Useful Resources For Smooth Running

Some links for good advice on building a website:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163577.aspx

Natch...

Links Roundup Roundup

They're all rounding up this year, so lets round 'em up...

• http://lifehacker.com/tag/bestof2009/
• http://gizmodo.com/5424677/the-weeks-best-iphone-apps
• http://gizmodo.com/5424825/most-popular-photography-hacks-of-2009
• http://gizmodo.com/5425146/the-real-google-phone-everything-is-different-now
• http://lifehacker.com/5425289/five-best-startup-management-tools

DataBind

With nothing of particular note to bulk up this entry, I'm hoping to later collect all my knowledge on data binding into one post...

The Links...

• http://weblogs.asp.net/rajbk/archive/2004/07/20/what-s-the-deal-with-databinder-eval-and-container-dataitem.aspx

Lifehacker Roundup

• http://gizmodo.com/5420641/can-my-ipod-make-this-airplane-explode
• http://lifehacker.com/5417966/networks-lights-turns-your-keyboard-leds-into-activity-indicators
• http://lifehacker.com/5420356/the-complete-guide-to-avoiding-online-scams-for-your-less-savvy-friends-and-relatives
• http://lifehacker.com/5420632/how-to-know-when-your-dns-servers-are-failing
• http://lifehacker.com/5416726/use-your-psp-as-a-wi+fi-scanner
• http://lifehacker.com/5420531/google-now-personalizes-logged+out-searches

And lastly, from the Network Lights site: http://www.itsamples.com/index.html - the best part? They provide source code for a lot of stuff.

Stuff it, instead of consecutive posts for this stuff, I'll just build up this week's...

• http://lifehacker.com/5422014/make-google-chrome-open-with-permanently-pinned-tabs
• http://lifehacker.com/5421670/negotiate-anything-by-keeping-three-things-in-mind
• http://lifehacker.com/5421717/whocrashed-explains-why-your-windows-pc-crashed
• http://lifehacker.com/5421752/18-extensions-worth-downloading-from-google-chromes-gallery
• http://lifehacker.com/5421651/chrome-extensions-gallery-officially-opens

And the fun continues on Thursday...

• http://gizmodo.com/5422712/iclassic-app-lets-you-revist-the-good-old-days-of-click-wheel-ipods
• http://gizmodo.com/5422667/the-first-official-poster-screenshot-and-synopsis-of-tron-legacy
• http://lifehacker.com/5422647/speed-tracer-diagnoses-where-your-web-sites-slowing-down

And the end of another week rolls around...

• http://lifehacker.com/5423260/how-do-you-explain-computer-concepts-to-non+tech-types
• http://lifehacker.com/5423235/google-quick-scroll-finds-your-search-terms-on-clicked-results
• http://lifehacker.com/5422623/the-louvre-iphone-apps-like-being-there-without-the-plane-ticket

Debugging Tools And Fun, Erm...

Some useful links if you're trying to find web dev debug tools:

• TinyGet, for automated page requests: http://code.google.com/p/toolsdotnet/wiki/TinyGet
• WFetch (like TinyGet but with a GUI): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/284285
• The IIS6 resource toolkit: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840671 (contains tinyGet & WFetch)
• A handy link on StackOverflow which should provide inspiration: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1369829/how-to-debug-an-asp-net-applicaiton-on-live-server

Of course, deploying your DLLs in debug mode can help your logging, but release mode is going to provide at least 4x performance improvements. If you attach a profiler for checking memory usage or performance, you can leave your .pdb files up to get more information as these contain the .NET symbols used for inspecting the code. Please don't leave them there, as they are a serious security consideration - in short, if a hacker were to copy your pdb files from your server they've effectively stolen everything but the source code:

• http://www.wintellect.com/CS/blogs/jrobbins/archive/2009/08/22/how-many-secrets-do-net-pdb-files-really-contain.aspx

Here's some profilers that don't involve installing Visual Studio on a live server (always a bad idea):

• DotTrace (won't memory profile .NET1.1): http://www.jetbrains.com/profiler/index.html
• Red-Gate Developer Bundle (plus separate downloads): http://www.red-gate.com/products/dotnet_tools_overview.htm
• Red-Gate's SQL bundle: http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql_bundles/SQL_Comparison_Bundle.htm
• DynaTrace (I've not checked this out yet): http://www.dynatrace.com/en/
• Ipcas SpeedTrace (or this): http://www.ipcas.com/trace-and-profile/c-sharp-and-vb.net-tracer-and-profiler/

There are, of course, sites out there for providing information about your site:

• Repeatedly tests your site: http://www.siteconfidence.co.uk/
• Multi-browser testing: http://www.browsera.com/ via: http://lifehacker.com/5414998/browsera-simultaneously-tests-your-site-in-different-browsers
• Installed on your network, provides processor information: http://www.zabbix.com/

Of course, if you're intent on debugging in Firefox (www.firefox.com, of course) you should have:

• Firebug: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
• Firebug javascript debugging: http://getfirebug.com/js.html

Some tools for developing your code (essentially, my favourites, as there are tonnes, Microsoft's list notwithstanding (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc300497.aspx)):

• Beyond Compare, the best comparison tool anywhere: http://www.scootersoftware.com/
• SVN or CVS
• ViewState decoder: http://alt.pluralsight.com/tools.aspx

And a list of developer must-have's:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/180939/net-must-have-development-tools

And finally, a handy selection from youtube:

• http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=debugging+.net&search_type=&aq=f

And once you've done all that, make sure it's performant:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998549.aspx

Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Best Of The Last Few Days

It's been a while coming, my blogging has been down, so here's some updatey wonderfulness...

• http://lifehacker.com/5415321/ten-alternatives-to-mininova
• http://gizmodo.com/5415675/gizmodos-essential-iphone-apps-november-09-edition
• http://lifehacker.com/5412886/61-free-apps-were-most-thankful-for
• http://lifehacker.com/5413889/bittorrent-tracker-mininova-goes-legal+only
• http://lifehacker.com/5414998/browsera-simultaneously-tests-your-site-in-different-browsers
• http://lifehacker.com/5414288/top-10-cross+platform-apps-that-run-on-windows-os-x-linux-and-more
• http://lifehacker.com/5413223/how-to-fix-your-relatives-terrible-computer
• http://lifehacker.com/5412754/wallpaper-roundup-abstract-ice-and-snowy-scenes/gallery/
• http://lifehacker.com/5412148/remains-of-the-day-the-declaration-of-google-wave-edition
• http://lifehacker.com/5411899/diagnose-and-protect-your-iphone-from-worms
• http://lifehacker.com/5415526/canyouseemeorg-checks-for-open-ports-behind-firewalls
• http://lifehacker.com/5415266/coffee-temporarily-assigns-primary-secondary-apps-for-files

Guaranteed Failure, We Both Win

Dealing With Exceptions

Knowledgeable blogs on the subject of debugging, crashes, exceptions and dumps - good reading:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/tess/archive/2005/11/30/498297.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/cbrumme/archive/2003/10/01/51524.aspx
• http://geekswithblogs.net/dbose/archive/2008/11/08/windbg--crash-dump-.-associated-headches---part-1.aspx

Grabbing the dump file and getting at the data from the dump:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/jfoscoding/archive/2006/11/30/grabbing-dmp-files-from-crash-dialogs.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/08/10/449865.aspx

Very useful links for debugging, including dump file cheat sheet and analysis check list:

• http://windbg.dumpanalysis.org/ (Generally a good site: http://www.dumpanalysis.org/)

Every developer's starting point when looking for debugging tools:

• http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

Page of links for Microsoft debugging tools:

• http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx

WinDbg is the top one:

• http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols/debuggers/dbg_x86_6.11.1.404.msi

At time of writing this is labelled "Install 32-bit version 6.11.1.404 [16.9 MB]"

And finally, why you should use try...catch...finally, or even try...finally:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/547791/why-use-finally-in-c

XSLT, XPath Knowledge Base

XPath explained and easy-to-use grid of descriptions...

• http://www.developer.com/xml/article.php/10929_3383961_1/NET-and-XML-XPath-Queries.htm

Applying XSLT to XML in .NET...

• http://bytes.com/topic/net/answers/178240-how-apply-xslt-xmldocument

Very useful XSLT scripts (including url encode/decode templates)...

• http://skew.org/xml/

A list of XSL elements and descriptions...

• http://saxon.sourceforge.net/saxon6.5.2/xsl-elements.html

Parameters and variables in XSLT...

• http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/02/07/trxml9.html

Writing an XSD document...

• http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-write-xsd.html

.NET 3.5 page on navigating XML in XPath...

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb675178.aspx

Using XPath and LINQ...

• http://www.ajaxtutorials.com/ajax-tutorials/using-ajax-linq-and-xml-in-c/

D. Pawson, the God of XML...

• http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect1/sect1.html

Copying all elements except one...

• http://www.stylusstudio.com/xsllist/200101/post60690.html

Passing parameters to XSLT...

• http://projects.ischool.washington.edu/tabrooks/545/ContentManagement/PassingParameters.htm

Copying text while converting escaped characters (3rd post down)...

• http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t294084-replacing-amplt-with-lt-using-xslt.html

Add CData section easily...

• http://www.bernzilla.com/2008/02/12/utilizing-cdata-section-elements-in-xsl/

Lower-case in .NET (because it doesn't support XPath 2.0)...

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/587864/xpath-and-c

Functions, including string manipulation...

• http://www.w3schools.com/Xpath/xpath_functions.asp

String.Reverse And Microsoft Interviews

A question which often comes up in interviews (and, I'm told, at Microsoft) is "write a method/function to reverse a string."

This, of course, isn't very difficult and lots of people get it wrong or give up. The following links are useful in getting the best answer, but really the best answer is how you work it out at the time. My opinion, though, is that the best answer is along the lines, "I'd look up some good examples and apply what I've learnt to the actual problem I have." This is appropriate simply because most people at work (especially when programming) are not in the firing line solving some real time James Bond type challenge and that there is usually a better solution created/invented/found by someone more intelligent/luckier somewhere in the world.

None of the points above are excuses for laziness or stupidity, however. Mostly, in my experience, points are gained by having experience and applying it well. Therefore;

• Come on, it's google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1CHMB_en-GBGB316GB316&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=string+reverse
• Because String.Reverse doesn't exist in C#: http://www.123aspx.com/ReadReviews.aspx?res=617
• A good internal for a reverse function: http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp/archive/2006/03/19/9350.aspx
• Microsoft Interviews: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_interview

It's also worth noting that:

string reversed = forwardStr.Reverse();

does not work. See link above.

[EDIT]

I'll include some extra links here, found recently while pondering the current state of affairs in the world. It's interesting to note that (it seems) a large number of interviews think that some (alleged) programmers are not, in fact, programmers...

• Why can't programmers program? http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000781.html
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1637952/should-entry-level-programmers-be-able-to-answer-fizzbuzz
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/365489/questions-every-good-net-developer-should-be-able-to-answer

Roundup: Week Ending 16/10/09

Hmmm...

• http://gizmodo.com/5379973/studio-raises-price-of-iphone-app-to-40-to-shut-whiners-up
• http://gizmodo.com/5379890/dyson-air-multiplier-review-making-a-300-fan-takes-cojones
• http://gizmodo.com/5379887/now-this-is-how-the-iphone-should-handle-multitasking
• http://lifehacker.com/5378494/five-best-windows-task-manager-alternatives
• http://lifehacker.com/5377878/datamasher-serves-up-government-data-on-a-map
• http://lifehacker.com/5378075/printliminator-quickly-easily-makes-any-page-printer-friendly
• http://gizmodo.com/5378719/yamaha-quietly-shows-off-1mm+thick-cloth-speaker
• http://lifehacker.com/5380470/onlineocr-converts-your-scanned-documents-to-editable-text
• http://gizmodo.com/5381846/androids-best-augmented-reality-app-hits-the-iphone
• http://lifehacker.com/5383186/nominate-walkable-spaces-for-the-street-view-trike
• http://lifehacker.com/5383351/flagtab-groups-your-firefox-tabs-with-colors
• http://lifehacker.com/5383526/manage-your-google-reputation
• http://lifehacker.com/5384381/app-of-the-day-rotates-highly+voted-iphone-apps
• http://gizmodo.com/5384304/theres-retail-markup-and-then-theres-canadian-windows-7
• http://gizmodo.com/5384249/nasa-moon-bombing-mission-may-have-worked-out-after-all
• http://gizmodo.com/5383799/an-asteroid-could-have-killed-us-tonight

And the not-gizmodo not-lifehacker...

• http://www.wchingya.com/2009/09/16-social-bookmarking-plugins-promote-posts.html
• http://www.howtogeek.com/

Chasing The Tail

System32 Always Opening! Argh!

I've had this infuriating event happening every time I log into Windows. The Windows\System32 directory keeps opening up in Windows Explorer, every single time, just after I log in. This didn't used to happen, is really annoying and just highlights how crappy Windows can be.

Fortunately, there's a solution - even Microsoft know about this. And it's weird. My initial google search on this brought back this handy little site:

• http://ask-leo.com/why_does_my_system32_folder_open_when_i_log_in.html

Which lead me to this Microsft knowledge base article:

• http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=170086

Which lead me to opening the registry editor (Start -> Run -> regedit), following the path down the registry folders to:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

And finally deleting the entry for "MultiScreen", which had a value of " ". Like I said; Weird.

Anyway, this seems to have solved the problem. Why there is code somewhere inside Windows which opens the System32 directory when you log in if there is an invalid registry entry is beyong me, but at least it's fixed now.

How To Capture Page Output, Caching

Found this on the net, while trying to capture the rendered output of a page...

• http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeffrey.palermo/archive/2004/11/25/33685.aspx

Only takes a little modifying to adjust to writing to disc. In .NET2.0 and above you can use the File.WriteAllText to dump out your html file and easily implement disc caching:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.file.writealltext.aspx

The Fear Of The Noob

Roundup: Gizmodo, Lifehacker For Week Ending 09/10/09

The first roundup of my favourite Gizmodo and Lifehacker posts (they may have linked off elsewhere...):

• http://lifehacker.com/5375727/remains-of-the-day-the-most-popular-hotmail-password-edition
• http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-is-browser.html
• http://lifehacker.com/5375549/arora-is-an-open+source-browser-with-out+of+the+box-ad-blocking
• http://lifehacker.com/5375469/stdu-viewer-is-an-impressive-tabbed-document-reader
• http://lifehacker.com/5375325/an-exhaustive-guide-to-saving-your-smartphones-battery
• http://lifehacker.com/5375184/use-google-voice-voicemail-without-changing-numbers
• http://gizmodo.com/5374876/windows-mobile-65-review-theres-no-excuse-for-this
• http://gizmodo.com/5375913/the-iphone-app-store-gold-rush-may-be-running-low-on-gold
• http://gizmodo.com/5375860/explore-the-new-york-city-which-couldve-been-with-the-phantom-city-iphone-app
• http://gizmodo.com/5375703/a-truck-drivers-baseball-cap-could-be-the-difference-between-life-and-death
• http://gizmodo.com/5375600/how-to-best-a-master-lock
• ...

That Will Always Be The Dream

Roundup: OCR, LifeHacker, Gizmodo And The iPhone, For The Week

This week's latest...

• http://gizmodo.com/366573/skywalker-last-supper-painting-made-with-69550-star-wars-frames
• http://gizmodo.com/5373262/transformers-3-gets-super-official-will-explode-july-2011
• http://gizmodo.com/5372760/parody-wetas-special-effects-technology-creates-green-screen-boobage
• http://gizmodo.com/5373308/the-week-in-iphone-apps-the-beautiful-game
• http://lifehacker.com/5373720/floating-monitors-and-hidden-peripherals
• http://lifehacker.com/5372743/talking-rss-reader-does-just-what-it-sounds-like
• http://lifehacker.com/5372388/never-leave-things-at-a-friends-house-again
• http://lifehacker.com/5373263/this-weeks-most-popular-posts
• http://lifehacker.com/5371489/google-wave-invites-is-a-web-site-dedicated-to-sharing-wave-invites
• http://lifehacker.com/5372894/wallpaper-roundup-retro-video-games-as-awesome-3d-pixel-art/gallery/
• http://lifehacker.com/5373075/google-removes-pirate-bays-front-page-from-search-results
• http://lifehacker.com/5373034/tweak-quick-look-to-see-what-files-are-inside-a-folder
• http://lifehacker.com/5372011/tineye-adds-reverse-image-lookup-to-firefox
• http://lifehacker.com/5372987/two+minute-video-makes-a-lot-of-sense-of-google-wave
• http://lifehacker.com/5372853/the-first-google-wave-search-you-must-know
• http://lifehacker.com/5372011/tineye-adds-reverse-image-lookup-to-firefox
• http://lifehacker.com/5371943/flickroom-enables-desktop-browsing-of-flickr

Some verrry interesting stuff last week...

• http://lifehacker.com/5370537/dropbox-comes-to-the-iphone-and-ipod-touch
• http://lifehacker.com/5370027/use-google-docs-to-convert-images-to-text
• http://gizmodo.com/5370667/200-starlings-hitting-aircraft-engine-on-take-off
• http://gizmodo.com/5370586/nasa-can-now-create-objects-using-electron-beams
• http://gizmodo.com/5370652/remainders-+-things-we-didnt-post/gallery/
• http://gizmodo.com/5370278/alk-copilot-gps-navigation-app-gets-iphone-keyboard-text+to+speech-other-improvements
• http://gizmodo.com/5370493/apple-genius-bar-iphones-30-call-drop-is-normal-in-new-york
• http://gizmodo.com/5370446/why-iphone-tv-apps-are-doomed-to-mediocrity

Useful, Popular And Commonly Required MSDN Pages

Just thought a collection of these would be good. I'll try to keep it updated...

• @OutputCache Directive