Desktop search tools

It seems that I will be switching to a new desktop search tool. X1 has released their enterprise client for free and it looks pretty useful. It is similar to Yahoo Desktop Search that I had used for a while (it was built on top of X1) but the original X1 tool has several advantages. It is more customizable and powerful than any of the tools I have tried (MSN Desktop Search, Google Desktop Search). The only things that I don't like about it are:

• missing full unicode/cyrillic support (I can't see any Bulgarian filenames in the results grid)


• missing the standart Explorer context menus on files in search results
  
  
• missing integration with other tools (e.g. with MSN Desktop Search + FolderShare I can search my computer from any internet-connected computer)

But the powerful search capabilities, the great GUI, the ability to search network shares (oops, the network shares are available in the commercial version only) are too compelling reasons to change.

Btw, a good resource on desktop search tools can be found here. It seems to be regularly updated and can help you decide which tool
best suits your needs.

Microsoft DevDays 2006

These couple of days I went to Microsoft DevDays 2006. The topics of the lectures I attended were pretty interesting - Windows Vista, .NET 3.0 (WCF, WPF, WWF), Software Factories, MSF 4, VSTS for Testers.

• Windows Vista is pretty exciting, offering a lot of improvements in many areas (well, and some potential annoyances, too).
  
• VSTS for Testers was an interesting lecture for me, since the project I am currently working on, offers similar functionality. My team even attended a QA seminar last week to get a better feel of the problems of automating testing and the tools available.
  
• MSF 4 looks interesting, too, especially the Agile part. I think that the practices are more important than the tools, but good tools can definitely help (although VSTS is a bit awkward on demos).
• WCF, WPF, WWF - all these things are pretty exciting and definitely have potential. I especially liked the lecture discussing building www.msbgregistration.com using these latest technologies. It was probably the best talk, since it covered a real world example with new technologies and inspired a good Q&A session.

Overall the event was nice, though there were a few organizational aspects that were not very well thought of. I guess I would go the next year, too. And I will definietly go back to Arena cinema, where the conference was held, having two movie tickets to spend :)

I knew the project would be fun

When I started working on my new project a month ago, I noted that it uses great variety of technologies, so I wouldn't be bored to death. Now I know I was right. The first month I did mostly ASP.NET development, which was interesting since my experience with it was very little. In the begining there were a lot of small frustrations here and there, while figuring out why some things misbehave, but those moments are now very rare.

In the last two days I did some totally new things for me. Yesterday it was XSL transformation (VS.NET 2005 helped a lot there) and today it was Ajax. The Ajax thing was powered by AutoSuggestBox and even though it was not a rocket science it felt refreshing. I was implementing a search-as-you-type functionality. It was of the simplest kind: just find those names who start with the input letters. I wonder if we should make it powerful like Resharper's Ctrl+N but since the product is not intented for developers, it might be better to stick to a simple way.

VS.NET too clever

VS.NET 2003 has a bit confusing feature in the Solution Explorer. It groups three files as one : the asp.net page, the code-behind file and the .resx file. I have not found a way to turn off that clever option (UPDATE: actually there is an option "Show All Files", which I will be definitely using, see a picture here).

So I got burnt today by this feature when I was editing a code-behind file. I was not sure what I had checked in, so I wanted to see if the local version was different from the VSS version by clicking "Compare versions". I was informed that there are no changes and I did an undo checkout operation. Then I realized that I have been comparing thes .aspx file and not the .cs file. Argh! I spent another 30 minutes or so redoing the edits. On the good side: the edits turned out even better than the first time. It is a good practice to throw away some code after it is initially written and start it all over.

P.S. I wonder why I can't find a tool that backups all the pending checkins in VS.NET. This is definitely something my colleagues and I would like to use, since a little mistake with VSS can lead to loss of code. I have the feeling that a simple macro might do the job, but I am not sure if this functionality is covered in the extensibility. Also, the Pending Checkins window could become a lot more useful, if the context menu on its files, included all the options that are available in the Solution Explorer (VS.NET 2005 seems to solve at least partially this problem).