all blog posts

Create Excels with C# and EPPlus: A tutorial

Version 4.5.3.3 is the last version of EPPlus you can use without a license for commercial use.
See some alternatives if that is a dealbreaker for you!

26 Apr 2017
excel tutorial

Advanced Windows Explorer

A listing of handy but less known shortcuts in Windows Explorer and some Autohotkey examples on how to add extra functionality.

Open Windows Explorer, the most direct way:

Win + E : Open Windows Explorer


22 Apr 2017
autohotkey powershell windows

PowerShell and Git for the colorblind

My PowerShell, Posh-Git and .gitconfig color configuration because of some red-green troubles with the default configurations.

21 Apr 2017
powershell git

.NET Number and Date Formatting

A cheat sheet with everything there is to know about formatting the primitive types, DateTimes and TimeSpans in .NET.

20 Apr 2017
cheat-sheet

VB.NET vs C# Syntax differences

A cheat sheet outlining the syntax differences between VB.NET and C#. This post is written specifically for advanced C# developers with little to no VB.NET knowledge who need to do some VB.NET coding.

Because some things are just so similar but still confusingly different in VB.NET vs C#…

Along the way we’ll make some amazing discoveries like:

  • There are things VB.NET just can’t do (pointers, …)
  • There are a few cases where VB.NET code is shorter than its C# counterpart (gasp!)
  • VB.NET defaults are not what you might expect from a strongly typed language due to its VB6 legacy (Option Strict, Explicit)
  • There is some VB.NET only stuff that comes in handy from time to time
15 Apr 2017
cheat-sheet

Managing Environment Variables with PowerShell

Working with environment variables in Windows is as easy as:

Win + Pause > "Advanced system settings" > "Environment Variables..."

After which you get a tiny, unresizable, form where you can view and manage them. Something better eventually arrived with Windows 10 but still, PowerShell :)

Use Autohotkey to open the window with Left Alt + Pause:

LAlt & Pause::Run % "rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables"
12 Apr 2017
powershell windows

PowerShell profiles

Reload PowerShell profile

. $profile
11 Apr 2017
powershell windows

Package Manager Console Entity Framework 6 Migrations profile

This tutorial is about adding the following functionality to the Entity Framework Migrations CLI:

  • Execute commands against the project containing the migrations by providing the most likely -Project parameter value
  • Allow updating the database using a numeric TargetMigration (-2 = migrate to the third last migration)
10 Apr 2017
powershell