DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by crpietschmann

volatile and MemoryBarrier()...

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:16:40 GMT

That part I knew. what we news to me is there is a better way to do volatile, and that is with an explicitly memory barrier before accessing the data member.. We have a an API for that: System.Threading.Thread.MemoryBarrier(). This is more efficient than using volatile because a volatile field requires all accesses to be barriers and this effects some performance optimizations.

BREAKING NEWS! Castle Project Lead Hamilton Verissimo Joins Microsoft

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:31:03 GMT

In a strategic move on Microsoft's part that has the open source community buzzing, the well-known and respected founder of the Castle Project Hamilton Verissimo has accepted a position with Microsoft's MEF group.

SharePoint Tips and Tricks: Heather Solomon: Branding SharePoint

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:45:01 GMT

Heather Solomon has created a great series on her blog titled quot;Branding SharePoint quot;. This is definitely a required reading for developers and GAs serious about giving their corporate SharePoint instances an identity.

Convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:58:27 GMT

This manual will help you to install Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and to configure your pc so you can use it as a workstation.

C#: Enhance Enums using Extension Methods

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:01:02 GMT

Extension Methods are one of the coolest features that have been added in .NET 3.5. I've heard arguments that there is no reason to use them, and the only reason Microsoft added them is to enable the ability to buid LINQ. Well, I do not entirely agree with that statement; in fact, I have found a cool way to use Extension Methods to enhance the System.Enum object since it cannot be inherited. Even though Enum can not be inherited, it can be extended using Extension Methods. Here's the code to an Extension Method that extends the LocalizationMarket Enum with the ToDescriptionString() method that returns the DescriptionAttributes value for the given enum value.

How to Localize Windows Forms and Change the Language at Runtim

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:21:16 GMT

Localization is the process of customizing your application to a particular language, culture or locale. Visual Studio provides support for localizing Windows Forms with much ease. In this article, we will see how to localize windows forms and give the user the ability to change to his preferred language at runtime.

The Future of ASP.NET AJAX

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:46:16 GMT

My analysis of the ASP.NET Team's tentative road map for ASP.NET AJAX v.Next and beyond, followed by a few additional recommendations.

Create and apply custom themes with WPF

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:46:04 GMT

Concise blog post demonstrating how to apply themes and styles using WPF.

LINQ Farm: More on Set Operators

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:31:02 GMT

This is a second post on the LINQ Set operators, the first being published while LINQ was still in beta. As mentioned in the previous post, there are four LINQ set operators: Union, Intersect, Distinct and Except. Like the other 50 LINQ operators, these methods are designed to allow you to query data which supports the IEnumerable<T> interface. Since all LINQ query expressions, and most LINQ queries, return IEnumerable<T>, these operators are designed to allow you to perform set operations on the results of a LINQ query. In this post I give four highly simplified examples of how to use each of the operators, and then end with a more complex example that shows how the operators might be used in a real world setting.

30 Days of .Net Windows Mobile application

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:57:02 GMT

The author created 30 applications (GPS compass, Rotate, ...) for windows mobile during June.

What you don't know about Copy & Paste in Visual Studio

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:46:02 GMT

This post explains how to use clipboard ring and some other tricks with Ctrl-C/Ctrl-X.

Javascript cloning objects

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:33:01 GMT

When cloning a object in Javascript many of the examples I found used for(i in..) to traverse the properties and copy each of them. There is a nicer way to do this using the uneval function like this:-

Xaml Without WPF

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:45:42 GMT

Without using WPF (or Workflow Foundation for that matter), how useful is Xaml on it's own?

Optimize WebResource.axd and ScriptResource.axd

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:01:06 GMT

Some weeks ago I wrote how to minify and compress the WebResource.axd handler. In the comments of that post someone asked how to do the same with ScriptResource.axd. I thought about it and realized it could be done much smarter.If you take a look at the HTML source at the CodePlex Issue Tracker page, you'll see it references 13 WebResource.axd and ScriptResource.axd. That's 13 different web requests on each page load. The ScriptResource.axd is using HTTP compression but WebResource.axd does not. None of them minifies the scripts.Therefore it would be cool to create a plug 'n play HttpModule that combines all resource.axd scripts into one single web request and then minify and compress them. It would result in smaller HTML, fewer web requests and optimized JavaScript code. If you're a YSlow nazi like me, this is a must-have.

My version of the MessageBox control

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:01:09 GMT

Last month Janko posted an excellent article about creating standard website message boxes. Here is my take on it. I kept the idea the same but implemented it as a custom web control instead of a user control.

MSDN Ramp Up and Certification Exam Discount

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:30:57 GMT

MSDN has a developer learning program called Ramp Up. The award for finishing the program is a 50% discount on certification exam 70-536 and other discounts.

Foundation of Programming FREE EBook - CodeBetter.Com

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:46:05 GMT

The Foundation Of Programming Series Free ebook By Karl Seguin

Great User Experience Example in a Business Application in Silverlight

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:16:13 GMT

DNR-TV has a great talk\demo with Billy Hollis on a next generation business applications in WPF and Silverlight. Billy is working with a customer to provide a temp worker to job matching services. So far the application is in WPF, but they are planning to create a Silverlight version as well.

Themes for Silverlight Applications

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:57:32 GMT

A theming system for Silverlight 2 apps... this post steps you through creating a set of theme assets, adding customizability of themes (colors and fonts in the sample), and using them in an application, including selecting a theme dynamically... complete with source code.

ASP.NET Hacks

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:46:08 GMT

At LessThanDot, we've decided to release a series of articles, tips and tricks which will be known as the "Hacks" series. The first instalment was the popular SQL Server Programming Hacks and this week sees the release of the ASP.NET Hacks. These hacks have been split up into the following categories: 1 Applications 2 Caching 3 Controls 4 Database 5 Dates 6 Debugging 7 Email 8 Encryption 9 Files 10 Images 11 Javascript 12 Objects and Classes 13 Pages 14 Sessions 15 Strings 16 Validation 17 Visual Studio 18 Web We've decided to release these in the wiki so that anyone can contribute to them, so feel free to add anything else that you find useful.

What's wrong with Request.["Accept-Encoding"].Contains("gzip")?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:31:11 GMT

Dave explain a better way to detect the response encoding accepted by the browser, parsing the accept-encoding string and taking into account all the ranking and preferred values.

Things to know for hosting your ASP.NET MVC app

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:45:45 GMT

When you are planning to host your asp.net MVC application under IIS7 integrated mode environment. There are few easy tweaks that can make your application or starter kit work right out of the box but also can save a lot of your time finding things out. You might see a Http 404 page if default document is not configured properly. The one way of getting this around by using the following ..

Do namespace using directives affect Assembly Loading?

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:07:30 GMT

A rule in the the recent MS Stylecop release poses an interesting question - do namespace using directives affect assembly loading. Scott investigates...

Extension Methods + Attributes = A Whole New World!

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:31:02 GMT

A post about combining attributes and extension methods in order to extend current code.

55 Free High Quality Icon Sets

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:01:02 GMT

A lot of freebie icons. Another great article from Smashing Magazine