Paul Litwin's Blog

LINQ Presentation Slides and Samples

2008-06-12T03:46:00Z

I just posted my slides and samples for a new talk I presented at the Fort Wayne, Indiana .NET Users Group.

I thought the talk went well and hope you enjoy the slides and samples which you can find along with materials for several other talks at my downloads page.

Paul

LINQ Query Syntax C# vs. VB vs. SQL

2008-06-09T05:55:00Z

FWIW, I found it helpful to create this table to compare the query syntax of C# and VB and how it translates into SQL.

C# LINQ	VB LINQ	ANSI SQL
from	From	FROM
select	Select	SELECT
where	Where	WHERE
orderby	Order By	ORDER BY
join	Join	JOIN
group	Group By	GROUP BY
Distinct()	Distinct	DISTINCT
into	Into	INTO
let	Let	AS
Count(), Sum(),…	Aggregate	COUNT, SUM,… with no group
Skip()	Skip	n/a
SkipWhile()	Skip While	n/a
Take()	Take	n/a
TakeWhile()	Take While	n/a

BBC Article on Dirty Keyboards

2008-05-24T03:41:51Z

Have you seen the BBC article on shared keyboards being dirtier than a toilet? A consumer group named "Which?" swabbed a bunch of keyboards in their own offices and cultured the swabs.

"Out of 33 keyboards swabbed, four were regarded as a potential health hazard and one harboured five times more germs than one of the office's toilet seats."

On of the things the article recommend against was eating at the keyboard (which, by the way, I am doing as I write this post -- help me stop...). I am totally guilty of this at both work and home.

The fix: "She said dust and food crumbs should be shaken out of keyboards and they should be wiped with a soft, lightly dampened, lint-free cloth. They should also be disinfected with alcohol wipes."

Paul

My Eugene Marathon Experience

2008-05-15T07:44:00Z

Race Day
Sunday, May 4th came for me at 5:30 AM. I awoke before the two alarms I had set went off, which was good because I managed to get up, dress, eat, and leave without waking the kids. And with only waking Suzanne briefly before she dozed back off to sleep. The four of us were sharing a hotel room at the Shilo Inn in Springfield, 3 miles north of the marathon start. I poured my Nature’s Path Optimum Slim cereal into the hotel bowl along with some milk and closed the bathroom door as I ate my race day breakfast (plus a banana) and finished getting dressed. Shoes -- check. Shirt, shorts, socks, hat -- check. Water bottle and belt -- check. Garmin GPS watch and heart rate strap -- check. Glide slathered on my chaff points (where my shorts hit the inside of my thighs) -- check. Race number, timing chip, and bag to check at the start -- check. Okay, say goodbye to Suzanne and time to go.

Getting There
Suzanne and the kids weren’t planning on attending the start. So my plan was to go down to the lobby and try to tag along with other people going to the race. Or, if that didn’t work, call a cab. Fortunately, just before I was to call for a cab, three women wearing race numbers and marathon gear walked through the lobby. I asked them if they were headed to the marathon and if they had room for me and they said sure though they were running in the half. Even better, they were planning on stopping off at Starbucks on the way! So to thank them I paid for their drinks—I got a tall non-fat latte—and we drove off to Autzen stadium where the marathon was set to finish. From there, we caught a bus to the start.

While walking to the starting line, I noticed a bunch of runners heading into a building. I instantly followed into the law school building. Racing tip: It’s always preferable to use the bathrooms inside of a building instead of the porta-potties. Real bathrooms usually have less of a wait (in fact, there was no line), are warmer, and frankly a lot nicer than the porta-potties. Score!

After warming up for about a ¼ mile, I went back into the law school building and stretched, followed by one final potty break. I then proceeded to the bag dropoff just past the starting line and then got to the starting line (or as close as I could to it) with about 15 minutes until the scheduled start.

Thankfully, I ran into Peter (my brother) and his friend Gerry at the start. The start was pretty crowded; it was a single combined start for both the marathon and half marathon on a somewhat narrow street which made it worse. I was planning on trying to run with Krista from ChuckIt but could not locate her in the crowd so I lined up with Peter and Gerry and figured I’d be running most of the race alone. 10 minutes prior to the hour, I downed a Gu per my fuel and hydration plan. Eleven minutes later, the gun went off and the race had begun.

Compared to other shorter running events, the marathon is less of a race and more like a contest or battle. I say this because in most other races, the results are much more predictable. Take a 5K, for example. You pretty much know at the start that you will finish and even if you go out too fast (like I did at this year's resolution run in Seattle), you can always slow down and jog it in. Same goes for the 10K and even a half marathon. Not so for the marathon. Take my last two marathons, for example. In 2003, I was cruising at around 7:40 per mile for the first 17 or so miles and then quickly fell apart and hit the wall around mile 22. So in 2004, I decide to go out slower and I still managed to hit the wall around mile 22 or so.

Let’s face it. The marathon is a formidable opponent. Things may go as planned, or they just as easily (perhaps more easily) may not. You may do everything right and you still hit the wall or bonk. And how do you decide pace? Based on your half marathon or 10K time? Well that may work, but then again, it may not (it was a poor predictor for me in 2003 and 2004). The point I am trying to make is that as much as you can strategize, it isn’t a race. It’s a contest between you and the marathon. A battle of sorts to see if you have what it takes. And it had been 4 years since my last try.

No matter how many articles and blog posts I had read, no matter how many discussions with runner friends I had had, I still had no idea what was going to happen that day. A lot of effort had gone into getting me to the starting line on race day but that saying about “the best laid plans” was doubly true for a marathon. I hoped for a good race because I frankly didn’t know how (and I still don’t know) how many more marathons I had in me.

The Plan
The race began at 7:00 AM next to Hayward field. My basic plan was this: run the first 13 miles at about 8:10 pace and the last 13 miles at 7:50 pace. This would give me a finishing time of 3:30. My Boston Marathon qualifying cutoff time was 3:35:59 so that gave me 6 minutes of slack time above my goal time. Most importantly, I was not to start out too fast. A little slower than 8:10 was okay but not faster; after all there was slack built into the plan and was determined not to bonk.

The Start
The gun went off at 7:01 AM. I ran most of the first mile with Peter and Gerry. I tried to relax as I chatted with Peter and Gerry and joked around. Mile 1 included the most significant hill in the race which went on for a couple of blocks. Nothing too bad for someone who trains in Seattle. Overall, the first mile went well at 8:31. The second mile included a significant down hill so the 7:53 time wasn’t anything to be concerned about. Around this time I came up upon two young women (in their early twenties) dressed identically with matching pink tops and shorts, white socks, the same shoes, and pink ribbons in their hair. I asked them if they were twins; they were not. I hung behind them for a little while but eventually let them go ahead as well as many other runners. I was determined to stick to my race pla, not theirs. Mile 3 clocked at 8:00, followed by 8:06, 8:01, and 7:59 for mile 6. Okay, I was running closer to 8:00 pace for those first few miles but that was no cause for concern. Just stay relaxed and it would work out.

For those interested, here is a map of the course.

For the first 7 miles we were running south of the University of Oregon (U of O) and then looping back through the U of O, through downtown, and then finally across the Willamette river. During mile 6 at around 50 minutes into the race I downed another Gu per my plan and finished the water in my bottle. Suzanne and the kids were supposed to be at or near the mile 7 water stop but I didn’t see them. The idea was that they would swap out my water bottle at miles 7 and 17. This would save me from having to stop at the water stops to drink and increase the quantity of water I could consume. So far the plan was working nicely since I was able to down the first bottle of water without having to stop once. Now where were they?

The Potty Stop
About this time I realized that I had to go to the bathroom again. Never mind the fact that I had used the bathroom at least 3 times prior to the start. There’s just something about gravity. Enough said. Anyway, at about 7.5 miles into the race I saw a unoccupied porta-potty on the right side of the road and made the executive decision to go now and be done with it rather than put it off until it after it became a crisis. Approximately two minutes later I was back running. Unfortunately, like the coach who cursed the fact that he or she used up their timeouts too early in the game, I would later question if the stop was necessary and whether I could have/should have did my business faster.

The other issue with the potty break was this: the Garmin GPS watch has this great feature called AutoStop which works like a charm during workouts to stop the clock when it has determined you have stopped. Unfortunately, the race organizers won’t take into consideration this fact when calculating your race time at the finish. In other words, I forgot to turn this wonderful feature off before race start so the watch stopped when I hunkered down in the port-potty which meant not only did I not know the actual clock time from the start but I also didn’t know how long I had stopped. I guessed 2 minutes.

So I jumped back on the course and noticed Gerry just in front of me. I caught up to Gerry and explained that I had made a potty stop. Funny thing is that we had just been talking about potty stops the night before when we were checking out the course. That’s the kind of thing that runners talk about in the nervous hours leading up to the start of a race. Since Gerry and I started together I was able to verify that my break took about 2 minutes. But at this point I also realized that my Garmin watch, as currently configured, didn’t report the elapsed seconds when the time went over 1 hour. Damn. If I had configured the watch correctly, this wouldn’t be a problem. The net effect of all this was that, for the remainder of the race, I would not know precisely the elapsed time of my effort. The best I could do was to take my time, sans seconds and add about 2 minutes to it. At this point, however, I was not terribly concerned because according to my race plan I still had 3 minutes of slack between my estimated finish time and the Boston cutoff.

Having someone to chat with as you run is a nice benefit for so many reasons, not the least of which it distracts you from thinking too much about your pace and the race. So I appreciated having Gerry to run with, even if it was the result of me taking a two minute break. The one danger, of course, with running with someone else is the temptation to adopt their race plan instead of yours. But for me, this was not the case, since I ran 8:04 (plus 2 minutes or so for the break) for mile 7, and 8:08 for mile 8. Just before mile 9, Suzanne, Anna, and Matthew appeared which I very much appreciated. Certainly, hearing your daughter yell “Go daddy, go!” is enough to lift your spirits. Anna and Matthew at this point were both trying to give me their water bottles but alas I only needed one at this time and grabbed Anna’s bottle first. (Later, after the race, I learned that Matthew was actually supposed to give me his bottle with Anna waiting until later in the race. Apparently, she got excited and offered me hers before Matthew had a chance and this caused some hurt feelings that Suzanne had to soothe for a number of minutes after I had disappeared.)

Shortly after seeing the family we crossed the river on the Autzen footbridge, Gerry and I said “goodbye” as he dropped back slightly (and ran “his” race). I turned on my ipod nano and settled back into focusing (or should I say obsessing) on the race. My mile 9 split was 8:05. After the bridge we took a right, heading east on a bike trail. Mile 10 was a bit faster at 7:55, followed by an 8:05 mile 11 as we headed onto the street. Despite slathering the glide on fairly thickly before the race, my legs were starting to chaff. So I stopped briefly to apply some Aqua Four before continuing. I also threw back another Gu at this point.

Second Half
I clocked mile 12 at 8:14 and mile 13 at 8:03. At this point the course looped back and headed west and it was time, according to the race plan, to drop down to 7:50 pace. In reality, I was pretty close turning in splits of 7:55, 7:54, and another 7:54 for the next 3 miles. At mile 14 we crossed paths with the slower runners running the other way (for them it was mile 11). It took me a second to realize they were actually behind me and not in front of me before I continued on the trail. At mile 16, we passed the Autzen footbridge, which by the way, was only a few hundred yards south of the finish line at Autzen stadium. But I had another 10 miles to cover before I would get there.

The trail continued east along the bike path and the Willamette river. I was looking forward to seeing the family at Mc Menamins at mile 17. Assuming they made it there in time. While Suzanne is not the most geographically inclined person, I was counting on the Tom-Tom One GPS navigation system I bought for her for Christmas and my instructions to get her there. My only concern was that roadblocks to prevent motorists from running over runners might thwart her efforts. Alas, she and the kids were there right in front of Mc Menamins with my next water bottle, which Matthew proudly handed to me. After exchanging my empty for the full bottle, I stopped and hugged them all. A half second later, Suzanne shooed me away, reminding me that it was time to get running again. I posted an 8:03 for mile 17. Between mile 17 and 18 I choked down another Gu and about this time, I started to doubt whether I could continue at a 7:50ish pace. I ran a little slower than that but still managed to maintain a steady effort nonetheless and clocked 7:56, 8:04, and 8:06 for miles 18, 19, and 20, respectively. Just after mile 20, the course double-backed on itself before heading across the river on the Owosso Bridge. It was at this point that I saw Krista and managed to quickly blurt out “Krista” as she ran by. She silently nodded as she continued in the opposite direction probably about 2 minutes ahead of me. She looked in pain. About this time I started to worry if it was my turn to feel pain too and, dare I say, possibly hit the wall?

Shortly after that I crossed the river and much to my surprise saw Suzanne and the kids at the other end of the bridge at an unplanned stop. It was a great surprise; I yelled hi and plodded on as I heard a chorus of “Go Daddy, go”. My spirits were definitely lifted as I raised my arms over my head and looked back. Mile 21 was clocked in at 8:03. As I headed east on the bike trail along the river I stopped thinking about whether I was going to bonk (I decided I was probably not going to at this point) and started to do the math of where I was in relationship to my Boston cutoff. Only last week I had turned 50 and gained another precious 5 minutes. Surely, I could run a 3:35 marathon. Surely I could. My quick math based on my estimate of a 2 minute potty down time assured me that if I could average 8:20 or for the remaining miles I would still qualify. No problem, unless…

Only 5 Miles to Go
Only 5 miles to go but, of course, these were the miles that separated the runner from the whatever you call a non-runner. This is where it mattered. Everything up to this point was setting the stage for the final 5 miles. I was definitely feeling fatigued at this point and redoubled my efforts to maintain an 8:00 minute-ish pace for the remaining miles. Mile 22 clocked in at 8:00 but at mile 23 I slowed down to 8:16 and was starting to drag. At this point I was supposed to down another disgusting Gu but I have to say that between all the water I drank and the Gu’s I had eaten I was starting to feel full and visualized my stomach filled with a mixture of water and Gu sloshing around at around the 95% full line. Still I feared the bonk more than getting sick and I managed to down another Gu somewhere between mile 23 and 24. In grabbing the Gu, I managed to drop my ipod and a fellow runner picked it up and handed it to me. I thanked him, stopping briefly to reattach it to myself and continued.

For the most part, I was mostly passing other runners who were fading at this point. But occasionally, someone would pass me and I focused in on a woman who recently passed me trying to muster enough strength to tag along behind her. I managed to hang on for a bit but she obviously was running too fast for me so I let her go and continued to plod along at my pace, which for mile 24 had now slowed down to 8:33. My average heart rate at this point was averaging around 164, which meant that I was definitely working hard to maintain the pace. Only 3 miles to go.

Could I hang on at this pace or would I slow to a crawl. Damn another hill ahead. Hey I thought this course was supposed to be flat. Now, note that I live and train in Seattle, which is full of hills. While I can’t say I love hills or even like them, running in Seattle gets you pretty used to hills -- lots of them and lots of big hills at that. Hell, it’s the rare workout that avoids any hill in Seattle and here I was muttering to myself about a hill that probably ascended a whole 10 feet, which was a sign I was hurting. Just about this time, the sun began to appear as well. Till that time, it was cloudy and cool -- the perfect marathon weather. But like a vampire, at this point, I was fearing the daylight because the only thing worse than hanging on for dear life during he last 2 miles of a marathon, was hanging on for dear life during those last two miles while baking in the hot sun.

Slowing Down
My pace continued to slow; I ran mile 25 in 9:07, which considering how terrible I was feeling, was amazing. However, I was thinking that 9:07 pace might just be too slow for me to make the Boston cutoff. Some quick calculations -- and believe me at this point my brain was not the best at calculating estimates -- and I came to the conclusion that it was going to be damn close but also that I didn’t care that much anymore. I was going to finish in as fast a time as I could but I wasn’t going to dwell on the Boston cutoff. In other words, I needed to concentrate on running. That’s all that really mattered at this point and, believe me, it was hard.

Around this point, I actually grabbed a cup of Gleukos, the official race water stop sports drink. I reasoned that it was too late for another Gu but maybe a shot of sports drink might help. I’m sure it didn’t do anything for me at this late stage but I drank it anyway. A half a mile or so after milepost 25, we crossed the river one last time and headed towards the finish line in the Autzen Stadium parking lot. As I approached the bridge, I knew it was a little less than a mile to go and I dug down deep inside of me to maintain my slightly slowed pace and not settle down to a 10 or 12 minute crawl or worse stop like I so very much wanted to. As had happened through the race, total strangers continued to cheer for me and this definitely helped. Thank you, anyone and everyone who cheered for me!

"Less than a mile to go" I told myself. "Time to give it all I had. Time to speed it up". But at the same time another part of me was saying "You still have almost a mile to go". So the glass was both half full and half empty at the same time. Speaking of empty, I was definitely running on fumes but the end was getting close and I managed to run mile 26 in 9:08 pace. Again, this was slower than I wanted to run but considering how bad my legs felt it was almost miraculous that I was able to maintain that very respectable pace.

The Finish
Of course, as any long distance runner worth his or her salt will tell you, the marathon is not 26 miles long, it's 26.2 miles and I still had another 385 yards to go at this point, to be exact. At this point, I managed to speed up, clocking the last .2 miles in 8:12 pace. I ran by Suzanne and the kids (and lots of other folks) cheering for me during the final approach to the finish line. I surged even faster the last 50 yards or so and it was over. The official clock time said 3:36 something. But that was the unadjusted time; there was still a chance I came in under 3:36. As I stopped to let the race volunteer cut off my timing chip I have to say I was happy. I wasn't sure if I had made the Boston cutoff, but I also didn't really care that much. After all, it was over, and hadn't bonked.

After chowing down on some post race snacks, chatting with Krista (3:34, a person record (or PR)) and Gerry (3:37, a PR), and reuniting with the family, we watched for Peter to finish (he had a tough time with cramps; finishing in 4:07). At this point, I still didn't know my official time, so with trepidation I hobbled over to the official table and pointed to the number that was affixed to my shirt: #1011. The official plugged into his laptop and out popped a strip of paper from the printer that was about the size of a grocery store receipt. I had run 3:36:14. Wow. I missed qualifying for Boston by 15 seconds.

But despite failing to qualify for Boston, I did it. Here I was 50 years old and I managed to run a marathon, this time, without hitting the wall, and record a personal best (if one ignores the marathons I ran in high school). Not bad, if I don't say so myself.

(See pre-race post for description of events leading up to race day.)

From Earth Day to Eugene

2008-05-11T00:02:00Z

My marathon career started when I was 14 while a freshman at Archbishop Molloy High School in NYC. I had run cross-country and indoor track and there was a bit of gap before outdoor track was to start. My brother Bill and some of his friends decided they were going to run in the Earth Day Marathon that April in 1973. Bill, 2 years older than me, was always up for a challenge and I said what the heck. Up to that point, I think the longest I had ever run was maybe 9 miles but heck 26 didn't sound too bad. I finished the race that windy, snowy April day in just under 4 hours, swearing I would never run another marathon again.

I ran Earth Day 3 more times in high school, running 3:24 as a sophmore, setting a PR of 3:09 in 1975 when I was in my junior, and DNF'ing because of a heel injury in my senior year.

Just googled "Earth Day Marathon" and found this reference to the first Earth Day race I ran in 1973 in a June 26, 2007 article in Long Island Newsday by John Hanc (http://www.hamptonsmarathon.com/Stories/Documents/Newsday%20Article%206.26.07.doc):

... staged 34 years ago, in March, 1973, at the old Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury. It was called the Earth Day Marathon.
…
The Earth Day race was a spin-off of a race staged in prior years in Central Park (and before that in the Bronx) by the New York Road Runners. Held in the very early days of what would become known as the 1970s running boom, the race evinced the spirit of that time, and not only in its celebration of the then-nascent environmental movement.

The Earth Day Marathon, a loop course around the raceway (note: the author is wrong with this bit of history; the race started and finished at the raceway but then moved to 3 loops around Eisenhower Park), was tough and so were the competitors, as suggested by the words of founding race director Paul Fetscher: "Whatever kind of day it is, the weather will be a challenge," he told reporters, "and veteran die-hard runners will not shrink away from it, but fight it."

He was right. In conditions that the winner, Larry Frederick, would describe as "horrid," biting March winds reached 30 miles per hour, while temperatures sank to the freezing mark. Yet 400 runners battled through it, displaying determination if not great fashion sense.
… The marathon world, however, seems to be getting more and more crowded. When the Earth Day Marathon began, it was probably one of only 10 26.2-mile road races in the entire country...

Fast forward 28 years to 2003. After many years of off again, on again running, I finally got serious about doing another marathon, having joined a local running group (ChuckIt) run by Chuck Barlett in 2002. Unfortunately, my first adult effort at Capitol City in Olympia blew up on me. I was cruising in 3:22 pace through mile 17 when it all started to unravel; suffice it to say I hit the wall (I prefer that metaphor to the more trendy "bonk") hard but still managed to walk away (literally for several miles) with a 3:37. In 2004, I ran a bit more conservatively but still managed a visit with the wall and came in somewhere between 3:50 and 4:00. Two bad experiences in a row. Damn.

Right after that I started having severe pain in the ball of my left foot right below the pinky toe. This continued to bother me for some time so I laid off of running for a long while after getting an MRI, various other tests, therapies, orthotics, and treatment from various podiatrists, doctors, physical therapists, and massage therapists. I continued to lay off of running, eventually taking up biking. At one point late in 2005 I started running again, but was quickly sidelined with a similar injury in my right foot after a couple of months. At this point, I decided to learn to swim and took up training for sprint triathlons in early 2006, running two in the summer of 2006 and three in the summer of 2007. (I can't say enough good things about Mary Meyer Life Fitness in teaching me to swim and getting me in great triathlon shape.)

So after a successful triathlon summer and remaining injury free, I decided to set my signts on the Seattle Half Marathon. I started training again with ChuckIt. Training went pretty well and I ended up running a respectable 1:37 on the grueling Seattle Half-Marathon course. The weather was great in 2007 but I have to say that the course is a killer. There's just way too many hills but I ran well, managing to hold a pretty steady 7:30 pace pretty much the whole race.

At that point, Peter (my younger brother) said he was doing the Eugene marathon in May. I felt good coming off of Seattle, so I decided to start training for Eugene.

Training over the next four months went well. I did my second 20 miler 5 weeks prior to the race and was planning to do another one 3 weeks out but at 4 weeks before the race my left foot started hurting again after a 13 miler. Same pain at same location as before. My physiscal therapist, Bruk at Real Rehab (highly recommended) fashioned a quick orthotic to try and take some pressure off the foot and I took a full week off, substituting hard workouts on the eliptical trainer for running. Meanwhile, my confidence took a dive; still I managed to stay smart and combined running with eliptical work so that I didn't lose too much fitness for the race. After all, this happened during the last month which was always the month of the taper.

I took the Friday before the race off and Suzanne, Anna, Matthew, and I drove down to Eugene--technically I did all the driving but you get the point. Saturday, we went to the expo and I got my number, went to Eugene's version of the farmer's market and generally had a relaxing day. We hooked up with Peter (my brother), Gerry (his friend), and Cassandra (Gerry's friend) for dinner at the Oregon Electric Station. I had vegetable lasagna and lots of bread but no beer to cap off a sucessful week of carbo loading.

After dinner, Gerry, Cassandra, Peter, and I visited Hayward field (the exulted center of the running universe where Steve Prefontaine, et al trained and raced) at the U of O. When we were done checking out the course and discussing the finer points of running and having to go potty during the race they dropped me off at my hotel.

Before going to sleep, I mapped out 3 points on the course (at miles 7, 17, and the finish) with approximate times for Suzanne and the kids to meet me. I went to bed and after a half hour or so of tossing and turning managed to get a good 6 hours of sleep.

Race day events captured in separate post.

15 Seconds Off

2008-05-05T16:58:00Z

I finished my sixth marathon yesterday, the Eugene Marathon, and missed qualifying for the next Boston marathon by a mere 15 seconds. My time: 3:36:14. The qualifying cutoff time for my age/gender group: 3:35:59. Bummer.

Overall, a great race. Perfect weather. Cool, not cold. No precipitation. A little wind in places but nothing too bad. One thing of note: while it was not a "hilly" course, there were enough rolling hills in the last seven or eight miles to make it tough. I would not call it a "flat" course.

My pace was pretty constant around 8:00 most of the race until the last 4 miles where I slowed down to about 9:00 a mile. The average pace was 8:16. The difference was that I took a 2 minute potty break around mile 7. In retrospect that made the difference.

Oh well.

Stay tuned for more complete posts on the race and leading up to the race to come...

Call for Abstracts for the Fall 2008 Microsoft ASP.NET Connections

2008-03-09T20:42:00Z

Dear Fellow Speaker,

With the Microsoft ASP.NET Connections conference in Orlando just around the corner, we would like to start planning the Fall 2008 show, and have it finalized by sometime in April.

Thus, I am extending you an invitation to submit abstracts for the Fall 2008 Microsoft ASP.NET Connections conference, to be held in Las Vegas, November 10-13, 2008.

The conference focus should be twofold:
1. The conference needs to, of course, cover the latest alphas, betas, and CTPs of:
- ASP.NET AJAX
- ASP.NET Futures
- Silverlight
- MVC
- Entity Framework
- ADO.NET Data Services
- related ASP.NET and .NET technologies

2. The conference also needs to deliver content that attendees can use today in developing their ASP.NET applications using current released (NOT beta, alpha, or CTP) software. These topics might include:
- Web controls
- released version of ASP.NET AJAX and Toolkit
- released version of Silverlight
- Security
- data access
- Performance/Scalability
- Standards
- etc.

I'd like to see a mix of about 50% in shipping technologies and 50% on future (and possibly just released in November) technologies.

Note: You will not be able to speak at a DevConnections show if you are also presenting at a competitor’s show, in the same state, within 30 days of the DevConnections show. Official Microsoft events (e.g., TechEd, PDC, MIX, etc.) are NOT considered competing shows. To be more specific, if you wish to speak at Microsoft ASP.NET Connections or any other DevConnections show this Fall in Las Vegas, you are precluded from speaking at any competing conferences in the state of Nevada between October 10, 2008 and December 13, 2008.

For submitting abstracts, please use the following URL starting tomorrow:
http://www.deeptraining.com/devconnections/abstracts

You can also use this site to submit abstracts for Visual Studio Connections, SQL Server Magazine Connections and the Data Access Track that is co-hosted by Microsoft ASP.NET Connections and Visual Studio Connections.

Note: if you have used this site before and have forgotten your password, you can have your secret word mailed to you. It's better to do this then to create a new account.

Please keep the abstracts under 200 words each and in one paragraph. No bulleted items and line breaks, and please use a spell-checker.

If you have an issue with the site, please let me know.

Please submit a minimum of 3 abstracts, but it would help your chances of being selected if you submitted 5 or 6 abstracts. We need to have all your abstracts submitted between Monday, March 10 and Wednesday, April 9. For those last minute submitters, we will stop accepting abstracts at Midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) on April 9.

What you will get if selected:
- $500 per conference talk. (Additional compensation for pre/post conference workshops.)
- Coach airfare and hotel stay paid by the conference.
- Free admission to all of the co-located conferences
- Speaker party
- The adoration of attendees
- etc.

Good luck and thank you,

Paul Litwin
Microsoft ASP.NET Connections Chair

Forcing SSL Gracefully on a Site

2008-03-05T20:14:00Z

It's certainly easy to setup a site to require SSL. Just use IIS Manager and check the Require secure channel (SSL) checkbox on the Authentication and access control dialog on the Directory Security tab.

The problem with this, is what happens when someone hits your site using HTTP instead of HTTPS. They get a nasty error message that starts with:

The page must be viewed over a secure channel

The page you are trying to access is secured with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

While some users may be able to figure out that they forgot to use HTTPS, many will be confused. The ideal situation is for IIS to just modify the protocol to HTTPS for the user. Too bad it does not.

Previously, I have solved this problem with a lame workaround of having users go to a dummy site that doesn't require HTTPS and then redirecting them to the real site. But like I said, this is lame. Recently, I needed to set this up for a new site and fortunately, I came across a blog post by Paul Wilson that comes up with what I consider an elegant solution.

The basic idea is this:

1. Require SSL for the site using the aforementioned dialog.

2. Create a subfolder (e.g, NonSSL) of the site that doesn't require SSL (again using the aforemenetioned dialog) and add a web.config file to the folder (or use the location element in the root web.config) that allows all users (if your site uses form authentication). You want add <allow users="?,*"/> to capture both non-authenicated users and authenticated users.

3. Add a page to the folder (e.g., /NonSSL/SSLRedirect.aspx) that simply uses Response.Redirect to redirect to the default page of the site using HTTPS.

4. Now go back to the root folder and select the Custom Errors tab of IIS Manager for the site. Choose to edit the 403:4 error type, which happens to be the error generated when viewing a resource requiring SSL over a non-secure channel. In fact, the previously excerpted error page says as much later on:

HTTP Error 403.4 - Forbidden: SSL is required to view this resource.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

Select Message type = URL and enter the URL that points to the page in step #3 (e.g., /NonSSL/SSLRedirect.aspx). If this is a virtual directory, you will need to add the virtual root name as in /vroot/NonSSL/SSLRedirect.aspx.

That's pretty much it. In his post, Paul Wilson mentions some scenarios that may require additional work. See his post for more details.

What's especially nice about this solution is it's done on the server, so you can still have your app work fine on your dev machine or your staging server since this solution does not affect the site when used on another machine that doesn't require SSL.

Paul

April DevConnections in Orlando

2008-03-04T04:37:00Z

The next DevConnections show is rolling into Orlando in April. This should be a great show, including a couple of pre-conference workshops that Steve Walther and I will be presenting on ASP.NET AJAX.

Don't miss lots of other exciting sessions and the keynotes by Scott Guthrie and other Microsofties as well as the numerous third party sessions. One notable session: Steve, Alex Homer, Dave Sussman, and I will also be hosting a panel session entitled Server-Centric vs. Client-Centric AJAX Programming on Tuesday, April 22nd at 11:30.

Hope to see you all there.

Paul

Seattle Code Camp 2008

2008-01-25T01:17:00Z

I am presenting two sessions at the Seattle Code Camp, Saturday Jan 26 - Sunday Jan 27,

Both of my talks are on Sunday. An ASP.NET Ajax talk at 9:15 AM and a Programming Reporting Services talk at 3 PM.

Everything can be found on the Code Camp site, including the schedule and a description of the sessions.

The conference is at DigiPen in Redmond and is entirely free but you need to register.

Thank you Chris Kinsman and the other volunteers and sponsors for putting on this amazing developer-fueled event!

Paul

Visual Studio 2008 is Shipping

2007-11-22T16:42:00Z

Visual Studio 2008 is a done deal. It's just a matter of releasing the various versions to the people.

Right now, you can download a copy of any of the express versions (VIsual Web Developer Express, Visual C# Express, Visual Basic Express, or Visual C++ Express) from the Express Downloads page. These are the real deal, not some late beta copy.

Have fun.

Paul

How a Bike Helmet Saved Me Big Time

2007-11-21T07:08:00Z

Yesterday I was biking home in the dark. (Boy, it gets dark before 5 PM these days.) I was on the Burke-Gilman trail, a popular trail that cuts through the heart of Seattle. Anyway, I'm cruising along in the dark in a section of the trail that is quite poorly lit and hit a large root that has buckeled the asphalt quite ~~unexpectedly~~. (This section of the trail by the Fremont Bridge has just recently reopened after being closed for 2 years.) Anyway, I had to react kind of quickly and ended up braking a little too hard (it happened so quickly). The rear end of the bike flipped over the handle bars and I landed right on my head. I got up with only slight injuries. (Two riders who were riding behind me stopped to help which was very much appeciated.) I messed up my rear derailer but otherwise my bike and I ended up okay and I was able to ride it the remaining 3 miles to home.

I was on trail which is normally considered safe (as oppoed to on the road) but still ended up hitting the ground hard (at about 15 miles an hour) on my head. Had I not been wearing a helmet I probably would have ended up in the hospital.

The moral of the story: buy and wear a helmet everytime you ride! I have noticed a lot of Seattle-area cyclists riding their bikes of late without helmets. This is a very bad idea. I am so glad I was wearing mine or I might not be here to write this entry.

Paul

Posted Updated Samples from My Microsoft ASP.NET Connections Las Vegas Sessions

2007-11-16T08:41:00Z

I have posted the updated samples from my three sessions at last week's extremely successful Microsoft ASP.NET Connections show in Las Vegas (part of DevConnections which had more than 5100 attendees!)

The sessions:

Pre-conference workshop (co-presented with Stephen Walther) on ASP.NET AJAX.
Data Controls Tips and Tricks
Programming SQL Server Reporting Services

You can find the samples (as well as other, older samples from prior talks) at my downloads page.

Choosing Sessions Sucks

2007-11-16T08:36:00Z

I just had to do it again: choose 27 sessions (plus a few workshops) from 188 submitted abstracts. Had to go from 38 speakers to 13. I don't think I can emphasize enough how difficult it is to make the cut. No matter what I do, I end up disappointing a lot of people (25 to be exact). Of course, it's nice to have the conference's confidence to let me do the choosing, but that doesn't make it any easier.

For those wondering what the final picks are, hang on for a few more days while we fine tune things (in other words, I may change my mind over the next couple of days).

Paul

VS 2008 VPC Images Set to Expire!

2007-10-27T07:49:00Z

This from Steve Dybing at Microsoft:

We know many of you have been testing the Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 VPC images, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx. It has been brought to our attention that the current Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 VPC images will expire on November 1, 2007, rather than March 15, 2008 as originally announced. It is strongly encouraged that you take all necessary steps before November 1, 2007 to back up all your projects and move your Team Foundation Server data to an alternate location. For instructions on moving your TFS data please refer to the article Moving Team Foundation Server, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms404879(vs.90).aspx, located on the MSDN Library.

A short list of questions and answers:

Q. Will my data be available after November 1, 2007?

A. This is still being researched, however, currently the understanding is that customers will NOT be able to access their data after November 1^st unless the data is moved to an alternate installation location.

Q. Can I reset my system date to re-enable the OS image?

A. Again there is still research being done, however, from the current understanding of the problem resetting the system date back DOES NOT re-enable the OS image.

Full details at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx