Category: Programming

  • RealPlayer/RealDownloader poses as Firefox running on 64-bit Linux and sends HEAD and GET requests

    I recently noticed some strange HTTP logs where a resource would be requested twice with two different User-Agent headers. In one case, the first request suggested the client was running Chrome on Windows, while the second request indicated that it was coming from Firefox on Linux. This didn’t make a lot of sense, so I…

  • Visual Studio 2015 was once named Visual Studio 2014

    Visual Studio 2015 was apparently once going to be named Visual Studio 2014, based on some of the shortcuts installed with the recently released preview: Continuing the Microsoft tradition of skipping version 13, the internal version number is 14 (Visual Studio 2013 being version 12).

  • Code samples on GitHub

    I’ve put the code samples featured on this blog over the years on GitHub: NotificationAreaIconSampleAppWPF (December 2010/January 2011) Windows 7-style Notification Area Applications in WPF: Part 1 (Removing Resize) Windows 7-style Notification Area Applications in WPF: Part 2 (Notify Icon Position) Windows 7-style Notification Area Applications in WPF: Part 3 (Taskbar Position) Windows 7-style Notification…

  • Fix Visual Studio 2013 Start Menu shortcuts

    Click here to see this bug on Connect. Visual Studio 2013 configures Start Menu shortcuts differently to earlier versions. Specifically, it adds a shortcut to ‘Visual Studio Tools’ (%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\Shortcuts), where Visual Studio 2012 added a directory called ‘Visual Studio Tools’ and added copies of the shortcuts. This is all a bit confusing,…

  • ResEdit doesn't work with the Windows SDK 8.0 and above (use 7.1 or below)

    ResEdit is a nice resource file editor for Windows programs. Regrettably, it has some issues with the latest versions of the Windows SDK (8.0 and 8.1) – it’s possible to create a resource script (.rc) file, but you won’t be able to open it again later. Even if %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%Windows Kits8.1Include is set as include path,…

  • Html.AntiForgeryToken() sets an X-Frame-Options header with the value 'SAMEORIGIN'

    I recently migrated a project from ASP.NET MVC 4 to MVC 5 and the process went quite smoothly, except that all of a sudden my webpages were being returned with the X-Frame-Options header set with the value ‘SAMEORIGIN‘. This is actually a reasonable default as it helps mitigate the risk of ClickJacking. The website in…

  • Enabling the compatibility property sheet for (almost) all programs in Windows 8/8.1

    Windows 8 and 8.1 hide the compatibility property sheet for certain programs (namely programs included with Windows, like Notepad, and those on a whitelist of programs known to run correctly on Windows 8/8.1 – defined in %WinDir%apppatchpcamain.sdb). In some cases, one can still run the ‘troubleshoot compatibility’ wizard by right-clicking on the file, which just…

  • Short: Google Analytics doesn't support Windows Phone apps – pretend your app is a website, instead

    Using Google Analytics in a Windows Phone 7+ app is really simple. There’s a small hurdle, however, in that Google Analytics doesn’t support Windows Phone, and if your property is configured as an ‘App’, you won’t be able to track any data. The solution is to configure your property as a ‘Web Site’ when you…

  • Short: The Windows Phone Toolkit ContextMenu control's Foreground property does nothing

    While the ContextMenu control in the Windows Phone Toolkit has a Foreground property, setting it has no effect, as it’s not used in the default control template (unlike the Background and BorderBrush properties, which work as expected). To change the text colour in a ContextMenu, set the Foreground property of MenuItems individually.

  • Keiki Usage Meter Version 3.2.1 Released

    Tonight I released Keiki Usage Meter Version 3.2.1. This release was prompted by Optus changing some things on their end that stopped the Optus Broadband (Legacy) plugin from working. There are some changes to the way tooltips, buttons, group boxes, combo boxes, radio buttons and check boxes are rendered, but nothing particularly noteworthy. I also…