Posts filed under the 'Blog' category


Pasting code from VS into WLW, part 2

Last time in this two-parter, I laid down the basics of the RTF I followed in pasting code from VS to WLW, and some of the helper classes I started off with. This time, we'll look at the parser and the various tricks I used to make sure that the translated HTML was valid and produced the correct look for the code in a web page. […]

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Pasting code from Visual Studio into Windows Live Writer

Way back in January this year, I briefly explained how I was pasting code into my blog posts so that they were displayed fully syntax-highlighted. At the time I said I'd explain how the underlying parser works, but never got round to it. Well, it's the Friday after Thanksgiving (so-called Black Friday), and I'm feeling voluble. Besides my colleague Mehul Harry just asked me on Twitter how I did it. […]

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Local variables are evil (or just irritating)

Every now and then, I reread parts of Refactoring by Martin Fowler. The main reason is of course to look for refactoring ideas for DevExpress' Refactor! Pro product, but I also like to take a particular refactoring in there, tease it out, and really understand it. […]

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GraffitiCMS to be released as open source

Scott Watermasysk of Telligent has just announced on Twitter that GraffitiCMS (the CMS engine behind this blog) is going to be released as open source on December 11: […]

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Fixing site problems

Bang in the middle of my trip to Los Angeles for PDC, on 15th November, this GraffitiCMS site you are reading (https://boyet.com/) went down. Hard. It seemed to happen just after my last post as well. […]

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Some thoughts on software piracy

So yesterday Microsoft flipped a switch, turning off access to the Xbox Live service for thousands of Xboxes that had been chipped (the BBC news report). These machines had been deliberately altered at the hardware level to circumvent the DRM (Digital Rights Management) part of games played on those machines. Chipped machines could play hacked games, in essence, without paying for them. I suppose this is the Xbox equivalent to jailbreaking iPhones. […]

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Professional DevExpress ASP.NET Controls now in print

Just a quick post to say I received a copy of Professional DevExpress ASP.NET Controls in my hot little hands this afternoon. Also, Amazon.com also have it in stock here. […]

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First impressions of Quicken

Back in June this year, Microsoft announced that they were cutting Microsoft Money. Now, I've been using this app for well over 14 years now (my transactions go back to July 1995), and so I was a little peeved, to put it mildly. I know that the application itself will continue to work — although at some point I would be unable to install it on any new PCs or hard drives I may get: there's good old activation for you — but the online features would also be cut off at some future point. No more automatic downloading of transactional data from the banks I use. […]

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Internet Corporation Listing Service, icls.net

They're baaaaack! […]

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The Roomba Kings Play Songs of Love

Excuse the pun, but I really like my Roomba. I'd been thinking of buying one for a long while, just to try it out, and then a couple of months ago I happened to notice a refurbished unit (the iRobot Roomba 560) on buy.com at $100 off the new price. So, I thought, why not, plonked the virtual money down and a few days later it arrived on my doorstep. […]

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