Software Development Tools

One of our lead developers recently shared a list of some of the most helpful, free Visual Studio add-ins, and we thought you might find it useful. They are as follows (in no particular order)

NuGet Package Manager
This is a collection of tools to automate the process of downloading, installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing packages from a VS Project. The de-facto standard for third-party package management in Visual Studio, it comes standard with Visual Studio 2010 SP1.
If you haven’t used it before, we recommend you spend some time here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IntroducingNuGetPackageManagementForNETAnotherPieceOfTheWebStack.aspx

Power Commands for Visual Studio 2010
This adds a few helpful commands to Visual Studio, like Remove and Sort Usings, Collapse Projects, and Copy/Paste References.
There’s also a Visual Studio 2008 version available here. 

Regionerate
Regionerate can help you keep your layout consistent with a single click. Automatically sorts your members alphabetically, and optionally groups them into separate #regions for public/protected/private methods, fields, constructors, and properties.

SlowCheetah
According to VisualStudioGallery.com, SlowCheetah is described as a package that “allows you to automatically transform your app.config (or any file) when you press F5 in Visual Studio. You can have different transformations based on the build configuration. This will enable you to easily have different app settings, connection strings, etc for Debug versus Release.”  It adds the ability to perform XDT xml transformations for any xml .config file, not just web.config.

Scott Hanselman has a good primer on how to use the transformations.

VsTortoise
Free integration of TortoiseSVN with Visual Studio 2010.  Adds a “VsTortoise” right click menu to Solution Explorer that acts just like TortoiseSVN does for Windows Explorer.  TortoiseSVN should be installed first, before installing VsTortoise.  Unfortunately, VsTortoise does not automatically pick up on Rename operations in solution explorer, but it is free.  If you need a low cost solution that has full rename support, there is VisualSVN instead.

JScript Editor Extensions
From the authors of the “Power Commands” add-in comes a nice extension for JavaScript editing that adds full Intellisense XML comment support, automatic curly brace pairing, and code folding.

GhostDoc
GhostDoc adds a “Document This” context command and hotkey to the code view window, automatically populating your XML Intellisense comments based upon the name of your method/property currently under the cursor.  Not always necessary, since typing a /// above the member will automatically stub the comments for you, but can still be helpful on occasion.

At DLS Software Studios, we want to provide you with the very best IT solutions for your business. Contact us today to discuss how our IT consultants can bring cost-effective, best in class solutions to your organization. From custom software development to systems analysis, we’ve got you covered. While we are located in the Chicago area, we take on projects throughout the country. Any project, anywhere, anytime – We’ve got the solution for you.

I read an article regarding web tracking from ReadWriteWeb recently that introduced me to some new tools that I think some of you may find interesting.

Web tracking is something many people don’t think about or notice unless they catch a glimpse of it in action - For example, you may have searched a specific term to discover that term then pops up on advertisements on future pages you visit. This is a great example of cross-site tracking technology.  Many companies record and track your web browsing history, store it in a database and use it to help determine behavior. Sites like Google and Facebook can get upwards of 5% of users’ browsing history! Some people care, some people don’t.  For those of you that do, this article sheds light on some interesting tools you may find useful!

Check out the Mozilla collusion extension  which is a plug-in offered by Mozilla that acts as a tool that show users the websites that secretly track them.

Then there is Disconnect, which can block the ability to track your browsing by inspecting outgoing requests from the browser.

For more on how these tools work, check out the original article from ReadWriteWeb found here.

Enjoy!

-Zoe

At DLS Software Studios, we want to provide you with the very best IT solutions for your business. Contact us today to discuss how our IT consultants can bring cost-effective, best in class solutions to your organization. From custom software development to systems analysis, we’ve got you covered. While we are located in the Chicago area, we take on projects throughout the country. Any project, anywhere, anytime – We’ve got the solution for you.

Test your Windows 8 Knowledge!

Think you’re pretty familiar with the much discussed Windows 8? With all it’s new buzzwords, there’s a lot to cover!
Check out this brief quiz from NetworkWorld to test your knowledge about the new operating system. Keep track of your answers and at the end check how well you did!

http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2012/022212-windows8-quiz.html

Software Development & Windows 8

In case you weren’t able to attend the Windows 8 Developer Event in Chicago this week, here are some of the key topics you missed.

Content was a primary focus. The main phrase used was “Content over Chrome.” Chrome is the user interface we’ve been using in Windows from Vista onwards. All applications run full-screen with no frames or scroll bars. Instead, the UI is made up of tiles that either launch applications or contain information from them, such as weather, time and date, latest restaurants, news feeds, and so on. So the phrase “Content over Chrome” means prioritize the content of an application over the UI of the application. Here is an example of the new UI.

Toast notifications and Contracts were also discussed as great features for developers. Toast notifications allow applications (when configured), to send pop-up alerts and notifications in a consistent manner. Contracts (sometimes also called “Charms”) are the built-in features of the OS: search, share (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and so on), settings, login. Developers can leverage these built-in capabilities to provide all of that with virtually no code. No one will need to code a login for Facebook or Twitter; it’s provided in the OS for you.

As for design, “less is more”. The idea for developers now is to develop the least amount in an application that you can. To be successful, go through the following 5 step process:

1. Determine what your application does best.
2. Determine what things it should be able to do in order to continue to do its best.
3. Remove the things that are tangentially associated with what makes the application its best
4. Design the layout: hierarchical or flat
5. Develop the application

It was explained that for too long we have taught users how to use the application/os, and not how to use the content. We have relied on menus and sub-menus, commands and short-cut keys and so on for far too long. Now we’re going back to the basics: swiping, semantic zooming, and shrinking of objects instead, with contextual commands in the application bar.

We will have a few other notes to share! Stay tuned!

At DLS Software Studios, we want to provide you with the very best IT solutions for your business. Contact us today to discuss how our IT consultants can bring cost-effective, best in class solutions to your organization. From custom software development to systems analysis, we’ve got you covered. While we are located in the Chicago area, we take on projects throughout the country. Any project, anywhere, anytime – We’ve got the solution for you.

We’re at the Windows 8 Developer Event!

So far we’ve seen some amazing previews of Windows 8 and developing in Windows 8. There’s some exciting stuff going on and we’re getting some great ideas for future development!

Some takeaways so far:

• Content over commands
• Don’t teach the user how to use the app, but rather the content
• Simplicity
• Win as one

Stay tuned for more updates!

Looking for High-Performance Business Insights, Productivity, and reduced costs? Check out SQL Server 2012!

Microsoft touts that SQL Server 2012 was developed with the goal in mind to reduce the cost of advanced business insights, accelerate business growth, and take advantage of transformational technology.

It should help you do the following:

• Consolidate data sources
• Keep everyone on the same page
• Make data more accessible
• Avoid high capital, training, and management costs
• Make sure any new IT solution pays for itself

Are you looking for IT Services / Consultants in Chicago and beyond?

At DLS Software Studios, we want to provide you with the very best IT solutions for your business.Contact us today to discuss how our IT consultants can bring cost-effective, best in class solutions to your organization. From custom software development to systems analysis, we’ve got you covered. While we are located in the Chicago area, we take on projects throughout the country. Any project, anywhere, anytime – We’ve got the solution for you.