Quick website settings in Google Chrome

For a quick overview of a website settings, click on a website's icon in omnibar.

You should see the following popup with website settings and cookie information:

Nice feature

Page reload options in Google Chrome

Recently, I've found that new feature of Google Chrome browser. Earlier, you had to hit Control+F5 (may be multiple times) or go to Settings and clear cache from there.
Now, the things got simplified, after long click on Reload button you'll see the following menu:

An important point: the menu shows up only if Developer Tools are open.

Visual Studio 2010, 2012 vs. Inconsolata font, part 3

Earlier, I promised to update the status of the fight "Visual Studio 2010 vs. Inconsolata" as soon as I have a chance to try the font in Visual Studio 2012. However, I noticed that the font has been updated also and the latest version of Inconsolata is available from September, 2012.

So first, I tried it in Visual Studio 2010, silently hoping that the troubles are gone. And yes, the extra boldness of some symbols is no more the case. Here is how it looks:

Inconsolata in Visual Studio 2010

After that I switched to Visual Studio 2012. No surprises, the font is rendered perfectly:

Inconsolata in Visual Studio 2012

So I guess, the confrontation is over. If you love Inconsolata font, just get its latest version from google code repository and enjoy!

Free Online OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tool

In case you need to quickly recognize a text from an image file and don’t have ABBYY FineReader installed, there is an online analogue. Moreover, it is completely free. It is called Free OCR and is located here: http://www.free-ocr.com/

One thing made me laugh: they have to use Captcha technology to protect the website from spammers who used it for captcha breaking! This argument is enough to prove the service efficiency. =)

Hope this service will be helpful to someone as it was to me.

For those, who prefer the dark side

Just have found a nice color scheme for Visual Studio with ReSharper 5.1 {ColorIdentifiers = On} by Krzysztof Kozmic.

Here is how it looks:

Hope you will like it.

Programming fonts

Recently, I’ve found an interesting post, where top 10 programming fonts are being compared. Every font is accompanied with comments and image of font in action. For example, one of my favorite ones, DejaVu Sans Mono looks like that:

Another one, which I also like and which is used in Android OS, is Droid Sans Mono:

The whole story is here. Hope you find there your new favorite programming font instead of boring Courier new and Consolas.

On Visual Studio styles

I’m almost sure that everybody knows StudioStyles.info website, where tons of various syntax highlighting styles for Visual Studio 2008/2010 are being added and updated everyday.

Right after its appearance I decided that default VS style is too bright and therefore, too tiring for my eyes and switched to a darker one, named “Son of Obsidian”:

I thought that I would feel positive result but I was wrong. Watching on dark screen and seeking for light symbols of code seemed to be even more tiring than the default color scheme. Soon I started to search for less contrast schemes and after several minutes of looking over styles on the website I found “Old Book”:

This one was much better, it was really easy for eyes, and mimicked an old, pergameneous book. I used this style for several months, until I realized that it was not ideal and there might be more optimal one.

Today I’ve made a draft of a new style, which is going to be clean and tidy. Here it is:

I’ve named it as “Silk” because in my opinion it is smooth and clean. If you like it, it can be found here.

I would like to hear any comments or remarks.

Fast Reflection Library

Hi there,

Recently while browsing Microsoft Codeplex projects I’ve found another good thing. They call it ‘Fast Reflection Library’, it is written in C# and its purpose is to provide the same as part of the reflection features like executing method dynamically but give simple and faster implementations.

Example of usage:

using System;
using System.Reflection;
using FastReflectionLib;
    
namespace SimpleConsole
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            PropertyInfo propertyInfo = typeof(string).GetProperty("Length");
            MethodInfo methodInfo = typeof(string).GetMethod("Contains");
    
            string s = "Hello World!";
    
            // get value by normal reflection
            int length1 = (int)propertyInfo.GetValue(s, null);
            // get value by the extension method from FastReflectionLib,
            // which is much faster
            int length2 = (int)propertyInfo.FastGetValue(s);
    
            // invoke by normal reflection
            bool result1 = (bool)methodInfo.Invoke(s, new object[] { "Hello" });
            // invoke by the extension method from FastReflectionLib,
            // which is much faster
            bool result2 = (bool)methodInfo.FastInvoke(s, new object[] { "Hello" });
        }
    }
}

Although DataObjects.Net contains its own implementation of fast reflection (see: Xtensive.Core.Reflection), I like in this one the following aspects: clear & minimalistic design, simple and obvious API & ease of use. It took several seconds to understand the general idea and start using it. I think that this might be a good example of how library should look like: it should solve 1 concrete problem in most efficient way and do nothing more in order not to turn into another dinosaur.

Google URL shortener for everyone

The above-mentioned Google service is definitely useful, especially for long URLs, but it has one big disadvantage, at least for those who prefer any browser other than Google Chrome and don’t want Google toolbar to be installed. Not a nice strategy for such web service-oriented company, I suppose.

Luckily, there is an alternative way to get your URLs shortened with the Google URL shortener. It doesn’t require any software to be installed, it is no more than a simple web page:

Note, that the project is not affiliated with Google.

File sync problem and possible solutions

It is well-known fact that an overwhelming majority of people are quite lazy, especially programmers. The latter invented functions and subroutines, classes and components in order not to code things twice. In this very case it seems that a sort of creative laziness can bring huge benefits to the world we are living in. But what if a person is not lazy enough to invent a brilliant idea or use an existing one? I was that person for last several years.

My problem was connected to my work. Not to the work itself but to the fact that I usually work at the office as well as at home and I want to get the whole working environment with me wherever I go. By the environment I mean not only projects that I’m working on (this case is handled rather well with the help of hg or subversion) but the entire set of files, documents, may be some music, electronic books, etc.

I tried a number of ways. The most long-lived one was an approach with a flash drive usage. I had to plug-in it every time I came to the office and upload the updated files onto my computer. Before I left the office I had to do the reverse operation – copy updated files back to the flash drive. The same routine was waiting for me at home. If I forget any of these operations – I get out of sync and simply can’t continue my normal working process.

The other options that I tried:

• Working from home via VPN + Remote desktop. This is not very useful especially when your ISP is not stable. It requires that both computers are on, network speed is rather high.
• Using a FTP server in order to  sync 2 computers. Not convenient, counts on your manual actions. But doesn’t require that both computers are on.
• Using one of Opera unite applications such as File Sharing, or Document Sync + Document Courier bundle. The latter one is very promising though. Opera-based solutions don’t require external ftp server although the maximum size of synchronizable directory in case of DS+DC must not exceed 350 Mb.
• Microsoft FolderShare – the same as the previous one but from Microsoft. Requires a specified application to be installed. Files are stored on your computer but the application provide access to it from the other ones. So again, both computers must be on in order to access shared files.

During those unsuccessful attempts to get a bit of happiness with all that stuff I suddenly realized what I actually wanted. It was simple and genius at the same time: all I wanted is to have on both computers a folder that can automatically synchronizes with some external internet storage. No more.

So my next step was to find an internet service of such kind. But no luck. Actually, there are tons of internet services which provides you with backup capabilities of any sort but not with auto synchronization. Moreover, I started to think that there is no such service and I had to invent my own one. 
Finally, after fruitless searches I found one, but it was worth hours of googling. In fact, even google couldn’t help me as I found the answer in Wikipedia =).

So the solution is – Dropbox! It does exactly what I want, simply syncs a folder in you computer with a cloud, so there is no any necessity to keep your computer working after the sync procedure is completed. It listens to the file system events and uploads updated files immediately. You don’t have to do anything special, just install, configure and that’s it! I really loved the service. It helps to forget about sync problem and concentrate on something really important. It provides free of charge account with 2 Gb limit and it seems that it is enough for me, at least for now. There is a small video presentation on the main page, so I suppose that it is worth watching.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not an advertisement of any kind.  I decided to write the post just because I really, really impressed by the finding. Hope you’ll like it too. They say – “Happy dropboxing!” =).

DataObjects.Net v4 manual

Finally, we started with long awaited DataObjects.Net v4 full-fledged manual.

But before we started we had spent lot of time in discussions about tools to be used for manual creating.
Three options were suggested:

Microsoft Word approach

Use Microsoft Word for editing then export as HTML and clean up the resulting HTML from Word-ish garbage.

Advantages:

• WYSIWYG;
• Easy editing & formatting;
• Proofing;
• Inserts images;
• Inserts highlighted source code from Visual Studio.

Disadvantages:

• You must run “Export to HTML” & make a cleanup every time you want to view page in browser;
• Almost no version control;
• Difficult to make references between resulting HTML pages;
• Difficult to manage inserted images.

Wiki approach

Use Wiki to build the whole manual then grab its content and convert into local HTML pages.

Advantages:

• No need for local editors, just your browser and you;
• Simple version control;
• Supports highlighting of source code fragments.

Disadvantages:

• Grabbing & converting wiki into manual is not a trivial task;
• No proofing (proofing can be provided by some browsers while writing text in textarea control);
• Wiki markup (you are to know it to format your text).

Plain HTML approach

Advantages:

• There are a lot of WYSIWYG HTML editors that support Microsoft Word’s functionality (formatting, proofing);
• Clean HTML code (you control it);
• You see the resulting HTML at any moment (no need for grabbing or conversion);
• You control where and how your images are placed and named;
• Making references between pages is simple;
• Full version control support as HTML file is a text file.

Disadvantages:

• Good enough HTML editor must be found;
• No support for inserting highlighted source code fragments from Visual Studio.

 

After intense discussions we decided to use Plain HTML approach. Firstly we used SharePoint Designer 2007 as HTML editor, then moved to Visual Studio. At last we found Microsoft Expression Web 3, which actually had been made on top of SharePoint Designer. It is faster than VS and more convenient. I like it except its black theme – it is too dark for me.

One more useful tool that we found is “Copy As HTML” add-in for Visual Studio. It allows you to copy source code from the Code Window and convert it into HTML while preserving syntax highlighting, indentation and background color.

 

And what about you? What tools do you use to write help or manuals? Are there any other, more powerful tools or more convenient ways to do this?

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

CodeProject

.NET Reflector 6 EAP

Another great news! .NET Reflector project is not dead, it is being intensively developed.
.NET Reflector 6 ships with Visual Studio AddIn which makes available step-through-debugging on assemblies that you don't have the source code for.

More info & download link: Red Gate's forum, Alex Davies's blog.

ReSharper 5.0 is coming!

Great news! New version of this fantastic development tool is coming. Nowadays I just can’t imagine my development process without it.

IMO, the most interesting features in upcoming release are:

• Call Tracking (to inspect an entire call sequence)
• Value Tracking (data flow in your project)
• Advanced bookmarks
• Solution-Wide Warnings and Suggestions
• Visual Studio 2008 support (yes, it is important)

The only thing I’m concerned about is its performance.

P.S.
All detailed information & screenshots can be found here (if you’ve missed the link in the first paragraph).