Archives

An AutoHotkey v2 script that maps Left Control, Right Control, and Right Alt to instantly switch between English, Russian, and Ukrainian keyboard layouts.

The regex $(?!\n) matches the true end of file in Visual Studio Code's multiline search mode, enabling EOF-only bulk replacements.

How to accept PSReadLine Predictive IntelliSense suggestions in PowerShell 7.3 using the Right Arrow key, and why F2 switches prediction view modes.

Links to an improved open-source Space Cadet Pinball remake for Windows and an Android APK port with optional custom Russian sounds.

A curated list of best-in-class tools for notes, photos, ebooks, music, and local file search chosen for their organizational depth.

Enabling the Chrome DevTools setting 'Search in anonymous and content scripts' allows searching inside dynamically eval-loaded JavaScript.

Practical guide to debugging Obsidian plugins using Chrome DevTools, eval-loaded source navigation, TypeScript compilation, and hot reload.

Total Commander's Ignore List feature lets you exclude wildcard patterns from directory synchronization and other file operations.

A detailed comparison of note-taking systems over many years, explaining why Obsidian with Syncthing and a curated plugin list became the final choice.

Two methods for bulk-updating video capture time in Lightroom using ExifTool and the jb Video Metadata plugin, working around SDK limitations.

A 20-year journey through photo organization tools concluding with Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, PhotoStructure, AntiDupl.NET, ExifTool, and two key plugins.

A Stack Overflow question seeking community input on efficient techniques for debugging stored procedures in SQL Server Management Studio.

Windows filesystem canonical casing causes Node.js module require cache misses when __dirname and process.cwd() differ in letter case.

A cmd.exe AutoRun registry entry that ran chcp 65001 produced unexpected output that silently broke Node.js and other tools relying on stdout parsing.

Mr. Data Converter converts SSMS query results copied with headers into formatted markdown or wiki tables for pasting into bug trackers.

dnSpy enables full debugging of a .NET IIS application on a production server without Visual Studio or the .NET Framework installed.

Use the Sysinternals regjump tool installed via Chocolatey to open Registry Editor directly at any specified key path.

Step-by-step method to scrape all Facebook activity log data by month using a JavaScript scroll automation script and the Web ScrapBook Chrome extension.

Use eventcal.flown.io to generate a webcal URL from Facebook events and subscribe to it in Google Calendar, filtering by RSVP status.

Using the cors-anywhere proxy to fetch a Google Drive download link via AJAX, bypassing the CORS restriction on the redirect.

HFS (HTTP File Server) is a reliable free tool for peer-to-peer large file transfers, after uTorrent Remote and JustBeamIt both failed.

ApexSQL Refactor is a highly configurable SQL formatter for SSMS, with a known bug that can incorrectly move SELECT statements inside IF blocks.

Troubleshooting Skype on a 15-year-old Windows XP machine without SSE2 support, eventually resolved with a patched Skype 4.2 build.

A reusable JavaScript helper that wraps DOM element properties with CustomEvent-based propertyChanging, propertyChanged, and propertyGetting events.

Fixing a Firefox-only strict mode error in MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js caused by window.event being undefined, requiring a cross-browser property descriptor hack.

Story of working around a completely broken Android screen using USB OTG mouse, AirDroid, and blind navigation to restore phone access.

How to install and configure the Source Code Pro TTF font for consistent rendering across Visual Studio, Sublime Text, and ConEmu.

A brief anecdote about mistaking lorem ipsum placeholder text for Dutch language on the first encounter in a codebase.

Accidentally opening a large file in Sublime Text via Total Commander's F4 key consumed all available RAM, causing VirtualBox to fail.

A multi-hour debugging session reveals why setting checkbox.checked inside an onclick handler requires setTimeout to work correctly.

Using Object.defineProperty to intercept input value assignments and trigger a debugger breakpoint on DOM mutation.

Frustration with existing SQL formatters and a call for community input on automatic SQL code formatting tools.

A require.js plugin that loads dependencies from the top-level window so BlockUI works across iframe popups.

Copying a custom MSBuild task assembly to a temp folder before loading it to prevent file locking after build.

Summary of contributions to GitExtensions, Monodevelop, jHtmlArea, T4 TransformOnBuild, and posh-git.

Fixing a race condition where require.js and a script tag each load jQuery independently, causing plugin conflicts.

Discovering that a jQuery behavior discrepancy in IE8 is actually an IE8 bug with named function expressions.

Fixing Invoke-NativeApplication to handle Windows exit codes beyond 0-255 using an IgnoreExitCode switch.

Improved Invoke-NativeApplication with an IsError property on each output line and a prompt function edge-case fix.

A merged pull request to Git Extensions fixing the commit window title not refreshing on branch name changes.

First hands-on experience with git bisect to locate a regression in an ASP.NET WebForms GridView rendering bug.

Working around SSMS truncation of nvarchar(max) strings during concatenation and result copying via FOR XML PATH.

Installing a custom codec to add AC3 audio playback support to MX Player on Android.

Dolphin Browser as a stable Android browser option for sites that still require Adobe Flash.

Technique for debugging unexpected focus changes by monkey-patching HTMLElement.prototype.focus with a debugger breakpoint.

Cross-browser bug where jQuery .val() returns null on non-form elements in Firefox and Chrome but works in IE.

A PowerShell exec helper that correctly captures stdout and stderr from native commands and checks exit codes.

Reading EXIF tags such as date-taken from images in PowerShell using System.Drawing.Image.

Implementing a PSUsing helper function in PowerShell that mimics C# using blocks for IDisposable objects.

Adding a $LastResult automatic variable to PowerShell by wrapping Out-Default to store the last pipeline output.

Comparing SubGit and SmartGit for git-svn bridging, and using git filter-branch to rewrite SVN author history.

A PowerShell wrapper for sqlcmd that maps batch-relative error line numbers back to the real script line.

PowerShell Write-Error always reports line 1 instead of the actual error location, with no clean workaround found.

Why ErrorActionPreference Stop hides the true error line number and how trap { throw $Error[0] } fixes it.

Using the CHERRY_PICK_HEAD ref to inspect the commit being cherry-picked during conflict resolution.

Tip to reassign the VirtualBox host key from Right Ctrl to a less-used key like the Application key.

Handling svn:mergeinfo during cherry-picks with git-svn, and updating mergeinfo metadata manually.

Managing atomic commits and branch merging workflows when using git-svn to push changes back to Subversion.

A concise C# coding standards document with ReSharper configuration, covering access modifiers, var usage, and best practices.

Setting up git-svn with a non-standard Subversion repository layout, including branch and tag mappings.

Announcement that a NUnit pull request fixing invalid XML character handling was merged and referenced in NUnit source code.

Troubleshoots Start-Job scope issues with PSScriptRoot and shows how to invoke a script path asynchronously using ScriptBlock.Create.

Documents a known PowerShell bug where Start-Process -PassThru does not expose ExitCode, with a workaround using Process.Start.

Demonstrates that PowerShell silently returns null when a .NET property getter throws an exception, and how to avoid it.

Step-by-step derivation of a C# regex to strip or escape characters invalid in XML, handling UTF-16 surrogate pairs correctly.

Retrospective on a NUnit v2 bug fix submitted before pull requests existed, credited only via a manual description.

Announcement of a pull request submitted to the NUnit framework to fix invalid XML character handling in test output.

C# regex approach to remove unpaired UTF-16 surrogate characters from strings to ensure valid Unicode output.

How to express Unicode character literals in PowerShell using char casts and ConvertFromUtf32, including surrogate pair handling.

Reports and proposes a fix for another file history bug in GitExtensions.

Announcement that a git core pull request fixing ANSI sequences in non-terminal output was accepted upstream.

Documents undocumented Type parameter behavior in Set-ItemProperty and how to correctly read and write typed registry values.

Fix for a PowerShell 3 startup error caused by disconnected network drives, resolved via a registry key change.

Diagnoses why a Task Scheduler task silently fails when run without a logged-on user due to unavailable mapped network drives.

Bug report for NUnit console failing when error messages contain invalid XML characters such as null bytes.

Summary of bug fixes and pull requests contributed to git core and GitExtensions for ANSI sequences and file history issues.

Using Debugger.Launch and Debugger.Break in C# code to attach a debugger to hard-to-reach processes like Visual Studio plugins.

Reference table of Windows Task Scheduler event log IDs and their corresponding task lifecycle categories.

Implements a clipboard change watcher in PowerShell using inline C# with P/Invoke and WinForms WM_CLIPBOARDUPDATE.

Pattern for structuring PowerShell scripts with a Main function so core logic appears at the top before helper functions.

Chunk-based Base64 file conversion in PowerShell that avoids loading the entire file into memory for large files.

Follow-up on clipboard-based RDP file transfer, describing clipboard hang issues and a planned chunked clipboard watcher solution.

How to resolve paths for non-existent files in PowerShell using GetUnresolvedProviderPathFromPSPath instead of Resolve-Path.

Explores PowerShell name collisions between XML attributes and .NET properties, and how PSBase and PSObject.Members resolve them.

Explains how PowerShell handles the cd.. command via a built-in function rather than special-casing the syntax.

How Set-StrictMode interacts with legacy PowerShell scripts and safe workarounds for missing variables and properties.

Feature request for Sublime Text to support pinning tabs to prevent accidental closure during file search.

How to launch Git Extensions from the console using a git alias, including a fix to avoid blocking the terminal.

Technique for transferring binary files to an RDP server with no drive sharing by encoding them as Base64 via the clipboard.

How to use Get-Command as a PowerShell native alternative to the where.exe utility for locating executables.

PowerShell script to kill all orphaned conhost.exe processes while preserving the one attached to the current session.

Final implementation of a PowerShell git hook proxy that extracts and runs hooks from the repo for both client and server sides.

How to eliminate pull-merge commits using pull --rebase, autosetuprebase, --preserve-merges, and rerere.

How to undo a git pull --rebase or other destructive git operations using git reflog and reset.

How to extract files and folders from a bare git repository using git archive, avoiding encoding and binary issues.

Pattern for self-updating git server-side hooks: a proxy script checks out hook code directly from the repository on each run.

Reliable PowerShell technique to detect whether a git hook runs in a console or a GUI environment like Git Extensions.

PowerShell function to query TeamCity REST API and detect broken builds, including currently running ones.

How to record and retrieve the actual push date for git commits using git notes and server-side post-receive hooks.

PowerShell git helper snippets: get current branch, resolve refs, test fast-forward, find commit's originating branch.

PowerShell function with regex patterns to parse git's auto-generated merge commit messages and extract branch names.

Summary of an expanded git hooks suite enforcing branch merge order, rebase safety, TeamCity build status, and push timing rules.

PowerShell -Version 2 flag is ignored when launched from Cygwin, always running PowerShell 3 instead.

PowerShell 3 shows incorrect line numbers in stack traces when CmdletBinding and ErrorActionPreference are combined; trap workaround included.

Bug in PowerShell 2 where dot-sourcing overwrites $PSScriptRoot; workaround using a function instead of a variable.

Completion of the git hooks suite with functional tests using PoshUnit and UI Automation PowerShell Extensions.

Best practices for PowerShell scripts: error handling preamble, strict mode, PSScriptRoot, and readability rules.

PowerShell resolves .NET method overloads differently from C#, causing unexpected method calls with bool arguments.

Discussion of Allman vs K&R brace styles across C#, JavaScript, CSS, and PowerShell.

Announcement of PoshUnit, a new portable PowerShell unit testing framework inspired by NUnit.

How to configure PowerShell 2 to use .NET Framework 4 CLR via registry or config files.

Comparison of PowerShell unit testing frameworks: Pester, PsUnit, and PsTest.

Request for a wide, code-friendly free WordPress theme with automatic post excerpts.

Adds a commit-msg hook that enforces TFS work item ID prefixes on all commit messages.

Brief introduction to MarkdownPad, a WYSIWYG Markdown editor for Windows.

Bug report: Set-PSBreakpoint breakpoints are not hit when the script runs in a new PowerShell 3 process.

Step-by-step guide to setting up Visual Studio remote debugging over a TeamViewer VPN connection.

Introduction to a git hooks repository that prevents ugly pull-merge commits from cluttering git history.

ReSharper incorrectly marks ToString() as non-nullable, but BCL types like HtmlString can return null.

Script to open any PowerShell cmdlet's source code directly in .NET Reflector for inspection.

Brief recommendation of Pluralsight as a professional screencast platform covering a wide range of technologies.

WCF ProtocolException truncates the server error response; an extension method on WebException extracts the full response body.

Common patterns for referencing assemblies in T4 design-time templates using GAC paths, absolute paths, and MSBuild variables.

How to create a shared custom base class for T4 design-time templates by extending TextTransformation, with a working example.

How to add a code-behind partial class to a T4 runtime template by manually editing the csproj file, with a Visual Studio add-in.

T4 templates throw ArgumentNullException on null expression blocks; fix by overriding ToStringWithCulture in the base class.

Two reusable C# IDictionary extension methods: GetValueOrDefault and GetOrAddValue with a factory function.

A JavaScript one-liner to hide WordPress advertisement banners in the browser, alongside recommending Adblock.

How to enable PowerShell common parameters -Debug and -Verbose in custom scripts using CmdletBinding and DebugPreference.

Demonstrates extracting T4 runtime template auto-generated base class into a shared reusable C# base class for all templates.

Overview of T4 template syntax including directives, text blocks, control blocks, expression blocks, and class feature blocks.

Step-by-step guide to creating and registering a COM-visible Single File Generator custom tool for Visual Studio 2012.

Visual Studio 2012 dropped .vdproj MSI setup project support; workaround options include WiX and InstallShield Limited Edition.

Introduction to the T4 (Text Template Transformation Toolkit) blog series covering code generation in Visual Studio.

Third-party Visual Studio extensions for T4 syntax highlighting and IntelliSense, with a note on Visual Studio 2012 gaps.

C# CLR limitation prevents generic types from deriving from Attribute, causing a CS0698 compile error.

PowerShell snippet to change the author and committer date of an existing git commit using GIT_COMMITTER_DATE and --amend.

Introduction to Sublime Text as a developer-friendly editor, with tips on Package Control and PowerShell syntax highlighting.

Overview of Spoon.net, a cloud service for running virtualized desktop applications including cross-browser testing.

Brief recommendation of the Swype swipe-based keyboard app for Android for faster typing.

A real incident where a wrong-branch git reset --hard corrupted a release branch, with recovery steps for the team.

How to build a WPF GUI window in PowerShell using XAML, with a note on the STA threading requirement for PowerShell 2.

Difference between Get-Content (returns array of lines) and ReadAllText (returns full string), with alternatives for both PowerShell versions.

FaultException inner details are silently dropped by Exception.ToString(); an extension method restores the full fault message.

How to suppress the posh-git ssh-agent warning by commenting out Start-SshAgent in the profile script.

Explains why Sort-Object -Property fails on PowerShell hashtables and how to sort them correctly using a script block.

One-liner to copy the last executed PowerShell command to the clipboard using Get-History and clip.

Explains how to sync arbitrary folders with Dropbox by creating symbolic links using Link Shell Extension.

Shows how to enable git help.autocorrect to automatically fix and run mistyped git commands.

How to launch Git Extensions GUI from the command line on Windows by creating a custom git alias script.

Installing and configuring posh-git for PowerShell tab completion with Git, including a fix for slow prompt performance.

Introduction to PsGet, a package manager for PowerShell modules installable with a one-liner.

Reference for batch file FOR variable substitution modifiers like %~f, %~d, %~p to extract path components.

Guide to turning a Windows laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot using netsh hosted network commands, with a Windows 8 driver fix.

PowerShell script to import Visual Studio command prompt environment variables (vcvarsall.bat) into a PowerShell session.

Configuration for using Devart CodeCompare as the diff and merge tool for Git via .gitconfig entries.

Shows how to set a named breakpoint in PowerShell profile using Set-PSBreakPoint so scripts can trigger the debugger inline.

Describes a critical bug in Firebug Lite 1.4 on IE7 and provides a bookmarklet to use the stable 1.3 version instead.

Explains how to use a PowerShell profile script to automatically run commands on every PowerShell session start.

Options for testing in IE6 on modern Windows, including VirtualBox with Windows XP, IETester, DebugBar, and BrowserStack.

Documents IE7 positioning bugs triggered by browser resize and provides a CSS fix using position: relative on body.

PowerShell function and alias that elevates a process with admin rights, mimicking Unix sudo behavior.

Explains how to make MSBuild emit the intermediate .metaproj file when building a .sln solution by setting msbuildemitsolution=1.

Shows how to pretty-print and debug minified or obfuscated JavaScript in IE9+, Chrome 13+, and Firefox using built-in or plugin tools.

Demonstrates using where.exe to find the full filesystem path of an executable resolved from PATH.

Shows the syntax for running a PowerShell command from a .cmd batch file, including how to escape quotes.

Highlights Firebug's $0 and $1 command-line variables for referencing recently inspected DOM elements.

PowerShell script to append a directory to the system PATH and broadcast the change to running processes without rebooting.

Announcement post about migrating the blog from Blogspot to WordPress.

Explains how to take a screenshot on Android 4 ICS by pressing Power and Volume Down simultaneously.

Step-by-step guide to integrating SyntaxHighlighter 3 with Blogger using jQuery autoLoader to support all languages.

Author introduction: Michael Naumov, Senior .NET Developer at Readify, Australia, working with .NET, PowerShell, and JavaScript.

Shows how to check the current PowerShell version using the $Host.Version variable.

Links to an article about invoking the PowerShell debugger programmatically, analogous to Debugger.Launch() in .NET.

Explains C# lifted operators with nullable types and a ReSharper false-positive bug when assigning nullable int to a class with implicit operator.

Test post confirming SyntaxHighlighter integration works on Blogger with a C# code sample.

Brief mention of BugAid, a Visual Studio plugin for enhanced debugging features.

Firefox unexpectedly underlines images inside anchor tags on hover; CSS workaround using div wrapper and text-decoration overrides.

Introduces findicons.com, a search service for finding icons by topic and tags.