However you can explicitly use blocks by unqualified { } braces. I've started using this feature to contain the variables within a function to a specific scope. This is cutting down silly mistakes during development time.

Ctrl +- allows you to navigate through the stack of cursor positions in your VS session. Invaluable when going through multiple F12 (go to definition) in a multilayred application or any comlex debugging session. I expect to use this shortcut daily.

I used to mess around with Ctrl-KK, Ctrl-KN (bookmarks) to achieve the same result. This way is much simpler.

cheers

Looking around for data generation tools i stumbled upon this beauty from Red Gate software - Data Generator . I've just fooled around with the the trial version which was simple and quick. at 249 $ it strikes me as too steep for non-database specialists to splurge on personally.

Data generation tools sounds like a perfect fit for an open-source initiative with crowd sourced data for all types of industries. Anyone listening ?

Let me know if any one has free tool recommendations

download from here

Read more about it on Scott Hanselmans blog here

happy installing the installer

The months passed away in whirl of multi-threading (to the tune of "do that funky coding.. geek booy") and exception chasing. Then it happened. T'was the night before UAT, and he had just put the final touches on the self-healing component of the system. In his all-knowing farsightedness, the self-healing patch download location would be the same as the host application which would get passed to the Process.Start command as a paramter - sweet.  It was all unit tested - patches were coming in just beautifully and doing their magic. 6 p/m friday - nice - beer beckoned. and then ..... one of the silly users decided to install the application ... of all the arcane locations under c:\Program <space> Files \blah <space> blah..  damn these pesky users . of course he had forgotten to sorround the command arguments with "".

Note to self -

1. Always develop against a realistic folder path with spaces in them

2. Never assume the presence of even a "C" drive.

Can you have it ? -  No - it will not be made available as a seperate download for your exisitng WM devices. (Personally i dont think this is such a bad move if its not going to perform well as a seperate install). I know that i've been turned off opera on certain devices because it didn't perform well.

Developers - experience it using Windows Mobile 6.1.4 Emulator Images now available.

Some of the cool features available with Internet Explorer Mobile 6 are:

• Improved fidelity (support for full fidelity desktop rendering)
• Layout fixes to accommodate a mobile screen (text wrap)
• Enhanced Script and AJAX support  (Jscript v5.7 from Internet Explorer 8)
• Improved multimedia experience (Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for Adobe Flash content)
• Deeper integration with search
• Enhanced cursor navigation model
• Touch and gesture support – pan support
• Multiple zoom levels
• Easy switching between mobile / desktop versions of sites by specifying UA strings.

I am going to miss the old PIE - at least in India where data speeds aren't even upto 3G levels yet, loading a full blown web page with all the useless junk on them takes forever. fingers crossed 3G and IE 6 hit the market at the same time

One of the issues I face during debugging Sync issues is analysis of the SQL Server CE database state. So ! Here's Inspector Synk to help me around with getting a little insight into the database state.

Just select the sdf file, and the Inspector will give you some basic (very basic) information about the tables and their pending changes status. I would imagine this could be useful in a production scenario to analyze changes left over on the client that need to be sent to the server. I have a bunch of ideas on enhancing this - Maybe over the weekend.

Some of the code might be of interest to people digging into the internals of change tracking in SSCE 3.5 with Sync Service.

__sysSyncArticles : internal tables that keeps a list of tables being tracked for changes along with each table's sync (excuse the resolution)

THE QUERY - to retrieve if table has pending changes or not. Its a little tedious to go into the details, but the most important part is the @LCSN which is the watermark for the last received anchor.

select count(*) from {0} Tbl where (((Tbl.__sysInsertTxBsn IS NOT NULL) AND ((Tbl.__sysInsertTxBsn NOT IN
(SELECT __systxbsn
FROM __systxcommitsequence)

AND Tbl.__sysInsertTxBsn > @LCSN) OR (exists
(SELECT __systxbsn
FROM __systxcommitsequence
WHERE tbl.__sysinserttxbsn = __systxbsn
AND __systxcsn > @LCSN)

)))
OR
((Tbl.__sysChangeTxBsn IS NOT NULL) AND ((Tbl.__sysChangeTxBsn NOT IN
(SELECT __systxbsn
FROM __systxcommitsequence)

AND Tbl.__sysChangeTxBsn > @LCSN) OR (exists
(SELECT __systxbsn
FROM __systxcommitsequence
WHERE tbl.__syschangetxbsn = __systxbsn
AND __systxcsn > @LCSN)

))))

There are the basis of Inspector Synk (yes - i insist on calling it that :-) )

hope this helps you happy syncers. Code Attached. Watch out for updates

InspectorSynk.zip

To enable this on a Windows Server 2008 machine do the following

1. Fire up Server Manager

2. Select Web Server under Roles - notice that Static Content is not installed

3. Select Add Role Services from the right hand menu

4. Check Static content and install.

Consuming using a WCF client

To create a CF WCF client you will need to generate it using the NetCFSvcUtil tool which is available as a part of the Power Toys download

Use this tool as you would for the desktop to generate a client.

Limitation: CF 3.5 only support basicHttpBinding. So in the Web.Config of your Service you will need to modify the binding attribute to binding="basicHttpBinding"

Limitation: CF 3.5 supports only Certificate credentials. You have no way of specifying / attaching username and password credentials on your request to the server.

Consuming using a Web Reference

the exposed WCF service can also be consumed as a standard web reference. Indeed for some time, this might also be the preferred way until WCF client matures.

To make your WCF service amenable for this sort of consumption, add the attribute

[ServiceContract(Namespace = "YourName"), XmlSerializerFormat]

 Now simply add a web reference to the WCF service and you should be ready to go.

for more information check out these posts from Andrew Arnott

The WCF subset supported by NetCF

Calling WCF services from NetCF 3.5 using Compact WCF and NetCFSvcUtil.exe

What do you think of the new WCF 'Store and forward' Mail Transport?

Making space available

1. Open Hyper-V Manager on physical machine

2. Stop the target VM

3. Right-click target VM and select settings

4. Hardware > IDE Controller 0 > Hard drive

5. Edit Virtual Hard Disk

6. Choose Action > Expand

7. Enter expansion size

This is not the end of it. The disk drive on your VM internally is still only configured for the older space availability

Using the Available space

1. Log into target VM

2. Open Server Manager

3. Storage > Disk Management

4.right-click Disk > Extend Volume

5. Enter expansion size from available size

Hope this helps someone.