BareGrep

I recently ran across a great tool ( BareGrep ) to perform UNIX-like grep commands in Windows. The more I use the tool, the more I continue to appreciate it.

You can download and use the software for free. If you purchase it, then the nag screen goes away and I think there may be more functionaity.

Anyway, today I was asked to extract all the references to color ( embedded styles and CSS classes ) from our web application. With all the RGB and HEX values dispersed across the site it could have been a tedious daunting task, however, with the help of BareGrep it didn't take very long.

I used BareGrep with the following settings to recursively search our codebase for references to RGB values.

Folder:	C:\starteam\myhealthIQ\UserInterface\Web
Files:	.*\.(cs|aspx|html|xsl|js|css|ascx|master)
Text:	(\(\s*\d+,\s*\d+,\s*\d+\s*\))

Note: I did another search for HEX values using another regular expression.

Once I got the results from the above two searches, I exported the values and ran a BareGrep "Invert Match" search against our standard colors ( example: "(196,\s*38,\s*39)|(165,\s*176,\s*65)|etc..." ) to isolate any unapproved colors.

I actually came across the above tool while I was looking for a Tail application for Windows and found BareTail. I recommend this tool as well if you need a tool to show the end of a log file in real time.

Google Code Search

Google is at it again. This time they have come out with a new tool to search open source code... called Code Search.

Some other code search tools that I found ( not associated with Google ) are

• Koders


• Krugle

Cheat Sheets

I'm a big fan of Cheat Sheets. I currently have HTML, JavaScript, Regular Expressions, and CSS cheat sheets hanging up in my cube. I have plenty of other Cheat Sheets downloaded on my Thumb Drive.

If you are interested in collecting some Cheat Sheet as well you can find many of them from Smashing Magazine.

V2005 IDE Enhancements

Yesterday, Microsoft made Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 IDE Enhancements available for download on their website.

The Enhancements include

"Source Code Outliner : The Source Outliner tool is a Visual Studio extension that provides a tree view of your source code's types and members and lets you quickly navigate to them inside the editor.

Visual C++ Code Snippets: The Visual C++ Code Snippets tool lets you insert snippets in your code by using a pop-up menu that contains programming keywords. VB.NET and C# languages have this functionality in Visual Studio 2005.

Indexed Find: The Indexed Find tool is a Visual Studio extension that uses the Microsoft Indexing Service to provide improved Search capabilities to the integrated development environment (IDE). It sends the results of a search to the Output Window.

Super Diff Utility: The Super Diff Find tool is a Visual Studio extension that compares text files. It uses color coding and graphics to show the difference between the files in deleted text (red), changed text (blue), inserted text (green).

Event Toaster Utility: The Event Toaster tool is a Visual Studio extension that notifies users about specific events within the Visual Studio IDE."

Ready for IE7?

Is your website ready for Internet Explorer 7.0 ( IE7 )? If you aren't ready or your not sure, then please checkout the Checklist created by Microsoft to see if your website is compatible.

If your site isn't ready, then you should consider updating it soon because Microsoft is going to push out IE7 as a High Priority Automatic Update soon. This is rumored to happen sometime in November ( which is very close ).

You can install IE7 from Microsoft's main Internet Explorer Home. You might consider installing IE7 on a machine other than your development machine to test with first. Other than using virtual machines, I don't know of a good way to have both IE6 and IE7 side by side on your machine.

For those of you who like shortcuts, here is a Quick Reference Sheet for IE7.

Note: If you do install IE7 as your primary browser and you have difficulty with other websites, that haven't been as meticulous as you to make your site compatible, then you can install the User Agent String Utility version 2 developed by Microsoft.

"This utility changes certain registry keys on an IE 7.0 installation to allow a user to emulate an IE 6.0 installation as a simple workaround until problematic sites update their code. It also offers users the option to report these problematic sites to Microsoft."

Device Filters

As I mentioned in my CSS Adapters Beta 2 entry, the asp:Menu control does not work well with Safari. As I was trying to research how to make the control compatible ( before I knew about the CSS Adapaters ), I searched Google for workarounds and found the article Using Device Filters ( and making Menu work with Safari ). This was a new feature in ASP.NET 2.0 that I had never heard before. Using device filters you can prepend a browser type to your aspx tag attributes to change the behavior of the tag.

For example you can do the following:

<asp:Label 
   id="lblBrowserType" 
   runat="server" 
   IE:Text="Hello Internet Explorer"
   Mozilla:Text="Hello Mozilla" 
   Safari:Text="Hello Safari" />

Althought probably not useful, when viewed the above code will display "Hello Internet Explorer" if you viewed the page with IE, "Hello Mozilla" if you viewed the page with Firefox, and etc...

The device filters use the same Browser Definition File Schema information that I shared in my HttpBrowserCapabilities entry.

Unfortuantely, I wasn't able to get the menu to look like I wanted in Safari using device filters, but it did enlighten me to the new feature.

CSS Adapaters Beta 2

For those of you who would like more control of your HTML output from ASP.NET 2.0, then check out the newly updated CSS Adapters Beta 2.

At one point I looked into using "CSS Adapters Beta 1" because the native asp:Menu HTML output does not work well with all browsers ( mainly Safari ). However, my direction was altered in another direction that didn't need the asp:Menu control, so Safari compatibility with the menu was no longer an issue.

Anyway, I know there are some hardcore CSS gurus who will do anything they can to not use tables for non-tabular data. If that describes you, or if you'd just like a little more control of your HTML output, then check out the CSS Adapters Beta 2.

HttpBrowserCapabilities

The current project I am working on involves a website that is external facing. Since I am using CSS and JavaScript in ASP.NET 2.0 older browsers may not behave as expected. Therefore, I implemented White, Black, and Gray browser lists.

Initially, I used a JavaScript Browser Sniffer Library written by Pau Garcia i Quiles, but then I became aware of the HttpBrowserCompatibilites class in .NET!

I just finished rewritting the lists using .NET's Browser object ( located off the Request object ). If you are interested in knowing how .NET figures out all this information check out the Browser Definition File Schema. You can find all of the browser definitions on your machine at "%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\version\CONFIG\Browsers". Its very interesting to look through the files and see what information .NET uses to determine your browser information.

VS 2005 Debugging Visualizers

A new feature of Visual Studio 2005 is the introduction of Debugger Visualizers. They offer an advanced, customized data display while you are running your application under the Visual Studio Debugger.

Here is a list of Debugger Visualizers that I have found...

• GUID Debugger Visualizer for Visual Studio 2005 by Jeff Bramwell


• WindowsIdentity Debugger Visualizer for Visual Studio 2005


• Conchango Xml Visualizer for Visual Studio 2005 (RTM) by Howard van Rooijen
• ControlTree visualizer by K. Scott Allen


• Visual Studio 2005 Cache Visualizer by Brett Johnson


• Visual Studio 2005 Control Visualizer by Brett Johnson


• Regex Visualizer Kit by Roy Osherove

If you are interested in developing your own Debugger Visualizer, then here are some tips.

VS 2005 Shortcuts

A college of mine asked me if I knew the shortcut for getting the matching brace/bracket/parethesis in Visual Studio 2005. I didn't know, so in my search for the answer I ran across a useful page with lots of useful Shortcuts for Visual Studio 2005.

By the way, the shortcut for matching a brace/bracket/parethesis is “Ctrl-]”.

Programming Fonts

I ran across the Consolas Font Pack the other day. It is an optimized Microsoft clearType font specifically designed for use with Visual Studio.

Speaking of fonts, I am currently using the ProggyCleanTTSZ font. This font and others like it can be found from the Proggy Fonts website.

A little Google search also led me to the following resources for programming fonts...

• Monospace/Fixed Width Programmer's Fonts


• Programming Fonts

VS 2005 Code Snippets

For those of you who don’t know about snippets or who are sad that c# didn’t come with many snippets installed, here is a List of Microsoft Snippets that you can install.

Once installed (double-clicking vsi files) you can access the snippets either by typing in their shortcut name and hitting tab twice or by clicking Ctrl-K-S.

I made a custom SOAP snippet using Snippy to call a Web Service method from ASP.NET. To import my snippet use “Tools->Code Snippet Manager…->Import”. My snippet's shortcut is “soap”.

In addition, GotCodeSnippets.NET, has a lot of other snippets submitted by the .NET community.

Free SQL Intellisense Tool

I told many of you about this a month or so earlier, but I thought I'd mention it again since the deadline is coming up.

There is a Free SQL Prompt Intellisense Tool availble from Red-Gate until September 1st.

Personally, I think this should have been part of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, but I guess it just didn't make the cut.

Regular Expression Tools

As I develop, it seems I am using regular expressions more and more. So, I am always on the lookout for a good tool to help me edit and verify my expressions.

I used to use an online tool called the Regex .NET Tester, but recently I have found a rich thick client called The Regulator. This is a free advanced regular expression editor written by Roy Osherove.

Roy has also written a regular expression creation tool for beginners called Regulazy. I haven't tried this one, but it looks like it might be a good learning tool.

In addition to the tools above I find that a good regular expression cheet sheet comes in useful every once in a while. There are two good cheet sheets located at the RegExLib and Visibone websites.

Free MSDN Library

It appears Microsoft has opened up the MSDN Library to the public!

This is great news for those that don't have the ability or desire to fork over the money required for a MSDN subscription.

The MSDN Library May 2006 Edition is currently available. Future editions will also be available when they are released.

Web Developer Toolbars

I have found the following developer toolbars invaluable during web development. Some of them you might be aware of alreay, but some of them might be new to you.

Internet Explorer

• Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar


• Web Development Helper

Firefox

• Web Developer


• XML Developer Toolbar

Google Firefox Synchronizer

For those of you who use Firefox on multiple machines and you get tired of getting out of synch with your bookmarks, cookies, passwords, history, and tabs then Google has a solution for you...

The Google Firefox Synchronizer.

C# Programming Tools

Check out these great C# Programming Tools! I knew about some of them, but there are many that I didn't even know existed and many of them are open source!

"The C# Team has scoured the Web for other implementations of the CLI, cool object browsers, IDE tricks, add-ins, obfuscators, and other useful tools and utilities that will help you get your job done faster."

ASP.NET Analyzer & Guidance

I ran across these free ASP.NET tools and thought I'd share them with you...

The Best Practice Analyzer for ASP.NET (alpha release)

"...is a tool that scans the configuration of an ASP.NET 2.0 application. The tool can scan against three mainline scenarios (hosted environment, production environment, or development environment) and identify problematic configuration settings in the machine.config or web.config files associated with your ASP.NET application. This is an alpha release intended to gain feedback on the tool and the configuration rules included with it."

The Patterns and Practices Guidance Explorer

"...is a tool to find and use relevant patterns & practices guidance. Guidance Explorer installs with a guidance library including performance and security topics for .NET and ASP.NET applications. The guidance library contains checklists and guidelines covering design, implementation and deployment topics. The tool and the library will evolve over time to include additional types of guidance."

To see the "Patterns and Practices Guidance Explorer" in action check out ScotGu's Blog entry about it.

Got API?

For those of you who do web UI development I ran across an online API tool (for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XSL, XPath, etc…) and thought it looked very useful, especially since it pulls from some of the sites I frequent anyway ( w3schools & MSDN ).

There seems to be plans to expand the site to include other technologies as well.

The site is http://www.gotapi.com/

MSDN Wiki

For those of you who would like to add your thoughts, code examples, tips and tricks, or whatever to the MSDN VS 2005 documentation there is a Wiki hosted by Microsoft.

http://msdnwiki.microsoft.com/en-us/mtpswiki/default.aspx

Microsoft Tech.Ed 2006 Webcasts

For those of you interested...

There are a whole bunch of free webcasts from Microsoft's Tech.Ed 2006

PayPal Account

If you are purchasing an item from me or just want to donate some money, here is a way to send money to me via my PayPal account...

Conferences, Talks, Screencasts, etc...

This post is mainly to help me document when and where I have spoken and done other types of community type events (screencasts, podcasts, video, etc...)

I guess it could also be useful for someone to see any upcoming events I might participate in. For whatever reason, here it goes...

Conferences

• 06/26/2009 - CodeStock - Useful jQuery tips, tricks, and plugins with ASP.NET MVC
• 08/13/2009 - devLink - How to create your own jQuery Plugin

User Groups

• 10/09/2008 - .NET User's Group - A Crash Course in ASP.NET MVC
• 03/05/2009 - Compuware Thought Leadership - Dive Into ASP.NET MVC RC2
• 05/21/2009 - .NET User's Group - jQuery Introduction
• 05/28/2009 - Nashville Web Dev User's Group - jQuery Introduction

Screencasts

• 03/09/2009 - Dive Into ASP.NET MVC RC2

Podcasts

• 04/15/2009 - New Tech Cast by Tanton Gibbs

VS.NET 2005 Spell Checker Addin

My boss found a misspelling on our website yesterday.

So, I thought I'd look around for a Visual Studio.NET 2005 spell checker addin.

I found the following tools... Spell Checker for VS.NET 2005 Version 1.0 Add-in by Dean J. Giovanelli and Spell Checker for HTML and ASP.NET pages by Mikhail Arkhipov

The tools have a lot of settings so they don't spell check things you aren't concerned about.

Using one of the above tools I was able to find the spelling mistake and correct it. I hope you find the above tools useful as well.

About Elijah Manor

Thanks for clicking the URL from my Twitter account. If you haven't already, I’d love to connect with you via my @elijahmanor twitter account.

Instead of just launching you into one of my websites... I thought I'd give you a little background on who I am and what I do.

I am a Christian married to my wonderful wife, Andrea. We are blessed to have two children Abby (3 years) and Enoch (9 months). I attend the Fellowship Bible Church in Brentwood, TN and I work for Compuware as a consultant developing Web Applications using Microsoft ASP.NET 3.5, MVC, AJAX, jQuery, Silverlight, and the works!

If you haven't noticed already I'm kind of a Twitterholic and I tend to tweet quite often on Twitter. I have recieved a Nuclear Follow Cost on more than one occasion.

I am aware that not all my followers are .NET fanatics, so I try to spread out non-.NET tweets throughout the day as well. I loosely try to stick with this schedule during business hours...

• 1 tweet per hour (7:00am, 8:00am, etc...) about topics such as ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight, etc...
• 1 tweet per hour (7:30am, 8:30am, etc...) about topics such as jQuery, JavaScript, CSS, etc...

Many people ask me how in the world do I tweet all the time? Well, the trick is that I don't :) Every night or early in the morning I sift through my hundreds of RSS feeds, sort through several topic streams in Twitter using TweetGrid, and compile a list of resources I find most helpful. I then schedule out these tweets using Tweetlicious.

If you are interested in following me, but are leary because of the volume of my tweets, then you may want to consider one of the following options.

• Search for my technical tweets on Twitter anytime you want
• Add an RSS feed via Twitter to my technical tweets
• Or check out my delicious account where I automatically post my tech tweets

Connect with Me

Thanks for visiting my about page. If you’ve not already don’t forget to follow me on Twitter so we can interact there.