I notice that the latest Australian MSDN Flash from Frank Arrigo mentions IdeaBlade DevForce, a (quite mature) object-relational mapping tool: Complimentary DevForce Express Cut down the time you spend developing data-intensive client/server applications. Get IdeaBlade's DevForce Express, a developer productivity solution for .NET that is fully integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio. DevForce: helps professional developers build, maintain, and operate smart client Internet applications by bridging the infrastructure gap between the Application layer and .NET. The solution is a "must have" for .NET development that will improve your productivity and increase application quality, reduce overall costs, and accelerate time-to-market. I have been using the...

There was a question posted on the AUS-DOTNET mailing list a while back asking how people keep their SQL Server database schemas in sync between development and production servers. I reckon the tasks of: a) keeping your test server up-to-date with production changes and/or b) rolling changes from test to production in a controlled manner ...would have to be one of the greatest needs for developers (and this problem just screams for a tool/utility to take care of it). I've observed that some people have the solution of never using Enterprise Manager to do any design or make any changes and instead script everything;...

Jeff Atwood posts about a word often meaning more than an icon in a UI (see his post for a hilarious picture of Word with all the possible toolbars open). His post raised an "Amen!" from me; lucky I'm alone in my office today! I take Jeff's point further - I can't even begin to think how many times I've opened a downloaded app to be faced with a "mystery meat"/"russian roulette" interface like I've hastily put together below: This isn't to denigrate developers or programmers or even user interface specialists who have had a hand in programs like Word, FreeMind,...

Last night's Melbourne SQL Server Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting was presented by Peter Myers on "Developing, deploying and managing a SQL Server Integration Services implementation" (view event details on sqlserver.org.au or download a pdf of the slides). SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is the successor to Data Transformation Services (DTS) in SQL Server 2000 - a technology I use every other day - so I was most interested in what Peter had to say. It was also the first SIG for this year, and so it's good to get back into SQL Server and hear about the new version (which...

Code Camp Oz is back on again in Wagga - the tentative timetable is up, and looks good. I'm focused on AJAX and ASP right now because of my current big project, but also WPF and LINQ look interesting, and anything SQL Server is always worth listening to especially if Greg Low is involved. I'm still not too excited by Team System (I read somewhere that "team system was the porsche of version control"...but can't find the link). I notice there's also a speaker out from the U.S. which should be good. So yes Geoff, I'm planning on going and can't wait - I...

I wrote ranted some time back, in relation to having sample code come wrapped up in an MSI package: Maybe my next task should be to find a way to examine and extract the contents of MSI packages...or maybe to shut up and be grateful for the sample reports...grumble grumble grumble... Greg today pointed out a tool to extract the contents of MSI packages (and it comes with source, too) called Less MSIérables. Great! Public service announcement: On an OT note, I have been on holidays. I'm now back.