You know, the thing about RSS is that it's a bit like the advent of the motor car - you miss things. Just as driving around means you don't get to pass the time of day with folk, or discover that tiny little deli you'd never notice from the road, RSS dehumanises the web. For example, I subscribe to the blog of my good …

I have been trying to install the Feb CTP of SQL 2008 on an Virtual PC, but kept getting the following error SQL Server Browser Install for feature 'SQL_Browser_Redist_SqlBrowser_Cpu32' failed with exception System.InvalidOperationException: This access control list is not in canonical form and therefore cannot be …

I will be speaking at the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference in early April on the Business Intelligence features in SQL 2008. I also just found out my Continuous Integration session at Developer Day Scotland has been successful in the vote, thanks to everyone who voted for it.

Ages ago I posted on using MSTest and CruiseControl .NET with VS2005. As I am presenting tomorrow to the Yorkshire Extreme Programming Club on CC.Net I thought it a good idea to revisit this subject with VS2008. Well basically nothing has changed, the old ccnet.config I detailed still works. However, I discovered that …

I was recently working at a client's site where they were using TFS 2008 in a dual server setup. When getting large numbers of files (e.g. a Get Latest for the whole solution of 20+ projects) they were intermittently see 'Invalid file handle' errors. However, if they selected a smaller set of files, or just retried it …

What seems many months ago I ordered an HTC Cruise from Expansys. My old QTEK S100 was literally falling apart. The new phone was supposedly on 4 day delivery, well it took best part of 4 months to arrive (don't you just hate online stock levels and delivery dates that are just wrong) but was the wait worth it? Well I …

To enumerate site collections on a farm:``` SPWebService contentService = SPWebService.ContentService; foreach(SPWebApplication app in contentService.WebApplications) { if (app.Sites.Count > 0) { // pick the first site (root site) SPSite rootSite = app.Sites[0]; Trace.WriteLine(site.Url); } }

Interesting to see that the samples of Silverlight controls have been shipped with associated MSTest projects. I think this is first for Microsoft. Now this is a great way to see the intention behind the way any bit of code was designed. A good test set is far more use than most documentation, as it truly matches the …

IE8 Activities look cool. They're almost like favlets from where I stand, but they offer a very simple way for users to access online services and pass simple parameters. I decided I wanted to play, and we use SharePoint heavily here at Black Marble. The obvious thing to do was to create an activity which would allow …

Well the secret that never was, is out Silverlight 2.0 beta is now out along with a full complement of expression tools in beta , IE 8 has also made a welcome appearance. The visual studio update for silverlight in my Visual Studio list here I will try and do a full breakdown in the next few days, but at the minute too …