10 best practices for successful project management | 10 Things | TechRepublic.com

10 best practices for successful project management 10 Things TechRepublic.com: "Given the high rate of project failures, you might think that companies would be happy to just have their project finish with some degree of success. That’s not the case. Despite the odds, organizations expect projects to be completed faster, cheaper, and better. The only way that these objectives can be met is through the use of effective project management processes and techniques. This list outlines the major phases of managing a project and discusses key steps for each one."

How to display an assembly in the "Add Reference" dialog box

How to display an assembly in the "Add Reference" dialog box: "When you are developing a class library, you may want Visual Studio .NET to list your library in the Add Reference dialog box on the .NET tab without the user having to browse for it.

This issue is not resolved if you install your assembly to the global assembly cache, because the Add Reference dialog box is path-based and does not enumerate the components from the global assembly cache."

Use Case/Project Management Stuff

Some musings/notes.

OpenUP -- their developer and tester stuff is cool. Also the risk management, and the prioritization (like kanban). The Powerpoint was very good.

Use Case structure -- see the wikipedia article for things to include.

Alistair Cockburn's points:

• Structure use cases with goals.
  • Non-functional requirements can be attached to goals.
• Goals have levels - high, low, overarching, short-term detailed, etc.
• Include Stakeholders and Interests - helps separate the wheat from the chaff
• Levels:
  • Brief - 2-4 sentences, for instance in a spreadsheet cell
  • Casual - a few paragraphs
  • Fully dressed - long template, include stakeholders, minimum guarantees, postconditions, business rules, performance constraints, etc.
• Alternative behaviors are more important than the main scenario!! For instance, they reveal subtle requirements.
• Do not use UI elements!
• His resources, templates, etc.

Long use case structure, probably for the detailed view:

• Name
• Version
• Goal - very important
• Summary
• Actors
• Precondition
• Triggers
• Basic course of events
• Alternative paths -
• Postconditions
• Business Rules
• Notes
• Author and Date

Iconix Process in a nutshell

Iconix talks about Robustness Analysis

Shrinking ViewState when using dynamic controls in ASP.NET

"For 'static' controls (meaning controls declared in your .ASPX page) the ViewState carries VERY little overhead, if any at all. Though for Dynamically Created controls the situation is a bit different. Very often when you create Dynamic Controls this is a three phase run:

• Instantiate the Controls
• Set its values
• Add it either directly or in-directly to the Page object

"IF you follow the EXACT same steps in the given sequence as the above list, then your ViewState object will be SIGNIFICANTLY reduced in size! This is also true for ALL WebControls and not only Gaia Ajax Widgets.

"The reason is that when your dynamically created Controls are being added to the page object then its complete lifecycle will execute which means that among other things the ViewState 'IsDirty' flag will be set to TRUE. When the ViewState IsDirty flag is set to true, then all properties you modify afterwards will have its values stored in the ViewState object. If you however set those properties BEFORE adding the Control to the Page object then the ViewState will not be dirty for those properties and values."

Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Scott Hanselman's 2007 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Scott Hanselman's 2007 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows: "Scott Hanselman's 2007 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows"

http://www.connectionstrings.com/

Is what it says. Cool!

dave^2 = -1: An introduction to the SOLID principles of OO design

He makes this stuff more comprehensible than Robert Martin, who is the creator of the acronym.

dave^2 = -1: An introduction to the SOLID principles of OO design: "I would be very hard pressed to go passed [sic] Robert 'Uncle Bob' Martin's SOLID principles as the single most useful tool for helping me with OO design. Some people seem to have a natural talent for OO design and thinking, and have an innate understanding of these principles without requiring the SOLID formalism. I, on the other hand, find them indispensable.

"Unfortunately the names used in the somewhat-cryptic 'acronym of acronyms'[1] don't exactly lend themselves to being easily learned (Bob Martin and Scott discussed how this came about on a Hanselminutes episode on SOLID, which is well worth a listen). I thought I'd post my interpretation of the principles as a refresher for myself, and as an introduction for anyone trying the learn the terminology."

Visual WebGUI: Web UI Development - RIA Platform / Framework

Very, very cool! A few bugs, but it's open source!

Web UI Development - RIA Platform / Framework: "Developing new Rich Internet Applications (RIA) has never been so fast and simple due to Visual WebGui's drag & drop, near zero coding Development Experience. The rapid web development well suited for building small applications UI in a matter of hours as well as very complex and large applications in a very short time. Visual WebGui allows you to use your existing .NET skills and development patterns since it is based on proven desktop & web technologies. It simplifies web development by flattening the development process into a single layer and empowers front-end design with an intuitive visual WYSIWYG Form designer which lets you use any WinForms, ASP.net and Silverlight controls."

Microsoft StyleCop : Introducing StyleCop on Legacy Projects

Microsoft StyleCop : Introducing StyleCop on Legacy Projects: "In this article I’ll describe a technique for doing a slow, staged rollout of StyleCop over your existing codebase. This technique has been used successfully by multiple teams within Microsoft, allowing them to adopt the tool in a controlled manner without generating a lot of noise up front. The general idea is to enable the tool for all of your solutions, but disable the tool from analyzing all pre-existing C# files. This provides the following advantages:"

Peter Van Roy: Programming Paradigms for Dummies

To quote Lambda the Ultimate:

This chapter gives an introduction to all the main programming paradigms, their underlying concepts, and the relationships between them. We give a broad view to help programmers choose the right concepts they need to solve the problems at hand. We give a taxonomy of almost 30 useful programming paradigms and how they are related. Most of them differ only in one or a few concepts, but this can make a world of difference in programming. We explain briefly how programming paradigms influence language design, and we show two sweet spots: dual-paradigm languages and a definitive language. We introduce the main concepts of programming languages: records, closures, independence (concurrency), and named state. We explain the main principles of data abstraction and how it lets us organize large programs. Finally, we conclude by focusing on concurrency, which is widely considered the hardest concept to program with. We present four little-known but important paradigms that greatly simplify concurrent programming with respect to mainstream languages: declarative concurrency (both eager and lazy), functional reactive programming, discrete synchronous programming, and constraint programming. These paradigms have no race conditions and can be used in cases where no other paradigm works. We explain why for multi-core processors and we give several examples from computer music, which often uses these paradigms.

The concurrency stuff looks interesting.

40+ Essential Front End Web Developer Cheat Sheets | tripwire magazine

There's a ton!

24 JavaScript Best Practices for Beginners - Nettuts+

Though it says for beginners, it's not a bad refresher.

Steve Smith and SOLID

Since I missed Steve Smith's presentation at the last .NET SIG, and there is nothing posted (yet), here's a link to the SOLID principles that he was talking about।
[6/22/09 update: here's the link to his presentation.
And a link to Uncle Bob.]

Rio by Vice Magazine

Ask any self-respecting carnivore what to eat in Rio, and they’ll tell you about the rodizios. A rodizio is more than just a meal, it’s an elaborate battle of wits between you and the doe-eyed service staff, as they waft meat under your nose. You indicate your desire to stick or twist with a doublesided card; green meaning “feed me” and red meaning “get away from me, peasant.” Also, when in Rio, don’t forget to find a juice bar, and ask for an açai smoothie. It might look like something Barney the Dinosaur would leave in the toilet, but the Amazonian berries served with ice eradicate all traces of a hangover you got from drinking too much Brahma beer in approximately 30 seconds.



For a true carioca sleeping experience, head in search of the notorious love motels. Paid by the hour, motels are as ubiquitous and well-frequented as churches, with each one even given an individual star rating for their level of service. For a dollar or two per hour, you get your bog-standard plastic sheets and herpes on tap, but if you want to quite literally splash out, the five-star deluxe motels have heart-shaped water beds, sex harnesses, a hot-tub fit for a futebol team and gimp-suits on room service.



Forget hanging out, spend as much time and money as you can buying as much cheap tat as you can get. It’s best to avoid the enormous identikit shopping malls, and take to the streets if you want some weird stuff. Also, look out for the dudes selling racks of bootleg funk carioca CDs. The thrift shops of Lapa are the place to go for the Bonde Do Role look. You can also put together a nice collection of vintage Playboys, which, if you’re lucky, will have had just one careful owner.



In the south zone, there’s a small handful of underground clubs, such as Moo, Dama De Ferro and Fosfobox where you can join an invariably tattooed and bisexual crowd in watching big name DJs or, if you’re really lucky, Madoninha. She’s a blonde dwarf who sings literally translated renditions of Madge classics, such as “Como uma virgem. Oh!” If you want to learn more about “ginga”, the fluidity and movement of Brazil, watch the short film Movimento at brahma.com

Quality Circles and Communication -- brief synopses

Useful information for my job.

Very important point regarding the essence of Kaizen (emphasis added):

Much of the success of Kaizen came about because the system encouraged many small-scale suggestions that were cheap and quick to implement. They also came from shop-floor employees - who had a detailed appreciation of the benefit each change might make to the process concerned. By implementing many small improvements, the overall effect was substantial.

Their communication link has the following important point on communication, which point may have been missing from the communication team project charter:

Co-ordination of departments, teams and groups - e.g. making sure that marketing, production and administration know what each other is doing, when and why

GridView custom paging and sorting

If only I'd known about this page last December!

Multiple IE Versions revisited

I wrote a while back about installing multiple versions of IE on your computer. Since IE 8 came out, I went back to the site to see if it had been updated. It hadn't, but a commenter on the site posted this link: http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm

I haven't tried it yet, however.

Using Script# with ASP.NET

Random notes on this topic.

• Follow instructions here on wiring up the control, specifically the parts about implementing IScriptControl, and overriding OnPreRender() and Render(). However you *must* make one crucial change, or else you'll break ALL javascript on the page.
• You must change this line as follows:

Before:

    var descriptor = new ScriptControlDescriptor("namespace.class", this.ClientID);

After:


    var descriptor = new ScriptControlDescriptor("namespace.class", someOtherControl.ClientID);

The problem is that user controls do not, per se, have an associated HTML control, so it's necessary to place the control's contents inside a Panel. If you do try to create a descriptor using "this", the un-handled error resulting from the $create() call on the client will cause all page-initialization-related Javascript that runs after that point to fail, thus breaking the page in a big way.

GWT Designer, ScriptSharp, Ext JS

Some AJAX things I've been eyeing. Microsoft AJAX just isn't good for certain things, although it's nice.

• GWT, of course. Now 1.6 is in beta.
  
• GWT Designer -- $99 purchase, or $59/year.
  
• Script# - a .NET answer to GWT. Not many widgets, but works with Ext JS (!) via the extsharp project. Was on Codeplex, but removed. Speculation is that MS will integrate it into Visual Studio at some point. Here's a good video/powerpoint presentation on getting started. Helps to navigate your way around the bugs.
  

Asp.Net Session Timeout control

Works with AJAX too.

This is pretty cool. It truly is just something you drop onto the page and configure.

http://weblogs.asp.net/latishsehgal/archive/2008/08/29/asp-net-session-timeout-control.aspx

The blog post describes an important change, but he documents it rather poorly. The changes he describes must be made to the “Timeout.js” script.

Free AJAX progress spinner graphics

How cool is this?!

NYTimes: Job Losses Hint at Vast Remaking of Economy

History happens in slow motion. This article looks like it's eerily foreshadowing the future. We go about our lives, worried about the situation around us, but the world is the same for the most part. After 9/11, everyone talked about how everything would change, yet the world continued as it did before. Irony did not die. But I think that the changes happening now will dwarf the post-9/11 changes that everyone was predicting at the time.

From The New York Times:

Job Losses Hint at Vast Remaking of Economy
By PETER S. GOODMAN and JACK HEALY

With unemployment at 8.1 percent, some economists believe that a wrenching restructuring is under way....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/business/economy/07jobs.html

Building Composite Data Bound Controls in ASP.NET

Describes how to build a CompositeDataBoundControl, overriding CreateChildControls() and so on.

Useful Visual Studio shortcut keys

I didn't know about "match brace," i.e. Ctrl-].

How to determine iPhone firmware version

This didn't work for me. Brought up tons of diagnostics, but no version.

"How do I find out what firmware version my iPhone is?

You don't actually need to know this in order to unlock your iPhone with us, as our software works with all current iPhone firmware versions, but to check yours - simply dial *3001#12345#* then press the call button, compare your Modem version to the table below to find out your firmware version:

1. 04.04.05_G - OTB 1.1.4 iPhone
2. 04.03.13_G - OTB 1.1.3 iPhone
3. 04.02.13_G - OTB 1.1.2 iPhone
4. 04.01.13_G - OTB 1.1.1 iPhone"

ASP.NET AJAX partial update does not work with xhtmlConformance tag in web.config

What a pain! I spent hours troubleshooting this.

I converted a .NET 1.1 application to .NET 2.0. The web.config had this section:

  <system.web>
    ...
    <xhtmlConformance mode="Legacy"/>
    ...
  </system.web>

When I removed the xhtmlConformance tag, it began working again.

Temporal Data Techniques in SQL

Timestamps, holidays, etc., written by a member of the SQL-92 standards committee. Maybe coulda used this at Rockwell!

THE PALM PILOT AND THE HUMAN BRAIN

Interesting...

Part I.

and Part II.

Jeff Hawkins' web site is here: http://www.onintelligence.org/

Microsoft Naming Conventions

"The general format for a namespace name is as follows:

<Company>.(<Product>|<Technology>)[.<Feature>][.<Subnamespace>]

For example, Microsoft.WindowsMobile.DirectX."

Economy Made Few Gains in Bush Years

"President Bush has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, and economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly view his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation's thorniest fiscal challenges."

And yet there are those who will worship Dubya until the day they die. How can you take seriously any supposedly religious person who believes that Dubya was sent by God? Maybe he was sent by God to punish us for something -- like to punish us for voting Republican.

Developing a use case document, looking for guides or software to help

On StackOverflow.com, someone asked about a good reference guide and templates for writing use cases. The person with the best answer talked about Alistair Cockburn, and mentioned this document as well, which I haven't read yet: http://www.bredemeyer.com/pdf_files/functreq.pdf

Goodbye Tangled Cables, Wrap the iPod Earphone Cord Neatly

I got an iPhone 3G on December 4, so this is invaluable to know.

My first WSCF web service project. Contract first, code later.

We're using WSCF (Web Services Contract First) 0.7 at work, and this guy published a review of an earlier version (0.5). He loved it except for the following, which might be different in 0.7, but I haven't checked yet:

"So far using WSCF for building the web service is quite a success. But I did not use it for building the consuming client. My main problem was that every roundtrip of the contracts requires deploying (plain copy) the generated wsdl and the accompanying schema's to the client code. Instead I created just a server project which included the contract schema's. One clean and independent project. As all info needed by a consumer of the service is in the wsdl all the consuming client application needs is a reference to the wsdl. Which is exactly what add web reference in VS does. Having updated the service all I need to do in the client project is Update Web Reference. However, the proxy generated by WCSF does offer some nice extra's. It returns the data (when the option in the wizard is set) as a collection, the VS web reference just sees an plain array. I also have to set the service endpoint (the URL with it's location) by hand. The latter is something I'll have to do anyhow, as it will be read from a config file. And I can live with the arrays as a trade off for a cleaner development process. This is a point where WSCF could be improved."

LINQ support on .NET 2.0

Oh thank god!!!

I'm working in a shop with ancient servers which run only .NET 2.0, so this is a wonderful thing to know about. Woo hoo!

Here's what he has to say:

1. "Create a new console application
   
2. Keep only System and System.Core as referenced assemblies
   
3. Set Copy Local to true for System.Core, because it does not exist in .NET 2.0
   
4. Use a LINQ query in the Main method. For example the one below.
   
5. Build
   
6. Copy all the bin output to a machine where only .NET 2.0 is installed
   
7. Run"
   

[Update Apr 2 2009: This didn't work for me because our server was using .NET 2.0 without SP1. Instead, I used the excellent LINQBridge.]

Gizmodo's 20 Essential iPhone Apps

Some cool shite.

Cool Bennett Adelson talk by Steve Smith

The talk was titled "Programmatic ASP.NET Tips and Tricks," by Steve Smith, INETA
November 11th, 2008

Google Advice for writing testable code

From Miško Hevery's blog:

"Flaw #1: Constructor does Real Work

Warning Signs

• new keyword in a constructor or at field declaration
• Static method calls in a constructor or at field declaration
• Anything more than field assignment in constructors
• Object not fully initialized after the constructor finishes (watch out forinitialize methods)
• Control flow (conditional or looping logic) in a constructor
• Code does complex object graph construction inside a constructor rather than using a factory or builder
• Adding or using an initialization block

Flaw #2: Digging into Collaborators

Warning Signs

• Objects are passed in but never used directly (only used to get access to other objects)
• Law of Demeter violation: method call chain walks an object graph with more than one dot (.)
• Suspicious names: context, environment, principal, container, or manager

Flaw #3: Brittle Global State & Singletons

Warning Signs

• Adding or using singletons
• Adding or using static fields or static methods
• Adding or using static initialization blocks
• Adding or using registries
• Adding or using service locators

Flaw #4: Class Does Too Much

Warning Signs

• Summing up what the class does includes the word “and”
• Class would be challenging for new team members to read and quickly “get it”
• Class has fields that are only used in some methods
• Class has static methods that only operate on parameters"

LINQ Reference Documentation

From Charlie Calvert's Community Blog:

"The LINQ documentation created by Microsoft is available both inside Visual Studio, and for free via the MSDN library found on the WEB. Here are some important pages from that documentation that can help you navigate through the online reference material that Microsoft has prepared for LINQ developers:

· The Root MSDN Library Page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/default.aspx

· .NET Development: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa139615.aspx

· .NET Framework 3.5: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w0x726c2.aspx

· System.Linq: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.linq.aspx

· System.Data.Linq: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.linq.aspx

· System.Xml.Linq: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.linq.aspx

· Code Generation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb399400.aspx

· More on Joins: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb311040.aspx

· For more information on the operators, see the section of the online help called “The .NET Standard Query Operators.” It is written by Anders Hejlsberg and Mads Torgersen. The URL is http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb394939.aspx

I would not suggest using these references materials as a primary means of learning LINQ. However, if you have a book or other guide to LINQ development, then this reference material can be a useful addendum to that text. If you understand in a general way how LINQ works, but need answers to detailed questions, the links provided here may sometimes help you find answers."

Money-Saving Meal Plans at Whole Foods

Advice for constructing a menu for the week, from Whole Foods. Kind of a cool idea!

How To: Use Impersonation and Delegation in ASP.NET 2.0

Has an API to login as a different user. See also this link: How To: Encrypt Configuration Sections in ASP.NET 2.0 Using RSA

And this link: Encrypting configuration files using protected configuration, to avoid the dreaded "The RSA key container could not be opened" error. It tells you to encrypt using this command:
aspnet_regiis -pa "NetFrameworkConfigurationKey" "ASPNET"

So, for example, to encrypt user identity (in one line):

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -pa "NetFrameworkConfigurationKey" "ASPNET" -pef system.web/identity C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\SimpleEmailWebService

The relevant code is this:

    // From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998351.aspx

public class NativeWindowsSecurity
{
// Declare signatures for Win32 LogonUser and CloseHandle APIs
[DllImport("advapi32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern bool LogonUser(
string principal,
string authority,
string password,
LogonSessionType logonType,
LogonProvider logonProvider,
out IntPtr token);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern bool CloseHandle(IntPtr handle);

public enum LogonSessionType : uint
{
Interactive = 2,
Network,
Batch,
Service,
NetworkCleartext = 8,
NewCredentials
}

public enum LogonProvider : uint
{
Default = 0, // default for platform (use this!)
WinNT35,     // sends smoke signals to authority
WinNT40,     // uses NTLM
WinNT50      // negotiates Kerb or NTLM
}
}

CSU Library Research Databases

• EBSCOhost Research Databases: Menu of databases provided through EBSCO Publishing.
• Business Source Complete (1886- some full text): Index, abstracts, and full text covering scholarly business journals on management, economics, finance, accounting, international business and much more.
• Wall Street Journal (1984-): Contains full text articles from the Wall Street Journal from January 2, 1984 through today's issue. Browse issues, or search for terms in citation, abstract, or article text.
• Use keyword search on:
  
• your company
• supply chain
  
• logistics
  
• quality
  
• strategy
  
• etc

.NET format string cheat sheet in PDF format

VS 2008 Nested Master Page Support

Scott Guthrie has this to say about VS 2008 Nested Master Page Support:

"The good news is that VS 2008 fully supports nested master pages, and makes using them super easy. Going forward I recommend that almost all ASP.NET projects should advantage of this feature - since it can add tremendous flexibility to the UI of your projects."

Also mentions Open Source Templates.

Tips for Nested Master Pages and VS 2005 Design-Time

From Scott Guthrie. He has sample code to get around the problem of nested master pages not being editable in the visual designer. (Emphasis added.)

"One of the cool advanced features of the new Master Pages feature in ASP.NET 2.0 is the ability to nest them. For example, you could define a top-level master-page called “MainMaster.master” that defines a common logo header and footer, and defines a content-placeholder for the page called “content”. You could then define two sub-masters beneath it – one that provides a two-column layout model for the content (“TwoColumnMaster.master”), and one that provides a three-column layout model (“ThreeColumnMaster.master”). These two nested-master pages could then use the MainMaster.master file as the root master, and only adjust the layout within its content section (each would fill in the "content" placeholder and in turn add their own content-placeholders for sub-pages within it). The benefit of this approach is that if a designer ever changed the logo or top-level design of the site, they only have to update one file (MainMaster.master) and then have every page on the site automatically pick it up regardless of what master file they were based on.

"This nested model is pretty cool and powerful, and allows arbitrary levels of nesting. The only downside is that VS 2005 only supports nested master page editing in source-view, and doesn’t support it in the WYWSIWYG designer (note: obviously it does support editing them when the master-pages are not nested). "

Cool way to style HTML forms using CSS

Interesting article at Webmonkey. Uses things I've never heard of, including <fieldset> and <legend> tags, and using unordered lists and stylesheets to style the forms.

CMS Ratings

This article publishes ratings of many different open source CMS systems.

jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX UpdateRegion

When using jQuery with Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel controls, you need code similar to this, in a script tag in the UpdatePanel. Otherwise events are fired multiple times, and event.preventDefault() does not work.

    // Necessary for update regions.

    Sys.Application.add_load(WireEvents);

    function WireEvents() {

// my jQuery "ready" event stuff goes here.

    }

Normally, of course, you would do the following:

    $(document).ready(function{} {

// my jQuery "ready" event stuff goes here.

    });

Google hosting javascript libraries

The AJAX Libraries API is a content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular open source JavaScript libraries. By using the Google AJAX API Loader's google.load() method, your application has high speed, globaly available access to a growing list of the most popular JavaScript open source libraries including:

• jQuery
• jQuery UI
• Prototype
• script.aculo.us
• MooTools
• Dojo

Applied Software Project Management - Test Plan and Test Cases

Applied Software Project Management - Test Plan and Test Cases: "The goal of test planning is to establish the list of tasks that, if performed, will identify all of the requirements that have not been met in the software. The main work product is the test plan. There are many standards that can be used for developing test plans. The following table shows the outline of a typical test plan. (This outline was adapted from IEEE 829, the most common standard for software test plans.)"

There's also this Wikipedia link, which gives an outline of the IEEE 829-1998 test plan outline: Test Plan

Install multiple versions of IE on your PC | TredoSoft

Install multiple versions of IE on your PC TredoSoft: "It is not difficult to follow the instructions and get any version of IE running in standalone along side other versions. Most of you probably know of evolt's archive of Internet Explorer which has them readily packaged in ZIP files. Now suppose you want to download them all. An installer that would conveniently automate the whole process would be great. Thanks to this comment for the idea. "

Testing on Mobile Devices using Emulators « klauskomenda.com

Testing on Mobile Devices using Emulators « klauskomenda.com -- Has a list of emulators with photos of the emulators.

Mobile Web Developer’s Guide Part I

Mobile Web Developer’s Guide Part I
-- excellent guide to designing mobile web apps! Includes how to think of page flow, how to think about the options available to a mobile user, the market segment breakdown to phone types (in 2007), the choice of WAP, WXHTML, etc., and recommendations and best practices.

Mobile Emulators | dev.mobi

Mobile Emulators | dev.mobi: "The following emulators are very usful for testing mobile applications without incurring data charges.

• dotMobi Online Emulator - mTLD has an online emulator that you can use to quickly see what your site will look like on a common phone
  
• Nokia Browser Simulator - this simulator simulates a generic Nokia phone and WAP gateway
• Openwave Phone Simulator - Openwave's browser simulator
• Opera Mini Simulator - simulates Opera's popular J2ME browser
• BlackBerry Simulator - multiple different BlackBerry simulators
• Yospace SmartPhone Emulator - a versatile emulator that can display multiple phone instances at the same time"

The dotMobi one is pretty cool!

Gloger_TototaScrum-170706.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Toyota Way mapped to Scrum (pdf)

CodeProject: 100% Reflective Class Diagram Creation Tool. Free source code and programming help

CodeProject: 100% Reflective Class Diagram Creation Tool. Free source code and programming help

Simple graph drawing algorithms too!!!

Microsoft Virtual Labs

TechNet Virtual Labs: "Quickly evaluate and test Microsoft's newest server products through a series of guided, hands-on labs you can complete in 90 minutes or less. You can use TechNet Virtual Labs online immediately, free. Start by selecting the lab you're interested in from the list below."

Also this link, which appears to be more inclusive: http://www.microsoft.com/events/vlabs/default.mspx

They only work in Internet Explorer.

Migration: Convert A Java Web Application To ASP.NET Using JLCA

Migration: Convert A Java Web Application To ASP.NET Using JLCA: "The JLCA is a tool used to convert a Java application into a C# application. The tool has shipped with Visual Studio® since Visual Studio .NET 2003. Currently in version 3.0, the JLCA is included with Visual Studio 2005 and is also available as a free download from the JLCA home page.

Version 3.0 includes enhancements to convert Java artifacts, such as Servlets and Java Server Pages (JSPs), as well as rich-client applications that use Swing or the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT). In practice, the JLCA provides a very good place to start a conversion, but it will not successfully complete the entire process. So don’t expect this to be completely hands-free—you will still need to do some manual resolution of converted items after using the tool."

How safe is instant messaging? A security and privacy survey | The Iconoclast - politics, law, and technology - CNET News.com

How safe is instant messaging? A security and privacy survey | The Iconoclast - politics, law, and technology - CNET News.com: "The number of interested parties eager to listen in on your online conversations, including what you type through instant messaging, has never been higher.

It's trivial to monitor unencrypted wireless networks and snatch IM passwords as they flow through the ether. Broadband providers and their business partners are enthusiastically peeking into their customers' conversations. A bipartisan majority in Congress has handed the FBI and shadowy government agencies greater surveillance authority than ever before."

Humanist → Why Make Erlang a Functional Language?

I like this page. It gives great rationales, and therefore insightful descriptions, of the core Erlang features.

Humanist → Why Make Erlang a Functional Language?: "I’ve heard the argument many times. People “don’t like Erlang’s syntax so [they] don’t like Erlang.” I, for instance, didn’t understand the block terminator syntax when I was first learning Erlang, so I asked Yariv Sadan about it:"

Here's the accompanying reddit discussion: http://www.reddit.com/r/erlang/info/6p74v/comments/

robert zubek / blog :: Commentary on “A History of Erlang”

Very good summation of an Erlang program -- helps me to visualize it.

robert zubek / blog :: Commentary on “A History of Erlang”: "At a certain level, I always knew that Erlang was designed for programming telephone exchanges. But this paper really conveys the feel for what that means: huge collections of loosely coupled finite-state machines, all running in parallel, doing little bits of protocol validation here and there, but mostly staying dormant."

Relying on getters and setters is mostly wrong, here's why and what to do instead

"Relying on getters and setters is mostly wrong, here's why and what to do instead" (Reddit)

"Mike Feathers has posted an exploration of some ideas about and misconceptions of TDD. I wish that more people were familiar this story that he mentions:

John Nolan, the CTO of a startup named Connextra [...] gave his developers a challenge: write OO code with no getters. Whenever possible, tell another object to do something rather than ask. In the process of doing this, they noticed that their code became supple and easy to change.

That's right: no getters. Well, Steve Freeman was amongst those developers and the rest is history. I think that there's actually a little bit missing from Michael's telling. I'll get to it at the end."

But then, some guy thought this whole idea sucked.

TransactionScope and DataAdapters

My coworker Jason alerted me to this.

How to Choose a Data Synchronization Technology – Offline & Collaboration

To quote from Microsoft's article:

Here at Microsoft there are a number of synchronization technologies that support offline and collaboration data solutions. The key technologies include:

• Microsoft Sync Framework Core Runtime
• Sync Services for ADO.NET
• Merge Replication

Why does Microsoft offer multiple sync solutions? Well, we believe it is virtually impossible to create a single solution that will fit everyone's needs. For example, IT administrators may look for more of a packaged solution that is easy to install and administer. ISVs and developers may be interested in a more embeddable and customizable solution. Ultimately, multiple synchronization solutions give you more choices at the cost of adding increased confusion. Hopefully this summary will help narrow down the choice for you.

The synchronization technologies can be broken down by flexibility and the amount of code required. In general, more code is required to get a greater level of synchronization flexibility.

Perfecting OO's Small Classes and Short Methods

"In The ThoughtWorks Anthology, a new book from the Pragmatic Programmers, there is a fascinating essay called “Object Calisthenics” by Jeff Bay. It’s a detailed exercise for perfecting the writing of the small routines that demonstrate characterize good OO implementations. If you have developers who need to improve their ability to write OO routines, I suggest you have a look-see at this essay. I will try to summarize Bay’s approach here.

He suggests writing a 1000-line program with the constraints listed below. These constraints are intended to be excessively restrictive, so as to force developers out of the procedural groove. I guarantee if you apply this technique, their code will move markedly towards object orientation. The restrictions (which should be mercilessly enforced in this exercise) are:"

Git and SourceSafe

Procedure for merging from POS-safe. (I documented elsewhere how to do the daily merge.)

1. Diff-tree from master to the desired merge point.
2. Check out the files marked as "M" or "D"
3. Merge desired merge point into master.
4. Check in the files marked as "M" or "D"
5. Add the files marked as "A".
   

Specific commands are here:

1. git diff-tree master POS-safe --name-status -r | tee files.txt
2. ./Python/VSSHelper.py -o -d files.txt
3. git merge POS-safe
4. ./Python/VSSHelper.py -i -d files.txt -c "VSS check-in comment."
5. Manually add files to SourceSafe. This should be easy in Visual Studio. If not, use the VSS client.
   

MSAGL: Microsoft Automatic Graph Layout (formerly known as GLEE)

"MSAGL: Microsoft Automatic Graph Layout

MSAGL is a .NET tool for graph layout and viewing. It was developed in Microsoft Research by Lev Nachmanson. MSAGL is built on the principle of the Sugiyama scheme; it produces so called layered, or hierarchical layouts. This kind of a layout naturally applies to graphs with some flow of information. The graph could represent a control flow graph of a program, a state machine, a C++ class hierarchy, etc."

This was formerly known as GLEE:

"GLEE: Graph Layout Engine
GLEE: Graph Layout Execution Engine Tool purpose GLEE is a .NET tool for graph layout and viewing. It has been developed in Microsoft Research by Lev Nachmanson
http://research.microsoft.com/users/levnach/GLEEWebPage.htm"

Terminal Services Group Policy (how to set timeouts for remote sessions)

How to configure remote desktop (terminal services) to prevent idle users from using up the precious connections.

It's so freaking NON-obvious how to get to the Group Policy Object Editor.

Run this:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\mmc.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\gpedit.msc

Version Control for Multiple Agile Teams

Sorting for Humans : Natural Sort Order

How to solve the following problem when comparing or sorting strings:
1.1
1.10
1.11
1.2
etc.

1.2 should come *before* 1.10, etc., but in a naive sort it does not.

See also the C# code he cites: http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/2007/12/13/natural-sorting

Subversion Authentication With a Windows Domain

Really quite easy, according to a colleague.

Git stuff - Git.Net and "Why DVCS Matters to you today"

Why Distributed Version Control Matters to You, Today - Has groovy diagrams and pictures.

Application for Google Summer of Code 2008, Mono Project - Git.Net. Fantastic idea!

Knowing when to ask for help - Microsoft SharedView

Cool!

Technology Review: Blogs: Ed Boyden's blog: How to Think

Technology Review: Blogs: Ed Boyden's blog: How to Think: "When I applied for my faculty job at the MIT Media Lab, I had to write a teaching statement. One of the things I proposed was to teach a class called 'How to Think,' which would focus on how to be creative, thoughtful, and powerful in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure. In the process of thinking about this, I composed 10 rules, which I sometimes share with students. I've listed them here, followed by some practical advice on implementation."

Tactics for Reducing the Subjective Experience of Down Time

"Time indicators

The formulae below all depend on use of a time indicator. The following choices of time indicators are listed from most to least desirable.

1. Estimated and remaining-time indicator. Place this either in a modal dialog or in the status bar at the bottom of the window.
2. "The system is alive" indicator. When it is impractical to offer the actual times, show an animated object that will let users know the system has not frozen. For longer waits, choose the rolling barber pole often found in status bars or other large animated object. For shorter waits (less than 10 seconds), you may use, instead, an animated "wait" mouse pointer, such as a spinning ball or animated hour glass.
3. "I hear and understand" indicator. When the expected wait is of short enough duration (less than 2 seconds) that displaying elapsed time, etc., is meaningless, display the hour glass."

7 Food Hacks to Stay Alert Without Caffeine

Kinda cool.

How-To: vmware-tools hgfs module on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10)

Arg. Doesn't work out of the box, disallowing you to use shared directories. Luckily this guy provided a way to fix it!

Intercepting method calls in C#, an approach to Aspect-Oriented Software Development

Cool! Roy Osherove used this to develop XtUnit, an NUnit addin which implements database rollbacks, described here. He uses System.Transactions.TransactionScope, which is a .NET facility for creating transactable components. Tres cool, no?

.NET Makes Window Subclassing Easy - Tap into Windows OS messages

NativeWindow -- kinda cool.

Community Pricing for goods (books, specifically)

This is something like an auction, no? Very interesting concept.

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/02/community_pricing_for_books.html

Git: Viewing history of one file

How cool is this?

gitk HEAD -- filename

Git stuff

From Wincent: his git knowledge base.
Git for computer scientists.

Signs of a Bad Boss (seen by me in the wild)

A certain someone at a certain company fit this to a T.

Bosses are supposed to ask themselves these questions:

1. Have you ever publicly criticized an employee?

2. Do you take credit for your employees’ work?

3. Do your employees fear you?

4. Do you expect employees to do what you tell them without question?

5. Do you believe employees should know what to do without you telling them or providing guidelines?

6. Are you a yeller?

7. Do you demean employees as a form of punishment?

8. Do you play favorites?

9. Do you hate delegating?

10. Do you check everyone’s work?

How to find files that are different between two git trees (working with git and, *gulp*, SourceSafe)

I do this a lot in my project. I change a bunch of files, and since I'm working with SourceSafe, I need to know which files to check out of SourceSafe so that I can replace them with the changed versions.

Use this command:

git diff-tree -r --name-status branch1 branch2

where branch1 is the branch I'm going to check into SourceSafe and branch2 is the upstream branch.

Example:

/c/Yellowstone.master
$ git diff-tree -r --name-status master POS-safe
M       Databases/OpenBook/Alter Scripts/THE ONLY 2.2 ALTER SCRIPT YOU NEED.sql
M       OpenBookSolution/HotL/DirectBillPaymentForm.cs
M       OpenBookSolution/HotL/EditReservationForm.cs
M       OpenBookSolution/HotL/NonGraphicalReserveForm.cs
M       OpenBookSolution/HotL/OpenBook.cs
M       OpenBookSolution/HotL/ReportForms/ReportSelectorForm.cs
M       OpenBookSolution/HotL/SelectDirectBillAccountForm.cs
A       OpenBookSolution/HotLOnly.sln
D       OpenBookSolution/HotLOnly/HotLOnly.sln
M       OpenBookSolution/Yellowstone.OpenBook.BusinessEntities/MonetariesBusinessEntity.cs

/c/Yellowstone.master
$

The basic procedure is:

1. hack hack hack
2. Get my tree in good shape, usually by rebasing my branch onto the SourceSafe tracking branch.*
   
3. Run the diff-tree command above to find changed files.
4. Check out those files. If there are any warnings from SourceSafe about the files being different (and not just writable), then do the following:
1. Get latest from SourceSafe into the SourceSafe tracking branch (typically "master") in my project.
2. Commit.
3. Go back to step 2 above.
   
5. Merge development branch into master. Sometimes I do this step a commit or three at a time instead of an en masse merge of the branch all at once.
   
6. Check changed files back into SourceSafe.
   

*I realize that rebasing my development branch onto "master" probably isn't the wisest thing in the world, as it loses information -- specifically, the fact that I had branched the code. It was an interesting experiment, though. Perhaps I'll go back to merging again. Although the fact that we're using SourceSafe, which doesn't have the concept of a branch, probably means that what I'm doing isn't all that un-kosher.

The flavor of git I use is msysgit.

Linus clarifies "Central Repository" issue on git in a way palatable to managers

Linus was previously rather dogmatic about having no "official" version of a project. But here he's not quite so religious and explains how you can effectively satisfy those who would like a central repository. The distinction, he says, is social, not technical:

I certainly agree that almost any project will want a "central" repository
in the sense that you want to have one canonical default source base that people think of as the "primary" source base.

But that should not be a *technical* distinction, it should be a *social* one, if you see what I mean. The reason? Quite often, certain groups would know that there is a primary archive, but for various reasons would want to ignore that knowledge: the reasons can be any of ....

ExtJS javascript library

Tres cool!

"Ext (pronounced "extent"^{[citation needed]}) is an open-source JavaScript library, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as AJAX, DHTML and DOM scripting.

Originally built as an extension of YUI, Ext can now also extend jQuery and Prototype. As of version 1.1, Ext can run stand-alone without relying on any of those external libraries, though they remain an option for integration.

Ext version 2.0 can now use many different base libraries (adapters) like YUI, jQuery, Prototype or it can work Stand-alone"

PyPy "dot" graph viewer (Python)

Referred to from this site: http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2008/01/visualizing-python-tokenizer.html:

"For debugging purposes I implemented a visualization tool for DFAs using PyPy's pygame-based graph viewer. The graph viewer is able to visualize interactively any graph given in the graph-description language of Graphviz. Looking at the tokenizing DFA for Python is rather instructive, both for understanding how tokenizing works and (maybe) for understanding the Python language. To try it, download the dot file of the DFA and run from a pypy checkout:

$ python pypy/bin/dotviewer.py tokenizer.dot

The following is a screenshot of the graphviewer: "

TCL: Creating Temporary Files

From the page:

"Tcl doesn't have a built-in command to create a temporary file and there are no built-in variables for temp directories, so you have to do a little work.

....

I had some luck with the following procedure on a UNIX box. Maybe, somebody can check if it works for windows.

 proc tempfile {prefix suffix} {
  set chars "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
  set nrand_chars 10
  set maxtries 10
  set access [list RDWR CREAT EXCL TRUNC]
  set permission 0600
  set channel ""
  set checked_dir_writable 0
  set mypid [pid]
  for {set i 0} {$i < $maxtries} {incr i} {
set newname $prefix
for {set j 0} {$j < $nrand_chars} {incr j} {
   append newname [string index $chars \
    [expr ([clock clicks] ^ $mypid) % 62]]
}
append newname $suffix
if {[file exists $newname]} {
   after 1
} else {
   if {[catch {open $newname $access $permission} channel]} {
if {!$checked_dir_writable} {
    set dirname [file dirname $newname]
    if {![file writable $dirname]} {
 error "Directory $dirname is not writable"
    }
    set checked_dir_writable 1
}
   } else {
# Success
return [list $newname $channel]
   }
}
  }
  if {[string compare $channel ""]} {
error "Failed to open a temporary file: $chanel"
  } else {
error "Failed to find an unused temporary file name"
  }
}

Igor Volobouev"

sysobjects and Object Types in SQL Server

Object type. Can be one of these object types:

C = CHECK constraint
D = Default or DEFAULT constraint
F = FOREIGN KEY constraint
L = Log
FN = Scalar function
IF = Inlined table-function
P = Stored procedure
PK = PRIMARY KEY constraint (type is K)
RF = Replication filter stored procedure
S = System table
TF = Table function
TR = Trigger
U = User table
UQ = UNIQUE constraint (type is K)
V = View
X = Extended stored procedure

Slashdot English

"Re:English anyone?? (Score:5, Funny)

by flyingfsck (986395) on Sunday December 23, @02:58PM (#21799764)

Slashdot Engrish is to be informating and not to be laughful at."

Open Source XML Diff Written in Java

From http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/open-source-xml-diff-in-java:

"Jon Udell has a column about "Structured Change Detection" where he mentions some XML diff tools that exist. The tools that he mentioned are proprietary implementations, so I was curious if I could find some open source ones. Well fortunately, I've found a whole bunch of them:

1. VMTools - The toolkit contains tools for automatically generating differences between two XML documents. The difference document generated is optimized for minimal size. Supports mark-up style documents in addition to data documents.
2. 3DM - The 3DM tool is a tool for performing 3-way merging and differencing of XML files. Unlike line-based tools, such as diff and diff3, 3DM is aware of the structure of the processed XML documents. 3DM is not limited to update/insert/delete operations, it also handles moves and copies of entire subtrees. 3DM is not reliant on edit histories; the only input needed are the XML files.
3. diffxml - Standard UNIX tools exist for comparing (diff) and patching (patch) files, which operate on a line by line basis using well-studied methods for computing the longest common subsequence (LCS). This project contains XML diff and patch utilities. Also contains an implementation of a Delta Update Language or DUL.
4. diffmk - Converts the documents into two lists of nodes (text and/or element nodes) and attempts to find the longest common subsequence of nodes. Phrased another way, it finds the smallest number of additions and deletions to each list that are required to make the two lists the same.
5. XMLUnit - XMLUnit for Java provides two JUnit extension classes, XMLAssert and XMLTestCase, and a set of supporting classes (e.g. Diff, DetailedDiff ) that allow assertions to be made about the differences between two pieces of XML. XMLUnit for Java can also treat HTML content (even badly-formed HTML) as valid XML to allow these assertions to be made about the content of web pages too.
6. OpenSHORE XML Merger - ool to insert XML tags from differnt sources into one or more text files. The Java program reads a very simple file format (*.xmlm files) with one XML command per line. XMLM sorts these commands, removes duplicates, ensures correct tag structure and generate XML files from listed files.
7. XOperator - XOperator is a scriptable command-line tool and library to compare, merge and synchronize XML documents, a framework to formulate and evaluate algebraic expressions on XML trees and a framework to express object-oriented inheritance (and more) in pure XML.
8. JXyDiff - JXyDiff is a based on XyDiff. It was originally developed at INRIA. It employs a novel Change Model tailored to XML data. It is a tree oriented algorithm that is fast and can detect if a node has been moved or updated.
9. DiffX - DiffX is an open source Java API for comparing XML documents by analyzing the sequence of XML events. When processing XML data for comparison it more interesting to know that a word in the text of chapter X, paragraph Y has been changed rather than knowing that line Z is different. DiffX can ignorethe order of the attributes and white space for indentation or namespace prefixes.
10. XMLPatch - XMLPatch, developed at Nokia, is a framework utilizing XML Path language (XPath) selectors for the use in applying a set of patches to a document. The framework includes a simple xml-diff utility.
11. XMerge - The XMerge SDK provides a framework for converting documents between different formats using conversion plugins to read and write each format. In addition to format conversion, the XMerge SDK provides a framework for merging changes in one document format into an original document. XMerge provides plugins that are designed to support the OpenOffice.org XML file format. The framework is able to support "chaining" of conversions, also known as an "Any-to-Any" conversion, eg. convert from a Palm document to a PocketPC document through the intermediate OpenOffice.org XML file format."

"Could not load file or assembly or one of its dependencies. Access is denied" when compiling .NET assembly

Compiling with a reference to a third-party, licensed control. (UltraGrid-something-something.) Encountered the error: "Could not load file or assembly or one of its dependencies. Access is denied"

The problem was that the directories in which the source files existed had weird permissions. (I think the root cause was using a cygwin version of git to create the subdirectories.) I changed the permissions using the "Advanced" button of the Security tab. When done properly, the "Inherited From" column showed "C:\" as where the privileges were inherited from. The broken version had the "inherited from" as inheriting from nothing.

I believe I had to check the "Inherit" box to get this to work properly, and then click the "Remove" button in the Advanced view to remove the permission entries which did not inherit from C:\.

Correct permissions look like this:

Case sensitivity in bash

Case sensitivity in bash: How to turn off case sensitivity in the bash shell.

And, "to turn off the annoying beep each time you make a typo on a Unix terminal (Linux, cygwin etc.), just add the line

    set bell-style none

to the file .inputrc under your home directory."

EasyVMX!: Virtual Machine Creator

EasyVMX!: Virtual Machine Creator: "EasyVMX! is the simple and failsafe way to create complete virtual machines for VMware Player on the web. You can install any Windows, Linux, BSD or Solaris, and test LiveCDs in a safe environment."

Danger! Lousy Employer Ahead

Danger! Lousy Employer Ahead: "Danger! Lousy Employer Ahead If a potential employer wants proof of your previous salary and gives vague answers to specific questions, bolt for the exit"

How Bush wrecked conservatism | Salon.com

How Bush wrecked conservatism | Salon.com: "In the age of Bush, even the conservatives' much-vaunted moral clarity does not always bear close inspection. A Pew poll taken in March found that only 18 percent of self-described conservative Republicans believed that torture was never justified. Who was it who said, 'Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all ... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good'? It must be one of those damn liberals.*

*Romans 12:17, 21"

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense: Scientific American

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense: Scientific American: "Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up"

Occasionally Connected Systems Architecture: Concurrency

Occasionally Connected Systems Architecture: Concurrency: "The problem of concurrency is a familiar one in the development of multi-user systems. Most of the time, optimistic locking is preferred because it results in better throughput. However, pessimistic locking has its place as well for those cases where only one user should be allowed to work on the data. Both of these solutions break down once users start working offline and try to synchronize their updates with the server later."

How Toyota and Linux Keep Collaboration Simple - HBS Working Knowledge

How Toyota and Linux Keep Collaboration Simple - HBS Working Knowledge: "The Toyota and Linux communities illustrate time-tested techniques for collaboration under pressure: Share knowledge widely, frequently, and in small increments, and use universally available tools to do it. From Harvard Business Review."