May 2004 - Posts
Thanks to Roy Osherove for this segnalation: Dataset Quick Watch "visualizer" Add-in for VS.Net 2003.
This project allows you to view the contents of a dataset while debugging, just like the “visualizers” in Whidbey (you select the expression, right click it and hit the “Dataset Quick Watch” menu).
Great tool! 
DBDesigner 4 is an interesting (open source and totally FREE) tool for designing your database.
It's a visual database design system that integrates database design, modeling, creation and maintenance into a single, seamless environment.
It combines professional features and a clear and simple user interface to offer the most efficient way to handle your databases.
List of features
- Available on Linux / MS Windows
- User Interfaced based on industry standard layouting software
- Canvas navigation similar to Adobe Illustrator® and Photoshop®
- Palettes (docked / floating) including "Bird Eyes view"
- Available objects include tables, realtions, labels, regions, images
- Extensive Drag'n'drop support
- Extensive Popup-Menu support
- Advanced Editors
- UNLIMITED Undo-/Redo- functions
- Copy-/Cut-/Paste clipboard functions (XML, DDL)
- Align functions
- Design Mode / Query Mode
- Reverse engineering MySQL, Oracle, MSSQL and any ODBC databases
- Userdefined schema-generation
- Model-To-Database syncronisation
- Index support
- Automatic foreign key placement
- Weak entity support
- Standard Inserts storing and sync
- Full documentation capabilities
- Advanced model printing
- Output as image
- All MySQL datatypes with all options
- User defined datatypes
- Database storage, ability to save model within database
- Network-/Multiuser access through database storage
- Version control*
- SQL Query Builder
- SQL Command History
- SQL Command storage within model
- Plugin interface
* Version control only available when using database storage
Wonderful tool! 
Again with the Longhorn Preview...
I agree that it's only a preview and the code is not optimized (presence of lots of debugging code, feature not completed etc.) but... what's this error?
It's not so clear... 
The first thing that comes in my mind during the little evalutation of Longhorn is: will the future applications ready for Longhorn? Will be ready to use all the powerful feature of Longhorn?
I think that this is not a simple question, but a problem that must be well evaluated. Longhorn seems to be a completely revolutionary OS, with features like WinFS and Avalon that we've never seen on the other Microsoft OS.
Ok, to run Longhorn in a good way, a new hardware is required... A Pentium 4 3Ghz with 1 Gb of Ram and ATI radeon 9800 128Mb (my machine) is the minimum I think (the preview version runs quite slow, but I think it could be also because it's only a preview version, so with lots of debug code in it). But the problem is not the hardware (in 2006 there will be lots of machines ready to run Longhorn in a great way and with low price), but the software (expecially the third party software).
I think that writing a program that could work in a good way on a Longhorn System and on an other Windows OS (such as WinXP or Windows Server 2003) could be not so simple... programmers must write Longhorn-only version of these programs? Or how they will push Longhorn-only features in applications that must also support Windows 2003 and XP (or maybe 2000)? It's not so easy...
Not only the OS must evolve, but also the programmers platform. I'm reading about the new Framework 2.0 but... it will be ready to work with WinFS, Avalon and Indigo?
And what about the new driver model for Longhorn? Drivers will be ready?
Longhorn could not be a closed OS, so third party programs must be ready for it... I think that we've to start thinking about this!
Today Yahoo has announced that it will add a new feature to its toolbar that allows users to easily remove spyware programs from their computers. This feature is called Anti-Spy and now it's on beta stage on http://toolbar.yahoo.com/.
This is a good feature... I hope Google will do the same thing also for its Google Toolbar!
Exchange Intelligent Message Filter is based on Microsoft SmartScreen Technology from Microsoft Research. By using e-mail characteristics tracked by SmartScreen technology, Intelligent Message Filter can help determine whether each incoming e-mail message is likely to be spam. Based on this likelihood, you can choose to block e-mail messages at the gateway or at the mailbox store.
Important...
Download from this link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c1b08f7b-8caf-4147-b074-8c9c8f277071&DisplayLang=en
An useful download: Microsoft Office Data Assistant for Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003.
The Data Assistant for PowerPoint 2003 provides an easy-to-use method of inserting and managing graphical data objects such as Microsoft Office Visio® drawings, Microsoft Office Excel charts, and named ranges into PowerPoint presentations.
Great!
URL for download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=786cf731-cd9f-4014-9a40-aecabd46696f&displaylang=en
Google the best also in Italy!
This is the result from the last research from Audiweb Nielsen//Netratings that says that Google is the most used search engine in Italy. The result is resumed as follow:
| Visitors (single IP) x000 |
Google (.it + .com) | 9,585 |
Virgilio.it | 8,024 |
Libero.it | 7,766 |
However, this is not the completely correct result... Accordingly to an accurate examination by I-Dome, if you consider the sum of the 2 domains .IT and .COM, the winner is MSN:
| Visitors (single IP) x000 |
Google (.it + .com) | 9,585 |
Virgilio.it | 8,024 |
Libero.it | 7,766 |
MSN (.it + .com) | 10,082 |
Now, these last results must be submited to an other consideration: MSN traffic comes a lot from the "autosearch" pages from Internet Explorer (when you type an incorrect URL for example, you're redirect to these pages).
If you take in consideration only the number of page view, Google is the absolute winner and the result are these:
| Page View x 000 |
| April | March | +/- % |
Virgilio.it | 512.922 | 631.287 | -18,75 |
Libero.it | 623.229 | 652.555 | -4,49 |
Google.it | 767.255 | 758.455 | 1,16 |
MSN (.it+.com) | 270.416 | 326.299 | -17,13 |
You can see that there are lots of point of view... ;)
One of the greatest feature on Longhorn is obviously WinFS... all the data (documents, images, video, music, contacts, email etc.) are grouped in a unique big catalogue and you can search this catalogue to find what you want.
The Find feature in Longhorn now appears like this:
Wonderful!! Now the way to search for a document is the same way to search for an email or for a telephone number but... what's the price of this power? This:
The WinFS.EXE process (alone) use 140Mb of your RAM and, if you consider what's the RAM usage of Longhorn without WinFS active (more than 500Mb, as you can see below)
you can see that the memory requirements are relevant (more than 700MB!!!!).
Longhorn eats a lot!! I hope that lots of memory usage improvements could be done from here to 2006 because meory usage must be well optimized.
I have a little question about .Text, a little problem that I'd like to solve...
Is it possible to do a Blog backup and tranfer in some way?
Explanation (I hope it coulkd be more clear): If I have a blog (based on .Text engine) hosted on (for example) weblogs.asp.net and I want to trasfer the entire contents of it an other my blog on (for example) www.dotnetjunkies.com/weblog, how can I do it?
Is there a way to perform this task? Any ideas?
Really interesting... This chart displays attributes of different user-installed blog software packages side-by-side for comparison (only server-installed scripts will be included in this list).
I reccommend a check and (maybe) contribution.
I saw this notice only yesterday evening: Microsoft Press website has been defaced by an hacker group named "Outlaw Group". Fortunately seems that they've not create too much problems, only some little writings on the website (as you can see below):
Official communications about this hacking and about why it tooks place? Maybe someone has forgotten some patches? Not good... 
An other interesting free guide from Microsoft: Securing Wireless LANs with PEAP and Passwords.
This guide is designed to help small- and medium-sized organizations protect their wireless local access network (LANs). This prescriptive guidance will assist you in planning, deploying, testing, and managing a wireless LAN security infrastructure using Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Pocket PC 2003.
This updated guide uses passwords to authenticate users and computers to the LAN instead of digital certificates.
The solution uses industry standards such as 802.1X to ensure broad interoperability. Windows XP Wireless Auto Configuration and the Microsoft Active Directory directory service help to minimize the complexity of installing and managing the solution—many of the more complex operations are automated in scripts that are provided with the guide. You can also install the solution entirely on existing servers in your environment to keep costs low.
Bookmarked!
This is the redistributable package for WSE 2.0 (Web Services Enhancements). It allows you to bundle WSE 2.0 with your applications.
Check it!
I've just finished reading the interesting question posted today on JoeUser by Draginol: Longhorn: Will Microsoft keep the door open?
The author is alerted because Longhorn looks like it could be made into the most proprietary operating system ever. One in which only Microsoft can extend or do anything meaningful to it.
I don't think so... Longhorn will be a totally improved OS but the MS politics will remain the same. I agree that MS says that nearly half of reported crashes of its OS are caused by third party programs, but it's impossible to think that, in order to have a more stable OS, Microsoft will close the door to the outside world.
I think it's counterproductive and dangerous also for MS. Third parties tools will be available also for Longhorn and OS customization will be improved.
Thinking on a "world isolated" system is out of my mind and the last signals that comes out from MS are totally for the integration.
The application that we're building at work uses reports a lot and all our reports are built with Crystal Report. I think that Crystal Report is a good tool for building reports, but the Crystal Report engine that come swith Visual Studio is sometimes too much limited (and not so simple to use!)
In these days I was reading something about the new SQL Reporting Services by Microsoft, the new Report Engine that comes with SQL Server (SQL Server 2000 SP3 is required). I think that this is a great tool for reporting, well integrated with SQL Server, well designed and with a wonderful IDE integrated vith VS.NET (Report Designer) for design your report.
The feature that was totally new for me is the Report Subscription: there's a great Web Interface where you can make subscriptions to some reports of your interest and receive them in your mailbox or in a shared folder, in the format you want and at the time you want. Great!!
I was thinking to our application... I think that this could be a great and easy way to export our reports to customers.
Maybe I have to try to convince my working staff to adopt the Reporting Services soon...
There's only a little problem now: the SQL Reporting Services now produce reports only exportable in some predefined formats (PDF, HTML, XML, MHT, TIFF, Excel, CSV) or viewable via Web... there's not (at the moment) a Windows Control that permits to view reports on a Windows Form application (correct me if wrong). Obviously, I know that we can view a Web Page on a Winform Application (for example using the WebBrowser Control), but this is not a great way I think...
However, Reporting Services seems better than what I was thinking...
Davide Mauri signals me an interesting news: Orneta Software House has stopped its MS Smartphone and Pocket PC activity, so it's no longer selling or making software for these platforms.
All the Orneta products are now available for free... to get for free the products you can simply go to the Orneta Website. To get for free, no strings attached, registration codes for all our programs please click here. To download the software directly to your smartphone go to http://mobile.orneta.com inside of your smartphone.
There are interesting product and if you have a MS Smartphone or Pocket PC I recommend a visit...
I've received today this link, maybe useful for a beginner: VB.NET and C# Comparison.
This is a quick reference guide to highlight some key syntactical differences between VB.NETand C#.
I think it could be useful!
In these days I'm searching for a good FREE tool for posting on .Text Blogs (my favourite tool, BlogJet, now is not free) and yesterday I've discovered Sauce Reader.
Sauce Reader is a good feed reader (with really a nice interface) but has also a good feature: it has the possibility to post on .Text Blogs... wonderful!! I've tryed it and seems to work good.
I think it could be soon become my favourite Blog tool...
Supports all major feed formats including RSS and Atom. Integrated weblogging environment with full posting functionality. Automatic application updates. Clean, intuitive user interface. Feed discovery and one-click subscription. Full-text search of archived items. 3-pane interface with newspaper style views. The last thing to say is that it's entirely build on .NET Framework 1.1, so the Framework must be installed on your system.
Keith Brown has published an interesting book (html online) about security for a .NET developer (what key things should a .NET programmer know about Windows security).
The title is "A .NET Developer's Guide to Windows Security" and, after a first and quick reading of some pages, seems very very interesting.
Good work Keith! I need only some free time to read the entire book soon...