DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by lauzierj

An ISV's perspective on CMIS

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:16:09 GMT

CMIS is an emerging standard for defining an interface for basic document repository interaction. It is proposed by Microsoft, EMC, and IBM, who with SharePoint, Documentum and FileNet make up a big part of the Enterprise Content Management market.

Much ado about nullity: Exploding type variation

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:01:11 GMT

The issue is that in Java and C# there are a number of different type modifiers for dealing with the concept of nullity. Because of this even any simple type can be one of three separate somewhat incompatible subtypes.

The Future of Programming Languages

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:31:16 GMT

In this article I'm going to focus on Dynamic Typing and Metaprogramming in particular. It's interesting to consider what the impact on the maintainability of our code from their increased prominence might be.

Tidying Up Old Blog Entries (Cleaning up MS Office HTML tags)

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:16:33 GMT

Looking back it seems like complete lunacy. For a period of time my method of choice to create blog entries was to write them out in Word 2003 and then export html. The almost unreadable text has been haunting me for a long time and I've finally gone back and fixed them. Along the way I built a small utility for doing this and here it is

Debugging Code in the GAC - the best thing since sliced bread

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:31:08 GMT

"[...] I read a lot and one thing that caught my eye was that any assembly that is to be used as an add-in needs to be signed and installed in the GAC. This is troublesome as I always assumed that debugging code built this way was going to be, well, a pain in the GAC." Steve Hawley from Atalasoft gives a great little tutorial on this would-be problem.

A Safe & Asynchronous One to Many Stream Copy Through IL & Inheritance

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:46:03 GMT

This post discusses ways to manage or work around problems arising from the statefulness of .NET Streams, including an explanation about how this is possible both through traditional inheritance and also through some indulgence in hacking of object protection levels by emitting custom IL.

FlingScan - Free Searchable PDF Service

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:31:08 GMT

This web application generates a searchable PDF from any standard image such as a multipage TIFF or JPEG. The searchable PDF is emailed back to you where you can save it to your file system and search the content with one of many PDF search filters available for Microsoft's Desktop Search or Google's Desktop Search.

Color Scheme Generator Web Application

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:16:02 GMT

This application will generate a color scheme for you based on an image. After you upload an image, it will generate you a list of the most common colors that are significantly different from each other. Click anywhere on the image to pick other colors. There are zoom tools to pick the exact pixel you need. Web demo and Source Code Available

20 Years Later IRC is Still Useful; Are You Taking Advantage of it?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:46:04 GMT

Why You Should Care About A 20 Year Old Protocol? IRC is much more than just a relic of an earlier age. It helps connect highly technical people, it has weathered the years better than any other high level internet protocol. It does not suffer from the spam and abuse that have overtaken other protocols and no Web2.0 technology has supplanted it.

Greeting Card Generator

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:31:03 GMT

Forgot someone's birthday or anniversary and don't have time to run to the nearest store? Now you can generate your own card, using your own pictures. After all, it's the thought that counts! ASP.NET demo and Source Code available!

Working in Opposite Land - The Logic of a Debuggin Strategy

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:31:11 GMT

"There are a number of interesting things that come up in computer science and computer engineering where reasoning suddenly jumps into opposite land. It seems that the more human the operation, the more likely we are to go to opposite land. For example, it has been measured that it is more efficient to send your engineers home at a reasonable hour when a project is late than it is to have them work long hours. Efficiency doesn't scale with time spent, but exhaustion sure does."

Full-Screening your WebImageViewer

Wed, 28 May 2008 20:01:03 GMT

How to automatically full-screen a browser for viewing images and documents in a browser-based image viewer. Addresses problems specific to IE.

PDF Image Grabber Application

Wed, 28 May 2008 18:31:04 GMT

The PDF Image Grabber allows you to take embedded images out of PDF Files. Simply open the PDF, choose the page, and then choose which image you want. Then click the Save button and pick a filename. The file saved will be the original image in the PDF at its original size. Application and Source Code provided.

iPod Ad Generator

Wed, 28 May 2008 20:46:02 GMT

The iPod Ad Generator creates a silhouette image of you and your friends. Free Windows Application.

ThinDoc: AJAX PDF Viewer

Tue, 27 May 2008 16:16:08 GMT

This is a cool AJAX-based PDF viewer that includes a Bookmarklet to make PDFs on the web open in it.

Custom NAnt Task for Removing TFS Bindings

Thu, 22 May 2008 17:46:03 GMT

This article will highlight a custom NAnt task that strips a folder of all source control bindings.

Beauty is only Skin-Deep Part Deux: TransparencyKey

Tue, 20 May 2008 20:46:13 GMT

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, then it's probably a duck. But if it just looks like one, it might be my next WinForms application. Ah, and yes it is. This blog will put an interesting spin on creating non-standard shaped WinForm applications. Use this technique when adding rounded corners or splash screens.

Choosing the Right Garbage Collector Settings for Your Application

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:46:04 GMT

In this post I discuss the gcConcurrent and gcServer settings which allow you to exercise some control how the Garbage Collector operates. Tuning the garbage collector to the specific context of the particular application can significantly improve the performance of both non-threaded and multi-threaded applications.

Beauty is only Skin-Deep: Skinning your WinForms Application

Fri, 09 May 2008 17:01:03 GMT

"The first impression is everything, right? So this post is all about how to skin your application. While I can't turn you into Monet, I can show you what a paint brush looks like."

Performance vs. Object Oriented Design

Thu, 08 May 2008 13:16:02 GMT

After getting basic functionality up and running, I found that the biggest chunk of time was getting lost in operator new. In this particular chunk of code, I had some simulated recursion that was making lots and lots of little objects that were being pushed and popped onto a stack. The issue was that these objects are tiny and transient. This means that all the overhead imposed by new and delete will get charged again and again and again - what to do? [Sample code provided]

Writing Custom Web Services for SharePoint Products and Technologies

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:50:19 GMT

A step-by-step run through of writing webservices for Sharepoint.

Intraeducation

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:16:52 GMT

The author provides a very insightful view on spreading knowledge and retaining the desire to learn new things to keep a team efficient.

Increasing the Size of your Stack (.NET Memory Management: Part 3)

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:46:04 GMT

Following from my previous post on the topic of stack allocation, in this post I talk about three different ways to change a thread's stack size in C#. Each of these techniques have advantages and disadvantages which I discuss as well. This post may also be of interesting to those learning about PInvoke or modifying the binary header.

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.

IS - The Meta-Meta Language-Language (and parametric compiler)

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:25:21 GMT

Ian Piumarta and some very smart folks over at the Viewpoints Research Institute have been working on a meta programming language named IS which is specifically designed for implementing other languages. The project actually has several names (IS, idst, cola, jolt, &c), as far as I can tell the current development version is called cola.