AppDev: Something You Should Know by Irena Kennedy

Everything that is related to application development, and other cool stuff...

SYSK 398: How to deploy .dacpac to SQL Azure from Azure block blob

Here is a quick-and-dirty (i.e. clean-up and optimize to your liking) way of doing it: Import-Module...

Author: irenake Date: 12/01/2016

SYSK 397: Xamarin-Forms-Labs CalendarView control is not rendered in Win8 phone

If you downloaded XLabs open source controls from https://github.com/XLabs/Xamarin-Forms-Labs and...

Author: irenake Date: 01/13/2016

SYSK 396: FxCop Rules for RESTful API

There are a few well known basic naming rules providing a consistent, understandable REST API...

Author: irenake Date: 08/24/2015

SYSK 395: DataAnnotations: ConditionallyRequiredAttribute with lamda expressions

Back in 2010, Jeff Hanley published a sample of a ConditionallyRequiredAttribute that used a name of...

Author: irenake Date: 01/19/2015

SYSK 394: Cost of getting StackTrace and finding a StackFrame

I wanted to find out the overhead of getting the stack trace and finding a specific method in the...

Author: irenake Date: 09/27/2014

SYSK 393: Error: Cannot obtain Metadata (RESOLVED)

Not all error messages are created equal, and some of them are less helpful than others. Here is one...

Author: irenake Date: 09/01/2014

SYSK 392: WebActivator Under The Hood post by Suhas Rao

Check out a good post by one of my coworkers --...

Author: irenake Date: 09/01/2014

SYSK 391: Entities as a data contract

There may be instances when using data transfer objects (DTO) is appropriate. For example, if you...

Author: irenake Date: 07/20/2014

SYSK 390: String.Format vs. concatenation

Since .NET 1.0, we’ve all been told – strings are immutable, so for best performance,...

Author: irenake Date: 07/06/2014

SYSK 389: How to set ClientCredentials via Configuration file in Client

I’m working on a project where a service hosted elsewhere requires Windows authentication. As...

Author: irenake Date: 09/30/2012

SYSK 388: Differences between basicHttpBinding and wsHttpBinding

Doing a web search for a difference between basicHttpBinding and wsHttpBinding, I find just generic...

Author: irenake Date: 09/20/2012

SYSK 387: Resolving Data Type Conversion Error

Consider the following line of code: AttendeeAvailability attendeeAvailability; . . .if...

Author: irenake Date: 03/01/2012

SYSK 386: Performance Implications of Using One vs. Several Nested Hashtables

Let’s say you need to quickly find some reference/lookup data and you decide to use...

Author: irenake Date: 01/26/2012

SYSK 385: Smart Cache

John Manaloto, one of the architects I’ve worked with recently, has been kind enough to allow...

Author: irenake Date: 01/26/2012

SYSK 384: The new ‘normal’ [non-technical]

Once in a while, I post non-technical gems I come across… This one was one of those hard to...

Author: irenake Date: 04/06/2011

SYSK 383: FileSync Tool

Last weekend I wrote a utility that does file synchronization (yes, I know there many such tools),...

Author: irenake Date: 03/28/2011

SYSK 382: File Comparison

Last weekend I wrote a utility that does file synchronization (yes, I know there many such tools),...

Author: irenake Date: 03/28/2011

SYSK 381: How To Get One Callback When Multiple Async Services Calls are Completed

My current project uses Silverlight 4.0 and RIA services, and I quickly came to realize the benefits...

Author: irenake Date: 10/05/2010

SYSK 380: How to Get Rid of Double Scroll Bar in Microsoft Report Viewer Control

Special thanks to David Petersen who has submitted this post! If you ASP.NET page that contains the...

Author: irenake Date: 09/26/2010

SYSK 379: Visual Studio 2010 Add-In for Managing Configuration Files Across Environments

This is an update to...

Author: irenake Date: 08/19/2010

SYSK 377: System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException in a Silverlight 4.0 app

All the credit for the information in this post goes to Marc DeAntoni, and other Internet...

Author: irenake Date: 08/17/2010

SYSK 376: Utility to Add DateTaken as File Name Prefix

I like to view photo images (.jpg files) using Large or Extra Large Icons view in Windows Explorer....

Author: irenake Date: 12/31/2009

SYSK 375: Visual Studio Add-In for Managing Configuration Files Across Environments

One of common customer questions/requests I get is about industry best practices and recommendations...

Author: irenake Date: 12/16/2009

SYSK 374: Role Based Authorization for WCF Services through Configuration Files

Traditionally, to implement role based authorization in .NET you would use PrincipalPermission...

Author: irenake Date: 12/02/2009

SYSK 373: How to Impersonate the Original Caller When Calling the WCF Service in ASP.NET by Configuration Only

If your WCF services use role based authorization, and you need to pass the identity of the end user...

Author: irenake Date: 12/02/2009

SYSK 372: TFS – Enforcing Comments on Check-In & Violations Query

As many web sites point out, TFS uses policies to implement a requirement that developers provide...

Author: irenake Date: 11/15/2009

SQL Server Connection Leak Simulation Tool

Sometimes it’s necessary to test application performance in low available resource situations… I’ve...

Author: irenake Date: 09/16/2009

SYSK 370: The Performance Cost of Extension Methods

First, for those who may not be familiar with this feature, .NET 3.5 allows developers to add...

Author: irenake Date: 06/25/2009

SYSK 369: What’s Taking So Much Hard Drive Space? ... or Getting ‘True’ Folder Size

If, from time to time, you delete some files & folders from your hard disk, either because it’s...

Author: irenake Date: 06/16/2009

SYSK 368: SharePoint – Custom List Item Action that Starts a Workflow

First, I must start with the following disclaimer – this was my first SharePoint 2007 project, so, I...

Author: irenake Date: 04/08/2009

SYSK 367: Outlook Add-In to Archive E-Mails

Do you wish there was an easier way to save individual messages to your hard disk in Outlook 2007?...

Author: irenake Date: 12/16/2008

SYSK 366: Tool to Automatically Set Internet Explorer Proxy

As a consultant, I frequently work at my customer sites, and at my home office. Needless to say,...

Author: irenake Date: 12/16/2008

SYSK 365: How to get your unit tests (test project in Visual Studio 2008, a.k.a. MSTest) run multithreaded

If you want to test code that requires an MTA threading model (e.g. the code being tested uses...

Author: irenake Date: 02/22/2008

SYSK 364: AJAX Extensions 1.0 Source Code and Debug Symbols

Did you know that AJAX Extensions source code and debugging symbols are available to everybody at...

Author: irenake Date: 10/16/2007

SYSK 363: ‘Software is not made of bricks’ by Ragan Wald

I recently came across this gem http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/08/bricks.html -- strongly...

Author: irenake Date: 10/16/2007

SYSK 362: The cost of try/catch

Since I’m still coming across a lot of conflicting recommendations on the “best practices for...

Author: irenake Date: 10/12/2007

Why I have not been writing any new posts...

As much as I love writing the SYSK posts, the reality is that it takes a lot of time... For the last...

Author: irenake Date: 09/17/2007

SYSK 361: On the importance of signing assemblies from the versioning perspective

There are many reasons for signing your assemblies (security being at the top of my list), but in...

Author: irenake Date: 08/10/2007

:) When was the color khaki first used for military uniforms?

It was first used by the British in India in 1845, when soldiers turned their highly visible white...

Author: irenake Date: 08/09/2007

SYSK 360: What’s taking up the space in my database? Also, a word about SQL reports…

So, you’ve updated usage stats on your database by running EXEC sp_spaceused @updateusage = N'TRUE'...

Author: irenake Date: 08/07/2007

SYSK 359: How to Purge Workflow Tracking Data Inserted By SqlTrackingService

To my great surprise, after doing a search for a script that would delete the events logged by the...

Author: irenake Date: 08/05/2007

:) What color was named after a bloody 19th-centurey European battle?

Answer: Magenta. It was named for the Battle of Magenta, which was fought in 1859 near the town of...

Author: irenake Date: 08/05/2007

SYSK 358: Run Rules Automatically When an Event Is Triggered

Imagine this: you’re writing a custom user control and you’d like to execute a WWF ruleset when a...

Author: irenake Date: 08/05/2007

SYSK 357: SQL Server Login Problem on Fresh Installation in Vista

I just installed SQL Server 2008 CTP (Katmai) and all the patches on my Vista laptop… However,...

Author: irenake Date: 08/05/2007

SYSK 356: How To Execute A Workflow Synchronously Without waitHandle.WaitOne()

Consider the following code snippet frequently found in sample applications, code snippets and...

Author: irenake Date: 07/20/2007

SYSK 355: Design and Coding Guidelines for Better User Interfaces

If you’re developing the front end, the user tier of applications, you may be interested in the...

Author: irenake Date: 07/17/2007

Non-Tech: Looking for a precious jewelry gift for yourself or your significant other? I recommend thediamondstore.com.

Not all my SYSK (something you should know) posts are software development technology related, but I...

Author: irenake Date: 07/15/2007

SYSK 354: How To Determine If The Page_Load Event Is Triggered by a Standard Page Postback or by the UpdatePanel?

Ok, so you’re in a Page_Load code block, and the this.Page.IsPostBack returns true. How do you know...

Author: irenake Date: 07/12/2007

SYSK 353: What’s New in "Orcas" (next version of Visual Studio)

This is first in the series of small posts about new features in Orcas… 1. Orcas can be installed...

Author: irenake Date: 07/10/2007

:) A book with no words for $95.00?

The Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” calendar of 2007 states, and I quote: Elbert Hubbard’s book “An...

Author: irenake Date: 06/26/2007

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