Indoor enthusiast. Co-founder of Stack Overflow, Discourse, and staygold.us. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. Let's be kind to each other. Find me
programming languages
Inspired by my recent post on C# code snippets, I found a little console app by Francesco Balena* that enumerates all the snippets on your system along with their shortcut text. I improved his console app and turned it into a convenient IDE macro along the lines of my keyboard
ides
I just installed CodeRush, and now my IDE looks like this: From Mike Gunderloy’s review of Refactor! Pro: Refactor! uses the same drawing technology as CodeRush, making a video game out of your code. When you introduce an overload, for example, you actually see strikethroughs appear on parameters being
network troubleshooting
So I had a few bandwidth issues recently, which you can see in the six-month Alexa traffic graph for this domain. There wasn’t much I could do about the traffic spike. But I did make good use of two of my favorite tools for quick and dirty internet
error codes
A recent Scott Hanselman post described a problem he had with Windows Defender: Defender was unable to update my signatures, instead throwing a COM-ish 0x8024402c. Others are getting Error 1609 and still others 0x80240022. This isn’t an isolated incident. The latest release candidate of Team Foundation Server also
programming languages
I have nothing against World of Warcraft, but the Gamasutra editorial World of Warcraft Teaches the Wrong Things highlights one problem I have with the entire MMORPG* genre: [WOW teaches players that] investing a lot of time in something is worth more than actual skill. If you invest more time
user experience
Pop quiz, hotshot. What do these toolbar icons do – and what application are they from? Okay, maybe that’s a bit too monochrome. Does color help? Okay, let’s try something less abstract. Does a more traditional look help? So we can see there’s some kind of VCR-like
c#
Microsoft recently released a complete set of C# code snippets for Visual Studio 2005. This brings C# to parity with VB.NET, which had many more code snippets “in the box.” Unfortunately, Microsoft’s installation strategy for these new snippets leaves a lot to be desired. You can download and
user experience
Darwinia is the third game I’ve played with mouse gesture support: 1. Bungie’s classic 1998 game Myth used gestures in a limited way to indicate squad facing post-movement. 2. Lionhead’s 2001 game Black and White used gestures to invoke various spells. 3. Introversion Software’s 2005
gaming
One of the most amazing gaming experiences I’ve had in recent memory was playing Introversion Software’s Darwinia. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but the game is a cross between Tron, Syndicate, Populous, and Lemmings. It has a distinct, beautiful retro style all its own. And the
.net
I’ve increasingly come to believe that the debate between C# and VB.NET is a red herring. Choosing between C# and VB.NET isn’t a meaningful choice. It’s like choosing between .NET Pepsi and .NET Coke. Either way, you’re getting a cola flavored carbonated beverage. If
markup languages
Black and white works fine when I’m reading newspapers. But when I’m reading computer languages of any kind – from Perl to SQL, from C# to Regular Expressions, from HTML to XML – I can’t bear to read them in black and white any more. Consider this Infocard XML
programming languages
The archetypal Hello World program has always had a calming effect on developers. It’s been a programming staple for decades: [Hello World] is typically one of the simplest programs possible in a computer language. Some, however, are surprisingly complex, especially in some GUI contexts; but most are very simple,