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Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:01:10 GMT

On Sept. 29, 2008, Microsoft announced the next generations of Visual Studio and .NET Framework. Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 are meant to simplify application's life-cycle management by make it easier for all contributors of the software team (core programmers, UI designers, testers and project managers), to participate throughout the life-cycle.

How to: Debug Windows Service in Visual Studio .NET

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:57:49 GMT

Debugging a Windows Service Application is a very unpleasant task because such application doesn't run from within Visual Studio .NET. A Windows Service Application runs in the Services Control Manager context. This article is about how to debug a Windows Service application as a regulat Windows Forms application.

How to: Set the PropertyGrid as Read-Only

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:37:19 GMT

The default PropertyGrid control provided by the WinForms collection doesn't support a read-only functionality. Setting the PropertyGrid as read-only might be useful if you want to allow your users to fully inspect a rich property object exposed by the PropertyGrid without the possibility to change something.

Give way to the yield keyword!

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:31:02 GMT

A brief description of what you can do with the yield keyword.

How to: Take control over the Collection Editor's PropertyGrid

Wed, 28 May 2008 17:17:27 GMT

The PropertyGrid control is a very useful tool if you want to update object attributes at run-time in a elegant way. The PropertyGrid provides some useful events to let you know what is going on. The problem occures for the collection properties when the Collection Editor form is shown. This form also provides a PropertyGrid control to edit any item from the current collection but we don't have access to any of known events.

Workaround: The SplitContainer may crash your VS2008 Designer

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:59:13 GMT

If use the default Split Container to build a Windows Form or create a new user control, and set some properties of that Split Container at design time using Visual Studio 2008, you may end up with a broken form or user control. I got that error using the Visual Studio 2008 - Professional Edition.

How to: Retrieve database schema information using ADO.NET

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:47:54 GMT

Sometimes we need to know what is the internal structure of a database in addition to its data. This might turn very useful when the database structure is dynamic. This information is called Database Metadata or Database Schema.

Client coordinates and Screen coordinates

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:45:52 GMT

The .NET Framework can provide the mouse coordinates using the client coordinates system or the screen coordinates system. In some mouse-based scenarios we need exactly to know which coordinates system is used in order to use the correct offset.

How the Garbage Collector works - Part 2

Sat, 03 May 2008 14:46:56 GMT

Now let's go deeper to understand how the Garbage Collector (GC) is actually collecting the dead objects and how this may affect the performance.

How the Garbage Collector works - Part 1

Sat, 03 May 2008 11:37:35 GMT

The Garbage Collector (GC) can be considered the heart of the .NET Framework. It manages the allocation and release of memory for any .NET application. In order to create good .NET applications, we must know how the Garbage Collector (GC) works.

Writing a Simple Role Playing Game with C# .NET and the State Pattern

Thu, 01 May 2008 21:31:03 GMT

Learn how to use the State design pattern in C# .NET by writing a basic role playing game, with a main character who explores a forest, finds magical items, slays monsters, and gains experience points.

GDI+ painting basics

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:21:20 GMT

The core of GDI+ is the Graphics class which draws all the needed lines, curves, shapes, text and images. The Graphics class encapsulates a GDI+ drawing surface, which can be a window or print document. You paint on this drawing surface using a combination of the methods the Graphics class provides.

Improving C# Performance Through Stack Allocation

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:46:02 GMT

In this article I walk through safe and unsafe stack allocation in C#. I discuss some methods of improving performance and talk about the dangers and inconveniences involved in those methods.

A .NET Cryptography Primer, part 2

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:01:02 GMT

How to store passwords securely in your application. With lots of salt/hash puns.

How to: Use strings in a secure manner with SecureString class

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:01:02 GMT

The classic System.String type doesn't provide enough security for storing sensitive data like passwords, credit card numbers or personal information. If a String object contains sensitive information, there is a risk the information could be revealed after it is used because your application cannot delete the data from computer memory. Starting with the .NET Framework 2.0 the SecureString class is available. It was designed to provide encryption for sensitive data and other useful functions.

GDI+ Windows rendering API

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:24:15 GMT

Microsoft GDI+ is a part of Windows XP/Server 2003 operating system that provides 2D vector-based graphics, imaging and typography. GDI+ is an improved version of the old GDI (Graphics Device Interface), which is part of previous Windows versions. The GDI+ programming model has been revised to make graphics programming easier and more flexible.

Boosting performance on aspx pages

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:00:34 GMT

Most of internet tutorials tells you to use Page Load event to bind your data to controls. What's happening when you have to rebind controls again because your data source is changed due to some event where you have to re bind controls.

wwDataBinder with dictionaries and lists

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:09:32 GMT

This a a small article for those who used wwdatabinder and want to use automatic binding with dictionaries or lists. You can download code.

Web user controls design pattern and data binding part 1

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:05:18 GMT

A lot of people are using user controls in asp because they are very easy to use, have design time support and so on. The purpose of this article is to prevent making mistakes when design a web control and to present a pattern that works for me perfectly

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.

Trick: Making Non Themeable Properties of ASP.NET Controls Themeable

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:49:59 GMT

Excellent hack to make Non Themeable properties of ASP.NET controls Themeable. After learning this hack, you would be able to set the Display and the ValidationExpression properties of the RegularExpressionValidator control directly from a Skin file !!! Even the MaxLength property of a TextBox. Would it not be cool to validate all email addresses across your website through a single Skin file ???

How to: Optimize the memory usage with strings

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:16:03 GMT

System.String type is used in any .NET application. We have strings as: names, addresses, descriptions, error messages, warnings or even application settings. Each application has to create, compare or format string data. Considering the immutability and the fact that any object can be converted to a string, all the available memory can be swallowed by a huge amount of unwanted string duplicates or unclaimed string objects. Now let's see how a string object should be handled to preserve memory.

C# Inheritance and Constructors

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:35:10 GMT

The nineteenth part of the C# Object-Oriented Programming tutorial continues the discussion of inheritance. Constructor and destructor functionality is not inherited by subclasses but these can still use the constructors defined in their base class.

The Infragistics' user controls library review

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:18:05 GMT

All my late .NET projects had a mandatory, common requirement: the Infragistics NetAdvantage control library. I have been using it since the 6.1 version came out, over one year of development period, on six different .NET projects. Considering this, I believe I have enough experience with this user control library to highlight all the goods and the beds that come out from it.

How to: Optimize the strings' comparison

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:15:40 GMT

Due to my web research I found some useful tips about how to compare two strings making full use of performance in .NET Framework.