Latish Sehgal

Using a productivity tool like ReSharper or CodeRush

2009-06-06T21:05:44Z

At the C# SIG meeting in Dallas last week, David mentioned something really interesting about using a productivity add-on such as ReSharper or CodeRush . I think his exact quote was: “If your not using a productivity tool, you’re ripping off your customers and wasting your time” While I have met and worked with many ReSharper/CodeRush users in the past and talked about the value that such tools add, the sentiment has never been so strongly expressed. I have been playing around with both the tools...(read more)

The Big Design Conference in Dallas

2009-05-31T01:26:37Z

I just came back from the Big Design Conference held today in Dallas, and my brain is just flooded right now with all the information I picked up on different design and development topics. It was one of the most well organized conferences I have been to, with 4 parallel tracks (Social Media, Code Development, User Experience and Strategy) going on throughout the day. The hardest part was to pick a session out of the different choices to go to. I ended up attending Chris Koenig’s session on touch...(read more)

My Dot Net Developer’s tools list, and more…

2009-05-23T23:54:32Z

I gave a brownbag presentation at my current client recently about the common tools (in addition to Visual Studio), that I use on a regular basis for working with .NET or web development in general. I also threw in some non-development tools that are a part of my day to day life and make things easier. Here’s the complete list: Note: For a completely awesome and Ultimate Developer’s tool list, be sure to check out Scott’s blog post . .NET Name Description Comments ClrProfiler The CLR...(read more)

Creating MSDN like help using Sandcastle

2009-04-17T13:21:00Z

Just follow these simple steps ( I am using the Ajaxcontroltoolkit library as an example here) 1. Download Sandcastle ( http://www.codeplex.com/Sandcastle ). 2. Download and install Sandcastle Help File Builder ( http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=SHFB ). 3. Check http://www.ewoodruff.us/shfbdocs/Index.aspx?topic=html/8c0c97d0-c968-4c15-9fe9-e8f3a443c50a.htm for other requirements. If you have Visual Studio installed, you should probably be good. 4. Run SandcastleBuilderGUI.exe, Create...(read more)

"We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge".Equals("Awesome Geeking weekend")

2009-01-27T02:07:00Z

I was one of the participants last week at the We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge Weekend here in Dallas. The event was organized very well by Toi Wright with support from MS Developer Evangelist Chris Koening . The idea was to build or enhance a charity's Website (chosen by MS) within the weekend and give a 5 minute presentation on Sunday about the work done. Our team was called 4 Devs, a Designer and a non-profit. The developers were Reza , Tuan, Tim and myself. We were lucky to work with Hillyer...(read more)

JavaScriptSerializer - UnDeprecated with .Net 3.5 SP1

2008-12-08T00:39:03Z

Just wanted to mention that JavaScriptSerializer , which was marked as obsolete in .Net 3.5, seems to be restored back to normal status with SP1. Besides checking in the object browser, the only confirmation I found for this was a comment by Scott Gu on this blog post . This is good news since JavaScriptSerializer does seem simpler to use and can handle anonymous types as well. Its alternative DataContractJsonSerializer is meant more for use with WCF....(read more)

Dallas TechDays - Developer Track

2008-11-20T01:08:26Z

I just came back after attending the developer track at Dallas TechDays. It was a really good session. Zain Naboulsi was the main presenter, and man can this guy talk! He gave a 3 part presentation by himself that spanned to almost 4 hours. Here's a picture I clicked with my cellphone during one of the breaks when he was answering audience queries. Here's a brief break up of his talk today - Sql Server 2008 New Features Spatial Data Table variables MERGE clause new DateTime Datatypes Entity Framework...(read more)

Removing unused CSS Classes from your web application

2008-10-02T02:47:57Z

Most of you might have seen that while working on a Website project, the CSS gets harder to maintain as the site ages. This might be due to new developers coming in to the project, removal of UI elements (but not the corresponding CSS), refactoring and so on. I think it is a good idea to revisit and clean your css every few weeks before it becomes totally unmanageable. In this post, i am going to outline 2 ways to do so There is a great Firefox plugin called Dust-Me Selectors which can test individual...(read more)

Asp.Net Session Timeout control

2008-08-29T22:30:04Z

As web application developers, we depend on the Session to store data pertaining to the user. It's a common scenario that the user might take a half an hour break to take a phone call or a meal while using the application and come back to find out the site behaving in an unexpected manner because his session would have expired (default value for session timeout is 20 minutes). As a developer, it's a good practice to check a session variable for null value before using it, but you can create a much...(read more)

Fixing Gaps in Corners while using Ajax control toolkit RoundedCorners Extender

2008-08-21T01:08:36Z

We noticed gaps in the borders for some of our controls while using the RoundedCorners Extender . This was a big headache since it seemed to work fine on some pages. I have included a sample image below. We finally figured out that on the pages where it was not working, we were injecting some diagnostic information into our html as comments. Since this was being inserted before the doctype, it was sending IE into quirks mode and that was causing the trouble. Updating the code to insert comments after...(read more)

Cool Silverlight app

2008-03-07T22:38:12Z

Check out the Silverlight implementation of John Conway's game of Life . Keep an eye on your browser CPU Usage :)....(read more)

Get free Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework Training kit

2008-02-27T16:58:46Z

Get it here . This kit includes presentations, labs and demos. Now only if I could find time to go through this :(....(read more)

Hello from the DotNetSurfer

2008-01-23T23:02:03Z

Hello, my fellow Bloggers and blog readers!!

My name is Latish Sehgal and I blog currently at http://dotnetsurfers.com/blog/. I am a dot net web developer, technology enthusiast and an avid blog reader. I already have a few readers subscribed to my existing blog (Hi Mom!), and I am very excited to have this opportunity to blog at asp.net (Thanks Joe).

I currently live and work in the beautiful (and cold) state of Colorado, and hope to relocate to Atlanta, Georgia soon. I'll see you guys around in posts and comments.

Till next time

-the DotNetSurfer

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