The Morning Brew

Software

• SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 4 is now available on Microsoft Update (MU) & Windows Update (WU) – Abhishek Sinha highlights the availability of SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 4 over Windows and Microsoft Update. There are versions for the full product SKUs as an optional update and also for Express Edition (where the update will be part of automatic updates).

Information

• Preventing Open Redirection Attacks in ASP.NET MVC – Jon Galloway looks at a potential security vulnerability which can be exploited in your sites, discussing the nature of Open Redirection Attacks, and looking at the steps you can take to prevent such attacks through your sites.
• Mixing Razor Views and WebForms Master Pages with ASP.NET MVC 3 – Scott Hanselman takes a look at the ways multiple view engines and a mix of the functionality used by the engines is possible but not supported in ASP.NET MVC 3, drawing on good work from Eilon Lipton and Matt Hawley, showing how you can mix Master pages and Razor.
• ASP.NET MVC 3: Integrating with the jQuery UI date picker and adding a jQuery validate date range validator – Stuart Leeks takes a look at the jQuery UI Calendar, and looks at integrating it with ASP.NET MVC’s ability to render controls for properties in your model.
• Basics of using the Command Window in Visual Studio 2010 – Gus Class takes a look at one of the less utilised features of the Visual Studio IDE, sharing a quick reference to a couple of debugging related commands and providing links to further information.
• AOP with StructureMap Container – ‘thangchung’ gives a bit of background on Aspect Oriented Programming, and looks at how APO can be achieved using the StructureMap IoC container and some Dynamic proxying.
• Bootstrapping The .NET Framework Without An MSI Installer – Derick Bailey looks at detecting the requirement for and installing the .NET Framework 4 on a machine before running an application which lives on a USB stick (not requiring your application to be installed).
• Reimplementing LINQ to Objects: Part 39 – Comparing implementations – Jon Skeet continues this series with a comparison of his Edulinq Linq to Objects implementation with some of the others out there (beyond the Microsoft one) looking at Linqbridge and the Mono Linq to objects implementation.
• Evolution of Automated Testing – Matthew Bussa discusses a process of moving from manual testing of your applications to an automated approach, discussing the steps between the two and the types of tests you can and should use.
• Git tooling for .NET developers – Krzysztof Kozmic responds to a tweet about bad Git tooling with a look at the best in class options for working with git both in Visual Studio and Windows Explorer – looks like the tooling has improved since I last looked so probably worth another look.
• Tagging assemblies with Mercurial changeset hash – Jimmy Bogard looks at how you can embed the changeset hash from your Mercurial version control inside the built output of your project, allowing DLLs and EXEs to be traced back to the source code that built them.

Community

• HTML5, Silverlight, Windows Phone – MIX 2011 Registration Open – Doug Holland highlights the MIX 11 conference to be held in Las Vegas from 12th to 14th April. MIX will be covering all things HTML5, Silverlight, Web and Windows Phone7. An early bird offer is running until 11th February and will get you $500 off and a free nights hotel stay.

Humour

• What if Visual Studio had Achievements? – An amusing look at what some of the achievements would be if the Visual Studio IDE rewarded you for the good / bad code you write.

Comments Off on The Morning Brew #778

Update: There was a problem with the link for Derick Bailey’s post on ‘Asynchronous Control Updates’ – this link should now be working – thanks to @cyberzeddk for letting me know via Twitter (I’m @calcock if anyone wants to message me)

Software

• jQuery 1.5 RC 1 Released – The jQuery team announce the first release candidate release of jQuery 1.5. As is usual with a RC release, this will be the final product unless major issues are found, and will officially ship on 31st January.
• JQuery UI 1.8.9 has been released – Aamir Hasan highlights the release of jQuery UI 1.8.9, a minor update which includes localisation updates to support date pickers in Algerian Arabic, Australian and New Zealand localizations, along with bug fixes to other controls.
• WP7 Contrib – we made it! – Richard Griffin announces WP7 Contrib, a library of components and pattern implementations which help you to construct Windows Phone Applications. The library contains solutions for caching, messaging, working with phone services, and UI controls.
• FreeImage 3.15 out today… – Greg Duncan highlights the release of FreeImage 3.15, an opensource library for working with all kinds of image formats ranging from PSD to JPEG. The library is implemented in C, and can be consumed from C, C++, C#, Delphi, Java, along with a variety of scripting languages. Sample code is provided for working with it in C#, along with a 129 page manual.

Information

• The jQuery ‘live(…) Function – Steve Wellens looks at one of the more funky jQuery functions. ‘live’ provides a way of working with all elements of a particular selector, whether they exist at the time the method runs, or are created later on. Steve also takes a look at the JavaScript Identity Equality operator in this post.
• Entity Framework 4 Refcard – Dane Morgridge highlights the release of the Dzone quick Reference card on Entity Framework 4 which he was involved in the creation of.
• Using System.IO.Packaging to ZIP your files – Gal Ratner takes a look at using the System.IO.Packaging name space, which is built into the framework, to create ZIP files, sharing a comprehensive code sample which illustrates its use.
• Spot the defect: Bad comparisons, part two – Eric Lippert continues his look at bugs that can be introduced by the use of bad comparison logic, looking at an example of a custom comparison implementation comparing strings by length.
• Internals to C# iterators – Abhishek Sur continues this series on the internal implementations of various language features at the IL level, exploring the IL behind the scenes of the iterator implementation in C#
• Everything you need to know about Locales – David Thielen talks about the background and theory of Locales in this Code Project article.
• Exploring Windows Locales and .NET Cultures – Mike Hedley also explores locales (articles on this subject must be like buses – wait an age for one and then 2 good ones come along at once), looking at System and user locales, along with the .NET Culture implementation.
• Adding Rails like Flash Message in ASP.NET MVC – Kazi Manzur Rashid looks at and shares an implementation of the Rails ‘Flash Message’ notification mechanism that you can use in easily in your ASP.NET MVC applications.
• Asynchronous Control Updates In C#/.NET/WinForms – Update: Link fixed – Derick Bailey shares a useful extension method for anyone working with Windows Forms applications which provides a simple means of marshalling control method calls onto the UI thread.

Community

• JavaScript Webinar – Learn how Good C# Habits can Encourage Bad JavaScript Habits – February 2nd, 2011 – Mehul Harry highlights a DevExpress virtual event which features my fellow link blogger and JavaScript guru Elijah Manor presenting a session looking at how your C# knowledge can mislead you when it comes to working with JavaScript.

Comments Off on The Morning Brew #777

Software

• Sprechen Sie ASP.NET MVC? – Phil Haack highlights the release of 9 language localisations for ASP.NET MVC 3, meaning that the platform is now available in Chinese (Traditional and Simpllified), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.
• Reactive Extensions – The Reactive Extensions for .NET and JavaScript have graduated from the Microsoft Labs, and now have their own MSDN Developer Center.

Information

• Reimplementing LINQ to Objects: Part 38 – What’s missing? – Jon Skeet continues the wrap up of his epic series on re-implementing LINQ to Objects, in this post Jon discusses the additional LINQ operators which are being added in external libraries like Reactive Extensions.
• Disabling Certain Linq Operations – Christopher Bennage discusses how you can manage to disable LINQ operators which do not apply in your provider, illustrating with some examples from the RavenDB Silverlight Provider.
• Connecting to an OAuth 2.0 protected OData Service – Alex James continues his look at creating and consuming OAuth 2.0 protected OData Services. In this second part he looks at building a Windows Phone 7 application to interact with the feed.
• Announcing Windows Azure Jump Start Training Videos – ‘katriend’ highlights the release of professionally recorded videos of the recent Azure JumpStart virtual training event, now available on Channel 9. This 12 hour series takes a look at all aspects of development with the Azure Platform.
• Designing for Cloud-Optimized Architecture – David Chou discusses how the Cloud platform should change your underlying implementation model, and that this should be a significant factor in your design when deciding to use cloud based services.
• 3-Screen Coding Is Here: Portable Library Tools allow you to target multiple .NET platforms with one binary! – Shawn Burke discusses the recently released Portable Library Toolkit, looking at how it helps you develop for multiple platforms, and discussing some of the goals of the first CTP release.
• Getting Started with NuGet Packages step by step overview. – Jalpesh gives a nice simple step by step introduction to using NuGet Packages in your development.
• UppercuT v1.2 – NuGet Support – Rob Reynolds discusses the NuGet support that is built into UppercuT v1.2 his powerful and simple to use build and packaging tool.
• NuGet isn’t just for Visual Studio anymore – NuGet coming soon to SharpDevelop – Greg Duncan highlights a post from the SharpDevelop team which announces their plans to include NuGet support in V4.1 of SharpDevelop, making consuming packages in the SharpDevelop IDE as easy as it is in Visual Studio.
• Back To Basics: Unit Testing Without Mocks – John Sonmez continues has back to basics series with another post looking at testing. In this post he discusses how you can avoid Interfaces, Inversion of Control and mocks by making more of your tests ‘level 1 or 2’, illustarting the approach with an example.
• Loquacious Configuration in NHibernate 3 – James Kovacs takes a look at the new Loquacious Fluent Configuration API included in NHibernate 3, discussing why he prefers it to Fluent NHibernate’s offering, and looking at it in operation.

Community

• “Unplugged” LIDNUG online talk with me Monday – The Linked In .NET UserGroup welcome Scott Guthrie for another ‘unplugged’ event today, where Scott will take time out from his busy Microsoft schedule to answer audience questions. This is a great opportunity to get the inside line on what is going on with the tech that Scott is responsible with.

Comments Off on The Morning Brew #776