Today I got a batch of updates via Windows Update. Most updates installed fine, but the “Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (KB948109)” failed with error code of 0×773F.

This computer runs Windows Vista and SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition.

There is also a named instance (MSSMLBIZ) for Outlook with Business Contact Manager (or whatever). I had disabled this instance for performance reasons as I never use the add-on. However, I had to enable and start the service through the SQL Server Configuration Manager to get the update to install.

Then I downloaded the stand-alone security update from the Microsoft Downloads. You can find it from here: Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (KB948109). This isn’t probably necessary, as long as all the instances are running, but if you still get errors, you can check the separate log file with more verbose information.

In short, all you need to do is:

• Make sure all the SQL Server 2005 instances are running
• Download and run the manual update

This fixed it for me.

I was reading Derik Whittakers post about Keeping your tests up to date and it gave me an idea: make a test that fails if the tests are not reviewed.

Let’s say tests should be reviewed every week. When there are huge amount of tests, it will get hard to track when they were last time reviewed.

In this idea the review date is updated among the tests after each review and if the date is not updated because of a missing review, it’ll show up in the test results:

Here is a code of the review test (MSTest):

After the reported "bug", reviewer/developer/tester goes through the tests and manually marks current date to the lastReview date. Each test class could have one of these review tests in the beginning or in the end of the test class.

Of course, it is up to the integrity of the reviewer to actually go through all the tests and not just update the review date, but so is writing good quality tests in the first place. This solution can’t guard the testers, but it can help them and managers to keep track when tests might get outdated.

Being relative new to unit tests I’m not sure if this is a new or even a good idea, but I think it could help maintaining the quality of the tests. What do you think?

Last year I blogged about Microsoft SOA initiative “Oslo” and the first mentions of .NET Framework 4.0. Today I decided to try to find more information about what the future in the Microsoft development world will hold.

As the information has been quite minimal, I decided to find out what kind of job postings Microsoft has listed at the moment as they reveal something of what they are planning at the Redmond. As it turns out, there are lot’s of interesting things coming in the future versions of .NET Framework, Visual Studio, SQL Server and SharePoint.

It should be noted that the information in this post is based mostly on combination of several job listings and speculations and it shouldn’t be taken as a definite road map or truth. Projects can be combined, canceled and delayed. I’ll link to the original job posting sources, but I’m not sure how long the links will work.

.NET Framework

This job post reveals how there will be several SKUs of the .NET Framework:

You would work with the .NET Framework teams in proactively identifying/consolidating redundant feature areas and in driving the core framework technologies. One of your immediate roles will be in helping us factor the .NET Framework to be more flexible, by building the right set of runtime features, such that we can ship multiple .NET Framework SKUs in an agile manner. For example, we must reach the right layering and componentization goals to ship a nimble form factor, such as the .NET SilverLight Framework (for web client) and the .NET Compact Framework (for embedded devices), then build it up to the .NET Client Framework (for rich clients) and ultimately to the full .NET desktop client (for client/server). You would establish framework life cycle, with a particular emphasis on removing obsolete features, so that we can advance the platform futuristically. You would also closely work with Visual Studio architecture team in enabling a flexible multi-framework-targeting experience.

Source

These days .NET Framework distributable is quite large so this was also bit expected to happen at some point. I recall reading from Scott Guthrie’s blog about this earlier. It should also be mentioned that VS2008 SP1 will bring “.NET Framework Client Profile” as mentioned in ScottGu’s post.

Web Development, SharePoint, IIS

Apparently some sort of media server product for Silverlight is in the works:

Do you want to help drive the technical strategy around Web and Media technologies that will shape the internet? Do you love deep, pragmatic, and focused engineering challenges where you control the schedule? Have you ever wanted to drive a small, start-up engineering team building a code base from scratch?

The .NET Developer Platform team is looking for a Group Manager to build Microsoft’s new media server product. This team will deliver the server-side media infrastructure and services required to stream rich media on the Web and work hand-in-hand with Silverlight running on the client. We are looking for a Group Manager who can lead a small team of 10-15 engineers to build this code base from scratch, as an integrated part of the new Web and Media platform.

Source

Now this is getting more interesting. It remains to be seen, if this will be a free add-on for IIS or a commercial product.

Moving on to the SharePoint:

Would you like to be part of the newly formed team whose charter is to develop a v1 infrastructure and tools for SharePoint platform? Would you like to invent, design, and influence a wide range of RAD developer tools for the fastest growing server product in Microsoft’s history? Would you like to work on a team that is in the early stages of execution, designing a new revolutionary set of tools? If so, the Developer Division Business Applications team is the place for you.

Our mission is to empower professional, departmental, and end user developers to create a complete range of business solutions and customizations on the SharePoint. We are part of the Visual Studio family. One of our vNext deliverables includes a rich tool set to support Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) that enable developers to fully utilize Visual Studio and the .NET Framework as a development platform.

Source

The last paragraph is the interesting part. Anyone who has developed custom solutions on MOSS 2007 knows that it can be a nightmare. While it has a good collection of components and services, the development and deployment experience could be a lot better. I personally prefer plain ASP.NET projects as the development life-cycle is much more enjoyable and more risk-free. Hopefully these tools will make the SharePoint vNext development much more enjoyable.

This is also very interesting as it seems to unify ASP.NET, AJAX and Silverlight development:

Are you interested in delivering a cutting-edge technology that will revolutionize Microsoft’s developer platform? Are you looking for the opportunity to help drive several of the key value propositions of the next release of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework? The UI Framework and Services team - part of the .NET Developer Platform group, and owners of ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, and Windows Forms - is kicking off a new project that will be at the heart of the developer experience for building Rich Internet Applications on Microsoft’s .NET Client platform. The goal of the project is to deliver a dramatically productive and simple experience that enables RIA developers - a key developer market - to easily build rich and powerful data-driven applications on .NET. The project will build on the huge customer excitement in Silverlight and WPF, and the success of ASP.NET, to deliver an unparalleled client developer story. The key value propositions we will deliver on are:

1. A complete RIA platform
2. An application model that vastly simplifies LOB application development
3. Greatly simplify N-Tier app development
4. Seamlessly take your RIA out of the browser

To assist us in this project, we are looking for a strong and experienced SDE to help drive our Application Model and Services team. This team’s challenge will be to deliver an application model that makes it dramatically simple for developers to build a rich, occasionally connected, n-tier application. Team deliverables will include a new deployment model that can seamlessly take .NET-based Rich Internet Applications from the browser to the Windows desktop, a framework library that makes it incredibly easy to deliver rich occasionally connected user experiences, and a set of application building blocks like authentication and personalization that reduce the time to build rich application functionality, and integrate Rich Internet Applications with Windows, IE, and Office.

Source

And another related post excerpt:

To assist us with these efforts, we are looking for a strong and experienced SDE to help drive our UI and UI Framework team. Building UI from data is at the heart of virtually every LOB application, and the team will deliver a set of rich Silverlight based controls, including a data grid, that enable new data experiences. The team will also deliver a programming model experience that makes it incredibly easy to build rich data-driven UI and visualizations. Building on innovative technologies such as Silverlight, LINQ and WPF, this team’s work will allow developers to very easily build a fully functional UI application out of data. Using the UI Framework, developers will be able to then easily customize and enrich the application by adding functionality such as navigation, editing, and validation.

Source

This isn’t a big secret, but it was news to me:

Our goal this year is to get Ruby on Rails working in IronRuby. You will be expected to work on the compiler, Ruby libraries, and performance improvements. We also want to provide IronRuby support in the Visual Studio IDE. This includes editing features (color-coding of source code, intellisense, etc), debugging features (breakpoints, data tool tips), ensuring a Ruby look-and-feel (interactive console, etc), and integration into the Visual Studio project system.

Source

Visual Studio

Major changes are coming to Visual Studio (some day):

Over the next few years we plan to modernize and/or re-architect various areas of the [Visual Studio] platform where we see the greatest potential opportunities for improving the developer experience exist. These include creating a new User Interface that takes advantage of the latest in UI tools, techniques, and hardware; a robust extensibility model that helps 3rd parties extend and enhance the VS environment to improve developer productivity; an editor that is both modern and extensible and greatly improves developer code understanding; a build system that can scale to projects as large as building the Windows Operating System; and an automation model that makes it easy to automate the development environment and allow for tasks like nightly builds to be automated.

Source

Another posting reveals that WPF is one of the “latest UI techniques”:

Major initiatives for this team for the next release of VS include:

* Work with the Shell UI team to migrate portions of the VS Shell to WPF

Source

Visual Studio Team System

I have just adopted Team Foundation Server 2008 and other Team System features so I’m very excited to see what’s happening on this area. Here are some finds:

If you use Visual Studio or any other popular IDE to write code in C#, C++, VB, Java, etc. then these services are a familiar part of your development lifestyle. If you develop for any of the major SQL platforms, then the available development tools leave you relatively out in the cold. In certain respects, database development tools are fully three decades behind the curve!

Come work for the team that is changing this with a market-shifting database development project system within Visual Studio. The mission for the team is no less than to bring tooling-support for database developers to par with that of traditional languages such as C# and C++, for the complete application lifecycle. This is a challenging charter, in a fundamentally unique problem-space. In one team you will find a broad spectrum of software development challenges from designer and user interface work, to the nuts and bolts of language parsing and cutting-edge code-modeling.

Source

Interesting and I have no idea what it could be in practice.

Testing will also get more tools in the VSTS:

In the Rosario release of VSTST we have the ambitious goal of fundamentally changing the relationship between Development and QA by providing tools and workflow that make testers first class citizens in our customers’ development process. To do this, we will deliver world class Test Case Management, Test Authoring, Automation Tools and Frameworks, as well as game changing integrations within Visual Studio Team Suite.

Source

Distributed Applications

These days I do integration projects and distributed programming is part of my daily life. That’s why I’m increasingly looking into WCF, WF and BizTalk as they could be part of our integration product. After reading these posts it seems that something interesting (that is, Oslo) is on the way:

Join the Connected Framework (CFx) team and help us create the programming model central to Microsoft’s next generation of the distributed application framework. The team has recently delivered first versions of WCF (aka Indigo) and Windows Workflow, which are receiving significant customer acceptance. WCF is THE Web Services stack for Microsoft, and Windows Workflow is THE foremost declarative, process model framework. Now is a great time to join the team as we are starting to work on the next major release that consolidates and enhances these two powerful yet simple and elegant development frameworks into a single unified platform aiming for 10x productivity increase in distributed applications development.

Source

For the last few years, we have been on a mission to make the usage of transactions simple, fast and ubiquitous. We have made tremendous progress so far. The Systems Transactions namespace in .NET 2.0 made transactions far easier to use, with dramatic improvements in performance. We have extended the reach of transactions all the way from web services to the kernel. We authored and implemented the WS-Atomic Transactions standard. In Vista, we integrated our transactions stack with the transacted file system and registry! In Oslo, we are planning to add distributed compensation support by adding long-running transactions support to the connected framework runtime! But all of this is just the beginning. In our upcoming releases we will continue to extend our reach, from atomic transactions to long-running activities with compensation to generic agreement protocols! We will continue to make it easier to write reliable and consistent distributed applications. Most importantly, we will continue to ship regularly to get our work into the hands of customers.

Source

SQL Server and Data Programmability

Do you have a passion for building state-of-the-art graphics software? Would you like to influence the direction of a key technology used across multiple Microsoft products?

We are seeking a Lead Software Development Engineer to drive the architecture, design, and implementation of rich data visualization components - including charts, gauges, maps, and calendars - that will be included in upcoming releases of SQL Server, Visual Studio, and Office. In this highly visible leadership role, you will be responsible for managing a high performance team of software developers using the latest Microsoft technologies, including C#, ASP.NET, AJAX, Silverlight, and WPF.

Rich data visualization capabilities are quickly becoming a requirement for modern business applications. The SQL Server Reporting Services team is on the cutting edge of this technology, creating a set of powerful and interactive data visualization components for application developers, IT professionals, and end users. We are a growing team that is passionate about creating the most comprehensive database reporting, data visualization, and notifications platform in the industry. We have an expanding customer base that has ever-increasing demands for more capabilities, and we are continuing to extend our product reach, evolve the feature set, and deliver new customer innovations.

Source

Those data visualization controls will be welcomed.

XML tools for SQL Server/Visual Studio will be enhanced. Interesting point is that WPF and Silverlight will be part of it:

Help build the XML Editor, XSLT Debugger and XML Editing platform for developers. The Data Programmability (DP) Tools product team is a new and growing product unit that is looking for a talented and motivated developer. We want you to help define and build state of the art tools that are distributed as part of Visual Studio and SQL Server and are used by millions of developers world-wide - hobbyists and enterprise developers alike. We value and encourage innovation and excellence in graphical tool design, usability, infrastructure, and execution. SQL Server is investing in tools. If you want to make a difference and work with state of the art technologies such as WPF, Silverlight, MEF/MAF, and help define tools standards for developers, then we would like to talk with you.

Source

This posting gives many interesting details about SQL Server’s future:

SQL Server is embarking on an ambitious effort to rejuvenate the T-SQL language and to embrace all the programming models in the data platform - relational, spatial, full text, xml and entities. This involves all aspects of the SQL programming surface from designing procedural extensions to the language, to improving the cursor model, to enhanced metadata discovery, to application packaging, to building a new compiler for T-SQL, to building extensibility into SQL Server. And this is just a sampling of the problems for which you will need to design and help build good solutions. In addition, this effort will require you to work on and influence Microsoft’s Data Platform Strategy.

Source

Last notes

As you can see, many interesting tools and technologies are on their way in the next few years. My research method was very random and the job postings don’t reveal much, but I’m sure that we’ll get more information in the coming months.

However, the pattern already shows that many coming features build on existing components and aim to unify the development experience by combining them in many ways.

It seems that there will be much more graphical designers, DSLs and other modern ways of generating applications. This will split the opinions as many developers prefer to code in the traditional way, but I’m sure there will be something for everybody - I probably found just a few interesting bits out of many!

From my view point the most interesting finds were:

• UI developers will get the Application Framework(?) that combines the WPF, Silverlight and ASP.NET technologies.
• SharePoint development experience will be tolerable, perhaps even fun.
• Distributed developers will get the Connected Framework(?) that builds on WF and WCF.
• Productive LOB-application tools that utilize latest UI-technologies (Silverlight, WPF) with little or no code.
• SQL Server will get major changes to T-SQL and new XML tools.
• Visual Studio will be enhanced in many, innovative ways with technologies like WPF.
• Visual Studio Team System will make database development more integrated with the development process. Testing will get more tools.

Do you have any rumors to share?

Microsoft has just released a public beta of the WorldWide Telescope.

"The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe."

You can download it from here for PC and Mac (with Boot Camp and Windows). Requires .NET 2.0 and DirectX.

First try

I tried the WWT very briefly and initial reaction was a bit "meh", but the more I played it, the more I liked the experience. I didn’t have  time to try all the features, but I like the intuitive navigation and "flying effect", when choosing destinations. It’s easy to find familiar destinations through collections and cool just to explore randomly.

It is a really nice experience for those interested in astronomy and a very good learning tool. There are many community options to share tours etc.

Here are some screens:

Yes, this is the product that made Scoble cry

TechCrunch: Google Launching ToDo List Product?

The post, based on the screen shot, appears to be a simple to do list. But the post was removed from the blog and the feed, and that means it’s time for conspiracy theories to blossom.

It is certainly reasonable to assume Google would consider launching a simple to-do list product to complement its office suite, and would post about the new product on the official blog. One reason to remove the post - they may have simply posted too early and pulled it down because the product wasn’t ready to launch.

[via Techmeme]

While it certainly seems like a revolutionary todo-application, it is always as funny when Google (or Apple or sometimes Microsoft) leaks a simple hint of something and Internet goes crazy.

One can but wonder what stir it would cause, if a Googler accidentally leaked his shopping list to the Internet. “Could these be code names for their next products?”

Update 13.4:

Vikrant at the BETA News noticed also the funniness of the situation. He also pointed out that it really was just a personal todo-list that got accidentally posted - just like I joked how funny it would be

I just read from a reliable source that Windows Vista SP1 is finally available for download through the Download Center or Windows Update. There are both x86 and x64 -versions available.

I installed it a while ago and so far I haven’t had problems at home (Vista Ultimate) or work (Vista Business). Reserve some time for it, though.

I just read that Windows 7 possibly comes in 2010 or once it meets the quality bar for the release.

See related news/discussions from the Techmeme.

We’ll see, how that turns out. Whatever the timeline is, I’m sure Microsoft is this time much more careful before promising what features it will contain.

Anyway, developers on Microsoft-platform are not that tied to the operating system releases as they used to be. New .NET and Visual Studio -releases are much more exciting and they are not that dependent on the underlying Windows-version.

Windows Server 2008 was an exception though, as it is really good release, especially with IIS7 which makes it a great application server.

Today I received my first ODF-file in e-mail, .ODT to be specific. It is an ISO-certified standard that is used by about 5 persons on the planet. In the end I’ll share how I managed through this situation without having to install any third-party additions.

Before that you must first read the whole boring story rant:

I was arranging an Internet connection to a conference room where we are going to learn Silverlight in an internal study group tomorrow. The connection must be arranged through an external provider which is why I was dealing with them in the first place.

It was frustrating from the start as I had to print out a PDF, fill it by hand and then fax it to the company and hope that they received it (they never confirmed it or anything). Web forms must still be too modern for some ISP’s, I guess.

Anyway, today I received an e-mail that the connection has been setup and that the attachment has all the necessary information - in .ODT-format! Contents was just few IP-addresses etc text data that could have been in the e-mail body as plain text.

Sure, ODF is an "open standard" and everything, but still in practice it is an annoyance for everyone else: Microsoft Office users, which is the majority, like it or not.

To be fair, non-Office users don’t like receiving files in Office 2007 (or earlier format), but at least the .doc is supported by all the current office applications already. Average MS Office users may not really think about it when sending files as attachments in latest format. They don’t do it because they are mean or because they want to force some format of their preference to other people.

However, personnel of this company in question must be technical enough to use more established standards, like plain text, when it is enough. PDF is the next step, when advanced formatting is necessary. Product-specific formats are ok, when agreed by both parties.

Because of this, I refused to install any ODF-importers. I had peeked into the XML, of course, but I was too busy to start stripping off the tags. I searched for an alternative solution as I wanted to print the information for clarity.

Solution - Zamzar!

I found this excellent, free online conversion service, Zamzar, that converts between most known file formats. Just select a file, choose format, enter e-mail and click Convert!

Soon you’ll have the file waiting in your inbox without the need of installing any importers or exporters, no matter which office product you personally prefer.

I don’t really care that the ODF exists, but as of now, it isn’t that widely spread that you can send it everywhere - ISO or not. For the same reason I don’t send Office 2007 files to everybody, even though it is already more widely used than all the ODF-supporting products added together (and multiplied few times over).

I recently upgraded my server to Windows Server 2008 and soon after that the problems started. No, not because of the greatest server operating system there is, but because of a hardware issue.

The symptom was always the same: computer would suddenly reboot, then turn off. Power led, fans etc were on and keyboard LEDs (caps lock, scroll lock and num lock) were flashing very fast. I couldn’t find many similar symptoms by searching the web, either.

The server started crashing after variable periods of time and it was difficult to find the reason. I had upgraded the memory to 2GB at the same time, so that’s where it was natural to start troubleshooting. I tried various memory tests, old memory DRAM’s etc, but still the computer kept crashing.

It could have been a heating issue, but it hadn’t been a problem before and the hardware monitor in BIOS showed low temperatures. By the way, crashed happened in CMOS-setup, too, so it had to be a hardware-related issue.

I also suspected faulty hard disk, motherboard or PSU, but luckily I found the reason: my old Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro that I had reserved for random uses like this.

I had attached the keyboard for the fresh install of the Windows Server 2008 as Remote Desktop can’t be used in the early phase of installation. After installation, I had left the keyboard attached, just in case there were problems and I needed to login directly. Never would I have thought that the keyboard could actually cause this severe problems. How ironic.

At one point I guessed that maybe the keyboard from 1999 could be the reason with the odd blinking after the crashes and because usually I don’t have any keyboard or mouse attached to the server.

So I detached the old PS/2-keyboard from the server and the server has been running fine ever since for several days. The PS/2 -connector could somehow be faulty, too, but either way, I’ll use only USB-keyboards from this century/millennium from now on.

Not sure if I should blame Microsoft or IBM (who invented PS/2-port) for my problems. Of course I’m not the one to blame for using too old hardware! Hopefully this post helps someone with similar symptoms.

This time I really had to think outside the box to solve the problem

Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 is coming soon (likely during MIX08, March 5-7 200 and today Scott Guthrie published lot’s of great information about it.

First he gives a first look at the Silverlight 2.0 beta 1. This is must read for high-level view for the information.

However, the best part is the tutorial series, where he shows how he writes a simple Digg -client with the Silverlight:

• Part 1: Creating "Hello World" with Silverlight 2 and VS 2008
• Part 2: Using Layout Management
• Part 3: Using Networking to Retrieve Data and Populate a DataGrid
• Part 4: Using Style Elements to Better Encapsulate Look and Feel
• Part 5: Using the ListBox and DataBinding to Display List Data
• Part 6: Using User Controls to Implement Master/Details Scenarios
• Part 7: Using Templates to Customize Control Look and Feel
• Part 8: Creating a Digg Desktop Version of our Application using WPF

These are a very good resources for getting started with the Silverlight 2.0. I’ve been one of the undoubtly many .NET-developers, who has been waiting that Silverlight 2.0 reaches this point. Beta 1 will be mature enough to start experimenting in real-life scenarios.