I'm rebuilding my computer after a hard drive failure, and I keep running into issues where things I've taken for granted are missing – things such as the "VS Command Prompt Here" Windows Explorer context menu items.
Years ago, Scott Hanselman posted INF files to add VS 2005 to the context menu. Using that as inspiration, I've created a version of the file for VS 2008 and another for VS 2010. For what it's worth, I tweaked his VS 2005 file because my copy of VS is installed in "Program Files (x86)" and on older versions of Windows, such as when he posted, it wasn't.
So enough with the intro; here are the download links:
Right-click to save your file of choice, then right-click on the saved file and choose Install.
Disclaimer-ish stuff: These modify your registry. You should open the files in Notepad first to understand what is happening. Use at your own risk. I'm sure you're not reading this part anyway.
Good luck.
What are yours?
Happy Thanksgiving!
This is the fifth in my "Rules to Live By" series. Like every other professional, in every other field, over the years I've picked up a lot of things that make my life easier, or better, both professionally and personally. Most of these things can be summarized in a sentence or two, and I've decided to call them "Rules to Live By". As much as any other reason, they are here to remind myself of things that I've decided to believe in, even if I don't feel like it one day.
RTLB #5: Do Not Withhold Good to Spite Evil
This is a tough one -- for me at least. Have you ever had someone be rude to you? Or had a conversation with someone in a bad mood? Or found out that someone said something about you behind your back? Or conspired against you? No doubt you have had all of these things happen to you.
I don't know about you but my instinct is to pop off and say something sarcastic in return or to be a smart aleck. Clearly this will rarely calm the situation.
I think everyone knows, though, deep down, that you should not return "evil" for "evil". Sure, there are times that I must take a stand on something, and even be aggressive, but rarely should that be my instinct. This is a hard struggle for me personally, especially regarding people with whom I have a history. I struggle with it weekly, if not daily.
But I think I should be taking it even a step further.
Have you ever been just about to compliment someone when they said something rude? Have you ever started to slow down to let another driver merge only to have him cut you off and give you the finger? Have you ever approached an employee of a store and politely started with "Excuse me, ma'am" and received rude service in response? Did it make you want to give that compliment, be courteous to another driver or say "thank you" to the clerk? Probably not. But that is probably exactly what we should do in those situations.
It is one of my personal goals to make sure I do not withhold good to spite evil. It's so easy to let one interaction change who I am. If I have made a commitment to myself to be a kind person -- a commitment I feel everyone should make -- what does it say about me that another person has enough control over me to cause me to fail at this? Am I not in control of my own actions?
No. I am in control of my own actions and that means that I am capable of giving good even if I have received only evil.
I'm working on this everyday and have found that the more I remember to be kind (which is different than acting kind, but that's an entirely different conversation, but is possibly the single most important thing to note in everything I have said) the more I find myself wanting to be kind. To everybody. To family. To friends. To strangers. Even to the person who hurt me.
My challenge to you is the same as my personal challenge to myself. Give good in return for bad. Be kind first, and then act kindly. Remember that the person on the other side of the evil is a person and they may be struggling with the same thing, acting badly because they themselves have been offended.
Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.
In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been a very faithful blogger over the last several months. I wouldn’t say that I’ve abandoned it, because I haven’t, but other things have definitely taken priority.
Aside from the typical “family and work distractions”, one thing in particular that has disrupted my blogging is Twitter. I am much more active on Twitter, and you should follow me there.
In the meantime, don’t unsubscribe from the blog just yet. I have a few posts in mind for the next several weeks. :)
Have you ever been in one of those meetings where it seems that everyone in the company is there, even though they don’t need to be? I think everyone has and it is especially frustrating when you are one of the ones that doesn’t really need to be there.
Well, based on a web site I saw a few weeks ago (the link escapes me at the moment), I wrote a little Windows Mobile app that will calculate just how much any given meeting is costing you and your clients.
It’s a pretty simple application. You press Start, the dollars add up. You press Stop, and they stop adding up. You can specify the number of attendees at any given meeting. You can also specify the default estimated billing rate and estimated cost to your company (for example, estimated average wage + benefits).
You can toggle back and forth between the client cost and the cost to your own company by either clicking on the appropriate region (current is highlighted) or by using the context menu on the Total Cost. You can also reset the calculator from the context menu of the Total Cost.
Here are a few more screenshots.
You can download this directly to your Windows Mobile phone by going to one of the following links:
I am running WM6 with a touch screen, but it should work on WM5 and later. I have only tested this on my phone, so your mileage may vary. Download and run at your own risk. Feel free to report any issues, comments or suggestions via the contact form below.
Update 1: This program requires the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework version 3.5.
Update 2: I've uploaded a new version with the following changes:
- FIXED: Bug in highlighting currently selected cost
- FIXED: Bug that always shows total for default number of attendees instead of currently selected number of attendees
- CHANGED: Continues to run even if device is put into suspended mode
- CHANGED: Configuration screen allows for higher ($500/hour) and more precise ($5 increments) for cost fields
I have an HTC Windows Mobile phone (touch screen + keyboard). For the last several weeks, I’ve been using a trial version of Twikini to access my Twitter stream.
I really got to like it. There are a few things I’d like improved. For example, on refresh it seems to have to get the whole stream and reload it rather than just getting updates since the last request. Also, it does a timeline refresh after I tweet instead of just adding mine to the list on the client side. But aside from those couple of performance things, it’s pretty slick and simple.
I liked it enough to be really disappointed when it expired and I remembered it was a trial version of non-free software. It’s cost is reasonable at about $5, but they also have an option where I can get a licensed copy of the program by blogging about it.
So that’s what I’m doing here. I like it. I recommend it. If you have a Windows Mobile phone and use Twitter, you should give it a shot.
This is the fourth in my "Rules to Live By" series. Like every other professional, in every other field, over the years I've picked up a lot of things that make my life easier, or better, both professionally and personally. Most of these things can be summarized in a sentence or two, and I've decided to call them "Rules to Live By". As much as any other reason, they are here to remind myself of things that I've decided to believe in, even if I don't feel like it one day.
RTLB #4: Smart Is Sometimes Stored In Silos
I was sitting at the keyboard and realized that I wasn’t sure how to spell a certain word I wanted to use. It’s a common enough word, and I’ve said it many times, but I don’t know that I’ve ever written it. When I started to think about it, I thought of a number of other similar words – words I should know how to spell, but am not sure I can.
To be honest, it made me feel stupid.
I know I am not a stupid person. I work in a technical field (writing software) and have a degree in Applied Mathematics. I am a successful professional. I run a small business outside of my day job. I manage a large community organization. None of these things makes me special, but they at least make me “not stupid”.
This led me to a series of obvious observations:
- I don’t know everything.
- I don’t know a little bit about everything.
- I don’t even know a little bit about many things (in the grand scheme of all things that are things and all knowledge that is to be known).
- I know a little about a few things.
- I know a lot about even fewer things.
My knowledge is stored is silos. (I know. It’s a breakthrough, right?)
But remember from above, none of these things makes me special. Hence:
- You don’t know everything.
- You don’t know a little bit about everything.
- You don’t even know a little bit about many things (in the grand scheme of all things that are things and all knowledge that is to be known).
- You know a little about a few things.
- You know a lot about even fewer things.
- My things may or may not be the same as your things.
Give special attention to #6 here. Again, this isn’t rocket science, but it leads me to this three-part corollary:
- I know things you don’t know.
- You know things I don’t know.
- Neither of us is stupid because of this.
At various times in my past, I’ve mentally dismissed someone as stupid because of a gap between our silos of knowledge. It’s not fair to either of us. I may act differently, even offensively, toward them and I may never learn from them what knowledge they do have in their silo. How might things be different if I shared what was in my silo?
This is obvious, I know. It’s not some big secret that I’ve revealed. It’s just something to think about that I wasn’t thinking about.
By the way, the word was “therapeutic” – that crazy “eu” combination is a killer for me.
June is just a week away. That’s insane. It’s cliché to say it, but time goes so fast. My son is already four months old, and my daughter is getting hilariouser by the moment. (I know some of you may not consider hilariouser a word, but as I mentioned before, I make up words and add them to my dictionary to get rid of the red squiggles.)
So anyway, I went to Tech-Ed a couple weeks ago and it was great. I had a lot of fun, met a lot of people, caught up with a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a while, and actually learned a few things in the process. Maybe someday I’ll put all my new-found knowledge to practical use and make something, ummm, practical.
I went with a co-worker, Brennan, and he got the chance to interview a few people. He’s posted his videos here.
I also took my new video camera, but pretty much the only footage I got was of Jeffrey Palermo doing a head stand on the dance floor to “Whoomp There It Is”. I will leave you with that:
PS - Notice that I’m recycling post titles? It must be getting bad.
On Friday, April 17, Jeffrey Palermo will be giving a full-day seminar on ASP.NET MVC at UWM in Milwaukee. The event isn’t free, but is affordable at $125 – cheap for a day-long training session, especially from someone of Jeffrey’s caliber.
If you’re interested, you can find out more at Jeffrey’s blog. I’m hoping to be able to go myself, but haven’t got that worked out yet.
P.S. This is not a WI .NET Users Group event, so I don’t have any more details than what you can find on Jeffrey’s blog.
Well, tomorrow begins March 2009. This year is already one-sixth over and it has been a blur. As I get older years seem to go faster, but this one even faster than normal. Maybe it’s the “big project” at work and the “big project”, errr, new baby, at home. The work project ends in about another month. The other one will last a little longer. Whatever it is, the last two months have flown by.
Also, I found out a couple days ago that I am going to Tech-Ed this year in May. (Before I know it that will be here, too.) Is anyone else going this year?
I'm very happy to say that Brytan Seth Isaacs was born Saturday afternoon, January 17. He was 8lbs 12oz, 21in long, and has a lot of dark brown hair.
I snapped a ton of pictures yesterday, but most were duplicates just in case one didn't turn out. (I love that you don't have to worry about that with digital cameras. The 21st century is awesome.) We looked through them all and picked 35-40 and uploaded them to Baby Brytan's website.
In all the picture snapping the only picture of myself with him was when I was cutting the cord. I didn't have any pics of me holding him. So this morning, while Mommy was sleeping, I snuck this picture of him from my phone. I'm actually surprised how well it turned out considering it came from my phone.
Needless to say, I am a proud dad. I have two wonderful kids now, and an amazing wife.
I don't know what else to say, except, I'm happy.
Well, it's official. Unless he decides to come earlier on his own, we will be going to the hospital on January 17 to induce labor and meet our new son.
We're really excited. My parents are coming to town. My 2 year old daughter talks about the baby all the time, even though I don't think she has any idea what's about to happen. She, all of a sudden, likes to play with the toys that were once hers and will now be his. I think she'll be a good little helper.
I will post an update here once he is born, and hopefully be able to show a couple pictures as well.
Update: By Isaacs #4, I don't mean child #4. It's child #2. That plus my wife and myself makes 4. Just in case anyone out there thinks I'm crazy enough to have four kids, I wanted to set the record straight. :)
I was playing solitaire ("regular" single-deck solitaire) on my phone the other day and got dealt an unusual hand. All of a sudden I noticed a very weird combination of cards. Then another. Then another. Do you see it?
Click the picture to see a larger one.
I just had my favorite conversation ever with my little girl (2yo).
Me: Charlie.
Charlie: (Stops playing and looks at me.)
Me: I love you.
Charlie: I love you, too, Daddy. (Starts playing again.)
Makes me wish there was a DVR for real life.
I've been sitting here at the keyboard for an hour now, and I've started writing half a dozen different posts.
They're all too much work for a lazy Saturday, though. They each require hundreds of words, time spent editing and more time spent re-editing. So I haven't written them yet.
Maybe tomorrow. Or next month.
More Posts
Next page »