DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by JamesEggers

Writing a Custom NAnt Task (Part 2)

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:27:36 GMT

This post continues the series on how to write a custom task for the build script utility of Nant. In this task we explore modifying the C# and VB.Net code from the previous post to include a the FileSet Collection Element.

The "Sim City" effect

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:30:00 GMT

What happens when you turn your back on a software development project.

Learning new Programmming Languages and Technologies

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Recently, I've read article after article about how part of being a good software developer is about being open to new technologies, and to "learn new things" - and I'd be foolish not to agree. However...

Writing a Custom NAnt Task (Part 1)

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:19:42 GMT

The first of a 3 part series on writing a custom NAnt task. In this task, we'll be creating a task that combines log files from a single directory. Linked Source Code is provided in both C# and VB.Net

SchemaSpy for NAnt

Thu, 28 May 2009 01:39:43 GMT

A post discussing the start of an open source project to merge the build automation tool of NAnt with the Database Documentation tool of SchemaSpy.

Expecting More From Example Code

Wed, 13 May 2009 22:20:20 GMT

Should blog posts and presentations provide more polished examples in order to encourage better coding practices?

JSON Serialization of a DataReader

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:46:03 GMT

On a few occasions recently I've ended up with DataReaders in my AJAX services. The data comes from low level componets with data from APIs over which I have no control and it feeds only feeds data from DataReaders. Rather than converting these readers into more complex data structures it can be more efficient to directly turn these DataReaders into JSON. Here are a couple of ways to do this using a custom serializer and a JavaScriptConverter for JavaScriptSerializer.

Automating Features vs. Fundamentals

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:54:37 GMT

A story about where to begin when looking to automate processes and coding practices.

Glass Behavior for WPF

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:46:03 GMT

A new custom behavior for WPF that allows for a glass like effect. Essentially you can place this behavior on any Visual, point to to a target visual and give it an effect and it will create an effect that looks like a piece of glass was placed over the screen. You pretty much can make your own Aero effects within your application. . .

How I'm Learning F# - Working with .Net Objects and Properties

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:16:11 GMT

This post marks the fourth entry of a series that I'll be writing to discuss how I'm going about learning F#. In this segment, I'll dive into using .Net objects and their properties.

jQuery, JSON, and ASMX 2.0 Services

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:22:24 GMT

A few weeks ago, I had a project that was grounded in the .Net Framework v2.0 and Visual Studio 2005. The requirements were very focused on usability and speed so AJAX and jQuery were high on my list to use. Through the project, I learned that there isn't a large amount of information in one place that tells you how to setup a ASP.Net solution that uses jQuery and ASMX services to effectively transmit json data back and forth from the client. Because of this, I'll attempt to fill this voice since there are still many developers and companies out there that have not been able to upgrade to Visual Studio 2008.

How I'm Learning F# - Interacting with the .Net Framework

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:01:47 GMT

The Third post in a series describing how I'm going about learning F#.

Tackling Anxiety Against Automation

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:32:39 GMT

An observation on strategies that can be used to promote automation to someone who has fears about such a hands off approach.

Use jQuery to Show a Link's Address After its Text When Printing In IE

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 02:31:10 GMT

I found a cool trick in a post by Remy Sharp that appends the address of a hyperlink to the end of the link's text when the page is printed. Unfortunately the trick only works in browsers that support the CSS2 pseudo selector :after. Firefox, Safari, Chrome*, Opera and now IE8 all support the selector. IE6 and IE7 don't though and that is a huge percentage of users. I came up with a way to achieve the same thing with IE6 and IE7 using jQuery and the proprietary IE events onbeforeprint and onafterprint though.

How I'm learning F# - Writing the First Program

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:46:16 GMT

The second post of a series on how I'm learning the F# language. In this post, I write the proverbial Hello, World! application and discuss a few core F# features.

Three Essential Expression Blend Add-ins

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:01:19 GMT

There are a handful of essential add-ins for Expression Blend that you should be using. This article talks about how you get the add-ins working in the first place and then dives into a few of the add-ins that are available.

How I'm Learning F# - Finding Resouces

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:29:37 GMT

This post begins a new series I'll be doing about how I'm going about learning the F# functional language. In this section, I begin to identify resources that I'll be using on my learning adventure.

Why aren't I an MVP?

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:16:03 GMT

There's a problem with the MVP program I'd like to talk about. The fact that I'm no longer an MVP (haven't been for over a year now) isn't the problem, merely a symptom. My problem is that I don't know why I'm not an MVP, and by extension I don't know why others are. The process of becoming and remaining an MVP is completely opaque. Plainly, the MVP program lacks transparency.

Saving Time Through the Command Prompt Explorer Bar

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:24:07 GMT

A brief tutorial of using the Command Prompt Explorer Bar to assist in command line tools and operations from with in Windows Explorer.

Developer Productivity - 5 Ways To Kill It

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:31:03 GMT

In keeping with the sarcastic tone of my How To Be The Worst Developer Ever post I'm going to explore several ways for managers to systematically destroy productivity among their developers. Unfortunately I am writing some of these from experience, then again, I'm sure we have all experienced some of these at one time or another.

Copy to Clipboard with ZeroClipboard, Flash 10 and jQuery

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:20:38 GMT

So I knew it would happen at some point. Some handy flash developer would figure out how to get around the security limitation in Flash 10 that requires the System.setClipboard() method (ActionScript) to only be called by an action that originates from a user interaction. Last week I ran across an article on Ajaxian that linked to ZeroClipboard developed by Joseph Huckaby that worked as promised.

Database Documentation Using SchemaSpy

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:46:03 GMT

A blog post that provides a tutorial on how to use SchemaSpy to document Microsoft Sql Server 2000 and 2005 databases.

Playing with JSON

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:46:22 GMT

Josh Holmes digs into JSON with Silverlight and a few JSON frameworks... Check out the article to see Silverlight leveraging JSON with System.Json, LINQ and more. There's even samples in raw JavaScript, MSAjax, Prototype and JQuery. Finally he ended it all up by mixing JQuery and Silverlight. That was fun and remarkably simple.

Building a Nant Script -- Part 1: Setting up the script

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:01:03 GMT

Learn how to setup your build script with Nant. You will learn the basics of using Nant to compile your application in this episode, which will be built upon in future episodes to build a more complex script.

Filtering Tables with jQuery

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:14:15 GMT

An example of binding text boxes to a table to apply filtering to the results.