Vlad Hrybok's Tech Notes

It's much easier to read large numbers when thousands are separated by commas. But I can never remember how the numeric format with thousands comma-separated is defined for .NET String.Format() method and for the databinding. So more as a note to self, here it is:

string output = string.Format("{0:#,#}", 123456789); // Will produce 123,456,789

The same goes for data binding data sources to data controls like DataGridView. Specify format as "{0:#,#}".

If your ASP.NET 1.1 or 2.0 application throws "This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms" exception, the easiest way to fix is to add 
      <machineKey validationKey="AutoGenerate,IsolateApps" decryptionKey="AutoGenerate,IsolateApps" validation="3DES" decryption="3DES"/>
line to the <system.web> section of the web.config file of your application.

FIPS compliance is required for software installed on US government computers. The compliance requirement can be turned on and off.

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911722

Free Forrester Research report on Home Servers market (PDF).

UltiDev HttpVPN is in an incredible position to be the winner in this market.

I went through the exercise of setting up Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008, and needed to do group-level-only rights assignment, so that IT folks could manage security by simply moving people in and out of the Active Directory groups to grant/revoke TFS access rights, instead of setting up individual user rights in TFS, Windows Sharepoint Services and Reporting Services. Initially I created some groups for TFS with the "Domain local" scope, which allowed me to nest other, "Global", groups in them. But I noticed that with WSS and RS, assigning rights to "Domain local" groups does nothing - WSS and RS act as users are not members of the group, while TFS services were working properly. I had to re-create AD groups and make them of "Global" scope to make WSS and RS working properly.

After I have upgraded the motherboard on my desktop, a few things got messed up, the most annoying of which was that Visual Studio 2008 has lost its XSD/Dataset editor. Opening a data set resulted in opening it as a text or XML, and when I right-clicked the XSD file and selected "Open With..." from the menu, the XSD editor was not there. Repairing and completely uninstalling and reinstalling VS 2008 did not help. After searching the web I found that some people have the same problem, but I found no solution for Visual Studio 2008. The solution that worked for me was described for the similar problem with Visual Studio 2005. I ran “devenv /resetsettings” and it didn't help. Then I ran “devenv /setup” and hallelujah: XSDs are opening again in the Design mode! To launch devenv you will need to start VS 2008 command prompt first.