Object Role Modeling (ORM)

Recently, a colleague of mine and I started to experiment with ORM.
It seems to me that it is not very well known, but we found it to be a very powerfull tool.
We plan to use it a lot more!
Check out this MSDN .NET show broadcast for an introduction. It features Terry Halpin, a pioneer of ORM.
If you need more information, go to the official ORM site to find out more.

Gigabyte's Dual-GPU Graphics Card

Tom's Hardware has an article on a new dual-GPU graphics card. Is this rediculous or is it a sign of things to come?

Zoo tycoon 2 trial download

Download the trial version of Zoo Tycoon 2.
I tried it for an hour or so and most of my animals had escaped!

They looked happy though.

Hope you're better at it than I was. ;-)

How to create a strongly typed dataset from an existing dataset.

This is a little trick I used to convert any dataset to a strongly typed dataset so you can use the table and column names in intellisense.
(Examples in C#)

First we need to write the original dataset to an XML-file.

using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.IO;

Create your dataset and fill it.

XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof (DataSet));
XmlTextWriter wrt = new XmlTextWriter(@"filename.XML",null);
ser.Serialize (wrt, yourDataSet);

Run this code once to create an XML file of your dataset.
Then start the Visual Studio Command prompt.

Create the XSD schema file using the XSD.EXE tool.

xsd filename.xml

This creates the schema file filename.xsd.
Now use the same tool to create the class for the typed dataset;

xsd /d /l:CS filename.xsd

Add the created file filename.cs to your project.
Use this new class instead of the normal dataset.

Developer & ITPro days 2005 Brussels

The next Developer & ITPro days are coming in february 2005. Two days with a lot of interesting sessions.



Patrick Tisseghem (U2U) (mentioned before) will be delivering a couple of sessions. Mainly on Office Integration, Automation and Sharepoint Services.

Now if only my boss would let me go....

Hmm ;-)

Running out of disk space? Try this first.

When your hard drive is nearly full, before you run out to get a new one, try this first. (XP)
Right click on the 'My Computer' icon on your desktop, click on 'properties', then select the 'System Restore' tab.



Then select the 'Turn off System Restore' checkbox and click 'apply'.
When that has finished, unselect this checkbox and click 'apply' again.

This procedure will clean up all the system restore checkpoint data that is created every time you install/uninstall software.

You'll be amazed how much disk space you now(possibly)have... ;-)

However, only do this when your system has been running well for a while! You will only be able to restore to this point.

Thanks to Bart Neefs (EDS) for this tip

Microsoft video clips

Microsoft has put a lot of videoclips on only4gurus.com.
A lot of BS but some useful stuff there as well.
Thanks to Patrick Tisseghem (U2U) for pointing this out.

Places you don't normally see...

Ever wondered what the CMB (Compagnie Maritime Belge) building in Antwerp looked like on the inside just before it was demolished? Check out abandoned-places.com for an inside look of this and other old and abandoned buildings.

It's Alive!

Today I started my first blog.
I'll have to see if I have enough interesting stuff to put here.
Any suggestions are welcome.

Keep looking!