Let's continue our 'Back to Basics' series. It's often an interview question to get an idea of the basic knowledge of a candidate. This is one of the simple question that an interviewer may ask during an interview and you should also know this while writing your code.

 

In this post, we are again going to discuss on the basics and this time we will learn the difference between null string and empty string.

Published by on under .Net | C#

It gives me immense pleasure to announce that, my book titled 'Mastering Visual Studio 2017' has been published today. It was a great journey, with months of efforts. Thanks to Packt Publisher for the opportunity to write for them. Sincere thanks to the editorial team and the reviewer.

 

By reading this book, you will learn not only what Visual Studio 2017 offers, but also what it takes to put it to work for your project.

Published by on under Book | Mastering Visual Studio 2017

Microsoft, today announced a new PC build 16251 for the Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring, from the RS3 (Redstone 3) development branch. And thus, moving towards one step forward to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, which is expected to release within few months.

 

Along with this new PC build, they have also announced a new build 15235 for mobile devices. In this post, we are going to list the new features that you can see in the new PC build.

Published by on under News | Windows

StringCollection class is a spcialized collection type present in .NET Framework class libraries. The name itself represents it as a collection of strings. It exposes common methods and properties to manage string collection.

 

If you do not know about this class, in this post we are going learn about it's properties, methods and learn how to use it.

Published by on under .Net | C#

In last few articles we have discussed about NPOI libraries for .NET. There could be some cases, while reading Excel files, you may get an exception with 'The supplied spreadsheet seems to be Excel 5.0/7.0 (BIFF5) format. POI only supports BIFF8 format' as message.

 

In this quick tip, we are going to discuss about this issue, the way to handle it and the way to read the same Excel workbook content.

Published by on under .Net | C#

In the last two articles, we have learned how to use the NPOI library to read Excel 2007 (.xlsx) and Excel 97-2003 (.xls) file format. We have also discussed more about the APIs and shared the code snippet for you to understand it easily.

 

In this article, we will learn how to read Excel 95 and older workbooks easily using the free Apache NPOI libraries in your C#/.NET applications.

Published by on under .Net | C#

In the last article, we have discussed about the NPOI library and then learned how to read Excel 2007 file formats using the free, open sourced NPOI library. I hope, the code snippet was clear and easy to understand.

 

In this article, we will learn how to read Excel 97-2003 workbooks easily using the free Apache NPOI libraries in your C#/.NET applications.

Published by on under .Net | C#

Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16241 is being rolled out to Windows Insiders in the fast ring. It includes a no. of new improvements to the Windows Shell. Apart from that, Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build 15230, has been also released.

 

Check this post to know the latest improvements, fixes in this new PC build 16241. Don't forget to checkout the known issues before downloading this build.

Published by on under News | Windows

Recently, we have learned how to read Excel workbooks using the Microsoft Office COM APIs. As you may already know that the COM APIs are slow while performing operation, we will see another way to read the content which is faster.

 

In this article, we will learn how to read Excel 2007 workbooks using the Apache NPOI libraries which is available freely to use in your application.

Published by on under .Net | C#

Windows 10 Update delivery works better by creating a peer network to send/receive updates within LAN and/or internet. But till date, there was no control over it's upload/download bandwidth and thus, there was a need for it.

 

Though this feature is not yet announced in Release Notes, but a separate settings page has been seen in recent version of Insiders Preview build, which we are going to discuss in this post.

Published by on under Tips | Win10Tips

After the last Windows Insiders Preview build 16232, which was released on 28th June, Microsoft came up with a new build 16237 for the insiders. If you are in the fast ring, enjoy your weekend exploring the new improvements part of it.

 

This new build mainly focuses improvements to Microsoft Edge, Windows Shell including the Action Center, Emoji Panel, handwriting panel and many more.

Published by on under News | Windows

Code lens is a feature, first introduced in Visual Studio 2013, which helps you to understand important aspects about your code without leaving your favorite editor. It tells us the code changes in a fantastic way, within the code editor.

 

In this small tips & tricks post on Visual Studio, we will learn how to change the font and color settings of Code Lens.

Published by on under Tips | Visual Studio 2013

If you are using Microsoft Word Automation or COM Components to read a MS Word document, you may notice the following error message for few word documents "Error 800A175D - Could Not Open Macro Storage".

 

This is caused by the user account, whose "user hive" is not loaded when Microsoft Word started. Continue reading to know more about the issue and solution.

Published by on under Microsoft Word | Office