An attempt to attach an auto-named database ... aspnetdb.mdf failed.

I had an issue trying to open the aspnet membership database on IIS over the weekend. I would get the following error.
An attempt to attach an auto-named database for file C:\Users \administrator.WESTCHASE\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\ClaimsEnableWebSite2\ClaimsEnableWebSite_STS\App_Data\aspnetdb.mdf failed. A database with the same name exists, or specified file cannot be opened, or it is located on UNC share.

And the fix is simple. This was the connection string I was using when I was getting the error. add name="LocalSqlServer" connectionString="data source=.\;Integrated Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|aspnetdb.mdf;User Instance=true" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"

and all that I had to do was add Database=aspnetdb to the connection string.

WF Services And Windows Identity Foundation

In the next couple of weeks I am going to be rewriting a project that caused me a lot of pain. originally the project was done in Asp.Net 2.0. I am going however, to redo it from scratch and try to fix some the pain points with WF Services.

I just finished going through the example of WF Services and Appfabric Server in the Visual Studio 2010 Training kit. So armed with that and a few videos that I downloaded from the Tech-Ed site. I am going to tackle a real world situation.

And just to make things a little more interesting I am going to add Claims Based Authentication to the mix.

So easy

It's so easy to get distracted and postpone things that need to be done now for later. Never again!

"Kaizen" Continuously Making Many Small Improvements

It's been a while since my last post. I am still on my path to get my MCPD: Web Developer Certification, I passed the Application Development Foundation exam. Now I know that certification is a touchy issue. But, I do not intend to get certified for the sake of certification. I do work hard to make sure that I improve as developer.

In fact my mantra at the moment is "Kaizen" which I got from "The Pragmatic Programmer from Journey to Master" and to quote from the book Kaizen " is a Japanese term that captures the concept of continuously making many small improvements". So each day I make an effort to make sure that I have done something to add onto my skills as a developer.

On Reading Tech Books and ORM's

Man reading tech books is hard, well to some extent anyway, there are moments you just can't wait to get through a chapter. But there are moments where the chapter does not seem to come to an end. And reading on just makes you sleepy.

I have been reading Agile Principles Patterns and Practices in C# and any free time I got I had my face in that book. And when I got to chapter 14, where I started reading about UML, I just lost my fire. Anyway I dicided to skip that section, i guess I will come back to I sometime later.
I have nothing against the book though and Iwould recommend it to anyone trying to get thier hands around Agile Development.

I was also poking my head around some ORM packages. I had a look at NHibernate and Subsonic. But in the end I decided to go with the Data Access Guidance Package found in the Web Services Factory. NHibernate is great but if found the learning curve to be a bit steep. But i kepp looking at at it, I don't know I will ever really use it when linq comes round. The only thing I didn't like about subsonic was that I would have had to write extra code to map my data access layer to my domain model.

Who would have thought

I could never have imagined this the man who inspired me to start actively developing myself to be a better developer and also to start this blog was the first person to comment on my very first blog post. Wow thanks Justice.

Continuous Learning

I had always considered myself a good developer, that is until I started looking at what other developers were doing. And I realised just how little I knew about the world of Software Development.

Anyway to cut a long story short, I came across an article by Justice Grey on what he was going to do to be come a better developer in six months. Justice also tagged a couple of guys so that they too would state what they were going to do in six months to become better developers.

Since niether Justice and his pals tagged me (since none know me) I tagged myself. And hence this blog was born. I am going to set goals for myself every six months, with regular reviews of my progress every two weeks.

so here is a list of my goals for the following six months

• Get my MCPD certification. I am not going to download a couple transcender and memorise them. I am actualy going to go through the selfpaced trainning kits.
• Read two books on software development every month.
• Blog about my learning expriences

I am going to be putting more flesh to these objectives as time goes on.