CTO, Software engineer and Team leader
Posts tagged Microsoft
How to Consolidate 2 Microsoft Certified Professional IDs
Jul 5th
I am Microsoft Certified since 2006, Technology Specialist in SQL 2005 and Business Management Solution Specialist in Microsoft Dynamics. Thus, I already own an Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) ID that allows me to access Microsoft Certified Professional program.This program basically gives you access to review your certifications and the progress on your certification path. It also enables you to prove that you actually have those certifications.
As example, you can find mine by following the link: https://mcp.microsoft.com/authenticate/validatemcp.aspx and insert Transcript ID: 770644 and Access Code: radupoenaru.
New exam, new MCP ID
I recently took a Microsoft Certification exam. I passed it and now I’m Certified Technology Specialist in .Net 3.5. As a parenthesis, Microsoft, in its attempt to save the nature and thus paper, give the paper certificate only upon request. And because in my staying in Germany, I started appreciating more and more the nature, so I don’t believe that I’ll request it.
But more than this, the Certification center sent me a link to activate my Microsoft Certified Professional program. This also implies that you’ll get a new MCP ID. So I am in the position of having 2 separate places to show to my possible employers that I own the certifications.
MCTS in ASP .NET – exam 70-562
Jun 30th
Yesterday I’ve become Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in .NET Framework 3.5 ASP.NET Applications by passing the 70-562 exam!
First, I want to share with you my web development background:
- I have around 4 years of ASP .Net experience. Mainly, my experience is on .Net 1.1 and 2.0. I developed for mobile devices when there weren’t yet smart phones around us. I’ve worked on a solution that connected an Asus Palm to Nokia phones, first providing the interface, second providing the connectivity to a collection of webservices who provided encrypted and authentication for data exchanged.
- Then I’ve worked on a governmental website, creating features and maintaining it.
- Later on, I’ve managed the entire lifecycle of a website, from hosting, Windows Server / IIS maintenance to development and deployment of the website.
Let’s get to my experience in this exam…
Why .Net 3.5?
Almost all blog posts claim that the .Net 3.5 is just an extension of .Net 2.0, but when getting deeper, you realize that those developers who worked on it really produced a good quality product with many improvements and many added features over the previous version. Mainly, you’ll understand here the point of having a .Net 3.5 certification.
Comparing .Net 2.0 to 3.5 we’ll find a big difference. For example:
- ASP.NET AJAX
- New ListView and DataPager Controls
- LINQ
- WCF Support for RSS, JSON, POX and Partial Trust
- JavaScript Debugging and Intellisense
- Multi-targeting Support
.. and more on this you can read on Microsoft Official Statement.
Rhetorik und Präsentationsworkshop
Jun 18th
On 9th and 10th of June I had two days of Presentation and Retoric workshop. Our teachers were Anton Schweizer and 
Christopher Schleiden, both being Microsoft Student Senior Partners.
We were 5 students(unfortunately, one is missing from the picture), most of us Junior Students Partners. We were also preparing our first workshops. This training combined theoretical and practical knowledge, helping us in creating a better atmosphere and easier share the knowledge to our auditorium.
The workshop, who was a fully blown 2 days (on the second day we had like 10 hours). We started with a base line presentation. This was supposed to be a baseline, to understand where we need improvement and a comparison base for the presentation in the final, to see what we learned.
Microsoft Student Partners
Mar 24th
Today I had the pleasure to make the first step in Microsoft Student Partners organization (West Germany branch).
It all started when I went to a very interesting workshop on Windows 7 VHD, presented by Daniel Neumann.
So I applied by sending to Microsoft Student Partners enrollment e-mail address a cover letter, my cv and a short description. After a while, I got a call from Anton Schweizer, Senior Student Partner, and I was invited to an interview.
I also had to prepare a presentation. It supposed to be a 10 minutes long presentation on a technical theme. Because I like very much Silverlight, I started preparing it as main subject.
The interview was very relaxed and I got the usual questions: why do I want to join Microsoft Student Partners, why Microsoft, how much time can I invest in this, where and when can I prepare workshops, discussions on Microsoft products.
Basically, I understood that the duties of a Student partners are very similar to ones of Microsoft Evangelist:
- create presentations for its colleagues in University
- prepare workshops and assist students while working on a certain theme
- involve itself in the students life and present Microsoft technologies to them
Very interesting .. I just wait to start! They said that I will get soon a response regarding my application.
Later edit:
I WAS ACCEPTED!
Add SyntaxHighlight to Windows Live Writer in Preview mode
Feb 7th
Windows Live Writer (shorter: WLW) is one of the most popular blog authoring tool that I also happen to like and use. And I say this because of its features – I especially enjoy the Preview tab. But what it really lacks is previewing the ENTIRE page – it will get only the html and some css. So no Syntax Highlighting of my code? Let me tell you how I solved this issue.
As a blog writer I searched for something that could allow me to write the articles offline and then upload them in WordPress. I also tried WordPress built-in editor, but the editing box is so small that I couldn’t use it too much.
The most important feature for me is that it retrieves the blog theme and has a preview function that provide you the same look on editor window. So you will be able to write a post with a preview. But when having a more complex theme, using JQuery or Prototype, you will discover that you don’t get any more the same look and feel as in the blog. This is partially ok for editing, but sometimes it is really bad – especially if you’re a programmer and add a lot of code in your page. On blogs there is a solution to show the code with syntax color, but in the Windows Live Writer I couldn’t find one suitable plug-in that does this.
Adding events to LINQtoCSV library
Feb 6th
The User Experience that a library provides must be at least equal with is quality and speed. And frankly, CSVtoLINQ rocks on latest two, as I presented in previous articles Import CSV file and query it with LINQ and continuing in LINQ wonder world, but lacks a little on the User Experience(in our case Developer Experience) by not having some events of starting, progress and ending of the parsing.
Especially important, while parsing huge files, is a confirmation for the user that something happens and (ideally) the point in which the processing is. That is why, thanks to Matt Perdeck for sharing the entire source of the library, I was able to improve it by adding events.
So, let’s see some code!
Modifications into LINQtoCSV library – CSVContext.cs
Important: All modifications will be made in the CsvContext class from LINQtoCSV namespace – the CSVContext.cs file.
First we’ll add the ReadStarted event to the library – it will fire when the reading of the CSV file has started.
// defining the delegate
public delegate void ReadStartedHandler(object sender, EventArgs e);
// here we define the event
public event ReadStartedHandler ReadStarted;
// the call of the event processing
protected virtual void OnReadStarted() {
if (ReadStarted != null) {
// we use empty eventargs because nothing is needed on readstarted event, just the confirmation of parsing started
ReadStarted(this, EventArgs.Empty);
}
}
LINQ wonder world
Feb 5th
I am sure that, if you are a developer, at some point in your career heard about and asked yourself: what is LINQ? If not, there’s no problem, you’ll find out now : LINQ comes from language-integrated query and it is a collection of extensions to the .NET Framework that encompass language-integrated query, set, and transform operations. It helps developers by extending both C# and Visual Basic, adding native querying capabilities to these languages. It also comes with class libraries to get the full advantage out of these capabilities.
As we discussed in my previous article, Import CSV file and query it with LINQ, we are able to load and parse the file into a IQuerable collection, thus giving us the oportunity to do more and more SQL- like operations on it.
The C# 3.0 specification defines a so-called Query Expression Pattern along with translation rules from a LINQ expression to an expression in a subset of C# 3.0 without LINQ expressions. The translation thus defined is actually un-typed, which, in addition to lambda expressions being interpretable as either delegates or expression trees, allows for a great degree of flexibility for libraries wishing to expose parts of their interface as LINQ expression clauses. For example, LINQ to objects works on IEnumerable<T>s and with delegates, whereas LINQ to SQL makes use of the expression trees.
Import CSV file and query it with LINQ
Feb 4th
Assume that you have an plain text, old Comma Separated Values file filled with your precious export from a legacy system. How can you process it easily now? The first answer that comes to mind is to parse it and load it into a datatable and later process it by using DataTable.Select() method. But this approach has some limitations – like splitting data into several tables and then join them.
One would imagine that parsing CSV files is a straightforward and boring task, given that it is quite a while since CSV is around. Some of them are correct – in the sense that many implementations merely use some splitting method like String.Split(). Some don’t even offer the specification of the values splitting character – so your file wouldn’t be parsed correctly if instead of , you have ; as separator – yet another thing to modify if you’re lucky enough to have the sources. Others will not handle properly field values with commas because the simple split method of the String class. But there are better implementations that take care about escaped quotes, trimming spaces before and after fields and other small and useful details, but very few that I found did it all as I liked it – and at least as importantly, in a fast and efficient manner.
Novensys Corporation
Jan 22nd
Position: Microsoft Business Solution Software Engineer
I was part of Novensys team from November 2005 till June 2006.
When I started working with them, the first challenge appeared: being the first company that implemented Navision in Romania, they were exigent from the employment process. They also offered specialization classes in Microsoft Navision product, so I and the rest of the team were trained by with a Microsoft Navision specialist for two weeks. Then two exams established my Certification as Microsoft Navision developer with very high scores (96 points out of 100, for the first examination, and 100 points, at the second exam).
After earning my certification as Navision developer, I was part of a team working for one of our most important clients. My main responsibilities included Navision solution development and customization.
Responsibilities:
- implementation of documented updates,
- new screens design,
- new reports development using custom Navision Reporting,
- primary testing functionalities,
- Native Navision database design, tables and records updates, data verification
- user preferences maintenance in the application,
- communication with the consultants.
Tools used:
- Microsoft Navision IDE
https://mcp.microsoft.com/authenticate/validatemcp.aspx
Transcript ID: 770644 Access Code: radupoenaru
The two certifications that I earned during the time in which I was part of the Novensys team motivated me to achieve the recognition of my SQL skills also, becoming Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in SQL 2005
How to add a Webslice
Sep 15th
It is very nice and user-friendly to have Webslices on your website. It improves the user experience by allowing visitors to be up to date with the latest content that you provide, assuming that it is fitted to this presentation style. Since my BNR exchange rates page was this kind, I pursued in adding a Webslice especially for it.
Adding a webslice to your website is simple. After you read the main specifications or my previous article, you’ll understand the concept behind: first you signal to the browser that you have a special part of your website by setting to a container element the class “hslice”:
<div id="BNRExchange" class="hslice">
<div style="display: none" class="entry-title">
<img id="image" alt="Radu Poenaru's weblog gives you BNR Exchange rates" src="http://www.radupoenaru.com/bnr/images/radupoenaru.jpg" width="128" height="128" />
<p>
Cursul oficial BNR
</p>
</div>
<p>
<a style="display: none" href="http://www.radupoenaru.com/bnr/bnr.php" rel="entry-content">
<a style="display: none" href="http://www.radupoenaru.com/bnr/bnr.php" rel="Bookmark" target="_blank">
<span style="display: none" class="ttl">5</span>
</p>
<div id="updateTrigger" class="entry-content" runat="server" />
........ your content that you want surrounded by the green webslice part ..............
</div>
