Ross Hawkins - June 2011 Entries

June 2011 Entries

Windows Server Solutions Add-In Package Project (*.wssx) for Visual Studio 2010

The Windows Server Solutions Add-In Package Project (*.wssx) for Visual Studio 2010 adds support to Visual Studio 2010 for *.wssx cabinet files required to distribute Windows Server Solutions SDK Add-Ins for Windows Home Server 2011, Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials. Some features: Complete Visual Studio 2010 project type that fully automates creating *.wssx files Full makecab automation Full MSBuild support and integration points Automatic packaging of project reference outputs and content items ...

posted @ Saturday, June 25, 2011 3:41 PM | Feedback (0)

Just like a fine whisky..

Ned has some good news for those of us developers who no longer consider ourselves spring chickens: Lots of people this week are talking about Peter Knego's analysis of the correlation between age and reputation on Stack Overflow. His conclusion is that developers get better and scarcer with age.

posted @ Saturday, June 18, 2011 3:06 PM | Feedback (1)

The most commonly used iPhone passcodes are unsurprisingly predicable

The most common iPhone passcodes look fairly predictable – no surprises here I guess, as an iPhone passcode has some additional requirements on top of a normal password. It needs to be something that can be entered regularly and quickly, it’s something that’s going to be regularly entered in plain view of many different people (and in different levels of intoxication) so you don’t want to use something like your bank card pin, and finally a lot of people who’d care about security probably have little faith in an passcode protecting much data in the event of a real attack...

posted @ Thursday, June 16, 2011 12:26 PM | Feedback (0)

Name these tasktray icons!

Glancing down at my task tray right now I notice there’s an insane amount of tray icons. This is something of a temporary state as I don’t leave all these things running all the time – I mean there’s 4 music related apps there (7 if you count the standard volume control plus one other).. but.. how many can you name?

posted @ Wednesday, June 15, 2011 9:01 PM | Feedback (2)

OS X Lion and iOS 5 intro videos

I watched this one first, and didn’t really see much that grabbed me. I’m sure there’s some great stuff here, but there’s nothing that jumped out and wowed me as something I’d use every day or that would make my life better. I did have it in the back of my head that this release could alienate a few hardcore OSX users, whoever the hell they are, as it looks like a big change. Also if you don’t have a gesture compatible mouse you could be a bit screwed. I like gestures, but I hate the ergonomics...

posted @ Thursday, June 09, 2011 10:27 PM | Feedback (6)

Simple (but effective) ASP.NET MVC RSS feed creation

Short story shorter, I recently wanted to add some quick RSS feed functionality to an app I’m working on. I looked at a few options, and really didn’t like any of them – except this one from Damien Guard. The post is over a year now, so there might be a better way to do things lurking out there, however to me this was the nicest and cleanest solution I found. Link: Creating RSS feeds in ASP.NET MVC Tags: ASP.NET, MVC

posted @ Thursday, June 02, 2011 9:12 PM | Feedback (1)

How to spot a fun code review

[15:00] <~Sam> oh [15:00] <~Sam> my [15:00] <~Sam> god [15:00] <~Sam> I see why they're doing it [15:00] <~Sam> hahahaha Reviewing other people’s code is fun. It really really is.

posted @ Thursday, June 02, 2011 3:02 PM | Feedback (1)

About me

My name is Ross Hawkins and I'm a developer, consultant, business owner and writer based in Auckland, New Zealand (pictured below!). My current work revolves around ASP.NET, C#, jQuery, Ajax, SQL Server, and a mix of other Microsoft development technologies.

I also have about 15 years of experience with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and associated technologies. While Notes/Domino is no longer my primary focus I still like to dabble and keep my skills up to date.

I own and run 2 businesses - Hawkins Consulting Services, and Ignition Development.

Follow @rosshawkins

Bethells Beach, located in sunny West Auckland, New Zealand

Search

Popular Content

Troubleshooting WebResource.axd

The .NET 2.0 framework changed the way clientside JavaScript is delivered to the browser. Previously, ASP.NET 1.1 used the aspnet_client directory whereas now 2.0 uses WebResource.axd.

Published on October 8, 2006

jQuery Wildcard Selectors - some simple examples

I wrote about jQuery wildcard selector syntax briefly back in 2009, and since then that post has received a lot of views â€“ way more than a post that brief should ever have seen..

Published on October 14, 2011

Microsoft AJAX Extensions: Sys.Debug is null or not an object

One of the breaking changes which was made with the 1.0 release of the Microsoft Ajax Extensions was the renaming of the 'Debug' class to 'Sys.Debug' for reasons of compatiability with other frameworks. Breaking changes like this can often be a source of frustration..

Published on May 22, 2007

Simple ASP.NET Character Counter

A textbox character counter is a pretty simple piece of functionality, and there's a lot of different ways to apply one to your application. The following method is nice and simple, and can be done using only clientside JavaScript if required, or combined with server side code in order to create a more dynamic effect

Published on December 4, 2006