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I've been a full time .NET developer for ten years, but I didn't start my professional life as a programmer ... more

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The Programmer's Code - 27 Rules to Code By

By steve on March 18, 2012. | Updated on March 26, 2012. | 238 views, 6 today. | 1 page.

■ Best Practices ■ Programmers ■ The Programmer's Code

The following 27 rules are the distilled wisdom of decades of software development in a huge variety of software environments. From CERN to Microsoft, from mission critical to puttering for the desktop. Follow even a fraction of these rules and you'll be in constant demand.

Photo Expedition in the Missouri River Bottoms with my Canon Rebel T3i

By steve on March 11, 2012. | Updated on March 12, 2012. | 364 views, 4 today. | 1 page.

■ Blog ■ Midwestern Life ■ Photography

Yesterday I headed out to meet my brother in Lexington, Missouri and took my camera along to capture some shots. I stopped in Missouri City and at the Cooley Lake Conservation area along the Missouri River. The Canon T3i and Lightroom are two of the greatest tools I have for creating great shots.

Easily Build An Atom or RSS Feed With C# and the Syndication Namespace

By steve on January 13, 2012. | Updated on January 25, 2012. | 794 views, 12 today. | 1 page.

■ ATOM ■ C# ■ How To ■ RSS ■ Web

Learn how easy it can be to wireup a syndication feed for your site. The .NET framework allows you to build the feed content once and publish it using either the RSS or Atom protocol.

Page Goes Gold With One Million Views

By steve on December 12, 2011. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 1,016 views, 10 today. | 1 page.

■ Announcement ■ News ■ Web

Our first article goes gold after receiving more than one million views.

URL Rewriter for .NET - Examples

By steve on November 09, 2011. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 1,001 views, 7 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ How To ■ Overview ■ Software Reviews ■ Web

Many places document how to use URL Rewriter. Here we provide some practical examples of usage.

Convert String to Int in C#

By steve on November 05, 2011. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 990 views, 11 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Conversions ■ Data Types ■ Snippet ■ Text and Strings

Three different ways to convert a string to an integer in C# and the pros and cons of each.

And as for Writer's Block, I Don't Believe it Exists!

By steve on November 03, 2011. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 495 views, 2 today. | 1 page.

■ Blog ■ How To ■ Personal Growth ■ The Lighter Side

Four tricks you won't hear about anywhere else for dealing with writer's block. And yes, software developers can get writer's block, too. Didn't know that did you.

About Cambia Research

By steve on October 30, 2011. | Updated on March 18, 2012. | 3,331 views, 6 today. | 1 page.

■ Blog ■ Overview ■ Web

How did Cambia Research start and who is its creator?

Online Random Number Tool

By steve on October 23, 2011. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 574 views, 2 today. | 1 page.

■ Data ■ Math and Statistics ■ Tool

Generate lists of random numbers online. Choose from different types: boolean, int, decimal, date, time and more.

What is my User Agent?

By steve on October 23, 2011. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 1,079 views, 3 today. | 1 page.

■ Tool ■ Web ■ Web Browsers

Use this online tool to determine the user agent of your browser.

What is my IP Address?

By steve on October 23, 2011. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 469 views, 2 today. | 1 page.

■ Internet ■ Networking ■ Tool

Use this online tool to see what your current IP address is.

Delegate Syntax and Usage in C#

By steve on September 01, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 18,096 views, 15 today. | 1 page.

■ C# ■ Delegates ■ Events ■ How To ■ Overview

How to create a delegate in C#.

Windows Explorer Opens Search Window When Clicking a Folder

By steve on September 01, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 12,415 views, 6 today. | 1 page.

■ Blog ■ Has Images ■ How To ■ Windows

Learn how to fix the problem where windows explorer opens a search window when you click a folder instead of the file listing. This was a thorny issue I ran into one day--thought I'd save you the trouble.

Partial Classes in .NET

By steve on May 26, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 33,082 views, 15 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ C# ■ Has Downloads ■ Has Images ■ Overview ■ Visual Studio

Discover what partial classes are in .NET and what they're good for.

Where can I view the partial class with designer code in my ASP.NET project?

By steve on May 26, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 10,402 views, 6 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ Brief ■ Overview ■ Visual Studio

Ever wonder what happened to the designer file for your ASP.NET web page after you moved to .NET 2.0? Learn more here.

How to scrape or download a webpage using C#

By ktb on March 05, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 34,489 views, 21 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ C# ■ Snippet ■ Web

A quick and dirty snippet for the basic approach to scraping the HTML content from a webpage programmatically.

Physics Funnies

By steve on February 28, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 6,608 views, 3 today. | 1 page.

■ Blog ■ Education ■ Has Images ■ Humor ■ Physics

A little levity to brighten your day. These physics test takers didn't know the answers, but they came up with some pretty clever answers of their own.

Change the Default Browser in Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Web Developer

By steve on February 19, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 28,559 views, 10 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ Has Images ■ How To ■ Visual Studio ■ Web Browsers

How to change the default browser in Visual Studio. That's right, you aren't stuck with just Internet Explorer.

How Do I Read a File As an Array of Bytes in C#

By steve on February 16, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 31,109 views, 67 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ IO ■ Snippet

Learn how to use a stream to read the byte content of a file. You can also use the new ReadAllBytes method on the File class.

How to Deliver a File From ASP.NET and Specify Its MIME Type

By steve on February 15, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 8,678 views, 5 today. | 2 pages.

■ ASP.NET ■ Policy and Standards ■ Reference ■ Snippet ■ Web

Learn how to use ASP.NET to dynamically return a file to the user and the importance of MIME types in this process.

Online Random Number Generator

By steve on February 14, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 10,663 views, 5 today. | 1 page.

■ C# ■ Data Types ■ Has Downloads ■ Has Images ■ Math and Statistics ■ Snippet

Need random numbers? Learn more about our online generator of random numbers.

Visual Studio 2007 Preview!

By steve on February 13, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 18,803 views, 5 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ Blog ■ News ■ Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2007 Preview

PathHelper - Convert File and Folder Paths and URLs in an ASP.NET Application

By steve on February 13, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 22,507 views, 16 today. | 2 pages.

■ ASP.NET ■ C# ■ Has Downloads ■ Has Images ■ Snippet

Managing all the various types of paths in ASP.NET can be a chore. You have URLs, virtual paths, absolute paths, relative paths and application paths. This article helps you make sense of all of these while managing conversions and getting the type of path you need when you need it.

How do I get the application path in an ASP.NET application?

By steve on February 13, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 96,353 views, 74 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ Conversions ■ Snippet

A simple snippet to show you how to get the virtual application path which is relative to the root of the website.

Extract Keywords from a Search String in C#

By steve on January 27, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 29,731 views, 9 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Has Downloads ■ Has Images ■ Regular Expressions ■ Snippet ■ Text and Strings

A better way than String.Split to extract words from a string.

Microsoft Releases AJAX Tool

By steve on January 27, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 5,718 views, 3 today. | 1 page.

■ News ■ Visual Studio

This article marks the official release of Microsoft's new support for AJAX, formerly codenamed ATLAS.

Microsoft Reports Record Revenue

By steve on January 27, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 5,099 views, 4 today. | 1 page.

■ Business ■ Current Events ■ Finance and Economics ■ Has Charts ■ Has Images ■ News

Microsoft Reports Record Revenue

Cambia Research Launches Developer Education Website

By steve on January 12, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 5,346 views, 3 today. | 1 page.

■ Announcement ■ Education ■ News ■ Web

Cambia Research has changed the focus of its website as of January 1, 2007. We are now devoted to developer eduction for Microsoft .NET developers.

Javascript Char Codes (Key Codes)

By steve on January 11, 2007. | Updated on January 26, 2012. | 1,201,826 views, 878 today. | 1 page.

■ Javascript ■ Reference ■ Text and Strings ■ Web Browsers

An interactive javascript key code reference for javascript developers. Includes an interative text box where you can type a key and see it's code along with a complete lookup table.

How Can I Use Javascript to Allow Only Numbers to Be Entered in a TextBox?

By steve on January 11, 2007. | Updated on February 08, 2012. | 297,248 views, 214 today. | 1 page.

■ Client side ■ HTML ■ Javascript ■ Snippet ■ Web Browsers

An easy javascript code snippet to allow only digits to be typed in a text box. Includes interactive demonstration.

How Do I Suppress a Keystroke in a Browser Input Box Using Javascript?

By steve on January 11, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 29,031 views, 10 today. | 1 page.

■ Client side ■ Javascript ■ Snippet ■ Web Browsers

Learn how to use javascript to suppress a keystroke in a browser input box.

How Do I Keep My Website From Being Viewed In a Frame?

By steve on January 11, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 7,053 views, 5 today. | 1 page.

■ Client side ■ Javascript ■ Snippet ■ Web Browsers

Learn how to keep your website from being viewed in a frame. This is not necessarily good practice, but it's needed in some instances.

Apple Computer Changes Name to Apple Inc

By steve on January 10, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 7,878 views, 4 today. | 1 page.

■ Blog ■ Business ■ Current Events ■ News

Apple Computer changes its name to just Apple. Name changes often mark a transition in an industry or technology. Just think of horseless carriages and wireless phones. Eventually they became just cars and phones.

How Can I Easily Manage an XML Configuration File in .NET?

By steve on January 10, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 42,904 views, 19 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Data ■ IO ■ Snippet ■ XML

.NET makes reading and writing XML as easy as pie. Use a class template and you never have to deal with XML at all.

How Do I Get Paths and URL fragments from the HttpRequest object?

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 89,191 views, 49 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ C# ■ Snippet ■ Web

A reference for extracting URL and path information from the HttpRequest object in ASP.NET.

What is Request.AcceptTypes in ASP.NET

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 5,628 views, 6 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ C# ■ Overview ■ Web Browsers ■ Web Design

What the heck is Request.AcceptTypes in ASP.NET?

Using the HttpContext object

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 52,013 views, 19 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ ASP.NET ■ C# ■ Server side ■ Snippet ■ Web

Learn how you can get access to the HttpContext object when you're not in the code-behind of an ASPX page?

Extract Hex Digits From a String

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 10,266 views, 3 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Conversions ■ Regular Expressions ■ Snippet ■ Text and Strings

Learn how to extract hex digits from a string using C#. Useful for cases where you have dirty hex information or extra characters.

Parsing Email Addresses with Regular Expressions

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 85,766 views, 18 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Email ■ Policy and Standards ■ Regular Expressions ■ Snippet

Use C# to parse and validation email address. I present both a strict and lenient regular expression and discuss what constitutes a valid email address.

Parsing URLs with Regular Expressions and the Regex Object

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 50,014 views, 12 today. | 2 pages.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Overview ■ Policy and Standards ■ Regular Expressions ■ Snippet ■ Text and Strings ■ Web

Go in depth in understanding the structure of a URL or URI and see a single regular expression that can be used to extract the various pieces in one fell swoop.

Convert Integer To Enum Instance in C#

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 01, 2012. | 231,003 views, 66 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Conversions ■ Enums ■ Snippet

Sample C# code showing how to convert an integer to an instance of an enumeration.

Convert String to Enum Instance

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 15, 2012. | 200,281 views, 127 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Conversions ■ Enums ■ Snippet ■ Text and Strings

C# code sample showing how to convert a string to an instance of an enumeration.

Convert Hex String to .NET Color

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 101,364 views, 50 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Conversions ■ CSS ■ HTML ■ Snippet

Learn an easy way and a hard way to convert a hex string to a .NET color using C#.

Convert .NET Color to Hex String

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 44,576 views, 21 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Conversions ■ CSS ■ HTML ■ Snippet

Learn how to convert a hex string to a .NET color using C#.

Set Initial Focus on an ASP.NET Page

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 18,591 views, 6 today. | 1 page.

■ C# ■ Client side ■ Javascript ■ Snippet ■ Web ■ Web Browsers

Here's a C# snippet to set the initial focus when a page loads. It takes into account some of the quirks with different types of controls and HTML elements.

C# StyleHelper Class

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 13,350 views, 8 today. | 1 page.

■ C# ■ CSS ■ Snippet ■ Web ■ Web Design

While CSS is the preferred way to manage webpage styles these days, sometimes it's helpful to manage those styles programmatically.

C# RandomProvider Class

By steve on January 09, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 18,645 views, 2 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Math and Statistics ■ Snippet

I provide a class, RandomProvider, which provides random numbers for several of the .NET data types and based on statistical distributions.

C# StopWatch Class

By steve on January 07, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 46,403 views, 10 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Performance ■ Snippet

A high precision stop watch class for timing in your C# or .NET programs

Hexadecimal (Hex) to Decimal Lookup Table

By steve on January 07, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 149,217 views, 131 today. | 2 pages.

■ .NET ■ C# ■ Reference ■ Snippet ■ Web Design

Convert hex to decimal. Convert dec to hexadecimal. This handy lookup table is a lot easier than punching it into your calculator.

What are the ASP.NET/CSS Fonts?

By steve on January 07, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 14,197 views, 6 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ CSS ■ Reference ■ User Interface ■ Web Browsers ■ Web Design

A reference for the built in ASP.NET fonts in a convenient list.

What are the ASP.NET Named Colors

By steve on January 07, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 16,246 views, 10 today. | 1 page.

■ ASP.NET ■ CSS ■ Reference ■ User Interface ■ Web Browsers ■ Web Design

View the ASP.NET named colors by name, swatch and hexadecimal value

Custom HyperLink Column for DataGrid

By steve on January 07, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 44,161 views, 10 today. | 1 page.

■ .NET Controls ■ C# ■ Data ■ Snippet ■ SQL Server

Detailed example with code showing how to add a custom link column to a datagrid.

Adding Columns to DataGrid Programmatically

By steve on January 01, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 86,253 views, 33 today. | 2 pages.

■ .NET Controls ■ ASP.NET ■ C# ■ Data ■ Snippet ■ SQL Server

Demonstration and code for programmatically adding a custom column to a DataGrid.

SFI: Simple, Flexible, Informative

By steve on January 01, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 3,049 views, 2 today. | 1 page.

■ Best Practices ■ Blog ■ Design and Architecture ■ Useability

My software philosophy breaks down to three things: simplicity, flexibility and information. I call it SFI.

What is an IP Address?

By steve on January 01, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 3,671 views, 2 today. | 1 page.

■ Internet ■ Overview ■ Web ■ Web Browsers

Are there enough IP addresses for the whole world? This article defines an IP address at the beginner level, what it is, what it does and what IPv4 is compared to IPv6.

What is a User Agent?

By steve on January 01, 2007. | Updated on January 22, 2012. | 5,490 views, 3 today. | 1 page.

■ Brief ■ Overview ■ Web ■ Web Browsers

What is a user agent?