Things has been quite hectic since we are closing in on a sprint demo… Seems to be working now, fingers crossed.

I have done a lot of findings the last days and most of them has to do with Oracle. This has to do with me not having any experience with Oracle.

We are using Enterprise Library 4 to access the Oracle database and it’s stored procedures. It internal is using the ODP.NET client access components.

One problem we have encountered is that the data types used by Enterprise Library is generic (DBCommand, DBTypes etc) and it is mapped to the Oracle equivalents (OracleCommand, OracleTypes). So I needed a chart on my table showing me how to map between them.

But after a while I found a better way. Enterprise Library is exposing a OracleDatabase with the Oracle-flavor of the command types. By using that...

I’ll keep it short - sprint demo coming up…

The result of my modelling efforts in the early summer is now published. It part of the economical presentation of Avega. You can find it here - and find me on page 13.

I just found this great site http://www.connectionstrings.com. Here you’ll find the answer to the age-old questions on how to write the connection string for (almost) every database provider.

Some people has know about this for a long, long time but haven’t told me about it… But I am not like that - here you go.

This is not for the faint hearted, but well worth seeing.

Its a clip from a recording session of the film music to the movie Hellboy. And the sounds these dudes produces are just … well scary.

For any non-brass players I can tell you that to produce one of those “bursts” is hard. Really hard. To do 15 or so in a row is just amazing.

And now for something completely different. The best trombone player (not counting the bass trombone dudes above) in my opinion is Håkan Björkman. Here is a clip of him doing a cadenza of the Leopold Mozart’s Alto-trombone concerto. Very different - but still amazing.

Yeah - this is also something that shouldn’t be possible to accomplish. I have heard it live at the Stockholm Opera once.

Here is a cool little code snippet with done with reflection that actually is quite handy. Especially in a logging situation.

I tweaked the code a bit to be not “WhoCalledMe” but rather “WhoIsTheCallerOfMe” and as such could hide most of the logging in a base class. This is easily done by changing the row StackFrame stackFrame = stackTrace.GetFrame(1);

to StackFrame stackFrame = stackTrace.GetFrame(2);

Of course then you’ll have to check that the frame in question (2) exists.

After reading about some great stuff that other people has published I decided to take the leap and publish my first project. The one I decided on was a small utility that I have had great use of - the Scrum Index Card Creator.

You can read about, and contribute to, the project and the application here http://www.codeplex.com/ScrumIndexCard.

So… this Scrum Index Card Creator is the first official release from Marcusoft. I wonder where is might end…

From the last post I found a new URL for code stuff from MSDN that I never heard about before. But this place is golden, golden I tell you.

Here are two small nuggets that I found in my first try:

• http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/FileTransportChannel>
• http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WCFExtras> - that contain, among other things, an implementation to get WSDL in a single file (that Christian Weyer does here)

Just found these PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008, which looks very promising indeed. They are a collection of nice-to-have-features in Visual Studio, that are missing from the start.

My first two favorites are; Collapse projects in Solution and Copy and Paste Project References. These two commands alone are worth the download time…

It seems like not all of the commands is applicable for all languages, like “Remove and sort using” that doesn’t work in VB.NET (of course ;)), but there are still usable stuff in there. Get one now!

When you first think about it, it’s quite strange that no validation, takes place out-of-the-box ,against the WSDL that describes a service (asmx or WCF). Then you (read: I) forget it and all of a sudden you don’t think that much about it; the generated proxy or services code doesn’t contain logic. Period.

It’s even more so when you only create services that is generating WSDL when asked. BUT (and it’s a big but ;)) - when you start doing Contract First you are actually specifying the WSDL first and then generate the code… then the question arises again.

I mean you’re specifying things in the WSDL that doesn’t get generated into the code. Things like format, lengths and stuff like that. It’s a bit strange that it’s lost. And the best scenario is that it’s simply validated when the request is received.

Lo and behold -...

The foremost telephone number search service in Sweden, www.hitta.se , has launched a new service that displays maps of the four biggest cities in Sweden in 3D.

It is still in beta (and as such quite slow) but it’s really cool. Of course it’s a Google earth rip-off but it has a few advantages; it runs in the browser, its genuine pictures of the buildings and no models and it’s very high resolution.

Here you go - Sweden in 3D.