DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by entrodus

UK Software Consultant Nightmare: The IT Recruiting Agents

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:16:02 GMT

The definite guide to the tricks and tactics employed by some IT recruting agents that made the UK software consultant's recruting process a nightmare.

Why you REALLY need to think about your interfaces

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:46:02 GMT

When you write your interfaces in C#, you might be casting them in stone. You REALLY need to think about how you write your interfaces. Avoid interfaces with concrete parameters such as Dictionary<> and List<> and prefer interfaces such as IDictionary<> and IList<>. Here is why!

Reflecting the entire layout panel in Silverlight 2 Beta 2

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:46:02 GMT

After my post on creating reflection with Silverlight 2 Beta . I was asked several times by couple of Silverlight enthusiasts questions like this : is there any way i can reflect an entire grid?, is it possible to make a reflection of lets say a grid with multiple buttons since there is no VisualBrush in Silverlight?, is there any chance to reflect some generic Control(Framework element etc)?. So I started to think about how entire Layout Panels like Grid,Canvas,Border etc. can be reflected. In WPF I did this stuff so easily. But in Silverlight I didn't find any any way till last night. The idea behind Layout reflection is , creating a mirror effect of a Container Control, which means child controls placed inside the container will also be reflected.

Overriding ToString() Makes Debugging Easier

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:46:02 GMT

Make your life easier while debugging in Visual Studio, see your objects in thier full glory using ToString.

Chrome didn't survive long...

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:31:07 GMT

I uninstalled Google Chrome after considering the potential threads for privacy

Enhance the look of Windows Controls using Opacity Masks in Avalon

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:12:04 GMT

An opacity mask is like a layer having different degrees of transparency, which can be applied to any Windows control object or even panels. Depending on the opacity/transparency settings of the mask, the background of the control will also acquire the same properties.

The first rule of WPF

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:12:57 GMT

How to use attached behaviors to avoid inheritance in WPF.

Silverlight Particle Generator

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:31:02 GMT

Cool particle effects live demo done with Silverlight. Sources are available, too!

Namescopes in WPF

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 09:31:24 GMT

This articles explains how Namescopes work and tips and tricks you can do with them....

How To Create a WPF Template For a Generic Class

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:16:03 GMT

Have you ever tried to create a DataTemplate for a Generic Class? Here is how you do it.

WPF Links 21 July 2008

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:46:02 GMT

A link list of the latest news on WPF of the last 2 weeks!

Simplified Content Transition in WPF

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:33:33 GMT

Transitions between content (think: slide shows) are not as easy in WPF as you'd think they'd be. Ideally we'd like to be able to assign content to a content control and get a nice animated transition between the two. What can I do to easily enable transitions in Xaml without the need to write C#?

WPF Binding Converter Best Practices

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:46:02 GMT

As you all remember in my article about Custom WPF Context Menu I mentioned that my WPF Binding Converter was a singleton, and I promised to tell you why, so here comes the 3 ways I know of using WPF Binding Converters. We will start from the worst (in my opinion) and move on the the best.

Cheat Sheets for Front-end Web Developers

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:46:11 GMT

Cheat sheets are helpful to have around because they allow you to quickly remember code syntax and see related concepts visually. Additionally, they're nice decorative pieces for your office. In this article, you'll find 23 excellent, print-ready cheat sheets for HTML/HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (including MooTools and jQuery).

Microsoft cracking down on community extensions

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:01:02 GMT

Microsoft released a tool called Microsoft Source Analyzer, or StyleCop. It analyzes source code for standards violations. It's a 1.0 release, so it doesn't do some things ... like have a published API for custom rules or MSBuild integration. So the community dug in and figured out how to do these things and now MS is firing off license-violation emails. Don't they get it? The community wants to use the product, but it's too limited ... these extensions help make it better.

Displaying Data Validation Messages in WPF

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:30:30 GMT

Great article on how to display and format validation messages using the IDataErrorInfo interface and styling templates in WPF.

Diagnose Assembly Binding Failures

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:46:19 GMT

Every one of us, software developers, experienced situations where the .Net Framework could not locate an assembly and ended up facing the TypeLoadException. Luckily, there is an assembly binding log viewer which displays information that helps us diagnose why the .NET Framework can not locate an assembly at run time.

Exception handling best practices in ASP.NET web applications

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:31:08 GMT

Exception handling plays an important part of application management and user experience. If implemented correctly it can make maintenance easier and bring the user experience to a higher level. If not, it can be a disaster. The goal of this article is to provide an overview of what exception handling is from the user perspective and the perspective of people who maintain the application, and to show the best practices of how to implement useful error handling in ASP.NET web applications.

HydrogenCMS Released

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:16:02 GMT

The source for a new simple cms has been released using asp.net mvc.

What's Wrong with this?

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:46:03 GMT

Every time I read a C# book or an article or just a code sample in MSDN I can't stop wondering why don't people use this qualifier unless it's absolutely required? What do we sacrifice code readability for?

Create MessageBox user control using ASP.NET and CSS

Wed, 28 May 2008 17:01:02 GMT

This article shows how to create MessageBox user control using ASP.NET and CSS. It have the ability to render different message types. It also have a close button in order to enable users to hide the message after reading. The article will guide you through the basics of making a simple and functional user control.

More on how Entity Framework's single-model goal is flawed

Tue, 20 May 2008 09:31:07 GMT

Greg takes point with the long-term goal of EF as defining the one true model can't possibly appropriate.

JavaScript: Warning the user when CapsLock is on

Sat, 17 May 2008 22:16:02 GMT

Describes a method for warning a user that their caps lock is on using JavaScript. Also includes an ASP.NET control

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:46:04 GMT

public beta of upcoming .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 releases is published

Creating great thumbnails in ASP.NET

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:01:03 GMT

The built in function for creating thumbnails in ASP.NET is extremely convenient and very simple to implement. The trouble is that it produces relatively poor quality results and excessively large file sizes. The thumbnails tend to look very muddy when using this route, but many times it's good enough for whatever your needs may be.