It seems like Microsoft has teams cranking out frameworks left right and center.. the Common Application Blocks, the MVC Framework, and today I came across Microsoft's new .NET RIA Service Framework.

What does it do? A lot! It provides a complete framework for an n-tier Silverlight application that fetches data from some back end store, binds it to the UI, manipulates it and writes it back.

It is a crafty combination of metadata, naming conventions, code generation and classes that helps you wire up the plumbing and handle tasks like change detection, validation, authorization in a very straight forward manner.

I recommend that you check out the technology if you are about to embark on a n-tier Silverlight application and don't want to write all the plumbing yourself!

Our dear friend at Falafel Software Gary Campbell, this week, achieved MCP Certification status (Microsoft Certified Professional) on ASP.NET.  Congratulations Gary! 

Gary has been a solid member of the team working on the latest and greatest of technologies for our customers with great success.

In my previous posts about binding in code behind with WPF, I talked about my helper class that allowed me to quickly create a dependency property within any class and use a number of static functions to quickly bind dependency properties in code behind. So when I took a look at the binding capabilities in Silverlight 2.0 I was disappointed to find out that much of the binding had been stripped out.

Falafel Software is offering an Open Class focused on VBScript training for TestComplete users. This class is ideal for individuals who are new to TestComplete and would like to maximize their test automation efforts by learning how to effectively leverage scripting.

If you would like more information or to discuss lodging please feel free to contact us.

This helper will do the trick:

    public static class FileHelper
    {
        public static void MoveWithOverwrite(string sourceFileName, string targetFileName)
        {
            if (File.Exists(targetFileName))
            {
                if ((File.GetAttributes(targetFileName) & FileAttributes.ReadOnly) == FileAttributes.ReadOnly)
                    File.SetAttributes(targetFileName, FileAttributes.Normal);
                File.Delete(targetFileName);
            }
            File.Move(sourceFileName, targetFileName);
        }
    }

Today I was trying to figure out the Linq syntax to find the max DateTime out of a list of objects that had a ModifiedOn property. Here is what I came up with:

DateTime maxLastModified = list.PickListItems.Items.Max(p => p.ModifiedOn);

Too easy, huh?

Actually, this is not so much Linq as just extension methods and lambda expressions, although one could argue that is what Linq is...I will leave that to the philosphers.

Yesterday I was debugging some SQL Server transaction logic, and came across the following handy command to see which transactions are running:

SELECT * 
FROM sys.dm_tran_session_transactions

Our dear colleague at Falafel Software Brad Divine, this week, achieved MCSD status (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer).  Congratulations Brad! 

Brad just passed the final exam of Software Architecture after passing the ASP.NET, WinForms, XML Web Services and SQL Server exams before then.

Wow!  Two members of the team at Falafel achieved MCSD status in one week, Congratulations to Brad and also to Falafel Software!.

Falafel Software is pleased to announce the launch of training.falafel.com a site detailing Falafel’s available training offerings for Telerik and AutomatedQA products. We’ve recently broadened our training offerings to include Open Classes hosted at our new office location here in Capitola, CA. Booking trainings is quick and easy, here is all you need to do:

Step 1 - Select a class

Step 2 – Choose the type of training

Select the option that best meets the needs of your organization:

• Onsite – a trainer will travel to your office for a 3 days scheduled through Falafel
• Online – over GotoMeeting 5 days, 4 hours each day scheduled through Falafel (same class as the 3 day onsite training)
• Open Classes – attend an Open Class here at our training facility in Capitola, CA
• Webinar’s – Attend on of our 1-2 hour online training sessions.

For Open Classes, Webinar’s and Summit training’s refer to our training calendar for upcoming sessions and Webinar’s.

Step 3 – Contact us to register

Contact us and we’ll be happy to book your training!

For available pricing click here. We have also published a list of trainings that we’ve done since January 2007 here.

Be sure to check out the new site and let us know if you have any questions!