Yearly Archives: 2007

Finds of the Week – December 8, 2007

It’s been a busy week. Here are my finds for this week:

.NET, Programming

  • PackageThis is a new CodePlex tool from the MSDN team that allows you to package your own MSDN Library content. Useful to get the latest MSDN content to use locally (fast).
  • Joe Shirey, a board member of the Microsoft Certified Architects program, has written a nice series about the Microsoft Certified Architects program.
  • Alik Levin advised that we should avoid populating passwords in memory, because it’s relatively easy to reveal. A walkthrough of how to use WinDbg to obtain passwords in memory is provided.
  • The Programmer Dress Code by Justin Etheredge is a fun read on what about programming that makes programmers generally dress like a slob. Pictures of famous programmers included.
  • GavinBenda (gavinbenda.com.au) posted a comprehensive guide to web charts and graphs.
  • Unit testing; how far do you push the envelope? (odecee blogs) is a interesting read on the issue of how much unit test code is enough.
  • SQL Server 2008 will have IntelliSense, by Ciz. I have not worked with SQL Server in a while but when I get back to it, this should help make it more fun.
  • Dan Wahlin wrote about the new C# 3.0 feature Automatic Properties. Dan also wrote a nice article on Visual Studio magazine on how to create rich web apps with AJAX.
  • Jeff Putz gave his impressions on Visual Studio 2008 after a couple of weeks of use.
  • One of the most annoying application behavior is stealing current focus. Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror) wrote on why stealing focus is never acceptable.
  • What’s Ailing ASP.NET Web Forms, by Rick Strahl, is a good article about some of the major problems/issues with ASP.NET web forms. Good read.

Software and Tools

  • XPathMania, by Don Demsak is a nice Visual Studio add-in to check XPath statements against the current XML document. Matches are listed in the XPathMania tool window as well as highlighted in the actual XML document. Double click on a match to move to it.

    xpathmania1

  • Picasa (from Google) is my current photo album/manager tool. It’s fast and fun to use. With Picasa Web Albums, it’s a very nice combination.

    google-picasa-1

And Now, Something Different

  • For Richmonders, if you feel like driving around one night in December to look at all the nice Christmas lighting sites in town, check out InRich.com’s Richmond’s Tacky Christmas Lights map. I have done a company sponsored Richmond Christmas lights bus tour in the past and I found it to be entertaining. With the InRich.com map, you can do your own personal tour.

    richmond-tacky-christmas-lights

  • Here’s my apprentice programmer Dat Do at 14 months old. I try to teach him C# but his code doesn’t quite compile yet. Maybe I should start him on QBASIC instead?

    dat-do-14-months

Light-weight System.Transactions in ODP.NET

Starting in ODP.NET version 10.2.0.3.3, support for light-weight transactions has been added. Here’s an excerpt from readme.txt:

This feature enables applications to use local transactions with System.Transactions where previous versions of ODP.NET supported only distributed transactions with System.Transactions. If the PromotableTransaction registry does not exist, the default value of “promotable” is used. If “promotable” is specified, first and subsequent connections opened in the same TransactionScope will enlist in the same distributed transaction. If “local” is specified, the first connection opened in the TransactionScope will use a local transaction. If any subsequent connections are opened within the same TransactionScope, an exception will be thrown. If there are connections opened already in the TransactionScope and an OracleConnection with “Promotable Transaction=local” is attempted to be opened within the same TransactionScope, an exception will also be thrown.

This is great for those of us who use ODP.NET with System.Transactions, especially if you use global temporary tables. I found out the hard way that global temporary tables are not supported with distributed transactions.

Version 10.2.0.3.3 is not yet available for download via Oracle.com. You have to request it through Metalink. Search for patch number 5916667. I have not tested this patch yet but I will soon.

Finds of the Week – Nov 28, 2007

I took a break from blogging last week for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Here are the Finds for this week.

.NET

  • Just in case you have not heard, Visual Studio 2008 has been released (ScottGu). I installed the released version earlier this week and everything looks good so far. The first thing I noticed was the very quick load time compared to 2005.
  • Silverlight 1.1 is now 2.0. By Tim Sneath.
  • Dan Fernandez listed the top 15 things to love about Visual Studio 2008 Express.
  • Service Pack 1 for .NET Framework 2.0 is available. By Guy Barrette.
  • Aaronontheweb shared 5 Hot ASP.NET Tips and Tricks for the week of 11/20/2007. By Aaronontheweb.
  • bloggingdeveloper wrote a nice article on how to compress ViewState.

Software and Tools

  • Odiogo can make your blog talk. By Mads Kristensen.
  • I have been a long-time user of MSN Money Porfolio and stock charts but lately I really liked the stuff Yahoo! has been adding to their Finance section. Their new Flash-based stock chart is the best in its class. My favorite feature is the ability to drag left/right to go back/forward in time. Also their quotes are now streaming (AJAX)… meaning anywhere you see a price quote, it will be automatically refreshed. Real time quotes are available for as an optional service as well.

    Yahoo! Finance Stock Chart

  • To track disk space usage, my tool of choice is Windirstats. Windirstats is Open Source.

    Windirstats

Tech, Windows Mobile, Gadgets

  • Google has just released the beta version of My Location, a service that allows GPS like functionality with Google Maps on your mobile device without a GPS. It doesn’t work for me on my Samsung i760 though. I always get this error message: “Your current location is temporarily unavailable”.

    Google Maps My Location

    Looks like many others are getting the same error as well.

And Now, Something Different

Be careful where you put your cellphone.

Finds of the Week – Nov 16, 2007

.NET

Software and Tools

Tech and Gadgets

  • Dish Network enables ethernet ports on ViP622 HD DVRs. The main feature that the broadband connection brings is video on demand. The ethernet connection also allows the box to call home via the Internet instead of using the phone line.

Miscellaneous

  • View popular “sightings” on Google Maps, Windows Live Maps, and Yahoo Maps at Virtual Globetrotting

And Now, Something Different

I cut a kiwi fruit in halves the other day and this was what I saw:

Kiki Fruit Heart

EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra 939 Motherboard and 4GB of RAM

If you have an EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard, and you installed 4GB of RAM, the BIOS may only see 3407872K Total Memory:

Epox EP-9NPA+Ultra 4GB Vista

To enable the BIOS to see the full 4GB of RAM, do the following:

  • Enter the BIOS Setup Utility (reboot and press Del key).
  • Choose Advanced Chipset Feature, then DRAM Configuration
  • Change “S/W memory hole Remapping” to Enabled
  • Change “H/W memory hole Remapping” to Enabled

Epox EP-9NPA+Ultra 4GB Vista

If you have Windows XP or Windows Vista 32-bit, the operation system will not see the full 4 GB anyway. The “fix” is to upgrade to Vista 64-bit or just live with whatever amount of RAM the OS can use. My Vista 32-bit installation reports 3327 MB of total memory.

Epox EP-9NPA+Ultra 4GB Vista

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