Interface Blogs

I've had several people here in the Phoenix area and others I've met at ASP.NET Connections conferences ask when I'll be teaching specific .NET classes in 2008 and my standard reply has been "I'm not sure at this point".  We have things scheduled out past June now so here's the information for those who are interested.  Most of the classes listed are 5 days aside from the First Look at Visual Studio 2008 (1 day) and ASP.NET AJAX Programming (3 days).

• ASP.NET 2.0 Programming - January 14th
• First Look at Visual Studio 2008 - January 29th
• Advanced C# Programming with the .NET Framework 2.0 - February 4th
• Distributed Development with VS 2005 - February 11th
• Intro to C# Using Visual Studio 2005 - March 3rd
• Advanced VB.NET Programming with the .NET Framework 2.0 - March 17th
• Advanced C# Programming with the .NET Framework 2.0 - March 31st
• ASP.NET AJAX Programming - April 7th
• Distributed Development with Visual Studio 2005 - May 19th
• Advanced VB.NET Programming with the .NET Framework 2.0 - June 2nd
• Advanced C# Programming with the .NET Framework 2.0 - June 9th
• First Look at Visual Studio 2008 - June 23rd

The schedule is of course subject to change, but it's what I have at this point.  If you have any questions about any of the courses feel free to contact me through my blog.

It's here!  Visual Studio 2008 is now available to download for MSDN subscribers.  Lots of great stuff is available in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 such as:

• Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
• LINQ to SQL Designer
• New ASP.NET 3.5 controls such as the ListView and DataPager
• Nested Master Page designer support
• Split View design mode for ASP.NET and WPF
• Integrated ASP.NET AJAX support
• ASP.NET AJAX control templates
• JavaScript Intellisense
• WPF designer
• Workflow designer
• WCF integration and support (even with ASP.NET AJAX)
• Integrated Office 2007 development templates
• Vista UAC manifest file support
• Unit testing support now also available in the professional edition (and team editions)
• Much more....

I came across the following error while trying to debug an ASP.NET page in VS.NET 2008 tonight: "Unable to start debugging on the web server. Strong name validation failed."  I hadn't seen the error before but after spending a few seconds searching I came across the following steps that seem to have solved the problem.  I found the steps here.  Since this is documented I'm hoping it'll be resolved by the final release of VS.NET 2008. 

Having used VS.NET 2008 for a week now I have to say I'm extremely impressed with it and have found it to be very stable.....and super productive.

2.3.5.2 Strong name validation failed error when launching IIS project on Windows Vista

When a Web project is run on Windows Vista, it may fail to start and the following error may be shown: "Unable to start debugging on the web server. Strong name validation failed. Click Help for more information."

To resolve this issue:

Disable strong name validation for a Visual Studio file (iisresolver.dll) by doing the following:

1. Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt, and then select  Run as administrator
2. You may see the screen grey and a 'User Account Control' dialog box appear. If this happens, click Continue so that the command prompt starts.

3. Obtain a copy of sn.exe. Sn.exe installed with Visual Studio 2005, and the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK, and therefore it may already be on the computer. If it is not on the computer, then download .NET Framework 2.0 SDK to obtain it. The x86 version of the Software development kit can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FE6F2099-B7B4-4F47-A244-C96D69C35DEC. The x64 version of the SDK can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1AEF6FCE-6E06-4B66-AFE4-9AAD3C835D3D.
4. Run one of the following commands, as appropriate:

32-bit computer:
"<path_to_sn>\sn.exe" -Vr "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\iisresolver.dll"

64-bit computer:
"<path_to_sn>\sn.exe" -Vr "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\iisresolver.dll"

This assumes that Visual Studio was installed to the default location. If Visual Studio was installed to a custom location, then '%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0' should be replaced with the path where Visual Studio was installed.

Visual Studio .NET 2008 provides many new features that will definitely enhance developer productivity.  In this video tutorial I provide an introductory look at VS.NET 2008 and show a few features such as multi-targeting, split view, and the LinqDataSource control.  In the video you'll see how to build an ASP.NET page that retrieves data from a data context object (created with the new LINQ to SQL designer) and binds it to various controls using the LinqDataSource control.

If you haven't heard already, VS.NET 2008 beta 2 is now available for downloading.  I'm installing it right now. :-)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?DisplayLang=en&nr=20&freetext=visual+studio+2008&sortCriteria=date

Make you sure read Scott Guthrie's blog after the installation.  He links to a batch file that needs to be installed afterwards to fix some policy issues on the System.Web.Extensions.dll assembly.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/07/26/vs-2008-and-net-3-5-beta-2-released.aspx

Microsoft's .NET & Connected Systems Evangelism team recently released all of the source code for their DinnerNow.net application.  If you're interested in learning .NET 3.0 technologies as well as the new 3.5 stuff coming out, this is a great application to run and explore.  James Conrad's team put together a great set of sample code that shows how "you can develop a connected application using several new Microsoft technologies, including: IIS7, ASP.NET Ajax Extensions, Linq, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Powershell, and the .NET Compact Framework".

There's no better way to learn how these technologies can be used together than by walking through a real application and picking it apart.  In addition to the DinnerNow.net application, they've also released several labs that target VS.NET Orcas Beta 1 covering the following topics. 

• JSON with ASP.NET AJAX and WCF
• Developing Dynamic Data-Driven Websites
• Using DLinq (Linq to SQL) with the .Net 3.5
• Syndication using WCF
• Workflow Services using WCF
  

They'll also be releasing videos about the application.  I'll more than likely make some videos of my own that walk through the application as well in the near future.

Microsoft's Betrand Le Roy just put together a great post on how to document JavaScript code in VS.NET Orcas.  By adding documentation comments, users of your script will get nice intellisense as they type and use JavaScript classes, methods, etc.  Nice stuff that we've all wanted for a long, long time.

http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/archive/2007/04/23/the-format-for-javascript-doc-comments.aspx

Wally McClure just released a video that shows what the new intellisense support looks like as well.

It looks like Visual Studio .NET Orcas (the next version of VS.NET) Beta 1 is going to be released today or tomorrow on MSDN.  I've been using virtual machines to this point but I'll probably make the jump now and install it side-by-side with VS.NET 2005 since it can target .NET 2.0 as well the new 3.5 framework.  Here's more information about the release:

http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2007/04/19/visual-studio-orcas-and-net-fx-3-5-beta1-shipped.aspx