Laurent Kempé

Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow RC

lkempe — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:33:01 GMT

Microsoft just released Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow RC.

This time we get SketchFlow !

You might download Microsoft Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow RC from this page.

Overview

Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow is a visual tool for designing and prototyping desktop and web applications. You build an application by drawing shapes, drawing controls such as buttons and list boxes, making the pieces of your application respond to mouse clicks and other user input, and styling everything to look uniquely your own.

Silverlight 3 RTM Released

lkempe — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:27:09 GMT

Microsoft just released Silverlight 3!

You might download Microsoft® Silverlight™ 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 from this page.

Overview

This package is an add-on for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 to provide tooling for Microsoft Silverlight 3. It can be installed on top of either Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or Visual Web Developer 2008 Express with SP1, and it provides a Silverlight project system for developing Silverlight applications using C# or Visual Basic.
This download will install the following:

Silverlight 3 developer runtime

Silverlight 3 software development kit

KB967143 for Visual Studio 2008 SP1
and/or
KB967144 for Visual Web Developer 2008 Express with SP1

Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1
and/or
Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Web Developer 2008 Express with SP1

Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 includes:

Visual Basic and C# Project templates

Intellisense and code generators for XAML

Debugging of Silverlight applications

Remote debugging of Silverlight applications for Mac

Web reference support

WCF Templates

Team Build and command line build support

Support for cached transparent platform extensions

Support for Silverlight 3 Out-of-Browser applications

Office 2007 templates folder

lkempe — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:30:08 GMT

I am always loosing time searching for that information when we get an update of office templates, so I decided to make a ‘note to self’ so that I will not loose anymore time with that.

Start Word 2007 and go on Word Options, then click Advanced, File Locations:

Original location: C:\Users\{your username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

In that location create a shortcut to your template folder, but keep the selected original path:

Now you should have access to your templates like this:

With this way of doing you might get multiple template folders.

Book review - ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Quickly

lkempe — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:39:42 GMT

I had the pleasure to read ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Quickly from another ASP.NET MVP and blogger, Maarten Balliauw published by Packt Publishing.

The book is a quick overview of 191 pages covering all the different aspects of ASP.NET MVC 1.0. It ends with three appendix, a sample application CarTrackr, ASP.NET MVC Mock Helpers and Useful links and Open Source Projects, for a total of 231 pages.

Maarten starts with an introduction about Model-View-Controller and the drivers of the new framework. Then it moves to the real overview in details of the different parts of the framework: Form, ModelBinder, Request Life Cycle, Extensibility, Model, Controller, View, Action filters, Routing, Extension, Ajax, Testing and Hosting, mixing ASP.NET with ASP.NET MVC. So all the different parts are covered.

The different code samples are straight and perfectly demonstrates each points explained.

I particularly liked the parts about the Request Life Cycle and Customizing and Extending the ASP.NET MVC framework, one of the main reason I like this framework.

Finally I appreciated that the book is short, you might read it in 2-3 evening, and goes to the essential about ASP.NET MVC.

You might read the Chapter 2 in pdf.

Well done Maarten.

Did you know that if you’re an MSDN Subscriber you can get Telerik WPF controls FREE ? : Misfit Geek

lkempe — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:55:34 GMT

Telerik, a leading vendor of .NET UI components and tools, has a special offer for all active MSDN subscribers !!

A free Developer License for RadControls for WPF ($799 value), with community support only.

This license gives you access to all of the Telerik WPF controls for use in unlimited personal or commercial projects.

Take advantage of the offer and enjoy a powerful WPF grid, scheduler, animated 3D charts and gauges, and everything you need to build rich and visually stunning WPF line-of-business applications.

The offer is valid through July 31st, 2009. To claim your free license, log-in to your MSDN Subscriber account and look for the “Exclusive Deal from Telerik” on the MSDN “Special Offers” tab.

Did you know that if you’re an MSDN Subscriber you can get Telerik WPF controls FREE ? : Misfit Geek

Some people could not find the link on MSDN, so here it is how I did it. Login on MSDN with your credentials, move the mouse on your login name on the top, on the menu click on the Download and Product Keys, then on the tab Special Offers as on the picture. You get to the list of offers containing the Telerik One.

Updated my Live Template for NUnit in ReSharper

lkempe — Sat, 09 May 2009 07:59:33 GMT

I tend to use a lot the Live Template of ReSharper, for example working for some time now with the WPF MVVM pattern I created a ViewModel template of such a class and use it extensively.

Today I updated the File Template I use to write my NUnit tests like this:

using NUnit.Framework;

namespace $NAMESPACE$
{
// ReSharper disable InconsistentNaming

    [TestFixture]
    public class $CLASSNAME$
    {
        /*
         * ... hold ...
         *
         * Arrange - Act - Assert
         */

        [Test]
        public void $FIRST_TEST_NAME$()
        {
            $END$
        }
    }

// ReSharper restore InconsistentNaming
}

where I have the variable names defined as this:

Memory leak with WPF resources

lkempe — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:36:49 GMT

I am working for a couple of months now with WPF and MVVM on an a business application using .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. Lately I faced a memory leak. Not the easy kind of memory leak with events handlers which keeps objects and its element tree alive, as explained here.

No it was something else ! I searched in our code for quite some time without finding anything.

My internet research brought me to a blog post from Ramon de Klein, “Memory leak with WPF resources (in rare cases)” which stated :

When does the problem occur?
The problem occurs in the following situation:

A style is defined in the application’s ResourceDictionary.

The style uses a control template that uses media effects (i.e. DropShadowEffect).

The media effect should be referenced using a StaticResource.

We were matching the two first points and I tried the proposed fix:

You can force the effect to be frozen by specifying “PresentationOptions:Freeze=True”, but this is not common behavior.

…

The workaround is simple… Just add the Freeze attribute to all the effects that you don’t plan to modify at runtime.

But that didn’t made it.

I decided then to move the style definition from the application ResourceDictionary to the MainWindowView ResourceDictionary, which was for sure a better place for it. This to avoid the first point.

This worked! And we do not have this memory leak anymore. But as always when you fix one, some other popped up! But that’s another story.

How did I came to find the blog post from Ramon de Klein ?

With a perfect timing I got an offer from Red Gate to test their latest tool still in Early Access Program: ANTS Memory Profiler 5

You might watch a two parts video here (part1) and here (part2) and read about it here. You can even download a version from their forum, check it out.

First I used ANTS Memory Profiler 5 Timeline to see that the memory wasn’t released at certain points in which it should. The red line shows the Bytes in all Heaps and should go down after each vertical line (gray, blue and red)

Same result with Process Explorer, Memory usage going up without going down.

So we got on the screen the memory leak. Next step was to identify it.

Using Memory Profiler Class List, I browsed to the class that I new should be released, and proved it wasn’t: Live Instances is 3 and Instance Diff is +2. So at that time I knew that this class was maintained by something in memory.

Watching the Memory Profiler Instance list, I could identity the different instances still in Memory and one wasn’t new, so a good candidate to look at:

Finally switching to the Memory Profiler Object Retention Graph, I could navigate up the graph to see that DropShadowEffect was maintaining a reference:

Up to my application RessourceDictionnary, as exaplained in point 1 from Ramon de Klein blog post, as you can see.

All those information gave me the opportunity to find the blog post from Ramon and led me to the solution.

This is the result of the fix I implemented, as you can see I have now only one Live Instance of the ProductViewModel class and an Instance Diff of –1. This shows that the object wasn’t retained in memory and cleaned correctly.

ANTS Memory Profiler 5 and Ramon de Klein “Memory leak with WPF resources (in rare cases)” blog post was of great help to fix this memory leak. Thanks!

Thanks flies also to Stephen Chambers for the support with my questions on ANTS Memory Profiler 5.

Finally I would like to warmly THANKS Laurent Bugnion for his kind chats that helped a lot, as always!

Five Ways To Build Team Trust & Framework for Feedback

lkempe — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:46:28 GMT

I am for quite some time now working on the Agile subject and tonight I read two very interesting posts that I wanted to share and keep track of.

The first one was posted by Mike Bria on InfoQ and is called Five Ways To Build Team Trust, in which advises are given to help trust form within teams.

Address Issues Directly.
Share Relevant Information.
Follow Through on Commitments or Give Early Notice When You Can't.
Say No When You Mean No.
Show What You Know and What You Don't Know.

The second post, “How I learned about Feedback” is from Ola Ellnestam, Agile Coach, Systems developer, Agile Practitioner, and is an excellent report on experiences applying a “feedback framework” learned from a workshop held by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen.

Framework for feedback

Esther Derby and Diana Larsen introduced me to a ‘Framework For Giving Feedback’. It looks like this.

Create an opening

Describe the behavior or results

State the impact

Make a request

I find this framework very easy to use and powerful. So, when I’m about to give feedback in tough or new situations I try to run through the scenario in my head, creating an imaginary outcome of the conversation. This has helped me several times. Lets look at the ‘meeting issue’ again.

Enjoy

Attending the "WPF FOR LOB" TRAINING TOUR in London

lkempe — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:29:52 GMT

Next month I will attend with my colleague Robert the “WPF FOR LOB” training Tour in London (5/15 -5/16). Our flights and hotel rooms are already booked. We fly from Zurich to London Heathrow on Thursday 14 Mai arriving at 20:15 in London and I fly back to Mulhouse on Saturday evening.

We will be at the conference hotel Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel, where the training take place.

Jaime Rodriquez and Karl Shifflett have been organizing a “WPF FOR LOB” to provide 2 days of free WPF training for developers.

Overview
This two day training is designed to teach developers how to create Line of Business (LOB) applications using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

Day One is an introduction to the WPF graphics subsystem, the tools used to build WPF applications, and the core UI services: styling, data binding, templating, layout and input-

The second day begins with interop (Windows Forms and Win32) and then quickly dives into LOB topics, including building applications using the Model-View-ViewModel pattern, creating unit testable applications, implementing data validation, and error handling.

After completion, attendees will have a solid understanding of WPF, its advantages over other Microsoft UI platforms, and how to use the M-V-VM pattern to create great WPF LOB applications.

Detailed Agenda

Day One:

Lap Around WPF

WPF Tools ( Blend, Visual Studio 2008)

Graphics Subsystem

Layout

WPF Fundamentals and new concepts

Application Model

Dependency Properties

Trees (logical & visual)

Events

Threading

Resources

Controls

Styling

Templating

Q&A with instructors at end of day

Day Two:

WPF integration with Win32 and Windows Forms

Data binding

Introduction to Model-View-ViewModel

Commanding in M-V-VM

Views, Navigation and Transitions

Data Validation

Error handling, Model dialogs, Logging

Unit Testing

MVVM & LOB tips and tricks

Q&A with the instructors

Read more here.

And the best of all is that it is absolutely Free.

ReSharper 4.5 released

lkempe — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:08:49 GMT

As you might have realized following my blog, I am big fan of JetBrains ReSharper for quite some years! This tool really boost my productivity. Today they just realized ReSharper 4.5 which brings some new functionalities but also a huge improvement in performance.

What's New in ReSharper 4.5

ReSharper 4.5 delivers a great performance boost, new features and more. Read about them below or watch this Live Demo

Performance and Memory Usage Improvements

ReSharper loads and works faster and more smoothly in general, particularly on big solutions: now it takes 20 to 40 percent less time until the solution is ready for code editing. Website loading time has been reduced by 30%. Other accelerated operations include: renaming symbols, finding commonly used symbols, creating symbols from usage, and analyzing large XAML files. Memory requirements for analysis of jumbo autogenerated code files have been reduced. Read more »

Solution-Wide Code Inspections

To detect unused non-private members on the fly, we have improved our solution-wide analysis by introducing a set of specialized code inspections. They only work when you let ReSharper analyze your whole solution and help you discover: unused non-private declarations; unused return values of non-private methods; unaccessed non-private fields; unused parameters in non-private members; and more. Read more »

VB9 Support

Visual Basic .NET developers can now benefit from VB9 language support that includes implicitly typed local variables, object initializers, anonymous types, extension methods, lambda expressions, partial methods, and embedded XML. VB9 support is all around you, courtesy of new context actions, code completion, refactorings, and Parameter Info, among other supporting features. Read more »

Extended Naming Style Configuration

You can now define custom naming style settings for different languages and symbols including types, namespaces, interfaces, parameters, method properties and events, static and instance fields etc. Use them to precisely align the way ReSharper completes and generates code with your specific coding guidelines. Read more »

Other Enhancements

Go to Implementation — Jump from usage of a base type or member straight to any of its end implementations.
New and Improved Refactorings — Added Inline Field and refactored many other refactorings for greater performance.

Native MSTest Support — Finally provided natively in ReSharper on par with nUnit support.
Wider Cross-Language Capabilities — More efficient quick-fixes and context actions in many cross-language scenarios, as well as increased coverage for XAML and ASP.NET.
Smoother Language and Framework Support — Improved compatibility with F#, Compact Framework, Silverlight 2 and other languages and tools. Read more »

Download ReSharper

ATI Drivers installation on my HP NW8440 notebook

lkempe — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:32:53 GMT

From quite some time I had a crash when running the ATI Catalyst installer and I finally found what was the issue.

Follow the steps in the Knowledge Base (KB) article to solve the problem with the Microsoft Visual Studio mfc80u.dll or mfc80.dll module

This problem was caused by the Microsoft Visual Studio mfc80u.dll or mfc80.dll module, which was created by Microsoft Corporation.

Solution

To fix this problem, follow the steps in this online Microsoft Support Knowledge Base (KB) article:

KB961894: An application crashes after you install a product that updates the Mfc80.dll or Mfc80u.dll module

I followed the KB and then I could run again the installer without any issue.

Another good news is that ATI release now installers for notebooks. We don’t need anymore to tweak there installer using Mobility DotNET Final1.1.1.0.

For example I could find the installer for my FireGL V5200.

ReSharper 4.5 Beta Released

lkempe — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:53:38 GMT

Jura Gorohovsky just posted on the release of a public beta of ReSharper 4.5

Your wait is almost over: ReSharper 4.5 has gone public beta, and the official release is just a few weeks away!
After significantly expanding the set of ReSharper features in previous releases, we’ve shifted focus to the issues of performance and memory usage. Making the tool more agile, robust and responsive was our main goal when developing ReSharper 4.5.
ReSharper 4.5 brings a wide-ranging set of improvements that go way beyond performance enhancements:

Performance and memory consumption: When working on large solutions, you’ll feel a great deal of difference between ReSharper 4.0 and 4.5.

New solution-wide warnings and suggestions: Analyze usage of non-private types and type members within your whole solution.

Visual Basic 9 support: ReSharper’s cross-language refactorings and editing experience enhancements now provide support for VB9 code.

Extended setup for naming conventions, which are now supported by all ReSharper features.

New Inline Field refactoring and enhancements in existing refactorings.

Go to Implementation: Go from usage of a class or method straight to its end implementation, bypassing abstract classes and/or interfaces.

To get your hands on the public beta, download it now!

I am using the EAP for quite some time and the performance improvement are remarkable!

Tech Head Brothers in St.Barth French West Indies

lkempe — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:30:18 GMT

Thanks to Didier, now Tech Head Brothers, my french .NET portal is also known in the French West Indies island of St.Barth.

TechHeadBrothers and Innoveo are now well represented in Saint Barth ;-)

What about opening a subsidiary there for both?

Watch out the Tech Head Brothers sticker on the notebook!

ATI Drivers installation on my HP notebook

lkempe — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:04:46 GMT

To be able to install the latest version of the ATI Driver I have to use a tool to modify the normal installation package: Mobility DotNET Final1.1.1.0

For some time now I have to run the installation from the command prompt otherwise it crashes, and here is the command:

setup.exe –install –output screen

You might also read about this topic here: Notebook and ATI Drivers

Pong game using WinForms designmode

lkempe — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:42:43 GMT

My friend Mitsu just posted a funny demo about what you can do in the Visual Studio designer. He made a kind of Pong, remember that old game!, just using the Visual Studio designer. Useless but so much fun!