Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day

Using NodeXL to analyze social networks and more...

2012-05-24T16:51:00.001-07:00

Sunlight Foundation - Tools for Transparency: A How-to Guide for Social Network Analysis with NodeXL

This post by guest blogger Justin Grimes is the second and last half of a special edition of our Tools for Transparency series by guest blogger Justin Grimes series. Justin (@justgrimes) is a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies, a research assistant at the Information Policy and Access Center (iPAC), and a member of the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL). His research areas focus on information policy and information access. In general he geeks out at hacking transportation data and loves talking about all things data.

Last week, Justin talked us through a Social Network Analysis (SNA) of people tweeting with the TransparencyCamp 2012 hashtag #tcamp12:

For more about this infographic and general Social Network Analysis, you can check out Justin's last post. If you're ready to try SNA for yourself, here's his guide for how to get started:

As I said earlier, you need two things to do social network analysis: software and a question. NodeXL will be our software. Our question for this example will be what does network of Twitter users at TransparencyCamp 2012 look like? To answer this question I’m going to analyze Twitter activity of TransparencyCamp 2012 by capturing all tweets that contain the hashtag #tcamp12. I’ll give you a step-by-step walkthrough of how I answered this question.

Prerequisites:

Windows machine (or Linux w/ Wine)

Microsoft Excel 2007 or higher

NodeXL

Internet connection

I’ll assume that you have all of these installed and ready to go for this example.
1) To get started we need to load NodeXL...

...

..."

NodeXL

NodeXL is a free, open-source template for Microsoft® Excel® 2007 and 2010 that makes it easy to explore network graphs. With NodeXL, you can enter a network edge list in a worksheet, click a button and see your graph, all in the familiar environment of the Excel window

..."

I've been following NodeXL for years now, yet still didn't know about this capability. How cool is this list of import sources?

Installing it was quick and easy for me and it ran and just worked the first time I tried it. Here's some snaps of it running on my system (Win7, x64, Office 2010 x86).

One thing to note if you're just playing around... It's really easy to hit the twitter request caps/throttle if you run this a couple times (or cancel it in the middle like I did and then try again). Still this is a pretty cool thing to play around with and the price is perfect (free). Heck you can even get the source for it all too!

MSDN gets a new look...

2012-05-24T14:52:00.001-07:00

Third Blog From The Sun - Check out our new MSDN home page

The new MSDN home page has two value propositions:

For developers who are new to Microsoft, the home page guides them to the best resources for getting started with Microsoft platforms and developer tools.

For developers already using Microsoft products, the home page delivers timely and relevant developer news, events, and information from across Microsoft and the developer community.

Primary objectives of the redesign include:

Improve general home page usability by simplifying the content model, information architecture and visual design

Make the page more helpful to developers who are new to Microsoft platforms

Reduce volume of manually curated content to decrease cost of maintenance

Reduce overall Page Load Time

Nice. I like the new page.... The "above the fold" focus getting the tools/downloads/SDK's/etc is nice. It's just, bam, right there....

[Humor] Guys, you have two choices...

2012-05-24T14:38:00.001-07:00

WinExtra - Pick Carefully Guys

This had me laughing this morning... (and as a father of a just turned adult boy, cringing too...)

Think your disks are slow, but are not really sure?

2012-05-24T14:34:00.001-07:00

Testing Spot - Help! I Think My Disk is Slow

Most of what happens here at Testing Services and Labs is determining the performance limit of a customer’s application. To accomplish this, we have to stage the application on systems that we are certain can handle it. After all, we want to know the limit of the application, not the system it’s running on. Pushing the limits typically means testing at volumes at which we can’t be sure what’s going to happen or why it’s happening. As the engineers running the test lab, we are often engaged when a resource constraint is suspected. The number one culprit is typically the disk. This post covers the method that we use to determine if the disk is slow. We will discuss designing a disk for high performance purposes in a later post.

When we are asked if a disk is slow, there are a few steps we take to investigate.

Is the disk really slow?

To find the answer to this question we must measure latency. This is the amount of time that a system waits for a disk I/O request to be satisfied. Specifically, we measure two counters on the physical disk objects:

Avg. Disk Sec/Read

Avg. Disk Sec/Write

The Windows Core Team gets into greater depth regarding these measures here:

..."

A short and sweat guide to diagnosing slow disks and if they are indeed slow, some things you can do about it...

Plugging into Azure with the Azure Plugin Library

2012-05-24T14:29:00.001-07:00

Richard Astbury's Blog - Introducing the Azure Plugin Library

An open source library of plugins installed with a command line tool (a package manager). Once a plugin is installed, it can be easily packaged with an Azure deployment to install application dependencies on a Web or Worker role.

http://richorama.github.com/AzurePluginLibrary/

Watch a screen cast demonstration

Background

One of the key strengths of Windows Azure, is the Platform as a Service offering. Why would you want to patch an operating system, manage the deployment of your application, and check the health of your infrastructure? It’s better left to someone else (Microsoft) so you can focus on your application. However, the pitfall is when your application depends on something extra being installed or configured on the machine.

There are a few ways for installing 3rd party components on an Azure instance. This blog post has a good summary of the options.

In summary, start-up tasks are the best mechanism available for installing dependencies, which is fine for something straight forward, but for more complicated components (like MongoDB for example) there is quite a bit of work involved in scripting out the installation. Projects like AzureRunMe help with this, but ideally you want something that just works, without you having to write a lot of script.

Azure Plugin Library

The Azure Plugin Library exploits an undocumented feature of the Azure SDK, whereby modules referenced in the Service Definition file are bundled with your application in a package, which is uploaded and deployed to the Azure instances. The SDK uses this mechanism to set up Remote Desktop, Connect, WebDeploy and Diagnostics, however, additional plugins can be added by copying the files to the “Windows Azure SDK\v1.6\bin\plugins” folder.

..."

Azure Plugin Library

What is a plugin?

A plugin comprises of configuration, scripts and binaries that are packaged with your Azure deployment, and executed on the Azure Web or Worker Role.

These plugins will typically alter the configuration of the Azure instance or install a dependency.

The Windows Azure SDK ships with five plugins:

Connect

Diagnostics

RemoteAccess

RemoteForwarder

WebDeploy

Plugins are installed in this directory:
C:\Program Files\Windows Azure SDK\v1.x\bin\plugins
This project aims to extend the capability of the SDK by providing a wide range plugins with a community maintained library, and a command line installer.

What plugins are available?

The Azure Plugin Library is maintained in a GitHub repository. You can browse and download the plugins directly from the respository, using the links below, or alternatively use the command line tool.

Apache

AzureBlobDrive

AzureCommandLineTools

ChaosMonkey

Chocolatey

ClassicASP

CloudXplorer

Curl

DisableFirewall

DisableIESecurity

JavaJRE

MongoDB

MountVHD

Node

RunMe

SMTP

SevenZip

SqlServer2012Express

Sublime

Tcpview

Tomcat-5.5

Tomcat

WIF

...

"

The fact that this is built on an undocumented feature of the Azure SDK concerns me a little, but I still think this is pretty cool. Got to love plugins/extensions/not-having-to-reinvent-the-wheels!

[Humor] You have the right to remain silent

2012-05-23T17:07:00.001-07:00

Science, Love and LSD - Right to remain silent

This gave me a good laugh today. I didn't want ruin it, so make sure you click through... :)

Who need grades at school, when you can get badges!

2012-05-23T16:51:00.001-07:00

ON Course - Release the Badges!

"After working on the badges system that I outlined in a previous post, it has finally reached a point where it is functional enough to be ‘released’. It should be noted, though, that it is neither fully functional ‘out of the box’ and is by no means a shining example of development practices at their best. The mini-project of looking at how a system such as the Mozilla Open Badges platform could be used in higher education has suffered tremendously from scope creep and the underlying code (at the moment) reflects this. Over the past few weeks I’ve been through the following phases:

Consider how Open Badges (or similar) could be used in higher education.

Create a prototype system to be used in higher education.

Develop a more stable system that could be used in a trial run within our university.

Develop the system in such a way that it could be picked up and used in a variety of institutions or situations with minimal reconfiguration.

Initially, I considered creating a small database to hold ‘objectives’ that need to be met in order to be awarded badges, along with the bare minimum of APIs in order to interact with the database and the Open Badges framework. After starting out down this path, I started to realize that there was far more potential in a badging system within a higher education institution than I had originally thought and began to think of more features that would be useful.

...

..."

ON Course - Designing a Badge System for Universities

"Over the past week or so we have started looking at the Mozilla Open Badge platform and how it could, possibly, be applied to use within HEIs (and beyond). It started to become apparent, through reading other peoples blog posts and reading through mailing lists, that there is already some work going on to award badges for completion of modules of study or achieving particular learning outcomes. After looking at what information is required to award a badge using the Open Badge framework, I created a design for a platform that can be picked up and used within another institution or context with minimal customization required. The purpose of this blog post is to document the decision processes involved and to describe and show the resulting design.

The Basics

The basic premise of the system is fairly simple: create badges and award them to individuals who meet the criteria for each badge. These awarded badges can be ‘baked’ (to include the relevant information) and sent to individual’s ‘backpacks’ – be that the OpenBadge backpack or an internally hosted version.

This suggests that data pertaining to the following is required: Badges, Objectives and Earned Badges.

..."

This is a PHP based system and not one I'm likely to play with myself, but I really like the thought of this, the gamification of school. If grades themselves are not enough to engage our students, then maybe badges/achievements can?

Helping the effect you have in Expression by getting additional Effects...

2012-05-22T13:16:00.001-07:00

2,000 Things You Should Know About WPF - #563 – Additional Effects in Expression SDK

In addition to the two effects that come with the .NET Framework, you can get access to a number of other effects when you download and install the Expression Blend SDK for .NET 4.

Once you install the SDK, you’ll see the new effects show up in the Effects folder of the Assets panel.

The effects include:

Bloom – Make bright areas appear brighter

Color Tone – Render a visual using shades of two colors

Emboss – Make visual appear raised or stamped

Magnify – Magnify a circular area

Monochrome – Render using shades of a single color

Pixelate – Reduce resolution, rendering as large pixels

Ripple – Apply visual that looks like rippling liquid

Sharpen – Sharpen image edges

Swirl – Apply effect that twists entire image

...

..."

You guys know I've mentioned Sean's 2,000 Things You Should Know About WPF series last year, A Feed You Should Read #34 - 2,000 Things You Should Know About WPF, and true to his word he's still blogging about a WPF related thing almost every day.

Today's caught my eye in that I love getting more stuff free and I wouldn't have expected to get more Effects in Expression this way (though in hindsight it makes perfect sense). Plus I really appreciate that he took the time to provide an example of all the added Effects. That was a nice touch...

Related Past Post XRef:
A Feed You Should Read #34 - 2,000 Things You Should Know About WPF

The feeling of excitement is tangible... with the release of the tangible T4 Editor 2.0!

2012-05-22T13:04:00.001-07:00

Tangible T4 Editor Blog - tangible T4 Editor 2.0 plus modeling tools – Released!

"We just released the second generation of our tangible T4 Editor. Version 2.0 marks a big milestone for us. We have been working on this major release almost two years. This effort was done in parallel to the many Version 1.x updates and smaller feature improvements we shipped over the period of last 3 years T4 Editor Version 1.x exists.
What is new?

tangible T4 Editor 2.0 is almost a 100% rewrite of the existing Version 1.0 product. It addresses nearly all feedback we got from you regarding feature wishes and change requests. Thank you for providing feedback in the past – we really read every piece of feedback and take action on it.
Free Edition Users will notice these improvements and changes which result from your feedback:

Support for VS2010 and VS11 (Beta) – Following the tradition from 1.x we will support two Visual Studio Versions in 2.x. tangible T4 2.x will be supported for VS2010 and VS11 (Beta). We have two separate installs.

We use the real Visual Studio Code Editor: This now honors Tab Settings, Keybindings, UTF-8 Encoding, Version Control System Integration, Fonts and Colors, VS Search Dialog, Support for VS Editor Extensions like Incremental Search and Current Line Highlighting.

Support for Dark Theme – Note you can customize the T4 Code Highlighting Color under Visual Studio Menu Tools->Options->Environment->Fonts & Colors ->”tangible T4 Background”. You can customize the other colors and fonts also via this Fonts & Colors dialog.

New Statement-Completion within T4 Code Blocks behavior that corresponds to VS 2010 Editor behavior. Also completely new Parsers that now support newer C# and VB Language features. Also changed from generating Warnings about limitations of Free Edition to show up in Completion List instead in Error Window.

Additional Directives to solve VS T4 Engine limitations: #includeForIntelliSenseOnly, #assemblyForIntelliSenseOnly, #newappdomain, #IntellisenseLanguage directives.

Remaining Incompatibility with some ASP.NET MVC Builds should be fully resolved now.

Additional Documentation and Training Videos which will get online in the next few days

It also adds major features to the PRO-Edition:

...

You can review the complete list of features and improvements of tangible T4 Editor 2.0 plus modeling tools here.

FREE Edition Licensing

You can use T4 Editor Free Edition as before. There no restrictions that prevent using it in commercial or private projects. Please read the EULA for the actual use rights.

...

..."

Like I've said before, if you T4 you need an editor and this is one of the best...

Know NoSql? Here's a .Net dev focused look at Redis, Mongo and Raven

2012-05-22T12:58:00.001-07:00

CodeProject - Document Databases : A look at them

Introduction

I don't know how many of you work with SQL. Loads? Well I do, as we know it's a relational database which we can store um well relational SQL data types in, such as INT/CHAR/NVARCHAR etc etc, I am sure you all know what I am talking about and have used relational databases loads in the past.

Do you think there are other sort of databases out there? No? Well actually there are some different types of databases other than relational databases, such as

Flat file

Object

NoSQL / Document / KeyValue pair

Now I do not profess to know much about Flat file or Object databases per se, but I have spent some time evaluating and getting to know some of the newer Document databases. In this article I have chosen to look at 3 different Document databases, which I have created demos for in the code attached to this article, but before we go on to talk about each of them and how to get started with them, let's just spend a bit of time talking about the gaining popularity of these document databases.

So I have stated that this article will talk about document databases, but what are these document databases, and why might you want to use one.

...

Now there are loads and loads of document databases out there, far too many for me to go through, for my initial evaluations I chose to look at a few based on what I perceived to be the best attributes, such as

Features

Ease of use

Reputation

.NET driver availability (I am a .NET developer these day, so this article is about using .NET with the relevant document database)

With those list of attributes, I ended up with quite a large list, which I whittled down further to end up with 3 document databases, which I will talk about in this article.

Redis

Raven

Mongo

Do not expect to reach the end of this article and be an expert in document databases, but I would hope by the end of reading this article you will be able to understand how they work (kinda) and would be able to carry on using them and finding any remaining answers you need by yourselves.

...

..."

The .Net dev focus of this article is what caught my eye (funny that). I've not played in the NoSql space yet, but I do have a project in mind that might be a good fit...

[Humor] Photoshop'ing Life...

2012-05-22T12:51:00.001-07:00

How-to Geek - If You Were Able to Use Photoshop in Real Life [Humorous Image Collage]

..."

When I finally got it (yeah, it took me a second... brain is slow today) some of these had me laughing out loud.

"Windows Azure? Oh, no one uses that and if they did they would be locked into the Microsoft stack..." and other Azure myths debunked...

2012-05-22T12:47:00.001-07:00

Buck Woody - Windows Azure Myths

"Windows Azure is part of the Microsoft "stack" - the suite of software and services we offer. Because we have so many products in almost every part of technology, it's hard to know everything about all parts of what we do - even for those of us who work here. So it's no surprise that some folks are not as familiar with Windows and SQL Azure as they are, say Windows Server or XBox.

As I chat with folks about a solution for a business or organization need, I put Windows Azure into the mix. I always start off with "What do you already know about Windows Azure?" so that I don't bore folks with information they already have. I some cases they've checked out the product ahead of time and have specific questions, in others they aren't as familiar, and in still others there is a fair amount of mis-information. Sometimes that's because of a marketing failure, sometimes it's hearsay, and somtetimes it's active misinformation.

I thought I might lay out a few of these misconceptions. As always - do your fact-checking! Never take anyone's word alone (including mine) as gospel. Make sure you educate yourself on your options. Your company or your clients depend on you to have the right information on IT, so make sure you live up to that.

..."

A nice, short and sweat Azure myth debunker... Personally I think Windows Azure is going to get stronger, have a much broader impact and be found in more places than you might imagine. It's a Microsoft shining star and if the Cloud is the future I think Microsoft is getting into the right place...

How to Excel with the Azure Data Hub

2012-05-21T13:57:00.001-07:00

OakLeaf Systems - Using the Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket (and Codename “Data Hub”) Add-In for Excel (CTP3)

The Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket and SQL Labs’ Codename “Data Hub” Preview promote Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010 on each dataset’s summary page and offer a direct Export to Excel PowerPivot option on the Build Query page. PowerPivot’s business intelligence (BI) features often are overkill for simple analytical activities, such as browsing datasets, or might intimidate potential DataSet users.

The Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket Add-In for Excel (CTP3) provides a simple alternative to exporting data as Excel *.csv files from DataMarket or Data Hub and opening them in Excel. According to the download page’s “Overview” section:

Microsoft Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket Add-in for Excel (CTP 3) provides a simple experience allowing you to discover datasets published on the Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket or in your instance of Microsoft Codename "Data Hub" right within Excel. Users can browse and search for a rich set of datasets within a tool they already use.

With only a couple of clicks, the user can query their datasets and import the data as a table into Excel. Once in the workbook, the data can be visualized, joined with other data sources (including owned/on premise data) or exported to be used in other applications.

..."

I liked this walk through. It was quick, easy to follow and in the end showed off why you might want to take the time to do it (Graphs! :). Since the Data Hub is target at Knowledge Users and since many Knowledge Users live in Excel talking about the two together just seems logical...

Windows Server 2012's Data Deduplication - What is it, how will it help you and why you should care...

2012-05-21T13:48:00.001-07:00

The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog - Introduction to Data Deduplication in Windows Server 2012

"Hi this is Scott Johnson and I’m a Program Manager on the Windows File Server team. I’ve been at Microsoft for 17 years and I’ve seen a lot of cool technology in that time. Inside Windows Server 2012 we have included a pretty cool new feature called Data Deduplication that enables you to efficiently store, transfer and backup less data.

This is the result of an extensive collaboration with Microsoft Research and after two years of development and testing we now have state-of-the-art deduplication that uses variable-chunking and compression and it can be applied to your primary data. The feature is designed for industry standard hardware and can run on a very small server with as little as a single CPU, one SATA drive and 4GB of memory. Data Deduplication will scale nicely as you add multiple cores and additional memory. This team has some of the smartest people I have worked with at Microsoft and we are all very excited about this release.

Does Deduplication Matter?

Hard disk drives are getting bigger and cheaper every year, why would I need deduplication? Well, the problem is growth. Growth in data is exploding so much that IT departments everywhere will have some serious challenges fulfilling the demand. Check out the chart below where IDC has forecasted that we are beginning to experience massive storage growth. Can you imagine a world that consumes 90 million terabytes in one year? We are about 18 months away!

...

Welcome to Windows Server 2012!

This new Data Deduplication feature is a fresh approach. We just submitted a Large Scale Study and System Design paper on Primary Data Deduplication to USENIX to be discussed at the upcoming Annual Technical Conference in June.

...

5) Sub-file chunking: Deduplication segments files into variable-sizes (32-128 kilobyte chunks) using a new algorithm developed in conjunction with Microsoft research. The chunking module splits a file into a sequence of chunks in a content dependent manner. The system uses a Rabin fingerprint-based sliding window hash on the data stream to identify chunk boundaries. The chunks have an average size of 64KB and they are compressed and placed into a chunk store located in a hidden folder at the root of the volume called the System Volume Information, or “SVI folder”. The normal file is replaced by a small reparse point, which has a pointer to a map of all the data streams and chunks required to “rehydrate” the file and serve it up when it is requested.

...

It slices, it dices, and it cleans your floors!

Well, the Data Deduplication feature doesn’t do everything in this version. It is only available in certain Windows Server 2012 editions and has some limitations. Deduplication was built for NTFS data volumes and it does not support boot or system drives and cannot be used with Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). We don’t support deduplicating live VMs or running SQL databases. See how to determine which volumes are candidates for deduplication on Technet.

Try out the Deduplication Data Evaluation Tool

To aid in the evaluation of datasets we created a portable evaluation tool. When the feature is installed, DDPEval.exe is installed to the \Windows\System32\ directory. This tool can be copied and run on Windows 7 or later systems to determine the expected savings that you would get if deduplication was enabled on a particular volume. DDPEval.exe supports local drives and also mapped or unmapped remote shares. You can run it against a remote share on your Windows NAS, or an EMC / NetApp NAS and compare the savings.

Summary:

I think that this new deduplication feature in Windows Server 2012 will be very popular. It is the kind of technology that people need and I can’t wait to see it in production deployments. I would love to see your reports at the bottom of this blog of how much hard disk space and money you saved. Just copy the output of this PowerShell command: PS> Get-DedupVolume

30-90%+ savings can be achieved with deduplication on most types of data. I have a 200GB drive that I keep throwing data at and now it has 1.7TB of data on it. It is easy to forget that it is a 200GB drive.

Deduplication is easy to install and the default settings won’t let you shoot yourself in the foot.

Deduplication works hard to detect, report and repair disk corruptions.

You can experience faster file download times and reduced bandwidth consumption over a WAN through integration with BranchCache.

Try the evaluation tool to see how much space you would save if you upgrade to Windows Server 2012!

..."

I still think the coolest part of this feature, besides that we finally get data dedupe baked into a normal edition of Windows Server (and not just the Storage Server editions) is the sub-file or chunk deduping. It's not file level but block level dedupe. So the files do not be to be duplicates to take advantage of this, just parts of them duplicated...

Phil gets Git out - GitHub For Windows v1 Released

2012-05-21T13:38:00.001-07:00

You've been Haacked - Introducing GitHub For Windows

For the past several months I’ve been working on a project with my amazing cohorts, Paul, Tim, and Adam, and Cameron at GitHub. I’ve had the joy of learning new technologies and digging deep into the inner workings of Git while lovingly crafting code.

But today, is a good day. We’ve called the shipit squirrel into action once again! We all know that the stork delivers babies and the squirrel delivers software. In our case, we are shipping GitHub For Windows! Check out the official announcement on the GitHub Blog. GitHub for Windows is the easiest and best way to get Git on your Windows box.

If you’re not familiar with Git, it’s a distributed version control system created by Linus Torvalds and his merry Linux hacking crew. If you are familiar with Git, you’ll know that Git has historically been a strange and uninviting land for developers on the Windows platform. I call this land, Torvaldsia, replete with strange incantations required to make things work.

Better Git on Windows

In recent history, this has started to change due to the heroic efforts of the MSysGit maintainers who’ve worked hard to provide a distribution of Git that works well on Windows.

GitHub for Windows (or GH4W for short) builds on those efforts to provide a client to Git and GitHub that’s friendly, approachable, and inviting. If you’re a Git noob, this is a good place to start. If you’re a Git expert on Windows, at the very least, GitHub for Windows can still be a useful part of your workflow. Just visit http://windows.github.com/ and click the big green download button.

In this post, I’ll give a brief rundown of what gets installed and how to customize the shell for you advanced users of Git.

Github Blog - GitHub for Windows

GitHub for Windows is a 100% native application that will run on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and even the pre-release Windows 8. Included in the application is a complete installation of msysGit making this the single best way to start using Git on Windows.

Discover, Create and Share

GitHub for Windows is the easiest way to manage your repositories on GitHub.com. Clone your repositories right from the app or clone directly from GitHub.com with the new Clone in Windows button.

...

Under the Covers

The application is written in C# and uses a ton of great open source projects, many of them hosted on GitHub.

libgit2 provides a beautiful and fast API for Git repositories and we take advantage of the stellar C# bindings.

msysGit fills in the gaps and lets us provide a fully functional version of core Git to distribute with the application.

We love PowerShell and have bundled Keith Dahlby's amazing posh-git.

We've mashed up the elegant Caliburn.Micro with ReactiveUI to provide a responsive interface and to allow for greater testability.

The Reactive Extensions (Rx) for .NET provide the ability to compose asynchronous and event-based code using observable sequences and LINQ-style query operators.

Local README rendering is provided courtesy of the Chromium Embedded Framework and the C# bindings.

We make heavy use of the GitHub API v3 and leverage James Newton-King's Json.NET and John Sheehan's RestSharp.

..."

GitHub For Windows

Pointy-clicky, me likey...

This does look like a drop dead easy way to get going with Git on Windows. If you haven't got it, Git it...

.Net 4.5 Gets Zippy... Zip support is baked into the .Net 4.5 Framework

2012-05-18T15:00:00.001-07:00

TugberkUgurlu.com - .NET 4.5 to Support Zip File Manipulation Out of the Box

"One of the missing feature of .NET framework was a support for Zip file manipulation such as reading the zip archive, adding files, extracting files, etc. and we were using some third party libraries such as excellent DotNetZip. In .NET 4.5, we have an extensive support for manipulating .zip files.

First thing that you should do is to add System.IO.Compression assembly as reference to your project. You may also want to reference System.IO.Compression.FileSystem assembly to access three extension methods (from the ZipFileExtensions class) for the ZipArchive class: CreateEntryFromFile, CreateEntryFromFile, and ExtractToDirectory. These extension methods enable you to compress and decompress the contents of the entry to a file.

..."

System.IO.Compression Namespace

The System.IO.Compression namespace contains classes that provide basic compression and decompression services for streams

ZipFile Class

"Provides static methods for creating, extracting, and opening zip archives.

The ZipFile class provides convenient static methods for working with zip archives. To use these methods, you must reference the System.IO.Compression.FileSystem assembly in your project. The System.IO.Compression.FileSystem assembly is not available for Metro style apps. Therefore, the ZipFile class and ZipFileExtensions class (which is also in the System.IO.Compression.FileSystem assembly) are not available in Metro style apps. In Metro style apps, you work with compressed files by using the methods in the ZipArchive, ZipArchiveEntry, DeflateStream, and GZipStream classes.

..."

ZipArchive Class

Represents a package of compressed files in the zip archive format.

The ZipArchive class enables you to work with a package of compressed files. The package contains an entry for each compressed file. You can:

Retrieve an entry by using the GetEntry method.

Retrieve the entire collection of entries by using the Entries property.

Create a new entry in the package by calling the overloaded CreateEntry method.

When you create a new entry, the file is compressed and added to the zip package. The CreateEntry method enables you to specify a directory hierarchy when adding the entry. You include the relative path of the new entry within the zip package. For example, creating a new entry with a relative path of AddedFolder\NewFile.txt creates a compressed text file in a directory named AddedFolder.

If you reference the System.IO.Compression.FileSystem assembly in your project, you can access three extension methods (from the ZipFileExtensions class) for the ZipArchive class: CreateEntryFromFile, CreateEntryFromFile, and ExtractToDirectory. These extension methods enable you to compress and decompress the contents of the entry to a file. The System.IO.Compression.FileSystem assembly is not available for Metro style apps. In Metro style apps, you can compress and decompress the contents of a zip archive by using the DeflateStream or GZipStream class.

(cough... about time... cough... ;)

In any case, it's good seeing this making it into the Framework. I do wonder that there's no encrypt/decrypt support. Aren't some encryption types part of the Zip format? (I know some some vendors add their own, but aren't there some that are more standard?). Or am I being stupid?

Still, it's good to at least get this level of zip support baked into the framework. Got to love incremental improvement... :)

"Why I Hate Unit Testing"

2012-05-18T14:44:00.001-07:00

The Telerik Blogs - Why I Hate Unit Testing

"So you went to work for the cool company that wooed you with promises of cutting edge technologies and techniques. In the interview, they told you that they are agile and unit test everything. You may or may not have been in an agile environment before, but the important thing you are enthusiastic about joining a team that truly gets software development. You tested on your previous job, even using JustMock to write better tests. You promise you can be agile yourself and quickly adopt their practices. You’re immediately hired.

Many of you have been there… maybe you’re there right now.

It takes a few days to receive your workstation, and you find most of the development software isn’t set up. A coworker gives you the instructions, and by the end of the day you find yourself still struggling to connect to the version control server.

The next day, you ask your manager about your problem. It turns out that the person in charge of the version control and build servers left a few months back; you’re the replacement. Further inquiries lead to a startling truth: no one has administrative access.

...

Don’t Hate the Game, Hate the Player

If you have entered a company with poor unit testing practices, you will likely encounter other problems. Many practices and methodologies follow each other, and improper implementation for one item may encourage improper implementation in another. Many companies are successful with different practices in place, and none of this is one-size-fits-all. Steve Forte and Joel Semeniuk have a great presentation on this called The Agile Buffet Table. The most important thing is to regularly analyze your practices and determine if revision is necessary or if everything is okay. And please, realize it’s bad if no one has administrative access to your source control system!

Unit testing is great when done right, and it’s even good when done in a lax manner. However, it’s better to have no unit tests than terrible unit tests.

I hate unit testing done poorly.

..."

The sad thing is that this could have been a true story (and probably was as it just rings too true doesn't it?). That said, I liked how it provided some great, fairly vendor independent, guidance if you're in this kind of boat.

LightSwitch joins VS11 as a baked-in core component (i.e. no longer a separate product). VS11 Professional, Premium and Ultimate are all getting LightSwitched

2012-05-18T13:33:00.001-07:00

Visual Studio LightSwitch Team Blog - Visual Studio 11 Product Line-up Announced

"Today the Visual Studio 11 product line-up was announced on the Visual Studio Team blog. Part of this announcement was information on what editions will support LightSwitch development.

Launched last year as an out-of-band release, I’m excited to announce that LightSwitch is now a core part of the Visual Studio product line! LightSwitch will be available through Visual Studio 11 Professional, Premium and Ultimate [GD: Emphasis added]. With this integration, Visual Studio now provides a comprehensive solution for developers of all skill levels to build line-of-business applications and data services quickly and easily for the desktop and cloud.

I am particularly excited about the additional tools for data application development that will be available to you. In addition, with the new data services (OData) support in LightSwitch, you will be able to build additional clients using the broad set of project templates now included in these editions including Windows 8 Metro style apps.

LightSwitch will be retired from sale as a standalone product with the release of Visual Studio 11. If you acquire Visual Studio Professional, Premium, or Ultimate you will also get the LightSwitch development experience included in the box. We previously announced a price reduction for Visual Studio 2010 Professional to align it with the planned pricing for Visual Studio 11 making this an even more exciting offer. For more information on Visual Studio pricing please see: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/products/pricing

..."

That's great news for the LightSwitch team. This is an interesting product but hasn't had much exposure. Hopefully this move, and it's cool VS11 features, will help.

More Visual Studio 11 details emerge - Product Lineup news (VS 11 Express for WinPhone, no plans for Language Express editions), System Requirements and more...

2012-05-18T13:24:00.001-07:00

The Visual Studio Blog - A look ahead at the Visual Studio 11 product lineup and platform support

Today, we want to share the final product lineup and specifications you can expect to see for the next release of Visual Studio. This also includes system requirements and platform you can develop for with Visual Studio 11.

Product Lineup

In addition to the product line up announced previously we will also be releasing Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone as part the Visual Studio family. Visual Studio 11 Express products are designed to be simple and easy for building modern applications on the latest Microsoft platforms, including Windows 8, Windows Phone, Windows Azure and for the Web. Express products support multiple languages, specific to each platform. For example, the Express edition for Windows 8 allows developers to use C#, Visual Basic, C++ and JavaScript. It also provides best-in-class tools for creating Metro style apps for Windows 8, including tools such as Blend, app profiling, unit testing and more. To see the full product line up, please visit the Visual Studio product website.

If you would like to use a language specific Express edition (C# Express, Visual Basic Express, or C++ Express) without specialized tooling for the latest platforms, you can use the Visual Studio 2010 Express editions, which will continue to be available as free downloads.

...

System Requirements

As you have seen in our earlier series on Visual Studio 11 performance, we’ve made some significant investments in performance this release. We are excited about the feedback we’ve received so far and have been working to make the experience even better for RC. We are happy to announce that Visual Studio 11 hardware requirements will be the same as Visual Studio 2010’s. If you are working now with Visual Studio 2010 you can enjoy the new performance improvements in Visual Studio 11 without any additional hardware investment.

Visual Studio 11 leverages core capabilities that are only present in the latest versions of Windows. For this reason Visual Studio 11 requires Windows 7 or higher to run.

Platform Targeting Support

To help you take advantage of the latest features, the default target for applications created with Visual Studio 11 will be set to .NET Framework 4.5 (for managed apps) and the VC11 toolset (for native apps). Both will allow your apps to run on Windows Vista and higher. However, if your app needs to run on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, you can still use multi-targeting to make sure your application will run on those platforms too.

..."

It's good seeing the Windows Phone Express edition. Gives me a little warmer fuzzy feeling that WP is still alive and well (despite the rumors of it's soon demise). As the for Language Specific Express editions? Good riddance, IMHO. I'd rather see the line like they are doing it with VS11, focusing on platform, Win8, Web, Phone, etc. instead of language.

What I'd really like to see if VS 11 Express for Win8 be included right in the Win8 box, but that's not likely to happen, is it?

Using SetThreadExecutionState to programmatically disable the screensaver

2012-05-17T16:05:00.001-07:00

BlackWasp - Disabling the Screensaver Programmatically

"...

Why Disable the Screensaver?

Screensaver software was originally created in order that still images were not shown on a computer display when the system was inactive. Instead, the screensaver would show moving images or a dark screen. Brightly coloured, static images can cause permanent screen damage, known as screen burn, in displays based upon cathode ray tube (CRT) or plasma technology. They can also cause temporary image persistence in liquid crystal displays (LCD). Although image persistence is temporary, it can be distracting so the use of a screensaver is often recommended for such displays.

If a screensaver has been enabled by the user, Microsoft Windows will show it after a period of inactivity. Windows has two built-in timers, known as the display idle timer and the system idle timer. These are used to determine the amount of time that has passed since the user provided some input, such as pressing a key, moving the mouse or touching a touch-sensitive screen. They are reset to zero in response to any of these actions. When the display idle timer reaches a pre-configured value, the screensaver starts. If the system idle timer expires, the system may be suspended. The lengths of time involved and whether the computer is put to sleep or not are configured in the screensaver and power options of the Control Panel.

Some software applications require that the screensaver is not displayed or that the machine is prevented from sleeping. For example, if you develop a video player or some presentation software, your users would not want the presentation to be interrupted by the screensaver. If your software provides a continuous service, such as acting as a fax server, you may want the screensaver enabled but you will want to prevent the computer from suspending automatically.

SetThreadExecutionState

The .NET framework classes don't provide a way to disable the screensaver or sleep mode, so we need to use Platform Invocation Services (P/Invoke) to call a Windows API function named, "SetThreadExecutionState". This function tells the operating system that the thread is in use, even if the user is not interacting with the computer. This can prevent the display from being hidden and stop the machine from being suspended automatically.

...

..."

This is one of those things I KNOW I will need in six to 12 months, but will, for the life of me, not be able to find again. So I caching it here for future reference (and for your ed-u-ma-kation too ;)

"SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide" 454 page PDF on upgrading from SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 to SQL Server 2012

2012-05-17T15:50:00.001-07:00

SQL Server Journey with SQL Authority - SQLAuthority News – SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide – A Comprehensive Whitepaper – (454 pages – 9 MB)

"Microsoft has just released SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide. This guide is very comprehensive and covers the subject of upgrade in very much depth. This is indeed a great detailed white paper. Even writing a summary of the whitepaper would be over 100 pages. SQL Server 2012 is quite a important release from Microsoft. This white paper discusses how to Upgrade from SQL Server 2008/R2 to SQL Server 2012. ...

"

SQL Server - Why SQL Server

"Microsoft SQL Server is a comprehensive database server and information platform offering a complete set of enterprise-ready technologies and tools that help people derive the most value from information at the lowest total-cost-of-ownership. Enjoy high levels of performance, availability, and security; employ more productive management and development tools; and deliver pervasive insight with self-service business intelligence (BI).

A complete and integrated platform, Microsoft SQL Server brings it all together to get more value out of existing IT skills and assets, increase the productivity and agility of IT departments, and quickly build flexible, innovative applications.

Key Resources

SQL Server 2012 What's New Whitepaper

SQL Server 2012 Overview

SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide Whitepaper

Download SQL Server 2012

..."

SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide Whitepaper

Published: May 2012
Applies to: SQL Server 2012

Introduction
To attain a smooth and trouble-free upgrade to SQL Server 2012, you must plan for the upgrade and address the complexities of your application. Like all IT projects, planning and then testing your plan gives you confidence that you will succeed. But if you ignore the planning process, you increase the chances of running into difficulties that can derail and delay your upgrade.

This document takes you through the essential technical details for planning and testing an upgrade of existing SQL Server 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2 instances to SQL Server 2012. You will be presented with best practices for preparation, planning, pre-upgrade tasks, and post-upgrade tasks. All the SQL Server components are covered, each in its own chapter.

This document is a supplement to SQL Server 2012 Books Online. It is not intended to supersede any information in SQL Server Books Online or in the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles. The reader will notice many links to SQL Server Books Online topics and Knowledge Base articles. In all such cases, the information in this document is included to provide the context you need to decide whether to spend the time to read the linked article. If there are any discrepancies between this document and a linked article, the linked article is assumed to be more accurate.

...

If your thinking about upgrading to SQL Server 2012 this is a must have guide...

DVCS isn't just for OSS anymore... Enter the DVCS Enterprise [Must not insert 1701 joke here...]

2012-05-17T15:34:00.001-07:00

InfoQ - Distributed Version Control Systems in the Enterprise

"Every major Open Source project worldwide has already embraced Distributed Version Control Systems (DVCS), will enterprises be next?

Intro

Circa 2004 the world of version control (we can also call it Software Configuration Management (SCM), and while it is not exactly the same, most pragmatics among us will say they’re quite close) lived in a status quo. Version control had reached the point where it was just a commodity and the goal was to have one, no matter which one.

ALM Packages (Application Lifecycle Management) that wrapped version control were the ones delivering the core value to the projects, especially in the enterprise. The trend was management oriented, process driven and control centric.

And then everything turned upside down.

The Linux Kernel hackers needed a new version control system and they begged their über-guru, Torvalds, for a solution. Git was created, a hacker oriented tool to deal with the fast-changing, collaboratively-developed Linux Kernel sources.

With this, version control switched from commodity to productivity booster; The revolution had begun.

What is distributed all about?

Simply put: DVCS moves the project versioned repositories from a central location into each developer’s machine.

...

The enterprise question: why should I care?

So far the main benefit of DVCS seems to be getting rid of the central server and hence the potential slow networks across the Internet. What’s the benefit here for the enterprise?

Most enterprise developers will think, "Well, I work on a 1Gbps LAN connected to the main version control server. The connection speed is so high that the network time is not even in the equation, and I benefit from the server huge processing power to make all my version control operations fast". They’re right, since that’s the main reason behind client-server architectures and even the cloud, ultimately.

But, the situation described above doesn’t always match reality, at least not for many software development teams in enterprises. The reasons are:

Having teams in different locations collaborating with each other is more and more common. It doesn’t just happen in big companies, even a 30 developer team can be distributed across different locations in different cities, countries or even continents. It sounded close to science fiction decades ago, but it is today’s reality.

Companies struggle to find talent and more often than not they hire the best developers wherever they live. Working from home, is also a reality enterprises face.

Outsourced teams in separate locations, sharing some of the requisites of internal distributed teams but normally imposing strict access policies to the repositories to keep projects coordinated.

What can DVCS do here? Let’s consider the case of a team with members in different locations as Figure 6 shows. There is a main site, where the central version control server is located, probably the first existing location in the company. Developers have a fast network there, and they’re happy working centralized.

Then there’s a second site, with more developers, connected to the main site through a VPN across the Internet. While their local network can be even faster than the one at the central site, they’re frustrated by the time version control operations take since each roundtrip has to go to the distant central server.

Then there’s the developer working from home, with a network connection that can be at times slow and unreliable.

Two thirds of the sites are losing productivity and motivation due to the centralized setup.

...

..."

You know what? If we could just get businesses and enterprises finally off of SourceSafe I think we'd have a win, let alone onto something like a DVCS (I think . That said, if you have a distributed development team, DVCS should be something you take a long hard look at. If you are all in the same building, on the same network, I personally think DVCS is overkill. Sure it's the new shiny and all and that's one reason I hesitate... Remember when the new shiny was PVCS? Then CVS? Then SVN? Now it's Git. What will it be tomorrow? [Insert grumpy old man, "who moved my lawn, get off my cheese..." statement here].

Yet another way to look at this change is that's it's agile like continuous improvement (that and if you can't handle continuous change, being a dev is the wrong thing to be...). in the end, when all is said and done, if I had dev's outside of the building, I'd look long and hard at DVCS... It does look like the right (well right'er anyway) tool for the right job.

"TIONTITITQ" ("To interface, or not to interface, that is the question")

2012-05-17T15:08:00.001-07:00

greg-prentice - Developer Alchemist's best friends: "To interface, or not to interface, that is the question"

"Alchemy requires Shakespeare!

A common question that I've had to answer for myself and have been asked throughout my development career: “To interface, or not to interface, that is the question”. As you hopefully noted, I've taken one of the most famous literary opening monologues from the play Hamlet and will attempt to apply it to the world of a developer. In Hamlet’s opening lines he asks an important question that I feel applies to us in the development world: “Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?”

I believe what Hamlet was trying to tell us is that as a developer, do we make a conscience decision to “suffer” or “take arms”. To further explain I’ll set the context behind his meaning around the statement: “The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. Here Hamlet is trying to tell us that code we have either inherited or written may have to undergo refactoring. Refactoring is clearly called out when Hamlet states: ”Or to take arms against a sea of troubles”. Further that as we mature in our development prowess, our mind will begin to tug at our very consciousness. Begging us to refactor our code which brings us to Hamlets last phase: “And by opposing end them”. I have to say that when I had the realization that Hamlet was talking to us developers, I could not ignore this. I had to share it with all Alchemists! Further I thought I would also provide a concrete example around the meaning of: “To interface, or not to interface, that is the question”!

So some ground rules to begin with:

Don’t use an interface just to use and interface.

If you have a high number of interfaces you most likely have too many.

Use an interface when you want to clearly define a contract between two independent systems

Use an interface when you want to extend the behavior of our ‘cool idea’ to others, we only care that they implement the contract; and we hope they do it correctly J.

Think classes first; since you have to implement your own interfaces the concrete class will serve you well in defining your contracts.

...

In closing I want to circle around back to my original topic of “How I know Hamlet was talking to us developers”. He clearly states in his monologue that being complacent is easy, being proactive and addressing adversity is hard. As developers we should be making these hard decisions every day. We should be asking ourselves during our coding, designing, and code reviewing the hard questions around when to use an interface. More specifically we should take the time to refactor our code: ”Or to take arms against a sea of troubles” for the benefit of quality.

...

..."

If you've been coding for a while you're to have seen the conversations around, for and against, interfaces, but I doubt you've seen it covered in this way (Using Shakespeare? How different is that! ;) No matter where you stand on interface usage this is an good and interesting read.

Free set Windows Performance analysis tools. From boot perf analysis, to power use, memory leaks, CPU hogs, app crashes and many more...

2012-05-17T10:16:00.001-07:00

Confessions of a Guru - New and Updated (Free) Tools

"In conjunction with my upcoming book and sessions at Briforum, I am releasing a number of new and updated tools involving Windows Performance analysis. These tools may be found in the Performance Tools section of the TMurgent website. These tools are generally free to download and use (the only restrictions are for ISVs that want to use them to show off how good they are).

...

..."

This is a pretty cool looking set of tools that you might not need every day and so might not readily know about. That said, I bet if you scan this list you'll see at least a couple things there that will have you saying, "Oh yeah, I can use that..." or "I could have used that when..."

[Limited time offer] Programming Windows 6th Edition Preview eBook is now available. Buy the CP edition today for $10 and get the RP/RTM book updates as they are released, free...

2012-05-17T10:06:00.001-07:00

Petzold Book Blog - Programming Windows 6th Edition Preview Ebook Is Here!

The long-awaited 6th edition of Programming Windows is scheduled to be published by Microsoft Press in November 2012, but you can purchase the ebook direct from the O'Reilly website today:

Why would you want to do that? I can think of three reasons:

1. If you purchase the ebook in November, it will cost $50. If you purchase it today, it costs $10. This $10 price will only be in effect during these last two weeks of May.

2. If you purchase the ebook in November, you'll have to wait until then to get it. If you purchase it now, you can download a preview ebook of nearly 300 pages containing the first 7 chapters of the book today. By purchasing the book and installing the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Visual Studio, you can be developing Windows 8 Metro style applications this afternoon.

3. If you purchase the ebook today, you'll also be able to download a second preview ebook based on the Release Preview of Windows 8 a couple months from now.

It's a Win-Win-Win situation! [GD: Post Leached in full]

O'Reilly - Programming Windows®, 6th Edition

Special Offer to Celebrate Programming Windows, Sixth Edition

Reimagined for full-screen and touch-optimized apps, Windows 8 provides a platform for reaching new users in new ways. In response, programming legend Charles Petzold is rewriting his classic Programming Windows—one of the most popular programming books of all time—to show developers how to use existing skills and tools to build Windows 8 apps. (See the book's "Description" tab.)

To celebrate, Microsoft Press will release three versions of the eBook for Programming Windows, Sixth Edition, including two pre-release editions that provide crucial access to early content. Based on when you purchase (see table below), you will receive the most recently published version of the eBook—plus any subsequent versions—at special promotional pricing. Act between May 17-31, 2012, and your cost is just $10!

The first "Consumer Preview eBook", based on Windows 8 Consumer Preview, will be approximately 300 pages. The second "Release Preview eBook," based on Windows 8 Release Preview, will update those pages and provide an additional 200-300 pages. The final eBook will be fully updated for the final Windows 8 software.

Purchase example 1: If you purchase the Consumer Preview eBook for Programming Windows, Sixth Edition on May 17, you will receive it, the Release Preview eBook when released, and the final eBook when released, all for $10.

Purchase example 2: If you purchase the Release Preview eBook for Programming Windows, Sixth Edition after the two-week $30 promotion has ended, you will receive it and the final eBook for $40.

NOTE: This offer to purchase the Consumer Preview eBook version of Programming Windows, Sixth Edition and/or the Release Preview eBook version of Programming Windows, Sixth Edition (the "Pre-Release eBooks") is only available through oreilly.com from May 17, 2012 until November 14, 2012, as outlined in the table above ..."

$10? For this? Oh yeah, I so just bought this. Love the free updates and the pricing schedule. Got to love the flexibility ebooks provide. Heck even if you don't want to invert time in readying the CP/RP versions, this is too good a deal to pass up.