VSTS: DB Best Practices : Right sizing the master.dbschema file for better design time performance

A reference to the master.dbschema (or similar, see below!) is necessary for database projects in Visual Studio that reference system objects. Here’s how to add those objects without slowing everything down.
In the March edition of MSDN we provided an overview of Server Projects and how to reference the master.dbschema file to resolve references to system [...]

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Configuring the Windows Firewall to Allow SQL Server Access

I spent an embarrassingly long period of time trouble-shooting my Sql Server install only to find the problem was the Windows Firewall.
Firewall systems help prevent unauthorized access to computer resources. If a firewall is turned on but not correctly configured, attempts to connect to SQL Server might be blocked.
To access an instance of the SQL [...]

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Visual Studio is Missing Default Templates

Worked like a charm!
If your Visual Studio either VS2005 or VS2008 is missing some default tempates, or whenever you want to add any new item and click add new item you are surprise to find that either your add new WebForm is missing or any other similar item is missing from the add new item [...]

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How to identify your SQL Server version and edition

This article describes how to identify your current Microsoft SQL Server version number and the corresponding product or service pack level. It also describes how to identify the specific edition if you are using Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or Microsoft SQL Server 7.0.
via How to identify your SQL Server version and edition.

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Tracking Inter-Object Dependencies using Expression Trees

This had nothing to do with what I’m supposed to be doing but it popped up in my Google results and the post looked so interesting I had to pass it on, especially since this is an issue I might be dealing with in the mid-term.
In an ongoing project, I had to struggle with quite [...]

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Roland Weigelt’s GhostDoc for Visual Studio

Fantastic add-in for generating code comment templates, I use this constantly. Thanks Roland!
GhostDoc is a free add-in for Visual Studio that automatically generates XML
documentation comments for C#. Either by using existing documentation inherited
from base classes or implemented interfaces, or by deducing comments from
name and type of e.g. methods, properties or parameters.
via Roland Weigelt’s GhostDoc.

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SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive

While I historically have used the excellent Daemon-Tools for mounting iso’s and other disk image formats this looks to be a lighter-weight and advert free alternative. I think I’ll give it a try.
Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD [...]

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Telerik VB.NET to C# Code Converter

Telerik seems to be providing a free VB.NET to C# code converted. Source is zipped and uploaded and a few moments later the converted files can be downloaded. One annoyance is that a source directory can’t just be zippep, converted, then used again as all non VB or CS files (such as project and solution [...]

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Microsoft Web Platform Installer

Aha! One of my complaints about the Microsoft development platform is that there’s no Windows Update equivalent for keeping track of the myriad of patches, updates, and new versions. Looks like somebody at Microsoft had the same idea and came up with a “Google Pack” of free web-related technologies. Hopefully the installer gracefully handles the [...]

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Kobe: Web 2.0 Service Development Resource Kit

Microsoft’s vision of the Web 2.0 world. Doesn’t seem to be much blog discussion of this yet, I’m hoping the sample code will give my spinning wheels some traction.
Project Kobe is a getting started resource kit for planning, architecting, and implementing Web 2.0 applications and services using the Microsoft Platform. This resource kit is targeted [...]

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