DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by rplant

Getting started with Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugging

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:40:03 GMT

In the past, Visual Studio Remote Debugging was not the easiest thing to set up. Using VS 2008 this process is much simpler.

Code Isn't Beautiful

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:57:19 GMT

I was thrilled to see the book Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think show up in my Amazon recommendations. It seems like exactly the type of book I would enjoy. So of course I bought a copy. Unfortunately, Beautiful Code wasn't nearly as enjoyable of a read as I had hoped it would be. It is by no means a bad book, but there's something about it that's not quite right.

SQL is the assembly language of the modern world

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:36:10 GMT

I really would like to challenge the conventional wisdom that stored procedures are the best and/or that hand-crafted SQL is the only way to achieve good performance. I once heard someone say that "SQL is the assembly language of the business application world" and I totally agree with this (I linked to Jett Attwood's post above, but I heard it somewhere else first and my Google-fu is failing me tonight).

Object Initializers

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:00:52 GMT

A new feature of Visual Studio 2008 and it's C# 3.0 is Object Initalizers. This compiler feature can be used to set the values of properties without the need to create a special constructors. Even though you must have 2008 to use this feature, you don't have to target the 3.0 or 3.5 framework as it works just fine with the 2.0 framework.

C#.NET or VB.NET?

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:28:21 GMT

Recently we got a question from a user asking which of C# and VB.NET was best suited to developing commercial applications like Payroll systems. In this post we look at the similarities and differences between the languages and pick out some of the things that may be worth considering when making the decision.

dnrTV Aggregator Part 2 - LINQ to XML

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:46:02 GMT

In Part 1 of this series I went over the creation of a Windows Service and it's remote client. For this installment, I will be covering the use of "LINQ to XML" to gather the feed, and the saving and loading of the XML configuration files. I'll also show some code to download and unzip the videos using SharpZipLib from ic#code.

RESX file Web Editor

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:16:02 GMT

A collaboration tool to enable your translators to do their job right on your ASP.NET website!

Outerglow / Outline Text with GDI+ in C#

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 02:38:19 GMT

My previous job required a bit of multimedia programming and involved the use of a lot of different graphics techniques. One day we ran across a bit of code to give drawn text either an outerglow or an outline around it. It turns outs to be much simpler to do than I previously thought and only goes to show that you can always learn a new tricks.

Agile PM Tools

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:01:02 GMT

Nice list of Agile project management tools.

TDD for Beginners Series

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:46:02 GMT

Series of posts geared towards the beginner developer to TDD. These are meant to be as simple as possible to get the understanding across about TDD.

dnrTV Aggregator Part 1 - Windows Services

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:19:20 GMT

It is time for another personal project for me and this time I thought I would put together a dnrTV feed aggregator. Rather than watch each episode on my home computer, I prefer to watch them on the big screen TV in the living room. They are very viewable and I can sit in my lazy boy with the remote, a beer and maybe the laptop. ( mostly the remote and a beer )

Confessions of a Software Developer

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:01:02 GMT

Has anybody else ever felt overwhelmed with the sheer mass of "stuff" involved with software development?

Top 5 Attributes of Highly Effective Programmers

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:46:02 GMT

Just an essential article. I would like to add "discipline" to this list.

ASP.NET Custom Errors: Preventing 302 Redirects To Custom Error Pages

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:57:30 GMT

Defining custom error pages is a convenient way to show users a friendly page when they encounter an HTTP error such as a 404 Not Found, or a 500 Server Error. Unfortunately ASP.NET handles custom error pages by responding with a 302 Temporary redirect to the error page that was defined. In this post I explain how to create a custom HttpModule that allows you to use custom error pages while preserving the original HTTP status code and avoiding the 302 redirect to the error page.

.NET Graphical Resources

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:01:02 GMT

So you just got done prototyping that new Winform or WPF application and the interface is a bit lacking. You are a programmer, not an artist after all. Well, never fear, free icons are here (wow that really rhymed). All kidding aside, most of us are not good at drawing images and icons, so we need some resources for these items.

LINQ to SQL Part 3

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:51:43 GMT

We have seen a couple examples of how to use LINQ to SQL in the previous posts LINQ to SQL Part 1, LINQ to SQL Part 2, and how easy it is to use. The next question now becomes, What if your company strictly uses stored procedures for all of its data accessing? Companies today can have stored procedures number from the hundreds to the thousands. With LINQ to SQL, you can still call your stored procedures and even mix and match the type styles.

LINQ to SQL Part 2

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:46:02 GMT

In LINQ to SQL Part 1 I used a very simple query, almost too simple. This time I want to take it a step up and add a few joins into the mix, and show how to handle them. Below is a standard TSQL query that will to pull the employee name and his/her territory and region from the Northwind database.

LINQ to SQL Part 1

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:31:02 GMT

I'm sure everyone so far has at least heard of LINQ. If you haven't, it is Microsoft's new technology for Language Integrated Querying. LINQ is part of the upcoming 3.5 .Net Framework which will be part of Visual Studio 2008 ( codename Orcas ).

SQL Trusted Connections with ASP.NET

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:32:48 GMT

The problem arises when your SQL server and your IIS/asp.net server are on separate machines, which is a typical setup. As the ASPNET user does not exist on the SQL server you can't grant access to it. There are 4 main ways to overcome this problem

Designing Master Pages

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:08:27 GMT

The complete guide to designing Master Pages, and how to overcome the problem that you might face when using Background images in the master pages.

Riding The Geek Rewrite Wave

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:01:03 GMT

Rob Conery like to ask the tough questions. In this post he asks when do you know its time to do a rewrite... and how do you tell your client that. Oh, and he has a good bit of fun at my expense along the way. :)

Microsoft Launch Event 2008

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:21:12 GMT

It is launch time again for Microsoft, and this time it is for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. The one here in Tampa is not until May 8, but as soon as I can register for it I will. You can get more information and register on their launch web site, Heroes happen {here}.

SQL 2005 Try-Catch is your friend

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:02:30 GMT

Anyone that has had to write anything more than trival procs knows that error handling can be a pain.

Free Ebooks from MsPress

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:36:29 GMT

Last week a co-worker let me know about these free E-books from Microsoft Press. It looks as if the LINQ book is in fact the full book while the other two on ASP.NET and SilverLight 1.0 are excerpts. More information can be found at the Microsoft Learning Portal.

Dual Monitors for Developers

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:16:01 GMT

Let's face it, a multiple monitor setup is the only way to go for a software developer, or any other computer professional these days. If you are still using only a single monitor, you are not working at your full potential.