Exploration of Thought

UPDATE: I added the publications I also read at the bottom. :) I've been asked what blogs I read, podcasts I listen to and screencasts I watch. So here's a comprehensive list for ya'll. :) Blogs (in no particular order) Scott Hanselman Jeff Atwood Martin Fowler Jeremy D. Miller K. Scott Allen Mads Kristensen Sahil…

During this last week I've been in the process of relocating back to the south west area of the United States. During the drive back to the south west area I noticed something I've never seen before. Wireless Internet at Rest Areas!!! Apparently this has been up and running for some time now but I was unaware…

  During the development of any new greenfield project you're going to probably need to interact with a datastore. From my experience, 8 out of 10 times this is going to be a database acting as the datastore, and in my case, it's normally SQL Server. Database Modeling When in the design phase we're modeling.…

A new version of Notepad++ came out last week. I just got around to installing it and there are a few new features such as the enhancements made to the search/replace function. You can now search/replace through many different files through an improved interface and also search recursively. There were some changes made to fix some bugs and…

Recently while poking around in Tools --> Options of Visual Studio 2005 I found a setting that allows for the creation of temporary projects. I wish I had found a long time ago, yet for some reason I breezed right over it. The Visual Studio 2005 Temporary Project The temporary project will be created in…

A while back I created a Geocode Class that retrieved its Geocode information from Google Maps and its been downloaded a ton. I've also received a few emails asking if I had a Microsoft MapPoint implementation of the Geocode address. Apparently the examples in Microsofts SDK are not as easily accessible compared to that of Googles (from what…

I recently found a couple good videos on SharePoint so I thought I'd share the links. Microsofts Visual How To's - Videos include, Custom Search Page, Content Sources, Search Scopes, Business Data Catalog, Excel Services and Much more DNR TV - Videos Include, InfoPath Forms Service, Content Types, Business Data Catalog, and more. Episode 1, Episode 2,…

Recently my company decided it was time to automate some of the plumbing work, such as the data access layer (thankfully). I checked out a few options (LLBLGen, MyGeneration, CodeSmith and SubSonic) and finally decided on CodeSmith because I had used it before and I felt it was the best fit for the company (in many…

As of a couple weeks ago, I joined the Tree Surgeon open source project. Recently, Bil Simser took over the project and opened it up on CodePlex. The development team will be adding many new features to the application to help in the setup of the development tree structure and build integration process. Keep your eyes peeled!

While listenening to a recent episode of DotNetRocks, Dan Appleman noted that he created a Google Custom Search Engine called SearchDotNet.com. This search engine searches only relevant .NET sites that Dan himself deems as "experts" in the fields. THis search engine helps with the topic of Discoverability (see the front page of SearchDotNet.com for more info…

This morning, I went to log into Codeplex and I got the dreaded YSOD

I'm constantly clicking "Repeat Test Run" or "Run Tests" inside of of the VS 2005 IDE. Yes, I'm willing to admit that I'm a firm believer in going commando when it comes to the mouse. Its just, well, too time consuming. On average, I would normally right-click "Repeat Test Run" or "Run Tests" hundreds of…