Google Maps V3 tip: fitBounds

Never call the fitBounds method on your Google Maps V3 map when the supporting div is hidden. This will result in an incorrectly calculated zoom level because (apparently) the JavaScript code cannot determine the div dimensions. Always make sure the div is visible before calling fitBounds.

A ReadyBoost tip

I own a relatively old laptop (a once-glorious ASUS Lamborghini VX2) which is limited to 2 GB of RAM. The box is now showing its age, especially when using VS 2010. (Not to mention the lack of a WDDM 1.1 driver for the NVidia Ge Force GO 7700, which makes developing for WP7 a horrible experience). To make things run smoother (or at least to try to make them run smoother), I removed all the “Visual experience” checkboxes in VS 2010 (under Tools / Options) and bought an 8 GB USB flash drive for ReadyBoost.
With the standard FAT formatted file system, ReadyBoost is limited to a 4 GB cache. It does make things a little better but barely worth the effort. Recently I read an MSDN article on this subject that stated that this limitation goes up to 32 GB if you format the flash drive using NTFS. After doing so, I got a 7.7 GB ReadyBoost cache (not the full 8 GB because the manufacturers measure capacity in a different but interesting way) and a noticeable improvement for my old box. Now VS 2010 does load a bit faster and the whole thing does feel a bit more agile.
No luck with the NVidia driver, though…

Silverlight 4, FireFox and Accented Characters

My mother gave me a very common portuguese name: João. You can translate it to 'John', 'Jean', 'Juan' (take your pick). The odd thing about my first name are the three consecutive vowels and the tilde character on top of the 'a'. I get all sorts of funny jokes from my anglo-saxon friends due to this personal oddity. Why is this relevant?

I have been working with Silverlight 4 for a web application (I'm essentally rewriting a big HTML SaaS application) and met a very strange behavior with Silverlight 4 when running on FireFox (and Chrome): I just could not write my name on a TextBox! This is a situation that has been reported by some users but, interestingly, it's not a very common complaint. Of course IE works OK with this.

When searching for a solution for this problem, I found a sample where this issue did not happen. After a bit of research I found the culprit: the "windowless" parameter on the HTML object element (my code had it while the sample did not). If you set this parameter to "true", FireFox will not compose the '~' and the 'a' to produce the dreaded 'ã', so beware!

This issue is irrelevant for english-speaking (and writing) users.