I just moved the Redwerb Visualizers project to CodePlex. If you want to download the visualizers, please head over there (Redwerb Visualizers on CodePlex). If you want to report any problems with the visualizer, please use the Issue Tracker on CodePlex.

This is my first CodePlex project. I was pretty happy that I could use my subversion client to access the source code. I purchased a license for VisualSVN (a Subversion client for Visual Studio) a while ago and really like it.

Another nice thing about CodePlex is that you can view the code without having to download it. You can even view the history of the code as well as differences between versions. It may not be as good as Beyond Compare, but it certainly is convenient.

I chose the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL). This seems to be a simple, straight-forward, permissive license to allow people to use the code any way they want without having to worry about copyright infringement.

I’ve updated the Redwerb Image Visualizer. The Image Visualizer is a Visual Studio visualizer. Visualizers allow developers to view an object in the debugger. Visual Studio comes with a couple of visualizers, but unfortunately, an image visualizer is not one of them.

The Redwerb Image Visualizer includes the following features (new features are in bold):

• Move the image by dragging with the mouse (no more scrollbars)
• Zoom the image from 10% to 300% (slider is now continuous with several convenient stop points)
• Change the background of the frame from light to dark
• View a border around the image (useful if the background is transparent)
• Includes the following information about the image
  • Height
  • Width
  • Image type
  • Horizontal resolution
  • Vertical resolution
  • Size in memory (an approximation)
• Quick access to features via keyboard shortcuts (lots of new shortcuts, plus a nicer shortcut dialog)

[Download]

The source code is also available.

I’ve been using the Logitech Cordless Wave Keyboard for some time now and I have to say that I am liking the keyboard. As a developer, I spend a considerable number of hours every day using a keyboard so I tend to be a bit picky when it comes to purchasing a keyboard. Because of this, I almost always cruise over to the keyboard aisle in any store that happens to have one so I can see if there is a keyboard that meets all my requirements.

The Wave keyboard meets almost every requirement. It is ergonomic, has an extended delete key, does not have the F-Lock feature, wireless, arrow keys are arranged properly, and the useless media features don’t get in the way of the operation of the keyboard. The software also allows you to disable the Caps Lock key (as well as a couple others), a must-have feature of any keyboard.

The Wave keyboard is so cool, they even have a “making of” documentary.

The one feature that is missing on the keyboard that caused me a lot of problems at first was that it doesn’t have a scroll lock key. I use two computers at home, my personal desktop and my work laptop. I had a KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse) switch that used a double press of the scroll lock key to change machines. Without that key, I had to use a double press of the Ctrl key instead which caused a lot of accidental switches. However, I have since switched to the IOGear GCS22U 2-Port USB KVM Switch. This switch doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut (at least, I’m not using one), but it does have a convenient remote that I can keep next to me that switches the machines.

I have since purchased this keyboard at work, though I upgraded to the Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave Pro. This set includes a mouse with the hyper-scroll wheel. I’ve had once since they first came out and I love having the ability to just whiz through a long page to get to the content I want. The mouse that comes with the standard set is adequate, though you will need to disable the forward button. For some reason they placed the button exactly where I press on the mouse when I am pushing it to the left. I’ve heard this complaint from other reviews as well.

I was in need of an image visualizer for Visual Studio today and I was dismayed that I wasn't able to find one that I could just download and install. Don't get me wrong, I found plenty of image visualizers, but they all required me to compile it myself. So I decided to go ahead and build one myself.

The image visualizer includes the following features:

• Scrolls if the image is too large
• Zoom the image from 10% to 300%
• Change the background of the frame from light to dark
• Includes the following information about the image
  • Height
  • Width
  • Image type
  • Horizontal resolution
  • Vertical resolution
  • Size in memory (an approximation)
• Quick access to features via keyboard shortcuts

[Download]

The source code is also available.

If you haven't heard yet, IE 8 was released today (March 19th) at 9am (PDT). IE 8 is supposed to be faster and more standards compliant than its predecessor. However, there doesn't seem to be any big, noticeable improvements to the browser like there were in IE7 (like tabbed browsing) so it will be interesting to see what the adoption rate for IE 8 will be.

Download Internet Explorer 8

If you like following the browser wars, Firefox 3.5 (codenamed Shiretoko¹) seems to be just around the corner. This is a major update to the current version of Firefox (3.0).

1. Shiretoko: according to Wikipedia, this is an Ainu word meaning "end of the earth".

Apparently Lutz Roeder has sold Reflector to Red Gate. Red Gate has said they plan on keeping a free version available. Red Gate has a lot of great development tools, such as ANTS Profiler and SQL Prompt. It will be interesting to see what they do with Reflector (I'm hoping for a Visual Studio add-in that allows you to debug into assemblies where you don't have source code :)).

Lutz's announcement

Red Gates announcement

New download page for Reflector

If you use Developer Express components and need to see what has changed between versions, I have built a tool that will display all the issues that they have included in their release notes between version 6.1.0 to 7.3.5 (you can add additional release notes if you want to) in a grid. This allows you to filter, sort, group, etc them so you can see exactly what has changed.

The following link provides additional information about this tool...

UPDATE: The viewer is no longer available. It is no longer relevant since DevEx updated the format for their release notes.

If you are interested in seeing a list of the tools that I like to use regularly, I have added an article called Favorite Tools on my website.

I plan on keeping this list up-to-date on some sort of regular basis (probably annually). But don't worry, I will post to my blog when I make updates.

[EDIT 3/8/2009] Never mind. Their service now sucks and considering the cost, definitely not worth the effort.

I've been using Ultima Hosts as my web host since April, 2007. The main reason I got a web host was so I could mess around a bunch of stuff that I couldn't of done otherwise (even though I spent many years as a web developer, I never really got into the admin stuff). I spent weeks searching for a good host, unfortunately I had no idea how to determine if a host was good or not so I ended up asking the ch 9 community for a recommendation and they led me to Ultima.

Now it should be noted that my requirements for a web host are pretty minimal. I was looking for one that supported ASP.Net 2 and included SQL Server. I didn't have any serious plans at the time for a website and certainly wasn't concerned at the time about bandwidth or large amounts of storage. I just wanted something that was developer friendly, and Ultima certainly delivers on that.

If you are interested, here are some of the specs for the Standard .Net hosting package (this information is likely to go stale, check their website for current information)...

(the Professional.Net package is in parens)

Cost: $199 ($299)
Space: 2GB (5GB)
Domains hosted: 1 (5)
Sub domains: Unlimited
Bandwidth: 30GB/month (100GB/month)
Mailboxes: Unlimited
SQL Server databases: Unlimited (with remote access)
ASP.Net 2.0 (with full trust)
.Net 3.5
Total DNS control (I used this today to switch to Google Apps for Your Domain)
Lots of applications (such as Community Server)
Lots more, check out the website if this isn't enough for you :)

All this plus great customer service. I have sent them numerous emails and they have always responded very quickly and accurately, even in the middle of the night (usually within 30 minutes or so). In fact, it's their customer service that has prompted me to write this review (perhaps I feel a bit guilty about wasting their time with all the dumb questions I've asked :).

If you are looking for a company to host your web site, I would enthusiastically endorse Ultima Hosts.

Summertime has really effected my blogging schedule. I've been spending my freetime working on a website for my neighborhood and building a garden wall. I'm almost done with the wall, but we might end up extending it another 30 feet, so we'll see.

Just recently I've started using a tool called SlickRun. It's a very simple tool that is essentially just a textbox (no form, buttons, etc). It allows you to type in commands similar to the Run (Win+R) dialog built into Windows. The cool thing about SlickRun however, is that you can also add "MagicWords" to it so that you can perform more complex commands with a single word.

There are plenty of configuration options for SlickRun to get it to look and work the way you want (see the screenshot to the right). You can even setup SlickRun to run instead of the Windows Run dialog. This is a little tricky since you have to edit the config file (I'm not sure why this setting isn't in the SlickRun config dialog), but once you set it up, when you press Win+R you get SlickRun!

Instructions to setup SlickRun to handle Win+R in Vista

1. Install SlickRun
2. Open Windows Explorer (Win+E)
3. Navigate to your profile directory (C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\SlickRun) - AppData is a hidden folder, however, you should be able to type in the path directly.
4. Open the SlickRun.ini file in your favorite text editor
5. Locate the GrabWinR setting and change the value to 1 (GrabWinR=1)
6. Save the changes