If you come from C/C++/MFC and getting into C#, you might find Joseph Newcomer's C# for MFC Programmers Quick Equivalents Map useful. Although not the best looking page on the internet, it has a lot of really good info. Thanks, Joseph!

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? There are some things to know when it comes to consuming objects returned by a web method and they're not what you might expect on first attempt.

I agree with Josh. Blog and aggregator software that do not support the CommentAPI really don't go well with me. I find that if a blog does not support it I usually just don't comment and I especially don't read post comments. Also, I refuse to use a reader anymore that doesn't support it.

I posted about a week ago about the new nullable value types in C# 2.0. Since then the new C# Language Specification has been released - which now includes a section on nullable value types, so it has gained a bit of buzz in the blogsphere over the past week. Eric Gunnerson posted on the C# Team FAQ a little more related to nullable types and answers the question Why don't nullable relational operators return "bool?" instead of "bool"?.

Every now and then I diverge from my usual C# (or at least technical) content. I guess now is one of those times. Since I typically don't like to stray to non-technical or programming content, I decided to post a few random items that I would not post on normal days (when I am feeling normal?) all at once.

I found something really cool from Dirk Primbs - a managed provider for NNTP! What a cool idea. Dirk wraps all the NNTP protocol and socket work into objects that implement the interfaces from System.Data to give you a really cool way to read NNTP data. How about querying a newsgroup with a SQL select statement?!

The C# 2.0 specification will bring a lot of changes to the language. One of those changes will be the addition of nullable value types via the “?” type. In addition to the nullable type and the “?” syntax is the “??” operator.

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 would simply shell out the URL to launch and let Windows open it in the default application for http. The problem is that shelling the URL will pass it off to the default application, but not necessarily the a new instance of the default applicatio

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, to NewsGator, to SharpReader again, to FeedDemon, back to SharpReader, to Gush, back again to NewsGator, and then Sauce Reader. Just as I was about to start building my own aggregator, I decided to give RSSBandit another try (after reading ho

Josh Ledgard made a post a couple of weeks ago that I've been giving a lot of thought to lately about “ignoring the A-List bloggers”. Often when you find a blog you like, you just read it. Everyday. Whether the post is good and about something that interests you, or something that you'd never read otherwise, if it were not on a blog you subscribe to. All these posts that do nothing for you end up eating up a big chunk of your time (well they can add up - how much depends on which blogs you subsc

Adam Nathan, the one who brought us the excellent pinvoke.net Wiki, had released an addin for Visual Studio that integrates the pinvoke.net site and allows you to insert DllImports for API declares right into your code. I read about this a few days ago and I just tried it today. Really cool stuff. You can both insert DllImports into your code, or submit DllImports to the Wiki, all from within VS.

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 to do just that.

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 & feel. When Windows Forms 2.0 comes out with Visual Studio 2005 support for XP themes will be enabled by default in your Windows applications. However, for now you have two options for enabling XP theme support.

Leave it to Bob to track down all the cool RSS feeds coming out. Microsoft has put out an RSS feed for Security Bulletins. Stay secure.