Linq is very, very, very cool.  I can easily envision looking three years from now and wonder "how did we write software without Linq?".  Several recent language editions have helped to reduce code needed and thus made my development life easier.  However, I have to say that Linq is something that seems to hit a home run ...

Someone sent me an IM asking if I knew of a way to handle the pressing of the close button on a console application.  After a bit of research, I found a way (and some limitations).  This required stepping outside of the Microsoft .NET Framework utilizing P/Invoke.  This allowed me to capture the application close event (which ...

IntroductionAt one point or another, most software developers have written a console application.  It might have been while you were learning how to write software or, even more recently, as a way to create a simple tool that doesn't require the extra effort involved in creating a robust user interface.  At Tech-Ed 2007, I actually ...

If your in the Dallas area (or more specifically, the North Dallas area), swing by NDDNUG tonight for my presentation on developing for Windows Vista using Visual Studio 2005.  (Of course discussing VS'08 can't be avoided and everything I'm speaking on works in VS'08).  Meeting starts at 6:00pm, so I'll need to head ...

I have to admit that lately I've been feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of new technology that I need to grok in order to stay ahead of the curve.  In a relatively short window of time, we've had Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Expression Blend, ...

OK, this is ridiculous!  Why wasn't this information funneled out to the VB MVP's (and other VB'ites like myself)?  How is it that the first word of this is stated in public by none other than Miguel de Icaza (yes, the mono project guy)? What am I talking about here?  Well according to Miguel, he discovered that the ...

After running Vista x64 on another machine for a few days; installing various pieces of critical software and seeing that everything seemed to be working smoothly... I've made the full leap on my main desktop machine (the one that now has 4GB of memory). Some interesting "facts":Windows Experience Index reports my processor running ...

I installed Windows Vista Ultimate (x64) last night and everything went pretty smoothly.  This, of course, is on the second machine I have on my desk so I can see what works (and doesn't) before making the full jump on the main machine.  Out Of The Box Experience After the installation and major Windows Update updates, the only ...

Caleb has sort of let the cat out of the bag... Introducing My.Vista. There are over 7,000 new API's in Windows Vista.  Some of them are immediately obvious while others are deep beneath the surface.  I rather enjoy digging around in Windows API land, however, many people don't care to do this so this area is usually off limits ...

I need to run it through it's paces, but I now have a VS2005 macro that will, whenever I successfully build a release mode project, package the project folder into a zip file named [ProjectName]_src_v[OutputAssemblyFileVersion].zip.  And it doesn't require anything additional to be installed on the machine.  And it's not ...