User Group Update

My presentation at  the Cincinnati .NET Users Group on Pragmatic Software Architecture and the Role of the Architect went well last night.  I had some good feedback and we had some good discussion during and after the presentation.  One of the topics of conversation was software tools.  I mentioned Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems as a tool I use and like.  Enterprise Architect is a software modeling tool that supports UML.  At some point I'll try to write a longer review, but my short review is that I highly recommend Enterprise Architect as a powerful and reasonably priced modeling tool.  I've been using it for years.

And there's one more user group meeting tonight.  The Cincinnati Programmers' Guild will have a presentation on Artificial Humor by Julia Taylor, a University of Cincinnati Doctoral student.  For a little more information, check out this news item from UC.  It promises to be an entertaining topic.  I hope to see you there.

Folder2Iso

I've used this utility a couple times recently and it seems to work like a charm. You can point it at a folder and it will create an ISO image from the files in that folder. In my case, I've been using it to create ISO images that I'm using to mount in VMware virtual machines, to subsequently install software in virtual machines.

Folder2Iso (Official page)

PDF reDirect

In one of the applications I'm working on, I need to test printing from my application.  Since I expect to be printing a lot while testing, I downloaded PDF reDirect v2 from EXP Systems.  There's a free version and pro version available; I'm using the free version.  It's a virtual printer, meaning that you can create PDF output by just printing from any program.  It's a painless install.  And it works great for my purposes.  When you print to the virtual printer, it pops up a preview window that shows a small version of the PDF and allows you to open up the PDF file by just clicking on the small version.  So I can check out the printed output and just close the window when I'm done. 

The user interface is somewhat quirky;  I was trying to save printed output to disk today and it took a minute to figure out how to do that.  But that is a minor complaint.   If you're looking for a way to output to PDF, I definitely recommend that you take a look at PDF reDirect v2.

Database Publishing Wizard

As part of the SQL server hosting toolkit, Microsoft released a database publishing wizard, which allows you to publish a database on a hosting service, both schema and data.  It provides two ways to accomplish this:

1. By generating one SQL script file of the entire database schema and data or
2. By connecting to a web service provided by the hosting company to transfer the database directly.

I originally read about the database publishing wizard on Scott Guthrie's blog, and then immediately forgot about it until I was talking with Chad at Tellus last week, and he was using it.  So I grabbed the download and installed it.  And it appears to work well.  You can use it via a GUI wizard, or from the command line.  Here are a couple tips from my usage so far:

• Command line parameters are case sensitive.   It took me a while to figure out that the server parameter was capital (-S), not  lower case (-s). 
• It does not script the diagrams, but then what does script the diagrams?  Believe it or not, there is a way to script the diagrams in SQL 2005.  Take a look at this article on CodeProject for details.

Debugging Remote Desktop Connections

I was recently having issues connecting to a server using remote desktop and ran across a very good reference page on the topic: Remote Desktop Tips for the SOHO User.  Lots of screen shots and specific information.  Reviewing this page, I learned about a utility from Microsoft called the PortQry (port query) tool, that allows you to query for specific open ports on a remote IP address.   It's a command line utility, but there's a GUI version available.  I downloaded the utility and immediately found that the remote desktop port (3389) was not listening on the remote server, which effectively ended my troubleshooting.  I highly recommend it as the place to start for remote desktop information.

Windows Live Writer

I'm writing this blog post (and the past couple) with the latest version of Windows Live Writer (Beta 2). It's been a good upgrade. The best new feature is that it now supports Blogger labels, which was one big reason I didn't use it often before. The inline spell checking capability is also a nice addition.

I was also pleased by the upgrade process. I was using the previous beta version and had a few draft blog posts, which seem to have come forward fine, along with all of my blog configuration and my previous post history.

PureText

PureText is a utility with one purpose; it allows you to paste content from your clipboard as plain text. Before I had this utility, there were many times I would copy text from a web page or document and want to paste it into another application as plain text. And to do that, I would open up notepad, paste the text in and copy it back to the clipboard before I could paste it to the final destination. Yes, I know that sometimes there is an option to paste as plain text, but many times there is not.

It is simple to paste content from the clipboard as plain text using PureText. In the default configuration, you can just press the Windows hotkey + V to paste as plain text. If you prefer not to use the hotkey, you can click on an icon in the tray to convert the clipboard contents to plain text.

I'm posting about this tool in recognition of the official launch of Windows Developer Power Tools from O'Reilly. It describes virtually every free and open source tool except PureText. I exaggerate slightly, but there are over 170 tools for Windows development in the book and you'll definitely find something to make your life easier. Check it out.

Link to PureText Home Page

Windows Developer Power Tools

I just received my contributor's copy of Windows Developers Power Tools in the mail! It's the first time I've seen my name in print on a book, which is kind of cool. Jim Holmes and James Avery gave me the chance to contribute to this encyclopedic reference on Windows developer tools and I ended up writing several articles on XML tools (At 1,263 pages it's quite the tome and deserves the encyclopedic adjective).

So after looking for my contributor bio, and my articles and my name in the index, I checked out the rest of the book. It's quite a collection of tools and I found myself diving into various articles with interest. The topics that initially grabbed my attention were Castle MonoRail, PicoContainer.NET, AnkhSVN, and WebXACT. There are 170+ free and open source tools described in a wide range of areas. Check it out when you have a chance.

ZoomIt v1.15

ZoomIt is a great utility for presentations from Microsoft via Mark Russonivich of Sysinternals. As you'd expect from the name, you can use it to magnify portions of the screen. You can also draw on the screen and display a countdown timer appropriate for a break in a session. It's unobtrusive and extremely simple to use.

Link to ZoomIt v1.15

Debugging Unit Tests in ReSharper

Until recently, I have been having issues debugging unit tests with ReSharper. Luckily, I stumbled across the answer which is in ReSharper configuration. By default, ReSharper is set to use the current startup project when debugging unit tests. Since I am working with a web project and trying to debug unit tests in an assembly that is not the web site project, it would start the web site when I started to debug a unit test, opening the browser to the site which is not at all what I wanted. To fix it turned out to be as easy as changing the configuration to "Use the project being tested" in the ReSharper Unit Testing options as highlightd on the screen capture.