DevLINQ.com Blog

DevLinq and EntangleIT

Richard Anthony Hein — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:54:00 GMT

I am renaming my corporation to EntangleIT, as it reflects more of what I am about. Entangle in this sense, refers to quantum entanglement.

Silverlight and LINQ

Richard Anthony Hein — Tue, 01 May 2007 01:23:00 GMT

Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1 was release last week and it fully supports LINQ. However the ADO.NET Entity Framework has been cut from Orcas.

LINQ to SQL and the designer will be included. News on Frans Bouma's blog.

Scott Guthrie in his Channel9 interview on Silverlight said that Silverlight will support LINQ ... getting the SDK now to try it out.

Here's a screen shot of silverlight and some code in the background in Orcas - the code and a screencast is available on Channel9:

LINQ and n-tier Architecture -> "N-Tier-in-One"

Richard Anthony Hein — Tue, 01 May 2007 01:14:00 GMT

"N-Tier-in-One" Architecture

Architecture of the software becomes simplified and more declarative using LINQ, and in many cases erases the notion of separate tiers, for a large range of software.

Building scalable n-tiers architectures with LINQ in many cases generates the n in the tier for you, by surfacing the abstraction that you've already had to do countless times.

Now we can declare that LINQ should go and do something, across tiers, etc..., and the machine handles that. PLINQ, "parallel LINQ" is for distributing LINQ processing across multi-cores and CPUs. This is a prime example of the way that LINQ will allow simplification of complicated designs and how it abstracts CPU architectures is applicable in many other possible implementations.

So we can approach the code that is n-tier, from 1-page of code, rather than having all kinds of disparate languages that all ultimately rely on passing strings around and lose all type information in transit.

That doesn't mean we still don't have n-tiers in many cases ... after all services just keep growing and features get added that require integration with other systems and so on ... and there's always going to be layers of separation, but LINQ does what it's advertised, it alleviates the "impedence mismatch" between the tiers where they do exist.

Silverlight, XAML, the CLR and Javascript

Richard Anthony Hein — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:47:00 GMT

Years ago, before Mozilla took off and developed XUL, and XML was still new and began generating a lot of buzz, there was some question about the ultimate platform that we'd end up on, and XML was the foundation of it all. Everyone thought so at the time. I was involved in a project called XPL - XML Programming Language, the intention of which was to provide a base dialect for languages and a runtime - a Common Language Runtime. When the CLR was announce, and IL came out and I saw Visual Basic.NET and C# and JScript.Net I figured this would be what Microsoft would do -> Silverlight.

Not that I knew how they'd go about doing it, but I wrote an email to my cousin years ago saying Microsoft would dominate the browser again via XML as the interface language, instead of HTML, but by leveraging a dialect that they can create that merges the Windows Desktop with the Web. XAML.

There is little doubt in many people's minds, I am sure, that Microsoft planned this long ago, but lest the Mozilla/Firefox/XUL guys come claiming to have thought of it first: you didn't. You just did it first. Microsoft has been planning this since XML and the CLR were coined I think, and JScript.NET is the first case in point.

Interestingly JScript.NET - I mean, that's what it is, this MS Ajax, after all, another chance at JScript.NET - and XAML together is exactly what Microsoft needs to dominate the web as they have the desktop. They have made a Javascript version of the CLR that with XAML allows them to build nicer applications than on any platform, and now it's all .NET from the database to the server to the browser.

Visual Studio Orcas won't ship with the ADO.NET Entity Framework

Richard Anthony Hein — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:49:00 GMT

I am installing the beta 1 of Orcas today. I had the CTP running earlier on Vista, but it wasn't even supposed to be supported.

Bad news: The ADO.NET Entity Framework is not shipping with Visual Studio ... apparently they are going to add support in 2008 sometime. That sucks. At least LINQ is still there.

Moved old blog entries to here ...

Richard Anthony Hein — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:45:00 GMT

I moved my old blog entries over from http://auxon.spaces.live.com and http://rickhein.blogspot.com to here. The import from Blogger didn't keep the body of the posts, just the titles, but the import from MSN Live Spaces worked.

HeinTech and DevLINQ are born!

Richard Anthony Hein — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:32:09 GMT

I have a new web site, www.heintech.com which will be my main site for business in the future.

I have also created www.DevLINQ.com, a new web site for Language Integrated Query and the new .NET 3.5 language enhancements supporting LINQ.

They are under construction, obviously, so don't expect anything yet.

Completed MCSD.NET Certification

Richard Anthony Hein — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:26:15 GMT

I finally went for my last 3 MCSD.NET exams, all in one day, on Tuesday and passed them all!

The SQL Server 2000 one (70-229) was the most difficult. I studied for about 3 hours for it, I didn't have to study for 70-320 or 70-315 at all, and I think by now I shouldn't have to, so that's good.

Taking 3 in one day may seem like a lot, but it was over fast, and my scores actually improved for each exam. I wanted the challenge. I needed it to find out if I really know this stuff or not. This gives me renewed confidence in my abilities, something that can only be given by unbiased outside judgement.

Custom List: Videos

Richard Anthony Hein — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:11:56 GMT

Videos

F# and DirectX

Introduction to F# Programming Part 2 with Don Syme. Incredible demo of concise and interactive DirectX 3D programming.

Book List: Book List

Richard Anthony Hein — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:08:01 GMT

John C. Hancock, Roger Toren: Practical Business Intelligence with SQL Server 2005
ISBN:0-321-35698-5

Very good introduction to BI and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 features. Highly recommended.

Blogging with Word 2007

Richard Anthony Hein — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 03:45:38 GMT

Word 2007 allows you to post to a blog directly from word, using multiple accounts, etc....

Pros:

Supports MSN Spaces, Blogger, and other blogging sites.

MSN Live Space did a better job than Blogger at rendering the document.

Cons:

Embedded JPGs and PNGs do not get published to either service.

Vista Experiences 2 – WPF Aero Effects in Visual Studio Team System Orcas March CTP

Richard Anthony Hein — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 02:55:58 GMT

Windows Vista is fantastic so far (it's only been about 2 ½ days). I can say it's the little things that make it so great, like having WPF tie in the new Aero effects into applications.

Notice that in Visual Studio for instance the code editor control hierarchies display previews of the control you are referring to:

The Document Outline pane also supports this feature.

Notice three different representations (2 buttons, a tree node view of the type and name of the variable, and the XAML) of the same information on screen.

All 4 items in the GUI are synchronized and selected at the same time:

This is brilliant. I wonder if the Button objects are the same object really, and how the resources are managed. Tooltips will get a lot nicer going forward.

I'd like to see an additional feature added to this that allows you to click on it to center the control in the design window.

This feature works in other areas in the IDE as well ... still experimenting.

Windows Vista Experience Index Scores on Older Hardware

Richard Anthony Hein — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 20:11:54 GMT

If you are like me you have been thinking about upgrading to Vista, but have been concerned about whether or not your hardware will perform adequately.

Yesterday I finally bit the bullet and bought a copy of Vista Ultimate, a new Seagate 7200RPM 320GB SATA II HDD, and a 4GB Flash Drive (for $69.99 at FutureShop – mislabelled price!).

I have a 64-bit system, but due to my current drive configuration, and the fact that Promise hasn't published any 64-bit drivers at all, I had to opt for the 32-bit installation for now. I will upgrade to 64-bit after I copy all my files from the XP drives.

The 64-bit installation took far less than half the time (at least as far as it got) that the 32-bit installation took.

Amazingly, my system blows away all but the most expensive desktops that you'll find at FutureShop and BestBuy, and most of the components are 1.5 -2.0 years old, and I just upgraded to the ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder 9600 about 9-12 months ago.

CONCLUSION:

NEW SYSTEMS ARE NOT WORTH THE MONEY, just buy some decent parts and build your own system.

When I built my system, I got a near the top of the line motherboard, RAM, HDDs, and CPU, and probably spent about $3500 on it spread out over the past 2 years, but you can still get most of these components for a fraction of the cost I paid for them.

More details about my computer

Component

Details

Subscore

Base score

Processor

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+

4.0

4.0

Determined by lowest subscore

Memory (RAM)

1.00 GB

4.1

Graphics

ATI Radeon 9600 / X1050 Series

4.3

Gaming graphics

383 MB Total available graphics memory

4.0

Primary hard disk

244GB Free (298GB Total)

5.5

Windows Vista (TM) Ultimate

System

	Manufacturer	MSI
	Model	MS-6702
	Total amount of system memory	1.00 GB RAM
	System type	32-bit operating system
	Number of processor cores	1
	64-bit capable	Yes

Storage

	Total size of hard disk(s)	567 GB
	Disk partition (C:)	12 GB Free (112 GB Total)
	Disk partition (D:)	9 GB Free (19 GB Total)
	Media drive (E:)	CD/DVD
	Media drive (F:)	CD/DVDCD
	Disk partition (G:)	73 GB Free (138 GB Total)
	Disk partition (J:)	244 GB Free (298 GB Total)

Graphics

	Display adapter type	RADEON 9600 Series (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM)
	Total available graphics memory	383 MB
	Dedicated graphics memory	128 MB
	Dedicated system memory	0 MB
	Shared system memory	255 MB
	Display adapter driver version	8.342.0.0
	Secondary monitor resolution	1280x1024
	Primary monitor resolution	1280x1024
	DirectX version	DirectX 9.0 or better

Network

	Network Adapter	Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family PCI Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0)
	Network Adapter	Microsoft Tun Miniport Adapter

Math Tools - Draw 3D Graphs w/ 3DSurface Viewer

Richard Anthony Hein — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 21:10:00 GMT

Dimension Rapid Prototyping

Richard Anthony Hein — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 07:25:00 GMT

Line 6

Richard Anthony Hein — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 22:50:00 GMT

Teaching Geometry Using Flash Animation

Richard Anthony Hein — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 20:18:00 GMT

NASA's Advanced Automation for Space Missions

Richard Anthony Hein — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:19:00 GMT

Working Smart: Getting Things Done

Richard Anthony Hein — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 01:39:00 GMT

Writer's Blocks 3

Richard Anthony Hein — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 01:38:00 GMT