As you know, Windows System Information dialog shows you the hardware resources, installed components, and other configuration related information. It also gives you a chance to run some diagnostics tools and much more… The help file says that to display...

In SYSK 131, Bill Wendel shows us how to convert a SQL string representing a boolean (e.g. ‘T’, ‘Y’, ‘1’, ‘N’, etc.) to a bit. In this post (again, special thanks to Bill for creating and allowing me to post this function), you have a user defined...

Many of us open Windows Explorer, right mouse button click on My Computer and click on Properties menu item just to get to System Properties dialog… There is a much easier way – just press Windows Key + Pause/Break key at the same time – and you’ll get...

Do you want Intellisense in SQL Server Management Studio, Query Analyzer and SQL queries in VS similar to Visual Studio? Then check out this great product from Red Gate Software at http://www.sqlprompt.com/ !

SQL 2005 now has the new OUTPUT clause – see documentation at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177564.aspx. A lot of examples show how you can use the OUTPUT clause to store inserted/updated/deleted values into another table or a table variable...

Do you think there is a performance difference between the following two loops? foreach (int x in _data) { . . . } vs. for (int i = 0; i < _data.Count; i++) { . . . } My tests show that foreach is slower than the...

Say you want to convert any of the following ‘1’, ‘-1’, ‘true’, ‘t’, ‘True’, ‘t’, ‘Yes’ to bit 1 and ‘0’, ‘f’, ‘false’, NULL to bit 0. How would you do that in one SQL statement? One way (special thanks to Bill Wendel who presented this solution...

Yes, let’s admit, internationalization (just as security) has not been the favorite of most developers… However, if you take a look at the ASP.NET 2.0 localization support, you just might be pleasantly surprised with how easy and how cool it is! ...

Want to inspect all HTTP Traffic (both, incoming and outgoing data) from your computer? You can see session being created, cookies being sent, data being cached, and much more… You can diagnose performance problems… You can record a web session (just...

Did you know that while setting ReadOnly property to True on a NumericUpDown control prohibits the user from typing in a value in the text portion of the control, does not prevent a user from changing the value using the up/down arrow keys? You...

.NET 2.0 came with a lot of cool (new and improved) controls, one of them is the System.Windows.Forms.BindingNavigator and the BindingSource class. The only problem I found so far with this control is that if in the Load event you bind it to a BindingSource...

As you know, compiling your web application with <compilation debug=”true”/> in web.config creates debug binaries rather than retail binaries -- see SYSK 101: How to Release Build an ASP.NET application ( http://blogs.msdn.com/irenak/archive/2006...

Have you ever wondered how is it that your custom controls automatically show up in the toolbox after first compilation? Open menu option Tools -> Options and then click on Windows Forms Designer tree node on the left side. The very last setting on...

SQL Server’s function IDENT_CURRENT(‘tablename’) returns the last identity value set on a specified table. While this is very useful, sometimes you need to get the next available primary key on a column that is not an identity field. In this case, ...

BitTorrent is a populare peer-to-peer download method, which enables fast downloading of large files using minimum Internet bandwidth. Instead of downloading a file in its entirety, BitTorrent gathers pieces of the file you want and transfers them simultaneously...

As you know, WinForms controls (e.g. TextBox, ComboBox, etc.) are not serializable. So, how do you create a copy of a control? The other day I needed to do just that, and here is the code I ended up with ( note : it has not yet been thoroughly tested...

Developer’s personal settings and preferences are stored in a .user file. This is why it’s not recommended to add .user files to VSS or other Source Control tool – keep personal to yourself. However, when using ClickOnce deployment, the published...

What do you think will be the output in the code snippet below? object o1 = 5; object o2 = 5; System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(o1 == o2); System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(o1.Equals(o2)); System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(((Int32...

Most applications implement role based security to assure that only authorized users have access to restricted application functionality (features). You know the drill—"only certain users can modify salary information in an HR application," or "only managers...

Consider this: you want a text box on a web page to be not editable by the user, but you want to be able to change the text box’s contents in client side script and see the updated text on the server. Did you know that if you set TextBox1.ReadOnly...

Many ASP.NET 1.0 and 1.1 developers have been using DataBinder.Eval method to evaluate binding expressions at run time (late-bound data) and optionally format the result as a string. While, personally, I prefer early binding due to performance benefits...

Which code segment below is faster? #1 MyClass classInstance = new MyClass(); IDoWork iDoWorkClass = classInstance as IDoWork; if (iDoWorkClass != null) { // Do something so compiler doesn't think it's dead code System.Diagnostics...