• ReSharper 3.0 Beta - I'm not a real big beta fan so I'm holding off on taking this bad boy for a spin.  However, Joey and JP both give great praises to the early versions.  Most notably, solution wide error analysis.
• Improve Your Programming Experience in Visual Studio - A nice short review of ReSharper by Scott Mitchell.
• Replace standard VS refactoring menus with ReSharper - The context menu in VS can get pretty hairy.  If you don't use the VS refactoring you can have ReSharper replace them.  Menu ->Resharper -> Options -> General -> Replace Visual Studio menu items by respective ReSharper ones.
• VstsUnit Plugin for ReSharper - On my current project we're using Visual Studio Team System and cannot use the NUnit framework.  This is a nice plugin but I've found myself just using the Test View window and Ctl+Shft+X to run the current test.  Side note - there is just something wrong with a context menu items that says “Create Unit Tests“.  If you write your tests first, what use does this have?  :-)

Currently, the 3 commands I find myself using the most are F12, Ctl+Alt+F7, and Ctl+e.

• F12, along with Shift+F12 will navigate to the next and previous errors in the code.  Combine that with Alt+Enter and you can fix your errors in no time flat...without spending time on a compile.
• Ctl+Alt+F7 provides a quick list of "usages" for a specific item.  Place the caret on the item and there you go.

• Ctl+e provides a list of recent files.

At some point, I introduce or talk about ReSharper with most every developer I work with.  If they had a referral program I be doing pretty good. :-)

Giddy Up!

This is a quick follow up to my previous post.  In the comments, Jayson Knight said that Telligent had moved from Vault to Subversion some time ago so I ran with that.  I contacted a friend of mine that works there and got the skinny.  You have to take the Seinfeld approach.

"You should just do it like a Band-Aid. One motion, right off!"

No migration was performed.  All current projects stayed in Vault and all new ones used SVN.  If I were a company with a large amount of data I would take the Seinfeld approach as well.  However, I would like to remove Vault all together while keeping a backed up DB just for the extreme circumstance.

Since I'm talking about a small amount of data/projects I'm just going to migrate manually.  I'm going to check out the oldest version from Vault, add it to SVN, and tag it.  Repeat and rinse for each subsequent version of each project.  This isn't pretty but it'll do.

Giddy Up!

For the longest time I disliked having to have Acrobat Reader on my machine.  If you wanted to read a PDF then it was the only option.  The thing had a ridiculously long start up that was amplified by checking for updates every time it started up.  All I want to do is read a PDF.  That's why I got READER and not the full Adobe Acrobat application.  KISS!

In came Foxit Reader and all was right with the world.  It did the one thing I needed and did it fast and efficient.  The only downside that I've found using Foxit Reader are financial sites that require you to have Acrobat Reader installed.  I want to op-out of snail mail statements and I guess this is to ensure I can read the the PDF statements and to cover themselves from a legal standpoint.  I wish they would also check for Foxit Reader but they don't...I asked.

I finally had to break down and install the latest version of Acrobat Reader.  I have to say that I am really impressed.  I'm pretty sure they took a look at what Foxit Reader does, saw that it was gaining popularity, and more and more people were really disliking Acrobat Reader.  Here are a few things that I noticed about Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.

1. Updater Preferences - Very similar to WindowsXP automatic updates.  I tell Acrobat Reader when to check for updates and what to do with them.  I can also turn if off.  Foxit Reader checks for updates when I ask it to.
2. Quick startup - Only 2 seconds vs. 20-30 seconds in previous versions.  Foxit Reader is still quicker but not by much.
3. Quick startup - No splash screen on startup.  You can have the splash screen if you want but it's off by default.  Foxit doesn't have one either.  Clean and simple.
4. Quick startup - Instead of making me wait during start up to find updates, it searches for updates in the background.  In process explorer and saw an "updater" pop up and then go away.  Very nice.

There are still two things that I don't like but aren't a problem at the moment.

1. The large download and install coming in at 20.8MB.  Foxit Reader is still small at 1.67MB.
2. It still doesn't have the ability to type on the PDF document like Foxit Reader does.

Using Acrobat Reader 8 has been a pleasant experience so far.  I still wouldn't suggest replacing Foxit Reader but don't be afraid of using it if you had concerns like I did.

Giddy Up!

I know, I've been really lax about blogging lately. I've got a few things in the hopper and would like to put them down "on paper" but just haven't done it yet. For the two of you who read this thing please bear with me. Giddy Up!