Tag Archives: computers-development

FxCop task for NAnt

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Hey all… I have been recovering from a recent illness, so I figured I could be somewhat productive while watching tv… I figured that with my recent use of FxCop, it would be nice to have an NAnt task for FxCop.

I read some earlier posts that described some ideas for how to go about this, but it didn’t seem like anyone was actually doing anything. So, rather than re-writing the fxcop project structure, I chose to just wrap the exe. Also, I think this will help with compatibility down the road…

So, if you use FxCop and NAnt, it might be worth giving this task a try.

p.s. There is room for improvement. I was running low on battery power w/ my laptop, so I just pushed the working version to cvs. It would be nice to log a readable error code from FxCop, when it fails.

Web communities (warning… ramblish)

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It’s really weird to be on the forefront of technology sometimes. I’m not saying that I’m bleeding edge, but I would consider myself ahead of the majority of internet users. For example, it appears as though blogging has really taken off to the masses in 2004. I gave a speech about blogs & rss in early 2003 for an Intro to Computers class that I took with a friend (don’t ask). I had “blogged” for about a year before that. Before that, I would post occasional thoughts to my ad hock (I jumped platforms a few times) website that I started in ’96. Anyway, the point of this entry is that it seems that the internet is moving from the cool thing of everyone registering a domain so that they can have a website, too… to sort of weeding down to websites with content that gets updated somewhat regularly. It seems to me that communities are becoming more of a part of the online experience than just commerce. In a way, it’s going back to how I remember the internet before the bubble. Back in the days that I was a regular on IRC…


It always seems that once the masses start using something that has been cool to more tech savvy people, the techies move on… The techies create something else so that they can keep feeling elite in their own virtual world.


I really think that while forums have existed for a while, the idea of a web community is evolving. I think that in a way, various websites are forming as a combination of Orkut, blogging, forums, etc where people can “hang out” or be a part of a community of people interested in the same things. The Orkut reference fits in because if you hang around that community enough, you start to get to know the people on a more personal/psychological way than just reading an obscure post.


The communities thing is good and bad. I feel it’s good because it gives you an opportunity to go to one place to hear many voices. Some communities are very specific while others touch many topics. The downside to these websites is that it is hard for the little person to be heard again. Yeah, occasionally a community or two will link to an obscure website, but that only gives the owner their 15 minutes of fame. The exception is that if the owner of that linked website consistently produces interests for people…


Whew… How was that for a ramble?

Party and custom controls

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I went to a friend’s bachelor party this past weekend. It was near Crandon, WI and about 10-15 people showed up. Overall, it was a good time and I have to admit that even the drive up there was enjoyable. I took some (probably too many) pictures and they should get posted at some point in the near future.  One thing that I can’t get over is that it was REALLY cold, for August.  The maple trees were even changing colors, which seems about a month early to me.


Outside of that, I’ve been pretty busy at work. I put together a nice custom user control that uses callbacks to dynamically update visual objects on the screen (without posting back). It is designed for .Net 1.x and seems to work pretty well. Under the covers, I was able to create a base control class that allows you to use both synchronous and asynchronous callbacks to do your bidding…


I am currently working on a wizard type control. I wasn’t clear how ITemplate interfaces played in with controls, but I am now. They’re useful if you create/extend a datalist type control and want to create an html template (defined in the control’s view) for each data item. The thing that I was looking for, however, was the ControlBuilder class. When you override GetChildControlType from a class that inherits ControlBuilder, you can define how to process child objects. Basically, this gives you finer control than the ParseChildren(true) attribute. To make a long story short, a developer can use my control somewhat as follows:

<uc1:wizard id=”mywizard” runat=”server”>

<wizardpage id=”page1″ src=”~/page1.ascx” … />

<wizardpage id=”page2″ src=”~/page2.ascx” … />

</uc1:wizard>

It seems interesting that these types of topics were never touched on the MS cert exam that I took. I’m starting to believe that the development cert exams just touch the technology and basically show that you are a step above a novice. Maybe I just took an easier test, though 🙂

Change…

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Not only the name of a great song from Blind Melon, but it is also what is happening around me right now.  Lets see… I went to the eye doctor this morning after some irritation last week.  It turns out that I have an eye infection in both eyes.  So I get to take drops & not wear contacts this week.  Also, I’ve decided to drive back to Milwaukee on Friday, so that should be quite a joy (especially without a car radio). 

Here are some interesting things to note:

·        How to make a bootable usb memory stick

·        SourceSafe power toys

·        BlogWave – Publish Sharepoint lists & libraries as RSS feeds

Other than that, I’ve been working on a Microsoft Outlook add-in.  More information to come, but this is definitely in the works and I’m actually planning out the design before jumping into the code.  Also, I would expect this site to go down towards the end of the week.  If all things go well & work out, it could be up again by the weekend… if not, it could be down for over a month.  Consider this an early warning 🙂

 

.Net (dotnet) RSS / Atom libraries

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I don’t know why these libraries where so hard to find, but alas… here they are.  There is a project called RSS.Net offering support for RSS versions: 0.90, 0.91, 0.92, 1.0, and 2.x.  Also, there is a project called Atom.Net that supports Atom 0.3.  They are very useful for reading/writing feeds.  Also, both are open source and have excellent licenses, so if they don’t suite your needs specifically… hack away…

Gmail here I come…

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Sweet… I got a Gmail account.  Apparently Marcie thought that my email, relating GMail to a taco, was worthwhile enough to convince Ryan Greg to give me an invite.  So, thanks to both people for hooking me up!  I suppose, I could post my experiences as I get used to it over time… My GMail address is jgeurts AT gmail DOT com


Btw, if you’re curious what my email to Marcie looked like… here you go:


__________________________________________________


Hey Marcie…


If GMail were a taco, I would eat it… or, if I could wrap a tortilla around it, I’d call it a burrito and still eat it


🙂


Hope that helps


Jim

Update after surgery

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I’ve been in more pain than I thought I would be, from surgery.  I got to the hospital around 11:00am and entered the prep area around 12:00 or so… I didn’t get moved into the operating room until 1:20 or so.  After that, I was out of it.  I woke up to immense pain in the recovery room, which was dulled rather quickly by some morphine.  I sort of dozed in and out of consciousness (I remember listening to the nurses talk about how ducks procreated) and was able to move around (slowly) by about 5:00.  Rachel was very nice for sitting there the whole time, and then going and getting my prescription (Demerol) filled, etc. 

The first night, I slept entirely on my back, after spending a couple hours on the couch (on my back).   Friday was much the same…  I’ve been amusing myself with OnDemand and various movies.  Friday night was similar to Thursday night, where I only felt comfortable on my back.  I think I tried moving to one side, while in bed, but that only lasted a few minutes due to generally feeling uncomfortable. 

Saturday was generally a lazy day, but I noticed that I felt a little better.  Getting up and sitting down didn’t hurt as much as it did the previous two days.  I was a little more active, and actually checked some email.  Saturday night was interesting… I felt pretty comfortable sleeping on a side, but one drawback is that I woke up sleeping on my stomach.  Generally, I would prefer to sleep like that, but I didn’t wake up in the most comfortable ways.  I’m not sure how I ended up like that, but I do know that attempting to roll back over hurt quite a bit.  It felt like I was tugging on the staples (securing the incision).  Otherwise, as far as food is concerned… I haven’t been eating much, but I have been drinking quite a bit of water.  I had some soup Thursday… a bagel and a burrito (tuna helper… yum) for Friday.  Saturday I only had a bagel and a small wrap (shrimp & chicken).

To make a long story short, I got up today feeling even better.  I even felt good enough to wash myself and do some laundry… I’ve been attempting to be more productive with my daily tasks.  Right now, I’m installing the Visual Studio 2005 May CTP on a VirtualPC Windows 2003 image.  I’ve gotten to the point of wanting to play around with these new tools.  Installation is pretty slow, though…

One other point to make…  I’ve been visiting Asp.Net forums v2 quite a bit, in anticipation of it’s release.  I’ve noticed that they now support forums that grab content from RSS feeds.  That is just kick ass… I see that as an excellent way to mark bug reports in conjunction with RSS feeds from the Draco Web Viewer.  When a new release is built, the RSS feed will be updated, and a new thread will be started in the forums… I’m really looking forward to using this software package!

I’m a Microsoft Certified Professional now…

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I took my first Microsoft test today (70-315) and passed with a score of 852/1000… 700 is passing, so I’m not too disappointed.  The score basically means that I missed about 8 questions out of 55.  My worst area was the testing and debugging, which is understandable… When I studied for the test, I picked up all sorts of useful information related to debugging.  Before taking this test, I just thought debugging was setting a breakpoint and stepping through code.  I didn’t know that VS.Net supported condition & hit counts, etc… Apparently, I still have a little more to learn.

I studied for a total of probably 10-15 hours for the test.  This was distributed in some spare time for the last three weeks.  I mainly used SelfTest, after I found out that work had the 70-315 practice test.  I must say that the software really prepared me for the format of the test and allowed me to estimate how long the test would take.  The questions in the samples were slightly harder than the actual test, which is probably a good thing.  I would recommend using that software, if it’s available to you. 

Overall, the test seemed worth it… it makes you memorize the little nuances with Asp.Net and C#… stuff that intellisense would generally take care of for you.  So it was the closest to a college exam (book knowledge) that I’ve had within the last 10 months…

As a side note, I went to the dentist right before (dentist appt. was at 3:30 & test was at 4:30 – barely made it) and had my teeth cleaned.  So I had the extra pleasure of taking the test with the discomfort associated with my freshly picked gums & teeth.