New BCL features in Beta1

A nice overview of the New BCL features in Visual Studio 2005 Beta1.

Of particular interest to me (or it should be anyway) is the ACL support. Now I have even fewer reasons to not write secure systems. Nuts.

I'm also intrigued by the Debugger Display Attributes.

[Listening to Lost Prophets - New Noise]

ReaderWriterLock + IDispose

Eric Gunnerson points to a useful wrapper for ReaderWriterLock implementing IDispose courtesy of Sebastien Lambla.

[Listening to: KoRn - A.D.I.D.A.S]

PassWORDs vs. PassPHRASES

Robert Hensing posted an article on his new blog, humourously titled: Why you shouldn't be using passwords of any kind on your Windows networks . . .. Great stuff. Read the comments too.

[Listening to: Pat Boone - The Wind Cries Mary] (really!)

MSDN Solutions at a Glance

An Architecture and Design solutions FAQ from MSDN.

Possibly even more useful are the other documents in this area in the TOC.

Now I just have to find time to read them. Sigh.

MbUnit 2.17 (beta) released.

Sweetness. Jonathan de Halleux has released MbUnit 2.17 (beta).

Now I just need to find the Automatic Unit Test Generator plug-in for Reflector.

Demand, LinkDemand, RequestRefuse and RequestOptional -- Preventing luring attacks

Peter Torr sums up a set of blog entries on luring attacks and other security issues:

GetObject and LinkDemands

Maintaining LinkDemands across inheritance boundaries

RequestOptional and RequestRefuse

RequestRefuse and RequestOptional example

Someday this stuff will sink in. Someday.

Tasks for MSBuild 2.0 (VS 2005 beta 1)

Jamie Cansdale of NUnitAddIn fame has posted the set of Tasks for MSBuild 2.0 (VS 2005 beta 1). Not too shabby.

Database Unit Testing issues and solutions: Rollback And RestoreDatabase abilities

Roy Osherove outlines his epiphany surrounding unit tests with databases. Truly brilliant. Needless to say this is way better than what I used to come up with.
 
[Listening to: Ugly Kid Joe - Cat in the Cradle]

Mailframe Configuration System

Another potentially useful configuration library: Mailframe Configuration System (from thinking-out-loud here.)

[Listening to: Pantera - Living in a Hole]

Using the Server (rather than Workstation) Garbage Collector with the .NET Framework (CLR)

Scott Hanselman collected some useful articles on the Server GC: Using the Server (rather than Workstation) Garbage Collector with the .NET Framework (CLR)

And to think that I didn't even know there were 2 GC's.

Add Functionality Anywhere in VS with PocketProd

From PowerToys: Extending VS.NET with PocketProd. Haven't had the chance to use it yet, but hopefully it still works with VS2005 Beta.

Code Snippet - Schema Description

From the VSEditor's Weblog, The Schema for VS2005 Code Snippets.

This will probably be invaluable as I start adding playing with Snippets.

Visual Studio 2005 Beta here I come

Downloaded the 3.6 GB DVD image... check
Uninstalled the Tech Preview... check
Sleep,Work,Eat... check
Extract .img files (Thanks to IsoBuster)... check
Installing Visual Studio 2005 Beta... working

I'll check back if this ever completes.

[Listening to: Def Leppard - Bringin' On The Heartbreak]

Custom Configuration Section Handlers

Don Box points to a couple nice articles on custom configuration file handlers from Craig Andera and Jeff Newsom. Notice in the comments another article on the subject from Phil (a.k.a. haacked).

[Listening to: Tragically Hip - The Heart of the Melt]

Creating your own Custom PatternLayout, PatternParser, and PatternConvertor with log4net

I'm a big log4* fan, so naturally I'm all over Scott Hanselmans blog on Creating your own Custom PatternLayout, PatternParser, and PatternConvertor with log4net.

Thanks for doing the recon for everyone Scott.

[Listening to: Tragically Hip - Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park]

UML Symbols for Visio

Linked through Scott Hanselman: UML Symbols for Visio.

If this saves the headache of dealing with the built-in UML integrity checks I'll be a happy man.

thinktecture - Ingo Rammer's Weblog: The Missing Parts Of System.Messaging

Ingo Rammer of Thinktecture fills in some Missing Parts Of System.Messaging.

Don't know if I'll need this, but hey -- I'm a pack rat.

Automatic (empty) Unit Test Case generation in Reflector -- NeedItNeedItNeedIt

Jonathan de Halleux once again floors me with this gem: Automatic (empty) Unit Test Case generation in Reflector.

Oh sweet heavenly ham I need this. I can't wait until it's available.

GC Performance Counters

Maoni details all of the GC Performance Counters. Sweet.

Now I just have to write enough code to worry about performance.

Improving XML Performance in .NET Framework Applications

Dare Obasanjo points to a couple useful articles on Improving XML Performance in .NET Framework Applications.

High-performance XML

Daniel Cazzulino presents a series of blog entries on High-performance XML:

High-performance XML (I): Dynamic XPath expressions compilation

High-performance XML (II): XPath execution tips

High-performance XML (III): returning well-formed XML from WebServices without XmlDocument

High-performance XML (IV): subtree transformations without re-parsing

High-performance XML (V): in-memory XML Schema validation without re-parsing

I'm back -- time to catch up

Now that I'm relatively settled in at the new job it's time to throw out the occassional blog entry. Be prepared for some older links that I haven't had time for until now.