Kevin Dente's Blog
The Blip in the Noise
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Satellite assemblies and strong names
I recently had to investigate how to create satellite resource assemblies for assemblies that are strongly named. Some of the information was surprisingly poorly documented, and required some experimentation to figure out, so I'm posting the results in the hope it might save other people some time.
Here's what I learned:- Satellite assemblies for strong named assemblies must be strong named.
OK, not that surprising. - Satellite assemblies for strong named assemblies must be signed with the same key as the main assembly.
This is actually a bit of a pain for my company, because we use localization partners that in the past have been able to localize the product pretty much independently from us. With our .NET code, we'll have to sign the final satellite assemblies. Fortunately, the localizers can use delay signing with skip verification to do all of their development and testing, and we just need to do the final signing. - By default, satellite assemblies must have the same version number as the main assembly. You can use the SatelliteContractVersionAttribute to enable the main assembly to be versioned while still maintainng compatibility with existing satellite assemblies (thanks to Joe for pointing out this atttribute).
- Satellite assemblies for strong named assemblies must be strong named.
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Running Assembly Reflector Add-in Update
I've finally gotten around to updating the Running Assembly add-in for Reflector 4.2. Sorry it took so long. I've also included a few bug fixes and improvements.
For details and the download link, go here. -
Running Assembly Reflector Add-in Release History
Having problems? Check the FAQ.
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Sparkle CTP Posted
Microsoft has at long last posted a CTP for Expression Interactive Designer (aka Sparkle). I've been wondering when we were going to get a look at this one. So far I haven't been all that impressed with Cider, so I'm interested to see what EID looks like (I don't know if EID is an official acronym, but damn, Expression Interactive Designer is a long name). Download here.
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VB6 returns to MSDN Subscriber Downloads
After the big stink at the end of the year about Visual Studio 6 being pulled from MSDN Subscriber Downloads, it looks like Microsoft has just re-posted VB6 (Professional and Enterprise versions) for download again. Bad news for those folks planning on making a killing by selling their VB6 CDs for a premium on EBay. ;)
We've got a ton of VB6 code around still, and despite what MS might want you to believe, it's NOT going to be easy to port to VB.NET. Perhaps MS is starting to accept that fact. -
Running Windows on a MacBook - forgetting something?
A common meme going around the blogosphere right now is "my next Windows laptop will be a MacBook". Although I understand the sentiment - they do make very nice laptop hardware - I wonder if these people have noticed something rather important (at least, important to me). From the pictures I've seen of the MacBook, it still only has one mouse button. I don't know about you, but I don't relish the idea of running Windows without a right mouse button.
It's possible that I'm wrong, that the pictures are deceptive, and there's actually two buttons in there (or maybe some kind of two zone button bar, similar to their mouse). But without that, the idea of a VistaBook is a non-starter to me. -
Free and easy way to resize an NTFS partition
I recently had the need to resize the virtual disk on the VMWare image. VMWare includes a handy tool for resizing a virtual disk, but of course that doesn't resize the partition on the disk. Partition Magic has long been the tool of choice for this kind of thing, but this time I decided to see if there was anything else "out there". Turns out there is - a utility called Ntfsresize.
Ntfsresize is actually a Linux command-line utility which is included, along with a fairly easy to use GUI called QTPartEd, on a variety of Linux distributions. In particular, it's included on the Knoppix LiveCD (at the moment not the absolute latest version of Ntfsresize, but near enough), which means you can boot straight from a CD and resize your partitions without having to install any software at all. The GUI was easy enough that even a Linux novice like me could figure it out. VERY handy, and it worked great on my VM image. Recommended. -
Sometimes I really hate Quicken
I've used Quicken for my personal finances for years, and generally, it works fine. But sometimes when things go wrong in Quicken, they go really wrong. I hit one of those situations this weekend, and it cost me half a days work.
The problem started with a situation that didn't seem so bad at first - a couple of register items ended up erroneously flagged as reconciled. I'm not sure how it happened - they were well after the date of the last statement - but it seemed like it shouldn't be hard to fix. Wrong. Several wasted hours later (which included two chat support calls to Intuit), I end up restoring from a backup and re-entering months of transactions. Apparently the ability to re-reconcile a months transactions is too much to ask for. Even the trick of deleting previous reconciliation statements I've used with previous versions of Quicken doesn't seem to work in the 2005 version - that option seems to have disappeared from the UI.
Message to Intuit - if something as simple as recovering from a reconciliation error requires restoring from a backup, it's time for a little usability work. -
First look at Visual Studio Orcas available for download
Here's one I wasn't expecting - a set of extensions for Visual Studio 2005 that provide some Orcas functionality now (alongh with a December CTP of the WinFX framework). The most interesting part is the WPF designer (code named "Cider"). I'm definitely looking forward to playing with this.
Download here. -
Is SQL Server 2005 ready for prime time? Maybe, but the docs aren't.
At my company we've been working with SQL Server 2005, and in particular Analysis Services 2005, for the better part of a year. One of the new features of SSAS 2005 is Analysis Management Objects (AMO) - a managed class library for administering SSAS. AMO let's you define cubes, measures, and dimensions, process cubes, monitor traces, etc. It's very powerful, but we've struggled with it because through the entire beta program, it was virtually undocumented. The method and class names were listed in the documentation, but there were no descriptions for anything, nor was there a developer's guide for how to use the classes.
I'd always assumed that MS would flesh out the documentation by the time the product shipped. Apparently I was wrong. When I installed the RTM bits, I was surprised to find that the AMO documentation was still just a skeleton. For examples, look here, or here. Note the rather conspicuous blanks in virtually all of the description columns. I don't recall Microsoft ever shipping with such gaping holes in the documentation (at least, not in the .NET era). It's surprising that a company with the resources of Microsoft would do so.
To be fair, SSAS 2005 is a killer product - a huge leap forward in OLAP capabilities. Over the last year, I've really come to appreciate the power of OLAP and BI, and I suspect SSAS 2005 will bring OLAP much more into the mainstream (if you're not down with OLAP yet, I strongly recommend you take a look - it's hugely powerful stuff). Hopefully Microsoft will flesh out the documentation in the near future, to make it easier for ISVs to take advantage of.
Update - via Chris Webb, Microsoft released a December update to the SQL Server 2005 Documentation (available here). In this release they've started fleshing out the AMO documentation at last. It's not complete, but it's a step in the right direction.