How to convert PSD into image file in c# with Magick.NET

Recently in one of project we had a requirement of converting a Adobe Photoshop file (PSD) into image file(.png) file. After digging while on internet I have found a great library which has so many features in can easily convert PSD files into any time of image file.

The Library is Magick.NET. It’s a open source project you can find more information about it from the following codeplex link.
https://magick.codeplex.com/

There are lots of example available for image conversion and other image editing functions. You can find that about that on documentation.
https://magick.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Convert%20image

There are lots of NuGet package are available also. Following is a one of them.

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How to change a profile picture in Visual Studio 2013

With Visual Studio 2013, Microsoft has provided synchronized settings in visual studio 2013 with live account. So all you need to do is to login into your live account and then it will automatically sync the settings of Visual Studio 2013 in different machine. Recently one of the reader of blog has asked me question How I can change the Profile Pic on Visual Studio. So I thought it will be good Idea to write a blog post about it.

Here’s how you can change profile picture of Visual Studio live/outlook account. One you done with sign in with visual studio it will load default image with your firstname first character and last name character like below.



Now to change the account picture or profile picture click on name load a popup like following.

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Scope to this feature in Solution Explorer- Visual Studio

Visual Studio is one of my favourite IDE. I love more and more whenever I’m using it. Recently I have found a very good feature called “Scope to this” so I thought it will be a good idea to write a blog post about it.

This feature comes very handy when you have large solution and you want to work /Concentrate on the only portion of a solution. In solution you can select particular project/folder/file and right click and click on “Scope to this” Menu. It will scope your solution explorer to that particular item.

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Entity Framework code first and Inheritance–Table per hierarchy

Before some day I have posted a blog about Entity Framework code first and Inheritance – Table per type and this post in next in series with that.

In previous post we have learned about how entity framework code first handles inheritance and in this part we are going to extend this and modify some of code of the code of data context to see how its creates a “Table per Hierarchy”.

We’re going to use same code as previous post just going to change EDataContext code like below.

public class EDataContext : DbContext
{
    public EDataContext() : base("MyConnectionString") 
    { 
    }
    public IDbSet<Customer> Customers { get; set; }
    public IDbSet<Employee> Employees { get; set; }
    public IDbSet<Person> Persons { get; set; }
}

If you see this code carefully and compare is with previous post. The only difference is persons property. That will force Entity Framework to create a single table for inheritance hierarchy. Now we are going to run this application again and see how it creates table. It will create only one table like this.

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Entity framework code first and inheritance- Table Per Type

Also see part-2 of this blog post- Entity Framework code first and Inheritance–Table per hierarchy

Recently I am using Entity Framework a lot. So I tried some of advance scenario and this post related to it only. In this post we will learn how entity framework handles inheritance.

In object oriented world, We all use Inheritance for reusability. We create some base classes and inherit those in child classes to facilitate code reuse and we don’t have to write again and again. In this post we will also have same kind of methodology. We are going to create a “Person” class and inherit this in to Employee and Customer class and we are going to see how entity framework code first handles this kind of inheritance by default. I’m going to use entity framework version 6.0 and Visual Studio 2013.

So what we are waiting for. Let’s get started. So create a console application from file menu new project.



Once you are done with creating a application. It’s time to add entity framework via nuget package.

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Visual Studio 14 CTP virtual machine on Azure

Recently Microsoft has release a CTP version of Visual Studio 14 with ASP.NET VNext application. So I thought I will download and try it. But due to bad internet connection it was not downloading properly. Then I cam across following post about Visual Studio 14 CTP Virtual Machine on Azure.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2014/06/04/visual-studio-14-ctp-now-available-in-the-virtual-machine-azure-gallery.aspx

So I thought it’s a good idea to spin a virtual machine instead of downloading and installing that which would cost me a day. While on Azure I can set that virtual machine in minutes.

So Following are steps for creating a virtual machine in Azure.

How to Create a Virtual Machine on Microsoft Azure with Visual Studio 14 CTP:

1) Login into your Microsoft Azure Account

2) From dashboard goto virtual machine and select Create Virtual Machine.

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One ASP.NET in Visual studio 2013

This post is part of Visual Studio 2013 features series.

Since first release of ASP.NETMVC 2009, There are lots of type of projects are available for ASP.NET and It’s always been confusion to find all the projects under one hood. So now developer has not to worry about whether I should use Web Forms or ASP.NET MVC and If I need some functionalities of ASP.NET MVC in web forms or anything then how it will work? How we should combine all those different project types?

Now that fuss for developer is over. With Visual Studio 2013 Microsoft has vision called One ASP.NET so when you create a web project there will be a single project in Web Category only.

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Video Review: Restful Services with ASP.NET Web API by Packt Publishing

If you enjoy seeing videos to learn thing this is the opportunity, Now  Packt publishing is also started providing video courses and tutorial. I’m lucky enough to get an opportunity to review this video and thanks again Sagar Malage and Packt publishing marketing team to providing me opportunity to review this video.

About Video Course:

Course Name : Restful services  with ASP.NET Web API by Packt Publishing.
Total Duration: 2 hours and 4 minutes.
Release Date: Wednesday February 26,2014.
Author: Fanie Reynders

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Visual Studio update 2 is here download now!!

10 days ago Microsoft has release Visual Studio 2013 update 2.  This update includes bug fixes as well as new features and customer feedbacks. Following are some new capabilities included in this updates.

Universal Apps:

With this release you now build Universal Apps that can run on Windows 8.1 and Windows phone 8.1 while sharing code and assets through shared projects.

There are two types of app available 1) Blank app as universal Project and Hub application for that. So now if you already developed the windows phone 8.1 app and want to create same app with windows 8.1 then you can do that very easily Add windows 8.1 and same way you can add windows phone 8.1 if you have already developed windows 8.1 via Add windows phone 8.1.

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.NET Framework 4.5.2 released by Microsoft

Microsoft has released .NET Framework 4.5.2 before some time see the announcement from It’s .NET Framework team blog. It’s a compatible, in-place update for Microsoft.NET Framework 4.0,4.5 and 4.5.1.  This framework also run side by side with earlier version of .NET framework.

From where I can download .NET Framework 4.5.2?

Following are link from where you can download .NET framework 4.5.2.

.NET framework web installer- Internet required at the time installation. It will download required file runtime.A Boots trapper that pulls in components based on the target OS/platform specs on which the .NET Framework is being deployed.

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One Million page views for my blog–dotnetjalps.com

I have putted blogger statistics from its announcement(July 2010).  Today my statistics are showing that I have completed One million page views from July 2010. I feel honoured I have never assumed my blog will come this way. Earlier I had started this blog just for fun and to reserve my name with blogger subdomain. I was not aware that what is blogging and why we should do it. After some time almost after one year I realized the power of blog then and this 9th year I am continuously doing that. This is a great achievement and I feel honoured and awesome.

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Fun with Angela Smith library by James Chambers for C#

AngelaSmith is an awesome library created by James Chambers. This library is used to generate realistic test data. You can find more information about it from the following link.

https://github.com/MisterJames/AngelaSmith

As per documentation on the github, it is.

AngelaSmith is a library you can use to generate realistic test data. It is composed of several property fillers that can populate commonly named properties through reflection using an internal database of values or randomly created data. You can override any of the fillers, give AngelaSmith hints on how to fill them, or easily extend the property fillers using extension methods or MEF.

It’s an awesome realistic data generator library. You can generate object data as well list also. She can fill anything that you throw it to her.You can use it’s static methods to create objects for testing, design time data or seeding a database.

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Learning resources for ASP.NET MVC

I am getting lots of question regarding where to learn ASP.NET MVC. So I thought it will beneficial to write a blog post so that everyone get advantages of it. Today there are multiple resources available to learn ASP.NET MVC here I have listed some of the my favorite resources to learn ASP.NET MVC.

Videos:

Videos are great way to learn any technology and there are many video resources are available.

1) Pluralsight free videos on www.asp.net/mvc:

On the official asp.net mvc site Pluralsight has provided 8 free videos It it a great resource for any to get started with ASP.NET MVC. Some videos are there for ASP.NET MVC 3.0 but still it is worth learning it.

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Important Milestone achieved- 650th blog post

I am not super crazy about achieving mile stones but I just notice that I have completed 649 posts on blog. So I thought it will be good idea to write about few mile stones.

1. On April 2014, my blog completed 8 years. The first post I have ever written was at April 26,2006.
2. Today I have completed another important milestone this is 650th post I am writing and still going on. My passion for blogging never dropped I will still continue to write blog on my blog.

On this occasion, I would first like to thank my family who scarifies their time when I am writing blogs without their encouragement It would never possible to write blog and maintained it for almost 8 years.
I would also like to thank my readers. Without their love It would not have been possible to achieve this. Hopefully I will continue to write blog that will help you learn technology in some way.

Thanks again everybody for making this journey possible!!

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What’s new in ASP.NET MVC 5 Part-1 : Attribute Routing

ASP.NET MVC is a new buzz word in Microsoft.NET stack most of people have started learning into it. So recently before some time Microsoft has released a Major new version of ASP.NET MVC with ASP.NET MVC 5.x. There are lots of new features given with ASP.NET MVC 5.x versions and I’m going to write a few series of blog post to explain all the features in details. So stay tuned with that!!

In this blog post I’m going to explain attribute routing in ASP.NET MVC 5.

Routing in ASP.NET MVC:

From the first version of ASP.NET MVC It’s provides a routing out of box. You don’t need to do much about it. Routing is how ASP.NET MVC matches URL in browsers to action. Based on URL a particular action is called on particular controller and result will be provided as view.

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Free Get Involved Video from Scott Hanselman and Rob Conery

I have posted Why developer should blog? earlier where I have given various reasons why every developer should have a blog because it’s a great way to give back some thing to community and you can also market your self as a developer across community. Scott Hanselman and Rob Conery has created one of best video regarding same topic call Get Involved. Here they have explained how you can get out there and get involved with community with blogging, twitter, github , stackoverflow, user groups and conference. It will make you happier, more productive developer and inspire you take your career on next level.

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Visual Studio 2013, Team Explorer and GitHub

CodeProject
Recently Git version controlling system has gained lots of popularity and more and more developers are using it for software development and version controlling. Microsoft also tied with Git with Visual Studio 2013. So if you use Visual Studio as your primary IDE and then its high time to learn about it. With Visual Studio 2013 team explorer you can easily tied code in your git repository so I thought it will be a good idea to write a blog post about How we can create git repository in local with team explorer in Visual Studio 2013 and publish it to github a well know open source a powerfull code hosting site for the open source projects.

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Visual Studio Command Window- A useful but unknown feature

All the Microsoft developers love visual studio as Integrated Development Environment(IDE) because it has build with lots and lots of features and developers are more productive then ever. But still there are lots of feature which are not popular among the developers. Visual studio command window is one of the best feature but still lots of developers are not aware about it. In this post we are going to learn about Visual Studio Command Window feature and we will see how we can increase productivity with this command window.

Command windows enables features of visual studio with commands. You can invoke command window via View-> Other windows –> Command window menu or via just pressing(Shortcut) Ctrl + Alt + A.

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Book Review : Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports

Again Marketing Team of Packt Publication (Jay Raval) has contacted me to review a book called “Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports” and I always have fun to review books so I said yes to them.  This blog post is all about reviewing a book “Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports”.

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Enum support for views in ASP.NET MVC 5.1

Recently before some time Microsoft has announced release of ASP.NET MVC 5.1. It’s comes with tons of feature and  Enum support is one of them. In the earlier release of ASP.NET MVC there was no direct support for the Enums and in the views but with ASP.NET MVC 5.1 Microsoft is providing directly @html.EnumDropDownList for which directly creates a dropdown from the Enum itself. So What we are waiting for. Let’s take an example.

Example of Enum support for views in ASP.NET MVC 5.1:

Let’s create a new empty project for ASP.NET MVC from Visual Studio 2013 like following from File Menu-> New Project

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Test Driven Development is your friend

I have seen lots developers are not seeing benefits of Test Driven development. When you do Test Driven development there are lots of benefits. So I thought it will be good idea to write a blog post about it.

What is Test Driven Development:

As per wikipedia Test Driven Development is

Test-driven development (TDD) is a software development process that relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle: first the developer writes an (initially failing) automated test case that defines a desired improvement or new function, then produces the minimum amount of code to pass that test, and finally refactors the new code to acceptable standards

Kent Ben an American software engineer and creator of extreme programming rediscovered this technique. There are three main indicators of Test Driven development.

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Creating a WordPress blog on azure websites

In this post we are going to learn how we can create WordPress blog with Azure web sites.

What is Azure Web Sites?

Before some time Microsoft has released Azure web sites for South East Asia region. Windows Azure web sites offers secure and flexible deployment and scaling options for any kind of web application. You can use your existing tools to create and deploy applications to Azure Websites.

Windows Azure web site provides following features.

• Provision and deploy fast
• Secure platform that scales automatically
• Great experience for Visual Studio developers. Even you can edit some code with online visual studio(Monaco).
• Open and Flexible for anyone
• Monitor and Alert
• Auto scale to optimize cost and performance
• A great gallery of most popular applications and easy direct deployment.

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Visual Studio 2013 Cookbook review

The marketing team from Packt Publication has given opportunity to Review Visual Studio 2013 Cookbook. So, this post is all about  reviewing Visual Studio 2013 Cookbook . It’s total 333 pages of long book with full converge of visual studio features.


About Authors:

This book is written by Jeff Martin and Richards Banks both are quite experience person.

Jeff Martin is well known technology enthusiast and has been contributing writes for InfoQ(www.infoq.com) for over two years focusing on Microsoft .NET and related  platforms.  Readers are encouraged to follow @VSDevTips on twitter to receive updates of books and visual studio related stuff.

Richard Banks have more then 20 years of experience in software development. During his career his gone through various role like developer, team lead, project manager,CIO and CTO. He is a professional scrum trainer and runs Sydney ALT.NET user group and spoken at number of Microsoft events. You can find him on his blog http://www.richard-banks.org/

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