It really feels like the internet is coming alive again. It's tough to keep up with all of the fantastic tools and hacks that are showing up an a daily basis now. I try to catch them all, and lately O'reilly Radar has really been on top of them. It has also quickly become one of my favorite blogs. The radar came through again posting a link to a yahoo traffic + google maps mash up. As they state, it probably won't be around too long so get your fill now. Now if google would just partner with metro-networks to provide the same service.

Once I had tried to setup the associations in vs.net just right so double clicking on a build file would run nant, but quickly realized I was barking up the wrong tree. Looks like someone was barking up the right tree and created a NantRunner plugin, which TestingReflections.com points out recently got an update. After installing, the plugin quickly analyzed the build file I had as a sln item, and displayed all of the public (targets with desc) and private (targets without desc) in the IDE. After telling the plugin where nant was, the plugin ran my target first try. After some quick testing, I think this plugin just became a perm tool in my toolbox.

The only complaint I would have is the mapping to nant. I currently maintain nant with my projects, so each project has its own copy of nant. The plugin uses a central install. Not a big deal while they are all on 0.85rc2, but we'll see what happens when the next version comes out. If nothing else, it will force me to check compatibility sooner. Either way, if you use nant at all, I would highly suggest this plugin. Nice and easy, and you never have to leave the IDE to run any of your targets.

[Edit] URL Updated

I was thinking about how I was going to schedule my week at teched a couple weeks ago, and yesterday I saw a post from Julia Lerman about the same thing. Fantastic, glad to see others are thinking along the same lines, and with an RSS feed it should be easy (Hell, I could even bring all the items into rssbandit, and delete the ones I don't want).

Then, I saw last night that Christopher Bowen had pointed to the official "schedule my week" teched link from MS. Fantastic. I'm the guy at code camp with the sheet of all the sessions and colors outlined for my first second and third choice, so this will be a great way for me to indecisivly stare at the screen for hours.

Looks like things are finally back in order on the server here. Between last night, and this morning I was able to fix the wiki, fix iceglue.com, restore svn (thanks #svn on irc.freenode.net), finish setting up my backups, and release del.icio.us.net. (needed svn back up ;). If you notice any issues with my sites, or anything I forgot to put back up, please let me know.

I am releasing the current version of my .net del.icio.us wrapper. It is coded in c#, and is currently running my linkblog on the right hand side of my blog. I wanted to clean it up a bit, maybe even create some documentation about it, but I can never seem to find the time, so I'm releasing it as is for the first version.

This version includes a core dll that is a wrapper around del.icio.us RSS feeds, and most of the del.icio.us user api. This version also includes a poor excuse for a winforms app that hardly does anything (that will be the first thing I update for the next release), and a web project that has a basic page, and a ascx to display output from the core dll. There is also a test project with a number of tests, and the usual nant build gook.

With the core dll, any .net developer should be able to integrate del.icio.us feeds in no time into any .net app. To do this, create an instance of the links collection, set the username and or tags, and then call GetLinks(). The links collection derives from CollectionBase, so binding should be cake (as seen in the web and winforms examples).

This may be the only release to target the 1.1 framework unless I get enough feedback to continue to support 1.1. I'm probably going to use this project as my guinea pig for 2.0, so expect newer releases to target 2.0. If people are interested, though, I will continue to maintain the 1.1 release.

Todo :

• Make the winforms app useful
• Finish implementing the API
• Enhance the winforms app to manage links
• Whatever you find would be useful

Source Link

Binary Link

Edit : I started a homepage for deliciousnet. This will serve as a wiki for it, plus explain how to integrate del.icio.us into your own c# or vb.net app. I also hope to keep the release history here. It's just begining, but should keep grow as the wrapper grows. Official site for del.icio.us .net wrapper in c#

Today is a sad day for blogs. As I read through bloglines this morning, I'm finding feeds with ads from google. When feedburner added ads it was annoying, but now that google is on the bandwagon it will be overwhelming. I think adsense is a wonderful program (hence the adsense links below), but I will NOT subject my subscribers to ads. So far I have been greeted with "I make 4k$ a week off taking surveys" on a .net blog, irrelevant ads that z-index over images on a gadget blog, and general ADD tendencies to not even read a post because the ad caught my attention instead (which means the ad works, but at the expense of the blog). Maybe I'm being a little too critical on what seems like the first day, and just generally pissed that I now have to look at more ads. The funny part of all this is when I see a post I want to really read, I usually open it up outside bloglines. If I found value in the post it, I almost always click on at least 1 ad to support the site. I will NOT click on an RSS ad, though... stay the hell outta my aggregator.

/me hopes bloglines implements some type of ad blocking

/me starts looking for another aggregator thinking AskJeeves prolly isn't interested in that

Edit : Who needs askjeeves when you've got greasemonkey. Sam Ruby points out a GreaseMonkey js file that will block google's rss ads. Fantastic, and thank you

I'll have to find the official place to submit this request tonight. For now, I'll complain on the blog. When I drag a SQL script on an open query window, I wish SQL Management Studio would either open a new window connected to the same DB, or open in the existing window. Currently, the default behaviour is to pop-up the connect dialog box, which allows you to connect to a server, you then still have to choose the database. My guess, I'll run way too many scripts on Master, so I'll either have to change my workstyle, or hope this gets changed. Anyone else drag SQL scripts alot?

Also, speaking of SQL 2K5, go listen to this weeks DotNetRocks with Kimberly Tripp. As always, Kimberly brings tons of great info to the table, and the whole episode is filled with great tidbits on SQL 2K5. HIGHLY recommenced.

I finished my side by side install last week, and just found an interesting side effect, VSS 2005 took over the SCC interface in vs.net 2003. At first glance I don't see much different other then a new more polished UI, but I'm sure there are some differences in the client operations.

Carl Franklin has posted a small bit of Mondays so people can try it out. Mondays is an hour (the site says 2 hours, but it seems to be about 1 hour the past few weeks, which I really like) show, usually filled with geek humor, and interests. Carl is the host of Mondays, as well as DotNetRocks, the best damn podcast there is ;) . So if your not listening to Mondays, at least give this 2 minute clip a shot. You may find it's an excellent way to fill your commute.

Warning : Mondays contains adult content (read bad words).

This weekend I will be doing some server maintenance, since the primary harddrive in the blog sounds like an old Yugo. I'm going to move the blog to a secondary machine so it stays up, but most of my other sites will not be available while I do the swap. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Update : things didn't go as planned. Site was down since this morning. The blog should be back up now (new hd), with the rest to follow..

Just finished doing all the installs, and confirming everything works. The side by side install was easy, painless, and didn't break any 1.1 apps in my smokescreen testing. If your interested, I took notes here. Nothing of interest really, more rambling with myself. I did submit a bug for the doubleclick issue. I was expecting at least some pain, but didn't really feel any. Based on this post by Rob Caron, and reading the suggested doc I will have to repair vs.net 2003 when I uninstall beta2. No biggie, and in a sick way I'd rather see it remove more then it should then not enough :)

I was a bit upset with the ctp install. Although just as smooth, be warned that doing an upgrade will implicitly uninstall your sql 2000 tools along with the database itself, and not bring import any of your server groups. I would even have been happy with a warning about losing the groups, although I should have assumed I'd lose the tools. Other then that, the install seems fine, and I have been able to hook the new tools up to a couple 2k databases here. I guess trial by fire with the sql tools.

Spring is here, and boy am I glad. This was one of the coldest winters I can remember, so its a very welcome change to be in springtime. Of course, being spring, my posting has cut down a bit. I plan to change this in the next week or so. Here are some of the things coming up..

• REST : I've been reading about REST, and I'm interested. Although I'm not convinced, I think REST can offer some interesting benefits over a typical SOAP SOA implementation.
• Ruby : Dynamic typing, blocks, interators, this is one very interesting language. Ordered the book, and plowing through learning this hot little language. Can't wait to get to RAILS.
• delicious.net. : My little wrapper over del.icio.us. Check it out in action on the right bar of the blog home. I need to package it up and release some beta bits and source this week. Also need to host it somewhere (maybe here), anyone know any good svn open source repo's with other .net projects?
• Side by side : With 27 minutes left in my beta2 download, my side by side stories should start tonight.
• I'm sure ill find more to rant about.

I've wished for refactoring in vb.net for a long time. Currently, there aren't any "top tier" options for vb.net, even though the c# guys have a few. I've tried a few of the other offerings out there, and never really found anything that gave me that wow feeling. With vs.net 2005 coming, though, it looks like us vb.net developers will be well taken care of, even if you don't want to purchase some additional addons.

This morning I saw over on AddressOf that Refactor! has a public beta for vs.net 2005 available now. Not only that, but the beta is of a set of community bits that will be free from Developer Express. Fantastic! I think its awesome that Developer Express stepped up to the plate and is offering a community version, since MS cut most of the refactoring out of the base product.

There will be some other options too. Not only will there be a professional version of Refactor! with many more refactorings, but jetbrain's Resharper 2.0 will support vb.net too. Stay tuned as I'm sure I will be reviewing both products in time, as hopefully we can sway management into purchasing some refactoring tools later this year.

From the simplegeek, SaveOurBluths is a site dedicated to saving the Fox show Arrested Development. Arrested Development is a fantastically funny show about a family that's even more dysfunction then your own. If you haven't seen it yet, you should really check it out, its excellent. Of course with Family Guy and American Dad starting on May 1st too, Fox won't have a shortage of programming, but really, can't we have both our Family Guy and Arrested Development? Either case, as SaveOurBluths suggests I'll be sending letters, and telling people how much I like the show (hmm, isn't that what this post does? :)

If you haven't looked outside lately, vs.net 2005 beta 2 was released over the weekend. I've been telling myself that B2 was the time to get serious about 2.0, but now I'm feeling a bit trigger shy to go side by side. Of course VPC is nice, but I think the only way I'll really exercise the IDE is to put it right in front of my face. Anyone tried going side by side with b2 yet?

Was looking around what going on with googlemaps in delicious real quick this fine morning, and saw a link that caught my eye. Buzztracker, which graphicly tracks buzz around the globe. I saw an early beta of this around the holidays, and couldn't wait for CraigMod to finish it up. As usual, excellent work. Check it out!

Another shameless plug since I'm here, make sure to pick up a copy of their book. especially if your interested in some coffee in a can reviews ;) But for an honest view of Japan, nothing beats this book.

This is a great new addition for the webcasts site. In the past I was too lazy to do it most of the time. Although still lazy, I think I'll end up seeing many more webcasts.

My employer is looking to hire a biztalk/.net developer. This is a great chance to get into a small, growing company in a very interesting healthcare related market niche. The position is for a biztalk 2004 developer, with .net experience. We don't really expect to find someone as versed in Biztalk 2004 as we need, though, so the position is open to anyone with .net skills who would want to learn Biztalk, and shows great initiative. The position is in the Hartford CT area. Please contact tranqy at g mail dot com for more details.

Position Description:
Responsible for developing and maintaining our BizTalk 2004 environment as well as performing maintenance development tasks in support of the business.

Requirements:

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related field or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 3 years proven Application Development experience
• Knowledge of the C# Development Language (VB.Net and ASP.Net as well but not required)
• Strong communication and problem-solving skills
• Ability to manage multiple projects as our business grows
• Excels at communicating via printed material, on the telephone and over electronic services.
• Is self-managed, takes initiative, and can manage customer expectations for support services.
• BizTalk Experience preferred (BTS2004 preferred but BTS2002 ok)

• Responsible for the development and support of our BizTalk environment
• Support Evolutions reporting and development teams by assisting in development of BizTalk maps and orchestrations
• Responsible for maintenance development duties in support of the business
• Work closely with the Technical Operations group to assist in new customer implementations
• Participate in the review, selection and implementation of new technologies
• Work with multi-departmental teams regarding technology and operational issues
• Perform related duties as assigned