Scott Hanselman clears up .NET installer questions

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 24,2008

Scott Hanselman, the studmuffin of the Microsoft world drops some knowledge and clears up some confusion about the size of the .NET Framework.

The .NET Framework is not really a 200+ meg download. From Scott’s site:

Which installer do I use?

Here’s the whole thing in a nutshell for Developers, ISVs, and Administrators.

• Offline Installer - One single file that can be run offline and can install the .NET Framework any system it’s run on. It’s complete, all platforms, installable offline.
• Online Installer - A 2.7 meg setup program that will detect what just the files you need, then go download between 10 and 60 megs.
  • NOTE: If you’re IT and inside an office, you’ll want to decide if you want everyone in the office downloading .NET separately, or if you just want download it once, and have them to run it off a network share. Check out the Deployment Guide for Administrators for ways to push it out via AD or SMS.

So how big is it the .NET Framework download, really?

It depends on what you’ve already got installed. Here’s some examples of my results using an XP SP2 machine.

Scott goes into much greater detail on his blog here. He’s also launched a section of his site called SmallestDotNet, it checks you browser’s “UserAgent” and figures out what version (if any) of the .NET Framework you have (or don’t have) installed, then calculated the total size if you chose to download the .NET Framework. Easy huh. The bummer is that it doesn’t work with FireFox.

FireFox 3 blocks 18% of the Fortune 1000 websites

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 24,2008

If you visit a website with either an expired or a self-signed SSL certificate, Firefox 3 will not show that page at all. Instead, the browser shows the “customs officer” graphic and an error saying the website may be dangerous. Apparently this is seen as an issue by some people (I dig it.. and you can always override it).

Of course, excuse or no, according to Netcraft, as many as 18% of the Fortune 1000 websites have expired SSL certificates. That means the odds are pretty good that Firefox 3 is going to block you from accessing some legitimate sites.

I’m gunna say thumbs-up to FireFox for doing us all a favor. People like my mom have no idea what an SSL Cert even is… if it stops here from hitting some bogus self-signed site in error then kudos to the FireFox team.

Read more at WebMonkey

Robert Murraine vs Phillip Chbeeb

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 24,2008

So You Think You Can Dance had a great run this year. Unlike previous years, which ended in a contemporary dancer taking it all this year it came down to two b-boys. Earlier in the season there was an AMAZING popper named Robert Murraine aka Mr. Fantastic. This guys was CRA-ZY; but he dropped out during Vegas week. Another well known popper was Phillip Chbeeb and on the season finale they had a poplock battle. Check it out:

Those Were the Droids I Was Looking For

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 24,2008

Ya, I’ve had one of those days too.

ASP.NET Extensions – Free AJAX Extensions for ASP.NET

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 23,2008

The AJAX Control Toolkit is a joint project between the community and Microsoft. Built upon the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions, the Toolkit aims to be the biggest and best collection of web-client components available. I’ve been using several of these on an internal .NET project and I’m pretty impressed. A few of the control produce nice effects, but take a bit more to implement than I care for, but it’s still worth checking out.

The AJAX Control Toolkit can be found on CodePlex here. You can also see an online example of each control in action at the Extensions sample website.

The examples shown include:

Accordion
AlwaysVisibleControl
Animation
AutoComplete
Calendar
CascadingDropDown
CollapsiblePanel
ConfirmButton
DragPanel
DropDown
DropShadow
DynamicPopulate
FilteredTextBox
HoverMenu
ListSearch
MaskedEdit
ModalPopup
MutuallyExclusiveCheckBox
NoBot
NumericUpDown
PagingBulletedList
PasswordStrength
PopupControl
Rating
ReorderList
ResizableControl
RoundedCorners
Slider
SlideShow
Tabs
TextBoxWatermark
ToggleButton
UpdatePanelAnimation
ValidatorCallout

Clone Detective for Visual Studio

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 23,2008

Clone Detective is a Visual Studio integration that allows you to analyze C# projects for source code that is duplicated somewhere else. Having duplicates can easily lead to inconsistencies and often is an indicator for poorly factored code.

You’ll get 3 new windows  (available from the View menu).

• The Clone Explorer is where you initiate clone detection, and see results.

• The Clone Intersections looks at a file and shows you all the other files that share clones with it.  The different colours represent the different clones sections.

• The Clone Results shows you an individual cloned piece of code and where it resides throughout the application (i.e. all the different files where  that same code occurs).

When you look at a file with clones you’ll see a purple line next to the cloned lines (shown in the image).  By default visual studio just shows a single source file in the main window, however by dragging the tab with the filename in it to the right you can get to a side-by-side view which makes it so much easier to compare the clones before deciding it you should refactor or not.

At this time it appears to be only for C#, sorry VB guys.

Clone Detective is available via CodePlex and is free. Download it here.

Default Logins and Passwords for Networked Devices

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 23,2008

Ever have to go work on a family members computer and need to get into their router. Routers comes with a default password, and most people don’t change them (bad bad bad). Here is a list of default logins and passwords for most devices. This listing is only provided as a resource to network administrators and security professionals. It is also meant to remind people that a serious problem exists when people configure a network or a computer system and do not change these passwords. The manufacturers of the listed devices, software or systems are not to blame for this problem, and we are not trying to discredit them or their products. A default login is a means for an end user of a product to complete the initial setup of the device or system. Most manufacturers strongly recommend their end users change these logins and passwords for security reasons.

Source: GovernmentSecurity.org

Super Cr3w wins America’s Best Dance Crew

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 22,2008

Super Crew takes the crown as America’s Best Dance Crew on MTV’s show of the same name.

From the beginning I knew these guys HAD to take it, oddly enough they were up for elimination several times. Ultimately, their skill could not be matched. These guys are incredible B-boys.

Bio: Super Cr3w is a conglomerate of b-boys from three West Coast dance crews — Full Force, Battle Monkeys and Knucklehead Zoo — who battled each other eight years ago and have been friends ever since. Heading into America’s Best Dance Crew 2, members Ronnie Rey, Do-Knock, Abenamar Honrubia, Rockadile, Alex Murda and Vex are ready to do battle and obliterate the competition.

But what exactly makes this crew so super? Well, for starters, they have traveled the world showing off their skills, having won countless competitions together and as solo dancers.

Despite the fact that he had heart surgery when he was 4 years old, Ronnie Rey came in first at Red Bull BC One World Championship in Johannesburg, South Africa. Do-Knock appeared on Star Search — and won! — while Abenamar Honrubia won Battle of the Year in 2005 and 2006.

But their individual accomplishments don’t stop there. Rockadile has won a whopping 35 competitions, including Underdog 3, What Lies Beneath, Who Runs the Deuce and Break It Down. Alex Murda was the IBE (Holland) one-on-one champion and the City Vs. City (Chicago) one-on-one champion. Meanwhile, racking up kudos of his own, Vex has no trouble keeping up with his counterparts and expressing himself onstage.

After watching their friends JabbaWockeeZ win season 1 of America’s Best Dance Crew, Super Cr3w decided to throw their hat in the ring. They think their versatility, unique brand of b-boy flavor and individual expertise gives them a leg up on the competition. As Ronnie Rey puts it, they’re shooting to be “bigger than the Backstreet Boys!”

21 Amazing Free Wordpress Themes

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 21,2008

SmashingApps comes up with an awesome list of 21 Mindblowing Premium-Like Free Wordpress Themes.

This is quite impressive and covers an array of different layout styles. From the site:

This is not the long list with all the available wordpress themes on the internet but its an exclusive collection of free wordpress themes which are not less than premium themes and you may consider any of these themes as per your need before going to purchase any paid premium theme.

Below are screenshot of some I found the most impressive looking. Be sure to visit SmashingApps for the full list, descriptions, and breakdown.

Microsoft Labs Speed Launch – Quick Launch Application

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Computer Tips
• Date: Aug 21,2008

Microsoft Office Labs releases the first community prototype from Office Labs: Speed Launch. Community prototypes are projects Microsoft employees work on in their spare time. The goal of Speed Launch is to provide lightning quick access to all the documents, files, and websites you use often. It runs on either XP or Vista, but note that it requires .NET Framework 3.0.

Rather than try and index everything on your computer like Launchy or the Vista Search box, this application lets you add exactly what you want in the list, and even lets you assign an item to launch multiple applications, documents or websites at once.

Your mileage on an application like this may vary. There are other applications like StarDock ObjectBar that have similar functionality. I personally see little use for this app when compared to Launch or the Start Menu Search box in Vista. Still, it may be just what some of you are looking for… feel free to give it a whirl.

Speed Launch’s Launcher. To get this you can hit the ”Windows Key + C” or double click the bull’s-eye. The text field has autocomplete so it’s very quick to get to shortcuts even with long names.

This is the context menu on Speed Launch where you can find more advanced functionality.

More info:

Microsoft Office Labs – Speed Launch site (download here)

How to Geek – full review