AnkhSVN 2.0 Released - How’s it look?

When I first started using Subversion full time for all of my personal projects, I stuck with the VisualSVN server and AnkhSVN as a Visual Studio client.  Both were free, easy to install, and easy to use.

However, after a few weeks, the AnkhSVN client could almost be called “annoying.”  It trampled over the existing SCC plugins for SourceSafe (for work) and made a mess out of several of my project uploads.  I ended up going back to using TortioiseSVN and doing everything through Explorer.

When AnkhSVN 2.0 was released, I figured I’d give it another shot.

The site claims quite a bit—including several unique additions:

• Pending changes window; subversion status and commands available in one place
• Full support for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008; AnkhSVN is now a SCC package instead of just an addin
• Better log viewer
• Merge support
• Property editor
• AnkhSVN now supports most project types previously unsupported via the SCC api
• All solution explorer actions (rename, copy&paste, drag&drop) keep subversion history now
• Enhanced build process and setup
• Automatic check for updates
• And last but certainly not least end user documentation

All of those look great—especially the SCC package and changes window.  But how does it compare once installed?

After installation and starting up VS2008, everything looks normal.

Brief Look

Pending Changes Window

The new pending changes window is FANTASTIC—much improved over the old 1.x versions.  I did run into a snafu when trying to resize the window where the scrollbars didn’t update on the screen; however, I’m not sure if it’s a VSS or AnkhSVN issue.

SCC Package

Under Options > Source Control, AnkhSVN shows up just like it should.

What does boggle me is that all of the Subversion commands and menus are available no matter what—even when the VSS SCC is enabled.  It still has the stink of VSS and SVN trying to step on one another (“pick me! control your project with me! no, I’m better! pick me!”).

Log/History Viewer

I really like the new history viewer.  It’s clean and easy to read; however, if you change the options at the top—there doesn’t appear to be a way to “change it back” and see the history again, close the view and review.

Annoyances

• Opening a project from Subversion (File > Subversion > Open from Subversion) will open a project just fine, copy it down, but never opens it.  You have to go back and open the solution after it’s created the local structure.  Not huge, but annoying.
• When viewing history; you cannot view the history of a single file (that I’ve found) in the Repository Explorer. 

I’m still planning to give it a whirl for the next couple of weeks and see what happens.  Hopefully over a couple weeks I’ll have more time to code—it’s been a busy July so far!

Tags: AnhkSVN, Visual+Studio+2008, SCC

ReSharper 4.0 is now RC!

The first RC for ReSharper 4.0 is out—pick it up! Nice!

Tags: ReSharper, Visual+Studio+2008

Adding Multiple System Monitors ala Perfmon

I use Perfmon a LOT. 

The logging and diagnostic software provided to us is, well, it’s just not that great.  Very slow to use and get around and every time I want a specific counter, I have to go ask for it because it’s someone’s “job” to add those. Ugh.  That’s no way to live.

Until now, I typically have a Perfmon console for each of my major application and SQL servers.  Why?  Because I was never smart enough to figure out how to add additional System Monitor controls into a single performance console.

Well, now I figured it out!

• File > Add/Remove Snap-in
• Click Add…
• Select the ActiveX Control

• A Wizard will start; scroll down and select System Monitor Control

• Give your new counter a name!
• Repeat this until you’ve added your servers.  From there, configure each System Monitor control as needed.

From here, you can either add counters manually or use this brilliant PowerShell script.

Tags: Perfmon, Windows+Server, System+Monitor

FireFox 3.0 Release Candidate 1 Hits the Wire

I’ve moved from the last beta up to release candidate 1 of FireFox 3 and am quite impressed.  You can read all about the latest version here.  FireFox opens up just as quick (if not quicker) on first run than IE 7 (on Vista). 

NoScript, the latest del.icio.us, IETab, and Adblock Plus all work like a champ. 

I also like the very compact theme that they’ve packaged with RC1–-Strata.

The coolest “tip” that I’ve found is the “Undo Close Tab”—did FireFox 2 have this?  I need to look sometime.  In the tab bar (when tabs are open or if you have it visible all the time), the “Undo Close Tab” reopens and rebrowses to wherever the last … well, closed tab was… brilliant for those times you accidently close the wrong tab!

I’ve browsed around a few dozen sights, dinked with some of the AJAX idea sides, and so far so good regarding rendering.  I’m pleased with this release so far.

Tags: FireFox3, Release+Candidate

TIP : Extracting Files from an MSI File

Ever had an MSI file that you needed a library or something out of, but didn’t want to install it?  Amazingly enough, you CAN get to those files.

The Windows Installer (msiexec.exe) can be ran at the command line to extract files directly using an administrative install.

How?

msiexec /a “YourMSIPackage.msi” /qb TARGETDIR=”DRIVE:\YourTargetPath”

Switches used:

/a – Administrative installation
/qb – Basic UI (simple GUI progress bar)

This is a lot easier than hacking it using WinRAR.

Tags: MSI, Windows+Installer

Using the CLR Profiler with VS2008 Web Projects

Download CLR Profiler for .NET 2.0 Framework.

The CLR profiler is great; it’s sweet to be able to see where memory is allocated and how well objects are disposed of (and whether or not I missed something that GC just isn’t catching). 

The form is pretty easy to use, but there’s a bit of a trick for VS 2008 web application profiling when using the built-in Web Development Server.

NOTE:  This isn’t anything like the ANTS Profiler (which I wish I had a license for, but don’t).  ANTS will tell you where code slowdowns are and more, this simply returns back histographs of object usage, memory, and the stack/heap.  Still very useful none the less.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Download the CLR profiler (see the link at the beginning of this article or click here).

2. Extract the profiler into a directory (it defaults to C:\CLRProfiler); it will extract two directory structures (binaries, source) and a readme document.

3. To start using the application immediately, browse into the Binaries directory and execute the CLRProfiler. 

Use the x86 version. I haven’t been able to get the x64 version to work correctly (even though I’m on a x64 machine) when profiling .NET web applications ala the built-in web development server.

4. Under File > Set Parameters, modify the “Command Line” to reflect the parameters required to start the built-in web development server.  After the parameters have been set, click OK.

Usually, you have a Port parameter and a Path parameter.  Here’s an example:

/port:1234 /path:“J:\Projects\Work\Current\ERC\web\”

5. Click ‘Start Application’.  A browse window will open.  Visual Studio 2008’s web development server is located in the Common Files directory.

%CommonProgramFiles%
    \Microsoft Shared\DevServer\9.0
or
%CommonProgramFiles(x86)
    \Microsoft Shared\DevServer\9.0

6. After selecting the WebDev.WebServer.Exe application file, your server will kick off with the parameters you set.

Now you’re ready to open up a web browser, begin browsing around, and evaluate your application.  When finished, click the ‘Kill Application’ button on the Profiler or simply close the WebServer application.

Tags: CLRProfiler, .net+2.0, .net+3.5, vs2008

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 SP1 Beta

The blogs are abuzz this morning after the first beta release of the VS2008 and .NET 3.5 SP1.   Download it here.

In my opinion, this isn’t a service pack—this is a new version!

There are quite a few bug fixes (what you normally associate with a service pack), but also a huge list of new additions and improvements.

From Somasegar:

Traditionally our service packs address a range of issues found both through customer and partner feedback as well as our own internal testing.  While this service pack holds true to that theme and delivers updates for these types of issues, it also builds on the tremendous value that Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 deliver today and enables an improved developer experience by adding a number of additional components that cover a range of highly requested customer features. For example, the service pack is the first release for Visual Studio 2008 that delivers full support for SQL Server 2008 and the ADO.NET Entity Framework.

I’ve posted a few links at the end of the post to the more extensive sources right now, take a look and get ready for the plunge.

So, what am I most excited about?

• ADO.NET Entity Framework – I’m hoping that the “real” release motivates Oracle to develop provides for the entity framework and my dream of LINQ-esque connections to Oracle will be realized.
• ASP.NET Routing Engine – As the MVC framework gets closer to a production reality, it’s very motivating to see the underpinnings already in place.
• VS2008 Performance Improvements – Anything has to be an improvement.
• JavaScript Code Formatting – Sweet, now if I can only get JavaScript intellisense to work.
• LINQ Debug Support – Very nice, love seeing the generated SQL right there at debug time.

There are also lots of updates to WCF and WPF.  Hopefully this summer I’ll have more time to use these .NET 3.0 technologies and maybe be a bit more excited.

Visual Studio 2008 GUI/Tools

The Web Developer Tools team has released a comprehensive list of designer bug fixes, IIS templates and modules, formatting changes, intellisense upgrades, and more on their blog.

MVC and URL Routing

Phil Haack details the effects of the URL routing changes on the MVC Preview releases as well as how it affects the upcoming Preview 3.

Everything

ScottGu, as always does an excellent job tying everything up together—designer, framework, and tooling.

Now, if ReSharper 4.0 would EVER get to RTW before we’re ready to VS2009, it’d be super!

Tags: VS2008, .net+3.5, service+pack, microsoft, aspnetmvc, beta

Search Commands for Office 2007 - GREAT!

I’ve been using Office 2007 for, well, almost forever.  Compared to the prior versions of Office, it’s better than expected—and quite a dynamic change.  By that, I mean the ribbon toolbar. 

I understand Microsoft’s UI “goodness” and some of the ribbon logic—especially on smaller applications, but the ribbon is still painful to use in huge rambling applications like Microsoft Word and Excel.  I still, after all this time, spend time going, “where the heck is {command}?”

Most of the time, I fall back to using old Office commands that, thankfully, still work.  Other times, it’s an adventure!

That adventurous spirit, however, isn’t shared by every user of Office 2007.  The learning curve of the ribbon and other Office 2007 features has been the leading reason why the latest application suite is still frowned upon in our organization.  Face it—the UI for Word looked the same from about Word 6.0 to 2003.  In one version, that’s a lot of users to reeducate.

To ease those users along and empower the “power” users of Office products, the Office Labs team has released a sweet plugin for Microsoft Office 2007–-Search Commands.  Search Commands is exactly what it says, rather than wading through the half-dozen menus, you enter what you want to do in the search box and the ribbon automagically builds for you.

I’ve been using it for a week or so now, since it came out on 23 April, and love it.  Once you get the Search Commands hot keys down (Alt-Y, E and Alt-Y, 1–9) you can wiz through commands.

Tags: Office+Labs, Search+Commands, Office+2007

Add-ons in FireFox 3.0b5

I decided to toss FireFox 3 on my workstation to see what broke—and unfortunately, almost everything broke.

I use quite a few add-ons; however, the most useful of my add-ons are all toast.

• del.icio.us Bookmarks
• Fasterfox
• Firebug
• FireShot
• TinyUrl Creator

There are a few that seem to survive; however, without FireBug and del.icio.us, I just can’t survive.

That aside, there is one very cool 3.0b5 add-on—IETab.  The add-on uses filters and/or the context menus to open up Internet Explorer tabs within FireFox.  Now, when browsing SharePoint Portal or other MSIE-only sites, I never have to leave FireFox.  It’s FANTASTIC.

I hope that, by the time 3.0 is released out of beta and into production, that a few more of the add-on developers have spent the time and upgraded their tools.  There are so many quality add-ons available (the biggest advantage, I think, to IE) that I had to see those fall behind.

Tags: FireFox+3.0, Beta, Add-on, del.icio.us, fasterfox, firebug, fireshot, tinyurl, ietab

FireFox slow to load? Auto-updates can drag you down!

The past few weeks, as I’ve further customized my FireFox installations at home and work, I’ve noticed one thing—FireFox has gotten slower and slower at work. My home computer is a monster that calculates the meaning of life in sheer moments; however, my office computer is a poor, dying Precision 670 that rattles and whimpers when VS2008 pegs the CPUs at 100%. 

The other day, I started troubleshooting the slowdown.

• I removed all the “had to have” plugins to see if that was the problem.  Nope.
• I disabled all of the plugins.  Nope.
• I accepted that it was going to be slower than IE8 and just never closed it. Yep.

Okay, but that’s no way to live.  There had to be an answer and there is!

I stumbled across this today, but it appears that the issue lies not with the computer (well, not totally), but a great deal with our slow network and the “auto update” feature of Firefox.

By turning off the auto-updates, Firefox once again starts blazing fast. 

Now, the trade-off, of course, is REMEMBERING and dealing with updating my add-ons myself.  I wish Firefox only checked once a week, once a day, SOMETHING—not everytime the browser opens. 

Is there a way to set that?  Maybe.

If you browse to about:config in Firefox, you’re presented with the various settings.  From there, filter with ‘update’.

There are a few preferences that may help :

• app.update.interval – I’m assuming this is FireFox’s update interval (the first option shown above).  It defaults to 86400 (assuming seconds, so that’s be 24 hours or once a day).
• browser.search.updateinterval – Assuming this is the third option shown above, updating the search engines available in FireFox.  It defaults to 6, which… 6 seconds?  Hmm.
• extensions.update.interval – Finally, the interval of the extensions, but it defaults to 86400 as well, or once a day.  If that’s the case, I’d assume Firefox would be slow (at max) once, not every time.

So, a bit more information, but no definate answer. 

Tags: Firefox, Extensions, AutoUpdate