Community developer blogs

Geert Verhoeven

Recent Posts

• Adding references - WebSite versus WebApplication

  Posted: 03 Jun 2008 at 20:45 by noreply@blogger.com (Geert Verhoeven)

  On my current project I’m creating an ASP.NET site in Visual Studio 2005 SP1.NOTE: By default, Visual Studio 2005 only allows you to create ASP.NET sites by using the WebSite template but after installing SP1, you can also use the WebApplication template.For this project we are using the WebSite tem

• Vertical split view in Visual Studio 2008

  Posted: 26 Mar 2008 at 19:40 by Geert Verhoeven

  Just noticed that in Visual Studio 2008 it is possible to change the split screen behavior.Visual Studio allows you to set the default view (Split, Source or Design) and to choose between a horizontal split and a vertical split. Especially this last option is very handy when you have a widescreen mo

• Quiz 1: Generic class with static fields

  Posted: 08 Feb 2008 at 14:46 by Geert Verhoeven

  In the following piece of code you can see 2 instantiations of a generic class. What is the output of this console application? Code highlighting produced by Actipro CodeHighlighter (freeware)http://www.CodeHighlighter.com/-->using System;using System.Collections.Generic;namespace DEMO{ class Progra

• Anonymous types and equality

  Posted: 27 Jan 2008 at 15:23 by Geert Verhoeven

  Introduction to anonymous typesMost of the applications created in .NET contain classes defined by the developer. There are two types of classes. First you have the type that only contains fields and is used to transfer data, then you have a second type that also provides functionality to the applic

• Strange behavior with extension methods

  Posted: 17 Jan 2008 at 22:17 by Geert Verhoeven

  In a previous post, I already explained what extension methods are and how they work. While doing some tests, I noticed a strange behavior which I will explain in this post.The order in which .NET searches for the method to be executed is as follow:Instance methods of the class Static methods within

• Introduction to extension methods

  Posted: 17 Jan 2008 at 22:03 by Geert Verhoeven

  What it isExtension methods allow you to extend an existing type without needing access to the type's code. Before .NET 3.0, this wasn't possible without having access to the type's code or without using the System.Reflection.Emit namespace.In short, extension methods are static methods that can be

• Installation issues with Windows Live Writer when using a corporate proxy server

  Posted: 26 Dec 2007 at 10:03 by Geert Verhoeven

  When installing Windows Live Writer on a machine that is connected via a corporate proxy to the internet can be a real pain. Since the installer is downloading .exe files, the files can be blocked.Today I've found this blog post which shows a way to install the Windows Live tools on a corporate mach

• Visual Studio 2008 available

  Posted: 21 Nov 2007 at 07:40 by Geert Verhoeven

  For those of you who didn't know yet, Visual Studio 2008 is available since a few days.MSDN Subscribers can download the full version where as others can download a 90-day trial.http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspxYesterday I've been able to install it on a Windows XP SP2 machine w

• Firefox reveals your passwords in clear text

  Posted: 04 Oct 2007 at 17:52 by Geert Verhoeven

  While making a joke about Firefox, I noticed that a lot of people don't know that Firefox makes it possible to show your saved passwords. This can be handy for you whenever you forget one but also very handy for someone who uses your pc with the same account.Before judging, I must say this functiona

• Implementing the IEquatable interface properly

  Posted: 21 Sep 2007 at 15:44 by Geert Verhoeven

  Introduction In this article I will show you a proper way to implement the IEquatable interface. The IEquatable generic interface is a new interface in .NET 2.0 and is used to check the equality of two objects. Since a lot of people don’t override the object.Equals method when implementing the inter

• Passed the 70-526 exam

  Posted: 10 Sep 2007 at 18:40 by Geert Verhoeven

  Two weeks ago I've passed the MCTS exam for Windows Application (070-526). To study this exam I've used the MS PRESS book which helped me very good. The book explains the topics very well and contains good exercises. Most of the questions where more or less discussed in the book. I did get a lot of

• How Windows Vista fills your disk

  Posted: 20 Aug 2007 at 20:47 by Geert Verhoeven

  Recently I reinstalled my PC and installed Windows Vista on it. After using it for a month, I noticed that the free disk space was becoming very limited. In explorer the disk property showed me that I used 46GB but when I selected all my folders and retrieved the size, it was only 21GB. So where did

• "Upgrade patch can not be installed ..." while installing Visual Studio SP1 for Vista

  Posted: 06 Aug 2007 at 20:37 by Geert Verhoeven

  To be able to use Visual Studio 2005 on a Windows Vista machine, you need to install a special service pack: (Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista).When starting the installation I received the following error:The upgrade patch cannot be installed by the Windows Installer servi

• Reporting Services on a Vista machine

  Posted: 06 Aug 2007 at 20:25 by Geert Verhoeven

  Since a while I have reinstalled my test pc to be able to experiment with the new Windows operating system. When trying to install Reporting Services 2005, the setup gave me the following warning:IIS Feature Requirement ...It seems that Reporting Services can't find IIS although it is installed on m

• Passed the 70-536 exam

  Posted: 28 Jul 2007 at 09:22 by Geert Verhoeven

  Yesterday I've passed the 70-536 exam (TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0—Application Development Foundation).  To study the exam I've used the Microsoft Training Kit. The book is easy to read and has good practices. It covers all the topics discussed in the exam. Sometimes not in so much details

• Windows Live Writer: creating blog entries in just a few seconds

  Posted: 25 Jul 2007 at 19:10 by Geert Verhoeven

  In a previous post I've mentioned the possibilities of Word 2007 to create new blog entries. A colleague of me informed me about a tool names Windows Live Writer which is a tool created by Microsoft to create blog entries. After testing it for a while, I'm now using Live Writer as my primary bloggin

• Create a function that returns a table

  Posted: 25 Jul 2007 at 18:17 by Geert Verhoeven

  In SQL Server it is easy to create a function that returns a table when used in the from clause. In Oracle this is not as easy as it seems but since my current client uses Oracle, I was forced to find a solution so here it is. To create a function that returns a table in Oracle you need to follow a

• How (not) to create a deadlock with the Thread.Join() method

  Posted: 19 Jul 2007 at 18:05 by Geert Verhoeven

  In one of my projects I needed to be able to execute multiple tasks at the same time and show the results when all the tasks were finished. The tasks included updating of the user interface. Since you cannot update a control on the user interface from a thread different than the thread that own

• Blogging with Office 2007

  Posted: 17 Jul 2007 at 11:10 by Geert Verhoeven

  Since a few days I'm using Word 2007 to create new blog entries. I've tried several utilities to add new blog entries but was always struggling with the layout. After doing a few tests, I'm very pleased with Word 2007. The only pity is that since I'm using Blogger, I can't upload images and don't ha

• Add a new code group based on a .snk file by using the caspol command line

  Posted: 09 Jul 2007 at 20:31 by Geert Verhoeven

  For one of my projects, I needed to be able to give the FullTrust permission to my smart client applications. Since all the applications created at the client are signed using the same strong name key, I've used this to set up the security requirements. Normally I would use the ".NET Framework 2.0 C