January 2008 - Posts

• Shouldn't that be "Water Impossible"?

  I took this picture in my car this morning. For some reason it made me chuckle.  Posted Jan 30 2008, 11:34 AM by lorenh with 1 comment(s)

• Stepping through .NET Framework source code is now possible

  This is the big news today. You can now configure Visual Studio 2008 to step through .NET 3.5 source. Scott Hanselman has the steps to set this up...except for one detail. When installing the QFE (KB944899) patch, you'll need to have your the VS 2008 installation disk you used to install in your DVD drive (or have the ISO mounted). If you don't, the patch just silently rolls back and fails. Posted Jan 17 2008, 03:02 PM by lorenh with no comments Filed under: Visual Studio, .NET

• NewsGator stops charging for client RSS reader products

  This NewsGator press release, dated Jan 9, 2008 announces that NewsGator no longer charges for their client RSS reader products. In my continuing search for a good and free RSS reader that integrates into Outlook, I have used IntraVnews, Attensa for Outlook, and Outlook 2007's integrated RSS feature. This latest move by NewsGator gives me another free one to try. The feature I've been yearning for, and that NewsGator may actually be able to provide at last, is being able to read on both my laptop and on my smartphone and synchronize so I don't have to read articles twice. Google Reader can do this in web browser, but I still prefer Outlook when reading on my laptop. Since I run Outlook all day anyway, it is nice to have my feeds "pushed" without having to remember to go somewhere to check them. Additionally, my fingers don't have to learn a different set of keyboard shortcuts than I use for reading e-mail. I haven't tried NewsGator reader yet, but I've heard that it is highly regarded, and wanted to pass this info along to my dedicated readers (thank's Mom!). Posted Jan 14 2008, 03:01 PM by lorenh with no comments Filed under: RSS

• FlexWiki 2.0 released, Craig Andera moving on

  Craig Andera reported today that FlexWiki 2.0 has finally been released.  It's been a long time...probably too long...since this wiki engine was updated. In the meantime there have been several other popular .NET wikis that have materialized such as Screwturn. I used FlexWiki extensively for an internal wiki a few years ago, and the one thing I really liked about it was the ability to easily create sub-wikis, FlexWiki calls them "Namespaces", to segment your content. However, the FlexWiki project stagnated with no new releases so we somewhat reluctantly abandoned it. I haven't explored FlexWiki 2.0 much yet to see where the improvements are, but it certainly warrants a look. In related news, Craig Andera, the developer who has been leading the FlexWiki rewrite announced he is leaving the project. Posted Jan 10 2008, 11:57 PM by lorenh with no comments Filed under: ASP.NET

• Tip for using Fiddler on localhost

  When I'm troubleshooting HTTP traffic, I reach for the invaluable Fiddler trace utility. It shows me everything going on over HTTP. However, when you run Fiddler against a localhost URL you probably won't see any traffic, but you can easily fix this by simply adding a dot to the end of localhost in the address. Intead of http://localhost:1234/MyApp/..., use http://localhost.:1234/MyApp/... (it's subtle, but notice the extra dot after localhost). This tip is widely known and documented (there are other workarounds listed at that link), but I just wanted to highlight this simple fix, because I've recently seen some who were not aware of it. It would be very unfortunate for someone to download and try Fiddler only to immediately discount it as "junk" just because of this. It is an awesome tool, and it's not just for IE, it hooks WinINET and is useful for watching other HTTP traffic like web service calls. Posted Jan 10 2008, 10:37 AM by lorenh with 11 comment(s) Filed under: General Software Development

• Evoluent VerticalMouse is a great product!

  If you are experiencing wrist or forearm pain, everyone will probably automatically assume it's carpal tunnel, but it may be different condition called tenosynovitis which "is the inflammation of the fluid-filled sheath (called the synovium) that surrounds a tendon" (source: wikipedia). It probably would have helped me to run across the term "tenosynovitis" sooner because mild cases can actually be pretty easy to get under control. One of the first things to examine are the ergonomics of your workstation...the natural keyboard can help, but the one change I made that seemed to help the most was changing to the Evoluent VerticalMouse. It's a great product and if you are having wrist pain, you may want to check it out. I've heard rumor that they are working on a wireless version as well. Posted Jan 07 2008, 09:20 AM by lorenh with 1 comment(s)