My stack overflows

Haven't posted for a while, I've been using the new stack overflow website of late.

I'm not sure its working yet. The aim of the site is to become the one source of useful answers for code and computer related questions and it is getting a huge number of questions and answers. I've steadily been answering and voting on questions to up my reputation points.

The biggest issue I have with the site is almost no questions end up as wiki style entries. There ends up a long list of answers, some better than others but a combined and detailed answer may be the most useful. I suspect the initial steam to gather reputation and badges will slow down after a while and the site might struggle to maintain the desired wikipedia like feel.

Maybe wiki answers are irrelevant for the long term survival of the site. It remains to be seen.

Check it out anyway its a new resource.

Apply Computer Settings slow

I have had a login problem for a while. Whenever I booted up and logged in I would get to the "Apply Computer settings" message and it would sit for ages.

Well I found a solution last week, refresh your DHCP lease using

ipconfig /registerdns

in a command prompt. This worked for me and now my boot up time is minutes shorter.

Transparent TrackBar Windows Forms

I discovered today that trackbars in windows forms .net don't support transparency, now why would i want transparency, so that when you put it on a tab control it looks the same as all the other controls. I could have set the tabPage UseVisualStyleBackColor to false but then i get the same old grey controls.

so I searched around today for a transparent trackbar and I found 2.

The first is just a dll from Mick Doherty, with no code, so im a little hesitant to use it in case it breaks

The second was originally on Matt Bird's web site but has now been moved to codeplex TransparentTrackBar as the original link was taken down.

Thanks to Matt Bird for allowing this code to be open sourced.

I hope people find them useful.

Microsoft Stylecop

I ran into Microsoft StyleCop the other day. While I disagree with some of its style conventions, I agree with most of them. I can forsee see the day when it will be the default for nearly all C# applications.

To this end I hope JetBrains update ReSharper to be able to auto format to the Microsoft standard. Much of it is boilerplate but it would be really good.

There is a JetBrains enhancement request for this so feel free to add your vote if you are a ReSharper user. (Search for (RSRP-71904) StyleCop / Source Analysis reformatting if the link doesn't work)

StyleCop itself will be adding the ability to auto format code to their coding conventions (http://blogs.msdn.com/sourceanalysis/) and Jason Allor responded to me via email that they will be publishing their style rules in a document soon.

Tip on adding many content files to a .net setup project

We have had this problem at work for ages now where we have added 300-400 database scripts to our .net installer project. This included tables, stored procedures, functions, indexes, triggers, the lot. It was a constant pain in the arse adding the files to the correct output directory.

When all we really wanted was a "grab all the files in these directories and copy them in the exact same layout to the install directory when the installer runs" method.

This would be a nice function to have in the native .net installer but it isn't there.

When we move to a better installer maybe they will have a function like that but if your still stuck using the native .net installer projects then we came up with a bit of an easier way to do it, its not a perfect fix but its a bit quicker.

Add all the files to an empty project as content.

This will retain the directory structure of the files as they are on your disk.

Then add this project to your Merge Module or MSI installer project. In the correct directory of the Files view window just add the content files of your newly created empty project.

It has saved me a heck of a lot of time maintaining the directory structure in the installer project. Now I just maintain the file structure on the disk and in our source control.

Now to check out installawhere.

Foxmarks the killer app for Firefox?

I've been using Foxmarks a bookmark synchronizer for FireFox for the last year or so.

Its just this little icon on the corner of Firefox

It is fantastic, it kills del.iciou.us by a mile. It so easy its just totally behind the scenes and I can organize my bookmarks using the standard bookmark manager. Check it out if you can. No crappy extra menu like delicious which, when i last used it, had no sub menus and i had to regroup/organize every single one of my existing bookmarks. No way! They lost me.

Firefox is my browser of choice because it forces Microsoft to innovate and competition is a good thing. I encourage everyone to download Firefox and use it as their primary browser with Foxmarks as their bookmark synchronization program, if for no other reason than a monopoly on the internet is not a good thing. I don't mind there being big players and small players but without a critical mass people won't write their pages to work with Firefox, so no one will use it, so there will be a real incentive for Microsoft to create proprietary standards. I'm assuming you are the technical elite or why are you reading a blog on software? Go download Firefox, so it keeps its critical mass, which will keep standards Open and maintain internet diversity.

Its Free! 10/10 Foxmarks! Get Firefox.

The Office 2007 Orb

I found this link that says a bit about the Office 2007 orb.

The old style menu system from Office 2003, Office XP, and earlier versions has been replaced with a brand new interface, which most people call the ‘Ribbon’. Why did Microsoft replace the old style menu with the new Ribbon? Because it was getting to difficult to find the right menu options because the menus were too complicated. The Ribbon is designed to make it easier to find the features that you need to use.

It still doesn't tell me why it doesn't have a word on it, and why it doesn't actually look like a button. Its like its deliberately hidden. I assume there was some logic based upon some statistics but I don't grok this one.

Anyway you can get your old toolbar back it seems.