have been working with them over the past several months as they prepare to release their product and I am quite excited to finally have the ability to discuss it publicly. There are just so many uses for the product that once you start using it you will want to embed it into everything you build. What is it? Gibraltar is an end to end solution for logging, managing and reporting on your application. What you log is entirely up to your application. The product includes the ability to add trace listeners, log4net, and custom metric recording through custom code.

.Net RIA Services and Multi-table Joins - Sliverlight 3

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:15:45 GMT

Silverlight 3 talk about using EF models to query relational data. Interesting post