Application Development/Design

• Maggie Longshore asks the question: Who is developing the software profession?
• Deborah Kurata shows us how to Find the differences in two lists using Lambda Expressions.
• Paul Zubkov has started an interesting series of posts using the Twitter API with C# (part1).
• Suprotim Agarwal has posted an article explaining how to Upload Multiple Files in ASP.NET using jQuery.
• Good article explaining Why Pair Programming Works.
• Alexander Johannesen tells us How to stop thinking in code.
• Good article from InfoQ telling us about 23 .NET Open Source Projects.
• Huzefa Katwarawala gives a great example of Real World Interfaces in C#.
• Ran across and article that gives a good overview of Design Patterns.
• Scott Hanselman continues his great link series with The Weekly Source Code 43 – ASP.NET MVC and T4 and NerdDinner.
• Good article from Dot Net Cube explaining C# 3.0 – Extension Methods.
• Tutorial Video(s): New Screencast: Working with Property Grids | Learning the Decorator Pattern
• Article(s) from Code project:  7 Tips for a Successful Software Project | Adapter Design Pattern | WPF Book Reader | Multiple Colored Texts in RichTextBox using C#
• Snippet(s): Css rounded corners | SimpleFTP Class | DataList Class

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• Pinal Dave explains the Difference between Line Feed (\n) and Carriage Return (\r) – T-SQL New Line Char.
• Buck Woody has posted some good SQL Server Best Practices: AutoClose Should be Off | Auto-Shrink Should Be Off
• Kenneth Downs gives us some Approaches to “UPSERT”.
• Article(s) from Code project: SQL. Fast GUID List Generator

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
• Sarah Dutkiewicz has posted the materials from her Python/.NET presentation.
• Chris Koenig provides a recap of the Dallas TechFest.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• David Green has posted a great article titled Android versus iPhone Development: A Comparison. Great comparison!
• Lifehacker tells us about a tool that speeds up the listening time on podcasts.

Blogging and Social Networking

• Web Worker Daily talks about The Value of Twitter Followers: Quality Over Quantity.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Interesting article that lists the Top Five Causes of Poor Software Quality. #3 hits close to home…
• Lifehacker has recently provided us with several Photography tip posts. Be A Better Photographer On Vacation | Shoot Better Nighttime Pictures | Take Better Photos: Fourth of July Edition
• Jean-Paul Boodhoo asks the question: How Wise Are You Being With Your Work Time?
• Leo Babauta explains Why Your Email Inbox Is NOT a Good To-do List.
• Good article on Web Worker Daily listing 4 Reasons It Pays to Track Your Time.
• Gretchen Rubin provides us Eight Strategies to Boost Your Happiness.
• Trent Hamm has started an interesting series of posts: 14 Money Rules.

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• Jamie Nischan links us to a free eBook: 10 Research Proven Weight Loss Tips.
• Good article stating 11 Reasons Why You Absolutely Need More Sleep.
• Ran across an article that tells us how to Commit To A Lifetime of Fitness In A Few Simple Steps.
• Good article on Dumb Little Man listing 5 Gym Benefits You Probably Hadn’t Thought Of.
• Jamie Nischan talks about Pain and Posture Basics: Breathing.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Cool article about Saturn titled Saturn Rings Cast in Rare Light.
• The How-To Geek has posted some really cool Guitar Desktop Wallpapers. 
• Movie Trailers: Daybreakers | Couples Retreat
• Funny Dilberts this week: 6-22 | 6-30 | 7-1

–

Great Link Blog Sources

• The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup | Dominion Edition
• Jeremiah Peschka – Links for the Week
• Jonathan Gardner – Technology Links of the Week 
• Weekly Round-Up – Fuel For Thought  
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Michael Koby – Daily Links
• Elijah Manor – Tech Twitterings
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links

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Everyone have a Safe & Happy 4th of July holiday.

Happy Surfing!

This is is my weekly link post.  It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me – whether it be related to work or play.

Application Development/Design

• Justin Etheredge talks about Life After Loops.
• Jeff Blankenburg has posted a great tutorial. How To Create A SetTimeout Function In Silverlight.
• Chad Myers talks about How to Write Unmaintainable Code.
• Good article on Simple-Talk about Understanding Garbage Collection in .NET.
• Greg Duncan tells us about free development training in his post Free Training of the Week – Seven hours of free, for a limited time, .Net (C#/VB) training from InnerWorkings.
• Max Pool lists The Ultimate Top 25 Chuck Norris “The Programmer” Jokes. Comments are fun to read too.
• Tod McKenna has some good ideas on Naming Conventions and the Underscore.
• Good article from Mary-Jo Foley titled Too many .Nets, too little time? 
• Article(s) from Code project: Datagrid – Editing, Updating, Cancel, Selecting Rows
• Tutorial Video(s): Exploring Code Contracts
• Snippet(s): Strip last N characters from a string in C# | Convert a string to a list/array of words in C# 

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• Pinal Dave has posted an article on Understanding Table Hints.
• Brent Ozar tells us the Top 10 Developer Interview Questions About SQL Server.
• Buck Woody tells us about the Copy With Headers feature in SQL Server Management Studio. 
• Article(s) from Code project: Full Outer Join of Two DataTables C# Code
• Tutorial Video(s):
• Snippet(s):

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• The How-To Geek tells us about Tab Preview 0.3.
• The How-To Geek gives us some great Castle-Themed Wallpapers.

Blogging and Social Networking

• Jeff Atwood has posted an interesting article titled Url Shorteners: Destroying the Web Since 2002. Interesting discussion in the comments as well.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Good article on Dumb Little Man listing Five Ways to Boost Your Work Performance – Outside the Office. “Whatever your particular weak area, it’s worth considering how you might be able to spend some time improving it outside the office.” 

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• Recipes: Lemon Basil Shrimp and Pasta
• Interesting article on the Diet Blog titled The End of Overeating.
• This Watermelon T-Rex looks pretty cool.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• For the die-hard Trekkies out there: Star Trek PEZ Dispensers are also USB Drives.
• Nikhil Kothari has posted some absolutely awesome photos of Yellowstone.
• Movie Trailers: GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra | 2012 | Zombiland
• Funny Dilbert from last week.  

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Great Link Blog Sources

• The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup
• Jeremiah Peschka – Links for the Week
• Weekly Round-Up – Fuel For Thought
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Michael Koby – Daily Links
• Elijah Manor – Tech Twitterings
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links

–

Happy Surfing.

This is is my weekly link post.  It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me – whether it be related to work or play.

Application Development/Design

• Graham O’Neale has posted a great article on F# titled What & Why Choose F#?
• Good article listing 15 Effective Tips and Tricks from the Masters of CSS.
• Google Code has posted a cool article Introducing Android Scripting Environment.
• Great article giving us 22 Visual Studio Short Keys and 6 Short-cut Ways to Custom Jobs.
• Good post listing 15 Books You Must Have If You Are Doing ASP.NET Web Development.
• Mohammad Azam explains C# 4.0 Dynamic Types.
• Jeff Atwood has posted a great article titled Regular Expressions for Regular Programmers. 
• Snippet(s): Show date, time and timezone in C# | Read file into a string in C#

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• Jeremiah Peschka provides a great lesson on Splitting Strings in SQL.
• Brent Ozar is kind enough to point us to some free SQL Server training videos. #1 | #2
• Kevin Kline recommends a couple of Excellent new books for SQL Server professionals.
• Charles Chen demonstrates the TSQL Merge command.
• Article(s) from Code project: Try/Catch Block in SQL Server 2005 | Table Value Parameter in SQL Server 2008 | Merge Statement in SQL Server 2008 | Padding strings in TSQL using a generic UDF
• Tutorial Video(s): SQL Server Tracing
• Snippet(s): T-SQL Split function 

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• Pretty cool blog category titled 30 Days of Android Apps. Looks like the author reviews an app a day.
• Good overview of Google Wave from Gina Trapani – Google Wave Questions and Answers.
• Ran across an article on Dumb Little Man that gives us 7 Excellent Web Apps To Track & Save on Gas.
• Lifehacker talks about Upcoming Tech That Will Rock Your World.

Blogging and Social Networking

• Jurgen Appelo gives us the Top 100 Most Influential Twitter Tools.
• Jeff Blankenburg lists 20 non-technical people to follow on Twitter in the post Twitter For The Common Man (or Woman).
• Good article on Mashable listing 10 Twitter Tools to Organize Your Tweeps.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Good article on Zen Habits listing 6 Amazing Techniques to Staying Happy During a Stressful Project.
• Nate Kohari tells us about Zen and the Art of Project Management.

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• Recipes: Crock Pot Wild Rice and Chicken Soup | Awesome Slow Cooker Pot Roast
• Great posts from Lifehacker detailing the best and worst fast food: McDonald’s Edition | Wendy’s Editon.
• The Diet Blog gives us 5 Dieting Excuses You Can Beat Today.
• Ran across a good article that talks about ‘Healthy’ Foods That Really Aren’t.
• Great article that advises to Put your Brain On a Diet To Lose Weight. [source: @gabriellyn]

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Great Garfield strip from last week.  

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Great Link Blog Sources

• The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup
• Jeremiah Peschka – Links for the Week
• Weekly Round-Up – Fuel For Thought
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Michael Koby – Daily Links
• Elijah Manor – Tech Twitterings
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links

–

Happy Surfing.

This is is my weekly link post.  It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me – whether it be related to work or play.

Application Development/Design

• Scott Guthrie continues his link listing series with June 7th Links: ASP.NET, AJAX, ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio.
• Greg Duncan provides links to some great training kits in his post Ton’s-o-Training Kits.
• David Morton posts some good information about the upcoming C# 4.0 Dynamic Type.
• Leon Bambrick gives 4 reasons why The Better You Program, The Worse You Communicate.
• Blackwasp Software Dev demonstrates the Observer Design Pattern. 
• Snippet(s): Get number from string

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• Pinal Dave provides a Simple Definition of an Interim Table.
• Very in-depth article on Updating & deleting records with no match in another table.
• Michelle Ufford has posted a Random Number Generator in T-SQL.

 Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
• Jeremiah Peschka lists some upcoming SQL Server sessions.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• Lifehacker shows what can be done with Bing.
• Paul Thurrott gives us a First Look at Google Wave.
• Good article about Bing titled Bing Survives the Search Engine Achilles Heel: Programmers.
• Lifehacker provides a great list of Essential Free Windows Downloads. [source: @CyberBlox]

Blogging and Social Networking

• Good post that lists 20 Developers to Follow on Twitter.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Interesting story of The unemployed developer – a tale with expected end.
• Great article on LifeDev listing 8 Ways Reading Makes You Better at Life.
• Lifehacker shows us that The Road to Happiness in Your Work Lies in the Hooray! Zone. [source: @joewebb]

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• Recipes: Patty Melts with Grilled Onions
• Good article from Dumb Little Man on How to Lose Weight by Eating More.
• Great article on Web Worker Daily giving us 5 Healthy Energy Snacks to Get You Through the Mid-Afternoon Slump.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• This interview with BSG’s Mark Sheppard reveals Warehouse 13 secrets and his guest role. Sounds like a cool new series. 
• Movie Trailers: The Final Destination | New Moon   

–

Great Link Blog Sources

• Brent Ozar – SQL Server & Cloud Links for the Week
• Jonathan Gardner – Technology Links of the Week
• The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup
• Jeremiah Peschka – Links for the Week
• Max Pool – Squeezed Links
• Weekly Round-Up – Fuel For Thought
• Dana Coffey – Weekly Links
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Michael Koby – Daily Links
• Elijah Manor – Tech Twitterings
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links

–

Happy Surfing.

I am working on a project in which the final output is an EDI file that is translated into claims by the state. I had an issue in which I needed to strip the decimal point from both amount and diagnosis code fields. They also need to be right justified and padded with zeroes. (ie, 123.98 = 00012398)

Coming from a Visual FoxPro background, I knew how to do this in that language, but not in C#. I was able to accomplish my task by using the Replace and PadLeft methods which can be found in String Class.

The Code

• Strip Decimal and Zero Fill – C# Code Sample
• Strip Decimal and Zero Fill – VB.NET Code Sample

The Result

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Until later…

This is is my weekly link post.  It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me – whether it be related to work or play.

Application Development/Design

• Scott Guthrie continues his link listing series with May 30th Links: ASP.NET, AJAX, ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio.
• Blackwasp has posted an article on Combining Arrays.
• Great blog post listing many articles on Being a Better Developer.
• Mohammad Azam shares his JQuery Articles and Videos. Great stuff!
• Alberto Gutierrez has posted a good article on refactoring titled Refactoring: The 5 main questions: Why? When? What? How? Who?
• Kathleen McGrath provides a great video on Creating Your First F# Program with Visual Studio 2010.
• Carlos Oliveira has written a series on How to become a better developer in 30 days.
• Latish Sehgal has listed his development tools in the post My Dot Net Developer’s tools list, and more…
• Scott Mitchell has posted an article on Using ASP.NET 3.5’s ListView and DataPager Controls: Deleting Data.
• Ran across this article listing the Top 50 Ruby on Rails Tutorials. Looks to be a good starting point if your looking to learn a new programming language.
• Ran across 15 useful cheat sheets for web developers.   
• Article(s) from Code project: Three Layer Architecture in C#.NET

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• Pinal Dave explains the Difference Between Candidate Keys and Primary Key.
• Simon Sabin has posted some good information on When a decimal isn’t a decimal.
• Pinal Dave demonstrates how to Find Hostname and Current Logged In User Name.

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
• Great article answering the question Why Should I go to a Code Camp?
• Jeffery Palermo talks about the success of this year’s Austin Code Camp in his post Austin Code Camp was a Hit!

Internet, Software and General Technology

• Engadget article talking about 18 Android phones coming this year, possibly more.
• Executor is a nice application launcher for Windows XP/Vista. add to tools list
• Lifehacker reviews the Five Best Netbooks.
• Great list of 22 Neat Code Editors for Windows.
• Here is an article listing 8 Guides and Tools for Supercharging Google Chrome.
• Cool article on Lifehacker that show you how to Turn Your Spare Thumb Drives Into Feature-Packed Giveaway Drives.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• The Simple Dollar gives us Seven Hidden Lessons from “Getting Things Done”.
• Great article on Dumb Little Man titled Mono-Task And Work More Effectively. Never thought of Setting a timer.
• Steve Pavlina tells us how to Keep Your Goals in Front of You.

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• Good article on the Diet Blog listing 7 Simple Ways to Avoid Weekend Weight Gain.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Cool T-Shirt for fans of “The Big Bang Theory”. 
• Movie Trailers: Pandorum | Aliens in the Attic
• Funny Dilberts this week: 5/26 | 5/28

–

Great Link Blog Sources

• The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup
• Jeremiah Peschka – Links for the Week
• Max Pool – Squeezed Links
• Weekly Round-Up – Fuel For Thought
• Dana Coffey – Weekly Links
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Michael Koby – Daily Links
• Elijah Manor – Tech Twitterings
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links

–

Happy Surfing.

Yesterday I attended Austin Code Camp 2009. As always it was a great event and you can’t beat the price. There were several great one and two hour sessions to choose from.  Of course, there was the issue of everyone wanting to attend the same session, so it did get rather crowded at times -or- you had to sit in on a session you were not planning for.  Even with that, it was a good day of learning.

Below are the sessions that I attended.

Sneak peek at C# 4.0 — Jimmy Bogard

There were 50+ in attendance, with several people standing. Looked to be a pretty popular session.

New items in C# 4.0 include

• Dynamic
• Named and Optional Parameters
• Generic Variance

SQL Server Reporting Services: Report Creation and Deployment — Anil Desai

There were about 20 in attendance. I was able to see this presenter last year and he is a great and knowledgeable presenter.

The process of setting up SQL Server Reporting Services was discussed as well as the creation and deployment of the reports. Anil demonstrated creating reports in both the Report Designer and Visual Studio.

Applying Refactoring techniques to prune the legacy code — Mahendra Mavani

There were about 6 in attendance. 

Most of the other attendees were in the Enterprise Architecture Patterns: Presentation, Business Logic, and Persistence session.

Building Business Applications with Silverlight 3.0 — Todd Anglin

Another pretty crowded session.

Todd did a great job in presenting on the great things that can be done using Silverlight.

–

Related Content

• Presentation Demos and Slide Decks
• Austin Code Camp was a hit! – Jeffrey Palermo
• Austin Code Camp 2009 Was A Ton-O-Fun! – Derick Bailey

–

All in all, the Austin Code Camp was a great day of learning and I will be there again next year.

This is is my weekly link post.  It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me – whether it be related to work or play.

Application Development/Design

• Al Beecy provides lots of code to look at in his post Convert a Generic List to a DataTable Using Reflection.
• Jeff Atwood talks about encryption in his post The Bathroom Wall of Code.
• John Sheehan has an awesome set of .NET Cheat Sheets posted.
• Scott Hanselman continues his great link series with The Weekly Source Code 42 – Tree Trim, Plugins, and MEF.
• Good post listing 30 HTML Best Practices for Beginners.
• Alberto Gutierrez provides 3 non technical tips to be a better software developer. “The worst dynamic for a team, it’s when the people are not aligned in the same direction.”
• David Hayden informs us of a Free Book on Ruby. 
• Tutorial Video(s): Learning the Observer Pattern w/ Callbacks 
• Forum Thread(s): One tool to help you write better .Net code?

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• Pinal Dave gives us a PDF SQL Server Cheat Sheet.
• Forum Thread(s): Why does the database access time change? | How do I get first unused ID in the table?

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
• John Teague has posted the Austin Code Camp Schedule. I’ll be there bright and early Saturday morning!
• Derick Bailey talks about the sessions he will be Presenting At Austin Code Camp 2009.
• Michael Eaton talks about the sessions he will be Presenting at the Chicago Code Camp.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• The How-To Geek demonstrates how to Copy Website Tables into Excel 2007 Spreadsheets.
• Good tip from Web Worker Daily : Travel Tip: Take an Ethernet Cable
• Laptop Pimp gives us the specs for a MicroSD card reader. Awww! I think it’s kinda cute.

Blogging and Social Networking

• Interesting article showing “How to” Properly set up your Twitter background for ALL Resolutions. [Source: @Twitter_Tips]

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Ran across an article on The Simple Dollar that explains The Power of Transferrable Skills – And Six Areas to Work On.
• Article on Dumb Little Man that explains How To Maintain A Healthy Lifestyle When You’re Too Busy To Care.
• Ran across an article on IT Management talking about Developer Salary Levels, 2004-2009.
• Good article on Dumb Little Man on How to Pack Smart for a Trip.
• The Simple Dollar gives us 10 Resources for Finding Free and Cheap Things to Do This Summer.
• Dustin Wax has an article on Lifehack listing 10 Essential Mobile Apps for Your Next Road Trip. I’m thinking this post may come in handy as I am taking a road trip in late June.
• Article on Dumb Little Man that provides 9 Practical Ways to To Help Stay Focused.

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• This article on the Diet Blog gives us 10 Ways to Restart Your Diet After a Break.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Good article about Terminator Salvation: The Scene: Robots dominate ‘Terminator’. 
• Movie Trailers:   9 | The Hangover 
• Funny Dilberts this week:  5/24 | 5/25

–

Great Link Blog Sources

• Brent Ozar – SQL Server & Cloud Links for the Week
• The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup
• Jeremiah Peschka – Links for the Week
• Max Pool – Squeezed Links
• Weekly Round-Up – Fuel For Thought
• Dana Coffey – Weekly Links
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Michael Koby – Daily Links
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links

–

Happy Surfing.

This is is my weekly link post.  It is here that I note the web sites and posts that I have run across that interest me – whether it be related to work or play.

Application Development/Design

• Alberto Gutierrez provides 5 Tips for creating good code every day; or how to become a good software developer. “Being a good developer is like being any other good professional, it’s all it’s about doing as much quality work as possible.”
• Good article on DZone titled Twitter from ASP.NET.
• 10-4 is a weekly video podcast that which gives us a glimpse at what’s coming in Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0. 
• Gunnar Peipman shares his string.Repeat() extension method.
• Nikhil K. Misal links us to 8 Great Web Design Tutorials. Nice!
• Tutorial Video(s): Set Up Dev Environment for ASP.NET 3.5 | Control Extenders | Editor Control | Combo Box | Learning the State Pattern
• Article(s) from Code project: 
• Forum Thread(s): ComboBox bound to an enum type’s values while also having a “blank” entry?
• Snippet(s): Get data from SQL Stored Procedure | EndOfTheMonth | EndOfTheDay

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• This has to be one of the best explanations of SQL injection that I have seen: Basics of SQL-Injections
• Paul Nielsen asks the question Why use Stored Procedures? [Source: @joewebb]

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings.
• Chad Myers talks about the upcoming Austin Code Camp in his post Austin CodeCamp ‘09: Quite Possibly Better than Bacon.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• Lifehacker explains how Find Your Lost Cellphone With Google Voice.
• Christian Krahn lists his 10 favorite Android Apps.
• Jeff Atwood tells us how The Web Browser Address Bar is the New Command Line.
• Lifehacker talks about how Google Calendar Integrates Tasks. [Source: @jgardner04]
• Sara Chipps has written a great article titled A Developer and her Netbook: Cheap .NET Coding. “I’m about to show you how to set up an awesome .NET development environment for less than $500.”
• Google enables us to have A planetarium in our pocket. Makes me want a G1 even more .

Blogging and Social Networking

• Dawn Foster has posted a great article on Web Worker Daily that tells us How to Mine Twitter for Information.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Brent Ozar has posted an in-depth series on Telecommuting: Getting the Job | Staying Motivated | Status Reports | Getting Things Done
• Leo Babauta lists 6 Small Things You Can Do When You Lack Discipline. “One of the biggest problems people face is the lack of discipline.”
• Good article on TechRepublic that lists Five mistakes managers make most often. “If you’re a manager struggling to find out why your team is dysfunctional, take a look at the behaviors in this list and see if any look familiar.”
• Great article on Dumb Little Man telling us How to Learn a Little Every Day.

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• Recipes: Crock Pot Italian Beef
• Good article on Diet Blog asking Why Should Healthy Employees Be Rewarded?

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else 

• Movie Trailers:  Terminator – Salvation| G-Force
• Funny Dilberts this week:  5/11 | 5/17

–

Great Link Blog Sources

• Brent Ozar – SQL Server & Cloud Links for the Week
• The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup
• Jeremiah Peschka – Links for the Week
• Max Pool – Squeezed Links
• Weekly Round-Up – Fuel For Thought
• Dana Coffey – Weekly Links
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Michael Koby – Daily Links
• Elijah Manor – Tech Twitterings
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Darren Stokes – Visual Studio Links

–

Happy Surfing.

Twitter is a social networking service that can be useful to just about anyone if it is used properly.  Even if you don’t want to interact with anyone (which is a major aspect), you can utilize Twitter in other ways. There are several services or bots that you can follow that perform all kinds of functions.  I have listed some of the services that I have used, currently use and would like to use.

News Services

BreakingNewsOn – Good breaking news service
breakingtweets – Good breaking news service
Twitter_Tips – Great tips and tricks for using Twitter
evernote – News, tips and tricks for my favorite note-taking software
googlemaps – News, tips and tricks for Google Maps
google – News, tips and tricks for Google
wordpressdotcom – News, tips and tricks for the WordPress blog platform
echoalert – News and podcast for fans of the series Dollhouse
heroespodcast – News and podcast for fans of the series Heroes

Bots and Tools

trackthis – Very cool service in which you can Direct Message a tracking number.  It will DM you back each time the tracking timeline is updated. I tested this with a UPS package and it worked flawlessly
stackalert – Great service for developers. Interacts with Stackoverflow.com
myen – I like this service so much that I wrote a blog post on it recently. Interacts with Evernote.
timer – Reminder service. Direct message with “45 Call Bob”  and in 45 min you will get a reminder to call Bob. (This service works ok, not quite as well as I had hoped)

Note: Have not tried the following as they have not followed me back, which is required to make the service work. They sound interesting.

gCal – Enables you to add events to your Google Calendar via Twitter
Tipr – Allows you to Direct Message an amount and the percentage you want to tip and it replies to you with the tip amount.
forecast – Allows you to Direct Message a zip code and it replies back with the forecast for that area.

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Related Posts

• 10 Most Useful Twitter Bots List
• Twitter Fan Wiki – Bots
• 10 Bots to Help You Get the Most From Twitter

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Until later….