WEO's Blog…

Subversion works great and is easy to install on Windows using Visual SVN Server.  Rather than using text commands to checkout/commit/log/etc, TortoiseSVN  seamlessly integrates with the Windows File Explorer as a shell extension providing excellent visual tools such as a Repo-Browser, Revision Graph, and Log Statistics.

While TortoiseSVN has a visual diff tool, Beyond Compare from Scooter Software offers better visuals and more features.

To use Beyond Compare instead of TortoiseMerge, change the TortoiseSVN Diff Viewer setting to:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\Beyond Compare 3\BComp.exe” %base %mine /title1=%bname /title2=%yname /leftreadonly

And if you need to managing development teams that are using Subversion with TortoiseSVN, check out SVN-Monitor—a great way to quickly see who is doing what where (with some cool trigger/notification capabilities as well).

Using RegEdit, find the location of BlendLaunchPath.

On my Windows Server 2008 box, the REG_SZ BlendLaunchPath was under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Expression\Blend\4.0\VS]

The proper location is:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Expression\Blend\VS]

Below you can see the new VS key added with the BlendLaunchPath:

Solution originally found in Tim Heuer’s blog.

A worthy quote found while reading the book Bushido, the Soul of Japan, (from Google books):

“Chivalry is itself the poetry of life.” – Karl Wilhelm Fredrich Schegel, Philosophy of History

which doesn’t actually exist in the book (you can search for it in the link to the book above).

All software development managers should know how to code and have real world production system experience; otherwise they are managing blind.  And, it’s equally important to keep one’s programming skills current.

Managers that stop writing code will lose touch with their teams.

Thus the mnemonic A.B.C.

• Always
• Be
• Coding

which is a gentle reminder to myself.

For a like minded posting visit MagmaSystems Blog.

The idea of a complete desktop in a browser is intriguing.  Using remote desktops and virtual PCs is close.  But I like the idea of just going to a URL–the “cloud” desktop.  Something akin to GotoMyPC but without the need to actually setup the PC in the first place.

Two “web-friendly” implementations worth exploring are eyeOS and silveos.

eyeOS is amazing since it is all HTML/Javascript.  For a closer look check out http://classic.my.eyeos.org/

Silveos is written in Microsoft Silverlight (which brings the fun back to development—IMHO).  To see silveos in action visit http://silveos.com/

Other sites to check out include:

• http://www.glideos.com/
• http://icloud.com/en/
• http://startforce.com/

and for a list of more web operations system bookmarks visit http://www.xmarks.com/topic/os_online

Visual Studio will automatically format your selected code by pressing CTRL+K+F (note: hold down the control key continuously, press K then press F).

 

To format all code in your currently active file in Visual Studio, press CTRL+K+D (same note as above).

 

For a list of more pre-defined keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio 2010 visit this MSDN link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/da5kh0wa.aspx

 

And for a great macro to show all active shortcuts, check out this MSDN link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms247076(v=VS.100).aspx

 

I continue to be impressed by the depth of tools within Visual Studio.

Check out http://www.bing.com/maps/explore

While still in beta it clearly shows some of the power of Silverlight.

I am hoping that WPF/E (aka silverlight) makes it Everywhere—especially on mobile devices in the near future.

 

Nice job Microsoft.

Paint.Net is simply amazing.  When I first saw the program I knew then that the .Net framework was ready for primetime.  Paint.Net has the look and feel of a professional commercial application—something that is not easy to do and requires the right tools (which is why I had been a die-hard Delphi follower). 

For a great overview of the history of Paint.Net, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.net  and to read about the latest development efforts, check out the blog: http://blog.getpaint.net/

I was a saddened to learn that the source code was pulled, but based off of this post (http://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paintnet-v35/), it does make sense.  It is a shame when noble acts are abused by profiteers.

Again, kudos to Rick Brewster for this great MS Paint replacement.

Windows Notepad is dated (back to Windows 1.0 in 1985); and there are a number of great freeware/open source alternatives.  After reviewing several, I’ve selected Notepad++ as my new notepad of choice.

 

Notepad++ can be downloaded from http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

 

Two other very capable contenders are

• ConTEXT (my old favorite) from http://www.contexteditor.org/
• Programmer’s Notepad from http://www.pnotepad.org/

The first time I tried to setup a website with IIS I was greeted with:

403 – Forbidden: Access is denied.

You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

Not very friendly.  I immediately thought I didn’t have appropriate security permissions to the folder or file I was using.  After mucking around for a while with file/folder security I went to the web to research the problem some more.  Amazingly, I could not find an answer.

My problem was something that I couldn’t even really see—thanks to file explorer defaulting to hiding file extensions.

When I saved the file from Microsoft Expression Web 3, the file was named:  “default.html”

And amazingly “default.html” is not a Default Document type!  I renamed the file to “default.htm” (which was another multi-step process) and presto-magic I see my fancy Hello World HTML in the browser.

Perhaps someone with more PC skills can tell me how to rename a file type extension without turning off “Hide extensions for known file types.”  I couldn’t see how to do it.  And why Folder Options is no longer available from the file explorer doesn’t make sense.  I had to  go to Control Panel then Folder Options to get to the View tab.

I doubt that I am the first (or last) person that will run into this.  I hope this blog entry helps.