Matt Penner

It’s official!!!!  ReSharper 4.0 has just been released.

This is by far one of the best (and coolest) tools available for Visual Studio.  If you have never heard of, or had a chance to experience, ReSharper then you owe it to yourself to click the link below and check it out.  This tool has made me a better developer both in quality and performance.  I’m definitely a student of TDD, refactoring, patterns, etc.  ReSharper makes using these practices so incredibly easy it just becomes a part of your work.

ReSharper is one of those tools that when you work on someone else’s machine you feel like you’re in the stone age.  Or if you see a presentation and the presenter doesn’t have ReSharper you constantly think "Come on man!  I could have coded that in half the time!"

There’s no way to do it justice here.  Just check it out.

I’ve been using JetBrains software since IntelliJ back when I was a Java programmer.  Every Java dev has their favorite IDE and IntelliJ was mine.  I was sold the instant I ran it.  When I moved over to .Net, honestly, one of the biggest sore points was loosing IntelliJ.  Now with VS 2008 and ReSharper I feel at home again.

Boy, this really sounded like a commercial, huh?  sorry about that.  I’ll try and keep it to a minimum next time.  But if you’re a ReSharper user already I’m sure you understand.

ReSharper:: The Most Intelligent Add-In To Visual Studio

I just found out about ShowMyPC.  I had to call into support for one of our app servers at work and  the tech used this software to remotely control my machine.

That’s no big deal.  I’m sure most of us have done this.  What got me was that this was totally free.

Since I don’t really consult anymore 90% of my remote troubleshooting calls are from customers like "wife", "mom" or "mother-in-law".  I don’t like the idea of spending a monthly subscription fee so that I can help troubleshoot my family and friends.

So my current strategy is I have hamachi installed on all my personal machines and those of my families.  I then use RealVNC to jump in whenever they need me.  It’s been working great.  however, the setup is a pain, especially if the user needs help right away.

The next time I’ll be trying ShowMyPC.  As the website says it’s a free alternative to GoToMyPC and such. 

To use it just go to their website.  For your users they click on the top link:

You simply click on the 2nd link (it’s really just the same target):

Once you click Run you get the following dialog:

Your user clicks the Show My PC Now button and a random password is generated. They tell you this password over the phone.

You click the View a Remote PC button, type in the password, and that’s it!

This is a great tool for quickly helping out simple problems and impromptu calls.

Of course they do have premium features that they charge for, such as branding, using your own secure SSH server, etc.  But for helping out with a quick and dirty question like "my printer isn’t working" this is great.

I still like my hamachi setup for when I need to get into a computer that is unattended or for more advanced features.  I’m sure others of you have similar setups with your program of choice.  But maybe the next time your 4th cousin who doesn’t know how to use the digital camera your 3rd cousin just got them, you can start up ShowMyPC and get them up and running.

ShowMyPC.com – Instant Desktop Sharing and Access Remote PC Free