How to avoid SQL cursors

Good article on sqlbook.com about how to avoid cursors. In short, there are two ways which the article suggests

1. Using temporary table with auto generated ID column and loop it through a while loop
2. Use SQL functions when possible to do calculation on a column

Read it here

I saw different articles on sites about the performance comparison between cursors and using while loop. Some places it made sense to use a cursor but the drawback is that it locks the table where while loops using temporary tables won't.

Due to its syntax and de-allocation procedure, I have never really tried using cursors which, not using them seems like a good practice according to some SQL experts. Read today on a site that one interviewer would ask people the syntax of using cursors and if they knew then he would consider it as negative since he wouldn't want people on his team to use them and knowing the syntax means that you use them :)

Querying SharePoint List Items using jQuery

Very good article by Jan Tielen about using jQuery in Sharepoint. He uses a web content editor webpart in conjunction with jQuery to load Tasks from Task list. This example queries list webservices from client side and loads task in a unordered list. Easy to use code, sort of plug-in play!

jQuery Plugins

• Growl: Popup messages like messenger style in a browser
• Growl use in SharePoint: using Growl to show open tasks in SharePoint. Calling webservices from client side using jQuery.
  

Productivity

Tools

• ToDoList (Free) - The best to do list software I have come across. Its a great replacement for doing quick project plans and using it as a permanent clipboard where you can organize items in hierarchy
• Winsplit Revolution (Free) - Very good tool for laptops where you want to mimic two monitors on one. Allows you arrange windows with keyboard shortcuts
• ZScreen : Screen capture (open source) - a great tool for anyone who needs to capture screenshots. You can associate program to open whenever you hit Print screen key.
• AVG Antivirus (Free) - lightweight free anti virus software
• PrimoPDF (Free) - A great tool to print anything as PDF. Sometimes when you don't have a printer available, this tool makes perfect sense to be able to make it PDF and print it later when you are connected.
• Foxit Reader (Free) - A must have pdf reader, can't even compare this to bulky adobe reader. It provides alot of features for free such as Commenting, attaching files, bookmarking etc. In short makes pdf experience great.
• PDFill - A very good free tool as a replacement to Adobe Writer. Can merge, create/edit forms etc.
• FireFox (Free) - When talking about great free software products, how can you avoid not mentioning the excellent browser which revolutionized browser innovation
• CDBurnerXP (Free) - Hands down the best lightweight CD/DVD burner product. Can make iso and burn them to a media
• Virtual Clone Drive (Free) - Great tool to map iso as a drive. No need to burn DVDs, just save it as a iso and use it as a drive whenever you need it!
• Crimson Editor (Free) - A great replacement to lame notepad. Highlights text for known formats. You can work with multiple files at the same time. A lot of text editing great features
• CamStudio (Free) - Free screen recording software. Lets you make a avi file for the recording.

Visual Studio

• Quick Open File for Visual Studio 2010 - Lets you open files quickly in Visual Studio without browsing through Solution Explorer
• Build Version Increment Add-In Visual Studio - Very useful tool to increment assembly version number automatically upon every build.

Methods

1. TBD
   

Sharepoint Resources

Tools

• STSAdm Win 2007 - Windows GUI for STSAdm
• STSDev - Sharepoint Solution Generator
• CAML Query Builder - Very good tool when working with Sharepoint webservices
• SmartPart - Webpart to host asp.net usercontrol
  

Documentation/Tutorial

• MSDN Sharepoint WSS 3.0
  

Sharepoint WSS/MOSS CSS Reference

Very good CSS reference at HeatherSolomon.com. Very helpful when you need to use Sharepoint CSS to match with your piece of UI. It shows examples with each selector or class and there is button to copy the css to easily copy in clipboard.

Understanding Lamda Expression

Came across a very good article by Panopticon Central. He explains it very well the use with both syntax for VB Net and C#. Visit the following link for details

Link: http://www.panopticoncentral.net/archive/2006/12/08/18587.aspx

MSBuild

I was reading up on MSBuild and found this very good article which explains how to write MSBuild files. A very good read. Its an excerpt from Deploying .NET Applications, by Sayed Y. Hashimi, Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi.

I also found two open source task collection for MSBuild. First one is called MSBuild Extension Pack. It is hosted at CodePlex which has about 300 tasks which includes BizTalk, SQL 2005, SQL 2008, TFS, Visual Studio and alot more.

The other one is hosted at Tigris called MSBuildTask. This has tasks for IIS, Javascript, SourceSafe, SVN, SQLServer.

Having so many tasks available during a build process is an excellent opportunity to automate pretty much the whole deployment process of development -> test -> production promotion strategy.

If you are looking to learn MSBuild, I would recommend to visit following:

• MSBuild By Example
• MSBuild at MSN
• Book - Deploying .Net Applications

Happy MSBuilding!

Which CSS Grid Framework to use - Reading

Link: http://net.tutsplus.com/html-css-techniques/which-css-grid-framework-should-you-use-for-web-design/

LINQ to SQL CheatSheet by Damieng.com

Download Link: http://download.damieng.com/dotnet/LINQToSQLCheatSheet.pdf

How relevant is UML modeling today? - Link Back

A good article by Jeremy D. Miller

Link: http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2009/09/12/how-relevant-is-uml-modeling-today.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

VS 2010 Web Optimized profile - Link Back

New profile in VS2010 for web developers

Link: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/09/02/code-optimized-web-development-profile-vs-2010-and-net-4-0-series.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

Requirements and Source control - Eric Sink

I was googling for branching in source control and found a very good article on Eric Sinks Blog. Not that he explained it very well but his way of explaining with examples is exceptional. You can read it at the following links

Source Control: http://www.ericsink.com/scm/source_control.html

While I was there I also read the following article about requirements; a very good one!

Requirements: http://www.ericsink.com/articles/Requirements.html

Dependency Injection using StructureMap

Found this very good video post from Rob Conery and Jeremy Miller. It explains setup of StructureMap (Dependency Injection) for Rob's StoreFront project. Very good explanation and easy to understand.

Great work guys!

Refactoring in Visual Basic with Refactor!

I was watching Rob Conery's video post about Dependency Injectionon ASP.Net site. I saw he used some refactoring tool to very quickly change the code to modify it for dependency. After a little bit search I found on MSDN link to free download a tool from DevExpress.

You can watch the video from the link below. Looks pretty good with alot of very useful time saving options available.

Link: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/funkyonex/Refactoring-in-Visual-Basic-with-Refactor/

Framework Design Guidelines - .Net

While looking for some guidelines I came across the webcast by Brad Adams and Krzysztof Cwalina. Very good video with some great tips. I'm definitely looking to get the book: Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries (2nd Edition)

Link: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC58/

.Net Custom Attributes

One of my friend asked me question about custom attributes. He wanted to know the scenarios where it should be used and why. I was looking to find him a good link/tutorial and found this great article at TechRepublic which has a sample solution for download as well.

Definition:
Attributes allow you to add descriptions to classes, properties, and methods at design time that can then be examined at runtime via reflection.

Link: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6175490.html?tag=rbxccnbtr1