* Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 Released

Enterprise Library is one free code library which is recommended for every development team who wants to focus on writing business code instead of spending too much time on writing framework code. By using EL you automatically bring lots of best practices and patterns to your application.

P&P team has announced the release of version 5.0.  Though no new block has been added, there are considerable amount of improvements in all blocks. It supports .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.

Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 contains the following application blocks:

• Caching Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate a cache in their applications. Pluggable cache providers and persistent backing stores are supported.
• Cryptography Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate hashing and symmetric encryption in their applications.
• Data Access Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate standard database functionality in their applications, including both synchronous and asynchronous data access and returning data in a range of formats.
• Exception Handling Application Block. Developers and policy makers can use this application block to create a consistent strategy for processing exceptions that occur throughout the architectural layers of enterprise applications.
• Logging Application Block. Developers can use this application block to include logging functionality for a wide range of logging targets in their applications. This release further improves logging performance.
• Policy Injection Application Block. Powered by the Interception mechanism built in Unity, this application block can be used to implement interception policies to streamline the implementation of common features, such as logging, caching, exception handling, and validation, across a system.
• Security Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate authorization and security caching functionality in their applications.
• Unity Application Block. Developers can use this application block as a lightweight and extensible dependency injection container with support for constructor, property, and method call injection, as well as instance and type interception.
• Validation Application Block. Developers can use this application block to create validation rules for business objects that can be used across different layers of their applications.

Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 Home Page

* Free folder size management tool – Folder Size

Having folder size not available in default view of Windows Explorer is always a challenge during investigation of disk space.

Here is a free tool which you can use to find out how your disk space is utilized.

 

Download Folder Size tool

* MSDN Code Search Preview

MSDN team has launched the preview of Code Search.

The target sites are MSDN Library, MSDN Code Gallery, and CodePlex.

Some of the search attributes :

Search by language.  Looking for ASP.NET examples?  Coding in C++?  Filter your search using the “Language” drop-down list.

Search using qualifiers. Filter your search by function calls, definitions, and more.

Search by technology area, called “project” in Code Search.  Projects include:

o   Design Tools
o   Development Tools and Languages
o   Mobile and Embedded Development
o   .NET Development
o   Office Development
o   Server and Enterprise Development
o   Web Development
o   Win 32 and COM Development

MSDN Code Search Preview

* MSDN for Low Bandwidth Internet connections

MSDN team has added low bandwidth version also to various view options available for MSDN library pages.

Standard View

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode.aspx

Low Bandwidth View

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode(loband).aspx

PDA

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode(pda).aspx

Robots

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode(robot).aspx

Printer-friendly

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode(printer).aspx

MSDN Inside the (IDE)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode(ide).aspx

MSDN for Visual Studio 2010

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode(dev10ide).aspx

Complete details can be read @ following post http://www.hanselman.com/blog/LowBandwidthViewAndOtherHiddenAndFutureFeaturesOfMSDN.aspx

MSDN and TechNet Search : just got better

Few months back I with others participated in a deep-dive exercise on MSDN and TechNet search. We provided some feedback and I am happy to inform that Server and Tools Online group has released the new/improved features based on feedback received from participants.

• Much faster
• Better refinements
• Page titles fixed.

Read full details on Chris’ blog http://blogs.msdn.com/cslemp/archive/2008/11/24/msdn-and-technet-search-now-more-refined.aspx

* CHESS: Debugging and Testing of multithreaded applications made easier.

CHESS is an automated tool from Microsoft Research for finding errors in multithreaded software by systematic exploration of thread schedules. It not only finds errors but also provides a fully repeatable execution of the program leading to the error, thus helping in debugging process.

While it is already used by lot of internal groups, it will be showcased to outer world at this year’s PDC.

Currently its available for only Win32 platform and will be available for .NET platform soon.

Chess Website

* Social Bookmarking introduced on MSDN

MSDN just got better with the release of V1 of social bookmarking on MSDN social, TechNet Social and Expression Social.

Now even the content outside of msdn can be aggregated and discovered on MSDN which will remove the need & dependency on external search engines altogether to find content on Microsoft Technologies.

List of available features in this release :

• Organize your bookmarks online.
• Discover popular resources on any topic.
• Find users and subscribe to their feed.
• Feeds of bookmarks from experts.
• Show off your expertise. The redesigned profile page brings your profile and your contributions together in one place.
• Import your favorites from Internet Explorer or Firefox, or import your bookmarks from Delicious. You can do this on the Tools page.
• Add a bookmarking widget to your blog so that others can save your pages to MSDN/TechNet. You can see my widget on the right side of my blog. Find the code for adding the widget on the Tools page. (Note, this is only available in English until October.)
• Available in 12 languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian-Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Italian, and Czech): When you save bookmarks using a localized bookmarking site, that bookmark is only visible on the localized site. This allows a regional community to build their own unique database of language-specific bookmarks.

Read the complete details on Chris’ blog.

* Microsoft Forums Desktop Client – CTP released

Community Connection team @ Microsoft has released the July 08 CTP of Desktop Client for Microsoft forums which includes MSDN and Technet forums.

This release is a read only client so you can subscribe and read the posts but not post. It uses Windows Live ID client sdk or authentication using Live ID and SQL Server CE 3.5 for local data store and synchronization.

Authentication Window :

 

Why it says ‘.. not a Microsoft developed application’ ?

Get Microsoft Forums Client Release

Nice job .. All the best Team .. hope to see it become as successful as Windows Live client Products.

* MSDN Search 3.0 : Have you tried it ?

If you work on Microsoft Technologies and use Google Search to find related content, you are actually losing on productivity and good content.

Let's assume you need introductory information on Microsoft's 'Smart Client'  technology.

If I use Google to search .. here it is what I get. Keyword I have used is 'Microsoft Smart Client Application'. Here I am giving advantage to Google by using 'Microsoft' else I will get lot of irrelevant results.

The first result is a dead link which no more exists. All the other above shown links are not home page for Smart Client Application Development.

Now try the new MSDN Search 3.0

 

First you will see excellent auto complete help.

The first result shown here gives me a good overview of Smart Client Development and also other relevant links.

Now the added bonus is Refining Features which are just excellent. Based on my keywords, I am presented with relevant Topics and Sources for refinement which can help me to reach the required content very quickly without trying out various results.

MSDN Search has its own search provider which gets integrated with Internet Explorer's Search.

* Creating Team Collaboration Site in 30 minutes

6 years back working as a developer, i thought of creating a team site for my team. It took me almost one week to create basic html pages and linking them together.

Today again I thought of creating a team collaboration site for my team and it took me just 30 minutes which includes complete integration with Corporate network, blogs , wikis, issue tracker, discussion boards, custom lists, etc.

What's the difference ?

Yes, Sharepoint. No wonder its the fastest growing product from Microsoft.

I have used only Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 and not MOSS 2007.

So, if you always wanted to have a site for your team but thought it will take lot of efforts..  give it a try.

WSS 3.0 is freely available for download. Let me know your feedback and issues.

I will post more about my experiences with Sharepoint soon.

* Design Patterns : Gang of Four

Over next few days, I will be discussing the implementation of GOF design patterns in CSharp.

I wont be discussing the benefits of Design Patterns here ... you can read about them here : Design Patterns.

In one line : "They bring best practice for solving common design problems to software development which helps in ensuring success of design and increase in productivity."

Here is a quick reference card of GOF patterns.

 

* Visual Studio : How to create Project Item Templates

Before continuing with this post, pls go through the following two posts in sequence as they form the basis for this post.

1. Accelerating development using Visual Studio Templates
2. Increasing Productivity/Discipline using Project Templates

Consider a scenario where a company is into developing lot of console based utilities and want to display the copyright notice as soon as any of the utility is executed. A definite requirement will be to have a consistent copyright text in all utilities.

Now to get the consistency and ease of clubbing copyright notice to each utility, the requirement is to provide the teams with a artifact which they can easily integrate into their utility. The steps below will show how this can be achieved using the Project Item templates.

• Create a console application using the default 'Console Application' Project template available with Visual Studio.
• Add a new class file to the project using Add -> New item . Name the file as CopyRight.cs
• Add the following code to CopyRight.cs file

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace MyCompany
{
    class CopyRight
    {
        public static void Print()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("My Company's Copyright Notice");
        }
    }
}

• Modify the code of Program.cs to contain the following code where in the start of main method the copyright class method is called to display the copyright message.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace ProjectItemTemplate
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MyCompany.CopyRight.Print();
        }
    }
}

• Build & execute the project to make sure its working fine.
  
  
• Go to File -> Export Template. Select Item Template.
  
  
• Select the CopyRight.cs item in the next screen.
  
  
• Select the references based on requirement on next screen.
  
  
• On next screen, change template name to Copyright. Click Finish. Its done.
  
  
• To check whether we have successfully created an item template, create a new console application.
  
  
• In solution explorer, go to Add -> New Item -> My Templates. You will a new template called Copyright. Add it to the project and you will see that Copyright.cs has been added to the project.

Above scenario may not be the best to demonstrate the true power of Project Item Templates but they definitely help in increasing productivity and bringing discipline to the project.

~tata & take care~

Other Posts

• LINQ : .NET Language Integrated Query
  
  
• Service Enhancements done in Windows Vista like introduction of startup type 'Delayed Start'
  
  
• Microsoft Office System 2007 : The Composition
  
  
• Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 : How to check whether its installed or not
  
  
• Fast Facts About Microsoft
  
  
• How to develop a simple sequential workflow

* Accelerating development using Visual Studio Templates

Visual Studio templates are a very efficient way of accelerating development by providing a startup infrastructure for new project creation and new item creations during the project. An excellent example of this is the 'Console Application' project template available in the new project dialog box of Visual Studio.

When a new project is created using the 'Console Application' project template, all the mandatory & common things required by any console applications are created automatically and developer can directly jump to writing the code specific to his/her application. Two of the mandatory actions completed by the template are :

• Setting the project output type as 'Console application'
• Generating the skeleton code for 'main' class which is entry point for the application.

While Visual Studio comes with most commonly used project templates, custom project templates can also be developed.

There are basically two types of templates :

• Project Templates : Available in the 'New Project' dialog box
• Project Item Templates : Available in the 'Add New Item' dialog box in the solution explorer.

The main components of a template are :

• The .vstemplate file which contains the metadata for the template like whether its a project template or a project item template.
• The files which will be added to the project when the template is used like code, resource, etc files.

To read the detailed walkthrough on how to create a Project Template, pls go to following post.

I will cover the creation of project item template in my next post on this.

~tata & take care~

Other Posts

• Tutorial - Using Validation Application Block
• Windows WorkFlow Foundation (WF) : An Overview
• How to develop a simple sequential workflow
• ILMerge : Assembly Merging Utility
• Kid's corner at MSDN
• Debugging & Profiling .NET applications
• Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 : How to check whether its installed or not

* Increasing Productivity/Discipline using Project Templates

If your team/organization is  into developing lot of similar type of /applications components like libraries, console applications etc with similar structure like config files, then Project Templates feature of Visual Studio 2005 can bring lot of productivity improvements and discipline into your applications.

Project templates are way of generating default base structure for similar kind of projects. In default installation of Visual Studio when we create a new project and select one of the project type like console application or class library, its actually the project template which we select.

Project Templates are different from Enterprise Templates. Infact Enterprise Templates are made of Project Templates, Policy files, etc.

 Let us consider the Console Application template which comes with Visual Studio installation. When we create an application using this template by default it has one code file called Program.cs and the default code which gets generated is :

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
        }
    }
}

By default a namespace, a class with a Main method has been generated as this is the minimum every console application needs to have to get qualify as a console application. As a best practice, every console application should also have a way of displaying the usage if wrong arguments are passed. So, it makes sense for the console application template to generate even the code for usage display.

Let us create a template for console applications which will generate the method for usage display also.

Create an application using Visual Studio console application template and the method to display usage in case the number of arguments are not correct. The modified code can look like this :

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
namespace ProjectForTemplate
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if(args.Length != 2)
                DisplayUsage();
        }

        static void DisplayUsage()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Usage :");
        }
    }
}

Compile the app and make sure it works.

Go to File -> Export Template. Select Project Template and click Next. Give the appropriate Template Name. Make sure the option 'Automatically import the template into Visual Studio' is checked, this will copy the generated template to Visual Studio template repository.

Start a new instance of Visual Studio, Select File -> New -> Project and you will see your template in My Template section. After this all steps remain same as with other templates. All the projects created using template will have usage method by default. So you just extended your Visual Studio environment making it more powerful.

~bye & take care~

Other Posts

• Windows WorkFlow Foundation (WF) : An Overview
  
  
• Dynamic Binding : Performance Optimization Tip
  
  
• Debugging & Profiling .NET applications
  
  
• Microsoft Office System 2007 : The Composition
  
  
• How to build Authorization module for TCP Remoting channel
  
  
• Service Enhancements done in Windows Vista like introduction of startup type 'Delayed Start'
  
  
• LINQ : .NET Language Integrated Query