Archives
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Debugging the Debugger?
Tonight I ran across a small problem with the C# debugger, or rather the Command Window in VS.NET. While stepping through my application (more to come for this) to determine where a slowness was occuring while reading the registry, I tried several different commands in the Command Window. When doing so, I think I've found a bug in how it interprets commands.
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Another VS.NET Irk
Heres another little thing that VS.NET does that irks me. Whenever I'm copying and pasting HTML code in the code editor, VS.NET seems to think that if I don't have a ID or Name attribute, that it should add one. I wish the IDE could be a bit smarter to think that if I didn't have it before, I wouldn't want one now. Also...why does the IDE think that I want a Name attribute anyways. How often do you use that attribute...NONE! Well, at least for me...I know it has its purposes, but I'm just complaining because the IDE isn't that smart.
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NNTP Plugin... Plug
Thanks for the great plug and announcement Greg!
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Good Uses for Empty Array Declarations
While working on my companies new intranet, I've decided to pull some of our existing pages that are "Classic" ASP based, into the .NET realm. In doing so, I need to gain access to our staff information from a SQL Server Database. Since no stored procedures were ever used, and I don't have the security level to create any, I needed to build some queries that will retrieve the data I wished.
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Interesting Tidbit
This afternoon I decided to bring my company's intranet into the .NET world. The current setup has an XML Document with a XSLT tranformation to build the listing of hidden/visible hiearchy. I wanted to make the move as easy as I could, so I remembered ASP.NET contained a XML Server Control that allowed you to display XML Data transformed by XSL/XSLT. Very cool indeed, but this isn't what I'm really stoked about.
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I love Master Pages
The past several days, I've been preparing my company's websites and connecting applications for our upcomming name change. I've never realized how much of a pain it is to change sites layout, colors, etc. until I had to modify a .NET application of ours we released a few months ago. I had to manually touch, at least, 50 various .ASPX and .ASCX files to get the new look and feel to propogate throughout the entire application. Talk about a pain in the butt.
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DataGrid's GridLines Property
<rant>
I really wish that the default value for the GridLines property on the DataGrid (and possibly Repeater/DataList) was set to "None" and not "Both". I mean, I can see the reason for having this if someone wanted to just plop some data on a webpage, and didn't care about formatting or defining their own columns. But, for about 99% of the time, developers have to build the Columns manually, set styles, etc. etc. until it looks the way we want it. I've never seen a DG in production that has GridLines, mainly because it just looks plain stupid with custom formatting. -
ADO.NET Irks Me
There is one thing in ADO.NET that just irks me, and well its not by .NET design. During a lot of our Business Logic methods in our projects at work, we have to call Insert, Update, and Select procedures from SQL Server. Of course, the proper way of doing this is by wrapping your logic in a transactional support manner... no biggie, we've got this working, and I might add, it works SUPERBLY! Well, that is, if you remember that each call to the database while in a transaction must use the same connection and transaction.
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Reporting Services & Charting
<rant>
I'd like to proclaim that I HATE the charting capabilities in SQL Reporting Services. I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to do a basic scatter graph with a very small set of data. Well, after trying about 50 gazillion ways, I cannot get the graph to work. Just to make sure I wasn't crazy, and actually knew the data I had could be graphed...I copied the data into an Excel spreadsheet. After that I inserted a chart, and 2 minutes later I had a scatter graph the way I wanted it. -
First Crack - Reporting Services
Well I finally started to take the first crack at Reporting Services at work. I'm going to be using it to generate some custom reports that they want, however I've only heard things about Reporting Services and how cool it is. Well, after downloading, spending 1/2 a day setting up a server, and starting to play around with some basic reports..I'd definately have to say its a pretty cool product. It is going to make reporting so much easier. If you haven't checked this product out, I would definately say download the trial version, you'll be very happy. Also, I'd like to mention that the development team did a SUPERB job on the IDE with integrating it into VS.NET. Very slick and easy to use. Now, how do I do those hard reports...
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Custom NSIS Macros
I was asked to provide my scripts that allow me to check for the .NET framework using NSIS. I'll do one step better, I'll post my custom macros (downloadable of course) that will allow you to plug them right into your NSIS scripts and run required tasks. Below is a brief introduction to each of the macros, this is so you'll know how to use them mainly:
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Finally found a .NET User group by me!
My search has finally ended! I've been looking to either find a Central Illinois .NET User Group, or start one up myself for about a year. Well, today..by slight chance..the new DevDays portal pointed me to a Central Illinois User Group located no more than 20 miles away from me. Luckily they're having their 3rd meeting tonight from 6-8:30 PM, so I'm gonna head on out to check it out...free giveaways tonight as well! So, if you're in the Central Illinois area, and are looking to go, let me know, maybe we could coordinate a meetup tonight.
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NNTP Plugin Page Setup
I've setup a page containing information relating to the NNTP Posting Plugin for NewsGator. This page will give you more detailed information, a change log, and other stuff (not yet defined). By using this page you can keep up-to-date on the NNTP Plugin.
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Who Uses Windows 3.11?
I've been studying my server logs for usage and just general information this morning, and I have to say that I'm just stunned of the amount of outdated software that is still in use. As you can tell from the subject, I noticed, in the month of January, that there were 46 visits by people using Windows 3.11. Why in the world would anyone still be using this, let alone a developer. What's even more suprising, is that it beat out Linux by 20 visits.
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Updated Custom Control Set
It was brought to my attention Saturday evening (through today) after I released my version 1.9 control set, that a few major "show stopper" bugs existed. As such, I've patched them up and re-released v1.9 with the updated code. Here's a list of those issues that were resolved:
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In Need of Infamous Papers?
It seems that Mike Rowe has decided to put 1 copy of the “WIPO book and 25-page letter” he received from Microsoft during their talks and settlement up for sale on eBay. Mike had to start weeding out the real from fake bids, that exceeded over $200,000 earlier today. He started by knocking of those who have 0 feedback, then went to pre-approval bidding only to serious bidders.
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Plugin Release: NewsGator NNTP Plugin v0.5
Version 0.5 of the NewsGator NNTP Plugin to allow posting to newsgroups has been released. This version includes proper cross-posting functionality to newsgroups, a major enhancement in server/newsgroup selection, enhancement in error descriptions now containing the server and newsgroup when sending an email to the developer, and lastly, the user will be restricted from posting empty posts to a server. The first and last update were to start working towards GNKSA's seal of approval.
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WebFA Down, Permanently
Tonight I had to make the hard decision to shut my free online family album service down. I decided that since it has had very little usage over the last few months, that I'm wasting money on hosting fees. For those who have never been to http://www.webfa.com, this site - dubbed WebFA - was my senior multi-media project I created in Oct-Dec. of 2002. It was a GREAT learning tool, as .NET 1.0 was in its infancy stages, and a GREAT way to show off my skills to my professor. The site was fun, to both use and build...however pulling the plug was the right thing.