Does anybody know how / where to modify the default list of 'using' statements that Visual Studio automatically places in new C# files. I use System.Diagnostics in almost every file for Debug.Assert and it's a pain to keep having to add the 'using' for it manually. A friend of mine who works in VB.NET says you can edit the import statements in the project settings, but I can't find the same for C#. I'm open to a hack which modifies it directly in some text file, registry whatever ;-) Roel

If your controls are bound to an underlying business object, you could use a IsDirty property on that business object. In all the set {} accessors of each property of your business object you then set the m_dirty member variable to true, like: public string MyProperty { get { return m_myProperty; } set { if (m_myProperty != value) { m_myProperty = value; m_isDirty = true; } } Then, to save the data, you can just call the Save() method on your business object and let the business object figure out whether anything needs to be persisted to the database. Roel

I noticed that Office 2007 always uses ClearType, whether you have switched it on in the Display Settings or not. You can switch it off for all of Office from the individual Office applications. I would like to provide a similar capability in my own application. Anybody knows how to switch on/off ClearType from within a specific application and for that application only? Roel

I keep reading here and there that Infragistics controls, especially the grid, do not perform well. Anybody has any experience with or comments on that? Roel

All, I am looking to buy a component suite, mainly to get a good data grid. Performance is a must. It looks like Infragistics and DevExpress are the most popular ones. Any opinions on which one to choose? Thanks in advance, Roel

SQL Server 2005 is fully backward compatible with SQL Server 2000, if that's what you mean, so whatever works on SQL Server 2000 will (in most cases) work fine on 2005. If you want to take advantage of some of the new 2005 features, do some research online or get a 2005 book. Roel

I guess so. Maybe the next step would be to buy a good book on database programming with Visual Studio? Roel

As far as I know, the only time it will not work is if you have the full version of SQL Server Management Studio installed already, which for you is not the case (otherwise you would not have to install this one.) So, just go ahead and try. Roel

It sounds to me like you have installed the freely available version SQL Server Express 2005, not the full version of SQL Server, is that correct? By default, unlike the full version of SQL Server, this does not come with SQL Server Management Studio, which is used to create databases and enter SQL queries. You can either open a command prompt and type sqlcmd -S.\SQLExpress -E to get a command prompt from where you can enter SQL statements against your database. Or, you can download the freely available SQL Server Management Studio Express, which gives you a graphical interface to do all this (recommended). Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c243a5ae-4bd1-4e3d-94b8-5a0f62bf7796&DisplayLang=en[^] Hope this helps, Roel

Then you don't need to enter the server name, you can just enter '.' (a full stop), that corresponds to the local server. Note: if you installed SQL Server 2005 Express, then you should use '.\SQLExpress' as the server name. If this doesn't work, check if the SQL Server service is running. Roel

Did you install SQL Server on your local machine or on a seperate machine?

That's what I call common sense preventing over-engineering! Yes, I think you may be right. I am going to try this out. Thanks for you elaborate answer. I will let you know how it works out. Roel

Manish, It is considered bad practice to use Excel directly from an IIS web application. If I remember correctly, no matter where you save to, Excel tries to access folders specific for the user it runs under, such as 'My Documents'. For these type of accounts like network service, ASPNET, etc these folders do not exist and that gives you these type of problems. The work-around is a queued approach, where you queue requests for doing something with Excel. Then, you run an NT Service under a 'real' user account that picks up these requests and processes it. However, I was forced once to do something like that with Word and it's difficult to implement and it always remains error prone. Microsoft officially recommends against using Office applications in background services and for good reason. Instead of trying to work around it, I suggest you look into buying one of those third party components that work natively on Excel files without requiring Excel on the server. Those are very stable and much faster than accessing Excel through its own object library. I've used components from SoftArtisans with excellent results. See: http://www.softartisans.com/[^] Hope this helps, Roel

If you are not sure about the question how can anyone be sure about what to answer ;-) are you familiar with the 'foreach' keyword?

foreach?

I like DiscountASP.NET (www.discountasp.net) for shared hosting. 1. Affordable ($10/month for the basic package) 2. Support is really good (usually I get a reply to technical questions within a few hours, it has never taken more than 12 hours) 3. Always running the latest stuff (they already have .NET 3.0 and you can try IIS 7.0 beta if you like) 4. Lots of free ASP.NET components, making it a great hosting provider if you are an MS developer. Their KB has many dev samples, too. 5. I've never had any reliability issues for 4 years. They warn you far in advance if there is update to email service or maintenance of anything like that. Roel

I assume the list box contains a static list of items that never changes? If so, this would be (one) way to do it: 1. Create a new user setting 'MyListBoxIndex' of type Int. 2. Create a SelectedIndexChanged event handler for the listbox. 3. In the handler, store the current index using: Properties.Settings.Default.MyListBoxIndex = myListBox.SelectedIndex; 4. After the Application.Run() exits, call Properties.Settings.Default.Save() Whenever the form / control loads that has your listbox on it, retrieve the index from the user setting and select the corresponding index using myListBox.SelectedIndex = Properties.Settings.Default.MyListBoxIndex; Hope this helps, Roel

Most probably a security issue... your webservice listener must be running under a user account (ASPNET?) that does not have permission to write to the root of you c:\ drive. Roel

The ApplicationDeployment class does not have a constructor, so you can't create an instance of it. The only way to get an instance is to use the static CurrentDeployment property. No offense, but I do suggest you start looking at the documentation rather than asking basic questions like this on the forum. The forum really is meant to get answers to things you can't readily figure out from the documentation. The entire .NET framework documentation is available online. See for example: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.deployment.application.applicationdeployment.currentdeployment.aspx[^] Best regards, Roel

It not the address of the thread, it is a delegate for the method to invoke when the thread begins execution. Check the documentation on MSDN. Here is a sample. Public Class Test _ Shared Sub Main() Dim newThread As New Thread(AddressOf Work.DoWork) newThread.Start() End Sub End Class Public Class Work Private Sub New() End Sub Shared Sub DoWork() End Sub End Class