Work vs. Play

New Pictures!

2008-05-30T13:40:00Z

I uploaded a bunch of new pictures from this month... Hiking on the AT & Wiley Shelter (I only got 4 days in, but still very fun. I can't wait to go again. I'll post separately on this.) http://longlostcousins.com/photos/todd/category1030.aspx The Hammies (My hamsters. Yes, I know that hamsters aren't "adult" pets, but I sort of inherited them and now I'm having fun with it. ) http://longlostcousins.com/photos/todd/category1029.aspx Kitchen Renovations (more will be...(read more)

Video from Wiley Shelter on the AT

2008-05-30T13:03:00Z

Here's a video of Wiley Shelter in NY where I stayed one of the nights on my recent hike. I was out for about 4 days. This is really my favorite shelter although I've only been to a few of the hundreds that are on the trail. The video shows the camping area, the fire pit (not allowed in many states, including CT), the actual lean to, and closes looking north down the trail. You can lots of birds and forest noise in the background, but not much else This is why I go out there. (You can download...(read more)

Posting from the Dark Side

2008-03-29T22:16:00Z

I'm typing this post on a MacBook; my new MacBook to be exact. Why such silliness you ask? Well, I needed a new computer, and since I expect to be doing a whole bunch of Apex programming in Eclipse in the near future, I figured I would take the plunge. How is it? Well, since it doesn't boot into Windows yet, and I don't have any Office-y suite, it doesn't actually do anything yet. But since I'm learning how to do things "in the cloud" , it's the slickest, whitest...(read more)

Getting SPUnit Test Results As XML

2007-12-09T08:38:40Z

Using SPunit ( cookbook / Sourceforge ) to test your SQL stored procs? Want some NUnit style xml output? I haven't actually tested this on my CCNet installation yet, but it works with the dashboard's standard xsl file. Use this instead of the normal "Run" procedure and it should get you pretty close. I'll post any updates when I get it into production. Of course, SPUnit only records failed tests so it's not as helpful as it could be, but it will help identify...(read more)

More Quick Wins...

2007-11-26T04:49:31Z

Over the last month or so, I've gotten to work on some cool new stuff and see some new technologies - I recently updated my blog theme, went to DevConnections, and have focused on testing and CI at work. Here's some new stuff I discovered (or at least new to me): SVN 1-Click Setup - I decided it would be good to get a reliable source control repository setup at home. SVN isn't really too tough to get going but with this installer, its a no brainer. You'll have a local repository and...(read more)

The first rule of any technology used in a business...

2007-11-26T04:45:00Z

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. Bill Gates...(read more)

Blog Theme Help

2007-11-17T20:26:00Z

I'm working on updating my Community Server blog theme so it won't look so much like the out of the box themes. A couple of good resources for people who are only marginally creative like me: :) www.colorsontheweb.com has a whole bunch of tools to help create and visualize different color schemes. I'll be going with the scheme called " Vintage Hula Girl " I found on their site. It's pretty close to what I was configuring using their Color Wizard tool but has a little extra...(read more)

Thoughts about DevConnections Sessions

2007-11-14T01:40:00Z

UPDATED: 11/17/2007 - added some links to speaker & session info and fixed a couple of typos Since I'm going to have to review this at work, I thought I'd get some thoughts together about the sessions I attended at DevConnections last week. WSS Overview (HMS202) and MOSS Overview (HMS201) These were done by Laurence Liu and Tom Rizzo . Both were pretty informative and well done, but perhaps a little basic; probably what's to be expected from "Overview" sessions. WSS features...(read more)

Back from DevConnections

2007-11-11T01:12:00Z

I spent last week in Las Vegas at the DevConnections conference. It was my first BIG conference, although I've been to many are Code Camps and MSDN Events sessions. This was a whole 'nother ball game. ( A few more pix ) There must have been 5,000+ people there - it was pretty intense. At one point after a session, I found myself standing around with Jim talking to Phil Haack , Rick Strahl , and Rob Conery . I think I made some kind of stupid joke about passing unit test as 1=1 or something...(read more)

I'm going to Vegas!

2007-10-31T01:23:00Z

DevConnections here I come! Got the conference registration, flight, and hotel all booked up today! I'll be attending mixture of ASP.Net and Sharepoint sessions, but I'll be sure to catch at least one OpenForce session - Jim Bonnie and Rob Connery will be doing a session on SubSonic in DotNetNuke on Wed AM. I'm completely psyched to see ScottGu , Scott Hanselman , Steven Smith , Dino Esposito , Tom Rizzo , Richard Campbell , and even more. It's practically my blogroll! If you're...(read more)

A Nice Trick for Caching by User

2007-10-30T03:41:00Z

I wrote a quick overview of caching (and state) the other day and saw a great VaryByCustom tip on Steven Smith's blog today . VaryByCustom allows you to use a global.asax method ( GetVaryByCustomString ) to return a string that will act as your VaryBy key. In Steven's tip, they return the current user's username, essentially create a user specific cache. This allows you to use all of the cache invalidation and other tools that the Cache class offers. Sweet!...(read more)

Quick Wins - SQL Unit Testing

2007-10-27T20:01:00Z

I've been looking into unit testing in SQL as a quick way to check out the effects of database changes. I've been spending a fair amount of time working on SQL-only type changes - things that unit or functional tests won't catch either because we don't have a .Net API or front end application to test or because the types of things I need to check are data integrity stuff that would neccessarily make an application fail. I originally started my search at the OpenSourceTesting.org site's...(read more)

Caching In 10 Minutes

2007-10-26T03:57:00Z

This is some stuff I've been meaning to post to the wiki at work because I've been asked a lot of questions about it, but just haven't gotten around to yet. It's a little bit intro, but I couldn't find a good snapshot anywhere else, so here we are. (It's also a test post with Windows Live Writer on the new Community Server install so I'm killing two birds with one stone.) Start the clock now... I'll do a quick overview of some ASP.Net Caching basics, and post to some...(read more)

Fumbleview on iPhone

2007-10-21T21:00:00Z

I blogged in the past about my iPhone. It's a decent phone, but not really worth all the hype IMHO. As the "platform" matures, some cool sites are popping up.Fumbleview lets you get up to the minute football game progress on your iPhone. It works great and the phone integration is so tight it won't even load on the Windows browsers I tried. Worth a bookmark for every iPhone owning football fan.

http://fumbleview.com/

Sent from my iPhone

A Better Developer - Two Months In...

2007-10-16T04:48:00Z

Two months ago, I posted about being a better developer in 6 months just like everyone else. Since I want to keep this going, I’m grading myself periodically to see where I stand…

1.      Blog more.
Not Changed: Exactly the same as last month… “OK, I really said every other day, but I have improved. Hey this is my second post today! :)” (C)
2.      Finish and Expand the SDK for work.
There’s still plenty more to do on this, and hopefully I’ll make it a priority this week by writing this! It has spawned a couple of blog posts though.    (B-)
3.      Upgrade this website.
Well, if you’re reading this you can probably tell that I’m not running dotText and DotNetNuke anymore. Sorry, I really wanted to work with DNN but the upgrade path was a killer (in part because I didn’t keep up with the upgrades as they were released, but there’s just so damn many, and even one at a time it still failed more often than not). I also tried dasBlog in the meantime, but couldn’t get it to play nice on my ISP. So, here we are, one third of they way through, and I can (almost) officially mark this as done. We’re kicking Community Server 2007 now. Guess I’ll be reading Dave Burke’s blog posts a little more carefully now, like this one. J (A)
4.      Learn the Castle stack.
I still don’t like it. With the imminence of ScottGu’s MVC framework, I may not have to worry. I still want to learn the concepts though. And because of some work projects headed my way, I may have to add SharePoint to the list. I may need to refactor this goal. (C+)
UPDATE 10/24/2007: OK, I'm starting to like it more, but still wary of troubles with using 3rd party controls.
5.      Get comfortable with Orcas.
Not Changed: “Haven't touched the bits I downloaded.” (D)
6.      Stop writing classic ASP.
Not Changed: “This will hopefully become much easier when I finish #2, but so far I'm still in it.” (D)

Overall, a reasonable improvement for month 2, but still a solid C. I'll grade myself again next month, but in the meantime, how’s Jim doing?