Opera 9.5 Released

Opera has released it's new desktop version.



New features contain :

- Faster speed : up to 2 times as fast as the already fast 9.2x builds
- Opera Link : Sync your bookmarks between your desktop(s), opera mini and more
- Fraud protection : According to the company, it is "the first publicly-available browser to protect you from malicious software on the Web." Opera's protection is assisted by Haute Secure, Netcraft, and PhishTank.
- A brand new skin

And of course it is still free. Just click the image above to go to the download site.

After more than a year of testing the alpha / beta / RC builds,
I like the new version, it is much faster,
my only gripes with the new version were :
- When I installed it changed something so that I could no longer just type my search query in the address bar (luckily there is a quick fix : tools, preferences, search tab, edit google properties and check the use as default search provider)
- The close buttons are small (not really a problem as I use mouse gestures)
- The add tab button is moved from the left to the right of the tab bar (but that was also a small change)

So after a small test weekend I like the new version and have not encountered any bug.

Happy surfing!

Edit : 9.51 was released and it fixes a good number of problems users were having with 9.50, just click the banner and you will get the new version.

Newest addition to the family

Yesterday we decided to add another member to the family,
abut the largest we have to day :)

Our newest member is Hector, the Shire horse.
(Yes they are large, but I like large horses and I like their character, just don't put your toes under the horse :))

Hector is one year old, but is already a decent size
(about 1m60, or in hands : 15.3 hands, or for you americans : 5.25 feet)



More pictures can be found : Here

Visual studio 2005 toolbox icons messed up.

When I started VS 2005 today I noticed all my icons where messed up :

This makes finding the right control a little harder.

The solution is quite simple : Right click the toolbox and choose reset toolbox,
and presto , icons back.  Unfortunatly this also removes any custom items and tabs in the toolbox.

I also read that deleting all tlb files in  C:\Documents and Settings\_username_\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0 can work, but did not try it myself.
I don't know what other things might be removed when you delete these files, so be carefull!

 

Problem adding files to deployment project

For some time now I have had problems adding files to the file system editor portion of a deployment project.

When I right clicked, add file, browse for a file, any file (dll / jpg / xml / txt / ...)
It would not add this file to the project,

Luckily there are workarounds for this issue (no definite fix found yet) :
- the simplest is just closing and reopening visual studio
- Rebooting your pc may also work
- Adding a shortcut to the file (which will add the file also), and deleting the shortcut (I have not tried this yet myself)
- Resetting your visual studio settings can also help (also haven't tried this myself)
- Some even say that reinstalling fixes this problem (which will ofcourse open & close visual studio and reset the settings ;-) )

Getting the temp folder in c#

Another reminder to myself :

To get the temp path in c#, the most used option I have seen is :

string tempPath = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("Temp");

which works ok most of the time, but personally I don't like to pass string variables around,
so I went looking for something as :
string tempPath = Environment.GetFolderPath(SpecialFolder.Temp);
which ofcourse does not exist.

But as with google as a friend, I found the best way (for me) :

String tempPath = Path.GetTempPath();

(always in the last place you look of course ;-) )

Using double quotes in c#

As a 'convert' (rather forced) from VB.NET to C# I always miss how to use the double quotes in a string, so here just as a reminder to myself :
use the @ symbol before the string or doubling the quotes won't help:

string myString = @"SomeText which needs a ""quote";

ofcourse, at the beginning of the string or the end of the string just triple the quotes :
string myString = @"SomeText which needs some ""quotes""";

But the most important is : use the @

Connecting to an Access Database in Visual Studio 2008 Server Explorer

Trying to connect to an MS Access DB from the visual studio 2008 Server Explorer gave me a little surprise to see that the window I got to create the connection only gave me the possibility to type in the connectionstring myself.

Trying several possibilities, the test connection button always cleamed the connection was OK, but when clicking OK i received the following message :

format of the initialization string does not conform to specification starting at index 0
After a long search, the solution was found, something is incorrect in the registry :
- Open the registry using regedit
- Find the  "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F9AE8980-7E52-11d0-8964-00C04FD611D7}"  in the tree
- Check if there is a subkey named ProgID there, if there is, you are not having the same problem as I had, but be sure to check the value

If the key is not there, add it :
- Right click the node and click new, key
- Name it ProgID
- Select the newly created key
- In the main (right) pane, doubleclick the "(Default)" value
- Set its value to "MSIDXS.1" (without the quotes ofcourse).

Now when you create a new connection to an access DB, you can use the correct window.