Anyone else had trouble getting an image to render in a WPF/XBAP application running under VS Orcas? The following XAML runs just fine in VS2005 and Expression Blend: The Winter.jpg image is located in the root directory of the app. Its build action is set to Resource. When I load this project and run it in Orcas, the image doesn't appear on the page. No exceptions are thrown. I'm running the Orcas Beta1 VPC distro.

Could be that it is downloading the .NET 3.0 Framework (or redistributable). The framework is an extra prerequisite download if you're not on Vista.

I'm beginning to appreciate the serendipitous poetic nature of the increasingly odd SPAM message subject lines. I remain dumbfounded that the idea that anyone might actuall open and read such messages supports their non-stop creation and distribution. But today, I received one with an odd word-combination subject line so eye-grabbing that I actually had to open it. The message was some garbage about a hot stock tip, but I'm still laughing out loud at the subject and sender: "tremendous clench" from "despicablecream@alumnidirectory.com". I had to share it. Anyone else got some good ones?

I find it's easy to get going by doing some simple sketching or conceptual work using the simplest tool available such as Notepad, or even (gasp!) pencil and paper. It doesn't feel quite so much like real work, but before you know it, you'll have produced done some real--and likely quite useful--work.

If you keep being asked to think outside the box, then there's something wrong with the box. (not mine--can't remember whose)

I've learned a couple things about using 3rd party tools the hard way: 1. If it's licensed, don't consider it unless a trial version is available. And if the trial has an expiration date, bang on it as hard as you can before purchasing the license. 2. Because customization of the tool is inevitable to meet the needs of its specific implementation, consider abandoning a commitment to supporting future releases of the tool. Once you've got the current version doing what you want, in my opinion accomodating the changes in a new release of the tool usually isn't worth the effort. After all, you evaluated the tool based on its current version and not on any future release promises, right? ~ Tillman

Does this sound familiar to anyone: You're faced with reviewing a spec for a large project and you're trying to come up with a ball park estimate. A common approach (usually combined with others) is to count the number of screens or forms that the project requires. Multiply that by some average number of hours you think it takes to do an ASP.NET form and you've got some starting point for your ball park estimate. Remember the goal is a superficial review and estimate with the understanding that there may be a large margin of error after a closer analysis of the spec. So what number do you use for the average number of hours to code an ASP.NET form (1.x or 2.0)? Assume both page and code-behind programming, but not design/CSS, etc. Just curious...

If the old code makes up an entire file or database object (SQL procedure, table, or column, for example) rename the file or db object with a prefix such as "_delete me" or "_old". That way when viewing your code files or db objects alphabetically, the ones no longer relevant will be grouped together. In the SQL database, if you get a dreaded "object not found" error, you can retrieve the object by simply renaming it.