Dot Net Monkey

I enjoy the occasional podcast to satisfy my nerd cravings on my cycle to work... who doesn't, right?

Sean Deasy has a blog entry on 5 podcasts that every .net developer should be listening to.  No big surprises in here, however, I'd also include the video resources from Channel9.msdn.com and the insightful dnrTV.  Mind you, it's pretty difficult riding and watching videos at the same time ;)

I strongly believe that to be a good developer you need to have a firm grasp on the various shortcuts and productivity tools within your development environment. The problem is that with so many tools and so many things to remember it becomes a problem trying to hold it all in your head.  Let's face it, there is no shame in keeping a set of cheat sheets close by to prompt you into using your tools in a more productive manner.  I'd much rather keep brain cells for more abstract and solution based things rather than shortcut keys. 

Here are a bunch of cheat sheets for the tools I use:

• Visual C# 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster: This poster contains the default keybindings for Visual C# 2005, and is available as a PDF download in either color or grayscale for you to print.
• ReSharper 2.5Default Keymap: That's right, the ReSharper 2.5 default keymap.  You can gain some really great productivity gains if you can reference these puppies!
• .NET Format String Cheat Sheet: String.Format is awesome in every way, including the bizarre number of combinations of format strings.
• John Sheehan also keeps an excellent collection of .NET Cheat Sheets on his blog.

Keep checking back as I plan to keep adding more in the future...

I'm a bit of a sucka for coding standards and style guidelines.  That's why I thought I would throw up a quick link to the Microsoft article Reviewing Managed Code. It's all pretty straight forward really, but would make an excellent checklist for an anally retentive organisation. (or maybe if you are doing something uber-important like building third-party components, aircraft avionics or rollercoaster braking systems).

I really like the installer for Visual Studio Power Tools.  Not only does it look funky but it also consumes an RSS feed to dynamically update the components that can be installed.  For an application that potentially has hundreds of components that can be installed this is a great model.

Good work boys!

Did you ever wonder why nerds aren't considered part of the cool kids club?

I think there might be some hints in this promotional video for Windows 386.  It's pretty much not worth watching before the 7 minute mark but then it flies into action when the production is taken over by crack-smoking monkeys!

BTW, Windows 386 was basically Windows 2.1.  If you are interested^* have a look at the History of Microsoft Windows over at Wikipedia.

^* Note: May I suggest you go back and have a look at the question I posed at the start of this post before proceeding

I'm quite interested in coding style and coding guidelines for developers.  Just thought I'd post a few resources for the future:

• Framework Design Guidelines - Conventions, Idions, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries: By Krzystztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams:  This is without doubt one of the finest "coding style" books I've ever read.  An absolute must!
• SSW Rules to Better...: A great resource provided by SSW on a collection of tips they have learnt over the years to do things, um, better.
• Steve Sartain's C#/VB.NET Coding Guidelines: This is a free ebook of Steve's coding style guidelines.
• Eric Lippert's Blog: Eric has a lot of good things to say about coding style:
• Good Error Messages
• Commenting Code

Scott Watermasysk has a post a thought provoking read about his top five favourite developer API's. 

From these API's I have worked with:

• RSS.NET which I used to cobble together a rss feed from our build machine.  I combined this with a X10 light configuration to provide a visible tactile build status.
• Genghis which is just awesome for adding those bits to applications that MS didn't have time for.

I'd also rate:

• Log4NET - who doesn't need logging
• FileHelpers - because reading files is what it's all about in the end

The IE team has blogged about a bunch of strap-ons for Internet Explorer to enhance it's functionality.  Go have a look at their recommendations.

Personally I've been quite enjoying my IE7 experience.  At the moment my favourite feature is Ctrl-Q to get a preview of tabbed browser pages. This along with the Inline Search plugin, the Spelling Plugin and the various developer plugins makes a pretty compelling browser experience.  Your milleage may vary.

Pater Callesen is an artist who creates beautiful works of art out of paper.  He has some really amazing examples on his website that you should check out.

I have been having intermittent problems with my Maxtor external One-Touch 250gb drive getting Delayed Write Failures and corrupting (or not saving) data.  Well after a bit of investigation I found my solution in Windows XP update (KB918005).  

Interestingly enough, the description of the fix is "address an issue where a Windows XP-based portable computer may not have as long a battery life under certain circumstances when certain USB 2.0 devices are connected.".  This resolved my issue even though I connect my drive through Firewire.

Just thought I'd share...  Also, there are some more discussions to be had on this thread citing other solutions