Microsoft cloud engineer - SharePoint, Office 365, Azure, DotNet, Angular, JavaScript.
Microsoft cloud engineer - SharePoint, Office 365, Azure, DotNet, Angular, JavaScript.

Visual Studio 2010

Say Happy Birthday with Code!

Most people just say “Happy Birthday” to each other over social networks like Facebook and Twitter with the same 14 predictable letters.   Why not say it with code?   If you’re a developer you already understand.  

Smile

   Before you ask … Yes, I really did write and run the QBasic 4.5 version in 16-bit mode running www.DosBox.com on Windows 7 x64.   Oh, and no it’s not my birthday.

 

With PowerShell

1..4 | % {if ($_ -ne 3) {Write-Host "Happy Birthday to You!"} else {"Happy Birthday Dear Jeff"}}

With C# Console Application

for (int i = 0; i <= 3; i++) { Console.WriteLine(((i == 2) ? "Happy Birthday dear Jeff" : "Happy Birthday to You!")); }

With JavaScript

With Command Prompt

@ECHO OFF
FOR %%A IN (1 1 2 1)
DO (
IF %%A == 1 ECHO "Happy Birthday to You!"
IF %%A == 2 ECHO "Happy Birthday dear Jeff"
) 
:EOF

With QBasic 4.5  (oh yes I did!)

CLS
FOR x = 1 TO 4
        IF x = 3 THEN
                PRINT "Happy Birthday dear Jeff!"
        ELSE
                PRINT "Happy Birthday to You!"
        END IF
NEXT x
FOR x = 37 TO 1000
        SOUND x, 1
NEXT x

 

image
image
image
image

An Unhandled exception CryptographicException occurred in OWSTIMER.EXE

I recently saw this error while patching SharePoint with a Cumulative Update.   Most people will never see this.  However, you are not most people.  You run Visual Studio. 

Smile

Visual Studio is trying to help us out with an unhandled exception by asking about launching debug.  That’s all well and good but I didn’t write the code and have no plans to change it.

Best way to work with this is to disable the JIT (Just-In-time Debugger) by following a few simple Registry Key changes:  http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsdebug/thread/9e6cb3fb-f8fb-4c22-8608-e521e13260ff

 

image

Visual Studio Just-In-Time Debugger

An unhandled exception (‘System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException’) occurred in OWSTIMER.EXE [1344]

Best of SharePoint 2010 VSIX

The more I learn about Visual Studio 2010 the more I like it. For SharePoint developers, it is great to finally have a mature toolset. To make that experience even better the community has created several VSIX extensions as a “quick start” to more easily jump into various project types. Below I outline links to the VSIX extensions I am aware of and run locally. If you have any questions or suggestions please leave a comment.  Cheers!  

Smile

 

image

 

CKS:DEV – Community Kit for SharePoint: Development Tools

http://cksdev.codeplex.com/

SharePoint Foundation 2010 version and SharePoint Server 2010 version

WSPBuilder conversion tool (WCT) beta

Improved Quick Deploy

Keyboard shortcuts

Updated Full Trust Proxy SPI

Restart processes menus

Attach to processes menus

Solution level Package all

Improved import Content Types

Branding SPI

Improved Fluent visual web part SPI

Basic service application SPI

WCF service SPI

SharePoint PowerShell cmdlet SPI

SharePoint PowerShell pipe binding SPI

Improved copy assembly name menu

SharePoint 2010 Extensibility Projects

http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/vsixforsp/

  • Silverlight and SharePoint project template
  • SharePoint Ribbon project template
  • OBA Deployment project template

Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Power Tools

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/8e602a8c-6714-4549-9e95-f3700344b0d9

  • Sandboxed-compatible Visual Web Part
  • Sandboxed Compilation

Silverlight SharePoint Web Parts

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/e8360a85-58ca-42d1-8de0-e48a1ab071c7

  • Silverlight Web Part
  • Silverlight Custom Web Part

SharePoint 2010 Timer Job

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/ab2b2d63-de37-4f63-b4b0-442f80b59b00

SharePoint 2010 Console Application

http://blah.winsmarts.com/2011-2-SharePoint_2010_Console_App,_Project_Template.aspx

LINQ to SharePoint DSL Extension for Visual Studio 2010

linq2spdsl

Windows Azure – publishing from Visual Studio 2010 (step-by-step with screenshots)

Today I deployed my first Azure application and documented the step-by-step process with detailed screenshots.

First I downloaded the Azure SDK and prepared Visual Studio 2010.   Azure is a cool idea because of the support for highly scalable custom code.  One frequent objection to cloud hosting is the basic functionally.   Cloud providers tend to offer what’s easy and convenient … while avoiding custom code.    Hybrid models may be the resolution.  Architects who can connect multiple vendors seamlessly or blend on-premise with in-cloud servers will be in demand.

  • Download the Azure SDK
  • Locate the first Hands On Lab (HOL) “Introduction to Windows Azure”
  • Code and build in Visual Studio 2010
  • Verify local Azure Emulator is working (files / SQL database / Compute)
  • Deploy to Azure in the cloud  (NOTE – this is  lot of work the first time,  must get connected and trusted)

 

image

 

We begin with the "Guest Book” sample application which allows you to post messages on a common wall with a picture attached.  Simple enough.

image
image

 

Here you can see the tray Azure Emulator running the website locally on my laptop.   For development you want to run things locally, test, and deploy to the cloud when stable.

image
image

 

Right clicking on the tray icon allows you to view Emulator status, logs, and details.   You can restart and control instances here.

image

 

Out of curiosity I opened SQL Management Studio  and viewed the “SQLEXPRESS” instance (which the default for the Azure SDK examples).  Here you can see the databases and tables this sample created.  The schema appears very abstracted.   From Visual Studio 2010 all I saw were strongly typed Classes and Objects for data.   Somehow that is being flattened to a database table using the Azure binaries, pretty cool.

image

 

Here is the Visual Studio 2010 Solution Explorer showing the 3 projects and related files inside of the “Guest Book” sample application.

image

 

OK, let’s get to the fun part.   Open a web browser, navigate to https://manage.windowsazure.com/ and login to Windows Azure Platform Management.  There is some new vocabulary which be confusing at first.   First, create a new “Hosted Service.   This can take 5-10 minutes to provision so be patient.

image

 

Once the “Hosted Service” shows “Created” then we must add a “Storage Account” for the ability to hold data in the cloud.

image

 

Certificate trusting the local laptop’s Visual Studio 2010 to publish.   This is a LOT of work, but only a one time operation.  Let’s get started.   Right click on your Azure project within the solution explorer and click Publish.

image

 

The first time here we need to Add Credentials.

image

 

To pair the local Visual Studio with the Azure cloud, we need a certificate.   Since this is our first time, create a new one.  Name it whatever you like.  I chose to name mine after the development laptop “JEFF-PC”

image
image

 

Click “copy the full path” to populate the clipboard with the local file path.

image
image

 

We’re going to leave Visual Studio 2010 for a minute, but keep it open in the background since we’ll be back.  In the web browser go back to Windows Azure Platform Management.  Click “add certificate” and paste the local .CER file path from the previous setup.

image
image

 

Click on the “Subscription” line item to view the “Subscript ID” number.  Copy this to the clipboard.  You will need to give that to Visual Studio 2010 locally for publishing.

image

 

Back in Visual Studio 2010 we need to finish the Add dialog by giving it two values:   Subscription ID and Name.

image
image
image
image
image

Congratulations!!  

Hot

  You’ve successfully connected your local Visual Studio 2010 to the Azure Subscription.   You should now see three cascading drop down menus with the Azure cloud deployment destinations.

© Copyright 2016
@ SPJeff

Return to Top ▲Return to Top ▲