November 9, 2012 / No Comment

For those of us frequently presenting, we are faced with having to switch to presenter fonts by changing the font size for multiple different display items on the Environment->Fonts and Colors Options dialog or (if we are looking for an adequate but not optimal solution) simple changing the zoom level.  Of course, when we get back to our desks, we have to switch back the settings to fit with our 3 monitor 2560 × 1600 WQXGA resolution (purely hypothetical in my case).

To streamline the change the November release of the Visual Studio Productivity Power Tools 2012 (see [...]

Deleting Moldy Shelvesets

October 20, 2012 / 1 Comment

If you have had a Team Foundation Server (TFS) instance running for any significant length of time you undoubtedly have old shelvesets lying around from other developers (surely you wouldn’t have done this) that have long ago expired and although moldy, they have not disintegrated. Consider cleaning them up using the following short PowerShell script from Kelly Adams:

Get-TfsShelveset -Owner * |
?{ $_.CreationDate -lt “7/1/2012″ } |
%{ Remove-TfsShelveset -ShelveSet (“{0};{1}” -f $_.Name, $_.OwnerName) }

Note:

You need to have the Team [...]
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Removing Duplicate Entries from %PATH%

June 30, 2012 / No Comment

As developers, we frequently end up with duplicate entries in our path. From the command line you can clean up your path using pathman.exe. Here’s a PowerShell Script to find the duplicates and remove them using Pathman.exe:

$extraPath=(($path.Split(“`;”) | group | ?{$_.Count -gt 1}).Values | %{$_[0]}
pathman.exe /ru $extrapath

Disclaimer: Works for us.

IntelliTect Presents at the Seattle Code Camp 2012

June 15, 2012 / No Comment

Asynchronous Programming with C# 5.0 – Mark Michaelis
In C# 5.0 there is really only one significant syntax addition – support for asynchronous programming that is embedded into the language. In this session we go over the is and is-nots of what C# 5.0 enables in the way of parallel processing – both for the UI and for the server tier. Don’t miss this session to learn not only the fundamental syntax but also the best practices and scenarios of what the async keyword enables.

PowerShell for Developers – Mark Michaelis & Read more

GIST: Windows Server “8” Administrative Experience

April 3, 2012 / No Comment

There are several items that deserve highlighting from Erin Chapple’s post (via Jeffry Snover) titled, “Rocking the Windows Server “8” Administrative Experience”.  Here’s my gist:

Server Core is the preferred [...]
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Turning on Continuous Testing in Visual Studio 11

March 2, 2012 / No Comment

The new unit testing explorer support has a new unit test explorer has a Run dropdown for selecting which text to execute (see Figure 1).

In addition, Visual Studio 11 supports continuous testing – automatically running your tests every time you compile your code.  However, as shown in Figure 1, the option to enable continuous testing doesn’t appear from the Run dropdown (and probably shouldn’t because you are not likely to be changing the option back and forth that often).  To enable continuous testing, select the Unit Test->Unit Test Settings->Run Tests After Build menu as shown in Figure 2.

New Attributes for Trace/Logging Information in .NET 4.5

March 2, 2012 / No Comment

There is a new set of .NET attributes in .NET 4.5 to help with gathering trace information.  Before .NET 4.5, tracing the line number, member name, and source file name required using the stack trace in combination with the PDB files.  In .NET 4.5, however, there is a new mechanism for doing this using attributes on optional parameters.  Consider the code below:

Note the static public void Write(string message, [CallerLineNumber] int lineNumber = 0, [CallerMemberName] string memberName = null, [CallerFilePath] string fileName = null) method signature and how it uses the parameter attributes CallerLineNumber,CallerMemberName, and CallerFilePath from the System.Runtime.CompilerServices namespace.  By [...]

Installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview on the Windows Build Samsung Galaxy Slate

March 1, 2012 / No Comment

If you copy the Windows 8 Consumer Preview directly to a USB key and run Setup.exe you are likely to see a dialog indicating you need 20 GB of disk space and, obviously, there is no such availability on the tablet given the previous Windows 8 Developer Preview install.

Windows 8 20 GB Required

The work around it to use a command prompt boot from USB as follows:

Create a bootable USB key using the  Read more

Storyboarding in Visual Studio 11 with Lorem Ipsum Auto-expand

February 29, 2012 / 1 Comment

One of the “easter egg” (meaning not intuitively discoverable) features in the Storyboarding for Visual Studio is the fact that text boxes (of any kind – Text Areas, Text Input, Text…) you can type “=Lorem()” followed by ENTER to fill the text box with Lorem Ipsum text as shown here:

Windows 8 Consumer Preview Download Site Suggests Silverlight Download

February 29, 2012 / No Comment

In the process of downloading Windows 8 Consumer Preview from a relatively clean windows install I noticed that it suggested I download Silverlight.