Datagrid Girl
Marcie, ASP.NET Datagrid Blogger Girl

Sunday, November 06, 2005

To coincide with the launch of ASP.NET 2.0 (oh, is that today?), I'm launching the second installment of the %Girl franchise, GridViewGirl.com.  Maybe Rory will stop making fun of me now.  The concept will be much like DatagridGirl.com, though it's driven off of dasBlog, which somebody sold me on the benefits of, and so far I like what I've seen.

I'll be posting mostly there from now on, so if you were a subscriber here, please subscribe over there.  Also, since the site is brand new I'd appreciate any links I can get (Google juice).

Thanks!

GridViewGirl

posted @ 10:24 PM | Feedback (3)

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Hey, I just got my first check in the mail for the Google ads I put on DatagridGirl.com a few months ago.  Thanks for all the clicks!

--Marcie

posted @ 11:55 AM | Feedback (5)

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Hey, it looks like there's some official info out now about the new Microsoft certs for .NET 2.0 and more.  Now there's going to be an MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist), available in 5 different areas:

The last BizTalk cert exam was for BizTalk 2000, so I guess we're skipping over BizTalk 2002 and BizTalk 2004.  Glad to hear they're finally updating the cert for this.

The 2.0 MCTS certs all have one exam in common:  70-536 .NET 2.0 Application Development Foundation

There's also an MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional), MCPD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer), and MCA (Microsoft Certified Architect).  I think they like to add some new acronyms every few years so that none of the alphabet feels "left out."

Hopefully I'll get a beta invitation to a few of these since I have previous certs. 

--Marcie

posted @ 7:04 PM | Feedback (2)

Monday, August 22, 2005

I've talked in the past about sorting a Datagrid without ViewState.  The key to getting this to work is calling .DataBind() on the DataGrid during Page_Load in order to wire up the SortCommand event.  I wanted to clarify something though, the .DataBind() doesn't have to be to the *real* .DataSource of the Datagrid, it can just be a dummy value.  Like so:

Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
   dgReport.DataSource = New DataTable
   dgReport.DataBind()
'bind to dummy datasource to wire up SortCommand event (ViewState is disabled)
End Sub

Private Sub dgReport_SortCommand(ByVal source As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataGridSortCommandEventArgs) Handles dgReport.SortCommand
   ...
   BindData() 'bind to *real* datasource
End Sub

Marcie

posted @ 3:24 PM | Feedback (12)

Thursday, August 11, 2005

I learned something new today that my coworker Dennis spent several agonizing hours trying to solve.  He was using window.showModalDialog to open a modal window on the client from Javascript, but whenever that page posted back, it would spawn off a new window.  (A normal window.open worked fine, this was only a problem for modal windows).  Some searching turned up several people with the same problem, and the solution once found (here), was quite simple:  just include this line in the < HEAD > html of the modal window:

<base target=_self>

Hope this saves someone else some time!
Marcie

posted @ 3:01 PM | Feedback (5)

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Hi there,

I'm giving a talk tomorrow night at the Columbia, SC .NET User Group on "Web Grids Present and Future", as in the asp:DataGrid control today, and the asp:GridView control in the next version, along with its related new controls.  Come by and say hello if you're in that part of the world.

Also I'm alive--I had several emails inquiring :)

Thanks!    -- Datagrid Girl / GridView Girl

posted @ 7:38 PM | Feedback (13)

Monday, October 11, 2004

When I was a Programmer Lead type, I used to love giving code reviews.  I mean, what could be more satisfying than getting all anal with someone and pouring over their work to make sure that they met all of your coding standards.  (So much more fun to do on someone else's code than your own...).  But fun as it may be (for weirdos like me at least), there's no real reason to do this by hand when there are automated tools to handle the code checking.

The one I looked at today is SSW's Code Auditor, done by my dear Australian friend and RD Adam Cogan, the guy who also brings us all the "Better Rules To..."  Adam's CodeAuditor is a Reg Ex-based tool written in C#, and has built-in rules to handle C#, VB, and web files.  Some of the rules I would argue with--don't get me started on Option Strict, but I learned last year not to argue with Adam--and other rules just need to be configured to meet your own organization's coding standards.  I played around with a few of the rules, and it's actually very easy to customize them, so don't just go with what's provided--let the built-in rules inspire you to get even more rigorous on your developers' (or your own) code.

(I'm still not sure what "kit up the cogs" means--must be an Australian thing.)

I ran the audit--it runs very fast, by the way--against some ASP.NET files I had created for a freelance consulting client recently to try it out, and naturally the audit found about 18 things it didn't like about me.  I realized when I looked at the output (and looking back at the rules), that the WEB library of rules was really geared more towards HTML files, my first clue was this "error", (does this tool not know me at all??):

line 18 column 1 - Error: <asp:datagrid> is not recognized!

But the rules were great for pure HTML, things like avoiding <FONT> tags, requiring a <TITLE> tag, requiring the use of a specific CSS file, and some rules that will even help improve your Google page rankings, and I think Adam has a related article on optimizing your pages for Google.  Also it looks like you can have the Code Auditor check the *output* of your ASP.NET pages to check the resultant HTML, so that's pretty cool.

Other features to note:

  • Can automate the auditor to run on a schedule and email the reults--terrorize your developers!  You only thought you could frighten them before with micromanaging them, just think, now you can micro-audit them too :)
  • Rules are more customizable than FxCop, plus it runs against the source files themselves rather than the compiled assembly
  • There are some very interesting sample rules to test for (completely customizable of course), such as requiring the use of the Exception Management Application Block
  • Can specify certain elements as required on all pages in a web app
  • Here's a rule we can all agree on for .vb files, prohibit the use of "On Error Resume Next".  Some people don't realize that this one actually survived into VB.NET--please don't tell them!

To me, it seemed particularly useful on my VB class files, where most of the logic was for this application anyway.  There are also plenty of rules built in for windows developers, whether you're using VB or C#.  Go give it a try, there's a free trial download available here.

--Marcie

posted @ 12:18 PM | Feedback (6)

Friday, October 01, 2004

I'm glad I'm not the only person I know who likes to be irritating.  I've never been chased by Anders Hejlsberg with a baseball bat, but now I have something to aspire to:  Mark Miller on "How to Piss Off Microsoft Guys".  Mark's also the creator of the glorious CodeRush product for Visual Studio, when he's not up late bothering me with IMs about the presidential debates.

--Marcie

P.S. Thank you to all who sent condolences about Porty, and even Douglas who suggested I just get a replacement.  What, some kind of rebound laptop??  :)

posted @ 1:20 AM | Feedback (3)

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Several people have written to ask me why I haven't blogged since July, and the answer is that it's been a very eventful couple of months, but most importantly, I'm saddened to announce the death of Porty the Portege.  Porty passed on in his sleep (hibernate mode) at 10:54AM PDT, August 2 2004 after a massive hardware failure the previous day.  Porty was 15 months old, it was just a few days before his 16-month birthday (you know you're a geek when you search google for your old blog entries to find out when you bought your TabletPC--the entry is here, apparently).  I also that there are laptop-years, similar to dog-years, so a month in laptop-time is roughly equivalent to 3 human years.  Which means that Porty died at the fairly young age of 45, but he lived a very full life, having travelled with me to 4 countries, and presented to a total of probably a thousand people.

Now that an appropriate amount of time has elapsed since Porty's demise (god rest his soul), I'm beginning to take a look at other Tablets.  My friend Jay swears by the Fujitsu T3000D, but I'm also partial to the ViewSonic convertible because of its very light weight--I travel a good bit so weight is important to me.

It should also be noted that Porty was an organ donor, and his hard drive (brain) will likely see use again.  In lieu of flowers, Porty requested that money be donated to his favorite laptop chartiy, please inquire for details.

--Marcie

posted @ 12:09 PM | Feedback (8)

Thursday, July 01, 2004

To celebrate Portugal's victory today (and if you don't know what I'm referring to, stop reading now.  Are they gone yet?  Good.), I'd like to give my next round of GMail invites to people who are either from Portugal, or are willing to demonstrate that they are fans of the team.  Email me if interested:  Marcie@DatagridGirl.com

--Marcie

posted @ 4:35 AM | Feedback (18)

Monday, June 28, 2004

I think I've mentioned him before, but my friend and smart dude Dr. Neil is doing the blog thing.  He lives an interesting lifestyle (travels the Northern and Southern hemispheres in order to avoid winter), and gets into interesting technologies (he's been a Tablet Boy lately, etc.).  Looks like he's also talking about refactoring and some other fun stuff over there.

--Marcie

posted @ 12:37 AM | Feedback (3)

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on
it daily to meet their quota of getting free food donated every day to
abused and neglected animals.

It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "feed an animal
in need" for free.

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the
number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in
exchange for advertising.

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com
posted @ 10:47 AM | Feedback (6)

Hey ya'll, our company (ObjectSharp) is teaching a BizTalk 2004 class the week of July 5th in Toronto (the city of fun), if anybody's interested, let me know.

--Marcie

posted @ 10:41 AM | Feedback (2)

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

I'm here at DevTeach in Montreal, and while there isn't a lot of snack food lying around, the desserts served at lunch are excellent.  I'm sitting here downstairs womanning a booth, but Ted just brouhgt me some desserts, and the chocolate mousse cake is superb.  Thanks Ted.

UPDATE:  Dave Burke would like it noted that there were NO afternoon snacks available at DevTeach, and we would like to see some for next year.  Since we're asking for things, can we have some politer serving staff?  :)

--Marcie

posted @ 12:57 PM | Feedback (3)

Ok, I'm giving a talk here at DevTeach at 3PM on Datagrids and Gridviews in ASP.NET.  Should be lots of fun, I love speaking at the last minute.

--Marcie

posted @ 12:44 PM | Feedback (1)

Monday, June 21, 2004

I'd like to bid farewell to two old friends that are retiring at the end of this month, exams 70-175, and 70-176.  I remember you both with fondness, and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

--Marcie

posted @ 1:27 AM | Feedback (4)

Sunday, June 20, 2004

Hi all, I've given out 20 GMail invites so far, it seems that whenever I use them up, I get more within a day or so.  I'm running out soon of my contest entries, so I'd like to see some more creative entries.  See my previous post about the contest for more information.  (No, I'm not going to link to the original, if you're not willing to spend the effort to go to the main page of my blog and scroll down, I'm not going to spend the effort to invite you.)

Another hint:  “Please give me GMail invite NOW” is not an entry.  I've gotten over 200 of those, which are not eligible, and 37 “creative” entries.

--Marcie

posted @ 6:44 PM | Feedback (48)

Friday, June 18, 2004

A cute cartoon:  http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/560.html

I also got 2 more invitations to give out, so I'm probably going to give them to some of the runners-up from my previous contest.  More entries are also welcome.  See previous rules for details.

--Marcie

posted @ 11:45 AM | Feedback (29)

My friend Sonu has an interesting thread going on his blog about the City of Munich / Linux thing.  I thought it was particularly interesting because I used to live in Munich.  Check out the comments too.

--Marcie

posted @ 9:36 AM | Feedback (1)

Thursday, June 17, 2004

I just bought a SAMS book, and it has 14 authors, 8 editors and a team coordinator.  What is the world coming to. Seriously. Does anyone else think this is overkill?

--Marcie

posted @ 10:07 PM | Feedback (10)

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

I love the fact that I live in a world where I can go to Google (or in my case, directly from GMail) and type Hanselman presentation font, and find exactly what I'm looking for.  (I wanted to know the right font to make my Visual Studio for my talk last night so that people would be able to read it.  It didn't work out anyway though, my machine totally crashed, and I hate to borrow Kate's Visual Studio.  She didn't have it set to the Hanselman font, but that's beside the point.  Anyway).  So thanks world for Google (and Hanselman).  I also wanted to apologize to the people last night who got crappy prizes, namely my McDonald's Happy Meal toy and the paper frog I made out of an ObjectSharp flyer.  But it was a fun time, really!  And next time maybe Microsoft or INETA will get us some swag before the meeting.  I also meant to give out a GMail invite at the meeting, but I forgot :(

If anyone's keeping score (or still reading), I talked about Datagrids and Gridviews last night at the East of Toronto .NET User group.

--Marcie

posted @ 1:34 PM | Feedback (3)

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

I just really like this picture on the announcement because it makes me look fast, and/or agile.  Anyway, I'm giving a Datagrid talk tonight for Kate Gregory's user group, East of Toronto.  This is a fairly smallish group, so I'm hoping to keep it more informal, so somewhere of a cross between my VSLive! conference talk and the BOF I did at Tech Ed (very very informal).

Hope to see ya there, Marcie

posted @ 12:58 PM | Feedback (7)

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

I just got home to Toronto and as I'm checking my email tonight, for the first time, the “Invite a Friend to GMail” link comes up.  Now it looks like there's a limit of only 3 invitations I can do, and I've already promised one to my loving husband.  For the other 2 invites that I can do, I've already had way more than 2 people ask me for invites, but most of them are rather unoriginal:  “Please invite me to GMail”, etc.  I've got 2 invites up for grabs, so the 2 most creative requests I get can have the invites, whether I know you “in real life” or not.  Email me at:  Marcie (_at_) DatagridGirl.com.  Ability to follow directions is a factor too, so responses to this post will be automatically disqualified, as will using the contact form from this blog.

--Marcie

Update:  I've gotten 33 entries so far, and most of them are quite creative! So please don't send me any more, it's already hard enough to decide.  :)  I'd love to give all 33 of you an invitation, and I will definitely hold onto all the addresses in case I get more Invites in the coming weeks to give out.  Thanks for all the laughs!!!  I'm hoping to post some of the highlights here in the next few days.

Update!  I have awarded the remaining 2 GMail invitations to Sonu Kapoor and Jason Mauss.  Congrats and thanks for the laughs and all the wonderful entries!  I'll save all of the emails and would love to award some more if/when I get some more invitational powers.

posted @ 9:03 PM | Feedback (95)

Monday, May 31, 2004

Hey, I just found out my friend Matt Hardman (Australian, works at Microsoft Singapore) is trying out for Singapore Idol!  For that one you can be up to 30 years old (no fair, at Canadian Idol the cut off was 26).  I'm 28.  Anyway, root for Matty if you're in that part of the world.

--Marcie

posted @ 1:37 AM | Feedback (5)

Sunday, May 30, 2004

It looks like Enjoy Sandwiches Boy (Kent) got some pictures of us.  Most poignant is the third picture, it brought a small tear to my eye.  Thankfully I'm finally back home today where there is no shortage of the missing items from the third picture.

--Marcie

posted @ 5:01 PM | Feedback (1)