DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by CharlieCalvert

Expression Blend Book

Thu, 05 May 2011 03:39:55 GMT

In progress

Feedback Wanter: Links to C# Tech Info

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:34:31 GMT

A couple of us are working on finding a way to surface key links to information in the MSDN library. Perhaps later we will also link to information found throughout the community websites. If we can find the right categorization and the right links, we might canonize these categorize and links on the Learn page of the C# Dev Center.

Webcast: Visual Studio 2010 Editor with Rich Extensions

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:09:32 GMT

Microsoft Events on MSDN will be hosting a webcast on Wednesday, December 09, 2009 10:00 AM Pacific Time. The event is designed to familiarize you with the new editor extensions that the WPF redesign have helped make possible. You can find more webcasts, videos, virtual labs and podcasts by following this link.

Official Publication of Creating Windows Azure Applications with Visua

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:17:00 GMT

Though they were previewed earlier this month, we have now officially released the first of Windows Azure series of How Do I videos. Below you find a list of the videos that have been created, along with links to their location in the How Do I Video library.

Videos of C# Authors at PDC

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:05:40 GMT

Here are links to a few short video interviews with C# MVPs and luminaries speaking while they attended PDC 2009 last week in Los Angeles. This is a chance to hear the interests and opinions of folks who are immersed in the culture and technology surrounding C#. All three of these interviewees are with authors who are currently working on new books about C#. Hear their take on new technologies such as Azure and Dynamic in C#, as well as their thoughts on the latest developments in existing technologies such as LINQ, WPF and Silverlight.

Community Convergence LVII

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:08:26 GMT

Welcome to the fifty-seventh issue of Community Convergence. In this post I'll focus on new articles from the C# team, as well as events taking place at PDC.

Videos: Azure Services in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 with Jim Nakashima

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:43:49 GMT

Here are three videos showing how Visual Studio 2010 provides support for the development and deployment of Azure Services applications. In these short How Do I Videos, I filmed Jim Nakashima as he demonstrated practical techniques for quickly deploying applications to the cloud. These videos will eventually be published in the How Do I section of the C# Dev Center. I'm hosting them here for now, so that they will be available in time for PDC.

Microsoft SDK for Facebook Released

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:28:54 GMT

Microsoft has created an SDK to make it easier for you to write Facebook applications.

How Do I Video on Generate from Usage by Karen Liu

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:47:49 GMT

Karen Liu, the Lead Program Manager for the Visual C# and Visual Basic IDEs, has created a new video on Generate from Usage (GFU), a feature found in Visual Studio 2010, Beta 2. This post recaps what is included in the video, including the sections on how GFU can be used to enhance the practice of test first development. The video is shot in both VB and C#. Since this is a C# blog, I'll show only C# code.

Classic, Lightweight and ScriptFree MSDN Library Views

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:01:31 GMT

There have been a number of changes to the MSDN library of late, and to the way it is integrated with Visual Studio 2010. Kathleen McGrath and Mark D'Urso have created a nice little video that walks you through some of the new features such as the classic, lightweight and script-free views, as well as the new feedback mechanism. If you have questions about how the new features in the library work you might find that this is a useful way to spend 9 minutes and 36 seconds.

Bill Wagner on Dynamic Method Bags in C# 4.0

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:11:20 GMT

C# MVP and wunderkind Bill Wagner has written an article entitled Dynamic Method Bags which is now available on MSDN. Bill explores the new dynamic feature in C# 4.0. Most posts on this subject explain how to use dynamic to call Python, Ruby or Office. In his article, Bill explains how dynamic can be used not to call another language or tool, but to call your own C# objects without directly using the reflection API's. The solution he provides combines generics, expression tress and dynamic to create a "type that allows developers to add new methods at runtime" and call those methods through dynamic dispatch

A New Article on Detecting Memory Leaks in .NET Applications

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:53:14 GMT

MSDN has published an excellent article by Fabrice Marguerie entitled "How to Detect and Avoid Memory and Resource Leaks in .NET Applications." In the article, the author explains how memory leaks are introduced into .NET applications, and what you can do to discover and eliminate them. The code shown in the article is in C#, but the topics covered will likely be useful to a broad range of .NET developers.

CSharp "How Do I Videos (Podcasts)" for the Zune Software

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:01:18 GMT

It can be handy to create custom RSS feeds for the Zune so that it is easy to download and watch selected videos. You can watch these videos either on your PC, or on the Zune itself. Here is a custom feed I created that contains all the new C# 4.0 language and IDE How Do I Videos, plus a selection of other How Do I videos. In total, at this time, there are 35 videos in the feed. The RSS I created uses a simple and quite minimal syntax tested only with Internet Explorer 8 and the software for Zune 4.0.740.0. The source for the C# program that generated the feed includes regular expressions, LINQ to Objects and LINQ to SQL. I discuss that program briefly at the bottom of this post.

VSL at DevConnections

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:55:03 GMT

The following talks will be given by Visual Studio Languages team members at the DevConnections Conference in Las Vegas.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 does not Load: "Application Cannot Start"

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:17:53 GMT

I was working at home the other night with my glittering new copy of Visual 2010 Beta 2. I closed the IDE for a moment, and when I tried to reopen it, I got an error that read: "The application cannot start." After mucking about for a bit I fixed the problem, probably by resetting my profile. After doing some digging I found these two excellent posts which can probably solve your problems if you encounter the same error.

A Chance to Influence the Visual Studio Help System on MSDN

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:45:49 GMT

The docs team here at Microsoft has created a new survey to solicit your opinion on the help system found in the MSDN technical library. I know the people who create and process this survey, and I can assure that any feedback you give will be processed and carefully considered. The team is strongly driven by input from our users, and this is your chance to have your say. I've taken the survey myself, and found that it consists of about 10 pages with an average of 2 or 3 questions per page. I didn't spend much time contemplating each question, and was therefore able to finish the survey in about 5 minutes.

Run IronPython Scripts from C# Program

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:47:32 GMT

IronPython is a scripting language hosted on the .NET platform. This posts shows how you can use the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) and the new C# 4.0 dynamic keyword to call an IronPython script from a C# program.

Getting Started with IronPython

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

I recently spent some time getting IronPython up and running on my system; I will review what I learned in this post.

New Video on Sharepoint and C# by Kathleen McGrath

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:34:33 GMT

Microsoft content architect Kathleen McGrath has created an elegant and informative new video on SharePoint features found in Visual Studio 2010, Beta 2. In the video programming writer Norm Estabrook demonstrates how to create a model for the Business Data Connectivity service that returns information about contacts in a sample database. You can read Kathleen's post on the interview or zoom directly to Channel 9 to view it.

IronRuby and IronPython for .NET 4.0 Beta 2 Available

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:51:37 GMT

The third preview of IronRuby and IronPython running under the Dynamic Language Runtime and .NET 4.0 is now available. You can easily use IronPython and IronRuby objects and types as .NET 4.0 dynamic objects from within the pre-release versions of C# 4.0 and Visual Basic 10.0 found in Visual Studio 2010. The IronRuby and IronPython binaries are roughly equivalent to the functionality found in IronRuby 0.9 and IronPython 2.6.

How Do I Use the Call Hierarchy with DJ Park?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:06:10 GMT

A video showing how how to use the Call Hierarchy window, a new feature in Visual Studio 2010 that helps you discover the call sites in your application.

Community Convergence

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:24:57 GMT

Welcome to the fifty-sixth community convergence. As you probably know by now, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 has been released. I've worked with the team to create a wide range of technical material designed to support this release, and I will call it each item out here in this post. Be sure to check out the new How Do I and Interview videos and the great posts by Alexandra Rusina.

The XNA Role Playing Game Starter Kit

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:10:13 GMT

In my spare time I've been looking at the C#code for the XNA Role Playing Game starter kit. This kit is not new, but I'm interested in Role Playing Games (RPGs), so I thought I'd keep some notes on what I'm learning as I play with it. Though not especially fancy, I like this code as it represents something that a developer with intermediate level skills can pick up without too much effort. It would be fun to write the next Fallout or WarCraft during my spare time on the weekend, but since my resources and patience are limited I thought it might be more rewarding to work on a simpler project.

Dot Net University is Live

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:51:20 GMT

Doug Turnure and Mark Dunn just reopened the .NET University site. This resource includes approximately 40 developer-oriented presentation kits that include slides, speaker notes, demos, demo scripts and webcast videos. You can use these materials in your own presentations, or simply access the valuable information that they contain. You can also find free, sequenced online training at http://myrampup.com. Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based learning program, with a number of different tracks that will help you build your portfolio of professional development skills.

Booting from a VHD

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:30:04 GMT

Hosting an OS in a virtual machine can be very useful for developers, but sometimes one pays a price in terms of performance. In Windows 7 developers can get improved performance in virtual machines by native booting a VHD. First create a Virtual PC that hosts Windows 7, then restart your computer, and finally boot directly into the VHD that contains the Windows 7 OS. When you native boot a VHD your virtual machine runs very close to the metal; performance is greatly enhanced and you have much better support for OS features that may not be available inside a standard Virtual PC.