I ran into this problem this morning. When opening a solution within Visual Studio the application would process each of the projects and then exit abruptly. The application simply closed without any error dialog or feedback as to any problem that had occurred. I checked the event log and found the following .NET runtime error in the application log: .NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3603 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A036050) (80131506) Fortunately a quick search on google led me to this page: http://michaelsync.net/2009/10/31/net-runtime-version-2-0-50727-3603-fatal-execution-engine-error-7a036050-80131506-mscoree-dll. Thank you to Michael Sync for the helpful and detailed walkthrough. I installed the updates from the Microsoft site as recommended and...

I had a realization this afternoon that I may have twitted my last tweet on twitter (say that six times fast!)  The social networking phenomenon that I've contributed to over the last year has become less and less interesting to me as time has passed.  I can see where the service delivers incredible value for some people, I'm just not certain I'm that audience.  In fact, I found myself having to actively become that audience in order for the service to make sense in my life.  That's altogether the wrong way round. I still like the idea of updating my status...

Have you downloaded your copy yet? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=922B4655-93D0-4476-BDA4-94CF5F8D4814&displaylang=en#filelist

I'm not sure what changed.  FireFox used to be one of the most stable browsers I'd ever used.  However, since the upgrade to the 3.x track I've had nothing but problems.  The browser is still functionally great, but the stability has taken a nose-dive.  I've had crashes and lockups on both XP and Vista and despite getting the latest updates and fixes in both environments, the problems continue.  I'd switch to Chrome if it weren't for concerns over security vulnerabilities.  It's a new browser that's still in beta so I'm not surprised there are a few kinks to iron out;...

Lutz Roeder has decided to move on from Reflector.  RedGate will be taking over the project from now on.  Fortunately, they have agreed to maintain the community edition of the software. http://blog.lutzroeder.com/2008/08/future-of-net-reflector.html

Software projects, by nature, have a propensity for getting out of hand.  No matter how tightly we adhere to our carefully crafted development processes, despite diligent and methodical software designing and refactoring, the elusive software project always seems to manage to get away from us and mask its true nature from our prying eyes.  Something close to a bajillion dollars has probably already been spent in attempts to tame the software project and convince it to open up and reveal its inner secrets and with increasing success.  It has certainly been my experience that the software projects I’ve worked on in the last...

While coding up a couple of prototype LINQ queries this morning I came across a rather interesting syntax using anonymous types and object initializers.  I wanted to show an example of using a where clause upon a property of an object but didn’t want to put a bunch of plumbing around it just to set up the example.  In my head an array containing three Person objects would suffice, with each person object having Name and Age properties that I could use in my query.  I wasn’t sure if this would compile but dropped it into the wonderful LinqPad and sure enough...

If you haven't used Snippet Compiler before, I highly recommend you take the 60 seconds necessary to download and evaluate it.  If you're anything like me it will instantly become an indispensable part of your development toolbox.  I've been using Snippet Compiler for over three years now and can't imagine development life without it. You can download Snippet Compiler here. For those skeptics out there who would prefer to know what they are downloading first, just imagine a tool where you could type out snippets of C# to test a certain idea and have it compile into a simple...