You are at the archive for the tips and tricks category &rarr


Email tip: auto-linking paths containing spaces in Outlook

Posted December 14th @ 12:41 pm by aaron

I frequently get emails containing links to file shares on various servers. Most people just grab the path from windows explorer and paste it into the email which is a shame, because it ends up auto-linking only the first part of the path. For example, “\\server\share with space in the name” auto-links “\\server\share” only.

Tip: […]

Targeting .NET 2.0 and using C# 3.0 language features

Posted December 2nd @ 5:13 pm by aaron

Did you know you can use most of the new C# 3.0 language features in VS2008 under a project that’s targeted at .NET 2.0? How cool is that? And it makes sense, too, since there’s nothing new for the 2.0 runtime, it’s all compiler magic. I found it by accident - I found Daniel Moth’s […]

How to easily redirect an email thread in Outlook

Posted October 24th @ 4:25 pm by aaron

Scott Hanselman posted a quick-and-dirty way to disable “Reply To All” and “Forward” (within Outlook, internal users only) for those cases where you just want a reply to yourself.
With the amount of email we get at my company, that’s a pretty useful (and simple!) trick. I used it internally, which of course started a big […]

Proceed with Caution: Strongly Typed Resources Ahead

Posted October 14th @ 4:23 pm by aaron

Visual Studio 2005 made using embedded resources a much more integrated experience than it was in Visual Studio 2003. But what I didn’t know is that there are some important things to be aware of when referencing these resources. A leaky abstraction strikes again!
The Problem
Even though it “seems” like a static resource, accessed via a […]

TIP: Set breakpoints without source code in Visual Studio 2005

Posted August 31st @ 2:15 pm by aaron

This was probably my favorite Visual Studio 2005 tip I learned in the Mastering .NET Debugging class I recently took. John Robbins is awesome. This tip lets you set a breakpoint at any arbitrary location - no source code required! Think framework library, or 3rd party library, or any commonly called code (that you […]

TIP: Create a “new mail” shortcut for Outlook

Posted July 31st @ 3:45 pm by aaron

If you work at a company that’s as email-centric as mine, you’ll find yourself opening the “new mail” window in Outlook quite a bit. Although hopefully not too much - better to be responding to email than initiating new threads, though even that can get out of hand. The fewer people that generate email […]

Vista “Quick Launch” Hotkeys

Posted May 17th @ 4:37 pm by aaron

My friend and coworker Chris Hubbard (blog coming soon? it’s here!) showed me a cool Vista feature. I typically keep my Taskbar 2 rows tall. One for my applications, and one for my Quick Launch toolbar. Many people think I’m nuts, since even I can’t always remember what all the icons are, but […]

Firefox Tip

Posted September 11th @ 2:13 am by aaron

This is probably so ridiculous it’s just silly.
As I read a blog entry or a web site I will open interesting links in a new tab within Firefox. That way I can read uninterrupted but still have the relevant links available as soon as I’m done.
For example, if I want to know who […]

Helpful summary of string formatting (using C#)

Posted March 7th @ 12:21 pm by aaron

http://blog.stevex.net/index.php/string-formatting-in-csharp/
Helpful!

Options:

Size

Colors