Head on over to Microsoft's Get The Betas page and order your copy for free while supplies last. You can also sign up to receive alerts of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 educational events and release details. (Thanks to Brian Keller of Coding4Fun fame for the link!)

CodeSmith 3.0 enables software developers to efficiently: Reduce repetitive coding Generate your code in less time with fewer bugs Produce consistent code that adheres to your standards Create your own custom templates for any language I've used CodeSmith in the past with great success to automate...

From MSDN... Summary: This article explores the complete process of a Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET migration project. It covers all the aspects of migration, from the analysis of the business and technical requirements, to the guidelines for selecting a migration approach that include proven...

Wintellect will be holding a 4-day Mastering Rich Client Applications using Windows Forms class with Jason Clark in Atlanta, GA on June 7th – 10th: This in-depth class teaches the design and use of the Windows Forms classes in the .NET Framework class library. You will learn the core architecture...

Recently we had the need to implement a more standardized way of logging information and handling exceptions in our SharePoint Portal webparts. In previous applications, we have used the various Microsoft Application Blocks and other tools (such as log4net) for our needs. If you haven’t heard yet...

Often when designing my entity objects, I've used System.Object instead of System.DateTime for dates that can be nullable. (Sidebar: System.DateTime is a value type, so it can't be null) In Whidbey, this is cake using Nullable types : public Nullable<DateTime> ShippedDate; But for now, I've decided...

If you use the System.DirectoryServices namespace to do Active Directory stuff, you may have run into this error: Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object.at System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection.OnInsertComplete(Int32 index, Object value) at System.Collections.CollectionBase...

Should start seeing lots of Indigo-related stuff soon (see Indigo - now we can talk... and Today and tomorrow: Will Indigo heal... ? ) as an example, Rockford's blogging about Indigo: the future of asmx/wse/es/msmq/remoting . I'm particularly interested in the Reliable Messaging pieces, since it relates...

In a comment to my previous post on collections, Eddie Garmon posted a link to his Visual Studio Templates (with Installer) . It's a good set of templates, and even better, you can modify them to suit your needs, if you know where to do it . I quickly modified his template for a typed collection, to...

I'm on a quest to find the “Perfect“ collection template - my goal is to create a ReSharper LiveTemplate once I do, so I can easily add them to my projects. Of course, perfect is relative to the task at hand, but I want a good, simple all purpose collection template that I can use for the...