About Me
Steven enjoys all things technical, politics, fun and family. Basically life in general.
Giveaways and Discounts
Microsoft
.NET Performance Counters
Recently while catching up on technical reading I ran across the subject of performance counters. I must admit that I had not looked closely at this subject in the past and thought it was time to do so. If you are not sure what performance counters are and what they provide simply put they have [...]
Five C# Code Snippets
A snippet is a small section of text or source code that can be inserted into the code of a program. Snippets provide an easy way to implement commonly used code or functions into a larger section of code. Instead of rewriting the same code over and over again, a programmer can save the code [...]
Office Ribbon Hero
Are you a ribbon hero? Want to be one? Do you have no idea what I am speaking of? If you’re a casual gamer or a die hard then you may enjoy Ribbon Hero which is a game for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel 2007 and 2010. While it is not Halo for the XBox, it [...]
PowerGUI Is A Graphical Interface For PowerShell
If you have been wanting to look at PowerShell and do not relish the idea of working with the command prompt have no fear. The fine folks at Quest Software have you covered with PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! The beauty of this product is not simply the [...]
Microsoft Certified Professional Training
A Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) certification would be one area where you can set yourself about your peers as a Microsoft professional. A variety of IT fields may become available as an individual seeks the schooling and training necessary to obtain a MCP certificate. There are a number of different ways that you [...]
Tools of the Trade: March 2010
As a software engineer there are a number of tools that I use on a daily basis to both increase productivity and make my job easier. Each month I will discuss products that I either currently use, have used in the past, and what I am hearing is the next best product.
Products may include but [...]
Is The Apple iPhone Dead Or Just Dying
Is the Apple iPhone losing its market place and is Apple beginning to feel the pressure from other vendors? According to data that I have read as recent as January 2010 Apple has 0.12% of the market share whereas HTC has 0.24%. I find these numbers extremely interesting for a number of reasons. First, nobody [...]
The Microsoft Certified Application Specialist Study Guide
The Microsoft Certified Application Specialist Study Guide will allow you to demonstrate your expertise with the 2007 Microsoft Office system! This comprehensive study guide covers all the Microsoft Certified Application Specialist exams for Microsoft Office, including Word 2007, Excel 2007, Outlook 2007, PowerPoint 2007, and Access 2007. For each exam, you ll build the skills [...]
Visual Studio 2010: The Next Generation Of The IDE From Microsoft
Visual Studio 2010 is bringing both greater quality and robust tools to the .NET software developer like nothing ever done before. As a .NET developer I have been using Microsoft’s Visual Studio IDE since version 6.0 and I have continued with this IDE since the introduction of Visual Studio .NET roughly nine years ago. Microsoft [...]
How To Obtain Environment Details With .NET 3.5
Have you ever found yourself needing to obtain environment details concerning the server where your application resides? If so, take a look at the System Namespace and specifically the Environment Class which provides information about, and means to manipulate, the current environment and platform. A little later in this article I provide a working example. [...]
Charting Controls In ASP.NET
Recently I inherited a legacy Microsoft .NET 1.1 web application that employed charts via a third party vendor. Since I am working to best support this project I thought I would turn my attention to the Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 that I recalled first reading about from Scott Guthrie, aka @ScottGu. As [...]
UML Modeling and Visual Studio .NET 2010
First things first. If you have been living under a rock you may be surprised to learn that Visual Studio .NET 2010 RC is available for download. I have been looking at this IDE since the public beta was made available and the release candidate is fast and stable. Give it a spin for yourself. [...]
Windows Phone 7 Series Announcement
Microsoft announced at the Mobile World Congress 2010 press conference The Windows Phone 7 Series and I must admit that it looks very trendy. I do not see myself rushing out to purchase this mobile device anytime soon however if Microsoft would like to provide one free of charge, I would gladly accept and report [...]
Tools of the Trade: February 2010
As a software engineer there are a number of tools that I use on a daily basis to both increase productivity and make my job easier. Each month I will discuss products that I either currently use, have used in the past, and what I am hearing is the next best product.
Products may include but [...]
Best Practices: Visual Studio .NET Project Naming Standards
If you have not adopted a best practice when it comes to naming your solution and projects within Visual Studio .NET, I urge you to take a moment a think about this subject. As anyone will tell you best practices are worth their weight in gold and why would anyone not want to review what [...]
Win A Microsoft Surface Table
I recall when Microsoft Surface was first unveiled and I must admit I would love to have one of these sitting in my home? If you feel the same way then now is your chance to win one!
The Microsoft Surface is a 30-inch tabletop multi-touch display that uses a camera-based vision system to interact with [...]
Snazzy File Uploading With .NET and JQuery
I must admit that more often than not when I run across an option to upload files the interface leaves a lot to be desired. Why is this? Should end users not be presented with eye candy as well as immediate feedback when it comes to uploading data?
Simply JavaScript – Free 150 Page Preview! Learn [...]
PowerShell 2.0 Under Windows 7
It is important to note that Windows 7 is the first operating system which shipped with PowerShell as part of the operating system. Visit the Windows PowerShell Blog for a listing of versions and downloads as well as a wealth of other information.
To access PowerShell all one must do is open the Run dialog or [...]
Pivot From Microsoft Live Labs
I have no more invites to share. The five I had went quick
Have you heard of Pivot from Microsoft? If not you are missing out on a great mechanism of interacting with large, medium, or small amounts of data. Pivot is currently available by invitation only to a small technical audience and you can request [...]
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