Make combo box non-editable in vb.net

I liked programming in vb6 and then I had to move to vb.net as it was way forward. The experience with vb.net is great but there were some things that I wanted to see in vb.net that were in vb6.

I used to make the combo boxes in vb6 non editable, so the user can only select the list values and not add any of his/her own values. When I tried to do this in vb.net I didn’t know how to do it. I had many programming errors in many of my applications just because of this.

It is more frustrating for a person when he has moved away from something and then realises that it was worth a lot.

Most answers are just underneath your nose. The trick to success is to find it sooner.

Then I realised after searching on the internet that if you make the DropdownStyle property to “DropDownList” it will allow user to select the list values but will not allow user to write their own.

Pin Applications to Start Menu

I had always struggled to get the software icons in the location where I could find them easily. I started using Quick launch for this purpose. This was fine for few icons, but then the list started growing and half of my Task bar was filled with software icons. I kept my favourite software application shortcuts on the desktop itself, but my desktop was cluttered so much that I couldn’t see the background image on my desktop. Then I started using a folder on desktop that had all of my favourite software shortcuts. This was alright but I had to click on that folder first to access my icons.

I came across this tip of keeping software icons in start menu and I liked it (I am not sure exactly where I saw this tip so sorry for that), so much so that I started using it straight away. Open the software from the START menu for the first time. When you do this the shortcut is displayed in the START menu. This is fine but when you haven’t used this for a while it disappears from there. To keep it permanently there, right click the application icon and select “Pin to Start menu” as shown in the figure

What to backup when you are formatting your computer

I have an ASUS A6J laptop which I bought in April 2006. This is my first laptop that I have ever bought and I did great research for getting it. When every I decide to format my laptop I back up my entire hard disk to my 160GB WD portable hard disk. I made sure that I had all the utilities and softwares that I will need to install again when I have finished formatting. I backed up all of our photographs as on previous occasion I had formatted my laptop and forgot to backup the photographs from last week. Those photographs were of us inspecting our house that was getting built and was in slab stage. Those photographs were memory for life time but due to one stupid mistake, I wiped them out of our lives. After this instance my wife gave me the 160GB WD portable hard disk as a gift so that I never did this stupid thing again.

After I was satisfied that I have backed up everything, I formatted my laptop and when it was over, I started to install softwares. Everything went perfect and I was happy about my accomplishment. In the evening when my wife took the laptop to check her emails and websites, she looked at me with a question mark on her face. Then in a very sweet voice she asked me “Honey, when you format the laptop and reinstall Windows, do the bookmarks in the explorer get copied automatically?” I knew that was not a question for me to answer and was just to say that “Stupid, you wiped out all of my bookmarks”. After this, I have made a list of things that you need to backup and keep in a safe place before you start formatting your hard disk. The list is

• All important files (and not important files too, you will thank me later)
• Windows settings, remember them or write them down
• Check if you have driver CD (If not get them first before formatting)
• All relevant softwares and utilities
• Photographs
• Work documents
• Bookmarks from Internet explorer or Firefox
• Emails
• Email addresses
• Remember all your passwords or write them down somewhere
• Songs collection
• Movies collection
• Tutorial files (I generally download them as PDF for reading them later)