Well, it doesn’t, but you can create it, if you want, with the little manipulation of windows registry.

First, open regedit. Make sure you export the current settings as backup, as your mistake can paralyse your system.

Second, Create two registry keys to enable the context menu on Windows Explorer.

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\vs_cmd
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\vs_cmd\command

The values are like these

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\vs_cmd

• Name: (Default)
• Type: REG_SZ
• Data: Visual Studio 2010 Command Prompt Here

• Name: (Default)
• Type: REG_SZ
• Data: cmd.exe /s /k pushd “%V” && “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat” x86

Then go to windows explorer and right-click on any directory. You will see a menu “Visual Studio 2010 Command Prompt Here”

Let me explain what’s happening here.

• “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell” is where you put settings for your windows shell.
• cmd.exe is reachable from any directory, so you don’t have to specify the full path to execute it.
• /s means to strip quote characters from the command_line (http://ss64.com/nt/cmd.html)
• /k means to carry out a command but the shell remains without closing.
• pushd let you execute cmd.exe with a given directory (http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PUSHDReminderItAutomaticallyMapsNetworkDrives.aspx)
• vcvarsall.bat is a batch file executed when you run visual studio command prompt.

I also referenced the below nice posts.

• http://www.reversealchemy.net/blog/2008/11/26/adding-the-visual-studio-2008-command-prompt-to-your-explorer-context-menu/
• http://www.alteridem.net/2010/09/02/visual-studio-2010-command-prompt-here/

but eventually, I used git’s “bash shell here” registry settings.

For example, it is a kind of legacy, but we specified our custom GAC assemblies in web.config in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG

<compilation>
  <assemblies>
	<add assembly="mscorlib"/>
	<add assembly="System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/>
	...
	<add assembly="Your.Custom.Assembly, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c77a5H561934e089"/>
	...

The problem is StructureMap can complain that it can’t load the type while it is trying to find the matching instance. For example, we have the assembly on our dev machine and integration server, but not on the build box, and suddenly our functional tests start failing. Our functional tests do not use those dlls at all, and still StructureMap fail.

So beware of those naughty custom GAC assemblies, if you have any and put them in web.config or machine.config.

This time, it was more organised. If you are agile, you get better at each iteration.

3 problems were given.

• Reverse the string: “Welcome! Today’s challenges: Reverse the string”
• Find all permutations of the letters: “welcome”
• Find all 10-digit binary numbers with no consecutive 1s

The first and the third were relatively straightforward, but permutations of “welcome” was a real challenge. We ended up using ruby’s “permutation” method, which was a cheat.

Reverse the string

string = "Hello Welcome to Ruby Dojo"
reverse = []
string.each_char do |char|
reverse.unshift char
end
puts reverse.to_s

ten_digit_binary.rb

filtered = []
max = "1100000000".to_i(2)
(0..max).each do |number|
  n = number.to_s(2)
  filtered << n unless n.match /11/
end

puts filtered

permutations_of_welcome

string = "welcome".split("")
string.permutation do  |str|
  puts str.inspect
end

• http://mbostock.github.com/d3/

When you download it from github, you have a great number of examples (I believe they are about 100).

In order to try those examples, you need to request those example htmls through http, I mean, using web server. Javascript usually don’t run very well, when you open the page from file system, as you know.

I tried them on a windows machine with IIS 7. One tricky bit was to set the mime type of json file. By default, IIS7 does not have json mime type, so you need to set it manually.

Setting json mime type

1. Go to “MIME Types” on IIS Manager
2. Add .json extension with mime type of “application/json”

Refresh the page, and your examples should run good and calm.

Simply, you need to the followings, but be warned that there are slight incorrect version of command on internet, at least which didnt’ work for me on Lion.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

Then

killall Finder

For me, if you did “YES” instead of true, it didn’t work.

from ehow (http://www.ehow.com/how_2274100_hidden-files-mac-os-x.html)

• Flea medicine: Frontline Combo Spot-On Cat
• Worming: Drontal

The benefits of simple, automated performance testing by Kristoffer Dyrkorn

1. Crawl the site every night! Log the response times for each page.

2. Visualise the result with graph.

3. Are we slower now than 3 months ago

4. Estimate environment differences. HOw are DEV servers performing, compared to TEST and QA?

5. Tools: NCrawler + Log Parser + IIS with time-taken

Often, you have to do something at the beginning and at the end, even though your main lock is in the middle. Let’s say, you want to retrieve data from database. You have to create a connection, open it, use it to load data, and close it. You are interested in loading data, but you have to do some chores like opening a connection and closing it.

_connection = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["Db"].ConnectionString);
_connection.open()var sql =
    @"SELECT     DATEPART(YEAR, PDate) AS [Year],
                 DATEPART(MONTH, PDate) AS [Month],
                 DATEPART(DAY, PDate) AS [Day],
                 COUNT(*) AS [Count]
        FROM     JobPostingPeriod
       WHERE     PublishToDate >= GETDATE() AND PDate <= GETDATE()
       GROUP BY  DATEPART(YEAR, PDate), DATEPART(MONTH, PDate), DATEPART(DAY, PDate)
       ORDER BY  [Year], [Month], [Day]";

var result = _connection.Query(sql));return result;_connection.close()

Those “bread-in-the-sandwich” code is repeated whenever you write any code that load data, and it can be quite annoying as you go on. In ruby, you can write a method that handles the opening and closing with block. In C#, you can use lamda delegate and Func.

private T ManageConnection(Func func)
{
    _connection.Open();
    var result = func(_connection);
    _connection.Close();
    return result;
}

	ection.open()

• Make the first option of <select > selected (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1414276/how-to-make-first-option-of-select-selected-with-jquery)

$("#target option:first").attr('selected','selected');

• populate select list dynamically. This simply replace html. If there is a better way, please let me know. I used an extension method, Html.ClientIdFor.

function(result) {
    var options = '';
    for(var i=0; i<result.length; i++) {
        options += '<option value="' + result[i].Id + '">' + result[i].Name + '</option>';
    }
    $('#<%= Html.ClientIdFor(m => m.Input.ProductCategoryId) %>').find('option').remove().end().html(options);
    $('#<%= Html.ClientIdFor(m => m.Input.ProductCategoryId) %> option:first').attr('selected', 'selected');
}

• table and click on a link on table row

$('#result').delegate('a[name="lnkDescription"]', 'click', function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();

    var link = $(this).closest('tr').find('a[name="lnkDescription"]');

    ...
    });

})

Installing mongodb was unexpectedly easy. You just download it and double click it. You can install it as windows service very easily like below. (from http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Windows+Service)

mongod --bind_ip 127.0.0.1 --logpath d:\mongo\logs --logappend --dbpath d:\mongo\data --directoryperdb --install

I user NoRM, which is mongodb driver for .NET. There are three C# drivers for .NET.

• mongodb-csharp
• simple-mongodb
• NoRM