April 2008 Entries
Liking: Services with well documented RESTful APIs! LINQ to XML Using LINQ to XML alongside Services with well documented RESTful APIs! NZ's Prime News. Half an hour for the news is all that's needed. I really don't need a live linkup from a spot where something semi-interesting happened 10 hours earlier in order to take in the details of a 1 minute story, thanks. The thought of upgrading to a couple of these for my main rig. Mmmm. Developing @ 2560*1600....
PlayTech Windows Home Server Reviewed in New Zealand PCWorld by Tentacle Software's own Sam Wood. Helping New Zealand rank well at number 2 on the global WHS World Cup standings are a wide range of home servers from local system builders. One of these systems, the PlayTech Home Server which is a AMD Athlon X2 4600+ processor based system, is reviewed in the May issue of New Zealand ‘s PC World. The review is authored by Sam Wood, a member of the WGS community and author of the great WHS Disk Management...
In/Out by 37signals is basically Twitter for corporates. I'd use it. It's the sort of idea that makes you wonder why no one has thought of it before (although in this case, it seems that someone else did). Tags: Web 2.0
A recent Poll on the "We got Served" forums rates WHS Add-Ins - both commercial and community. Useful reading for anyone looking to extend the functionality of their Windows Home Server. Congratulations to Tentacle Software's Sam Wood, who's Add-In topped the charts for Best Community Add-In. Link: What WHS Commercial Software and Community Add-Ins Do You Rate? Tags: Windows Home Server
Just a quick call out there to see if anyone has a New Zealand specific NetSpell compatible .dic file? I've checked the NetSpell forums, and I realise I could probably use the en-AU one and be done with it, but if someone has already been through the process of obtaining an actual New Zealand one then I'd love to hear about it.
Not much, apparently. Tags: Microsoft,Windows
While the above configuration probably isn't the most common out there, google provides lists of many other people who have been experiencing rather frustrating issues where Visual Studio 2008 seems to die a horrible death - either when using find and replace functionality, or (randomly) when editing css stylesheets. The latter seems to be a problem with ReSharper users only, however the former issue affects any 64bit XP system running VS2008. It turns out that this crash is the result of a bug in the Wow64 layer of Windows x64 (XP/2003 – it has been fixed in Vista...
Every time I go to install the non-express SQL 2005 Management Studio I end up fighting with the installer for quite some time. It's pretty tedious, and there are plenty of other people out there having this problem.
Previously I've managed to get the install process to work through various means, each time forgetting to document the steps I took. Turns out it doesn't matter, as there's a much easier method: "SQL 2005 Tools Install Experience is the suck" details an obvious and simple fix:
But I did find the answer! The trick is to browse to the Tools folder...
I've recently doing a bit of testing work with TRAC. I loved it's simplicity and ease of use (despite the setup process for a Windows box requiring a bit of tinkering with components I wasn't overly familiar with). However when comparing TRAC to Team Foundation Server at work, one of the features which worked very much in favor of TFS was it's direct integration in the IDE. Well, VSTrac looks like the perfect counter to that argument. Found via the Visual Studio Gallery. Tags: Visual Studio , TRAC
I've used FCKEditor and CuteEditor - and in most cases they were more complex than what I needed at the time. Simple Editor from Yahoo looks just right for online applications which only need basic formatting (which lets face it, is most of them).
Google's suite of applications just keeps getting better - Google Calendar can now be synced with Microsoft Outlook. This is something I'd love to use - however the installer wont run on 64bit Windows XP. Please be informed that Windows XP 64-bit Edition isn’t compatible with Google Calendar Sync at this time. The team here is definitely aware of the strong desire to use this feature and we're keeping track of all reports and requests as we work to improve Google Calendar Sync. Well, add me to the list of people...
About a year back I wrote a quick post detailing a problem (and a fix) for an issue I was having with the SQL Server Web Report Viewer on Windows 2008 Server/IIS7 (the 'RSClientController is undefined' error). Most of the comments implied that the article helped people, however a few people weren't able to follow what was written. Partly because I wrote it very quickly at the time it was happening, and didn't grab a screenshot at the time. So I've just gone back and made a quick update to the article so that it now includes a bit...
"If you're using a loop, you're doing it wrong" by Chuck Jazdzewski is a quick primer to LINQ. It's a reminder that a lot of developers are going to make a conscious effort to change the way they approach problem solving when they're using LINQ. Of course any ex Notes/Domino developers with @Function programming experience will be used to stringing operators together, so they should be right at home! Tags: LINQ
If you're interested in Windows Home Server then you might be wondering whether to build your own box from recycled (or new!) hardware vs buying a proprietary WHS box. Well, this article might help sway your decision slightly: Home Server Hacks: Upgrade the Memory in your HP EX470 or EX475. The whole article can be summed up by this paragraph: Before you begin, I must warn you that this upgrade is not for the faint of heart. You are literally going to remove every component of the machine just to get to the memory. Doing so *may*...
This tip from Projectionist says " Make desktop icons as large as possible": If you configure your desktop icons to be as large as possible (128×128) you’ll be incentivized to keep desktop clutter to a minimum and only keep the most essential files around at any given time. A good tip! Although I think I'm doing pretty well as it stands with my default 32x32 icons:
A nice summary of the tech startup process. A must view for anyone wanting to knock the wind out of their sails without even casting off. (I really don't know where the sailing metaphors came from)
About me
My name is Ross Hawkins and I'm a developer, consultant, business owner and writer based in Auckland,
New Zealand (pictured below!). My current work revolves around ASP.NET, C#, jQuery, Ajax,
SQL Server, and a mix of other Microsoft development technologies.
I also have about 15 years of experience with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and associated technologies. While Notes/Domino
is no longer my primary focus I still like to dabble and keep my skills up to date.
I own and run 2 businesses - Hawkins Consulting Services,
and Ignition Development.
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Simple ASP.NET Character Counter
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Adding Tooltips to Gridview Headers
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Published on April 15, 2007
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