Well, my reactions to VS.NET are still the same…still amazes me. I started re-creating some of my custom controls, started with the simple ones first, just so I can get “ahead of the game” on this for whenever it goes prime time (PDC?).

Anyways – I love the new data binding methods, which makes it completely easier in both controls & web app development. I did figure out that running as non-admin, well…sucks. You can’t debug (and there’s no VS.NET Debuggers Group that was created) and the ASP.NET Configuration App only works if your an admin – makes sense! Either way, there’s bugs out there still, but pretty stable as of right now for web app and doing minimal stuff. The biggest issue was not being able to debug while not an admin, I guess I’ll just suck it up and run as admin!

So today I decided it was going to be a beta day, well really, I was just going to work in VS.NET 2005’s Nov. CTP distro that was just launched, more on this later. However, prior to lunch I got an email notifying me that I’ve been accepted into the FogBugz 4.0 beta program. Ohh yeah! Now, I’m going to keep Joel’s “Mouth Wide Shut” policy by not discussing anyting about the 4.0 beta, but I do have to say this – its stable, more powerful, and a bunch of new awesome features have been added.

With that said, its time to move onto VS.NET 2005. Wow, this thing gets better and better with each new CTP or beta that is released. I’ve spent some time just working with web apps right now, you know the basics. The one feature that was lacking in the current versions of VS.NET that I now LOVE in VS.NET 2005 is the fact that you have intellisense for custom controls – and without doing anything! By simply adding your Register directive or using the new global Registration for controls, you’ll immediately start seeing intellisense for your custom controls. You don’t realize how many times I as a web control author, have been asked “how come this doesn’t have any intellisense?” I’m also still getting used to the idea of no precompilation of web apps anymore, however I did see that you can “publish” precompiled apps to a location that will allow you to deploy those handy-dandy assemblies instead of source code.

I did notice one bug, and I’ve not read the release notes yet, but the ASP.NET configuration manager doesn’t work – at least not logged on as an admin (still haven’t tried as an admin yet). Also, I’m finally glad that binding data using the ObjectDataSource finally works…thats going to make binding to business objects soooo much easier. Wow, I’m still amazed, now – back to more playing / testing!

So I’m at work and trying to install the November CTP from my one laptop to my test laptop. Here’s a few gotcha’s that you need to know when using Nero Image Drive…

• You cannot connect directly to the virtual drive, you need to share it from your host machine.
• The setup will fail trying to find the file VS_SETUP.MSI if installing across a network address (ie: \\192.168.25.1\vs2k5\vs). To solve this issue map a drive on your test machine to that folder and try re-running the install, works just fine. Odd how this works, bug?
• You have to install all the products in order to not receive an error message – this was posted previously, I just want to reiterate the fact.
• I love that we don’t have pre-reqs anymore!

Update – I can’t get it to install! ERR! Nothing I do makes a difference! Ohh, its not a clean install – any ideas from the MS camp?

Update 2 – Attempting to install the 2.0 framework individually reports that my Windows Installer service cannot be accessed. I just may go with a fresh rebuild – not like I have anything of importance.

Yes, its a outsourcing firm, but all of their careers state that if you’re 25 (well, 2 state 30) years old or older, you probably won’t get hired for a position. The majority of these positions also state that females are preferred.

So, my question is…why on earth would you apply there? It seems to me that there’s an age restriction, and isn’t that a bit against moral conduct when hiring candidates? Sure there’s other requirements for the positions, but hey, your 26…you’re not right for us.

I guess since I’m 23, I better get on the bus now that way I have a good 7 years till I’m fired! BTW – Just kidding, I wouldn’t in my insane (let alone my right) mind apply for anything at this company.

[Via Joel]

This searching is pretty darn cool. Takes it to a new extreme. Thanks for the link Joel!

So I ran across this little article, which looks to have been published on December 7. Whats really cool about this article is that I got 2 honorable mentions, one for my web controls and one for Unleash It.

I think that his article was written quite some time ago, because he aluded to the fact that I’ll be rebranding WebDeploy sometime real soon, but as well all know, rebranding of WebDeploy to Unleash It was done back in August with the first 2.0 release done on September 1. But, thats okay because it still gets that information out there.

Looks like an update I made somewhere along the line broke usage collection for 2.4 via my webservices. So, if you’re like me and wanted to know how much things were getting reported, you’ll probably be missing that data until I figure out whats wrong.

Ohh well, it doesn’t affect Unleash It’s ability to do its primary focus of deploying files, but I sure will miss some good data usage.

Update: This problem has now been fixed. Was an issue encrypting strings using obfuscation. You can re-download 2.4 if you wish, however it is not mandatory.

The time has cometh to release Unleash It 2.4. There are really no major enhancements, however here’s the changelog:

- Added: New update downloader to handle downloading, unzipping, and launching the setup of new versions.
- Added: Horizontal scrolling for listboxes that can have lengthy text.
- Fixed: Memory leak when testing FTP profiles.
- Fixed: Unleash It did not close when downloading new version when Minimize to System Tray on Close was enabled.
- Fixed: Was not closing all readers of VS.NET project files, causing possible file locks on the project file.
- Fixed: Copy Empty Directories was not working correctly if no files existed in a directory.
- Fixed: Intermittent error received when adding the same profile to the same multiple profile.
- Fixed: New plugins were not detected if dropping in the Plugins directory.
- Changed: Password textboxes now use Visual Styles.
- Changed: Updated Skybound.VisualStyles to version 1.5.5

For more information on Unleash It and the link to download, please visit the Unleash It site.