Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

This unusual question came up on a message-board. I found from Wikipedia that you cannot install VS 2008 editions (except Visual Studio Express edition products) side-by-side . Here is the longer answer - "Visual Studio supports running multiple instances of the environment (each with its own set of VSPackages). The instances use different registry hives to store their configuration state are differentiated by their AppId (Application ID). The instances are launched by an AppId-specific .exe that selects the AppId, sets the root hive and launches the IDE. VSPackages registered for one AppId are integrated with other VSPackages for that AppId. The various product editions of Visual Studio are created using the different AppIds. The Visual Studio Express edition products are installed with their own AppIDs, but the Standard, Professional and Team Suite products share the same AppId. Consequently, the Express editions can be installed side-by-side with other editions, unlike the oth...

T he ever increasing crude oil prices and the precarious weather conditions threaten the way we live & commute. Cities around the world will have to embrace mass transport systems to counter the energy imbalances. One website that's championing the cause of mass public transport is Google Transit . Google Transit is one of the most innovative mashups currently on the Web that's also very relevant to our times. It currently provides schedules for several cities across 9 countries - an unenviable task simplified by the Google Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) format that transit agencies share their schedules in. I discovered Google Transit in Seattle when I had to plan my commute from Bellevue to the Washington State Convention & Trade Center and I found it very friendly & helpful. In typical Google style, the UI is minimal & intuitive. You just have to type your address of origin & destination and Google Transit will show you the relevant bus #'s, route...

LinkedIn is a helpful, serious and understated professional networking website that has currently over 22 million users . After you post your professional profile, LinkedIn finds friends & colleagues you may know through some clever data-mining. It has interesting features to build successful professional relationships. When I was gifted the book "Let's Connect: Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work" by Ajay Jain, I was excited to read it expecting it to contain valuable secrets, tips & tricks for making the most of LinkedIn. Browsing through the 200+ paged book, I found it to be extremely verbose with spiel like "Enter Rolodex 2.0, or the world of social contact building"(pg. 53). The contents could have been compressed into one-third its size & you would miss nothing. The book documents features that you could find in LinkedIn Help . It reiterates the advantages with countless LinkedIn user comments & testimonials (actual names are protected...

T his is a Visual Studio.NET question that is asked frequently on the .NET Forums. There is a crisp explanation on MSDN - Clicking on "Start" starts the default browser and loads the specified start page. Running a page in the debugger allows you to step through code line by line and make use of additional analysis tools and run-time information. "Start without Debugging" allows you to run your code as it normally would run outside of the context of development tools, and therefore no run-time information is available through these tools. On a related note - For some reason, I find that articles on the Microsoft domain (MSDN, Technet, MS Forums) are not showing up at the top of Google search results as much as they used to for queries on popular MS technical topics. Whatever may be the reason, for any product documentation to be useful the content should be search-engine friendly . Related links: How can I create a Google-friendly site?

Steve Souders (once a Yahoo! now a Googler ) who put up the most comprehensive set of best practices on speeding up web-pages is now following up that list with atleast 10 more in his upcoming book High Performance Web Sites, Part 2. 1. Split the initial payload 2. Load scripts without blocking 3. Don’t scatter scripts 4. Split dominant content domains 5. Make static content cookie-free 6. Reduce cookie weight 7. Minify CSS 8. Optimize images 9. Use iframes sparingly 10.To www or not to www Some of the content of Souders excellent 168-paged first book "High Performance Web Sites" is available online and his High Performance Web Sites blog has interesting nuggets. The suggestions in the first list are part of YSlow . GMail has also improved its performance by implementing some of those best practices. Related links: HOW TO improve the front-end performance of a website - I

T his year, I had the good chance of attending the Microsoft MVP Summit in Seattle - an annual MVP event where thousands of MVPs from around the world congregate. I ran into several popular MVPs whom I know from their contributions to the Developer community. I also had the privilege of interacting with quite a few of them, including Indian MVPs , many of whom I just know over email. It was quite a spectacle to see thousands of MVPs get together for sessions, discussions & serious partying under the huge rooms of the beautiful WSCTC. It was the most cosmopolitan meeting I've ever been to and the sheer diversity of the people & the ideas they aired made for a unforgettable experience. An impromptu photo (from Arijit Basu 's collection) of some of the Indian MVPs. I'm second from the right. Related links: Steve Ballmer's speech at the Microsoft 2008 MVP Summit