Well, a while back, I promised to release a method for helping people move their BlogEngine data from XML to a database or the other way around.  I gotten a lot of requests for this code, but I’ve been plenty busy with other things so it has just sat here until last week.  I cleaned up my code and I was surprised to see how little of it was left.  Anyway, I’m testing it now on my data, but I’d like to find a few more testers before I make it more widely available.

The method I use actually will move your blog data from any current BlogEngine BlogProvider data to another.  So you could potentially transfer from SQL Server to SQLite or from MySQL to XML as well as XML to some database.  It will leave your original data source intact of course, so the migration is actually a fine way to make a backup of your blog data as well.  The tool however is only for 1.4.5 users.

Anyway, if you are interested in giving this a try, leave me a comment below or send me an email.  Let me know what migration you are interested in testing (how your data currently is stored and what you want to convert to) in your message. I’ll pick a few testers, leaning toward those methods I want to see tested the most, and contact them with instructions in the next day or so.

Remember testers do not have to move to the new data source, it will just be making a copy.  You can chose to use that copy later, just delete it, or ignore it.  I just would like a few people willing to test and to get back to me with their results and feedback within 2 days of receiving it.  The process should take under 15 minutes.  (My blog takes under 3 minutes from setup to completion.)

If all goes well, I’ll get some feedback from the testers quickly and have the process available by the end of the week.

I recently read that there was an beta version of Windows Live Writer out.  I made a note of it as I wanted to make sure that BlogEngine.NET 1.4 (coming very soon) would work fine with the latest release of this great product.

I had kind of forgotten about the update until tonight as I was working through my testing list and came across Live Writer.  Anyway, once I got it installed and fired up, I was really pleased with what I saw.

The best feature as I see it is the preview tab.  Down at the bottom of the post entry window are 3 tabs.  Edit (which is the typical entry place we are used to), Preview (which shows you what your blog post will look like in your blog), and Source (which as you guessed, shows your html).  The preview worked perfect for me.  I was a bit shocked to be honest.

There is now some image cropping/minor editing as part of the package so I will no longer need to use another program to make minor tweaks to my pictures.  In addition, there are a few new image border options to give things a nicer look as well.

There is a bunch of other things that are new as well.  Lifehacker has a nice overview article that includes the rest of the new features.  It is worth checking out.

I've been asked a few times recently about my Visual Studio look and decided to share about it here.  Visual Studio gives the developer a lot of control over how the development environment looks.  From my experience, only a small percentage of people actually take advantage of it, but it is sometimes nice to change things up a bit.

Finding a Theme

The easiest way to give Visual Studio a "makeover" is to download someone else's custom Visual Studio theme and import it into your environment.  My current theme is based on Ragnarok Grey by Tomas Restrepo.  Tomas is a master dev environment themer and has made a bunch of Visual Studio themes.  That said, the best place to start looking for your theme is likely at Scott Hanselman's VS Theme gallery post.  Scott has put together a nice list of VS Themes along with pictures and links.

Installing a Theme

Once you've found a theme that you like and found a download link, you should have a .vssettings file.  (Note: Make sure you get the file for the version of Visual Studio you are using.  They can be converted, but that is another topic.)

Now, you simply need to import it in Visual Studio.  Luckily, there is a simple Visual Studio wizard to walk you through the process and make a backup of your current settings should you want to go back to what you have now.

The wizard is found under the Tools menu and the option is called Import and Export Settings.  In 3 simple steps, you chose import settings, save your theme (or skip), and then browse out to find your downloaded theme and apply it.

Customizing a Theme

The changes from a downloaded theme can be pretty dramatic and you might want to tweak it a bit.  You might want the font size smaller or larger.  Maybe just a different font.  You might all find that you have some things that just don't look nice.

Head on into options (Tools...Options) and make the changes that you need.  The Fonts and Colors sections gives you a nice preview of what you'll be getting for the different types of items.

My theme

As I mentioned earlier, I've been using pretty much the stock Ragnorak Grey theme.  I have made a few small changes for ReSharper 4.0 EAP.  The theme didn't cover the ReSharper Styles and a few of them were just unreadable.  So if you a ReSharper guy or gal, you'll likely need to check those ReSharper display items and make sure they are readable in the theme you choose.

I recently picked up a new laptop.  After getting Vista installed, I made list of everything I'd need to get started.  Most were from my head as I use many of these things daily, while others I noticed from my work machine, after I had made the list.

Software

• Camtasia Studio - I use this for my screencasts now.  I love this program.
• Daemon Tools Lite - ISO support is always needed, especially around installing time.
• Digsby - This is my IM client of choice these days.  I wish the twitter support was better though.
• FireFox - Do I need to say anything else?  This has its own section below.
• FoxIt Reader - Much nicer than Adobe Acrobat Reader for my needs.
• Guild Wars - One game to rule them all...
• Live Writer - The best blogging tool I've seen yet.
• NotePad++ - My text editor of choice these days.
• Office - Word, Excel, PowerPoint,... you know the drill.
• Paint.NET - A great free .NET based graphics program.
• PDF Creator - Great for making PDFs.
• Skype - IM and Voice chat.  A must have tool these days.
• SQL Server - It is an occupational hazard.
• UltraMon - Multi-monitor support at its best.
• Visual Studio - Both 2005 and 2008 installed.
• VMWare Workstation - I prefer it to Virtual PC.
• Window Clippings - A nice little screenshot maker.
• WinZip - I know there are lots of others but this is what I'm using.  With all the other new stuff on my box, you can consider this my "comfort food" software.
• Witty - My Twitter client of the day.  The current beta works fine or me, but I'm not completely sold yet.  It is .NET based and open source, so I could look into the changes I'd like to see, I guess.

Development Specific Things

• ASP.NET MVC - An alternative to ASP.NET Web Forms in its current state.
• MbUnit - Unit Testing Framework of choice.  (I'm interested in trying xUnit, but I haven't yet.)
• Ragnarok Grey (VS Theme) - My current favorite Visual Studio theme.  Both for VS2005 and VS2008
• ReSharper - A awesome tool.  I've been using the early 4.0 with 2008.  So far, so good.
• Rhino Mocks- Mock objects anyone? While it doesn't need installed per se, I like to have the files in a known place.
• SVN Bridge - The only way to use Subversion at CodePlex.
• TestDriven.NET - Great testing add in
• Tortoise SVN - Great Subversion Client
• Visual SVN - TortoiseSVN that works perfectly inside Visual Studio
• WinMerge - Nice Comparison Utility

Browser Specific things

• IE Extensions
  • IE Developer Toolbar
  • Fiddler
• FireFox Extenions
  • Adblock Plus
  • Download Statusbar
  • Firebug
  • FireFTP
  • IETab
  • Remember the Milk for Gmail
  • Web Developer Toolbar

Well, that is what I've downloaded and setup to start.  I have a lot more stuff installed elsewhere, but I decided to start with the basics and add things as I need them.  I'm sure there will be plenty of adding over the next few weeks.  If I've completely missed something that I shouldn't be living without, you can let me know in the comments.

Over the past week, I've spent some time on the BlogEngine.NET APIs.  Specifically, the Metaweblog API and some similar API calls.  What this means to the average person is simply that the next version of BlogEngine.NET will have some new features to take advantage of in Windows Live Writer (WLW) and possibly other software.  (BlogEngine.NET 1.3 is due out later this month.)

The thing I've been asked the most about is the ability to add new categories from inside of WLW.  With BlogEngine.NET 1.3 (and the current build on CodePlex), you can begin to do that.  Now when you click on the categories dropdown, the top option is a text box allowing you to add a new category.  The category will be added when you publish your post.  I've also added in the ability to control comments (on or off), set the slug of a post and enter an excerpt.  These items can be access by pressing F2 or displaying the properties, under the View menu.

The other big change was support for pages.  Pages have been getting more and more attention in BlogEngine.NET and now you can add/edit/delete them from inside WLW.  To work with Pages in WLW, you can click File, then select New Page.  The window changes a bit as pages have different features in WLW, but from here you can create a new page.  We also support the ability to select a page parent from inside WLW.  The File, Open can now be used to not only pull back recent post from your blog, but also all your pages from your blog.  This should make editing and managing your pages inside of WLW a breeze.

I'll likely post more information on using these new features sometime down the road, but I wanted to write and share a bit of what I've been working on.