some thoughts... - Development|.Net

some interesting tools for KPI support

Markus Fischer — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:10:02 GMT

A long time ago - February and March 2006 - Eugene Asahara has posted two very intersting articles about

The "KPI Cause and Effect Visio Graph" is a very useful visualization tool to diskuss KPI´s with the prospective users whereas the "KPIRelationships sample application" is a very smart tool to control if all perspectives, KPI´s, etc are developed and have the right definitions.

This two articles are a really must-read and Eugene also provides the tools for download - so check it out!

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Visual Studio 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Posters

Markus Fischer — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:25:16 GMT

Microsoft provides some useful nice stuff for download:

"Keyboard shortcuts can help increase productivity when performing certain tasks within the Visual Studio 2005 IDE (Integrated Development Environment). This wall poster provides the shortcut and associated description for the default key bindings setup in the Visual Basic 2005 profile. The poster is provided here in both color and grayscale for you to print locally as a PDF file."

Download, print, place it near your keyboard and save time:

Visual Basic 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster

Visual C# 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster

Visual C++ 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster

Microsoft, what about providing that for the Business Intelligence Developer Studio and the SQL Server Management Studion also??
:-)

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Free E-Learning courses from Microsoft

Markus Fischer — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 05:33:53 GMT

Free E-Learning courses from Microsoft: - SQL Server 2005 - Sharepoint Technology - Visual Studio 2005 and .Net 3.0

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Writing Custom Code in SQL Server Reporting Services

Klaus Hoeltgen — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 00:40:08 GMT

This article shows how easy it really is to write custom code for SQL Server Reporting Services

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Brian Welcker: Updating Linked Report Page Settings [Updated...]

Markus Fischer — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 19:02:18 GMT

Brian Welcker has published a coding to programmatically set the page size properties of a linked report. The feature doing linked reports worked well in Reporting Services 2000, because the linked report got the page settings from the original report but in RS 2005 this feature just was "forgotten", as Brian admits in this article. The following content is intellectual property of Brian Welcker, the original posting can be found here

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

SMO - a little introduction

Markus Fischer — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 13:55:09 GMT

Definition from the SQL Server 2005 Product Guide: "SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) is the management object model for SQL Server 2005. SMO represents significant design and architectural improvements for the SQL Server management object model. It is a simple to use but rich object model that is based on .NET Framework managed code. SMO is the primary tool for developing database management applications using the .NET Framework. SMO is used extensively by SQL Server Management Studio. Every administrative action that you can perform in SQL Server Management Studio, you can also accomplish by using SMO. The new SMO object model and the WMI APIs replace SQL-DMO. Where possible, SMO incorporates similar objects as those in SQL-DMO for ease of use. You can still use SQL Server 2005 with SQL-DMO, but SQL-DMO will not be updated to manage features that are specific to SQL Server 2005.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Workaround for User!UserID in Reporting Services

Markus Fischer — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:51:41 GMT

Identifying the User during runtime sometimes can be usefull for your report header or footer, can be used to filter data or for parameters, and so on but it bars users from subscribing to reports, because Reporting Services is not able to identify the user from the subscription. Brian Cooper had published a workaround for the known issue coming around using User!UserID in Reporting Services, but the content is gone...I discovered that during a discussion at the MSDN forum about the problem with User!UserID in datadriven subscriptions. Jan Pieter Posthuma remembered the code and had the correct hint to solve this problem - many thanks!

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

AMO - a little introduction

Markus Fischer — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 11:49:21 GMT

Definition from the SQL Server 2005 Product Guide:

"Analysis Management Objects (AMO) allows client applications to access the range of administrative commands and capabilities that are available to Analysis Services by using an object library that can provide object-level validation capabilities. This is an alternative to manually generating both the DDL scripts for Analysis commands and the often-lengthy contents of the ASSL ObjectDefinition element. Applications that use AMO can either connect and work directly with objects on an Analysis Services instance, or they can create such objects without an existing connection and persist the metadata for later deployment. AMO also “wraps” Analysis Services Scripting Language (ASSL) commands and elements."

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Management Objects Collection from the Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - April 2006

Introducing AMO Concepts

Readme for AMOBrowser Sample

AMO Security Classes

Programming AMO Security Objects

Analysis Services Concepts and Objects

Permissions and Access Rights (SSAS)

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Developer Ressources Microsoft Office System 2007

Markus Fischer — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:24:46 GMT

Damir Tomicic has blogged a long and informative list about Developer Ressources for Microsoft Office System 2007. Kay Giza blogged about two Office developer Posters available for download: Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 Managed Object Model Poster Developer Map for SharePoint Products and Technologies Poster and about a strategy briefing by Chris Capossela (Corporate Vice President, Microsoft), which also is available for as a IT´s Showtime session.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Project REAL—Business Intelligence in Practice

Markus Fischer — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:59:25 GMT

You surely know "Project REAL", the SQL Server 2005 reference implementation at Barnes & Noble. It contains information on all upcoming topics in a BI project.

And now...
your are not only able to read about it - you are able to download a whole subset of the project REAL data and the various parts of the implementation

Extract from the website:
"The kit contains:

1. A set of instructions for setting up the environment
2. Guidance on how to explore the implementation
3. A sample relational data warehouse database (a subset of the Project REAL data warehouse)
4. A sample source database (from which we pull incremental updates)
5. SSIS packages that implement the ETL operations
6. An SSAS cube definition and scripts for processing the cube from the sample warehouse
7. Sample SSRS reports
8. Sample data mining models for predicting out-of-stock conditions in stores
9. Sample client views in briefing books for the Proclarity and Panorama BI front-end tools

This kit will guide you through the key points to observe in the Project REAL implementation. Use it to learn and to get ideas for your own implementation. (While we believe it represents a very good design and generally follows best practices, it should not be regarded as the solution for every BI situation.) It will be helpful to see the overview presentations about the BI tools in SQL Server, or read documentation, before exploring the kit. One good source of information is to go through the tutorials that ship with SQL Server (the tutorials are installed when you select “Workstation components, Books Online and development tools” at installation time)."

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Scriptio - Scripting Objects in SQL Server 2005

Markus Fischer — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 19:35:41 GMT

Bill Graziano has developed a tool called Scriptio which is available for download as ClickOnce-Application and as source code (version 0.5.1.0).

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

101 Code Samples for Visual Basic and C#

Markus Fischer — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:47:24 GMT

"101 Code Samples for Visual Basic and C#" available for download at the Microsoft Download Center.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Deploying a SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 report via an MSI

Markus Fischer — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 03:00:25 GMT

Russell Christopher has written a step-by-step description on how to create a MSI-package to install Reporting Services Reports. A download of the sample MSI solution is also included in the post.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Student Technologie Conference 2005

Markus Fischer — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 02:30:17 GMT

Sorry, German only... Die Slides der Student Technologie Conference 2005 stehen zum Download zur Verfügung.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Learning .Net 2.0 - especially ASP.Net

Markus Fischer — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 01:38:53 GMT

Here are some ressources to enable a "deep dive" into .Net 2.0 and ASP.Net 2.0

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

ASP.NET 2.0 - Mitglieder- und Rollenverwaltung mit IIS

Markus Fischer — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 22:43:19 GMT

Sorry, German only...

ASP.Net 2.0 macht ja vieles einfacher - aber man muss auch wissen, wie... :-)

Im MSDN gibt es zur "eingebauten" Mitglieder- und Rollenverwaltung eine kleine Artikelserie, die eigentlich keine Fragen mehr offen lassen sollte

ASP.NET 2.0 ? Mitglieder- und Rollenverwaltung mit IIS, Teil 1: Übersicht über Sicherheit und Konfiguration

ASP.NET 2.0 ? Mitglieder- und Rollenverwaltung mit IIS, Teil 2: Implementierung

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

ReportViewer control

Markus Fischer — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 21:10:22 GMT

You shurely know, that Microsoft provides a control to display reports in your own applications without just linking to the SQL Server Reporting Services by http or SOAP. It is a little bit difficult to understand how this control works and especially the difference between the remote mode and the local mode needs to be clarified, I think...

It´s a pity that the the ReportViewer control cannot be extended by adding custom renderers or custom report items - that is the only disadvantage.

Here are some links, that should bring up light into the dark:

Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable 2005
[As a german developer you will need the Microsoft Report Viewer 2005 Language Pack Deutsch to bring up the right screen messages]

http://www.gotreportviewer.com/, which provides informations and sample codes to give a quick start. Especially the difference between local mode and remote mode is described clearly.

MSDN article about ReportViewer Controls (Visual Studio)

MSDN Forum: Visual Studio Report Controls

Teo Lachev, Building Report-enabled Applications with the New ReportViewer Controls (Part 1 of 2)

Teo Lachev, Building Report-enabled Applications with the New ReportViewer Controls (Part 2 of 2)

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Please Wait - Building a WaitScreen control for ASP.NET - by Daniel Fisher

Markus Fischer — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 20:52:52 GMT

If you would like to build a Wait-Screen in your own ASP.Net Application like it is for example in Reporting Services you should have a look at the posting of Daniel Fisher/. He describes every step it takes to implement it in a clear and detailed way that even I could understand it... ;-) Thanks, Daniel!

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

CommunityCast: SQL Server 2005 - CLR Entwicklung

Markus Fischer — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 11:03:12 GMT

Sorry, German only...

Auf den Seiten des PASS Deutschland e.V. steht ein CommunityCast von Sebastian Weber zum Thema "SQL Server 2005 - CLR Entwicklung" zum Ansehen und zum Download zur Verfügung.

Am 02.03.2006 ab 19.00 Uhr wird es ebenfalls unter dieser Adresse eine Möglichkeit zum Chat mit Sebastian Weber geben, in dem entsprechende Fragen zum Thema CLR Entwicklung gestellt werden können.

Viel Spaß mit dem CommunityCast und herzlichen Dank an Sebastian Weber!

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Conditional Formating in Reporting Services

Markus Fischer — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:14:10 GMT

If you want to have changing colors in the background of your details of your report, for example first row grey, second white and so on, you should use this expression:

=IIF(RowNumber(Nothing) mod 2=0,"#FFFFFF","#E8E8E8")

Sam Batterman - a Business Intelligence Evangelist with Microsoft Corporation in Malvern, Pennsylvania - has posted interesting approaches for conditional formatings in his blog.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Smart Client Concept

Markus Fischer — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:09:09 GMT

Some links to be able to understand the Smart Client Concept from Microsoft:

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

MSDN: Convert VBA Code to Visual Basic When Migrating to Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

Markus Fischer — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:14:12 GMT

There are some usefull hints in thi s article "Convert VBA Code to Visual Basic When Migrating to Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office"

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Developing Webparts

Markus Fischer — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:55:41 GMT

Some MSDN articles about developing webparts

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Steffen erklärt BizTalk

Markus Fischer — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 22:08:09 GMT

Sorry, German only... Aus der Reihe "Steffen (unser deutscher SQL Evangelist) erklärt die Welt": Ist BizTalk ein Workflow-System? Und wer mehr darüber erfahren will, wann er welches MS Produkt für Daten- und Systemintegration einsetzen sollte, dem sei Steffens TechNet Webcast "Welches Microsoft-Integrationsprodukt wofür? - Teil 1 (Level 100)" ans Herz gelegt.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

MSDN Webcast: IIS 6 für den Web Entwickler

Markus Fischer — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 17:12:50 GMT

Sorry, German only... IIS 6 für den Web Entwickler "Dieser Webcast zeigt, wie man die IIS Dienste wie Web, Mail und FTP konfiguriert und zeigt mögliche Stolpersteine auf. Anhand einer üblichen ASP.NET Web Anwendung werden die notwendigen Schritte von der Installation bis zur Wartung gezeigt."

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Introduction to Indigo

Markus Fischer — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 13:34:27 GMT

Dirk´s blog contains a real interesting entry to get started with Indigo

Here are the links:

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Enhancing Java/J2EE Applications with Microsoft .NET

Markus Fischer — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 00:28:15 GMT

Microsoft provides some interesting links about the co-existence of Microsoft .NET and J2EE technologies. You should also have a look at the white papers and case studies.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

DotNetNuke vs. SharePoint

Markus Fischer — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 23:21:34 GMT

Bill Simser has written a long article called "DotNetNuke vs. SharePoint, the big showdown" which gives a real good view on this both "platforms".

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Reporting Services Custom Data Source

Markus Fischer — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 22:47:50 GMT

MSDN provides an article called "Using an ADO.NET DataSet as a Reporting Services Data Source" to provide informations on how to build a data processing extension for Reporting Services that enables to use an ADO.NET DataSet as a data source. There also is a project available at GotDotNet by Te Lachev called "Custom Dataset Data Extension for Microsoft Reporting Services".

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

How can you tell if a “Web Service” really is a Web Service?

Markus Fischer — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 22:12:20 GMT

Simon Guest (blogname smguest) tries to give a 10-point definition about a "real" webservice in this article

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Visual Studio .NET Web Control for Business Intelligence

Markus Fischer — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 16:00:26 GMT

Visual Studio .NET Web Control for Business Intelligence

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Application Blocks

Markus Fischer — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 15:49:57 GMT

The MSDN Webcast Leveraging Application Blocks in Your Application Development by Aaron Suzuki will be a good intrduction to this topic The Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 1.1 will also be a usefull resource, especially the Data Access Application Block will be worth a click...

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

VB.Net 2005 Downloads

Markus Fischer — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 22:37:19 GMT

Starter Kits, Codes, Snippets, Tools - all available in this Download section.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!

Migration from PHP to ASP.NET

Markus Fischer — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 20:52:07 GMT

MS provides a complete Migration Guide here, which also includes a Migration Assistant.

This weblog is sponsored by FITS.
We support PASS Germany!