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  • Correcting Grammar for Microsoft Products and Technology

    I see book authors, editors, bloggers, press, team members, and occasionally even a VP misspell our products, technologies, and features that I thought I would build and maintain a list of the correct capitalization and spelling of the most commonly misspelled Microsoft products and technologies. Sources: Internal site (brandtools) and the Microsoft Trademarks Web site. Last updated: April 27, 2010   Incorrect Correct .net or .Net .NET .Net framework 4.0, .NET framework 4.0 .NET Framework AdCenter, Ad Center, Adcenter adCenter Ado.net, ADO.Net ADO.NET Asp.net, ASP.Net ASP.NET Asp.Net ajax, Asp.NET Ajax ASP.NET AJAX Asp.Net Mvc ASP.NET MVC Biz Spark, Bizspark BizSpark Clear Type, Clear type, Cleartype ClearType Directaccess, Direct Access DirectAccess Direct Show, Directshow DirectShow Direct X DirectX Dream Spark, Dreamspark DreamSpark Home Group, Home group HomeGroup HotMail, Hot Mail Hotmail Info Path, Infopath InfoPath Intellisense, Intellisense IntelliSense Iron Ruby IronRuby Kin KIN Linq LINQ MSN Messenger Windows Live Messenger One Note, Onenote OneNote Open type, Opentype OpenType PlayTo, Play to Play To Power Point, Powerpoint PowerPoint Powershell, Power Shell PowerShell Sea Dragon, Seadragon SeaDragon Sharepoint, Share Point SharePoint Silver Light, SilverLight Silverlight Skydrive, Sky Drive SkyDrive Sql Server SQL Server Visual Basic .net (the .net was removed in the 2005 version) Visual Basic  Visual C# Express 2010 or Visual Basic Express 2010 or Visual C++ Express 2010 Visual version 2010 Express as in Visual C# 2010 Express, Visual Basic 2010 Express Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 or Visual Studio Professional 2010 Visual Studio 2010 version, as in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Visual Studio 2010 Professional WebSite Spark, Website spark Website Spark Win 32 Win32 Windows Mobile (except when referring to previous versions like 5.0 or 6), Windows phone 7 Series Windows Phone Xaml XAML XBOX, xbox Xbox Xbox Live, XBOX Live Xbox LIVE   Caveats These guidelines dont apply to URLs (ex: www.asp.net) or to code namespaces, variables, and classes should follow the .NET Framework naming guidelines. This list only covers capitalization/spacing rules, it doesnt cover the correct usage of (tm) or symbols or the correct word usage rules. For those, refer to the trademark Web site. Also note that I have no idea why we are so inconsistent say on keeping features/brands two words versus one word or the order of product/version/year.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Python 3.1 books still directly applicable to learning Python 2.7?

    - by jaysun
    I need to learn Python (v2.7) for my job, and looking for the best intro book for professional programmers. I found (via amazon) that "The Quick Python Book" is the best, but it's for Python 3.1 I know there's a lot of similarities in 2.7 and 3.1, and somewhere read that you can mostly use 3.1 syntax in 2.7 as a good "future practice". Can someone with experience please verify that a book for learning Python3 would still be directly applicable for 2.7? Thank you very much. edit: "The Quick Python Book" is for 3.1

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  • Contracting as a Software Developer in the UK

    - by Frez
    Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Having had some 15 years’ experience of working as a software contractor, I am often asked by developers who work as permanent employees (permies) about the pros and cons of working as a software consultant through my own limited company and whether the move would be a good one for them. Whilst it is possible to contract using other financial vehicles such as umbrella companies, this article will only consider limited companies as that is what I have experience of using. Contracting or consultancy requires a different mind-set from being a permanent member of staff, and not all developers are capable of this shift in attitude. Whilst you can look forward to an increase in the money you take home, there are real risks and expenses you would not normally be exposed to as a permie. So let us have a look at the pros and cons: Pros: More money There is no doubt that whilst you are working on contracts you will earn significantly more than you would as a permanent employee. Furthermore, working through a limited company is more tax efficient. Less politics You really have no need to involve yourself in office politics. When the end of the day comes you can go home and not think or worry about the power struggles within the company you are contracted to. Your career progression is not tied to the company. Expenses from gross income All your expenses of trading as a business will come out of your company’s gross income, i.e. before tax. This covers travelling expenses provided you have not been at the same client/location for more than two years, internet subscriptions, professional subscriptions, software, hardware, accountancy services and so on. Cons: Work is more transient Contracts typically range from a couple of weeks to a year, although will most likely start at 3 months. However, most contracts are extended either because the project you have been brought in to help with takes longer to deliver than expected, the client decides they can use you on other aspects of the project, or the client decides they would like to use you on other projects. The temporary nature of the work means that you will have down-time between contracts while you secure new opportunities during which time your company will have no income. You may need to attend several interviews before securing a new contract. Accountancy expenses Your company is a separate entity and there are accountancy requirements which, unless you like paperwork, means your company will need to appoint an accountant to prepare your company’s accounts. It may also be worth purchasing some accountancy software, so talk to your accountant about this as they may prefer you to use a particular software package so they can integrate it with their systems. VAT You will need to register your company for VAT. This is tax neutral for you as the VAT you charge your clients you will pass onto the government less any VAT you are reclaiming from expenses, but it is additional paperwork to undertake each quarter. It is worth checking out the Fixed Rate VAT Scheme that is available, particularly after the initial expenses of setting up your company are over. No training Clients take you on based on your skills, not to train you when they will lose that investment at the end of the contract, so understand that it is unlikely you will receive any training funded by a client. However, learning new skills during a contract is possible and you may choose to accept a contract on a lower rate if this is guaranteed as it will help secure future contracts. No financial extras You will have no free pension, life, accident, sickness or medical insurance unless you choose to purchase them yourself. A financial advisor can give you all the necessary advice in this area, and it is worth taking seriously. A year after I started as a consultant I contracted a serious illness, this kept me off work for over two months, my client was very understanding and it could have been much worse, so it is worth considering what your options might be in the case of illness, death and retirement. Agencies Whilst it is possible to work directly for end clients there are pros and cons of working through an agency.  The main advantage is cash flow, you invoice the agency and they typically pay you within a week, whereas working directly for a client could have you waiting up to three months to be paid. The downside of working for agencies, especially in the current difficult times, is that they may go out of business and you then have difficulty getting the money you are owed. Tax investigation It is possible that the Inland Revenue may decide to investigate your company for compliance with tax law. Insurance is available to cover you for this. My personal recommendation would be to join the PCG as this insurance is included as a benefit of membership, Professional Indemnity Some agencies require that you are covered by professional indemnity insurance; this is a cost you would not incur as a permie. Travel Unless you live in an area that has an abundance of opportunities, such as central London, it is likely that you will be travelling further, longer and with more expense than if you were permanently employed at a local company. This not only affects you monetarily, but also your quality of life and the ability to keep fit and healthy. Obtaining finance If you want to secure a mortgage on a property it can be more difficult or expensive, especially if you do not have three years of audited accounts to show a mortgage lender.   Caveat This post is my personal opinion and should not be used as a definitive guide or recommendation to contracting and whether it is suitable for you as an individual, i.e. I accept no responsibility if you decide to take up contracting based on this post and you fare badly for whatever reason.

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  • Announcing: Improvements to the Windows Azure Portal

    - by ScottGu
    Earlier today we released a number of enhancements to the new Windows Azure Management Portal.  These new capabilities include: Service Bus Management and Monitoring Support for Managing Co-administrators Import/Export support for SQL Databases Virtual Machine Experience Enhancements Improved Cloud Service Status Notifications Media Services Monitoring Support Storage Container Creation and Access Control Support All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately.  Below are more details on them: Service Bus Management and Monitoring The new Windows Azure Management Portal now supports Service Bus management and monitoring. Service Bus provides rich messaging infrastructure that can sit between applications (or between cloud and on-premise environments) and allow them to communicate in a loosely coupled way for improved scale and resiliency. With the new Service Bus experience, you can now create and manage Service Bus Namespaces, Queues, Topics, Relays and Subscriptions. You can also get rich monitoring for Service Bus Queues, Topics and Subscriptions. To create a Service Bus namespace, you can now select the “Service Bus” tab in the Windows Azure portal and then simply select the CREATE command: Doing so will bring up a new “Create a Namespace” dialog that allows you to name and create a new Service Bus Namespace: Once created, you can obtain security credentials associated with the Namespace via the ACCESS KEY command. This gives you the ability to obtain the connection string associated with the service namespace. You can copy and paste these values into any application that requires these credentials: It is also now easy to create Service Bus Queues and Topics via the NEW experience in the portal drawer.  Simply click the NEW command and navigate to the “App Services” category to create a new Service Bus entity: Once you provision a new Queue or Topic it can be managed in the portal.  Clicking on a namespace will display all queues and topics within it: Clicking on an item in the list will allow you to drill down into a dashboard view that allows you to monitor the activity and traffic within it, as well as perform operations on it. For example, below is a view of an “orders” queue – note how we now surface both the incoming and outgoing message flow rate, as well as the total queue length and queue size: To monitor pub/sub subscriptions you can use the ADD METRICS command within a topic and select a specific subscription to monitor. Support for Managing Co-Administrators You can now add co-administrators for your Windows Azure subscription using the new Windows Azure Portal. This allows you to share management of your Windows Azure services with other users. Subscription co-administrators share the same administrative rights and permissions that service administrator have - except a co-administrator cannot change or view billing details about the account, nor remove the service administrator from a subscription. In the SETTINGS section, click on the ADMINISTRATORS tab, and select the ADD button to add a co-administrator to your subscription: To add a co-administrator, you specify the email address for a Microsoft account (formerly Windows Live ID) or an organizational account, and choose the subscription you want to add them to: You can later update the subscriptions that the co-administrator has access to by clicking on the EDIT button, and then select or deselect the subscriptions to which they belong. Import/Export Support for SQL Databases The Windows Azure administration portal now supports importing and exporting SQL Databases to/from Blob Storage.  Databases can be imported/exported to blob storage using the same BACPAC file format that is supported with SQL Server 2012.  Among other benefits, this makes it easy to copy and migrate databases between on-premise and cloud environments. SQL Databases now have an EXPORT command in the bottom drawer that when pressed will prompt you to save your database to a Windows Azure storage container: The UI allows you to choose an existing storage account or create a new one, as well as the name of the BACPAC file to persist in blob storage: You can also now import and create a new SQL Database by using the NEW command.  This will prompt you to select the storage container and file to import the database from: The Windows Azure Portal enables you to monitor the progress of import and export operations. If you choose to log out of the portal, you can come back later and check on the status of all of the operations in the new history tab of the SQL Database server – this shows your entire import and export history and the status (success/fail) of each: Enhancements to the Virtual Machine Experience One of the common pain-points we have heard from customers using the preview of our new Virtual Machine support has been the inability to delete the associated VHDs when a VM instance (or VM drive) gets deleted. Prior to today’s release the VHDs would continue to be in your storage account and accumulate storage charges. You can now navigate to the Disks tab within the Virtual Machine extension, select a VM disk to delete, and click the DELETE DISK command: When you click the DELETE DISK button you have the option to delete the disk + associated .VHD file (completely clearing it from storage).  Alternatively you can delete the disk but still retain a .VHD copy of it in storage. Improved Cloud Service Status Notifications The Windows Azure portal now exposes more information of the health status of role instances.  If any of the instances are in a non-running state, the status at the top of the dashboard will summarize the status (and update automatically as the role health changes): Clicking the instance hyperlink within this status summary view will navigate you to a detailed role instance view, and allow you to get more detailed health status of each of the instances.  The portal has been updated to provide more specific status information within this detailed view – giving you better visibility into the health of your app: Monitoring Support for Media Services Windows Azure Media Services allows you to create media processing jobs (for example: encoding media files) in your Windows Azure Media Services account. In the Windows Azure Portal, you can now monitor the number of encoding jobs that are queued up for processing as well as active, failed and queued tasks for encoding jobs. On your media services account dashboard, you can visualize the monitoring data for last 6 hours, 24 hours or 7 days. Storage Container Creation and Access Control Support You can now create Windows Azure Storage storage containers from within the Windows Azure Portal.  After selecting a storage account, you can navigate to the CONTAINERS tab and click the ADD CONTAINER command: This will display a dialog that lets you name the new container and control access to it: You can also update the access setting as well as container metadata of existing containers by selecting one and then using the new EDIT CONTAINER command: This will then bring up the edit container dialog that allows you to change and save its settings: In addition to creating and editing containers, you can click on them within the portal to drill-in and view blobs within them.  Summary The above features are all now live in production and available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. We’ll have even more new features and enhancements coming later this month – including support for the recent Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 releases (we will enable new web and worker role images with Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5, and support .NET 4.5 with Websites).  Keep an eye out on my blog for details as these new features become available. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • Search Engine Optimization Software Tools

    In the Internet marketing field there are several essential search engine optimization software tools available for purchase on the Internet today. Professional SEO software tools identify niche markets for digital products for sale and allow the user analyze the marketplace and assess the competition.

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  • Azure Marketplace

    - by kaleidoscope
    Microsoft Pinpoint is the place to market your software applications and professional services to the customers who need them most. Pinpoint helps you: •Showcase and sell your innovations •Attract and engage customers •Get customer insights and lead notifications PinPoint.com will host business applications developed by Microsoft partners.  This positions Azure as competitor to cloud platform marketplaces like Salesforce.com and Amazon.com.   Lokesh, M

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  • DotNetNuke 5.4 Released

    Another month, another release of DotNetNuke! Check out version 5.4.0 that was just released a few hours ago. Joe Brinkman has a full blog post about the release here The two biggest things are some features that were added into DNN 5.3 Professional Edition...(read more)...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Source-control 'wet-work'?

    - by Phil Factor
    When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

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  • Is ASP.NET MVC completely (and exclusively) based on conventions?

    - by Mike Valeriano
    --TL;DR Is there a "Hello World!" ASP.NET MVC tutorial out there that doesn't rely on conventions and "stock" projects? Is it even possible to take advantage of the technology without reusing the default file structure, and start from a single "hello_world.asp" file or something (like in PHP)? Am I completely mistaken and I should be looking somewhere else, maybe this? I'm interested in the MVC framework, not Web Forms --Background I've played a bit with PHP in the past, just for fun, and now I'm back to it since web development became relevant for me once again. I'm no professional, but I try to gain as much knowledge and control over the technology I'm working with as possible. I'm using Visual Studio 2012 for C# - my "desktop" language of choice - and since I got the Professional Edition from Dreamspark, the Web Development Tools are available, including ASP.NET MVC 4. I won't touch Web Forms, but the MVC Framework got my attention because the MVC pattern is something I can really relate to, since it provides the control I want but... not quite. Learning PHP was easy - and right form the start I could just create a "hello_world.php" file and just do something like this for immediate results: <!-- file: hello_world.php --> <?php> echo "Hello World!"; <?> But I couldn't find a single ASP.NET (MVC) tutorial out there (I'll be sure to buy one of the upcoming MVC 4 books, only a month away or so) that would start like that. They all start with a sample project, building up knowledge from the basics and heavily using conventions as they go along. Which is fine, I suppose, but it's now the best way for me to learn things. Even the "Empty" project template for a new ASP.NET MVC 4 Application in VS2012 is not empty at all: several files and folders are created for you - much like a new C# desktop application project, but with C# I can in fact start from scratch, creating the project structure myself. It is not the case with PHP: I can choose from a plethora of different MVC frameworks I can just create my own framework I can just skip frameworks altogether, and toss random PHP along with my HTML on a single file and make it work I understand the framework needs to establish some rules, but what if I just want to create a single page website with some C# logic behind it? Do I really need to create a whole bloat of files and folders for the sake of convention? Also, please understand that I haven't gotten far on any of those tutorials mainly because of this reason, but, if that's the only way to do it, I'll go for it using one of the books I've mentioned before. This is my first contact with ASP.NET but from the few comparisons I've read, I believe I should stay the hell away from Web Forms. Thank you. (Please forgive the broken English - it is not my primary language.)

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  • In-House Or Outsource SEO Work?

    Today, having top page rank and excellent website traffic is the primary focus of business owners. Businesses trying to get a better rank of the search engines are always asking themselves one question; should they out-source their SEO work to an industry professional or should they hire an in-house SEO team?

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  • Which topics should be covered in a basic undergraduate C++ course?

    - by Gulshan
    I have a young lecturer friend who is going to teach the undergraduate C++ course in CS. He asked me for some suggestions regarding how the course should be organized. Now I am asking you. I have seen many trends in universities which leads to a nasty experience of C++. So, please suggest from a professional programmer's point of view. For your information, the students going to take the course, have taken course like "Introduction to programming with C" in previous semester.

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  • Removing hard-coded values and defensive design vs YAGNI

    - by Ben Scott
    First a bit of background. I'm coding a lookup from Age - Rate. There are 7 age brackets so the lookup table is 3 columns (From|To|Rate) with 7 rows. The values rarely change - they are legislated rates (first and third columns) that have stayed the same for 3 years. I figured that the easiest way to store this table without hard-coding it is in the database in a global configuration table, as a single text value containing a CSV (so "65,69,0.05,70,74,0.06" is how the 65-69 and 70-74 tiers would be stored). Relatively easy to parse then use. Then I realised that to implement this I would have to create a new table, a repository to wrap around it, data layer tests for the repo, unit tests around the code that unflattens the CSV into the table, and tests around the lookup itself. The only benefit of all this work is avoiding hard-coding the lookup table. When talking to the users (who currently use the lookup table directly - by looking at a hard copy) the opinion is pretty much that "the rates never change." Obviously that isn't actually correct - the rates were only created three years ago and in the past things that "never change" have had a habit of changing - so for me to defensively program this I definitely shouldn't store the lookup table in the application. Except when I think YAGNI. The feature I am implementing doesn't specify that the rates will change. If the rates do change, they will still change so rarely that maintenance isn't even a consideration, and the feature isn't actually critical enough that anything would be affected if there was a delay between the rate change and the updated application. I've pretty much decided that nothing of value will be lost if I hard-code the lookup, and I'm not too concerned about my approach to this particular feature. My question is, as a professional have I properly justified that decision? Hard-coding values is bad design, but going to the trouble of removing the values from the application seems to violate the YAGNI principle. EDIT To clarify the question, I'm not concerned about the actual implementation. I'm concerned that I can either do a quick, bad thing, and justify it by saying YAGNI, or I can take a more defensive, high-effort approach, that even in the best case ultimately has low benefits. As a professional programmer does my decision to implement a design that I know is flawed simply come down to a cost/benefit analysis?

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  • Scrum Developer Training - discount offer

    Scrum Developer Training - discount offer Hi I have a discount offer for Professional Scrum Developer (.NET) Jun Normally is about 2990 USD, the offer is 1990 USD Someone interested?...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Linux based audio prodcuction tutorials

    - by thelinuxer
    I have been searching for a while for Linux based audio production tutorials. All I can find is tool based tutorials. For example I found tutorials on how to use jack, ardour, lmms ..etc. What I need is tutorials that teaches professional audio production with opensource/free tools, like those already available for protools and likes. If any one can guide me to any videos/articles available it would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

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  • SQL Down Under Podcast 50 - Guest Louis Davidson now online

    - by Greg Low
    Hi Folks,I've recorded an interview today with SQL Server MVP Louis Davidson. In it, Louis discusses some of his thoughts on database design and his latest book.You'll find the podcast here: http://www.sqldownunder.com/Resources/Podcast.aspxAnd you'll find his latest book (Pro SQL Server 2012 Relational Database Design and Implementation) here: http://www.amazon.com/Server-Relational-Database-Implementation-Professional/dp/1430236957/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344997477&sr=8-2&keywords=louis+davidsonEnjoy!

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  • Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion

    Communication with your environment is an essential part of everyone's life. And it doesn't matter whether you are actually living in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, within the pulsating heart of a big city, or in my case on a wonderful island in the Indian Ocean. The ability to exchange your thoughts, your experience and your worries with another person helps you to get different points of view and new ideas on how to resolve an issue you might be confronted with. Benefits of community work What happens to be common sense in your daily life, also applies to your work environment. Working in IT, or ICT as it is called in Mauritius, requires a lot of reading and learning. Not only during your lectures at the university but with your colleagues in a project assignment and hopefully with 'unknown' pals in the universe of online communities. At least I can say that I learned quite a lot from other developers code, their responses in various forums, their numerous blog articles, and while attending local user group meetings. When I started to work as a professional software developer (or engineer some may say) years ago I immediately checked the existence of communities on the programming language, the database technology and other vital information on software development in general. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to find. My employer had a subscription of the monthly magazines and newsletters of a national organisation which also run the biggest forum in that area. Getting in touch with other developers and reading their common problems but also solutions was a huge benefit to my growth. Image courtesy of Michael Kappel (CC BY-NC 2.0) Active participation and regular contribution to this community gave me some nice advantages, too. Within three years I was listed as a conference speaker at the annual developer's conference and provided several sessions on different topics during consecutive years. Back in 2004, I took over the responsibility and management of the monthly meetings of a regional user group, and organised it for more than two years. Furthermore, I was invited to the newly-founded community program of Microsoft Germany (Community Leader/Insider Program - CLIP). My website on Active FoxPro Pages was nominated in the second batch of online communities. Due to my community work and providing advice to others, I had the honour to be awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Visual Developer for Visual FoxPro in the years 2006 and 2007. It was a great experience to meet with other like-minded people and I'm really grateful for that. Just in case, more details are listed in my Curriculum Vitae. But this all changed when I moved to Mauritius... Cyber island Mauritius? During the first months in Mauritius I was way too busy to think about community activities at all. First of all, there was the new company that had to be set up, the new staff had to be trained and of course the communication work-flows and so on with the project managers back in Germany had to be sorted out, too. Second, I had to get a grip of my private matters like getting the basics for my new household or exploring the neighbourhood, and last but not least I needed a break from the hectic and intensive work prior to my departure. As soon as the sea literally calmed down, I started to have conversations with my colleagues about communities and user groups. Sadly, it turned out that there were none, or at least no one was aware of any at that time. Oh oh, what did I do? Anyway, having this kind of background and very positive experience with off-line and on-line activities I decided for myself that some day I'm going to found a community in Mauritius for all kind of IT/ICT-related fields. The main focus might be on software development but not on a certain technology or methodology. It was clear to me that it should be an open infrastructure and anyone is welcome to join, to experience, to share and to contribute if they would like to. That was the idea at that time... Ok, fast-forward to recent events. At the end of October 2012 I was invited to an event called Open Days organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands together with other local partners and resellers. There I got in touch with local Technical Evangelist Arnaud Meslier and we had a good conversation on communities during the breaks. Eventually, I left a good impression on him, as we are having chats on Facebook or Skype irregularly. Well, seeing that my personal and professional surroundings have been settled and running smooth, having that great exchange and contact with Microsoft IOI (again), and being really eager to re-animate my intentions from 2007, I recently founded a new community: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community - #MSCC It took me a while to settle down with the name but it was obvious that the community should not be attached to one single technology, like ie. .NET user group, Oracle developers, or Joomla friends (these are fictitious names). There are several other reasons why I came up with 'Craftsmanship' as the core topic of this community. The expression of 'engineering' didn't feel right with the fields covered. Software development in all kind of facets is a craft, and therefore demands a lot of practice but also guidance from more experienced developers. It also includes the process of designing, modelling and drafting the ideas. Has to deal with various types of tests and test methodologies, and of course should be focused on flexible and agile ways of acting. In order to meet and to excel a customer's request for a solution. Next, I was looking for an easy way to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments. Using all kind of social media platforms like Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, etc. I was never really confident about their features of event handling. More by chance I stumbled upon Meetup.com and in combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I am looking forward to advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there will be a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians!

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  • What are the benefits of PHP?

    - by acme
    Everybody knows that people that have prejudices against certain programming languages. Especially PHP seems to suffer from problems of its past and some other things (like loose types) and is often called a non-serious programming language that should not be used for professional applications. In that special case PHP: How do you argue using PHP as your chosen programming language for web applications? What are the benefits, where is PHP better than ColdFusion, Java, etc.?

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  • Emtel Knowledge Series - Q2/2014

    From Cyber Island to Smart Mauritius Cyber Island? Smart Mauritius? - What is Emtel talking about? "With the majority of the population living in urban environments today, the concept of "Smart Cities" has become an urgent necessity. "Smart Cities" refer to an urban transformation which, by using latest ICT technologies makes cities more efficient. Many Governments are setting out ambitious plans to build the cities of the future based on massive connectivity, high bandwidth communications, intelligent sensors and analysis of huge volumes of data. Various researches have shown four key enablers for smart city success - Government leadership, suitable technology infrastructure, solid public-private partnerships and engaged citizens. It is around these enabling factors that telecoms companies can play a vital role in assisting governments to deliver on the smart city vision." The Emtel Knowledge Series goes in compliance with Emtel's 25th anniversary celebrations throughout the year and the master of ceremony, Kim Andersen, mentioned that there will be more upcoming events on a quarterly base. As a representative of the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) there was absolutely no hesitation to join in again. Following my visit to the first Emtel Knowledge Series workshop back in February this year, it was great to have another opportunity to meet and exchange with technology experts. But quite frankly what is it with those buzz words... As far as I remember and how it was mentioned "Cyber Island" is an old initiative from around 2005/2006 which has been refreshed in 2010. It implies the empowerment of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) as an essential factor of growth by the government here in Mauritius. Actually, the first promotional period of Cyber Island brought me here but that's another story. The venue and its own problems Like last time the event was organised and held at the Conference Hall at Cyber Tower I in Ebene. As I've been working there for some years, I know about the frustrating situation of finding a proper parking. So, does Smart Island include better solutions for the search of parking spaces? Maybe, let's see whether I will be able to answer that question at the end of the article. Anyway, after circling around the tower almost two times, I finally got a decent space to put the car, without risking to get a ticket or damage actually. International speakers and their experience Once again, Emtel did a great job to get international expertise onto the stage to share their experience and vision on this kind of embarkment. Personally, I really appreciated the fact they were speakers of global reach and could provide own-experience knowledge. Johan Gott spoke about the fundamental change that the Swedish government ignited in order to move their society and workers' environment away from heavy industry towards a knowledge-based approach. Additionally, we spoke about the effort and transformation of New York City into a greener and more efficient Smart City. Given modern technology he also advised that any kind of available Big Data should be opened to the general public - this openness would provide a playground for anyone to garner new ideas and most probably solid solutions of which no one else thought about before. Emtel Knowledge Series on moving from Cyber Island to Smart Mauritus Later during the afternoon that exact statement regarding openness to and transparency of government-owned Big Data has been emphasised again by the Danish speaker Kim Andersen and his former colleague Mika Jantunen from Finland. Mika continued to underline the important role of the government to provide a solid foundation for a knowledge-based society and mentioned that Finnish citizens have a constitutional right to broadband connectivity. Next to free higher (tertiary) education Finland already produced a good number of innovations, among them are: First country to grant voting rights to women Free higher education Constitutional right to broadband connectivity Nokia Linux Angry Birds Sauna and others...  General access to internet via broadband and/or mobile connectivity is surely a key factor towards Smart Cities, or better said Smart Mauritius given the area dimensions and size of population. CTO Paul Valette gave the audience a brief overview of the essential role that Emtel will have to move Mauritius forward towards a knowledge-based and innovation-driven environment for its citizen. What I have seen looks really promising and with recently published information that Mauritians have 127% of mobile capacity - meaning more than 1 mobile, smartphone or tablet per person - it will be crucial to have the right infrastructure for these connected devices. How would it be possible to achieve a knowledge-based society? YouTube to the rescue!Seriously, gaining more knowledge will require to have fast access to educational course material as explained by Dr Kaviraj Sukon, General Director of the Open University of Mauritius. According to him a good number of high-profile universities in the world have opened their course libraries to the general public, among them EDX, Coursera and Open University. Nowadays, you're actually able and enabled to learn for and earn a BSc or even MSc certification on your own pace - no need to attend classed on campus. It was really impressive to see the number of available hours - more than enough for a life-long learning experience! {loadposition content_adsense} Networking in the name of MSCC As briefly mentioned above I was about to combine two approaches for this workshop. Of course, getting latest information and updates on Emtel services available, especially for my business here on the west coast of the island, but also to meet and greet new people for the MSCC. And I think it was very positive on both sides. Let me quickly describe some of the key aspects that happened during the day: Met with Arnaud Meslier and Kellie, both Microsoft to swap latest information on IT events. Hereby, I got an invite to Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 Dev Camp. Got in touch with Arvin Lockee, Emtel to check our options to meet with the data team, and seizing the opportunity to have a visiting tour at the Emtel Data Centre. Had a great chat with Avinash Meetoo, Knowledge 7, Kim Andersen and Mika Jantunen about the situation of teaching and learning in general and specifically in the private sector here in Mauritius. Additionally, a number of various other interesting chats... Once again, I'm catching up on a couple of business cards in order to provide more background information about the MSCC, and to create a better awareness of MSCC within the local IT businesses. There is more to come soon!  Resume of the day The number of attendees during this event has been doubled or even tripled this time. The whole organisation has been improved massively and the combination of presentation and summarizing panel discussions was better than during the previous workshop back in February. Overall, once again a well-organised workshop and I'm already looking forward to join the next workshop in Q3. Update End of July we finally managed to visit the Emtel Data Centre in Arsenal. It was an interesting opportunity for some of our MSCC members.

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  • Customized Web Development Services

    Choosing between a web development company and a professional web development company is like choosing a rose from a bunch of thorns. In generic sense, every web development company offers elementary... [Author: Adam Mills - Web Design and Development - April 02, 2010]

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  • Sql Server Express Profiler

    - by csharp-source.net
    Sql Server Express Profiler is a profiler for MS SQL Server 2005 Express . SQL Server Express Edition Profiler provides the most of functionality standard profiler does, such as choosing events to profile, setting filters, etc. But it doesn't provide professional tools for profiling sql queries. This project is a .NET WinForms Application and in future AJAX-enabled web site which provides functionality of Microsoft SQL Profiler.

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