January 2007 - Posts
I have been working on a winforms wizard framework for a while when I get the chance. My aim with this project is to be able to create a reusable framework for wizard style dialogs and pages for the 2.0 .Net framework.
The first RC version of my Neovolve Wizard UI Framework has been released on CodePlex. I would appreciate any comments. You can find the release here.
A little while ago, I was playing with DNS entries. I was having a few issues here and there with DNS and mail configuration. After doing some research, I came across DNS Report which was absolutely brilliant for troubleshooting my problems. DNS Report is related to DNS Stuff which has many more tools to test domains, IP's, hostnames and more.
On a side note, I have been using DNSExit for my DNS services including backup MX. Their DNS services are great, but the backup MX at $20USD/domain was a bit steep. I have now just found EditDNS which has better services that are either cheaper or free. EditDNS also has a blog which makes it easy to keep in touch with their developments.
I am really enjoying using Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation in my development. While playing with the new toys can be frustrating at times, it is a whole lot of fun. There are a few gotchas though. The one I want to highlight here is the "Find All References" support in the IDE. Here is a scenario that can bite you.
Let's say that I am using PolicyActivities to do pre and post condition validation. I may also be using them to change data in the workflow based on rules. For example, I might need to do some business to data object mapping. To neatly achieve this conversion while avoiding a CodeActivity, I can have a rule in the PolicyActivity that calls a static method on a converter class. Now that my solution is created, I want to clean up the code to make sure I don't have redundant methods.
In order to check if a method is being used, I would normally have used the find all references feature to see if the method is being used anywhere, but here's the kicker. This feature (from what I can guess) only looks at code that will be compiled down to IL. This will not work when the method exists in a rules file because the rules file is simply compiled as an embedded resource.
When you have Windows Workflow Foundation projects included in your solution, run a text search for the method, searching all files in the solution (not just *.cs files). Oh, and always re-run your tests after you can any code.
I dodged, I weaved, I ran and I swerved, but I just couldn't avoid being tagged by Geoff. Actually, the fact I wasn't tagged earlier makes me remember those times at school on the oval when I got picked last (or near last) for the teams. BTW, that isn't number 1 
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So I'm tagged. Most of the blogging world has been tagged by now so you should know the deal. For five things you didn't know about me, here's the scoop:
- I’ve been married for 7 years after dating my wife for almost 5 years before that. We meet at a local church youth group when we were kids. I used to be completely scared of spiders, but one of the conditions of marriage was that it was my responsibility to do the kill’n. Now I am just mostly scared.
- I’m about to be a father for the first time. Kinda freaky that there is going to be a mini-me unleashed on the world! I would like to do Taekwondo with my kids. There are a couple of other fathers in my club that do this and I think it is great for the kids to learn confidence, respect and skills while also doing something with their dads.
- I was at the same school from year 4 to 12. My mother taught at the senior school so I couldn’t get away with sneezing without mum hearing about it in the teacher’s lunch room. Couldn’t wait to finish school.
- I like most styles of music, but prefer a song with a strong grunge guitar riff. The latest Evanescence album is awesome. The Butterfly Effect has been another recent purchase. As for other likes and dislikes, I don't like cricket (seems too boring to me), but I like watching the tennis. Can't wait for the Australian Open.
- I don’t like being forced or expected to do things (even if I actually wanted to do it anyway). I tend to dig in my heals. For example, I sailed a little boat for my summer sport at school. It was a lot of fun until the deputy-headmaster came to the club each Saturday morning to mark the roll. Another one was everyone expected me to go to the UK to be a rent-a-roo for my gap year just like my brother and sister. I didn’t go, but stayed in Canberra and worked instead.
Now, who should I target. I'm tagging Dave Lemphers, Sara Ford, Dr Nick and Bernard Oh. I'm also tagging The pants, Eddie de Bear and Paul McKee because they haven't blogged in a while. Am I allowed seven people? Is that greedy?
Update: I'm also tagging Karen Corby.
Jessica has left Microsoft and is heading to Australia. She has posted some great advice for professional developers. Great advice. My favorite is Write your email as if it were going to be skimmed, because it will.