June 2007 - Posts
Because of (a movie on) Microsofts cool new projects SeaDragon and PhotoSynth (which doesn't seem to run from behind the firewall over here), I found the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference website. There are some pretty impressive talks to be found there. And some are plain hilarious. There's one I enjoyed a lot: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' talk "After the gold rush, there's innovation ahead". In this talk he compares the internet hype to the 1849 Gold Rush, but goes even further by using more analogies to explain the current state of the internet. Have a look around the TED website, and see if there's something for you...
I already stated it at Paul Gielens' post about the SQL Server 2008 CTP: software (development) is about to hit puberty, if it hasn't done so already. Looking at the rate (big!) new things are coming our way, you have to agree we're entering a new level in software (development). Take a look at things like AJAX, the upcoming entity framework combined with SQL Server 2008, Acropolis, the upcoming versions of the .Net framework, Microsoft Surface and many, many more. Probably just like lots of you out there, I'm just happy to be in this business at these (exciting) times.
A bit more on Surface: the Surface website does not only illustrate the power of the table (through the videos), it illustrates the power of the concept (have a look at origins - future).
"As form factors continue to evolve, surface computing will be in any number of environments - schools, businesses, homes and any number of form factors - part of the countertop, the wall or the refrigerator"
Imagine coming home from the supermarket, touching your fridge with the groceries and getting numerous recipies accompanied by instruction videos on how to make a lovely dinner with your new groceries, combined with what you have in the fridge...
I'll just repeat what Paul said: exciting times! ;)
I found the two updates which crippled my laptop's Windows installation. After uninstalling and re-installing lots of updates, it seems that these two updates caused the problem:
- Update for Windows Vista (KB936825) This wasn't the one. The problem was back this morning. :( I'll be checking this out later today.
- Update for Outlook 2007 (KB933493)
Re-installing them causes the same problems to occur: Outlook can't connect to Exchange and IE7 can't display any webpages. The weird thing is these updates were installed on my regular machine, and didn't cause any trouble there. On our laptop, the problems act up. Weird stuff... I've hidden the updates on the laptop, so I think the problem will not come back.
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Update 2: OK, this is weird. I mentioned the problem returned this morning. So when I came back fom work today I removed a different update and rebooted, and the internet connection was fixed again. So, to be sure, I re-installed the update and restarted again. And now the internet connection keeps working, even after numerous restarts :S. Creepy stuff, but the connection works perfectly now. So I guess I'll have to accept I won't be sure what the problem was.
This is my first post using Windows Live Writer Beta 2. I must say, it looks nicer than the first beta (having a Windows Vista-proof UI), but that's not all... Some of the features that were added are pretty darn cool (auto-ping on post, table editing) or just plain good (use the same window for multiple posts, finally!). I am missing the spelling checker though... My first feeling: this is a pretty big step ahead for Windows Live Writer.
And now for something completely different...
My laptop stopped working properly yesterday. I think one of the Windows Updates has crippled my laptop's Windows installation. Although I can take over the Exchange Server through Remote Desktop Connection, my Outlook can't reach it. And while Windows Live Messenger is up and running (and connected of course ;) ), my IE7 'cannot display' any webpages. I've already uninstalled an update which I thought would be the culprit, but that didn't turn this for the better. I guess I'll be trying to solve this one this weekend... If someone has a clue what could be the problem: let me know!
BTW
I think for me this is the post feauturing the Most Capitals Insinde a Sentence!
I took the test
Adel blogged about. And guess what? I'm
binary!
Does this mean I'm 1337? ;)
Which Programming Language are You?
I ran into a nice little riddle on thinkgeek.com today (in the shirts section).
If you enjoy silly humor: take a look over there.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
For the answer, select the box below...
57006. (dead is 57005 in hex. Add 1 for you and there you are: 57006)
Yesterday, I posted about a problem with MSBuild building our solution. We solved it, so I wanted to let you in on the secret solution.
We use the Enterprise Library V1.2 in some of our projects. And because some of the projects are being re-used from other internal projects, not all the references in thos projects were checked for versions. As it turned out, another project had a reference to an enterprise library assembly with a runtime version of .Net 2.0. And allthough this project compiled succesfully, local and on the build server, it broke the build of one of the other projects. This project (the one with the wrong reference) didn't need the EntLib reference, so it 'disappeared' because of optimization. But reference resolving had resolved it, and pointed to EntLib 3.0. Later in the build the project which failed did need the EntLib file, and used the allready resolved assembly location.
The problem occured after EntLib 3.0 was installed on the build server. I think the problem is there because of breaking changes between EntLib 2.0 and 3.0, because you would think the assembly resolver would have found the EntLib 2.0 assembly earlier. I'll be checking for that on monday. And if I'll find anything weird, I'll get back at you.
By the way, we solved this problem by using the verbose mode of MSBuild. This mode logs everything very extensively. Because of this, we could see the assembly reference resolving process, which lead us to the problem. You can make MSBuild more verbose by locating your build's rsp file, and add /v:diagnostic to it. However: use this option with care. It made our buildlog 200+ Mb's for a 71 project solution.
As I mentioned before, bloggingabout.net got a bit unstable recently. Our administrator saw this, and migrated us to a new host. All DNS servers should be updated by now, so the new host is fully operational. This should make us fully stable again. Together with this move, he also updated our community to Community Server 2007. And because we were into making changes, I updated the look of my blog (again... ;) ).
I hope you enjoy bloggingabout.net even more now!
Our current project uses the possibilities of MSBuild to have a daily build on a TFS server. This has been working up until yesterday somewhere around noon. Nobody knows what exactly happened, but it stopped working after our successful build of 11:42 am.
Our problem:
Compilation of one project (of a total of 71 projects) is failing. The project builds successful on the local machines of all the developers. It references EnterpriseLibrary.Common and EnterpriseLibrary.Configuration (among other assemblies), both of EntLib 1.2. In the csproj file, both references have a hintpath which is relative, indicating the references in the project file are right. The references are made to an 'external references' folder, where the entire EnterpriseLibrary can be found. This folder is also available in source control.
(Part of) the statement which makes the build fail:
Csc.exe /reference:"E:\TFSBuild\projectname.Daily\Binaries\Release\Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.dll" /reference:"..\..\External References\EntLib 1.2.0.0\Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Configuration.dll"
My main question is: what is making MSBuild pass one reference with a relative path, and one with an absolute one? And why to the binaries\release folder? I tried cleaning up the project file, and I even made an entire new project and copied the files from the 'old one' there. But all of this to no avail. We're currently further investigating this issue, and a thread has been started on the MSDN forums. I'll keep you posted on any updates.