Communicate, communicate, communicate – and how to lure you into reading

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*

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and the old layout with the same awesome information

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

one can write

All it takes is to call a stack walking method like so:

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.

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*

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and the new email friendly layout

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and lots of stuff to come

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<—-

1. CODE AND DEVELOPMENT
   1. Moveable types – open source fonts
   2. Choosing font size – get help from Lucas sequences
   3. MVC, MVP, MVVM on WPF (win)
   4. Make the intellisense popup in Visual studio transparent (win)
   5. Code review the Stackexchange way
   6. Jquery soon to drop IE<=8 and Chrome on Ipad is really Safari
   7. Itext – A F/OSS/dual license solution for creating PDFs
   8. NDC2012 – Norwegian Developers Conference
   9. Google blockly – graphical programming language
   10. Hackerspaces in Sweden and the world
   11. Plucked HTML5 audio editor and Threeaudio.js visualizer – audio on the client (web)
   12. Integrate JavaScript into your development workflow
   13. CSS tutorial/documentation (web)
   14. VsVim visual studio extension (win)
   15. Hack your workspace
   16. Why the browser user-agent looks like it does
   17. The fold – does it really exist? (web,design)
   18. SEO for developers (web)
   19. Simulating Iphone browser in Windows (win,web)
   20. Hack and test snippets online (web)
2. PROJECTS AND LEADERSHIP
   1. Tips for making the adoption of agile successful
3. PRODUCTS AND RELEASES
   1. Petzold Book Blog – An Experiment in Book Publishing
   2. Ipoo – for what you do – when you’re in the loo (iphone)
   3. Shopgun – mobile app for checking how ethical and healthy a product is (android,iphone)
   4. Refiddle – online regex editor for javascript, ruby and dotnet (web,andmore)
   5. Top 10 Raspberry Pi Myths and Truths
   6. Suggestions site for your customers
   7. AIS transponder for 8€ (iphone)
   8. Self-publish your in-progress book for great royalties on Leanpub
   9. 99 USD hackable Android game console (android)
   10. Grub2 – a bootloader
   11. Windows phone 8 (winphone)
   12. Normalize.css – instead of resets (web)
   13. Peity – draw graphics in jquery (web)
   14. Mighty moose – a TDD continous test tool – now free (win)
   15. Book: Pro application lifecycle management with Visual studio 2012 (win)
   16. Introduction to Rx – a book (dotnet)
   17. Learn git hands on in a bunch of minutes
   18. Nemerle – OO, FP, metaprogramming all bundled in dotnet (dotnet)
4. SECURITY, PRIVACY AND RIGHTS
   1. Some Facebook games no longer ask permission to access your profile information
   2. Tracing on the web and DuckDuckGo (web)
   3. Clemency petition (nådeansökan) for Peter Sunde
5. MISCELLANEOUS
   1. Lego makes Minecraft
   2. How to not buy a used car
   3. Makies – configurable dolls
   4. Teaching your kid to code – why?
   5. House on stilts
   6. Album covers
   7. Laptop bag that transforms into a chair and a desk (design)
   8. Google maps/street view inside Pompei and in Antarctica
   9. Run training app – with zombie love
   10. “That’s not stupid”
   11. Finally, a line of fan gear for people who hate sports

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

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.

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

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

Why the browser user-agent looks like it does

– http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/

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)

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?

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)

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)

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

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!

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”

Fireworks gone wrong.

Finally, a line of fan gear for people who hate sports

*EOF*

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and if hell froze over, wouldn’t penguins settle?

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<—-

1. CODE AND DEVELOPMENT

1. New stuff in Windows Azure (win)
2. General purpose compressing library coming to dotnet (win)
3. aspConf – a virtual Aspnet conference (win)
4. Windows 8 client virtualization (win)
5. Visual studio tip: add a solution to a solution (win)
6. Visual studio/TFS 2012 release candidate and dotnet4.5 is here (win)
7. LESS – takes some of the evul out of CSS
8. Microsoft fakes – avoid adapting the architecture to the testing (win)

• PROJECTS AND LEADERSHIP

1. Lean software and systems conference 2012 on Vimeo

• MISCELLANEOUS

1. OpenROV – open source underwater remotedly operated vehicle
2. Watch “The Ikea Song” on YouTube
3. 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*

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and Windows 8 release preview and Visual studio 2012 release candidate

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<—-

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and it’s all about ergonomics baby!

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

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and the lack of privacy in Facebook applications

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.

]

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and feature or a security hole

Cccommunicate news letter is out.

Communicate, communicate, communicate – and EU is on the verge of ACTA

Cccommunicate news letter is out.