Introduction Recently, I mentioned that the newly minted Visual Studio 2013 asks you to authenticate with a Microsoft account to tie your copy to a specific account. This comes in the wake of Visual Studio no longer being pre-pidded (when a product has a license key included in the installation […]
Programming
322 posts
In case you haven’t heard yet, Visual Studio 2013 (RTM) has been made available to MSDN subscribers this morning. In case you aren’t already familiar with the different flavours of Visual Studio, here’s a link to the product comparison page at Microsoft.com. One important change which I highlighted when I […]
Introduction Over the weekend, I decided to try and import image metadata using C# and the .NET Framework. Aside from “normal” file attributes such as date modified and size, the Windows Explorer (shell) provides extended file property information which can be quite valuable. The challenge was how to extract this […]
Introduction When we left off in Part 1, we had edited the T4 template which generates Entity Framework POCO entities and had it add appropriate attributes to assist in data validation checks. The next step is to show you how we can make use of these annotations. Note: the data […]
Introduction The next logical step in my journey across the Entity Framework v6 RC1 after having established a fairly robust data access approach was to imbue my solution with some more “smarts” when it came to entity validation. Out-of-the-box Entity Framework POCO entities are exactly as advertised – plain old […]
Introduction This one’s going to be a little shorter than the normal entries, even though I’m stepping through the maze that are exceptions which can be raised out of using the Entity Framework. I’m working on some functionality which will ease the pain of POCO object validation, and also cleaning […]
Today I tried to locate the “Desktop Experience” server feature in Windows Server 2012 R2. Problem is, I couldn’t find it! The Desktop Experience feature lets you use normal Windows desktop features like media player and photo viewer, and so forth: It used to be a “top level” feature, but […]
Intro If you want to manage your SQL Databases in Azure using tools that you’re a little more familiar and comfortable with – for example – SQL Management Studio, how do you go about connecting? You could read the help article from Microsoft, or you can follow my intuitive screen-based […]
Introduction Recently I began writing a series of articles demonstrating how you could take a blank Database schema and bring it all together with a fully integrated object relational mapping access model (Entity Framework) and then exposing the entire object graph via WCF web services in a completely detached mode. […]
Introduction This article is part of the ongoing series I’ve been writing recently, but can be read as a standalone article. I’m going to do a better job of integrating the changes documented here into the ongoing solution I’ve been building. However, considering how much time and effort I put […]
Yesterday saw the release of a number of products from Microsoft. The big news is Windows 8.1, which was revealed to have hit the RTM milestone last week and was released to MSDN and TechNet subscribers yesterday. Included in the mix was the well performing Windows Server 2012 (previously in […]
Introduction Following on from the previous article, Data Access with the Entity Framework V6 RC1, this time I’m going to go deeper and look at how we manipulate entities through a structured and often times generic approach. We’ll take a particularly close look at an approach to adding, updating and […]
Introduction Today I’m following on from my previous series of articles from last week, particularly (and logically) from the article More with the Entity Framework V6 RC1. This time around, I’m going to go under the covers and document a new approach I’m trying out around the Entity Framework Data […]
Editorial Update With the recent release of Visual Studio 2013 RC (which includes, by the way a “Go-Live” license) this issue with Visual Studio 2013 Preview has probably been overtaken by events. I’ll leave this here anyway as a historical footnote. How’s this? Tonight I fired up the VM I […]
Introduction In my last post, I explained how to add a NuGet package to a solution, and from there how to generate and lightly consume an Entity Framework data model. We’re going to take it to the next level now, and do a bit more with the framework. Expanding on […]