int[] ints = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 };

System.Random rand = new System.Random((int)DateTime.Now.Ticks);

Array.Sort(ints, delegate(int x, int y){

return rand.Next(-1,2);

Off course it was released the day after I built a new virtual machine for running the September CTP. Anyway, this release does support Visual Studio 2005 RTM, including the express editions.

Download here:

WinFX Runtime Components November CTP

SDK for WinFX Runtime Components November CTP

Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WinFX

Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows WorkFlow Foundation

Remember to remove all the old versions of WinFX, VS 2005 and .Net 2.0. Or start with a clean virtual machine.

The installation order is:

• WinFx CTP
• Visual Studio
• Windows WinFX SDK
• VS Extensions for WinFx
• VS Extension for Windows Workflow Foundation

From Rob Relyea’s install guide for the September CTP.

public static string GeneratePassword(int length) {

string allowedChars = "abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789!@$?";

Random rnd = new Random( (int)DateTime.Now.Ticks );
            
char[] chars = new char[length];


for(int i = 0;i<length;i++) {
chars[i] = allowedChars[ rnd.Next( allowedChars.Length ) ];
}

return new string(chars);
}

When running in a tight loop, you're better of pulling the initialisation of the randomGenerator outside the method, or not use DateTime.Now.TickCount as the seed.

My highlights of the PDC 05:

• Linq and the associated C# 3.0 features
• IIS 7.0, plugable modules and xcopy deployment of configurations.
• Windows Workflow Foundation

Expect more indepth articles in the coming weeks, when I’ve had some time to experiment with everything.

I'm sure this will change a couple of times during the next week, but for now this is my schedule. If you can't make it, but would like to have my notes on a session, let me know (paul(dot)van(dot)brenk(at)tamtam(dot)nl).

Schedule for Paul van Brenk

The easiest way on sql server 2000 is to change the collation on the column you want to do the search on:

ALTER TABLE dbo.Customers ALTER COLUMN CustID char(8) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS NOT NULL

Apparently the allignment bug I encountered in vs2005 can be resolved by changing a number of options in the Formating options:

This is by design. The "Indent Case Contents" option under Tools | Options | Text Editor | C# | Formatting | Indentation indents everything from the opening brace to the closing brace. Our preview window is somewhat misleading since it only shows you the effects of the current formatting option.

In order to set your settings to the way you'd like, you'll need to uncheck both
"Indent Open and Close brace" and
"Indent Case Contents."

You'll also need to have "Place open brace on new line for control blocks" checked under Tools | Options | Text Editor | C# | Formatting | New Lines.

Thanks Karen Liu for helping me solve this.

With the PDC 2005 starting in a couple of weeks and the release of dasBlog 1.8 last Thursday, I present the TamTam PDC group blog. All content is supplied by cross-posting from our regular sites.