Adam Calderon

Blog Has Moved

Adam Calderon — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:10:00 GMT

My blog has moved to our new blog server http://team.interknowlogy.com/blogs/adamcalderon/default.aspx so please look there from now on for all of my blog posts.

Book Chapter Excerpt

Adam Calderon — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:57:00 GMT

CoDe magazine has an excerpt from Chapter 11 Adding Client Capabilities to Server Controls Using the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit of our book.

Silverlight IE Pains on Windows 2008

Adam Calderon — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:20:00 GMT

So I got an environment up an running to do some work with Silverlight Beta 2 and also SP1 for VS 2008. I decided to do all of this on a VMWare image with Windows 2008. Man was this a headache. The extra super stringent security on Windows 2008 made this an absolute pain. Just so others don’t have to go through the same thing I documented what you have to do to get things to work.

1. Turn off IE Enhanced Security (ESC) for Administrators (this assumes your are developing as an admin). This will enable you to open websites without getting asked if it’s ok. To do this go to Administrative Tools and open Server Manager. Click the Configure IE ESC link as shown below in red. This opens the dialog that allows you to turn off ESC for administrators and for users. I just turned it off for administrators on my box since that is what I am developing as.

2. Now that you have that done run you application in debug mode (which won’t show the Silverlight control yet) and add “http://localhost” to your trusted sites. I did this so that all of the other websites I hit will still have the standard “bullet proof” security. To get to the security dialog shown double click the Internet icon. Then select the trusted sites icon and finally add “http://localhost” to the trusted sites.

Once I did this I was finally able to rock and roll with Silverlight. If I remember right you will get a little warning just below the toolbar that ESC is disabled. If you select it you can turn this warning off.

I hope this helps.

Book Sales on Amazon

Adam Calderon — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:18:00 GMT

The book Joel Rumerman and I wrote

Advanced ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls For .NET Framework 3.5

seems to be doing quite well wth only 4 days being on sale. Joel sent me an email earlier today with links to the latest statistics. I was quite suprised. Thanks to everyone!

Top AJAX Best Sellers

Top ASP.NET Best Sellers

So Cal Code Camp Slides and Code

Adam Calderon — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:39:00 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions at code camp last weekend. Once again Woody and company did a great job.

Overview of the Composite Application Guidance for WPF

Power Point Slide

Composite Application Guidance for WPF

Building Control Extenders using the Ajax Control Toolkit

Power Point Slide
AJAX Version of Custom Control
Toolkit Version of Custom Control

Speaking at San Diego Code Camp

Adam Calderon — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:09:00 GMT

I will be presenting on two very different topics this year at the SoCal Code Camp in San Diego that reflect much of what I have been doing over the last 6 months or so. My first session Building Control Extenders using the Ajax Control Toolkit stems from the work I have been doing on my book and will be a fairly comprehensive look at creating controls using the Ajax Control Toolkit. My second session Overview of the Composite Application Guidance for WPF covers the work I have been doing with the Patterns and Practices Group on building composite applications in WPF.

ASP.NET AJAX Controls Book Done!

Adam Calderon — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:54:00 GMT

I thought this day would never come. Joel Rumerman and I have finally completed our book Advanced ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls For .NET Framework 3.5 that hits the book shelves the first part of next month. This has been a exciting experience for the both of us and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did writing it.

New InRoads to Internet Access

Adam Calderon — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:41:00 GMT

The biggest problem with wireless internet access (either WIFI or cellular) is finding a good connection. Sure your local coffee shop (woo hoo Starbucks) has a connection but what about other locations. This is where cellular comes into play. I have an awesome verizon card built into my laptop and for the most part no matter where I am I can access the Internet. So with these two solutions as long as I can find a hot spot or get cellular service I am good. But what about areas that don’t have a hot spot or cellular service? As I read more and more about how advances in technology and the internet are helping us I always think about areas in the world that don’t have all of this infrastructure in place and what they can do. I am glad to see that other people are thinking the same way. I was very excited to see that Japan launched a new satellite that has the capability to provide satellite based internet access anywhere in the world. The potential for this technology is enormous enabling anyone in the world to be connected. Take away the geek aspect of this and look at the potential for the medical industry for instance. A doctor in say the back country of Nairobi can consult with doctors anywhere in the world to assist him in diagnosing a patient or even better in an actual surgery. It is advances like this that make working in the technology business worthwhile.

My Day with Form Regions and Custom Message Classes in Outlook 2007

Adam Calderon — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:58:00 GMT

I was creating a form region in Outlook 2007 today for appointments and I wanted to limit the form from showing up with every appointment. I read that you could associate the form region with a custom message class and once you did this the form region would only show up for messages of that type. So with that information in hand I marched through the New Outlook Form Region Wizard (see Figures 1–4) in Visual Studio 2008. I was trying to create an adjoining form region that would show up on the bottom of the appointment screen so when I got to “Select the form region you want to create” step (see Figure 2) I selected Adjoining and continued to “Identify Message Class that will show this form” step (see Figure 4) where I added my custom message class “IPM.Appointment.MyAppointment” and finished. After adding some content to my form region I started to debug my add-in. This is when the trouble began. I could not find my custom form anywhere. Normally you would go to File>New>Choose Forms… the form would be there (see Figure 5) ready for you to choose and enter data in. Not in this case. After a long process I finally figured out that a custom message class will only work with replacement and replace-all form regions and not adjoining which I was using. The note in the SDK (see Figure 6) hints at this but it doesn’t come out and say “It will only work with these types”.

Figure 1 – Selecting how to create your form region

Figure 2 – Choosing the form region type

Figure 3 – Naming your form region

Figure 4 – Determining Message class to use

Figure 5 – Selecting form in Outlook

Figure 6 – Note in SDK

Code Length Guidelines in Visual Studio

Adam Calderon — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:53:00 GMT

If you have ever presented or written an article you probably have ran across a situation where the code you have written contains lines that are to long and you need to modify them to fit on the screen or page. This can be a real pain especially when you write code using a wide screen monitor with a high resolution. Well for the past few years I have just lived with this issue until I ran across this really cool blog entry Guidelines - A hidden feature for the Visual Studio Editor by Sara Ford that details how to modify your registry setting to get guidelines in the Visual Studio editor. Once I modified my registry setting, lines showed up in the editor giving me a visual clue of how long my code lines were. At last no more code hacking! For those of you who don’t know who Sara Ford is she is a prolific blogger of all things Visual Studio related and a great source for all kinds of little trinkets on the subject.