I am always after good pod casts to listen to when you are not busy, driving the car or on the train. So I thought I'd start to compile a list of worth listening to Pod Casts
Pods & Blogs – 5 Live from the BBC
Escape Pod – The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
Hansel Minutes – Weekly .Net pod cast
Need to change the membership provider programmatically?
string username = "user";
string password = "password";
MembershipUser membershipUser = Membership.Providers["SqlMembershipProviderOther"].GetUser(username);
membershipUser.ChangePassword(membershipUser.ResetPassword(), password);
Also worth checking out here
Like Windows Vista, you can perform a number of changes to increase the performance of Visual Studio.
If you are building an application for general release, and would like to build it using .Net 3.5 SP1, it would be nice to know if the end users already have .Net 3.5 SP1.
We can safely say that the majority of end users has .Net 2.0, as this is part of the Windows update process.
Currently to upgrade to .Net 3.5 SP1 you will need a separate download,which is not a small download.
Help is at hand as Microsoft will be shipping the .Net 3.5 SP1 through Windows Update, for all users that have .Net2.0 installed, and Windows update enabled, this will be available in January 2009.
This does not apply to Visual Studio 2008, as you will still require a separate download.
[more]
What do you need to get SVN to working within Visual Studio 2008?
You should only need AnkhSVN, as this is an AddIn for Visual Studio 2008. But it is worth getting Torroise SVN to allow for access to SVN via the file manager.
If you need to run SVN on your machine to hold the safe then you’ll need SubVersion
Once you have SVN installed it is always worth adding a global ignore pattern to TortoiseSVN, he is one that Jonathan Merrifield provided me with.
Put this in TortoiseSVN -> Settings -> Global ignore pattern
*.o *.lo .la ## .*.rej .rej .~ ~ .# .DS_Store thumbs.db Thumbs.db *.bak *.class *.exe *.dll *.mine *.obj *.ncb *.lib *.log *.idb *.pdb *.ilk .msi .res *.pch *.suo *.exp .~ .~ ~. cvs CVS .CVS .cvs release Release debug Debug ignore Ignore bin Bin obj Obj *.csproj.user *.user
A nice article worth having a look at is by Alexey Smirnov, Version Control, article below
By Alexey Smirnov
There are a few version control solutions for ASP.NET out there on the market. One of them is a new version of AnkhSVN. AnkhSVN 2.0 is a free Subversion client, implemented as a package for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. It provides an interface to perform the most common revision control operations directly from inside the VS.NET IDE.
This article provides an introduction to AnkhSVN by describing how the product works and explaining its main operations.
As mentioned above, AnkhSVN is a Subversion client; in other words, an interface between Subversion, a free open-source version control system, and Visual Studio .NET. On its own, Subversion allows one to track and store code changes, collaborate, and share project files. All information about project files is saved to a repository, a simple directory structure. To create and manage a repository you would need to install Subversion or one of several other third-party client applications. For this purpose, this article used TortoiseSVN, a standalone Subversion client.
There are many good reasons for AnkhSVN and TortoiseSVN cooperation. While TortoiseSVN has all the necessary commands to work with Subversion and can be used as a standalone version control tool, AnkhSVN focuses on automating common tasks for Visual Studio developers and integrating to the IDE. Used together, both tools can provide everything needed to make the development process quick and easy.
The most recent versions of AnkhSVN and TortoiseSVN can be found on their official Web sites: http://www.ankhsvn.com and http://www.tortoisesvn.net.
Once AnkhSVN and TortoiseSVN have been downloaded and installed, it is required to create the initial repository. To accomplish this, first create a new folder. TortoiseSVN extends Windows Explorer and all commands are available from its context menu. Right-click on the new folder and access the TortoiseSVN menu. Select the Create Repository Here option.
Start Visual Studio and make sure AnkhSVN is the active source control provider. Open Tools | Options | Source Control and check that AnkhSVN is already selected.
Open a project in VS.NET. From File Menu | Subversion | Add add the solution to Subversion. In the Add to Subversion dialog box add the Repository URL created in the previous step. For a directory located at D:\SvnRepos the URL will be file:///D:/SvnRepos/.
After that you’ll see in Solution Explorer a blue plus sign (+) next to each file. This means your files are ready to work with Subversion. To add files in the repository, open the context menu in Solution Explorer and click Add, then click Commit. You’ll see green checkmarks alongside items in Solution Explorer. Now your project is under version control and the initial version of the project is saved in the repository.
AnkhSVN adds to Visual Studio a new Pending Changes window to show all changes in a single location rather than having to navigate through Windows Explorer or even Solution Explorer. Once you start to make changes, you’ll see modified items added to the Pending Changes window. This window is accessible through View | Show Pending Changes.
If a project has been modified and new revisions were added in a repository, you can restore the revisions by using Update and View History in the context menu of Solution Explorer. To restore the previous version, go to Update | Revision | Previous. To get back to the specific revision, open View History and find the number of the revision you want to get back. Then open Update and specify the number to get the right revision.
Update and View History can be applied concurrently to multiple files. To restore a single file you may use Revert to get the revision menu from Solution Explorer.
You’ll get a more advanced interface to work with the repository in TortoiseSVN. Go to Windows Explorer. In the context menu find TortoiseSVN | Update to revision, where you can choose which revision has to be restored in the project directory.
One of the features of a version control system is the ability to isolate changes onto a separate line of development. This line is known as a branch. Branches are often used to try new features without disturbing the main line of development with compiler errors and bugs. As soon as the new feature is stable enough, the development branch is merged back in to the main branch (trunk). Another feature of a version control system is the ability to mark particular revisions (e.g., a release version) so at any time you can recreate a certain build or environment. This process is known as tagging.
Subversion combines these two processes into one. Create Branch/Tags is available in TortoiseSVN through the context menu Branch/Tags. Specify the URL for the new branch; for example, “project_url/1.0” where “1.0” will be the name of the branch. Use the Switch working copy to new branch/tag checkbox if you want your working copy to be switched to the newly created branch.
After that you can work on the project as usual and when you need to return the whole project back to version 1.0, use the Update to revision command.
The new release of AnkhSVN is fast and stable compared to the earlier versions — and a good alternative to other source control solutions for ASP.NET developers. This article covered typically used commands of AnkhSVN and explained main steps to start working with AnkhSVN and Subversion. More information about Subversion and other third-party clients can be found at http://subversion.tigris.org.
Alexey Smirnov is an IT consultant and a Microsoft MVP. You can reach him at mailto:alexey.smirnov@gmail.com.
Make sure your code is styled correctly
Code Style Enforcer is a DXCore plug-in for Visual Studio 2005 / 2008 that checks the code against a configurable code standard and best practices. It is developed for C#, but some of the rules will also work for VB .NET, though not tested. The code standard is currently configurable with the following rules…[more]
Of course you are going to need standards to work to, The IDesign C# Coding Standard, for development guidelines and best practices.
Just ran in to an issue of security when having many web applications. I needed all the web application to use the same security access, after a little research I found that Client Application Services in VS2008 works a treat, as it has been written to handle security in the cloud.
I found a few good articles on the subject
Client Application Services with Visual Studio 2008
Implementing Application Security with Client Application Services in VS2008
Best of all I just love how it handles if your remote server is off line or not available
ConnectivityStatus.IsOffline = true;
To get this working in your web application you will need to make a few changes to the Web.Config, and then point the serviceUri to your service
<sectionGroup name="applicationSettings" type="System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsGroup, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089">
<section name="testing_Security.Properties.Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />
</sectionGroup>
<appSettings>
<add key="ClientSettingsProvider.ServiceUri" value="http://localhost:55666/AppServices/Profile_JSON_AppService.axd" />
</appSettings>
<membership defaultProvider="ClientAuthenticationMembershipProvider">
<providers>
<add name="ClientAuthenticationMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.ClientServices.Providers.ClientFormsAuthenticationMembershipProvider, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" serviceUri="http://localhost:55666/AppServices/Authentication_JSON_AppService.axd" />
</providers>
</membership>
<roleManager defaultProvider="ClientRoleProvider" enabled="true">
<providers>
<add name="ClientRoleProvider" type="System.Web.ClientServices.Providers.ClientRoleProvider, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" serviceUri="http://localhost:55666/AppServices/Role_JSON_AppService.axd" cacheTimeout="86400" />
</providers>
</roleManager>
Can't read what is on the screen, or need to highlight something to someone, you don't have to be running presentation to have this tool.
ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image. I wrote ZoomIt to fit my specific needs and use it in all my presentations.
ZoomIt works on all versions of Windows and you can use pen input for ZoomIt drawing on tablet PCs.
Here is a list of what is new in .NET 3.5 SP1 and what is to come in .NET 4, also this is a nice example of deep zoom, just zoom in to what you would like to see.
I wrote this small POC, with a little help from samples around the Internet, to retrieve a custom configuration from the application config file (such as web.config)
It uses the Microsoft classes ConfigurationSection, ConfigurationElementCollection, and ConfigurationElement