Verizon Network Extender

I was really stoked when I heard that Verizon was going to release the Verizon Network Extender, a femtocell device for directing cell phone traffic over your broadband internet connection. I live in a very rural area, and cell service at my house is non-existent. When I decided to order the device, there were not many user reviews on the web yet, however there does appear to be a few on CNET now. I decided to give it a try anyway, because as an existing Verizon Wireless customer with no service at home, it seemed like an obvious choice.

The Extender has been hooked up for a few days now, and so far it has been working great. Installation was simple, and phone calls have been crystal clear. My phone went from literally no service to four bars. The signal is strong throughout the entire house, including the basement and garage. If you’re interested, Verizon has a helpful installation video here.

If you live in cellular ‘dead zone’ like I do, I highly recommend the product.

Visual Studio and Auto Toolbox Populate

When I began working for my current employer, I joined the largest .NET software project that I have worked with to date. One of our standards is that virtually every UI element is contained within it's own user control. This makes for great re-usability however, it causes increased build times because each build caused the controls within Visual Studio's toolbox to be refreshed. I was told that there was no way around this, and I just assumed that this was correct. However, recently during what felt like a rediculously long wait for a build to complete, I decided to research the issue. Wouldn't you know it, I stumbled across an old post from ScottGu that mentioned an AutoToolboxPopulate setting (along with lots of other useful information). Setting "Tools --> Options --> Windows Forms Designer --> AutoToolboxPopulate" to False prevents the Toolbox from being populated with each build, and has dramatically improved my build times.

The only drawback to setting this to False, is now your user controls will not automatically appear in the Toolbox. At first, I found myself enabling/disabling the setting depending on if I needed to work with UI elemenets, or not. But, then I discovered a function under the Project menu, "Refresh Project Toolbox Items". This allows you refresh Toolbox on demand, instead of with every build. Problem solved.