…or some other catchy metaphor that will grab your attention. These technologies were hot over the last 5 years. Flex gained a particular amount of popularity in the Java community where UI technologies have a bit of a spotty record (that’s like saying my Bengals have a bit of a spotty record over a lifetime). [...]
Archives for Microsoft
Windows Search Service Fix/Hack for Windows 7
I’m not sure why, but Windows Search Service is broken on my installation of Windows. I’ve posted on Microsoft forums, and found other people with the same issue, but no fixes that have worked for me. The service will work, but every time I reboot, the service is disabled and stopped. I have to change [...]
My 45 Days With Win Phone 7, and the Move Back to iPhone
A while back, I bought a Windows Phone 7, specifically an HTC 7 Surround. I bought it used via ebay (for under $150), so as to not have it count as my contract subsidized phone. It was not an unlocked phone, and I was able to switch my SIM card from my main phone (an [...]
On a Feeling of Ownership, and How it Changes With Size
Through the years, a fair amount of my projects have been with small companies and startups. One thing I notice almost universally, is that members of smaller teams tend to have hunger for success, and a real feeling of ownership over their product. They take personal pride and consider themselves invested in the project. That [...]
New Questions the Build Conference Causes
Build answered a lot of questions for developers who wondered about the future of the Microsoft platform. WinRT is the new API for “Metro ” applications, which are streamlined enable both tablet and pc inputs. These applications can be built in .Net or native C++ using XAML, or in JavaScript with Html5. The traditional desktop [...]
On Outsourcing, Protectionism and Education
Things are often more complicated than they seem. Certainly in the worlds of economics and nationalism. It’s no wonder that as the largest economy in the world, America wants to protect that place and Americans are sensitive to any efforts to move jobs elsewhere. Certainly that is true today, with unemployment currently at 9.1%. In [...]
Safely Using an Insecure SA Development Account
As a consultant, I’m sometimes a part of projects that do things I wouldn’t choose to do. Welcome to the real world, right? For example, on one project I worked on in the past, the connection string for an asp.net project used the “sa” account for sql server. Further, it was in the web.config file [...]
Understanding CPUs and the Business of CPUs Better
I’ve been reading Jon Stokes’ Inside the Machine, and it’s a very good read. In particular I was struck by a couple of simple aspects of how CPUs work. ISA First, let’s discuss ISAs (instruction set architecture). x86 is a famous one created by Intel. POWER is an ISA created by IBM. PowerPC was created [...]
Rake Tasks For NuGet
If you use NuGet, and only check-in your packages.config files to source control, then your source control repository will stay smaller, and checkout faster. Checking in binaries is usually a nice thing to avoid. However, you need new developers to be able to get those libraries locally easily, and to allow your build server (continuous [...]
NHibernate Named SQL Queries with Parameters
I had to create a stored procedure to be called from NHibernate. You could use Session.Connection to execute with ADO.Net, but I like the idea of staying in NHibernate for consistency. Anyway, I found a lot of documentation on how to call one, but not with a parameter, so I thought I’d document that here. [...]
