Now available for download is my Mini Calc application.

It just has a simple entry box and a result area. You can always see the exact calculation your performing and go back and edit it if the result isn't what you wanted.

All basic maths operations are supported including bracketed calculations.

The system menu includes options so the calculator is always on top of other applications and also to automatically copy the results of a calculation onto the clipboard.

Due to the cost of hosting this site I'm charging a token amount of just 5 US Dollars to try and get in a little to pay some of the bills so if you like this site and use a calculator please give it a go.  Payment processed via PayPal.

Available from my Desktop Enhancements download area.

I got to browsing the VS2005 keyboard shortcuts again and found a new little gem I've never ever seen before.

Using Ctrl K H by default does a "Toggle Task List Shortcut" which makes a little blue curving arrow appear on your current code line within the text editor.

All very pretty I thought but what can I do with these blue arrows... it turns out that the Task List tool window adds a new Shortcuts option to the filter combo (which you can only see once you have at least one blue arrow).

Choosing to display Shortcuts in the task list shows you each line of code that is set with a shortcut and allows you to tick them off once you've attended to them, delete them and the usual double click to go to each one.

An interesting alternative to bookmarks as it allows you to quickly see a list of all your shortcuts rather than having to next/previous through them.

This has been bugging me for ages.. I'm a big right click open in new window fan, and with IE 7 I naturally started using open in new tab, a vast improvement and saved cluttering up the task bar (yes, I know firefox users are saying about time but I'm an IE person).

All was well on my lovely laptop, but my desktop pc just wouldn't show open in new tab.. after a bit of obscure googling it turns out it's to do with rogue add-ins.. in this case an out of date Google toolbar.  Update the toolbar and all is fine.

So.. if your having problems as well, just go and update your add-ins and see if that fixes it!

As you know if you've been keeping up with this blog, I've got rather into my snippets and templates for Visual Studio.

I've followed the msdn examples on how to create vsi packages manually and all is hunky dory with that, but sometimes you just want a quick knock up package and crafting xml, renaming zip files and stuff just seems like too much hassle.

If your into vsi packages check out the Visual Studio Content Installer Power Toys it makes it far easier to create packages.

And if you just want to create code snippets easily then check out the Visual Basic Snippet Editor it has a great ui for creating snippets, specifying parameters and shortcuts and even saving it all as a vsi.

Continuing my sifting through the bits and pieces I've accumulated I present two visual basic code snippets for handling wait cursor functionality within win forms easily.

Again it's a VSI package - once installed you will have two snippets;

• One which goes to a wait cursor then back to default.
• The second one remembers the current cursor, displays the wait cursor then goes back to the previous cursor.

Both are shortcutted beginning wait, so from Visual Studio just type wait? then tab.

You can download the package from my Visual Studio 2005 Tools downloads area.

I'm trying to go through all my bits and pieces and either file, delete or publish them.

Here's a little something I thought I'd share with you, it's a simple GUID Visualizer I created using my Visualizer Template.  It just displays a text box displaying the value in string format of the current guid.  If you've ever tried debugging guids before you'll know that it's not easy, always giving you a misleading empty, which is actually a property of the guid type rather than its actual value.

This is my first add in I've wrapped up into a VSI package (Visual Studio Installer), it's actually quiet easy to do and I might revisit some of my other packages and wrap them up as well.  Unfortunately it requires signing to stop the warning about dangerous code so maybe I'll have to commit to buying a code signing certificate.

You can download the package from my Visual Studio 2005 Tools downloads area.