The Daily Grind 942 by Mike Gunderloy Monday, August 7, 2006

Weekend discovery: don't try to use Process.Start() with a username from an ASP.NET Web Service.

• PerfConsole is unleashed...- If you're the command-line sort, this utility for dealing with VSTS Profiler output will probably interest you.
• Replacing Start Run - The Quest Continues - Scott Hanselman looks at various quick launcher utilities, and his readers suggest a few more.
• GhostDoc 1.95 - Another update to this automatic generator for XML comments in your .NET code.
• .NET Compact Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 Patch - Grab it if you're doing dev for the little box.
• RIDE-ME 1.0 - Ruby on Rails IDE aimed at developers migrating from Microsoft IDEs.
• Genome 3.0 - ORM featuring tight integration with .NET 2.0 features including generics and nullable types and its own object query language implementation. Evaluation download is here, training videos are here, and pricing starts at $399 for the Express version. They also have a technology preview that integrates with LINQ, making them (I think) the first ORM that already plays nicely with the LINQ CTPs.
• Direct Access - This universal autotext utility adds keyboard shortcuts to everything. Trial download is here, $39.95 to register.
• XPathmania 1.0 - Tool for interactive XPath queries within Visual Studio. Look under View, Other Windows to find it after installing.
• Sandcastle MSBuild target - Mike Diehl contributes to the tooling surrounding the Sandcastle .NET documentation builder.
• Run++ - New release of a C#-based replacement for Start/Run, now a ClickOnce application.

• Zero Day Subscriptions: Using RSS and Atom feeds As Attack Delivery Systems - Frankly, I've been wondering when we'd see this happening. Be interesting to know if they have specific examples or just theoretical worries, though. (via Sam Ruby)
• Behind the Scenes: Improvements to Windows Forms Data Binding in the .NET Framework 2.0, Part 1 and Part 2 - Lots of info straight from Microsoft.
• Seven deadly sins of programming - Sin #1 - Eric Gunnerson nominates his #1 sin and recaps the rest.
• Visual Studio 2005 - Custom ASP.NET Website Templates - I really should remember to set this up one of these days.

• VMware Virtual Appliances - There sure are a lot of these prebuilt virtual machines available for download these days.
• Open Source Projects As A Form Of Community Service - DonXml has a good summary of the recent discussion of open source in the .NET blogosphere. As long as there's all this pontificating going on, I might as well make a few pontifical observations myself. First, there's a certain (incredible) amount of arrogance in johnny-come-lately .NET developers trying to redefine the term "open source," which already has a perfectly good meaning; go visit the Open Source Initiative's site if you need more information (and for that matter, visit the Free Software Foundation if you want to understand the different, but equally important, concept of free software). Second, if you're contributing to open source projects as community service, that's fine, but you're either kidding yourself or missing a bet: they're also a really good way to help build your own personal brand and promote yourself as more than just another run-of-the-mill developer.

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Mike Gunderloy is the editor of Larkware, the daily .NET newspaper of record.