Project 31-A

While writing a unit test for a class that created a Windows Azure Storage table, I named the test table “Test_Function_Date” where Function and Date where replaced with meaningful test information. The underscores in the table name were also there.   Azure CloudTableClient.CreateTableIfNotExist Exception While running the test, my call to CloudTableClient.CreateTableIfNotExist(TableName) threw an exception.     Illegal Table Name Exception Details The outer exception is Exception of type 'Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.StorageClientException' was thrown. The inner exception is "An error occurred while processing this request." Buried in the inner exception XML is a status code of OutOfRangeInput, with a message of “ One of the request inputs is out of range .” Since this was a single unit test with not much prep work, I figured out it was the table name.   Azure Table Name Rules The rules for table naming allow: alphanume...

This review covers “ Coding Faster: Getting More Productive with Microsoft Visual Studio: Covers Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010 ” by Zain Naboulsi and Sara Ford .   Why I Ordered the Book I ordered this book with the hopes of getting some quick and easy speed improvements to my coding style. If you are looking for just such a shortcut key primer, the poster address for all languages is available.  [ Alternative link to posters ] This book covers a bit more and takes a little more time to digest. That’s not bad.   Who should Buy this Book As a huge, feature-rich product with numerous versions, mastering Visual Studio is a challenge in itself. I must admit I tend to focus more on the language and SDKs of the current project, and less on the IDE. Sitting down with the book gave me time to correct that. If you have any desire to master your Visual Studio coding environment, buy this book .   Book Layout The book is organized with seven c...

My unit tests add and delete entities from local Windows Azure dev storage,  at their most basic. If the Azure Storage emulator isn’t started, the tests don’t fail quickly – they just sit there acting like the test framework is hung. In order to ensure that the tests proceed, I needed to make sure the emulator was started before the tests ran.   I started with code found in this thread on StackOverflow . I needed to make sure the Storage Emulator is started before the test classes are called and that the emulator is shut down when the tests are done. I wrote this class and added it as a separate file to my test assembly.   More information about CSRun.exe and the Process class are available in MSDN .   // ----------------------------------------------------------------------- // <copyright file="AssemblySpecific.cs" company="BerryIntl"> // Berry International 2011 // </copyright> // ----------------------------------...

This is a continuation of the simple series. Links for other posts in the series are at the bottom of this post. Download Visual Studio Solution here .   This series explains the Windows Phone 7 requesting data from a Windows Azure web service. The phone tile and toast are supported by a background agent on the phone while the web service is supported by a continuous worker role on Windows Azure. The phone calls the WebRole REST API from both the phone app and the phone app’s background agent. Each request is different though. The App’s request is fetching a list of items to show in the app while the background agent is fetching the count of items since the last fetch and the very last item. This information will be displayed in the popup toast and the app’s start screen pinned tile.   Azure Only This post will cover the Azure web  and worker roles only. The Windows Phone 7 app-to-Azure communication will be covered in a separate post. Grab the Visual Studi...

This is a continuation of this post , explaining how the sample app works. Caution : This sample isn’t meant as an example of best patterns and practices. If you see something in the code you would never do, then don’t. Solution File Organization The app has three Visual Studio Projects: the app, the agent, and the shared code library between them. One of the great things about Mango is that now the built-in Visual Studio Unit test functionality is available. By separating out the meat of the work into the SampleShared project, I can also focus my unit testing there. SampleApp1 The app has a MainPage, a ViewModel, and the WMAppManifest.xml file modified to note my ExtendedTask of BackgroundServiceAgent. The Agent is extremely simple with a call to the shared library, an update to the Tile, and a call to pop up Toast. The meat of the work is in the SampleShared library. The AgentMgr manages the background agent : add, remove, find, run now. It is only called f...

Download Binary and Code The .XAP binary and code solution are both available for download . The app uses a background process that does some work then updates the tile and pops up toast. The app and the agent talk to each other via an isolated storage file protected by a named mutex. The diagram below shows the pieces and how they work together. This is the app associated with this post . App/Agent Architecture The app and agent don’t actually talk to a web service as this is a sample but in a real world solution they both would. The app would do the heavy lifting. The agent would have a quick, light conversation with just enough information to update the tile and pop up toast with meaningful information. In this sample, you can configure the agent to run repetitively every minute, second, etc. This is usually done for debug/testing. In the usual release situation, the agent runs on the 30 minute cycle. Start the App Pin the App to the Start Screen Make...

Several times using the Windows Azure Portal , the page has appeared to recycle correctly its 30 second refresh yet the process change I know reported success doesn’t show up. After a forum thread with a MS Support person, I learned to change the language setting at the top instead of log out and log in.   30 Second Refresh at the bottom left of the Browser Window     Change Language setting to refresh Portal Cache at the top right of the Browser Window