Archives
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Windows Tools I Always forget about...
While doing some asp.net dev today I needed to hack my hosts file so I could mimic a live website. However after modifying my hosts file it didnt seem to affect things. I figured there was some kind of DNS caching going on, which prompted me to remember this handy Windows command-line tool:
ipconfig /flushdns
Similarly, the other night I ran into a port-80 conflict that was preventing IIS from operting properly so I used this command to find which apps were listening on Port 80:
netstat -a -b -v
Hopefully this blog post will save me the time it took for me to dig-around and find these tools again... -
FWD: First Notebook With NAND Solid State Disk Announced
First Notebook With NAND Solid State Disk Announced:
The days of notebooks with spinning hard disk drives are going to come an end. Samsung hopes to start the demise of hard disk drives this June when they launch the first solid state disk in their Q30 notebook this June.
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Game 7: Mavs vs Spurs
Dirk is going to dominate tonight....
Prediction: Mavericks win by 8! -
CommunityServer 2.x & MetaWeblog API
It took me a while to remember where the MetaWeblogAPI went in CS 2.x, so here is the url in case anyone else is trying to get their favorite blog-posting tool to work with the newly revamped weblogs.asp.net site:
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High capacity MicroSD (TransFlash) upgrade for your cellphone
Like many of the newer cell phones, my new Samsung A950 doubles as a mp3 player (well really just WMA) via MicroSD (aka TransFlash) memory. However most of the compatible memory on the market right now is only available in 1gb or less. This product from US Modular looks like just the ticket to work around this limitation!
US Modular - Product Page:US Modular’s Stik&StorTM cell phone memory upgrades come in densities up to 4GB--which means you can store up to eight times the data, music, photos and video currently possible with any TransFlashTM or MicroSDTM upgrades. Fits Motorola, Samsung, Kyocera, and any other phone with a TransFlashTM or microSDTM slot. It all means more freedom, more fun and less hassle for the millions who know cell phones aren’t just for talkin’. Rock on!
Basically it is an extender & adapter for the MicroSD format that puts your memory on the outside of your device in order to allow for greater capacity.
Nifty idea!
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Finding Old Web Pages
I was trying to access a blog post while the weblogs.asp.net site was down over the weekend, and remembered this resource for grabbing old versions of websistes:
Archives of Dead Web Pages: Wayback, Cache, and More:Finding Old Web Pages - The Web changes constantly, and sometimes that page that had just the information you needed yesterday (or last month or two years ago) is not available today. At other times you may want to see how a page's content or design has changed. There are several sources for finding Web pages as they used to exist.
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P&P Service Factory Guidance package Community Release
I have been following this project from a distance, but am starting to like their idea of an end-to-end guidance for Web Service development. The P&P team recently announced the release of the VS2005-integrated "Guidance Package" to help you implement their proscribed best practices:
patterns & practices: Service Factory: Home:We have just released our May Community release of the Web Service Software Factory to our GotDotNet community - http://practices.gotdotnet.com/projects/svcfactory. Highlights of this release include: - Updates to our base WCF guidance package based on your feedback - An entire guidance package dedicated to securing your services using - X.509 certificates - Kerberos - Direct authentication using Windows, ADAM, or SQL - A MEX based policy generator to help you secure your client applications - A partially complete Interop configurator to help you apply security policy based on your interop requirements - Improved documentation including: - A Service Factory navigator to help you navigate the documentation and the Service Factory - Extensive documentation to support the security guidance package - Documentation for customizing your own guidance packages - A new reference implementation - Based on feedback from our community we have applied a slightly different combination of patterns. Take a look and let us know what you think.
tag: designpatterns, webservice, guidance -
Bookmark: Cropper (C#) screen capture utility
I recall reading blog posts about this, but lost the link, so this is just a reminder/bookmark.
Brian Scott : Cropper in C#:Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C# on the Microsoft .Net platform. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen.
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Bookmark: Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar
This is just a quick blog-bookmark on where to download this nifty tool.
Download details: Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar Beta:The Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides a variety of tools for quickly creating, understanding, and troubleshooting Web pages. This version is a preview release and behavior may change in the final release.
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LINK: LINQ "Orcas" CTP
Download details: Microsoft .NET LINQ Preview (May 2006):
Microsoft Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas” Language-Integrated Query, May 2006 Community Technology Preview
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FWD: Great collection of ASP.NET/C# Posters!
Firoz Ansari » Blog Archive » Great collection of ASP.NET/C# Posters!:
Barone, Budge & Dominick has great collection of posters relating to ASP.NET, C#, Design Patterns, Software Process etc. Here is the link to these postors. Just check out this first:
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LINK: CodePlex open-source project site
Use CodePlex to create new projects to share with your fellow developers around the world, join others who have already started their own project, or simply use the applications on this site and provide feedback.
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USB Flash Drives & Portable Apps
As many of my friends know, I have become a complete nut about collecting USB Flash Drives and Portable Applications. Initially I was using them primarily for transporting code and other files between work and home, but eventually I began placing all my key tools (mostly SysInternals) and utility applications on the drive so I don't have to install them on all my PC's.
My addiction was further fueled by the recent launch of the Portable Apps website and subsequent support for many apps targeting the usb flash drive platform.
The Apps
The best portable apps are those that are specifically designed to launch and store state solely on a portable drive whose drive letter may change each time it is connected. Here are the main ones that I have installed and use on a regular basis:- Portable FireFox - browser
- Portable Thunderbird - view RSS feeds, news, and mail
- Portable OpenOffice
- Portable Gaim - jabber IM client
- Portable FileZilla - ftp etc
- uTorrent - bitTorrent client
- VNC "Free Edition" - simple client & server for sharing desktop
- Most SysInternals tools, but especially these:
- ProcessExplorer
- DebugView
- Filemon
- Regmon
- PSTools (suite)
- CoolPlayer - audio player
- WinDirStat - disk space usage statistics
- Some apps from NirSoft:
- CPorts - see current ports open on your pc
- WhoIsThisDomain - lookup WhoIs info for a list of domains
The Drives
Thus far I have sampled several brands of USB Flash Drives but keep coming back to Lexar for both form-factor and speed.
The model I have bought the most is the JumpDrive Secure II (mostly due to price and ubiquitousnous), but I recently bought their JumpDrive Lightning 2gb due to its impressive size, appearance, and speed.
The Lightning is my 10th USB drive and definitely my favorite. The shiny steel package and small formfactor are sweet, but the big selling point was its speed at 24MB per second Read (160x), 18MB per second Write (120x). This drive is a bit more pricey than most other drives, but it is perfectly suited for running Portable Apps.
Anything over 100x is great for running portable apps, but you can get by with 40x if you are patient. Just make sure to check the specs before buying. If the package for a usb flash drive omits this info they are usually slower than 20x and often as slow as 1x (esp for off-brands). Just stick to the name brands for companies who already sell memory, flash cards, and other similar media and you will typically get a descent drive.
Happy Portable App'ing!