We are using ASP.NET MVC 4 beta on a new project as it should be out of beta before we go live. Even if not, they do have a Go Live license option. Each time I start using a new version of ASP.NET MVC and check the “Create a unit test project” checkbox, I always…
Compression Experiments In the Build and Deployment Process
In overhauling our build and deployment process for this release I wanted to use compression for a few tasks: Combining staged app files to deploy into a compressed archive Preferably a self-extracting executable archive (SFX) Extracting the deployment archive when running the deployment Creating backup zip files of the existing install before overwriting it There…
Windows Phone Login Navigation
A common desire for a mobile application is showing a welcome / login type screen initially when an account is required and the user first runs the app. My past two Windows Phone apps have not needed this but my current one does. I thought it would be very simple and straightforward; just check some…
Windows Phone: App Config Settings – Thinking Outside the Box
File this post under the OCD, late night, crazy category. I just started a new Windows Phone application and have been working on a client for a service my app depends on. I wanted to test out the service interactions but with unit tests of my WP7 class library, not via building out a user…
Quick NLog Tip: Getting the Log Filename
I have found NLog to be very easy to use but one thing that was not clear was how to retrieve a log’s filename. Our unhandled exception process packages up different files into a zip file for support and I wanted to resolve the log filename to include it in the package. The below code…
Ninject and NLog with Multiple Loggers
Today I wanted to add some simple file logging to my ASP.NET MVC application and I thought it would be a good time to try out NLog. I used log4net in the past but it has become stale and NLog appeared more modern and capable. I liked what I saw with NLog but I wanted…
Slow OracleConnection Creation
This afternoon I executed a simple DDL statement with Oracle.DataAccess.dll and noticed it took upwards of 30 seconds when it should have come back in a second or so. In stepping through the code I noticed the large delay was in creating the Oracle Connection, not connecting to the database or executing the SQL: Oh…
WPF Conditional Templates with Triggers
WPF has a lot of power and flexibility which is great but that also means there are several ways to do the same thing. That helped trip me up for a little bit this afternoon when I was trying to remember details on triggers. I had a GridView bound to a collection of DatabaseChange POCO…
Upgrading to Windows Phone Mango Beta 2 – Is that All?
<Rant> The development experience may be pleasant for Windows Phone but the setup and upgrade process could sure use some smoothing out. On iOS I hate having to download and install a new version of XCode for each new SDK release (even minor updates) but at least it is pretty straightforward. I am sure that…
CodeStock 2011 App for Windows Phone 7
The most excellent CodeStock conference is just around the corner on June 3-4th and I’m really looking forward to it. Michael Neel and company have done a great job with this Knoxville-based developer / IT / entrepreneurs conference and it has come a long way in a short time since its inception in 2008. It…