DBActive

Lots of code has been flowing out of Redmond recently:

• Two Visual Basic 2005 Power Packs have been released. The Microsoft Interop Forms Toolkit 1.0 and Microsoft PrintForm Component 1.0 are both targeted at people who use COM and VB6 and should make migration of code easier in many cases. You can get them here, and more are likely to come.
• Beta 1 of VS 2005 Service Pack 1 has been released. This service pack includes a significant amount of work on the part of the Visual Basic compiler team and addresses a lot of the major issues (performance or otherwise) that we’ve found after release. I encourage people to try it out and report any problems you run into with it (I’ve got it installed!). You can get it on Microsoft Connect.
• The September Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Orcas has been released. Unlike the previous LINQ CTPs, this CTP is actual Orcas production code instead of a prototype implementation. As a result, many of the features present in the last LINQ CTP aren’t in this CTP, so it’s going to be a step back in that regard. Also, because of the way the CTP schedule and the VB compiler schedule happened to (not) sync up, there are not a lot of new VB features in this CTP. Expect much more in the coming CTPs! You can get the CTP here (and hurrah! We’re finally moving to Virtual PC images!).

Enjoy all the tasty code!

In this second installment, author Justin Whitney shows how painless XML programming can be and how creating a Web Service in Visual Studio 2005 using the DB2 9 Add-ins and interacting with those services using asynchronous JavaScript can make you a hero.

In this second installment, author Justin Whitney shows how painless XML programming can be and how creating a Web Service in Visual Studio 2005 using the DB2 9 Add-ins and interacting with those services using asynchronous JavaScript can make you a hero.

You can’t escape it—XML is everywhere. From RSS to Ajax, XML has become the de facto standard for today’s rich Internet applications. This walkthrough covers how to build an Ajax application from scratch using DB2 9’s new XML functionality. You’ll go from installing and configuring your free download of DB2 9 Express-C to creating Web Services in Visual Studio 2005 using the DB2 9 Add-ins to interacting with those services using asynchronous JavaScript.

You can’t escape it—XML is everywhere. From RSS to Ajax, XML has become the de facto standard for today’s rich Internet applications. This walkthrough covers how to build an Ajax application from scratch using DB2 9’s new XML functionality. You’ll go from installing and configuring your free download of DB2 9 Express-C to creating Web Services in Visual Studio 2005 using the DB2 9 Add-ins to interacting with those services using asynchronous JavaScript.

Data compression is a great method for maximizing data storage space and making data communication faster. However, compression and decompression of binary data sometimes can be quite tricky. Learn a few useful data-compression techniques.

It isn’t sticking yet, but the rain that has been falling since last night just turned into snow! This is always a great moment in Fairbanks. Sadly, it means the end of another great kayaking and canoeing season, but it means that soon we’ll be mushing, skijoring, and skiing.

Winter in Alaska rocks!

One of the microsoft.com operations team’s challenges is the proper configuration of ASP.NET. Here are some tips they’ve learned.

A number of improvements in Active Directory will come your way with the next version of Windows Server. These new Active Directory features will solve a number of problems you previously had to try to work around or simply live with.

The Group Policy infrastructure has been overhauled, delivering new management features, new policy settings, support for multiple local GPOs, and much more. This article looks under the hood at the many changes Windows Vista brings to Group Policy.