Check out http://feeds.downloadsquad.com/~r/weblogsinc/downloadsquad/~3/189293946/ for a link to WebSite Grader.
Website Grader reviews your site, taking into account traffic, social sites, Google Page Rank, Alexa rankings, inbound links etc... and comes up with a score out of 100.This is a nice report to let you know how you are doing and makes some solid suggestions on how to improve.
Interesting moves this year:
SAP AG bought Business Objects AS for $7B
Oracle bought Hyperion for $3.3B
Now IBM has announced a $5 billion in cash deal to purchase Cognos.
A new feature is available with Visual Studio 2008 when working with Team System.
Jeff Atwood blogs the ability to see the different versions of the code in visual studio include the check in comments. Wow!
If you're not so lucky (or infected so badly you can't admit your addiction), a new programming language has been developed by analyzing lolcats speak: LOLCode.net. LOLCode.NET utilizes the .NET Runtime and can even be debugged in Visual Studio.
You always wanted to write the following code and have it run, right?
IM IN YR LOOP
VISIBLE COUNTER
I HAS A DIFFERENCE
LOL DIFFERENCE R COUNTER NERF MINIMUM
IZ MINIMUM UP DIFFERENCE LIEK MAXIMUM OVAR 2
YARLY
VISIBLE "Half way there" NOWAI
I HAS A NEXT COUNTER TIEMZD NEXTCOUNTER!!2
KTHX
[....]
Comic from xcd: http://www.xkcd.com/262/
FogBugz (lead by famous blogger Joel Spolsky) just released version 6.0. With it they are making waves due to the inclusion of evidence based scheduling.
Evidence based scheduling tracks developer estimates per feature against actual time spent (including interruption time) to determine estimate accuracy and plot a distribution curve of likelihood of shipping software on time.
My question is: how can we leverage this type of mechanism at a company that does many, many small projects? Are the projects similar enough that this would help? Could each project be treated as a sprint (or sprints) in an overall continued effort?
Read this post for an overview of evidence based scheduling:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/26.html
Read some reactions to the feature:
Rob Conery of SubSonic famehas just joined on with Microsoft (http://blog.wekeroad.com/2007/10/26/microsoft-subsonic-and-me/).
This is very interesting as he will continue to work on SubSonic, and SubSonic will continue to be open source.
Also it appears SubSonic will be deeply integrated in the new MVC framework that's been announced.
What are you thinking about SubSonic?
This site: http://silverlight.net/showcase/Default.aspx now is live, hosting some of the cool new work being done in silverlight.
The Home Shopping Network is actually innovating - they are offering video streaming via Silverlight, but overlaying controls on the video for the user to easily jump into ordering. For example clicking the "buy" button takes the user to the product purchase page with all the details of what they were just watching filled out.
Silverlight is enabling this by allowing meta data to be carried with the video (including timeline based metadata) and UI controls that can integrate and utilize the meta data, including overlapping and interacting with the video.
Very cool.This looks like it has some potential to make setting up projects on cruisecontrol faster and easier:
In the past I linked to an article on URL rewriting and how to do it. This past weekend I finally modified my personal web site to use URL Rewriting.
I tried a couple different methods of URL Rewriting and finally settled in with http://www.urlrewriting.net as the documentation was good and the implementation fit my needs.
Essentially all that was required was to drop the urlrewriting.dll into my bin directory (adding it as a reference for my website) and adding rewriting rules to my web.config.
The power is in adding rewriting rules to the web.config.
You create the functionality you want as query string variables, and then create a rewriting rule. The rewriting rule defines a regular expression of the "to be" URL and how it maps to the real url.
For example: I am using an imagehandler.ashx file to resize images on the fly. It takes query string parameters:
dir: the subdirectory of my pictures directory to use
file: the picture in that directory to use
width (optional): how wide to make the output picture
height (optional): how tall to make the output picture
This results in a url like this:
http://www.jessandrob.com/imagehandler.ashx?dir=Alberta-Aug-2007&file=DSC00105&width=800&height=600
Which clearly isn't to friendly.
After adding the reference I added this to the web config:
<urlrewritingnet xmlns="http://www.urlrewriting.net/schemas/config/2006/07">
<rewrites></urlrewritingnet>
<add name="picture_web"
ignorecase="true"
virtualurl="^~/gallery/web/([\d\w\s\-]*)/([\d\w\s\-]*).aspx"
destinationurl="~/ImageHandler.ashx?Path=$1&File=$2.jpg&width=800&height=600"
rewriteurlparameter="ExcludeFromClientQueryString" />
</rewrites>
After this the url becomes:
http://www.jessandrob.com/gallery/web/Alberta-Aug-2007/DSC00105.aspx
You can see my regular expression is matching digits, letters, whitespace, and dashes for both the directory name and the file name, and they are passed to the query string as "$1" and "$2" per standard Regex notation.
Notice its .aspx instead of .jpg - this seems to be a limitation of IIS. using ".JPG" actually works in the Visual Studio built in web server but fails in IIS - that's something I'll have to look into in the future.
Yes its that simple. I repeated the process for a couple other dynamic pages.
The one thing that did effect me a bit was URL's on the rewritten pages - you'll notice that the rewritten pages are deeper directory wise than the original - this is my design choice. This caused issues on the pages mapping relative urls - specifically I needed to utilize the ASP.NET "~" operator and have the url as runat=server (this was ASP.NET figures out the relative url for me). Where this isn't possible I have to manage the urls a bit more manually.
I had some problems posting to my company blog from Windows Live Writer today.
It looks like in the past update of Live Writer it didn't migrate my connection settings properly for Community Server (Blogger was fine). The support of Community Server has been significantly enhanced.
I deleted my connection to Community Server and recreated it - all is fine now.
In my staff meeting today I discovered that not everyone knows of the Bastard Operator from Hell series (BOFH).
The series was written 1998-2001 by Simon Travaglia, though the tourch has been carried on since. I haven't read the latest but there was a time I eagerly awaited the next episode.
Essentially the bastard operator from hell sometimes answers the phone and is quick to doll out advise to unsuspecting callers - advise that occasionally will solve their problem, but usually will just result in removal of their computer privileges.
If you have ever had to answer the questions of the technically inept you will likely find these articles of great humor (especially if you have an appreciation for mainframe/unix systems).
A couple years ago I picked up a Samsung i730 smartphone, and to unleash its potential to replace my RIM pager I ended up grabbing a domain and exchange hosting.
As typical I grabbed the domain from Godaddy.com and directed it to DSLExtreme.com's DNS servers so they could provide me with an exchange account.
This has worked like a champ for quite some time, however DSLExtreme charges $9.95/month for the exchange hosting. Not to bad, but seems a bit expensive for the level of usage I get out of it.
I tried moving to Google Apps a few weeks ago without full success - every thing moved over just by creating CNAME pointers via GoDaddy's "Total DNS Control" tool. Big props to Google for very good directions specific to GoDaddy in their help section (don't forget the "." on the end of the MX records!).
I like this approach because doing granular MX records it leaves the rest of the domain at my control (should I want to host a website on the domain or any subdomains).
Biggest problem with Google Apps was sending and receiving messages from Windows Mobile. The pop access works, however I had to search a bit to keep the messages in my inbox for more than one "send and receive". Then once that was working the conversation threading feature caused significant cluttering of my inbox (on Windows Mobile). Additionally polling for POP access impacts the battery life noticeably.
Last week I took a little time to review this setup one more time. This time I utilized a hybrid approach between Google Apps and also added exchange hosting. I ended up utilizing mail2web's personal exchange hosting for ActiveSync push to WindowsMobile. mail2web's personal exchange hosting costs $1.99/month
In Google Apps I created a forwarding rule to forward all mail to me@mydomain, and in mail2web I set my reply-to address to me@mydomain.
This is working very well, however I still need to automate the syncing of calendar and contacts back up to google.
The Favorite Website Awards is very intresting site - it has quite a list of web sites that do the web differently - most to great effect.
It is disappointing that most of the sites rely on flash for the snazzy interface (which they could have done in AJAX).
There are some very rich web applications here showcasing some impressive creativity.
Check it out here.
I found this excellent article where a new Microsoft hire is interviewed. However this isn't a new hire to Microsoft - but rather a former Microsoftie that ended up working for Google, and now is coming back to Microsoft.
Most interesting to me is the discussion points here about developer productivity. The best part is the discussion of how Google does tech support: there is a "tech stop" on each floor where anyone can go to get a technical problem solved or swap hardware. They use a system to track what hardware you are allowed to request (based on role) and what you have checked out. The convenience and co-location apparently makes for a very productive situation.
Additionally the interviewee claims that quite/private space is crucial to development and that Google has that wrong - this is interesting to here as I have strongly believed in private workspaces for a long time.
The article also covers the Google "20% of time on personal projects", and organizational structure (which sounds broken to me).
http://no2google.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/life-at-google-the-microsoftie-perspective/
Pictures of Microsofts up and coming adCenter (think competitor to Google Analytics for most intents and purposes) have been leaked. You can find them here.
Microsoft's Ian Thomas (who works in Microsoft's Digital Advertising Solutions group) responds on his blog here.
Its very interesting to see that Microsoft is going beyond standard web analytics capabilities and is going so far to blend in other data sources such as Microsoft Passport registration information. This allows the analytics to show trending on metrics previously unavailable to a site. For example if the user has logged into any Microsoft service (hotmail, MSN, MSDN, etc..) and then hits a site running MS adCenter analytics, the site will be able to see demographic data such as gender breakdown. This applies even on data points not collected by the site, even for people that haven't registered with the site.
Its uncertain what the privacy issues are to this approach - I'm sure legally Microsoft is permitted to do this based on the user agreements for passport, however is it ethical?
I actually think it is - the data is kept at the aggregate level so its giving web site operators key data without being able to identify any user. However if they want to target to this data they will need to collect the data point from user.
Intresting testing going on in the rich internet application space.
Follow the link to check out "bubblemark" - a test (with source code) for Silverlight, JavaFX, and Adobe AIR.
Here's the preliminary test results
JavaFX — 14 fps
Firefox + Silverlight (JavaScript) — 56 fps
Firefox + Flex — 62 fps
Adobe AIR — 62 fps
Firefox + Silverlight (CLR) — 99 fps
Pretty impressive that silverlight on CLR far outperforms the others.
Found via "the Universal Desktop".
I've heard the arguments before - usually arguments against treating software development as engineering.
I found this post thought provoking and informative:
Some interesting things from this article include:
Engineering isn't about aligning and designing perfect information. Engineering is about defining existing information, and planning for variation. To me its very important to treat software development as engineering in order to plan for the variation in projects.
Only when there are multiple projects of extremely high level of consistency should we move from an engineering paradigm to a manufacturing paradigm.
Over the years when Jesse left the office for a day some times a new dilbert would adorn his wall for his return. The first couple were spoofs on the one he had hung on his wall - posted in the exact location of his original (down to the exact pin holes). Here's a couple of them:
Social networking sites are all over now, youtube, flickr, del.icio.us, digg, blogs, podcasts, vlogs, the list goes on and on where user generated content is king.
So how does a large company play into this trend?
Some are trying to create communities for user generated content, but I don't think this will get much traction. I believe this approach will fail as people have some level of distrust for established companies trying to create communities - and its rightly so in my opinion. Clearly any company must protect its interests, and open community participation will often go against the company (be it negative comments, in depth discussion of competition, bad customer service, or inaccurate reviews). Further more establishing a community is interpreted as a deep commitment to participation - if the level of participation users expect isn't met users will feel betrayed.
So if creating social networks doesn't sound like a good idea, how can companies participate (and capitalize on) "Web 2.0" ? (I hate that term!)
In my opinion companies need to be come active, first class participants in social networks. Companies should actively participate (appropriately and honestly) in select sites. Participation in terms of creating content and joining conversations.
I must make sure to stress that this participation must be open and transparent - clearly identifying that it comes from the company.
Additionally I see big opportunities in the integration fabrics of these sites. Embracing OpenID and releasing gadgets for iGoogle, My Yahoo, Live, is a great opportunity to push out functionality and information to users without expecting them to join your community (lowering the bar for them to get your message).
Finding the most relevant communities is important - and something you need to do anyway. Joining these communities and donating time, information, and technology to them opens a host of positive user experiences and gets information out. Understanding these communities and offering some innovation for the user to integrate these communities into mash ups will yield usage and positive customer interactions.
A large company should not try to make a web browser, but perhaps a Firefox or IE toolbar, or even better it should see if there is something it could deliver via an already established IE/Firefox toolbar/add-on.
This is a big shift - away from trying to capture users traffic, and moving to integrating with how they want to spend their time. A move to decentralized offerings that take advantage of single back end systems, and leveraging the user generated content without trying to control it. Putting your content where users are already going to look for similar content and providing them value, lowers the barriers of entry to the user.
Typical web assets require the user to find the resource (which usually requires SEO, and advertising), then often the resource requires a custom set of credentials (user registration), and receiving updates requires bookmarking the site and returning, or signing up for a newsletter. All of things are things the user likely does not want to do, and therefor raise the barrier of entry for them. None of these barriers add value to your content - they are at best providing you information. Clever design, and integration can remove all of these barriers.
Is the user really searching for your site? Or are they searching for products meeting some criteria? This is why you find a cereal isle in the grocery store not a Kellogg's isle. You find a cheese section and a salad dressing section, not a KRAFT section. This works not just to allow consumers to cross compare, but also because they can feel informed about more choices by visiting a single location.
In addition to being more likely to succeed, the cost of this approach is less than the cost of creating communities. Its an incremental and ongoing investment into the communities, rather than a big up front investment. Less money needs to be spent on design and development. Investments can be weighed and made in much smaller increments.
Further more this approach will drive traffic to more traditional web based assets as exposure to the community will be greater, and page rankings (SEO) will be higher due to the association with the other sites (more inbound, authoritative links).
http://java.sun.com/webservices/interop/reference/tutorial/doc/index.html
Alot of articles slam the new Microsoft OS. I've been an early adopter and found my self explaining to people why Vista is really worth upgrading to.
I just found this article which is the best explaination I've found of why Vista is so superior to XP, yet why there is a real ground breaking single feature for an end user. The whole package is vastly superior to XP, yet each area the user touches has only minor improvements.
The superiorority of Vista is what can be built on it.
Here's the article that describes the difference pretty well.
Yesterday I was asked to upgrade our CruiseControl instances from 0.9.2 to 1.2.1.
They said: "Its easy! Just stop the service, overlay the cruisecontrol build and restart the service!"
"Are you sure?" I said.
"Yeah! We read all the release notes it will be no big deal!"
Well, I don't trust it! So I took a more conservative approach: I started a new directory, added cruisecontrol 1.2 to it, then copied over the ccnet.config and all the project state files. I set cruisecontrol to a new port, and registered the service ("%system root%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\installutil.exe ccservice.exe /servicename="cruisecontrol instance name").
I tried starting the service in console and quickly found errors - specifically I had 2 different issues:
1) VSS Projects - no longer need to be quoted. Most of our VSS paths have spaces, some have special characters. Previously we had to include quotes for these. Including quotes in ccnet.config for project paths breaks cruisecontrol.
2) pathFilters are used for continuous integration builds to indicate what files will not cause an automatic build to occur. For example our build process checks in an updated assemblyinfo file so that the compiled DLL will contain the correct version, however we do not want a second build to occur just because we checked in assemblyinfo. Previously pathFilter allowed any number of pattern nodes to be included. Now each pathFilter can have only 1 node. But you can have as many pathfilter nodes as you need.
<pathFilter>
<pattern>$/Application Code/My Application Directry Build/**</pattern>
</pathFilter>
Seems to be working now that these 2 issues have been corrected for every entry in ccnet.config.
