Weekly Link Post 135
Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week.
Application Development/Design
- The Weekly Source Code 51 – Asynchronous Database Access and LINQ to SQL Fun
- C# Date Time Parser – Good info on parsing dates.
- The case against Rock Star developers – Great story..with a great moral…
- .NET Framework Basics – Preparation for exam 70-536 – Base practice code for those preparing the exam 70-536 or learning the .NET framework basis
- Visual Studio Tips: Split Your Windows | Use F6 to Jump Between Split Windows | Turn On Line Numbers
SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell
- Run a Stored Procedure when SQL Server starts – “Recently I needed to setup a SQL Server box so it had access to a mapped drive to support a legacy application. I created the below stored procedure, which utilises the subst command. to get this done.”
Community/Technology Events & Training
- Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
Internet, Software, Technology & Science
- One Number – Great Google Chrome extension that allows you to track 1 number for Mail, Wave, Reader and Phone…
- 6 Free Android Apps That Will Make You Drop Your iPhone – Good list of Android apps; however, still not ready to drop my iPhone.
- Snip snip here, snip snip there…. – Great review of Windows 7’s snipping tool.
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
- Choose Not to Fail – Really good article on how we must decide to stop trying and deliberately choose not to fail; simply choose to succeed.
- Good Meeting with Great Ideas – Now What? – “So how can you ensure that you follow up action points from meetings – and that other people do as well?”
- BookRenter.com – Looks like another good service for great textbook prices.
- Top 10 Tips and Tools for Commuters – Great tips. I am on the road almost 2 hours a day. Podcasts and audio books are my friends.
Blogging and Social Networking
- Dear Blog Author – Brent Ozar posts an open letter to blog owners.
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
- Dilbert comics I Found Funny: 03-04 | 03-07
- Movie Trailers: Survival Of The Dead | Date Night
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Great Link Blog Sources
- The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
- John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
- Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
- Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
- Steve Pietrek – Links
- Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
- Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
- David Vidmar – Links of the week
- Sam Gentile – New and Notable
- Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
- Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
- Jonathan Gardner – Links
- Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read
- Johnathan Giles – Java Desktop Links of the Week
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Happy Surfing.
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Weekly Link Post 134
Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week.
Application Development/Design
- The .NET Asynchronous I/O Design Pattern – "Asynchronous operations allow a program to perform time consuming tasks on a background thread while the main application continues to execute. However, managing multiple threads and cross-thread communication adds complexity to your code. Fortunately, the .NET Framework has a useful Design Pattern."
- Web Browser in C# – "A tabbed Web Browser in C# with favicons, History & Favorites, Links Bar, View Source, Search, and Print functionality."
- Senior Developer Assessment Revisited – Eric Smith continues his assessment of the characteristics of a Senior Developer.
- Java in the Eclipse IDE for Education – "…effort has been around making Eclipse just a little easier to use during those first few months of learning."
- Named and Optional Arguments – A beginner’s guide to the Named and Optional Arguments in C# 4.0
- How To Learn F# – explains some ways to learn the F# language
- Creating a simple game in clojure – "If a game consists of a thin layer of Clojure wrapped around a full-featured Java game engine, is it actually written in Clojure?"
- The Non-Programming Programmer – Good article on why "the vast majority of so-called programmers who apply for a programming job interview are unable to write the smallest of programs."
- Visual Studio Tips: Using CTRL + ALT + Dn Arrow to Open the File Menu Dropdown List | Using CTRL + ALT + B to Open the Breakpoints Window | Insert File As Text | Code Definition Window | Understanding Virtual Space
SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell
- SSIS: Make your output files dynamic part 2 – "The idea here was to make an ssis package, producing a text file output, that would cope with complete changes to the data source"
- Console input with Powershell – Nice Powershell script to build a batch-type menu.
- Are you interested in a virtual PowerShell brown-bag event? – I voted monthly…
- SELECT from a Stored Procedure – "Occasionally I find myself wanting to SELECT from a SPROC in SQL Server. Usually this is because I want to ORDER the results or filter them further with a WHERE clause"
- Free Database Sync Tools – Good list of free tools.
- Calculating number of workdays between 2 dates – Handy to know…
Community/Technology Events & Training
- Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
- Upcoming SQL Server Presentations – Brent Ozar informs of his upcoming events.
Internet, Software, Technology & Science
- Bing – It Does Way More Than You Think – Good information on Bing.
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
- Improved Productivity: A 12-Step Program – "It can be hard to prioritize, manage the workload and stay focused, but with a few simple steps and a good dose of discipline, you can be on your way to more control over your days."
- Stuck in Anger Mode? Use it to Fuel Your Drive for Change – "If we can utilize the energy of anger, riding its energy rather than it riding us, the possibilities for positive change are huge."
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
- Trace the Ecliptic Across the Sky – "The ecliptic is the path the sun, moon, and planets take across the sky as seen from Earth. It defines the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the sun."
- Dilbert comics I Found Funny: 02-22 | 02-23 | 02-26 | 02-27
- Movie Trailers: How to Train Your Dragon | A Nightmare on Elm Street | Clash of the Titans
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Great Link Blog Sources
- The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
- Rick Minerich – F# Discoveries This Week
- John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
- Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
- Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
- Steve Pietrek – Links
- Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
- Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
- David Vidmar – Links of the week
- Sam Gentile – New and Notable
- Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
- Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
- Jonathan Gardner – Links
- Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read
- Johnathan Giles – Java Desktop Links of the Week
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Happy Surfing.
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Using GetProperties() in C#
Reflection, in the simple terms, is the ability to extract information about an object during runtime. I found a great explanation of why Reflection is used in a tutorial titled Reflection in C#.
With reflection we can dynamically create an instance of a type, bind the type to an existing object, or get the type from an existing object and invoke its methods or access its fields and properties. If Attributes (C#) are used in application, then with help of reflection we can access these attributes. It can be even used to emit Intermediate Language code dynamically so that the generated code can be executed directly.
I have been doing some research and test apps using the GetProperties method. GetProperties basically returns array of PropertyInfo objects.
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Sample Program
using System; using System.Reflection; class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var person = new Person { Name = "Rhonda", FaveShow = "Fringe, Lost", FaveMovie = "Star Trek", FaveSong = "Contagious" }; var type = typeof(Person); var properties = type.GetProperties(); foreach (PropertyInfo property in properties) { Console.WriteLine("{0} : {1}", property.Name, property.GetValue(person, null)); } Console.Read(); } } public class Person { public string Name { get; set; } public string FaveShow { get; set; } public string FaveMovie { get; set; } public string FaveSong { get; set; } }
As you can see below there are several other methods available as well as GetProperties.
Output
Additional Information
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Awesome Blogs of the Month – FEB ‘10
There are tons of great blogs out there. Each month I will shine a spotlight on blogs that I access often and find useful. Hopefully, you will find something of use too.
I pick one blog from each category. The categories include Application Development, Database Development, Science/Technology, Productivity and Health.
Application Development – The Absent Minded Coder | The very informative blog of Jonathan Birkholz (JB), an application developer at EPS Software.
Database Development – Jonathan Gardner | A blog with a focus on SQL Server and related technology.
Science/Technology – Engadget | All things technology
Productivity/LifeHacks – Dumb Little Man | Shares ideas to make the everyday person more productive in life.
Health/Fitness – Yahoo Health | Good overall health information.
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Until next month…
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Weekly Link Post 133
Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week. I am going to be quite busy this weekend, so this is an early release. Have a great weekend!
Application Development/Design
- The Weekly Source Code 49 – SmallBasic is Fun, Simple, Powerful Programming for Kids and Adults
- The Weekly Source Code 50 – A little on “A generic error occurred in GDI+” and trouble generating images on with ASP.NET
- Eclipse Features to Improve Java Productivity – This article goes over some Eclipse features such as code generation and server integration.
- What’s wrong with this picture? – David Morton posts a good little puzzle.
- .NET memory management and the garbage collector – Very detailed article!
- Back to Basics: C# 4 method overloading and dynamic types – I love Hanselman’s Back to Basics posts.
- 60+ .NET libraries every developer should know about – Now that is a list of libraries….
- Optimize your Data Layer for quicker Code Development – Create re-useable code for your data layer.
- Visual Studio Tips: JavaScript Code Snippets
SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell
- A Simple Refactoring – Functions in the WHERE Clause – “Putting functions in the where clause of a SQL Statement can cause performance problems.”
Community/Technology Events & Training
- Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
Internet, Software, Technology & Science
- Search Your Evernote Notebook with Chrome – Nice!
- Panopticlick: How trackable is your browser? – “Panopticlick tests your browser to see how unique it is based on the information it will share with sites it visits.”
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
- Evernote Tips: Take a snapshot of your printers ink cartridge… | Store your home appliance model numbers in…
Blogging and Social Networking
- Make the Slimmer Facebook Lite Your Default Facebook View – Kinda nice not to have a lighter version…not as much clutter on the screen. However, not as intuitive as the full interface.
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
- APOD: Dark Shuttle Approaching – Very cool!
- Sahara – Nice wallpaper
- Our New Solar System: Fresh Views of Planets and Moons – “The powerful telescopes and spacecraft deployed to explore our solar system have paid off incredibly in recent years, uncovering all kinds of surprises about our closest neighbors.”
- Movie Trailers: The Crazies TV Spot
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Great Link Blog Sources
- The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
- John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
- Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
- Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
- Steve Pietrek – Links
- Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
- Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
- David Vidmar – Links of the week
- Sam Gentile – New and Notable
- Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
- Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
- Jonathan Gardner – Links
- Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read
- Johnathan Giles – Java Desktop Links of the Week
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Happy Surfing.
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Weekly Link Post 132
Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week. Hope everyone had a Happy Valentine’s Day!
Application Development/Design
- Visual Studio 2010: Test Driven Development – Good TDD tutorial.
- The Weekly Source Code 49 – SmallBasic is Fun, Simple, Powerful Programming for Kids and Adults
- What is a Senior Developer? – Eric Smith explains the characteristics of a Senior Developer.
- Reflection in .NET – Great tutorial on Reflection.
- Char Sequence: Data immutability in Java – “Shared mutable state is one of the murkiest areas of concurrent programming in Java.”
- Visual Studio Tips: Using the New IntelliSense: Keywords
SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell
- Querying the StackOverflow Data Dump – “Every month, StackOverflow dumps out their data to XML. You can import the data dump into SQL Server, and the whole thing is less than 10gb as of this writing.”
- A Simple Refactoring – Avoiding Table Scans – “Refactoring SQL code can be pretty easy. Just like refactoring any other programming language, sometimes you have to look around to find the culprit.”
- Top 10 Reasons Why Access Still Doesn’t Rock – I LOVE Access….NOT!
Community/Technology Events & Training
- Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
- Presentations – Thomas Larock provides the materials from his DBA Survivor presentation.
- Presentation Materials for my C# 4.0 Dynamic Presentation – Markus Egger has posted his demos from this month’s HDNUG meeting.
- Access Your Dropbox Files in Google Chrome – I’ve started using Dropbox lately and really like it. I will need to check out this extension.
- Google Wave in Action: Real-World Use Case Studies – Includes some great everyday uses of Wave.
- APOD: 2010 February 14 – Field of Rosette – The Rosette region is about 5,000 light years distant. The entire field can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn).
- Saturn’s Moon Does Harbor an Ocean, New Evidence Suggests – “Evidence from a 2008 plume fly-through by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has turned up short-lived water ions that suggest liquid water does indeed exist inside the moon.”
- Jupiter and Venus to Cross Paths Feb. 16 – “On Feb. 16 there will be a celestial “bait and switch” as Venus replaces Jupiter as the evening star.”
Blogging and Social Networking
- Twitter daily tip news – Great tip of the day twitter accounts. -Thanks @JohnDCook — http://twitter.com/JohnDCook
- Introducing Google Buzz – Buzz is the word of the week!
- Google Buzz Explained – Good in-depth article on Google Buzz.
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
- Put Things in Their Place to Get Organized – “The single-most important step you can take when organizing is ensuring you have a place to put everything.”
- Getting Ready for Job Interviews – I picked up several ideas from this article. Great read.
Health, Fitness and Recipes
- Nine Things You Can Do Every Day – Even When You Can’t Do Anything Else – I’m thinking 6, 7 and 10 apply most to me…
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
- Clash of the Titans Featurette – Meet the Characters – Can’t wait for this movie…
- Movie Trailers: The Last Airbender | Alice in Wonderland
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Great Link Blog Sources
- The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
- Jeremiah Peschka – Links for the Week
- Rick Minerich – F# Discoveries This Week
- John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
- Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
- Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
- Steve Pietrek – Links
- Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
- Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
- David Vidmar – Links of the week
- Sam Gentile – New and Notable
- Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
- Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
- Jonathan Gardner – Links
- Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read
- Johnathan Giles – Java Desktop Links of the Week
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Happy Surfing.
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HDNUG Meeting – 02/11/10 – Recap
I attended the February Houston .NET User Group meeting. There was a great turnout (80-90) considering how bad the weather was. The sponsor was New Horizons, an independent IT training company.
Announcements
Some people from TechSmith will be here for next month’s meeting
Meeting #100 is coming up quick. There will possibly be big prizes
Main Presentation
Markus Egger from EPS Software did a great presentation on C# 4.0 focusing mainly on the Dynamic aspects.
Types of .NET Lanuages
- Traditional – C#, VB.NET
- Functional – F# — Book recommendation: Expert F#
- Dynamic – IronPython, IronRuby
Dynamic (Python, Ruby, JavaScript) – Advantages
- Simple
- Implicitly typed
- No compilation
One of the main disadvantages of dynamic languages is the lack of Intellisense support.
Static (C#, VB.NET) languages – Advantages
- Performant
- Intelligent tools
- Better scaling
DLR – Dynamic Language Runtime
DynamicObject class
REST
Named and Optional Parameters
Improved COM Support
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Markus Egger’s Information
- Presentation and Demos for C# 4.0 Dynamic Programming
- Email – MEgger@eps-software.com
- Twitter – @MarkusEgger
- Blog – http://www.MarkusEgger.com/blog
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Weekly Link Post 131
Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week. Way to go Saints!
Application Development/Design
- ASP.NET: ListBox Tooltip – Great article on the Tooltip option of the ListBox control.
- Immutable Data Structures in Concurrent Java Applications – You can minimize synchronization and the headaches that go with it using immutable data structures.
- Setting up a new MacBook Pro for Development – Ben Scheirman tells us how his MBP is setup. I find it interesting to see what tools others use for development.
- My 2010 Book Wishlist – James Sugrue provides his reading list for 2010. Looks like some pretty good books.
- Book Review:Coders at work – Good review of a book I’m reading now.
- General Tips & Tricks – Great tips!
- Playing WAV Files – A commonly used standard for high quality sound reproduction is the Waveform Audio File Format, with sound data usually stored in WAV files. The .NET framework provides the SoundPlayer class to allow simple playback of such files.
- Visual Studio 2010: Test Driven Development – Good TDD tutorial.
- Tutorial Videos: A deeper look into AutoMapper: Custom Type Resolvers
- Visual Studio Tips: Guidelines, a hidden feature for the VS Editor | Setting a Breakpoint in the Call Stack Window | Create a floating DataTip | Setting a Tracepoint in source code
- Snippets: Enumerate all controls and sub-controls in a windows form | Finding a Node in an XML String | Get URL Parameters using LINQ | C# Quadratic Formula Solver
SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell
- More Free SQL Server DBA Training Videos Online – The SQLBits conference in Great Britain videotapes their sessions and makes them available for public viewing. This weekend, they announced that last fall’s sessions are online now – and it’s all free!
- SSIS: Make your output files dynamic – I wanted to build a little more flexibility into my packages. Wouldn’t it be great if we could simply modify a stored procedure to include additional columns, and these changes would be reflected in the output files, with no further work required? Here’s an outline of my first steps towards achieving this.
- SQL Server Table Variables – A table variable provides functionality similar to a standard variable and a local temporary table combined.
Community/Technology Events & Training
- Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
- Thanks iPhone Dev Camp Houston! – Ben Scheirman has posted materials from his presentation at iPhone DevCamp.
- Data Design – Buck Woody has posted the links used in his Data Design presentation.
Internet, Software and General Technology
- Search Wikipedia in Google Chrome the Easy Way – Do you need a quick and easy way to access Wikipedia while browsing throughout the day? If so then you will want to take a look at the Wiki Lookup extension for Google Chrome.
- How Android differs from Windows Mobile – Great comparison!
Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career
- Working With Recruiters – Brent Ozar has posted a good article on the subject of recruiters.
- Becoming Friends with Your Nemesis: Time – With the right approach, we can stop seeing time as our enemy and start to enjoy getting things done easily and effectively.
Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else
- Icy Saturn Moon Burps Up Heat and Ice – The icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus appears to occasionally belch up blobs of warm ice, findings that help explain the mysterious heat seen there, scientists now suggest.
- ‘Lost’ recap: What’s Your Worldview? - This was forwarded to me by a co-worker. You are advised not to read this if you have not seen the Lost season premier.
- Our best look yet at Pluto – Here’s what astronomers say about the new set of Pluto images: Hubble’s view isn’t sharp enough to see craters or mountains, if they exist on the surface, but Hubble reveals a complex-looking and variegated world with white, dark-orange, and charcoal-black terrain.
- Dilbert comics I Found Funny: 02-01
- Movie Trailers: The Last Airbender
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Great Link Blog Sources
- Brent Ozar – Weekly Links Recap
- The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
- John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
- Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
- Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
- Steve Pietrek – Links
- Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
- Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
- David Vidmar – Links of the week
- Sam Gentile – New and Notable
- Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
- Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
- Jonathan Gardner – Links
- Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read
- Johnathan Giles – Java Desktop Links of the Week
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Happy Surfing.
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Generating Getters and Setters in Eclipse
I am taking Software Development with Java this semester, so not only am I learning a new language, but a new IDE. Eclipse is one of the most popular of the Java Integrated Development Environments.
There is a nice feature in Eclipse that saves a lot typing. It is the Generate Getters and Setters… option on the Source menu.
In the lab we did in class last week there were three main variables.
In Eclipse, go to the Source menu and select Generate Getters and Setters…
In the Getters and Setters dialog, select which fields you want to create the getter/setter for. In this case, I want all three, so I click the [Select All] button and then click [ok].
Magically, all of the getters and setter code is generated for you.
This works well for straight forward variables. I’m sure it is not the best approach for more advanced situations, but it sure saves a lot of typing.![]()
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Houston C# SIG Meeting – 01/19/10 – Recap
A couple of weeks ago I attended the Houston C# SIG meeting. Ken Getz did presentations on both Silverlight and LINQ to Objects.
Silverlight
Ken defined Silverlight as a programmable browser plugin that supports animations, vector graphics and videos.
Some features include –
- Works on Mac/Linux/Windows
- Client-side technologies
- Uses XAML for declarative design
- Expression Blend – best software to use for Silverlight/XAML design
- Visual Studio 2010 includes the components needed to build Silverlight apps out of the box
The following site allows you to verify if your pc is able to run Silverlight applications http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx
Silverlight is basically an HTML page with an <object> tag.
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LINQ to Objects
There are several LINQ providers –
- Objects
- SQL
- DataSets
- XML
- Entities
Example Usage
string[] geeks = { “Sheldon”, “Leonard”, “Howard”, “Raj”};
var myQuery = from g in geeks
orderby g
select g;
Console.WriteLine(“My Favorite Geeks”);
foreach (var x in myQuery)
{
Console.WriteLine(x);
}
Ken provided a very informative presentation on LINQ to Objects and I am glad I was able to catch it.
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