I wrote a post, I presses spell-check, I disabled popup-window, I lost everything I wrote.

I cannot repeat :(

I short, I cannot stop thinking about this project, I started it again.
VS2005 option for Windows Installer sucks when it comes to updates.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912019/en-us - is really a problem. I wasted today's evening, but then closed all forms, closed VS2005 and opened it again, and it helped

VistaDB as deskop database for .NET application

So, I finally decided to write application. I had that idea for a long time and understood, that I will not sleep well until I do it. So, I canceled my Netflix subscribtion and ready to go!!!

I am going to have server with Web Services, and client, better to say Smart Client :) For server I am going to use MS SQL Express. But, I need light database engine for client. My first experiment will be done with VistaDB. SQL Express is to heavy, Access needs Office for provider. And, I don't know, I never liked Access. FireBird - I am going to test it too, but it looks too "geeky" for me.

In this blog I will post the history of this project. From my previous post it is clear, that it is about media library.

It would be good if this post could give me a license for VistaDB, because I am not ready to pay for it yet, since I am not sure that I will have guts to finish the project. My estimates for this project (and I will work only at nights) - 6 months.

VistaDB 2.1 database for .NET has been released
This 2.1 update includes over 60 improvements, including new support for .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 VistaDB is a small-footprint, embedded SQL database alternative to Jet/Access, MSDE and SQL Server Express 2005 that enables developers to build .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 applications. Features SQL-92 support, small 500KB embedded footprint, free 2-User VistaDB Server for remote TCP/IP data access, royalty free distribution for both embedded and server, Copy 'n Go! deployment, managed ADO.NET Provider, data management and data migration tools. Free trial is available for download.
- Learn more about VistaDB
- Repost this to your blog and receive a FREE copy of VistaDB 2.1!

Reading text from file

I didn't touch .NET for several months, because my current work is not connected to it. But recently I wanted to make small program for myself, reading TAG from MP3 file.

Well, I spent some time figuring out how to do it properly. My final approach at this point looks like this.

System.IO.Stream stream is parameter

byte[] buffer = new byte[30];
System.Text.Encoding enc = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(0);
if (!enc.IsSingleByte)
enc = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII;
stream.Read(buffer, 0, 30);
title = enc.GetString(buffer).TrimEnd('\0');