Let the Windows 7 Tweak Race Begin - Windows 7 Little Tweaker 1.1

Leelu Soft - Windows 7 Little Tweaker 1.1

“…

Available tweaks:

• Add "Copy To" option in files and folders context menu, so that you can easily copy them to other locations
• Add "Move To" option in files and folders context menu, so that you can easily move them to other locations
• Set Windows to automatically end task of programs which are either hanged or taking longer time than expected to exit
• Decrease menus show delay time, it'll show the sub-menus fast when you select their parent menu
• Disable the low disk space check so that you don't get the annoying low disk space notification in system tray
• Set Windows to not waste time in searching for a program which no longer exists in your system when you try to open its shortcut
• Disable "search on Internet" prompt in "Open with" window so that it directly opens the program list
• Add "Take Ownership" option in files and folders context menu so that you can easily take ownership of files and folders in case you want to replace them for customization purpose
• Speed up the Explorer navigation by disabling network printers and network scheduled tasks
• Add "Command Prompt Here" option on folders context menu (right click) for a quick command prompt opening at the selected folder
• Adds "Open With Notepad" option on files context menu (right click) for a quick viewing of files content
• Adds "Delete Folder Content" option on folders context menu (right click) to quick delete only the content of a folder without accessing the folder
• Speeds up taskbar thumbnail preview by reducing the mouse hover time delay
• Disables (Turn Off) Annoying UAC (User Account Control) and suppress UAC consent prompt dialog

…”

While the source is not available, there were some interesting tweaks here…

On a personal note, I disagree with the UAC tweak (we should be turning that up, not down/off), but each to his own. In any case the price is just right, setup is easy (download the zip and run the program in it… no setup required)

Please note: This is a 32bit (x86) only and will not run in x64 (seems that everywhere this utility is referenced, someone comments “It doesn’t work on x64…”. Yep, per the program’s author, this utility DOES NOT WORK on x64. )

(via Windows 7 Hacker -  Download Windows 7 tweak utility to speed up your machine)

Any readers in, or very near, Prince Edward Island, Canada?

We’ll visiting family this summer at PEI (Prince Edward Island, Canada) near Charlottetown, late June, early July and I was wondering if there’s any readers or anyone else interested in a geek meet-up/lunch/dinner/coffee while I’m there?

I don’t really expect there is, given how small PEI is, but hey, you never know unless you ask, right? Worth a try at least… ;)

If so shoot me an email, gduncan411 <at> hotmail [you know] com, and we’ll figure something out.

Magic TFS CheckIn comment to keep a CI build from being kicked off

Buck Hodges - TFS 2008: How to check in without triggering a build when using continuous integration

“If part of your build process is to check in a file, such as an updated version file, you wouldn't want that checkin to kick off another build.  You'd be stuck in an infinite loop.

To prevent that problem, simply put the string ***NO_CI*** in the checkin comment.  The code that examines a changeset to determine whether to kick off a new build will skip any changeset with that string in the comment.

[Update 07/02/2008]  If you are making a checkin as part of the build process, you can use $(NoCICheckinComment).  That property is set at run time when the build agent starts msbuild.  I had forgotten about it until a reader pointed this out.” [GD: Post Leached in Full]

***NO_CI***

Cool. I can use that. There’s times when we check in some associated/tangential resources where it’s just overkill (and pointless) to have a CI build kick off. Having the build go isn’t “bad” but just feels kind of wasteful. Yet not enough to spend a bit of time to tweak the build process. Having this magic comment in my tool belt will be nice…

I wonder what over magic CheckIn comments there are?  :P

(via Dave Lloyd’s 2 Cents - No CI Build on Check-in)

Don’t let your UAC hang out…

THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA" - Windows 7 - pull your slider up

“…

But the point of this blog post is more about how I think people should be zipping up their Windows 7.  UAC should be up at the top of their defense in depth slider bar (In fact, I have a sushi food bet that by the time Windows 7 SP1 ships they will make the default of that UAC slider bar back up to the top.  Anyone who knows anything at all about me knows that I don't much like raw fish)

So here you have it, Susan's single handed marketing campaign to get you to slide your Defense in depth zipper up.

…

Cartoon is once again done by the brilliant Curtis of www.Curtoons.com”

This killed me… And I like the metaphor. Not having UAC on, and on enough, is like letting your… well… you know… hang out in the wind.

I so want a T-shirt with this on it. LOL

Getting MEF’ed in 20’ish lines of code - A short and code focused MEF introduction

Malisa Ncube - Managed Extensibility Framework 101 - (a)

“This is the first posting on MEF that precedes a number of them, in which I will be explaining some things that I discovered while playing around with MEF. I should say that all the postings on my blog, including this subject do not represent my employer or any other organization, they are merely my mumblings based on my work that I do and whatever in find interesting and would like to share. Use it at your own risk, but it works on my machine.

…

To start with I would like you to read about the architecture of the MEF framework from the MEF Codeplex site.

In my MEF101, I present an example which shows how you can import composable parts from your assemble and let MEF compose and satisfy imports and enable you to come up with a simple interface made from different parts.

…”

MEF is something we’ll be hearing more and more about in the coming months and years (if you haven’t been hearing about it already). The beauty is in MEF’s simplicity which I thought this post highlighted well.

While MAF is much more powerful, it can be serious overkill too (in both learning curve and complexity). MEF fits great into that initial slot, where you don’t need the power, flexibility and isolation that MAF provides, yet still want a composable/plug-in’able application. And since Visual Studio is taking a dependency on MEF, it’s not likely to go away in the near future…

Also check out Kathleen Dollard's (who’s doing some great MEF work) related post, Leaning Into Windows - MEF and MAF Resources.

 

Related Past Post XRef:
The Redmond Developer & Kathleen Dollard get MEF’ed with VB
Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) CTP2 Released – Now with the full source
The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) CTP Released (Not to be confused with the Managed Addin Framework [MAF] which became System.Addin)

Question keyword match of the day…

This email made me laugh today (which I desperately needed). My family didn’t see the humor in this, but I’m sure you all will… LOL   ;)

What I find funniest is that I do dig history, live on the History Channel, etc. So the question is, is this really a mistake or is Amazon just really that good?  :p

A short introduction to SOLID and DRY for the heads down dev

CodeProject - SOLID and DRY

“No, this isn't a commercial for deodorant.

It's funny how many developers become so entrenched in their company and projects that they seldom venture outside to see what is going in the bigger world of Information Technology. I see this often in my interviews: a senior developer has worked a company for several years, quickly rose to the top and is the "go to" guy and now is ready to be an "architect." The only problem is that they only know how to work on their VisualBasic 6.0 system and think the best architecture is pulling everything as ADO XML and using stylesheet transformations to drive the application (I say this tongue-in-cheek because this is a framework I worked with and implemented in my past).

…

My point is that sometimes we get stuck in what works for our system and it works well, but it's not always the right or best solution and we need to constantly challenge ourselves as software engineers (or whatever we call ourselves today) to stay on top of what's out there.

I decided to post this article in my C#er : IMage blog because I feel SOLID and DRY are very sound principles for software development and yet I constantly see people tripping over these concepts.

Let's tackle DRY first:

Don't Repeat Yourself

…

SOLID is an acronym for:

• Single Responsibility Principle
• Open/Closed Principle
• Liskov Substitution Principle
• Interface Segregation Principle
• Dependency Inversion

…”

Like Jeremy mentions it’s very easy for us to get stuck in a rut. When our paycheck depends on us being heads down dev’s, working to solve the latest emergency, implementing “must have now” feature requests and juggling people issues, we sometimes find it hard to break out and look at the forest instead of the trees. And we’ve all been burned a little by the hype rush. How many methodologies, practices, procedures, etc, etc have we seen come and go? We have stuff we need to do today, to solve “this” issue, to make this customer happy, to pay the bills and keep our jobs…

So do we give up? Just keep our heads down and code?

Only if you want that rut to become your professional grave.

Our industry is so young and moving so fast, you HAVE to keep your mind open. We are all growing with it, learning and pretty much making it up as we go. We’re all running this race, but remember it’s a marathon and not a dash. We’re all in the same boat. Well we can be in the same boat, unless you give up, jump out and just look to tread water. That might make sense now, this year and next… but 10 years from now? 20?

I’m not saying you don’t have to jump on every bandwagon. No one has time for that. I’m just saying look at them with an open mind and see if there’s anything that can help. I’d bet there’s a thing here, a technique there that can help you in your “today” world. You’ll find it amazing how adding a little here and there can build up over time. You just have to look with a mind that’s open to change…

As for being burned by past hype’s? Remember failure isn’t bad, it’s how we grow. In many cases, we learn more by failure than success. Stand up, brush yourself off and then try something different.

 

Wow… That touched a nerve didn’t it? Think I was preaching at you? Heck in reading it over, this was more for me than you! LOL Now I have to print this out and read to to myself while looking in a mirror.  :p

In any case I’ve been watching the SOLID space for a bit now and like what I see. I like the acronym and the concepts. Now to see what I can grab for my today world… ;)

Plus an article with an opening line like that deserved a second look… LOL