Saturday, July 17, 2010

How to Find and Land a .NET Development Job

My developer job resource kit is now available. It's called "Shove It, FizzBuzz: How to find and land a .NET development job."



What's included in this kit?

The kit includes a 200+ page eBook (PDF) that teaches you how to get the job you want (and will make you a better developer in the process). It contains tips on improving your overall developer marketability, 110+ technical questions (with answers), plus general interview questions, puzzle questions, and more.

The kit also includes software that simulates an actual interview and can help boost your confidence during the real thing. You could also just use the software to keep yourself on top of the latest technologies.

Last, but not least, the kit includes a customizable resume (in Word format) that has proven to be effective at getting people jobs.

http://shoveitfizzbuzz.com



Friday, May 14, 2010

Repeating and aligning elements using jQuery and CSS

Today I had a need to create a dynamic list of checkboxes, and I wanted them all aligned properly, so the results would look something like this:

image

The layout was simple with CSS, then I added some jQuery to simulate getting the checkbox items dynamically.

Example:


That example produces a list that adjusts appropriately when resized:

image image

Monday, April 26, 2010

ASP.NET Chart Controls Without Web Forms


I started tinkering with the ASP.NET chart controls last week for a project at work, and the samples available from Microsoft are excellent, except they're mostly all using web forms. So I took it upon myself to do a few things:
  • Upgraded the existing samples from .NET 3.5 to .NET 4.0.

  • Added a sample project 'ChartsWithoutWebForms' to show one way to utilize the ASP.NET charts without using web forms at all.

  • Added a sample project 'ChartsWithMVC' to show one way to utilize the ASP.NET charts with the ASP.NET MVC framework.
The basic idea behind the two additional projects is that the chart is rendered as an image, which means you lose some interactive functionality, but my examples show that you can still fake some interactivity.

I also have an example that shows how you might create a dynamic charting system, which is actually what I'm working on now, but the work is venturing into an area where it will be specific to my employer, so I want to release the samples before that happens.

Feel free to take these updated samples and use them as you see fit. Hopefully they will help you out.

You can download the samples here:
http://www.downcastsystems.com/files/ChartSamples.zip