Everyone, thank you sincerely for your comments. I'm going to take John and Mycroft's suggestions.

~Steve

Ok, in anyone's [preferably experienced] opinion, if someone were to sell the source code copyrights of SqlAssist (www.roundpolygons.com) to an interested party, what would it be worth? Note that SqlAssist was featured in the March MSDN Magazine Toolbox article.

~Steve

In case anyone is interested, there is a plugin that does word-completion in Sql Server Management Studio at the link below. It just went into beta yesterday so it is currently free. www.roundpolygons.com[^] ~Steve

Typically you shouldn't need to set it back to '3' (and if you DO need to set it back, then there may be a fault in your design). It is common to have these "holes" in key/identity columns in databases. My recommendation would be don't worry about it... leave it as '4'. ~Steve www.roundpolygons.com

this will do it: SELECT tt.col, Count(isnull(tt.col, 'NULL')) FROM TempTesting tt GROUP BY tt.col ~Steve www.roundpolygons.com

In case anyone is interested, a new Sql Intellisense addin for VS 2003/2005 was just released: SqlAssist, www.roundpolygons.com[^] Many features beyond just fast intellisense... ~Steve

David, thanks for the suggestion... I'll look into that one. ~Steve

Thanks for the links, especially the componentsource one... that look like one that I'll have to keep on file for future projects. ~Steve

Oops, forgot something... it would be a great benefit if the dictionary was available with medical terms already in it. ~Steve

Does anyone have a spell checker that they recommend for integration into Windows apps? We are looking for a quality once, it does NOT have to be free. It should be able to be integrated with several different technologies, including Borland C++, Delphi, and Microsoft C++ and .NET (so I presume that an API with a COM interface is the best way to go). Thanks for any suggestions, ~Steve

Hey, sorry for not replying to say "thanks". I had found a solution shortly after I posted and then completely forgot that I posted! Thanks for the info... good stuff. ~Steve

Hey, sorry for not replying to say "thanks". I had found a solution shortly after I posted and then completely forgot that I posted! Thanks for the info... good stuff. ~Steve

I have a class that serializes itself out to a file using the SoapFormatter class. I have now added a new member variable to the class and want it to be serializeable too. But loading the previously saved file fails because this new member is not available in the saved file. If I set the new member to non-serializeable, the load works fine but then I can't save that member back out on the next save operation. Any ideas how to get around this problem without throwing my save file away and starting from scratch? Thanks! ~Steve

Great stuff! Thanks Health and Nick. Yes, I'm new to .NET entirely, and am very impressed with what I'm seeing so far. Thanks for the tips and pointers... ~Steve

Thanks!! "CategoryAttribute" was one I wasn't familiar with... ~Steve

Does anyone know how I can get my property that is a member of my Component, so show up in the Dynamic Properties section of the property editor? I want to bind it to the app.config file, and I expect it to appear in the designer so I can bind easily through the IDE... (did I explain that clear enough?) Thanks! ~Steve

oh. good news. ;-) Thanks!! ~Steve

Ok, here's the senario: I have two projects in my solution, one of which (project A) has a custom control, and the second (Project B) has a form that uses the custom control. Frequently, if I have opened the project B form in the designer and then re-compile, Project A's dll cannot be written to the output directory because the designer is using it (at least that's what I presume is the reason it can't be written). Closing the designer window in Visual Studio doesn't help. Even closing the *solution* and re-opening doesn't help!! I have to close Visual Studio completely and re-launch to be able to compile my solution again. How can I avoid this problem, outside of not having these two projects in the same solution (I'm working in both at the same time). Thanks! ~Steve

Hmmm, well you've definitely caught my attention. I've been developing C++ for some time now, but this is my first go at .NET. I'm quickly learning that I have a ton to learn. Thanks for the lesson (and the link). I'll start doing my homework now ;-) ~Steve

Excellent! Thanks a bunch for all the info. I will definitely plan on doing all of this (probably won't use the GAC, but WILL strongly name my assemblies). I have indeed solved the problem with the designer (problem in original post), but see that I have some work to do in configuring my projects/assemblies. One last question... you mention setting my version with the AssemblyVersionAttribute. That is fine, but this project will have 20+ assemblies once it is complete. I don't want to have to go into each assembly and update the build number for every "internal" build (about once every 3 days) and for each release of the project. Is there a good way to make that happen dynamically? (ok, now that I think about it, I should probably search the site for an article...) Anyway, thanks again! You've been a real help. ~Steve