Jerry Dixon's Blog

JerBear's Lair - A dumping ground for tips and information about .NET, SQL Server, and technology in general.

Moving On

I'm moving on to bigger and better things, so this blog has come to an end. If you'd like to follow...

Date: 11/18/2014

Using SignalR to power ASP.NET Dashboards, Part 2

In a previous post, I covered how you can use SignalR to provide real-time communications between a...

Date: 10/11/2014

Using SignalR to power ASP.NET Dashboards

Edit: This is now part 1 of a series. This post covers SignalR and how it is used to provide...

Date: 08/16/2014

Zipping a single file with PowerShell

I recently needed to quickly create a PowerShell script that would create a Zip file from a...

Date: 08/08/2014

Visual Studio 2013 Goodies

Just a quick post to remind everyone that Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 has now been released. It has...

Date: 08/07/2014

Boot from VHD - What worked for us

My son and I spent most of the day yesterday trying to get our laptops to boot from a VHD. We found...

Date: 06/29/2014

Get the name of the current property or method

I often need to obtain the name of the current property of method, and I have historically used...

Date: 06/27/2014

Support timelines for SQL Server, .NET Framework, Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server and Windows

Microsoft maintains a database of all supported products, along with the dates when those products'...

Date: 07/03/2013

Connection-Pooling vs. Reusing one connection

I recently had a conversation about .NET connection pooling, and how this compares to reusing a...

Date: 05/19/2011

Additional reasons to migrate off of Visual Basic 6

As most people know by now, support for Visual Basic 6 expired in 2008...

Date: 06/30/2010

Windows Vista cannot obtain an IP address from certain routers or from certain non-Microsoft DHCP servers

I recently had a need to prove that my home router was not the cause of some networking...

Date: 08/12/2008

Password-protecting Compressed Folders in Windows XP

During a conversation today, a colleague of mine pointed out something that I didn't know:  A...

Date: 06/12/2008

Social Bookmarks

Microsoft has launched a new web site where IT Professionals can store and share Internet...

Date: 05/30/2008

Running SQL Reporting Services on Vista

I recently decided to fire up SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services on my Vista laptop. I installed SQL...

Date: 04/21/2008

Microsoft SQL Server Data Services

Today at MIX, Microsoft unveiled Microsoft SQL Server™ Data Services (SSDS), a Web-facing...

Date: 03/05/2008

The data provider required to connect to the local data file cannot be found

I've been trying to get SQL Compact 3.5 working in Visual Studio 2008. Since SQL Compact 3.5 ships...

Date: 01/25/2008

VB 6 Support is Winding Down

Ah.... VB 6.  It's been one of my favorite languages.  Over the years, I've created all...

Date: 12/14/2007

Web Part Connections in WSS 3.0 (Part 4)

In part 1 of this series, I showed how to make one web part accept data from another. In part 2, I...

Date: 11/08/2007

Virus Scanners and ASP.NET apps don't always mix

In a previous post, I talked about Alternate Data Streams and how some virus-scanning engines use...

Date: 09/28/2007

Alternate Data Streams

I want to recap a topic that has been around for a while: Alternate Data Streams. This topic has...

Date: 09/20/2007

Web Part Connections in WSS 3.0 (Part 3)

In part 1 of this series, I showed how to make one web part accept data from another. In part 2, I...

Date: 09/02/2007

Web Part Connections in WSS 3.0 (Part 2)

In part 1 of this series, I showed how to make one web part accept data from another. In this part,...

Date: 09/01/2007

Web Part Connections in WSS 3.0

Josh Holmes recently asked me to present a couple of small demos for an ArcReady event in Memphis....

Date: 08/31/2007

Subscribe to the Lifecycle Newsletter

In my last post, I discussed the Microsoft product lifecycle site, and how you should use it to...

Date: 08/27/2007

Check Your Service Pack Lifecycle

Many people know about the support lifecycle site at Microsoft. It contains information about the...

Date: 08/16/2007

Is 32-bit Windows coming to a end?

Bill Laing has been quoted as saying that “Windows Server 2008 would be the last 32-bit Microsoft...

Date: 08/10/2007

Welcome to my blog

Hello and welcome! My name is Jerry Dixon and I am a software developer living in Memphis Tennessee....

Date: 08/10/2007