.Net Tools

Home SQL .NET SysAdmin Opinion Blogs Forums Books

.NET Home > .Net Tools

Reflector Pro Cometh

by Nick Harrison | 25 February 2010 |

3 comments |

Reflector 6 is here. Nick Harrison is a long-time Reflector enthusiast, and has been responsible for writing an add-in. As he'd helped test the new version, Nick asked to review it for Simple-Talk. The team were anxious to know what he thought. They needn't have... Read more...

Microsoft Small Basic for .NET

by Andrew Clarke | 25 February 2010 |

6 comments |

Microsoft Small Basic is intended to be fun to use. It is that, and more besides. It has a great potential as a way of flinging together quick and cheerful applications, just like those happy days of childhood. Tetris anyone? Read more...

ANTS Profiler Saves Me From A Sordid Fate

by Carl Niedner | 18 February 2010 |

1 comment |

A bit of string concatenation never hurt anybody, right? Think again. Carl Niedner has been designing software since 1983, and was shocked to find his latest and greatest creation suddenly plagued with long loading times. After trying ANTS Profiler, he discovered... Read more...

Behind the scenes with the developers of .NET Reflector 6 and .NET Reflector Pro

by Bob Cramblitt | 12 February 2010 |

Lutz Roeder handed over responsibility for development of .NET Reflector to Red Gate nearly eighteen months ago. "What's been happening since then?", one might ask. The answer is "Rather a lot," as we found out when we sent Bob Cramblitt to the .NET team, also known... Read more...

{smartassembly} software for code obfuscation

by Matteo Slaviero | 28 January 2010 |

6 comments |

{smartassembly} is a tool for ensuring that the source code your commercial .NET application isn't visible to anyone with .NET Reflector. Matteo, who writes for us about encryption in .NET, asked if he could write a review of {smartassembly} for Simple-Talk. Because... Read more...

Profiling SharePoint with ANTS Performance Profiler 5.2

by Chris Allen | 24 December 2009 |

Using ANTS Performance Profiler with SharePoint has, previously, been possible, but not easy. Version 5.2 of ANTS Performance Profiler changes all that, and Chris Allen has put together a straight-forward guide to profiling SharePoint, demonstrating just how much... Read more...

How to Create Custom SharePoint Workflows in Visual Studio 2008

by Charles Lee | 11 December 2009 |

4 comments |

Whereas simple workflows are possible using Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, you will soon reach the point where you will need to use Visual Studio. In the third article in Charles' introduction to Workflows in Sharepoint, he demonstrates how to create a... Read more...

How to Create Custom Workflows in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

by Charles Lee | 07 October 2009 |

3 comments |

SharePoint is an incredibly powerful platform when it comes to managing flows of data, and it seems odd that more people don't understand or use that functionality. Charles Lee builds on his explanation of lists in SharePoint for beginners and gives you a clear,... Read more...

A Unified Approach to Multi-DataBase Query Templates

by Michael Sorens | 30 September 2009 |

While trying to get the information he needed out of various SQL, MySQL and Oracle environments, Michael finally got tired of endlessly flicking through reference manuals and having to work so hard just to formulate his queries. So he decided to build a... Read more...

.NET Reflector FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

by Bart Read | 13 August 2009 |

3 comments |

Bart tackles all the commonly asked questions about .NET Reflector. Each answer is done as a separate blog post so that your comments, contributions and or supplementary questions can be put as comments to the various blog posts. Read more...

Beating up my Code with ANTS Performance Profiler

by Damon Armstrong | 17 July 2009 |

1 comment |

Ty Anderson assumed that his cryptographic library was perfect until he tried it out with ANTS Performance Profiler. Within twenty minutes, eight and half of which were spent watching a video overview of ANTS Performance Profiler, he was able to make a ten percent... Read more...

Profiling the Memory Usage of a .NET Application with ANTS Memory Profiler 5

by Laila Lotfi | 04 June 2009 |

2 comments |

We were recently taken to task by a reader who felt that the one place he'd expect to find a nice simple introduction to memory profiling with ANTS Memory Profiler™ 5 would be on Simple Talk. Memory profiling has an intimidating reputation, but fortunately Laila... Read more...

'Methodist': Make .NET Reflector come alive with IronPython

by Ben Hall | 21 May 2009 |

20 comments |

It is great to be able to inspect the contents of an assembly with .NET Reflector, but to really understand the behaviour of code, it is nice to be able to call methods and see the results immediately within .NET Reflector. Now you can, thanks to the magic of... Read more...

What can Software Designers Learn from Video Games? Part 2

by Brian Harris | 15 May 2009 |

16 comments |

Developers of software that is used in the office need to be aware of what Games Developers are doing to make the learning of games intuitive. Games don't require you to read a manual or engage in training. Maybe Office software should inveigle the users into a... Read more...

.NET Reflector Saved their Bacon: The Gremlins strike back

by Richard Morris | 24 April 2009 |

1 comment |

Quite often, .NET Reflector is downloaded in an emergency. Whereas most of the users are developers who use it as a routine to explore objects and methods inside Assemblies, the occasional user is getting it because they are in desperate straits. We've always felt... Read more...

Memory Profiling: Turning the Scarily Complex Into the Ingeniously Simple

by Stephen Chambers | 22 April 2009 |

There are user interfaces that just seem to work naturally, such as Spreadsheets, email clients, or word processors. Even some development tools have reached a shared maturity. What about memory profilers? How can you represent the way that memory is being used in... Read more...

Working With the ANTS Profiler to Optimize SharePoint

by Shereen Qumsieh | 20 April 2009 |

1 comment |

When a page in SharePoint takes 30 seconds to load, it is time for any developer to be concerned. There is much to be gained by taking the obvious steps of removing functionality that is not required, but at some point, you'll need to take a close look at the code... Read more...

Solving Performance Problems in an ASP.NET application with ANTS Profiler

by Geoffrey Braaf | 31 March 2009 |

You have a Data-Access Layer that is generating dynamic SQL, and you haven't the time to understand the implementation of the business layer. Something that is firing unexpected volumes of queries is slowing the code down. What do you do? You can now avoid having... Read more...

Hosting .NET Reflector in your own Application

by Nick Harrison | 22 March 2009 |

5 comments |

You can automate .NET Reflector processes, and run .NET Reflector from within IDEs or other applications. You can even use it as a web control within a browser! . Here Nick shows how to develop a web control that accepts metadata for a method, uses .NET Reflector... Read more...

What can Software Designers Learn from Video Games?

by Brian Harris | 05 March 2009 |

Application Developers and designers often seem addicted to playing video games. Is this wasted time? Perhaps not, if they are quick to learn from the game that there must be no blind alleys in software, you must always provide a way of making progress, and that... Read more...

.NET Reflector Saved their Bacon: Chris Kapilla’s Story

by Bob Cramblitt | 24 February 2009 |

1 comment |

.NET Reflector is not just a handy adjunct to Visual Studio for developers to browse their assemblies and understand classes and methods; Sometimes it can have a vital role. Many developers have told us that, occasionally, it had 'saved their bacon'. We were... Read more...

Using .NET Reflector to Manage Complex Software Dependencies

by Nick Harrison | 23 February 2009 |

2 comments |

Tom Carter's Dependency Structure Matrix Plugin for .NET Reflector turns the tool into a means of tracking inter-module dependencies in .NET. Why is this such a powerful way of keeping the complexity of an application in check? How can you benefit from being able to... Read more...

Has .NET Reflector Saved Your Bacon?

by Chris Massey | 28 January 2009 |

1 comment |

We think Reflector is a fantastic tool, and we know you do too. We'd love to hear about the times you've used it to save the day. What were you working on? What happened? Send us your epic tales of .NET Heroism... Read more...

Metric-Driven Refactoring with .NET Reflector

by Nick Harrison | 27 January 2009 |

4 comments |

Software Metrics are a great way of suggesting those parts of your code that may need refactoring, if they are treated purely as an aid to judgement. Nick Harrison shows how metrics can be done simply with NET Reflector and Peli's CodeMetrics Addin, and explains... Read more...

Annotating Code with .NET Reflector and Review Add-In

by Ben Hall | 27 January 2009 |

Ben Hall takes a look at a simple add-in to .NET Reflector that helps team development work in a number of ways, and show how useful it can be in understanding how an API to a third-party assembly works. Read more...

Software that Crushes your Soul

by Stephen Chambers | 05 December 2008 |

37 comments |

Stephen confesses his anger at Visio, which he is having to use all day, every day, in order to design software. Unlike the average 'angry blogger', he offers a constructive solution to some of his gripes that you may download. Read more...

Encouraging .NET Reflector Add-ins

by Chris Massey | 19 November 2008 |

2 comments |

Jason Haley is well-known for the resources he's provided to developers who wish to extend Reflector's usefulness by writing Add-ins, so we decided to sit him down for a chat. Read more...

Using .NET Reflector Add-ins

by Andrew Clarke | 19 November 2008 |

1 comment |

.NET Reflector by itself is great, but it really comes into its own with the help of some add-ins. Here we provide you with an introduction to the Add-ins, explain briefly what they do, and encourage you to write your own in order to get .NET Reflector to work the... Read more...

First Steps with .NET Reflector

by Jason Crease | 17 November 2008 |

1 comment |

If you are new to using .NET Reflector, or you are wondering whether it would be useful to you, you'll appreciate Jason Crease's quick run through of the basic functionality. This is also available as a video. Read more...

ANTS Profiler and the Un-Rest Cure

by Richard Morris | 10 November 2008 |

4 comments |

After a while, successful applications can get set in their ways. Bart Read and Andrew Hunter decided to go for a much more radical approach when given the task of bringing ANTS Profiler up to date, and, almost accidentally, they reinvented the way we do Performance... Read more...

.NET Reflector: Soup to Nuts

by Andrew Clarke | 22 October 2008 |

1 comment |

.NET Reflector is almost an intrinsic part of the .NET Framework, a free tool for browsing the contents of a .NET assembly. When Lutz Roeder passed responsibility for development of the code to Red Gate, the team preserved the characteristic minimal look, focussing... Read more...

Software Tool Design: Remote User Testing

by Stephen Chambers | 18 August 2008 |

If you are developing a software product, you'll know that the sooner you can get feedback from the users, the better. But, what sort of feedback, which users, and how? If your users have to test your software within their own development environment and workplace,... Read more...

Software Tool Design: Design by Sketching

by Stephen Chambers | 06 August 2008 |

16 comments |

Developers can get so used to relying on computers for everything that they can forget how useful it can be in the design process to elicit and refine ideas whilst working in groups, using a sketchbook, pencils and crayons. Sometimes we all need a jolt to force us... Read more...

Software Tool design: The Three Rs

by Stephen Chambers | 21 July 2008 |

3 comments |

To understand the full extent of the requirements of your users when you are redesigning a software tool, you have to talk to them, and observe how they are currently using the package. For this sort of research, there is no established rule-book, but there... Read more...

Testing Times Ahead: Extending NUnit

by Ben Hall | 14 March 2008 |

5 comments |

If you want to get serious with Unit Testing, then you'll need to understand how to extend the NUnit framework in different ways for your own particular test requirements and how to tailor test behaviour. Test Expert Ben Hall, of the SQL Generator team, shows how... Read more...

The Waffle Generator

by Andrew Clarke | 16 January 2008 |

4 comments |

Sometimes, silly programs have a less obvious useful purpose. Andrew Clarke takes his classic 'Waffle Generator', and provides it in various forms, including a CSS Stylesheet tester, and as a Generator for SQL Data Generator. The Waffle Generator puts text into your... Read more...

Extending MSBuild

by Tilman Bregler | 06 December 2007 |

7 comments |

Because MSbuild underpins the Visual Studio 'build' process, you can use MSBuild to explore and extend the build process to suit your needs. If you are finding the job of building Microsoft .NET applications tedious , the chances are that there is a way that using... Read more...

Top HAT

by William Brewer | 13 November 2007 |

6 comments |

If there is one thing that developers and users always seem to disagree on, it is the relative importance of documentation. We take a look at the whole technology of producing Help and Documentation for tools and applications, and then review one particular product;... Read more...

An Interview with James Moore

by Simple Talk | 22 August 2007 |

6 comments |

James Moore on why he insists that his devleopers use the appropiate third party tools in their work, the problems with Visual Studio, and what's happening in Red Gate's new .NET tools division. Read more...

Customizing the Login Page in SharePoint 2007

by Damon Armstrong | 05 June 2007 |

28 comments |

Damon shows how a few simple steps lead you to being able to include the login form in a consistent look and feel to your customer-facing Sharepoint applications Read more...

Gathering RSS Feeds using Visual Studio and RSS.NET

by John Papa | 04 May 2007 |

10 comments |

If you would like to learn how to build and customize your very own Windows service to retrieve posts from multiple RSS feeds, and then store those posts in a SQL Server database, let John Papa guide you through his tutorial. Read more...

Exploring LINQ, SQLMetal and SqlTac

by Steven R. McCabe | 15 March 2007 |

11 comments |

If you're a .NET developer, working with or without a database on the back-end, your world is about to change. The emergence of LINQ and SQLMetal technologies will mark a fundamental change to your development approach to collections, and provide a simpler, more... Read more...

Creating Excel and Word reports for .NET applications using OfficeWriter

by Ty Anderson | 02 February 2007 |

14 comments |

OfficeWriter is a reporting tool from Softartisans, which allows you to execute and generate business reports in familiar Excel and Word formats. Here, Ty Anderson, an independent consultant, provides an overview of the tool's capabilities and provides the code you... Read more...

Tracing memory leaks in .NET applications with ANTS Profiler

by Mike Bloise | 29 September 2006 |

10 comments |

With only 24 hrs to go to the release of his brand new C# 2005 CRM application, Mike Bloise encountered severe memory leak issues. This case study describes how he solved them using ANTS Profiler. Read more...

Using BITS to Upload Files with .NET

by Phil Wilson | 04 September 2006 |

11 comments |

Although FTP is commonly used to transfer files over the Internet, it's somewhat unfriendly to firewalls. Phil Wilson shows you how to create a BITS upload program using C#, which will transfer files over browser ports. Read more...

The cost of poor website performance

by Simon Galbraith | 13 March 2006 |

3 comments |

The business impact of varying page download time has not, until now, been defined. This article provides data that allows website owners to understand the business impact of their web application performance. Read more...

What's ROI got to do with it?

by Simon Galbraith | 13 February 2003 | Not rated yet

If you want to be taken seriously when proposing IT investments, calculate the ROI for your organization. Read more...