DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by jamesstaylor

Important questions a developer should ask a prospective employer

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:01:08 GMT

A list of questions that software developers should ask a prospective employer during their interview process. Similar to the Joel test, but more in-depth.

Yahoo! BOSS .NET Library

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:01:30 GMT

Provides .NET developers a library for accessing the BOSS search API.

NAnt Addin for Visual Studio 2008

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:17:13 GMT

A NAnt Addin for Visual Studio 2008

ASP.net AJAX and MVC

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 08:31:25 GMT

Great conceptual post to understand ASP.net: MVC + AJAX

Open Source E-Commerce Storefront Solutions Comparison for ASP.NET

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:50:53 GMT

I'm doing a side project that involves setting up a merchant e-commerce site. What I have come to quickly realize is that there are a ton of e-commerce shopping cart solutions out there! With a small budget for the project

Speed up Firefox when using Development Server

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:31:02 GMT

Using Firefox on Vista to view websites hosted by the Visual Studio Development Server can be unbearably slow. Pages take aeons (i.e. several seconds) to load while viewing the same site under IE does not suffer from this issue. Here's how to solve the problem.

RegEx to extract __VIEWSTATE from the Login page HttpWebRequest

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:10:23 GMT

Here is a quick one line code to extract __VIEWSTATE hidden form field from the ASP.NET Login page. This comes in handy during web automation of the ASP.NET form authentication.

Firefox 3

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:41:12 GMT

Today is D-Day ("Download Day") for the much-anticipated version 3 of Mozilla's popular web browsing client, Firefox. In an effort to create more buzz around the launch, Mozilla has requested that users help them attempt a new Guinness World Record for most downloads in a 24-hour period by downloading the new Firefox release today. Over 1.7 million people from around the world pledged to download the new client today.

IE Sends Mozilla a New Cake for Firefox 3

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:31:02 GMT

Sean from Microsoft came by just a few minutes ago to drop off a cake for the Internet Explorer team. As people may recall, the IE team sent Mozilla a cake after Firefox 2 shipped and it seems that they wanted to continue the tradition.

.NET Runtime Embedding

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:01:08 GMT

Hi all, One interesting product, BoxedApp, can be used to pack .NET runtime with .NET application into a single exe. Instead of other solutions (Salamander), you will see which files are embbeded and how does it work at all, you will see the whole picture. BTW, I've tested it under my Win2k3 machine and it really works well...

Sending SMTP Email Asynchronously

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:16:09 GMT

Sending email using the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) can be a slow process, particularly when sending large numbers of messages using, for example, a bulk email tool. This process can be accelerated with considered use of asynchronous sending.

Compiling VS and generating project version based on SVN revision.

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:31:02 GMT

Solution for dynamic and automatic AsseblyInfo generation with version number based on SVN revision. It is using just csproj file.

Windows Vista Hidden "Copy As Path" option

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:46:02 GMT

In Windows Vista, if you hold down the Shift key and right click on a file, a new option appears in the context menu: "Copy As Path". Why this option is so hidden, I don't know.

.NET with an attitude

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:46:05 GMT

Signs that .NET is getting "wiser" by the version... :D

Creating a Performance Benchmark Framework for Your .NET Codes

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:38:53 GMT

Performance is a one of the basic requirements in the most of the current trend of web applications. Based upon different options the software architect needs to determine the appropriate object model which fits best with the current application requirement. Here is a sample framework which helps a software architect with respect to this issue.

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.

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite RTM now available on MSDN

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:01:03 GMT

According to Frans Bouma VS 2008 has started to appear on MSDN Subscriber downloads. Comment if you can see it on there (I can't yet :D)

VisualSVN Server

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:31:11 GMT

The guys that already made VisualSVN, a plugin that integrates into Visual Studio and provides a way to manage your source code changes into Subversion, just realized VisualSVN Server.

7 of Hardest Things I Learned About Writing Software

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:31:04 GMT

Learning to write code is not that hard. With a book, Google, and a little free time just about anyone can hack something together. However, to become a good software developer you need a passion to constantly and continually learn.

Anonymous Types in C# 3.0

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 15:46:02 GMT

One of the most convenient features of C# 3.0 is the ability to create new types 'on the fly' using Anonymous Types. Here's a detailed post that describes how these generated types work, behave and where their use can be very useful.

15 -hot- tools that made me a coding Paris Hilton.

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:31:03 GMT

Look good while doing things the easy way. 15 tools I use every day that make me a "hot" coder. You sling code every day. So do I. You sit down at your box, throw on those noise canceling headphones, fire up some mp3s, and get jiggy wit' it. That's hot. But could it be hotter?

Add automatic updates to your application

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:46:02 GMT

Automatic updates system for client-side, distributed applications.

MSBuildShellExtension 1.1.0

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:34:31 GMT

The 1.1.0 is out of beta! Remember to uninstall your existing version of MSBuildShellExtension before installing, due to the change of installer technology.

The 20-line Base64 Serializer/Deserializer

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:10:40 GMT

How to serialize any object to a (base64) string, and the other way around, in as few lines of code as possible.

Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express VHD

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:16:04 GMT

A pre-configured VHD to evaluate Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express is now available on Microsoft Download Center.