Did you know there was a "hidden" code-generation feature in VS2008?  Text Templating Transformation Toolkit  (aka T4) actually debuted in VS2005 Guidance Automation Toolkit, but shipped baked into VS2008.  This gives you CodeSmith-style code-generation templates that can be used in your projects to generate code from any source.  Simply add a text file with the extension ".tt", and VS will add a "Transform Templates" button to the solution explorer window. 

Here's a video that shows some of the basics:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/cc308634.aspx

There are all sorts of jokes that could be made about this, but this is a really cool extension of the Surface concept to things like medical charts, wallets, and prescriptions.  I just hope they can bring these ideas to market soon!

VS 2008 has what I think is a very annoying bug and Redmond thinks is a useful feature.  If you create multiple web applications within a single solution, then when you run the solution, by default VS will launch a "Cassini" WebServer for each web application project.  The rational Microsoft gives for this being a "by design" feature is that you may want this behavior when, say, debugging a web app that connects to a separate web-hosted WCF service.  Sounds reasonable, except there already exists functionality just for this purpose: Solution -> Properties -> Multiple Startup Projects!  If I check "Single startup project" here, then under no circumstances should multiple projects start up!  This is especially annoying when developing solutions with several web projects - each spins up a little web server icon in the task tray, with an annoying "pop" and balloon telling you where it's running.  In addition, each takes up memory and slows down the build-and-run.

I scoured Google and the forums and got nothing on this, but this afternoon I happened on the simple workaround.  With a solution explorer and properties window open, select each web application project.  In the properties tab, set "Always Start When Debugging" to false.  Next time you run, only the projects specified in Startup Projects will be run!  Note that this "properties window" is NOT the same as the "Project Properties" that you get to from Project -> Properties.

Microsoft at Mix08 announced today some very cool new bits:

• Silverlight for Windows Mobile and Nokia S60
• Silverlight 2.0 for Windows and OSX
• Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1
• ASP.NET MVC Preview 2

All fun stuff to poke around with!  Also, at another conference, they announced .NET Micro Framework v2.5, which now supports TCP\IP and web services.

We've been having some weirdness going on with our source control.  Nothing major- (Note to our clients: your code is safe and backed up daily!) - but little things like files getting out of sync, or appearing checked in in the IDE, but not in the source control server.   While searching about it, I ran across this definitive guide to source control  by none less than Mr. Source Control himself, Eric Sink- founder of SourceGear.   This mini e-book is very well-written and covers a broad spectrum of source control concepts and tools - not just Vault.  In addition to explaining the concepts in laymen's terms, he peppers best practice side-bars through out the text, distilling the concepts into concrete guidance developers can use.   It's old - started in Aug 2004- so I'm surprised I'm just now coming across this, but it's definitely a must-read for any developer working in a team > 1.

I've been experimenting with the idea of using System.Reflection.Emit to generate code from interfaces.  If you're not familiar with this namespace, it contains classes to generate compiled assemblies programmatically.   Regex uses this when compiling a regular expression for faster execution.  Instead of parsing the expression each time, it generates on-the-fly a class that can be used to execute the expression.  This namespace is also used by Mock Type frameworks such as RhinoMocks and TypeMock.  Given a base class or interface, these generate on-the-fly a class that can mimic the base enough to use when unit testing.  I'm sure there are other places this is used, but suffice it to say this is one of those obscure corners of the framework that us Morts rarely dig into.  So it's not surprising that I would run into an obscure error that stumped even Google.

I religiously studied the MSDN examples and wrote code to let me do something like this:

ICustomer concreteType = CodeGenerator<ICustomer>.GetInstance();

You can see how freaking awesome this could be for component development- I get, at runtime, a class that implements my interface, but I don't have to wire up goo like INotifyPropertyChanged, IDataError, property getter/setters, etc.   Depending on how my tinkering goes, more on the awesomeness later.  The error I was getting whenever I called typeBuilder.CreateType() was:

System.TypeLoadException: Method 'get_Id' in type 'Customer' from assembly 'TypeAssembly, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' does not have an implementation

Except I WAS implementing 'get_Id'.  I copied the code to do it straight from MSDN! See:

MethodAttributes getSetAttributes = MethodAttributes.Public |
MethodAttributes.SpecialName |
MethodAttributes.HideBySig;
var getMethodBuilder = typeBuilder.DefineMethod("get_" + propertyOnInterface.Name,
                                                getSetAttributes,
                                               propertyOnInterface.PropertyType,
                                               Type.EmptyTypes);

ILGenerator getMethodIl = getMethodBuilder.GetILGenerator();
getMethodIl.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_0);
getMethodIl.Emit(OpCodes.Ldfld, fieldBuilder);
getMethodIl.Emit(OpCodes.Ret);

propBuilder.SetGetMethod(getMethodBuilder);

Much googling turned up only a few unrelated posts.  After testing, I discovered that removing a call to 'AddInterfaceImplementation' fixed the issue- though the resulting class no longer implemented my interface.  Clearly the interface was generating some sort of code.  Some more digging, and I figured out the solution:

MethodAttributes getSetAttributes = MethodAttributes.Public |
MethodAttributes.SpecialName |
MethodAttributes.HideBySig;| MethodAttributes.Virtual;

I could be flawed in my understanding here, but apparently, when adding an interface, .NET treats property get and set accessors sort of like abstract methods.  The code I was generating did implement 'get_Id', but did not mark it as overriding the interface's definition.  So, when creating the type, there was the interfaces' unfinished implementation of 'get_Id', and my completely unrelated 'get_Id'. 

So anyway, hopefully this post will make it into Google and help some other poor guy who, late one night, finds themselves turning over parts of the framework better left alone.

Here's a fun Alt-Tab Shortcut that lets you switch apps without leaving the comfort of your mouse.  Just download, place in Startup, and run.  When it's running, you can switch apps by holding down the left mouse button and clicking the right.   Like most productivity apps, I may find myself forgetting it's there and not using it after the novelty wears off, but I guess we'll see.

Incidentally, the standalone exe is a feature of AutoHotKeys, which is one of those said productivity apps that I forget about and rarely use.  The idea is pretty neat though. It's a little scripting language for automating those little repetitive tasks that we all hate.  The end result is apparently a standalone exe that "just works", no installer required.

One of the challenges of being a contract software developer is that we often work remotely on a clients' network via VPN.  Each client has their own VPN client, Source Control, and development environments.  In many cases, development platforms just aren't made with this in mind.  It's only as of VS 2005 that you can even switch Source Control Providers easily! If you've ever had to connect to Microsoft SourceSafe over VPN, you know it's still not designed with remote work in mind.  It relies on a network file share, which can be problematic over VPN.  It does ship with a WebService based solution, but this may not be feasible for the client to install in all cases.

The Problem

When connecting over VPN, the main problem is that there is no option to specify the network user to connect with.  For example, you may log in to the clients' VPN, but still attempt to access resources using your machine's local account.  When doing things like mapping drives, it's easy to supply an alternate username and password.  However, with SourceSafe, there is no option to supply network credentials when connecting (which are totally different from the SourceSafe credentials).

The Solution

Enter the Windows runas command.  This command lets you run any application as though it were a different user.  In this case, you want to run Visual Studio as though you were that network user.  To set this up:

• Create an empty text file named "RunVisualStudioAs[DomainUserName].bat"
• Edit and Add the following:
• runas /netonly /user:[Domain]\[User] "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"
• Save.

Then, when working on the project, just launch VS using the batch file.  You will be prompted for a password each time, since runas does not allow entering a password in the commandline for obvious security reasons.  But there are 3rd party runas replacements which can help you get around this.

One other word of caution:  Due to the chatty nature of Windows file sharing, this will still be very slow over a remote connection.  Turning off Anti-Virus helps a little, and there are some additional speed tips here. It's definitely not the ideal solution, but it can be done!

For one of our clients, I've been working on converting printed forms into web forms, and in the process have been dealing with a lot of tables that need to fit within a fixed width.  These tables are in a FormView in a User Control, which are then placed on webpages as needed.  I was finding that Visual Studio 2008's design mode was happy enough to accept my fixed-width columns and tables settings in my CSS stylesheet when working on the User Control, but once that User Control is placed on an actual page the fixed-width settings are no longer respected in both design mode and in debug mode displayed through a browser.  What to do?  After much frustration I found the embarrasingly simple answer: I wasn't putting "px" at the end of pixel measurements for table/column widths.  For whatever reason the Visual Studio 2008 FormView designer was content without the "px" but nothing else was.  In my rush to get things working I was leaving off the "px" figuring that I could go back later and add them on after the fact.  So lesson learned: be standards compliant, even if your development tool of choice lets you get away with not being standards compliant.

Still on the topic of fixed-width tables and columns, have you ever wanted to figure out exactly how many pixels wide/tall something is on a webpage, be it a table row, table column, header graphic, etc.?  Enter Pixel Ruler--a free app that displays a rotatable ruler on your screen and even tracks your mouse cursor and keeps a running measurement of how many pixels away you are from the zero mark on the ruler (in one dimension of course--it doesn't do diagonal measurements).  This app will save me countless hours of eyeballing and hoping for the best, instead providing me with precise measurements to the pixel.

One of the fun things about working at LifeCycle is the constant exposure to a wide range of technologies.  We have clients in just about every vertical market you can name, so we see a variety of "cool stuff" on a regular basis.  For example, one of our clients, Global Security Systems, offers an emergency communications solution called ALERT FM. 

ALERT FM is a product created out of necessity -- after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the founders of Global Security Systems knew there had to be a better way to get emergency information out to people.  In many areas, the communications infrastructure was partially or completely destroyed; however, even in the hardest-hit areas, most people could still get information through their FM radio stations.  Building on this, the company created GSSNet, a network of existing FM radio stations that could be used to transmit data over the FM airwaves. 

Global Security Systems now offers ALERT FM, a suite of tools for sending and receiving messages over the GSSNet backbone.  For receiving alert messages, the company currently offers an inexpensive battery-powered receiver, a USB stick with a built-in ALERT FM receiver and a wall-mounted device that can be used in schools and businesses.  Out of the box, users can receive weather alerts and other important information for their area.  For sending alert messages, the company offers a personalized web portal to state/federal/local government and businesses in the private sector.  Government users, like state and county emergency agencies, can generate their own alert messages to be broadcast in their area (e.g. notifying people to stay away from an area due to a hazardous chemical spill).  Companies in the private sector can also use the portal to send out their own "private" alerts, making ALERT FM a good solution for companies concerned with alerting their employees in the event of a disaster.

If your company is formulating a disaster recovery or business continuity plan for 2008 and beyond, you should get in touch with ALERT FM -- it's a very effective way to quickly broadcast information to your employees when other means of communication aren't available.  ALERT FM is one of the coolest things we've had an opportunity to be a part of in 2007.