Khalil Muhammad

Just recently, I noticed that my blog still carried the default About page that normally comes with free WordPress accounts – shame! I’m certain there aren’t many of you out there who care about who I am, you care about the content. Either way, bare with me while I re-introduce myself.

My name is Khalil Muhammad, I am a scholar, a developer and a gentleman. I have spent years developing software – desktop, web, and mobile applications. Currently, I am independent freelance developer, which means I scour the lands searching for worthwhile projects, manage different kinds of clients, solve diverse problem scenarios, and enjoy the bliss of being my own boss.

As a scholar I enjoy learning new stuff, sharing the new stuff I learn, and building new stuff with all these new stuff! If I ever make it back into the academics, I’ll dive into Machine Learning and Data Mining, hopefully one day computers will summarize newspaper articles based on our news reading preferences.

On the side I enjoy photography, chess, football and chasing storms – I believe life without risks is a waste of oxygen. I am a Nigerian, and if possible I’d still come back as a Nigerian in my next life.

I will do my best to engage you with tips from the trenches, (tech) life in Nigeria & Africa, and other innuendos that may just be worth your while.

If you ever wonder why the breakpoints in your Silverlight application are never hit, it is simply because you have not enabled debugging for it. The following steps describe how you can enable debugging for your Silverlight apps.

From the Solution Explorer, select the web project that hosts your Silverlight XAP files, and then Double-click on the Properties icon (see screenshot below) in the project.

This will bring up the Properties page for you web project. Now all you need to do is click on the Web tab, scroll to the bottom of the tab page, and ensure that the Silverlight checkbox is ticked.

It’s that simple! Now you can litter your code with breakpoints and they will surely get hit where necessary.

Here is a handy snippet I normally use to create a CSV string from a simple collection of strings:

   1: public string ToCsv(IEnumerable<string> collection){

   2:     return string.Join(",", collection.ToArray());

   3: }

While brushing up on my LINQ, I stumbled upon this LINQ myth buster. If you haven’t heard, now you know.

I noticed that Windows Vista annoyingly hides the hibernate button when one performs a Disk Cleanup or defragmentation operation. This behaviour may not exist with your system, but if it does then you can bring back your hibernate option.

From the command prompt, enter the command:

powercfg –H on

Note that you’ll need to be logged on with administrative privileges in order to execute the command successfully.

Of course, this problem has been rectified in Windows 7. Enjoy!

Haha, this was really a timewaster considering the fact that I had no difficulty getting as far as I can (Level 5). Hehe. You may want to test your might with the “toughest developer puzzle ever“!!!

Motivation is Hard; Failure is Easy

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I have lived with the conviction that certifications do not determine the best of developers, or the level of growth in our profession; many other things do.

Statistics (from DreamSpark) claims that 55% of hiring managers consider certification as a criterion for hiring; 46% consider it as a criterion for promotion; and 43% of individuals said they have increased salaries due to some sort of certification. So there you have it: certification does have its purpose.

Microsoft has decided to offer some FREE certifications through its Students to Business program. The offer is only for the Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist Certification. I am not sure if the offer is exclusive to members of the S2B program; but if it is, then you can register for free at the Microsoft S2B website.  Oh, and the offer expires by June 30th, 2009. For more information, visit the DreamSpark website.

So, If you have been dragging your feet about being certified, or you could not afford one (hardly unlikely), then here is an opportunity to prove yourself to these “businesses”. Personally, I have decided to get certified for several reasons. One of them is to see if I can do it (success is sweet). Find your own reason to get certified and enjoy this opportunity.

Just yesterday, I discovered an article about a Library of Free Data Models,I knew I had to see the website for myself. I must say, the collection there is quite fascinating. To those who find it important, Enjoy!

I’ve used the XP Style explorer bar several times in my Windows Forms projects. Here is pretty impressive CodeProject article written by Olivier Simon with an implementation of a fully customizable XPlorerBar for WPF.

Screenshot of the WPF XplorerBar