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Posted by on 27th July, 2007

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

The new Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 is ready to be downloaded.  You can get it here: Visual Studio 2008 (formerly called “Orcas”) is Microsoft’s new flagship software development product for computer programmers. With features like multi-targeting support, Javascript Intellisense, AJAX support and LINQ, it sure promises to be a fully featured and exciting release. You can find the complete feature list in this white paper. [button link=”http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx” color=”#FFFFCC” size=”1″ style=”4″ dark=”1″]read...

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Posted by on 21st July, 2007

FTP add-in for Visual Studio

FTP add-in for Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a very complex and complete piece of software and I use it everyday. I have very few add-ins for it simply because it really comes with everything I need. However, there is one thing, one key feature that I find is missing. I had written about it before and that is the lack of FTP support for web applications. Sometimes, you just need to be able to make changes to a file, run it locally to verify that it works and being able to upload it directly to the webserver from within VS. I know there is some support for it, but frankly I think it was placed in there at the last minute…it is unusable. So, I think I have finally found a product that does the job decently exactly as I expect it to. It is an add-in to VS2005 and it is called Dispatch . “Dispatch is VS plugin that helps you keep track of the files that need to be uploaded –...

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Posted by on 18th July, 2007

What tools I use for software development

What tools I use for software development

I read a post somewhere (truly can’t remember where…) about the tools one uses to develop software and thought to myself: do the software tools or programs we use identify us? I think it would it be safe to say that you can tell a lot from a person from what he is wearing or which software products he/she uses. Would you think doifferent of someone who told you they used x application…? maybe because you preferred another one? Interesting questions, but I’d thought I’d post some of my own tools I use on a daily basis… Here they are: Visual Studio 2005 (IDE) SQL 2005 Management Studio (Database) Virtual PC / VMWare (PC Virtualization) Winmerge (File/Folder differencing) Fireworks / Paint.NET (Image editor) Dispatch (VS FTP add-in) SyncBack (FTP Syncronization) Fiddler (HTTP debugger) Axosoft Ontime (VS bug track...

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Posted by on 13th July, 2007

Advanced use of Google Analytics

Advanced use of Google Analytics

“Since Google Analytics was launched in 2005 it has become one of the top analytics packages for small to medium sized websites. Growth was initially slow due to the frustrating waiting list system initiated by Google to avoid over stretching their servers. Now that the waiting list has been removed anybody can sign up to use this great service.” Excellent tutorials on customizing, extending and simply making the most of Google Analytics. [button link=”http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/blog/advanced-google-analytics/” color=”#FFFFCC” size=”1″ style=”4″ dark=”1″]read...

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Posted by on 11th July, 2007

Sandbox new software

Sandbox new software

Don’t compromising your PC. I recently stumbled upon this tools that has received good reviews and its concept seems to make very good sense. It works very similar to the saved state or differencing in virtualization software: the differences are stored in a temporary storage that does not have access to the underlying system. Therefore, if you decide that the software you just tried, is no good, you can just delete the differences and everything returns to its original state. From the website: “When you run a program on your computer, data flows from the hard disk to the program via read operations. The data is then processed and displayed, and finally flows back from the progam to the hard disk via write operations. Sandboxie changes the rules such that write operations do not make it back to your hard disk. If you run Freecell inside the Sandboxie environment, Sandboxie reads the statistics data from the hard disk into the sandbox, to satisfy the read requested by Freecell. When...

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Posted by on 28th July, 2006

All-in-one, Personalized Homepage

All-in-one, Personalized Homepage

With so much information to search for and somehow wanting to squeeze it all between 1400 and 1050 pixels, it is becoming hard to find an application or site aggregator that does it well. I had been using My Yahoo for a while and although I wasn't necessarily thrilled with it, it did the job and did it decently. I have tried others as well, such as My MSN and even blogged about Google Personalized and Microsoft's Start a while back. I started using pageflakes for a while, but noticed it would lock up and its performance was less than satisfactory. The other competitors I found were: Goowy and Protopage, I didn't think I would write about it again until I found NetVibes. A very well designed Ajax-based, all in one, personalized homepage that you can arrange at will with as many blog feeds, news feeds, weather reports, financial information as you will. There are a good amount of widgets as well to choose from. It also offers a...

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Posted by on 5th May, 2006

Google Sketchup 3D software

Google Sketchup 3D software

Google SketchUp is a free, easy-to-learn 3D-modeling program with a few simple tools to let you create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects, and even space ships. You can add details, textures, and glass to your models, and design with dimensional accuracy. You can place your finished models in Google Earth, share them with others by posting them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies. Google SketchUp is a great way to discover if 3D modeling is right for you. [button link=”http://sketchup.google.com” color=”#FFFFCC” size=”1″ style=”4″ dark=”1″]read...

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Posted by on 18th January, 2006

Add Google Map in less than 10 minutes

Add Google Map in less than 10 minutes

If you need to know how to add Google Maps to your website, keep reading… Exploration Age explains the details… First you need a Google Maps API key, which you can obtain here.  You can find out much more here with plenty of details of anything you might want to know about Google Maps, especially if you plan to extend your new map beyond this example. Check out this nice detailed tutorial with excellent and good examples by Joshua Siler… (via Exploration Age) Update: if times allows, over the next week I'll play with it and may post a new entry in the experiments section… [button link=”http://blog.explorationage.com” color=”#FFFFCC” size=”1″ style=”4″ dark=”1″]read...

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Posted by on 7th July, 2005

Google Maps transparency

Google Maps transparency

Google Maps (maps.google.com) is, without question, a very cool tool and very cleverly designed. Now that Google has recently added a feature that allows you to view a satellite view of the area in focus and exposed the application's API, we are seeing some impressive implementations of visualizing maps. This particular one, allows you to superset a transparent "streetmap" over the satellite view. [button link=”http://www.kokogiak.com/gmaps-transparencies.html” color=”#FFFFCC” size=”1″ style=”4″ dark=”1″]read...

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Posted by on 15th June, 2005

The Ultimate Google Guide

The Ultimate Google Guide

On occasions I have to look for a particular filetype or need to filter out search results from my searches with Google and end up probably missing what I was looking for. I may not be writing my search query specific enough. Of course I know there are some more operators besides the common ones, but didn't know exactly which. Nancy Blachman from The Google Guide has written a cheatsheet with the advanced operators to improve accuracy and speed in your searches with Google. A nice site overall with many other Google features… [button link=”http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html” color=”#FFFFCC” size=”1″ style=”4″ dark=”1″]read...

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