Grant Winney

Is there anything more satisfying than sharing knowledge? Of teaching someone and witnessing their "ah ha" moment? I usually write about tech, but no promises. I hope you find something interesting!

Articles of Grant Winney

Oct 17, 2019

Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the topmost of them all?

Some devs ask how they can make sure their program is the "most" whatever. The first spot in the notification tray, the first service to run, the topmost of the topmost. They want to make sure that their app is first and foremost before all others... talk about tunnel vision....

woodworking hobbies

Oct 07, 2019

A rolling book rack with extra storage

My wife asked for a book shelf for the kids, but something that would let them see the entire book cover instead of just the binding, like a magazine rack in the store....

github package registry github-package-registry nuget c#carousel tech

Oct 05, 2019

What's this new GitHub Package Registry all about? (using C# and NuGet)

Most of us host something (and some of us everything) on GitHub, especially since they host private repos for free too now. I've been eager to try the GitHub Package Registry since they announced it last May. Well, I just got access to the beta, so let's see what we can do!...

package registry programming dev 101

Oct 03, 2019

What's a package manager?

If you've heard the term package manager, especially with GitHub announcing their own, you might be wondering what exactly it is. Well, it's a way to find, reuse, and share code, among other things....

archival visual studio

Sep 27, 2019

Cannot remove System.Core.dll reference from a VS2010 project

Several years ago, a user on SO tried to add a reference to System.Core manually but couldn't. The "problem" was actually an intentional design choice, as explained by an MSFT employee in a Microsoft Connect post. Then MS killed off Connect instead of making it readonly, so here's a repost....

graphql api tech

Sep 25, 2019

Using the GraphiQL IDE to access a GraphQL API

One of the tools bundled with GraphQL is GraphiQL, which lets users query your API in the browser and see results immediately. This is a huge time-saver! Let's take a look at how GitHub uses it for their GraphQL API....

rest graphql tech

Sep 20, 2019

What is GraphQL and how does it differ from REST?

As much as we'd like to think there's one "best" way to do things, GraphQL is an alternative for REST, not a replacement. And while there's quite a few differences between them, the major difference is that GraphQL lets you build a query to get exactly (and only) the data you're interested in....

web design musings carousel

Sep 17, 2019

7 Mistakes of Modern Web Design

Once upon a time, in the glory days of Geocities, Angelfire, Tripod et al, we were in a race to the bottom, proudly outdoing each other with animated gifs, scrolling marquees, and midi files. But poor web design didn't vanish... it only changed. Here are my current favorites....