Archives
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High-performing virtual machines with Diskeeper
One of the first things (if not THE first thing) I install on virtual machines (as well as the host) is Diskeeper. It really makes a noticeable difference on the performance of the VM, especially when compared to other VMs you use for quite some time without defrag'ing. VMs stress the hard drive a lot, so keeping it in good shape is a must for well performing VMs.
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Fastest way to get a new GUID from within Visual Studio
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Forget about writing Atom or RSS XML handling code ever again
A *very* welcome addition to .NET 3.5, which just went RTM for MSDN subscribers and trial for the rest before general availability early next year: System.ServiceModel.Syndication.
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How to parse specific date-time formats using DateTime.ParseExact
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Blogger: how to provide label/tag feeds
By default, blogger will only render links to the pages where you can read all entries with given labels:
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Windows Live Writer RTM: a missed opportunity on extensibility
The Window Live suite final version was finally released. I've been following quite closely its evolution since Beta2, and have done a quite complicated (although not from the point of view of the end user) plugin which goes quite deep into WLW libraries (deeper than I dare to confess, if you know what I mean ;)).
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Microsoft is now officially open source friendly
I'm surely a bit late, but I just learned that the OSI has approved the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) and the Microsoft Reciprocal License (Ms-RL). Both are now listed in the OSI licenses page.
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How to compile and run ALL WPF samples in the Windows SDK with a single command
Just issue the following PowerShell one-liner, and you'll compile and run each sample in the SDK (enter all in one line; broken here for readability):
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The 'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0' provider is not registered error with Vista 64bit
If you're getting this error while trying to connect to Access 2007 or Excel 2007 via the Office 12 OleDB provider, you must first make sure you have the Office 2007 data providers installed.
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Properly detecting application installation on launch conditions
If you need to detect whether a given application is installed (i.e. you're writing a plugin, or depend on an existing framework/toolkit to be installed), you have a couple options:
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Getting Windows Live installed on Vista x64
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Firefox is still king: creating fully customized GMail and Google skins with plain CSS
Just get the Stylish add-on browse the huge library of community contributed styles to a myriad of sites. My customized Gmail hosted now looks much better (especially on my new small 12.1'' laptop :))