DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by xtremebiz

LINQ ElementAt and ElementAtOrDefault

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:18:41 GMT

We can use the ElementAt extension method of LINQ to return the element at a specified index (zero based) in a sequence. However the ElementAt extension method would throw the System.ArguementOutOfRangeException when the specified index is a negative value or not less than the size of the sequence. In such a scenario, we can use the ElementAtOrDefault extenion method which would return the default value of a type instead of throwing the System.ArguementOutOfRangeException. Read this article for code example (both in C# and VB.NET) with comments

Keep Your Link-Juice by Using a Custom HTTP Module for 301 Redirects

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:46:18 GMT

In my process of turning www.aspforblondes.com into www.crazeegeekchick.com I had some concerns regarding broken links, search engine rank etc. I decided to write an ASP.NET custom HTTP Module to achieve my goals. After reading tons of information about 301 permanent redirects.

T-SQL Function to Get Int From Varchar

Thu, 22 May 2008 16:07:04 GMT

I recently had to write a T-SQL function which cleans up all non numeric characters from a varchar variable and returns the int value of the remaining numeric characters. If no numeric characters exist, the function should return zero. I thought it would be nice to share this with you and I hope you find this useful ;-) Expected output of the function: PRINT dbo.GetIntFromVarchar('R1A2J3') -- returns 123 PRINT dbo.GetIntFromVarchar('COOL456CODER') -- returns 456 PRINT dbo.GetIntFromVarchar('789') -- returns 789 PRINT dbo.GetIntFromVarchar('GEEK') -- returns 0

LINQ Single and SingleOrDefault

Tue, 20 May 2008 13:09:20 GMT

This post explains about the Single and SingleOrDefault extension methods of LINQ, possible exceptions which can be thrown, and provides code examples both in C# and VB.NET along with code comments.

A Programming Job Interview Challenge #4

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:46:02 GMT

This is the fourth post in the series of programming job interview challenge. Today, I will provide the answer to job interview challenge #3, talk about readers answers (all of the comments are now approved) and give you a new challenge. So, lets get into business:

7 tricks to simplify your programs with LINQ

Mon, 19 May 2008 09:31:03 GMT

Ever since I learned about LINQ, I keep discovering new ways to use it to improve my code. Every trick makes my code a little bit faster to write, and a little bit easier to read. This posting summarizes some of the tricks that I came across. I will show you how to use LINQ to: initialize an array, iterate over multiple arrays in a single loop, generate a random sequence, ...

11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation

Mon, 19 May 2008 10:16:02 GMT

Over five years ago I posted Tips for a Successful MSFT Presentation. Yesterday I watched the video of my Mix Presentation all the way through. It's always very painful to hear one's own voice but it's even worse to watch yourself. I never listen to my podcast and I avoid watching myself. It's like watching a person in parallel universe and it inspires self-loathing. However, if you are someone who values continuous improvement - and I am - you need to do the uncomfortable.

Developers are Born Brave

Fri, 16 May 2008 20:04:51 GMT

Reality about software development. The image on this blog post says it all ;-) Cheers to every coder !!!

Coders versus Project Managers

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:21:14 GMT

Few months back, I got below joke emailed to me by my friend who is also a passionate coder. In my personal (and humble) opinion, below joke hits jackpot with the current state of 9 out of 10 IT companies in India, which are headed by people who have zero or very little technical background. And perhaps this explains why Indian IT companies still have to market themselves as low cost outsourcing destinations to win business any why we still dont have too many Product based IT companies in India :-) Is the story same in your country too? Let me know, I would love to hear :-)

Finally, a SelectedItems Option (yaaay)

Wed, 14 May 2008 17:46:04 GMT

The .NET framework does not include a way to get the selected items from a CheckBoxList, ListBox, DropDownList, or RadioButtonList, without iterating the Items collection. This post provides a generic extension method for retrieving the selected items from any ListControl.

How to manage ASP.NET validation from Javascript with jQuery

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:01:02 GMT

This article outlines how to enable and disable ASP.NET client side validation from Javascript using jQuery

The Object Class

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:16:40 GMT

The Object class is a special type that is the base class for all other classes and types, including the value types. It defines a set of methods that are therefore inherited by every other type that is defined within the .NET framework class library.

Introducing Waegis

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:46:04 GMT

A new spam blocking service just hit the .NET space: Waegis. It's a service similar to Akismet, but written entirely in .NET

Fast web page loading by defering and combining multiple javascripts

Mon, 12 May 2008 14:01:12 GMT

A web page can load a lot faster and feel faster if the Javascripts files referenced on the page can be loaded after the visible content has been loaded and multiple Javascripts files can be batched into one download. This handy technique combines external javascripts references into one script tag and serves multiple javascripts using a Http Handler.

The Linq SelectMany Operator

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:16:02 GMT

A quick look at the SelectMany operator, what it does, and how you use it.

CSS sliding doors technique

Mon, 12 May 2008 14:01:04 GMT

This article will show you how to create fancy buttons using CSS sliding doors technique. It is much better to use this technique than to use image buttons because you can apply the style to any link and at the same time you don't have to create an image for each button.

Creating great thumbnails in ASP.NET

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:01:03 GMT

The built in function for creating thumbnails in ASP.NET is extremely convenient and very simple to implement. The trouble is that it produces relatively poor quality results and excessively large file sizes. The thumbnails tend to look very muddy when using this route, but many times it's good enough for whatever your needs may be.

AddItem Extension Method for CheckBoxList, DropDownList, ListBox

Mon, 12 May 2008 10:16:02 GMT

Just 1 AddItem extension method which works for 5 controls to make the code a lot simpler and cleaner :-) Cheers to object inheritance and cheers to Extension Methods ;-)

How to Capitalize the First Letter of All Words in a string in C#

Sat, 10 May 2008 14:01:02 GMT

Often we need to capitalize the first letters of some word or some text (for example when we want to display users name or city name etc). Since string class does not have a method to do this we could think that there is no built-in solution in C# for this problem, but...

6 Useful Visual Studio Tweaks You Need To Know

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:16:02 GMT

Here is a list of 6 Visual Studio tweaks you can do to make your development experience much better...

Why is it so F#...ing Difficult to Buy Visual Studio!?

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:01:03 GMT

Have you tried upgrading Trial edition of Visual Studio or buying it through the official site while living outside of United States? I wasted half a day and failed.

Setting StringBuilder's Initial Capacity for Extreme Performance

Thu, 08 May 2008 13:28:42 GMT

You must have come across plenty of articles on the internet which talk about using the StringBuilder class when computing large strings for performance gains. Nothing wrong with that. However I have not seen many coders using the Initial Capacity constructor of the StringBuilder class which can further result in EXTREME PERFORMANCE.

A Cryptography Primer, Part Four (final)

Thu, 08 May 2008 10:16:02 GMT

I finished up the .NET programmers cryptography primer. Part four is about asymmetric cryptography. I go over using RSA to encrypt/decrypt and generate signatures. The post also covers the obscure and hard to understand at first "Key Container" and how it works.

Day-to-day with Subversion

Wed, 07 May 2008 14:46:03 GMT

A good post that highlights some of the functionality of Subversion

Why Should You Wrap Your ASP.NET Session Object

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:16:03 GMT

ASP.NET provides mechanisms for storing information for a single user session or across multiple sessions. This is done using the HttpSessionState and HttpApplicationState classes. The Page class has Application and Session attributes to provide access to current objects. The simple way to access them is as following: