Increasing VSTS limit on old test run results

By default, Visual Studio Team System will only save 25 of your test run results. To increase this number:

1. Tools -> Options -> Test Tools -> Test Execution


2. Change the value after "Limit number of old Test Results to:"

Note: you still may have a practical limit if you use the freely included SQL Express (default). I think the artificially imposed limit is something like 5GB, not sure.

Handy Visual Studio shortcuts

When I discover something nifty in Visual Studio, I'll post it here:

Shortcut	Name	Comment
Ctrl + .	Intelisense	If you've typed enough of a word that there's only one completion available, it'll finish it for you (or bring up a list of other possible completions)
Ctrl + ,	Navigate To	Search project (solution?) for member and function definitions

For now, more goodness here

"Show All Files" crash work-around (Visual Studio 2010)

When I upgraded to Visual Studio 2010, I hit the following problem: after converting my old project to the new format, I made the mistake of clicking on "Show All Files". Once you've done this, it seems you can't go back -- any time I tried to deselect it, VS crashed.

Here's how I fixed it:

1. Open up PowerShell in your project folder


2. Run ls -rec | select-string Show


3. Use your favorite text editor to set all references to "ShowAllFiles" to false

In my case, this ended up being [ProjectName].vcxproj.user, but do the Select-String search to be sure.

ThinkPad trackpoint scrolling on Windows

For my model (T61), at least, go here.

Download and install the "ThinkPad UltraNav Driver". Requires a restart (lame), but works like a charm afterward.

Unique requires Sort (in PowerShell)

Reading the documentation would have told me this, but who has time for that these days?

Apparently "unique" isn't guaranteed to work without "sort", so any time you'd do this:
$list | unique
do this
$list | sort | unique

Focus-follows-mouse in Windows (AutoHotKey)

This AutoHotKey code gives you focus-follows-mouse behavior: whatever window the mouse is over has "focus" (keys pressed are sent here). This lets you select a window faster than alt-tabbing though all the options. This script does not raise the window, so you can type in part of a window that is still partially covered (this comes in handy more often than you might think).

Thanks to sooyke, who posted it here.


~ScrollLock::

SLStatus := GetKeyState("ScrollLock", "T")
SPI_SETACTIVEWINDOWTRACKING = 0x1001
SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = 1
SPIF_SENDCHANGE = 2
DllCall("SystemParametersInfo",UInt,SPI_SETACTIVEWINDOWTRACKING,UInt,0,UInt,SLStatus,UInt,SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE | SPIF_SENDCHANGE)
return


There and back again: last week's brief return to linux

I put Ubuntu back on my machine recently, because the ATI drivers for my card under Win7 weren't working with my shaders. It was kind of fun, and I do remember liking the control it gave me over customization. However, to my surprise, I noticed several things:
1) Lots of fit and finish bugs (options missing or not being saved, UI elements in the wrong place, stuff like that). And these were all within the first few hours of using the product!
2) At least one completely unexpected hard crash (while scrolling a page in firefox!)
3) I *really* missed the (Shift)+Win+Left/Right/Up window management and Win+P display management from Win7
4) Something in the font smoothing or colors in X gives me a headache! (I can stare at gvim with the desert colorscheme for hours in Win7, but had trouble concentrating after a few minutes in Ubuntu)

I actually remember getting headaches in college when working on code late at night, but I always assumed it was because it was late or I was tired. Now I'm not so sure...

As surprised as I am to say it, I really prefer working in Windows now. As I said, I like the customizability of the linux world, but the quality bar isn't nearly as high as Win7 or OS X. Only the hard-crash prevented me from doing my work, but that's the problem with how the linux world tends to view these problems. There's a sort of broken window theory at play: if it's understood that "minor" bugs can be left in (because "they don't really affect functionality, just work around it! They should use the command line anyway..."), then other more severe bugs will start to creep in.

That said, I'm a stubborn person, and would've scripted my way around it, were it not for the fact that using it literally gave me a headache! Rebooting back to Win7, I was actually comforted by aero theme, taskbar, and other things i have limited control over. Sure, I can't customize them to my hearts content, but I can count on them. I feel at home in Windows now, and if I ever want to really get crazy with customizability, I can look into AutoHotkey.

I'm still curious about why X gave me a headache, though.