Rion.IO (Page 2)

Hello XML, My Old Friend; I've Come To Encode You Again.

Depending on how long you've been a developer, XML might be a term that sounds totally foreign. For others, it might bring back long repressed memories of some dark days. In many of my encounters with developers from broad ranges of experiences, I've seen the spectrum

visual studio performance random

Can I Have My CPU Back Visual Studio?

Visual Studio 2017 has certainly been a major improvement over previous iteration of the flagship IDE; however, it isn't without its flaws. If you are a web developer, you are probably accustomed to Google Chrome basically hogging all the RAM that your machine has (and potentially more), but

c# dotnet asp.net

Knowing When to Reflect With Caller Info Attributes

If you've been around C# long enough, you've probably had a need at one time or another to figure out some information about code that's being executed. It might be a method name, the file being executed, or even more specific details like the

community open-source

Ghosts, Candy, Witches, and Open Source?

With Halloween quickly approaching, it's about that time to figure out what you are going to be dressing up as. You can always rely on the classics (ghosts, stormtroopers, Three Hole Punch Jim [http://www.officetally.com/jim-halpert-halloween-costumes/2] etc.) for costumes and easily wander through the neighborhoods

asp.net c# tools

Hands-free Security Scanning within .NET Applications

I'm sure if you follow any news sources at all, you see countless hacks, breaches, and leaks from various big-name companies which you might assume would be better at protecting your information. Now most of these incidents can probably be related to non-technical issues like social engineering, but

dotnet asp.net asp.net core

NodeServices: Where Javascript and .NET Meet Back on the Other Side

Javascript is everywhere. It's in the browser, on the server, and it's climbing through your windows and snatching your people up. And because it's a fairly trivial language to pick up (but impossible to master), it can be extremely useful when you want to

tools random

Creatively Common Resources

Some people hate designing things, and that's okay. But one thing that they might hate more is being sued for copyright infringement (for using content that someone else created without their expressed permission). Recently, I participated in a discussion on this topic and thought I'd share

community best-practices

Making a (Job) Switch as a Software Developer

It may have seemed a bit quiet here over the last few weeks, but there's certainly been a lot of activity below the surface. After nearly seven years at my previous position, I've decided to finally make a change. When this post goes live, I'

community

Still a Survivor on MVP Island

Over the past few years, April Fool's Day has been quite a bit different than it is for some other folks. It hasn't been filled with paranoia about pranks, but instead it's spent waiting to see if my torch is being extinguished and if

productivity tools debugging

Updated Chrome Debugging Tools Worth Mentioning

As a web developer, I absolutely could not live without great in-browser developer tools. I use them every day, and they can certainly make your life much easier. Typically my browser of choice is Chrome, so I thought I would take some time to introduce a few new features in

c# productivity microsoft-bot-framework

How the Microsoft Bot Framework Changed Where My Friends and I Eat: Part 2

In my previous post [http://rion.io/2017/05/11/how-the-microsoft-bot-framework-changed-where-my-friends-and-i-eat-part-1/] , which I'd highly recommend reading before diving into this one, I discussed the process of building my first bot using the Microsoft Bot Framework [https://dev.botframework.com/]. The post covered getting everything set up, registered, and

asp.net asp.net core c#

Options for Configuring ASP.NET Core Application Settings

With all of the controversy around project configurations within .NET Core, one thing that has managed to be consistently JSON-based has been the use of application settings configuration files in this new world. While JSON does read incredibly easily, it can very quickly become muddled if you are storing large,

asp.net c# productivity

How the Microsoft Bot Framework Changed Where My Friends and I Eat: Part 1

Bots are everywhere nowadays, and we interact with them all of the time. From interactions on our phones, in chat rooms, in GitHub discussions, and Slack channels, these guys are everywhere and don't seem to be going anywhere any time soon. After letting this realization sink in, I

asp.net asp.net mvc asp.net core

Contributing to .NET for Dummies

Over the past few months in the little spare time that I have, I've managed to submit a handful of pull requests to various .NET-related repositories (e.g. coreclr [https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr], corefx [https://github.com/dotnet/corefx], docs [https://github.com/aspnet/doc], etc.) and

asp.net core asp.net asp.net mvc

Extending Tag Helpers in ASP.NET Core Applications

A few days ago, I was answering questions on Stack Overflow when I came across one that I thought might be relevant to share with others that might have a similar issue. The issue itself revolved around Tag Helpers, and in particular, getting data attributes found on models to properly

visual studio visual studio 2017 asp.net

"Secret" Productivity Tips for Visual Studio 2017

I've written a few blog posts thus far regarding Visual Studio 2017, so I thought I would take some time to discuss of the features that were introduced in this latest version that might help your productivity, or that you just may find useful. You'll notice

asp.net asp.net core visual studio

The Path is Null and Full of Squiggles

I've been using Visual Studio 2017 since the earliest bits were available and I can confidently say, I'm a fan and highly recommend you give it a shot if you get a chance. With that being said, sometimes new features can cause things to blow up

asp.net c# visual-studio

Sharing is Caring: Using Shared Projects in ASP.NET

As software developers, copy-pasting some code or a few files and having it in multiple places has always been smelly. There are several different avenues that you can take to avoid this kind of redundancy, but this post will focus on one that it seems isn't talked about

glyphfriend visual-studio tools

Glyphfriend 2.1 Released! Now with Library Filtering

It hasn't been too long since the latest 2.0 release of Glyphfriend [https://github.com/rionmonster/Glyphfriend], but with the release of Visual Studio 2017 coming around the corner, there were a few things that could use some improvement and polishing off before then. What's

tools visual studio 2017 visual-studio

Resolving Installation Issues with Visual Studio 2017

I've seen quite a few posts online regarding folks having issues installing Visual Studio 2017 after using previous versions of the IDE (such as the various pre-releases and RCs). If this sounds like you, then you might want to follow some of the steps in this blog post

community learning random

Why won't you answer my question?

I've spent more time than I would like to admit on various Q&A sites and forums related to development, where I have answered thousands of questions. Generally, the questions stay within the confines of such forums, however after waking up to my personal inbox being flooded

glyphfriend tools visual-studio

Adding Support for your Favorite Library in Glyphfriend

With Glyphfriend 2.0 being released [http://rion.io/2017/01/18/a-new-year-a-new-glyphfriend/], one of the points of emphasis for the re-write was to allow members of the community to more easily add support for their favorite glyph families. This comes in addition to all of the other great benefits

tools windows productivity

Today I Learned: Quick Command-Line Access in Windows

Nowadays, you may find yourself spending more time staring at one of those black command prompts instead of your usual, pretty Windows folders. The rise in client-side tooling and frameworks have made the command-line a commonly used tool, even in the .NET ecosystem. This can be intimidating to folks that

glyphfriend tools visual-studio

A New Year, A New Glyphfriend.

Although not a great deal of it has been in the public, quite a few things have been going on with Glyphfriend [https://github.com/rionmonster/Glyphfriend], my Visual Studio extension that provides intellisense previews for all of your favorite icon fonts. As of writing this post, Glyphfriend 2.0

electron tools security

When Insecure Responses and Certificate Transparency Completely Break Electron

A few months back, I wrote up a short summary on using Electron to easily build, package, and deploy a web site or application [http://rion.io/2016/12/02/bringing-your-web-application-to-desktop-life-with-electron/] . If you were to have followed such a tutorial, you may be coming back here looking for a post