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The title says it all! I received confirmation yesterday that I had passed Exam 70-441: PRO: Designing Database Solutions by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005, which means I’ve completed MCITP: Database Developer in addition to MCITP: Database Admin. Might have to look into the requirements for Analysis Services…

Following on from my previous post Software Development Must Haves, thought I would mention Gemini, a free and easy to use Issue Tracking System. I’ve successfully implemented it at 4 different companies and mentioned it on the ausdotnet mailing list a few times.

Several years ago when I was looking at what systems were available, I did a comparison of the free and not-so-free offerings. For ease of use and bang-for-buck, I think that Gemini is by far the best. Gemini has a free license for up to 10 users, and is under AU$500.00 for a commercial license.

It is web based (but also provides a Windows client), supports a customisable SQL Server backend, web service interface and a utility for importing data. With a little work it can be integrated with your Source Code Control system.

If you are developing software and you are not using an Issue Management System, I strongly suggest you check out Gemini.

Sometimes I think I must be living in the dark ages, as I was not aware of Google Trends! Try this comparison of searches for SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

Jeff Prosise has published an article titled Keep Sites Running Smoothly By Avoiding These 10 Common ASP.NET Pitfalls in the latest issue of MSDN magazine. It covers some very subtle, web development problems in the areas of caching and performance.

For those who live on the East coast(!) (or happen to be in the vicinity in October), Greg Low has posted details about SQL Down Under Code Camp, which is scheduled to run in Wagga, Wagga (Australia) on October 7th and 8th 2006. This follows on from the success of CodeCampOz, run for the last 2 years.

I came across this channel 9 Microsoft Security Wiki that contains some nice code examples for common security programming tasks (in C# and VB.NET), such as generating cryptographically secure random numbers. Not only does it show the correct way to perform a task but also provides ‘how not to’ example code.

The Patterns and Practices Team continue to have a major impact on software development both inside and outside Microsoft. Their latest offering is Guidance Explorer.

Guidance Explorer allows you to create and distribute a set of standard performance and security best-practices that your team can adhere to.

From J.D Meier’s blog: “Guidance Explorer is a new, experimental tool from the patterns & practices team that radically changes the way you consume guidance as well as the way we create it. If you’ve felt overwhelmed looking across multiple sources for good security or performance guidance then Guidance Explorer is the tool for you”

It’s currently aimed at ASP.NET, but windows guidelines are apparently in the pipeline. I’ve just downloaded it, and I might blog my experiences later…

Did you know that Visual Studio 2005 ships with a library of standard windows bitmaps, cursors, icons and metafiles which can be freely used in your windows and web applications? It contains Windows, Office, and Visual Studio icons that are licensed for reuse.

You can find it here: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\VS2005ImageLibrary\VS2005ImageLibrary.zip

In addition the .ico files are in multi icon format with the 16×16, 32×32, 48×48 images (and color depth 256, 16bpp, 24bpp) contained in a single file.

If you’re an architect or an aspiring architect, check out skyscrapr. The site was recently launched by Microsoft (May, 2006), and plans to cover all aspects of architecture.

This is old news but worth mentioning if you haven’t already seen the Introduction to Test-Driven Development webcast by Peter Provost, Scott Densmore, Brad Wilson, Brian Button and Ron Jacobs, and you would like to know more about Test-Driven Development (or even if you are a sceptic!) then download and watch this webcast. Not only is this a gentle introduction to Test-Driven Development but it’s also quite funny!

Ron Jacobs also hosts ARCast which has some excellent content. Ron is “…Someone who understands what you are thinking… someone who can tell a good joke.” He also seems to have an infectious sense of humor!