I am a big fan of Resharper, but right now I am at a client who doesn't use it. Today, I accidentally reset my toolbar, so I was going through and adding my settings (yes, I could have restored an old one..)

As I was doing it, I ran across two items I relied on Resharper to handle.

One will remove unused "using" statements, and the other will sort them in your class by namespace.

Here's what they look like:

They can be found in the Edit Menu items.

When starting a project, I always recommend inheriting objects from a base object, regardless of whether you know you'll need it or not. Usually, they will contain common functionality like error handling, debugging or other common methods which you'll use over and over.

In WinForms, however, this can cause a problem if you make the base form an abstract class (another thing I recommend).  For example, take this simple form:

Now let's say I decide to derive this form from an abstract base class, which I will call BaseForm:

What this is telling you is that it can't render an abstract class BaseForm. So while you are creating the application, you might remove the abstract identifier from UI related base classes (with a note that they should be inherited from, not used, as well as a /TODO marker to make sure you mark it as abstract before deployment).

Doing this will allow you to inherit from a base class while at the same time edit the UI.

So I made a lot of progress on my WinForm application today, and I ran across an issue where I was displaying two tooltips for the same control. I probably would never usually have noticed it, but in this case, I was dynamically setting the contents of the tooltips, and the length of the first tip (which was underneath) was substantially less than the length of the topmost tip.

In debugging the problem, I was looking for a method to clear all previous tooltips associated to the control. I found one (but didn't seem to work), but also noticed a plethora of other cool functionality available to me. Some of the neat properties:

IsBalloon --> Set to true, creates a balloon style tooltip

ToolTipTitle --> A string you can use create a "title" for your tool tip.

ToolTipIcon --> A constant which shows an appropriate icon to the left of the title/tooltip

BackColor --> allows you to set the background color of the tip

There are many more, but I have changed my tooltip routine to look like this:

        publicstaticvoid SetToolTip(System.Windows.Forms.Control ctrl, string description)

        {

            System.Windows.Forms.ToolTip tt = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolTip();

 

            tt.ShowAlways = false;

            tt.IsBalloon = true;

            tt.UseAnimation = true;

            tt.ToolTipTitle = "Info";

            tt.ToolTipIcon = System.Windows.Forms.ToolTipIcon.Info;

 

            tt.SetToolTip(ctrl, description);

 

 

        }

 

The end result went from this:

 

 

 

To this!

 

You can always grab the ToolTip control out of the toolbox, but I prefer to add a common function to a base form so I don't have to remember to add this control to the form. Then, any time I want to add a tooltip, I pass in the control and the text, and this simple snippet will take care of it for me. I remembered it as I needed to add some tooltips, which is something the existing application lacks.

Going to try to make up for some lost time here, as this new project is taking up a good deal of my time. OK, not exactly true initially, as it took a full week to get the access I needed, but now I have my environment set up, and I submitted my Functional Specification Document for the project for review. Technically I am not supposed to begin coding until mid-October, but I don't think the Technical Document will take nearly that long, so I am creating some prototypes in the mean time to foster some discussion of some of the changes I am making.

So I am going to post some WinForm related tips, simply because that's what I have been working. I have a long list of things I wanted to write about though, so who knows what will end up here while I have the energy to do so.

As I review this project, I came across a lot of things I would love to change. For example, everywhere there is data access code, they repeat the same functionality. By encapsulating that code, I could probably reduce the overall lines fo code and complexity considerably. However, I was advised not to, because changing code means more testing, and even with that, if something changed breaks, there will be Hell to pay.

Regardless if I try to take that risk, which I feel is well warranted, I also see lots of opportunities for CodeSmith templates to generate the code. It's not a big project, and it will probably take longer to write all the specifications than it will to actually code, but that's how it goes sometimes.

I finally got around to updating my resume, and I pasted it temporarily on my home page at Rubicon Computing Solutions. That's my company, and it's been a great run of 13 years.  I say temporarily simply because it will better positioned later, but I realized I really should have it on there so it gets picked up by some search engines, recruiters and in general people looking for .Net development in the Phoenix area.

I am in some talks with some other very senior developers I have had the pleasure of working with over the past couple of years about banding our talent together. I've tried that before, but these developers have been on their own for a long time, so we have a very similar background and strong work ethic to build upon. I have always struggled in the past with partnering up with other developers, as I have very high expectations of any project I work on. In fact, this is why I have had trouble hiring help, as my standards of quality aren't met by most developers without substantial coaching. These developers already have that skill, along with maturity and experience, which makes this a very exciting opportunity. Interesting how this economy drags some people down, yet others, like myself see it as an opportunity.

One of the limiting factors I have always had was that I was limited on the size of projects I could take alone. This changes that dynamic dramatically.

So if you're looking for some quality application development (web or windows), I specialize in quality service and coding in a Microsoft environment. I can work alone, with a team, or build and lead teams. You can find more details about those skills here. Thanks!

So it has been hit or miss posting here, but I am trying to correct it by bringing on some additional help. I set up a new blog, developernation.net, and begun getting some content on there. Likely I'll crosspost on here too (my content anyways) but likely most new entries are going to be there first. I figured if I could get someone else on there helping doing some content, it will have more regular posts. This blog will continue, just a lag a few days on the content of theother site, and contain more personal observations.

So swing on by and pop in. I've started off with a bang, and I am in the process of posting a web service design I created and tested which handles paging and sorting of data on the server, which my initial tests have shown to be highly efficient. I am walking through the entire design, and by the end of the weekend I hope to have the series done and the code posted. If not, you can wait a few days and I will post it all here as well.

Thanks!

A year ago, I completed my MCSD for .Net. One of the attractive
benefits of this certification (as well as the MCDBA) was a $500
discount on a one-year MSDN Universal subscription during the first
year of certification.

Although the MCSD benefits page still lists this benefit
( http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcsd/benefits.asp ), they
quietly removed it as of April 2005. The text on the page still
states the following:
Rebates or discounts on a one-year subscription to MSDN during the
first year of certification.

If you call or write to get the certificate as I did, you'll get the
terse response it's no longer available, and they just haven't
updated the site. I figured I would help them get the word out since
they didn't deem it important enough to change on their site or
announce. It would be a shame if anyone expected this benefit based
on the MS web site information.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Above is what I posted to our local .Net community group on Yahoo. Now I am going to add some personal comments. Once again, MS has dropped the ball in supporting the developer community. Earlier this year, MS announced the MSDN Universal would not include the new .Net Team Development system (or some name like that -- I am too lazy to go look it up). Fortunately, enough of an uproar went out that they reversed that decision. Their waning support of VB also caused a petition/uproar. Likely, since the MCSD/MCDBA community is a lot smaller, there isn't likely to be a huge outcry on this issue.

This is a HUGE mistake on MS's behalf. Someone that is likely to spend the extra time and money to get certifications are the ones MS should really cater to. There's always been a criticism that the certifications are worthless, and that benefit alone made it real easy to justify spending the money on books, training materials and exam costs for achieving the certification. I won't argue the merits of the certifications here, but I have a lot of them -- MCP, MCDBA, MCSD for VB, MCSD for .Net (C#), and MCAD. Will I continue? I may have to given I am an Independent Contractor and it helps to get me in the door. Will I recommend it to someone not in my position? Not likely.

Don't get me wrong, the MSDN Universal is still a great deal. My disgust over this situation is that the benefit is still listed, as well as no announcement in April 2005 when they made this decision (or if they did, I sure didn't see it). I have been one of the most stalwart supporters of Microsoft over the years, and I have personally been involved in projects which have generated millions in licensing revenues for Microsoft in the last 10 years. The past 1.5 years I have watched MS anger the core base of developers.

I think this is indicative of the internal problems at MS, and why Google is going to be a viable competitor to MS. In a paraphrase of the words of Stephen King, and the Dark Tower series, MS has forgotten the face of their father. One of the reasons MS dominated the market over Apple was that MS supported developers way beyond the norm. In the name of profit, I think we are seeing this slowly change.

Once again I have disappeared from blogging. Let's face it, I rarely get to do it. I also need to upgrade this DasBlog but I have been so busy I haven't been able to do that, even though someone kindly wrote me and told me it would solve my spam comment problem. Maybe this weekend...

But I wanted to blog because I found a weird problem, with a weirder solution. I wrote a Windows service in C# which periodically loads some data, based on the time since the last load. So dates are a bit important in this process.

First, the cryptic message: “Internal Query Processor Error: The query processor could not produce a query plan. Contact your primary support provider for more information”.  A Google search turned up several solutions, but most of them relied on a service patch. What's wierder is that the error was intermittant. The procs would run fine in Query Analyzer, but not from C#.

Finally, I tried the unlikely. Instead of passing in my parameters as  DateTime values, I passed them in as SqlDbType.Varchar, and in the proc made sure and converted them to DateTime values. Lo and behold, the problem went away.....Go figure!

Tentatively, my current project is set to end in October. No big deal there, as I have had absolutely no bench days in the past 10 years as an Independent Contractor. In fact, during most of those 10 years I have been working 55-80+ hours per week and having a great time doing it. I don't do the book thing or magazine article thing because quite frankly, I don't have time because I am busy doing billable work which pays a lot more. I havn't needed self-promotion thing either because almost all my business comes from referrals from current or past customers.

Then along come kids, and dang if you don't suddenly want to spend more time at home and improve their quality of life (and mine). My current project wants to bring me on full time, and we've had some preliminary discussions on it, and I am willing to take the pay cut in my pay for one simple thing: I want to work remotely and raise my kids in the country. Their attitude is like mine, which is that should be fine since I have a strong work ethic and can get things done, what does it matter where I work as long as I have a phone and internet connection. However, there are data security concerns and management concerns which would need to be overcome.

I have plenty of time, since barring disaster, the contract won't be over until October sometime. But I figure I will start self-promoting just in case someone from a company who doesn't mind remote employees stumbles on this blog. Towards October, I will go full bore trying to close something out, and in the meantime I plan on blogging much more so I can display what talents I can bring to the table.

If any companies out there that come up on this, and want a great employee (C#/VB developer with lots of SQL Server and architect/designer/coding and full-life cycle development) that brings a lot of experience, a great professional attitude and presence as well as the ability to code like the wind (and good code at that..), then drop me a line and let's talk.

Here's a resume just in case..

If you are using DIME attachments, and you want to use them in a Windows client, this tip will save you some time. I created a File Upload/Download web service for a client I am currently working with, and until this week is was used solely on a web front end. However, there was a request for a Windows client, so I set out to create one using the same code.

All seemed well, until I went to compile. My Web Service is called FileService (for the purposes of this discussion), and in order the use DIME attachments after setting a web reference, you need to use the FileServiceWse version of the web reference (the wse class). The problem was, one wasn't generated in the proxy. I debated using the proxy for the web application, but then decided to try something a little different.

I removed the existing Web Reference, added a reference to System.Web to my project, then added the Web Reference again. Viola! My wse version was available now, and my code compiles! I decided to post this to save someone else a bit of time, as well as a reminder to myself in the future.