Best Practices for Configuring ASP.NET ConnectionStrings and AppSettings in Web.Config

This article shows a good way to manage connection string and appsettings values in your web.config file. It shows how to use include files and talks about how to set defaults so moving to production from testing or development can be less painful

How to Get the DataItem out of a ListView in Asp.Net 3.5 (compared to Repeater)

See how to get the DataItem out of a ListView Control which is part of asp.net 3.5. Compare ListView to repeater in this regard.

How to know if LINQ is working efficiently with SQL?

In this post, we look at how to log from LINQ to SQL to see the actual sql generated by the LINQ engine.

A TiVo Disk Space Viewer, It’s all about LINQ to XML!

Do you ever want to know exactly how much space each TV show on your TiVo is taking on your hard drive?  Do you ever wonder how much space is consumed by high definition programs verses standard definition programs?  For the answer, download the program associated with this article and you to can no those answers.  Below area  pictures of those graphs.  Chances are though, if you are reading my blog, you really want to know about Microsoft technology, and specifically, this article is all about parsing the webservice data that comes from your TiVo.  At the end of the article, there is a brief section on how to configure this program so if all you care about is running the program, skip all the LINQ stuff and just go to the Setup below.  The exe and dll file necessary are attached there.

Almost lastly, the application produced uses Windows Forms Programming.  This article makes no attempt to discuss any of the windows forms programming issues.  The code provided in Forms is simply a wrapper to look at all the fun LINQ commands.  In addition, the graphs are done with the Open Source Project Zedgraph.

And lasty, this work is heavily based on the TiVo gadget beautifully done by Microsoft’s Mike Swanson.  I won’t spend much time talking about all the issues regarding setup and security.  Mike has done a great job of that in his article.  If you are running Windows Vista, I suggest you download his awesome sidebar gadget.

Use Multiple Monitors? Checkout UltraMon from Realtime Soft.

A review of a great tool to help you manage multiple monitors, UltraMon.

Showing and Hiding Hidden Files in Visual Studio 2008

In this post, the option for how to show all files in the solutions explorer is demonstrated.

In C#, When to use String verses string

Just a short ramble on when to use string verses use String in C#. Basically they compile to the same IL code

My first LINQ Experience. How to do a simple COUNT() with LINQ to SQL

This post has some sample code using LINQ to do a simple SQL count function. It compares the code to a non-LINQ version. It’s my first actual LINQ code do don’t expect much besides excitement

Pro ASP.NET 3.5 and C# 2008 Released! Another Master Piece

A short book review of Pro ASP.NET 3.5 and C# 2008 by Mathew MacDonald, one of my favorite authors.

Book Review: Pro LINQ Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 by Joseph C. Rattz, Jr.

A book review on one of the first LINQ books published. IMHO, an excellent book to add to your library