Posts tagged Microsoft
SharePoint 2010 – a technical overview for software developer
Mar 9th
Recently I started looking for jobs, because my master thesis will come to an end and I am too dynamic to loose time after graduation searching for the perfect job.
Since I am a certified ASP .Net 3.5 professional, I started looking in this direction – but almost anyone associated ASP with SharePoint. Since I didn’t had any clue about SharePoint, I enjoyed very much the opportunity to take part in a technical workshop on this theme.
So on a very beautiful day of 8th of March (yes, on the Woman’s day), I woke up and traveled to Köln, where the workshop was held. At 10 AM the workshop, presented by Šenaj Lelic, maguro DataAssist GmbH and seconded by Peter Kirchner, Program Manager ISV for Developer Platform & Strategy Group.
The workshop was focused on different features, starting with a technical overview of SharePoint 2010 which prepared the audience including the presentation of new features in SharePoint 2010 which were interesting for us, developers.
My first day at CeBIT
Mar 3rd
As part of the Microsoft Student Partners I was invited to take part yet again from a Social Media Reporting team. This time is the CeBIT, a huge conference about consumer electronics. We arrived yesterday, on 2nd of March, to prepare ourselves for the challenge.
In the morning we just scouted the area, looking for interesting places to blog, tweet and make movies about. If you haven’t been to CeBIT, you should understand that it is really HUGE – there are around 30 big display areas in which you can be lost without a map.
There were a lot of nice prizes there : More >
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 – a business overview for software developer
Feb 8th
I am a certified SQL 2005 Technology Specialist. While this means a lot from a professional point of view, the new technologies come toward us, developers, too fast sometimes. It is quite a while since SQL 2008 was launched, and now SQL 2008 R2 brings its novelties. One good developer must keep up to date with its skills, otherwise the quality and quantity of his or hers work will suffer. New technologies means usually more productive developers – and I wish to stay on the wave instead under it.
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.
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
