.NETs standard tools for bundling and minification are a great asset to the platform solving a lot of problems with only a few lines of code.

However if using IIS 7.0 you may run into a strange issue where the path to your bundles gets created but a 404 is returned whenever there accessed. The functionality is obviously installed and working otherwise the URL wouldn't be created, but a 404 clearly isn't what you want.

The solution lies in your web.config file by setting runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests to true

Centre a map on a collection of pins

The basic way to centre a Google Map is to give it co-ordinates of where you want the map to centre. But what if you have a collection of pin/markers and you want to show all of them but don't know beforehand where they will be.

The solution is to create a LatLngBounds object and for each of your pins call the extend method of your bounds object. Once this is done call fitBounds on your map.

Loading a map in a hidden div

The reason for doing this could be that you have a set of tabs and a non-visible one contains the Google Map. If you instantiate a Google Map when it isn't visible you end up with the smallest map size possible.

One popular solution for this is to only create the map when the tab is being displayed, which is a good option as it means the map is only loaded when it's viewed. However if your using something like Knockout to bind you've views to a model it may not be possible to attach an event to the tab change.

Google Maps actually have an event handler for just this scenario called resize. You simply need to trigger it at the point in which you can size the map.

This is one of those great examples of writing a blog post to yourself to remind you how to do something.

If your using Visual Studio 2012 then to add Git support you will need the Visual Studio Tools for Git plugin created by Microsoft's TFS Power Tools Team (http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/abafc7d6-dcaa-40f4-8a5e-d6724bdb980c), if your using a later version of Visual Studio then it's already built in.

If you're thinking in of using Git Hub as your source control provider then the most basic thing you're going to need to know is how do you get the Git plugin to link up to GitHub. Here's a couple of different methods;

Creating a Project in Git Hub

Click New Repository. Enter a new, Select Public or Private and click Create new Repository.

A new repository will be created in Git Hub

Clone the Project in Visual Studio

Now the project has been created in Git Hub you will need to clone it to your machine so that you can start adding files and sync then back.

Open a new instance of Visual Studio and do the following:

1. Open the Team Explorer window
2. Click the connect button
3. In the list of Local Git Repositories click clone
4. In the URL box enter the HTTP URL from Git Hub
5. The second box should auto populate with a location on your hard disk
6. Click Clone

Creating a Repository on Git Hub using the Git Hub app

Rather than creating the Git Hub repo through the GitHub website you can use their app. Once you've got the app installed and logged in do the following:

1. Select the GitHub account you want to add the repo to on the left
2. Click Create button at the top
3. Enter a name and click create
4. The repository will be created in GitHub and automatically sync with the folder on your machine

Adding an existing Repository to Visual Studio

If you already have a repository cloned on your machine but it's not showing in Team Explorer you can add it by clicking on Add

1. Click the Connect button to view the list of local repositories
2. Click add an enter the path to the repository on your hard drive
3. Click Add

Talk on climate change is something that you cant have missed. This years winter is further evidence that irrespective on debate about the cause something is happening. Many of us now use energy saving bulbs, by appliances with high energy ratings and ensure our homes are sufficiently insulated all to cut down on our energy consumption and the effect it has on the world.

But as developers what about the code that we produce? Do you ever consider how much pollution is caused by the energy required to deliver web pages to users or for an app to function, and what could be done to minimise that pollution.

Ironically many of the things that we can do will ultimately also make an improvement to our users (obviously throwing more servers at a performance issue isn't going to reduce power consumption so their are exceptions).

Here are some examples:

Reducing the number of web requests

Quite simply the less requests a browser needs to make for files the less power it uses to do so. The benefit fir the user is that a browser will generally only make 7 simultaneous requests, so its also faster. We can easily do this by:

• Bundling CSS and JavaScript files
• Using image sprites rather than multiple images
• Ensuring caching is set properly so that files aren't repeatedly being requested when the browser already has a local version

Reducing the amount of data that we send

If we don't send as many bytes then its going to require less packets to send it, which will ultimately require less power to send them. It will also take the user less time to receive them.

• Optimise images to a sensible size. There's no point sending an image 10 times the resolution that's going to be viewed. There's also no point in using images in a format with a larger file size when it looks the same
• Minify CSS and JavaScript files to make them as small as possible
• Don't include CSS and JavaScript that isn't being used. How much of that jQuery UI framework are you actually using. Use the tools around to only include the bits you need
• Write APIs that only include the data that is needed, or give the consumer parameters to choose what fields they have. If your calling an API only get the data you need
• Use JSON services over XML, they have less mark-up

Think about what your code is doing

Lastly just think about what your code is doing:

• Are you making multiple calls to a database for the same data
• Are you posting a list to a server to sort it when the client could instead
• Are you re-loading an entire page just to sort a list
• How many objects are you needlessly creating on the server
• Are you appending string objects when you should be using a Stringbuilder

All these things will ultimately improve the performance of your code as well as reducing power consumption. You may be in a position when you haven't done any of this because performance isn't an issue, but power consumption is. The savings you make may be tiny, but tiny changes made by thousands of people leading to the power used by millions of people can have a profound effect.

Also turn your computer and monitor off when you go home!