Developer Secrets

Wanting to dive into all those beefy miscellaneous tips and techniques? Here s a rundown of what we re going to cover in this jam-packed chapter....

Working with the Internet

• Creating Your Own Web Browser

• How to Snatch the HTML of a Web Page

• How to Snatch HTML, with a Timeout

• Tricks of Parsing a Web Page for Links and Images

• Converting HTML to Text, Easily

• Real Code for Posting Data to the Web

• Adding a Web Shortcut to the Favorites

• Retrieving Your IP Address ”And Why You May Want To

• Is an Internet Connection Available?

Manipulating Files and Folders

• Two Easy-to-Use Functions for Reading and Writing Files

• Files: Moving, Deleting, Attributes, and More!

• Checking Whether Two Files Are Identical

• The Trick to Temporary Files

• Doing Directories

• Watching a Directory for Changes

• How Big Is That File ”in English?

• Retrieving Special Folder Paths

• Which Program Handles That File Extension?

• Retrieving a Drive Serial Number

• The .NET Replacement for App.Path

• INI Files Will Never Die: How to in .NET

Dates, Numbers, Strings

• Is That a Whole Number, or Not?

• Checking for a Date the Intelligent .NET Way

• 1st, 2nd, 3rd: Using Ordinal Numbers in Your App

• Random Numbers That Work!

• Finding the Number of Days in a Month

• Adding and Subtracting Days, Months, Years

• Calculating the Next Working Day

• Easy Check for a Leap Year

• Figuring out Quarters

• Calculating the Years Between Two Dates

• Converting a String to Proper Case

• Storing Text Snippets on the Clipboard

• Generating Memorable Passwords, Automatically

• Encryption in Just Twelve Lines of Code

• Implementing Powerful MD5 Encryption

• Converting a String into the Color Type

• Binding a Combo Box to Enumeration Values

Graphics and Fonts

• Designing Your Own Arty Icons

• The Basics of Working with Fonts

• Crafty Conversion Between Graphic Formats

• Rotating and Flipping Is Easy!

• Drawing with Windows Forms

• Add an Exciting Gradient Backdrop, in Code!

• Starting Your Own Screensaver

Using the Registry and Event Log

• How to Read and Write the Registry

• Putting Messages in the Event Log

Distributed Computing

• The Cheat s Guide to XML

• Six Steps to Basic Transactions with COM+

• Quick Guide to Using MSMQ

• Which to Choose: Web Services vs. Remoting

Visual Studio Tips

• Writing a Developer TODO: List

• Storing Often-Used Code in the Toolbox

• Organizing Your Project with Folders

• Figuring out the Command Window

• Discovering Whether You re Running in the IDE

• Saving Time by Recording Macros

• Using the VS .NET Command Prompt

• The Old School: Upgrading, COM, and the API