November 2006 - Posts
It is pratically old news at this point, but the RTM version of .NET Framework 3.0 (WinFX) has been released for download. I took the plunge and installed the runtime on my VPS that is used to host this site. This will finally allow me to start hosting some of my pet projects regarding WCF.
Congratulations to the WCF team for reaching a major milestone. The same goes for the other teams (WPF, WF, and Cardspace) even though they aren't as cool as WCF. 
Here are links to the downloads:
.NET 3.0 Framework Runtime (Web Download Bootstrapper)
.NET 3.0 Framework Runtime (Complete Installation Package for x86)
.NET 3.0 Framework Runtime (Complete Installation Package for x64)
.NET 3.0 Framework SDK
Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WCF and WPF (November 2006 CTP)
Visual Studio 2005 Workflow Designer
Earlier today, I posted about an installation issue that I encountered with Vista RC2 on VMWare Server. However, I ran into some more trouble after the installation completed.
After logging into Vista for the first time, Windows could not find the drivers to install the VMWare CD/DVD drive or the VMWare Network Adapter. Consequently, I could not get the virtual machine to connect to a network. This was extremely frustrating and took some playing around with the VM settings to finally get past the problem.
In the past, I have sometimes had trouble with the network adapter not functioning until VMWare Tools were installed. Unfortunately, VMWare Tools refused to install as well. Whenever I clicked on the menu option to install tools from the console, nothing happened. Eventually, I managed to get it to work after a good bit of tweaking configurations and rebooting the virtual machine.
At the time this problem was occurring, I still had two drives to get around the previously mentioned installation error. So, I removed all of the CD/DVD drives. I added only one CD/DVD drive and mapped it to the physical drive of the host machine. After rebooting the virtual machine, VMWare Tools finally installed. Once the installation of VMWare Tools completed and the virtual machine was rebooted again, Windows automatically detected and installed both the VMWare CD/DVD drive and VMWare Network Adapter.
Finally, the CD/DVD drive is working correctly and I have network access on the virtual machine.
Due to the potential of introducing problems into my demos for code camp last month, I delayed upgraded my virtual machine to Vista RC2. Last night, I finally got around to installing it. However, I ran into a small problem.
Almost immediately after starting the installation process, I received an error that a device driver was missing for the CD/DVD drive. Now, I have installed Vista on a virtual machine several times and never experienced this problem. So, I am assuming it is likely some sort of issue specific to RC2 and VMWare Server.
After experimenting with a few different work-arounds, I finally managed to get past the error. If you run into a similar problem, give the following a try:
1) Create your virtual machine through the VMWare Console.
2) Add a second CD/DVD drive to the machine.
3) Map one of the CD/DVD drives to the Vista RC2 iso file.
4) Map the other CD/DVD drive to the physical CD/DVD drive on the host machine.
5) Once you encounter the installation error, go to the Virtual Machine settings and map the second CD/DVD drive to the RC2 iso file. (Do this while the VM is still running).
At this point, the installation detected the drivers that it wanted and continued without issue for the remainder of the process.
Over the course of the next month, I will be dabbling with several different things. Hopefully, time will permit me to share some tidbits of useful information related to these "pet projects".
So, what are these pet projects?
Custom WCF Encoder
I am currently working on a custom WCF encoder. I don't really want to give away what it does yet, but I think it will be pretty useful. Right now, it is one of my lower priority tasks. So, it will probably be another couple of weeks before I am ready to unveil it.
Smart Client Software Factory
It appears that I will be doing some work with the Smart Client Software Factory in the near future. Most everyone that knows much about me understands that I am not much of UI person. Although UI is a very important part of an application, I prefer getting into the guts of back-end processes, services, business logic, etc. However, smart clients are somewhat of an exception since they typically interact heavily with services. It should be some fun work that might possibly tie into WCF. I will be posting some of my experiences with the factory approach.
Niche GUI Concepts
Even though I don't typically play around in the GUI realm, I am currently experimenting with some concepts for the prototype of the interface of an upcoming product. Some of the ideas include a deskbar, appbar, and system tray application. Deskbars typically reside on the Windows Taskbar (think Google Deskbar). Appbar is short for Application Desktop Toolbar. These are usually dockable to the side of your desktop and have the ability to optionally float on top of other windows. Finally, most everyone should be familiar with the good-ole applications that minimize to an icon in the system tray. It has been difficult to find very much useful information about how to achieve some of these UIs in .NET 2.0. So, I plan on sharing some of what I discovered.
Disclaimer:The opinions and views expressed within this blog are solely my own and do not represent those of my employer or anyone else.