PropertyBag from VBUG.net

So, we have a new bag of good stuff for you this month. From what I have seen so far, the next few months look real exciting as we move into another level and version of .net development.

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My take on this is what more support could be needed? There are thousands of books, whitepapers and knowledgebase articles covering all manner of solutions to coding with VB6. To take a contextual view on this, if you have created application x at your company and you then create application y that exceeds the capabilities of application x but it requires your users to learn how to do things differently but it enables them to work faster and more efficiently, how long are you going to continue providing support for customers using application x who don’t actually pay for you to support them? Let’s face it, the only support for VB6 that has gone is the free stuff. The paid stuff is still there, so if you need it then fine use it. I think I’d be more inclined to do a MSN Search or a newsgroup lookup before I read out my credit card number.

For more information, go to http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/TSNewLib.asp

For more information, go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B352EB1F-D3CA-44EE-893E-9E07339C1F22&displaylang=en

The Nasa World Wind Project

Directly from a recent DotNetRocks episode (www.dotnetrocks.com) was a couple of guys from nasa who had developed the most amazing site in C#. The site http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov lets you zoom from high on above the surface of the earth into any place on the earth. This has now become an open source project.

Best Practice

I really enjoy finding out the right, proper and most efficient methods for using a language or tool that I work with. So, when I came across this site from a couple of well known developers I had to download and absorb what they were saying. So, for your free copy of a 100+ page pdf on .net coding guidelines, get yourself over to.

For more information, go to http://www.iridiumsoftsol.com/content.aspx?content=methodology/whitepapers

Scott Hanselman’s Weblog

This guy’s weblog page has an extensive list of Developer and power user tools. Well worth a look to see what you might be missing out on.

For more information, go to http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/radiostories/2003/09/09/scottHanselmansUltimateDeveloperAndPowerUsersToolsList.html

Tim Sneath’s Weblog

This item came from Vice Chairman George Gallagher. Tim departed the UK some months ago now for a fairer, perhaps even wetter life in Seattle. His blog is telling us about .net nuggets. These were something he was thinking about before he left the UK and the guys at Microsoft UK (3 Mikes as it happens!) have delivered the first 6 nuggets. Grab yourself a bargain bucket at

For more information, go to http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2005/02/02/365838.aspx

VBRun

So who says that Microsoft are giving up on VB6? That is certainly not the case if you get yourself over to http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun.

Our good friend Jay Roxe has a lot to tell you and if you’re still not convinced that vb.net is for you, then that’s cool too. You can look into the Greatest Hits’ of VB6 and if you might just be tempted to try some .net functionality then there’s a whole section on VB Fusion, where you could design a small part of your next project in VB.net and use it from VB6.

QuickCode.net

This is one of those ‘gems’. QuickCode is an add-in for VS2003. It supports VB.NET, C# and ASP.NET, and the authors state that more language support is coming. It works by using ‘quickcodes’ the add-in allows you to define them as you go. There is a great example on the website where you enter prop int test, and it gets replaced with the full text for a property definition. Well worth a look and the $29 per developer price tag is more than reasonable.

For more information, go to www.dvxp.com/en/quickcode.aspx

SecondCopy

You know, I like to think that I have a pretty good backup regime. I regularly copy off my important files to other media and have a secondary disk backup of my development work. This tool makes my life easier, in fact bundles easier. Secondcopy allows you to create source-destination folder pair that is activated using scheduling that you decide upon. So, for example, you may have a folder called Dev. You might have a folder on a development server on your network called Dev Backup. You can set up SecondCopy to automatically copy files in the background so that you always have a pretty good chance of having something to recover in the event of a disaster.

http://www.secondcopy.com/

PortForward

Network technology is making great inroads into the home. Resultantly, more people are buying tools like routers and firewalls so that their home networks are safe and so that mobile users can use their devices pretty much anywhere in their home. These devices are not always easy to set up, so here is port forward to assist with just that task. They have lots of info on how to configure most of the popular makes of router and firewall.

For more information, go to http://www.portforward.com

Well, that’s’ it from me for another couple of months or so. Just as an aside, go take a look at www.imceda.com. Their product Lightspeed Backup, yes those of you who read regularly will have heard me rant about it before, is one of the best, most useful SQL admin tools on the market. If you are an SQL Server admin, you really should be using this tool, if you’re worried about security, there is even a security module to encrypt your backups.

As I said before, if you have a gem that you want everyone to know about, then drop me an email to geoff.hirst@vbug.co.uk. See you soon.

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