Css errors as warnings in Visual Studio 2008

so finally Microsoft gives us the option to unclutter our errors window and leave out HTML, CSS and Javascript errors (or more usually supposed errors such as invalid css syntax for ie hacks). And helpfully by default, VS 2008 comes with this setting turned on. Great! 

But then, how come my CSS errors are still showing as errors then??

Right, so the problem is that even though VS 2008 installs with the show HTML and CSS errors as warnings by default, only the HTML setting gets set in the registry for some reason. So what you have to do is untick the box where this is set, save it, then tick again, thus manually turning it on so it starts behaving correctly.

To do this, go to:

Tools->Text Editor->HTML->Validation->untick "as warnings (HTML,CSS)", hit OK. Re-open the tools menu navigate to the same place again and tick that box again. hit OK and now things work the way they should've always done.

Could not load type 'Microsoft.TeamFoundation.workitemTracking.Client.WorkItemTypeDeniedOrNotExistException

So this came up to me every time I tried to view a work item in TFS 2008 on Visual Studio 2008 on a fresh installation on vista. 

apparently some dlls don't get registered properly when installing SP1 sometimes. I'm not sure if it's a vista thing or if it's just random, but in any case the solution is simple: reinstall VS SP1 and it's happy days! :)

 

Vista Mouse Pointer Offset

Quick solution: go to Control Panel -> Mouse -> Pointers tab and on the Scheme drop down change from Windows Aero to None.

Explanation:

so you bought your new Dell, spent a lot of money on it, it's all shiny and beautiful and capable of doing the most complicated things... but your mouse doesn't work properly! The pointer keeps getting offset, so whenever you click on something it actually clicks below it.

Well, this is yet another Vista blunder. If you look into it you'll end up getting to an article in Microsoft's knowledge base which says that "Vista does not support high-performance mice". Oh, high-performance mice, what does that mean? A mouse that outperforms Windows? 

In any case, the knowledge base claims sp1 should fix it. nope, it doesn't. Then there is a hotfix for the very keen which needs to be requested, and you'll get a link on your email with a password-protected zip file which after extracting and running its content says "this hotfix does not apply to your version of windows", probably because I already have sp1 installed I'm guessing.

So I concluded that either I was on the wrong track and the problem has nothing to do with high-perform mice, or Microsoft has really hit the ground low with Vista and didn't manage to support as basic as a mouse properly. 

Then, thanks to a few people out there who shared their frustrations in many forums I found something that pointed me in the right direction, and that is the solution of turning off the Windows Aero scheme for the mouse pointer. The reason why I mentioned Dell before was because this seems to happen with a lot of the Dells since last year, probably because of the new fancy mice they're coming with which is too much for Aero to handle.

oh dear, so, is Windows 7 out yet?...

Excel 2007: selecting blanks

an easy yet extremly useful tip:

Office 2007 changed menus around just a tad, so you might get a little frustrated when trying to do simple things such as deleting all the blank rows in Excel if you were used to your good old Edit menu.

Well, arguably, in Excel 2007 it's even easier and the procedure is the same, it's just been moved around. So on the Home tab, find the Editing section in the Ribbon. Iif you haven't moved things around by default this will be the last one on the right. Find the "Find & Select" Button, which again by default will be the last one on th right, then select "Go to Special...".

There find the radio button which says Blanks then press OK.

now you've got all blanks selected so you can do as you please (though I'm guessing you will most likely press the delete button next...)

Windows: Off-Screen Windows in Windows

Besides attempting to be the phrase with the most occurrences of the word "Windows", the title says it all: how do you get those irritating off-screen windows back onto your desktop in Windows? Windows can go off your screen for various reasons. Maybe you were playing around with your laptop and hooked up an external monitor and dragged notepad to the other monitor only to realize that after you unhooked everything notepad would not show up anymore. Or maybe because you're a developer and someone in your team has created a brilliant test tool that instead of minimize as expected it just decides to adventure itself into the void (as it just happened a few minutes ago). Either way, there's a very simple, albeit incredibly counter-intuitive and not very well-documented, "trick" to bring all your beautiful windows back.

Here it goes:

1) Open the program, such as notepad, using a shortcut or by going to the All Programs panel via the Start button.

2) Right-click the minimized window name in your taskbar and choose move.

3) Press any of the arrow keys on your keyboard.

4) Voila! There's your window. You can move it around with your mouse as it is still locked for moving.

Excel: Line break within a cell

To add a line break within a cell which has the "wrap text" option set to true just hit Alt + Enter instead of Enter otherwise it will skip to the next cell down.

Charge and listen to your Ipod at the same time

There is a very stupid trick which you can use to charge and listen to your ipod at the same time if you're connecting it to your computer via USB cable.

Just go to My Computer, right-click on the drive (whatever letter it was assigned by your comp) that says IPOD then click Eject. That's it! Now you'll be using your ipod in hard drive mode, much like a usb stick. This means it's still connected to your computer, which means it will keep charging, but not in "ipod mode" which means you can listen to your ipod while it charges.

Be careful not to confuse that Eject function with ejecting the USB device from the the "Safely Remove Hardware" function that will probably show up on your taskbar when you connect it to the USB port. If you eject the ipod from that screen then it won't charge because pretty much what it does is to turn off that usb port connection until something else is connected to it.

easy-peasy. just not very intuitive.