I've switched to using BlogLines to read blogs.  It's an on-line web based service, similar to many others out there I suppose.  I couldn't tell you the pros and cons v similar sites but I can tell you that for me it's better than an offline windows reader.

Why?  Well, in no particular order, heres why:

1) I don't get bothered by it as often as I would with NewsGator or Sauce Reader etc
2) It works.  Sauce Reader has been beta for way too long.  I don't care that they had to rewrite the darn thing, others have managed to get working products in much less time.  NewsGator would be OK if I could get it to work at work.  I don't think it likes Outlook 02.
3) Bloglines has a downloadable windows notifier that you can set to check every minutes or day or whatever and it doesn't use googleplexes of ram.
4) I can have one single place with my subscriptions.  Previously I had to have the subscriptions on my work and home machine(s) and they were never in sync.  NewsGator offered a way around this with their on-line service but I didn't manage to get this working.
5) Bloglines is free and very easy to setup.  Plus you get a blog site there if you want it.
6) Bloglines has email subscriptions.

 

SQL Reporting Services SP2 should be on MSDN Downloads by now.  Interstingly, it came through on the RSS feed dated May 24th but I coudn't find it in the download page yet.

SP2 includes a small number of useful patches and some new features.  I wouldn't call it a huge improvement, but it's worth the download.  Client side printing is probably the most useful feature.

I normally wouldn't post about bugs in beta products (it's a beta after all) but this one is so annoying I thought people might like to know what I did to work around it.

Pre-beta 2 I noticed a rather annoying problem in Visual Studio 05 - some keys stop working.  Usually this is backspace, delete, undo, escape etc.  Everything but alpha keys.  It was very annoying!

So, I was a good chap and logged this on the product feedback site.  MS have recently responded and said that it will be fixed in a forthcoming CTP.  In the meantime,  I've been getting this a LOT recently and I was having to either restart VS.Net or reset the window layout - often 5 - 10 times a day.

The bug is caused by the tool windows (solution explorer etc).  You can usually get it to fault by pinning and un-pinning the solution explorer or properties window.

I found a better workaround.  Simply undock all the tool windows that live on the sides of VS and move these to your 2nd monitor.  Everyone has a second monitor right?  Well, if not, then you may not have room.  Since doing this a couple of days ago I have not had the problem.

I whipped up (or is it ripped off?) a new skin last night.  If you reading this on the web page and not with an aggregator then this will be obvious.  I needed to do this so I could insert the Technorati link.  Tonight I'll also add in the Bloglines link.  These are required so as to register a blog with them.

You can clearly see I'm not web design guru but I must say that it's very easy to create a skin for dasBlog -  a lot easier than doing the same with .Text. 

I wish I'd discovered this a lot sooner as I would have done things differently.  My main site at jonesie.net.nz is still blank as I have been busy and I don't really know what to put there.  In hindsite, I should have just put this blog there and included the few extra things I need in the new skin.  I'll probably do this as my 3 regular readers probably won't get too upset with having to resub AGAIN.  Sorry...

 

I've been having a few problems with File based web projects (probably of my own making) so I switched to using HTTP (IIS) instead.  Unfortunately, this screwed my Team Build.

The solution is to manually edit the SLN file, as per the instructions here:  http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3968. 

This certainly fixed the immediate problem, now my tests are failing :{  Once I get these passing again I' should hopefully get a published build.  That will be a good achievement for a rainy Friday.

Sean has blogged about TechEd 05 and I'd like to add my recommendation as well - BOOK NOW!  The early bird gets the you know what.  Judging by the session planning that Chuck has been doing, it's going to be extremely difficult to decide which session I'm going to miss.

I've noticed over the years that when a new version of a product is release (or close to release) I discover features of the old version that I didn't know about - and wish I had known about a long time ago!

I just found an article by Shawn Wildermuth that describes how to annotate dataset schema to alter the generated code.  This is not a new idea, the article is dated March 2003.  Well worth a read if you hate the way null values are treated - especially date fields.  Wish I had know about this in 2003 but I think it still applies to the new stuff.

 

My first Team Build!

I thought it was about time I revamped my old site and in the process get a domain that actually matched my name.