Here is a fantastic guide for beginners: http://rogerdudler.github.com/git-guide/

Thanks.

As I am new to .Net Framework & ASP.Net MVC, I was looking in to various articles that would give clear step by step instructions as to how to add localization to ASP.Net MVC Projects. Especially, localization of string resources.

Here is a fantastic article on Localization in ASP.Net MVC projects.

Thanks to the author.

CharformatToLogfont(CHARFORMAT & cf, LOGFONT & lf, COLORREF & cr)
{

	lf.lfCharSet = cf.bCharSet;
	lf.lfClipPrecision = CLIP_DEFAULT_PRECIS;
	lf.lfEscapement = 0;
	lf.lfOrientation = 0;
	lf.lfOutPrecision = OUT_DEFAULT_PRECIS;
	lf.lfQuality = DEFAULT_QUALITY;
	lf.lfPitchAndFamily = DEFAULT_PITCH;

	if ( (cf.dwEffects & CFE_BOLD) == CFE_BOLD)
	{
		lf.lfWeight = FW_BOLD;
	}

	CDC dc;
	dc.CreateDC(_T("DISPLAY"),NULL,NULL,NULL);
	lf.lfHeight = -MulDiv(cf.yHeight/20, dc.GetDeviceCaps(LOGPIXELSY), 72);
	dc.DeleteDC();

	lf.lfUnderline = ( (cf.dwEffects & CFE_UNDERLINE) == CFE_UNDERLINE);
	lf.lfStrikeOut = ( (cf.dwEffects & CFE_STRIKEOUT) == CFE_STRIKEOUT);
	lf.lfItalic = ( (cf.dwEffects & CFE_ITALIC) == CFE_ITALIC);

	lf.lfWidth = 0;
	_tcscpy_s(lf.lfFaceName, LF_FACESIZE, cf.szFaceName);

	//save color separately because LOGFONT does not accept color
	cr = cf.crTextColor;

}

LogfontToCharformat(LOGFONT & lf, COLORREF & cr, CHARFORMAT & cf)
{

	cf.cbSize = sizeof(CHARFORMAT);
	cf.dwMask = CFM_COLOR | CFM_FACE | CFM_SIZE | CFM_CHARSET
        | CFM_BOLD | CFM_ITALIC | CFM_UNDERLINE | CFM_STRIKEOUT | CFM_OFFSET;
	cf.dwEffects = 0;

	if (lf.lfWeight >= FW_BOLD)
	{
		cf.dwEffects |= CFE_BOLD;
	}

	if (lf.lfUnderline)
	{
		cf.dwEffects |= CFE_UNDERLINE;
	}

	if (lf.lfItalic)
	{
		cf.dwEffects |= CFE_ITALIC;
	}

	if (lf.lfStrikeOut)
	{
		cf.dwEffects |= CFE_STRIKEOUT;
	}

	//temporary create DC
	CDC dc;
	dc.CreateDC(_T("DISPLAY"),NULL,NULL,NULL);
	cf.yHeight = 20*long( 0.5 + fabs(double(72*lf.lfHeight)/dc.GetDeviceCaps(LOGPIXELSY)));
	dc.DeleteDC();

	cf.yOffset = 0;
	cf.crTextColor = cr;
	cf.bCharSet = lf.lfCharSet;
	cf.bPitchAndFamily = lf.lfPitchAndFamily;
	_tcscpy_s(cf.szFaceName, LF_FACESIZE, lf.lfFaceName);
}

Thanks to this StackOverflow question that set my direction. It says that I must use the ‘group by’ operator, which I did.

Following is the code that I ended up with:

//distinct tags for a particular user
var tags = from t in _db.Tags
               where t.UserId == userId
               group t by t.Name into g
               select g.FirstOrDefault();

Since the query returns a group, we must select the first item in the group. Hence FirstOrDefault().

Thanks.

So I upgraded to Entity Framework 4. This required me to upgrade my projects to Visual Studio 2010 & .Net Framework 4. Along with this, I also upgrade my MVC 2 project to MVC 3 with the help of this article.

Although POCO & Persistence Ignorance are the two most-liked features, they did not interest me because I had already generated the Entity classes from the database in EF1 and mapped them to my own model. What interested me was Lazy Loading and Foreign key association.

Entity Framework 4 addresses several issues and it has undergone a major rework. Worth upgrading.

Thanks.

Definition from Fiddler’s website: Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and “fiddle” with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language.

Thanks.

There are several parts (24 at the time of writing this post). But I think the first 12 parts are good for beginners to start with.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5a – Part 5b – Part 6 – Part 7 – Part 8 – Part 9 – Part 10 – Part 11 – Part 12

Thanks.

If you are just starting on REST, then here is the link that explains REST very clearly: How to Create a REST Protocol
To supplement this it is important to know the Common REST mistakes that developers make.

Thanks

RedGate – SQL Compare seemed to be the leader. If you are looking for a free tool then you can try Open DBDiff. We wanted a tool that can help use copy diff data between the databases being compared. This is what “Scripting” means in the below table. We couldn’t find any free tool that can compare data and also generate script for migration. Thanks.