1) Content Delivery Network (CDN)

From Scoth Guthrie: Microsoft Ajax CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a service that provides caching support for AJAX libraries (including jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX).  The service is available for free, does not require any registration, and can be used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.  Using a CDN can significantly improve a website's end-user performance, since it enables browsers to more quickly retrieve and download content. 

Link to CDN site: http://www.asp.net/ajaxlibrary/CDN.ashx

 2) With jQuery, there are two versions minified and full.  Use the full version if you want to debug.

jQuery version 1.4.1

• http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.1.js
• http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.1.min.js
  

3)  To get intellisense with JQuery you can enter /// <reference path="jquery-1.2.3.js" /> to the start of your script.  For more information, check a James Hart blog entry and a Scott Guthrie blog entry.

4) Firebug is a great tool for debugging web pages!

5) jQuery and AJAX can be used together with Silverlight to build a website.

• From Karl Shifflett: The WPF & Silverlight Designer Team (Cider Team) has just launched a new team blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/wpfsldesigner/default.aspx
  
  
• Link for SQL Server 2008 Top New Features.
  
  
• SQL training videos from SQLShare site that includes videos on SSIS.  Click on links in Tags section to bring up videos by tag name/topics.
   
• I wanted to change the name of an Microsoft SQL Database, but was unable to due to the inability to get exclusive control of the database.  Below is a query I found on Will Strohl's blog on how to kill processes/sessions on SQL Server for a particular database.  After running the query and killing the processes/sessions that where preventing me from gaining exclusive control of the database, I was able to rename my database.  Thanks Will!

DECLARE @Database NVARCHAR(150);
-- change this to be the name of your database that you want to kill processes/sessions for SELECT @Database = 'MyDatabaseName';
Select @Database = 'MyDatabaseName';
CREATE TABLE #tempProcesses(
 [spid] [int] NOT NULL,
 [ecid] [int] NOT NULL,
 [status] [nvarchar](150) NOT NULL,
 [loginname] [nvarchar](150) NOT NULL,
 [hostname] [nvarchar](150) NULL,
 [blk] [int] NOT NULL,
 [dbname] [nvarchar](150) NULL,
 [cmd] [nvarchar](150) NOT NULL,
 [request_id] [int] NOT NULL);

INSERT INTO #tempProcesses EXEC sp_who;

CREATE TABLE #tempProcesses2([spid] [int] NOT NULL);

INSERT INTO #tempProcesses2
SELECT [spid] FROM #tempProcesses
WHERE [dbname] = @Database;

DROP TABLE #tempProcesses;

DECLARE @ProcessId INT;
DECLARE [cursorProcess] CURSOR FOR SELECT [spid] FROM #tempProcesses2

OPEN [cursorProcess]
FETCH NEXT FROM [cursorProcess] INTO @ProcessId
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN EXEC('KILL ' + @ProcessId);
FETCH NEXT FROM [cursorProcess] INTO @ProcessId
END

DROP TABLE #tempProcesses2;

CLOSE [cursorProcess];
DEALLOCATE [cursorProcess];

• Here is some T-SQL to find duplicate column values.  Here is the link where I found the code : http://www.petefreitag.com/item/169.cfm

SELECT email,

COUNT(email) AS NumOccurrences

FROM users

GROUP BY emailHAVING ( COUNT(email) > 1 )

You could also use this technique to find rows that occur exactly once:

SELECT email

FROM users

GROUP BY email

HAVING ( COUNT(email) = 1 )
 

• An excellent post from Scott Guthrie on the Search Optimization Toolkit

• I was working with an .csv (comma separated variable) file in Excel.  When saving the document, a column that had numeric data, had the leading zero truncated.  That is, the data was entered as 05, but was saved with only the 5.  The reason for this is because Excel sees that data as numeric, and treats it as such, even though I wanted it to be treated as a text field.   The solution to this problem is to format the cells in the column with a Custom Format.  Highlight the column, and press Ctrl+1.  The Format Cells dialog box appears.  In the Number tab, underneath Category:, select Custom.  In the Type: box, enter 00 (or however many digits you would like to keep).  Save the file.
  
  
• Here is a good T-SQL link for formatting dates: http://anubhavg.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/how-to-format-datetime-date-in-sql-server-2005/

Yesterday, I watch quite a bit of the Microsoft Silverlight 3 FireStarter Event.  The videos for this event should be available shortly, but for the time being; here is a link to the slides. 

Presenters included : 

• Scott Guthrie (Key Note)
• Tim Heuer (Top Features and Scenarios)
• Adam Kinney (Expression Blend)
• Janete Perez (SketchFlow)
• Marco Matos (Toolkit and Controls)
• Brad Abrams (Silverlight Example with RIA Services)  Excellent!
• Karl Shifflett (XAML Power Toys 5 [will be available this Sunday at 7:00 p.m. PST,  go to Karl's blog])  

Some good links:  

• Silverlight 3 Toolkit
• Deep Zoom Composer
• Deep Zoom Composer Download

I was working with SketchFlow in Microsoft Exression Blend.  There was a DragDropItem behavior that I wanted to add to my behaviors.  From the Microsoft Expression Blend Help, here is how you go about adding a behavior created by someone else.  Here the link to the information.

• Frank La Vigne has a great link to learning SketchFlow in Microsoft Expresssion Blend.  The tutorial is comprised of videos, documentation, and code.
  
  
• When working with Microsoft Blend 3.0/SketchFlow, the Assests->Styles->SketchStyles were missing.  Here is a link to the fix.  Go to Chuck Hays entry on July 22, 2009.  I had to add two entries into the registry.
  
  
• From Joe Stagner's blog, Telerik has introducted two FREE Team Foundation Server (TFS) contrls.  They are TFS Work Item Manager and TFS project dashboard.  Here is the Telerik link.
  
  
• Microsoft Web Platform "offers a complete ecosystem for building and hosting web sites, services, and applications."  Note: When installing the Silverlight 3 Tools, close the rest of your applications.
  
  
• Here is a great site for Cheat Sheets for Developers.  It is called Refcardz DZone.

On a previous Windows Forms application, I used the ReportViewer control to display the output of local SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports in my application.  Unfortunately, there is no native WPF Report Viewer control with similar functionality and there will not be one in .Net 4.0 (according to Jamie Rodriguez at Microsoft).  Anyway, the workaround is to use the WinForms ReportViewer control within WPF.  Below is the code that I used.  I had two WPF Windows that I was working with Windows1.xaml and ReportViewer.xaml.  The ReportViewer Window is where I wanted the output of the report to go.  The name of the report file was rptLocations.rdlc.

// Here is the link where I found the code for this routine (Thanks Sayor!):
// http://sayor.blogspot.com/2008/08/report-viewer-in-wpf-application.html

I wanted to add some controls to my Toolbox in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 IDE.  I right mouse click on the Toolbox and select Choose Items...   It crashed the system.  I did a goolge search and it suggested removing Power Toys.  I checked and my Power Toys were already removed.

I found another suggestion.  Start Visual Studio in safemode and try to add the controls.  To start in Safemode, get to a Visual 2008 command prompt (Programs->Microsoft Visual Studio 2008->Visual Studio Tools->Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt).  At the command line enter: devenv /safemode.

While in SafeMode, I added the controls.  They did NOT show up in the toolbox; however, when I restarted VS 2008 "normally," the commands apppeared in the Toolbox.

Here is the link where I found the solution: http://forums.asp.net/p/1222006/2570302.aspx#2570302

After experiencing other difficulties following the aftermath of my Vista Service Pack 2 failed install, I decided to restore to a computer backup I had made about a month before.  (Vista Ultimate has this feature.)  I booted up, tapped the F8 key, and executed the “Repair Your Computer.”  I then selected the restore from computer backup option.  It worked like a charm.  In less than an hour, I was back up and running, plus I picked up about 20 GB in disk space!

I then wanted to restore my files from a file backup I had done a few days previously.  Since I had already restored from a computer backup, the file backup became “confused” because the information about my last file backup was wiped out during the computer backup.   Hence, I could not easily restore my latest files from my file backup because the computer could not find the latest backup set on my backup drive.  Fortunately, before performing the computer restore, I manually copied my important files to an external hard drive.  Therefore, instead of continuing to play with the file restore, I manually restored my important files.

When I now perform my backups, I will do the Backup Files procedure first, followed by the Backup Computer procedure.  That way if I have to restore from the computer backup, the information about the latest file backup will be there.