Many developers have wanted to create an application that runs fully out of the system tray, maybe an application to help you automatically sort files, or something to monitor the clipboard. Many people have implemented these applications and many textbooks provide instruction on how to create an application such as this, however, none of the books I have found show you the most effective way to create the application.

I don't know about everyone else, but I know I spend a lot of time on Google searching for various things. I have also spent a great deal of time adding special search attributes to my searches, things such as "site:msdn2.microsoft.com" to limit my search results to a specific content site. Now with the Google Custom Search Engines I can take things to a whole different level and search all of my specific sites at one time.

I created a new public search engine that searches the following sites.

• Microsoft.com
• MSDN
• MSDN2
• Code Project
• GotDotNet
• MSDN Blogs

In my initial testings it is just amazing to see how quickly I am able to customize a search engine to tailor to my needs

Here is link to my search engine, please provide feedback and let me know what you think! My Search Engine

Today I just started using FireFox 2.0 RC2 and I have to say I am already very impressed by the added features. Like most FireFox users in the past I have resorted to various extensions to get additional functionality that has made FireFox easier for me to user. One of those extensions was "Tab Mix Plus" which was an extension of the tab functionality allowing links to be opened in new tabs instead of new windows when the target was "_blank". In version 2.0 this functionality is standard with FireFox, they have provided native support for this functionality, which was a very good thing as "Tab Mix Plus" is not compatible with version 2.0 as of today.

Aside from the advanced tab control and a nice visual upgrade my favorite change to the browser is spell checker. Yes, it will provide MS Word style spell checking for your input on any and all form fields. I have been testing this functionality and it appears to be very reliable, a great benefit for all of those times posting on message boards etc if you spell like I do!

Another added feature to the core FireFox system is Session Restore. This was another feature that was part of "Tab Mix Plus" where if FireFox is unexpectedly shutdown due to a system crash or some other reasons you will be prompted with the ability to "Restore last session" which will reopen all tabs you had and restore any form fill data that was populated just prior to the crash.

Since this application is still in Release Candidate stage it might not be at its most stable operating point yet, however I am having no difficulties running it as is, therefore I will simply use the RC until the new version comes out. Mozilla does state that you could install the RC and revert to 1.5.* without loosing any bookmarks or other important settings.

For more information on FireFox Version 2.o RC2 please view their information site http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0/releasenotes/#whatsnew.

So like many personal development projects, I have a few ASP.NET applications I am working on that have no money backing them and I need to create reports.  So for the past week or two I have been looking for a good free .NET charting component that I can use to create bar and pie charts for my ASP.NET application.

So far, I have found one free control called "WebChart" provided by Carlos Aguilar Mares via his website, a link to the control is here.

Overall I am very happy with his control, however it does take some manipulation to get things laid out correctly if you are using datasets that have large (20+ character) element titles as the legends and row indicators are sometimes rendered in a non visible location.

I found this to be a very helpful tool for creating simple to moderatley complex data charts. If anyone knows of more "Free" chart components please let me know.