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Web Clippings

Clip·ping: noun Something cut off or out, especially an item clipped from a newspaper or magazine.

Following is personal collection of mostly software-related articles and downloads that I have found useful and bookmarked for future reference:

The empty try block mystery
In order to guarantee that processing finishes even if a thread is aborted in the middle by someone calling Abort on the thread, one can place all code in the finally block.
Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 under .net, hacks, concurrency
Resource Refactoring Tool
Resource Refactoring Tool provides developers an easy way to extract hard coded strings from the code to resource files.
Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 under vs, free, addins
If you are using a loop, you're doing it wrong
Chuck Jazdzewski uses a non-trivial example to demonstrate a relational style of programming in C# using LINQ by doing away with most looping constructs.
Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 under linq, programming
Running the Mono VMWare image in VirtualPC
The Mono team publishes a VMWare image that makes it easy to try Mono on Linux without installing or building anything. Jon shows how to convert that image to work with VirtualPC.
Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008 under mono, howto, virtualization
Counting Processors in .NET: The Pros and Cons of Five Different Methods
There are a great number of different ways to count the number of processors available to the .NET developer. In this post Rick goes over some of the more common methods and their pros and cons.
Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 under .net, diagnostics
FFClickOnce
A Firefox extension for running .NET ClickOnce applications.
Posted Friday, April 04, 2008 under firefox, addins
Time Breakdown of Modern Web Design
A humorous yet sadly accurate breakdown of the state of web design in 2008.
Posted Wednesday, April 02, 2008 under webdesign, fun
Build a Shared Clipboard Utility in Python
This article presents the Python shared clipboard—a little utility that allows different machines connected over a LAN to share the contents of their clipboards.
Posted Tuesday, April 01, 2008 under howto, productivity
ConTEXT
ConTEXT is a small, fast and powerful freeware text editor, developed to serve as a secondary tool for software developers.
Posted Tuesday, April 01, 2008 under freeware
extsharp
Extsharp aids in writing ExtJS code in C# using a programmable C# API to access all of the Ext objects. The end result is still compiled down to plain old JavaScript.
Posted Wednesday, March 26, 2008 under c#, javascript, free, opensource, library
How to troubleshoot MS DTC firewall issues
This article describes troubleshooting steps to help enable Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) to communicate through a firewall with another MS DTC.
Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2008 under mskb, diagnostics
DTCPing.exe
A tool designed to assist with troubleshooting Microsoft DTC firewall issues.
Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2008 under free, tool, diagnostics, tx
Streamline Your Database Setup Process with a Custom Installer
Database setup can be a time-consuming process and prone to human error. In this article, the author tackles one approach to writing database installers and demonstrates the process with a working code sample.
Posted Monday, March 17, 2008 under setup
35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets
35 free icon sets, some of which can be used in web designs while others are supposed to be primarily for desktop.
Posted Wednesday, March 12, 2008 under free, icons
Customize your Find in Files Results experience!
Starting with Visual Studio 2005, it is possible to customize “Find in Files” results to show what you want to see and how you want to see it.
Posted Wednesday, March 12, 2008 under vs2005, howto
Irony - .NET Compiler Construction Kit
Irony is a new-generation .NET compiler construction kit where the target language grammar is coded directly in C# to express grammar constructs rather than a proprietary meta-language.
Posted Tuesday, March 11, 2008 under compilers, languages, free, opensource, library
Making the .Net XmlTextReader accept colons in element names
System.Xml.XmlTextReader supports a Namespaces property that when set to false allows the reader to start accepting “multi-colon” element names and which makes for perfectly valid XML.
Posted Monday, March 10, 2008 under xml, .net
Train to be a Keyboard Master with Keyboard Jedi
Key Jedi allows learning and training to use keyboard shortcuts. It can be used in presentations, screencasts and videos, as well as when working with someone else on the same machine to teach new shortcuts.
Posted Thursday, March 06, 2008 under free, productivity, tool
Links to LINQ
A collection of useful links to LINQ information, especially list of known LINQ providers (IQueryProvider).
Posted Sunday, March 02, 2008 under linq
Cacheman - a fast distributed hashtable for Windows
Cacheman is a fast, distributed hashtable for Windows, implemented purely in managed code.
Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 under free, performance, library, blog-entry
For Best Results, Forget the Bonus
"Do this and you'll get that," sums up the popular way in which American business strives to improve workplace performance. This article provides insights into the psychology of reward systems and why they actually de-motivate & reduce creativity.
Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 under business, philosophy, psychology
Google Talk chatback
Google Talk adds chatback, a feature that allows one to chat-enable a blog or a web page using Google Talk so visitors can chat with the blog or page author in live.
Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 under collaboration, webtool, blog-entry
Datejs - A JavaScript Date Library
Datejs is an open source JavaScript Date library for parsing, formatting and processing. This project is currently in Alpha-1 release, and under active development.
Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 under free, opensource, javascript, library
Partial Application in JavaScript
Partially applying a function is a, particularly, interesting technique in which you can pre-fill-in arguments to a function before it is ever executed. In effect, partially applying a function returns a new function which you can call.
Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 under javascript, howto, hacks
Functional Javascript
Functional Javascript is a library for functional programming in JavaScript, defining standard higher-order functions like map, reduce, and select as well as those for partial function application and function-level programming.
Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 under free, opensource, javascript, library
GitTorrent
The GitTorrent Protocol (GTP) is a protocol for collaborative git repository distribution across the Internet. Git is a decentralized version control system (VCS) created in the beginning of 2005 by Linus Torvalds
Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 under scc, protocols, p2p, spec
JavaScriptMVC
JavaScriptMVC is a framework that attempts to bring methods to the madness of JavaScript development, promoting best practices, maintainability, and convention over configuration.
Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 under free, opensource, javascript, library
FCKeditor
FCKeditor is an HTML text editor that brings to the web much of the power of desktop editors like MS Word. It's lightweight and doesn't require any kind of installation on the client computer.
Posted Wednesday, February 27, 2008 under opensource, html, javascript, productivity
thatsmymouse
thatsmymouse is a real-time communication platform that shares the mouse position of visitors of a web page enriched with a given JavaScript.
Posted Wednesday, February 27, 2008 under collaboration, javascript
ooVoo - Free Video Conferencing and Video Messaging
ooVoo is a high-quality video messenger that is free for up to 6 people to face-to-face at once.
Posted Wednesday, February 27, 2008 under free, collaboration
QuickRef.org
All your docs are belong to us - PHP, Perl, CSS, HTML, Java, JavaScript, MySQL, Ruby, Python, and more.
Posted Wednesday, February 27, 2008 under reference
Travel Without the Laptop, Carry Your Computer on a USB Drive
USB drives are generally used to transfer documents across computers but these key chains can also be used for run portable software programs. This article presents some resources to help turn that USB drive into a personal computer.
Posted Wednesday, February 27, 2008 under software, hardware, usb, productivity
Yahoo! UI Library: Uploader
YUI Uploader provides file upload functionality that goes beyond the basic browser-based methods. It uses Flash 9 and JavaScript to provide upload functionality along with progress tracking.
Posted Monday, February 25, 2008 under flash, javascript, opensource, free, library
2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS
This download allows one to export and save to the PDF and XPS formats in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs. It also allows sending as e-mail attachment in the PDF and XPS formats in a subset of these programs.
Posted Tuesday, February 19, 2008 under msoffice, addins
Unity
The Unity Application Block (Unity) is a lightweight extensible dependency injection container with support for constructor, property, and method call injection. It is an IoC framework from Microsoft's patterns & practices group.
Posted Monday, February 18, 2008 under library, opensource, freeware, architecture, .net, framework
Microsoft Office Binary (doc, xls, ppt) File Formats
Official specifications of the binary file formats for MS Office documents, covering Excel (xls), Word (doc) and PowerPoint (ppt).
Posted Monday, February 18, 2008 under msoffice, spec
DotSVN
The objective of DotSVN is to re-implement Subversion version-control-system completely in .NET. It is heavily influenced by the design and code of SVNKit. DotSVN was started as part of nTrac.
Posted Monday, February 18, 2008 under scc, .net, opensource, free
NLinq
NLinq is a framework focusing on reimplementing the LINQ functionnalities in VS. NET 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 by providing a LINQ grammar parser and a "Linq To Objects" execution environment.
Posted Tuesday, February 12, 2008 under linq, c#, vs2003, opensource, free, library
Hobo Copy
HoboCopy is a copy tool inspired by robocopy. Unlike robocopy, it uses the Volume Shadow Service (VSS) to snapshot the disk and then copies from there instead of the live disk, allowing locked files to be copied as well.
Posted Monday, February 11, 2008 under tool, windows, admin, freeware
Reflection.js
Reflection.js allows one to add reflections to images on web pages using unobtrusive JavaScript. It works in all the major browsers - IE 5.5+, Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+ and Safari. On older browsers, it degrade withou fuss.
Posted Sunday, February 10, 2008 under javascript, images, graphics, library
A Simple JavaScript Command Line Interpreter for Windows in JScript.Net
Andrew Norris presents a simple and interactive JScript interpreter written in JScript 8.0.
Posted Sunday, February 10, 2008 under javascript, .net, scripting
FParsec - A Parser Combinator Library for F#
FParsec is an F# adaptation of Parsec, the popular parser combinator library for Haskell. It can parse context-sensitive, infinite look-ahead grammars, and produces excellent error messages. It is distributed under a BSD-style open source license.
Posted Sunday, February 10, 2008 under f#, parsers, free
CSS Sprite Generator
CSS Sprite Generator is an online tool to help automate the process of generating CSS sprites. Given a ZIP file containing 2 or more images (GIF, PNG or JPG), it will generate a sprite image and the corresponding CSS rules to target and display each compo
Posted Wednesday, February 06, 2008 under css, images, webtool
LINQ to JavaScript
LINQ to JavaScript (JSLINQ) is an implementation of LINQ to Objects implemented in JavaScript. It is built using a set of extension methods built on top of the JavaScript Array object. If you are using an Array, you can use LINQ to JavaScript.
Posted Wednesday, February 06, 2008 under javascript, linq, opensource, library, free
JavaScript Memory Leak Detector
JavaScript Memory Leak Detector is a debugging tool to detect memory leaks in JavaScript code. It installs as an Internet Explorer band and finds memory leaks in JavaScript code that runs in Internet Explorer.
Posted Wednesday, February 06, 2008 under javascript, ie, debugging
Configuration Section Designer
A Visual Studio add-in that allows you to graphically design .NET Configuration Sections and automatically generates all the required code and a schema definition (XSD) for them.
Posted Monday, February 04, 2008 under vs2008, addins, opensource, free
Web Test Tools
Listing of 370 web test tools and management tools - load testing, java testing, link checking, html validation, security testing, publishing control, content management.
Posted Monday, February 04, 2008 under webdev, testing
Moq
Moq is a mocking library for .NET developed from scratch using .NET 3.5 and C# 3.0, making it productive, simple, type-safe and refactoring-friendly. It supports mocking interfaces as well as classes.
Posted Sunday, February 03, 2008 under system:unfiled
Merging XML
Daniel Cazzulino presents a simple C# class that uses Oliver Becker's XSLT stylesheet to merge two XML nodes/documents.
Posted Sunday, February 03, 2008 under xml, xslt, blog-entry
IronPython Studio
IronPython Studio is a free full IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the Python programming language. It is based on the existing IronPython example that is included in the VS SDK.
Posted Sunday, February 03, 2008 under ironpython, vs2008, ide, free, opensource
Git - Fast Version Control System
Git is a popular version control system designed to handle very large projects with speed and efficiency; it is used mainly for various open source projects, most notably the Linux kernel.
Posted Saturday, February 02, 2008 under scc, opensource, free
Learn 10 good UNIX usage habits
Adopt 10 good habits that improve your UNIX command line efficiency -- and break away from bad usage patterns in the process. This article takes you step-by-step through several good, but too often neglected, techniques for command-line operations.
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008 under unix, admin, best-practices
VectorMagic
This site converts bitmap images to vector images - it's an online auto-tracer. Just upload an image and it gets vectorized. Vector art is useful because it allows you to scale an image without making it blurry or pixelated.
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008 under graphics, webtool
The effects of delegation on connection pooling
Summarizes the performance and scalability concerns for different connection pooling configuration settings and delegation configuration settings.
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008 under performance, mskb
High Memory and CPU Usage When Debugging Lots of Dynamic Types
Debugging managed code that contains a lot of dynamically created types can result in high memory usage accompanied by high CPU usage.
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008 under .net, debugging, mskb
YUI Reset CSS
The foundational YUI Reset CSS file removes and neutralizes the inconsistent default styling of HTML elements, creating a level playing field across A-grade browsers and providing a sound foundation upon which one can explicitly declare one's intentions.
Posted Saturday, January 26, 2008 under css
Compiler DevLab 2007
Compiler Lab 2007 Public Content site.
Posted Saturday, January 26, 2008 under compilers, dlr
How to configure CAS policy to run application from anywhere within Intranet Zone
.NET Code Acess Security provides LocalIntranet permission group to applications from the 'Intranet Zone'. Many times, such applications need higher previleges and this article shows how.
Posted Wednesday, January 23, 2008 under .net, security, admin, howto, mskb, unread
XSS Detect Beta Code Analysis Tool
XSSDetect is a static code analysis tool that helps identify Cross-Site Scripting security flaws within Web applications by analyzing dataflow paths from sources of user-controlled input to vulnerable outputs in compiled managed assemblies.
Posted Tuesday, January 22, 2008 under xss, security, qa, vs2005, addins
Dates and JSON
At present, there is no standardized way to represent time in JSON (there is no time literal). Bertrand Le Roy explains the problem and how MS AJAX uses a string-based solution that also avoids false positives.
Posted Monday, January 21, 2008 under json, data-format, blog-entry, opinions
Configuring Visual Studio to Debug .NET Framework Source Code
Shawn Burke explains how to configure Visual Studio 2008 to download PDB's from Microsoft for the .NET Framework base class libraries so that one can step into them and browse the original code.
Posted Friday, January 18, 2008 under howto, .net, debugging, vs2008, blog-entry
Valdiation Application Block
The Validation Application Block provides classes, called validators, that supply the code for validating data. For example, one validator checks for null strings and another validator checks that a number falls within a specified range.
Posted Wednesday, January 16, 2008 under .net, framework, library
2007 Office System: Microsoft SDK for Open XML Formats
Microsoft provides a library for accessing files in Open XML Formats in the System.IO.Packaging namespace. This SDK is built on top of the System.IO.Packaging API and provides strongly typed part classes to manipulate Open XML documents.
Posted Wednesday, January 16, 2008 under msoffice, xml, library
Password checker
Password Checker is an online tool by Microsoft that helps determine the strength of a password as it is typed. Password Checker does not collect, store, or transmit information beyond the computer used to access it.
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008 under security, webtool
Javascript Password Strength Meter
This quick and dirty password strength meter is meant to help users learn how to create stronger passwords. Because it's written in Javascript the password is never sent over the network.
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008 under javascript, webtool, security
Reading Masked Input from the System Console with .NET 2.0
Derek presents details of reading masked input (think passwords) from the console using new Console methods introduced with .NET Framework 2.0.
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008 under .net, whidbey, security, blog-entry
Try Ruby in the browser
An impressive combination of a Ruby REPL and Ruby tutorial within the browser. No Ruby installation required.
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008 under ruby, tutorial, webtool
Returning var from a method in C# 3.0
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008 under c#, hacks
The fate of reduce() in Python 3000
Guido van Rossum's reasons for dropping lambda, map() and filter() from Python and presents more readable alternatives that already exist in the language.
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008 under python, design
Large file uploads in ASP.NET
Uploading files via the FileUpload control gets tricky with big files.
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008 under asp.net, hacks, howto, blog-entry
NeatUpload
The NeatUpload ASP.NET component allows developers to stream uploaded files to storage (filesystem or database) and allows users to monitor upload progress.
Posted Monday, January 14, 2008 under opensource, free, asp.net, library, control
TrueCrypt
Free, Open Source, multi-platform and on-the-fly disk encryption software. It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a real disk as well as encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a storage device like a USB flash drive.
Posted Thursday, January 10, 2008 under free, opensource, encryption, security, software, admin
Google Safe Browsing API
The Safe Browsing API is an experimental API that enables client applications to check URLs against Google's constantly updated blacklists of suspected phishing and malware pages.
Posted Thursday, January 10, 2008 under security, privacy, webapi
CommitMonitor
The CommitMonitor is a small tool to monitor Subversion repositories for new commits. It has a very small memory footprint and resides in the system tray.
Posted Wednesday, January 09, 2008 under scc, free, tool
BitDiffer - Assembly Comparison Tool
BitDiffer allows one to compare multiple versions of assemblies for all types of changes and drill down to find the smallest changes, public or private.
Posted Wednesday, January 09, 2008 under .net, tool
Ajax View: Remotely Monitoring Web 2.0 Applications
Ajax View provides visibility into and control over a web application's behavior on an end-user's desktop. It is a proxy that injects instrumentation code into the served JavaScript, providing performance data, call graph and more.
Posted Friday, December 21, 2007 under ajax, debugging, javascript
PSPad - editor for developers for Microsoft Windows systems
Freeware Unicode developer editor for Microsoft Windows, capable handling nearly any syntax (HTML, PHP, XHTML, JavaScript, ASP, Perl, C and many other) and which comes with a hex editor and a multilanguage interface.
Posted Tuesday, December 18, 2007 under free, productivity, software
Dissecting ASP.NET Version 3.5's Web.config File
In this article, Scott Mitchell examines each of the additional configuration elements added by Visual Studio 2008 to ASP.NET 3.5 applications.
Posted Monday, December 17, 2007 under asp.net, orcas, vs2008
MPI.NET: High-Performance C# Library for Message Passing
Most MPI implementations address C, C++ or Fortran. MPI.NET targets .NET languages (especially C#) and includes significant extensions like automatic serialization of objects that aid in building parallel programs to run on clusters.
Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2007 under c#, concurrency
The Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard
MPI is a library specification for message-passing, proposed as a standard by a broadly based committee of vendors, implementors, and users. MPI was designed for high performance on both massively parallel machines and on workstation clusters.
Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2007 under concurrency, standards, spec
High Order Messages in Python
Michael experiments with some Ruby-isms in Python, hoping to disspel that, "Ruby can do this, and Python can't."
Posted Monday, December 10, 2007 under python, hacks, ruby
XmlComments: Class for Reading XML Comments at Run-time
Stephen Toub presents a class that can be used to retrieve the XML documentation for a given method at run-time.
Posted Monday, December 10, 2007 under c#, justcode, sample
CodeMirror: In-browser code editing
CodeMirror is Marijn Haverbeke's attempt to write a practical in-browser code editor. It comes with a JavaScript parser, allowing it to highlight and indent code in that language, but other parsers can be plugged into it as well.
Posted Monday, December 10, 2007 under javascript, tool, free
JACOB - Java COM Bridge
JACOB is a JAVA-COM Bridge that allows you to call COM Automation components from Java. It uses JNI to make native calls into the COM and Win32 libraries.
Posted Monday, December 10, 2007 under java, opensource, activex, com, free
T CastByExample<T>(object o, T example)
Anonymous types in C# 3.0 cannot be shared between methods, but Alex James demonstrates an interesting hack on how this can be achieved nonetheless.
Posted Friday, December 07, 2007 under c#, hacks
ClockLink
Provides fashionable clocks to be embedded in a web page. A clock will display a city name of choice as well as time zone information.
Posted Friday, December 07, 2007 under fun, flash, webtool
Second Life .NET Developers User Group
A worldwide network of professionals interested in exchanging information, sharing ideas, collaborating on distributed technology projects, and learning about upcoming technologies related to .NET.
Posted Friday, December 07, 2007 under .net, fun
Google Chart API
Google Chart API dynamically generates charts as an image (PNG format) given data and configuration parameters over query string portion of the URL.
Posted Friday, December 07, 2007 under business, webservices, free, graphics, images
Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean?
A good question, answered with flimsy evidence and hypothetical posturing.
Posted Wednesday, December 05, 2007 under business, demographics, blog-entry, opinions, unread
A new window opens when you try to view a 2007 Microsoft Office program document in Windows Internet Explorer 7
Microsoft Office 2007 intentionally does not set a BrowserFlags registry key for its file types. This keeps Office 2007 files from opening inside same window as IE. Certain editing features are available only when the document is open outside the browser.
Posted Wednesday, December 05, 2007 under msoffice, ie, mskb
EditArea - the code editor in a textarea
Free editor in JavaScript for source code editing within a web page. It is designed to edit souce code files in a textarea, including text formatting, search and replace and real-time syntax highlighting.
Posted Wednesday, December 05, 2007 under javascript, free, opensource, ide
IronPython Integration In SharpDevelop 2.2
Posted Tuesday, December 04, 2007 under ironpython, addins, blog-entry, ide
Interface Hall of Shame: Error Messages
A hall of shame of (amusing) error messages from real software applications.
Posted Tuesday, December 04, 2007 under fun, usability
An O(ND) Difference Algorithm for C#
A C# implementation of the difference algorithm published in "An O(ND) Difference Algorithm and its Variations" by Eugene Myers Algorithmica Vol. 1 No. 2, 1986, p 251.
Posted Friday, November 30, 2007 under opensource, c#, library, free, scc, algorithms
YUI-Compressor
The YUI Compressor is a JavaScript and CSS minifier designed to be 100% safe and yield a higher compression ratio than most other tools.
Posted Wednesday, November 28, 2007 under javascript, css, compression, tool
XAML/HTML Converter
A sample tool that allows one to enter XAML and have it converted to HTML, or enter HTML and have it converted to XAML.
Posted Monday, November 26, 2007 under xaml, html, sample
C4F Vista Peer-to-Peer Toolkit
The P2P controls are composed of both WinForm and WPF controls that can be used to create different types of P2P-enabled applications. One can develop P2P applications like chat, streaming audio and streaming video applications with no lines of code.
Posted Monday, November 26, 2007 under opensource, p2p
C4F Developer Kit
Easy to use drag 'n drop controls including 10+ Windows Vista APIs and 8+ Web Service wrappers. Comes with complete source code in both Visual Basic and Visual C# for all controls and samples.
Posted Monday, November 26, 2007 under opensource, sample
LINQ-SQO: A custom implementation of the .NET Standard Query Operators from LINQ
This project helps you to understand how the Standard Query Operators of LINQ to Objects work. The source code included is based on the official specification for the .NET Standard Query Operators.
Posted Saturday, November 24, 2007 under opensource, library, linq, orcas
Tips for writing Debugger Visualizers in VS.NET 2005
Frans Bouma's compilation of tips to keep in mind while writing a debugger visualizer for Visual Studio. The tips can aid in creating solid and easily maintained visualizers.
Posted Friday, November 23, 2007 under vs2005, vs.net, debugging

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