In the final part of my error message series, I try to distill my thoughts into three lessons and put forth four potential solutions.  Obviously your mileage may vary as every type of application is different and users have different expectations.  Hopefully this diatribe is useful to someone! Link: http://aeshen.com/wordpress/2010/03/better-error-messages-part-3

My second part is live on the Aeshen blog.  More insight about how to handle errors in an application to make the least impact on your users.  The focus on this part is how/when to handle dialog boxes for error conditions. Link: http://aeshen.com/wordpress/2010/03/better-error-messages-part-2

Apparently the last time I was on Codeplex I didn’t even realize it, but as of February 28th, I’ve been a member of Codeplex for two great years.  Since then I’ve posted enough projects to be in the top 20 of the entire site!  I’ve had a few talks with Codeplex folks and really respect what they’re doing.  Being able to host code and make it available to the world is an amazing thing.  I used Sourceforge a few years ago, but I never felt that it was a good enough fit for Windows projects.  I switched over to Codeplex...

I’ve just posted an article about writing better error messages.  I ended up writing over 2,000 words so I split it into three parts.  It’s got some insights and ideas for managing errors in an application better.  I hope you like it! Link: http://aeshen.com/wordpress/2010/03/better-error-messages-part-1/

In researching a career-related project, I visited HotJobs.  Since I was already signed into my Yahoo! account and at some point had submitted a resume (“Sr Java Developer” – that’s how long it’s been!), it had some great recommendations for me:   Apparently I am completely barking up the wrong tree with this computer stuff!

After a number of recent problems lately with the ASP.NET form designer locking up in Visual Studio 2008, I finally decided to look into it.  As it turns out, it’s due to problems with the Office 2010 releases messing up the Visual Web Developer components.  Since I’ve been using VS2010 for the past few months I didn’t notice this until now. The solution was simple for me.  Just run the setup for the Web components again and choose the Repair action.  No reboot and I was good to go! C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\OFFICE12\Office Setup Controller\Setup.exe If...

My most recent Coding 4 Fun article has just gone live.  I wrote a screensaver where people can leave you messages.  If you leave your office/cubicle at work and people stop by, they can leave you a message without resorting to little paper notes that get lost! Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2010/02/28/9970627.aspx

I’ve been really excited about the Windows 7 sensors and location platform since the get-go, but I’ve been pretty disappointed by the lack of actual products to take advantage of it.  Finally someone has built a software –based tool that uses IP and WiFi location services (from Google) to find your location.  It’s not as accurate as GPS, of course, but it’s good enough to get city which works well for weather and general proximity applications. It’s free and available for either 32-bit or 64-bit.  Get it now! http://www.geosenseforwindows.com/