The Entity Framework is a set of technologies in ADO.NET that support the development of data-oriented software applications. Architects and developers of data-oriented applications have struggled with the need to achieve two very different objectives. They must model the entities, relationships, and logic of the business problems they are solving, and they must also work with the data engines used to store and retrieve the data. The data may span multiple storage systems, each with its own protocols; even applications that work with a single storage system must balance the requirements of the storage system against the requirements of writing efficient and maintainable application code.

This white paper describes and demonstrates how to write testable code with the ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010. This paper does not try to focus on a specific testing methodology, like test-driven design (TDD) or behavior-driven design (BDD). Instead this paper will focus on how to write code that uses the ADO.NET Entity Framework yet remains easy to isolate and test in an automated fashion. We’ll look at common design patterns that facilitate testing in data access scenarios and see how to apply those patterns when using the framework. We’ll also look at specific features of the framework to see how those features can work in testable code.

A generic method for attaching detached object graphs to an Entity Framework context.

A problem I run into a lot when evangelizing IronRuby is the language barrier. Just like real life, people are scared when they visit a country where they do not know the local language. Same thing with C# developers who are afraid to learn other languages.

Flavors.me allows anyone to create an elegant and dynamic website using personal content from around the web

Werken met sneltoetsen is veel handiger werken dan met de muis. Je gebruikt de muis niet en hoeft deze dus ook niet continu te positioneren (een ingewikkeld oog-hand coordinatie spelletje). Ook blijven je handen op hun plaats; let eens op hoe vaak je nu wisselt tussen muis en toetsenbord. Constant! Met sneltoetsen ontwikkel je je motorisch geheugen, zoals je ook pincodes onthoudt: binnen afzienbare bedient je programma’s blindelings!

One of the things I'm digging about VS2010 is its extensibility model. I'm collecting add-ins in VS like I collect Add-Ins in FireFox. Here's my current of the best Visual Studio 2010 Extensions I'm using.

If you don't follow Marc Grabanski, you should - especially if you are interested in learning the ins and outs of jQuery. Marc just posted a new jQuery Essentials slide deck. Carve some time out and run through the deck. Whether you are a jQuery noob or somebody who has worked with jQuery for some time, it will be time well spent as you are sure to learn something new.

Save Money. Save the Environment.
Tired of printing web pages only to find your printout is full of ads, empty space and other junk you don't want?
PrintWhatYouLike is a free online editor that lets you format any web page for printing in seconds!

In a shared hosting environment, it’s a common desire to have a single IIS website that handles multiple sites with different domain names.  This saves the cost of setting up additional sites with the hoster. 

At ORCS Web, we’ve supported this situation for many years using ISAPI Rewrite.  Now, with URL Rewrite for IIS 7, it’s easier and it’s integrated right into web.config.  In this blog post I’ll set out to cover the essentials for hosting multiple domain names under a single account using URL Rewrite.

William Brewer turns a jaundiced eye to the task of laying out  web pages using CSS, and gives some nuggets from years of occasional page design. It is, of course, set with a a stylesheet he's come up with to demo a few of his points.

ASP.NET now has support for the jQuery JavaScript library. Although ASP.NET  integrated AJAX technology by introducing the is the UpdatePanel server control, jQuery offers an alternative, and more versatile, way of doing it and a great deal more besides. Matteo shows how easy it is to get started with using jQuery.

Try to get to the next level…

In this we’ll continue to discuss how to go about the SQL Server Data Access using various technologies. This post will discuss Microsoft Language Integrated Query, otherwise known as LINQ. I will discuss how it can be used to accomplish the same tasks we have discussed in previous posts. But before that it surely requires a good introduction to start with.

In my previous post I summarized Microsoft Language Integrated Query (LINQ). Briefly discussed about its components as well as showed some code examples to highlight the sql query type syntax it uses. Please don’t get confused about the title of this post. We sure are going to talk about language enhancements but they are the features of C# 3.0, and not the features of LINQ. But they are the building blocks of the LINQ. In this post I will discuss these features a little further as follows.
- Object Initializers
- Collection Initializers
- Anonymous Types, Implicitly Typed variables (var keyword)
- Lambda Expressions
- Partial Methods
- Extension Methods

PowerCommands 10.0 is a set of useful extensions for the Visual Studio 2010 adding additional functionality to various areas of the IDE. Visit the VSX Developer Center at http://msdn.com/vsx for more information about extending Visual Studio.

This article demonstrates how to display Panels one after the other, and after a fixed duration, like a slide show. The Panels should have a sliding effect.

A new, customizable start page for Chrome. Easily find your favorite bookmarks and closed tabs. Take notes as you browse.

Who is the most influential person on the internet?

In this sample chapter from his recently released book (co-Authored with Paul Glavich) Chris Farrell gives us a fast overview of performance profiling, memory profiling, profiling tools, and in fact everything we need to know when it comes to profiling our applications. This is a great first step, and The Complete Guide to .NET Performance Testing and Optimization is crammed with even more indispensable knowledge.

The focus of Microsoft’s latest ASP.NET 4has mainly been on improving the performance and Search-engine Optimization (SEO). In this article, I'll be taking a look at what I think are the most important new features in ASP.NET 4.
- Output cache extensibility
- Session state compression
- View state mode for individual control
- Page.MetaKeyword and Page.MetaDescription properties
- Response.RedirectPermanent method
- Routing in ASP.NET
- Increase the URL character length
- New syntax for Html Encode
- Predictable Client IDs
- Web.config file refactoring
- Auto-Start ASP.NET applications
- Improvements on Microsoft Ajax Library

When building a website it is common to expose an RSS/ATOM feed for your content. Feeds serve two main purposes. The first, is that it allows other sites to consume your content for syndication. For example if you write .NET articles, there may be other partner sites that subscribe to your feed and dynamically pull in your content.  Secondly, feeds allow users to subscribe to your site so they can get notifications when your content is updated. This is especially relevant for sites with irregular content updates such as a personal blog.
In the .NET 3.5 framework there is a namespace titled System.ServiceModel.Syndication which very few people seem to know about. The classes contained in this library allows you to create and consume RSS feeds with minimal effort. I recently created a feed for my WeBlog application. I was astonished about how little time it took to implement an RSS Feed. Instead of weighing you down with all the details…I'll let the code do the talking:

1. Pin variables when debugging
2. Box selection
3. Search on-the-fly
4. Zooming
5. View Call Hierarchy
6. Sequence Diagrams
7. Dependency Graphs
8. IntelliTrace and Dump Debugging
9. Multi-monitor support
10. Intellisense – lots of small improvements

The ultimate list of Twitter tools and Twitter applications.
This is the biggest list of Twitter related apps on the internet. Over 760 Twitter tools!

We’ve got a service. We’ve got a host. But that’s all pointless without someone to use it.

In my last post I described the hassles to get a simple WCF service with username password authentication to work in the real world. Which was not as easy as it looked at first sight. Having weeded out all the unnecessary outgrows of the WCF framework I had it working though the solution was somewhat misty. After that the many useful comments have taught how to nurture my crop and which seeds to plant to turn it into a nice flower bed. Time for a round up.

The Parallel class found in the System.Threading.Tasks namespace “provides library-based data parallel replacements for common operations such as for loops, for each loops, and execution of a set of statements”. In this article, we will use the  Invoke method of the Parallel class to call multiple methods, possibly in parallel. Follow these steps:

In one of the previous articles Parallel Tasks in .NET 4.0, we explored a set of new API’s called the "Task Parallel Library (TPL)" which simplifies the process of adding parallelism and concurrency to applications. We used the System.Threading.Tasks.Parallel.Invoke() to call methods that did not return a value. However for methods that return a value, you would need to use the Task(TResult) class which represents an asynchronous operation that can return a value. We will explore how to use this class in this article.

Every system evolves over times. There’s no way around this and there is no reasonable/certain/real way to think ahead 100% of the time. It’s simply not possible to predict every possible outcome or issue or situation. This change affects every part of software development, from requirements and feature definition, down to the code, and out to source control and configuration management. Good architecture, coding practices and source control management can make change easier, but even when all of the rules for when to use which branching strategy in source control are followed, there are still going to be situations that make it difficult to keep branches clean and decoupled. At some point in a project’s lifecycle, branch dependencies – where one or more branches directly depend on the features, functionality, code, and/or other changes in another branch that is currently in development – will occur. When this happens, there are some techniques that can be used to mitigate the problems

This article walks through an example of creating a javascript object and passing it to a .NET web service via JSON. It also shows how to use JQuery to make the web service call asynchronously.

Most people still use traditional applications like Powerpoint or Visio for creating diagrams or charting software, which isn’t always a simple task (especially if the designs are complicated or need to look pretty). There’s no shortage of easy-to-use online diagramming and design applications addressing the need, but a tool called Cacoo tries to stand out from the pack with some unique features.

We live out so much of our modern lives on personal computers and web servers—yet so much of it is messy and over-stuffed. Clean up your email, fix your files, and tidy up your digital life with these 10 tips.

People have always had problems picking out gifts to give each other (or friends and relatives) for wedding anniversaries. At least, it would seem so considering the rather detailed lists that have existing for centuries all over the world to help puzzled gift-givers in their annual purchases. And while there have been attempts to create “modern” lists, they still always seem to be a little out of touch.

That is, until now.

So now you have a service, congratulations! What are you going to do with it?

Entity Framework has evolved  in the light of feedback. ADO.NET Entity Framework 4 is now better able to accommodate different development methodologies.  A welcome improvement is the way that, the application designer now has a range of options in the way that Entity Framework creates the Data Access layer. Prasanna returns to Simple-Talk to explain the significance of the changes

Investigating a subtle memory leak can be tricky business, but things are made easier by using The .NET framework's  tool SOS (Son of Strike) which is a debugger extension for debugging managed code, used  in collaboration with the Windows debugger.

Whatever your purpose for using twitter is, if you’re too tired keeping up with the real time natures of tweeting, and you still want to “keep your timeline alive” throughout the day, we’ve got some really neat twitter schedulers lined up for you

Skeddle is een handige online tool voor het beheren van To-Do lijstjes binnen een team. Skeddle zorgt er voor dat ieder teamlid het overzicht bewaart van wat hem nog te doen staat en tegen wanneer. Voor degene die het team aanstuurt, biedt Skeddle de mogelijkheid om in één oogopslag de status van het project te evalueren. Skeddle kan worden gebruikt voor ieder project waarbij meerdere mensen dienen samen te werken.

Do you have friends that always owe you money? Or do you lose track of how much you owe your colleagues for lunch?

In groups some people always owe money, while others pay too much. All of this may lead to stress, submerged anger and small nuclear conflicts. The answer to all this? Credeble.

Cardboard…2.0

Do you have fond childhood memories of gathering around the table with the family for a game of Monopoly, Scrabble, or LIFE?
Cardboard is making a comeback.

In an era of tech-based entertainment, word is spreading about a new breed of board game. Going Cardboard takes you into the designer "German-style" board gaming scene, from its community of enthusiastic fans to the creative passions of the designers and their journeys from concept to reality.

This is a special section of the site dedicated to the A-Z of Awesomeness, a project I undertook for 'fun' in June-July 2009.
Each day I would post a new drawing, based on suggestions from followers of my blog, Facebook and Twitter. 26 drawings over 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet.
There were no rules as to what people could suggest, merely that it be… Awesome.

Er wordt steeds meer met infographics geëxperimenteerd om informatie op een creatieve manier in beeld te brengen. Op het internet duiken regelmatig leuke filmpjes met visueel aantrekkelijke data.

You think you know them. Think again.
Violently ripped from the pages of folklore come the Enchanted. Supernatural immortals living in a dark, steampunk, creature-infested world where nature, technology and foul magic are in constant conflict. When the twisted, burnt remains of the half-wooden, half-mechanical warrior, Pinocchio, are discovered, wolf hunter Red Hood and giant killer Jack realize the fragile rules of their existence have been shattered. With the help of other powerful Enchanted (the mercenary, Goldilocks and psychic exterminators, Hansel and Gretel), Jack and Red team up on an adventure to stop whatever, or whoever is destroying their powers and murdering their kind.

Life moves pretty fast. Sometimes it moves so fast we just don’t have time to stop and maintain all of our social networks individually. But that’s no reason to leave your Facebook profile barren, because you don’t even have to make it all the way to Facebook to update your status.

Here are some methods of updating your Facebook profile when on the go or while using some of the other networks and services you already use.

This toolkit is provided as a Facebook Client Library similar to Facebook's PHP Client Library or Facebook's JavaScript library. The goal is to enable .NET developers to quickly and easily leverage the various features of the Facebook Platform. This toolkit has evolved over time with input from the community and from Microsoft. The latest release (v3.0) includes new architectural improvements and provides an asynchronous interface for using the toolkit from Silverlight and from WPF.

By far the easiest way to start using the .NET Facebook API Client is to install the Starter Kit. The Starter Kit will install the Facebook Client binaries as well as a project template for Visual Studio that you can use to quickly get started developing your Facebook application.

The Facebook Developer Toolkit project has just released version 2.0 of their ASP.NET API into the wild, so let's go over the basics. In this article, we focus on creating an absolutely bare bones FBML application that leverages the API. Enjoy!

Since its launch in 2006, Twitter has grown to create what most people would call a social media revolution. By the very nature of the short messages it hosts, Twitter is a wonderful marketing and promotion tool that no serious blogger can ignore.

In this article, we have compiled 15 most useful Twitter plug-ins, hacks and tips for WordPress to help you get the most out of Twitter in your WordPress blog.

WCF Data Services (formerly known as "ADO.NET Data Services") consists of a combination of patterns and libraries that enable you to create and access data services for the Web or an intranet. WCF Data Services exposes data as resources that are addressable by URIs. This enables you to access and change data by using the semantics of representational state transfer (REST), specifically, the standard HTTP verbs of GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE.

Through this hands-on lab you will learn how to create a data service using the Entity Framework as its data source, and how to consume the service using both the .NET client APIs and the ASP.NET AJAX APIs. You will also use Service Interceptors to add validation support and Service Operations to perform custom queries. Additionally, you will be introduced to the new Row Count feature, that provides support for determine the total number of entities in a set without retrieving them all.