Brenton House

Error creating new MVC Controller for Entity Framework

Brenton House — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:18:11 GMT

I downloaded and installed Visual Studio 11 (2012) RC today but I am getting an error every time I try to add a MVC controller to a project. Unable to retrieve metadata for 'MyNamespace.TestEntity. Unable to load one or more of the requested types...(read more)

Google introduces the Knowledge Graph

Brenton House — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:32:52 GMT

Google is rolling out a HUGE new feature in the next few days. They call it the “Knowledge Graph” and it is supposed to be a much smarter system for gathering the search results that you want. This will set SEO experts scrambling to see how...(read more)

Basic WCF Authentication with SQL Membership Provider

Brenton House — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:10:33 GMT

There is an interesting article on Code Project about using WCF Basic Authentication with SQL Membership Provider. Obviously, there are much more sophisticated ways of securing WCF services but it is an interesting how-to for getting basic security for WCF up and running.

WCF Basic Authentication with SQL Membership Provider

We will show you how to set up WCF Basic Authentication using the SQL Membership Provider provided by Microsoft.It is highly recommended that you walk through the explanations by looking at the source code as it will help you gain a more solid understanding.You can also run the application on your computer.
We will assume you already know how to setup WCF to run in https, since basic authentication without https would be meaningless because the user name and password would be passed as plain texts in the network.
Topics

We will show you:

How to setup the database and the Web Site Administration Tool from the .net framework for managing the Users and Roles

How to setup the WCF Basic Authentication under https and use SQL Membership Provider to validate users and roles

How to make your WCF service consumable by other other platforms such as Java by making the WSDL a single file

You can also see how to make your service consumable by any technology and also set up error handling here.

Brenton House

Frequently Asked Questions about Free Upgrade on SkyDrive

Brenton House — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:33:17 GMT

[via: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/skydrive/loyalty]

You’ve been with us a long time, and through a lot of changes. We appreciate you sticking with us, and we want to make it easy for you to keep using your 25 GB of free online storage. All you need to do is go to the SkyDrive storage page and choose Upgrade my storage. That’s it—you’re locked in for 25 GB for free.*

Frequently asked questions

Why is the storage limit changing?
When designing the new SkyDrive, we wanted to create personal cloud storage that was both powerful and that had enough storage to meet the needs of most people—for free. The new SkyDrive offers 7 GB of storage. That’s enough for 20,000 Office docs or 7,000 photos. And unlike before, you can upload big files (up to 2 GB) and automatically sync files or entire folders to SkyDrive right from your PC.

We also wanted to offer additional storage options for people who needed more, without applying a single limit to everyone. So we now offer affordable plans to add up to 100 GB of additional storage to SkyDrive.
What are the new features?
SkyDrive for PC or Mac: Install SkyDrive on your computer and you can access files in your SkyDrive right from your desktop—online or offline. Files in your SkyDrive folder are automatically kept up to date across your PCs and Macs. Available for Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X Lion.

Apps for Windows Phone, iPhone, and iPad: Get to your files while you’re on the go with the new SkyDrive for iPad app and updated apps for Windows Phone and iPhone. And of course you can still go to SkyDrive.com from your phone’s browser.

Fetch files: Forgot to put a file in your SkyDrive folder? You can access any file stored on your PC running Windows from SkyDrive.com.

Increased upload sizes: Now you can upload and share files up to 2 GB.
What happens if I don’t upgrade my storage? Will I lose my stuff?
No. In the new SkyDrive, everyone gets 7 GB of free storage. If you were using close to this amount before the latest update, we’ve automatically upgraded your storage already . You can always see how much storage you have by signing into SkyDrive and checking the storage meter.
Where can I go to learn more?
You can get more information about SkyDrive on our website. If you have any questions, you can get answers in the SkyDrive forum.

Brenton House

Microsoft Cloud services are changing... Windows Live is dead. Long live SkyDrive.

Brenton House — Mon, 07 May 2012 03:32:00 GMT

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/02/cloud-services-for-windows-8-and-windows-phone-windows-live-reimagined.aspx

We have talked quite a bit about SkyDrive and using your Microsoft account for the sign-in and roaming capabilities of Windows 8. These are just two aspects of a broad service infrastructure that you can tap into when using Windows 8 (and Windows Phone, Xbox LIVE, and a host of other services and apps). We want to talk more about the capabilities and features of cloud services for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. To get started, Chris Jones, the VP of our Windows Live group responsible for the development and operations of all of the services and apps, authored this post to introduce the reimagined role of cloud services in Windows 8.
--Steven

Brenton House

Microsoft SkyDrive has received a major upgrade!

Brenton House — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:22:00 GMT

Microsoft SkyDrive has received a major upgrade that allows you to sync 25GB for free. Upgrades are dirt cheap at $10/YEAR for an extra 20GB of space. Everyone is preparing for Google's 100GB Google Drive announcement...

https://plus.google.com/101371617406438805612/posts/jTVJSWZbiH6

I have installed the client on Windows 7 and on Mac OS X Lion. Haven't had any issues yet but I will post updates with how it works. If everything goes well, it will replace my Dropbox for sure!

Brenton House

Using Windows 8 and Visual Studio 11 Together

Brenton House — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:56:00 GMT

So I broke down and installed Windows 8 Preview on a machine... Not the experience I was expecting. I hope that this is nothing like the final version because Windows 8 Preview looks horrible and it is even harder to navigate.

Anyways, I decided to see if I could put Visual Studio 11 on it. I know, beta on beta, but that's how I roll. This won't be a really long post about it because it won't even install on it. I tried several different methods but no luck.

Since I was less than impressed with the Windows 8 UI, I opted to wipe the machine and put Windows 7 on it. Haven't had any problems with Windows 7 and Visual Studio 11 Beta together!

Post comments if you have had a better experience and how you worked around any issues!

Brenton House

Installing latest Windows 7 updates could cause unbootable system

Brenton House — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:45:00 GMT

Be careful when installing the latest updates that just came out from Microsoft yesterday. I have only tried them on one machine but after installing the latest updates from Windows Update, my machine rebooted and Windows 7 will no longer start.

I have tried repairing my installation but that does nothing for the situation.

The Starting Windows logo comes up for a couple of seconds and then the machine automatically reboots again.

Brenton House

Activating Windows 7 on different hardware

Brenton House — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:11:00 GMT

With Vista, if you replaced hardware on your machine or put your hard drive in a new computer, Windows would prompt you to activate online. You were typically given 5 or so activations before your key would no longer work.

With Windows 7, if you replace hardware, you still get the Windows Activation message saying that you must activate in 3 days. However, now you must reactivate using the automated phone system. Online activation can only be accomplished if you are reactivating with the same hardware.

I wonder if you can now reactivate more than 5 times on the same hardware? This would make sense since they are storing your hardware information to match up with your activation key.

Brenton House

Avoid creating hidden 200MB partition in Windows 7

Brenton House — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:33:00 GMT

The first few times I installed Windows 7, I noticed that it created a hidden 200MB active partition on my primary hard drive. The purpose of this partition is to store the boot files and the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) for repairing your computer if necessary. Once it is created, it is very difficult to remove and you risk your computer not booting.

Now this is a good idea in theory and for most people, this won’t matter. But when I am setting my my systems (at least with Vista and Windows 7) is that I install the OS on a machine and configure it exactly the way I want it. I then install all the software on it and take an image of it using Acronis TrueImage. I can then take that image and setup a new computer (with different hardware) within a matter of minutes.

This whole 200MB partition deals complicates the imaging process and so I looked into the details of it. Apparently if you install Windows 7 on a drive with unpartitioned or unallocated space. Create the primary partition first by choosing Drive options (advanced). When you get this dialog box: “To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files.” Hit Cancel. The boot files will now be put on the primary partition that you created earlier.

If you aren’t going to be imaging your system or you want to setup dual boot, you can go ahead and let Windows 7 do it’s thing and create the extra partition.

Brenton House

How to get your Quick Launch Toolbar back in Windows 7

Brenton House — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:41:00 GMT

Right click on taskbar and select Toolbars > New Toolbar
Browse to:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
Hit: Select Folder

-or- you can just download and install a much better version of Quick Launch called Free Launch Bar. It is free (as the name implies) and has more features the old Quick Launch.

Brenton House

How to find missing drivers for Windows 7

Brenton House — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:33:00 GMT

I installed Windows 7 on machine that was a couple of years old. When it booted up, the max display resolution was 640x480 because of the old vga video driver that shipped with Windows 7. I tried to find an updated driver from several places but ended up being saved by DriverMax.

DriverMax is a FREE application that helps identify unknown hardware and uploads the data to their site and provides downloads for updated drivers.

Shortly after using this software I was back up and running at 1280x1024 (max for my monitor).

Brenton House

How to (Successfully) Install Cisco VPN Client on Windows 7

Brenton House — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:30:00 GMT

If you do not follow these instructions when installing the Cisco VPN Client on Windows 7, you will probably end up in an endless blue screen / reboot cycle!

Uninstall any previous version of Cisco VPN client that you may have installed
Reboot
Download the Citrix DNE Update and install it.
Reboot
Make sure you have Cisco VPN Client 5.0.4.0300 (or newer, if available)
Install the Cisco VPN Client
Reboot

** Check out some of the additional steps others have taken below if you run into problems

Brenton House

Live Mesh update for Windows 7 Beta is now online

Brenton House — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:29:00 GMT

Microsoft has posted a new update for Live Mesh that is compatible with Windows 7 Beta. The info has been posted on the Live Mesh Blog.

Brenton House

R.I.P. .NET Reflector

Brenton House — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:01:00 GMT

Yes. It is true, Lutz Roeder has decided to end development of .NET Reflector… This free tool has been the greatest addition to .NET development since, well, forever. Development will be passed on to Red Gate Software and it is unclear whether it will eventually move to a retail product. So sad.

Here is a copy of the email that was sent out:

After more than eight years of working on .NET Reflector, I have decided it is time to move on and explore some new opportunities.

I have reached an agreement to have Red Gate Software continue the development of .NET Reflector. Red Gate has a lot of experience creating development tools for both .NET and SQL Server. They have the resources necessary to work on new features, and Reflector fits nicely with other .NET tools the company offers.

Red Gate will continue to provide the free community version and is looking for your feedback and ideas for future versions.

For news and updates on Reflector, sign up for the .NET Developer’s Newsletter from Red Gate. To find out more about the agreement, see the interview on Simple Talk.

Brenton House