DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by MrBaldman

Regex Hero can now translate a regular expression into English

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 06:40:11 GMT

Regular expressions are one of those things that many programmers dabble with enough to understand the concept, but not enough to memorize the syntax. Code completion is a big step towards making things easier. Beyond that, sometimes an explanation written out in English is just what you need.

How To: Change Instance Name Of SQL Server

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:30:52 GMT

Quick easy tip to change the server name of your SQL instance. I found this really useful for my DEV box

.NET Formatting Reference Sheet

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:30:52 GMT

Various native .NET framework types include an overloaded version of the ToString method that accepts a format string. This reference sheet provides a list of standard formats and custom format specifiers for numeric types, DateTimes, GUIDs and enums.

Book Review: Microsoft Entity Framework in Action

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:20:15 GMT

I highly recommend this book. No further knowledge about Entity Framework is required. So you don't have to know anything about EF1 in order to read and gain benefit of this book. Great effort spent on this book by the authors and the publisher. You'll get a great value with reasonable amount of money compared to the information provided in this book.

Order in Chaos: .NET Collections - Arik Poznanski's Blog

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:15:51 GMT

Order in Chaos: .NET Collections This is a review of the current available collection types in .NET Framework 4.0 Note that I don't plan to explain all the history of the different collection. If a class is obsolete, that is enough information. The intention is to use this post as a reference when you need to decide which type of collection you should use. Also, I'm not going to give the complexity of each function. You can find such information in the relevant class documentation on MSDN. Anywa...

Introduction Tips to Workflow 4.0

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:45:52 GMT

Introduction Tips and materials to Microsoft Workflow Foundation 4.0

Entity Framework CTP 4.0 - Code First Approach

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 20:20:00 GMT

It has been a month or two that Entity Framework CTP 4.0 bits have released.I had read through the feature list back then but could not manage time to take a detailed look until this weekend.I always felt that Entity Framework's approach towards handling of configuration(object relational mappings) and plain .NET objects was bit restrictive and cumbersome respectively.The mappings are needed to be stored in Entity Data Model(.edmx) files which are nothing but xml files with object to relational store mapping information.There was no proper way to express this mapping through code or attributes.But with code first approach we will able to describe our model using plain .NET objects and map it to the database objects through .NET code.In this post we will discuss the very basic steps involved in doing so.

Looking at Git and GitHub

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 15:00:52 GMT

Recently I decided to take a look at Git and start checking what are the things that makes it different from other version control systems ...

Writing AJAX web applications in Asp.Net MVC

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:45:52 GMT

Using ajax web services, call them in javascript and display the html through a template in Asp.net MVC.

Google Cannot Solve your Coding Problems

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:45:52 GMT

I imagine 80/90% of programmers, myself included, are guilty of this everday form of insanity.

Two Questions that Most ASP.NET Developers Cannot Answer

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 13:30:52 GMT

After interviewing approximently 30 applicant's for mid-level to senior level ASP.NET positions, nearly all cannot answer the following two questions: 1. Describe the following access modifiers: a. private b. protected b. internal d. public 2. What is the difference between an ASP.NET Literal control and a Label control

WPF

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:30:52 GMT

Is WPF dead? Is Silverlight dead? Will Microsoft embrace and assimilate HTML5? Rumours are all we have - but they are plausible rumours.

ASP.NET MVC Foreach Loop Sugar

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:15:06 GMT

A simple extension method that adds additional information to the standard ForEach loop.

Build Version Increment Addin for Visual Studio

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:15:01 GMT

Today I will introduce a tool for Visual Studio Build Version Increment Add-In Visual Studio I want to have automatic build version increment for my apps and libraries to avoid setting it manually again and again. After 5 minutes searching on the internetnet, I found Build Version Increment add-in for Visual Studio 2005/2008. This add-in is very simple in use but do exactly what everyone developer needs.

Handling image uploads with Asp.Net Mvc

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:30:00 GMT

A very common taks in web development is uploading images. This isn't realy a hard task in it self, but it can be pretty frustrating to write the same code over and over again even if its only a few lines.

C# Identify Crisis, You Have To Know Your Identity

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:45:00 GMT

Marking the beginning of the end of C# as language and its ongoing identity crisis.

LINQ to SQL is NOT dead!

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:00:03 GMT

Ever since Microsoft announced that the Entity Framework was their ORM of choice, people everywhere have been saying, "LINQ to SQL is dead!" A lot of people feel like they're not allowed to use LINQ to SQL anymore and that they have to use Entity Framework instead. In fact, LINQ to SQL is not only alive and well, Microsoft has even announced LINQ to SQL improvements in .NET 4.0, including finally adding using ITable<T> for tables instead of Table<T>, which makes it much easier to test. Combine that with this open source tool that will create an IDataContext interface for you and you're on your way to testable LINQ to SQL. So no, LINQ to SQL is not dead!!

Automatically minify and combine JavaScript in Visual Studio

Thu, 21 May 2009 03:06:38 GMT

As you begin developing more complex client-side functionality, managing the size and shape of your JavaScript includes becomes a key concern. It's all too easy to accidentally end up with hundreds of kilobytes of JavaScript spread across many separate HTTP requests, significantly slowing down your initial page loads. I hope you'll find that this technique is a good compromise between the tedium of using manual minification tools and the overwrought complexity of setting up some of the more "enterprisey" automation solutions.

Smooth Cascading Effect with ASP.NET Panels using jQuery

Sat, 16 May 2009 20:01:19 GMT

jQUery at its best -- Smooth cascading effect with the ASP.NET Panels and jQuery

Lazy Loading jQuery Tabs with ASP.NET

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:46:16 GMT

This article looks at efficient use of jQuery tabs when displaying data. Specifically, it covers how to lazy-load data, so that it is only accessed and displayed if the tab is clicked.

Crazy Wheels - Funny BlogEngine.NET theme

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 07:16:13 GMT

Crazy Wheels is another free BlogEngine.NET theme by jankoatwarpspeed.com. It is a simple, colorful, three column theme. Is has been published under Creative Commons License which means that you can use it for personal and commercial use as long as you keep the credits.

Optimize ASP.NET Membership Stored Procedures for greater speed and sc

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:16:02 GMT

ASP.NET Membership stored proc are not fine tuned for high load. So, under heavy load - the major tables like aspnet_Users and aspnet_Membership produces lock contention and transaction deadlocks. Learn how to solve this.

The Bare Minimum

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:16:32 GMT

When it comes to project management, I tend to favor the less-is-more approach...

Developing with Source Code Control Best Practices Part 2

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:46:02 GMT

Peter continues his series on Source Code Control best practices.

6 SEO Tips For ASP.NET URL's

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:31:55 GMT

If you are building a new ASP.NET application, SEO has become a big factor in how you plan the structure / code of the site. But quite an important part of the site which are often overlooked are the URL's, and a lot of people do the basics which I'll show below but there are a few common things people tend to miss or never thought could be a problem...