Here is the gist of what I was trying to accomplish. Please excuse the VB.. it's not by choice. 8)

Basically the page I was working on has a set of switch statements based on string literals which annoys me.. So I was messing around with a way to use Enumerations to represent my commands. But the commands come back as strings from the various page controls.. So I was looking at a way to generically re-map back to the command Enumeration.

Private Function GetCommand(Of T)(ByVal commandName As String) As T
  Return CType([Enum].Parse(GetType(T), commandName), T)
End Function

Protected Enum GridCommand
  CompetencySelect
  FormSelect
  Sort
End Enum

Public Overrides Sub Grid_Commands(ByVal source As Object, _
                                     ByVal e As DataGridCommandEventArgs) _
                                     Handles CompetencyData.ItemCommand, FormData.ItemCommand
  If Page_Save() Then

    Select Case GetCommand(Of GridCommand)(e.CommandName)

      Case GridCommand.CompetencySelect
        NavigateToCompetencySelection( _
         CInt(CompetencyData.DataKeys(e.Item.ItemIndex)), _
         CompetencyData.ID)

      Case GridCommand.FormSelect
        NavigateToFormSelection( _
         CInt(FormData.DataKeys(e.Item.ItemIndex)), _
         FormData.ID)

    End Select
  End If

End Sub

So I have been living with my Mac Book Pro for a couple months now. I have purposely tried to use OSX for day to day things to force myself to get used to the OS. Here is a nice list of the applications that I have found useful so far.

This list is in no way targeted at long time Mac fans. Instead it is intended for newb/converts like me who are getting used to a whole new environment of software.

Quick Silver – Awesome tool for launching applications or finding documents. Simply hit Ctrl+Space and start typing what it is you want.. QuickSilver will display a list of items that match what you are typing. Once you have typed a set of letters and selected something QuickSilver will learn what you wanted and begin suggesting that thing faster… for example I can type Ctrl-Space, VM, Enter and launch VM Ware…. It’s a cool app.

Adium – Multi-Service messaging client very similar to Pigden. Can connect to MSN, ICQ, AOL, Facebook, GTalk, MySpace and many others.

Colloquy – Pretty straight forward IRC client if you are into that sort of thing.

Remote Desktop Mac – This combined with with VPN connection to work is awesome. There is pretty much nothing I can't do now with my Mac and a network connection.

Twitterrific – Simple twitter client if you are into that sort of thing.

MonoDevelop – Mono is the open source implementation of the .NET framework. MonoDevelop a IDE for developing using Mono. If you ever wondered what it would be like without Visual Studio here you go.

Skype – Skype…

VMWare Fusion – Virtual Machine goodness…

XCode – The free IDE for developing on the Mac. Want to make a IPhone app? Here you go. Objective C is fun… really it is…

Bonus Tips: Be sure to enable Spaces via the Expose & Spaces menu. This lets you have the sliding desktop effect that I use all the time. A neat keyboard combo is Function+F8, this displays all your spaces on the screen and you can click one to go to that space. Expose is Function+F8 this will shrink all the windows on your screen and lay them out so that you can see them all. Then click the window you want and they all go back where they were with the one you selected in focus.

Bonus Bonus Tip: The World of Warcraft Mac client runs like a champ on my MBP. ;)
 

Programming Visual Basic applications?

Typemock have released a new version of their unit testing tool, Typemock Isolator 5.2.
This version includes a new friendly VB.NET API which makes Isolator the best Isolation tool for unit testing A Visual Basic (VB) .NET application.

Isolator now allows unit testing in VB or C# for many ‘hard to test’ technologies such as SharePoint, ASP.NET MVC, partial support for Silverlight, WPF, LINQ, WF, Entity Framework, WCF unit testing and more.

Note that the first 25 bloggers who blog this text in their blog and tell us about it, will get a Free Full Isolator license (worth $139). If you post this in a VB.NET dedicated blog, you'll get a license automatically (even if more than 25 submit) during the first week of this announcement.

Go ahead, click the following link for more information on how to get your free license.

I was reading Oren's excellent series of posts on Multi Tenancy located here. It seems like he is just building up a good head of steam when the posts stop. Was Multi Tenancy - Approaches and Applicability the last one in the series?

Before you jump on me for not utilizing my google skills, a query of "site:ayende.com Multi Tenancy" does not return anything I have not already read. Did he stop cold turkey in the middle of the series? Or did he switch his post title scheme?

Does anyone have suggestions on other sources for this kind of information? I am specifically interested in multi tenant applications with separate databases with nhibernate as well as DDD approaches to extensible schemas.

A pointer in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

There are several upcoming ALT.NET Seattle events. Meetings are open to any developer who is passionate about writing software and eager to get better and it. You don't need permission or an invite to show up. Simply show up and participate.

Our meetings are somewhat different from the Olympia .NET Users Group in that we typically don't have a set presenter. We are all presenters. We follow an Open Spaces format. You probably also won't find many demonstrations of Visual Studio RAD tools either. Here are a sampling of topics that I have attended:

• TDD/BDD
• Dependancy Injection
• GIT Source Control
• ASP.NET MVC
• NHibernate
• MEF
• Continuous Integration/Improvement
• Agile Adoption

Meetings are held at the Microsoft Westlake Avenue office. The meetings are usually held from 10:00 AM - 5:00PM on a Saturday. The next meeting appears to be on the 17th of January. The February meeting appears to be getting lined up for the 7th but may be postponed to the lager ALT.NET Seattle 2009 Conf.

The ALT.NET Seattle 2009 Conf was just announced this week. It is planned for the weekend prior to the Microsoft MVP Summit, February 27th - March 1st. Registration opens at 6:00PM PST, Tuesday January 6th here. Admission is free, but space is limited to the first 150 people to register.

Please join us Thursday, January 8th for Ade Miller's (twitter) presentation on Continuous Integration and Defense In Depth: Experiences at Microsoft.

Presentation Summary
Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice of building and testing the application under development. Usually right after each and every check-in. CI grew out of the agile software development community but can add value to almost any project. This talk will describe the basic approach to CI and also some other practices teams can adopt to get even more out of their investment in CI. The talk will also cover the Microsoft patterns & practices team’s experience with CI and show some of the likely cost savings of adopting this practice on your team.

Speaker Bio
Ade Miller is currently the Development Manager for Microsoft’s Patterns & Practices group (P&P) where he manages several agile teams executing on a variety of projects. He also lead the development of the P&P Web Services Software Factory: Modeling Edition. Before joining P&P Ade was a developer and then a Development Lead on Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005 and 2008.

Prior to joining Microsoft Ade worked in a variety of development environments including start-ups, consultancy and web publishing. His primary interest is in improving the way people develop software. He spends much of his time trying to figure out what being “agile” really means. Ade is a regular speaker on these topics, he also blogs and writes about his experiences. Ade received his BSc and PhD in Physics from the University of Southampton, UK.

Meeting Specifics
January 8th, 7 - 9 pm
Olympia Center (222 Columbia NW)

All attendees are eligible for the prize drawings. Past prizes have included technical books, passes to Devscovery, copies of Visual Studio, Vista, Office 2007 and more.
Don't forget to let your friends and co-workers know about this meeting.  Feel free to forward this email and/or direct them to www.ssdotnet.org for more information.

It looks like Glenn let the cat out of the bag so to speak. ALT.NET Seattle 2009 is on and I am a part of the organizing committee.

This year's event is planned for the weekend prior to the Microsoft MVP Summit, February 27th through March 1st of 2009. We intend to follow the same Open Spaces format as in previous years with the addition of a keynote speaker on the first day. We have secured the Digipen Institute in Redmond, Washington as our location.

We will be opening registration at the beginning of the month. 130 seats will be made available to the public with an additional allotment reserved for special guests including sponsors.

From Glenn's site here are the details so far:

• What: ALT.NET Seattle 2009. (The site is still being worked on. Thanks to Justin Bonozier and Shoshanah Bain for getting the site up).
• Where: Digipen (thanks to Jeff Tucker for lining up the space)
• When: Evening February 27th through March 1st.
• Registration: Opens this Tuesday evening at 6PM. We're holding on registration to allow the word to spread. There will be a max of 150 attendees. Check the wiki on Tuesday for details.

I'll be handling organizing sponsors, so if your company is interested and have not been contact by me already shoot me an email to hash out details.

There are three levels of sponsorship:

• Gold – $1000
• Silver – $500
• Bronze – $250

In exchange for being a sponsor, we will offer you the following:

1. Attendance to the event. We will reserve a seat at the conference for your representative to attend.
2. Your company banner featured on our web site, and at the event (You will need to supply the banner).
3. A table at the conference where you can have some promotional material.
4. Recognition at the event for being a sponsor.

You can reach me at: bobbyDOTjohnsonATgmailDOTcom.