Archive for the ‘CCCommunicate’ Category
June 3rd, 2013
hejdig.
As usual there are development stuff at the top and the fun is at the end to lure You into reading.
/OF
—-8<—-
Code and development
Teaching kids programming
Pluralsight, makers of well known online programming videos, are sometimes giving away videos on chosen subjects.
This time it is about learning kids to program.
Caveat1: I haven’t looked through the whole video – my personal competence is higher and my patience lower.
Caveat2: The freebie might be time limited so by the time you read this you might be too late.
– http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/teaching-kids-programming
– http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/learning-programming-scratch
Create random test data for database
I am one of those who has released a solution to customer and had good performance.
Until reality hit with 10000 entries in a table and my bad design floated to the surface like a… like a… like a… floater.
So nowadays I keep my test database filled with data.
But there is still a problem – my test data looks rubbish.
I have below linked a gratis online solution to remedy this. Enter fields, their type (name, country, email, phone, date time, domain, words, sentences and many more) and just press Generate.
The data is clearly US centric but the Datetime is, low and behold! ISO format.
If you need to create random credit card numbers there is a link for that too.
– http://www.databasetestdata.com
– http://www.getcreditcardnumbers.com
el.js – create dom objects easier (web)
Creating dom objects with javascript isn’t hard but boring and ugly.
With jquery it is easier but still ugly.
The lib el.js makes it both easier and better looking to create dom elements.
Follow the link for some examples. Googlewithbing for how it is done in jquery.
– https://github.com/markgandolfo/el.js
Aspnet Webforms life cycle events (dotnet,web)
There are more events than I care to remember in Webforms and normally one doesn’t have to remember but a few.
But then one does Master/Content pages and suddenly realise that the order of events is important.
And then one does some code reuse by implementing a custom control and realise the order of events and what to do in which event is crucial.
Good then to have an explanation and cheat sheet.
– http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178472(v=vs.100).aspx
– http://hemantg.blogspot.se/2010/12/aspnet-event-sequence.html
Visualstudio plugin – Json visualiser (win)
The “visualiser” is the magnifying glass you see when inspecting a variable when debugging in Visual studio.
There are already for text, xml and html. With this download you can also see objects as json.
Come to think of it… with web essentials there is a “paste json as object” alternative. This way one should be able to get any object’s data, anonymous or not, visualise it as json, copy it as string and then pasting a class. Or sniff the network traffic with Fiddler2 or whatnot. Show the data received as json. Copy and paste it as a class structure.
– http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/ca9c71b0-111c-48b8-9119-3a41fa9b88ba
Tutorials on the chrome web browser debugger (web)
I use different web browsers not only because my users do but also because the debugging tools excel at different things.
Below are some courses on the debugger in Chrome.
I recommend it if you do web development – even a die hard sooper dooper hard kore hacker like I found a gem. To be precise: it is not because I don’t know but because the user interface is a bit clumsy sometimes and hides its own functionality.
If you continue to browse codeschool there are more courses and after a signup some of them are gratis.
Competence level on courses are between beginner and experienced.
– http://discover-devtools.codeschool.com
Can we ditch jquery? (web)
As per today I reflexively include jquery in my web projects.
But do I need to?
If one can skip IE6 (which one can, depending on target audience) and soon skip IE7 there is a big chance one can write code that runs everywhere without too much shims.
Note that next big version of Jquery doesn’t support IE8 so I am not too far out on a limb here.
Why ditch Jquery then? Because it can be slow. Because it puts on yet a layer.
I have now twice heard/read about people not including Jquery at start but instead using libs and frameworks like Knockout and Angularjs to manipulate the DOM. I haven’t tried Angularjs but my first try at Knockout showed me that the code I thought was easy to read really wasn’t – instead it had been a mix of UI logic and UI manipulation in a way that I never had allowed myself to do in a more controlled (read WPF or even Winforms) environment.
– http://professionalaspnet.com/archive/2013/04/14/Why-Its-Time-to-Sunset-jQuery.aspx
Microjs (web)
I have written about this site earlier but with a different approach.
This time I want You to consider the value of having small pieces to put together instead of one catch-all framework.
Having two or three old and present sites in my head I read through the first 50? rows and came up with 2 or three frameworks that might help/have helped me.
There is el.js to add items to the DOM. There are a couple of IoC frameworks. There is time.js for handling time data – why don’t the world use ISO? There is isMobile for checking for mobiles and 7″ devices – not something one can do with a simple check normally. There is range.js when you need to create ranges of something.
With Visual studio 2012 with web essentials it isn’t much job to bundle and minify the scripts. Well… it is even better; the scripts are kept apart and not minified while debugging and then bundled and minified when Release compiled; best of both worlds.
– http://microjs.com/
Responsive design frameworks (web)
Responsive design is like programming without variables.
It is more like playing a game than a making a real solution.
So to lessen the burden one should use a framework.
– http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/04/really-easy-responsive-design/
Tidying CSS (web)
Getting responsibility of the CSS part of a project is like running around in a pitch black child’s room. Barefoot. With lego blocks on the floor. One wrong step and one is in for a world of hurt.
My GF says it is like applying mascara. Once it is there it must not be removed but only added to.
So tools are needed for CSS.
Caveat: I haven’t tried these but most certainly will as soon as time allows.
Csscss is a ruby solution for looking through a CSS to find duplicated uses. It also does LESS with another gem.
Helim-css runs javascript against real URLs, gathers styles and compares selectors found. The site must be manipulated so it is to be done against a non-live site.
– https://github.com/zmoazeni/csscss – https://github.com/geuis/helium-css
Using Dotnet (mono) on Raspberry pi (dotnet,linux)
Mono, the dotnet port outside windows, can be run on Raspberrypi.
This makes it possible to use your favourite language on a very small and cheap device with a big user base.
Mono does Winforms and Aspnet (which i guess is (a subset of?) web forms.
There is no mentioning of Nancy but as nancy is lighter than Aspnet and does not have any relation to System.Web it should be doable too. Says I who has tried neither Raspberrypi, Mono nor Nancy.
– http://www.amazedsaint.com/2013/04/hack-raspberry-pi-how-to-build.html
– http://techny.tumblr.com/post/36438641616/compile-nancy-applications-on-a-raspberry-pi
Jade – Haml like syntax for html (web)
Check out the text on the landing page.
By using/writing Jade instead of HTML you don’t miss the closing tag or many other typos that are easy to do in HTML.
It is implemented for Node so it is written in Javascript and, of course, open source.
Haml is predecessor for Jade but for the Ruby world.
Then there is Yaml which is a simplified XML which is both faster to write and easier to read. Plus one cannot miss the closing tag since there is none.
– http://jade-lang.com
– http://haml.info
Craftstudio – graphical game programming (win,osx,linux)
A graphics heavy programming environment for games.
30€ is not expensive.
I haven’t tried it myself but the demo vid looks impressive.
– http://craftstud.io/
Two.js – 2D graphics in javascript (web)
2D with animations. Requires backbone and underscore.
Can render in contexts svg, canvas and webgl.
– http://jonobr1.github.io/two.js/
Projects and leadership
Scaling crazily fast
Pinterest scaled to 10 billions page views a month views in 2 years!
From the article:
“They’ve gone from 0 to 10s of billions of page views a month in two years, from 2 founders and one engineer to over 40 engineers, from one little MySQL server to 180 Web Engines, 240 API Engines, 88 MySQL DBs (cc2.8xlarge) + 1 slave each, 110 Redis Instances, and 200 Memcache Instances.”
The article contains lots of lessons learned in a boring and easy to read bullet point way.
I thought it was interesting though I will hardly soon be in a project that grows at that speed.
– http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/4/15/scaling-pinterest-from-0-to-10s-of-billions-of-page-views-a.html
How to draw diagrams – and not
A SimonB has written a not too long article about keeping it simple – diagram wise.
To make the article even shorter here are some bullets:
1) Abandon UML. There is nothing wrong with UML but it is too clumsy to work with. Pen and paper rocks! and coloured crayons keeps the fun alive.
2) There is a System or Context diagram. 10000 meter view without technology. Draw a box of Your system in the middle and small boxes for other systems around. Users are visible from 10000 meter.
3) Containers diagram. A container is something that executes or where data resides; something that needs to be kept alive for the whole System to work. A web site, a service, a database or an application is typically a Container.
4) Components diagram. Draw one Components diagram per Container where applicable; databases often do not need a Components diagram. A Component is typically a visual studio sub project, a service interface or a pure logical abstraction.
My comments are:
Keep the diagrams easy to update.
Don’t necessarily keep them 100% correct – humans will read them anyway.
Keep the diagrams visible.
– http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-software-architecture-sketches-NoUML
How Spotify does devops
Devops is about removing the wall between Devs and Ops. It is also about getting decisions from the meeting room into the final customers’ hands as quickly and safely as possible.
Below is linked a somewhat length article about Spotify’s take on the subject.
TL;DR: They have Team lead, Project owner and Agile coach which cooperate.
– http://www.infoq.com/articles/monthly-devops-03-spotify
Products and releases
Opera is going Webkit and Google is forking Webkit (web)
What does this mean?
(I am only covering the desktop landscape here)
Lets start with Opera.
It is know as the standards compliant browser with too few users.
It has since the dawn of time (that is, since the Information Highway became the Internet) run its own rendering engine (Presto) and its own javascript engine.
Now it has changed to the Webkit renderer which makes it behave like almost everyone else (but IE as normal).
Good: one less browser to test
Bad: the html renderer gene bank is getting thin
Opera uses V8 as its javascript engine, just like Chrome.
Which would make Chrome and Opera render and behave similarly.
But…
Google is forking Webkit
and as Google is paying Opera for being the pre chosen web searcher a good bet is that Opera is following the Google fork path Blink.
– http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2013/04/blink.html
– http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/04/google-forks-webkit/
– http://prng.net/blink-faq.html
– http://slashdot.org/story/13/04/03/238258/opera-confirms-it-will-follow-google-and-ditch-webkit-for-blink
Glimpse supports EF5&6 and adonet (web,dotnet)
Glimpse is an awesome tracing tool for web.
Gratis.
I guess even open source.
Latest release supports tracing from the web browser all the way to calls to the database.
The architecture is pluggable so more can be achieved with some elbow grease.
Latest release supports calls from EF3,4,5 and even 6 (still a bet) and with some tweaks also Adonet-calls.
12USD phone
How does one make a 12USD cellular phone?
Besides child labour and not caring about the ecology i mean.
The original site, Boingboing is as much about freedom as about sharks with lasers, so it was strange to find the article linked below being not about abuse of people and nature but more of a “it can be done – yeah!”
– http://boingboing.net/2013/04/18/how-is-a-12-phone-possible.html
Bittorrent sync
Every backup strategy has its own pros and cons and I won’t dive into them but instead present a new player; Bittorrent sync
The solution linked below seems simple. The traffic is encrypted for your and your only use. It uses bit torrent as protocol.
Runs on Win, Mac, *nix.
It does not look like it is open source.
– http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html
Check under Developer tools to. I don’t understand everything but it looks like some kind of bit torrent with the browser as GUI.
Code digger – analyze code to create test data à la Pex (win)
Creating input for unit tests is boring.
Pex is an experimental software from Microsoft that helps with that. Now there is also Code digger that analyses code to make better educated guesses about what data is worth testing.
There is a limitation though – it only walks public code and only portable such.
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/04/code-digger
– http://pex4fun.com
Markdowndeep – c# markdown implementation (dotnet)
# Markdown
## Contents
Markdown is a very simple format for simple formatting. If you ever have shared something on Stackoverflow then you have also used a Markdown variant.
Personally I have adopted markdown for communicating with my customers.
I haven’t tried Markdowndeep myself – I am just a fan of the format.
– http://www.toptensoftware.com/markdowndeep/
– http://www.toptensoftware.com/markdowndeep/dingus
Privacy, security and rights
Microsoft / Live has two factor authentication
Set it up!
Now!
If you use Gmail you should have set it up a long time ago.
Other wise.
Set it up!
Now!
Simplified; What happens is that you get an SMS ever 30 days or so for making sure you are the right user of the account. I have used this for a long time on gmail and it is a hazel nut of a hassle for a full container of security.
– http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2013/04/17/microsoft-account-gets-more-secure.aspx
– http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SettingUpTwoFactorAuthenticationForYourGoogleAccountANDMicrosoftAccount.aspx
Miscellaneous
Twine – create your own interactive stories
Twine is a downloadable application for creating interactive stories. The interactivity consists of hyper links which can make a story fork and allow the reader to choose his/her own adventure. There are also normal hyper links to make the old fashioned book proven linear reading more colourful; or at least linkful.
It is based on TiddlyWiki which is a downloadable wiki engine/application.
TiddlyWiki can be though of as a normal editor with link capability and it can save its output as HTML to copy as static pages to a web server. (Using it as a stand alone help document springs to my mind too.)
– http://www.gimcrackd.com/etc/src/
– http://tiddlywiki.com
US war aircraft 360 cockpit online viewer
Especially if you are a war aircraft nerd this link is nice.
It is 360 interiors from the US warfare aircrafts from WW1 to the cold war. In the latter there is as much electronics as there are little in the earlier.
But that is only a little.
“Walk” inside the museum and look at the exterior of the aircrafts too.
– http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/virtualtour/cockpits.asp
– http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/full/tour-std.html
Remote controlled quad copter with stabilised camera
Still a bit expensive but prices are most certainly coming down.
Unless the stupid US patent system puts a halt to innovation; as it tries over and over again.
( There is another way to stabilise the camera image and that is to move each picture in the movie around afterwards. The amount of shake tolerated is the amount of border allowed to be wasted. )
– http://www.gizmag.com/dji-phantom-vision-zenmuse-quadcopter/27028/
Foldable rubber boots
As the title says.
I used to have boot overshoes that where thin enough to fit inside a toilet paper roll. I had them constantly in my bag to bring forth at rainy days. This way I could have nice looking shoes at dry days while still being dry at rainy. They have unfortunately been worn down and I have found no replacement.
The boots linked below are bigger than my old overshoes but also nicer looking.
– http://www.werd.com/19884/foldable-japanese-rubber-boots/
Calvin and Hobbes: The movie
Not.
Don’t be afraid.
Calvin and Hobbes is, to my knowledge, not begin abused as a cheesy Hollywood production to render some income and stain the history of the awesome cartoon.
Instead:
A bunch of guys calling themselves GrittyReboots did their own take on Calvin and what happens when he grows up.
The same guys also did Goodnight moon which is a children’s story but remade as a horror short story. A good one.
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17qyaXOFZXg
Funny public bath rooms
…or rest rooms as they are called.
Or lavatories.
Or loos.
– http://strangebathrooms.tumblr.com
Wringing a wet towel in space
Nothing special.
Just a nice presentation about water and surface tension.
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8TssbmY-GM
Electric power outlet design
Power outlets are ugly
but we have gotten so used to them that we don’t see them any more.
Below are linked some improvements on the design.
– http://www.allidesign.com/13-creative-plugs-and-cables/
Next time I will mention TV sets
that are even uglier.
A big black square in prime place in the living room.
Who came up with that idea?
Coffee shop ambient sound in office
Do you have a hard time concentrating when it is quiet?
Tune in and crank up the ambient sound of a coffee shop.
The sound is proofed to not have any 16 year old girls chatting too loudly about nothing and facebook. Ditto boys.
– http://www.coffitivity.com
Sketch like Escher online
An online F/OSS solution for drawing kaleidoscope.
If one could combine the kaleidoscope mechanics with artistry like pencils, styles and other fluffy values we might have something really cozy to play with.
It is open source so feel free to grab my ideas above and implement.
– http://levskaya.github.io/eschersketch/
Online gratis manga
If you like manga, here is a gratis resource.
Or if you are curious…
…here is a gratis resource.
I have read a couple.
But I still don’t like manga.
But I do like Miyazaki but can’t find anything free.
– http://mangafox.me/directory/
*EOF*
April 2nd, 2013
hejdig.
Last letter I tried to create a better layout.
It worked. But the links crashed.
So I go for the old and tried layout below again.
In normal order it starts with Development stuff and then continues with Leadership followed by Products and Security to be ended with Miscellaneous.
And if there is one chapter you should read it is the last one. Why? Because it contains all the fun links.
Today’s top article are about
* Java 6 and 8
* Noda, Joda, CLDR, NLDR which are time and culture resources for global solutions
* Regex testing in several languages
* Yet a brief explanation of which element goes where in HTML5
* MS web tools 2012
* Why budget planning is counter productive
* Glimpse (and elmah and minprofiler)
* HDMI debunked
* The size of the universe
/OF
—-8<—-
Code and development
Top javascript MVC frameworks (web)
If javascript is the soil and frameworks the crop; then it is a good time to be a farmer in Javsacriptland. No other developer biosphere is as fertile IMHO.
MVC/MVP/MVVM is the hoot nowadays. Read my lips: Do Not Develop Client Side Javascript Without Framework Support.
Below is linked to several such frameworks.
Of these I am only familiar with Knockout, hands on wise.
Note: Backbone builds on Underscore – a lib you should look into whether you do MVC/MVP/MVVM or not.
– http://www.infoq.com/research/top-javascript-mvc-frameworks
End of line for Java 6 in March (java)
If you haven’t updated your Java from v6 you are a dinosaur. And the meteor is about to hit.
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/01/jdk6-retirement
Information about Java8 (java)
Java 8 is scheduled for September this year.
There are several new things and this article I found was easy to read.
– http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/03/26/everything-about-java-8/
Learn F#, gratis, online (dotnet)
Microsoft has released a site for learning F#.
– http://www.tryfsharp.org
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/01/tryfsharp
Noda Time – date/time library ported (dotnet)
Joda Time, a date/time lib in the Java world has been ported to Dotnet.
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/11/Noda-Time-1-0
GIT integrated in TFS service (win)
“Sweet men du ligger efter i GIT-TF informationen. Från och med i torsdags är GIT integrerat i TFS Services och det finns fullt GIT-support i en Visual Studio CTP. Så du kan numer välja att köra TFS VCS med TFS språk (Check Out/In, o.s.v.) eller köra TFS GIT med GIT språk (Push, Pull, Commit).”
In short this means you can mix and mingle GIT and TFS as you want.
Will this mean you don’t have to buy a license to write to the TFS store any more?
– http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2013/01/30/git-init-vs.aspx
Tipthanks //E
CLDR – database over formats etc. in different countries
If you ever have done a multi language / multi culture solution you have stumbled upon all the ways to represent date, time, currency, numbers and whatnot.
Below is linked a project to create a big database of all this.
It is an open project so help is appreciated.
– http://cldr.unicode.org
ncldr.com – dotnet port of cldr, a database for globalisation data (dotnet)
The Time and Date namespaces in dotnet are plenty but not perfect. There are cultures missing and there is no information about currency, names of weekday and no rules for spelling of number or capitalisation.
So therefore we have the Unicode CLDR project which I have written about before.
Ncldr linked below is a dotnet port of CLDR.
– http://www.ncldr.com
– http://cldr.unicode.org
Multiple carets in Visual studio (win)
Since version 2010 it has been possible to alt-arrow or alt-mouse a caret (cursor, insättningspunkt, whatever you call it) to a vertical line and to “box inserting”.
With an add-on this is taken further so one can alt-mouse to different places in the document.
Look at the animation behind the link – an animated GIF is more worth than a thousand words.
– http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SimultaneousEditingForVisualStudioWithTheFreeMultiEditExtension.aspx
HTML5 and elements – what to use where (web)
With HTML5 coming we’ve got to read up on which element to use where. I still haven’t grokked it but below is linked a flowchart to help me. And You as I write it here…
– http://html5doctor.com/downloads/h5d-sectioning-flowchart.png
Isotope – javascript/css lib for stacking squares (web)
Say you have a text box. Say you have several.
Say you want to show them on a web page.
Then you want to add new ones, and remove, and change size and and and… and you want them to stack themselves.
This is where you give up until you read this.
Metafizzy has Isotope, Masonry and, as of late, Packery.
Packery does more intelligent packing. I see lots of use for this, say for instance you are moving and filling one and only one lorry with stuff.
– http://metafizzy.co
– http://isotope.metafizzy.co
– http://metafizzy.co/blog/packery-preview/
BCL is an immutable lib (dotnet)
BCL is a lib still in experiment for doing immutable stuff.
“Immutable stuff” are stuff that doesn’t change, instead you have to create a new instance. Often in parallel computing, which is coming fast, you want to have immutable objects for having thread safety.
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/01/Immutable-BCL
Micro formats and schema.org (web)
There is something called Microformat. It is using (X)HTML for creating semantic data. If you need to send Person data to someone, why invent a new format? Instead reuse.
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microformat
– http://schema.org
Introduction to Rx – dotnet reactive framework (dotnet)
Rx (Reactive Extensions) is a dotnet library for using IObserver and IObservable. With Rx you can get events when a collection is added to or removed from. It is like having a form *inside* your app. Sort of. Liksom.
The site below is an introduction and tutorial for this.
– http://introtorx.com
Online regex testing in several languages
Every language has its own implementation of regex and they might differ. So when googlingwithbing for an online regex tool one has to make sure the right language is used.
For instance is the very good Rubular.com written in Ruby. Most are written in Javascript. No usable was written in dotnet.
Until now.
Through the link below is linked to online Regex testers in 10 different languages.
– http://www.regexplanet.com
Windows shell commands as… commands (win)
As heavy Win developers we are aware of %temp%, %appdata%, %systemroot%, and %programfiles% as shortcuts for c:… but what about “shell:”?
Open a prompt or the Explorer address bar and write “shell: cookies” to get to cookies, “shell: common startup” for the common startup and “shell: startup” for user user’s or “shell: system” for the system path etc. You get get idea.
Follow the link below for more information.
– http://sqlblog.com/blogs/john_paul_cook/archive/2013/02/13/windows-shell-commands.aspx
Six hours of video for getting started at aspnet programming
Building web apps with aspnet jump start: 6 hours of free aspnet video.
– http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2013/02/28/building-web-apps-with-asp-net-jump-start-over-6-hours-of-free-asp-net-video-training.aspx
Getting the name of the calling method in dotnet (dotnet)
Anyone hacking WPF should read this.
When doing logging it is sometimes nice to know the caller so instead of
1
2
3
| public void MyFunction(){
MyLogger.Write( "MyFunction", "Start");
... |
one can write
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| public void MyFunction(){
MyLogger.Write( "Start" );
… |
All it takes is to call a stack walking method like so:
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| public static class MyLogger{
public static void Write( string message ){
Console.WriteLine( CompulsoryCat.CallingMethodName() + ":" + message );
… |
That is the reason I wrote CompulsoryCat which is a helper lib to, among other, get meta data out of methods.
It is my plans to move it to CompulsoryCow but maybe I won’t since some of the functionality already exists in Dotnet4.5. Since Microsoft has a grab on the compiler in a fashion I don’t they could also make the syntax nicer.
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2
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| public static class MyLogger{
public static void Write( string message, [CallerMemberName] string callingMethodName = null ){
Console.WriteLine( callingMemberName + ":" + message );
… |
Now think INotifyPropertyChanged, made famous of MVVM and WPF. If you program in WPF then you know of INotifyPropertyChanged. And then you know of all the hard coded property names.
That can be made a thing of the past with Dotnet4.5 and above syntax.
Well… to be honest- one can get to the property names through lambda which makes part of the problem disappear.
– http://code.google.com/p/compulsorycat/
– https://github.com/LosManos/CompulsoryCow
– http://10rem.net/blog/2013/02/25/using-callermembername-for-property-change-notification-in-xaml-apps
Advanced Html/Css and polyfills (web)
Advanced. Html. Css. Shiv. Shim. And how to use.
Do not read if you are a Html newbie – the crooked and confused way of Html and Javascript might scare you off to more well paved paths.
For the die hards – the site contains more advanced stuff.
– http://learn.shayhowe.com/advanced-html-css/feature-support-polyfills
CSS tools – noise texture (web)
Noise is not something you want in an image. But when hipsters design blank areas of colour, noise is suddenly in demand.
Below is linked a tool that does what the head line says.
Plus a gradient generator, the-most-awesome-thing-of-html5 rounded corners and box shadows.
– http://www.cssmatic.com/noise-texture
Web tools 2012 (dotnet)
Update for your Visualstudio. Syntax highlighting for Coffeescript, must ache, handlebar and jsrender (like query templates but without the DOM), more odata, more signalr, mvc like routing in web forms, device dependent page name in web forms just as in mvc, 4 new spa templates, more azure and more functionality.
It is an update of earlier release with more functionality than I care to write about.
Did I say it is gratis?
– http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/02/18/announcing-release-of-asp-net-and-web-tools-2012-2-update.aspx
– http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/07d54d12-7133-4e15-becb-6f451ea3bea6
Webpagestest.org – hit your site with a hoard of speed tests (web)
How fast is your site?
Enter your site’s URL in the site below and behold the answer.
– http://www.webpagetest.org
Kulmedkod – site om att lära barn programmera
Med lite ojämna mellanrum dyker nyheter upp på siten nedan.
Den är inte en-site-för-all-info-om-att-lära-barn-att-programmera tyvärr; jag har fortfarande inte hittat en sådan site. Men letar. Och när jag hittar få ni reda på det.
Under tiden har jag kulmedkod i min RSS-feed (och min twitter).
– http://kulmedkod.wordpress.com
How to version and write release notes – a proposed standard
For versioning of a program the semantic versioning has risen to an almost standard.
But how does one write release notes?
Semantic release notes is a proposed standard (in the same way as Markdown is a standard) for writing release notes. I haven’t tried it but I will because I do write release notes and I do have to compile them later. Having an almost standard would help my work.
Even if you aren’t interested in semantic release notes, do look into semantic versioning.
– http://www.semanticreleasenotes.org
– http://semver.org
Projects and leadership
Jämför lån- och sparkonti
Jag hittade snabbt ett sätt att låna pengar till 838% effektiv ränta, “vardagslånet”. Det skall jag inte ta.
Även om man inte ser hela sanningen så är det ett intressant projekt.
Man kan också jämföra sparkonti och jag fann raskt ett sparkonto som ger mycket mer än det bästa min bank erbjuder.
– http://www.bank24.nu
Compare more CMSs than you have ever heard about
There are tons of CMSs out there. How to find the right one?
Use the link below to compare the ones that interest you.
– http://www.cmsmatrix.org/matrix/cms-matrix
Planning a budget is sub optimating
Have you read Valve’s Personal handbook? It is good.
Have you read your own company’s Personal handbook? It most certainly sucks.
Valve did something different, instead of writing the same boring handbook as every other company; they decided to make something good out of it.
The same counts for how Vale hires employees.
The same with The blogging terrier. He is co owner of a company and decided to go for equal salary. At first it felt like a bad idea but it soon became an advantage. Read more through the link below.
– http://jockeholm.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/am-i-a-socialist-how-a-small-consultancy-approach-the-tricky-questions-surrounding-power-and-money/
How Valve hires, fires and pays
I have earlier written about Valve’s awesome personal handbook.
You know the concept your company has with rules and regulations and policies and stuff? The concept that is out of date, impossible to understand, too long to read and presumably signed by all employees.
Valve has one too. But their is awesome!
I still haven’t read the personal handbook for where I am employed. But I have read Valve’s. That is how awesome it is.
Now to today’s subject. Valve’s routine of hiring people. And firing. And the salary in between. This isn’t in a handbook though but in the mind of the People. Awesomeness in life.
– http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/187296/How_Valve_hires_how_it_fires_and_how_much_it_pays.php
Daily Sync for five teams
Scrum meetings in a team isn’t that difficult. But how does one do the scrum of scrums? the synchronisation between teams I mean.
Should one do the scrum of scrums before the scrum? If one does; one can send the helicopter view back to the teams. On the other hand, if one does the scrum of scrums after the team scrums one has better input for the oval guiding.
MarcusH doesn’t have the answer but some good insights.
– http://www.marcusoft.net/2013/03/daily-sync-for-five-teams-and-get.html
Producing open source software book
Running an open source software project is not easy.
Below is linked a book on the subject to read digitally or as tree killer.
I have not read this book, just glanced through some pages.
– http://producingoss.com
Products and releases
Phonegap with WinPhone8 support (mobile)
As the head line says
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/01/phonegap-2-3-0
Discourse
The guys at Stackoverflow revolutionised the Q&A webs. Before Stackoverflow every Q&A site was bad. Now everyone know what a Q&A site _should_ look like.
Not being content with creating the world’s best Q&A site they have looked at discussion sites, forums. Think phpBB. They equally suck in one way or another or more usual several ways.
So they set out to fix this.
Discourse.org is their product.
I have great beliefs in it. If it is half as good as Stackoverflow it will still be the world’s best forum.
Did I mention it is free? Free like in Libre.
– http://www.discourse.org
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1TZaElTAs
Which does hold the most RAM, Win8Pro or MacAir?
TL;DR
It’s equal.
Longer
There has been some mud slinging about this and it boils down to two things.
1) Whether one counts a megabyte in 1000s of bytes or 1024s of bytes.
2) Fanboys.
Next time someone throws you some data about one or the other and the amount of RAM; return this link to them. It is a lengthy article about calculations and how to get more even more RAM and just plain old debunking.
– http://www.zdnet.com/surface-pro-versus-macbook-air-whos-being-dishonest-with-storage-space-7000011009/
Lorempixel – lorem ipsum but for images (web)
When you need place holder text you go looking for lorem ipsum.
But when you need images? There are several solutions for this, like bing. Another is lorempixel. One can choose image size by tweaking the URL and even image category (sport, cats etc.)
– http://lorempixel.com
– http://lorempixel.com/400/200/sports/
Open source HTML5 game engine (web)
Somewhere HTML or Javascript means a product has to be open source. So with this one. It’s a game engine for HTML5.
– http://www.gameclosure.com
FullCalendar – jquery plugin web calendar (web)
A web calendar with drag and drop implemented as plugin to jquery.
I haven’t tried it so I can’t tell if it only does US datetime or also more international ones.
– http://arshaw.com/fullcalendar/
Glimpse 1.2 (dotnet)
If you do asp net programming you should already have looked into Glimpse.
It is like a procto camera into your web server.
Do like this: install it in your web project through nugget. There are a few lines added to web.config. Then surf to your site and to the page Glimpse.axd. Press the button shown.
Now, when you surf your site you see not only network information but even database calls! (well… you have to do EF or something else Glimpse compatible but anyhow: it is cool as hell is hot)
If you like it.
Correction.
When you like it.
Search for Elmah and MiniProfiler.
Equally awesome.
– http://blog.getglimpse.com/2013/03/19/glimpse-1-1-released-with-support-for-mvc-4/
Miscellaneous
Devops reactions – say it in moving pictures
Small flicks of fun showing my working day in both glory and fail.
– http://devopsreactions.tumblr.com
Tipthanks Anonymous
Why all HDMI cables are the same – debunking
Warning audiophiles. Don’t read further or you will feel cheated. Your 100€/m HDMI cable isn’t better than mine.
– http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20056502-1/why-all-hdmi-cables-are-the-same/
– http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57540275-221/still-more-reasons-why-all-hdmi-cable-are-the-same/
The universe is big. It is even bigger than that. And then plus some.
Following the link below might give you some clues about how big it is. Note “might”. Because all I got was headache.
If the video doesn’t show – click in the sidebar to the right “How big is the universe compared with a grain of sand”.
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2013/feb/11/how-big-universe-sand-video1
Play house model “big”
Some with air conditioning(!)
– http://imgur.com/a/8Dqv8
Remote controlled paper plane
A battery. A rod. An airscrew. A wind rudder. For about 30€.
Just add a folded paper.
Geniously!
Me gonna buy for sure.
– http://www.nyteknik.se/popular_teknik/teknikrevyn/article3637689.ece
Tipthanks Lasse
Blanda egen spolarvätska och dyr är inte bättre än billig
Jag kan underteckna att Statoils gördyra spolarvätska luktar Mycket.
Enligt test är den dessutom dålig.
Miljöpåverkan har inte testats.
Bosse bildoktorn blandar egen, billigare och säkert bättre också.
Dessutom har han moussserande vin för festligare tillfällen(!)
– http://www.teknikensvarld.se/2013/02/24/38288/billig-spolarvatska-battre-an-dyr/
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8Yjw0QqXAs
Tipstack Lasse
A ridiculously large swing
Disregarding the fact that I would piss in my pants I still want to go!
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdJc1_IBKJA
William Gibson Alien iii script
William Gibson is a good writer.
Alien is a good file series.
Together…
It is a film script so it is a different read than a normal novel.
– http://home.online.no/~bhundlan/scripts/alien3/gibson.htm
*EOF*
February 4th, 2013
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hejdig.Long time no see.This is the same email with a new layout.
To make a long story short; the positive feedback I have gotten on this email has been on the contents, the bad on the format. Depending on email client it has been mangled enough to be rendered ugly.
So through a detour around Ruby land I have finally gotten something that is readable again.For getting this layout to work I have started using Mailchimp. I am totally new to this tools so if you find any dead links or anything else not working – please let me know.
Your email address is still as private as before.So what do you think?To celebrate the new layout I link to possibly the funniest jump. Evar.
And as always – the good stuff is at the end of the letter.
/OF
—-8<—-
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Code and development
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Create a menu in CSS3 (web)
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Aspnetmvc, Webapi, Jquery, Knockout and Signlr all together (web)
Aspnetmvc, Webapi, Jquery, Knockout and Signlr all together.
In an hour or less.
Awesome.
Continue with googling with bing for “webstack of love” for more of his presentations.BTW: NDC (Norwegian Developer Conference) has most (all?) of its presentations online. There are many good ones.- http://vimeo.com/m/43603472 |
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Javascript frameworks to aid Model/DOM-manipuation on the client (web)
Using MV frameworks on the client is pure goodness until one stumbles upon a situation where it doesn’t work and instead trips you.
Don’t let that stop you – I have tried Knockout and really like it.Angular isn’t MVVM but MVW, whatever that stands for, and has another model for sending data between DOM elements. Sort of MVVM without the Model. It looks like it’s a Google product.Backbone has a Model. When it is updated the DOM updates. When the DOM updates so does the Model. It is more MVC than MVVM. It relies on underscore, another helper lib which might be good to have in the toolbox.Ember is a tool that targets bigger solutions. It has MV and templating like the others. Recently out with a new beta. They call it 1.0pre. Which is a beta AFAIK.Knockout is a MVVM framework that just happens to be the one blessed by Aspnet. I have tried it. I like it.Then there I Knockback to mix the Knockout and Backbone worlds.
– http://angularjs.org/
– http://backbonejs.org/
– http://emberjs.com/
– http://knockoutjs.com/
– http://kmalakoff.github.com/knockback/
– http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5112899/knockout-js-vs-backbone-js-vs <-comparision and discussion
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JSHint, A JavaScript Code Quality Tool (web)
Text copied from the about screen explains it best.
“JSHint is a community-driven tool to detect errors and potential problems in JavaScript code and to enforce your team’s coding conventions. It is very flexible so you can easily adjust it to your particular coding guidelines and the environment you expect your code to execute in.”There is a big text box on the site. Just paste your code and feel ashamed of yourself for writing sub par javascript. Just as I do.- http://www.jshint.com/ |
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List and poll and summary of HTML5 development tools (web)
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Monkeycoder
Multi platform game development.The program translates the Monkeycoder language to several others which can then be compiled in respective environment. And sold. And profited.-http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/
Tipthanks DanielG
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GTD with Evernote
The secret weapon is the name for a project? solution? idea? community? that has put GTD (getting things done) together with Evernote.GTD is in short:
If you can do it in less than 5 minutes – do it now.
The rest – put on a list and prioritise.
When the <5minutes tasks are done: review list.
GOTO 10- http://www.thesecretweapon.org/ |
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Hammer.js – javascript touch lib (web,mobile)
If you are just starting your utterly responsive HTML javascript project you should be aware that the browser on Ios has a 300ms delay between tap and click.There are totally valid reasons for this but outside the scope of this article.
300ms is noticeable. I foresee it will decrease in the future when we get screens with more sensors and intelligence in them. Also outside the scope of this article.Never the less, if you are writing a HTML5 game this might be a show stopper so you are into writing your own handlers for down, up and click/tap/press. And there goes your initial estimates for a demo because down-up-click is a framework on its own, especially combined with doubleclick, swipe, pinch and drag.Talking of frameworks, the link below tries to solve just that.- http://eightmedia.github.com/hammer.js/ |
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DYI – a 3D touchless tracking device (arduino)
You need a computer, an Arduino, some wires and electronics components, time and patience.
Of course it is a little course. Of course it takes a few hours to put together. Of course it isn’t compatible with your latest games.The documentation puts some weight on everything sharing the same ground. In Sweden laptops are often not grounded but that could be remedied by yet another wire acting as ground.- http://makeprojects.com/Project/A-Touchless-3D-Tracking-Interface/2233/1 |
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Great jQuery plugins for fresh websites (web)
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Git-ts: Git integrated with TFS (win)
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Common infrastructure libraries for .NET (dotnet)
Have you ever had to choose between log4net (how much is it developed today?), nlog (newer and fresher but better?) and enterprise framework (can do everything but how?) and decided to postpone decision or even roll your own?Have you ever been in a project where some run log4net and others nlog and someone used ef some years ago?Enter Netcommon. It presents a common interface for everything logging. The plans are for supporting more infrastructure stuff in the future but right now only logging is ready.
So you can write logging through Netcommon and don’t care what people use down the road. A nice idea. I have to go down the corridor to talk to a guy who has used it. Be right back!- http://netcommon.sourceforge.net/Yupp. He was satisfied. |
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Jquery 1.9 release (web)
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Mousetrap – keyboard shortcuts in javascript (web)
The Web interface is very mouse pointer oriented which sucks big time since I am born with just two hands and they are on my keyboard. Mouse works fine for browsing but input? No.
Fat client programs have keyboard shortcuts which is still The reason to use them instead of Web applications.
But look at gmail for instance; press ? and a help screen pops up. C for composing a new letter, GI for getting back to the inbox and so forth. Implementing this on your own is a great pain, unless you use a lib of course; then it is only Less of a pain.Mousetrap, the lib linked below, contains tools for ctrl-a, ctrl-shift-a and the like, “hormal” shortcuts if you prefer. It also contains gmail-style which are ?, C, GI etc. To top it up it contains whay they call Konami style. An example of that would be: up up up down up up left right lef right down a x. There are live examples right on their site.- http://craig.is/killing/mice |
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Unit testing and SMTP (dotnet)
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How do I become a hacker?
The head line is the one most used questions at a certain kind of forum. The answer is the same as with learning to play an instrument.
Practice.But where does one start?
I really don’t know but hackerhighschool seems as good as any.And remember – Hack everything but harm none. Really. As a 10 years old one hasn’t developed ethics, as a 20 one is still new at the game and as a 40 years old one is still learning.
Print it out “Hack everything but harm none.” Put it on the wall behind the monitor. Read it. Embrace it. Hack.- http://www.google.com/ <- best place to start learning hacking
– http://www.hackerhighschool.org/lessons.html |
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Gratis device emulators for testing
Having recently delivered a project running on both Android and IOS tablets and phones I can testify it is cumbersome to test. And debug.
Ok, with Ios6 one can finally connect remotely to Safari but we had to support Ios5 too. And what about debugging Chrome on Ipad? Phew.
Does Opera run on Ipad? Opera mobile has solved remote debugging already today you know.With 90% of the functionality we can move it to the desktop and the horse powers we have there. Below is linked 6 such tools.- http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/11/6-free-mobile-device-emulators-for-testing-your-site/ |
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Colour scheme designer with colour blindness visualisation (web)
Colours is a science of its own.How does one choose the right colours for a site or application or when drawing or doodling? One has only 3 choices: chance, feel or math. Due to lack of time and a slight colour blindness I go for the latter.Below is a site that does the hard work for you. It has several hidden features like export to different formats, manipulations like pastel and contrast and visualisation of how the colours look for different types of colour blindness.
When you have decided for a colour scheme you can store the URL and get back to where you were.
– http://colorschemedesigner.com
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What happens the first few milliseconds of a HTTPS call? (web)
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Chart of what takes time, code vs network calls
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Razor engine tips and tricks (win)
The Razor template engine is awesome. It’s like “how would I like to code?” and then just write like it and let Razor figure out what you mean.
There are certain caveats but they can be remedied with for instance @: and @helpers. You haven’t heard about them? Me neither. Hence my linking below.If you do AspnetMVC with the Razor engine; read below. These 2 minutes of you time are a good investment.- http://odetocode.com/blogs/scott/archive/2013/01/09/ten-tricks-for-razor-views.aspx |
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Projects and leadersip
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About Google’s one day a week
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Your Path through Agile Fluency
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Deliver 50 times a day
Latest project I was in came with the usual birth labour. Deliver. Bugs found. Correction. Deliver. Repeat.
I find this good. I believe in continuous delivery and repeated my mantra “a delivery every 20 minutes” for anyone who’d listen. (reality:to anyone having the bad luck to be close enough)
Then during one of these delivery iterations we felt a disturbance in the force; and checked online; and was Live!It wasn’t a 20 minutes delivery and it wasn’t 50 times a day but it was a first step.Below is linked a way bigger and more complex site than ours that deliver continuously. 50. Times. A day.- http://timothyfitz.com/2009/02/10/continuous-deployment-at-imvu-doing-the-impossible-fifty-times-a-day/ |
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T4 for visual studio 2012 (win)
T4 is the templating language used by Microsoft and Visual studio. If you for instance are doing Entity Framework you are using T4.Now this language and these template can be further developed or made totally from scratch. I have invested some time in ST4bby which creates POCOs with a single click of a button.T4 has been updated and adapted for the new Visual studio. If you are using it, or thinking thereof, zip through the link below for some new stuff.
– http://www.olegsych.com/2012/12/t4-toolbox-for-visual-studio-2012/
– http://johnnycode.com/ST4bby/ <- create pocos by the touch of a button
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Getting kids into programming
I have many times written about languages appropriate for programming. I have later realised that it is possibly not the language that is the threshold but the will. *Why* should a kid chose to program?The simple answer is “games”. The more comprehensive answer is longer. Below its linked a blog article with various links.- http://blog.pamelafox.org/2013/01/getting-kids-into-programming.html
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Products and releases
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Raspberry pi + Xbmc + Airplay (linux)
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Ouya preorderable (android)
It’s an open game console with an Android engine.
One of the shiny parts is that is was funded through Kickstarter.- http://www.ouya.tv/ |
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Textmate 2 going F/OSS (mac)
Contrary to Windows there is just a handful of free and gratis text editors on the Mac. Textmate is one of them and it is now going open source. Not only that, it is going GPLv3 which means than no fork of it can be sold in the app store.<trying>
<to>
<resist>
</resist>
</to>
</trying>
<fail/>I’ll throw a log in the fire and write that the editors on the mac are lacking in usability.
The litmus test is to edit a file without using the mouse.- http://blog.macromates.com/2012/textmate-2-at-github/ |
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Whiteboard on the web (web)
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The Ipad and Android has icons in tabular format so you, dear reader, know how bad it is (win)
There must be a better solution.
Windowsphone7 has tiles which is slightly interactive icons but in a vertical order. Very like but also very different.
The start menu of Windows>=95 is hierarchical.
Spotlight and the start menu of Windows>=7 does a quick text search and happens to be my preferred way of starting applications.
Late Osx versions use pinch to show a, yet again, tabular screen with icons.I don’t know how to use Circledock but I know in the back of my head there is a good use for it.- http://circledock.wikidot.com/ |
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Upverter
Online collaboration for hardware electronics.Gratis for open source projects.- http://upverter.com/
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Android Mini PC RK3066 (android)
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Papercut – mimic a mail server (win)
If you are writing an application that sends email you also have to set up SMTP server or SMTP relaying; and do it securely. It is not difficult but it takes some time.Papercut is instead a desktop application that does this work for you without configuration – anything you send pops up in the GUI. F/OSS.- http://papercut.codeplex.com
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Privacy, security and rights
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The patent war between Samsung and Apple described as a flower
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Watching Netflix or Hulu from outside USA or Canada is not impossible (web)
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No more Flash updates on the Android platform (android)
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Use Google to search for patents
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Logo for DRM free files
DRM, aka copy protection, is a way of the past even though not everyone has understood. Ok ok, to be honest I know of some places where it is a good fit but for, say, music or moving pictures it is more of a wart than real limb.Someone has created a logo for this. My trained artist eye says the logo is hideous.-http://www.defectivebydesign.org/node/2243
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Site for helping you with those pesky Terms-of-service
Have you ever read one Terms of service? I doubt I have.
Have you ever written a Terms of service? I have not. My personal terms of service are either Works on my machine or I don’t owe you and you don’t owe me.Now there is a site to grade and discuss Terms of service. It also has a wonderful feature – a diff feature. Every time you get a new Flash patch you have some ks of words of Terms of service but what is new? A diff is exactly that – tells you what is new, changed and gone.One thing to look for that I haven’t noticed earlier is the right to leave the service. According to Steam or Skype you cannot. It’s like a Cockroach hotel.Duckduckgo gets full grades but it is also a very simple service. Github is one grade down. Facebook is not graded yet but we know which end of the scale it ends up on. I guess Google, despite trying hard, is going towards that same end.Below is also linked to an aid for creating your own privacy policies.- http://tos-dr.info/
– http://termsfeed.com/free/privacy-policy-generator
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Free classical music
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US government (or military) eaves drop your private Facebook postings
In the name of the holy war against terrorism and people with different opinions your facebook private files might be read by the U.S. national security details.In the defense of the Holy warriors in the holy war against terrorism and different opinionated, the guy arrested was putting out some real threats. Personally I’d prefer to have him under surveillance and treatment too.
But the fact remains that Facebook isn’t private. Not even the private parts are private.Which leads me to Microsoft skydrive where one is not allowed to store nude pictures or warez. This means that there is constant surveillance of what you store. I have lost the link though.Equally lost is the link to the guy at Google, a contractor, that had as job to sift through juicy pictures; the real juicy, like goatse-juicy ones. He had to go to therapy afterwards.- http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/08/20/2345253/ex-marine-detained-for-facebook-posts-deemed-terrorist-in-natureI guess I get bumped with Echelon for this.
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Miscellaneous
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Mactuts+ – mac tutorials
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Toys – war toys of yesterday
If you ever wondered where USA got their love for weapons look no further. Below is linked old commercials with gay (used in the old tense as happy, glad) boys blasting away at their enemies.
No gun is too big.
Every boy wants one.
And girls too.
Mattel – big guns for boys, eating disorder dolls for girls.
Batteries not needed – remember, this was back in the black&white days.- http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/08/retro-commercials-old-toys-your-parents-loved/ |
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How differential gears work
I know how differential gears (differentialväxel) work. And You know how differential gears work. But trying to explain how it works is another issue.So below is linked a flick from the times when the moving pictures where black and white but mostly grey and people smoked in their homes and women were secretaries and wore skirts but above all the Car was teh Future and gasoline was neither scarce, expensive nor polluting the earth.
Strangely enough it does a good job of explaining how differential gears work. You can wind 1:30 or 3:15 into the movie to avoid some of the fluff.- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JhruinbWcTipthanks MaTh |
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Nice presentation
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Watch in CSS (web)
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Home made prosthetic arm
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DIY aircraft
Now, when we are about to get 3D printers and affordable CNC machines in every household why not make an aircraft? Open source!- http://makerplane.org/ |
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Physical 1st person shooter
Playing FPS is probably the most fun thing you can do with your clothes on.
What it lacks though is sweat and pain.We have all dreamt about the 2D tread mill so we can walk and run in any direction instead of slouching in the couch. And we have all dreamt about the surround graphics filling our view field with intense graphics. Now this is done.And to add…
…paint ball markers to give sensory input when you get fragged!Sensoring is done through a Kinect so you can do it naked too.Reality is coming closer as we speak.- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8Bh5iI2WY
Tipthanks Fx
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Nice looking props helmet
Below is linked some nice instructions on how to build a 3D props helmet out of paper.
First use a computer program to model the helmet in. Then use another program to get the model translated to paper and lines to cut. Then cut and glue and cut and glue. And cut and glue some more. Then apply bonding, polyester and other stuff every other time and sand every other. Repeat and repeat. Then apply layers and layers of paint. The result below is quite nice looking.- http://protagonist4hire.blogspot.se/2012/01/prop-building-101-part-1-building.html |
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Scariest prank. Ever.
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Lego rubber band tank
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Solar powered Raspberry pi FTP server
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Bumbloods – zombie web series
Stupid people doing stupid things. A proven recipe since Friends and long before that. Bumbloods isn’t as good as Bite me but can be watch worth.- http://www.dailymotion.com/Bumbloods |
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Putting scale to things
How big is the sun? If you take the distance from Earth to Moon it is very roughly a fifth of the diameter of Sun. So Sun isn’t that big, cosmology wise.
Jupiter on the other hand is big. The biggest (known) planet TrES-4 isn’t even double the diameter of Jupiter.Okok, you can put all planets in our solar system on a plane and still have Sun surround them; so I guess it is kind of big. Disregaring Betelgeuse that is so big that when I placed Sun beside it, Sun was but a speck. Now Betelgeuse isn’t the biggest star, not by far. But it is old; old enough to die within the next 10000 years.Now. How small is an atom?
Don’t get me started. Find out for yourself.Play around with the link below.
Almost as addictive as google maps and heroin.- http://scaleofuniverse.comTipthanks Lasse
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How Git works – explained in pictures
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July 30th, 2012
hejdig.
Lots of new stuff has happened since I last time sat down to jot down some thoughts.
Windows 8 has gotten a release date. I look forward to the new user interface which is the result of hard labour on how to prepare for the future while still holding the pleased-with-the-present crowd. Clueless IT-departments will use Win8 to update to Win7 but they are a dying race anyway. Clueless IT-departments I mean; soon the business part of organisations will take the rudder back. And out source IT. And get burned again.
If you get Contradictory info about the new user interface:
The new user interface consists of two parts, both the new Metro which is preferable on tablets and in the meeting rooms. Then we have the regular Aero interface which remains about as today.
Windows phone 7 will be upgraded to Windows phone 8 and I have heard it has left the WinCE code base in favour of the true Windows8. I can’t say now how that will change the future but I will certainly have when I can.
Azure, the Microsoft flavour of the cloud, is already updated with true virtual machines and the possibility to open a VPN to your own network. Best of both worlds. Sharks with laser on top of magic unicorns.
Which brings me to Google goodness. I haven’t heard about wild new stuff regarding their cloud but instead they have created a media centre called Q. It has no user interface of it’s own but needs an Android device and NFC. The new Nexus7 tablet for instance. It’s a 7″ tablet with quite a lot of horse power for 200€. It would have been a perfect christmas present to accompany my Ipad if it wasn’t released in the autumn. By christmas it will already be in my household.
Google Glass has been presented but only as developer beta and at a hefty price tag. Google Glass is a pair of glasses frame with Android, GPS, communication possibilities and HUD. If you are among the Cromagnons thinking a Bluetooth headset is ridiculous; wait till you see this one!
What about the Java world? Well… I am still waiting for it to implement LINQ. I am waiting so much that I have installed Neo4j on my Mac but is using it from a Windows client.
What about the IBM world? I don’t know. The Notes developers seems to prefer playing by themselves. I guess there’s some cross pollination, or should I say cross contamination? between the scripting nature of Notesscript and the scripting languages of the world and between the Notes database and the document databases of the world. Personally I don’t touch it unless forced to.
Scripting world? Still no sight of strongly typed variables.
/OF
—-8<—-
- CODE AND DEVELOPMENT
- Moveable types – open source fonts
- Choosing font size – get help from Lucas sequences
- MVC, MVP, MVVM on WPF (win)
- Make the intellisense popup in Visual studio transparent (win)
- Code review the Stackexchange way
- Jquery soon to drop IE<=8 and Chrome on Ipad is really Safari
- Itext – A F/OSS/dual license solution for creating PDFs
- NDC2012 – Norwegian Developers Conference
- Google blockly – graphical programming language
- Hackerspaces in Sweden and the world
- Plucked HTML5 audio editor and Threeaudio.js visualizer – audio on the client (web)
- Integrate JavaScript into your development workflow
- CSS tutorial/documentation (web)
- VsVim visual studio extension (win)
- Hack your workspace
- Why the browser user-agent looks like it does
- The fold – does it really exist? (web,design)
- SEO for developers (web)
- Simulating Iphone browser in Windows (win,web)
- Hack and test snippets online (web)
- PROJECTS AND LEADERSHIP
- Tips for making the adoption of agile successful
- PRODUCTS AND RELEASES
- Petzold Book Blog – An Experiment in Book Publishing
- Ipoo – for what you do – when you’re in the loo (iphone)
- Shopgun – mobile app for checking how ethical and healthy a product is (android,iphone)
- Refiddle – online regex editor for javascript, ruby and dotnet (web,andmore)
- Top 10 Raspberry Pi Myths and Truths
- Suggestions site for your customers
- AIS transponder for 8€ (iphone)
- Self-publish your in-progress book for great royalties on Leanpub
- 99 USD hackable Android game console (android)
- Grub2 – a bootloader
- Windows phone 8 (winphone)
- Normalize.css – instead of resets (web)
- Peity – draw graphics in jquery (web)
- Mighty moose – a TDD continous test tool – now free (win)
- Book: Pro application lifecycle management with Visual studio 2012 (win)
- Introduction to Rx – a book (dotnet)
- Learn git hands on in a bunch of minutes
- Nemerle – OO, FP, metaprogramming all bundled in dotnet (dotnet)
- SECURITY, PRIVACY AND RIGHTS
- Some Facebook games no longer ask permission to access your profile information
- Tracing on the web and DuckDuckGo (web)
- Clemency petition (nådeansökan) for Peter Sunde
- MISCELLANEOUS
- Lego makes Minecraft
- How to not buy a used car
- Makies – configurable dolls
- Teaching your kid to code – why?
- House on stilts
- Album covers
- Laptop bag that transforms into a chair and a desk (design)
- Google maps/street view inside Pompei and in Antarctica
- Run training app – with zombie love
- “That’s not stupid”
- Finally, a line of fan gear for people who hate sports
Code and development
Moveable types – open source fonts
You like fonts?
You like free?
You like rolling your own font and participating in a community?
AFAIK Moveabletype is the best known hub for this.
Choosing font size – get help from Lucas sequences
If you are a font geek, don’t read any further you will only get angry. Or disappointed. Or both. Just like colour geeks were when I wrote about tools for choosing colours.
Say you have carefully chosen a font for your new site. Now you have to decide on size. Correction. Sizes. Because you do have head lines, body and side panels and the legal stuff below, don’t you? and they all have different font sizes.
Just like there is a golden ratio for picture composition there is one for font sizes and just like the golden ratio can’t be applied mechanically to get a stunning result so can’t the Lucas sequence on font sizes; but it can give you a head start.
The Lucas sequence is a more generic Fibonacci series and that is where I leave off. The rest is in the article. And possibly with a clever CSS3 hack.
MVC, MVP, MVVM on WPF (win)
The MVC pattern is all the black now. Well… it has been for a while so its blackness has been slightly washed out.
Also: I was not very fond of MVC when I heard about it. To be honest I didn’t understand it because in my mind I pictured a different image. This different image turned out to be MVP it turned out. I believe the MVP pattern is clearer in dependencies.
MVVM is a love-hate for me. I like the lack of dependency. I hate the lack of compile time control. Tooling like Visualstudio/WPF remedies some of that but not fully. I want to go straight from dev to prod and with MVVM I have an uncontrolled area that has to be (manually) tested each time.
WPF is all love. It is what HTML would have been if HTML had been created for what HTML is used for.
Below is linked an article about all the abbreviations mentioned.
Make the intellisense popup in Visual studio transparent (win)
I someone gets the trick below to work please tell me.
If you work with Visual studio – do yourself a favour and follow the blog. It contains lots of good tips for making Visual studio a more effective tool.
Code review the Stackexchange way
Code review is considered good.
But what if you don’t have anyone to review your code because you are alone?
Enter Codereview at stack exchange.
This is an online way to <drumroll/> code review.
I have browsed some entries and believe it can’t be used for reviewing a whole file but should be used more for functions or algorithms.
Jquery soon to drop IE<=8 and Chrome on Ipad is really Safari
Jquery1.9 (present version is 1.8) will be the last version supporting IE6,7,8. The API will remain the same at least to version 2.0.
Chrome on Ipad is really Safari with new GUI.
Itext – A F/OSS/dual license solution for creating PDFs
Creating PDFs programmatically is painful. Itext is a dual license lib that might do it for you. IIRC it works for both Dotnet and Java.
NDC2012 – Norwegian Developers Conference
More skilled people than I have said that NDC is among the best developer conferences worldwide.
If you weren’t there you missed it. This year.
But don’t despair – the link below leads to the agenda and some digging should give you casts.
Google blockly – graphical programming language
Trying to learn someone to program first involves teaching the syntax, what the curly braces, the semi colon and the parentheses do. Too me they are part of the pattern but to a newcomer they are obstacles. Why do we need them?
Why not simplify it for noobs?
I have tried one of the old (like win95 old) programming languages for robot lego and was flabbergasted of how easy it was to make parallel tasks. Something I can do in dotnet with lots and lots of hard-to-read code. (less hard-to-read with dotnet 4.5) Google has now created another graphical programming language called Blockly.
I don’t think it is useful for us who make a living on code but it might, I say might, be the Rosetta stone for newcomers who want to learn but not enough to grok the curly braces.
Tipthanks JSandén
Hackerspaces in Sweden and the world
A hackerspace is a meeting or meeting place for hardware hackers.
Plucked HTML5 audio editor and Threeaudio.js visualizer – audio on the client (web)
HTML5 audio editor and a javascript lib for making 3D out of sound. Beta and developer version respectively. Still impressive.
Integrate JavaScript into your development workflow
Unit tests. Functional tests. User interface tests. Integration tests.
They all work differently and integrate into the development workflow, continuous integration and the source code repository differently.
Below is linked information about how to integrate. Examples are mainly, but not limited to, TFS.
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/07/javascript-test-vs
CSS tutorial/documentation (web)
Below is linked a quite good CSS tutorial/documentation. It isn’t a tutorial 1-2-3-4-… but it isn’t proper documentation either. It is more of what I am looking for instead.
VsVim visual studio extension (win)
Hack your workspace
In the kitchen – do you cut the bread with the serrated knife because it is easier to cut through the crust with it? When you cut a tomato, do you first make a hole in the skin of it to aid cutting? Do you keep your knives sharp or do you change them once every ten years?
Read the question like this: Do you write documentation in MSWord or have you searched for a better tool? When you work with the application you are developing – are you logging in every time? When you debug a web application in dotnet – do you press F5/play and start from zero or do you enter your debug state through attaching directly to the web server?
Read the above like this: Do you spend your time at work with getting older while doing what you’re told or do you hone your skills to further help your customers and in the end get a better salary?
Below is linked a text by a chef where he is writing about his working place. He makes sure his tools are sharp and work nicely with him. Are you?
Below is also linked to a site where people can present their working desks. Look at SHanselman: “you can always spend money on a chair” and his blazing fast computer. Hey! – it is your main working tool, why should it be other than blazing fast?
Why the browser user-agent looks like it does
This article might seem trivial but it finally cleared my confusion about all the inter-browsers’ Mozilla notation. Written in a very entertaining way!
– http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/
Tipthanks MAnaya
The fold – does it really exist? (web,design)
The fold is what is below your screen in a web page. Is it true that people don’t read what’s written there? Of course not I say. Of course not someone else says. That and some arguments about it is found through the link below
SEO for developers (web)
SEO, Search engine optimisation, is right down there with toothbrush ads and link harvesting sexyness. Unfortunately I believe I am in a position to have to read up on it once in a while and the link below has some info on the subject without scoring too high on Buzz word bingo.
Simulating Iphone browser in Windows (win,web)
Hack and test snippets online (web)
Sometimes testing out an idea requires a whole lot of pre work with downloading and setting up libs.
This is where Jsfiddle comes in on the web front. Loading a special version of a framework be it Mootools, Jquery, extJS or one of the other 20+ frameworks supported is a breeze. Then play with HTML, CSS/LESS, JavaScript at will. The result can be stored in a PasteBin sort of way for collaboration or as example.
Codepen does approximately the same. Why not try out Coffeescript, Less, Scss or Sass? The HTML can be done through HTML (of course), HAML, Markdown or Slim. It also has an integration with Github.
<interlude>
Talking of Github. Have you noticed it is used for more than code version management? It tries to be a social world around Git but has also managed to be a-sort-of database for some webs and a simple storage for snippets to present as blogs.
</interlude>
Jsbin is a simpler version. It does a few Jquery libs and I would have praised it if not others sites did the job better.
Tinkerbin can use Sass and Less, Haml and Coffeescript but doesn’t do any libs like Jsfiddle excels in.
Tinker is somewhere between Tinkerbin and Jsfiddle but with a simpler GUI.
Dabblet only does HTML and Sass. Since everything is client side I dare to guess that it can do javascript inlined in HTML but don’t bother to test.
Cssdesk is, as the name implies, made for tinkering with CSS. If it is better at this than the other sites I cannot tell since I am a noob at CSS.
Projects and leadership
Tips for making the adoption of agile successful
Below is linked 10 tips for adopting agile methods. I immediately want to add an eleventh “Buy in from leaders and wallets.” I have been in too many scrummerfall projects where the leadership calls it Scrum.
Products and releases
Petzold Book Blog – An Experiment in Book Publishing
CPetzold is known for his books Programming Windows. Earlier a must-read for any Windows programmer. He has also written Programming windows phone 7 which Microsoft bought and let free for downloading. And then written many more.
Lately he has noticed that being an author is not like in the old days when every programmer of class had a book shelf. Today we instead have g-o-o-g-l-e-.-c-o-m hard wired into our hands’ muscle memory. So what does he do? Scream fraud and murder like the music and film distributing business do or adapt? Follow the link to his solution of pre order and a feeling of being in a community.
( He has written a book Code which is about the code that makes up our computers. It is not a programming book like his others but read worth if you like reading. If you are looking for a master piece on the other hand look at the book Code by Simon Singh; the guy that wrote the even better Fermat’s last theorem. )
Ipoo – for what you do – when you’re in the loo (iphone)
We have all been joking about ridiculous tweets and facebook updates. Someone took that further and built an app for that.
Shopgun – mobile app for checking how ethical and healthy a product is (android,iphone)
Ever stood between your super market’s aisles, looking at two products and wondering which to buy?
The price is easy – in Sweden we normally have comparable pricing marked at the shelf.
The ethical viewpoint is worse. There is no sign saying “built by childrens’ hands” or “this piece of meat is halal and hence the animal was tortured to death” or “this ecological mark is made up by ourselves”.
This is where Shopgun comes in. Its an app running on Iphone and Android and it can convert the EAN code to a simple 3-colour scheme, red, yellow and green. Just fire up the app, photograph the EAN code, watch the lights.
At the time of writing it only works in Sweden.
Refiddle – online regex editor for javascript, ruby and dotnet (web,andmore)
There are many gratis online regex editors/playgrounds out there. Some are better than others and some have special features. This one makes it easy to toggle between regex engine from javascript, ruby or dotnet. The first I know of that does those three. You can share regexes publicly or keep them private or not at all. Public regexes are searchable. Each language has some help (i.e. checkboxes) for the global parameters that are unique for each language. Finally there is some colour coding help. The GUI is a bit laggy and I stumbled upon at least one bug but it saved the day for me never the less.
Top 10 Raspberry Pi Myths and Truths
A few fast bullets about Raspberry Pi; what it can and what it cannot.
Suggestions site for your customers
You want feedback from your customers. Do you help them giving it to you? Do you help your customers giving each other good ideas?
Before I start writing about building a community around your product let med stop at the first gate; the suggestions possibility.
Instead of coding it yourself, let a site like Uservoice handle it for you. They have gratis version but if you, like Microsoft, want more bang you have to pay. Probably still cheaper than writing and hosting it yourself.
AIS transponder for 8€ (iphone)
An AIS transponder is a boat thingy that is normally way more expensive.
This solution requires an iPhone and I can’t say what more of hardware it requires but the price should any way (disregarding the iPhone) be lower than a dedicated machine.
A “real” AIS transponder fetches/sends its data by VHF. This solution fetches it from the internet. That also means it can only be used close to land and 3G masts. Just to clarify: it is a transponder which means it also sends data.
Train spotters ehm Boat spotters out there already know there is a site with AIS data visualised; I guess the site and the app uses the same data source.
What I like about it is the use of cheap electronics. I say that all naval electronics are still too expensive and that there is too little DIY.
So here is what someone handy can do: Get the VHF circuits (standard components = cheap) and connect it to an Arduino. The Arduino then runs an ethernet shield to talk to the 3G router you have on board. The Arduino is about 25€s and the shield should be about the same. The 3G/Wifi router is 100€s but it is the same you have in your summer house or regular apartment. Don’t have a 3G/Wifi router? – order a Raspberry Pi (30€ IIRC) and either hack together your own DHCP server or hammer the web for one.
Then you have a Wifi enabled boat with and AIS transponder. What is there more to ask for? I mean… with Wifi you don’t need good weather.
Tipthanks Lasse
Self-publish your in-progress book for great royalties on Leanpub
The publishing process is long and slow. But it doesn’t need to be.
Leanpub tries to make publishing simpler, cheaper and faster. It also provides the possibility to publish books in beta format; something the publishing houses have decided is impossible.
Check for instance it ROsherove’s book in the making about leadership. It strives to be the first stop for experienced-programmer-having-become-a-technical-lead, a situation that according to ROsherove doesn’t have any book so far.
– http://leanpub.com/
99 USD hackable Android game console (android)
Grub2 – a bootloader
Now version2 stable.
Windows phone 8 (winphone)
Right on the heels of Windows8 is WP8, the new Windows phone OS. It looks even nicer.
Normalize.css – instead of resets (web)
To make a site look the same everywhere it is quite usual to make a reset class. To make a long story short it is not good for performance. Instead Normalize.css might do the trick.
Peity – draw graphics in jquery (web)
Presently version 0.6 but looks nice for simple (small) graphics like piecharts and histograms.
Mighty moose – a TDD continous test tool – now free (win)
Wouldn’t it be nice if test could be run automagically as you type? I am aware of three such tools: nCrunch, one from Redgate and Mighty moose. What differs the last from from the firsts is that the last is now Free. The exact license is till to be presented.
The article contains the rational behind making it free. The business models avaiable, why they don’t work for this product, and how being forced to make money stiffles innovation.
Book: Pro application lifecycle management with Visual studio 2012 (win)
An old colleague of mine has released a book about ALM, TFS and Visualstudio.
Introduction to Rx – a book (dotnet)
Rx, short for Reactive Extensions is a new coolness, just like Linq was before.
It is used for letting your objects send messages to each other.
Think of it this way:
If adding something to list X has a side effect of adding something to list Y;
With the usual solution one writes a method AddItemAndUpdateY and then crosses fingers that everyone uses this method instead of the built in myXList.Add method. Cooler developers overrides Add to do the same. The coolest ones have already started with Rx and lets the adding of something to ListX work its Rx magic and raise an event at ListY that it needs to be updated.
Just like one does in the GUI layer.
Below is linked a gratis book.
Learn git hands on in a bunch of minutes
Below is linked a really nice interface with teaching/leading text, a terminal to write in and an folder view. If you’re new to Git – try it!
Nemerle – OO, FP, metaprogramming all bundled in dotnet (dotnet)
There is nothing new about Nemerle – whatever feature you point at can be continued with a “…as earlier done in language X” but with Nemerle everything is bundled and in the dotnet world.
Ordinary object oriented programming with functional programming mixed in. Then there is macro programming where one can extend the language itself, aspects and more than I care to write bout.
Nice overview for language geeks. People satisfied with their lives don’t need to bother.
Security, privacy and rights
Some Facebook games no longer ask permission to access your profile information
Too give the user a “smooth experience” (my quotes) some Facebook applications can access your stuff without you saying yes. Isn’t this a bit rude, privacy-wise? you might ask. And it most certainly is.
Then also remember that if a friend of yours installs an application this application gets access to your data too.
Tracing on the web and DuckDuckGo (web)
Besides being tracked by the secret police by respective country you are also tracked by companies; companies that sometime believe they are above the law regarding tracing of email traffic contrary to the Human rights agreement that everyone has the right to private conversation.
Enough of political talk. Back to basics.
There are plenty of cookies in your web browser and more than a handful of them are used for tracking your movements on the web. Signing out of Facebook doesn’t save you – logged in or not doesn’t have to do with cookies. And even though signing out affects your cookies visibly, many advertisement companies have banded together for cross tracking your cookies. This means that you are tracked never the less. By companies. That won’t tell you.
Do install something like Do not track and you will get a live number of the number of tracks on every site you visit. Oh. It removes the cookies so you don’t get tracked too.
Then we have the search result adoption for good and bad. If you use Google for all your searching and you are signed in the result will narrow down. This is calledÂ
Filter bubble. Either use another browser, a virgin one, for searching or Duckduckgo that proxies and anonymises all your searches. It also does a cleaning for sites that are only there for getting high Google ranks. Google is on a losing battle there as long as they are #1. As soon as Google updates their page rank algorithm so will sites. As a small player Duckduckgo can do a curation.
Clemency petition (nådeansökan) for Peter Sunde
Whether you like the doings of The pirate bay or not they did one thing: they lifted the abuse of power from the big media companies to the eyes of the public. The politicians have yet to understand.
Will PSunde succeed? Nope. Not in Sweden. As the 51st state of USA Sweden still want the ACTA agreement to pass. And that rhymes badly with letting the people decide.
Miscellaneous
Lego makes Minecraft
When I first tried Minecraft I felt that it was like Lego. And this in a much better way that Lego has managed to go digital themselves; their games are simple, albeit well balanced and funny for kids but don’t give you any “Lego feeling”. Not even LCAD, a CAD with true Lego parts makes you feel like a Lego builder, the parts are all there but the tactile sensation is gone.
Recently Lego released a set where one can build a piece of a Minecraft world.
I suggest you try Minecraft. If you are a grown up it probably won’t be fun for a long time, just like Lego isn’t as fun any more, but it is well worth trying. I have tried it on Windows and on Ipad.
How to not buy a used car
“The Sumo was the only car I’ve ever owned. From now on, if I ever buy a car again, it’s going to be a new car. A Subaru, of course. The Toyota GT86.”
Tipthanks FredrikH
Makies – configurable dolls
So so interesting until I found a lobotomised version with what was an Arduino sticking out.
Tipthanks JohanS
Teaching your kid to code – why?
Should kids learn to program? Don’t they spend too much time in front of Facebook, Worldofwarcraft and Minecraft already? Maybe it’s not about programming as much as about computer literacy.
JGalloway presents his views on the subject through the link below. Maybe a bit to long article and scarce in hard data but raising a kid isn’t a one-book-for-all-the answers thing and a non-programming oriented post might be the right thing.
House on stilts
I am spoiling the link but: if you build a house you can build it on stilts. Because you can. But if you do you must incorporate a slide. Because it takes it to a whole new level.
There are more cool houses linked at the bottom of the site.
Album covers
One feature of LPs that beats CDs hands down is the image format. And what images!
Unfortunately one’s eyes cannot forget the Stay hungry record. And the bad cutout of Pros and cons of hitchhiking is still burning behind my iris.
But it can get worse.
I won’t say I have in my ownership Loffe Carlsson goes Latin America. But that cover is humour! And as an Abba-not-liker I certainly don’t have Super trouper with the the soldier to the left taking the focus away from Björn, you know the guy that juggles on the back side and one of the flares is frozen in time as a unicorn horn. And the picture isn’t even sharp!
Finally I do have to give kudos to Freddie Gage with his title All my friend are dead. If he hadn’t had white shoes and the world’s widest tie it would have been the coolest album title that decade.
But it can get worse.
Tipthanks Lasse
Laptop bag that transforms into a chair and a desk (design)
As the headline says. Cool idea.
Google maps/street view inside Pompei and in Antarctica
Where the googlemobile can’t go a three wheeled bicycle can. Like through the narrow streets of the Pompei ruins.
Did you know there is a special ambulance that has a wheel width adjusted to the elevated crossing stones in Pompei?
There are more sights than the two linked below.
Run training app – with zombie love
There are thirteen to a dozen of apps for helping you run. But only one has the sound of zombies and people in need. The very idea is so good that I’m thinking giving up base jumping and taking up jogging instead.
“That’s not stupid”
Fireworks gone wrong.
I was :-) and then :-0 and then LOL and then ROTFL. Then I watched again.
Finally, a line of fan gear for people who hate sports
*EOF*
June 11th, 2012
hejdig.
The title might be the funniest tweet about latest version of Microsoft Azure that came out the other day.
The point is that it is now possible to run Linux in the Microsoft cloud.
I wonder if someone has mentioned it to SBallmer?
Recently out is also a new beta of Windows8 and Visualstudio2012 though they are called RC and whatnot. TFS and EF are upgraded. Dotnet is coming to version 4.5.
And this is only on the Microsoft stack. Check out the new Apple hardware…
This news letter is sponsored by SBallmer himself.
/OF
—-8<—-
- CODE AND DEVELOPMENT
- New stuff in Windows Azure (win)
- General purpose compressing library coming to dotnet (win)
- aspConf – a virtual Aspnet conference (win)
- Windows 8 client virtualization (win)
- Visual studio tip: add a solution to a solution (win)
- Visual studio/TFS 2012 release candidate and dotnet4.5 is here (win)
- LESS – takes some of the evul out of CSS
- Microsoft fakes – avoid adapting the architecture to the testing (win)
- Lean software and systems conference 2012 on Vimeo
- OpenROV – open source underwater remotedly operated vehicle
- Watch “The Ikea Song” on YouTube
- Yelling made easier
Code and development
New stuff in Windows Azure (win)
When Azure came around one was limited to dotnet and running two or three different types of programs. It was not a bad solution and took a third path from Amazon and Google. Now times are different. Read on.
Firstly you can run the Azure SDK from latest version of Visual studio, the 2012RC release. Go install! You can run it from VS2010 too but what is the fun in that?
The admin portal is spiced up. It is also reachable through REST. DevOps cheers.
Azure can now run “normal” virtual machines. This means you can set up a machine at home and then upload it. The same machines can be moved to other platforms – read Amazon or take it home again.
To top it of, the VMs don’t even have to be Windows but 3 versions of linux are supported too. Yes, you read that right. Suse, CentOS and Ubuntu.
One can integrate to publish directly from TFS or Git. I don’t know if there is any difference in functionality between the two. This promises continuous deployment.
Choice of language for the Azure SDK is dotnet, java, javascript (node.js), php, python and possibly something more – I haven’t heard anything about ruby.
If you are afraid of earth quakes or electrical thunder storms or the more plausible nuclear fall out there is an option to have your data replicated to another place at least 640km away.
– http://www.meetwindowsazure.com/ <- presentation keynote by scottgu
– http://feeds.magnusmartensson.com/~r/magnusmartensson/~3/2674NixQHB0/WindowsAzureTakesTheLeadJune2012.aspx <- mmårtensson, a swedish mvp, sings praise to the new stuff. you’ve got to love his passion!
– http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2012/06/07/meet-the-new-windows-azure.aspx <- scottgu, head chief writes on his blog
– http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2012/06/07/announcing-continuous-deployment-to-azure-with-team-foundation-service.aspx <- continuous deployment to azure from tis
– http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2012/06/07/announcing-the-june-2012-release-of-windows-azure-sdk-for-net-now-with-support-for-visual-studio-2012-rc.aspx
General purpose compressing library coming to dotnet (win)
Yup. What the headline says. In dotnet 4.5.
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/05/Net-Zip
aspConf – a virtual Aspnet conference (win)
Online conference about the Microsoft stack. 17-18 of June.
Did I say it is gratis?
– http://www.aspconf.net/
Windows 8 client virtualization (win)
Have you run a virtual machine under WinXP. Have you finally managed how to set up for virtual machines on Win7 *without* installing the WinXP compatibility thingy? Have you tried to move a virtual machine from WinXP to Win7? Have you seen a grown man cry?
Windows8 puts something new in the cradle. SLAT. Some fast info about that is linked below.
– http://sqlblog.com/blogs/john_paul_cook/archive/2012/06/06/windows-8-client-virtualization.aspx
Visual studio tip: add a solution to a solution (win)
I have seen one can add folders to a solution in visual studio. Now I have read that one can add solutions to solutions. Please note that I have written Solution and not Project.
Below is linked the original article.
The blog is dedicated to Visual studio tricks so it might be worth having in your RSS reader.
– http://nilsnaegele.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/tip-7-10-you-can-add-a-solution-to-a-solution-4/
Visual studio/TFS 2012 release candidate and dotnet4.5 is here (win)
Don’t forget to update your Windows8 to get the newest stuff Metro-wise.
VS RC can be installed directly over the beta.
I don’t know how the Win8 upgrade process is. Yet.
Some new stuff in TFS:
Easier association between work items on checkin.
Moving a TFS database has become easier, now there is tooling for it.
The GUI has been updated.
The task board is touch friendly. I have lot to say about this but will save it for a later time and a greater scope.
Some new stuff in VS:
Performance is even better. VS11 started quicker than VS2010. VS2012 is even faster.
Don’t get me started about the GUI but is has been improved again. Embrace change I say.
Theming is improved. Now you can have a cool black theme to show off. Personally I want to use the dark theme but don’t like it.
The solution explorer toolbox is changed. It was close to being too cluttered. It still is.
If you think it is – install DPack and don’t care about the solution explorer any more.
Tired of searching through the menus for a command? There is a quick search for it. Here I must give kudos to the team for at the same time presenting the shortcut in a non-intrusive way.
The XAML designer has been updated in both VS and Blend.
There are new Aspnet templates. Among them a new empty one.
Scaffolding is new since the beta. One uses the nuget command prompt to point out stuff and get code back. Think like this: you want to create a new CRUD page for a table. Write some text on a command line and the code gets written for you. It is like when creating a new project that connects to a database and has a lot of pages but without having to… create a new project.
VS supports debugging in different web browsers. No more need to swap default one. One can even start several at once.
The Javascript editor is improved.
The CSS editor is improved.
The HTML editor is improved.
VS now uses Json.net out of the box. Like everyone else does.
The web api is a more RESTful approach. I have tried it and it is really simple and nice.
Put javascript files in a folder and VS can minify and bundle it for you for making faster downloads.
Lightswitch is improved.
If you are into testing and is using VS there are lots to learn already. More functionality has now been added and the GUI has been improved.
Architectural tools have been improved but I won’t mention them due to their uselessness due to Microsofts licence scheme. Unless you like 25000€ is a fair price.
Some new stuff in Dotnet4.5:
The await keyword.
It is like multi threading made easy to read.
EntityFramework 5. Well… EF is released out of band with Dotnet so it isn’t a part of it.
EF5 has database migration. This means you write upgrade and downgrade code for changing database version in a dotnet language and not sql as usual is. I have seen it demonstrated and liked the smoothness of the process but still think it is the wrong way to go. Database stuff should be done in databases and sql. Amen.
– http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2012/05/31/visual-studio-tfs-2012-release-candidate-available-today.aspx <- mostly tis
– http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2012/05/31/announcing-the-release-candidate-rc-of-visual-studio-2012-and-net-framework-4-5.aspx <- contains a video too
– http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VisualStudio2012RCIsReleasedTheBigWebRollup.aspx
LESS – takes some of the evul out of CSS
I am not saying CSS is bad. I am just saying it is far from being good.
That today create a “language” that doesn’t have variables is so far out that even Whitespace seems like an ordinary language.
Enter LESS and SASS. One of them, SASS IIRC, is also blessed by the Visual studio team.
– http://www.developerdrive.com/2012/05/learning-less-mixins/
Microsoft fakes – avoid adapting the architecture to the testing (win)
When doing TDD or BDD or any other abbreviation that requires testing one has to use interfaces. Why? Because otherwise one cannot mock.
Alas – adapting testing requires a change of architecture. This is not considered a good thing.
Please note that I am not against interfaces; they have their reason. But do also note that changing an architecture changes more than just a few boxes in a slide show.
Creating an architecture for supporting a domain is good. Changing the architecture away from this is not necessarily good; even probably not so since the architecture was adapted to the domain to start with.
There is where Microsoft fakes comes in. It supports the so called non-invasive testing which tries to stay away. Instead it intercepts calls and does its job.
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/05/deep-dive-fakes
Projects and leadership
Lean software and systems conference 2012 on Vimeo
LSSC12 conference online gratis for your viewing pleasure.
– http://vimeo.com/channels/339107
Miscellaneous
OpenROV – open source underwater remotedly operated vehicle
A human life form has been on the moon more times than on the bottom of the ocean. That is how little we know about it.
Normally ROVs, as they are called, are expensive, bulky, heavy and require several people to run them. I have for a long time have the idea that it must not be so. Thankfully some with more time and skill than I have thought so too.
Below is linked a start at knowing more; a small remotedly operated machine for under water use. It looks nicer than all my sketches of my own solution. The one I never had the time to build.
Did I say it is open? – like libre/free.
– http://openrov.com/
Watch “The Ikea Song” on YouTube
I don’t know if it is a try to be create a viral ad by Ikea themselves or guy with a funny bone. Never the less it is funny.
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haxd9ncak00
Yelling made easier
Bash is like youtube but with text; there are a lot of duds but once in a while you start replaying/rereading the film/text while crying with laughter.
– http://bash.org/?835030
*EOF*
June 3rd, 2012
For newcomers to the Microsoft dev world: RC stands for Release Candidate and is what others would call a beta; or “late beta” to show that it is close to release. RP stands for Release preview and is similarly a beta. To be honest RC and RP and RTM and what else of abbreviations have a deeper meaning like “feature complete”, “production worthy” etc. I just can’t remember what means what.
What does this more mean?
You’re close to your next update.
Dotnet micro framework still doesn’t work.
This Cccommunicate letter is sponsored by the great slide.
—-8<—-
- CODE AND DEVELOPMENT
- Moonlight is getting abandoned – end of Silverlight on non-windows?
- Github releases client for Windows and it also works with non-Github repositories
- CSS3 new stuff – what to use, not and meanwhile
- Visual studio 11 crippled in Win8 (win)
- PRODUCTS AND RELEASES
- Webcast introducing Raspbery pi
- Online kanban board – gratis for 3 users
- Konkurrent till Raspberry pi (android)
- Leapmotion – desktop gesture tracking
- Yahoo axis
- SECURITY, PRIVACY AND RIGHTS
- Windows8 machines will be crippled, OS-wise (win)
- Apple details Ios security features (ios)
- I was wrong – steam has been cracked
- MISCELLANEOUS
- Gameboy emulator in Javascript and HTML5
- Ikea hackers – hardware real-life hacks
- Combined wallet and iPhone case
- Galaxify
Code and development
Moonlight is getting abandoned – end of Silverlight on non-windows?
Moonlight is the Silverlight implementation on Mono.
Mono is the Dotnet implementation on non-windows platforms.
It comes as no surprise since everything looks like Silverlight is being abandoned.
IIRC Silverlight exists in Windows 8 but I still wouldn’t recommend it. Silverlight I mean. I predict that if Silverlight survives on Windows8 it will be rebranded as “WPF for Metro” or something incomprehensible as “WPF NextGen”.
– http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/05/Miguel-Moonlight
Github releases client for Windows and it also works with non-Github repositories
There where earlier one or two GUIs for GIT on Windows plus Posh that is a Powershell lib for GIT.
Now Github has released a windows client for Github. It isn’t limited to Github so you can use it for your Bitbucket repository too. That is exactly what I intend to do.
– http://haacked.com/archive/2012/05/29/using-github-for-windows-with-non-github-repositories.aspx
CSS3 new stuff – what to use, not and meanwhile
There are lots of new stuff in CSS3. Many thing of them are not sorted, only partially, comme ci comme ca, or not at all. Below is linked some tricks for getting you through the jungle. Until CSS4 comes out and it possibly works without all the copy paste of today.
– http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/05/css3-best-practices-for-designers/
Visual studio 11 express crippled in Win8 (win)
Rumours, rumours, rumours.
They say that the gratis version of Visual studio, Visual studio express, will not handle anything but Metro apps. This means that one can’t develop anything that doesn’t run in the Metro biosphere with sandboxing, surveilled application market and all. With VSExpress that is.
Is this dangerous for devs and win and microsoft? Personally I will have a paid version of VS for the overseeable future so I won’t raise a fuzz. But what about newbies? Crippling the development environment for a platform hinders the birth of new developers for said platform. I admit that I am biased but I claim that developers are a special kind of users on a computer and they must be kept happy for a computer/OS to thrive.
The Sharpdevelop IDE will of course continue to run on Windows8 outside Metro and Java, Ruby, Python and the like will all run. But they will only be able to create non-Metro stuff.
What will happen with development for Windows phone? My guess is that there will be a special version Microsoft visual studio windows phone express.
What will happen with development for netduino? I don’t know if Microsoft has invested anything in Netduino but they do have in Gadgeteer.
Then there are rumours about WinRT ditching the desktop. WinRT is the name of Window8 running on tablets. Without a desktop on WinRT much is lost; file management, many settings, freedom to run whatever You like on Your machine. If you think this sounds like the iPad world you are totally right.
According to rumours Metro will only run IE so any WinRT machine will only be able to run IE. iPad… GoogleOS…
– http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/05/no-cost-desktop-software-development-is-dead-on-windows-8/
Products and releases
Webcast introducing Raspbery pi
An hour long presentation of Raspberry pi.
A guy is sitting down talking, showing some slides and writing a helloworld. I kept an eye and ear on it while keeping the rest of my eyes and ears and limbs to my real task at hand. I learned some. And really want one. And time to play with it.
Raspberry pi has Python2.7 on it. It would make it very easy to get started with. There is no web server.
There are wishes for putting BbbBasic on it. Brits…
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALwTAH-3h84x
– http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcbasic/history.html <- BbbBasic history
Online kanban board – gratis for 3 users
On my track on finding a good online kanban board I noticed this one.
Try it for 30 days or gratis for up to 3 users.
– http://www.leankitkanban.com/
Konkurrent till Raspberry pi (android)
Via släpper ett dator-på-ett-kort för en 300kr. OS är Android. Mer muskler än Raspberry pi.
– http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.451014/rekordbillig-android-dator-kommer-i-juli
Leapmotion – desktop gesture tracking
Place a little box on your desktop in front of your screen and the project leader never has to touch and grease your screen again. Check the vids behind the link.
The docs says 3D, the videos says 2D. Nevertheless this puts Kinekt for the desktop in serious competition.
The demos only show computer screen interaction but I see use for other touch less UIs like for surgeons or car mechanics; or with a low price and good API used in the industry instead of physical switches or photocells.
– https://live.leapmotion.com/index.html
– http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/25/leap-motion-gesture-control-technology-hands-on/ <- a too simple review
Tipstack JSandén
Yahoo axis
Web search is getting better every year.
The latest improvement is Yahoo axis that gives you previews in a slidable manner.
Check out the video linked below, they might have a fresh idea.
– http://axis.yahoo.com/
Security, privacy and rights
Windows8 machines will be crippled, OS-wise (win)
Old news is that Windows8 will come with a scheme for making it harder to switch to another OS. If I understand it correctly it is about signing the boot loader.
Officially this is for making it harder to tamper with the OS and get around copy protection and the app stores that are all the black now.
I have my doubts though. As long as I have full access to the machine and OS – as I have as an administrator – changing the OS is doable anyway. From Microsoft’s standpoint, on the other hand, will implementing copy protection be much easier if they know that the machine can’t boot to something else.
The WinRT (windows8 for arm based tablets iirc) will be even more locked down. It must not be able to run anything else. And That annoys me. I believe that if you have bought something then it is yours and the responsibility is yours with what to do with it.
I link to Slashdot instead of the original article because there were a pair of good comments.
Oh, almost forgot. The article isn’t about Win8 machine lockdown per se but about Fedoras view and actions.
– http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/05/31/190217/red-hat-will-pay-microsoft-to-get-past-uefi-restrictions
Apple details Ios security features (ios)
The link below leads to an article that leads to a pdf at Apple.
No more surfing around and reading reverse engineered information needed – just go to the source directly.
– https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/apple-details-ios-security-features-new-guide-053112
I was wrong – steam has been cracked
Ï got a reply a while ago that I had been wrong. The replier said the (s)he knows a crack, first hand, a while back.
> It has been around for a while, still not cracked and seems to work;
> I have heard very little bad things about it. Contrary to, say, Sony’s PS3 solution.
Tipthanks AnonymousKnight
Miscellaneous
Gameboy emulator in Javascript and HTML5
Why?
Because it can be done.
– http://gamecenter.grantgalitz.org/
Ikea hackers – hardware real-life hacks
If we stop treating Ikea furnitures as stand alone pieces but instead as Lego we can multiply the uses and usefulness.
Below is linked a site that is about furniture remakes targeted only Ikea.
The upside is twofold 1) Ikea is omnipresent to an ok price 2) Ikea is quite good at keeping (some) furnitures around for years and they have series of furniture with matching measurements.
– http://www.ikeahackers.net/
– http://www.ikeahackers.net/2012/05/spider-lamp-from-forsa.html
Tipthanks Stiff
Combined wallet and iPhone case
Not too bad idea to marry the wallet and the mobile phone case. I already have a put a spare business card and a key card in my phone case.
I don’t know if the radio performance is affected. That is, if you already have bad reception on your phone – will it be worse? Well… pull it out of the case for those places.
– http://www.senacases.com/apple/iphone-4-cases/walletslim/
Galaxify
There are many galaxies out there. Correction: There are very many galaxies out there. When a project called Zoo crowd sourced classifying galaxies it was discovered that some looked like letters. One thing leads to another and now there is a site that makes it possible to write text with galaxies.
There is also one that looks like an apple with a bite mark. They are in for a hell of a law suit.
– http://mygalaxies.co.uk/
– http://mygalaxies.co.uk/u7se54/ <- Me, myself, and I
Tipthanks HD
*EOF*
May 26th, 2012
hejdig.
A new Cccommunicate letter is out.
My primary working tool is my computer. My primary tactile tool to handle the computer is my keyboard. So it would be strange if I didn’t spend some time making it better.
20 years ago I looked at my hands and wrists I saw that they prefer to stay straight.
So I folded the legs on the keyboard and laid it flat.
It felt awkward for the first 10 minutes but I knew that I, ergonomically, was on the right track.
Now I can say that that was the simplest thing I have ever done to decrease the risk of working injures. Or just simply improve ergonomics.
/OF
Table of contents:
CODE AND DEVELOPMENT
Continous delivery in 10 minutes (java,win)
Sisodb and Sqlserver – DDB on top of RDB – What? – (win)
Unit testing is enhanced in VS11 (win)
Common pitfalls in jquery – a short article for avoiding some of them (javascript)
Team explorer everywhere – run TFS from Eclipse (win?)
The new GUI in VS11 – a slight step backwards (win)
Lint and javascript – JSLint and JSHint (javascript)
Learning Azure – weekly webcast (win)
Jetbrains dotnet decompiler and assembly browser version 1.0 (win)
INotifyPropertyChanged – here is a better solution than standard (win)
PROJECTS AND LEADERSHIP
Software Team Leader Manifesto – Take #2 – Elastic Team Leadership in Software – Elastic Leadership
Trello.com – simple online kanban board
PRODUCTS AND RELEASES
so.cl – new social network thingy from microsoft
Blank keyboards – übergeek
An 8 cm long cmputer on open platform
Power unit for a computer power in a car or boat
SECURITY, PRIVACY AND RIGHTS
Transparency for copyright removals in search (google)
Cert.se – online realtid (så gott det går) info om virus och säkerhet
MISCELLANEOUS
27b6 – the neighbour and the halogen lamp
Punkin chunking – a DIY sport
You cannot parse HTML with regex
Lowered prices on games
May 10th, 2012
Communicate, communicate, communicate letter is out.
Update! Update now!
A new version of an operating system or tool you use is out. Should you upgrade now, in a few weeks after reading through the forums, when version x.1 is out or wait until the next version with the feature(s) you really need is out?
The immediate answer is Now. Other answers require an explanation; to not stay current with times requires a reason.
An upgrade of a system might require time, resources and risk. For simplicity I use the word “cost” for these as a group.
Is this cost a problem?
Toy with the idea of updating something as big and complex as an operating system in small small pieces, say once a week, or even better: whenever available. This is already done today with antivirus and patches. Even though each and every update risks a cost they are applied all the time. Besides, if one has business critical 24/7 systems one most probably also has checkpoints, backups and redundancy.
Alas: already today we are updating our systems continously without hesitation and it seems to work splendidly.
The job must be done anyway
As long as a system isn’t planned to be scrapped it has to be maintained so the update job has to be done anyway. The cost is there – it is just a matter of paying the debt now or later. While the debt isn’t payed someone else has to pay; either the very person who uses the OS or tool or the whole business unit. By not upgrading one moves the cost from one place to another while still keeping the cost to be payed at a later time anyway.
If one waits until “next update” to do two updates at once one does just that. Waits. And then updates twice. The cost is mainly dependant on the change in functionality – only partly on manual work. Two updates directly after each other won’t decrease the cost; it will instead increase the amount of changes, the risk and the resulting cost even more.
If each update requires a lot of manual work one probably has yet a problem – the lack of dexterity to do something fast and simple.
Alas: Update now. You will update anyway in a way or another.
What if the the update doesn’t contain anything needed?
Do the update anyway. The situation is now such that any problems that arise is due to the update process only, not the functionality. A golden opportunity to weed out problems with the update process. By next update, the one with changed functionality will run smoother and with less cost.
Alas: Update now. Take the cost now.
Child diseases
Everyone has them. Both this update and next. Make sure to get as few as possible. Alas: update each time. Now.
Dead time
If one spends a week on forums to find out if others got problems oneself might get, don’t wait with starting the process of updating. As soon as the update is available, start working on it. As soon as the update is verfied, apply it. Remember: the update has to be done anyway and there is no reason to let the rest of the company pay for a week more with an old system.
Psychology
By choosing to not upgrade one also tells the surrounding that staying current with time isn’t proper. As a business leader the signal is that work is done at desk, in chair, 8 hours a day with the tools in front, not with the tools available. Progress? things others do. As a IT pro running the computers one tells the users their time and working environment is less worth. As a developer one is simply smoked. A developer who doesn’t embrace change maybe should change line of business – conservation or royal court comes to mind.
April 23rd, 2012
Cccommunicate news letter is out.
[
When you share personal data with a friend on Facebook you also share it with the Facebook apps your friend uses. Read that again.
That’s right. When the price is free regard yourself as the product.
This news letter is found online here.
This news letter is sponsored by Pain, Jump and Imagination.
This news letter doesn’t come with a ridiculously long eula.
]
March 20th, 2012
Cccommunicate news letter is out.
