General

Little known Explorer feature in Vista

Liam Westley — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:08:40 GMT

I was chatting to someone last night about how they liked Vista as their dad hadn't rung him for months since he got a new laptop with Vista on it. I concurred that there are some good new features such as the option to multi select files without the nightmare of Shift+Click or Ctrl+Click, which is really hard for my dad to master.

However, the guy I was talking to didn't know about the option as it is off by default, so here is how to enable it. In explorer, go to Tools Options, View tab, and tick the option Use check boxes to select items;

Then when you browse a folder contents in Explorer there is a 'blank' single column where you can start selecting files with check boxes;

Job done!

Fest08 Geek Dinner

Liam Westley — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:02:03 GMT

Thanks to the NxtGenUG guys for a very enjoyable geek dinner for Fest08 last night. Shame I couldn't clear the time to attend the actual event - although I would have been nursing a wee bit of a hangover if I had.

Dead web (href) links - don't panic, try the WayBack Machine

Liam Westley — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:59:51 GMT

Just had a comment on a post where the original link was out of date (well, it was two years old). Rather than try to remember the source of the software that was named in the broken link I just went to the 'WayBack Machine' of web archives at http://www.archive.org/web/web.php. I typed in the broken link (complete with parameters), and there was the original article with the key information I required.

It doesn't always work but it's a great resource when you're running out of options.

Thanks to the guys at the Birmingham NxtGenUG last night

Liam Westley — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:41:43 GMT

Thanks to the Birmingham NxtGenUG last night who were subjected to my discussion of developing Windows Services and the arcane arts of the Event Log. It was great to have the opportunity to talk about what is a rather old fashioned topic for most developers.

I have made some minor updates to the PowerPoint and they are all located at; https://www.hosted-projects.com/trac/tigernews/freecode, just login with the user name and password sent out in David McMahon's e-mail. I'll be enhancing the wiki with more detailed content on how to use the sample code, but for now you can access the PowerPoint, and browse the source in your browser or use SubVersion/TortoiseSVN to download all the sample code from last night.

One guy (sorry, didn't remember the name) asked whether there was a good plug in for Visual Studio to handle SubVersion; it is indeed called Visual SVN, and you can get details about it at http://www.visualsvn.com/. Personally I happily use TortoiseSVN outside of Visual Studio, but I have good reports from other users and the demo that I tested replicated the ease of use you get from integrated source control.

And finally, a thanks to the guys for the speedy drop off at Birmingham New Street which made sure I got back to London on time.

Very silly bug on Microsoft forums

Liam Westley — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 01:47:24 GMT

I'm sure there is a Microsoft exam on how to handle custom errors in ASP.NET, and even how to verify query strings before processing them. It might be in their forums, http://forums.microsoft.com, but not at this URL, http://forums.microsoft.com/communities/showpost.aspx?postid=fasdjkh&siteid=gh

Yep, we have a Server Error in '/Communities' Application in full display with instructions on how to turn on custom error handling.

Obviously no web application I've every written would do something that grossly stupid as not check for bad query string data, and they all have custom error pages switched on ........ hold on, just got to pop off and inspect my SubVersion repository.

(credit to Matt Barrett for finding this first in a Google search result, rather than a hand typed designed to fail URL)

London .NET users geek dinner, CORRECTION - 17th May 2007 (previously, 24th May 2007)

Liam Westley — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:58:54 GMT

CORRECTION - now one week earlier, on 17th May (was 24th May previously).

A quick plug for the London .NET user group geek dinner on 17th May. Zi has setup a page on the .NET user group wiki here so sign up and vote for your favourite eatery.

See you there.

Technorati tags: geek dinner, community, london .Net User Group

What punishment fits the crime - SELECT with no ordering

Liam Westley — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:40:00 GMT

I'm busy maintaining a system which I didn't write, and keep hitting stored procedures which produce lists from drop down selections where it is a simple SELECT of two or three columns, with NO ORDER BY clause (or default sort in the database) to sort the list appropriately. I don't want to count the number of tickets in Trac I've dealt with on this one.

So what punishment do you think is justified for this heinous crime? Probably not the death penalty. In the UK maybe sitting through ten episodes of the sitcom 'My Family'; in the US sitting through ten minutes of a speech by John Kerry*?

* liam declines to reveal his political leanings, this is not political bias, just an indication of the level of boredom induced by Mr Kerry

New .NET developer user group for IT pros in the South West of the UK

Liam Westley — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:50:00 GMT

Top chap from blighty, Guy Smith-Ferrier, has started a free user group based in Bristol for IT professionals in the South West; The .NET Developer Network. They've got a cracking kick off session with Mr MSDN UK, Mike Taulty, delving into LINQ, the hottest feature coming with the next release of the .NET framework.

It follows a similar format to the London .NET user group which is not a bad idea at all - presentations followed by some friendly socialising over a beer or two.

Guy has his own blog http://www.guysmithferrier.com as well as producing regular pod casts at http://www.4chapsfromblighty.com.

Microsoft Technical Roadshow 2007 - London, UK - User group competition winners

Liam Westley — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:42:00 GMT

I'm currently enjoying the final break of the day at the Microsoft Technical Roadshow 2007, at London in the UK. At lunch Ian Cooper, who heads up the London .NET Users Group invited me to create a team to join in a lunchtime competition at the user group stand to win some Microsoft swag.

So the team, We Don't Want To Be Here, was born;

So our team title summed up the feelings at the start of the competition but well done to James, Helen, Andy and John who won the competition and went home with heavier bags, including a year's membership to VBUG in one case. Thanks to the guys for joining in, Ian for organising the event and Microsoft for the swag.

So the lesson is guys, if there's a competition at one of the developer events, join in and win stuff ....

Free IT and Web Accessibility Training for UK developers

Liam Westley — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:12:00 GMT

The IT volunteer organisation is holding a seminar in Reading providing free IT and Web Accessibility training. Details at http://www.it4communities.org.uk