LINKBLOG for February 19 , 2008

• Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (And some workarounds) - Joel Spolsky
  Joel, having worked at Microsoft himself in a distant past, explains some background info


• Building Sandcastle Documentation with Team Build - Grant Holliday
  OK, if this really completely automates generating Sandcastle-built help files, I'm gonna use it


• Digitally Signing an XML Document and Verifying the Signature - Rick Strahl
  The title says it all: if you have this issue, this is your tutorial (including nicely XML-commented code)


• Why Do Initializers Run In The Opposite Order As Constructors? Part Two - Eric Lippert
  Diving into framework code


• Path.Combine - Be aware of a Slash in the Second Parameter - Greg Duncan
  One would think that using Path.Combine would have one forget about string concatenating file paths, '\' thingies and all, but alas


• How to Login to SQL Management Studio if your default database has been deleted. - Derik Whittaker
  ' Simply type the name of the DB I wanted to connect to in the drop down, don't try to 'select' it '
  Hmz, why is life always more complicated than it needs be?


• Having a Wii bit of fun... - Rudi Grobler
  The cool things you can do with .NET and your WII-mote via Alvin Ashcraft Btw, some time ago I visited a user group meeting with Chad Hower who did all these things and more


• Better Development Tools -- Building Together - Ilya Ryzhenkov
  Ilya mentions Jetbrains have their issue tracker open for anonymous browsing, check http://jetbrains.net/jira/browse/RSRP Here you could file your own issues regarding the Re# 4 EAP nightly builds


• Windows Vista and low disk space - Maurice de Beijer
  Fix disk space issues in Vista using vssadmin


• 10 things Project Managers wish Developers understood - Frank Kelly
  Insight from a man who's been on both sides
  (Dev approaches manager with question) ' Manager: Which issue is this?
  (subtext: I just spent three hours replying to emails to 14 different people and I'm wiped) '


• Solution folders - Kyle Baley
  ' What do you store in solution folders? Do you maintain a project hierarchy in them? Use them for any non-code-type files? Love them long time or hate them with a Charles Bronson-like vengeance? '


• Parallel Port User Control - Jaspreet Kaleka
  


• 4 Corollaries for Highly Effective Developers - Russell Ball
  One is on solving the *right* problems:
  ' It’s not how fast you can churn out code that matters, but how long it takes you to get an acceptable product to your stakeholders '


• Cutting out Static - Gilad Bracha
  According to this piece static members are bad for about any reason, not everyone will agree though
  via Jason Haley