Prasanna's Blog

Presentation and Article on ADO.NET EF 4

2010-05-15T14:48:00.001+05:30

Today we had the Developer, Developer, Developer event, a one day filled with technical content in Melbourne. I did a presentation on “Developing your data access layer using ADO.NET EF 2^2”. The session walked through some different approaches you can take when developing your data access layer using the new version of ADO.NET EF. The session also went through some tools and libraries such as the Database Generation Power Pack to provide a preview on what might be coming in the near future.

On a related note, I published an article recently on the same topic on Simple-Talk couple of months ago.

MVP Summit 2010

2010-02-16T11:21:00.001+05:30

I am in Seattle for the MVP Global Summit 2010, and will be here till the end of this week. If any friends or fellow MVPs I know attending the conference, do give a shout out or drop me a mail and would love to catch up.

Tech.Ed in Sri Lanka

2010-02-12T17:56:00.001+05:30

I am down in Sri Lanka these days and was a speaker at Tech.Ed Sri Lanka held here at Waters Edge. I did the following sessions as part of the event.
1) WCF 4.0 Tips and Tricks
This session went through features such as Routing, Discovery and explained how it can help overcome problems faced in the prior WCF versions.
2) Developing with ADO.NET EF 2^2 - More than one way to skin a cat
This session went through different approaches of developing the data access layer such as Model first, Database first and Code only etc.
Hope it was informative for anyone attended

Book on Android- Enabled Phone

2009-09-08T07:37:00.001+05:30

I was working as a co-author in writing a book on the Android platform titled “Web Geeks Guide to the Android-Enabled Phone”. The main author of the book is Jerri Ledford who has published quite a number of books on technologies related to Google. The book is close to getting published and is available for sales now.

The book covers generic usage of the android phone and getting started on developing applications for the android platform. You can check out more information on the book at http://www.amazon.com/Web-Geeks-Guide-Android-Enabled-Phone/dp/0789739720/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250644454&sr=8-1

Blogging again

2009-09-08T07:23:00.001+05:30

I keep neglecting my blog which is not such a good thing. Things have been very busy the past few months and apart from my fulltime work was working on a few content creation projects for Microsoft Certifications. This post is just a notification for myself to start actively blogging again.

var title=???

2009-04-13T06:06:00.001+05:30

Initially when I started using the var keyword in C# I was very cautious about it. I felt it impacts the readability of the code and decided that I will use it only with anonymous types.

But nowadays I use it whenever I directly assign a value to it but if the value is something that is assigned from a function call or from a collection then I still prefer to specify the actual type (unless of course the collection contains elements of an anonymous type). So for me “var x = 10” is fine but “var x = Something()” is not. Would be interesting to find out what guidelines others have when it comes to the var keyword.

MVP Summit 2009

2009-03-12T18:09:00.001+05:30

It has been a long time since I blogged about anything. Not sure what the reason is and it is just a whole lot of small things collectively. But I really should get back to blogging and a whole lot of other things that I want to do but was putting them off. So maybe this would be a start ;-)

Apart from the excuses, I attended the MVP Summit 2009 in Seattle late Feb and managed to squeeze in a small vacation in Minneapolis. Had a good time at the summit and met up with the SEA MVPs and a few other MVPs around the globe. It was good interacting with the MS employees as well. The bottom line was I have a whole lot of new technologies to update myself on.

January CDNUG: Dependency Injection with Ninject

2009-01-10T07:20:00.001+05:30

We had the January CDNUG session last thursday. Since I was down in Sri Lanka on vacation, I did a session on Dependency Injection with Ninject.

The session primarily covered using Ninject for Dependency Injection and patterns related to it. Hope it was useful for everyone who attended.

Goodbye 2008, Hello 2009

2008-12-31T22:39:00.001+05:30

It's the 31st of December again and the end of an old year and the dawn of the new year. Lot of things happened in 2008. Joined a very exciting work place and moved to Australia, which was a significant change for me. Got started on a few more projects and traveled around quite a bit as well. Did more technical writing compared to the previous year.

So cheers to 2009 and hopefully it will bring in happiness for everyone. Wish you all a very happy new year

Back Home for Vacation

2008-12-28T12:37:00.001+05:30

Managed to get a vacation for 3 weeks and came back to Sri Lanka. Was juggling with the idea of whether to stay back or go home and finally bought the tickets and decided to come here. This is the longest I stayed away from home (just 4 months) and feels good to be spending the new year holidays with family and friends.

Article on ADO.NET Sync Services

2008-12-12T11:49:00.001+05:30

I wrote an article on ADO.NET Sync Services titled "Some Data with your Application Take-away, Sir?". The ADO.NET Sync Services part of the Sync Framework has a nice model to easily set up synchronization of data under different architectures. The article also covers syncing data through HTTP using a WCF Service,

Settling in ...

2008-10-06T07:08:00.001+05:30

It has been quite a long time since I made a post on my blog. It has been a bit tiring settling in and getting started here in Sydney. The people over at the workplace were very supportive and now things are slowly starting to get normal.

On a side note I have got my MVP award renewed. So this would be my 5th year as a MVP. One difference is I would come under the Australian group of MVP's this year.

Moving Down-Under...

2008-08-22T07:29:00.001+05:30

It is a very difficult and at the same time an exciting phase for me. I will be moving from Sri Lanka to take on a job in Australia. It is sad that I would be leaving behind a lot of things, starting from my family, friends and colleagues at my previous work places. But at the same time considering a lot of things decided to take on an offer, to work with a very exciting bunch of people in Australia.

In a sense it feels like I am starting all over again from scratch and that excites me. At the same time leaving and living away from home is difficult. It is a very mixed feeling. Hopefully I will have a smooth transition in terms of my life style and work etc.

This would be my last post before I leave from Sri Lanka and I am flying to Seattle tomorrow to work on a project and will be there for a week. Then would be flying directly from Seattle to Sydney.

At Tech.Ed SEA 2008

2008-08-10T13:34:00.001+05:30

It's finally here. Tech.Ed 2008 SEA will kick off tomorrow at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center. I arrived at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia today early morning. My sessions on ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services are scheduled for Day 2 and Day 4 of Tech.Ed respectively. I will be also be in the Ask-the-Experts session on Day 1. So anyone attending Tech.Ed SEA do come and share your experiences with anything and everything on .NET :-)

CDNug August Meeting: Creating a RESTful Data Access Layer

2008-08-07T21:49:00.001+05:30

We had the user group meeting for the Colombo .NET User Group today. I presented on "Creating a RESTful Data Access Layer" using ADO.NET Data Services and ADO.NET Entity Framework. This session covered the ideas behind RESTful architecture and different concepts associated with ADO.NET Data Services. Hope it was useful for everyone who attended the session

Article on the ADO.NET Data Services

2008-07-31T19:50:00.001+05:30

I wrote an article titled Creating Service-Oriented Data-Access Layers. This article introduces ADO.NET Data Services and talks about how to use different functionality within it. The RESTful architecture for exposing data really does open up a whole lot possibilities of working with data. ADO.NET Data Services makes this easy to achieve.

Tech.Ed SEA 2008

2008-07-26T18:41:00.001+05:30

Tech.Ed South East Asia 2008 is happening this year in Malaysia. This would be my second time speaking at the Tech.Ed SEA event. I will be delivering sessions on ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services, a couple of technologies I am working on lately. There are some very exciting sessions lined up during the event and it would be awesome to meet up with fellow geek's from all over

Article on the Entity Framework: The Cribsheet

2008-05-27T14:10:00.001+05:30

Out of the technologies released with Visual Studio.NET 2008 and the SP1 of Visual Studio.NET 2008, my favorite is the ADO.NET Entity Framework. ADO.NET missed a good ORM layer and most of the time developers had to manage the OR mismatch by their own or use an external library such as NHibernate.

I wrote an article titled Entity Framework: The Cribsheet for Simple-Talk. This introduces the ADO.NET Entity Framework and covers different concepts associated with it.

VS.NET 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 SP1 beta

2008-05-14T17:46:00.001+05:30

I upgraded .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio.NET 2008 to SP1 beta. It went quite smooth other than the fact the progress window for Visual Studio.NET 2008 SP1 beta installation wizard gave an incorrect message.

So if you do get the message "Install failed - performing rollback" during installation progress, ignore it and wait for the setup to complete

Article on the Why and How of .NET Profiling

2008-05-14T08:10:00.001+05:30

My article titled "The Why and How of .NET Profiling" is published in Simple-Talk. The article lists out important reasons to consider profiling your .NET code. It also talks about how to use the CLR profiler and the Perfmon tools.

HHH Community Launch: What's new in ADO.NET 3.5

2008-05-08T11:09:00.000+05:30

We had the first of a series of Heroes Happen Here community launch events as part of the user group session for this month. I did a session on the new features for ADO.NET 3.5. The session covered topics such as Linq to SQL, ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services. We had around 70 attendees for the event and based on the comments received there seems to be a lot of interest around ADO.NET Entity Framework.

MVP Summit 2008

2008-04-18T09:42:00.003+05:30

What an amazing week it was. The MVP global summit 2008 just got over today and it was really awesome meeting the product teams at Microsoft. Microsoft as a company had evolved a lot in terms of listening to its partners. The sessions and the interactions during the summit enforced this. There were ample learning opportunities as well on what is to come in the next few months. The highlight of the whole event was to hear the keynotes of Ray Ozzie and Steve Balmer in person. Got the pictures from the summit uploaded at: http://picasaweb.google.com/pras79/SeattleMVPSummit2008

Travelling to Seattle-MVP summit 2008

2008-04-14T00:16:00.000+05:30

I just reached Seattle and will be out of the country for the next 2-3 weeks. My main baggage is still unfortunately stranded in Singapore and hopefully i will get it within the next 1-2 days. Meanwhile have to buy some essentials to manage until then.
I am attending the MVP global summit 2008 at the Microsoft campus in Seattle. Got a whole lot of exciting sessions lined up with the launches of VS.NET 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008. The visit to the Microsoft campus is something i always cherish. It's also a golden opportunity to meet some fellow MVPs and Microsofties in person.
After the MVP summit I need to travel to Austin and Minneapolis on some work and personal engagements.

Article on .NET Collection Management in C# 3.0

2008-02-25T23:30:00.005+05:30

My article on .NET Collection Management with C# 3.0 is published at Simple-Talk. This article introduces many of the new features in C# 3.0 and introduces Linq. A couple of years back I wrote an article on the same topic but focusing on generics and C# 2.0. This article looks at improvements in C# 3.0 to better manage a collection of objects within a generic list.

IF

2008-01-19T20:22:00.000+05:30

Just a personal favourite poem that inspires me and helps me up on my feet at times when i feel down. Just thought to put it down here:

CDNug January meeting: Introduction to Linq

2008-01-11T13:50:00.000+05:30

I did a session for the Colombo .NET User Group on Linq. The purpose of the session was to introduce Linq and explain about some of the new features in C# and VB.NET in the context of Linq. I managed to do small introductions to related technologies such as Linq to XML, Linq to SQL and Linq to entities. Though this was an introductory session, i guess i had to squeeze a lot of things within 1 1/2 hours.
Maybe on the upcoming User Group sessions we can take specific Linq topics and dive deep within it.

Head First C#

2008-01-11T13:45:00.000+05:30

I am a big fan of the head first series. Almost had all the books in the series cos it's a very easy read and it's technology presented in the most learnable manner. So it was such a pleasure to find that Head First C# was released.The book covers most of the C# 3.0 features including Linq and its a good treat for anyone who is looking for a good C# book that is fun to read.
So for anyone who have already gone through a few head first books, you will know what to expect from this one too.

Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008

2007-12-31T14:23:00.000+05:30

Thats the end of another year. New year is always a good time to reflect and plan ahead. It was pretty good from a career point of view and i got to travel around a lot. Got to work on some interesting projects as well. Invested a lot of time and money on a few things which hopefuly will start to benefit in 2008.
So looking forward to 2008.Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year ...

VS.NET 2008 Released

2007-11-20T13:04:00.000+05:30

What a sweet surprise. Just logged in to read the MSDN RSS feeds and what do i see, news about the release of VS.NET 2008.
Do check out http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/bb931331.aspx

.NET Rocks at TechEd Asia

2007-11-09T14:41:00.000+05:30

One of the good things about attending TechEd Asia this year was meeting some of the guys behind .NET university. I met Mark Dunn of Dunn Training and Consulting during the TechEd event. This is the second time I met him after meeting him a few months back at the MVP Global Summit. He did a recording for the .NET Rocks audio talk show with some short interviews of myself and a few other SEA MVPs who attended the event.
You can check out the show at http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=288

November CDNug session - Rules engine

2007-11-08T20:11:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I did a session for the Colombo .NET User group (CDNug) titled "Using rules with .NET". The session covered the activities that are part of the rules engine on WF. The session also covered using the rules engine outside WF for standard .NET applications. I have uploaded the windows application that i used as the demo here

Merill is moving

2007-11-02T10:05:00.000+05:30

The MVPs in Sri Lanka is getting reduced by one since Merill is moving out to Australia. He was the one behind starting the .NET forum and eventually the CDNug and has contributed a whole lot to both. It was really great getting to work with him both at Assette and Gateway. I am sure he will gear up to the challenges in his new work place and make a name for himself in Australia too.
Thanks a lot for all the help you did while you were here and wishing you all the best on your new quest

SLASI TechForum 2007

2007-10-30T22:21:00.000+05:30

The SLASI TechForum for this year titled "Back to the Future: Software Quality Demystified" was held in colombo today. This event was organized by the Sri Lanka Association for the Software Industry. I was one of the 4 speakers for the event and my session was on "Software Lifecycle Management with VSTS". The session introduced VSTS in the context of managing the software lifecycle through various roles within a project and how software quality can be improved using VSTS . It was very good to see lot of people in the industry taking software quality as a serious and a foremost issue, rather than just an afterthought.

Me and Twitter

2007-10-04T15:42:00.000+05:30

I created an account and started using twitter a couple of months ago, but never got the hang of it. I dont think i got a clear picture on what to update on cos it seemed like too frequent updates on daily events. I guess i will just leave my account as it is until i really have a use for it and until then will just stick with my blog.

.NET Framework libraries source code

2007-10-04T15:38:00.000+05:30

Looks like the .NET Framework libraries source code would be available under the Microsoft reference license One cool thing is you would be able to debug into it directly from VS.NET 2008. Check out ScottGu's Blog

MVP award renewed

2007-10-02T05:16:00.000+05:30

I have been reawarded this year as well as a MVP on the Visual Developer category. This would be my 4th year as a MVP and it certainly is a huge pleasure being part of this elite and enthusiastic group of Microsoft geeks ;-)
Looking forward to a great year as part of the .NET community with the releases of VS.NET 2008 and SQL Server 2008.

Creature of habits

2007-10-02T05:14:00.000+05:30

Never occured to me but i think i am a creature of habits. Some small small things i don't really like to change or unintentionally i don't want to change.
When i was staying at a hotel while in SFO, a colleague of mine used to join me for breakfast everyday and noticed that i always use to take the same table in the room. I am not sure why but it just sort of turned into a habit and i never noticed it until someone pointed me that. So after that incident i seem to notice a lot of small routines that has turned into habits over short period of time. It seems strange and i happen to notice it more, especially after somebody pointed that out to me :)

Travelling around KL

2007-09-14T16:29:00.000+05:30

Today would be my last day in Kuala Lumpur, so decided to do a bit of roaming around. Went to Batu caves in the morning. It's a nice temple inside a limestone hill cave which you will reach after climbing around 270 steps.
Next went to the bird park and the butterfly park. The bird park was very scenic and you can stroll inside with rest stops and activities inside the park.
Finally came to china town, but it was not as exciting as the one i saw in San Francisco. Got some pics i took today uploaded at http://picasaweb.google.com/pras79/KualaLumpur

At TechEd SEA 2007

2007-09-11T19:26:00.000+05:30

I am in Kuala Lumpur at TechEd South East Asia 2007. This is the first TechEd i am attending out of the country. I did a lab session at TechEd for the .NET university on workflow foundation. Workflow foundation has been a topic of interest for me and it felt great doing the session at this event. .NET university is more of an open concept where all the labs and the slides are available for anyone interested in redelivering the sessions internally for their companies or for user groups.
I have got some pictures uploaded at http://picasaweb.google.com/pras79/TechEdSEA

TechEd SEA 2007

2007-09-03T11:27:00.001+05:30

I will be there ...

Travelling around the Globe

2007-09-02T20:49:00.000+05:30

The past 2 years i really got addicted to travelling around and visiting new places. Am still a newbie compared to the number of countries i have been to. So one resolution i made this year is to make sure that i atleast visit one new place (preferably a new country) every year. Some ultimate sites i came across for travel freaks are:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com
http://www.world66.com

Breadth or Depth in Software Development

2007-09-02T20:47:00.000+05:30

One question i always had during my career in Software Development is whether to concentrate on the breadth or depth of the available tools, techniques and technologies. One major dilemna is with the amount of technologies nobody can master all. Initially when i started out i wanted to master a few technologies but with the kind of projects you get to work on these days, that doesn't really seem like a viable approach.
Nowadays i started looking into many technologies and more often concentrating on having a wider knowledge but going into depth only as and when necessary. So far this seems like a better approach especially as you gather more and more experience. Jack of all and master of some.

VSTS for agile teams

2007-07-09T07:40:00.000+05:30

These days i am focusing a lot on process implementations especially along with VSTS. One really good book i came across is VSTS - Better software development for agile teams. If you need to have a good idea on how to implement agile development process using VSTS do check out this book.

To wake up or not to wake up?

2007-07-04T11:06:00.000+05:30

On my way back to Srilanka, i happened to doze off in my Northwest flight from Seattle to Japan. The air hostess in the flight didn't wake me up and i missed my dinner in the flight. So i have seen in many flights they have different policies when a passenger is sleeping in the flight during meal time. In Northwest they give priority to sleep and they make sure you don't get disturbed during meal time. So if you happen to sleep, don't think the air hostess is going to wake you up during meal time.
Srilankan airlines had a nice policy of tapping you a couple of times and if you don't budge then no meals for you :). But a couple of years back when i was travelling, I think it was Qantas airlines, they gave a sticker that said "Do not disturb". If you stick that in your seat then that means you want to forego your meal for sleep and if not they make sure they wake you up during meal time. I wonder whether they have an universal code of conduct on the rule of waking up the passenger during meal time ;-)

Day out at SFO

2007-07-01T12:03:00.000+05:30

I was too bogged down with work past few weeks felt like i need a break. Since I didn't have anything to do this weekend decided to head out to San Francisco. SFO is truly a beautiful, happening and crowded city. Spent some time at Chinatown and then headed off to Fisherman's Wharf. Went on a real amazing bay cruise through the Golden bridge and the Alcatraz island. You really do get some good street performers from the one man bands to awesome dance groups. The variety of food you get from the street shops and the restaurants at Fisherman's Wharf is a real treat. By the time i completed the day i was really tired but enjoyed every minute spent.
Last time when i came to SFO i just got to spend a hour or so and that was also just a drive through SFO. Next time if i do come to San Jose i am definitely going to spend my weekends at SFO. Got some pictures i took at San Jose and SFO uploaded at:http://picasaweb.google.com/pras79/SanFranciscoSanJose

In Santa Clara

2007-06-27T03:35:00.000+05:30

It has been some time since i put any entries in the blogosphere. I was too occupied with work and had to come Santa Clara, California a week before. Didnt get to go anywhere yet other than my work place and then back to my hotel room after work. Sillicon valley is truly an amazing place and this is my 3rd time here. It's so wonderful looking out from my hotel window and seeing some big names around such as Yahoo and Sun Microsystems. The people around here are truly multicultural and you do get quite a lot of asians living and working here. Would be flying back to Srilanka next monday so got a weekend in between to go out somewhere.

Programming WCF Services

2007-04-14T00:34:00.000+05:30

On the technologies released on .NET 3.0, WF was my favourite and i was doing lot of learning and work on WF. The next in line was WCF. Though i knew the concepts, didn't learn it extensively. Finally got a good WCF book named "Programming WCF Services" by Jual Lowy. So planning to finish it hopefully within this month and need to start off a good project where i can use both WCF and WF.

Catching up and Shuffling life

2007-04-14T00:13:00.000+05:30

The past few days got me thinking a lot. Just looking back i wasn't focusing or working as hard as i used to be and was lagging behind in many things. So with the new year, it's an ideal time to look at myself and just shuffle things in life a bit.
I realised i was doing a lot of unproductive work or spending time on people where i am and probably will never be appreciated or understood. So to avoid further problems and to stop myself from feeling bad about it, i need to keep my distance and focus more on things and people that really matter in my life.
There are a lot of things i need to start doing. Got a bunch of technologies in my to do list, which i need to start looking at. I am behind on my MSc that i started and need to put a bit more effort in completing it on time, hopefully. Need to finish up a few articles i was planning to do. Need to focus and do more training sessions as well. So thats a lot of stuff on my plate right now, a bit more than i can handle along with my full time job.
So this might seem like a lot of lamenting which i usually don't do on my blog, but this post is more of a reminder to me to pick up my pace and correct myself.
Oh and Happy Sinhala and Tamil New Year to everyone :)

Custom domain for my blog

2007-04-09T09:50:00.000+05:30

Atlast got my custom domain to work with my blog. So my blog URL is changed to www.prasanna.ws and the earlier URL http://thedeveloper.blogspot.com will redirect to my current blog URL.

Niagara falls

2007-04-08T14:26:00.000+05:30

It has been nearly a week since i came back to Srilanka. Had a really amazing time both in US and Canada. The visit i had to Niagara falls was really amazing and it was splending watching the scenery and the natural wonder of Niagara, though my hands kept freezing with the cold. Got a gallery with some of the pics i took at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pras79/NiagaraFallsCanada?authkey=Z4koMoE4GRo&pli=1

Travelling and Jet lag

2007-03-18T17:56:00.000+05:30

This time my visit to USA involved a whole lot of travelling. I came here for the MVP summit but then had to come to San Jose in California on a work assignment this week. Also visiting my relatives in Minneapolis and Toronto next week. Totally thats 3 weeks away from home and already a week is gone.
So right now I am in San Jose and my sleep is still not regulated where i get up at 3 am and start watching TV and feel very sleepy during the noon time. All that said, i love travelling and its something i enjoy a lot.

MVP Summit 2007

2007-03-18T17:39:00.000+05:30

What a cool week it was at the Microsoft Campus in Seattle. Got to see some awesome people in person like Bill Gates, Somasegar, Anders Hejlsberg and fellow MVPs like Scott Hanselman whom i have met only in blogs. Got to catch up with some old friends as well. The trip wasn't totally geek talk and this time i got to visit some places in Seattle like the Museum of Flights and the Space Needle. All in all it was a great event with the right mix of technology and fun :)

.NET User group meeting-March

2007-03-08T10:33:00.000+05:30

We had the .NET user group meeting yesterday at the NDB auditorium. I did a session on UI customization in Office 2007 using VSTO add-ins, focusing on custom task panes and ribbon customization. Microsoft Office 2007 has a lot of extensibility points where you can create your own custom logic and provided added features. Hope the session was informative for anyone attended

ISV training on WF

2007-03-06T10:59:00.000+05:30

I did a training program for ISVs on Windows Workflow Foundation yesterday. The more i use WF the more hooked i am to this technology. The training program was pretty interesting with a lot of questions fired by the participants. Hope it was informative for everyone and if there are any comments or questions just post a comment here or a message in the DotNet Forum. Do check the .NET 3.0 community site at http://www.netfx3.com

New updates for software on Vista

2007-02-22T09:35:00.000+05:30

For a couple of weeks i haven't been reading the regular blogs i go and read including the MSDN blogs. So yesterday got some time to go through and saw that three Vista related softwares i was looking forward to was released:
The first one is the service pack 2 for SQL Server. This sorts out some issues you get when you run SQL Server 2005 on Vista. This includes the issue i faced where i couldn't connect to the database server without disabling UAC.
The second one is the powershell for Vista is released. I was looking forward to this to try out some functionalities of powershell. There is an issue in the installer so do read through the comments on the link above and follow the steps when you install powershell on vista.
The third one is Virtual PC 2007, which supports Vista as the host and the guest operating system.

LOVE is in the air - 15th Feb

2007-02-14T15:50:00.001+05:30

The Launch of Office Vista and Exchange (LOVE) will be held tomorrow at BMICH. Drop in to see three new very exciting technologies released by Microsoft. You can find more information at http://www.newday.lk/

MVP Global Summit - I will be there

2007-02-14T15:14:00.001+05:30

I will definitely be attending the MVP global summit and finalized the visa procedures. This would be my 3rd trip to the Microsoft campus and it's always exciting being there. I would be staying at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel & Towers. Looking forward to meet all fellow MVPs out there.

Using Google domains

2007-02-05T11:27:00.001+05:30

Last weekend migrated my personal e-mail accounts and two of the domains i had under my name to be hosted at google domains. The experience was ok but had some issues when i tried to set up blogger to use my custom domain. Seems like people having .info domains have some issues setting up blogger to use their custom domain and i am having the same issue with my .ws domain. The e-mail hosting works perfectly, but had some issues with the google page creator in doing tasks such as setting home page and so on.

New look for my Blog

2007-01-21T20:13:00.001+05:30

I have been using the same template for my blog for the past 2 and a half years. I wanted to change it but never got the time. So this weekend upgraded my blog to a new blogger template. Had quite a hard time setting up my comments since i was using comments from HaloScan. Other than that the rest of the stuff were ok and didn't require a major work when i moved to the newer template.

One issue i am having is setting up Windows live writer to use blogger labels for posts. Have been trying to set it up without luck. So now after i publish a post from Windows live writer i have to login to blogger to set the labels. Not very smart, but until i figure it out i have to stick with this.

Windows developer tools day

2007-01-20T18:06:00.001+05:30

It was windows developers tools day yesterday, to draw some attention to the free and open source software (FOSS) tools that helps us in doing development.

If i were to pick one single FOSS tool that made quite a difference in my development experience it definitely has to be NUnit. NUnit is the ultimate tool that brought test driven development (TDD) to the .NET world. As most starting out on test driven development, i was also hesitant when i started out test driven development using NUnit. But the more i used it the more addicted i became to this tool. Though now i use VS.NET 2005 for doing TDD most of the times, still there are occasions i jump back to using NUnit because of its simplicity.

So even now for anyone who wants to start out on TDD, just go to www.nunit.org and download the bits and start using it. You will never do programming the same way again.

PS: And for anyone interested in more useful tools do check out the book "Windows developers power tools" for a whole lot of goodies similar to NUnit

Got my MCT credentials

2007-01-18T11:24:00.001+05:30

Finally i got the notification that i got my MCT. Personally for me it means i can do training sessions with that added confidence that i am a MCT and at the same time pushes me to perform more. I love training and public speaking on Microsoft technologies and wanted to do more of it this year. Hence getting the MCT status is a good boost to my plans for this year

Looking back at 2006 ...

2007-01-01T12:11:00.001+05:30

What a rollercoaster year 2006 was. Worked on some very interesting projects and on a whole bunch of technologies and had to switch a lot between technolgies which i dont mind doing at this stage. One of the best things for this year was my MVP award getting renewed and had a job switch as well. Overall 2006 was a very happening year, and i am happy the way it turned out ... , Now waiting to see how 2007 would be

Deep dive .NET 3.0 - Review

2006-12-11T10:47:00.001+05:30

The deep dive session was held last friday, with Praveen Srivasta doing 2 sessions on Vista for developers and Office for developers , and i did a session on WF (Workflow Foundation).

My session on WF went ok, but i ran out of time and had to skip the demos on State Machine Workflows and XOML only authoring mode. I am very interested in Workflow technologies and i do feel WF is a technology that is as important and cool as WPF and WCF. If anyone have any questions or comments do post here or in the .NET forum.

Deep dive on .NET 3.0

2006-11-28T12:09:00.000+05:30

Time for another deep dive and this time it will be on .NET 3.0 (Along with Vista). This will again be organized by the INETA and CDNUG. It's scheduled on the 8th of December at the Distance Learning Centre. More details coming soon ...

SQL Server woes on Vista

2006-11-27T15:34:00.000+05:30

After i started running all my software on Vista , SQL Server 2005 is the only thing thats giving me a bit of trouble. Tried connecting to my database server using Windows Authentication but i keep getting an invalid login error. For some strange reason analysis server is connecting perfectly but not my database server.

When i disabled UAC and tried connecting again, the connection to my database server works. Not sure if i am missing out something but for the moment whenever i have to connect to my database server i have to disable UAC :( If anyone comes across any solution do post a comment.

PortableApps - Apps anywhere

2006-11-25T16:51:00.000+05:30

I just saw the entry on Hanselman's blog on the PortableApps and decided to give it a try. I installed the standard suite on my 1 GB thumb drive with all the apps and its pretty useful. Configured Thunderbird with my mail settings, Miranda with my regular chat settings and Firefox with the necessary bookmarks of web sites and blogs i frequently visit. It's cool and now i can just connect my thumb drive on any machine and start PortableApps without any software installations or configurations. Definitely will come in handy ...

Boring few days

2006-11-23T18:08:00.000+05:30

I was feeling so sick and down with flu the past few days. Didnt feel good at all with so much work on my plate and after installing Vista and office 2007 , i just had to keep my hands away from my laptop and just sleep. Feeling a bit better today so just decided to blog a bit and catch up on my work...

Realised one thing though, there is not much of life without the internet and my laptop. Sounds scary, but the past few days were just way too boring for me sleeping at home and doing nothing :(

Running on Vista

2006-11-23T17:57:00.000+05:30

Finally migrated all my softwares and development tools i use on to Vista. The process was smooth except for the fact that IIS 7.0 was not recognized by my SQL Server 2005 reporting services. If you run into the same issue do check out this KB article. Other than that the rest of the softwares installed without giving me much trouble and oh yes Vista is pretty awesome.

(Unfortunately no Aero interface for me, since my VGA card in my laptop does not have enough memory to support Aero)

Windows Vista is RTM

2006-11-09T12:30:00.000+05:30

Windows Vista is RTM today. Check out http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs for more details. What is next???

.NET Framework 3.0 released

2006-11-08T12:51:00.000+05:30

Looks like the final version of .NET Framework 3.0 is released. Go check it out at :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=10CC340B-F857-4A14-83F5-25634C3BF043&displaylang=en

Instructional skills and MCT

2006-11-06T22:56:00.000+05:30

I was planning to get my MCT for a long time and finally decided to sink my feet in and spent the last weekend in Hyderabad on the instructional skills training program conducted by Equinox.

The training was conducted at ICRISAT in Pathancheru, and it was a very nice place with good accommodation and facilities for a moderate cost. The training itself was pretty good and very useful. Though earlier i planned to get MCT without attending the training session since i already train at a CTEC, It was a good thing at the end that i decided to attend. Wish i had put a few more days of leave and spent some more time in India, well maybe some other time ...

Tech-Ed was a blast

2006-10-31T12:48:00.000+05:30

Lots of things happening lately and last week we had the tech-ed event at WatersEdge. I got to attend some awesome sessions from top notch speakers like Steve Riley, Chad Hower and Dr.Nitin Paranjape. There were a few hiccups with some sessions rescheduled, but overall it was well worth attending Tech-Ed Srilanka 2006.

MVP Award renewed

2006-10-01T18:18:00.000+05:30

Just got the mail from Microsoft on the renewal of my MVP award for another year. This would be my 3rd year as a MVP and it sure is great being part of the community. So looking forward to another superb year ahead especially with the excitement of Vista, Office 2007 and .NET 3.0 :-)

.NET User group September meeting

2006-09-07T12:25:00.000+05:30

We had the .NET user group meeting for september yesterday and i did a presentation on the Windows mobile 5.0 platform and how to do various tasks using it. I will post the slides soon and if anyone have any questions on the session post a message in the .NET forum

Test blog entry

2006-08-31T09:30:00.000+05:30

This is a test blog entry from windows live writer.

Get ready for Tech.Ed 2006 Srilanka

2006-08-28T10:48:00.000+05:30

Get ready for the biggest technology training and conference for Microsoft technolgies. Be there for learning and networking and be a part of the wave. Check out http://www.teched.lk/ for more details

Triple booting my laptop

2006-08-28T10:25:00.000+05:30

I was planning to format my laptop and get it ready for the next few projects and technolgies i am interested on and need to work on. I needed Ubuntu linux, Windows xp and Windows vista and finally got them installed all.
So right now the GRUB boot loader loads and can choose between ubuntu or the windows boot loader. If windows boot loader is chosen then i get the choice to boot either vista or xp.
Had some problems setting up my thunderbird email client to work with my mails. I want to be able to access my emails and share the same thunderbird profile while i am in ubuntu or one of the windows OS. Finally got that setup as well (Thanks Charith), and now need to install all the development tools and set things up.

Sun developers summit 2006

2006-08-28T10:23:00.000+05:30

Last friday i was at Watersedge at the Sun developer summit 2006. The organizing of the event was not that good and was not properly planned at all. I primaily went for the session on JME development using netbeans ide session but it was cancelled.There were a few silly comparisons made with microsoft technologies, such as saying swing has a data model for componenets and it was better than using the add method to add the data to the components as used in MS technolgies. MS developers do not use add method to add data to components. They use data source and data binding and have been using that to seperate data model from the component(view) for a long time.
A session of interest was the one on project tango on the work done on interoperability between java web services (JWS) and windows communication foundation (WCF).

Gadgets galore

2006-08-07T23:19:00.000+05:30

I wanted to buy a good mp3 player for a long time. After reading some reviews on ipod, though it had the coolness felt it wasn’t what i was looking for. The problems with ipod seemed like poor battery life, gets scratched very easily and the file formats supported by ipod with video was very limited. So finally decided to for the Sansa mp3 player from SanDisk. After using it for a week it seems good enough for me and got to see how it behaves in the long run.
Was looking for a digital camera as well and didnt have any second thoughts in going for the Canon S2 powershot camera. It is pretty awesome and worth for the money.

Working for someone or working for me

2006-08-03T22:22:00.000+05:30

I have been toying with the idea of completely giving off my full time job and getting totally into contracts and working on my own for a long time. I was a bit worried about not having a steady income if i go into contracts leaving my full time job but then again i had to turn down a few opportunities that came by because of the fact i had a full time job. I am right now managing both but spending less time on my contracts. But so far the best exposure and money does come through the contract jobs compared to a full time job.
So when i came across this flash movie "Declaration of Independence", i kept asking myself whether i should take the plunge into being my own boss and working for me.

Long layovers and flight schedules

2006-08-03T22:12:00.000+05:30

I have been ignoring my blog lately the past few days due to some heavy workload. I am still in california and i am supposed to return from here on the 12th of this month. Looks like i will be having a long layover of 18 hours at the tokyo airport and airline agents just confirmed that they cannot provide hotels during that time.
So if anyone knows any good places inside the narita aiport to sleep for 18 hours do let me know.

At the Microsoft campus - Redmond

2006-07-10T18:32:00.000+05:30

I came to redmond yesterday on a work assignment with Lionbridge and will be spending this week at the Microsoft campus. This is my second visit here to the campus and last time had a wonderful time when i came down for some work on the MCPD exams. So hoping for good time this visit too and the weather is much much pleasent than the previous time.

Swinging with Java and Unix

2006-06-25T22:06:00.000+05:30

After a quite a long time got to work again on Java and Unix. The last time i worked on Unix was around 3 years back on a SCO Unix platform when we implemented banking systems along with a company in India. This time my work is mainly on the development area on java swing user interfaces but my work involves using Solaris and Linux platforms. I am a bit behind on my commands in Unix and using the VI editor effectively but catching up very fast.
But my preferred platform and development tools would be the Microsoft platform and the .NET development tools in the coming years, though i wouldnt mind having a taste of the other technologies as well.

Down in California

2006-06-12T01:32:00.000+05:30

I am down in california these days on some work assignments and probably will be here for a month or so. After some time i am working on some none MS technologies these days and that helps me in knowing which areas MS is far ahead and which areas MS is yet to catch on. But uptill now i think the former is a lot than the latter.

Hi .NET 3.0 ... Bye WinFx

2006-06-12T01:24:00.000+05:30

The WinFx is renamed to .NET Framework 3.0. You can find more details on Somasegar’s blog. So according to this i think Orcas is not going to be .NET 3.0 at least the way i see it, and i guess based on this, .NET 3.0 will be using the .NET 2.0 compilers and the new compilers will probably ship in with Orcas(.NET ?.?)
And with that you have the new community sites for WCF, WPF, WF and WCS are available at http://www.netfx3.com/

Vista lab in Singapore

2006-06-02T10:43:00.000+05:30

I was down in Singapore the past week on Vista lab sessions held by Microsoft. It's an exciting time with the launch of Vista beta 2 and Office beta 2. I am still not sure on what i can blog on it so i guess i will have to wait. It was fun and got to interact with a lot of fellow MVPs from India, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philipines and a few other countries. We also had a dinner outing one of the days and a couple of pics during that:

Too busy to blog :-(

2006-06-02T10:33:00.000+05:30

Past few weeks a lot of things have been happening around with some changes in my career and along with that some good and some not so good decisions. So it was kind of a roller coaster ride and was too occupied to do any postings on my blog. So things are kinda getting settled now so thats a good sign and allows me to catch up on my blogging too.

Smart client and VSTO deep dive: Review

2006-04-02T22:33:00.000+06:00

We had a great Smart client and VSTO deep dive event with a good number of participants considering it was the elections the day before that.One thing that was disappointing was a lot of people who registered didnt make it and they blocked out others possibly attending the event.
Dr.Nitin's presentation was awesome and the highlight of the day and i learnt quite a lot from it. It was very inspirational as well and thoroughly enjoyed it.
My presentation on "DataBinding in Smart clients" went okay and anyone interested can download the presentation here and the demos here.

Smart client and VSTO deep dive

2006-03-27T13:28:00.000+06:00

If you live in Srilanka and if you are a developer then make sure you don’t miss out on attending the smart client and VSTO deep dive sessions held at the NDB auditorium in Colombo.
Go to http://dotnetforum.lk/register/deepdive to register

I will be presenting on "DataBinding in Smart Clients" and will be focusing on .NET 2.0 data binding capabilities.
You can also check out www.dotnetforum.lk for more details

TFS is released today

2006-03-17T13:56:00.000+06:00

The TFS is released today. For more details check
http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2006/03/16/553413.aspx

Object Test Bench in VS.NET 2005

2006-03-17T11:28:00.000+06:00

I am not sure how many of you are aware of the object test bench in VS.NET 2005. This allows you to graphically create an instance from a class(object) in your class diagram and execute its methods visually.
Invoking it is as simple as creating a class diagram and dropping your classes there. Then you can right click on a class and go to create instance and invoke a constructor. This will create an instance object and place it in the object test bench. You can right click on this object and invoke instance methods.This is really useful if you need to create, invoke and test objects in isolation.

VSLaunch at Colombo University

2006-03-03T15:26:00.000+06:00

There was a VSLaunch event held yesterday organized by the university of Colombo. I did a session on Language enhancements in .NET 2.0 introducing some new concepts in both VB.NET 8.0 and C# 2.0 for the students at the university. There was quite a good crowd and hopefully the session was useful for all who attended.

LINQ presentation at Students Champ Day

2006-02-13T11:13:00.000+06:00

I did a presentation at the Students Champ day at the region Microsoft office last friday. It was slightly different from the one i did at the user group since i was putting more emphasis on the ORM part with DLINQ. Hope it was informative for anyone who attended the session.

February .NET User Group Meeting

2006-02-09T12:18:00.000+06:00

We had our February .NET user group meeting yesterday and i did a presentation introducing LINQ and its counterparts. I hope anyone attended got a good idea on what to expect in the coming versions of C# and VB.NET
I am planning to do the same session with some different focus at the Students Champ day at the Microsoft regional office.
Meanwhile here are some of the links to get more idea on LINQ
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/linq/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/Future/default.aspx
Also check out the video done by Anders on LINQ
http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=114680
Do post your comments and suggestions on the session

VSLaunch event in Srilanka

2006-02-03T10:34:00.000+06:00

We had the VSLaunch event yesterday in Srilanka and it was quite a blast. Had a King Arthur theme throughout the day and there were some good presentations that got lined up as well. The high capacity crowd showed there were a lot of participants enthusiastic about the VS2005, SQL2005 and BizTalk2005 range of products.

Very funny Blonde Joke

2006-01-20T13:24:00.000+06:00

Had to refer this. This is the best ever blonde joke. Check it out

WCF and WWF Go Live Licenses announced

2006-01-19T11:25:00.000+06:00

WCF and WWF go live licenses are available. Check out the following URLs for more details:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/getthebeta/golive/default.aspx
http://windowscommunication.net
http://windowsworkflow.net
I can smell the RTMs getting closer.

Book: Programming WPF

2006-01-10T11:04:00.000+06:00

Just got my copy of Programming Windows Presentation Foundation by Chris Sells and Ian Griffiths. I still didn't get to read all the chapters but a quick run through the book really impressed me.
When Avalon CTPs were released i installed it and wanted to try it out. But it was difficult getting the resources to try out some programming using XAML and WPF.
Finally i think i can use this book as a guide in trying out some sample programs with WPF and i will post more on this book and things i try out in WPF in the future.

Looking back at 2005

2006-01-02T10:53:00.000+06:00

Thats another year gone in a wink and a dawn of a new year. Personally 2005 was a very happening year. I managed to do a lot of things this year and am pretty satisfied with it. A few being my MVP award was renewed, started doing technical writing and travelled around a lot this year.
Now with 2006 just starting out I need to work out what i want to achieve. I haven’t yet made any plans or anything as such but would be interesting to see what 2006 has in store.

New year wishes

2006-01-01T17:56:00.000+06:00

Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous new year. Hope 2006 makes all your dreams and wishes come true