February 2004 - Posts

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Debunking Dataset Myth

Posted: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 1:52 PM by Barry Gervin | 9 Comments
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Many people think that datasets are stored internally as XML. What most people need to know is that Datasets are serialized as XML (even when done binary) but that doesn't mean they are stored as XML internally - although we have no easy way of knowing, Read More...

The GAC Exposed

Posted: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 9:05 AM by Barry Gervin | 2 Comments
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So you want to see what's in the Gac. Of course if you go to c:\windows\assembly in your explorer - you see a customized shell extension of the global assembly cache. If you want to see the actual files underneath, in the past I've always gone to the Read More...

Upstaged by Ballmer

Posted: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 2:43 PM by Barry Gervin | (Comments Off)
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So it would seem I'm upstaged by Steve Ballmer who is coming to town the same day as the CTTDNUG presentation I was making about Whidbey. So in the interest of the greater good - my talk has been postponed until Mar 31. The “Ballmer Developer Briefing” Read More...

Datasets vs. Custom Entities

Posted: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 2:33 PM by Barry Gervin | 103 Comments
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So you want to build your own entity objects? Maybe you are even purchasing or authoring a code-gen tool to do it for you. I like to use Datasets when possible and people ask why I like them so much. To be fair, I'll write a list of reasons to not use Read More...

Coming at the debugger the other way.

Posted: Friday, February 06, 2004 8:54 AM by Barry Gervin | 3 Comments
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When writing services, I often find myself having to attach to processes manually from within VS.NET. When you can't simply run the code directly from VS.NET and step your way through it this is a common choice. Every time I have to do this though I cringe Read More...

Active Directory Application Mode

Posted: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 5:23 PM by Barry Gervin | 19 Comments
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I haven't had much chance to use many of the cool things in Windows 2003 to date, but one of the new things (that incidentally also runs on XP Pro) is a new mode of Active Directory called Application Mode - in total ADAM. I'm finally getting to do some Read More...

MSDN Regional Director position

Posted: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 2:43 PM by Barry Gervin | (Comments Off)
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Wow I missed a whole month blogging. It was a busy one. I was off for a weeks vacation (which really just meant I had 4 weeks worth of work to cram into 3). Upon my return I found out that I've been awarded the position of MSDN Regional Director . I had Read More...