D'oh! This would have been fun...

RestartManager in VS 2008

Oh well, there's always version 2. :)

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Avoid flying Alaska Airlines - like the plague!

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Here's a little problem that caused me a couple of hours of pain...

I've been working on an SSIS package that deals with some data in a Data Flow Task and transforms it to XML. Instead of using an in memory record set as the destination of the data flow and putting all the data into an XML string, I decided that I'd use a script task as the destination and write a few lines of VB (grr... =P) to write the results to an XML string and set a variable with the result. Sounds simple enough right? 3 hours later, I was still struggling to write the results to the variable until I stumbled on this little gem.

Given that the Me object has a Variables object which contains the variables that you have given the task access to, you'd think the way to set the variable would be:

Me.Variables.XmlResult = xmlString

Of course, this is wrong. Doing this gives you a lovely COM Exception stating (in a rather cryptic way) that you can't set the variable.

So, how should you do it...?

Dim variables As IDTSVariables90
Me.VariableDispenser.LockForWrite("XmlResult")
Me.VariableDispenser.GetVariables(variables)
variables("XmlResult").Value = document.OuterXml
variables.Unlock()

<sarcasm>How obvious is that...?</sarcasm>

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Ok, so Tech.Ed is now over and it's back to work... :(

So what did I see and what did I learn?

Well, I thought I'd start by throwing a list of the sessions I visited up because it's going to take me a few days to go through my notes and actually do something productive.

Wednesday

  • DEV231 A lap around Visual Studio 2008
  • DAT302 Database Schema Versioning: How to Use Microsoft Visual Studio Team System for Database Professionals and Team Foundation Server to Version and Deploy Your Databases
  • CON206 Custom Activities with Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation: A Developer's Primer
  • ARC304 Architecting Next Generation Business Applications
  • WEB317 Enhancing ASP.Net AJAX applications with Silverlight

Thursday

  • DEV308 A Lap around Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation
  • DEV301CT XBox Development with XNA Games Studio Express
  • DEV242 Overview of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 for Devices and .NET Compact Framework 3.5
  • UNC301CT Introduction to the .NET Micro Framework
  • ARC311 Windows Client .NET: Introducing the “Acropolis” Client Application Framework
  • DEV320 Microsoft Visual C# Under the Covers: An In-Depth Look at C# 3.0

Friday

  • ARC312 Make your Customer's Day: User First Design
  • DEV314 Building Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation Applications in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Expression Blend
  • UNC200 Mobility Smackdown
  • DEV316 Build Server Virtualization Presentation

Not surprisingly, I got the most out of the DEV track. My favourite session by far was the C#3 Under the Covers session presented by Joel Pobar. Seeing Silverlight doing something other than stream video in WEB317 was a also good change. Finally, being a bit of a gadget geek, I couldn't go past the .Net CF 3.5 and .Net Micro Framework sessions. I'm downloading the Micro SDK as I type and thinking about getting my hands on one of these... :)

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I'm on a bit of a roll here with the user groups... :)

I succumbed to Greg's call for new speakers and signed myself up for a short talk again to do with SSIS at this year's SQL Code Camp.

Looking forward to getting down to Wagga this time 'round, seeing as I missed CodeCampOz...

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Readify has announced the Readify Developer Network (RDN). This will be a series of user group meetings focused on delivering in depth technical talks on new and upcoming Microsoft Technologies.

Greg Low has done a great job of discussing how the RDN came into existence and how it will benefit the community in his announcement post: Announcing the Readify Developer Network - The Bit Bucket

The RDN schedule has also been released on the site. Yours truly has already signed up to deliver the ReadiPrimer talk on SSIS at the Sydney meeting on 29 January. :)

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Like the most of the Redifarians, I'm off to Tech.Ed today. Unfortunately, I'm flying out quite late tonight so I won't make the welcome party. Hopefully I get my bag of treats at Wednesday morning's registration... :)

 

Anyway, I'll be blogging on a few new things I learn while I'm away. I plan to attend more seminars than I did at Tech.Ed 05, which isn't really hard...

 

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