Did you know that large objects (those that are 85,000 bytes or larger) are allocated from a special large object heap. Objects in this heap are finalized and freed just like the small objects. However, large objects are never compacted because shifting...

If yes, then this read is for you -- http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2005/n1745.pdf . It’s a “Proposed Draft Technical Report on C++ Library Extensions” document.

We all know that strings in .NET are immutable; i.e. code that appears to change a String actually makes another one, leaving the old one for garbage collection. To improve string concatenation performance, Microsoft has a StringBuilder class. Did...

Did you know that pressing Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow in Visual Studio 2005 opens a window in the upper right corner that contains the names of all the open windows? Same result can be achieved by executing Window.ShowEzMDIFileList command… Source: http:...

Did you know that you no longer need to leave VS and use SN.exe to create a strong key to sign an assembly? Simply, go to Project Properties , select the Signing Pane , and check Sign the Assembly check box. From the Choose a strong name key file dropdown...

Want to check for wireless connectivity without opening up your laptop? Check out these “hotspot locators”, that’s small enough to fit on your key ring -- http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1886797,00.asp

Did you know that default file format for the next version of its Office Suite would be XML? The old, binary format will still be available, but the default will now be Open XML. The Office Open XML format is public and royalty-free, and the XML-formatted...

Back in the last century, we talked about XML as being “human readable” and “self-describing”… Well, W3C went binary on XML ( http://www.w3.org/2003/07/binary-xml-cfp.html ). People talked about it since 1999 (may be earlier); and now with mobile device...

Sounds like a great idea? Then check out this article, which describes the creation of a command-line tool that makes generating nightly builds from the code stored in Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server -- http://msdn.microsoft.com/library...

Yes, SQL 2005 can do that! Here is an example (yes, it’s not very logical, but it gives you an idea on what you can do with the contains clause)… USE AdventureWorks; GO SELECT Production.Product.ProductID, Name FROM Production.Product LEFT JOIN...

First, if you are a not familiar with generics, or would like a refresher course, check out “Overview of Generics in the .NET Framework” at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms172193 . For overview on templates, visit http://msdn.microsoft.com...

Reflector is a class browser for .NET components. It supports assembly and namespace views, type and member search, XML documentation, call and callee graphs, IL, Visual Basic, Delphi and C# decompiler, dependency trees, base type and derived type hierarchies...

Agile Manifesto ( http://AgileManifesto.org ): - Individuals and interactions over processes and tools - Working software over comprehensive documentation - Customer collaboration over contract negotiation - Responding to change over following a plan...

Rootkit software uses a variety of techniques to gain access to a system and then cover up any traces of its existence so that it cannot be detected by system tools or antivirus software. Check out this article (strongly recommended) -- http://www...

Because with “firehose cursors”, when the query is executed, the results are immediately (i.e. without a FETCH command) sent to pre-reserved network buffers, read by the client (i.e. . Network write operations will succeed and free up used buffers as...

Did you know that the HTTP specification defines a method to download any part of the file located on a web server? So, if a client is downloading a large file, and the connection is broken, they can continue from the last successfully downloaded byte...

“The Digital Locker is an upcoming service, now being previewed, that will be released on Windows Marketplace in the Windows Vista timeframe. It allows customers to purchase software online using the familiar shopping cart model, then safely stash their...

Assembly version , a.k.a. product version is used by CLR when loading dependent assemblies. As in .NET 1.X, you can see/change the ProductVersion in assembly manifest by using [assembly:AssemblyVersion(“2.1.6.432”)] attribute. In VS2005, there is now...

If you’re anything like me, you love technology, but you feel that with all the other obligations, it’s getting harder and harder to stay up on all the cool staff coming out from Microsoft and the industry, in general. You try to read magazines, visit...