I know the answer (it's 42)
A blog on coding, .NET, .NET Compact Framework and life in general....
Filling income tax
The Indian income tax law allows certain expenditure and investments to be tax-exempt. The law also...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 02/14/2007
System.Windows.Forms.Kyes
The spelling mistake in the title is intentional :) Why? Just check out the...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 02/12/2007
The Vista busy cursor
The Vista busy cursor is very interesting. Everyone I know liked it instantly. However, it deviates...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 02/01/2007
Microsoft owns FireFox and Mozilla owns IE 7.0
https://ie7.com is owned by a Firefox fan and advertises FireFox, recently I found out...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 01/19/2007
Y2K7 Problem Silently Went by
Fortunately it hit only a very small set of people and was much less scary than the Y2K problem and...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 01/10/2007
The all new Yahoo messenger
WPF is slowly catching up and revolutionizing the way we design and create UI. Check out the new...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 01/09/2007
More peculiarites of enum
The well known (or moderately known fact): C# enums can contain any value supported by its base type...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 01/09/2007
Migrated from Windows 3.1
Otherwise why do I have the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Windows 3.1 Migration Status on my Clean...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 01/04/2007
More about new year
It's a common custom to douse lights at 12:00 as the year changes. The funny part is that in...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 01/02/2007
Happy New Year
The worst part about new years is that you need to remember to write the new year in all dates you...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/31/2006
Conditional methods and their Parameter evaluation
In .NET the System.Diagnostics.ConditionalAttribute can be used for conditional compilation. A...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/28/2006
Creating Immutable types
Someone asked on a C# DL "How do I create an immutable type" The answer was obviously by creating a...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/21/2006
Is object oriented programming good?
When we use a tool for a long time we get used to it and think in its terms rather than using it to...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/21/2006
switches and jump tables
In my last post I had discussed about how only constants can be used with C# switches. From the...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/18/2006
Why can we only use constants in a switch-case statement?
Why can we only use constants in a switch-case statement? The following code fails to compile with...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/13/2006
Test-driven development
A lot have already been said about Test Driven Development (TDD) by a lot of people, but I'd still...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/13/2006
Conditional Text
We have moved to a new Satellite TV provider some time back. It is time to pay the quarterly bill,...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/11/2006
Change the world or go home
Saw this via Steve Clayton's blog. This is going to be my new wallpaper...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/10/2006
Funny messages are not always funny
I used to work in a Company where Easter Eggs used to be considered a feature and there used to be a...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/06/2006
Binary banner
BoingBoing has a story of a store that sells t-shirts with offensive messages spelled out in binary....
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 12/04/2006
m_
We all know that Hungarian notation is bad. That has been debated a thousand times and closed upon....
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 11/28/2006
The first Zune in India
Actually that should be one of the first zunes in India, but hey what the .... Our dear AmitChat the...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 11/21/2006
Program performed illegal operation. Let's call the police
One of our Colleague's young kids were working on a computer when it popped up a message "Program...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 11/17/2006
IE 7 menu bar
I'm using IE 7 for some time and lovin it. I had believed that IE has done away with the menu....
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 11/17/2006
Scheme of things
Programming in Static OO languages for a long time numbs the brain. These languages are designed to...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 11/15/2006
Tea-shots
When I visited USA for the first time I was surprised by the size of the servings. Specially the...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 11/15/2006
Indian Rope Trick
Even though Wikipedia expresses doubts over the validity of the great Indian rope trick I saw a...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 11/14/2006
using anonymous methods for adapter code
Sometime back I had blogged about whether programmers really use anonymous methods. Recently I found...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 10/24/2006
What's your phone number
Yesterday on our post-lunch walk (we take a brisk walk around the campus after lunch when its not...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 10/13/2006
One of the most peculiar machine which I've ever seen
I went to a place of worship in Hyderabad where I saw this peculiar machine. I don't know what to...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 10/03/2006
MyType.Empty
Many times it is common to have a class that has a very common object instance that is used at a lot...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 09/28/2006
Use Team Build to make Tea
Why not? If someone can use MsBuild task to make coffee while the build is in progress, using Team...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/30/2006
FlagsAttribute could've done a bit more
Definition of FlagsAttribute on MSDN sez "Indicates that an enumeration can be treated as a bit...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/30/2006
C#: When indexers no longer remain cool
Manish was using a library for some image manipulation and hit upon a class which uses indexer....
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/28/2006
C# Anonymous methods, lambda expressions and Ruby
In my last post I had discussed about anonymous methods. I had used the following code snippet to...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/23/2006
Do programmers really use Anonymous methods
Anonymous methods provides a elegant way to inline callback functions (delegates). Anonymous methods...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/23/2006
Stylistic differences in using
There are two ways in which you can use using directive as outlined below Style 1using System;using...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/21/2006
Team Build Ticker: parting gift
I had blogged earlier about the BuildTicker tool which sits on the system tray and notifies of...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/09/2006
Ruby.NET
I had blogged earlier about Gardens Point Ruby.NET. After I read Don Box writing about it, I decided...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/07/2006
Front license plates are not required in NC and many other states in the US
While this can be very common and insignificant information for most people in US and specifically...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/04/2006
Null pointer access in C++
Language implementation quirks can lead to interesting things. Lets say I have the following C++...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 08/03/2006
Campus trivia: Microsoft Walk of Fame
I was casually strolling around the MS Redmond campus when I reached the area in between building 16...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 07/28/2006
Howto distinguish between a C and C++ program
Q: Write a piece of code that compiles as both C and C++, but from the execution you can determine...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 07/27/2006
Make all your utility methods 'Extension methods'
As I had previously said I love extension methods and have started using them at multiple places...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 07/26/2006
Calling desctructors in email
I have the habit of ending emails I send with ~Abhinaba. So my emails would go like Hi <Someone...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 07/17/2006
clip it
In PowerShell I ran (dir *.exe).Count to see the number of executables in System32 folder in a Vista...
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 07/14/2006
using UIAutomation events
In my previous post I had written about how UIAutomation (UIA) can be used to drive user interfaces....
Author: Abhinaba Basu [MSFT] Date: 07/05/2006