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One of the real limitations of BizTalk server (design issue) is the lack of details for when things go wrong - and lets face it there will always be things outside the control of the product, not even mentioning bugs in the product itself. For example, when dealing with plain files (flat files or xml) something that is critical to some people gets lost - the original filename. It is possible to retrieve it through the context of the message inside BizTalk but it has to be done one by one per message...
On many occations I have found myself in need of having an application save application and user settings at Run-Time. In .Net 1.1 there was no built in way of doing it easily and therefore I and many others created custom libraries to do exactly that. Each implemetation had its strengths and weaknesses. Luckily with .Net 2.0 they built something in to help solve this problem but not everyone might be so aware of it. Thanks to the Start page of Visual Studio (that I also mostly ignore most of the...
At last the actual download of Borland's Turbo range of development tools are available now. http://www.borland.com/downloads/download_turbo.html Now to find the bandwidth to download it... Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!
A while ago I needed a quick way to sort a generic collection for testing purposes. I then made a coding challenge on SaDev and with the help of one other member (ratty) got a class that did what I wanted. With this new collection class you can make any Generic collection and then sort on any property by name. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Reflection; public class SortedCollection<T> : List<T> { public void AdvancedSort(string propertyName) { this.Sort(delegate...
There may have been a time when programming was considered just a simple process of writing (or typing more correctly) some source code. Today if you even attempt to just write a 'simple' thing you have to consider dozens of things that are not directly related to writing source code. Things like performance, security, user preferences, office politics, hell even the tea lady that has got something to say by times... The 'art' part of programming is in keeping everyone happy and yourself...
After having a need to update a ListView control after an application loaded (forcing the selected item to be visible) I found that this was not working using the EnsureVisible() method of listviewitem. The application loaded the listview during the form load event and I suppose it was still 'busy' with a lot of other initializing stuff causing the specific listviewitem not to be visible after the whole process - I must admit that some form resizing also takes place during the form loading event...
The IT world is a funny place - that is funny with a nasty twist. Just when you think you have achieved something... some manager decide "oh wait, we don't need this or that system anymore..." which just happen to be something crucial for the development project you were busy with. Don't that just give you that warm and fussy feeling (to go and break their necks!). Why bother to allow the development project progress so far if there were no plans to use any of the work put into it in the first place...
Every now and then after doing some developing and testing on my local BizTalk dev box I need to get the bindings for a specific 'solution' that are not related to any specific assemblies. The usual way would have been running the whole deployment wizard selecting export bindings, no associations, clicking next, next etc. Ok so I got lazy and simply created a batch file that produce an unassociated binding file. The command is simply: btsdeploy EXPORT UNBOUNDPORTS BINDING="<wherever you want the...
After I received a request to have BizTalk(2004) zip files for some application that must have the data compressed I did some research into how to access (read) the original filename if it is available. I came across Stephen Kaufman's blog that listed a whole bunch of the 'built-in' promoted properties. Thanks to this information I was able to create a 'zip' pipeline component that can be used in the encode stage of a send pipeline. The zipping part was done using the open source zip library by Mike...
This is great news for those with legacy apps that for some reason cannot be upgraded to .Net 2.0. Called MSBee that is part of the Powertoys of VS 2005, the tool allows you to build solutions for the .Net 1.1 framework. Here is the link: http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=MSBee It seems that they have proper instructions on how to use it as well. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!
A while ago during a training session (BizTalk 2004 admin) it was just by accident that I came across the fact that BizTalk (2004 and 2006) came with a Windows Shell Extension that allows you to view the installed assemblies. It is similar to the shell extension that allows you to view the CAG but just specific to BizTalk. For some bizare reason it is only included in the developer install in the 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\Developer Tools' directory: The extension filename is...
As part of a test to investigate BizTalk 2006 I ported some relatively simply application from BizTalk 2004 to see how easy it would be... boy, was I wrong about the easy part! In the end it was the 'simple' things that became the problem - doesn't that sound familiar. The first part was easy, porting the schemas - Seemed very easy, just copy the xsd to the new project directory and include in the project. I did not realize it yet but this is where the problem started. Then I discovered that for...
The following is just an opinion (mine) and everyone is welcome to differ. BizTalk server, the product Microsoft ships must be one of the most misunderstood products out there. The mere mention of the name can make some developers laugh and say things like 'that is a waste of a product' or 'I tried it and it was bullsh*t'. BizTalk as a product is more than just a simpler way to do integration development. Few people realize it and even fewer developers... Sure, most of the things that BizTalk can...
Often I've heard people asked this question and some people seem to have their own ways around it. How do you get the original filename as it was picked up by the File Adapter? The answer is inside the BizTalk help file but as usual (with alot of MS products) it is well hidden and you actually have to know what to search for before you can find it. Anyway after some digging around (on google) I came across the proper variable name '%SourceFileName%' and with that information I managed to actually...
Backups are often the last thing some people think of and usually the first they look for when things go wrong... Most applications out 'there' use a single database as a source and backing up the data is a simple matter of backing up that specific database. When you deal with an OLTP system then things get a bit harder as your backups can influence the running system (lock tables etc.). Even that is fairly easy to solve these days with transaction log backups or log shipping. When you get to a system...
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