January 2008 release of SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer
Microsoft has released a new version of the SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer tool. The tool is from a Database Administrator’s (DBA) perspective and not from an architect nor developer’s perspective.
Check it out here:
Intro video on the Semantic Web
There is a lot buzz about the Semantic Web. The possibilities that it offers are very exciting. The following is great intro video to answer the question, what is it, and what can it do for me?
Debugging .NET Framework Source Code Available!
Great news! As promised, the .NET Framework source code in Visual Studio 2008 is now available for debugging. Detail instructions and FAQ is available on Shawn Burke’s blog here.
Note, for users of 64bit edition, there is an extra manually step to do in the QFE fix.
The assemblies available for source viewing are:
- Mscorlib.DLL
- System.DLL
- System.Data.DLL
- System.Drawing.DLL
- System.Web.DLL
- System.Web.Extensions.DLL
- System.Windows.Forms.DLL
- System.XML.DLL
- WPF (UIAutomation*.dll, System.Windows.DLL, System.Printing.DLL, System.Speech.DLL, WindowsBase.DLL, WindowsFormsIntegration.DLL, Presentation*.dll, some others)
- Microsoft.VisualBasic.DLL
LINQ Links
I recently came across a fairly good set of links all related to LINQ:
http://blogs.msdn.com/charlie/archive/2006/10/05/Links-to-LINQ.aspx
Entity Framework FAQ
With LINQ become more predominate every day, eventually some important will be asked as developers need to adopt new and different ways of accessing data repositories.
I recently came across a great (and detailed) FAQ that is sure to answer most questions.
http://blogs.msdn.com/dsimmons/pages/entity-framework-faq.aspx
I certainly answered my question, but not with the answer I was hoping for 
. Automatic mapping between Enums and a column in a table is not supported.
http://blogs.msdn.com/dsimmons/pages/entity-framework-faq.aspx#_Does_the_EDM/EF
I hope they rethink this as that kind of simplicity is what increases adoption of new technologies. It’s one the things that convinced me to start using NHibernate. Even LINQ to SQL supports automatic enum mapping.
A Free Diff and Merge Utility
Sourcegear is offering DiffMerge for free! Kudo’s for also making it cross-platform.
The product offers diff, merge, and folder diff.
Free File Manager
I’ve been using FreeCommander for a while now. It’s a nice file manager that is lightwieght and fast. It also supports two windows side-by-side and multiple tabs in each window. Pretty cool.
I highly recommend it.
Free Database Compare
I recently came across an interesting looking program by StarInix called Free Database Compare 2.0. The great thing is that is support Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL.
