Personal

A new Level of Geekdom and a Childhood Dream

Ryan Farley — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 14:30:00 GMT

My son, Trapper, just had his 9th birthday party this weekend. I had my friend, Neil (kungfootrooper.com) come, who just completed his new Darth Vader costume to give the boys something to gawk over. Even though I knew it was my fiend Neil underneath I can't even describe how powerful and awe-inspiring it was to be in the presence of Darth Vader. Neil is a big guy and makes a really menacing Darth Vader. It was an indescribable feeling and felt like the fulfillment of a childhood dream to stand next to Darth Vader, up close and in person.

The picture does not do it justice but it will be a memorable experience. Thanks Neil. BTW, Neil just recently marched in the Rose Bowl parade in CA as a Storm Trooper and even got to meet George Lucas. Neil is documenting it on kungfootrooper.com.

Top 30 Popular Posts

Ryan Farley — Thu, 25 May 2006 11:41:00 GMT

I started this blog in August of 2003, almost 3 years ago. I've made 176 posts in those 3 years. I don't post too often to my blog because I'm not all that big on posting stories about my kids, wife, dog, etc - although those do come in every now and then. Anyway, even when I have lulls where I am not posting as much, my traffic seems to stay pretty consistent. I'm actually amazed at how much traffic I get, especially when I consider how often I get around to posting (big thanks to all the visitors over the years).

Some of my posts have apparently been useful :-), so I thought I would post the top 30 most popular posts I've made over the years (based on total number of unique views to the posts).

1. Set Focus to an ASP.NET Control
Setting focus to controls in your ASP.NET application is a part of giving your end users the feel that they have come to expect. Making your web applications act more like Windows applications is a key to success (IMO). While setting focus to con...
Total views: 371,568 - Posted on: 21-Dec-2004

2. Using the Web Browser Control in your C# Applications
It can be a powerful thing to display dynamic HTML in your C# applications. It can give your applications a modern look and feel and can make displaying data in non-standard ways easy with some simple markup. We have the web browser ActiveX control that wr...
Total views: 232,037 - Posted on: 23-Dec-2004

3. Writing to Your .NET Application's Config File
There's likely been times that you might have thought that it would make things convenient to write back to your .NET application's config file. The framework provides simple methods for reading from the config file, but gives you nothing for writing value...
Total views: 197,345 - Posted on: 13-Jul-2004

4. Tips for SQL Server Identity Columns
Tips on allowing inserts to identity columns and also for reseeding the identity value for a table....
Total views: 117,941 - Posted on: 19-Dec-2004

5. Multiple Monitors rule
I love multiple monitors. I can't even imagine trying to work without multiple monitors and don't think I could ever go back to a single monitor....
Total views: 96,533 - Posted on: 7-Jan-2004

6. Unable to Start Debugging on the Web Server
I hate that, and it seems that every time I (or a co-worker) gets the error “Unable to Start Debugging on the Web Server” on a machine when attempting to debug an ASP.NET project, I have to scramble to remember what to look at. Here's a few things that has...
Total views: 91,037 - Posted on: 23-Aug-2005

7. Stop Hijacking my Browser!
Often in applications you have the need to launch a browser window to a specified URL. I recently evaluated various RSS readers where links to blog posts could be launched in an external browser window. What I found was that most of these applications woul...
Total views: 90,029 - Posted on: 16-May-2004

8. Determining the Control that Caused a PostBack
Many times you might need to perform some action on an ASP.NET postback based on the control that caused the postback to occur. Some scenarios for this might include a form with many regions, each having it's own CustomValidator and the ability to perform...
Total views: 69,089 - Posted on: 11-Mar-2005

9. Solving problems through programming...and why the Skype API sucks
I love to take the approach of solving computing problems through programming. Sometimes it backfires and I over-complicate the problem (I have been known to prematurely generalize from time to time). But usually I bask in the greatness of being a programm...
Total views: 60,149 - Posted on: 14-Jan-2005

10. Enabling XP Themes in your .NET Applications
When you build Windows applications in .NET, by default your application will not have support for XP Themes, or Visual Styles. It is an easy enough task to do, and I think it goes a long way in giving your application a complete and professional look & fe...
Total views: 49,397 - Posted on: 5-May-2004

11. On the Subject of Dates in T-SQL
While we're on the subject of dates in T-SQL, I never liked getting the month and year for a date and sticking an '01' in the middle (then casting it all back to a datetime) to get the first day of the month for a given date value. Then you do the same to...
Total views: 42,317 - Posted on: 15-Feb-2005

12. Determining if a Date is a Weekday in T-SQL
I was reminded of a SQL function to determine if a date was a weekday or a weekend I wrote a while back when I saw the requirements of a project a colleague was working on. You'll see this requirement fairly often in many business applications. A company m...
Total views: 40,265 - Posted on: 14-Feb-2005

13. Awesome web.config Changes in ASP.NET 2.0
There are some really cool changes coming in ASP.NET's web.config files that I am really excited about. I'll just point out a few that I've used (I hate going back to 1.1 because I can't use them). The web.config file in ASP.NET 2.0 allows you to set a lot...
Total views: 40,145 - Posted on: 8-Jun-2004

14. Setting the Value of a TextBox with TextMode=Password
When the TextMode property of an ASP.NET TextBox is set to Password the value set in the Text property will not display at runtime. This can be a pain, however it is actually by design to prevent the unmasked password from being displayed in the HTML sourc...
Total views: 36,984 - Posted on: 18-Dec-2004

15. T-SQL Olympics
OK, there is not an Olympics for T-SQL - but there should be. A friend of mine and I were talking the other day about “gold-medal” T-SQL we've come accross. The one that wins the gold for me is the code I found a long time ago on SQL Server Central from Ma...
Total views: 36,617 - Posted on: 25-Oct-2004

16. T-SQL: SET vs SELECT when assigning variables
Do you know what the difference is between using SET and SELECT when assigning varaibles in T-SQL? Well, there is a difference. I came accross a great article by Narayana Vyas Kondreddi from the UK that describes the difference between the two....
Total views: 36,204 - Posted on: 1-Mar-2004

17. Interacting with the Web Browser Control
In my last post, I outlined some ways to make the Web Browser control more useful in your C# applications, to include things such as printing and setting the text or html of the browser dynamically. That is all good, but in a typical application it does li...
Total views: 35,885 - Posted on: 27-Dec-2004

18. Disabling the Windows Close action
There are times that you'll see a Window that has a close button in the titlebar, but it is disabled. This is often found in applications where the dialog/window changes it's status past a stoppable point so the Windows close action is removed so the user...
Total views: 35,796 - Posted on: 12-Apr-2004

19. Creating a IWin32Window from a Win32 Handle
There are times when you are integrating your .NET applications with other existing applications that you cannot modify and is possibly even non-.NET application. This can often result in problems integrating your .NET application's windows with the other...
Total views: 35,465 - Posted on: 23-Mar-2004

20. In Search of the Perfect RSS Reader
For the last year or two, I've been switching from reader to reader. While each one had features that I loved, they all seemed to fall short on one thing or another and I was never really 100% pleased with any of them. I went from SharpReader, to RSSBandit...
Total views: 33,384 - Posted on: 14-May-2004

21. Flattening Out Data with One of the Coolest SQL Tricks Ever
Not sure why, but I seem to be on a T-SQL kick lately - so here's another T-SQL post. One of my favorite T-SQL hacks ever is one that can flatten out data by taking a value from multiple rows and concatenating the values into a single string....
Total views: 33,281 - Posted on: 17-Feb-2005

22. Dynamically Loading Master Pages in ASP.NET 2.0
One of the cool new things introduced in ASP.NET 2.0 is Master Pages. Master Pages give you the ability to define a master page layout and look that is used throughout a site to give a consistent look & feel to all pages. Any updates or changes to the look...
Total views: 33,156 - Posted on: 16-Jun-2004

23. Communication between applications via Windows Messages
At times I'll build a suite of related, but separate applications. Even though each application is a separate executable, I like to be able to integrate the applications so they can work together. Sending messages between your applications is a great way t...
Total views: 31,548 - Posted on: 10-May-2004

24. Rendering Size (and other things) Correctly in FireFox
One thing that I just can't stand, is when a web page I build looks different in FireFox than how it looks in IE. Well, who doesn't?! The thing that really sucks is that there are things build in to how ASP.NET works that will cause this to happen. So unle...
Total views: 31,325 - Posted on: 6-Sep-2005

25. Returning Objects from Web Services
When I work with web services I want things to work the same way as if I were working with a local layer that returns objects, not data. I don't want my code outside of the service to even see the data, just the objects that represent the data. Who doesn't...
Total views: 27,545 - Posted on: 26-May-2004

26. Disabling Auto-Complete on ASP.NET Forms
Popular browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox support something called Auto-Complete. You've seen this many times. You go to a online form and as you start to type in fields you get a drop-down showing values you've typed in that field before. Th...
Total views: 26,844 - Posted on: 23-Feb-2005

27. Intersection of Date Ranges
A friend of mine called me yesterday about a scheduling application he is working on. His question was so simple, or so it seemed, but it really drove me nuts. Basically he just wanted to find out if two date ranges intersected at all. Simple enough. It wa...
Total views: 24,593 - Posted on: 19-Aug-2004

28. Tricking out the Desktop
Something I have always been a sucker for is tricking out my desktop. I love any kind of tweak or gadget that enhances my pc and the whole user-experience thing. It's one of the many reasons I am looking forward to Vista. I've been a fan of applications th...
Total views: 24,497 - Posted on: 11-Jan-2006

29. Retrieving database independent schema information
Something that I think is often overlooked in the .NET Framework is the cool stuff you can get at using OleDbSchemaGuid to retrieve database schema information. I just thought of this again earlier today when I was reviewing a C# database application where...
Total views: 21,989 - Posted on: 3-Apr-2004

30. Creating Tracking Images for ASP.NET
Often with web applications you want to track traffic statistics to get a general idea of the number of visitors viewing a resource. Whether it be a web page, an RSS feed, an e-mail or whatever, you might want an inconspicuous way to determine that it has...
Total views: 21,725 - Posted on: 10-Jun-2004

Some of these are not as relevant now with .NET 2.0, so I guess I better get back on the bandwagon ;-)

Am I Vain?

Ryan Farley — Thu, 25 May 2006 09:50:00 GMT

Of course, this means I need to be a really good driver now. Hehe.

Introducing the Farley Five!

Ryan Farley — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:13:00 GMT

Well. It's been a crazy week and I wanted to post about it. As I've mentioned before, I do try to keep the content here focused on C# or programming topics. However, a personal post does make it's way to my blog from time to time. This week I added another member to the band ;-)

Introducing, on the drums, Turner Farley - born Feb 9 2006!!

Speaking of kids, I was talking to my son Tate (5) about how he is cursed to be hairy when he grows up and he told me that when he is “old” he won't work, just play video games all day. So I asked him, if you don't work how will you buy food for your wife and kids. He thought for a second and then said “the wife can do that”! Doh.

New blog for MSCRM

Ryan Farley — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 12:08:00 GMT

For anyone interested or those who work with MSCRM, I've decided to put up a new blog dedicated to MS CRM development. It's still just a wee baby, but I plan to post somewhat regular content there.

CRMDeveloper.com - Ryan Farley on MSCRM Development

I do still plan on keeping this blog up to date as well with C# and general development topics.

Tricking out the Desktop

Ryan Farley — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 11:52:00 GMT

Something I have always been a sucker for is tricking out my desktop. I love any kind of tweak or gadget that enhances my pc and the whole user-experience thing. It's one of the many reasons I am looking forward to Vista. I've been a fan of applications that trick out the desktop from the norm for years, so I thought I would share a few of my favorites.

(click for larger image)

That's my current desktop on my main workstation - both monitors. I have a patched uxtheme.dll, Desktop Sidebar, LClock, CursorXP, IconPackager, UltraMon, and Konfabulator. Oh yeah, don't forget my ninja stars wallpaper. Everyone knows that ninjas are cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.

Edit: I've added a larger shot of my desktop as suggested in the comments. Click the image above to see the full view.

WindowBlinds ($19.95) - WindowBlinds by Stardock is nice. It allows you to do about anything as far as the visual style of your windows go. Price is fairly cheap. One of the cooler things about the new v5 is the support for “glass” ala Vista Aero style. However, I don't run WindowBlinds on my main development workstation (but I do on my laptop).

Custom Visual Styles via a patched uxtheme.dll (Free) - The UXTHEME.DLL file in Windows is what provides the support for Visual Styles. The DLL that comes with Windows only includes support for the standard luna visual style known as “Windows XP Style”. Using a patched uxtheme.dll file will allow you to use other custom visual styles, such as the ones available from many different windows customization sites (like these on winmodify.net, I particularly like the Royale Vista VS theme). The great thing about using a patched uxtheme.dll is that you're really just using the same engine for “themeing” that is built into Windows.

IconPackager ($14.95) - This is another app from Stardock. It allows you to change all the system icons on your pc. I've changed all of mine to a Vista icon pack. I love the new folder and other system icons.

LClock (Free) - LClock is just a tiny clock replacement for Windows. Provides a much nicer, prettier systray clock (like mine).

CursorXP ($10) - This one gives you custom cursors, complete with subtle animation and drop shadows. Yet another one from Stardock. It can be annoying if you go too far with this. You have to just select a theme that doesn't overdo it. I like my StarCraft style theme.

Konfabulator (now known as Yahoo! Widgets) (Free) - The wonderful world of widgets. There's a widget for just about anything. I use the one for weather, cpu usage monitor, one that rotates images of my kids from my images folder, and one that monitors the Google pagerank of some of my sites.

...and last, my favorite...

Desktop Sidebar (Free) - Desktop Sidebar ROCKS! I've been hooked on this thing for quite some time now. This gives you the longhorn/vista style sidebar without the wait. I use it for displaying new unread mail in my Outlook inbox, my calendar (today's & tomorrow's activities), and more. It is completely skinnable, and while there is a very large collection of skins available online, it is brain-dead easy to create your own as well. Very well built and performs nicely. You can even build your own custom panels for it fairly easily.

There's plently of places you can get new custom styles and themes for these apps. A few favorites are: WinModify, WinCustomize, BelchFire, VisualStyles, etc.

Download the ninja stars wallpaper

MacGuyver - Visual Studio, Tape, and a stick of Gum

Ryan Farley — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 13:30:00 GMT

I've been catching up on some blog reading lately, I've fallen a bit behind. Anyway, a post from Phil Haack has got me thinking. In this post, Phil talks about those projects that we all have found ourselves in from time to time where there is a limited budge and limited time and you just have to crank something out, something that might be mostly crap (or at least just not ideal) but functional, just so you can get things to phase 2 where you'll reengineer everything and do it right.

Ya Gotta Be a Bit MacGuyver

I have been known to prematurely generalize, so I wonder if I would have been able to “look in my pocket, take out a piece of gum, foil wrapper, and loose thread and make it happen“. Isn't it hard some times to bite the bullet and do something that is less than ideal, just to make it through crunch time? No doubt that there are times that it just has to be done, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. I've been in similar situations before. I've made the tough move and built something that wasn't something I was proud of when it comes to design and code, but did bring a sense of satisfaction that I met the customer's difficult timeline, stayed within the customer's borderline unreasonable budget, and ended up with a product to deliver that met the customer's needs and satisfied requirements. Was it the best piece of software ever? Hardly, but the best piece of software wasn't what was needed.

Sometimes, to deliver a product, you need a solution developer, not just a software developer. This consultant was a brilliant software developer, who had hit the high-notes on his pet project. But he could not bring himself to hack together a less than perfect solution.

I think Phil states things right on. It is all about the solution. Believe me, I am all about great design and code that makes drool. The stuff that a developer's dreams are about. But there is a time when you have to be a bit MacGuyver and work the miracle.

You can finally sleep (and pronounce GIF)

Ryan Farley — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 12:34:00 GMT

You can finally sleep at night, cancel the appointment with your therapist. At long last, you can be assured that you are pronouncing GIF correctly. Whew.

The GIF Pronunciation Page

New RSS Reader - Hello GreatNews

Ryan Farley — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:04:00 GMT

I've always been public about my descisions with which RSS reader to use. Last time I posted about this, I was using Sauce Reader and had found that it was bowing out from aggregator-land. Since then, I've used FeedDemon and have been a pleased, but not really that thrilled. I started using GreatNews and I've found that I like it (even though it's current version is missing a few things).

Since Sauce Reader went belly-up I've went back to trying RSS Bandit, SharpReader, and FeedDemon, but I just couldn't really get into any of them. RSS Bandit is a great one and it just keeps getting better and better. But I am just not that excited about it. I just don't know why. I came across GreatNews when I wasn't even looking for a new reader and gave it a try. There are some things I really like about it but it's missing a few things too.

There's a few things that GreatNews has that really appeal to me. It seems that lately I've been so busy that I start to fall behind on reading content that I'd like to keep up on (can't you tell? I've been slacking on updating my blog). GreatNews has some cool, yet very simple features that make it easy to find content that I don't want to miss. Watches, like search folders, let you pull in posts from other sources that you don't even subscribe to. I can built a watch that allows me to see google results of anyone that links to my blog, or see all feedster (or flickr) results that match some certain criteria. I can have GreatNews highlight certain posts based on keywords I've defined so they stand out from the other posts rolling in. I think that is cool. Not to mention that I really like the UI. It is clean, simple, and just looks nice.

I've spent some time in the GreatNews forums, the developer is easy to work with and makes his nightly builds available for public consumption. Things like support for favicons were suggested in the forums and within a few days I had a new build with the support built in.

What I like about GreatNews:

Simple and clean UI
Has the features I want (almost) and not a ton of extras I don't care about
Free
Fast/Performs well
Easy to organize with folders, labels, and watches (search folders)
Channel Statistics. You can easily see what you look at the most and what subscribed feeds keep most up to date so you're able to fine tune what you spend time reading.
Automatic post highlighting based on certain keywords or text so have special content stand out.

What I don't like about GreatNews:

No support for comments! This one is huge, but the developer has committed to adding this. This is really the only thing I wish it had, but hasn't really bothered me too bad so far - I've been using FeedDemon for a bit now which is also missing this so I guess I am used to it.

I'm not saying it's better than the others I've been using. Feature-to-feature RSS Bandit wins there, but I am really liking GreatNews for now and I plan to stick with it for a while.

Take a look at some GreatNews features

My Blog Title

Ryan Farley — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 13:15:00 GMT

I started this blog a couple years ago, in August 2003. Back then, as I still do now, I live and breathe C#. So I picked a C#-ish title to reflect a bit of my passion for all things C and geek.

{ public virtual blog; }

No, it doesn't compile, it isn't valid syntax, and it doesn't really mean anything - but it is what I picked for my blog's title. Since then I've seen a plethora of blogs emerge, using code in the title and have thought of changing it to something else, something witty like “Hi, this is my blog“ or something along those lines. I've got trackbacks all over and my blog is listed in a few places with the current title. A friend also convinced me (possibly by overriding my virtual blog to change my mind?) to keep it what it was. Maybe it's something that reflects my personality, easily overridable and doesn't compile.

Phil Haack doesn't like it. He's down with the whole code in a blog title thing - so I'm sure he loved the title of my last post ;-). I just don't have a name that makes for a witty title. It's sort of grown on me over time, but I'm open to suggestions.