Coding font for developers: DejaVu Sans Mono

I use DejaVu Sans Mono as my coding font. This monospace font looks really nice on a dark background. On Programming Fonts many more coding fonts and links are available.

Which is your favorite coding font?

Color Theme for VS.NET

"Dark Background Is Good For You" - this website lists more or less scientific reasons for using a light text color on a dark background. However, I changed my "visual studio coding environment text color schema" during x-mas holidays (is there anything better to do?) - just for personal satisfaction:


You can download this Visual Studio Settings here. Unzip the file and import the settings via "Tools - Import and Export Settings".

Hosts or Lmhosts file (Windows Vista)

Not able to save modified hosts or lmhosts file located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\ ?

Here is the workaround: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923947/en-us

AJAX View

John Hrvatin talked about Web Development Tools for Internet Explorer at Microsoft TechEd 2007 in Orlando. There, he introduced a tool called Ajax View, developed by Microsoft Research.

Ajax View is able to profile a site’s JavaScript. It acts as a HTTP proxy that instruments JavaScript as it’s served to the client based on a set of rules defined by plug-ins. More information and first release download here, a good introduction here.

... and ... don't bother me - I know, there is (at least) a smarter browser out there, with an immense and open ecosystem of dev-plugins... :-)

Speed Firefox up!

Make Firefox download pages faster by allowing multiple connections so it can download more than one file at a time:

1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries and set the value like this:
   
   network.http.pipelining --> true
   network.http.proxy.pipelining --> true
   network.http.pipelining.maxrequests --> 30 (This means it will make 30 requests at once)
   
   Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.
   
2. Right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

Now, Firefox will load the pages much faster.

Sample MasterPages - Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Microsoft has provided a set of MasterPages for WSS:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7c05ca44-869a-463b-84d7-57b053711a96&displaylang=en

Acropolis - next generation platform for building WPF Applications

Acropolis is a next generation platform for building the kinds of applications that you currently build with CAB (Composite UI Application Block). With Acropolis you basically define your entire application in a very rich designer environment... etcetera... Sounds great.

Here is more information, video and package download available:

http://windowsclient.net/Acropolis/Default.aspx

WCSF June 2007 released

The June 2007 release of the Web Client Software Factory is an update to the January 2007 release and contains the following changes:

• The guidance package uses the February 2007 Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the Guidance Automation Extensions and Guidance Automation Toolkit
• The software factory uses the Enterprise Library 3.1 – May 2007.
• The guidance package recipes support Web Application Projects.
• The guidance package includes recipes that create Visual Basic .NET source code.
• The Windows installer includes a feature to analyze the computer for required and optional software dependencies.
• The Windows installer includes source code snippets for typical page flow development activities.
• Fix for the Add View (with presenter) Recipe which sometimes would not load due to an exception.

The WCSF is available here: http://www.codeplex.com/websf

Additional Links:

Michael Puleio - Development Lead - http://blogs.msdn.com/mpuleio
Blaine Wastell - Program Manager - http://blogs.msdn.com/blaine

PhotoSynth from Microsoft Live Labs

PhotoSynth is a amazing technology from Microsoft Live Labs that takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

In the future we will be able to "photosynthesize" our own photos! Stay tuned via the blog @ http://labs.live.com/photosynth/blogs/

Refactor ASP.NET 2.0

Refactor! is freely available to all ASP.NET 2.0 developers and offers a comprehensive suite of tools that enable you and your team to simplify and shape complex code and HTML markup.

Refactor includes the following refactorings (and much more)

• Move Style Attributes to CSS
• Extract Style (Class)
• Add Validator
• Surround with Update Panel (ASP.NET AJAX)
• Extract ContentPlaceHolder (create master page)