Category · 72 posts
Tips & Tricks
2013
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Fix: PhantomJs, YSlow and Loadspeed load pages very slowly on windows machines
I was running into this problem. We were using phantomjs to run speed tests and weight tests for our web pages, and it all worked well on my machine. Then it worked VERY slowly (five times slower!) on the build agent.…
2012
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HOW TO: Find the temp videos screenflow makes when uploading to vimeo and youtube
I was finishing up a screenflow recording and immediately pressed the “upload to youtube” button. then I realized that the auto-saved video file will have to be re-generated if I ever wanted to upload it to another…
2008
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Before testing an addin - Reset Visual Studio’s previous addin knowledge
note to self: if you are testing an installation of an addin on a “dirty” machine where this addin has already been removed and installed many times, be sure to clean visual studio from the previous addin with this…
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Howto: Set custom Visual Studio Addin menu icons without a satellite dll
Update : Here is a more full featured declarative example of doing buttons with icons . OK. Setting icons on your visual studio addins is officially a sucky process and I wish MS would make this a much less painful…
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Make Zune resume your mp3 audio book files when replaying
This simple tip really helped me: Simply tag the mp3 file's "Genre" tag as "podcast" which will enable resume on them through the zune player.
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Making Tab mix plus and other firefox addons work with Firefox 3 beta
I installed Firefox 3 beta and the addon I missed the most was Tab Mix Plus (along with IETab , but that works on the beta). Here's how I was able to have Tab Mix Plus working on Firefox 3: 1) Try downloading the latest…
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Parallel Builds with MSBuild
I just learned something new: You can do parallel builds with MsBuild if you have a multi core CPU. awesome.
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Fix: Cannot copy file 'X' to file 'Y'. The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. in Visual Studio 2008
This just saved me loads of time(especially because it only happened every once in a while): if you encounter the amazingly annoying "Cannot copy file because it is being used by another process" when you want to…
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Nice little gmail trick
I just realized a cool trick in Gmail (and google for domains mail): you can check one message, then go further down or up in the list several messages and shift-click on its check box, and it will work like a regular…
2007
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Tip: Easily change logon settings for all users on your machine
OK, I did not know this one, but it's so simple: Click Start , click Run , and type " control userpasswords2" . more here (by Doug Knox )
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Unit Test Tip: Encode test data as part of your test xml comments
What a cool idea, and simple too. You can encode various test data as XML comments on your test, and then use them in your test by parsing the XML file generated by the compiler. More details here . Lars Thurop wrote…
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ThreadTester with new Ability: StopWhenTrue() and thread polling
I've updated The ThreadTester Library with a new ability: StopWhenTrue(). It allows you to periodically poll while all the threads are running (and the test is blocking) and either assert stuff or stop the run midway…
2006
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Solving those nasty "Out Of Memory" problems
This came up on the win-tech-off-topic mailing list the other day and I'm writing it down here so that I can explorer it further later on. I'm interested because I like to run *lots and lots* of programs at the same…
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Nice Google Desktop Trick
Here's something I just discovered. If you installed *the latest version* of the Google Desktop Search, Hit "Ctrl" twice now. Update : Apparently this does not come in all versions of the Google desktop. So here's what…
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Ask The Pros - Keyboard Shortcut Junkies (and some extra shortcuts from me)
Jim Holmes has the latest batch of "Ask The Pros", this time on Keyboard Shortcuts . If you haven't been using the keyboard much inside Visual Studio, you could do well by taking a look at the article. Oh, and two…
2005
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Cool Tip: Show a vertical rule after 80 chars in VS.NET
I have no idea why this is not actually an editor option built in, but still, nice to know it's *possible*. I got this nice tip from a guy named Herfried K. Wagner (MVP) "Once upon a time I asked if it was possible to…
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Easy tip to speed up your Virtual PC
Here's a great way to easily speed up your Virtual PC performance: Filter the process name from your anti virus scanner's real time monitoring. Since I have ETRUST antivirus installed, I simply double click on the icon…
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Cool Resharper hidden gem
Oh this is cool. Just found this out: IF you have Resharper installed, put your cursor inside a member in a class. Now press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+Up/Down arrow .
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Logon as a different user on the same local desktop: in win 2003
Windows XP has a nice feature where you can log on multiple times as different users concurrently, while at the same machine (switch user). It's a nice feature if you want to test your application as a lower privilege…
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[Word Shortcut of the day] ALT-F3: Quick Auto Text
Just found this nice shortcut in Word: Alt+F3: create auto-text entry. Just select the text and press Alt F3 and you can save the text for future use.. almost like Code Snippets :)
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How to use virtual PC and still save lots of room: differencing disks
Here's a great way to save some space on your hard drive with those big 'n nasty Virtual PC images: Differencing disks. The idea is simple: Start out with a hard drive image you're comfortable with, then create…
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Launcher: Clean auto-deployment and auto-updating code from Franklins.Net
" So I was not satisfied with all of the options for auto-deploying .NET apps in version 1.1, and rather than waiting for ClickOnce, which only works in v2.0 anyway, I sat down and designed and developed a simple and…
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Using Regex to return the first N words in a string
Jeff Perrin needed a function to return the first N words in a string (to create a small summary or a snippet thingy). He did it using the manual and awkward method of parsing the string manually. That method is more…
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Some news from the wild
- Udi shares his thoughs on maintaining legacy code without unit tests and about Mock objects ( here and here ). Interesting stuff. Nothing too new here, but some great concepts one needs to keep in mind at all times…
2004
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Manage many events easily with EventHandlerList
There were many little snippets and corners during Juval's class that simply made my day every time. This is one of those. What happens when you have a class that exposes many events (such as the "Button" or "Control"…
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Small but useful SQL tips from SQLJunkies
Here's a nice set of small but might-be-useful-someday SQL tips [via Bersileus ]
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Solving System.TypeInitializationException when running the Regulator
I've recently started to get emails from people who had The Regulator break on their system after installing SP2 (or some other hotfix...). I'm not sure exactly how it broke, but I know how to fix it. Here's a typical…
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attach a debugger to a service automatically at startup
Just a small link to remind me later - how to attach a debugger to a service automatically at startup (via Peter Provost )
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[Tip] how to get Windows Explorer to "Yes to All" or "No to All":
“Thanks to John Elliot , how to get Windows Explorer to "Yes to All" or "No to All": If you are copying manually in the GUI with a drag and drop or a CTRL+C/CTRL+V then press SHIFT when you click 'Yes/No' the first time…
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[Cool Tip] Speed up Outlook email switching
Ah! great Outlook tip: “Note to self: Next time it takes up to 15 seconds to switch between emails, be sure to disable the instant messaging feature. Tools->Options->Other->uncheck "Enable Instant Messaging in Outlook".…
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How to: Open Word doc links inside Word, NOT inside the browser
I hate it when a word document link opens inside my browser instead of inside Word. The same for excel, powerpoint and visio. Enter the blogsphere Matrix . Gus figures out how to disable the damn thing And then Omar…
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Unblocking an attachment blocked by outlook
[Update: Jose pointed me to the outlook Add-In I was talking about. Thanks!] So what do you do whaen you recieve a file attachement that oulook so cleverly blocked? Simply click “forward” on the mesage and the…
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VS-Styler :Toggle and save your VS.Net font and color settings instantly
Jason Olson went ahead and ran with my idea of an IDE add-in that saved your font configuration to pass around, and made it much much better . I'll let him tell about it: Well, VSStyler is now ready for download. It is…
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A cool Selection Expansion macro
David Scott decided he would really really like a feature that CodeRush has - Selection Expansion , where if you press a shortcut, the selection of text in the IDE expands into the next bigger logical block (”Single…
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Problem And Solution: "Login failes for some users on a DotNetNuke based portal"
This was bothering me for a while now, but I've figured it out. If you're DotNetNuke based site suffers from the “Impossible Login Phantom” problem which is described as: “Some of my users can login to the site just…
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Doing Test Driven Development with no DLLs
Doing test driven development often(well, practically always) entails testing against a class library in your tests. It's just the easiest way to test functionality of objects (you need to reference those objects…
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Query Analyzer Tricks
Here are some small cool tips from SQLServerCentral : Query Analyzer Tricks (note: you need to register on the site, but registration is free)
2003
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Problem and solution: Renaming htm file to aspx may cause javascript trouble
We ran across this when moving some old files to a new project. One of the tasks was to turn a very simple htm file into the same file with an aspx extension. The original htm file had a reference to a javascript file.…
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Cool trick of the day - VSS keyword expansion
Well, I certainly didn't know about this cool VSS feature! turn this: '$History: Form1.vb $ ' into this: '***************** Version 24 ***************** 'User: Guest Date: 10/13/03 Time: 12:49p 'Updated in…
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Visual Studio .NET Shortcut Key Guide
Keyboard shortcuts can save hours of programming time. Appendix A of Mastering Visual Studio .NET lists the command, shortcut, and description of each in a convenient table format. [via safari.oreilly.com ] Heaven. I'm…
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Appsettings can Reference an External Config File
I did not know this! “I recently discovered that the app/web.config file can reference an external config file to get some or all of its appsettings. .. “ [ Paul Wilson ] (follow the link to learn how) Excellent tip!
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A macro to automatically attach to aspnet_wp.exe
This was on the win-tech-off-topic mailing list: A macro to automatically attach to aspnet_wp.exe, written by Kevin Dente can save lots of clicking around time: <quote> Sub AttachAspNet() Dim process As EnvDTE.Process…
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Pure simplicity
How's this for pure simplicity? In VS.Net - CTRL-X when nothing is selected - Cuts the current line CTRL-C when nothing is selected - Copies the current line I never knew and never tried. Huh. Thanks d0m1 !
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Document outline
For the past few weeks I've been deep diving into ASP.Net land. One of the things I wasn't prepared for was the amount of time I would have to spend tweaking and changing HTML and Java Scripts. A lot. Lots of times I…
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"Could not open in Design view. Quote values differently..." solved!
Ever get this message when working in the Vs.Net webform designer? “Could not open in Design view. Quote values differently inside a '<%...” etc This problem is easily solved by replacing nesting double quotes with…
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Coding tips and tricks by Eric Gunnerson
Here is a nice article by Eric Gunnerson with various tips and tricks. I really liked the first one : “What is the difference between a Windows Forms project and a Console Application project? The somewhat surprising…
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Count anything in your open Word document
I'm using the Word 2003 beta, so I'm not sure if this applies to older versions. Ever wanted to know how many words, lines, paragraphs or even characters you have in your open Word document? Easy. Select…
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Visual Studio .Net tips page on MSDN
Just found this cool Visual Studio .Net tips page on MSDN, thanks to Sudhakar Sadasivuni .
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Make your desktop show active RSS content
Doug Thews sent me this regarding the .net desktop contest: " After looking at some of your entries, I decided that I had to write my own ActiveDesktop in ASP.NET to consume RSS feeds and provide other information. I…
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Speed up Internet Explorer
I just have to re-post this amazingliy powerful tweak , as I've just installed my new machine, and had to do it again. boy, it helps! Speed up Internet Explorer
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Nice MS Word shortcut
Say you have a document with multiple lines(duh!). Go to the middle of the document and select a couple of lines that have text above them or below them.. Press LEFT SHIFT+LEFT ALT + Up Or Down arrow several times...
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Copy MsgBox Text
when you get a message box with lots of text (mainly on error messages) and you need to copy the text of the message, simply press ctrl+c , you'll hear a beep from windows, then you can paste it every where and you'll…
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Disabling Connection Pooling
ADO.NET Data Providers automatically use connection pooling turned on. If you want to turn this functionality off: In an SQLConnection object, Add this to the connection string: Pooling=False; In An OLEDBConnection…
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A Little Macro To Automate Creating Connection Strings
I've created a little macro that automatically creates a connection string and inserts it in your code. It pops up the infamous " Data Links " dialog for you, saving you, the poor programmer, from having to remember all…
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.Net Shortcuts + Automate GAC and COM operations using this Cool Add-in
Date: 6/2/2003 Author: Enrico Sabbadin Versions: VS.NET Level: Advanced File Size: 315K download Summary: This add-in for VS.NET 2003 automatically: 1) Registers the assembly in the GAC right after it has been built. 2)…
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Lots of shell shortcuts
Lots of Shell shortcuts (definitive guide?) can be found here: http://orbital.encapsule.com/resources/howto/windows-howto/cellitemwrapper0001.htm Keyboard junkie - yes I am.
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UI Threading - A Very Simple Solution
God loves the simple solutions. It turns out that there is a really simple solution to the problem of working with UI threads.Much simpler then mine . I was given this simple pattern by a guy on the win_tech_off_topic…
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About Productivity
Although I've been working for quite some time now as a developer, with several companies and developer teams, I am still amazed at how un-productive some developers can be. As a developer, I always feel I need to know…
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Shortcuts: Object Search and Toolbox Magic
Some more shortcuts I've learned: ALT+F12 - Open the "Object Search" window CTRL-ALT-X - Open the Toolbox window CTRL-Up/Down - With the toolbox window open, Navigate between the different Toolbox panes (Useful for…
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A Better RegEdit
Here's a cool freeware that made my life easier: Registry Explorer If the link doeasn't work for ya, Here's the D/L link at download.com Just install it and voila! you get a "registry" root inside windows explorer and…
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System Tweaks & Tricks
Some cool system tweaks and tricks can be found here . Here's the list: (I've highlighted the ones I liked) Unschedule a chkdsk Open Registry Explorer with a folder tree by default Customize shell icons Disable all…
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How Access 2003 Helped Me Out
Kudos to MSFT for the latest installation of Office. Overall, Office 2003 beta is one great product. Outlook , being the main attraction for me for office use, is much more usable then it was before, with numerous…
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More VS.NET Tips & Tricks
For you keyboard junkies out there: Cut the current line - CTRL+L (Saves you that 'long' HOME,SHIFT+END,CTRL+X) Delete the current line - CTRL+SHIFT+L (Saves you that 'long' HOME,SHIFT+END,DEL) Move to the closing or…
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A VS.NET 2003 Registry Tweaker Don Could Use
Since Don was writing on how you can tweak the registry in order to be able to ShellExecute VS.NET associated files into an open instance of VS.NET(instead of a new one each time), I decided to take the 'challenge' and…
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A Quick VS.NET Tweak
Don points a way to make VS.NET associated files load into the open instance of VS.NET instead of spawning a new instance every time thus saving precious load times. Sweet. Cumbersome, but sweet :) I should figure out a…
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ASP.NET Encoding Tip from Scott Hanselman
Tip from Scott Hanselman If your life sucks so badly that you have to support Netscape 4.x, you might want to remember that Netscape 4 never handled Unicode/UTF-8 very well. Since UTF-8 is ASP.NET's default Response…
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ASP.NET is cool + DataGrid Designer Tips
Forget my previous rants about ASP.NET. I was plain wrong. This stuff is cool ! I gave myself a little project : create a food ordering site for my company's intranet. Nothing fancy. but it should put me through all the…
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A cool macro to ease your NUnit boilerplate woes
Havn't checked this out myself yet, but it seems like something to write home about. Very nice macro was posted that makes NUnit boilerplate code creation faster, and i've just discovered it: I've created a Visual…
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Explorer Tips and tricks for the keyboard junkie
Windows Trick o' the Day I knew this trick existed, but I couldn't remember it. If you to drill down through your directory structure all the time, this is a real time saver. In Windows Explorer, you can highlight a…
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App.Config Magic
Here's another tidbit i found: If i want my application to have a config file, i need to create a file named .config in the output directory. but here's a nice touch you can do with VS.NET: click " Add Item " button,…
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Cool IDE Shortcut
here's something i just found out: Select some text in the ide and press CTRL+SHIFT+U - and the selection becomes UPPERCASE . Use CTRL+U to make it lowercase .. tada!
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Killer IDE macro
I found there is only one(for now) macro that i use in the VS .NET IDE - the one that puts two curly braces in the following lines and puts the cursor in between them. this HAS to be a killer macro. i assigned it the…