Technology

Finds of the Week – December 15, 2007

Here are this week’s finds:

.NET, C#, Programming

Software and Tools

And Now, Something Different

Here’s a Christmas tree made out of Heineken beer bottles. I took this picture last December at the Imperial Hotel in Hue, Vietnam, while vacationing there. Click on the picture for a larger version.

hue-imperial-heineken-christmas-tree

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

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

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

Finds of the Week – Nov 2, 2007

Here are the finds for this week.

.NET

  • Mike Duncan wrote a nice article on 3 hot uses for HttpContext.Current.Items “They” won’t tell you about. Wish I had thought about this 6 months ago when I was trying to implement a "static" variable that only lasts for the duration of the page request.
  • Too busy with real work to read up on the soon to be released Visual Studio 2008 (by end of November)? Daniel Moth has put together a summary the top 10 things to know about VS 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 here.
  • For Oracle developers, check out Gojko Adzic’s article on the new function result caching feature in Oracle 11.
  • Java and .NET to drive double-digit wage growth. Yes double-digit wage growth! That should happen more often. By  Gavin Clarke via regdeveloper.co.uk.
  • Doug Stewart wrote another comprehensive article on new features of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5.
  • There’s something slow, in your program flow. Who you’re gonna call? Profilers of course :-). M has put together a detailed article of how to use the ANTS profiler. Also check out Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability by J.D. Meier, Srinath Vasireddy, Ashish Babbar, and Alex Mackman.
  • Marquee de Sells has several interesting points on the consequences of working for Microsoft remotely.

Software and Tools

Vector Magic is the probably best bitmap tracing tool currently available. Check out the amazing samples. Free!

Resharper is a great productivity and code analysis add-in for Visual Studio. It’s the only add-in I currently use. My top 5 favorite Resharper features are:

  • On the fly error/warning checking (squiggly lines). See problems with your code as you type them.

    Resharper On-the-fly Error Checking

  • Refactor (Rename, Extract Method, Introduce Field, etc. )
  • Goto Type/File/File Member. Fastest way to navigate. Every class, file, or method is only a few keystrokes away.

    Resharper Navigation

  • Find Usages. Find what is using a class/method/property. Great for finding code dependencies. Indispensable for learning a new application you are not familiar with.

    Resharper Find Usages

  • Reformat Code.
  • Enhanced Intellisense.

Windows Live Writer is a windows editor for blog posts. Your drafts are saved locally. Works with WordPress. I like it. This post was written using Windows Live Writer.

Gadgets

Miscellaneous

  • At my work it was announced that we will be switching to "Outlook" from Lotus Notes. We are currently on Notes 6 and it’s the most atrocious of a program I have had the pleasure of using on a daily basis. Some of the most basic features like Search does not even work. Argg! I had to create my own Notes index by periodically exporting all messages to text files so that Windows Search will index them. I can’t wait to get back to Outlook/Exchange.
  • Have you wondered why Windows Explorer doesn’t show the size of a folder? Here are the reasons (Raymond Chen via blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing).

And Now, Something Different

I’ve always been skeptical whenever I hear people say or write that we only use 10% of our brain. Well, it looks like there is no scientific evidence to suggest that. Read more here.

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