Onion PeelsOnion Peels.NET, Technology, Life, Whatever. Mostly about .NET and ASP.NET but don't hold me to it. Articles
Super Cool Video Phone
2008-06-05 02:45:00 Our new video phone just arrived today. This little baby lets callers see each other. It uses a broadband Internet connection (VOIP). If the other caller only has a regular phone, you can still use voice. I literally plugged the power in, attached it to my Internet connection and started dialing (you dial and use it just like a regular phone). The VOIP provider has optimized their network for video and it shows. You can easily read a document displayed on the screen. Voice quality is better than my Vonage setup. The cool part about this phone is that you can take it with you. The phone adapter is built in so you can plug it in wherever you have Internet access. We plan on taking it with us on vacations. There's also a phone extension jack so you can plug the rest of your household phones into it. Cost is $28.99/month with unlimited long distance in North America. If the other caller is "in-network" then the call is free, world wide. If you're interested in owning one of the... More About: Video , Technology , Phone , Gadgets , Cool
Detect Strong Named Assemblies in .NET
2008-06-04 17:44:00 Seems like I get asked at least once a week how to determine if an assembly is strongly named. To detect if an assembly is strongly named in .NET use the SN.exe tool included with Visual Studio and the .NET SDK. sn -T assembly To determine if the assembly is targeted for IL (any cpu), 32 bit or 64 bit corflags assembly powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Programming , Strong
Calculator Gadget Reviewed
2008-06-03 15:33:00 Well, my latest little Vista gadget has received two reviews so far. One guy hated it and gave me one star rating. Another guy loved it and gave me a 5 start rating. Hey, I'm at 3 stars! Pretty funny. The 5 star guy did leave a five star comment as well. Simple Perfection This handy gadget was just the right size to fit in that little space left between all the other gadgets crammed onto one busy space [sidebar]. Fact is this is a simple, handy, quick-math tool that saves me from having to open the regular windows calc. Who needs buttons when it is all right on the keypad anyway? If you know how to use your keyboard and want to save space on your sidebar then get this gadget for you calculation needs. http://gallery.live.com I'm always impressed on how users write better commentary about my programs than I do. This comment captures the essence of why I wrote this gadget in the first place and does it in a way I could never duplicate. Thanks dude! powered by Bloge... More About: Gadgets , Calculator , Gadget
How do you say Thank You?
2008-06-02 18:05:00 A lot of people (as in 99%) come to this site, consume the content, download the software and leave. I've always been a little annoyed by this behavior. If someone handed you a 5 dollar bill, wouldn't you say Thank You? The other day I spotted a free workbench top (a very nice one at that) on a forum in my local area. I emailed the guy and we agreed on a pickup time. When I arrived, he helped me load the top (it weighed in at about 200lbs) and thanked me for helping him dispose of it since it was too big to burn or put in the trash. In return, I thanked him by giving him uninterruptible power supply (UPS). I recycle used ones from where I work. It was a simple thing but it really put an exclamation on the transaction and made us both feel good. The point here is not to impress you with my actions but to suggest that little things can go a long way to building better relationships. And while a UPS might be a bit unusual, just about anything would do. A plate of cookies or homema... More About: Life
Calculator Sidebar Gadget Released
2008-06-02 02:15:00 Yes, just what the world needs, another calculator gadget! Except this is actually a useful and useable calculator gadget. You don't get pretty buttons or bubble gum skins. Instead, you get a calculator that evaluates expressions and remembers what you enter for later use. Like my Stopwatch gadget, it's no frills and to the point. Here's a screen shot. Like I said, not the most exciting interface, but what it lacks in style it makes up for in usefulness. The settings dialog gives you a good idea of how to use it. There are other shortcuts as well. For instance you can enter 0x20[enter] and it converts it to decimal (32). What I find it useful for is adding up long lists of numbers like: 10+12+24+17+4+30+11[enter] Now of course you can do this with other calculators but you enter operations one at a time. If you lose track of where you are in the sequence, which I invariable do, you have to start over. With my calculator, you can see the whole sequence. The recall st... More About: Freebies , Calculator , Gadget , Released , Sidebar
Friday Links #3
2008-05-30 20:35:00 BugWiki = Bug tracking made easy - I'm using it for my projects. Easy and to the point. Free for single developers. UltimateDefrag Freeware Edition 1.72 - I'm a sucker for cool graphics in defrag programs. Works well on XP and Vista. Microsoft Source Analysis - Also known as StyleCop. Analyzes C# code for style rules violations. The default rule set is a bit too strict for my tastes. Web 3.0 - I'm still trying to figure out what Web 2.0 means. Consumer Power Exoskeletons - All you wanna-be Ironman guys (me too) will want one of these. Who you calling rust bucket? Deployment Tools Foundation joins the WiX toolset - Rich set of .NET class libraries and related resources that together bring the Windows deployment platform technologies into the .NET world. Intel 32Gb Flash - Intel's 32Gb chip will enable more cost-effective SSDs, "instantly doubling the current storage volume of these devices and driving capacities to beyond 256GB in today's standard, smaller 1.8-inch form fa... More About: Freebies , Links , Friday
How to Selectively Hide Tray Icons
2008-05-29 17:24:00 I've had a number of requests to add a feature to Desk Drive that hides the tray icon. Turns out, you already have the ability to do this from the task bar. Here's how. Right-click on the "Start" button on the task bar Select the Taskbar tab Check the "Hide inactive icons" checkbox Click the customize button to the right of the checkbox Select Desk Drive in the list Use the drop-down box to select "Always hide" Click OK Click OK again The Desk Drive icon is now hidden. You can use this same technique to manage other tray icons as well. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Icons , Tray
Desk Drive Memory Reduced?
2008-05-29 00:23:00 I'm not sure why but Version 1.1 of Desk Drive uses 5 MB as compared to 18 MB for Version 1.0. Maybe it's the new compiler in Visual Studio 2008? The code hardly changed between version 1.0 and 1.1 so I'm a bit perplexed because similar programs I've written use 9 - 12 MB. Will wonders never cease? The memory column is the number of private bytes which is a more accurate measure of what the program is really using. I have not checked this on XP so YMMV. Appreciate any reports. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Memory
The Tooth Fairy Note
2008-05-28 15:39:00 My daughter left this note for the tooth fairy the other night. Dear Tooth Fairy , I've been very good. Could you please leave me two dollars instead of one? Please. Your very best friend, Rachel My wife and I laughed until we cried. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Note
Desk Drive Version 1.1 Released
2008-05-28 00:05:00 There were a couple of positive articles on some popular web sites about Desk Drive posted last week. As a result, I've received a ton of email requesting features, fixes, etc. Version 1.1 adds one new feature and removes another. The new feature let's you exclude any drive by name. Several people reported issues with having to enable "Fixed" drives to see their removable drives. This sounds like a driver issue to me but of course that doesn't fix the problem. Excluding drives is useful in its own right and may help with unusual issues. I removed the interval timer setting. It defaults to 4 seconds. I've also released the source code so you can modify it to your hearts content. If you do something really cool, let me know so I can incorporate it into the code. I've received a number of annoying emails suggesting that the high memory usage was something I should correct as if some how I made a mistake. .NET programs have a higher baseline for memory usage meaning their minim... More About: Released
Business Opportunity
2008-05-24 20:52:00 Quick question: If the money was right and it didn't interfere with your current schedule, would you be interested in a business opportunity? Email me at mike@blueonionsoftware.com for details. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Business , Life , Opportunity
Friday Links #2
2008-05-23 15:33:00 Elevator Quickly Disables UAC for Specific Programs - You can disable the UAC for specific applications using the registry or you can use this handy-dandy alternative which is much easier. Installation is fussy so read the directions carefully. Find the Subscriber Count of a FeedBurner RSS Feed on a Given Day - From Digital Inspiration. HP Smart Web Printing enables simple, predictable web page printing - HP Smart Web Printing lets you select, store and organize text and graphics from multiple web pages and then edit and print exactly what you see onscreen. It gives you the control you need to print meaningful information while minimizing waste. Royalty-Free Clip Art - Images are especially useful to bloggers. Will Gmail Get Themes? - Rumor about custom layouts for Google's web mail client. Folder View Gets You Back to That Last Folder Quickly - I wrote about Folder View earlier. Works great. How to make a Physical Gmail Notifier - Fun project that uses a glowing cube to make... More About: Freebies , Links , Friday
Nice Review of FreeSnap
2008-05-22 01:33:00 The folks over at Freewaregenius did a nice review of my FreeSnap program. ... this is one situation where the adage "less is more" holds true and I prefer FreeSnap. A nice program overall. Gosh, makes me feel all warm inside. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Freebies , Review , Nice
Folder View Adds Recently Used Folders to Windows Explorer
2008-05-20 18:03:00 Ever navigate to a folder deep in the hierarchy and then close Windows Explorer only to realize you forgot to do something and need to go back? I do it all the time and it annoys the hell out of me. So much so, that I started to write an application that would keep track of the last couple of folders accessed in Windows Explorer so I could quickly navigate back to them. It's not a trivial process to do this but I finally figured it out. Just about the time I was ready to put together a redistributable I ran across Folder View . Folder View is a freebie that hooks into Windows Explorer and adds an extra toolbar with shortcuts to common locations. However, in my mind, the most useful feature is the "recent folders" drop-down. Having the last dozen or so folders you visited is sure handy. But then it goes one better and modifies the common open file dialogs to include the same items as the Windows Explorer toolbar. This makes adding attachments to messages easier. Highly recommended.... More About: Freebies , Folders
Friday Links
2008-05-16 16:07:00 Links I found interesting this week. Understanding IIS7 Request Restrictions on Windows Vista - Just how many concurrent requests does IIS7 allow? Wicked Code: Silverlight Page Turning Made Simple - Great introduction to the world of Silverlight. Cool page turning demo. Bright Focus - Firefox add on that highlights buttons, links and textboxes similar to what Safari does. 11 More Visual Studio Shortcuts You Should Know - I particularly like the CTRL + "K" + "M" tip. Solar House - Great looking sun space that can reduce utility bills significantly. Addictomatic: Inhale the Web - Search with an emphasis on blogs and news sources. When Is - Dates of Religious and Civil Holidays Around the World. Copy Link Text (CoLT) - tiny extension for Firefox which makes it easier than ever to copy a hyperlink?s associated text Terrafugia, Inc. - The Transition® is a roadable Light-Sport Aircraft that will be able to land at the airport, fold up its wings, and drive on the road. Cool videos... More About: Links , Friday
Links 2008-05-09
2008-05-09 15:11:00 I'm moving like cold molasses this morning with this head cold. Still, the blog must go on. Here's some stuff I found interesting this week when I didn't have a head cold. Programmers Don't Read Books -- But You Should - Jeff Atwood's, "Coding Horror" is always a great read. I've read most of the books he recommends here. Better Pull Quotes: Don?t Repeat Markup - CSS Tricks contains some very useful code, like this gem. A Great Visual Studio Add-on You Must Have - I've used power commands for a while now. Seamless and useful. K-Meleon: It's like Firefox, without the bloat - It's a little to light for my tastes but who knows, maybe you'll like it. Five command line tools to detect Windows hacks - Command line tools for the discriminating administrator. LyX ? The Document Processor - I still have my circa 1984 TeX reference. Still the best way to do book publishing. LyX is a combination of tools that makes TeX and LaTex a bit more word processor like. Fax Documents Ov... More About: Links , 2008
DRM Free Music at Amazon
2008-05-08 15:25:00 Jeff Atwood, the author of the fabulous Coding Horror blog, has a great write up about buying DRM (Digital Rights Management) free software from Amazon .com. I never bought music from ITunes simply because of the DRM issues. However, like Jeff, I vote with my wallet and buy music from Amazon.com precisely because it is DRM free. What cracked me up the most however was some of the comments he makes along the way. You'll get no argument from me that the RIAA and the major record labels are as close as you can get to pure evil while not actively killing small children, puppies, and kittens. Well, not in public, anyway. I'm sure they'd be charging us a trillion dollars per song -- no, per byte of the song -- if they could get away with it. I like good writing and I like it even better when the author has the confidence to poke fun at issues without being tasteless. Something I'm going to strive for. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Music , Life , Free Music , Free
Programming WCF Services
2008-05-08 13:33:00 My two favorite .Net programming books just happen to be by the same author - Juval Lowy. The first book, "Programming .NET Components", is a well worn companion that often is not on my desk because I loan it out so often. And now, "Programming WCF Services " occupies the #2 slot of .Net book favorites. Lowy's writing style is terse, concise and yet somehow compelling. I find myself often rereading chapters after working through some programming issue related to the subject matter. It's always interesting to me how I can reread a chapter a few weeks or months later and find fresh insights. There's a certain layering of knowledge that reveals itself in subsequent readings that's hard to explain. Lowy's treatment of the subject matter is encyclopedic with numerous examples and countless insights. Lowy does an excellent job of describing the motivation behind each and every example giving the reader ample information to understand exactly what problem is being solved. There's a ...
C#'s Unsung Hero
2008-05-07 15:56:00 I was updating some legacy Windows C++ code last night and the pain of using it hit me like a ton of bricks. In particular, the string handling was a nightmare. Here are all the ways I found strings used in this program: CString Bse_String (private class) OLESTR LPCTSTR LPSTR wchar_t (include const and pointer variants) TCHAR (include const and pointer variants) char (include const and pointer variants) STL string BSTR _bstr_t CSimpleStringT What a mess. And worse still, this only address the width of the characters, not the encoding. Now admittedly, some of macro types overlap but still if you haven't used this stuff in a while, it is hard to remember what maps to what. And then there are all the _t variants for the library methods. For instance, _tstrcpy replaces strcpy. Finally, there are macros to help with conversions like W2A, T2W, CA2T, etc. C# String handling is light and breezy by comparison. There's one class and it pretty much de... More About: Programming , Hero
Links - 2008-05-04
2008-05-04 14:19:00 Seems like there is a lot more to read as of late on the Web. Either that or I'm just bored. StuffSafe - Online home inventory. I made the mistake of using Microsoft Money's home inventory years ago. Don't do the same. Tip: Silence Window's Command Line Error Beep - This is one of those priceless little tips I should of thought of. XS EULA Generator - Need a quick end user license agreement (EULA)? This is the way to go. Google Recipe Search - In beta. Very cool. The Vulcan Project - Maps of pollution hotspots by NASA. Very interesting... ThreeSharp Library for Amazon S3 - Open source project in C# for interacting with Amazon's very cool S3 storage service. NeoLoad - Performance testing for Web applications. Looks interesting. Ajaxload - Ajax loading gif generator. There are a lot of these on the net. This allows better color control. Fold Laundry Faster - Stupid pet trick for folding shirts. Guess I'm a sucker for short cuts. Students can Get Free Microsoft Software... More About: Programming , Life , Freebies , Links , 2008
Using Attributes to Exclude Code from Coverage in TestDriven.Net
2008-05-02 02:58:00 There are times when you don't want your coverage level penalized for code not covered. Often this occurs with code that is produced from a code generator. Since TestDriven.Net invokes NCover with the //ea Coverage ExcludeAttribute switch, it's relatively easy remove code from the coverage statistics. First, define the CoverageExclude attribute. Make sure to declare it outside of any namespace scope (I made this mistake and struggled for 10 minutes to figure out why it didn't work). It's best to define the attribute in your non-test code to reduce couplings between assemblies. The attribute requires no methods beyond the default constructor. public class CoverageExcludeAttribute : System.Attribute { } Then decorate the modules, classes, methods and propertes you want to exclude. [CoverageExclude] public class SomeClass { } The next time you run TestDriven.Net and select coverage, the decorated code will be excluded from coverage. You can capture more information abo... More About: Programming , Code
Commonly Botched Interview Questions
2008-04-30 16:50:00 Lately, I've had to do a some interviewing for new positions that have opened up here. My interview style is to not ask too many questions and to try and get the candidate to talk about themselves. Still, there a few technical questions I ask just to make sure the basics are understood. It's surprising how candidates with many years of experience can't answer the following: Define Inheritance - I think most candidates have a notion of what this is but manage to stumble around for 5 minutes or more answering it. What's strange is that it can be described pretty much in one sentence. Answer: Defining new classes from existing classes.Define Polymorphism - I would love it if a candidate asked "Ad-hoc or Parametric?" But they never do. Again, I usually get a 5 minute answer that sort of approximates what I'm looking for. Often they define by example using the classic "Shape, Square, Triangle" example. Answer: Allows values of different data types to b... More About: Programming , Questions , Interview
C# 2.0 ?? Operator
2008-04-29 14:52:00 I'm surprised how many of my colleagues don't know about this little operator. Termed the null coalescing operator, it returns the left hand operand if not null, else the right hand operand. It makes for handy shortcuts in code and I think actually improves the readability when used judiciously. Here's an example: Console.WriteLine(name ?? "Unspecified"); Seems self-explanatory and it's fewer keystrokes to boot. It's also nice for lazy evaluation type statements: public User TheUser { get { return theUser ?? (theUser = new User()); } } Phil Haack postulates that this operator is thread safe based on an examination of IL. Don't know if that is true since I'm no IL expert either but since the left hand side is evaluated only once, there's a strong indication that it is. There's also a good article about the null coalescing operator at the Code Project. Finally, you can use ?? with value types in limited situations as described here. powered by Bloget&tra... More About: Programming , Operator
Software Architecture - why does it sometimes fall short?
2008-04-28 17:17:00 I'm asking the question because more and more my responsibilities are shifting into the area of architecture. As a developer, I've always eyed architects with a bit of suspicion. After all, they don't program so how much do they really know? And do they really have to live the consequences of their designs the way developers do? I sometimes wonder. Still, there is a need for an over-arching view of the subsystems and how they work. I guess what bugs me about architecture is that it's often done up front and then left to rot as the project develops. And why is this? I think it comes down to enforcement. Unlike code where you can apply static analysis, write unit tests and do code reviews to verify results, architecture tends be a bit more slippery. How often do you hear in a code review that such and such an implementation violates the architecture? In my experience, not often. A colleague of mine wrote an interesting paper about this and brilliantly summed up the problem (at... More About: Software , Programming , Architecture , Short , Fall
Home Theater PC Recommendations
2008-04-27 15:58:00 Jeff Attwood recently blogged about how inexpensive it was for him to build a new Home Theater PC (HTPC) based on Vista's Windows Media Center. As readers of this blog well know, I'm a Vista fan and regularly use the Windows Media Center on my laptop. I have to agree with Jeff that WMC is one of best apps Microsoft has ever produced. So now I'm thinking of putting together my own HTPC system. I'm not into hardware hacking like Jeff but I have put a few computers together over the years. I don't find it a particularly interesting topic. I suppose I'm a bit more pedestrian when it comes to gadgets. Software, that's a different story, but hardware I'm pretty much plug and play when I can get away with it. My current setup is a Sony Trinitron 32 incher (the Sony tube is darn nice). DirectTivo (I was one of the first 400 purchasers way back when) and a high-end 5-1 surround system. I'm definitely covered for sound. Video is an obvious upgrade. The only thing holding me back... More About: Technology , Home Theater
How to keep bees, birds and varmints out of play structures
2008-04-23 17:26:00 This is one of those Life hacker type of tips my wife discovered a few years ago. Problem, we have a play house I built for our kids a few years back that attracts bees, nesting birds and other pests. We would have to clean out the structure every few days to keep the pests from taking over. The solution to problem was stunningly simple. Spray the interior of the structure with OdoBan. OdoBan is a sanitizer designed to eliminate odors. It has a eucalyptus scent. Mix some up in a spray bottle, lightly spray the interior services and no more pests. It's like magic. And the kids are no longer afraid to enter the play structure for fear of bees. I suspect this would work with other cleaners like Pinesol but OdoBan is the only one we've used. You can get OdoBan at Sam's Club. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Play , Birds , Bees , Structures
Links 2008-04-22
2008-04-22 15:52:00 WIX - Design flash web sites with drag and drop ease. A little too cute for my tastes but some of the templates do look cool. Currently in beta by invite only. Applied and was accepted in about two days. Open ID - OpenID is a free and easy way to use a single digital identity across the Internet. You can host it yourself or use a provider. I used Verisign's PIP service because I'm thinking Verisign will be around for a while. twitterfeed - Update twitter with entries from your blog. Requires an Open ID to login. Redmond Path - Joy, joy, joy! Makes editing your system and user paths a breeze. Free, stand alone program. Highly recommended. Jing Project - The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video?from your computer to anywhere. Produced by TechSmith (Camtasia, SnagIt, etc.), it's a slick well packaged program that makes screen recording effortless. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Links , 2008
Stopwatch Gadget Updated
2008-04-19 13:13:00 The Vista Stopwatch gadget I wrote about earlier has been updated with a new color scheme that is higher contrast. It's also vertically smaller to take up less space. Same easy functionality, just prettier. You can get it from the downloads page. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Programming , Gadgets , Gadget
Use Solution Folders
2008-04-18 15:06:00 In reading Scott Hanselman's blog this morning, I ran across an interesting tid bit. ASIDE: Not enough people use "Solution Folders " in Visual Studio. Seriously, folks, just right-click and "Add | New Solution Folder," start dragging things around and bask in the tidiness He's referring to how "tidy" the xUnit.NET code he's reviewing here. It's a great point however. I'm currently working on a project that has 71 project files in it. Way too many in mind opinion. And the reason I suspect is that most developers don't know (or don't care) that they can organize their solutions and projects into folders. Projects often get used organize code but it's an expensive proposition. It takes much longer to load solutions with lots of projects. Take the same number of files and put them in one project and Visual Studio loads the solution much faster. Multiple projects means multiple project settings. If you have ever maintained a large solution you know what I mean. It's easi... More About: Programming
Amazon Adds Service Health Dashboard
More articles from this author:2008-04-17 17:18:00 I use Amazon 's S3 service to serve images for this Web site. It's a great service, especially for high volume site (don't I wish) because it scales automatically. It's also a pay as you go service meaning you only pay for what you use. Amazon now has a Dashboard that shows the current and historical status of these services. Rumor has it that Amazon will make more money selling these services than from their mainline merchandise business within a couple years. powered by Bloget™ - "One File, One Binary, One Blog" More About: Health , Technology , Service 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
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