Owner: Onion Peels URL:http://blueonionsoftware.com Join Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:33:26 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: .NET, Technology, Life, Whatever Site statistics:Click here
Dual monitor use in Visual Studio 2005 2007-04-14 00:57:45 If you have dual monitors and would like to make some use of the expanded realestate, check this out. You can likely do something like this in the MDI mode of VS2005 but I like that tab interface better and this trick gives me the best of both. Make your main VisualStudio
application window a sizeable window (not minimized or maximized). Resize it to stretch it as wide as you'd prefer across both monitors (the 2nd image below completely spans the width and height of both my monitors) Right click on an open source code window's tab and choose New Vertical Tab Group. The result is two fully independent code panes, with independent scrolling, browsing, etc. You can also create numerous horizontal tab groups, which I didn't explore yet. Use your mouse to drag/place the vertical splitter where you prefer (in the 2nd image below, my splitter sits right at the border between my two monitors, so that the left side files the entire left monitor). You can drag and drop source Read more:Visual Studio
Passport Tips 2007-04-12 15:31:07 My day job requires that I travel frequently. Recently, my passport came up for renewal. Typically, it takes about 2-3 weeks to renew a passport. However, lately it has been running much longer. I sent my passport in for renewal on March 7th and as of today (April 12th) I still do not have it.Because I'm traveling soon, I called to check my status. Good thing I did. They misspelled my name! Instead of Ward they had Wand. Close call. Also, because I'm traveling soon, they expedited my request (for an additional $67 + $15 for overnight).Most of this delay is because of a recent announcement that Canada will require passports shortly. As a result, there has been a large influx of passport applications which has swamped the regional processing centers. What was not communicated as clearly was that these passports are only required if you travel to Canada from the USA by air or water!More tips:Many countries require that your passport be valid for 6 months from the time of entry. You shou Read more:Passport
Fullerscreen for Firefox 2007-04-10 00:47:28 This extension enhances the full screen mode into a really full screen
mode, hiding the remaining toolbars and statusbar and making them
visible again when the mouse pointer hits an edge of the screen.This is a really nice little enhancement to the full screen mode of Firefox
. There is an icon on the status bar to go to full screen or you can use default full-screen key F11. Press F11 again to return to regular mode. Highly recommended. Download it here.powered by Bloget™
Resolving Dependent .NET Assembly Version Conflicts 2007-04-08 15:52:36 I ran into an interesting error message this morning while adding some NUnitAsp unit tests to Bloget.------ Build started: Project: Bloget, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------Bloget -> D:DataVisual Studio 2005ProjectsBlogetBlogetinDebugBloget.dll------ Build started: Project: D:...BlogetTest, Configuration: Debug .NET ------Validating Web SiteValidation Complete------ Build started: Project: UnitTests, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------Consider app.config remapping of assembly "nunit.framework, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=96d09a1eb7f44a77" from Version "2.2.0.0" [] to Version "2.2.8.0" [C:Program FilesTestDriven.NET 2.0NUnit
unit.framework.dll] to solve conflict and get rid of warning.C:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727Microsoft.Common.targets : warning MSB3247: Found conflicts between different versions of the same dependent assembly.I've highlighted the relevant bits here. This occurs because NUnitAsp depends on a different version of the NUnit fra Read more:Dependent
, Assembly
, Conflicts
Architect Hubris 2007-04-08 01:21:22 My day job has morphed into an architect role as of late. It's quite a change going from the consumer of designs to the maker of designs. I'm also rubbing shoulders with folks who don't program for a living and it's quite interesting to hear their views about how the implementation of a particular design should proceed. I once heard read somewhere that you should beware the non-coding architect. To be fair, you need people (make that smart people) who's primary duty is to design and align the major elements of a project. But I don't think they should be entirely removed from "feeling the pain" of their decisions either. A coding assignment now and then helps to realize the issues up close and personal. One thing I've noticed working with other software architects is that they sometimes try to solve too much in their designs. Since most of my experience has been at the other end of the food chain, I'm use to working out the issues as I encounter them. I read a great quote from Read more:Architect
Site Redesign 2007-04-06 01:56:28 I've redesigned the site. The old one was a bit goofy and it jumped around a bit while rendering due to the use of the Nifty Corners script I used for making rounded boxes. This design is very light being mostly text with just a few graphics here and there. CSS is used to render layout without the use of tables. It should load very fast and render consistently across most modern browsers.It's amazing how much time one can spend fiddling with CSS and design layouts. You just keep tweaking and adjusting and then thinking it looks great and then 5 minutes later thinking it sucks. It's maddening which is why I could never be site designer (besides the obvious lack of any artistic talent).</p><p>I'm still looking for logos if any one wants to donate one. I need a logo for Blue Onion Software, Bloget and Calendar Gadget. Any submissions are greatly appreciated.Also, I would appreciate any comments on how I can improve the design.powered by Bloget™
Cars Powered by Air 2007-03-29 03:29:32 Check out the video on these air powered cars. The Air Car A French designer of engines for Formula One racing cars has turned his attention to creating an engine that runs on, and emits, only air! By all accounts, this is no pie-in-the-sky dream invention either - as the vehicle’s release is slated for later this year. With a top speed of 110kph (68mph) and a range of about 200kms (125miles), it looks to be an entirely useable commuter, and more. In fact, once the initial model is on the market, there are plans for a hybrid version - a car that will use a small amount of fuel to generate the compressed air required for the main engine - resulting in a 4,500km range (2,800 miles) from just one tank of fuel. In case you're wondering, the compressed air is stored in carbon-fiber tanks. If they are ruptured, the tanks simply split open unlike metal tanks that would create shrapnel.powered by Bloget™
Quick Copy and Paste in Command Prompts 2007-03-29 01:43:13 From the department of "Why didn't I notice this before?" comes a very useful command line tip. By selecting the Quick
Edit Mode check box, you enable copy and paste from the Command Prompt window. To copy, select the text in the Command Prompt window with your left mouse button, and then right-click. To paste, either at the command prompt or in a text file, right-click. It works with the windows clip board as well. Copy something from a windows application and then right-click in the command prompt. How did I live with out this wonder? powered by Bloget™
Read more:Prompts
Performancing is now ScribeFire 2007-03-27 18:38:09 Remember that great little blogging plug-in for Firefox called Performancing? Well it's back and it's called ScribeFire. Works great with Bloget.Powered by ScribeFire.powered by Bloget™
Secret Gmail delete keyboard shortcut 2007-03-25 23:12:22 Technology blogger Amit Agarwal has posted the mysterious keyboardshortcut
for deleting messages in Gmail
: If you are reading a message in GMail, press the # key (Shift+3) and that message will instantly move to Trash. Alternatively, select one or more email messages in the GMail list view, press the same # hash key and all the selected GMail conversations will be delete
d in one batch.We've blogged about Gmail keyboard shortcuts
before; add this to the list, definitely. Note: make sure you have
Shortcuts enabled in your Settings before you try this, or it won't
work. — Wendy BoswellLifehacker GMail Delete Keyboard ShortCut - Works in IE, Firefox, Opera [Digital Inspiration]powered by Bloget™
Keep Firefox’s location bar on sight 2007-04-21 02:55:13 Some pop-up windows may hide the location bar for a number of valid good reasons like providing a less cluttered interface or a smaller window, but it is also an easy cover for malicious web sites to hide the real location of fake sites in cross site scripting (XSS) attacks. Michal Zalewski, the hacker who uncovered a handful of security vulnerabilities in Firefox
on last February, pointed it as one of Firefox’s weaknesses. Fortunately, as suggested in the bug discussion, this behavior can be changed to forbid the ability to hide the location bar to all web sites. To do this: Enter about:config in the location bar Look for dom.disable_window_open_feature.location Double click it to toggle it to true You are done. Now popups will show the location bar always. It may look weird at first but it’s a small price to pay for additional protection. Mozilla Linkspowered by Bloget™
PNGOUT Rocks 2007-04-21 02:20:40 PNGOUT is a free optimizer for PNG images and is written by Ken Silverman. The compression is lossless, meaning that the resulting image will have exactly the same appearance as the source image. This program can often get higher compression than other optimizers by 5-10% Wikipedia A few weeks back Scott Hanselman posted a blog article about PNGOUT. I finally got around to trying it and Wow does this thing work. It can sometime shrink PNG's by 50%. Scott published a registry file to add a right-click shortcut menu in Windows Explorer. I've found that PNGOUT also converts JPG's and BMP's to PNG's and shrinks them with even more stunning results. I've created a registry file that registers these extensions as well as PNG. pngout.regpowered by Bloget™
Read more:Rocks
More Site Changes 2007-04-20 14:58:07 Fiddling with the site layout has been just a maddening experience. I really don't know how designers do it. I find myself constantly wanting to pixel tweak the layout. I'm learning that just like in code, keep it simple. Part of the reason I've been spending so much time on this aspect is that I need to learn what it missing from Bloget in terms of ease of integration. Like most freeware developers, I eat my own dog food in that I use Bloget much like I think a user would use it (notice the word "think"). That's because until I get more feedback from the field, I really don't a know where user's pain points are occurring. This is true of almost any software one writes. One of the things I've tried to do is use Bloget in it's "plain vanilla form" without customizations. I've (mostly) limited myself to using CSS to build this blog. It's an enlightening experience indeed. But doing so has made me focus on content and leaving just a enough bread crumbs so that the site can be s
PRE/CODE/TT Fonts too small in Firefox 2007-04-24 02:58:35 Have you noticed how much smaller the monospaced fonts are in Firefox
for the <pre>, <code>, <tt>, <samp> and <kbd> tags? There also a bit small in Opera. As far as I can tell this is a bug. There are some articles that try to explain why this rendering is correct but I don't buy it. It just plain looks wrong in my opinion. Fortunately, there's an easy fix for this using style sheets. Add the following to a style sheet:pre, code, samp, kbd, tt { font-family: "Courier New" , monospace; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;}I've found this to get much more consistent results in IE7, Firefox and Opera.powered by Bloget™
Read more:Fonts
Adding Information to Exceptions 2007-04-24 01:58:53 This is an excerpt of a post from Marc Brooks about Exception Handling in .NET. If you do have contextual information you can add to an exception, DO SO. Use the Exception.Data collection, that's what it is there for! You can add the values of interesting parameters to you methods. This is especially useful in the context of a database layer or other low-level library. You can squirrel-away the SQL and all the parameters. Only do this if you think that these details will be useful for post-mortem diagnosis. If the information you log is transitory it will NOT help tracking down errors from logs. This is (mostly) good:catch (Exception ex)
{
ex.Data.Add("SQL", command.Text);
ex.Data.Add("key", myKey);
throw;
}If you add things to the Exception.Data collection, make sure that you don't conflict with what is already there as this is a HashTable. I use the catching-class's name to scope the values. This is much better than above:catch (Exception ex)
{
ex.Data.Add(String.Form
301 Moved Permanently and ASP.NET 2007-04-23 05:35:13 Yousef, over at My C# Corner has an nice article on why you should use 301 response codes to redirect your www.xyz.com site to xyz.com or vice-versa. In short, search engines might misinterpret the two sites as duplicates and reduce your page rank accordingly. Also, your page rankings get split across multiple sites. The easy and correct way to fix this is to issue a 301 permanent redirect from one name to the other. Yousef even suggests using the Application_BeginRequest method in your Global.asax file. All good stuff. Here's his sample code. void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e){ if (HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.ToString().ToLower().Contains ("http://mycsharpcorner.com")) { HttpContext.Current.Response.Status ="301 Moved Permanently"; HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Location",Request.Url.ToString() .ToLower().Replace(http://mycsharpcorner.com, "http://www.mycsharpcorner.com")); }} This code is OK but with j
Make Google Maps your Maps 2007-04-22 21:26:27 Google
maps has added new features that allow you to create personalized, annotated, customized maps using Google Maps. Your maps can contain the following: Placemarks Lines Shapes Once you have created a map, you can: Add descriptive text, including rich text and HTML Embed photos and videos in your map Share your maps with others Open it in Google Earth To create or edit maps, you must be signed into your Google Account. You do not need to be signed in to view a map. Google Maps I gave it a quick spin. We're having a neighborhood garage sale in May so I thought I might create a map for our neighborhood web site announcement. It took all of 2 minutes to annotate the map and include it on our Web site. As I get confirmations on who wants to participate in the garage sale, I'll add them to the map. Pretty cool!. You can find out more about Google maps here.powered by Bloget™
Inserting Quotes in MSBuild Tasks 2007-04-29 14:21:16 I've finally got around to cracking open the MSBuild documentation and writing a few custom scripts. If you program in Visual Studio 2005, you're using MSBuild and like most things programming, its worth some time to understand the tool. It's fairly straight-forward to learn and I won't repeat the already very good tutorials available all over the Internet. I did run into one problem that proved irritatingly hard to resolve. Consider the following:<Exec Command="c:program filessome foldermyprogram.exe"> When MSBuild tries to execute this task, you get an error saying it couldn't execute "c:program". Obviously the spaces in the command are causing a problem here. The question is, how does one quote the command inside an XML file? My first thought was that since it is XML, I should be able to use the standard XML character entities.<Exec Command=""c:program filessome foldermyprogram.exe"" /> Nice idea, but it doesn't work. Same error, same pro Read more:Quotes
, Tasks
Publishing to Bloget with Google Docs & Spreadsheets 2007-04-28 18:41:14 I'm not sure how long this has been available but you can now post to your blog using Google
Docs & Spreadsheets
. You can add your blog by clicking the Publish button. In the dialog your see a button labeled "Post to blog".Settings support most major Web services like Blogger. There's also support for MetaWeblog enabled blogs like Bloget pictured below:As a blog editor, Google Docs
& Spreadsheets is a bit awkward. For instance, to add image from a Web source you have to edit the HTML directly. There is a function to insert pictures from your computer however. One advantage of using Google Docs & Spreadsheets is it does keep a revision history of your document which can sometimes be handy. Also missing are tools to insert tags or blog preview similar to Windows Live Writer. Until there are more blog friendly features I'd stick with a more dedicated blogging editor. Oops! Looks like there still some bugs to iron out. For some reason, Google Docs & Spreadsheets returns Read more:Publishing
SimpleWeather 2007-04-28 03:21:45 The picture really says it all. SimpleWeather is weather without all the fuss and advertisements and endless navigation. I love it! powered by Bloget™
136,000 Hours of Dreaming and Counting 2007-04-30 00:33:51 I've always been fascianated with sleep. I'm not sure why, but its one of the few human behaviors that actually interests me. I remember discovering a book in the University of Michigan Graduate library on the -3 third level (the minus is not a mistake) called "Some must watch while others sleep". The author was the same person (his name escapes me) who coined the phrase "Rapid Eye Movement" commonly refered to as REM sleep. I was simply amazed at the accounts of sleep disorders and theories as to why we sleep. Discover recently published an article called "20 Things You Didn't Know About... Sleep". One fact caught my attention: Dreaming
is connected to bursts of electrical activity that blow through the brain stem every 90 minutes during REM sleep. Over a lifetime, an average person spends more than six years dreaming, clocking more than 136,000 [hours] in all. 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Sleep Now that's some power napping.powered by Bloget™
Read more:Hours
, Counting
Changing Build Output Verbosity in VS 2005 2007-05-03 03:43:15 When builds go wrong, it's important to know where in the process things broke. The MSBuild
default verbosity setting in Visual Studio 2005 is set to minimal but you can change it by going to Tools.Options... and navigating to Projects and Solutions and then Build and Run. Setting the output to Detailed gives much more detailed information about the build and can be a real help in debugging. Technorati tags: Visual Studio 2005, C#, .NET, MSBuildpowered by Bloget™
Read more:Changing
, Output
Bloget Alpha 7 2007-05-02 05:34:00 Bloget alpha 7 is ready for download. There are the usual little fix ups and polishing here and there. I've also spent a bit of time cleaning up unit tests and running code analysis to make sure the code stays reliable and clean. Even so, I did manage to get a few new features in this month. Archive control - Lists months which have blog postings. I like Bloget's index better but many blogs have this so I've added it. Blog Roll control - Point this control at your OPML file (http:// or file://) and you have an instant blog roll. It can even randomize and limit the selections for large blog rolls. Blog Title control - Sometimes you want to separate the title from the body of your blog. This control let's you do just that. Specify log folder in web.config - Bloget has always had great logging from day one. This is an optional setting let's you put the logs right where you want them. Documentation Updates - Keeping documentation up to date is always a chore. Unlike man Read more:Alpha
TAB auto complete with wildcards 2007-05-05 05:11:51 If you use the command shell in XP, then you probably already use the TAB key for auto-complete
. One new thing (to me anyways) is that this also works with wildcards, so you can type this: devenv *.sln Hitting TAB will cycle through all files that match the pattern, for this example, you get this: devenv Kilroy.sln This is match faster than what I was doing before: devenv K Hitting TAB here, and you have to cycle through a dozen filenames that begin with K, before getting to the desired .sln file. Technorati tags: Windows, XP, Cmd, Shellpowered by Bloget™
Free Refactoring Tool for ASP.NET 2007-05-09 13:02:06 Ooh, ooh, ooh! I just saw this over on Brad Abrams blog I just watched a very cool demo of Refactor! for ASP.NET by Developer Express. This is a free code refactoring tool includes tons of refactorings that are truly timesavers... Here is a blog post with the details... Powerful/Free Download: Refactor! for ASP.NET 2.2 Free Refactoring tool for ASP.NET - Brad Abrams I've only played with it a few minutes but it looks like a real winner. Check out the full video here: Technorati tags: ASP.NET, Refactor, Visual Studio 2005, Ajax, C#powered by Bloget™
Silverlight Demo 2007-05-08 03:38:59 Microsoft announced some new and very cool technology at Mix in Las Vegas last week. Silverlight (formerly called WPF/E) allows you to run .NET applications in your browser (a bit of an over simplification) and it's cross platform. You can read all about it at the Mix and Silverlight websites. For fun I thought I try uploading and streaming a video. It's a bit of work since there are not many authoring tools available. Directions on how to do this can be found here. It's not for the faint of heart. What's interesting here is that the video is streaming live from Microsoft's Silverlight servers. In otherwords, Microsoft is paying for the bandwidth. You can get a free account and do the samething at Silverlight.live.com. Secondly, this is a .NET application running in the browser. I could add overlays, other controls, etc. This is one of the stock player templates but it's not hard to imagine much cooler applications using this technology. I can't wait to try this on a Ma
GhostDoc helps with Commenting your Code 2007-05-13 21:56:11 <summary> GhostDoc is a free add-in for Visual Studio that automatically generates XML documentation comments for C#. Either by using existing documentation inherited from base classes or implemented interfaces, or by deducing comments from name and type of e.g. methods, properties or parameters.</summary>
.NET languages like C# and VB.NET have a nifty little feature called XML comments that enable the developer to add comments about properties and methods in the code. Later, the compiler can gather these comments along with other information and generate an XML file. The XML file in turn can be used by tools like NDoc and Sandcastle to build professional grade documentation for code. Once in place, the whole process can be automated to create documenting with every build. This is all well and good but you still have to write the darn comments. Here's GhostDoc comes in. It can give you a springboard to get you going by using existing d Read more:Commenting
DoubleDesktop 2007-05-18 03:41:58 DoubleDesktop is a smart and elegant system tray utility that effectively doubles the width of your Windows desktop. It's simpler to use than many similar programs: just mouse-click on its icon or hit a keystroke combination to switch between "left" and "right" parts of the desktop. This lets you easily rearrange all your application windows between the two desktop parts. I've used this program for years and when I introduce it to others they are pleasantly surprised. The program itself is simplicity. It creates two desktops that you can switch between instantly using a key stroke or tray icon. I like it for development on my laptop. I keep Visual Studio 2005 one screen and MSDN Help on the other. It's a nice substitute when you don't have two screens. Highly recommended.
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15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense 2007-05-19 23:39:35 This is an article from the July 2002 issue of Scientific American and still remains in my mind one of the best summaries of the issues to date. Anyone interested in the debate between Evolution and Intelligent Design would do well to read this. To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution Read more:Nonsense
Handy Command Line Options 2007-05-19 03:29:53 Here is a list of commands you can execute from the Run command prompt in XP: Accessibility Controlsaccess.cpl
Add Hardware Wizardhdwwiz.cpl
Add/Remove Programsappwiz.cpl
Administrative Toolscertmgr.msc
Character Mapcharmap
Check Disk Utilitychkdsk
Clipboard Viewerclipbrd
Command Promptcmd
Component Servicesdcomcnfg
Computer Managementcompmgmt.msc
Date and Time Propertiestimedate.cpl
DDE Sharesddeshare
Device Managerdevmgmt.msc
Direct X Control Panel (If Installed)directx.cpl
Direct X Troubleshooterdxdiag
Disk Cleanup Utilitycleanmgr
Disk Defragmentdfrg.msc
Disk Managementdiskmgmt.msc
Disk Partition Managerdiskpart
Display Propertiescontrol desktop
Display Propertiesdesk.cpl
Display Properties (w/Appearance Tab Preselected)control color
Dr. Watson System Troubleshooting Utilitydrwtsn32
Driver Verifier Utilityverifier
Event Viewereventvwr.msc
File Signature Verification Toolsigverif
Findfastfindfast.cpl
Folders Propertiescontrol folders
Fontscontrol fonts
Fonts Folderfonts
Free Cell Ca Read more:Handy
, Options
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