Dot Net Monkey

Michael Moncur has provided some great resources for people who insist on designing things but clearly should not -- like me.  Thanks Michael, with these links I may be able to make my creations a little less ugly.

Related Resources
Color tools for the design impaired
Web icons for the design impaired

Bob Parsons has 10 rules for survival... some good... some bad...

you decide.

These guys at GeoBytes given an IP address can give rather specific information about where a computer is actually located.  Try it, it could be useful one day

Related Resources
Geobytes IP Address Locator Tool

ConnectionStrings.com is an awesome site that deserves your attention.  If you ever needed to construct some obscure connection setting then you'll love this. Check it out

Related Resources
ConnectionStrings.com

Somebody posted an article on using Desktop.ini to make a drive look pretty in explorer.  Nice tip, all you do is create a file at the root of your drive called desktop.ini and place the following in it:

 [ExtShellFolderViews]

{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}={BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]

Attributes=1

IconArea_Image=background.gif

That got me to thinking there must be lots of cool stuff you can do with shell extensions.  Turns out, HELL YEAH!  Check out some of these links for random fun:

Customizing Folders with Desktop.ini
Extending Shortcut Menus
Customizing Icons
Customizing a Folder's Web View

BITS stands for Background Intelligent Transfer Service and is designed to perform downloads of large files in the background and to support download resuming. It's intelligent because it can suspend automatically when the network connection is needed for other (foreground) tasks and will automatically resume when the needed resources become available. And, it also can maintain file transfers through network disconnections and computer restarts.

I'm intending to do some work with BITS so I thought I would post some resources for future reference:

• Duncan Mackenzie has written an article on creating a download application that uses BITS
• Don Jones has a nice article "Get Your Bits... As Slow as You Like"  that describes how to use the BitsAdmin.exe utility to transfer files
• Philipp Richter has written a utility called WinBITS that wraps BITS with a nice little GUI
• MSDN Article Using Windows XP Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) with Visual Studio .NET which provides a reference for wrapping the BITS library
• MSDN Site for BITS - the ultimate reference

Related Resources
Background Copying - Duncan Mackenzie
WinBITS Utility
Get Your Bits... As Slow as You Like
Using Windows XP Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) with Visual Studio .NET
MSDN Site for BITS

Keith Brown has written an introductory article about Code Access Security (CAS).  This is something that all .NET developers should look at (me included).  Check it out here.

Related Resources
An Introduction to Code Access Security

Now that you have yourself a new funky wooden keyboard here is a Guide to Windows Shortcuts so you cam use it to it's fullest potential. 

Related Resources
Guide to Windows Shortcuts

Scott Hanselman has posted a great list of questions that he believes all great .NET developers ought to know.  It's a big list, it's a thorough list, it's a scary list!  It's a great list to sharpen any .NET developers skills.  Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to go through this list and make sure I know the answer to each of these questions.  Then I will be a Great .NET Developer. 

Related Resources
What a Great .NET Developer Ought to Know (More .NET Interview Questions)

Nippon Style has created the ultimate in style - The Wood Keyboard.  It's very pretty but Gizmodo says it costs $2500 which is a bit much really. 

I can highly recommend using AltaVista Translate tool to translate the website and you'll end up with awesome Engrish like this:

"High-tech" × "natural moisture" = future nature

In those which everyday are touched by the hand being the plastic make, isn't dissatisfaction felt? As for the plastic where durability is high, is easy to produce in large quantities certainly convenience. But, the keyboard and the mouse etc. as for those which the hand touches daily with is as natural as possible the material which feeling being good?