Well it's done. I have re-written my resume application, taking advantage of some of the new features in .NET 3.5. The original resume application was written in ASP.NET 1.1 and  used SQL Server as a back end. Much of the markup was encapsulated within business objects. The business objects then called the data access layer to fetch the data from the database. The data access layer took advantage of the Microsoft Data Access Application Block.

Although the application worked fine, it had it's short comings. Embedding markup directly into the business objects is not ideal as it does not lend itself well to changing the look and feel. Ideally all the markup should be contained in the aspx files. In addition having the actual resume data stored within SQL Server does not allow for easily adding or modifying the contents of the resume.

The latest version is built on the .NET 3.5 framework. Specifically, I am using the new ListView control, the data-binding control to rule them all. XML files are used as the back end. Most of the markup is contained within aspx files. You will find some markup in the XML files but this is still much better than the previous incarnation in that you are not required to alter code or SQL data in order to change the look and feel.

If you want to see the application is action the CLICK HERE.

On last point the master page uses tables rather than div tag. The master page was taken from Open Source Web Design. Many thanks to OSWD.

Guess the movie

Like so many others, I had become a slave to the Ikea nesting instinct.

For those that have only lived in the .NET world, Bjarne Stroustrup is the creator of C++. I just finished reading an article in MSDN Magazine where Howard Dierking interviews Bjarne and wanted to share a question that was asked of Bjarne. It made me laugh and hopefully you will find it amusing.

You said "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my phone."

Guess the movie

*Seventeen days?* Hey man, I don't wanna rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last seventeen hours! Those things are gonna come in here just like they did before. And they're gonna come in here...

This is a repeat from a post I made many years back.

After many months of hard work five .NET user groups presented their mobile solutions. Presentations where made by Ottawa .NET user group, Montreal .NET user group, Montreal .NET Architecture user group, Metro Toronto .NET user group and the Toronto Visual Basic user group (TVBUG). Each team had excellent entries, but in the end the Toronto Visual Basic user group received the highest number of votes. The vote was very close with only 4 points separating the first and last entry.

The TVBUG team began work on it's entry back in November of 2004. Our entry, PocketPCBuilder, is a framework for automating and monitoring .NET builds. The solution permits developers to start builds in an unattended mode and then remotely monitor the build results. Developers no longer are required to stay at the office and wait for the build to complete but, can, using either an ASP.NET or Pocket PC application view the results of the build remotely. PocketPCBuilder was featured in Canada World Canada.

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I just finished reading PC Worlds 101 Fantastic Freebies and listed are some great free software. In the list is a fantastic tool called Launchy.  Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes. It can also be configured to launch programs and documents from directories. To start all you need to do is type the keys Alt+Space. This will launch the application.

Just type the program you want to run and Launchy will display matches as you type. In this example I typed exp and Launchy displayed programs that match *exp*. Just scroll to the desired program and press enter. I even typed 2008 and it listed Visual Studio 2008 as one of the programs. How cool is that!

By default Launchy will index programs and documents from your start menu but you can easily include directories. Clicking the star at the top right corner causes the Launchy Options to appear.

In the above the C:\Program Files directory and the EXE file extension is included in the indexing.

What a great tool to include in your toolbox!

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Just how dangerous is he? ... Compared to what? The bubonic plague?

Microsoft provides a free download called  The IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools. In all there are 13 tools;

• Apache to IIS 6.0 Migration Tool version 1.0
• CustomAuth version 1.0
• IISCertDeploy.vbs version 1.0
• IIS Host Helper Service version 1.0
• IISState version 3.0
• Log Parser version 2.1
• Metabase Explorer version 1.6
• Permissions Verifier version 1.0
• RemapUrl version 1.0
• SelfSSL version 1.0
• TinyGet version 5.2
• Web Capacity Analysis Tool version 5.2
• WFetch version 1.3

Lately I've been using TinyGet to hit my asp.net sites. This ensures that the pages are parsed and compiled into memory and remain there. Users do not experience the long browser waits while the asp.net runtime compiles the pages for the first time. In order for this to work you need to run TinyGet more frequently than the Idle timeout set in the Application Pool. By default the worker process is shutdown every 20 minutes. Running TinyGet, hitting the site, every 15 minutes, will guarantee that the asp.net application remains in memory. Package the call to TinyGet into a bat file and use the Scheduled Tasks to run it periodically.

A better way would be to pre-compile the site and deploy the compiled version. For small sites, I prefer deploying the source, this way I can do incremental updates to my site, that is, deploy only the changed files. 

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Well hello Mister Fancypants. Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things: Jack and shit... and Jack just left town.