http://thecodemonk.com Random Thoughts of a Software Development Professional Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:50:37 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en For quite a while I have noticed that there seems to be this huge divide between IT departments and the software developers. I say IT meaning the hardware/software support department and the programmers that write software. In my organization, we are only software developers. Any hardware support is done by ... http://thecodemonk.com/2008/06/23/make-it-easy-for-the-it-department/ One of the latest technologies to hit .Net recently is Linq. Language Integrated Query allows you to perform a more SQL like syntax on object collections in code. It has been out for quite some time, but I just recently was able to use it in a project. It's pretty ... http://thecodemonk.com/2008/06/03/i/ I added forums to this site just in case there are some discussions on any of the articles or if there are other topics that anyone would want to discuss. It's easier to ask questions and discuss solutions in a forum format instead of on a blog site. Check it out. ... http://thecodemonk.com/2008/02/19/forums-launched/ I don't know how a lot of people handle it, but one thing that always bugged me about table adapters and datasets is the way it handles it's connection strings. It starts out innocent enough. A new dataset is created with it's associated table adapter. The connection string is saved ... http://thecodemonk.com/2008/02/18/tableadapter-connection-strings/ I haven't been posting much, mainly due to a busy schedule, but also because I really didn't like the look of the site... I have changed to a new theme. Hopefully, this will motivate me to post more. One thing I was looking for in a new template, was a fluid ... http://thecodemonk.com/2008/02/18/new-look/ One of the biggest causes of memory leaks that I find from time to time is from forgetting to dispose of some SQLConnection object. Even if the connection is closed, the SQLConnection object seems to stay alive forever, which keeps any form objects alive as well. This happens in VB a ... http://thecodemonk.com/2008/01/03/disposing-of-memory-leaks/ I'm reading a pretty well written book by Adam Nathan called Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed. I am on the hunt for more in depth knowledge of WPF and how it is going to affect me, if at all. In my search of an answer of the question 'Why?' I already found ... http://thecodemonk.com/2007/12/02/wpf-more-cooler-information/ Pretty cool... Although my REAL first thought after using it was, "Why?" The reason I ask why is because as I am looking at the available controls and what it looks like on screen once I run the test application, I am really presented with the same looking form as if ... http://thecodemonk.com/2007/11/29/wpf-first-thought/ Here is the problem in a nutshell: You have a custom client application that uses SQL Server 2005 Express. The server installation is a little bit to be desired. First, you have to install SQL Server Express, then you have to configure the options (unless you did command line options), ... http://thecodemonk.com/2007/10/25/windows-installer-sql-server-installation-issues-and-a-solution/ The discussion came up the other day about COM (Component Object Model) and it's future in Windows development. COM is not dead, by any means. In fact, Microsoft said it themselves in the Windows Vista FAQ. It's not dead, just done. By done, they mean that it will no longer ... http://thecodemonk.com/2007/10/24/what-is-the-future-of-com/