Devang Gandhi

If you use Visual Studio for programming on a daily basis, your life can get much easier if you use these Visual Studio shortcuts. Take a look. I would like to add one more:

• CTRL + “-”  This shortcut takes the cursor to its previous position

I came across a really nice article on C# constructors. The article describes very useful concepts using simple and easy to understand code samples.

I think it is not difficult to write code but to write code that is elegant and efficient is an art. Proficiency in this art is acquired only over time.

Older systems that are upgraded to Windows Vista may run slower if they have less RAM. Just today I came to know that Vista has a built in solution for that without having to buy more RAM. It is a Vista feature called “ReadyBoost”. It allows the system to use a USB flash drive as additional memory. You can check out Tom Archer’s blog for details.

I think it is a really cool feature and I am not sure how many people know it or are using it. It is a very inexpensive way of improving the performance of your system.

I was pretty annoyed with my computer which would lockdown if left idle for 10 minutes, and then ask for the password to log back in. This behavior is actually caused by the screensaver settings. Right click on the desktop, select Personalize, select Screen Saver from the next screen. In the Screen Saver Settings windows that appears deselect the checkbox that says “On Resume, Display logon Screen”. This should fix it.

I had tried to hook up two monitors to my Vista machine but it didn’t work. My computer has just one DVI port so I am using a Y DVI splitter. I tried a couple different ideas that I could find online but still no solution.

I figured the problem is with the display card since it would not even detect that there were two monitors connected to the computer and would just use the monitor connected to the primary end of the Y splitter. So I go to Control Panel -> Device Manager -> Display Adapters -> right click on my Display Adapters -> click Update Driver Software. I selected the option to let the computer “Search automatically for updated driver software“. Turns out the display adapter driver was outdated and the computer updated it. I restarted the machine and it detected both the monitors. Now I have nice dual display set up.

A nice quote that fits here: “People are always neglecting something they can do in trying to do something they can’t do.”

If you are using MSMQ for your asynchronous communication needs then the following resources will be of great help.

1. Motley Queue blog
2. John Breakwell’s blog (guy knows MSMQ like no one else)
3. Queuing in WCF
   

Something really bizarre happened just now. I was typing in the address bar of firefox 3.0 and all the letters started appearing backwards so devang appears gnaved.

After googling, I figured others have experienced this before too. So I did what they did. I disabled the addons like Google toolbar and firebug and shut down firefox. I actually had to kill the firefox process from the task manager window.

I got firefox back up, enabled my addons and everything was fine.

Microsoft PDC 2008 is here. This year, it is in Los Angeles, CA at the Los Angeles Convention Center, October 27-30. If interested, you can register for the conference here.

What exactly is the PDC?

PDC is the technical conference organized by Microsoft for developers and architects. It gives professional developers the opportunity to meet Microsofties, get the first scoop on forthcoming products and provide valuable feedback about how they feel about Microsoft’s products.

Who should attend?

If you are a developer or an architect using Microsoft technologies, this will be an event where you can find out new tools and services that can make you more efficient in your job or improve the design of your solution. If you are in a decision making position in your company on technological strategy then this event becomes all the more important to keep your self updated on the latest product offerings.

Why should I attend? 

• Keynote presentations from the likes of Ray Ozzie (Chief Software Architect), Rick Rashid (Senior VP, Microsoft Research), Bob Muglia (Senior VP, Server and Tools). Compete list of speakers.
• About a 160 technical PDC sessions on various topics.
• Hands-on labs for those who like to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty with straight-out-of-the-oven code.
• Get to know the best practices and useful tips from the insiders.
• Interact with the experts and the Microsoft staff in the lounges and get all your questions answered. Make sure to ask all your how-to questions about Vista. If you haven’t already switched to Vista, this is a good time.
• Check out the detailed agenda.

PDC highlights

• Windows 7. Check out windows 7 news.
• Cloud Computing Platform
• Oslo – Model-driven development platform
• Visual Studio 2010 and .net framework 4.0