Deep Zoom Composer

Microsoft presented Deep Zoom Composer, a tool to allow the preparation of images for use with the Deep Zoom feature in Silverlight 3. The new Deep Zoom technology in Silverlight allows users to see images on the Web like they never have before. The smooth in-place zooming and panning that Deep Zoom allows is a true advancement and raises the bar on what image viewing should be. High resolution images need to be prepared for use with Deep Zoom and this tool allows the user to create Deep Zoom composition files that control the zooming experience and then export all the necessary files for deployment with Silverlight 3.

Download Deep Zoom Composer.msi

ASP.NET MVC 2 Preview 1

ASP.NET MVC 2 is a framework for developing highly testable and maintainable Web applications by leveraging the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. The framework encourages developers to maintain a clear separation of concerns among the responsibilities of the application – the UI logic using the view, user-input handling using the controller, and the domain logic using the model. ASP.NET MVC applications are easily testable using techniques such as test-driven development (TDD).

The installation package includes templates and tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP 1 to increase productivity when writing ASP.NET MVC applications. For example, the Add View dialog box takes advantage of customizable code generation (T4) templates to generate a view based on a model object. The default project template allows the developer to automatically hook up a unit-test project that is associated with the ASP.NET MVC application.

Because the ASP.NET MVC framework is built on ASP.NET 3.5 SP 1, developers can take advantage of existing ASP.NET features like authentication and authorization, profile settings, localization, and so on.

Download PreView

.NET Framework 4 Beta 1 enabled to use Software Transactional Memory

Software Transactional Memory (STM.NET) is a mechanism for efficient isolation of shared state. The programmer demarcates a region of code as operating within a transaction that is “atomic” and “isolated” from other transacted code running concurrently. Transactional memory is considered a promising technology by the academic community and is repeatedly brought up as a welcome technology for the upcoming wave of applications which scale on modern multi-core hardware. The goal is to be able to exploit concurrency by using components written by experts and consumed by application programmers who can then compose together these components using STM. Transactional memory provides an easy-to-use mechanism to do this safely. STM is not a 1:1 lock replacement and provides more functionality than critical sections, reader-writer locks, and other traditional synchronization methods. This functionality has overhead; the hope is that the scalability, productivity, and deadlock freedom gained by this mechanism outweigh the degradation in serial performance. This is an experimental release of the .NET Framework that allows C# programmers to try out this technology, specifically a particular implementation of STM. We are interested in your feedback on your experience using this programming model. Is it valuable and easy-to-use? Does it provide enough functionality? Are you willing to pay with serial performance losses to gain greater scalability? Our implementation is integrated with the framework and tools, it has been extended to provide coexistence with locks, interoperate with traditional transactional technologies, and safely work with existing code.

Download STM.NET Version 1.0

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio July 2009 CTP

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable web applications and services on Windows Azure.

Please note that this is a CTP release and should not be used on production systems. Please see the EULA for more details.

New for the July 2009 CTP:

• Support for developing and deploying services containing multiple web and worker roles. A service may contain zero or more web roles and zero or more worker roles with a minimum of one role of either type.


• New project creation dialog that supports creating Cloud Services with multiple web and worker roles.


• Ability to associate any ASP.NET Web Application project in a Cloud Service solution as a Web Role


• Support for building Cloud Services from TFS Build


• Enhanced robustness and stability

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio includes:

• C# and VB Project Templates for creating a Cloud Service solution


• Tools to change the Service Role configuration


• Integrated local development via the Development Fabric and Development Storage services


• Debugging Cloud Service Roles running in the Development Fabric


• Building and packaging of Cloud Service Packages


• Browsing to the Azure Services Developer Portal


• SSL Certificate selection

Download VSCloudService.exe

DateTime2 Data Type - SQL 2008

DateTime2 is a New Data Type introduced in SQL 2008. It is an extension of existing data type Date Type. In DateTime2 is provides larger data range, and larger time fractional precision. It is a combination Data types “Date” and “Time” Data types which are introduced newly along with this DateTime2 in SQL 2008. Have a look at this link to know about Date and Time

Syntax: datetime2 [(fractional seconds precision)]

Fractional seconds precision – It allows 0 – 7 digits, default is 7 digits



Date range - 0001-01-01 through 9999-12-31(January 1, 1 AD through December 31, 9999 AD)

Time range - 00:00:00 through 23:59:59.9999999

Default value of this type is, 1900-01-01 00:00:00

Example:

DECLARE @MyDatetime2 datetime2(7)

set @MyDatetime2 = GETDATE()

select @MyDatetime2

Sample Output of the above code:

2009-07-28 16:02:40.4370000

Date and Time Data Types - SQL 2008

SQL Server 2008 introduced new data types “Date” and “Time”. It holds only specific data. In prior version, we don’t have separate data type for time or date. If we need specific data, we have to use DataTime Data type which holds both. It was a drawback of the system. To overcome the problem, SQL 2008 provides 2 different data types (Time, Date).

Date Holds only Date Type.

Range of Date Data Type:

0001-01-01 through 9999-12-31

January 1, 1 A.D. through December 31, 9999 A.D.

Sample:

DECLARE @MyDate date

CREATE TABLE Table1 (Column1 date)

Even if you store Datetime value to this variable, it extract and hold only Date part. Have a look at the sample below

DECLARE @dt1 as DATE

SET @dt1 = getdate()

PRINT @dt1

Time Data Type:

Time Holds only Time Type.

Range of Time Data Type:

00:00:00.0000000 through 23:59:59.9999999

Sample:

DECLARE @time1 as time

SET @time1 = getdate()

PRINT @time1

Check the above code, this will hold only time data type.

WF 4 Migration Guidance

Download WF 4 Migration Guidance

These documents help .NET developers better understand and evaluate Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) in the Microsoft .NET Framework 4, and the impact of WF 4 on existing WF workflows and code.

This collection of documents by the WF product team should help .NET developers currently using WF in the .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 to evaluate .NET Framework 4. The documents map concepts between the existing WF model (defined as the types in the System.Workflow.* namespaces, or WF3) and the new WF model (defined as the types in the System.Activities.* namespaces, or WF4).

The documents and code samples are expected to be updated semi-regularly as additional content is created, and based on the feedback we receive, starting with the release of .NET Framework 4 Beta 1, and continuing through RTM of .NET 4.

Feedback and questions around the documents should be directed to the WF 4 Forums.

Download WF 4 Migration Guidance

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio July 2009 CTP

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable web applications and services on Windows Azure.

Please note that this is a CTP release and should not be used on production systems. Please see the EULA for more details.

New for the July 2009 CTP:

• Support for developing and deploying services containing multiple web and worker roles. A service may contain zero or more web roles and zero or more worker roles with a minimum of one role of either type.


• New project creation dialog that supports creating Cloud Services with multiple web and worker roles.


• Ability to associate any ASP.NET Web Application project in a Cloud Service solution as a Web Role


• Support for building Cloud Services from TFS Build


• Enhanced robustness and stability

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio includes:

• C# and VB Project Templates for creating a Cloud Service solution


• Tools to change the Service Role configuration


• Integrated local development via the Development Fabric and Development Storage services


• Debugging Cloud Service Roles running in the Development Fabric


• Building and packaging of Cloud Service Packages


• Browsing to the Azure Services Developer Portal


• SSL Certificate selection

Download VSCloudService.exe

Resource Governor

SQL Server 2008 introduces a new feature, the Resource Governor, which provides enterprise customers the ability to both monitor and control the way different workloads utilize CPU and memory resources on their SQL Server instances. This paper explains several practical usage scenarios and gives guidance on best practices.

The Resource Governor, a new feature in the Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Enterprise. It provides very powerful and flexible controls to dictate and monitor how a SQL Server instance behaves in terms of CPU, memory and response time.

This white paper is targeted at IT professionals and database administrators responsible for managing scale, concurrency, high availability, consolidation, virtualization, or service level agreements for the SQL Server instances in their production environments. In this paper you are shown various ways in which you can use the Resource Governor to analyze and streamline the way resources are utilized within your SQL Server instances, by explaining:

• How the Resource Governor works, including limitations and best practices.


• Methods for building a consolidation plan, and testing those methods.


• Techniques for preventing runaway queries, or at least minimizing their impact.


• Approaches to meeting service level agreements (SLAs) driven by response time and concurrency.


• Basic ideas about implementing a chargeback system to recover resource costs.


• Ways to monitor SQL Server using new Resource Governor functionality.

The paper will highlight several common usage scenarios, help you decide when and where to use the technology, and outline best practices when using the Resource Governor.

Note: If you are not familiar with the Resource Governor, it would be helpful to have a basic understanding of how the feature works; the Appendices will help outline the core fundamentals, and point to official documentation where appropriate.

Download ResourceGovernor.docx

How to open a “Start Page” in Visual Studio

Today my friend asked me, how to open a “Start Page” after closed from Visual Studio IDE. I told him the following way. I want to share with you all, it may be simple, and it helps to someone.

We can open “Start Page” from standard toolbar which contains a button Tagged as “Start Page”. If you can’t find this, you can get it from Dropdown button list. As shown below.

By click this button, we can open whenever we need this page.

Note: This screen shot, i taken from IDE of Visual studio Team system 2008

Still you can’t find this option, try it on

Go to View Menu à other windows à “Start Page”

Hope it helps!

Saving changes is not permitted - SQL Management Studio 2008

Today I faced one problem, after I installed SQL 2008. I created a database and tables, when I tried to modify some tables thru SQL Server 2008 Management studio, then I faced the following problem,

Error:
“Saving changes is not permitted. The changes that you have made require the following tables to be dropped and re-created. You have either made changes to a table that can't be re-created or enabled the option Prevent saving changes that require the table to be re-created.”

Error window looks like,

If select Ok, I got the following window,

Solution:

SQL Server 2008 Management studio is always suggests changing the design of a table by using TSQL. You can disable this by following ways,

• Open SQL Server 2008 Management Studio (SSMS) à Click Tools menu à click on Options.

• Then option windows will appear, as shown below

• In the navigation pane of the Options window, expand Designers node and select Table and Database Designers option as shown in the below snippet. Under Table Options you need to uncheck “Prevent saving changes that require the table re-creation” option and click OK to save changes.

Now if you save, it will save without any warning or error message. Hope it help you.

Rapid.Addition.White.Paper

Rapid Addition leverages Microsoft .NET 3.5 Framework to build ultra-low latency FIX and FAST processing

This whitepaper describes how Rapid Addition built their ultra low latency FIX and FAST message processing software using the Microsoft .NET 3.5 Framework. By following a disciplined design and development, Rapid Addition was able to meet stringent latency requirements while retaining the advantages that managed code brings.

Download RapidAdditionWhitePaper.pdf

MRU Cleaner - Visual Studio IDE - Add in

In Visual Studio, if we want to delete the recent project history, we have to delete thru Registry only, there is no direct option to delete. Already we discussed this on, one of my old post, Titled as “How to Clear Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 Recent project List?”

Deleting thru Regitry is not a good idea, we shouldn't do this, if necessary, we have to access the registry very carefully.

To avoid this, Now "MRU Cleaner" VS 2005/2008 Add-in tool is available to clear recent project or recent file from Visual Studio IDE

This version includes the ability to now clear your Most Recently Used Files list in addition to the already-existing ability to clear your Projects list.

You can download this from Download MRU Cleaner

After install this, you can find the menu "Clear Recent Items.."

see the Screenshot below:

CopySourceAsHtml 3.0

CopySourceAsHtml 3.0 Installer (389 KB) (built and tested on Microsoft Visual Studio 2008)

CSAH 3.0 is the first official release of CopySourceAsHtml for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. This release also adds support for saving files as HTML (Save As HTML), fixes a number minor defects, and marks a return to active development of CSAH.

For more details, visit http://www.jtleigh.com/people/colin/software/CopySourceAsHtml/

Microsoft Visual Studio Gadgets (SlickEdit)

SlickEdit Gadgets contains the following features. You can integrate these gadgets with VS 2005 or 2008.

• Editor Gadgets


• File Explorer


• SLOC Report


• Command Spy


• Data Object Analyzer

Refer this link to download SlickEdit Gadgets or know more about this

http://www.slickedit.com/content/view/441

SQL Server 2000 Driver for JDBC Service Pack 3

Microsoft SQL Server has been continually improving its Java connectivity support. As such we highly recommend you work with the latest version of our JDBC driver. The driver version i.e. SQL Server 2000 JDBC driver, that you are looking for is no longer available for download (please note that the support for the this driver will officially end on July 9, 2010). To download the latest JDBC drivers and additional information see:

• Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver Download Page


• SQL Server CSS Support Page

Provide a Hyperlink to open in new window in SSRS Report

In SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) Report, we can provide Hyperlink field for a report field by following steps,

• Right Click on the Report Field à Select "Property"


• Go To "Navigation" Tab from Property window


• In "Hyperlink action" section à select "Jump to URL" option


• Enter the URL, For Example http://blog-mstechnology.blogspot.com/


• Click on "Ok" to apply.


• Now see the Report output thru Preview Tab in Report Designer.


• Format the Report Field with fore color and underline (Ctrl + U), if not looks like Hyperlink.

This is general way to provide a hyperlink in SSRS. If you access this link on runtime, it always opens in same window. If you want to open in new window, then you can implement this thru JavaScript as given below

Place the following code on "Jump to URL" section.

="javascript:void(window.open('http://blog-mstechnology.blogspot.com/','_blank'))"

Then it will open in new window. Hope it helps you.

Data-Driven RIA with Silverlight 3

Microsoft .NET RIA Services simplifies the traditional n-tier application pattern by bringing together the ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms. RIA Services provides a pattern to write application logic that runs on the mid-tier and controls access to data for queries, changes and custom operations. It also provides end-to-end support for common tasks such as data validation, authentication and roles by integrating with Silverlight components on the client and ASP.NET on the mid-tier.

Download Microsoft .NET RIA Services July 2009 Preview

Microsoft .NET Services SDK (July 2009 CTP)

This SDK includes API libraries, tools, samples, and documentation for building connected applications with the .NET platform. It spans the entire spectrum of today’s Internet applications – from rich connected applications with advanced connectivity requirements to Web-style applications that use simple protocols such as HTTP and Atom to communicate with the broadest possible range of clients.

Download NetServicesSDK.msi

Microsoft SQL Server Protocol Documentation

The Microsoft SQL Server protocol documentation provides detailed technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols (including extensions to industry-standard or other published protocols) that are implemented and used in Microsoft SQL Server to interoperate or communicate with Microsoft products.

The documentation includes a set of companion overview and reference documents that supplement the technical specifications with conceptual background, overviews of inter-protocol relationships and interactions, and technical reference information.

Download from SQL Server Protocol Documentation

.NET Rocks! - Mark Miller on UX Live at DevConnections Vegas

Brief Description
Mark Miller has more to say about what makes for good User Interface and User Experience. Recorded live in front of an audience at DevConnections in Last Vegas, NV November 12th, 2008

Overview
Mark has been developing software since the early 1980s. He spent the 12 years preceeding 2004 coding developer tools, which are his -- figuring out how to make developers more efficient. He was awarded the "Spirit of Delphi" by Borland. He created CodeRush for Delphi in 1997, and it has won numerous reader's choice awards. He also created reAct, a component test program generator; and the CDK (Component Developer Kit) for Delphi. He created XL8, a translation software package, and created the motion control system for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stage show. What can we say, he's a developer's developer.

Download video from 20081118MMiller.zip

TinyDesigner

Introduction:

One of my friend, Mr.Raju Kandasamy has developed a tool "TinyDesigner" for web designers. it is really good one for web designer. have a look at this TinyDesigner, hope it helps everyone.

It is not a Microsoft Technology, but it is a technology from adobe.

Description:

TinyDesigner - Web 2.0 interface style web sites are becoming more popular and appealing these days. There are lack of FREE/Online tools to create such appealing web 2.0 graphic designs. Tiny Designer fills this gap by providing a FREE Rich Internet application, which can enable designers to create web 2.0 style vector graphics designs in no time. To prove that this tool works effective, The graphics in the entire www.tinydesigner.com site is designed with Tiny Designer application alone.

Features:

• Customizable presets for Gradients, style and symbols
• Easy to use vector drawing tools
• Look and feel of native standalone application
• Save / Open design projects.
• Export designs as PNG images
• Snap vector objects to Grid
• Background transparency control
• Easy to use tool pallets
• Standard filter effects such as Drop Shadow, Glow, Bevel and Blur
• Packed with turorials

The showcase of designs and presets are available in http://blog.tinydesigner.com, and to start using the application simply go to www.tinydesigner.com/TinyDesigner.html

Microsoft .NET Services Datasheet

Brief Description
This datasheet provides a quick summary of Microsoft .NET Services, part of the Azure Services Platform.

Overview
This datasheet provides a quick summary of Microsoft .NET Services, part of the Azure Services Platform.

Microsoft .NET Services is a set of loosely coupled services that make it easy to realize many of the benefits offered by cloud-based software. These services are particularly useful for integration scenarios-by using .NET Services, you can develop federated cloud-based applications without having to entirely depend on your internal infrastructure team. It enables you to make your applications more scalable and flexible, resulting in more rapid deployments while keeping your local infrastructure intact.

Download Microsoft_NET_Services_Datasheet_new.pdf

ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP1 - API Reference Documentation

ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP1 is a preview of the set of features we are considering shipping with the next version of ADO.NET Data Services. This download provides the documentation for the ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP1. ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP1 targets the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and extends the functionality provided in v1.0 of ADO.NET Data Services (included in the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1).

The features included in the ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP1 release are:

• Row count


• Feed customization (aka "web-friendly feeds")


• Data binding for WPF and Silverlight 2


• Enhanced blob support


• Server-driven paging


• A new "Data Service Provider" interface for custom providers


• Various bug fixes to V1.0 features

ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP1 - API Reference Documentation