Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 is now in beta and available for download from MSDN. Make sure you don't install it on your development machine until you've tested your setup in a virtual environment.

Here is the feature set copied from Microsoft's website:

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 includes:

• Improved designers for building WPF applications
• Full support for SQL Server 2008
• The introduction of the ADO.NET Entity Designer
• Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007 style 'Ribbon')
• Improvements to Team Foundation Server to respond to customer feedback on version control usability and performance, improved e-mail integration with work item tracking and full support for hosting on SQL Server 2008
• Improvements for Web development including richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and Web site deployment

The .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 includes:

• Performance increases between 20-45% for WPF-based applications - without having to change any code
• WCF improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services
• Streamlined installation experience for client applications
• Improvements in the area of data platform, such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and support for SQL Server 2008's new features.

Additional Details

In addition, Service Pack 1 for the .NET Framework and Visual Studio 2008 includes a number of new features:

• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Visual Designer Changes
• .NET Framework 3.5 Client Profile
• New ADO.NET Data Features
• Team Foundation Server Improvements

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Visual Designer Changes

• Cold startup performance improvement ranging between 20-45% depending on application size without needing to modify any code.
• Additional WPF features for text, graphics, and media to deliver better performance. For example, effects like DropShadow and Blur were implemented using software rendering; with Service Pack 1 these are now implemented using hardware acceleration. Other examples include:
  • Text, especially when used in Visual and DrawingBrush, is substantially faster.
  • Data scalability improvements - Container Recycling, TreeView virtualization, and more to enable richer data editing support
  • Media performance improvements
  • A much improved WriteableBitmap that enables real-time bitmap updates from a software surface
• Visual Studio 2008 introduced a brand new designer for WPF applications. Since Visual Studio 2008 released many additional features have become available for inclusion in the designers. These include event tab support within the property grid for control events, toolbox support within source mode, and a variety of other common asks and improvements.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Workflow Foundation (WF) Changes

• New Hosting Wizard for WCF Service projects.
• Enhancements in Test Client such as support for RM Sessions, Message Contract and Nullable<T> types enables testing of broader set of WCF-based services.
• Expanding reach of DataContract Serializer by relaxing the need of having [DataContract]/ [DataMember] on types and by supporting an interoperable mechanism for dealing with object references.
• Improved Partial Trust Debugging Experience with support for Event Log.
• Support for ADO.NET Entity Framework entities in WCF contracts.
• Improvements in writing REST based services ranging from easily supporting ServiceDocuments publication and consumption to providing greater control and usability of UriTemplate.
• Significant performance improvements on large workflow-based projects in Visual Studio.
• Considerable scalability increases for hosted WCF services in IIS7-integrated mode.

Microsoft has announced a new program called DreamSpark to get over $2000.00 of free developer tools into the hands of college students. It is a bit too late for me, but I still wouldn't mind having that 12-month free membership to the XNA creators club.

The full list of free software:

• Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
• Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
• XNA Game Studio 2.0
• 12-month free membership in the XNA Creators Club
• Expression Studio, which includes Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design and Expression Media
• SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition
• Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
• SQL Server Developer Edition
• Virtual PC 2007
• Visual Basic 2005
• Visual C++ 2005
• Visual C# 2005
• Visual J# 2005
• Visual Web Developer 2005

Full information can be found at https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/

Looks like the "Day 1" or the first comic from the Heroes Happen Here series has been released. This comic was released by Microsoft and Seagate so make sure and signup for the RSS Feed to receive the comic everyday of the working week.

So you just got done prototyping that new Winform or WPF application and the interface is a bit lacking. You are a programmer, not an artist after all. Well, never fear, free icons are here (wow that really rhymed). All kidding aside, most of us are not good at drawing images and icons, so we need some resources for these items.

Our journey starts with Visual Studio 2005. If you recall, it  had  a zip file called VS2005ImageLibrary located at Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\VS2005ImageLibrary\. This file contained a nice collection of icons, animations, buttons and a variety or other objects that you could use within your application. Here are the instructions on how and where to extract the images.

After installing Visual Studio 2008, I checked to see if this library was still available and was happily surprised to find it still located at Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\VS2008ImageLibrary\1033\VS2008ImageLibrary\.   Here you will find images taken from Microsoft programs such as Office and Vista, along with some cool animations for your progress displays.

Our next stop is online, where there are plenty of resources to find images. I ran across an excellent one the other day on Damen Guard's Blog. This collection, Silk Companion #1, looked to be over a 450+ top quality 16x16 icons in PNG format. These were mostly derived from a larger collection at FAMFAMFAM. Here you find over the original 1000+ icons that can be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

I also stopped by Icon Factory, but their freeware icons and images were not licensed for redistribution and can only be use as desktop icons. Not much good for a us programmers.

My next step will be to start compiling a list of the best of the best graphical resources, targeted for us, the programmers. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free drop me a note.

I wrote some code last year to create an Microsoft Access Database, fill in some data and email it out. It never made it out to production so I thought I would share part of it here. Let's focus on creating the database in this post.

The first thing you need to do is get a COM reference to the Microsoft ADO Ext. X.X for DDL and Security. The X.X represents whatever version you happen to have on your machine. Mine used to be version 2.7, but with Visual Studio 2008, it was updated to 6.0.

Once you have added the reference, ADOX will be added to the using section of your code.

Next you will want to create the catalog for the database. Insert the filename you wish into the following string and pass it to the CatalogClass.

   1:              CatalogClass cat = new CatalogClass();

   2:   

   3:              string tmpStr;

   4:              string filename = "Sample.MDB";

   5:              

   6:              tmpStr = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;";

   7:              tmpStr += "Data Source=" + filename + ";Jet OLEDB:Engine Type=5";

   8:   

   9:              cat.Create(tmpStr);

The next step is to create the table and columns for your database. This is a pretty straight forward operation as shown in the example below.

   1:              Table nTable = new Table();

   2:              nTable.Name = "PersonData";

   3:                 

   4:              nTable.Columns.Append("LastName", DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar, 25);

   5:              nTable.Columns.Append("FirstName", DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar, 25);

   6:              nTable.Columns.Append("Address 1", DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar, 45);

   7:              nTable.Columns.Append("Address 2", DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar, 45);

   8:              nTable.Columns.Append("City", DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar, 25);

   9:              nTable.Columns.Append("State", DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar, 2);

  10:              nTable.Columns.Append("Zip", DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar, 9);

  11:    

  12:              cat.Tables.Append(nTable);

The final step is very important or you will get error when you close your application. Once the all the tables and columns have been added, you will need to release the com objects properly and in the proper order.

   1:              System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(nTable);

   2:              System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(cat.Tables); 

   3:              System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(cat.ActiveConnection); 

   4:              System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(cat);

That is it. You should now have a Access Database that you can write to. Hope this helps.

A coworker showed me this neat new feature of Visual Studio 2008. If you right click within the code editor and roll your mouse over Organize Usings, three options will come up; Remove Unused Usings, Sort Usings and Remove and Sort. The names are pretty self explanatory so I won't bore you and explanation of each; just wanted to pass on the good word.

Have you ever wanted to be able to extend a sealed class like string? With Visual Studio 2008 and C# 3.0, you now can with Extension Methods. You create these new methods to add additional custom abilities to an existing type, even if you don't have access to it. These new methods need to be static methods contained in static classes, and the first parameter should be the keyword this and the hosting type. This is demonstrated in the example below on line 8. This example takes input from the console and validates it against a regex string.

   1:  using System;

   2:  using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

   3:   

   4:  namespace ExtensionMethods

   5:  {

   6:      public static class MyClass

   7:      {

   8:          public static bool ValidPhoneNumber(this string s)

   9:          {

  10:              string valid_phone = "^[\\(]{0,1}([0-9]){3}[\\)]{0,1}[ ]?([^0-1]){1}([0-9])" +

  11:                                   "{2}[ ]?[-]?[ ]?([0-9]){4}[ ]*((x){0,1}([0-9]){1,5}){0,1}$";

  12:   

  13:              Regex regex = new Regex(@valid_phone);

  14:              return regex.IsMatch(s);

  15:          }

  16:      }

  17:      

  18:      class Program

  19:      {

  20:          static void Main(string[] args)

  21:          {

  22:              Console.Write("Please Enter Phone Number: ");

  23:              string newPhone = Console.ReadLine();

  24:   

  25:              if (newPhone.ValidPhoneNumber()) 

  26:                  Console.WriteLine("Good Phone Number");

  27:              else    

  28:                  Console.WriteLine("Bad Phone Number");

  29:   

  30:              Console.ReadLine();

  31:          }

  32:      }

  33:  }

Once the class has been created, it can be used as an extension of the string class as simply as if it was originally part of the it.

Other examples can be found at the blogs for David Hayden, or Scott Guthrie.

Last week a co-worker let me know about these free E-books from Microsoft Press. It looks as if the LINQ book is in fact the full book while the other two on ASP.NET and SilverLight 1.0 are excerpts. More information can be found at the Microsoft Learning Portal.

The free e-book includes content from three recent publications from Microsoft Press:

• Introducing Microsoft LINQ by Paolo Pialorsi and Marco Russo (ISBN: 9780735623910)
This practical guide covers Language Integrated Query (LINQ) syntax fundamentals, LINQ to ADO.NET, and LINQ to XML. The e-book includes the entire contents of this printed book!

• Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX by Dino Esposito (ISBN: 9780735624139)
Learn about the February 2007 release of ASP.NET AJAX Extensions 1.0, including an overview and the control toolkit.

• Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 by Laurence Moroney (ISBN: 9780735625396)
Learn how to use Silverlight to simplify the way you implement compelling user experiences for the Web. Discover how to support an object-oriented program model with JavaScript.

Return of the Stored Procedure

We have seen a couple examples of how to use LINQ to SQL in the previous posts  LINQ to SQL Part 1, LINQ to SQL Part 2, and how easy it is to use. The next question now becomes, What if your company strictly uses stored procedures for all of its data accessing?  Companies today can have stored procedures number from the hundreds to the thousands. With LINQ to SQL, you can still call your stored procedures and even mix and match the type styles.

First off, if you are using SQLMETAL, you will have to add an extra parameter to your DataContext build. Here is the needed extra parameter hi-lighted in red. This will again build the needed class to enable you to access the database.

SQLMETAL /SERVER:ORCASBETA2_VSTS\SQLEXPRESS /DATABASE:NORTHWIND /CODE:NWIND.CS /SPROCS

Once we have the class built and added to our project, we can get down to work. Here is a some sample code using the Northwind database.

   1: static void TestWithAdo()

   2:        {

   3:            SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(Properties.Settings.Default.NorthwindConnectString);

   4:  

   5:            SqlCommand spCommand = new SqlCommand("SalesByCategory", conn);

   6:            spCommand.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;

   7:            spCommand.Parameters.Add("@CategoryName", "Seafood");

   8:            spCommand.Parameters.Add("@OrdYear", "2007");

   9:  

  10:            conn.Open();

  11:  

  12:            SqlDataReader reader = spCommand.ExecuteReader();

  13:            while (reader.Read())

  14:            {

  15:                Console.WriteLine("{0,-20}\t{1,10:c}",

  16:                            reader["ProductName"].ToString().PadRight(20, ' ').Substring(0, 20),

  17:                            reader["TotalPurchase"]);

  18:            };

  19:  

  20:            reader.Close();

  21:            conn.Close();

  22:        }

First, let's look at the standard ADO.NET way of accessing a stored procedure in .NET.  We create a SqlConnection object, followed by a SqlCommand Object. We than have to add parameters and open the connection. Finally, we need to create an SqlDataReader object before we can retrieve the first row of data from the database. Quite a few steps for each a every stored procedure we wish to call. 

Now lets take a look at LINQ to SQL 

   1: static void TestWithLinq()

   2:         {

   3:             Northwind db = new Northwind(Properties.Settings.Default.NorthwindConnectString);

   4:  

   5:             var SalesReport = db.SalesByCategory("Seafood", "2007");

   6:  

   7:             foreach (var SalesItem in SalesReport)

   8:             {

   9:                 Console.WriteLine("{0,-20}\t{1,10:c}",

  10:                         SalesItem.ProductName.PadRight(20, ' ').Substring(0, 20),

  11:                         SalesItem.TotalPurchase);

  12:             }

  13:         }

With LINQ we can really reduce most of the needed ADO.NET code down to just a line or two.  Once the Northwind object has been instantiated, we can simply call the stored procedure like any other method in the class as observed in the above code.  I don't know any programmer that uses SQL day in and out that won't be foaming at the mouth for this.

   1: select e.lastname, e.firstname, t.territoryDescription,r.regiondescription

   2: from employees e

   3: join employeeterritories et on e.employeeid = et.employeeid 

   4: join territories t on t.territoryid = et.territoryid

   5: join region r on r.regionid = t.regionid

   6: order by lastname,firstname

   1: var EmployeeList = from employees in nw.Employees

   2:                    join employeeTerritories in nw.EmployeeTerritories 

   3:                      on employees.EmployeeID equals employeeTerritories.EmployeeID

   4:                    join territories in nw.Territories 

   5:                      on employeeTerritories.TerritoryID equals territories.TerritoryID                               

   6:                    join region in nw.Region 

   7:                      on territories.RegionID equals region.RegionID  

   8:                    orderby employees.LastName,employees.FirstName 

   9:                    select new

  10:                    {

  11:                        employees.LastName,

  12:                        employees.FirstName,

  13:                        territories.TerritoryDescription,

  14:                        region.RegionDescription 

  15:                    };

The following code shows not only the query above, but how simple it is to loop through your resultset and display the information. Remember, when writing your code, you will get the full use of intellisense to help you.

   1: using System;

   2: using System.Collections.Generic;

   3: using System.Linq;

   4: using System.Text;

   5:  

   6: namespace ConsoleTest001

   7: {

   8:  

   9:     class Program

  10:     {

  11:         static void Main(string[] args)

  12:         {

  13:             Northwind nw = new Northwind(Properties.Settings.Default.NorthwindConnectString);

  14:  

  15:             var EmployeeList = from employees in nw.Employees

  16:                                join employeeTerritories in nw.EmployeeTerritories 

  17:                                  on employees.EmployeeID equals employeeTerritories.EmployeeID

  18:                                join territories in nw.Territories 

  19:                                  on employeeTerritories.TerritoryID equals territories.TerritoryID                               

  20:                                join region in nw.Region 

  21:                                  on territories.RegionID equals region.RegionID  

  22:                                orderby employees.LastName,employees.FirstName 

  23:                                select new

  24:                                {

  25:                                    employees.LastName,

  26:                                    employees.FirstName,

  27:                                    territories.TerritoryDescription,

  28:                                    region.RegionDescription 

  29:                                };

  30:                           

  31:             foreach(var e in EmployeeList)

  32:             {

  33:                 Console.WriteLine("{0,-10} {1,-10}\t{2}\t{3,20}", 

  34:                                     e.LastName, 

  35:                                     e.FirstName,

  36:                                     e.TerritoryDescription.PadRight(20,' ').Substring(0,20),

  37:                                     e.RegionDescription);

  38:             }

  39:  

  40:             Console.ReadLine();

  41:  

  42:         }

  43:     }

  44: }

Here is the result of of the LINQ to SQL query written out to the console.

   1: class Customer

   2: {

   3:     private string _FirstName;

   4:     private string _LastName;

   5:  

   6:     public string FirstName

   7:     {

   8:         get

   9:         {

  10:             return _FirstName;

  11:         }

  12:         set

  13:         {

  14:             _FirstName = value;

  15:         }

  16:     }

  17:     public string LastName

  18:     {

  19:         get

  20:         {

  21:             return _LastName;

  22:         }

  23:         set

  24:         {

  25:             _LastName = value;

  26:         }

  27:     }

  28: }

A pretty straight forward customer class with two properties ( FirstName, LastName ).  Now with automatic properties, the same code can be compressed down to fewer lines. When the compiler encounters code like the following, it will automate the generation of the private fields along with get and set method.  This lets the developer write fewer lines of code up front and follow good class design. Later on, if needed, the developer can put custom getter/setter code without having to recompile the consuming assembly.

   1: class Customer

   2: {

   3:     public string FirstName { get; set; }

   4:     public string LastName { get; set; }

   5: }

The last information I've heard is that this as a C# only feature. I haven't heard of anything similar for VB.NET at this time. 

I'm sure everyone so far has at least heard of LINQ. If you haven't, it is Microsoft'