My October 2007 Data Points column has been posted to the MSDN Magazine web site. This edition is titled "SQL Server Common Table Expressions". In this article I focus on using CTEs to address common development scenarios. - describing how CTEs work - scenarios they can be used to address - advantages of using CTEs versus using traditional T-SQL constructs, such as derived tables, views, … more
I am evaluating different laptop/tablet PC options that I will use for development, taking notes, and presenting technical content. I have zeroed in on the ThinkPad X61 tablet PC but as many of you know in our businsss we tend to require more power than most people in our equipment. I have also evaluated the Fujitsu Lifebook T4220 which seems to have a better CPU and screen, but lacks the 7200 RPM … more
Wow. I admit that I take for granted the daily use of copy and paste features for hundreds of daily tasks. This past weekend I was creating PowerPoint slides for the upcoming Las Vegas DevConnections conference in November and I was copying and pasting some visual images repeatedly on the page. These were simple images, but being the horribly ungifted artist I was in no mood to recreate the … more
My December column of Data Points has just been released and is now available online. This month I discuss WPF data binding techniques, which are a huge improvement over previous data binding strategies. I included some code samples for demonstration purposes with the article as well. Here is a short intro to the article ... By now, many of you know that WPF makes it easy to design robust user … more
I recently took the plunge on purchasing a tablet PC. I wanted something light, very portable, powerful, long battery life and it had to be a tablet PC. I spent months researching and tinkering with samples before I finally decide on the Lenovo Thinkpad X61. I looked at the Fujitsu, HP, Toshiba and even the upcoming Dell tablets but overall the Thinkpad won me over. I'll give my feedback on the … more
Diego Vega started me thinking about the differences between the different API's to the Entity Framework. I am currently doing a lot of writing about the Entity Framework and preparing many sessions on the topic so it obviously interests me :). I had asked Diego about some of the differences between Entity SQL and using the strongly typed syntax of LINQ. He posted a quick list of some of the … more
Today I started the migration of my web site and blog to Telligent's new tool, Graffiti. You can check out the latest news on Graffiti at www.graffiticms.com . It is currently in beta, but has some very interesting features. I am sure to go through some growing pains with it as its full release version is due to come out in January 2008, but so far it has been pretty smooth. I took a theme … more
I had a chance this week to breeze through a new book titled LINQ Quickly. It is published by Packt Publishing and written by N. Shateesh Kumar. The book is about 225 pages long and is focuses on how to use LINQ with various targets. First I will review how the chapters flow then I will give my overall impression of the book. The book starts out with a brief look at what the .NET 3.5 … more
I am setting up my schedule for the first quarter of 2008, and the first .NET user group I will be heading to as an INETA speaker in 2008 is the Space Coast .NET User Group in Melbourne, Florida. I will be presenting an approximately 2 hour long session on the Entity Framework including what it is, why you should care, how it works, and how to use it in practical applications. I enjoy presenting a … more
Technorati Tags: mobile smartphone compact msdn "data points" I enjoy writing mobile device applications. Especially when I can combine modern architectural patterns that I use in most enterprise applications to mobile devices, as well. My latest article, titled "Accessing Data From a Mobile Application" is now available online in the January MSDN Magazine issue. Here is a summary of … more
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