DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by gkruger

Essential Visual Studio Tips & Tricks that Every Developer Should Know

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:01:02 GMT

In this blog entry, Stephen Walther lists the essential tips and tricks that every developer who uses Visual Studio 2008 should know. The list is kept brief. The list focuses on only those tips and tricks that can be used on a daily basis. Almost all of these tips and tricks are just as useful regardless of whether you are building an ASP.NET Web Forms or ASP.NET MVC application.

Quote for October

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:01:09 GMT

A quote worth remembering!

Copy text from a MessageBox

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:31:02 GMT

How many times you wished you could copy text from the MessageBox. YOU CAN.

10 Programming Proverbs Every Developer Should Know

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:01:02 GMT

Proverbs are used to express universal truths or life lessons in a short and memorable fashion. I find that they are a great way to keep things in perspective, both in life and in work. Because of this, I have assembled 10 programming proverbs that every developer needs in their arsenal.

Separate Assemblies != Loose Coupling

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:16:07 GMT

read and learn

jQuery and Microsoft

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:01:02 GMT

ScottGu announce that Microsoft will be shipping jQuery with Visual Studio going forward. We will distribute the jQuery JavaScript library as-is, and will not be forking or changing the source from the main jQuery branch. The files will continue to use and ship under the existing jQuery MIT license.

Migrating to jQuery

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:46:20 GMT

This post outlines some of the steps I went through to convert an existing, small web application from traditional JavaScript to jQuery.

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!

SQL Server Tips and Tricks

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:46:02 GMT

The following are a wide range of tips and tricks I have collected over the years working with various versions or Microsoft's SQL Server. I always enjoy finding little snippets of code which are both simple and powerful. Why write complicated routines when one or two lines of code can do it?

Sending Email in a Development Environment without an SMTP Server

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:46:02 GMT

Very handy... I'm forever looking this stuff up :-|

Path to .NET 3.5 Developer Certification

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:31:05 GMT

If you are trying to figure out the new certification exams for Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) or Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS) for .NET Framework 3.5 / Visual Studio 2008 then you may be interested in a diagram that I put together to helped me to visualize the path through the required certification exams.

Becoming a Visual Studio Jedi Part 1

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:16:03 GMT

Peter discusses how to get your use of Visual Studio to the next level.

Documents 2.0 - Consumable Documents

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:46:02 GMT

Sidar discussing the need for more agile documents in business environments.

Getting to Know Silverlight

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:37:04 GMT

One of the most talked-about aspects of Silverlight is its undeniable technical accomplishments. In an age of 50 megabyte downloads, Microsoft managed to squeeze large parts of WPF and a mini-CLR into a tiny browser plug-in, currently under 5MB. Not only that, but it runs in the three major browsers (Firefox, Safari and IE) and more amazingly on the three major operating systems, with Microsoft supporting Windows and Mac OS X and Novell's Mono project providing a Linux runtime.

Testing Silverlight Instancing Scalability

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:54:53 GMT

Silverlight instancing performance test

7 snags with Silverlight development

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:43:00 GMT

Here are some snags you might run into with Silverlight development. None of them are huge problems but some may take you by surprise.

Model-View-Controller Can be Done in Silverlight 1.1/2.0

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 02:09:17 GMT

It's still possible to use the Model-View-Controller pattern in Silverlight and this blog article discusses how.

Christmas CoolWall Mouse Click Animation

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:15:02 GMT

If you haven't seen it yet, there is a neat little Silverlight app named Christmas CoolWall that lets you drag items onto a wall and rank it as seriously un-cool, un-cool, cool, and Sub Zero. This blog article shows you how to have the same click animation in your code.

Silverlight Roadmap

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:31:02 GMT

check out the details

Skinning a Silverlight 1.1 Application

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 02:31:34 GMT

Yes it is possible to create a skinnable Silverlight 1.1. application. This blog article shows you how and uses a solitaire game as an example.

Silverlight 1.1 Tools Alpha for Visual Studio 2008 Available for Downl

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:16:02 GMT

Finally the Silverlight 1.1 Tools available also for VS2008 RTM... still alpha though

Who Has Final Say - Developer or Designer?

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:26:34 GMT

If a designer's changes to XAML break the application - what should you do? Undo the changes in XAML, overwrite the changes in code, or prevent the code from breaking in the first place.

Exposing XAML to Designers

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:52:06 GMT

Exposing XAML to Designers discusses how a class that generated the user interface dynamically has been refactored to use XAML.

Silvertaire, the future of solitaire here and now in Silverlight 1.1

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:16:40 GMT

"Silvertaire" - a game of solitaire written in Silverlight 1.1. This is the first in a series of articles on how to produce a good looking Silverlight application.

Drag and drop so easy my grandma can do it

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:56:18 GMT

While working on a Silverlight 1.1 port of a solitaire game, I created a class that will add drag-and-drop behavior to any UIElement with one line of code. Yes, that's right ladies and gents you too can have your UIElement (e.g. Canvas, Rectangle, Ellipse, TextBlock) drag-and-droppable with a line like this: UIBehaviour.DragAndDropBehaviour.Enable(myRectangle);