My Crush List of 2009

These are few things which currently I am working on and some technologies which I want to learn in coming months to master these technologies I need your help,

So please post some good tutorials and articles on any of the following topics, if you have any.

1. Silverlight 2.0/3.0

2. Microsoft .NET 2008/2010 and Framework 3.5 SP1/4.0

3. Model View Presenter and Model View Controller Architecture

4. WCF, WSSF incuding Creating custom templates for Implementation Technologies, etc

5. Visual Studio SDK

6. Visual Studio Database Projects (SQl Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005)

7. SQL Server 2008 new Features (Auditing, Change Data Capture and Change Data Tracking)

There are some links which already I am following is given below:

Automatic properties and Object initializers
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/03/08/new-c-orcas-language-features-automatic-properties-object-initializers-and-collection-initializers.aspx

LINQ Tutorials
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/05/14/446412.aspx

Lambda Expression
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/04/08/new-orcas-language-feature-lambda-expressions.aspx

WSSF Home page
http://www.codeplex.com/servicefactory

WSSF Hands on Lab
http://www.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=servicefactory&ReleaseId=7846

Thanks
Brij Mohan

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SQL Server 2008 Auditing, Change Data Capture and Tracking

When I started working on SQL Server 2008, I was truly amazed with the new features of SQL Server 2008, one of that cool features is auditing in SQL Server 2008. First I thought to give here step by step Walkthrough, but I thought instead of reinventing the wheel, why don't I just give you some really good links only, which will guide you in much better way and also save some of my time :)

Please find below the links which I followed and found very useful.

Introduction and Step by Step Walkthrough
http://blogs.msdn.com/manisblog/archive/2008/07/21/sql-server-2008-auditing.aspx

MSDN Link
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd392015.aspx

But again I would like to mention that Auditing is the feature which will give you the Audit in Object, Schema and Database Level So my next challenge was to Keep track of the Database at the Field/Column level which Auditing does not provide (Correct me if I am wrong),

So I found one new features of SQL Server 2008 known as Change Data Capture/ Change Data Tracking, which is again a very cool feature,

Change data capture enables SQL Server administrators and developers to capture insert, update and delete events in a sql server table as well as the details of the event which caused data change on the relevant database table.

When you apply Change Data Capture feature on a database table, a mirror of the tracked table is createad which reflects the same column structure of the original table and additional columns that include metadata which is used to summarize what is the change in the database table row.

So enabling the Change Data Capture feature on a database table, you can track the activity on modified rows or records in the related table.

Change Data Capture (CDC) can be considered as Microsoft solution for data capture systems in SQL Server 2008 and next versions.

There were samples of data capture solutions implemented for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 by using after update/insert or
after delete triggers. But CDC enables SQL Server developers to build sql server data archiving without a necessity to create triggers on
tables for logging. SQL Server database administrators or programmers can also easily monitor the activity for the logged tabled.

You can find more details of how to configure and enable the Change Data Source on Tables
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3720361/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2008----Change-Data-Capture--Part-I.htm

Difference Between Change Data Capture and Change Data Tracking
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280519.aspx

MSDN Link
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb522489.aspx

I hope you will find these useful.

~Brij

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Problem Starting SQL Server Analysis Services.

For those who are facing problem in Starting SQL Server Analysis Services, please follow the following steps to fix the issue.

1. Open Control Panel
2. Go to Regional and Language Options Locale Settings
3. Change the Format, Location and Administrative from English(India) to English(United States)
4. Restart the System
5. Once your system is Restarted open the Registry Editor (from Start = > Run => regedit)
6. Navigate to HKEY_USERS
7. Look for LSA entry @ S-1-5-18
8. Search for LocaleName
9. Update the following keys
   1. Locale = 00000409
   2. LocaleName = en-US
   3. sCountry = United States

      10. Open the SQL Server Configuration Manager, and start the SQL Server Analysis Services.

FYI: This is caused because Windows Vista is supporting en-IN whereas SQL Server 2005 does not provide support for en-IN, so while doing the SQL Server Surface Area configuration, if you try to run SQL Server Analysis Services it will give the following exception (can be found in Event Viewer)

The service cannot be started: Message-handling subsystem: The message manager for the default locale cannot be found. The locale will be changed to US English. Errors in the metadata manager. LOG file extension can be only .LOG. Message-handling subsystem: The message manager for the default locale cannot be found. The locale will be changed to US English. Message-handling subsystem: The message manager for the 16393 locale cannot be found. Internal error: Failed to generate a hash string.

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Fixing Intellisense in Silverlight XAML Code

For those who are facing the problems of intellisense not working for XAML files, please follow the steps below to fix that.

 

1. Uninstall the Silverlight using the control panel snap in as given in the screenshot below.

2. Download and Install the Silverlight Tools by clicking on the following location

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c22d6a7b-546f-4407-8ef6-d60c8ee221ed&displaylang=en

3. If you have installed Silverlight DataGrid 2008 Update, then re-installing the Silverlight Tools will delete all your files from your C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v2.0\Libraries\Client , so you will loose the DataGrid December 2008 update. So you will need to fix this again, details of which you can find in the below given link.

http://silverlight.net/forums/p/59990/176470.aspx

 

FYI: This usually happens when Silverlight Toolkit is installed before the Visual Studio 2008 IDE, Usually when we install Silverlight Toolkit, it installs the patch for Visual Studio 2008 IDE which enables intellisense. But in absence of VS2008 IDE, Silverlight Toolkit skips this patch.

This patch for intellisense will get installed only when it detects VS2008 IDE already installed in our Systems.

 

I hope this helps.

Cheers

~Brij

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Happy New Year 2009 !!!

I wish a Very Happy New Year 2009  to all the readers of http://tutorials.indianjobs.co.in  !!!

May this coming new year will bring you success, joy and a great future ahead.

 

Cheers

~Brij Mohan

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Microsoft launches DreamSpark: Indian students get access to technical software at no charge

- Access to software developer and designer tools to students at no charge

- DreamSpark includes:

o Visual Studio 2005/2008 Professional Edition,

o Expression Studio (includes Web, Blend, Media and Design),

o SQL Server 2005 Express, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition,

o Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition,

o XNA Game Studio 2.0 and

o 12-month trial academic subscription to the XNA Creators Club

- Available online on www.dreamsparkindia.com; and via DVDs at NIIT, Aptech and Hughes Net Fusion Centers

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CSS Browser Selector

While designing the webpage we often struggle to maintain the consistency of our site across different browsers. To achieve this we use different browser hacks. But again that ends up with making our programming more complicated.

In this post I am going to give you the link of a JavaScript using which you just need to know basics of CSS.

CSS Browser Selector is a very small JavaScript with just one line and less than 1kb which empower CSS selectors. It gives you the ability to write specific CSS code for each operating system and each browser.

This can work for the following Browsers

• Internet Explorer (All versions)
• Mozilla, Firefox (all versions), Camino
• Opera (All versions)
• Konqueror
• Safari, NetNewsWire, OmniWeb, Shiira, Google Chrome

I think we have almost covered all the browsers right, if I am missing any let me know.

Instead of writing everything again here, and making this post lengthy I will suggest you to visit this site to download the JavaScript code and instructions on how to use this from here.

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