Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

When setting out on a new project, you risk painting yourself into a corner if you take ill-conceived decisions without knowing the choices you have. The book Application Architecture Guide 2.0 provides design-level guidance for the architecture and design of applications built on the .NET Framework. It is a collaborative effort between Patterns & Practices, Product teams, and industry experts. The guide in PDF format (2.64MB) is freely downloadable from CodePlex . I have benefitted a lot from reading the Patterns & Practices guide " Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability " that was published years ago and look forward to reading this new guide from P&P. There aren't many comprehensive guides like these for .NET practitioners and this guide thankfully fills a void. It's also a nice idea that they are seeking feedback from the community.

Nikhil recently posted a Dilbert comic strip on 'featuritis'. He wished the comic strips were available with full text search, something I would love as well. It would be cool if search engines had a feature to return cartoon strip images matching keywords in them. It is interesting how the software industry has inspired cartoonists and vice versa . Here is a list of Dilbertisms related to computers & Internet - Keyboard Plaque - The disgusting build-up of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards. Mouse Potato - A couch potato with broadband. Three-fingered Salute - The Ctrl+Alt+Delete combination required to reboot old versions of DOS, bring Windows 95 back to the real world, and log on in Windows NT/2000/XP. Chips and Salsa - Chips = hardware, Salsa = software, as in 'Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa'. Screenager - An online teen (18-24) that grew up in front of a TV or computer screen. PEBKAC - Fault code us...

Many large companies have taken advantage of Scrum to undertake complex projects in an incremental fashion. Without doubt it is a promising methodology if understood & implemented properly. If you haven't heard of Scrum or know little about it, Ken Schwaber's nearly 200 paged book ' Agile Project Management with Scrum ' is a good resource to understand the essentials. The book is engaging all throughout as it is anecdotal & the tone is conversational. The author uses case studies (involving what appear to be fictional companies) to explain the important concepts of Scrum. Throughout the nine chapters, he constantly repeats the key phrases & jargon to reinforce the basic principles. As the book is written by a Scrum co-creator and evangelist, I felt it was not objective & dispassionate. Although it has important tips for practitioners, it does not tell us specifically what scenarios Scrum is not suitable for. Scrum is also idealistic. Sample this - Scrum ...

I'm thrilled to receive the MVP award from Microsoft for a fourth time. Wish to know what the award is about and how to become a MVP? Check out this video in which MVP Lead Abhishek Kant talks to MTV VJ Nikhil Chinnapa at the recently concluded Virtual TechDays .

Sarah on Channel 10 has this tip - The Zamzar web browser button is a bookmarklet you can add to your bookmarks toolbar folder in your web browser. With the bookmarklet installed, you’re then able to convert any files you find on the web and download them to your computer. To use the web browser button, just click on it when you’re on any website that contains files. Zamzar will auto-detect all the files on the page that can be converted and will highlight them for you. You can then choose which ones you want to convert and what format you want them converted to. You can even use the button to convert online videos from sites like YouTube. There are other ways too.

Monitoring & maintaining your website is as important as building it. Try out these nifty tools that make the job easy - POPURI.US is an online tool to check the ranking (Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati etc.) and popularity of your website (based on social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, etc) as well as that of your competitors. A widget is also available so that you can embed it on your site. FEEDCOMPARE - If you offer RSS feeds using Feedburner, you can view the statistics of your Feed readership over intervals (1/3/6/12/24 months) as well as compare your FeedBurner subscriber numbers with competing websites. The charts are Flash based so you will need it enabled on your browser to view the stats. W3C Link Checker - identifies broken links. To be continued...

IE Developer Tools formerly called Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar and available as a separately installable browser add on is now integrated in IE 8 (Beta 2). It is accessible from the Tools option in the IE menu or by using the F12 shortcut. Although there are differences between Firebug and IE Developer Tools, it can be said that Developer Tools is to IE what Firebug is to Firefox - a friendly tool that helps a developer understand how HTML, CSS & Javascript operate within a web page & aids in fixing any issues that may arise in those areas. There are a host of features in IE Developer Tools, some hidden within the menu options and their utility is not readily obvious. By knowing the scenarios in which they would be helpful, a developer can better utilize IE Developer Tools. Take for instance the Color Picker. It is not something you would use everyday but you can make your client's day when she wants the background color of a table in a web page that you are buil...

I have found these tips from the Windows Vista online documentation practical & useful - Disable services you don’t need - see possible list of Services to disable Turn off visual effects - over 20 of them; if you want speed over looks Delete programs you never use Limit how many programs load at startup - made easy with Windows Defender Clean up your hard disk - Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup Defragment your hard drive - monthly is optimal or when your free disk space totals 15 percent or less Related links: Compare Windows Vista Editions Free Microsoft E-Learning Clinic 3404: What's New in Windows Vista Guide to Freeing up Disk Space under Windows Vista

Microsoft Press is offering a free 258 paged e-book - Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Learning has a free e-Learning course - Collection 6187: What’s New in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Red Gate has two free offerings - Dissecting SQL Server Execution Plans and How to Become an Exceptional DBA . (Thanks Mladen ) Related links: Free SQL Server Videos Track Free Microsoft e-Learning products with RSS feed

In the time that you search online to find a source to find the distance between two places, you can adapt one of the example scripts from Virtual Earth Map Control SDK 6.2 online documentation. All you need to play with the Virtual Earth Map Control ( version 6.2 has recently been released ) is a fair knowledge of Javascript. I do not have an in-depth knowledge of the Virtual Earth Map Control SDK (yet), but I was able to adapt the example for the VEMap.GetDirections Method within minutes to find distance between two places (in India) using Virtual Earth . From the original sample, I omitted the function related to time it takes to travel between the two specified places as it is pretty irrelevant to India. Given the state of the roads, you never really know. Related links: Road maps of Indian cities on the Web HOW TO find the latitude & longitude of any town/city using Virtual Earth Map Control