Goto 100 - Development with Visual Basic

FREE Visual Basic Upgrade Companion tool for VB6 to .NET

Eric Nelson UK — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:38:51 GMT

A couple of years back I was closely involved with helping developers take their investments in VB6 forward (e.g. I created this blog which still has great VB stuff in its archives).

Those with sharp eyes will have noticed that the (IMHO rather poor) Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard is no longer part of Visual Studio as of Visual Studio 2010. My recommendation has always been to look to the partners for great tools to help with the grunt work of moving the code – but all these tools cost money. Or rather – that was how it used to be.

I just learnt that Artinsoft are now offering a FREE version of their Visual Basic Upgrade Companion which works for up to 10,000 LOC. Well done them!

You can download via the MSDN site.

Jason Zander has also posted more details on this plus some other news for VB6 folks.

Q&A: Where can I get architectural guidance on building applications for the Windows Azure Platform?

Eric Nelson UK — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:54:11 GMT

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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This question has come up a lot in recent weeks as early adopters move from prototyping with the platform to actually needing to deliver real applications.

Whilst fundamentally you are using the same approaches and best practices for the Windows Azure Platform as you would use for a Web application or service (A good IIS7/ASP.NET based architecture is likely a good Windows Azure Platform architecture), there is still plenty of differences which impact on architecture....

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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New SQL Azure Development Accelerator Core promotional offer announced

Eric Nelson UK — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:40:08 GMT

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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This is (almost) a straight copy and paste but represents an important announcement worthy of a little more “exposure” :-)

Starting August 1, 2010, we will release a new SQL Azure Development Accelerator Core promotional offer. This new offer will give you the flexibility to purchase commitment quantities of SQL Azure Business Edition databases independent of other Windows Azure platform services at a deeply discounted monthly price. The offer is valid only for a six month term. You may purchase in 10 GB increments the amount of our Business Edition relational database that you require (each Business Edition database is capable of storing up to 50 GB).

The offer price will be $74.95 per 10 GB per month. This promotional offer represents 25% off of our normal consumption rates. Monthly Business Edition relational database usage exceeding the purchased commitment amount and usage for other Windows Azure platform services for this offer will be charged at our normal consumption rates.

Please click here for full details of our new SQL Azure Development Accelerator Core offer.

Related Links:

Details of 5GB and 50GB databases have been released
http://ukazure.ning.com UK community site
Getting started with the Windows Azure Platform

Details of 5GB and 50GB SQL Azure databases have now been released, along with new price points

Eric Nelson UK — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:41:20 GMT

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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Like many others signed up to the Windows Azure Platform, I received an email overnight detailing the upcoming database size changes for SQL Azure. I know from our work with early adopters over the last 12 months that the 1GB and 10GB limits were sometimes seen as blockers, especially when migrating existing application to SQL Azure.

On June 28th 2010, we will be increasing the size limits:

SQL Azure Web Edition database from 1 GB to 5 GB
SQL Azure Business Edition database will go from 10 GB to 50 GB

Along with these changes comes new price points, including the option to increase in increments of 10GB:

Web Edition:
- Up to 1 GB relational database = $9.99 / month
- Up to 5 GB relational database = $49.95 / month
Business Edition:
- Up to 10 GB relational database = $99.99 / month
- Up to 20 GB relational database = $199.98 / month
- Up to 30 GB relational database = $299.97 / month
- Up to 40 GB relational database = $399.96 / month
- Up to 50 GB relational database = $499.95 / month

Check out the full SQL Azure pricing.

Related Links:

http://ukazure.ning.com UK community site
Getting started with the Windows Azure Platform

Internet Explorer 9 Preview 2 link + webcasts for developers

Eric Nelson UK — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:11:01 GMT

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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At Web Directions last week in London (10th and 11th June 2010) I promised several folks I would put up a blog post to more information on IE 9. True to my word (albeit a little later than I had hoped), here is what I was thinking of:

Install

First up, Install Preview 2 and try out the demos I was showing at the conference. Remember that IE9 Preview installs side by side with IE8/7 etc. It is not a beta nor is it intended to be a full browser. It is a … preview :-)

Including good old SVG-oids :-)

Learn

And then check out the following webcasts which were recorded in March this year at MIX:

In-Depth Look At Internet Explorer 9

Presenter: Ted Johnson & John Hrvatin
VisitMIX URL: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL28
Slides: Download
Videos: MP4 Small WMV Large WMV

High Performance Best Practices For Web Sites

Presenter: Jason Weber
VisitMIX URL: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL29
Slides: Download
Videos: MP4 Small WMV Large WMV

HTML5: Cross Browser Best Practices

Presenter: Tony Ross
VisitMIX URL: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL27
Slides: Download
Videos: MP4 Small WMV Large WMV

Internet Explorer Developer Tools

Presenter: Jon Seitel
VisitMIX URL: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/FT51
Slides: Download
Videos: MP4 Small WMV Large WMV

SVG: The Past, Present And Future of Vector Graphics For The Web

Presenter: Patrick Dengler, Doug Schepers
VisitMIX URL: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/EX30
Slides: Download
Videos: MP4 Small WMV Large WMV

Day 2 Keynote containing IE9

Presenter: Dean Hachamovitch
VisitMIX URL: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/KEY02
Slides: Download
Videos: MP4 Small WMV Large WMV

Q&A: How do I cancel my Windows Azure Platform Introductory Special? (or any Subscription)

Eric Nelson UK — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:25:08 GMT

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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Short answer: Don’t! Just kidding :-)

Long answer:

I believe it is the same process as for other Microsoft Online Services – but I have never tried it. Hence please post a comment if you follow this successfully or not and I will amend....

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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Windows Azure Platform eBook Update #2 – 100 pages of goodness

Eric Nelson UK — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:39:53 GMT

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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I previously mentioned I was working on a community authored eBook for the Windows Azure Platform. Well, today I assembled the 20 articles that made it through to the end of the review process into a single eBook – and it looks (and reads) great. Still a lot more to do (and stuff in the way of me doing it) but as a teaser, here is the (very draft) table of contents:...

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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SQL Azure Roadmap gets a little clearer – announcements from Tech Ed

Eric Nelson UK — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:06:48 GMT

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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On Monday at Tech▪Ed 2010 we announced new stuff (I like new stuff) that “showcases our continued commitment to deliver value, flexibility and control of data through data cloud services to our customers”.

Ok, that does sound like marketing speak (and it is) but the good news is there is some meat behind it. We have some decent new features coming and we also have some clarity on when we will be able to get our hands on those features.

SQL Azure Business Edition Extends to 50 GB – June 28th

SQL Azure Business Edition database is now extending from 10GB to 50GB
The new 50GB database size will be available worldwide starting June 28th

SQL Azure Business Edition Subscription Offer – August 1st

Starting August 1st, we will have a new discounted SQL Azure promotional offer (SQL Azure Development Accelerator Core)
More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/.

Public Preview of the Data Sync Service - CTP now

Data Sync Service for SQL Azure allows for more flexible control over data by deciding which data components should be distributed across multiple datacenters in different geographic locations, based on your internal policies and business needs.
Available as a community technology preview after registering at http://www.sqlazurelabs.com

SQL Server Web Manager for SQL Azure - CTP this Summer

SQL Server Web Manager (SSWM) is a lightweight and easy to use database management tool for SQL Azure databases, to be offered this summer.

Access 10 Support for SQL Azure – available now

Yey – at last! Microsoft Office 2010 will natively support data connectivity to SQL Azure – we can now start developing those “departmental apps” with the confidence of a highly available SQL store provisioned in seconds.
NB: I don’t believe we will support any previous versions of Access talking to SQL Azure.

The Pre-announced Spatial Data Support to Become Live – Live now*

At MIX in March we announced spatial was coming and apparently it is now here - although I need to check.

Related Links

UK based? Sign up at http://ukazure.ning.com
SQL Azure Team Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlazure/

Q&A: Will my favourite ORM Foo work with SQL Azure?

Eric Nelson UK — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:11:52 GMT

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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short answer: Quite probably, as SQL Azure is very similar to SQL Server

longer answer: Object Relational Mappers (ORMs) that work with SQL Server are likely but not guaranteed to work with SQL Azure. The differences between the RDBMS versions are small – but may cause problems, for example in tools used to create the mapping between objects and tables or in generated SQL from the ORM which expects “certain things” :-)

More specifically:

ADO.NET Entity Framework / LINQ to Entities can be used with SQL Azure, but the Visual Studio designer does not currently work. You will need to point the designer at a version of your database running of SQL Server to create the mapping, then change the connection details to run against SQL Azure.
LINQ to SQL has similar issues to ADO.NET Entity Framework above
NHibernate can be used against SQL Azure
DevExpress XPO supports SQL Azure from version 9.3
DataObjects.Net supports SQL Azure
Open Access from Telerik works “seamlessly” - their words not mine :-)

The list above is by no means comprehensive – please leave a comment with details of other ORMs that work (or do not work) with SQL Azure.

Related Links:

Announcing gmStudio V9.85 for VB6/ASP/COM re-engineering

Eric Nelson UK — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:12:21 GMT

Great Migrations has released gmStudio V9.85. gmStudio is a programmable VB6/ASP/COM re-engineering tool that enables an agile tool-assisted rewrite methodology and helps teams dramatically lower the total cost, risk, and disruption of ambitious migration projects without sacrificing quality, control, or time to market.

Figure 1: the gmStudio Main Form

The hallmark characteristics of gmStudio include the following:

Programmable -- can be configured to meet unique restructuring and coding conventions; for example replacing COM components with managed components (e.g., ADODB to ADO.NET)
Accurate -- correctly transforms VB6/ASP codebase to logically equivalent .NET code
Scalable -- handles multiple related projects (combinations of VB6 components and ASP pages) to produce a coherent codebase with no interop between migrated components.
Choice of Language -- supports translation to C# and VB.NET and VS2005 and VS2005. VS2010 is planned for an upcoming release.
Complete -- supports all common VB6/ASP features and all COM components.
Mature -- refined through extensive use on large scale migration projects.
Fast! -- translates typical VB projects in a few seconds.

gmStudio allows you to...

specify a wide array of preferences, settings and other information to improve the quality of translations
reduce the work needed to make the translations correct and conformant to your .NET standards
control how VB6/ASP language elements are upgraded to .NET language and framework calls
control how logic that uses COM APIs is re-engineered to use .NET classes
control how forms and logic that uses ActiveX controls are re-engineered to use .NET controls and components
control how logic that uses Win32 APIs is re-engineered to use .NET methods
customize the settings in your csproj or vbproj files and other static content in your .NET files
control the deployment of your .NET codes into the files and directories that you want
create stubbed out code for the application modules or functions you plan to rewrite from scratch
delete application modules or functions that you want to remove from your application
insert hand written code for the application modules or functions you plan to rewrite from scratch
create stubbed out code for COM components and controls referenced by your VB6/ASP files

Figure 2: Excerpt from a RefactorLibrary file that migrates MsComCtl.ImageList to System.Windows.Forms.ImageList

gmStudio ships with...

over 60 configuration files that direct the translation process. You may customize these files or add your own for additional control
C# source code for a Migration Support library
an extensive online migration methodology guide and product user's manual

Figure 3: Partial Listing of gmStudio Migration Configuration Files

gmStudio has various migration management features...

compute the build order of a large set of inter-related VBPs or the include dependencies of a large set of ASP files
track and validate the changes in your translated code as you experiment with and refine your re-engineering settings
produce an extensive selection of useful analytics, code metrics, and dependency reports
integrate with VisualStudio and MSBuild to validate your .NET translations
extend the conversion process with user-defined processing steps

Figure 4: gmStudio Reports Form

About Great Migrations

Great Migrations is based in Dublin, Ohio USA. The Great Migrations team has specialized exclusively in computer language processing and automated software re-engineering tools since 1982. Great Migrations is a Microsoft Certified ISV partner and gmStudio is a Windows 7 Logo certified product. Additional details are available at http://www.Greatmigrations.com