My 13th Toolbox column in the January 2007 issue of MSDN Magazine is now avaiable online. The January issue examines three products:
- CodeSMART - extends the Visual Studio IDE to improve developer proficiency.
- ZipForge.NET - programmatically create, unzip, repair, and dissect ZIP files.
- HttpWatch - an IE plugin to inspect HTTP headers, cookies, caching, and POST data.
This month's issue reviewed Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Unleashed, by Lars Powers and Mike Snell. From the review:
For developers programming against large, high-level frameworks, mastery of the development environment is increasingly essential. Like many .NET developers, I spend hours inside of Visual Studio each and every day. The more I learn about Visual Studio options, shortcuts, windows, toolbars, and features, the more productive I become and the less time I spend fighting with the IDE.
One book I've found particularly helpful in demystifying the Visual Studio environment is Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Unleashed (Sams, 2006). In this 870-page tome, Lars Powers and Mike Snell meticulously explore the multitude of menus, configuration settings, project types, and features that comprise Visual Studio 2005..
As always, if you have any suggestions for products or books to review for the Toolbox column, please send them into toolsmm@microsoft.com.