Erwyn van der Meer

SQL Server 2008 RC0 and a new logo

2008-06-09T20:16:34Z

Microsoft SQL Server finally gets a logo!

Check out the revamped homepage of SQL Server 2008. We have just released the Release Candidate 0 for download.

I say "we", because I work for Microsoft since May 1, 2008 ;)

VB code in Windows Presentation Foundation source code

2008-01-17T09:32:11Z

You probably already noticed that Microsoft has enabled access to the source code of parts of the .NET Framework 3.5. Here is the announcement of availability in case you missed it. And there are detailed instructions on how to enable this as well.

This morning I started stepping into the Windows Presentation Foundation. Before I knew it I was deep down into the internals of dependency properties and the Dispatcher object. The dispatcher has a nice old-fashioned message pump. I stepped into the dispatch of a message call onto a non-UI thread. Even though I already knew this, it is still startling to see that this translates into old-fashioned User32 Windows messages being send.

What really surprised me was to see a bit of VB code in a file that is called ExceptionFilterHelper.vb. According to the comment this file was needed because C#, unlike VB, does not support exception filters. However, the filter always returns true. According to the comment in the source code it is a "dummy stub to keep compiler happy, will not be replaced".

Something weird is going on here. The debugger shows I am in WindowsBase.dll!System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen. The source code file shows the class MS.Internal.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen. Reflector can only find the former class. The disassembly of this class shows source code that is very different than what the MS source code server gives me.

This doesn't make much sense to me. Is the source code for this class deliberately hidden or is there some error in the source code lookup?

Since I haven't had my lawyer take a look at the license agreement that governs the source code access, I will not add a screen shot of the VB code ;)

Flickr Metadata Synchr v0.9.0.0

2008-01-02T13:10:07Z

Best wishes to everyone for 2008!

In the first day of the new year, I've released version 0.9.0.0 of my Flickr Meta Synchr tool. You can always find the latest version on CodePlex.

I had been working on this new version for a while now, but didn't get around to finishing it. Improvements in this new version:

Added much better activity logging. The activity log can now be shown in an additional window and is persisted to disk.
Added the option to match pictures on title and filename. This is useful when images have been timeshifted and cannot be matched on date taken.
Bug fixes. Improved stability when corrupt image files are encountered. Fixed GPS roundtripping bug.
Should run better on 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista.
Solution is now built in Visual Studio 2008 without the need for any additional WPF extensions.

Here is a screenshot of version 0.9.0.0:

Autumn in Redmond

2007-10-31T07:42:58Z

During the lunch break Carlo and I walked around the Microsoft Corporate Campus in Redmond. It is autumn here as well. Lots of deciduous trees are shedding their leaves. The campus now shows lots of shades of red and yellow on leaves.

I took some pictures during the walk. You can see some below. Click on the images to see larger versions on Flickr:

Carlo standing at a Microsoft Way street sign.

Building 42. Home to the .NET Framework teams.

The other side of building 42.

The Microsoft Conference Center.

More pictures can be found on my Flickr page.

Oslo, Microsoft's vision on SOA for the future

2007-10-30T19:47:53Z

Microsoft used the keynote in the SOA & Business Process Conference in Redmond to present its vision on the future of Service Oriented Architecture on the Microsoft platform. That vision and the wave of technology that will come with it, is codenamed "Oslo".

MVP Charles Young has a solid write up in a blog post called "Microsoft 'Oslo' - the vNext SOA platform". No need to repeat all that here.

Long time Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley is very critical in her post called "Microsoft talks SOA futures but not dates". Mary Jo ends with "Microsoft has been struggling to prove to the market that it has a real SOA strategy. While the Redmondians are talking the right talk, the company is still a ways away from walking the SOA walk. Will customers wait or run off with other SOA vendors before Microsoft rolls out more than just a piecemeal SOA strategy?"

"Oslo" is obviously a Grand Vision. It will take a couple of years before this next wave of Microsoft technologies will ship. I thought that after the Longhorn reset/WinFX debacle and the "Whidbey" delays, Microsoft would not attempt to align so many technologies again in the future. But it is! "Oslo" comprises of at least:

BizTalk Server "6"
Visual Studio "10"
.NET Framework "4"
Systems Center "5"
BizTalk Services "1"

Some of the stuff presented reminded me of the grand WinFX, especially WinFS, vision that Microsoft presented at PDC03. We all know that WinFS never RTM-ed, despite enormous effort (many, many man years) put into it by Microsoft. Especially the term "Universal Editor" for the "Oslo" integrated modeling tool gave me the creeps. Sounds too much like: One tool to rules them all. One tool that spans the entire application development lifecycle: from its inception to its deployment.

Here are some screenshots from the new "Universal Editor" modeling tool that was demoed during the keynote:

Windows Vista Finally Stable on my PC

2007-10-18T16:30:27Z

One of my post popular blog posts deals with problems I was having with the stability of Windows Vista. I had major problems hibernation and sleep modes on my Dell PC. My PC never reliably went to sleep or hibernation and crashed either during going to sleep or when waking up. A lot of other people encountered similar problems. This blog post has 66 comments so far.

No driver update or Windows update solved my problem until October 9, 2007.

Around that time Microsoft released a set of reliability updates that are going to be part of SP1. There are supposedly also going to show up in Windows Update, but I manually downloaded and installed them ahead of time. Note that I am not running the beta of SP1.

If you encounter similar problems with Windows Vista, I highly recommend that you install these updates as well (if you haven't got them through auto update yet):

KB941649

This update resolves some compatibility and reliability issues in Windows Vista. By applying this update, you can achieve better reliability and hardware compatibility in various scenarios.

KB941600

This update resolves some reliability issues in the USB core components on the Windows Vista operating system.

.NET Framework Libraries go "open" source

2007-10-04T04:54:23Z

Scott Guthrie did a major announcement on his blog yesterday: Microsoft will be releasing the source code for most .NET Framework libraries with the release of Visual Studio 2008. There will even be integrated support for debugging into framework classes and on-demand dynamic downloading of source files and debug symbols in Visual Studio 2008.

This is great news for .NET developers and a major step forward for Microsoft in my opinion. In and by itself it is enough reason to warrant an upgrade to Visual Studio 2008. In fact, I can think of no reason to keep using Visual Studio 2005 after the release of VS2008.

The source will be released under the Microsoft Reference License which basically means you can view and debug but not change or reuse the source code.

If you want a more liberal license you can look into Rotor aka the Shared Source CLI. Rotor was Microsoft's first effort for open sourcing a .NET CLI implementation. But Microsoft does not guarantee that Rotor has exactly the same codebase as the real .NET Framework.

Check out the full details and screenshots of VS2008 integration on Scott's blog.

Typing Test

2007-10-01T19:06:57Z

I had taken this online typing test before on a laptop while sitting on the couch. Tonight I was sitting behind behind my desktop computer and decided to retry the test, because Dennis posted his results.

It feels a bit like a "who's got the biggest" contest, but here are the results of my first attempt:

Number of words typed: 219
Test duration: 3 min
Speed: 73.2 words/min. (366 keystrokes/min.)
Error penalty: 12
Accuracy: 94.5%

Not entirely happy with this, I retried the test. Every time you take the test a different text appears, so retrying is not cheating ;). These are the results of my second try:

Number of words typed: 245
Test duration: 3 min
Speed: 81.6 words/min. (408 keystrokes/min.)
Error penalty: 19
Accuracy: 92.2%

Beat this, Dennis! (Shouldn't be too hard :-)

Solved Problem with Missing XSD Metadata for WCF Service

2007-09-19T14:32:57Z

Today I encountered a problem with accessing the metadata for a WCF service that was deployed on a Windows Server 2003 machine.

The WSDL part worked just fine for the metadata exchange endpoint (url?wsdl, url?wsdl=wsdl0, etc.). These WSDL files refer to XSD files for the message types. Requesting these files (url?xsd=xsd0, url?xsd=xsd1, etc.) resulted in an empty response from the webserver. Checking the IIS logs indicated a HTTP 200 OK response with 0 bytes transferred. A very weird problem. Checking the config files did not lead anywhere.

Eventually I found a hint in a reply by James Zhang in this MSDN Forum post. The identity that is used for the application pool that hosts the WCF service must have the correct NTFS permissions on the %WINDIR%\temp folder. The identity that I used is a domain account. After setting the right NTFS permissions, the problem disappeared.

The funny thing was that this particular answer wasn't the answer for the original question in this forum post.

James Zhang does not indicate what type of permissions are needed, so I had to experiment a little.

First I added the account to the local Users group. This gives it special access permissions: Traverse folder/execute file, create files/write data, create folders/append data on this folder and subfolders. This is not enough. Then I realized, the domain account is already implicitly a member of this group because the Users group contains the NT Authority\Authenticated Users group. Next, I duplicated the extra rights that the NETWORK SERVICE account had for the domain account. These are list folder/read data and delete permissions for this folder, subfolders and files. This was enough. But it doesn't seem very secure. Now the service account can access temporary files created by other accounts.

So I experimented a bit more. I tuned back the NTFS permissions for the service account on %WINDIR%\temp to list folder/read data on this folder only. This is just enough. This allows the account to see which files are in the temp folder, but it doesn't allow it to read the data in files that are owned by other accounts.

It is very unfortunate that WCF didn't give any clue about why it couldn't generate metadata in this case. It is also unfortunate that it needs just slightly more permissions that a standard user on the folder for temporary files.

Note that if you run your WCF service in an IIS application pool under the default NETWORK SERVICE account you won't run into this problem, because it has more than enough permissions.

PS: Best practices indicate you shouldn't deploy your services with metadata enabled. We will turn this off eventually. However, of course it should work if you do want to enable this.

Removing Duplicate Items from Outlook

2007-09-18T17:50:02Z

I regularly sync my Windows Mobile phone with Outlook 2007 using ActiveSync/Vista Sync Center. I don't know what causes this, but every so often I end up with duplicate contacts and calendar items. This happens especially with recurring items like birthdays. If I am not quick enough to remove the duplicates, I end up with 2, 4 or even 8 of them!

In the past I have used the Duplicates Remover for Outlook from MAPILab for this. I used the trial edition that works for 30-days. It is limited to removing 10 items at a time, so I had to run it multiple times. I didn't use it often enough to shell out the $24/€19 to buy it.

Today I tried version 2.5.2 of this Outlook add-in. It has a wizard-like interface that is easy to use. I got my contact list and calendar cleaned up again.

[Full disclosure: By writing this review I am eligible for a free license for this Outlook add-in. This does not effect my opinion about this tool. Obviously, if I wouldn't find it useful, I wouldn't want to have a license.]

Released FlickrMetadataSynchr v0.8.0.0 which is fully functional

2007-08-19T12:23:09Z

After a long day and night of coding, I released version 0.8.0.0 of my Flickr Metadata Synchr tool on CodePlex this morning. I finally solved the long-standing problem I was having with the Windows Imaging Component (WIC) to update metadata. So this is the first fully-functional release of my application.

Functionality of FlickrMetadataSynchr v0.8.0.0

This is what the app does:

It allows you to select a set of your photos on Flickr and a folder on your hard drive with images.
It reads the metadata for both Flickr images and the local images. The metadata that is read is:
- Title
- Description
- Author
- Tags
- Geo-info (GPS coordinates)
- Date and time taken
- Last update date and time
It matches images on Flickr with local images based on the date and time taken.
It determines on a per picture basis in what direction the metadata should by synced, i.e., which side should be updated, if any. Currently the most recently updated side wins. I am getting help from Timo Proescholdt for a better algorithm that will allow for a merge of metadata, i.e., a two-way synch.
It updates the metadata on Flickr and in the local images.

This is a screenshot of the app:

Previous posts on this tool

Here is more info on why and how you should store the metadata in your images.
Read here how I was previously forced to use C++ to update metadata in images stored on the hard drive (I call these local images).
Read about how CodePlex lost my source code.

Workaround for WIC problems

During my holiday in France in July I received e-mail from Robert A. Wlodarczyk who works at Microsoft. He pinged me to say that he had released new sample code to update metadata using WIC. Yesterday, I tried to incorporate similar code into my application and ran into the same type of problems as before.

Because his sample was working, I wasn't ready to give up again. I finally tracked the problem down to a threading issue. WIC is throwing strange InvalidOperationException and InvalidFormatException exceptions with messages like "Cannot write to the stream" when it is called from a background thread. My app is multi-threaded so that the UI doesn't hang when it is busy syncing.

After I got confirmation from Robert that WIC indeed suffers from a threading issue, I solved the problem with a work around. I now marshal the call to the code that uses WIC to update metadata to the UI thread using the WPF Dispatcher object. This causes the app to become non-responsive for small amounts of time during the update of local metadata. But that is better than a non-fully-functional app.

Fully functional, give it a try

So all is well that ends well. After finally getting WIC to work, I could do away with the C++ code that was causing me headaches ;) And my app now works on Windows XP again. You just need to have the .NET Framework 3.0 installed.

If you have images on Flickr and you have been busy tagging them, give my app a spin! You can always find the latest release on CodePlex. The source code is also available under a GPL license on CodePlex.

Installing is easy. You just need to unzip the ZIP-file, which contains three files, to a folder. Start the FlickrMetadataSynchr.exe file and you are done. The app remembers the last settings.

If you find any issues, please report them using the Issue Tracker for my app on CodePlex.

The Future

Even though the app is now able to sync metadata in both Flickr images and local images, there is always room for improvement. Here are my ideas, some of which are based of suggestions by people on CodePlex:

Improve the synchronization to also allow two-way synchronization for a picture pair. I.e., one side doesn't have to win. For example, if the Flickr image has just the title set and the local image the description, the metadata should be merged.
Add UI to see the match that is made by the tool and how it proposes to sync the metadata.
Allow you to exclude images if the match isn't good.
Allow you to overrule the sync proposal and sync the metadata in a different direction (on a per property basis) .
Add UI to store multiple mappings between Flickr sets and local folders. Currently the app only remembers the last folder and Flickr set that was used.
Add click-once deployment. That way the app can automatically check for new versions and update itself.

If you have any other ideas please post them at the discussions page for my app on CodePlex.

Internals and history of LINQ to SQL

2007-08-07T18:15:11Z

If you are interested in the history of LINQ to SQL and how it works internally, go watch Charlie Calvert's video with Matt Warren and Luca Bolognese.

The first 30 minutes of this video are primarily about the internals. The last 10 minutes focus on the history of LINQ to SQL and how it relates to its "predecessors" Cω and ObjectSpaces. Matt and Luca also tell how Erik Meijer and Anders Hejlsberg got involved.

Input Validation for Declarative Query String Parameters in ASP.NET 2.0

2007-08-07T07:24:03Z

Back in January 2006 I wrote a blog post about a way to add input validation to declarative query string parameters in ASP.NET 2.0.

This involved adding code to the code-behind of each ASP.NET page to hook an event handler. This quickly becomes tedious if you have a lot of pages.

Will Shaver has come up with a better approach. He derives a custom class ValidatedQueryStringParameter from the ASP.NET class QueryStringParameter.

Check out the download on his blog post. It contains a more complete ValidatedQueryStringParameter class that supports other types besides Int32 like DateTime and Boolean. The QueryStringParameter already supports a Type property (of type TypeCode) to specify the type for the value of the parameter, so you can use it from markup like so:

<cc:ValidatedQueryStringParameter Name="CategoryId" QueryStringField="CategoryId" DefaultValue="0" Type="Int32" />

When will the next PDC be?

2007-06-01T08:33:00Z

PDC07 has been postponed indefinitely. Dennis already warned me just before MIX07 that Microsoft wouldn't have anything to announce at the PDC after the MIX conference.

No new date for a PDC has been given, yet Microsoft already announced the date for MIX08! It will be held March 5-7, 2008 in Las Vegas.

So when will the next PDC be? The official statement by Microsoft is that it will be when they are ready to announce the "next wave of platform technologies". The .NET technology is still forbidden from entering large parts of the Windows Operating System.

Will Microsoft attempt to pull off a synchronized wave of platform technologies again? Synchronizing the release of

Visual Studio .NET 2005, .NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005
.NET 3.0 and Windows Vista

proved to be mighty difficult for Microsoft to pull off. They only managed to release Windows Vista by cutting the dependencies between the OS and .NET. .NET 3.0 is only bundled with Windows Vista. Vista doesn't make use of it.

Vista even makes it very difficult to pull some things of using .NET. See my metadata API difficulty requiring me to use C++ and the fact that is is very difficult to create a decent Sidebar gadget using WPF.

The synchronization of .NET 3.5 and the ADO.NET Entity Framework failed. ADO.NET vNext has been delayed and will be released after the LINQ wave.

However, there is hope glimmering on the horizon. The new CoreCLR used by Silverlight 1.1 is able to co-exist with other CLR versions in one process. Silverlight will be a great technology for the Vista Sidebar. ASP.NET Ajax was released out-of-band. Microsoft has said that the next revision of the full CLR (remember .NET 3.5 still uses CLR 2.0) will also have this feature.

Interest in .NET declining?

2007-05-31T21:49:19Z

Martin Fowler notices a trend: interest in the .NET platform is declining. Ruby is all the rage. He has some recommendations for Microsoft on how to better collaborate with the community instead of going its own way. Martin noticed how Microsoft created its own unit testing variant that is incompatible with NUnit.

Change is visible in some parts of Microsoft, for example Microsoft is embracing dynamic languages, but boats the size of aircraft carries can only slowly change course. There are no clear signs from upper management at Microsoft that they are indeed changing course. The recent threats against the open source community over infringement on software patents seem to indicate that the old school closed-source thinking still has big strongholds within Microsoft.

Google is about to set a standard for offline storage for web applications with Google Gears. Even better, it's open source. Does Microsoft have the guts to embrace this technology instead of creating its own variant? I doubt it.

I am still pretty excited about the .NET platform. Especially about the LINQ wave of technologies coming with .NET Framework 3.5 and Silverlight. But I am also thinking about looking into Ruby on Rails more and more.