Month: May 2011

Goodbye .net Reflector, Hello ILSpy

I love[d] RedGate’s .net Reflector and used it all the time. It made me sad to see that they decided to eliminate the free version. The price isn’t terrible at $35, but it’s enough to make me explore other options before putting in a purchase request at work. I talked to some colleagues, did some quick Google research, and was pleasantly surprised to find a wonderful substitute called ILSpy.

ILSpy does exactly what .net Reflector did for me. I can explore objects, methods, and properties in assemblies, and it’ll decompile to show implementation details. ILSpy (or something similar, like .net Reflector) is a must-have tool for debugging and troubleshooting. I definitely recommend you check it out!

More info here.

‘Must Have Games’ for Windows Phone 7 Schedule

The schedule has been announced for Microsoft’s ‘Must Have Games’ promotion that will bring popular games like Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies to Windows Phone 7.

Here’s the schedule:
* May 25: Hydro Thunder GO! – $4.99
* June 1: Doodle Jump – $2.99
* June 8: geoDefense – $2.99
* June 15: Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 – $6.99
* June 22: Plants vs. Zombies – $4.99
* June 29: Angry Birds – $2.99

Really looking forward to getting Sonic & Plants vs. Zombies! Hooray!!

More info here.

Getting Started with HTML5

I know that HTML5 has been out there for some time, and I’ve been meaning to check it out and start experimenting with it for months (nay, years!). This morning, I got around to looking into it and found what looks like a good collection of tutorials & resources.

Learn HTML5: 10 Must Read Lessons

This is where I’m going to start–more on this later!

Enterprise Library Data Access – Max Pool Size Reached

A co-worker and I were looking into a recurring problem with one of our oft-used data access web services. It was a problem that had come up at several different customer sites, and the symptoms were always the same. Everything would be working for for x hours, and then we start to get exceptions. Some time later, it starts working again. This process repeats.

Here’s the exception that we’d start to see after some time:

The timeout period elapsed prior to obtaining a connection from the pool.  This may have occurred because all pooled connections were in use and max pool size was reached.

After a big of googling and some experimentation, the cause was found to be an IDataReader that wasn’t being closed properly. After we wrapped it in a using, everything was working just fine. Always make sure to dispose of your IDisposables!

HBO GO

It’s HBO. Anywhere.

I just heard about HBO GO, and it sounds like a lot of fun! It’s a downloadable app for your iPad, iPhone, or Android device that let’s you watch HBO shows (movies, series, and originals). I’m a big fan of HBO, so I’m really excited to try it out on my wife’s EVO.

I sure hope they come out with an app for Windows Phone!

More info here: http://www.hbogo.com

Disabling ReSharper

ReSharper is a great development tool that has a lot of offerings, and I generally don’t have complaints about it. The one thing that does irk me, though, is that it can cause solutions containing a large number of projects to load very slowly in Visual Studio.

I found that a simple workaround for this is to just disable ReSharper before opening the solution. This task is accomplished easily in two different ways. The first is to just go to Tools > Options > ReSharper in Visual Studio, and click the Suspend button. To re-enable the interface, click the Resume button in the same location. The second is to use the ReSharper_Suspend & ReSharper_Resume or ReSharper_ToggleSuspended commands in Visual Studio’s Command Window. (Bonus tip! If you need to suspend/resume frequently, map the commands to toolbar buttons.)