Eric Duncan

This new Microsoft feature in .NET Framework 4 is a programming model for reusing components, very similar to those Inversion of Control container frameworks out there that we all know and love (Castle Windsor, Structured Map, their own Unity from the Patterns and Practices team and etc).  Now, they have built their own to address the pain ...

EDIT: MSpec v0.3 now supports TestDriven.Net's v2.24 XCopy Deployable Test Runners.  So this blog post is legacy information at this time.  Machine.Specifications (MSpec) is my preferred Behavior-Driven Design (BDD) framework for Microsoft.NET.  Aaron Jensen, the author of MSpec, released support for TestDriven.NET, xUnit, ...

Over this past weekend, Microsoft released an updated Windows Azure SDK dated November 2009 for Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 Beta 2.  It is great to hear this since my tinkering with with the old CTP release was a bit buggy (had to download a few hot-fixes).  Officially this SDK is known as version 20091111.1401, and released on ...

All too often, I get involved with ticketing systems that have these set incorrectly.  Or, they utilize them in a different manner than what they were intended for.  Tonight, I am setting up another system and thought I would document the differences here for future references (and for my buddies that could tweak their systems). I ...

The ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Futures assembly (that is not included with ASP.NET MVC 1.0) has a powerful HtmlHelper extension method called RenderAction().   It sounds similar to the Html extension method called RenderPartial() for a good reason.  RenderAction() executes an action on a controller, allowing you to move your logic out of the ...

For the first time, Microsoft is licensing a number of software and servers to startups, small businesses, and actual independent web developers - for free.  And, it lasts for three years.  Scott Guthrie tweeted today about the new WebsiteSpark Program, which is what this program is called.  Why not call it WebSpark?  I ...

In this post, I will show you how to strongly type some parts of MVC to get rid of those “magic strings.”  I will also publish a few extension methods that expand upon this concept later on.  So, this is a continuation of my Mvc series that you can subscribe to. ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Futures You can download ASP.NET MVC 1.0 RTM from ...

I am starting a new series that will be focusing on ASP.NET MVC design patterns.  What I will be focusing on is enterprise-ready patterns and practices that scales across cloud computing, coding with type safety, and abstractions of WebForms-like server controls – using the MVC pattern.   Steve Sanders and Phil Haack have about a ...

This old Engadget post reminds me of my Dell mini-pc I hacked up to fit in a block of foam and fans to run my XP on 12V with 80GB of MP3s and videos, with wireless (to sync from outside in the car).  Too bad I never finished the project; but, I did sell it on eBay for a few hundred bucks.  That guy wrote some flash interface for ...

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimizations.  It is a term used to reference a website’s HTML source code and related metadata and url for search engine rankings.  I recently was involved with interviewing and working with a number of SEO firms here in New York City and picked up a number of quick tips that anyone fimilar with html and ...

There are dozens of reviews for Google Chrome out there. So I will not bore you with any (except I am really liking the isolated tabs, besides the alpha issues). But, as I am doing Google Chrome testing today I noticed something interesting on how Google Chrome handles popups. Check out the video I recorded today. Interesting how ...

Upon installing your SSL certificate purchased through GoDaddy, and your Firefox users get prompted with a certificate warning of ''Unauthorized Authority'', read on for a fix using Windows 2003 Server (and R2).  This also works for any other authority that is not authorized by default in any browser.  In this article, I provide links to ...

With the previous release of The MiXX Collection, it was updated to work with CS 2007.  Well there is a bug in CS 2007's CSModule that no longer allows updating the ExtendedAttributes after a post is created.  In other words, the bug in the PostIcon that was introduced with 1.0 release caused a 0.jpg PostIcon to be saved at ...

Product: MiXX AddOns for Community Server 2007 (Source Code)Version: v1.1 About=================This project is a collection of CSModules, Server Controls, andWeb files that enhance and existing Community Server install. Currently this project is bound to CS 3.0.  I can not guarantee,nor will I support, any other ...

In the forth and final part of my series, Living with Subversion, I cover a number of performance tips and some Dos and Don'ts. Improving performance of TortoiseSVN The performance improvement aspect of this article targets those mainly on laptops that want to save battery life and/or slower HDD machines, or simply have just too many ...

In part three of Living with Subversion, we cover one of the biggest reason of this series: Using a different Merge Tool. Merging conflicts using SourceGear Vault Client's DiffMerge Now onto one of the most useful tidbits of this article, using the trusty SGDM tool that is included with SourceGear Vault Client installation.  I have ...

This is part duex in the series Living with Subversion, starting to get into the nit-n-gritty.  Configure your software After you install TortoiseSVN and SGV's Client, you will want to configure TortoiseSVN for a number of things.  You will access this by right-clicking on your empty desktop, going to TortoiseSVN, and then to ...

Friends of mine ask a lot about my custom settings for TortoiseSVN.  To make it play nicer with Visual Studio, easier (or should I say dumb-proofing) the auto-merging, performance tweaks especially on laptops, and overall tips to ensure you don't duplicate the mistakes my friends and I at Telligent have found through ...

This past weekend, someone gave me a swift kick in the butt to get my MiXX Collection updated for CS 2007.  I didn't realize it was under such high demand.  Nice.  Anyhoot during this upgrade I went ahead and refactored the source to match my other code I've been working with for other clients which lays the groundwork for me to ...

As I am starting to get back into heavy Flash development after my 5+ year hiatus, I see that Macromedia has added quite a lot of interesting concepts to the newer versions of ActionScript. But the purpose of this post is to outline that Macromedia (err now Adobe) still has a lot of work to do on their ActionScript engine, specifically with ...