DotNetKicks.com - Stories tagged with Tips

Dial Those Keyboard Shortcuts - An Old-school Method for Productivity

Mon, 28 May 2012 13:16:26 GMT

Stop using that mouse and become a keyboard ninja in one easy step.

Configuring WebClient Timeout and ConnectionLimit

Thu, 10 May 2012 13:56:19 GMT

It is great how simple the WebClient class is to use, but unfortunately it does not natively support configuring it's timeout or connection limit. Good news, both of these issues are very easy to fix by simply extending the WebClient class.

Expression Trees + Generic Static Constructors

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:47:30 GMT

A great thing about .NET Expression Trees is you can compile them at runtime, and they'll execute as fast as any .NET code. However, while building and compiling a tree is pretty quick, it's best if you only need to do it once. Here's a way to do that with a generic class and static constructor.

Concurrency, Performance, Arrays and when Dirty Writes are OK

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:41:42 GMT

This article will show how to increase the performance of a rather simple algorithm up to 80%, by showing how we can accept a loss in absolutely accuracy, and also taking advantage of how processors work.

How to find the Top 5 largest files in Windows 7 ?

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:59:31 GMT

I learnt something with the PowerShell today when searching for a largest file on my Windows 7 PC If you are one of the users who want to find 5 largest file in Windows 7,

Backing up SVN to Amazon S3 in Five Easy Steps

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:04:45 GMT

Learn how to backup your Subversion repos to Amazon S3 using a simple batch file to automate the process on a Windows Server.

A very simple Jasmine runner for ASP.NET Applications

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:09:02 GMT

I made a very simple Jasmine test runner using ASP.NET WebPages. It automatically detects and executes your specs.

How to launch Git Extensions from Git Bash on Windows

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:39:27 GMT

Typically when I'm working on a piece of software, I leave an msysgit bash prompt open in the current project directory. What I want is to be able to launch Git Extensions just like gitk, from the git bash shell. Fortunately, this is relatively simple to accomplish...

How to help yourself when NuGet goes down

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:47:03 GMT

Today will be remembered as the day that NuGet.org went down and broke quite some builds. While many people would love to see the NuGet team wearing a pink sombrero, there is something to say about wearing it yourself if you did not manage to work around this. Let me explain.

My thoughts on conducting technical interviews.

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 03:21:00 GMT

As a software consultant, I've both gone through and conducted a fair share of technical interviews. By conducting interviews, being interviewed and watching others interview I've learnt a few things myself. Below are some tips on what works and what doesn't when interviewing software developers.

IIS 500 errors leave clues in the log

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:00:50 GMT

How IIS logs can help troubleshoot 500 internal server errors.

How to Use dhtmlxGrid with ASP.NET MVC

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:52:57 GMT

The tutorial explains how to use dhtmlxGrid, open source JavaScript grid component, with ASP.NET MVC. Implement an editable datagrid with sorting and filtering capabilities, bind the grid data to the database and update it on the server side when user makes changes in browser.

Root Solution Command Prompt Access in Visual Studio

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:59:38 GMT

Load your msysgit-integrated command prompt within your root solution directory via external tool and keystroke on demand. No more keeping the additional command prompt open for repetitive commits during development.

8 Most Popular jQuery Plugins of January 2012

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:17:56 GMT

Last month developers were busy with jQuery and it is time to go through some of the most popular jQuery plugins they created in January 2012.

Going Faster: Sexy numbers and full post-mortem

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:49:20 GMT

In a followup to my article on how not to suck at serving web content, I go over what we did to improve page performance at DotNetKicks and why it worked. Read the first post if you haven't already: http://blogs.dotnetkicks.com/dnk-jump-in/2011/12/21/going-faster-how-not-to-suck-at-serving-web-content/

Using Git with Subversion

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:57:38 GMT

Do you love Git? Are you working on a project that's using Subversion? Well, did you know that Git actually integrates quite nicely with Subversion right out of the box? I'll show you what you need to know to get started with Git and Subversion, and I'll show you the workflow I use for keeping my work in sync with everyone else on my team.

.Net's Sort Is Not Secure. Don't Use It. Here's a better one.

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:57:26 GMT

.Net's Array.Sort (up to at least version 4.0) has serious weaknesses

Crystal Reports error in .NET 4.0

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:39:52 GMT

Shows how to fix a strange error when using Crystal Reports in .NET 4.0 with an ADO.NET data source

Testing Web services or REST API Easily with Poster Add-on

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:53:01 GMT

Poster is a developer tool for interacting with web services and other web resources that lets you make HTTP requests, interact with web services and inspect the results.

11 Things every Software Developer should be doing in 2012.

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 13:45:11 GMT

2011 is winding down and 2012 is upon us. Have you set any goals for 2012 both professionally/personally? Regardless of the answer, I'm sure one or two of the items listed below can help. I usually don't blog many opinion posts, due to the fact that I like to keep my blog technical. This post is an exception. :)

Going Faster: How not to suck at serving web content

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:25:30 GMT

We've noticed some performance issues here on the DNK site. Check out our findings and read about how we're going to fix it! These are problems anyone running a website can run into, do yourself a favor and learn from our mistakes.

Manage your dependencies with Rake and Nuget

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:14:31 GMT

Josh Bush shares with us a rake script that works with Nuget 1.6 to automatically fetch and update your project dependencies without the need for checking binary files into your source repositories. It even does away with the package version folders, leaving your working directory clean of old versions that are no longer used by your project. Best of all, it allows everything new about Nuget 1.6 to be handled through 1 config file, rather than several.

Scheduling TeamCity backups in Windows

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:51:21 GMT

Jetbrains' build server software TeamCity is an awesome product to get up and running with continuous integration and deployment, however with its ease of operation it leaves a few nice to have business features aside. One of these is Scheduled backup - and if there is anything that your career has probably taught you to date, it's that when things break, having a backup is priceless.

Return Multiple Values from Methods with Tuples -- Visual Studio Magaz

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:05:40 GMT

You have a method that returns multiple values. So you have to define a class, instantiate it, set the properties to the values, and return the resulting object, right? Well, no you don't -- at least in .NET Framework 4, which gives you a simpler way: Tuples.

Beyond YSlow - Squeeeezing out website network performance

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:06:44 GMT

How much improvement can be made on an already well-optimised site, I mean one that scores very well against existing performance yardsticks? How much faster can you go without spending dollars on a CDN? Turns out there are big gains to be made very quickly - and it costs just a tiny bit of development time.