DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by antny

CSS Message Boxes for different message types

Thu, 22 May 2008 17:01:04 GMT

Can you believe this: Few days ago I went to my bank to check my credit score with the Credit Bureau. The bank official typed in my personal data and sent a request. Web application responded by displaying a yellow message box with an exclamation icon saying that data processing is still in progress. He checked several more times, but he didn't notice that at one moment the message changed to "Account available". But the message box hasn't changed. He continued to check a few more times and eventually he realized that the request was successful. I don't know what was in the minds of developers and designers who created this application, but it certainly wasn't the user. This poor bank official was really frustrated. I can't imagine what the rest of the application looks like.

Why Should You Wrap Your ASP.NET Session Object

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:16:03 GMT

ASP.NET provides mechanisms for storing information for a single user session or across multiple sessions. This is done using the HttpSessionState and HttpApplicationState classes. The Page class has Application and Session attributes to provide access to current objects. The simple way to access them is as following:

Creating user friendly strings for enum values

Thu, 01 May 2008 17:46:02 GMT

I'll show you how to create a custom attribute for enum values to assign extra information to an enum. In this case, we'll be associating a user friendly display name.

Things you MUST dispose

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:46:02 GMT

When the .NET Framework instantiates an object, it allocates memory for that object on the managed heap. The object remains on the heap until it's no longer referenced by any active code, at which point the memory it's using is reclamed by the Garbage Collector (GC). Before the GC deallocates the memory, the framework calls the object's Finalize() method, but developers are responsible for calling the Dispose() method.

13 Tips to Comment Your Code

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:31:02 GMT

Following are 13 tips on how to comment your source code so that it is easier to understand and maintain over time.

Deep Zoom version of Silverlight 2 Developer Reference Poster

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:01:02 GMT

"I took a reasonable resolution version of the Silverlight 2 Developer Reference Poster and crossed that with the Deep Zoom Composer, added a JS mouse wheel library and in about 5 minutes had a Deep Zoom version of the poster running in Silverlight." Source available, too!

stylizedweb.com - Most used CSS tricks

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:01:02 GMT

Earlier before I have written an article about current best CSS hacks which you can see here And now here's the list of today's most used CSS tricks - tips. I have added image examples for most of them because of critics on CSS hacks article. If you think I have missed any please let me know.

Top 10 Best Practices for Production ASP.NET Applications

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:01:02 GMT

A list of some things to pay attention to when dealing with production ASP.NET applications.

Confessions of a Software Developer

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:01:02 GMT

Has anybody else ever felt overwhelmed with the sheer mass of "stuff" involved with software development?

An easier Table Design View in Sql Server Management Studio

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:01:02 GMT

One of the things that bugs me no end in Sql Server Management Studio is that the table designer's UI is a pain to use. Entering column properties is an excercise in mousercise. It turns out there's an easier way to do this with custom views in the DataBase Diagram Designer.

Add or remove the www sub domain

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:31:02 GMT

An HttpModule that let's you easily add or remove the www sub domain from any ASP.NET web application.

The Myth of Stored Procedures Preference

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:46:03 GMT

When looking to the Stored Proscedures debate, there is always those three factors you should measure by.

SQL Server Indexes: The Basics

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:31:06 GMT

Indexes directly affect the performance of database applications. This article uses analogies to describe how indexes work. The estimated execution plan feature of the Query Window is utilized to compare the performance of two queries in a batch.

Solution Folders in Vs.Net

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:55:39 GMT

Big Visual Studio.NET solutions can be organized by grouping related projects into folders

10 Podcasts Every Developer Should Listen To

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:16:05 GMT

A list of 10 developer related podcasts, some popular and some rather obscure, ranging in topics from Agile tenets to Architecture best practices. A list I hope everyone will discover at least a few new gems to listen to.

SQL Server 2008 will have IntelliSense

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:31:02 GMT

Hurray!

Re-throwing an exception in .NET; the right way.

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:46:02 GMT

This is one of those "Yeah I've always seen people use it differently but I don't know why!" questions. Re-throwing exceptions can be misused, although it may not cause any harm to your application - there are multiple ways of re-throwing an exception, most likely for the purpose of bubbling it up to a higher level. Note to Java developers: It is different in your world.

Visual Studio 2008 RTM available for download

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:46:03 GMT

MSDN subscribers can now download final RTM version of Visual Studio 2008.

.NET Framework 3.5 Is Shared Source

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:46:25 GMT

Microsoft's .NET Framework 3.5 is going to be released open source.

.Net: Passing user data with Exception back to the caller method

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 06:31:01 GMT

A simple way of passing any user data in the Exception back to the caller method.

The Power of the Predicate<T>

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:16:02 GMT

The very flexible generic collection List<T> contains several methods that take a predicate as it's parameter. Coupled with Anonymous Methods this provides powerfully concise code for filtering, searching and sorting your collections.

StringBuilder is not always faster

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 05:01:02 GMT

Here is something you may not know about string concatenation: StringBuilder is not always faster.

SQL Server: The proper and fastest way to check if rows exist

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:16:02 GMT

Simple yet very underused way to check if rows matching a condition exist.

They (spammers) look like ants from here

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:31:03 GMT

Since adding some basic user visualisation to DotNetKicks.com the other day, I have become slightly addicted to viewing the who's online page. This morning I added colour coding to the users based on their status - green for new users, blue for existing users and red for spammers.

Quickly Find/Open a File in Visual Studio

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:16:01 GMT

A quick way to find and open files in a large solution in Visual Studio that very few people know about. Other people have created addins to do this without even realizing the functionality was already there.