Jim Jackson

So it turns out the simplest way to update your dbml schema is to just delete the existing files and recreate them with SQL Metal. Then, when you include the updated dbml file in your VS 2008 project you will get new dbml.layout and .designer.cs files. You'll of course have to reset your layout if you've modified that. If you do this, you're safe. If you need that layout, continue reading.

So I'm looking at all the new stuff that was just released and the things that are going to be released soon. It's a good time to be a programmer in the Microsoft way as long as you are aligning yourself appropriately with the stars.

SQLMetal.exe is the command line tool that will allow you to very quickly spin up the object model you'll need to connect from your SQL Server database via Linq. Here are the basics of using SQLMetal.

So here's my current plan for firing up these new technologies. As background, I gave a 15 minute presentation at a user group last night on the generalities of data abstraction and although I think I did ok, I also think that there are a lot more questions than answers in the developer community right now with regard to how to get data back into SQL Server through Linq.

I've posted on a couple of forums for SharePoint development and haven't received a response yet. The bottom line appears to be that regardless of whether or not you have WSS or MOSS loaded onto your machine, you will not get project or item templates for web parts. If someone knows what I'm missing, please post a comment.

So my MOSS VM decided to spend an hour running a check disk and recovering bad sectors. This is a very unhappy time when you think of all the code you didn't check in yet... One of my daughters had requested a Dr. Seuss book for bedtime and I was in a verse-ish kind of place... so here is how I spent that hour or so:

So no matter what you do, you are going to need to drop and modify things in the "12 hive" in SharePoint. I navigated to it exactly 3 times before I decided my best move would be to just create a shortcut. I made the shortcut to this folder:

I've been a keyboard-centric guy since Windows 3.1 and 3.11. Having one of the alt keys reserved for getting in and out of the VPC kills me every time. So go into your Virtual PC Console: "File" -> "Options". Select "Keyboard" and enter your new value. Since I nearly always go directly to MSDN or Google when I have a problem or question, it seemed natural to reallocate the F1 key for this.