EF Code First and SqlServer Ce 4.0 – the simplest example ever.

Recently I needed to write a simple database application. I chose the Entity Framework Code First (Code Only) as a Object Relational Mapper (ORM) because its simplicity and quick development process. If you did not yet heard about EF Code First then this is a good place to start. Entity framework is a very powerful technology. It totally makes the whole dirty work which in the …

Taming TFS - Strong naming assemblies

Today we’re going to look at another build script adjustment – strong naming assemblies.

The scenario we are aiming for is that during development, the assemblies are not signed (so developers don’t need to have the a certificate file - a little bit more on that later), but during a build on the build server they are. This can be handled by providing additional parameters to msbuild.

Taming TFS - Assembly versioning

The assembly version is a number in the form of <Major>.<Minor>.<Build>.<Revision>. What value the placeholders are assigned to is totally up to you, we chose to set the first three numbers manually and set the last one to the change set that the source was built from. At the same time, I didn’t want to limit the options, so by examining the “Build Number Format” input in the default template, I decided to merge the parameters available there with a custom parameter set (the build number format provides a couple of params, but doesn’t provide access to the change set number).

TrueCrypt whole disk encryption step by step

Although TrueCrypt has a rich documentation (available here) I could not find any quick step by step tutorial on how to easily encrypt whole system. So this was the reason for this screenshot-based beginner’s tutorial. 

Every confusing topic and phrase is well documented in TrueCrypt documentation so I will limit the comments to the very minimum.

Before you start installing TrueCrypt and encrypting your system drive prepare one blank DVD or CD which will be used for rescue purposes. If you already got one, we can start…

Displaying hierarchical data in WPF and ASP.Net MVC

Let assume we have following self referencing table of people

Taming TFS – Default build template

The default build template in tfs is good enough for starters, but what if you want more? Thankfully tfs is flexible enough to customize the build process with anything you want, so let’s get to it!

Taming TFS – The big picture

This is the second post from Taming TFS series. What I’d like to do here, is to give the big picture on how tfs operates, what it utilizes and how to use that. If you’re already familiar with the basics, you can skip this post, if not, then consider yourself invited to read on.

Default route with areas in asp.net MVC

I stumbled upon a problem when trying to set up a default route for an asp.net mvc3 application. The routing mechanism itself is pretty straightforward, so I didn’t really expect any problems here, but as it turned out I was wrong.

Taming TFS

TFS is a useful tool but making it work just the way you want may not be as straightforward as expected. This series of blog posts will describe the journey I went through to adjust tfs to our needs.

Application communication ways – WCF Data Services with EF Code First, WPF and WP7

Let’s assume there is an application database and the various client applications developed in Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 and ASP.NET MVC 3. The database is either MS SQL Server or MS SQL Server CE. Now the potential customer may use one or many of these applications/platforms so the connections to the database must be performed from all of these clients.
The following scenarios are considered. I tried to list some points that should be considered when choosing particular connection approach. The pictures represents the general architecture of the approach.