If you have Visual Studio .NET and the IE7 Beta installed on your PC, you might have noticed that the CSS Style Builder window pops-up and then instantly disappears.  Apparently the glitch is caused by IE7 and a fix can be found on Marc Brown’s MDSN blog.

When ever a client requires that the application you are going to build for them must be backwards compatible, their old browser become you’re new problem.  Fortunately, if the old browser is Internet Explorer, you now have hope!  Thanks to a link forwarded to me by my friend Mark Schmidt, there are several ‘stand-alone’ versions of Internet Explorer available for download that can be run along with your currently installed version of IE.  Visit Evolt.org to download everything from IE 3 to IE 6.

To customize the default VB file templates used in Visual Studio .NET 2003, modify the following files to your heart’s content:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vb7\VBWizards\DesignerTemplates\1033

I needed to install Microsoft SQL 2000 Server Reporting Services on a new laptop and I couldn't get past the system check screen because the installation program kept telling me that ASP.NET was not registered with IIS.  I ran the aspnew_regiis tool as follows:

%windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v1.1.4322 folder\aspnet_regiis -i

No dice. I still couldn't get past the system check screen.  After nearly going insane, I finally figured-out what was wrong.  I opened-up the IIS Management Console and checked the ASP.NET tab that is added once the .NET 2.0 Framework is installed.  Sure enough, the default ASP.NET version specified was version 2.0 and the SRSS installation program was checking for version 1.1.  I changed the ASP.NET version to 1.1, restarted the installation, and away I went!

Creating wire frame diagrams and quick screen mock-ups shouldn’t be a difficult job, but finding the right software to make the job easy actually seems difficult… until now.  If you own Microsoft Visio, it’s worth reading How to use Visio for rapid prototyping on Guuui.com. In the article, you’ll find downloadable Visio templates called the "GUUUI Web Prototyping Tool" that make creating web site wire-frame diagrams a snap.  In addition to the templates, there are many great tips in the article that should make your life quite a bit easier.

Maruis Marais from CodeProject.com was nice enough to share is extensive library of Visual Studio 2005 Unit Testing Code Snippets (C#).  A VB.NET set would sure be nice!   Upon trying to install these code snippets, I realized that the Code Snippets Manager does not show-up on my Tools menu in Visual Studio 2005 and I have no idea why.  I can still access the manager by typing Ctrl+K then Ctrl+B, but it would be nice if I could just go to the Tools menu because I know I’ll forget that key combination!

Update: I was able to add the Code Snippets Manager back to the Tools menu by opening VS.NET 2005 and navigating to Tools > Customize... > Commands (Tab) > Category: Tools and then dragging the Code Snippet Manager back into the Tools menu.