How I learned to stop worrying...

Is it just me, seriously?

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:31:40 GMT

Got this error four times today. Count them, one - two - three - four. Thats so far. Grist to the mill of the anti-Vista crowd. BlueScreen? More like NoScreen!

Serves me right for poking fun at the java crowd.

Some nice Irish Irony

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:13:17 GMT

Did you hear the one about...?

DotNetRocks - don't walk, run!

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:39:33 GMT

If you are a software developer earning even part of your living working with Microsoft .NET, or even if you just do it for fun, and you don't listen to DotNetRocks podcasts, start running, not walking, in the direction of DotNetRocks now!

Hosts Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell deliver highly professional, humorous and educational shows.

You can download from the site or, my preferred method, subscribe in iTunes.

A perfect complement to HanselMinutes

So, go check it out.

P.S. Note to self - Check out DNRTV from the same stable when I get some time.

Update 06/11/2007

Don't subscribe in the iTunes library itself - you'll only get the last twenty episodes. Rather, grab the RSS feed from the DotNetRocks site and then subscribe using the Advanced menu option in iTunes. That way you can see all the shows.

Am I seeing things?

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Thu, 25 May 2006 20:53:28 GMT

Is everybody in the world going to be a programmer?
Visual Studio 2005 advertised on Sky News!
What in the name of blue blazes?

Handy .NET Tool EZShellExtensions.Net is available from Sky Software

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:17:50 GMT

I came accross this pretty cool tool for .NET that lets you build Shell extensions for Windows explorer amongst other things.
I found it fairly straightforward. By following the online help and looking at the samples provided I managed to knock out my own shell extension in next to no time.
It works quite nicely in Visual Studio 2003 and also supports VS 2005 / .NET 2.0.
I can feel a major new app coming on!

Check it out at http://www.ssware.com/ezshell/ezshell.htm

Bloggers: Check out http://www.ssware.com/bloggers.htm

Via Ryan Farley

Like Ryan, I didn't just post this for the free software. This actually fills a real need!

Sending emails in .NET

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:11:09 GMT

As a follow-up to my recent post which showed how to send an email in .NET, there are some circumtances where you would need to use SMTP authentication. In fact, my guess is that this is the norm. So: here’s how you would do that:

System.Web.Mail.MailMessage em = new MailMessage() ;

string UserName = “joe@joeblogs.com” ;
string Password = “******” ;
em.Body = “This is the body of the email” ;
em.Fields.Add("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate", "1"); //basic authentication
em.Fields.Add("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername", UserName); //set your username here
em.Fields.Add("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword", PassWord); //set your password here

// blogged with BlogJet

Component factory's Krypton Toolkit has been released

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 18:35:59 GMT

I'm always glad to help out a fellow traveller so here's something well worth checking out for .NET developers who want to give their apps that professional look and feel.

The Krypton Toolkit has been released.
It provides user interface controls for Windows Forms.
It is targeted at Visual Studio 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0
It is free for commercial use.

To get your copy why not check out:
http://www.componentfactory.com/downloads.php

Bloggers, pass on the word too.
http://www.componentfactory.com/blogoffer.php

I'll definitely be considering Krypton for the .NET Release of PSQ

Adwords Campaign

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 23:25:53 GMT

Finally got around to mounting an adwords campaign for PSQ. If you have a downloadable product and don't have an adwords campaign, I would encourage you to try it out. Its easy to set up, doesn't cost much and you can pack it in any time.

I've had a few hits from the ad over two days, nothing spectacular, but more than I was getting before.

I've also set up a notification so that I get an email to my gmail account if anyone comes to the site. For anyone who'd like to try it using ASP.NET just put some code like this in the Page_Load event:

// only fire if HTTP_REFERER is not null
// since null indicates a googlebot

string referer = Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_REFERER"] ;>

if ( referer != "" )
{
   System.Web.Mail.MailMessage em = new MailMessage() ;
   em.Subject = "home page hit! holy cow!" ;
   em.From = "Hits<abc@xyzwq.com>" ;
   em.To = "mygmail accoun at gmail dot com" ;
   em.Body = "Remote = " + Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_HOST"] + "\n" ;
   em.Body += "Referer = " + Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_REFERER"] ;

SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "mail dot mydomain dot com" ;
SmtpMail.Send(em);
}

VistaDB Evaluation

myemail@myemail.com (Paul Duggan) — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 22:13:50 GMT

Well, I got my free copy of VistaDB 2.1 for .NET.
So far, so good. Installs cleanly enough.
Managed to whip out a .NET test app in no time.

Will definitely be considering VistaDB for the .NET Version of PSQ

I've done some searching to try and find an independent review of VistaDB. If anybody knows of a thorough evaluation please leave a comment.