May 2010 - Posts
Many ASP.Net applications uses membership and role providers to manage identities, profiles, and permissions. Membership and role providers are based on a specific schema deployed to the local database instance.
The ASP team released a tool to create the required tables called regsql.exe. The tool will fail create the tables when using SQL Azure.
The solution is to download the scripts especially modified to run on SQL Azure and execute them manually.
A knowledgebase describing the process is found here.
Manu
As you might have known The Windows Azure Access Control Services where completely changed in the RTM release.
- No more portal management. Rules are created using tools like ACM.exe which actually calls a set of web services.
- No more Federation Bindings. Tokens are acquired and validated manually.
I found a very good introductory of the new access control service which I recommend to read.
The new Azure AppFabric SDK provides few simple samples and a nice WPF tool for access rules management.
I did not find yet a simple integration with WIF but I am still looking…
Manu
Today Azure supports only .Net framework 3.5. Many people were surprised when VS2010 was released that Azure projects are still compiled as framework 3.5 projects.
Well things are going to change. The windows azure team posed about the upcoming support in windows Azure for .NET Framework 4.
Read and enjoy.
Manu
In WF 4.0 writing custom activities is much more exciting than it was with WF 3.5.
The combination of WF and WPF provides power and freedom to create user friendly activities. Now more then ever the designer is an important part of the activity development.
The designer is actually a WPF control, The class Microsoft.Windows.Design.Model.ModelItem provides the linkage between WF and WPF. As we all know with WPF it is easy to create amazing UI (in out case activities designers) so it is no surprise that there are many scenarios where most of the development effort is put in the designer.
The problem comes when you want to debug the designer code.
The designer code is run by Visual Studio when the WF developer uses the custom activity to create a new WF. How is it possible to stop on a break point and debug code running by Visual Studio?
Well, It is simple.
To debug designer code you need two instances of VS. One will do the debugging and the other will activate the code.
- Open one instance of VS and open the designer code.
- Put breakpoints in the designer code.
- Open another instance of VS and create a new test workflow in which you will use the new custom activity.
- Go back to the first instance of VS. Under the debug menu choose "Attach To Process" and choose the process devenv.exe (this is the second instance of VS with the test WF)
- Go back to the second instance of VS and in the test Workflow use the new activity.
- The designer code will run and it will stop on you breakpoint opening you a debug session in the first instance of VS.
Now that you know how to debug WPF designer code nothing will stop you from writing amazing designers.
Good luck
Manu
Two weeks ago I posted that the current download of Appfabric does not work with VS RTM, well the guys at Microsoft heard the feedback from the community and released a Windows Server AppFabric Beta 2 Refresh that works with VS RTM.
Anyway On May 20th Windows Server AppFabric and BizTalk Server 2010 will be launched…
The launch will be broadcasted at The Application Infrastructure Virtual Launch Event
The program of the event can be found here.
Manu
Live mesh was one of the most exciting technologies mentioned with the Azure platform. The synchronization between people software devices and data was a promising idea.
The problem was that suddenly people in Microsoft stopped talking about it. The blog was idled and no new information was released.
I personally was deeply concerned that this exciting new technology will be thrown away like many other good technologies…
Well I am happy to announce that Live Mesh is alive. It was renamed to "Windows Live Sync". LiveSide posted a bunch of new screen shots and information about some of the long-awaited Windows Live Wave 4 services and Windows Live Sync is mentioned as the new evolution of Live Mesh.
Windows Live Wave 4 is the next refresh of the various consumer-focused services that Microsoft delivers as an adjunct to Windows.(Messenger, Hotmail, Photo Gallery, Writer etc)
Microsoft has many sync technologies. It does not make sense to keep suck duplication so it turns out that the Live Mesh technology or as it will be called Windows Live Sync is going to be the one.
The questions is: "When is Windows Live Wave 4 is going to happen?". I heard rumors that Public beta of Wave 4 may happen this spring (just around the corner..)
According to LiveSide:
“Windows Live Sync has gotten a complete revamp, pretty much dumping the old FolderShare interface and becomes a new piece of software in itself. As the client-side for Windows Live Devices, Sync will allow you to synchronize files between devices and SkyDrive, as well as providing remote access to your PCs over the internet. Perhaps the most interesting piece of news is that Windows Live Sync will also support synchronisation of your program settings … allowing you to synchronize your Internet Explorer settings between two or more computers.”
synchronization of software settings will allow fast setup on all machines and will improve our quality of life.
So: Do not worry live mesh (Windows Live Sync) is alive . Let us wait for the API. It will be exciting…
Manu