Friday, January 27, 2006

Have these always been here? Or am I being stupid?

In the code editor in VS 2005 (any edition I guess, but I've been using VS Team Edition for Software Developers):

  1. Right Click.
  2. Expand the 'Breakpoint' menu item.
  3. Click 'Insert Tracepoint'
  4. Enter a message

You'll now have whatever message you want printed out in the output window. It can print the calling method, stack trace and a whole raft of other stuff.

Although I'm quite inclined to use Trace.Write() in a web app (I figure if it's something you want to know when you're writing it initially, it'll be useful to know when it's actually in use), there are times when it's a bit of overkill putting a permanent trace in for some of the stuff you're debugging.

Neat eh? I've just discovered that it's there is Visual Studio but not the Express Editions.

Just wanted to share.

I mean Really....

Honestly, though.

Who checks in breaking changes 10 minutes before going-home time, eh?

Just wanted to share.

Friday, January 13, 2006

In the midnight hour...

She may well have cried 'More, More, More', but that's beside the point.

The point is I have more Live Messenger Beta invitations to give away.

As before, mail me here if you want one.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Quickly...

Just in case anyone actually visits this blog 'in person' (rather than subscribing to the feed) the comments seem to be on the blink at the moment.

If they're not sorted out shortly, I think I might move back to Blogger's native commenting system. It's been made much better since I first moved aaway from it all those many moons ago...

If you don't visit the blog itself (You're not missing much. I really need to have a sit down and redesign it) then ignore this post.

Anyone for Windows Live Messenger 8.0?

I have a some invitations to the Windows Live Messenger 8.0 Beta.

mail me here if you're interested.

Just want to share.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Quick thought before bed

I've heard it said that the biggest security hole in any system is the one between the keyboard and the chair. People (or at least a lot of people) need to be kinda protected from themselves. Particularly when it comes to 'all that technical stuff' like computers. Which is a shame, considering how ubiquitous they've become.

Here's a really tiny thought, but one that only occurred to me today.

Would it really be that hard to have a header or a flag or something on a web page that told the browser that under no circumstances should they cache, autocomplete, or in any way retain on the computer and values put into a form?

Just occurred to me today when Firefox autocompleted my bank details and password when I was paying some bills online.

Don't get me wrong, most of the websites I go to that need authentication have their username and passwords autocompleted. I love it. I'm even right down with Firefox's domain-level password remembering stuff (so if your site of choice puts its session ID in the URL, it'll still complete your details). But there are just some places that I really don't want to be able to do it, event if I wanted to!

PS - Yes, it's fixed now. I was in a rush one time to see my bank statement for various reasons, working on a brand new machine that I hadn't configured yet, so that's why all the details were there. But very few people I know even know how to clear their saved passwords.

Just wanted to share. I'm off to bed.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Well whaddya know?

If you type something into the address bar in Internet Explorer and hit ctrl+enter, it forms a complete .com URL from that word, so enter 'microsoft' and hit ctrl+enter and it'll complete it to 'http://www.microsoft.com'.

This is not new. It's been there for donkey's years, and it even got through to Firefox.

However, Firefox took it one step further.

FF completes the addresses with the following top-level-domain extensions:

Key comboSuffix
CTRL+ENTER.com
SHIFT+ENTER.net
CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.org


Who knows - there may even be more. I just haven't found them yet, though.

Discovered it on the last day I was at work before christmas. Been running round like a madman since then, though. I'll be glad to get back into the office for a break!

Anyway, hope y'all had a good one.

Just wanted to share.