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TechED 2008
2008-02-17 23:13:00
We are about to attend Microsoft's TechED 2008 in Eilat. I believe that this TechED will be as exciting as the one I had attended just two years ago. Microsoft is renowned of its latest trend for overwhelming and increasing number of new technologies, and it just about to show off again with Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, Silverlight, some already known technologies with a drill down and experience perspective and more and more! I might have further news, but I keep it private for now. In the meanwhile I'll post here some links regarding this excellent event. if you can attend make sure you save yourself a room. Links: - TechED 2008 official site (Hebrew) - Tamir Khason's - XNA and WPF and more.

Add version control folder to Favorites
2008-01-06 21:21:00
Today, after using TFS and VS for team system for quite a while (almost two years) I had an Idea. Getting to a specific folder in the source control is quite a pain in the neck, after all we are doomed to do it again and again on a daily basis and it isn't easy for the first time and it is not getting better after a while... but worth. It is even worth if you have a huge repository of code with nested sub-folders of 6 levels or more, getting to the current project you are working on is really painful. So, as I said, I had an enlightenment yep, Microsoft should allow a user to add a specific folder to the favorites node available at the Team-Explorer. This way I will be able to place my current project's folder in the favorites and get back to it with less work. I had scanned the web looking for a post or article that will deal with this, and the only post I got is this. The interesting thing about this post that Mario Rodrigez had stated: "Currently there is no way to drag a ve...
More About: Control , Favorites , Version , Folder

iPhone - Is it just another phone?
2007-11-24 17:22:00
I had received an iPhone this week. I was asked to set its Hebrew back to normal status (Normal? there is no official Hebrew support yet) and to eliminate some of the problems the specific device was experiencing. I had consulted a great friend of mine, Ohad Israeli, and asked him to lead me through the first steps of using iPhone and to solve these irritating problems. After some resets, software installations etc. we finally got the iPhone to work. Hebrew is still strange, some works fine, some gets inverted but the overall experience is what I want to discuss here. I believe that Apple through iPhone is showing a revolutionary user experience that will be imitated by other vendors. We are about to experience a movement from menu-based operation to touch-based operation. I believe that Apple had set a new standard for operating devices. If we think about it further, UMPC (Ultra Mobile PCs) are about to be influenced by this just as well. What do you think? del.icio....
More About: Iphone

Using Enterprise Library Exception & Logging application blocks caused an E
2007-09-29 12:02:00
I'm developing a nice tool for asset tracking for my team leaders and builders. I had decided that I will use EntLib 3.0 for logging and Exception -Handling by policies. I've seen some of my developers doing quite well with EntLib, and Ohad Israeli, an appreciated developer and architect, which is a great EntLib enthusiast quite easily convinced me to use EntLib instead of reinventing the wheel. So, without arguing I sat down and hooked a first class to the Exception-Handling Application Block. Using it was quite easy, just as the QuickStart directs you (or any other resource you may find). I managed to declare a Policy quite easily and define few exception types and handlers. Everything just seemed to be working and Life could not be better... Than I just decided to be brave and to use the Logging Application Block. I added a reference to the right assembly and used the Banal syntax of writing to the Log. ...Logger.Write ("This a message to the Log");... Now this worked just f...
More About: Library , Enterprise Library , Enterprise

This blog is not dead, yet...
2007-09-05 00:35:00
This is not a technical post nor a personal one, however, I had decided to let you know that I'm still here. This blog is alive and I apologize that for the past few months I was too busy to update it. Sorry.... I promise to be back, soon! Tal.
More About: Blog , Dead

Delphi: I wish I could store my project state in TFS... Now I Can
2007-07-03 22:43:00
Ever wished you could store a Delphi project state in TFS so that whenever you'll have to download the project from TFS to a development workstation it will be as easy as "Get Latest version"?Well, We are almost there. My team had Identified a tool that may help us on doing so. More about it... Soon!
More About: Project , Store , State , Project S

ReSharper in 31 days
2007-07-01 21:53:00
I just ran into a nice blog post of ReSharper. It is a nice introduction to ReSharper spanning over 31 days of posts.If you wish to try ReSharper take this tutorial as guide, it is well written; clear, direct and delves just enough for you to understand.Links: - Joe White's Blog - Blog Event: The 31 Days of ReSharper - ReSharper
More About: Tools , Delphi

Easier UI Thread safe methods
2007-06-12 00:08:00
Roy Osherove posted few weeks ago a nice post of an elegant solution for synchronization between a thread and a Form/Winform control. His solution is built upon the Castle framework, allowing you to determine how a method is treated, wether the method will be called directly* or through Synchronized Invocation. As some other readers mentioned, the direct method call is not as direct as one may imagine. Each time a method marked with an attributed (derived from [AOPAttributeBaseAttribute]) is being called a set of InvokeBefore and InvokeAfter methods are being called. If synchronization is required, the ancestor's InvokeBefore method is being called and is using invoke operation to perform the synchronization. This may result in degraded performance due to some overhead, But as Roy had answered one of his critics: UI can handle some few milliseconds delay, The user will not notice and the number we currently have is good enough. Personally I reall...
More About: Methods , Thread , Safe , Method

.NET/Java Interop is/not a reason for Web-Services
2007-06-02 23:30:00
If you follow Arnon's and Udi Dahan's blogs carefully you may find interesting debates and disagrees between the two. Usually Udi is more academic while Arnon is more pragmatic. So this time they agree that using webservices for .NET-Java interop is not SOA, however they disagree whether doing so is all evil or not. Udi points that if you need Java/.NET interop, don't use webservices instead he is directing us to use some interop/bridging products instead of using webservices ("The only problem is that in order for things to work right, they really must have a chatty interface, and flow transaction context between these ?services?, and all the other things I describe as anti-patterns.") While Arnon agrees that using webservices for this purpose does not meet SOA and may actually meet some ugly anti-patterns, however, it is not so bad idea to wrap a Java software by webservice in order to be used by .NET application. ("However, using Web-services does not automatically mean that ...
More About: Services , Architecture , Reason , Interop

Tom Hollander on Feb. CTP of GAT
2007-04-27 20:50:00
I Will not elaborate further than directing you to Tom's blog, However if you are interesting in Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) whether you plan on authoring future toolkits or just using some already made factories (list below), Tom's post is for you. If you wish to read about GAT or learn further, some links are added below. Links:  Tom's Blog What is GAT anyway?  Introduction to the Guidance Automation Toolkit  GuidanceAutomation.NET Some good factories based on GAT:  Web Client Software Factory  Smart Client Software Factory  Web Service Software Factory Downloads:  Guidance Automation Extensions and Guidance   Automation Toolkit Download

The Developer's ToolBox
2007-04-14 01:20:00
Do you find yourself, from time to time, wondering what is the best tool to use for a given mission? Now, how about a nice source to look and find the available tools for the task?For years Delphi Magazine (Called DelphiZine.com) had an yearly poll for the best tools, where the magazine's readers had to answer a survey and the results were published by the magazine. It was very useful since you had a complete list of tools ranked by popularity. Ohad Israeli had posted his presentation for the Orcale .NET Forum where he presented an extensive list of tools for the .NET architects and developers. Ohad's Developer's ToolBox presentationYou can also check Roy Osherove's blog where he had also a nice post about developer tool, however, his post is quite old and probably did not go under any updates lately. What you should do is try to filter his blog with the "Cool Tools " Tag, you will find some interesting stuff there.Links: Ohad's Developer's ToolBox presentation Roy ...
More About: Toolbox

Connecting Team Foundation Server from Borland's Delphi
2007-04-07 12:08:00
How do you like Team Foundation Server ? I like it a lot.How about Borland (CodeGear) Delphi ? I am using Delphi for the past 10 years now, and since I could not see a near end to this I had to connect these two development environments together.How do we do that?This is made quite easy if you posses two tools. The first comes free while the other is just $50 away.The first tool you need to install is Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider.The second tool is Delphi's integration to Source Control called, SourceConnexion, developed by Epocalipse.Installation is easy; there is nothing much to do and you get a perfect match between Microsoft? and Borland.I use Delphi on Daily basis, Checking-In and Out source, Commenting, Synchronizing, Attaching and updating workitems (WIs) with a job I just finished. Using SourceConnexion makes it much easier and productive. There aren't any issues of reliability, it is working as good as doing it manually directly on&...

Finally I managed to uninstall TFS Power Toys v1.1 off my Vista
2007-04-04 18:20:00
Have you seen the new release of Team Foundation Power Toys 1.2? I even tried to install it, really! Guess what!I couldn't since I had version 1.1 already installed and had to uninstall it first, that make some sense, doesn't it?Here is where sense stops and hard work gets in? I tried to uninstall version 1.1 of TFPT I had installed only about 3 weeks ago on my brand new Vista installation.First time I tried to uninstall it I got an internal error "Internal Error 2738" message.I browsed the net and understood that the vbscript.dll was not registered. So I was trying my luck and registered it using the regsvr32.exe. Keep in mind that you must run it as an Administrator, I've done it by opening a Command-Line console as an administrator (right click on the link and choose to run it as an administrator).And all went well, until I tried to uninstall again, Now...I got the following message:"Error 1722. There is a problem with this windows Installer package. A program run as part of t...
More About: Finally , Troubleshooting

Recommended Books
2007-03-31 21:31:00
I just added to the blog a list of books that I recommend.You can see it as the first list on the right.Enjoy.
More About: Books

Creating .NET Classes out of XML schema
2007-03-29 00:39:00
For now I will post here just a brief list of posts andarticles concerning this issue. Later on, I will try eachmethod and judge using my best judgement techniques...and list the top 5. If you have a method of convertingXSD to .NET Class which I did not list here, please feelfree to drop me a comment suggesting your method.Using Microsoft's SDK tool - XSD.EXE - Read this / Read thisUsing a tool suggested by "The Code Project" - Read thisUsing a Guidance Package - Read this
More About: Conventions , Classes , Creating , T class , Chem

Documenting your code
2007-03-24 15:39:00
Right after I had finished Chapter 12 of the fine book ProfessionalVisual Studio 2005 dealing with XML Comments I set down andenhanced some of my code with additional comments and examples.It is all nice and beauty, but how about converting it to realdocumentation, just like the fine documentation provided byMSDN? I know that the answer for most of you is too obvious, howeverI hit some walls I believe you don't want to hit yourself.I tried nDoc 1.3.1 from Source Forge but it didn't work on my VisualStudio 2005 running on a brand new installation of Vista withoutFramework 1.1 installed.I browsed the web looking for a simple solution for that problemand got two answers for this:Jonas Lagerblad is offering nDoc 1.3.1 with a set of fixes for VisualStudio 2005 and .NET framework 2.0. You can get it here.Sudheer Kumar have an excellent post about code documentation,He is directing us to use nDoc 2005. However, Use the source codeand not the binary since the binary will fail because of ad...
More About: Tools , Code , Documentation

An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. (Exception
2007-03-22 07:17:00
Justin (Justin-Josef Angel) had reported a bug in .NET Generics where using a constraint for a Generic type of type 'class'.As He mentioned, when declaring the following, one will get a serious exception with hardly no way to Debug (BadImageFormat Exception ).public class SpecificClass: BaseClass: where T : class { }Justin claims that Microsoft, through MSDN, is directing software developers to use the class constraint. I'm trying to understand his problem; Is the problem is with having a constraint as general as 'class'.Reading the MSDN article he relies on (MSDN) I can see that developers are directed to use constraints on some occasions, however we are not directed to use the 'class' constraint in particular.I agree that there is no warning on this specific usage of the constraint, but I am not surewhy should we use such a General constraint at all.Links:Justin PostMSDN
More About: Made , Program , Load

New version of ILMerge
2007-03-06 23:41:00
The new version (2.0.7.228) is available since Feb. 28th. The following changes were made for the latest version:- Fixes problem where merged assemblies ran as a 32-bit process even on a 64-bit machine.- ILMerge is now a strongly-named assembly.- Fixes a problem with adjusting the accessibility of a type when a subtype has a more restricted accessibility.- Makes sure there are no duplicate assembly names in the list of input assemblies.- Various generics fixes.On an error, the stack trace is now written to the log.A nice GUI wrapper is available at the code project, and there is a nice article by John Mueller discussing the reason this ILMerge is required at first place: DevSource
More About: Tools , Version

Updated list of the available events in TFS
2007-03-04 20:42:00
Searching the web, I bumped into Marcel de Vries' post of a list of available events in TFS.Then I looked a bit further and found SRLTeam post (by Maor David) with a shorter, yet detailed, one.Links:- Marcel de Vries- SRLTeam
More About: Events , List , Available

Pictures of Mia
2007-02-17 16:40:00
This week was A M A Z I N G ! ! !Since she got into our life things are all different, I don't sleep enough at night and the only thing I am focused on is her welfare and health.I am sure that if you are a parent, especially a young one, you remember exactly how this first week is. I was told before, many of my best friends tried to "warn" me? but you can't be ready until you are there.But it all pays quite well. Isn?t a small smile melts your heart? Or her eyes when she looks at you? I am well aware that these first smiles and looks are not cognitive yet? but still it is something that gives strength to go on.If you want to see some pictures of Mia, you can browse to: http://www.tikotzki.com/mia
More About: Pictures

Great Animations
2007-02-14 09:27:00
Hi,I was away for a while since My wife gave birth to our firstborn daughter.I promise pictures are on the way. Her official name is Mia.In the mean while, I had want to share with you a nice Website that allow you to shareanimation clips, It's like uTube just for Animations only.Here is a very nice animation clip that "explains" how easy is to make your ownanimated movie, Good luck...More to come, Soon....
More About: Great , Imation

Some impressions of Microsoft Developers Academy 2007
2007-02-01 01:06:00
Some impressions of Microsoft Developers Academy 2007Microsoft Israel had handled a huge convention held in Cinema City, Herzelia. About 2,300 Israeli developers attended two identical courses of the convention. The convention was of technical nature dealing with a vast number of topics all related to Microsoft?s latest technology advancements available for the developer community. Topics for example: ASP.NET 2.0 + Ajax, .NET Framework 3.0 (Workflow, Communication and Presentation foundations), Visual Studio 2005 and Team System.Presentation that I mostly liked are:? Udi Dahan?s presentation about adding value to SOA while using Workflow. Udi was offering an interesting view of a ?Service Oriented Architecture? designed by using workflow, thus providing greater power to the architect while solving performance issues, scalability and extendibility.Udi had also emphasized about Asynchronous communication. He had shown that using synchronous calls as a standard way of operation will ca...
More About: Impressions , Impress

Deleting a BuildType - Continue
2007-01-08 23:09:00
As I promised, I had checked it and here arethe results:1. It is very simple to delete a build, how?First of all stop looking for answers in the Team Explorer,you will not find it there? Go to the project's source controland look for the TeamBuildTypes folder. This foldercontains the complete list of BuildTypes listed at theTeam Explorer; however, this one holds the sources for theBuildType just as well. So how do I delete? Simply bydeleting the BuildType from the source control section.Don't forget to refresh the Team Explorer to notice thechange?2. I found out that I can even rename the BuildType quiteeasily by renaming the BuildType folder at the source control.A change to the folder's name changes the BuildType nameat the Team Explorer. Again, don't forget to Refresh.3. Now I am challenged? It seems that the list of BuildTypesis a plain list with no Hierarchy or order, What if I want tohave some BuildTypes grouped together within a certainfolder? I tried it and got a broken ...
More About: Conti

Deleting a BuildType
2007-01-07 23:03:00
Hi, I got to tell you I am looking for an elegant way to deletea BuildType from Team Foundation Server.I had read a post that suggests deleting the BuildType fromthe source control while manually deleting each and everyprevious Builds by using the TFSBuild.exe /Delete command.One thing I can promise you is: I will Test it tomorrowmorning and report back. It might be the only way,although it is far from being elegant.How to delete a TFS BuildType

Crossing the Desert Syndrome
2007-01-06 11:55:00
I Just read Johanna Rothman's blog concerning about the "Crossing the Desert " Syndrome . You can read it Here.Johanna is addressing a common problem with projectmanagement where the team is busy with completing acurrent interim milestone and is entirely committed to itssuccess. That kind of commitment lead the team to acollapse as soon as the milestone is over and the team isready to the next one. The question raised is "Does the team really ready?", Itseems that by the end of the interim milestone, where workis over, so does the team's resources.A project manager should keep in mind that winning thebattle does not necessarily promise winning the war.In my opinion, Johanna is addressing a very common problemwe all know about but sometime we tend to ignore.Links:Johanna Rothman: Crossing the Desert SyndromeMy Other blog
More About: Ossi

MSBuild for Delphi Task
2007-01-03 23:37:00
I'm glad to announce that we had developed a custom task to provide automated Build for Delphi (7.0/Win32) using MSBuild (As part of Team Foundation Server)Our custom task overcomes several issues of compiling Delphi projects and packages using DCC32.exe. It wasn't quite easy but it pays-off quite well.We do not publish the source but if you wish to get a copy just drop me a comment.
More About: Task

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 is out!
2006-12-22 22:15:00
Just announced!I was waiting on this service pack since I had used VS2005 for production code. I was awaiting it further more as soon as we had set our TFS server to production.Service pack 1 is announced for:· Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite (Standard, Professional, and Team Editions of VS2005)· Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS)· Visual Studio 2005 Express EditionsAn additional refresh is available for Windows Vista; the refresh is a beta version that is built over the current Service Pack . The final release is scheduled to ship after the consumer availability of Windows Vista in the first quarter of 2007.What am I expecting to find in this service pack release? First of all I?m looking at stability and performance. VS2005 is quite stable as long as you don?t connect it to TFS, and as soon as you connect it to TFS you get to have crashes and performance issues. This release of the service pack, as reported, is solving both the stability and performance i...