SoCal MSDN Event

Went to MSDN Event yesterday. Lynn's talk and presentation was quite useful. Here are some of the new stuffs I got.

Microsft Popfly (www.popfly.com) is a new Web Platform still in Beta. But looks very interesting. I just signed in and played around a little bit. The design and architecture is very good. I will use it definitely.

Astoria (astoria.mslivelabs.com) is also a very interesting project. It is kind of advanced Web Data Access framework and foundation.

And I got a book "Introduction to Silverlight 1.0", too. Although it will be outdated soon since 2.0 is on the way.

How to examine SQL Server's I/O Statistics

I just happened to find this old article. But it is still good.

http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/10894_2244381_1

Visual Studio 2008 trial

I have been tested the Studio 2008 Beta 2 for two months already. So far, it is pretty stable. And I already used it to maintain some of our websites. It is faster than Studio 2005. Let's wait for the final release soon.

Create Data Dictionary for SQL Server Database

Recently, I need to create a data dictionary for our 12GB database. And I did a research on creating data dictionary, and found this good tool - Data Dictionary Creator. It stores all the information in Extended Properties. Here are some blog link for this cool tool:

Data Dictionary Creator - Rapid database documentation

Generate Sql Server data dictionary table

Creating IIS7 sites, applications, and virtual directories

This is a post about configuring IIS7:

Creating IIS7 sites, applications and virtual directories

This is about the new command line util in IIS7: AppCmd.exe.

Some tutorial for running Java on Pocket PC

These are good articles for setting up Java on Pocket PC:

Opera on Pocket PC

Java Midlets on the Pocket PC - the Complete Tutorial

Based on Java: Mobile GMap

Open Source HTML Templates Site

There is an online repository of free HTML site templates that you can browse, download and use. The templates on the site are pure HTML (can use them with any server-side programming technology), using clean CSS and XHTML markup:

http://www.opensourcetemplates.org/

http://www.oswd.org/

Good site for DB Connection Strings

This site is good place to find the connection string for your DB: http://www.connectionstrings.com/

ZAP: a Tool for Generating ASP.NET Websites Automatically

ZAP - a small tool is very useful for coding reuse. It is a free tool that you can use to generate ASP.NET websites automatically. The tool generates a user interface, business logic, and data access layer automatically based on a configuration file.

Transferring Data Using SqlBulkCopy Class

Good article shows how to use SqlBulkCopy Class: Transferring Data Using SqlBulkCopy Class

Creating Publisher Certificates For ClickOnce

Just found a very useful article for ClickOnce: Creating Publisher Certificates For ClickOnce.

Some quoting from this article:

There is a good article - “Configuring ClickOnce Trusted Publishers“ by Brian Noyes published on MSDN.

Framework SDK contains tool MakeCert. Here is the command line to make a certificate similar to one created by VS:

makecert -r -pe -a sha1 -n "CN=yourcompany" -b 01/01/2000 -e 01/01/2036 -eku 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.3 -ss My

The -b and -e option specify the time period when certificate is valid. The -eku option specifies the certificate is intended for code signing. The -a sha1 option is to set the same algorithm that VS uses.

It's important to use the -pe option which allows to export the private key from the certificate. To do this use CertMgr (another tool from Framework SDK). The new certificate will be installed in your personal store. Select it and click on the Export button. Click Next on the first page, and on the second select to export the private key. On the next one you can select some additional options; if not sure just leave on default. After that you will be asked to type password for the file; can be left blank. On the last one specify the file name and location. Finish the wizard and you should get a .pfx file that can be used in VS or imported on user machines.