Don't forget about the GitHub Command Line

I spend so much time at the command line using the Windows Terminal. Then I spend a ton of time using git at the command line. But then I ALT+TAB over to GitHub and mess around in the browser. Why have I been sleeping on the GitHub CLI? - there's a command line interface for GitHub! I installed with "winget install GitHub.cli" but you can get it from...

2d

Crowbits are Electronic Programmable LEGO Compatible Blocks for STEM Education

Late last year I blogged about the Elecrow CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi Laptop. The folks at Elecrow are great and I've used their original CrowPi many times with the kids at and talks. None of these links are affiliate links and I am getting no kickbacks from the company - I'm just a fan and own two of their products. As such I was excited to see their new...

1w

Fix for Elgato Key Light not found by Control Center

Sometimes blogging means lots of long form essays that take weeks to write and drop lots of wisdom. However, many times blogging is just keeping track of a fix for a nagging problem. There may just be 5 or 6 of us with this issue, but if you're that person, this blog post is for you! Welcome to the solving of the issue you just googled for. I recently...

2w

Free Windows 10 development virtual machines for HyperV, Parallels, VirtualBox, and VMWare

You probably know that you can download free developer tools for Windows 10 up at the Windows Dev Center here. Visual Studio Community IS effectively the Pro SKU and is free for Open Source. You may even have a "Take Home" license at your work since the paid version of VS is licensed per-user, not per-machine, so ask your boss if you can install it...

2w

Free eBook: How to use Dapr for .NET Developers

According to the Dapr open source website: "Dapr helps developers build event-driven, resilient distributed applications. Whether on-premises, in the cloud, or on an edge device, Dapr helps you tackle the challenges that come with building microservices and keeps your code platform agnostic." I've had Mark Russinovich on my podcast recently to talk...

3w

DotNet Boxed includes prescriptive templates for .NET Core

This is pretty cool. As you may know, when you type "dotnet new" from the command line, or if you turn on the Visual Studio preview feature "Show all .NET Core templates in the New Project Dialog" that you see a bunch of potential starter templates. These are basic jumping off points for your next new project. Some folks feel there should be more included...

3w

Tiny top-level programs with C# 9 and SmallSharp and Visual Studio

One of the things I'm always working on and am always excited about is making C# simpler for new folks. With .NET 5, today, this works, as it includes C# 9> dotnet new console The template "Console Application" was created successfully > echo System.Console.WriteLine("Hello World"); > program.cs > dotnet run Hello World That's...

4w

Get on the Windows Terminal PREVIEW train - now with Settings UI

Turns out you can install both the Windows Terminal AND the Windows Terminal Preview side by side! This will let you try out all the upcoming features in this "skip next" version. You can grab the next version of the Windows Terminal at https://aka.ms/terminal-preview now. The two Terminals can be pinned side by side if you like. Here you can see the...

4w

Hack a TV into a Teams and Zoom Computer with EpocCam and Miracast

If you have a TV, you can turn it into a fancy conference room monitor and pretend you have a Surface Hub 2S. Let's see the different ways we can make Teams/Zoom meetings more a "walking around and thinking" experience, and less a "hunched in front of the laptop" experience. Cheapest/Good - Wire up to a big TV You can just get a nice HDMI cable and...

Jan 2021

Using Tailscale on Windows to network more easily with WSL2 and Visual Studio Code

Tailscale is a zero config mesh "VPN" that runs atop other networks and effectively "flattens" networks and allows users/services to more easily (and securely) communicate with each other. For example, I've written extensively on how to SSH into WSL2 on Windows 10 from another machine and you'll note that there is not only a ton of steps but there's...

Jan 2021