VPortalDataServiceClient client = new VPortalDataServiceClient();
                client.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.UserName = "btomas";
                client.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.Password = "password123";

The UserName is the windows account user name that is hosting the service. This user may just need to be one on the domain that the machine can see — not exactly sure though.  And the Password is the password of that user.

But here’s one for string comparisons:

StringComparer

This static class contains many different predefined IEqualityComparer instances to be used in functions like “Contains”. Enjoy.

string hostName = Dns.GetHostName();
var addrs = Dns.GetHostAddresses(hostName);
bool hasIP = false;
for (int i = 0; i < addrs.Length; i++)
{
    IPAddress addr = addrs[i];
    if (addr.AddressFamily == System.Net.Sockets.AddressFamily.InterNetwork)
    {
        si.DataIP = addr.ToString();
        hasIP = true;
        break;
    }
}

exec sp_MSForeachTable "delete from ?"

the sp_MSForeachTable is a very useful system stored procedure.

MyDataContext dc() = new MyDataContext;
var query = dc.MyTables;
query = query.Where( t=>t.id > 10);

and so I want to order it by a certain column:

query = query.OrderBy( t=>t.id )

but the problem is the order direction isn’t know before hand so at first I was stuck with the following:

if ( descending )
    query = query.OrderByDescending( t=>t.id);
else
    query = query.OrderBy(t=>t.id);

Now if there is only a few possible columns to sort against it isn’t too bad.  But when you have 10 different possible columns it really makes a lot of extra work just to control to sort direction.  So I made a little helper class that allows the following.  It works with linq and linq to sql:

query = query.OrderByAscDec( t=>t.id, descending );

here’s the static class that implments the OrderByAscDec function:

static class VPLinqExtensions
{
	public static IOrderedQueryable<TSource> OrderByAscDes<TSource, TKey>(
		this IQueryable<TSource> source,
		System.Linq.Expressions.Expression<Func<TSource,
		TKey>> keySelector, bool IsDescending)
	{
		if (IsDescending)
			return source.OrderByDescending(keySelector);
		else
			return source.OrderBy(keySelector);
	}
}

string uri = "http://finance.google.com/finance/historical?cid=667226&startdate=Sep+9%2C+2007&enddate=Sep+10%2C+2008&output=csv";
WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(uri);
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
var stream = response.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream, Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8"));
string page = reader.ReadToEnd();

There you go. Very simple isn’t it? Just got to love .Net

int begin = System.Environment.TickCount
... do something
int end = System.Environment.TickCount
int elapsed = end - begin;

System.IO.DirectoryInfo di = new System.IO.DirectoryInfo(Program.DataDirectory);
System.IO.FileInfo[] files = di.GetFiles("*.txt");

         private void productNumber_KeyPress(object sender, KeyPressEventArgs e)
        {
            char c = e.KeyChar;
            // make it uppercase only
            if (c >= 'a' && c <= 'z')
            {
                int digit = (int)c;
                digit = digit - 'a' + 'A';
                e.KeyChar = Convert.ToChar(digit);
            }
        }

When the event handler is called it gives you a chance to edit the hit character. Just by changing e.KeyChar you change the actual input character. This is a nifty trick to have under your belt.

The techinque basically turns of drawing and events to the object on the win32 level underneath .Net.  This is very handy and it worked very very well.  Here is the code.

        using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
        private const int WM_SETREDRAW      = 0x000B;
        private const int WM_USER           = 0x400;
        private const int EM_GETEVENTMASK   = (WM_USER + 59);
        private const int EM_SETEVENTMASK   = (WM_USER + 69);

        [DllImport("user32", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
        private extern static IntPtr SendMessage(IntPtr hWnd, int msg, int wParam, IntPtr lParam);

        IntPtr eventMask = IntPtr.Zero;

        public void StopDrawing()
        {
            if (drawStopCount == 0)
            {
                // Stop redrawing:
                SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_SETREDRAW, 0, IntPtr.Zero);
                // Stop sending of events:
                eventMask = SendMessage(this.Handle, EM_GETEVENTMASK, 0, IntPtr.Zero);
            }
            drawStopCount++;
        }

        public void StartDrawing()
        {
            drawStopCount--;
            if (drawStopCount == 0)
            {
                // turn on events
                SendMessage(this.Handle, EM_SETEVENTMASK, 0, eventMask);

                // turn on redrawing
                SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_SETREDRAW, 1, IntPtr.Zero);

                Invalidate();
                Refresh();
            }
        }