Prepare a SQL server database restored from sql 2000 for full text search

Gmail and Hotmail are quite easy to configure. A lot easier than on the iPhone. I had to set up a Gmail account for one of my customers on hist iPhone and it is quite technical. On Windows 7 all you need to provide are the email address and the password, then save it and you can start reading/writing your e-mails.
Setting up your Facebook account to use your friends as contacts in your phone 7: create the facebook account with email address and facebook password and you are ready to go.
So far so good.

Quebec 2010_06_10 Les Hautes Gorges de la Malbaie

After 2,5 hours climbing on the 'acropole des draveurs', 600m height difference, we reached the top, with a splendid view.

Quebec 2010_06_11 Le parc des Grands Jardins

2010_06_13 Sea-kayak at L'Anse St-Jean (Saguenay fjord)

A 3 hour trip by sea-kayak in the Saguenay fjord, starting at L'Anse Saint-Jean.

2010_06_18 quebec city

A splendid bike trip alongside the St-Laurens river. In the background you can see Québec City.

Mauricie dag 5

Lang geslapen. Voor het ontbijt mochten we zelf de eitjes bij de kippen gaan roven. Naar het dorp Saint-Jean-des-Piles vlakbij het park om onze kayak te reserververen. We krijgen de roeispanen en reddingsvesten mee, aan het meer bij het park moeten we dan gewoon een kayak nemen en wegroeien. Een tocht met de wagen van 3 kwartier tot aan Lake Wapizigonke, wagen geparkeerd en met roeispanen tot aan strand bij meer waar de kayaks liggen. Met de kayak een uur gevaren op 2 stukken van het meer die via het moeras en een beverdam aan elkaar verbonden waren. Na een uur beland bij het voetpad dat naar Waber waterval leidt. Nog 2 uur gewandeld en dan terug een uur met de kayak. Met de wagen terug naar B&B, nog wat eten en praten met de andere gasten.

Mauricie dag 4

Laatste ontbijt in Montreal. Met de express bus naar Montreal airport om huurwagen op te halen. Met de wagen via de highway naar le Parc National de la Mauricie. 's middags aankomst aan l'auberge de saint Maurice. Een wandeling van 7 km in het park. OM 19:00 met de gids naar beren gaan kijken, in een observatiehut, na een uur een grote zwarte beer gezien. Gaan eten en slapen.

Montreal dag 3

Regen van 's morgens tot 's avonds. Bagel geproefd in bakkerij. Dome bezocht. Museum van moderne kunst. Shopping, alles binnendeurs.'s avonds liitle Italy om een spaghetti te eten. Geen fietstocht want te nat en te fris.

Montreal dag 2

Lekker ontbij met wafels, vers fruit en esdoorn siroop geserveerd door Philippe de gastheer. Kennis gemaakt met een amerikaans koppel dat ook verblijft in het B&B. Met de metro naar oud montreal - wandelen door de stad - kathedraal - stadhuis waar ze een nieuwe spits op de toren plaatsten - de haven met het cirque de soleil - aan de pier de klokketoren beklommen - er was ook een herdenking voor de gesneuvelden met saluutschoten en last post - wandelen door de ondergronds stad - shopping - iets gekocht in een supermarkt om te eten 's middags. namiddag nog wandelen - china town - in de avond eten in een vegetarisch thai restaurant zeer lekker. - vroeg gaan slapen.

Montreal dag 1

Vlucht met air transat - aankomst Pierre Trudeau Airport 10:50 - declaratie douane 3 appels
Express bus van airport naar Bus station bij Universiteit - 3 blokken verder gaan met valies naar ons B&B Le Saint-andré des arts
Goed onthaal door Philippe onze gastheer - espresso machine in de keuken - verfrist - met metro naar Montreal Olympic park en botanical gardens - gewandeld door het park - zeer groot - veel eekhoorns
Terug met metro naar B&B - verfrist - Metro naar bistro 'Station F' zeer lekker eten.
Slapen.

Kortrijk loopt

Today I ran my first 11 km in 'Kortrijk loopt', a yearly running event. My time 1:10:52, or an average of 9.31 km/h. I had been preparing this run by slowly building up this winter, until I ran 11 km some 2 weeks ago. The last week I ran 11km twice, then 3km on saturday, rest on sunday and then ran the above mentioned time today.

silverlight 4 training kit and Silverlight 4 MVVM video

The Silverlight 4 Training Course includes a whitepaper explaining all of the new Silverlight 4 features, several hands-on-labs that explain the features, and a 8 unit course for building business applications with Silverlight 4.
It can be downloaded from here

Via RSS feed in VS2010 I found this training video for Silverlight 4 MVVM

Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

Via this msdn article Enterprise Patterns with WCF RIA Services, I decided to order the book from Martin Fowler Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture.

.NET Framework remove tool from Aaron Stebner

On my developer pc I had a .NET Framework 4.0 RC installation, over which I installed the final release, without removing the RC version. When I wanted to set things right and uninstall all of .NET Framework 4.0 the normal way through control panel, it failed to do so. Also I could not repair or reinstall it.
Via google I found Aaron Stebner's blog where one can download a handy utility '.NET Framework Cleanup Tool'. This tool helped met in removing the last remains of version 4.0. After the cleanup I was able to install the .NET Framework 4.0 again and continue my real work.
The tool can be found here

Understanding and Using APPLY in SQL Server

I've read an interesting article by Paul White on Understanding and Using APPLY:
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2)

how to update the window in WPF while performing computations

since WPF is multithreaded, updating the window while looping through computations is not evident. I found this solution on
Michael Covington's site

Debug wcf service with IIS on Vista

The IIS service on the vista pc needs to be set up to host WCF services:


run command prompt as administrator, and run the following command -

"%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe" -r -y

credit goes to this guy

Debug in VS2008 with local IIS server on Vista pc

For one of my projects I have to use a Vista pc with VS2008 to develop a website and webservices. I want to use the local IIS server instead of the Visual Studio Development Server to debug my project.
Steps to be taken:

1. In visual studio, go to the properties of your website project. From the diffferent tabs (Application, compile,...) choose Web.
2. Under 'Servers', select 'Use local IIS server'.
3. the default project url is http://localhost/myproject . Click the 'Create virtual directory' button.
4. This message pops up : you need to install the "IIS Metabase and IIS6 Configuration Compatibility" feature under Internet Information Services-Web Management Tools-IIS 6 Management Capability to get the IIS6 ADSI provider installed.It means that IIS is not installed or not fully configured on this pc.
5. Close Visual Studio
   
6. Open Configuration panel , select Add/Remove programs. On the left you have a link to 'Turn Windows features on or off'. Click this link.
7. In the dialog box scroll to 'Internet Information services' / 'Web management and enable 'IIS Metabase and IIS6 Configuration Compatibility'.
8. Next you need to enable ASP.NET under the same 'Internet Information services' select Developer functions and check ASP.NET.
9. Click OK. this will take some minutes.
10. Open the visula studio project again and in the Web properties, click on the Create Virtual Directory. this should work now.
    

Using ADO.NET Data Services

Introduction by Beth Massi
using ado.net data services

building a wpf-client

SQL 2008 - enable database for full text search

My customer wanted a search screen to find product information by key words. Up to now I have been using standard SQL server transact-sql. It became clear to me that we needed to look into the full text search because he wanted to find data by relevance.
The database needs to be readied to use full text search.
Set the database to compatibility level server 2008.
Here is the transact SQL:
-- enable full text search on a sql 2008 server - database was restored from sql 2000
USE [master]
GO
-- examine the current compatibility level
EXEC sp_dbcmptlevel 'MyDatabase'
go
-- change the compatibility level
ALTER DATABASE [MyDatabase] SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL = 100
GO
Create a stoplist

In case the system stoplist does not contain a stopword that you require

USE MyDatabase
GO
-- find out if a specific stopword is in use
select * from sys.fulltext_stopwords where stopword = 'de'
GO
-- in case the system stoplist is not sufficient, create your own
CREATE FULLTEXT STOPLIST myStoplist FROM SYSTEM STOPLIST;
GO

Using MVVM with WPF

Introduction
WPF Apps With The Model-View-ViewModel Design Pattern

Silverlight DataForm with Combobox

Using Silverlight 3, WCF RIA services Beta and Visual Studio 2008. Since comboboxes do not work out of the box when used inside Dataforms, I tried using convertors. This is workable but it requires a lot of coding. This blog has an interesting approach: http://justgeeks.blogspot.com/.

Using the Silverlight Treemap and WCF RIA services to display business data

Introduction

A client of mine wanted to visualize his customers by city they live in. His customer addresses reside in the SQL server database I've set up for him.

Since I have started development of a small sales force Silverlight app for him, I looked at what could be done with Silverlight to visualize his data. There are several possibilities, such as visualization on a Bing map, but to start off and keep it simple and to avoid spending too much time on this, I decided to use the Treemap control.

Background

The data is stored in an Address table in a database in SQL Server 2008. All the Addresses are located in Belgium and have all been given a City name and zip code.

The Silverlight project is written in Visual Studio 2008 with Silverlight 3 and WCF RIA services beta.

References

Treemap in Silverlight 3 article by Diptimaya Patra in c-sharpcorner.
Using stored procedures in the Entity Framework by Julie Lerman in thedatafarm.
Articles about WCF RIA services by Brad Abrams, Tim Heuer and many others.

The result

The screenshot at the top of this article shows the result: a Treemap control that visualizes the addresses per city. The cursor was hovering over the city of Bruges (Brugge) with 70 customers.

The solution

The Data tier: SQL Server

The SQL server database needs a view or stored procedure that groups the addresses by city and zipcode. Larger cities have different zipcodes for one city name, so the city and zipcode need to be concatenated. Since my middle-tier is going to be WCF RIA services and the Entity Framework, I need a result that has a primary key too. And because of a blatant problem with the Entity Framework designer that does not allow you to specify a primary key field on a view, I'll have to fake my primary key.

Stored procedure

Use a stored procedure to make it fit in my Entity Framework. The stored procedure uses ROW_NUMBER() as a column with name ID and this will be my primary key column.

The procedures returns a recordset with 4 columns: ID, Gemeente, Tooltip, Aantal.

CREATE Procedure dbo.upAddressTreemap
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT OFF;
SELECT CONVERT(int,ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY Gemeente, Zipcode)) AS 'ID'
,RTRIM(City + ' ' + Zipcode) AS Gemeente
, City + '-' + Zipcode + ' Aantal:' + Convert(varchar,COUNT(*)) AS Tooltip
, COUNT(*) AS Aantal
FROM dbo.Contact
GROUP BY City, Zipcode
END

The first 3 records of the recordset can be seen here:

ID	Gemeente	Tooltip	Aantal
1	Aalbeke 8511	Aalbeke-8511 Aantal:7	7
2	Aalst 9300	Aalst-9300 Aantal:5	5
3	Aalter 9880	Aalter-9880 Aantal:18	18

Dummy table

Because I do not like to edit xml in the entity framework edmx file, I create a dummy table that will only be read by the Entity Framework designer.

The table contains the same fields as the resulting recordset of my stored procedure. This table will be used by the framework designer, later I will add the stored procedure in the Entity framework and map it to this table.

CREATE
TABLE [dummy].[AddressTreemap](

[ID] [int] NOT
NULL,

[Gemeente] [varchar](100)
NOT
NULL,

[Tooltip] [varchar](100)
NOT
NULL,

Aantal [int] NULL,

CONSTRAINT [PK_ AddressTreemap] PRIMARY
KEY
CLUSTERED

(

[ID] ASC

)WITH (PAD_INDEX
=
OFF,
STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE
=
OFF,
IGNORE_DUP_KEY
=
OFF,
ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS
=
ON,
ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS
=
ON)
ON [PRIMARY]

)
ON [PRIMARY]

The middle tier: EF and WCF RIA services

The standard procedure to make a Silverlight database application is to create an entity framework edmx file in the Web project and to add a Domain Service class based on this entity framework.

The Entity Framework designer has problems using views when it cannot find a primary key. My solution is to create a dummy table with the necessary fields and the primary key. Then to add a stored procedure to the EF and to map this procedure to the dummy table.

The solution to this is based on the article by Julie Lerman.

Entity Framework

In Visual Studio 2008 in my Silverlight.Web project I had already added an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.

Step 1

Create the Entity with the designer wizard to add the dummy table and the stored procedure.

The dummy table is shown as an entity on the design surface.

The stored procedure can be found in the model browser in the Stored procedures section of the model store.

Save and build this model.

Step 2

Add an import function in the model browser, by rightclicking on the stored procedure name in the model browser. The return type is the AddressTreemap Entity.

The result in the model browser

Skip Step 3 and 4.

Step 5

To be checked.

Domain Service Class

Save and build the project.

Add a domain service class to the project. I work with partial classes so I can recreate the Domain service class whenever my entity framework changes.

I make the generated AdressenService class partial and then add a new class with the filename AdressenService.partial.cs. I use new this partial class to add all my custom methods. Whenever the Entity model changes, I can regenerate my DomainService class without losing my custom code. This tip I found in an blog post by someone else, but I cannot remember the link any longer.

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Web;

namespace Adressen.Web

{

public
partial
class
AdressenService

{

public
IQueryable<AddressTreemap> GetAddressTreemapSproc()

{

AddressTreemap entities = new
AddressTreemap ();

System.Data.Objects.ObjectResult< AddressTreemap > dbResults =

this.ObjectContext.upAddressTreemap();

return (IQueryable< AddressTreemap >)dbResults.AsQueryable();

}

}

}

Save and build the project. This finalizes our middle-tier section.

Presentation tier

To finish off, the result will be displayed in a Silverlight Page with a Treemap control and with the RIA services DomainDataSource control. Everything will be handled in xaml, no code behind will be needed.

DomainDataSource

In the UserControl attributes section add a reference to the Silverlight.web application

xmlns:App="clr-namespace:AdressenTreemap.Web"

In the Grid section add a Grid resources collection that refers to the App namespace

<Grid.Resources>

<App:AdressenContext
x:Key="adressenContext"/>

</Grid.Resources>

Drag a DomainDataSource control from the toolbox in the Grid section. This will automatically add the namespaces.

xmlns:riaControls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Ria"

The DomainDataSource has the following properties: Autoload True, QueryName refers to the method we made in the partial class.

<riaControls:DomainDataSource x:Name="ddsTreemap" AutoLoad="True"

QueryName="GetAddressTreemapSprocQuery"

DomainContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource
adressenContext}}">

</riaControls:DomainDataSource>

Sorting has been added out of the experience I've had with datagrids: If I do not specifiy sorting , then most often you get errors.

For sorting, add the following namespace

xmlns:datagroup="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Data;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Ria"

Sorting is done on the ID column of the datasaource.

<riaControls:DomainDataSource … <riaControls:DomainDataSource.SortDescriptors>

<datagroup:SortDescriptor PropertyPath="ID"/>

</riaControls:DomainDataSource.SortDescriptors>

</riaControls:DomainDataSource>

Treemap

Drag a treemap control onto the grid, below the DomainDataSource. This automatically adds a reference to the following namespace:

xmlns:visualizationToolkit="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization.Toolkit"

The treemap has to use the data from the DomainDataSource. A Data range from Blue (most) to Magenta (least) is specified.

<visualizationToolkit:TreeMap x:Name="trm" ItemsSource="{Binding Data, ElementName=ddsTreemap}"
>

<visualizationToolkit:TreeMap.Interpolators>

<visualizationToolkit:SolidColorBrushInterpolator TargetName="itemBorder" TargetProperty="Background"

DataRangeBinding="{Binding
Aantal}" From="Blue" To="Magenta" />

</visualizationToolkit:TreeMap.Interpolators>

<visualizationToolkit:TreeMap.ItemDefinition>

<visualizationToolkit:TreeMapItemDefinition ValuePath="Aantal">

<DataTemplate>

<Border x:Name="itemBorder" BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="1" ToolTipService.ToolTip="{Binding
Tooltip}">

<TextBlock x:Name="trmGemeente" Foreground="White"

Text="{Binding
Gemeente}" VerticalAlignment="Center"

TextAlignment="Center" TextWrapping="Wrap"/>

</Border>

</DataTemplate>

</visualizationToolkit:TreeMapItemDefinition>

</visualizationToolkit:TreeMap.ItemDefinition>

</visualizationToolkit:TreeMap>

</controlsToolkit:DockPanel>

Layout and user experience

To round up, I added grid columns and rows to center my treemap in the page.

To show the user the data is loading I've added a BusyIndicator.

To explain what is being displayed, a Dockpanel was used in which a textbox was added with an axplanatory title together with the t

Below is the final xaml code (example was made in a masterpage).

<UserControl

xmlns:visualizationToolkit="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization.Toolkit"

xmlns:controlsToolkit="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Toolkit"

xmlns:datagroup="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Data;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Ria"

xmlns:App="clr-namespace:AddressTreemap.Web"

xmlns:riaControls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Ria"

xmlns:data="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data"

x:Class="AddressTreemap.MainPage"

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"

xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"

xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"

mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="640" d:DesignHeight="480">

<controlsToolkit:BusyIndicator x:Name="busyIndicator"

IsBusy="{Binding IsBusy, ElementName=ddsTreemap}"

BusyContent="Bezig met laden" Grid.RowSpan="3" Grid.ColumnSpan="3">

<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Margin="-8,8,8,-8">

<Grid.Resources>

<App:AdressenContext
x:Key="adressenContext"/>

</Grid.Resources>

<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

<ColumnDefinition Width="0.1*"/>

<ColumnDefinition Width="0.8*"/>

<ColumnDefinition Width="0.1*"/>

</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

<Grid.RowDefinitions>

<RowDefinition Height="0.1*"/>

<RowDefinition Height="0.8*"/>

<RowDefinition Height="0.1*"/>

</Grid.RowDefinitions>

<controlsToolkit:DockPanel LastChildFill="True"

VerticalAlignment="Top" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" d:LayoutOverrides="Width" Height="384">

<riaControls:DomainDataSource x:Name="ddsTreemap" AutoLoad="True"

QueryName="GetAddressTreemapSprocQuery"

DomainContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource adressenContext}}">

<riaControls:DomainDataSource.SortDescriptors>

<datagroup:SortDescriptor PropertyPath="ID"/>

</riaControls:DomainDataSource.SortDescriptors>

</riaControls:DomainDataSource>

<Grid x:Name="gridTitel" Background="DarkGray"
controlsToolkit:DockPanel.Dock="Top">

<TextBlock x:Name="txtTitel" Text="Verdeling per gemeente van adressen voor mailing met de post"

TextAlignment="Center" TextWrapping="Wrap" Height="32" FontSize="18"

Foreground="White"

Margin="2"/>

</Grid>

<visualizationToolkit:TreeMap x:Name="trm" ItemsSource="{Binding Data, ElementName=ddsTreemap}"
>

<visualizationToolkit:TreeMap.Interpolators>

<visualizationToolkit:SolidColorBrushInterpolator TargetName="itemBorder" TargetProperty="Background"

DataRangeBinding="{Binding Aantal}" From="Blue" To="Magenta" />

</visualizationToolkit:TreeMap.Interpolators>

<visualizationToolkit:TreeMap.ItemDefinition>

<visualizationToolkit:TreeMapItemDefinition ValuePath="Aantal">

<DataTemplate>

<Border x:Name="itemBorder" BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="1" ToolTipService.ToolTip="{Binding Tooltip}">

<TextBlock x:Name="trmGemeente" Foreground="White"

Text="{Binding Gemeente}" VerticalAlignment="Center"

TextAlignment="Center" TextWrapping="Wrap"/>

</Border>

</DataTemplate>

</visualizationToolkit:TreeMapItemDefinition>

</visualizationToolkit:TreeMap.ItemDefinition>

</visualizationToolkit:TreeMap>

</controlsToolkit:DockPanel>

</Grid>

</
controlsToolkit:BusyIndicator>

</UserControl>

Conclusion

With some creative computing on the database side, I was able to give my client a new visual presentation of his business data with minimal development time.

Hyperlink button style as command button

This link explains how to make a hyperlink button look like a windows command button:
hyperlinkbutton

Debug WCF RIA services with Fiddler

When WCF Services used by Silverlight 3 app give an error message like 'Load operation failed for query...' then you can trace the servide call with Fiddler. You will notice the address of the RIA services.

The service address is http:////ClientBin/-Web-Services-.svc

Silverlight 3 and WCF RIA services 'not found' error

set the references to copy local for the following dll's

System.Componentmodel.DataAnnotations.dll
System.Web.DomainServices.dll
System.Web.DomainServices.EntityFramework.dll
System.Web.Ria.dll

For my latest application I had followed the directives as I found them on some websites and only copied the last 3 dll's to the bin folder. Which made sense because you get errors on the silverlight pages. But when I tested the application I got 'not found' errors when trying to read data. The System.Componentmodel.DataAnnotations.dll needs to be there as well for the RIA services to work.

Fiddler and Charles

Yesterday I tried to use Fiddler and Charles to debug some WCF RIA webservices. I liked the simplicity and effectivens of Charles. Charles costs 50$ for a single user license. Fiddler is freeware.

Visual Studio 2010 beta 2

Visual studio difference between Silverlight Navigation application and Business application

Silverlight Business application adds login/logout support.

Using partial classes to spread a Domain Service across multiple files

Problem

You need a few extra methods in the Domain Service generated from the entity model, most often because you want to create selection methods with other criteria for filtering. You can add these in the Domain Service class. But if for some reason your entity model changes then the Domain Service needs to be regenerated too, causing all your custom code to disappear.

Solution

Create a partial class to spread a Domain Service across multiple files.
Modify the generated Domain Service class to partial, e.g.
[EnableClientAccess()]
public partial class NorthwindDomainService : LinqToEntitiesDomainService<northwindEntities>
{
Add a new class to the web project, with the same class name but with the extension 'partial.cs' instead of '.cs', e.g.
public partial class NorthwindDomainService : LinqToEntitiesDomainService<northwindEntities>
{
Add the using statements from the generated class to your custom class.
In case you need to regenerate the entity model and the class, you only have to add the word 'partial' to your generated Domain Service class. Your custom class will be kept as is.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 DataGrid bug Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 has a little bug that when creating the DataGrid control it added subcontrols <controls:DatePicker in the "controls" namespace which is properly set to xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls; assembly=System.Windows.Controls" but it didn't add a reference to the required library "c:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v4.0\Libraries\Client\System.Windows.Controls.dll" Add this reference manually.

Silverlight application themes for Silverlight 4

I have used the silverlight application themes from Tim Heuer in the Visual Studio 2010 beta with Silverlight 4 and they work.

• Put the Style.xaml that you downloaded from one of the themes in the Assets folder of your Silverlight project.
  
• Overwrite the existing one.
  
• In VS 2010 select the Style.xaml and change the property Copy to output directory into 'Copy always'.
  

 

Silverlight 4 WCF RIA Services Line of Business Application Hands-On Lab

In this 108 page hands-on lab you will learn how to use Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2010 and Beta 1 of Microsoft Silverlight 4 to create a data driven line of business style rich internet application that implements many of the new features that Silverlight 4 introduces. 

These features are implemented in the lab:

• True multi-tier architecture.
  
• Entity framework and service layer definition.
  
• Data filtering, paging, sorting and grouping.
  
• Data modification and validation.
  
• Foreign key management.
  
• Projections.
  
• Programmatic printing from a Silverlight application.
  
• COM interop with Microsoft Excel and running full-trust out-of-browser.
  

Great work from Sascha Corti and Ronnie Saurenmann!

Blog made with ms-word 2007

Dit is een blogtekst

Silverlight 3 How to display the version number of my silverlight assembly

On the About page of my silverlight 3 app I wanted to display the version number of the silverlight assembly (not of the web application).

In the Silverlight forums I found a simple solution by PBROMBERG:
Assuming that the xaml page contains a textblock txtVersion with no text.

Assembly asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
string[] parts = asm.FullName.Split(',');
txtVersion.Text = parts[1];

the resulting version info will be displayed like:
Version=1.0.2.0