I’ve been busy working on some LINQ to SQL (formerly DLINQ) apps that have been going well bar a NullReferenceException thrown at me from deep in the bowels of LINQ and it’s change tracker. A cursory glance in debug showed none of the properties that represent columns were null…

The null was actually a collection property that represented a one-to-many relationship that was automatically created using the foreign key constraints in the database. Normally this is set to an empty EntitySet however I was failing to call the default constructor from my new useful constructor.

Here’s the evolution of what should have been a clean reusable component in .NET and how it becomes a hack thanks to the limitation of the .NET framework.

I’m working on an application where I want two contextual menus on the notify icon. The right one will display a number of options for settings and creating new items and the left to switch between the various items.

Linux vendor Red Hat have released a font family named Liberation under a GPL license.

The family consists of three typefaces known as Liberation Serif, Liberation Sans and Liberation Mono each in normal, italic, bold and bold italic variants. The fonts are not hinted in this initial release so may not look too great on-screen at some sizes. Red Hat expect to release better-looking hinted versions in the future. Having attempted hinting Envy Code R font myself they have my sympathy.

LINQ to SQL (formerly called DLINQ) is a simple object-relational mapper (ORM) scheduled for .NET Framework 3.5/Visual Studio 2007 (Orcas).

On projects with new data I’m keen on keeping the tables and classes as similar as possible and so the limited functionality of LINQ to SQL really appeals to me.

This presentation is now available on-line.

I will be giving a talk entitled “Change management with Subversion” at the Guernsey Developer User Group later this month.

It must be that time again already… here we go!

Everyone needs a calendar to hand. In Windows using the time in system bar seems to be the quickest option although it’s obviously not meant for that and one false click sends you to the future.

I first encountered the Gang of Four Design Patterns book back in 2001 when a friend lent me a copy. I didn’t immediately get it, most likely because my object oriented experience up to that point consisted primarily of small Delphi applications.

In the last few years I’ve been working on much larger systems and have come to appreciate design patterns enough to get my own copy and also to invest in Martin Fowler’s excellent Patterns of Enterprise Architecture which provides higher-level patterns aimed at large data-driven applications.

It surprises and annoys me when I hear of individuals or companies trying to use the law to hide secrets. Surprise at the sheer stupidity and annoyance that tax payers money is used in the process.

The latest secret under suppression is a short 16-byte key which locks away the content on HD-DVD discs that only licensed software and hardware can play it back and prevent you from making copies.

My friends and I have been very much enjoying Guitar Hero II on the Xbox 360 released earlier this month.

Despite reservations we’ve found ourselves jumping around performing a variety of silly stances, head bops and special moves whilst we attempt to strum ‘n chord in time to the tricky yet rewarding tracks available. Once we got a second guitar and hit the co-operative (one bass, one lead) and VS modes (turns each or both together) then out-performing the other player off-screen as well as on became an integral part of the game.

Vista and Office 2007 are interesting as they provide major user interface work that also includes new sets of fonts. I thought it would be interesting to show the evolution of the various styles.

Times New Roman has been the default typeface in Microsoft Word since version 1 and was originally designed for printing newspapers on high speed printing machines whilst still retaining legibility.