JoeGill.com

SQL Server Saturday Dublin 24th March

2012-01-17T21:54:00.000Z

Well done to the SQL Server User Group in Dublin who have organized a great day of SQL server talks taking place on 24th March.

This is a community event and free to attend with many of the world top sql experts speaking.

More details and registration here Well done all involved.

Dev Day II Follow Up

2011-10-18T00:20:00.000+01:00

I am realy pleased with how the day went we had almost 60 people in attendance all day and feedback was excellant.

Anybody interested in speaking please let me know

Josh Holmes explains what HTML 5 is all about.

Dev Day II Cork - Line up finalized

2011-09-19T20:56:00.000+01:00

We have a great line up of speakers and topics for Dev Day II in Cork on Oct 10. This should be a great event with the opportunity to hear from some real world experts.

The timetable of talks is below and Microsoft have kindly sponsored the event. Attendance is free however you must register here to attend

Speaker	Topic	Start
Josh Holmes	HTML 5	11:00
Vikas Sahni	Demystifying SQL Azure	12:00
Lunch		13:00
Bob Duffy	SQL Denali Power Overview	14:00
Kieran Logan	NoSQL Architecture using Azure Storage and Lucene.Net	15:30
Coffee
Andrew Woodcock	ASP.Net MVC	17:00
Niall Flanagan	Understanding Database Behaviour for Developers	18:00

CRM 2011 - How to refresh a form after subgrid changes

2011-06-08T08:19:00.001+01:00

SubGrids are a great improvement which were added in CRM 2011 that allow you to easily add a grid of related entities to a form rather than navigating from the left menu. Here is a simple example of how to refresh the parent form when an update to the subgrid has occurred.

In my example updates to the results records trigger a call out which updates the average mark on the contact record so I want to redisplay the contact form after any changes to the subgrid.

First I added the sub grid to my contact form in the usual way

I then added the following Javascript to fire when contact form loads

function ContactLoad()
{
var grid = document.getElementById("ExamResults");
grid.attachEvent("onrefresh", ReLoadContact);
}
function ReLoadContact()
{
window.location.reload(true);
}

The Javascript simply attaches an event hander to the subgrid refresh event so that the function ReloadContact get called when the sub grid refreshes. As I said this is a simple example and another way would be to do an OData call from Javascript and update the required parent form field.

Running virtualized CRM 2011 on Windows 7

2011-05-06T17:44:00.001+01:00

One of the problems when you want to run a virtualized version of CRM 2011 on Windows 7 is that virtual pc does not support 64bit operating systems and virtual server does not run on Windows 7 not at least without some hacks.

When I was faced with this problem I toyed with the ideal of installing Windows Sever 2008 and Hyper V however I decided to give VMware Player a go. I must admit I was presently surprised with how easy it was to get up and running and natting worked without any configuration. Added bonus is that it is free. I would definitely recommend it.

If you have existing VHD images that you want to convert to a VMWare VMDK virtual hard disk then I would recommend wimimage which allows you mount hard disk images and converts them. http://www.winimage.com/

I believe VirtualBox is also a good tool but I have not had a chance to try that yet.

Dynamics 2011 Online - Custom Reports using FetchXML

2011-03-24T21:23:00.000Z

If looks like FetchXML which went out of favour with CRM 4.0 has made a comeback and you need to use it you want to write a custom report for the online version of Dynamics 2011. This is because you don’t have direct access to the database and crm's filtered views.

Microsoft have provided an extension for BIDS (Business Intelligence Development Studio) which allows you to connect to CRM online and write FetchXML based reports. BIDS is a cut down version of Visual Studio with just the reporting writing components installed. You can get the extension from here

Once you install the extension you can use it to create datasets in your report by writing FetchXML. Unfortunately you cannot use it to modify any of the system reports because if you download one of these and open it you will discover it use sql rather than FetchXML.

If you are going to write a report from scratch there are a few things to note. The first is that you need to use an embedded data source in your report not a shared data source otherwise you will get an error when you import the report into CRM. So add a data source to your report called CRM and add you online url as the connection string. Under credentials select the “Use this user name and password” and enter your live email address and password.

I have not found a good tool for creating FetchXML that works with CRM 2011 online so one of the easiest things to do is to use advanced find in CRM to create a query and then select the Download Fetch XML option to save it to a local file and cut and paste this into your report query.

CRM 2011 - Phone Format Validation using JavaScript and Regex

2011-03-09T11:05:00.000Z

Reusing JavaScript functions in CRM 4.0 was not easy and many people simply copied the code from one form or field to another so they ended up with lots of duplicated code.

Dynamics CRM 2011 introduced the concept of web resources which are files of reusable resources. In this example I am going to create a JavaScript library as a web resource file to hold a function which validates the format of a mobile phone number using a regular expression. Under customization create a new resource file of type JavaScript.

Add caption

Click on Text Editor and add the following JavaScript to the source

function validateMobile(context)

{

var mobi =context.getEventSource().getValue();

mobiRegex = /^(083|084|085|086|087|088|089)\s?\d{3}\s?\d{4,5}$/;

if( !mobi.match( mobiRegex ) )

{

event.returnValue = false;

alert("The format of the mobile no is incorrect") ;

}

Customize the main form of the Contact entity and click on the Form Properties and add the new resource file we created as a library. It can now be used in the form

Click on the mobile number field to hook up the onChange event to our newly created validation function. Under the event tab add a new event handler as shown. Make sure you check the “Pass execution context as first parameter” so that we can access the field context in the Javascript function. Save the form and publish the Contact entity.

Now on the contact form when the mobile number is changed the validateMobile function will be fired and because we are using a web resource file we can reuse it throughout the solution.

Cash to switch to Dynamics CRM Online

2011-03-04T16:39:00.000Z

It looks like Microsoft are going after SalesForce customers in a big way. If you switch from a competing CRM product to Dynamics CRM Online you get cash back. More details here

Dev Day Cork - Follow Up and Downloads

2010-10-30T09:54:00.000+01:00

The recent dev day was a great success and feedback was excellent so I am planning to hold another in the new year. Many thanks to the great speakers and attendees who contributed to the day.

The code and slides are available from here

As always if you fancy doing a talk for MTUG Cork please get in contact

Dev Day - MTUG Cork 13 Oct

2010-08-26T07:43:00.003+01:00

I am happy to announce that MTUG Cork are running their first “Dev Day” on 13 October at the Cork International Airport Hotel. This is a day of talks aimed at developers working with Microsoft technologies primarily.

We have a number of speakers lined up including two MVP’s covering Windows Mobile 7 and SQL Server. We also have speaker from a start up who will cover the ups and downs of using Azure. The list of speakers will be finalized over the next few weeks.

The event will start at 2pm and finish at 8pm to minimize the impact on the working day

I have finalized the line up for the Dev Day and we will have 4 speakers covering the following topics

Azure: From Ground to Cloud
WCF
Silverlight Development on Windows Phone 7
The Incidental aka Accidental DBA

Dynamics CRM 2011 - First Look

2010-07-21T21:19:00.000+01:00

CRM 5 is now know as Dynamics CRM 2011 and you can see a preview of it here

The screens can be seen about 8 mins in. The outlook screen looks very busy.

Also of note CRM Online will be available in the UK and Ireland towards the end of 2010

SQL Server Express - Profiler

2010-07-12T22:27:00.001+01:00

SQL Server Express does not come with a profiler however AnjLab have just released a new version of their great free open source profiler here. Well recommended

Reporting Services - Shared Datasets

2010-07-07T21:20:00.000+01:00

Shared datasets which were introduced in Reporting Service 2008 R2 allow a dataset to be shared across reports improving performance and avoiding the typical duplications of common querys and joins you find in most reporting services projects. Like most things in Reporting Services they are pretty easy to use.

The following is an example of how to use shared datasets with the AdventureWorks database. A shared dataset is populated from the ProductSubCategory table which can then be resued across reports avoiding constants querying and code duplication of data that changes infrequently.

In solution explorer right click on shared dataset to add a new shared dataset as shown

In my example I created a simple product list report and populated it’s dataset using the following sql

SELECT ProductID, Name, ProductNumber, MakeFlag, Color, SafetyStockLevel, ProductSubcategoryID FROM Production.Product WHERE (ProductSubcategoryID IS NOT NULL)

I now want to display the product sub category in the report which I could do by joining to the table SubCategory table however I can use the shared dataset by adding it to my report as shown

and adding a textbox with the following expression which uses the SubCategoryID from the product dataset to lookup the SubCategory from the shared dataset.

=Lookup(Fields!ProductSubcategoryID.Value, Fields!ProductSubcategoryID.Value, Fields!Name.Value, "ProductSubCategory")

Hopefully this simple example highlights the advantages of using shared datasets in reporting services.

Going Deeper into Visual Studio 2010 - Cork MTUG 1st June

2010-05-24T20:29:00.000+01:00

There was a lot of developers unhappy with the content at the recent VS 2010 launch and as a result of that Paul Fallon is coming to Cork on 1st June to do a two hour talk/overview/briefing on the core .NET Framework and VS 2010 changes.

Paul will be covering ASP.NET 4.0, WCF, Entity Framework, Parallel Extensions and Windows Workflow 4.0

I am not sure how he will fit it all in but rest assured it will be worthwhile attending. Attendance is free and you can register here

ASP.NET 4.0 - Menu Rendering Problem - controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion

2010-05-20T12:06:00.000+01:00

I really like the way the menu control in ASP.NET 4.0 renders and having upgraded an existing site in Visual Studio 2010 I was confused for a while as to why it was not rendering as I expected. Having checked I was using the new stylesheet I discovered when I viewed the html source that the upgraded site was rendering the menu as a table whilst 4.0 was rendering it as a list.

Bingo found the problem the upgrade sticks the line controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion="3.5" clientIDMode="AutoID" in the web.config file which as the name suggest controls rendering compatibility. Removed this and it worked

ASP.NET Dynamic Data and Oracle

2010-04-27T18:17:00.001+01:00

I thought some people may be interested in this. I had a go at using ASP.NET Dynamic Data against an Oracle database.

Firstly I installed Oracle Express with its demo HR data. I could see the database and its contents using server explorer in Visual Studio. However I was not able to select Oracle as a data source when I went to add the Entity Model to my project.

Once I installed Progress DataDirect Connect Oracle driver I was able to use that to create my entity model. If you try this and get the “could not resolve sid” error trying using xe as the sid.

I generated the model and modified the global.asax as normal and ran the project. First impression are great as and in the example below you can see the Region foreign key drop down has been created and populated.

BTW – I used VS 2010 for this not sure about VS 2008

Dynamics CRM Talk - MTUG Mid West

2010-04-23T08:07:00.000+01:00

I am heading up to the Shannon next week to give a talk on Microsoft Dynamics CRM to the Mid West MTUG group.

The talk will act as an introduction to CRM and will also cover XRM .i.e. building line of business applications using Dynamics CRM. Attendance is free with more details and registration here

Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek coming to Cork

2010-04-15T22:22:00.000+01:00

We are extremly lucky to have Jesse Liberty coming to Cork on April 23 to do a Silverlight talk to the MTUG user group. Like all our talks attendence is free however you do need to register here to attend.

Jesse's blog is here

MTUG Cork Talks - VS 2010 Launch and Silverlight

2010-03-30T12:26:00.000+01:00

We have a busy time in MTUG Cork coming up in April with the Visual Studio 2010 Launch and Jesse Liberty aka "The Silverlight Geek" coming to Cork on April 21 and 23 respectively.

Dynamics CRM 5.0 on the way

2010-03-25T21:03:00.000Z

Looks like Dynamics CRM 5.0 is going to be shipped this year as expected.
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2010/mar10/03-25CTP3PR.mspx

VS 2010 RC ASP.NET - Tab Control Designer Bug

2010-03-04T13:25:00.000Z

I just discovered there is a bug in the RC version of VS 2010 it is not generating the designer code for controls within an Ajax Tab Control. Have a look here

In VS 2008 the following

<:asp:TabContainer ID="TabContainer1" runat="server" ActiveTabIndex="1">
<:asp:TabPanel runat="server" HeaderText="Contacts" ID="TabPanel1">
<:ContentTemplate>
<:asp:UpdatePanel ID="UpdatePanel1" runat="server" ChildrenAsTriggers="false" UpdateMode="Conditional">
<:ContentTemplate>
<:asp:TextBox ID="txJoe" runat="server">
<:/asp:TextBox>
<:/ContentTemplate>
<:/asp:UpdatePanel>
<:/ContentTemplate>
<:/asp:TabPanel>
<:/asp:TabContainer>

Will generate the following line in the designer code file
protected global::System.Web.UI.WebControls.TextBox txJoe;

However in VS2010 this does not get generated and so you cannot access the control in your code behind file. Hopefully we will get a fix soon and don't have to wait for the RTM.

ASP.NET - Dynamic User Controls Talk 31st March

2010-03-04T08:18:00.000Z

Niall Merrigan is coming to Cork to do a talk on dynamics user controls on 31st March. This will be a level 200-300 talk with lots code so well worth attending if you are a developer.

Attendance is free and you can get more details and register here

Azure - First Impressions

2010-02-27T20:32:00.000Z

Cormac Keogh of Microsoft gave a great overview of Azure to the Cork MTUG User group last week and the slides are available here

I must confess I have not tried Azure yet however my initial feeling is that it does not provide much in comparison to hosted Dynamic CRM/XRM.

With Azure the charging structure is complex and confusing and there is no cap on how much you will be charged. So if you don’t configure your web and worker rolls correctly you could end up spending much more than expected.

Also I can’t see what “heavy lifting” Azure does compared to using XRM as a SaaS development platform. If you use Azure to build a SaaS application then you don’t see to get anything above and beyond ASP.NET and hosted SQL Server. Whilst the hosted SQL Server option has potential if you wanted take advantage of the built in Azure failover it falls short in that it does not include Reporting Services. You also need to build/integrate you own customer payment methods.

I still believe that XRM is a great development platform for on premise or hosted LOB applications.

The next MTUG event is an ASP.NET talk on Dynamic User Controls by Niall Merrigan who has promised me lots and lots of code. You can register here

Azure Overview - MTUG Cork 23rd Feb

2010-02-15T17:27:00.000Z

Cormac Keogh is coming to Cork on Feb 23rd to give an overview of Azure to the Cork MTUG userg group.

The event kicks off at 7pm in the Imperial Hotel and attendence is free however you do need to register
to attend

Cormac is the Architect Evangelist in the Developer and Platform Group in Microsoft Ireland.

Entity Framwork now supports stored procedures that return data

2010-02-05T15:56:00.000Z

The new version of the Entity Framework in VS 2010 can now automatically create entities from select stored procedures which return data. Prior to this release it only supported mapping to insert and update stored procedure although L2S did.

Simply goto the designer model and right click then Add then Function Import. Select the stored procedure name and get columns names. This will create an entity class to hold all the data returned by the stored procedure.

XRM Talk 2nd Feb Cork

2010-01-22T10:19:00.000Z

On 2nd Feb I will be giving a talk on how to build line of business applications rapidly using Microsoft CRM to the MTUG user group in Cork.

Dynamics CRM is a great platform for tracking activities and tasks related to business entities and for building applications which consolidate data from a variety of back end systems. While Sharepoint is a great collaboration platform it can often be used in scenarios where CRM would be more appropriate.

The talk will also cover the deployment options for XRM applications and how ISV’s can use it to develop SaaS applications

The event is free to attend but you do need to register

Hope to see lots of MTUG members there if only to give me some stick!

RegEx Tool - Expresso

2010-01-15T13:48:00.000Z

A great tool for regular expressions is Expresso which you can get on a 30
day trial from http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm

Well worth a look

SQL Server - Car crash queries. - MTUG Cork

2009-11-08T17:43:00.001Z

Simon Sabin is coming to Cork on the 8th Dec to give a talk to the MTUG user group on Car Crash Queries

Details of the talk are below please register on www.mtug.ie if you wish to attend

SQL Server - Car crash queries.
What happens when a query goes wrong. We’ve all had the occasion where a query was running fine and then suddenly it doesn’t. You then get the query from profiler and run it in management studio and it runs fine, but your app is still running slowly. What is happening? In this session we will be looking what causes the query to fail and why you get odd results when you run in management studio. Importantly you will find out what to do avoid this happening on your system.

Speaker
Simon Sabin is director of his own company that provides training and consultancy around SQL Server development and business intelligence.

He has a particular expertise in the areas of search, distributed architectures, business intelligence and application development. He has worked with SQL Server since 1998 and has always focused on high performance reliable systems.

Office Accounting is no more

2009-11-02T08:58:00.000Z

I thought Office Accounting was a great little product and having been launched recently in the UK I was looking forward to its release in Ireland and using its SDK.

I have just discovered that Microsoft have pulled Office Accounting http://www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk/ and after Nov 16 it will be supported Mamut. Microsoft they have decided that the Excel templates are a better option for a small business.

I suspect this may be more to do with avoiding trouble with the EU as the single user version was free. Sage have lobbied the EU previously about Microsoft’s moved into the accountancy area

Windows Server 2008 R2

2009-10-25T18:20:00.000Z

I found a handy free eBook on Windows Server R2 from Microsoft here link

Reporting Services - Data -Driven Subscription

2009-10-22T11:57:00.001+01:00

In Reporting Services data driven subscriptions are used to run a query on a scheduled basis which returns a list of recipients to receive a report. What I have tried to do here is to show a simple example which will use this functionality to monitor an application and email out a report when any alerts that have been triggered.

You need the enterprise version of reporting services to use data driven subscriptions. In addition SQLAgent needs to be running and the data source must use stored credentials.

The example will use a simple table to hold details any events that need to be reported on. The application will insert rows into this table for each event that needs reporting on

create table ReportTriggers(
   TriggerID int IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
   TriggerDate smalldatetime NULL,
   TriggerDescription varchar(50) NOT NULL
)

The stored procedure prGetReportTriggers will be queried and it will only populate the email recipient list if new records have been added to the ReportTriggers table that have not already been reported based on the fact that the triggerdate is null

Create procedure prGetReportTriggers
as
begin
   if (select COUNT(*) from ReportTriggers
       where TriggerDate is null) > 0
       begin
               select 'yourname@yourdomain.com' as Email
               update ReportTriggers set TriggerDate = getdate()
               where TriggerDate is null
       end
               select NULL as Email
end


The report that will be called by the subscription should use the following SQL to get those records that have just been updated by the prGetReportTriggers stored procedure.

select * from ReportTriggers
where TriggerDate = (select max(TriggerDate) from ReportTriggers)

Follow the following basic steps to create the data driven subscription

Call the stored procedure

Populate the To value with the returned email list

Set up the subscrption schedule to run as frequently as you require

SQL Server Express and Reporting Services

2009-09-29T16:24:00.002+01:00

A common question that gets asked is if SQL Serve Express supports Reporting Services. Yes it does however you need to install the version Advanced Services which can be downloaded from here.

In addition to the usual restrictions you get with the Express version you can only use Reporting Services against you local express database i.e. you cannot install SQL Express and then use it’s Reporting Service against a database on another server.

XRM - What is it?

2009-09-23T00:58:00.001+01:00

Just in case you stumbled across the term XRM and was wondering what is this new buzzword. It is the new brand name for developing applications using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I believe Microsoft have coined this term because customers can be confused when you tell them you are going to build their line of business application using CRM. By the way I think CRM it is a great platform which gets very little recognition especially in comparison to SharePoint.

CRM in built on a .NET application development platform which can easily be extended by developers using the same SDK as the Microsoft CRM development team. Some people have suggested that CRM was only developed to show the power of the development platform.

Going forward I don’t XRM will mention CRM and with the multi tenant support added in version 4.0 I think it will become an important piece in Microsoft cloud development platform. Stay tuned.

30th Sept - Windows 7 Technical Community Launch Cork

2009-09-14T15:20:00.002+01:00

The community launch of Windows 7 takes place on Sept 30th at 2pm in the Rochestown Park Hotel. Each lucky attendee will get a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate and you can register for attendence here event

Places are limited however if you are i t he MTUG user group you will have received a promotion code that will give you priority.

In the evening there will be a separate event focussing on Windows 7 and home server with demo with XBox and Microsoft Live which will be worth a look register here event

Auto update columns in Dynamic Data

2009-09-07T08:52:00.006+01:00

Lots of people have a requirement to have some columns automatically updated when using Dynamic Data in conjunction with the Entity Framework. These are typically audit type columns such as the ModifiedDate column found in the AdventureWorks database.

The typical solution is to create a handler to trap the event so that you can change the data before it is saved to the database.

public partial class AdventureWorksEntities : global::System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext

        partial void OnContextCreated()

            this.SavingChanges += new EventHandler(OnSavingChanges);

        private static void OnSavingChanges(object sender, EventArgs e)

            foreach (ObjectStateEntry entry in ((ObjectContext)sender).ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(

                 EntityState.Added | EntityState.Modified))

                int i = entry.CurrentValues.GetOrdinal("ModifiedDate");

                entry.CurrentValues.SetValue(i, DateTime.Now);

This can give you problems if you want a generic version for all tables but not all the tables have the ModifiedDate column and so GetOrdinal throws an exception. An alternative is to use some reflection to check if the Property exists and update accordingly and avoids exceptions being thrown.

 foreach (ObjectStateEntry entry in ((ObjectContext)sender).ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(                 EntityState.Added | EntityState.Modified))             {                 // Ignore relationships                 if (!entry.IsRelationship)                 {                     foreach (PropertyInfo pi in entry.Entity.GetType().GetProperties())                     {                         if (pi.Name == "ModifiedDate")                             pi.SetValue(entry.Entity, DateTime.Now, null);                     }                 }             } 

Conditional Formatting in Reporting Services using Common Code

2009-07-29T21:02:00.008+01:00

The lack of support for CSS style sheets in reporting services can make life difficult when you want to have common formatting across reports. There are also occasions where you may want to share common conditional formatting logic across reports. This example shows how common code can be used to help in these scenarios.

Whilst a .NET assembly would probably be more efficient not everybody is in a position to write and deploy .NET assemblies.

The first example simply sets the background color of a textbox based on the value of a variable.

In this example the textbox background is set to red if the value is less than 50 otherwise it is set to green. This logic may be required in multiple textboxes in a single report or across multiple reports.
Open your report and under properties add the following to the code

function StopGoColor(d as decimal) as string
StopGoColor = iif(d < style="font-family:arial;">end function

Select the textbox where you want apply the conditional formatting and enter the following expression for the fill color using your own value to pass to the function

=Code.StopGoColor(Fields!SalesPercent.Value)

This function can be used through out your report to ensure consistant formatting.

Once you have written the functions you require you can create a report template by copy the code into an empty report and saving this report into the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ProjectItems\ReportProject direcory.

Now when you select Add New you will get the option to base any new report on the newly created template report which already contains your common formatting code.

Kathleen Dollard's Slides

2009-07-13T19:14:00.001+01:00

The slides from Kathleen's talk can be found on her blog

Mobile Express for Microsoft CRM 4.0 released

2009-07-10T11:20:00.003+01:00

Microsoft have just released mobile express for CRM 4.0 which allows you to access your CRM data on mobile devices including iPhones http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2009/07/09/product-release-mobile-express-for-microsoft-dynamics-crm-4-0.aspx

It's a shame it has taken this long to get it out and it will be interesting to see what happens when version 5.0 of CRM is released - due this year I believe. The mobile version should really be part of the core product release.

Kathleen Dollard - Great Event

2009-06-26T08:07:00.005+01:00

What a great event!. On a lovely sunny evening we had over 60 people turned up to hear Kathleen talk. The talk was great with plenty of good questions.

Shame the air con decided to break on one of the hotest days of the year with a packed room!

Many thanks to Kathleen for coming to Cork.

MCT - Microsoft Certified Trainer

2009-06-23T14:53:00.003+01:00

I am now a Microsoft Certified Trainer!!

Xbox cannot read external drive formatted as NTFS

2009-06-09T17:22:00.005+01:00

Just recently I was trying out a media box and decided to plug in my usb drive into my son's Xbox to see how it performed as a media player.

Guess what I discovered Xbox's cannot read drives formatted as NTFS so I had to reformat it as FAT however Vista, or XP, cannot format drives over 32gig.

If you want to format a big drive as FAT I found the best tool to use was Fat32Format whcih you can download from download

MTUG Cork Talks June 2009 - Bob Duffy and Kathleen Dollard

2009-05-22T17:44:00.003+01:00

We are fortunate to have two great speakers coming to the Cork in June.

Bob Duffy will be here on on June 4th and will cover Reporting Services 2008. Bob is a sql expert one of only eighteen Microsoft Certified Database Architects Globally

Kathleen is a well know expert from the US and will cover the new language features in .NET 4.0. Kathleen wrote a great book a while back on code generation which I found particulary useful. book

The talks are free to attend as usual however you must register on http://www.cork.mtug.ie/

Entity Framework - Pain Continued

2009-05-08T20:03:00.005+01:00

Following on from previous post. If you are converting an existing project and database with lots of stored procedures to EF then you have a big job. Support for returning procedures is limited and involves hand editing the EDML file. If you then refresh from your database all you hand codes stuff is deleted. Nor does it support returning scalers.

With Linq To SQL this is a doddle and when you import returning stored procedures it creates the results entities. I appreciate L2S is designed as a simple ORM designed solely for SQL server and the intention of EF is to be used for enterprise applications however I think more work needs to be done on EF. Hopefully the 4.0 version will solve some of the existing problems.

I guess it could be possible to use L2S in a project now and then convert to EF when better support for stored procedures comes in. The same LINQ should work assuming you can recreate the model. Found it http://blogs.msdn.com/adonet/archive/2008/12/02/migrating-from-linq-to-sql-to-the-entity-framework-stored-procedures-for-data-retrieval.aspx

Entity Framework - Functions are a pain

2009-05-05T14:44:00.005+01:00

As part of my on going project to use and learn the Entity Framework I have come across a bit of a problem. The Entity Framwork does not easily map database functions onto the model. At present there does not seem to be an easy way around this

Here are some of the links and tips I found
http://blogs.msdn.com/efdesign/archive/2008/10/08/edm-and-store-functions-exposed-in-linq.aspx

http://www.thedatafarm.com/blog/2007/12/19/ImplementSELECTStoredProceduresThatReturnMiscellaneousDataInCTP2OfEFDesigner.aspx

http://forums.asp.net/t/1363046.aspx

Dynamic Data - The ContextType property of control 'EntityDataSource1' must specify a data context.

2009-04-21T06:22:00.004+01:00

If you ever get this type of error using Dynamic Data when creating you own Dynamic Data pages then you need to add to the markup the ContextTypeName with the fully qualified namesapace and class name of your entity context object eg.

asp:EntityDataSource ContextTypeName="YourModelNameSpace.YourEntitiesContext"

Cork talk on using CLR inside SQL Server

2009-04-06T17:32:00.005+01:00

PJ Naughter, a Microsoft MVP, is coming to Cork on April 27 to do a talk on using .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) inside SQL Server.

Register on the mtug web site register

ASP.NET - Dynamic Data - Read Only Column

2009-03-30T14:33:00.003+01:00

This is a simple way to configure columns as Read Only when using Dynamic Data

Make two copies of the Text.ascx field template and name one ReadOnly.ascx and the other ReadOnly_Edit.ascx then annotate the field in your metadata partial class as follows

[UIHint("ReadOnly")]
public object UpdateDate;

This works fine as the UIHint uses the ReadOnly field template to display the column in display mode and the ReadOnly_edit template when in in edit mode. Both simply display the column using the aps:Literal control

Microsoft Community Event Slides

2009-03-28T04:08:00.002Z

The slides from the recent event are available at
http://cid-656dfac810c10872.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Tech%20Days%20Public/Tech%20Days%20Cork%20Public

Dynamic Data Partial ClassGenerator

2009-03-26T11:18:00.004Z

If you have ever done any .NET remoting in the past you would would have come across
Ingo Rammer part of the ThinkTecture Team. Ingo really knows his stuff and is a great speaker.

Anyway Ingo has created a small project which generates your metadata partial classes from your EF/L2S generated model. link

Its pretty handy. Give it a go

Dynamic Data Templates in VS 2008

2009-03-19T16:02:00.005Z

The Dynamic Data templates option in VS 2008 can be a bit confusing so here is an overview.

The “Dynamic Data Entities Web Site” template create an empty Entity Framework project and you use Add -> New -> ADO.NET Entity Data Model to add your data model to the project. The Dynamic Data routing is configured in the global.asax file.

If you want to control how Dynamic Data creates the UI and validates data input then add a new class using the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations name space. Example below

[MetadataType(typeof(Account_Metadata))]
public partial class Account
{
}

public partial class Account_Metadata
{

[ScaffoldColumn(false)]
public object UpdateDate { get; set; }

[StringLength(30)]
[Required(ErrorMessage = "Account name is required.")]
public object Description { get; set; }

The “Dynamic Data Web Site Wizard” template creates a Linq to Sql based project and the wizard guides you through the creation of the dd web site. As part of this you will get an option to create specific input forms for each entity.

It automatically creates a class named file YourModelDataContext.partial.cs which contains all the MetaData classes.

The routing info is in the class DynamicData.cs

Win an Xbox Elite or TechEd Plus subscription

2009-03-10T09:45:00.004Z

If you attend the Microsoft community tech day this Thursday in Cork you will be in with the chance to win an Xbox Elite or one of two TechEd Plus subscription. The talks should be pretty good and will cover the following

Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 working Great Together and WS 2008 R2 Virtualisation
SharePoint - The Implementation Journey..from WSS to MOSS
Unified Communications - Using it Today and Preparing for the Future

Silverlight Materials

2009-02-12T18:11:00.005Z

Richard Costall and Chris Hay have provided the source code from the Silverlight talks on the following link

http://silverlightuk.blogspot.com/2009/01/silverlight-assault-course-dublin-cork.html

Many thanks to Richard and Chris for coming to Cork - the feedback was great

Visual Studio Tips - Sara Ford

2009-02-10T12:59:00.002Z

If you want some tips on using Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 visit Sara Ford's blog Sara Ford Blog

Entity Framework - Linq To SQL

2009-01-27T16:41:00.005Z

There are lots of posts which seem to hint that Linq to SQL has gone down a cul de sac and will no longer be developed and that the Entity Framework is now the way to go. Article However I think L2S is great for small Sql Server based projects and I will probably still use it.

Here is a great Entity Framework FAQ page with lots of links Entity Framework FAQ

Silverlight Sunday 18th Jan MTUG Cork

2009-01-06T17:10:00.005Z

MTUG Cork are having a full day of talks on Silverlight on Sunday 18th January. Richard Costall and Chris Hay are the speakers and will cover the following topics

XAP File Explored, Layout, Silverlight Sockets, WCF, Syling/Templating, Brushes, Transforms + Animation, DataBinding, Isolated Stored, Gaming, User Controls
Silverlight Encryption + Compression

This will be a great event if you are interested in learning about Silverlight

Attendance is free but please only register if you definitely attending
register

Your first Dynamics CRM WorkFlow Activity

2008-12-12T07:02:00.012Z

This post show should act as a guideline to creating you first workflow activity dll for Dynamics CRM. It includes some gotachas I came across so hopefully it will save you some time.

Create a new workflow activity library in Visual Studio

You need to reference the CRM Micrsoft.Crm.Sdk and , Micrsoft.Crm.Sdk.TypeProxy dlls in your project.

Rename the class to a suitable name and add the lines
using Microsoft.Crm.Sdk;
using Microsoft.Crm.SdkTypeProxy;
using Microsoft.Crm.Workflow;

Add a decorator [CrmWorkflowActivity("MyFirstWorkFlowActivity", "ConcatStrings")] to the class which will determine how it appears to the user in CRM and add the the method below

protected override ActivityExecutionStatus Execute(ActivityExecutionContext executionContext) {return base.Execute(executionContext); }

Now sign the project at which point the bones of your workflow activity are in place.

In our example we will take two string parameters and and conconatate them into an ouput parameter add the code below. The decorator CrmInput and CrmOutput attributes determine which properties are visible in the CRM workflow editor. A property can be be set to both CrmInput and CrmOutput if required.

In our example we will take two string parameters and and conconatates them into an ouput parameter so add the code below

protected override ActivityExecutionStatus Execute(ActivityExecutionContext executionContext)
{
this.outString = this.inString1 + ", "+this.inString2 ;

return base.Execute(executionContext);
}

public static DependencyProperty inString1Property = DependencyProperty.Register("inString1", typeof(string), typeof(MyFirstCRMActivity));

[CrmInput("InString1")]

public string inString1
{
get { return (string)base.GetValue(inString1Property);}
set { base.SetValue(inString1Property, value);}
}

public static DependencyProperty inString2Property = DependencyProperty.Register("inString2", typeof(string), typeof(MyFirstCRMActivity));
[CrmInput("InString2")]

public string inString2
{
get { return (string)base.GetValue(inString2Property);}
set { base.SetValue(inString2Property, value); }
}

public static DependencyProperty outStringProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("outString", typeof(string), typeof(MyFirstCRMActivity));
[CrmOutput("OutString")]
public string outString
{
get { return (string)base.GetValue(outStringProperty);}
set { base.SetValue(outStringProperty, value); }
}

Build the project and copy the dll and pbl file to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server\Server\bin\assembly (assuming default install)

You now need to regsiter the DLL however do not use the registration tool that comes with the SDK use the version from
http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2008/02/04/crm-registering-plug-ins-made-easy.aspx

Once registered you can create a workflow in CRM which calls the new created dll
setting the input parameters in the first step and the output in the second

Gotchas - Here are a few problems you may come across

If you cannot publish your Workflow from CRM turn tracing on and check the trace logs

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907490

Check if namespace and class the same as this will prevent the workflow from been published

ErrorCode: -2147201023 - the type in the dependency property is not correct

When redeploying you may need to stop and restart IIS and the CRM Asynch service so you can use a batch file or build script to execute the following
net stop w3svc
net start w3svc
net stop MSCRMAsyncService
net start MSCRMAsyncService

Another common problem

Could not create activity of type 'CorrespondenceWorkflowActivity.Correspondence'. System.ArgumentException: Type 'CorrespondenceWorkflowActivity.Correspondence' does not define a static dependency property with name 'inGuidProperty'.

http://blogs.catalystss.com/blogs/scott_seely/archive/2007/03/06/96.aspx

Dynamics CRM 5.0

2008-12-09T14:45:00.004Z

If you want to have a look at the next version of CRM download the “The Appealing Business Application” presentation from the PDC 2008 and jump to 45 mins in

This covers the new UI, form layout and customization solutions. Learn who you will be able to create a base customization solution and lock it down allowing additional customizations to be made on top.

Batch file to logon to Microsoft CRM as different users

2008-12-06T07:06:00.003Z

If you want to run CRM as a different user to the logged on user either use the following line at the command prompt or copy it into a batch file. Change the userID and CRM server accordingly

runas /user:JoeGill "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe http://localhost:5555/loader.aspx"

It is useful for demos to show different users at the same time.

SharePoint MTUG Talk 1st Dec 2008

2008-12-02T06:27:00.007Z

Well done to Martin and Micheal who gave a great talk on SharePoint last night. There were almost 40 attendees there although Michael reckons its was 140!. There was so much to cover we could have run a series of talks on Sharepoint.

Thanks to perpetuum and Microsoft for sponsering the event

CS0433

2008-12-01T16:04:00.003Z

If you are using Dynamic Data in ASP.NET to generate some basic entry web site you will get this error if you publish your web site and you have a form with the same name as a table in you data context class. e.g. Order.aspx and System.Data.Linq.Table Order.

No problem when running fron VS which sent me up the wrong path initially

0x8ffe2740 IIS error and Skype

2008-11-06T09:31:00.005Z

This is a port conflict error as the default install of Skype uses port 80 so if you install IIS and get this error you need to Skype->Options->Advanced Settings->Connection and uncheck the box that says use port 80 and 443 as alternatives

SQL Server Indexing Talk - Niall Flanagan

2008-10-14T06:52:00.006+01:00

Niall Flanagan did a great talk to MTUG Cork on indexing and fragmentation in sql server last night. It was a good session and it went on for over two hours with lots of interaction.

Well done Niall

The materials from the talk can be found on the materials tab on the event Event

Linq to SQL MTUG Cork Talk

2008-09-23T09:07:00.007+01:00

We had a great turnout for the Linq to SQL talk last night event and many thanks to Sidar for sharing his knowledge with us.

Dave Hegarty won the spot prize of VS 2008

The next event in Cork is on Oct 14 and Niall Flanagan, SQL Server MVP, will we talking about indexing and performance.

Dynamic Data ASP.NET

2008-09-11T10:02:00.003+01:00

Talking to a friend yesterday about Dynamic Data and it's potential I would recommend having a look at the videos on http://www.asp.net/dynamicdata/ as an introduction

Silverlight Talk

2008-05-27T09:57:00.006+01:00

Paul Walsh of Torc Software gave a great talk on Silverlight applications last night. Paul is a regular attendee at the MTUG talks and we had a good turnout with some good interaction.

Hopefully we can get some more members to give talks to their local groups.

Microsoft Office Accounting Released in the UK

2008-04-09T08:34:00.003+01:00

Not many people seemed to have picked up on the fact that Microsoft has released Office Accounting in the UK. It is available from http://www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk/ and the price is only 150GBP. There is also a free express version!

It will be interesting if Sage, etc try and get the EU commission to look at this to try and protect their market. Sage seems really expensive for small companies when you compare it to Office Accounting.

It does seem to be available in Ireland yet although it’s easy to change the vat rate to 21% from the UK default of 17.5%

There is also a SDK available at SDK

IMTC 2008

2008-04-07T10:26:00.000+01:00

I attended the IMTC on Thursday and Friday and here some of my highlights.

I met lots of speakers and MVPs. Some have promised to come and talk in Cork next year.

Ben Sykes gave a great talk on what makes people tick and how we need to be aware of this when designing web sites or any type of user interface. Ben is a great guy and is shortly moving to Galway from Seattle to work for Cisco.

Dave McMahon gave an informative and entertains talk on SQL and opened my eyes to a few new techniques. He certainly pushed www.DDDireland.com on 3rd June!!

Office Communication Server is not really suitable for the small business market as it need lots of servers and there are no VOIP gateways for outgoing calls.

Lots of interest in LINQ but nobody seems to have used in anger yet.

WPF 1st April Oliver Sturm

2008-04-02T07:19:00.005+01:00

Oliver gave a great talk on WPF last night we had a great turnout and with so many questions we ran way over time. Sorry no photos the battery died in my camera.

Oliver's company http://www.devexpress.com/ kindly dontated a prize of CodeRush and Refactor which was won by Ken Carroll

Irish Microsoft Technology Conference 2008

2008-03-27T10:07:00.002Z

The IMTC, Irish Microsoft Technology Conference, is on next week 2-4th April with lots of TechEd speakers attending more details on IMTC

MTUG Cork WPF Talk 1st April

2008-03-12T09:58:00.003Z

Oliver Sturm blog is coming to Cork to do a talk on WPF with lots demos and code examples.

Click here for more details and to register Register

Oliver has provided a taster of this talk which can be viewed here

Great CRM tool to generate FetchSQL

2008-03-05T11:44:00.005Z

I am currently getting up to speed with the Microsoft CRM 4.0 SDK and I came across this tool written by a guy called James Downey. I don’t James but this is a great tool which allows you to easily generate FetchSQL statements. http://www.jamesdowney.net/

Developer Developer Developer Ireland

2008-02-29T06:04:00.008Z

Mick from the Galway user group, GAMTUG has done a mighty job in organizing the first Developer Developer Developer event in Ireland. This is being held in Galway on the May bank holiday and there are lots of TechEd speakers coming including Alex Homer and Dave Sussman. Have a look at the line up. http://www.dddireland.com/agenda-1.htm

This is will worth attending and the best thing is that it is free!

MTUG Cork Visual Studio 2008 Commuity Launch

2008-02-29T05:45:00.003Z

This was a great event and we had over 150 attendees during the course of the day. Feedback on the speakers was great Dave, Bob and Ronan were entertaining as well as informative. Having spoken to a few members it looks like we will try and hold another event like this in the autumn. Running from 2pm to 8pm allows people who can’t get time off work to attend some of the talks.

Powerpoints from the events can be found under the materials tab on http://www.cork.mtug.ie/Events/EventInfo.aspx?ID=8013ae90-ffa5-4f65-9095-ebc49cd08b51

AJAX Talk Cork 23 March

2007-03-14T08:43:00.000Z

it@cork and mtug cork are co-hosting a half day talk on Ajax on March 23

Jeff Prosise and Rob Burke are the main speakers. Should be a great afternoon

Only cost 30 euros for it@cork and mtug memebers

For more info and registration
http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=86

WWF Jon Flanders

2006-12-18T13:30:00.001Z

Jon Flanders gave a great talk to the Cork MTUG user group on Windows Workflow. Very well attended and great feedback on Jon.

17 Oct MTUG Cork VISTA Talk

2006-10-09T12:08:00.003+01:00

Dave Northey doing a presentation to MTUG Cork on VISTA

A whirlwind tour of Windows Vista, covering 'almost' everything you'll ever need to know about it before it's set loose on the world. Without a PowerPoint slide to be seen, Dave will guide you through all of the main features and happily answer any of your questions as he goes.. What is it? When will it be finished? How can I get my hands on it? Is it secure? Is it easy to use? How will I deploy it? Etc?
It's a free event but you msut regsiter on http://cork.mtug.ie/Scripts/Events/EventInfo.aspx?ID=317ade9a-6e42-4bd1-9958-177883831b4c

Dominick Baier Secure ASP.NET Applications Talk cork

2006-09-25T17:34:00.001+01:00

Should have blogged about this before. Dominick did a great talk in Cork 12 Sept and we all learned something new. Only problem was he overran and so Rob Burke got short changed on his Atlas talk. Very sorry Rob

Surprise it all worked

2006-09-23T02:35:00.000+01:00

I was creating a demo using virtual server so I needed to install an application from an image I had on the host drive. Firstly I had to map to the host drive from the virtual instance. I then installed Daemon and mapped a drive in the instance to an ISO image on the host hard drive. I was expecting some sort of problem but it worked like a dream.

SQL Server Express Error 17053

2006-09-01T20:37:00.002+01:00

Have not used express for a while and when I when to start the service I got an 17053 error saying could not open master.mdf, etc even though the files exist

Solution: Change the service to logon on as system account

Using Select into in Sql server

2006-08-04T08:08:00.002+01:00

It's a No No
Don’t use select into as it locks the tempdb for the duration of the select. You have to create the temp table fist and then do a insert … select … from. Need to look at it this in SQL 2005.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Installabpaction error

2006-07-27T08:20:00.001+01:00

My head hurts got this installing . Supposed to occur when you have multi language installed. I tried all the advice I could get including editing the MAPISVC.INF files I even reinstalled Office. It did work eventually but I am not 100% sure what action fixed it.

Great Book CLS via C# - Jeffrey Richter

2006-07-18T20:43:00.000+01:00

If you only buy one .NET C# book make it this one. Great read packed with info. Ideal for starting out, moving to 2.0 or just as a refresh. Includes chapters on generics, reflection

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735621632/sr=8-1/qid=1153251574/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-7110069-2816154?ie=UTF8

Hello Virtual Server

2006-07-11T00:33:00.001+01:00

Goodbye VPC Hello Virtual Server

Having downloaded virtual server a few week ago and having got to grips with the virtual networks feature I have decided to now dump Virtual PC completely. Although I will miss the shared folders option which was out of virtual server for security reasons.

Going to try the migration kit next http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/vsmt.mspx which should allow me to migrate a physical server to a virtual server instance.