Robert McLaws: FunWithCoding.NET

Microsoft has started a new section of their Knowledge Base called the Microsoft Community Solutions. These are KB articles that are written by Microsoft MVPs to help people conquer problems they face. This is ment to be much more formal than, say, a blog entry, because the article is immediately indexed by their KB engine, and comes up in KB search results.

Lots of people I know are either taking college exams right now, or their certification tests. Either way, there's a whole lot of crammin' going on. Thought I'd take a few minutes and elaborate on the test-taking strategies that have served me well.

“Microsoft Is Not A Charity”

I need someone who is really familiar with VS.NET's addin architecture to help me with a quick-and-dirty 6 hour project that will be released as freeware and could a) benefit tons of inexperienced developers and b) lead to future paid development opportunities.

Why can't the GDN Workspaces WinForms console be released as a separate standalone application? Why should I have to go to my Workspace to access it?

I've talked with several people over the past few days that aren't terribly happy with the new Microsofties that are blogging here, primarily because they feel they can't be critical of Microsoft. Frans, for example, says he might blog elsewhere because of it. I'll throw in my two cents and say that in my experience, criticism towards Microsoft, and really anyone for that matter, is always welcome and appreciated, as long as it is measured and constructive. Don't just be like “This stuff just sucks, and you guys should kill yourselves right now for being this stupid.” That's rude and insulting, and doesn't do anyone any good. Chances are, if this is your MO, you'll just be ignored.

I need to query IIS using WMI to pull out information about the file extension mappings for the currently executing web. The problem is, I don't have clue one on how to do it, and IMO WMI is a giant undocumented clusterf$@#. Do any of you smart guys have any ideas on how to make this happen? I know there is a fairly simple query to nake it happen, I just can't figure it out.

My good friend Martin Spedding just IMed me. He said the sex change operation went well. He sent me a picture..... I wouldn't date him, but he sure looks a hell of a lot more attractive now. Dude, uh, I mean... girl..... you might want to get make-up lessons from someone else.