Rik Robinson's Blog

Updated Deep Dive CSS code

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:25:35 GMT

Thanks to all the folks that came to my Deep Dive CSS for the ASP.NET Developer session at this past weekend's Atlanta Code Camp. I got some really great feedback from the evaluations and will definitely incorporate some suggestions into this presentation...(read more)

Top-10 Application-Design Mistakes

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 05:52:10 GMT

We saw it when the world first discovered Flash and I'm sure we've got a lot of it left to live through with Silverlight , so this is pretty timely advice from the "Godfather of Web Usability" himself, Jakob Nielsen . This should be required for every...(read more)

Painless Free Annual Credit Reports

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:30:24 GMT

There is finally a (relatively) painless way to receive your Free Annual Credit Report from the Big 3 Credit Agencies. It is a really good idea to keep your eye on your credit report these days. The folks at AnnualCreditReport.com have integrated...(read more)

Weather Widget now in the Silverlight.net Showcase

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:07:29 GMT

The Silverlight Weather Widget made it to the Silverlight.net Showcase and is mentioned in the News section of the Home Page . WooHooo. ...(read more)

The New Generic Kid on the Block - HashSet<T>

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:53:51 GMT

In mathematics, a Set is typically thought of as a collection of distinct objects that is usually defined by some rule that determines whether they are a member of that particular Set. For example, a Set could be defined to contain "all the odd numbers...(read more)

A Better Way to Remove a Trailing Slash from a Path

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:32:41 GMT

How many times have you written this to trim a trailing slash from a path: if (myPath.EndsWith( "\\" )) /* or "/" in the case of a URI */ myPath = myPath.Substring(0, myPath.Length-1); Next time, try this: myPath = myPath.TrimEnd( new char []{'\\', '...(read more)

Back from the Silverlight Tour

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:49:55 GMT

I had a chance to attend the recent Atlanta stop of Wildermuth Consulting ’s Silverlight Tour this past week and wanted to offer some quick comments about it here for anyone considering the class. Going into the class, I had about 3 weeks of heads-down...(read more)

Squeeze Your ASP.NET Applications Until They Scream

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:50:52 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune of catching a webcast from Jeff Prosise of Wintellect entitled: "Squeeze Your ASP.NET Applications Until They Scream". I was really impressed with the content and with Jeff's presentation of same. The event...(read more)

My First Look at the (Silver)Light

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:25:20 GMT

Over the holidays, I was finally able to catch up on some reading and take some time to play with Silverlight 1.0. The two books that I spent the most time with are ASP.NET Ajax in Action and Silverlight 1.0 Unleashed . Both of these, I HIGHLY recommend!...(read more)

Expression Blend December Preview is out

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 03:50:31 GMT

This page has a list of changes, as well as, a link to get the bits: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/download.aspx?key=blend2preview...(read more)

Sharing Folders in Remote Desktop

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:52:28 GMT

Today, I was struggling with getting some code deployed to a client's test server and called him to double-check FTP credentials and such. He casually mentions having the ability to share your hard drive (and other devices) with a Remote Desktop session....(read more)

Deep Dive: CSS for the ASP.NET Developer

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:38:05 GMT

Thanks everyone for the comments and tips offered after I gave this presentation at Alabama Code Camp, as well as, at the Atlanta Cutting Edge .NET group last week. I received several "so that's how it works" comments and that was exactly the point of...(read more)

Time for T : An Introduction to .NET Generics

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:24:56 GMT

Finally able to grab a minute to post my code and slides from the Introduction to Generics presentation that I did this past weekend at the Alabama Code Camp at the University of Alabama. This is the abstract from the presentation: With the release of...(read more)

Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas) CSS tools

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:45:59 GMT

I just returned from speaking at the Alabama Code Camp 5.0 in Birmingham. One of my presentations was Deep Dive CSS for the ASP.NET Developer and I had hoped to spend some time on the tools in Orcas for working with Cascading Style Sheets. Unfortunately,...(read more)

Generic Methods: Find Controls by Type

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:07:05 GMT

Although this was originally part of my recent Generics presentation, I have received several requests to publish it separately. The reason that I created this originally was that I found myself often-times wanting a strongly-typed list of all the checkboxes...(read more)