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?

I've done a little playing around with the Enterprise Library and it's way cool.  Thanks MS!  There are already some great resources out there, so if you haven't played around with Enterprise Library do so IMEMDIATELY!

Here are some resources for you:

• Enterprise Library Demonstration and Powerpoint Presentation - Doug Rohrer's presentation to the Cincinnati .Net users group meeting as well as some code
• Ohad Israeli and Ido Samuelson C# user group presentation - Don't freak out about the Hebrew on the first few slides, it's just there to throw you! 
• Tom Hollander bangs on about Instrumentation in Enterprise Library - Which is a good thing.

Ninemsn.com.au has just released a map service for Australia.  I've just tested it out and it's pretty cool. You can copy in a block of text and it'll just work out the details and show you a map. Beats having to type in the number, then the address, then the suburb, etc.  It also has a neat feature that allows you to copy the map to a PocketPC, which is great and might just help me with my house hunting.

Speaking of maps, here are some other cool resources:

• WhereIS - kinda slow, but it works
• Google Maps - If I was in the US I'd be using this
• Keyhole - Awesome technology, shame about the coverage

Related Resources
Ninemsn.com.au Maps & Directions
WhereIs.com.au
Google Maps
Keyhole

Microsoft have now got their own Nuggets.  MSDN Nuggets.  Full of information, packed with intellectual nutrition and only 3 grams of fat.  Check them out!

Okay, so it's really just a bunch of short 10 minute videos highlighting a particular feature and/or task.  But I like em.  In fact I've often thought about doing something like this myself.  Damn you apathy!

So I'm currently looking around for a house to call home.  The real estate market is just plain old fashioned diabolical so that's why I'm looking for new untapped real estate potential.

Maybe a floating house?

Think of all the fun I could have floating down the Yarra on one of these babies.  Playing football in the back yard could be a problem -- and as for Frizbee, forget about it!

Jake Lawlor has posted an article called Portrait Of An Agile Development Process which describes what an Agile Process should be.

According to the man:

The term agile refers to a set of patterns and practices that builds a highly collaborative partnership between the business and IT, promotes team communication and delivers functional software releases in iterative cycles. By delivering business value early and often, the process allows for a natural feedback loop to adjust and improve the software.

The difference between an agile process and other processes is that an agile process is crafted to integrate seemlessly into its environment. Rather than dictating rigid process practices that may not apply, the team selects the right process fit for the environment and makes adjustments every iteration, tuning it, to result in an increased team output and quality.

The great thing about this article is that he outlines a bunch of agile patterns and practices in nice easy to understand paragraphs.  All in all a great piece.  Now if only my companies agile process was just as ... erm... agile.

Related Resources
Portrait Of An Agile Development Process

Everyone loves a good fiddle, and if you say you don't then you are probably lying.

Okay, enough shinanigans!  Fiddler is a Microsoft PowerToy that slots itself nicely into your HTTP stream as a proxy allowing you to have a look at all that traffic going to and fro.

There is a good MSDN article about configuring and running Fiddler which is well worth a read. Also from the Fiddler site there are some pointers to some good references.  Such as:

• HTTP Response Codes - pretty handy for working out what a 404 really means
• Header Field Definitions - understand what all that crazy header stuff means
• HTTP 1.1 Specification - if you read this you are a geek! (no exceptions)

So there you go, lots of great stuff about fiddling with yourself.

Related Resources
Fiddler Powertoy
MSDN Article - Fiddler PowerToy Part 1: HTTP Debugging
HTTP Response Codes
Header Field Definitions
HTTP 1.1 Specifications

I have just been listening to Joe Stagner's Webcast on Security and quite enjoying it.  At the moment the Digital Blackbelt series of webcasts is still very much in the early days but Joe is a great presenter and the series promises much.  Couple of things to take away from the presentation are:

• Establish threats early
• Design Security into the apps (hard to retro-fit)
• Try and get security as part of the practice
• Read some good books about security

Related Resources
Microsoft Thread Modeling Tool
Microsoft Security Developer Center
Microsoft Threat Modeling Website
Digital Blackbelt Website

Gotta get me one of these... Next time some punk changes the specification -- Pow! Megazooker in the face!

Surely a competitor for the Top 100 Gadgets Of All Time.

Related Resources
Megazooker

MobilePC Magazine has an article on "Top 100 Gadgets of all Time".  I'm not sure I agree with all of it but it certainly is a bit of fun going back over gadget history.  I especially like that the number 100 item is the BeDazzler -- which my girlfriend frequently talks about.

Related Resources
MobilePC Magazine
Top 100 Gadgets of All Time

Keith Brown has written a great introductory article about Code Access Security (CAS) in .NET. His conclusion is:

Deploying code over a network is dangerous without a comprehensive security system to verify and constrain that code, and Code Access Security is Microsoft's solution to the problem. It's a flexible, if somewhat complex beast, and as a developer working on smart clients, you should learn all you can about it, as it will play a big role in your life!

I think he's right so you should go read this article now.

Related Resources
An Introduction to Code Access Security

Now and again I keep threatening to write an application that integrates tightly into Outlook.  Hence, when I came across this link to OutlookSpy I just had to post it so I don't forget about it when eventually I get off my arse and write some Outlook stuff.

What is OutlookSpy?

OutlookSpy is the ultimate Outlook developer tool. Integrated directly into Outlook, it provides fast and convenient access to all Outlook Object Model objects, lets you examine values of the properties, call functions, browse object hierarchy and monitor Outlook events. CDO is supported too!

Whilst we are talking about Outlook, here is a reference to the Outlook 2003 Integration API

Related Refrences
OutlookSpy
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Integration API Reference

The other day somebody asked me if it is possible to return a business objects from a web service.  This got me to thinking about how this could/should be done.   For the record, I thought I would find some resources about this.  Here goes:

• Ryan Farley has a good blog entry about returning objects from web services
• Scott Hanselman doesn't like datasets as return types as indicated in his blog entry "Returning DataSets from WebServices is the Spawn of Satan and Represents All That Is Truly Evil in the World"

WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows that provides a funky, zany, drug-induced map of your hard drive (and/or directories).   It's really great for the following things:

1. Working out what percentage of your drive is occupied by MP3 files
2. Deciding on the next victim in your eternal quest for more drive space
3. Visualising your hard drive as a giant uber-complex Tetris game
4. Impressing your friends.  Guaranteed if anyone sees you running this they'll come over and ask what you are doing.

It's available in a few different languages so if you want a really crazy experience turn on Polish and go on a clicking frenzy!  Just see what happens!

Microsoft has released a beta version of the Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) for Agile Software Development.  It's pretty for sure.  The whole things seems very tightly coupled to Visual Studio Team System 2005.

I think the MSF Agile will be good for more traditional Waterfall shops who want to become more agile but I suspect that Agile shops will find the whole thing a little too rigid.

Mike Gunderloy has an article over at ADTmag.com that discusses it a bit more.

Different people think of users in different ways.  I'm a programmer, so from my point of view, the user is a peripheral that types when my application issues a read request. Luke Wreblewski, on the other hand, seems to like users and even appears to want to make their lives easier by providing these wonderful tips on creating beautiful Web Forms.

For all you hard-core nerds out there who just can't leave the unmanaged world behind, check out some of these resources:

The Microsoft Win32 to Microsoft .NET Framework API Map article identifies the Microsoft .NET Framework version 1.0 or 1.1 APIs that provide similar functionality to Microsoft Win32 functions.

The PINVOKE.NET website attempts to address the difficulty of calling Win32 or other unmanaged APIs in managed code by providing all the PInvoke message signatures for you.

And here is a nice diagram that shows how PInvoke works.