.NET Development

.NET Cheat Sheets

Jason Row — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:25:38 GMT

John Sheehan has a few .NET Cheat sheets listed on his site along with links to a number of other ones. Worth a look see.

What I'm doing to become a better developer ....

Jason Row — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:49:50 GMT

It's been a while since Justice tagged me in his How I am becoming a better developer, part 1 of infinity post. I've gone through some personal issues lately but now I feel ready to publicly post what I'm doing to make myself a better developer. Now I'm not as ambitious as Justice or D'Arcy but I feel that I can achieve these goals in the next 6 months.

Certifications
    - pass the 3 exams to get my MCPD: Windows Developer certification. I know I could just pass the
    upgrade exam but I really want to feel like I know the material inside and out.

Education
    - Start working towards completing the Certificate in Software Development @ UNB. Only have 3 courses
    remaining and I should be able to transfer these over to a degree program at Athabasca University.

Books
    - Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET by Jimmy Nilsson.

User Groups
    - make two presentations to the Fredericton .NET user group before Xmas.

Projects
    - Develop a portfolio of applications. Nothing fancy, just start building stuff!

So that's the plan. time to make some schedules and focus on getting things done.

And I'm not going to tag anyone. I'm simply going to ask those who do read my blog what are you doing to make yourself a better developer?

Pitter-patter, let's get at 'er!

Is Justice the next Rory of the .NET blogsphere?

Jason Row — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:57:00 GMT

[reposted]

I've only been reading Justice's blog for a few months now and I find both Grey's Matter and Rory's Neopoleon very entertaining. The topics are not always .NET related but the majority are funny.

Just check out some of these for hilarity and learning:

So how do we tell if the up and comer is worthy of toppling the champ. Let's do a rough comparison of the two blogs shall we based on some broad categories.

Category	Justice	Rory	Winner
Hilarity	X	X	This one is a tie, humor abounds in both blogs so it's hard to give one the edge over the other.
Use of Graphics	X		Justice - although Rory is famous for his stick figure drawings I'll have to hand this one to Justice with his ability to use Paint.NET to muck with many 80s/90s references that I fondly remember.
Writing Style		X	Rory - Rory makes posting into an art and his postings read like a novel/short story/novella. I have to dedicate time to read his postings which is why I'll be joining the ranks of "The Whiners" in listening to his new fangled podcast.
Content	X	X	Another tie. I think that Justice might edge out Rory in this one. Justice has an ability to explain things so his grandmother can understand. Rory's blog is has some very personal postings but you can't deny that Rory does know what he's talking about in regards to software development. I'm leaving this category as a tie.

Now since the entire comparison is all tied up we'll have to go for a tie-breaker.

Category	Justice	Rory	Winner
Links to my blog	X		Justice wins this one. Apparently Rory doesn't consider me link worthy but then again I've never asked. For taking the inititive and adding me to his blog Justice proves that he's the poised to reign supreme in the .NET blogging world

Should retail web sites be as accessible as their actual stores?

Jason Row — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:54:00 GMT

[reposted]

Retailer giant Target is facing a class-action lawsuit regarding the inaccessibility of their web site for users with disabilities. Just recently the judge refused to drop the case and stated that the their web site must be as accessible as their retail stores. The outcome of this case should be interesting to watch.

The company I work for has to ensure that all our products are 508 compliant so we have a fair number of discussions over web accessibility. Visual Studio does lend a hand (see ASP.NET Accessibility (Visual Studio) ) in permitting you to design accessible sites and it even has an Accessibility Validation tool that can be used. Sounds like a great feature.

Does anyone know if VS is ahead of the game in designing accessible sites?

More info about the case at The Daily Californian

[ via DownloadSquad ]

MSDN Canada: Security on the Brain Series

Jason Row — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:52:00 GMT

[reposted]

MSDN Canada is starting up the Security on the Brain series of webasts starting with a Virtual Conference on September 27th , titled "Writing Securer Code". They then follow up with monthly webcasts and another Virtual Conference in May. Looks like lot of info coming up for the next 8 months. Now to find 4.5 hours on a Wednesday to sit in on the conference.

Free icons for use in your apps

Jason Row — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:33:00 GMT

[reposted]

D'Arcy posted about free old school gaming icons from the Icon factory for your desktop. I'm a gaming geek from the 80's so this brought back some extra special memories.

I'm no artist so finding sources of icons is worth noting. Besides the Icon Factory the other site I've found with both free and commercial icons is GlyFx and both sites have great quality images.

[UPDATE: Via The Daily Grind #965 Mike mentioned another site, http://www.neatui.com/, where they have a free set of core toolbar icons along with commerical wizard and installer images]

How to fix Schema messages with App.Config when using remoting

Jason Row — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:25:00 GMT

[reposted]

I received some code to review the other day and was annoyed to see a number of messages stating that the schema info for various elements cannot be found.

In my seaching I came across Gavin Terrill's posting How to fix schema info messages in Visual Studio 2005 when using App.config and remoting which explains that the DotNetConfig.xsd doesn't have entries for all the elements.

I also found this file at Peter Ritchie Inc Software Consulting Co. which is a new version of the DotNetConfig.xsd that should eliminate your warnings.

Documented compiler errors for VS 2003 and 2005

Jason Row — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:48:00 GMT

[reposted]

For work I had to find a list of possible compiler errors for use in training material. It was intersting that there are so many similarities in the documentation for VB and C# 2003 however they organize compiler error differently. It's so much easier to find error codes in C# than VB.

Anyways, for anyone else that's interested in skimming through the kinds of errors that you can cause here are my notes.

Visual Studio 2003

Visual Basic.NET - start here with Compiler Messages
Another option is in Visual Studio choose Help > Index from the menubar and enter "BC" in the Look for field. Make sure the Filter By dropdown lists Visual Basic.
C# - start here Compiler Errors CS0001 Through CS9999
The other option is in Visual Studio choose Help > Index from the menubar and enter "CS" in the Look for field. Make sure the Filter By dropdown lists Visual C#

Visual Studio 2005

To find the error code that you've encountered, in Visual Studio highlight the error in the Task Window and press F1. The page that appears should contain the error code in the description.

Visual Basic - start here Compiler Messages
C# - start here C# Compiler Errors
ASP.NET - This is a little different. When you compile a web application, it will display error messages depending on the language of the code being used. So you can use the links above. However, ASP.NET also has it's own list of error messages that do not have any error codes, just text descriptions. I'm not sure where these come from so if anyone knows or has a suggestion I'd love to hear about it.

My creating VS 2003 add-ins article has been reposted

Jason Row — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 12:49:00 GMT

The new link is http://geekswithblogs.net/rowser/articles/vs2003_addins.aspx for those who are interested.

dotneturls.com - a long list of .NET related sites

Jason Row — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 18:32:00 GMT

Doug Bornyk had a post where he mentioned dotneturls.com. The list shows the "Essential Resources For Microsoft .Net Developers" that they have accumulated and it's quiet the impressive list of .NET related web sites. They've grouped the sites into .NET General, ASP.NET, Windows Forms, VB, C#, Web Services, Blogs, Community, and a few more. Nice starting point for people so I'm posting this as a personal FYI.