Paulo Morgado : Architecture

ReMIX 09 Is Coming To Lisbon, Portugal

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:50:28 GMT

For the first time, ReMIX is coming to Portugal.

The event will have a keynote and 3 tracks (Web Developer, UX and Architect) with 4 sessions each by the best speakers in each field.

Don’t miss it! Register now!

Windows Live Messenger Unable To Connect With Error Code 80040200

Paulo Morgado — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:55:17 GMT

Today I came across this issue when trying to sign in to Windows Live Messenger.

Everyone I talked to was able to sign in, though, so I tried another account and was also able to sign in.

Binging around, I found several blog posts pointing to a post in the Messenger Support blog with the solution to this problem. In my case (Windows 7 x64) the solution would be to remove the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts (usually C:\Users\<Windows Logon name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts) folder.

Instead of removing the folder, I thought of renaming it to avoid removing my contacts for all account that were able to sign in. When I tried it, I got an error stating the the folder was already being used by another application.

Since I had Windows Live Mail open and assumed it uses the same contact store, I closed it and was able to sign in to messenger with no problems.

As a developer and architect, I find it disturbing that such errors are presented to the user. The message hinted that there was a problem signing in to the server and, as it turned out, it was a problem with only one account for only one Windows user in only one machine.

So, developers and architects out there (me included), always give the user an error message meaningful to what problem he/she is running into. Adding technical data to help support is nice but should be expressly accessed by the user (Windows Live Messenger got that part right).

System Backup vs. Business Backup

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 10 May 2009 22:38:29 GMT

Most enterprises backup their data on a regular basis and stored those backups for some amount of time.

But, beyond restoring last day’s backup or part of a previous recent backup, are these backups real useful? Will they be useful 3, 4, 5 or 10 years from now?

Nowadays, the tendency is to virtualize almost every machine which increases the probability of a successful restore in the future. But some software packages come with timed and online checking licenses and one might end up with a successful restore of an unusable system.

And what if the hardware to run the system (virtualized or not) no longer exists?

The solution is to backup the business data (instead of the system data) in a interoperable format like XML (that can contain both data and metadata).

The added benefit beyond disaster recovery is system or application migrations.

That doesn’t mean that systems don’t need to be backed up. They do, but only for operational purposes.

Build Your Own LINQ Provider

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:16:54 GMT

Mehfuz has been building a toolkit for creating LINQ providers and it's available at CodePlex: LINQExtender

He has even built a LINQ provider for flickr with it: LINQ.Flickr

The Architecture Tool Space Keeps Growing

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:33:54 GMT

The tool space for software architecture has been growing. There are new tools and continuous improvement in the existing ones.

Framework Design Studio

Last month Krzysztof Cwalina from Microsoft released the Framework Design Studio at MSDN Code Gallery.

The tool allows comparing two versions of an assembly to identify API differences: API additions and removals. Comparing versions of APIs comes very handy during API design process. Often you want to ensure that things did not get removed accidentally (which can cause incompatibilities), and as APIs grow, you want to review the addition without having to re-review APIs that were already reviewed. The tool, called Framework Design Studio (FDS) supports these scenarios. - from Krzysztof's blog post

Lattix

Lattix keeps improving its Architecture Management System composed of two tools:

Lattix LDM for architects
Lattix LDV for developers and QA

The Lattix tools can be used in the following environments:

Ada
C/C++
Delphi Pascal
Java
.NET
Oracle
SQL Server
Sybase
LDI (An XML specification that allows users to load dependency information from different languages, configuration files and proprietary tools)

The site has lots of resources on its getting started section that can be used to evaluate the tools:

Download a trial version of Lattix LDM
Take the tour
See a live Demonstration
Assess your software
Try a JumpStart project

The latest release (Lattix 4.1) was released on April 21, 2008.

NDepend

NDepend, from fellow C# MVP Patrick Smacchia, targets only the .NET Framework (stay tuned for more) is also in continuous development. Its UI is more familiar for Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Office users than Lattix's UI and a really cool feature:

Code Query Language (CQL) that allows code to be considered a database which can be queried to check assertions

The site has lots of videos (both on the Home page and Getting Started page) and documentation on all the concepts used by the tool.

The latest release (NDepend 2.8.1) was released on April 26, 2008.

ApexSQL Enforce

ApexSQL Enforce, from ApexSQL, targets SQL Server databases allows to:

Ensure adherence to design standards in "real time"
Facilitate upgrades to new versions of SQL Server by identifying potential conversion problems before the database is ported
Automatically reverse or fix detected violations using generated "FixSQL" scripts
Enforce Naming conventions and ensure that SQL reserved words and special characters are not used

The site has lots of product information:

The latest release (2008.02) was released on Marsh 26, 2008.

Framework Design Studio On MSDN Code Gallery

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:13:00 GMT

I just came across this today:

Framework Design Studio is a set of tools for reusable library designers. The package contains a GUI tool for viewing, reviewing, and comparing versions of managed APIs. It also contains a command line tool for generating API diff reports.

This seems to be a great tool to check if your new version of your framework will break any previous released APIs.

Although honoring the previously released APIs, your new version might have side effects and, to find out what they might be, there is another great tool: NDepend.

Web Client Software Factory 2.0 shipped

Paulo Morgado — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 01:54:51 GMT

Web Client Software Factory 2.0

February 2008 Release

Resources

MSDN site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/webclientfactory
Community site: http://www.codeplex.com/websf

About the Deliverable

The Web Client Software Factory (WCSF) provides a set of guidance for architects and developers building enterprise Web applications. The factory includes samples, reusable code and a guidance package which automates key development tasks from within Visual Studio.

Using the Web Client Software Factory assets, developers can create Composite Web applications composed of independently developed and deployed modules. These modules are dynamically brought together at runtime into a common shell. Additionally the factory includes support for ASP.NET AJAX thus providing users with a richer and more responsive user experience.

New In This Release

The February 2008 release of the Web Client Software Factory has the following improvements to the June 2007 release.

Full support for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5
Added ASP.NET AJAX extenders for Context Sensitive Autocomplete, AJAX Validation, and Real Time Search that can be used in existing ASP.NET sites and ASP.NET sites built using the Composite Web Application Block.
Added UI Composition capability through extending our dependency injection mechanism to support Pages, User Controls and Master Pages.
Added Dependency Injection on ASMX Web Services and JSON services.
Added a new set of Quickstarts and How-To topics on MVP, Modularity and the new AJAX extenders
Added a new Order Entry Reference application that demonstrates all of the new functionality.

In addition, this release of WCSF has the following community issues and fixes:

42 Workitems closed including the top-voted items on CodePlex
Add ASP.NET AJAX Support (97 votes)
Web Client Software Factory Support for Enterprise Library 3.1 (62 votes)
Services through configuration (32 votes)
Support for using the Validation Application Block (16 votes)
Recipe support for Visual Basic .NET (20 votes)
Added Presenter support for Master Pages (11 votes)

WCSF geekSpeak: Download Available On Channel 9

Paulo Morgado — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:31:00 GMT

WCSF geekSpeak: Download Available At MSEVENTS

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:25:27 GMT

For those who missed my webcast (and wanted to watch it) it's available to download at the MSEVENTS site.

WCSF geekSpeak: Online Resources

Paulo Morgado — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:46:42 GMT

Here is the list of topics covered in the WCSF geekSpeak webcast:

And here is a list of online resources:

WCSF geekSpeak: Real-Time Search Bundle Demo Code

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:51:00 GMT

This demo e based on the demo included in the Real-Time Search Bundle download.

The demo includes an entry form with two implementations:

Using an Update Panel.
Using the WCSF's Real-Time Search Monitor.

WCSF geekSpeak: Validation Bundle Demo Code

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:46:00 GMT

This demo e based on the demo included in the Validation Bundle download.

The demo includes an entry form with three implementations:

Using the traditional server-side validation.
Using server-side validation with the Enterprise Library's Validation Application Block.
Using server-side validation with the Enterprise Library's Validation Application Block and the WCSF's Server-Side Validation Extender.

WCSF geekSpeak: Contextual Auto Complete Bundle Demo Code

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:26:00 GMT

This demo e based on the demo included in the Contextual Auto Complete Bundle download.

The demo includes an entry form with three implementations:

Using the traditional auto post back model
Using an update panel
Using the Contextual Auto Complete Extender.

WCSF geekSpeak: Registration Open

Paulo Morgado — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:27:00 GMT

There was a problem with the registration for this webcast, but it's now solved.

Jan 23 - Paulo Morgado - The Web client software factory in action

Enterprise Library V4 Product Backlog

Paulo Morgado — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:07:22 GMT

Check out the Enterprise Library V4 Product Backlog.

WCSF geekSpeak: What do you want to see?

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:17:00 GMT

Just let me know to see if I can accommodate it on my geekSpeak.

I'm on geekSpeak

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 23:34:47 GMT

Or I'll be, on January 23rd.

Here is the complete list of web casts for December 2007 and January 2008:

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET FX 3.5 to RTM before the end of November 2007

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:46:38 GMT

Today, S.Somasegar announced at TechEd Developers EMEA, amongst other things, that they the product team at Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on Visual Studio 2008 and .NET FX 3.5. They are on track to shipping these products before the end of November 2007. They will have the marketing launch for these along with Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 at the end of February.

User eXperience Architecture

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 03:04:56 GMT

There's a thread going on the Alt.Net Conference list about User eXperience Architecture.

I think there's a bit of confusing between UI/UX and painting screens.

My bank has both VRU and SMS user interfaces for costumers and they have nothing to do with screens.

The bottom line is I thin there's a need for User eXperience Architecture experts. It's more than matching colors.

A new phase for the Acropolis project

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:36:01 GMT

The Acropolis Team has announced that Acropolis is going to enter a new phase.