AppDev: Something You Should Know by Irena Kennedy
Everything that is related to application development, and other cool stuff...
SYSK 271: A Better (?) NameValueCollection Class
In spite of its generic name-value collection name, the...
Author: irenake Date: 01/22/2007
SYSK 270: How to implement C++’s typedef in C#
C++’s typedef declaration creates a new name (an alias) that, within its scope, becomes a synonym...
Author: irenake Date: 01/19/2007
SYSK 269: XBAP Introduction
We live in the world where if you don’t know the lingo, you’re not an equal member of the worldwide...
Author: irenake Date: 01/18/2007
SYSK 268: You Know Your Project Is Not Agile If…
While the Pete McBreen’s article is not funny as Jeff Foxworthy’s “You know you’re a redneck if…”...
Author: irenake Date: 01/17/2007
SYSK 267: How to bypass YourGenericClass where T : ValueType constraint restriction
Problem statement: create a general purpose status history class that is a collection of status...
Author: irenake Date: 01/16/2007
SYSK 266: SOA Versioning Best Practices and on the Importance of Using Nullable Types and IExtensibleDataObject Interface in Data Contracts
“Interfaces are immutable…” Yes, we’ve heard that for years... The reality, however, is that...
Author: irenake Date: 01/15/2007
SYSK 265: Thought Provoking Statement About Design by Douglas Martin
“Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is...
Author: irenake Date: 01/12/2007
SYSK 264: Restricting Item Types in Generic Collections
Say, you have implemented the following data class called Message in a...
Author: irenake Date: 01/11/2007
SYSK 263: .NET Stored Procs Do Not Execute in Parallel using MARS
The http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345109.aspx article has the following note in the...
Author: irenake Date: 01/10/2007
SYSK 262: Lowest common denominator? No – interfaces offer a superior solution!
The other day I saw some code from a vendor (who will remain unnamed) that prompted me to write this...
Author: irenake Date: 01/09/2007
SYSK 261: Investigating Blocked Processes in SQL Server
Imagine, you execute who_is_blocked stored procedure and get a list of the blocked resources, the...
Author: irenake Date: 01/08/2007
SYSK 260: Custom Configuration Settings Just Like Ones Used in .NET Framework Classes
.NET 2.0 settings designer that generates a strongly typed class representing the applicationSetting...
Author: irenake Date: 01/05/2007
SYSK 259: Is ‘internal’ class modifier a sufficient level of protection?
So, say you have a class that you’d like to make sure that nobody outside of your company (or your...
Author: irenake Date: 01/04/2007
SYSK 258: dr[columnIndex] or dr[“ColumnName”]? The cost of field name lookup…
Are you still debating whether the performance benefits of dr[columnIndex] outweigh the benefits of...
Author: irenake Date: 01/03/2007
SYSK 257: .NET way to analyze SQL data I/O performance
Would you like to know how many server round trips it took to retrieve your data using ADO.NET?...
Author: irenake Date: 01/02/2007
Words of Wisdom
I'm taking some time off, so there will be no SYSK posts until Jan 2nd. I want to wish all readers...
Author: irenake Date: 12/11/2006
SYSK 256: JavaScript: Embed or Separate? Pros & Cons of both scenarios.
Have you considered the pros & cons of writing your javascript code right in you aspx pages vs....
Author: irenake Date: 12/08/2006
SYSK 255: BizSharp a.k.a. Biz # a.k.a. PPS a.k.a. Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
So, what is PerformancePoint Server 2007? PPS 2007 is a new Office product that provides...
Author: irenake Date: 12/07/2006
SYSK 254: How to make your Windows XP or 2000 run a bit faster
If you’ve formatted your hard disk using NT File System (NTFS) format, there is a registry setting...
Author: irenake Date: 12/06/2006
SYSK 253: SQL: version, platform info and then some…
Say, you need to quickly find out the version of SQL server and the operating system running on a...
Author: irenake Date: 12/05/2006
SYSK 252: Running SQL statements at a desired time
Say, you need to run a certain stored proc or some T-SQL commands, but you must do it “after normal...
Author: irenake Date: 12/04/2006
SYSK 251: A Word about Forefront Client Security
In case you don’t know, Forefront Client Security is new desk top security product that uses a...
Author: irenake Date: 12/01/2006
SYSK 250: How To Start ASP.NET Development Server Without Visual Studio
Since the introduction of the file system based web projects, the developers life has been greatly...
Author: irenake Date: 11/30/2006
SYSK 249: Choosing the Right Microsoft Integration Technology
SYSK 249: Choosing the Right Microsoft Integration Technology There are a few good sources on this...
Author: irenake Date: 11/29/2006
SYSK 248: I’m an administrator!!! Why do I get User Account Controls prompts all the time in Vista?
Are you getting a bit frustrated about not being able to do certain things that administrator should...
Author: irenake Date: 11/28/2006
SYSK 247: Generate BizTalk XSD from SQL Server Generated XML
1.) Use the “FOR XML AUTO, ELEMENTS” syntax. You can use joins for any relationships. For Example:...
Author: irenake Date: 11/27/2006
SYSK 246: User-Friendly URLs
Did you know that .NET 2.0 and later versions support URL mapping? Say you have a page with several...
Author: irenake Date: 11/22/2006
SYSK 245: Are You Using the ‘media’ Attribute In Your CSS?
Did you ever copy and paste some content from a web page into a Word document, just so you can...
Author: irenake Date: 11/21/2006
SYSK 244: Writing Multi-Processor and Multi-Core Aware Applications with #pragma Directives
Imagine being able to create applications that leverage parallel processing capabilities of...
Author: irenake Date: 11/20/2006
SYSK 243: Stopwatch Undercover
The documentation about System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch class describes it as following: “[Stopwatch]...
Author: irenake Date: 11/17/2006
SYSK 242: PDC? TechEd? What about MIX?
Ok, so, probably are not going to be able to go to every professional conference… Which one should...
Author: irenake Date: 11/16/2006
SYSK 241: Generate and Download Animated Progress Indicators for Free… Nothing to install!
Here is all that it takes: Navigate to http://www.ajaxload.info/ Choose an indicator type from 27...
Author: irenake Date: 11/15/2006
SYSK 240: AJAX.NET – Resolution for Sys.ScriptLoadFailedException when Opening Login page
Are you getting Microsoft JScript runtime error: Sys.ScriptLoadFailedException: The script...
Author: irenake Date: 11/14/2006
SYSK 239: Header/ContentPlaceholder/Footer Without Hardcoding Header and Footer Height Size
A master page is normally comprised of a header, footer and a content placeholder. Keeping a header...
Author: irenake Date: 11/13/2006
SYSK 238: Vista… Six SKUs… Which One Is For Me and Which One Is For My Spouse?
Now that Windows Vista is here, it might be a good time to figure out which version is the best fit...
Author: irenake Date: 11/10/2006
SYSK 237: What is my Object’s Memory Footprint?
Few days ago I came across the following post published by Chris Brumme back in 2004 at...
Author: irenake Date: 11/09/2006
SYSK 236: Using SQL Server Notification Services API Remotely
Did you notice that all samples (at least all I’ve come across) show how to use Notification...
Author: irenake Date: 11/08/2006
SYSK 235: Display .pdf Document Search Results Programmatically
Say, you’ve got a bunch of read-only documents in .pdf format that you allow your web site users to...
Author: irenake Date: 11/07/2006
SYSK 234: WeekDiff = Number of Weeks (full + partial) Between Two Dates
If you need to find out the number of weeks in a month, or the number of weeks between two given...
Author: irenake Date: 11/06/2006
SYSK 233: How to Decrypt an ASP.NET Encrypted Data
During debugging and troubleshooting web applications, there are times when you need to decrypt a...
Author: irenake Date: 11/03/2006
SYSK 232: Why Are There Four HTTP GET Requests Retrieving an AJAX Enabled Web Page?
Last weekend, I was playing around with an AJAX.NET application, and I notices that browsing for a...
Author: irenake Date: 11/02/2006
SYSK 231: Is WinForms Dead? And What Presentation Technology (WinForms, WPF, XAML, WPF/E, AJAX ASP.NET, DirectX) Should You Use and When?
The other day I watched a webcast by Brad Abrams, Group Program Manager for .NET framework, titled...
Author: irenake Date: 11/01/2006
SYSK 230: Do You Need BizTalk To Load a CSV File?
Consider the following scenario: you get a comma separated values (CSV) file from your business...
Author: irenake Date: 10/31/2006
SYSK 229: AJAX.NET Update Panel or Web Service?
AJAX.NET has two methods for incrementally updating user interface of a web page – UpdatePanel and...
Author: irenake Date: 10/30/2006
SYSK 228: Get Table Columns or Rows with Single Key Press
Imagine this: you type in a table name in SQL Server Management Studio, press Ctrl+9 and get all...
Author: irenake Date: 10/27/2006
SYSK 227: Monthly Calendar control in ASP.NET
Did you ever need a calendar control that allows you to color-code certain days based on your...
Author: irenake Date: 10/26/2006
SYSK 226: Exception Handling in JavaScript
Have you seen a coding guidelines document that did not call for some sort of exception handling, be...
Author: irenake Date: 10/25/2006
SYSK 225: Portals, Dashboards, Scorecards…
In case of portals, the story is reasonably clear. I think most would agree that the goal of portals...
Author: irenake Date: 10/24/2006
SYSK 224: Why Join Is Better Than Sleep
All the “best practices” I’ve seen recommend avoid calling System.Thread.CurrentThread.Sleep()...
Author: irenake Date: 10/23/2006
SYSK 223: The Power of Double-Not Operator
If you need to convert a non-boolean data type to a boolean, and you’re dealing with a typeless...
Author: irenake Date: 10/20/2006