Tag: productivity

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How to get some of Visual Studio 11's new tools TODAY in Visual Studio 2010

So much has come out this week at //Build/ that it’s hard to keep track of everything. For developers, the big thing is the first preview of Visual Studio 11 and the new SDKs and tools that go along with it. As you download the tools from dev.windows.com or your MSDN subscription, you may or may not have noticed that some of the new features come straight out of the Productivity Power Tools that are available TODAY from the Visual Studio Plugin Gallery.  So, if you’re trying out the new Windows 8 dev build and like what you see, you may want to also check out the power tools.  It’s no ReSharper, but it does have some cool features that’ll help you navigate your solutions!

 

Download: Visual Studio Productivity Power Tools

Dowload: Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2011 Developer Preview

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CodeRush Shortcuts/Templates Cheat Sheet Printable PDF Download

I love CodeRush.  When I was looking at a productivity plugin for Visual Studio, I basically had two options: CodeRush+Refactor! Pro or ReSharper.  I eventually picked CodeRush for the visualizations, code-from-scratch productivity boosters and templates, and extensibility.  As with anything, it takes some getting used to the shortcuts inside CodeRush to really become effective using it.  Here’s a link to a downloadable and printable cheat sheet with all of the most-used shortcuts for CR and Refactor!

Link: CodeRush Shortcuts/Templates Cheat Sheet Printable PDF Download

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My Introduction to Developer Productivity Tools: DevExpress' CodeRush

I recently started doing an evaluation of JetBrains’ ReSharper and DevExpress’ CodeRush.  Both are developer productivity tools for Visual Studio that give you code templates (shorthand notation that pumps out full sections of code), refactoring tools, code metrics and analysis, and much more.  I had been contemplating getting ReSharper (R#) for a while now as it seems to be by far the most popular.  However, recently I attended a presentation at a local user group by Gary Short, a Microsoft MVP from Scotland who actually works at DevExpress and told me about CodeRush.  As I looked it up, I saw great reviews of it across the board to the point that many R# devs were making the switch.  As I looked more into it, I saw solid community support (headed up by Rory Becker), and that CodeRush was an great platform to write plugins if I so chose later on.

With that said, I’ll be writing my experience and logging helpful sites and tips that I find out as I go along with my evaluation of CodeRush.  Is there anything you ReSharper guys want me to look into?  Things that I should be aware of?

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How To Sync Multiple Outlook Calendars and Google Calendar Using Google Calendar Sync

One of the most annoying things that I had to face when I got my Android phone was the calendars.  Android uses Google as the service behind email (gmail) and its calendar.  I, like many of you, use Outlook as my primary calendar, since it has all of my meeting requests built-in with it.  In Android, the Corporate Calendar app lets you connect to the Exchange calendar, and the regular Calendar app connects to Google’s service.  Sure, fine, right?  but what happens when you have conflicting appointments across your personal Google calendar and your outlook calendar?  What if you want everything all in one place so you can just put up one calendar widget on your Android desktop?  Well, the answer my friends is Google Calendar Sync.

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What's My Motivation? OR Resuming Old Projects

Writing software can be both a job and a hobby for many of us, and we all have projects sitting out there that we start and never finish.  Some of them, however, are farther along or more useful than others.  When we remember that we need to finish a project, whether at work or at home, you can use these tips for getting things done immediately to get back to your life!:

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