Problem with Microsoft Expression Blend 2 SP1

I have Expression Blend 2 SP1 which enables me to see bring up Visual Studio 2008 Silverlight 2.0 projects and look at the XMAL files. However, if the Visual Studio created XAML has elements like Label, DatePicker, Calendar etc Expression Blend will throw up an error as in the figure here.

What does Silverlight got to do with Playboy?

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Finally the book is published

I got a happy note from PACKT that the book I worked on for the better part of 2008 finally got published today.

I worked through couple of Microsoft betas and each time something or the other had to be re-written. Both Atif Shehzad and Marc Delisle did a great job of reviewing my book and I am highly obliged. The folks at Packt were very co-operative especially the group that did the final editing in Mumbai.

The book does not assume too deep a knowledge in SQL Servers but experience with some basic reporting tool such as Microsoft Access will be helpful. The book has over 50 hands-on exercises which is sufficient to experience the full flavor of Reporting à la Microsoft. Also there is a chapter on Crystal Reports which has remained a great companion of Microsoft all these years.

I thank PACKT publishing who gave me this second opportunity. This would not have been possible without the evaluation software from Microsoft and Crystal Reports. Other great resources that I have often drawn from are Microsoft Books online, Microsoft Developer Network as well as Microsoft beta testing program.

Data Transfer from MS Access to EnterpriseDB's PostGres

EnterpriseDB sits atop Postgres, the well known open source database server and leverages it to provide enterprise capabilities to Postgres users.

Out of the box EnterpriseDB's Migration Studio supports migration from SQL Server, Postgres and Sybase only. In this article, the Microsoft Integration Services is used to transfer a table form Microsoft Access 2003 to a database  on the EnterpriseDB Postgres server.

MS SQL Server Integration Services 2008 is a great product that handles various ETL Processes very effectively. However, sometimes its error messages can be confusing as you will see in this article. For example, where as the task execution has failed in this example, the data transfer has taken place.

Read on,

Transferring a table in a MS Access 2003 database to PostGres using SQL Server Integration Services 


This is a subscription site and you can login as guest and read free or join as a member using link for SSWUG.ORG on the main page.

If you are new to EnterpriseDB you may also want to read my other article first

Installation and basic features of EnterpriseDB

A short note on installing Silverlight 3 Tools

1. Download Silverlight3_Tools.exe(31.3 MB) from the following site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=11dc7151-dbd6-4e39-878f-5081863cbb5d&displayLang=en 


2. Now click on the downloaded executable (any folder will do to house the executable)

3. The Silverlight Tools Installation wizard will come up.

4. Make sure that the IE browser and the Visual Studio 2008 programs are not running.

If they are, as it was in my case, you get a chance to close them and freshen up your wizard without going out of the wizard.

5. Done. Microsoft Silverlight 3 Tools Beta for Visual studio 2008 SP1 will be installed.