Northwind Community Edition download

  • September 22, 2010
  • James Skemp
This article is primarily for personal reference. The Northwind sample database setup scripts can be download from the CodePlex project Northwind Community Edition. Sadly, that project is dead, but the original script can be found by going to Source Code, browsing the code, and checking in the Original Northwind Scripts directory. It contains both views and procedures, but there is Microsoft SQL Server Community Projects & Samples page. Sadly, the links on the official Express page no longer work for the sample databases.

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RESTful WCF Web services, easily

  • June 15, 2010
  • James Skemp
I know I should know them better so I've been looking into WCF Web services, with a heavy lean towards an implementation based on REST principles. After a good deal of research, where it was highly suggested that while ASP.NET MVC may make sense, WCF is still the way to go for Web services, I stumbled upon WCF WebHttp Services, which uses functionality released in .NET 4. After a painless install via Visual Studio 2010's Extension Manager (more information), and troubleshooting a stupid mistake on my end, I was able to quickly create a Web service that uses an assembly I had created to parse one of my iTunes Playlists to Xml files and return a listing of tracks for a particular artist.

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Dead? The digital download is barely out of its teens

  • May 22, 2010
  • James Skemp
Yesterday Slate posted an article by Farhad Manjoo titled The Digital Download Is Dead: How Google's music-streaming venture will change the gadget and entertainment worlds forever. After first, rightly, attacking Apple's iTunes and iPod (and related) platforms as being slow and unwieldy, especially on the predominate operating system Windows (not even mentioning Linux), and overall behind on the times, Farhad moves us from syncing our music collections out to the cloud.

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Review: Beginning ASP.NET 4 In C# and VB

  • March 28, 2010
  • James Skemp
The following book review is for Imar Spaanjaars' Beginning ASP.NET 4 in C# and VB. While I've already read Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 by Imar Spaanjaars and moved rather far beyond it, when I had the opportunity to recieve his new book on ASP.NET 4 for review, I took it. Would I still feel strongly about recommending his work as *the* #1 choice for those new (or relatively new) to ASP.

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iPod Touch, netbooks, laptops, and desktops

  • February 21, 2010
  • James Skemp
For the last handful of months I've been thinking about accessing the Internet, and otherwise being productive, while on the go. A number of months back I picked up an HP device with Windows Mobile, unfortunately, after a few months the short battery life and inability to run the applications I wanted/needed to be truly productive forced me to sell it and start looking elsewhere ... iPod Touch The iPhone had been out for a while when I started looking at what an iPod Touch could offer.

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System.Text.StringBuilder.Remove() overhead

  • June 28, 2009
  • James Skemp
While working on a new version of my iTunes Playlists to Xml application, I've been playing around with the existing code, for consolidation and speed. While looking at memory usage, I played around with the StringBuilder I'm using to create the Xml output. As part of this I tried using Remove, once I had output the Xml, but experienced a large increase in used memory, after doing this. StringBuilder someSB = new StringBuilder(); someSB.

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Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition on Sun VirtualBox 2.2.4 - Notes

  • June 27, 2009
  • James Skemp
As part of a test environment, I setup Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition, both the core and full installations, using Sun VirtualBox 2.2.4. Here are a couple of notes on the base installs. With the core install, it's not immediately obvious, but you need to select Other User once the system is installed, and enter Administrator for the username, with no password. As soon as you log in, you'll be prompted to add a password.

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Programmatic MSSQL data source in ASP.NET (C#) without System.Web

  • June 6, 2009
  • James Skemp
In a similar article I detailed how I was doing programmatic access of Microsoft SQL Server. However, on another project I was creating a class in App_Code. Using my method required the use of a couple additional namespaces from System.Web. That seemed a bit excessive. So I did some digging around and came up with what I believe is a better solution, for use in classes/non-Web code. First, the following must be included in.

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Programmatic MSSQL data source in ASP.NET (C#)

  • June 1, 2009
  • James Skemp
I keep having to search through code to find it, so, since writing about it makes it easier for me to find … here’s how I’ve been programmatically making calls to Microsoft SQL Server. If I’m doing something wrong, please comment below or send me an email. Some times have been changed to dummy values. SqlDataSource dataSource = new SqlDataSource(); dataSource.ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ConnectionString"].ConnectionString; dataSource.SelectCommand = "stored_proc"; dataSource.SelectCommandType = SqlDataSourceCommandType.StoredProcedure; dataSource.SelectParameters.Add("id", value); dataSource.

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The Wii for gamers

  • February 5, 2009
  • James Skemp
"Seriously considering purchasing a Wii (and only playing virtual console games)" - James Skemp In the February 2009 edition of GameInformer, they have an article titled "Hardcore Gamer's Guide to the Wii." In that same issue, on the ratings page, there is one Wii game with an 8.5. The next highest is 8.25, followed by a number of 7.75s. Since GameInformer is a magazine for gamers, I therefore make the claim that the article should have been titled "Gamer's Guide to the Wii" (note the missing word).

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