Results

Here is an output of the results after 40 hands for:

player 1 – http://pastey.net/139513

player 2 – http://pastey.net/139514

dealer – http://pastey.net/139515

Here is another run:

player 1 – http://pastey.net/139516

player 2 – http://pastey.net/139517

dealer – http://pastey.net/139518

Screenshot

Disclaimer

you WILL EVENTUALLY LOSE.  I ran the simulator for a long time and I was down over $90k.

Source Code

You can get the source code for the application here – http://github.com/eibrahim/BlackJackSimulator

Anyway, I am currently working on a MongoDb GUI – there are none out there – and I decided to build it in WPF.  I am using the MongoDb driver by samus (link).  Displaying the data returned from a query as a table proved to be a lot harder than I thought.

Remember that the application doesn’t know anything about the domain model, so I can’t use strongly-typed objects.  This is the code to retrieve the list of user objects stored in MongoDb:

var collection = db.GetCollection<Document>(User);
var results = collection.FindAll();

This will return the results as ICursor<Document>.  Think of Document as the base type for all objects stored in MongoDb.  The actual collection of documents/objects/users is in results.Documents.  A Document implements the ICollection<KeyValuePair<string,object>>, this means that each document is basically a key/value list of all the object properties.  So a user object will be stored like this:

What I want to do is to take this list of documents and display as a grid.  I want it to look something like this:

I am no WPF expert but after Googling and reading tons of articles for hours, here is the solution I came up with.  If you know a better one, please let me know.

Here is the XAML for the ListView

<ListView Name="lvItems"  Margin="12,12,9,12"        IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True" Grid.Column="1"        ItemsSource="{Binding}" >

</ListView>

The first thing I need to do is define the grid columns:

private static GridView CreateGridViewColumns(Document doc)
{
    // Create the GridView
    GridView gv = new GridView();
    gv.AllowsColumnReorder = true;

    if(doc ==null) return gv; //return empty grid if null

    // Create the GridView Columns)
    foreach (var item in doc.Keys)
    {
        var gvc = new GridViewColumn();
        gvc.Header = item;
        gvc.Width = Double.NaN;
        gvc.CellTemplateSelector = new CustomRowDataTemplateSelector();
        gv.Columns.Add(gvc);
    }

    return gv;
}

I use the returned GridView to set the ListView’s Grid

var gridView = CreateGridViewColumns(results.Documents.FirstOrDefault());
lvItems.View = gridView;

So that takes care of setting up the grid column header.  Now, I need to bind the data.  I want to treat each document as a “Row”, so I create a custom class called CustomRow.  Some of the stuff in there won’t make sense right now, but bear with me.

internal class CustomRow
{
    private int index = 0;
    private ArrayList _list;

    public CustomRow()
    {
        _list = new ArrayList();
    }

    public object Value
    {
        get
        {
            if (index < 0) index = 0;
            if (index >= _list.Count) index = 0; //wrap around and start from beginning

            return _list[index++];
        }
    }

    public object Current
    {
        get
        {
            if (index < 0) index = 0;
            if (index >= _list.Count) index = 0; //wrap around and start from beginning
            return _list[index];
        }
    }

    public void Add(object item)
    {
        _list.Add(item);
    }
}

Now, all I have to do is convert each document to CustomRow:

private object ConvertToRows(IEnumerable<Document> documents)
{
    var results = new List<CustomRow>();

    foreach (var document in documents)
    {
        var row = new CustomRow();
        foreach (var field in document)
        {
            row.Add(field.Value);
        }
        results.Add(row);
    }
    return results;
}

This is the full code used to setup the ListView:

lvItems.View = CreateGridViewColumns(results.Documents.FirstOrDefault());
lvItems.DataContext = ConvertToRows(results.Documents);

Did you notice the line with the CellTemplateSelector in the CreateGridViewColumns method above?  Well, I wanted my cells to display differently based on whether they are displaying string, date, an embedded object/document or a list of other documents.  So, I created a custom CellTemplateSelector:

public class CustomRowDataTemplateSelector : DataTemplateSelector
{
    public override DataTemplate
        SelectTemplate(object item, DependencyObject container)
    {
        FrameworkElement element = container as FrameworkElement;

        if (element != null && item != null)
        {
            var row = item as CustomRow;
            if (row != null)
            {
                var cell = row.Current;

                //set template based on cell type
                if (cell is Document)
                {
                    return element.FindResource("documentCell") as DataTemplate;
                }
                if (cell is IList)
                {
                    return element.FindResource("listCell") as DataTemplate;
                }

                if (cell is DateTime)
                {
                    return element.FindResource("dateCell") as DataTemplate;
                }

                if (cell is Oid)
                    return element.FindResource("idCell") as DataTemplate;
                return element.FindResource("stringCell") as DataTemplate;
            }

        }

        return null;
    }
}

Basically, I am returning a different DataTemplate based on the object stored in the cell.  As an example, here is dateCell template defined in the App.xaml file.

<DataTemplate x:Key="dateCell">
    <StackPanel>
        <TextBlock Style="{StaticResource cellStyle}"
                    Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0"
                    Text="{Binding Path=Value, Converter={StaticResource cellConverter}}" />
    </StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>

This is simply a TextBlock that is bound to the Value property of the CustomRow class (will explain later).  The cellConverter is custom logic that will convert the value of the cell accordingly.  For example, date is converted to short date, an embedded object is simply converted to an “(object)” string as shown above.  Here is my converter (ConvertBack hasn’t been implemented yet):

public class CellConverter : IValueConverter
{
    public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
    {
        if (value == null)
            return "(null)";
        if (value is Document)
            return "(object)";
        if (value is DateTime)
            return ((DateTime)value).ToShortDateString();
        if (value is IList)
            return "(list)";

        return value;
    }

    public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }
}

Explanations

At first, I tried to just bind directly to the list of values in each document.  The problem with that the DataTempalte only display the first item in the collection.  So my grid looks exactly like above but all the cells were set to the value of Id.  That is why I created the CustomRow class and that is why the Value property increments the indexer.  This way everytime I pull out the value for a cell, I increment the indexer so that the next bound cell will get the next value and so on. 

Again, I don’t know if this is the best solution, so if you do know of a better one then please let me know in the comments.  It will help all my readers.  Thanks in advance.

I like the subversion and it does the job for me, but after watching tekpub’s videos, I instantly realized the power of mercurial and why I must have it.  So I went ahead and converted my source control for dartfiles to Hg (hg is the chemical symbol for mercury in the periodic table). I was actually surprised by how easy the move went.

Here is what I did:

1. Downloaded and installed TortoiseHg
2. Exported my subversion project to a new folder 

   

3. Created a Mercurial repository at the new folder where I exported the code in step 2

   
   

4. Edited the ignore file (.hgignore) in notepad and added the following (which I found somewhere on stackoverflow)

# Ignore file for Visual Studio 2008

# use glob syntax
syntax: glob

# Ignore Visual Studio 2008 files
*.obj
*.exe
*.pdb
*.user
*.aps
*.pch
*.vspscc
*_i.c
*_p.c
*.ncb
*.suo
*.tlb
*.tlh
*.bak
*.cache
*.ilk
*.log
*.lib
*.sbr
*.scc
[Bb]in
[Db]ebug*/
obj/
[Rr]elease*/
_ReSharper*/
[Tt]est[Rr]esult*
[Bb]uild[Ll]og.*
*.[Pp]ublish.xml

5. Committed the repository

   

   

That’s all I had to do to setup mercurial. 

You are probably wondering – where is the source control server and where are you committing too.  This is the part that is different than what I have been used to with subversion.  Obviously if you are using git or similar distributed SCM then you are familiar with this concept.  Mercurial stores all your source code changes and tracking locally right in your folder inside a .hg subfolder (similar to .svn folders but not exactly).  When you commit you are just committing to your local repository.  This is pretty cool because it lets you commit locally, roll back to a different time, branch and do all kind of cool things without having to deal with a server. 

Imagine you are working on feature 1 then you get an email for an urgent bug (lets’ call it bug 2).  You can’t really work on it because feature 1 is not complete and the code won’t compile and things could get messy.  You want to fix the bug but you don’t want to lose all the work you put into feature 1 and you are note ready to deploy.  With mercurial, it’s pretty easy to handle this situation.  Simply go back to a point in your history before you started working on feature 1, create a new branch for bug 2, fix it then commit and push it, you can then deploy this version and then come back and merge the bug 2 branch with your feature 1 branch and continue working on feature 1. 

I probably didn’t do a good job explaining this scenario but hopefully you will at least get an idea of what I am talking about.  If not then head over to http://mercurial.selenic.com/ and take a look at their great documentation.

Remote Repository

In most cases, you will want to setup a remote repository so you can “push” code to it.  “Pushing” is another concept that was new to me.  Basically, you commit locally and you push remotely (or centrally).  This gives you the flexibility to commit all day long every time you make a change and only when the code is ready and stable you “push” it to the remote repository where other developers can get to it.  I setup my remote repository at bitbucket – http://bitbucket.org/ – they have a free account and some very reasonable pricing.  If you are working on open source/public code, you can always use Google code or codeplex; they both support mercurial.

Here are the steps

1. Created an account at bitbucket.
2. Setup TortoiseHg to talk with the remote repository (right-click > TortoiseHg > Repository Settings)

   

3. Pushed my code to the remote server

TeamCity Integration

I use TeamCity as my build server (blog post).  Once everything was working nicely, I had to get TeamCity to work with the new SCM.  This was pretty easy as well.  I basically removed my old SVN root from my TeamCity project and added a new root to point to mercurial

To make this work, you have to install mercurial on the server.  Get it from http://mercurial.selenic.com/downloads/

Initially, I had a problem with the HG command path and it was giving me some weird error like failed to create process or something like that (I can’t remember).  It turned out the problem was that TeamCity couldn’t deal with spaces in the path.  The install location was “c:\Program Files (x86)\hg” so I just moved it to c:\hg and everything worked.

Once everything was working well and after working for a few hours, doing a few commits and one deployment, I realized the power of mercurial.  Just take a look at my repository history and you might grasp the awesomeness that is mercurial.

Here is the dirty way:

public static string Serialize(this object obj)
{
    string XmlString = String.Empty;
    using (var memStream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType(), string.Empty);
        using (var xmlText = new XmlTextWriter(memStream, Encoding.Default))
        {
            serializer.Serialize(xmlText, obj);
        }
        XmlString = Encoding.Default.GetString(memStream.ToArray());
        memStream.Close();
    }
    return XmlString;
}

The resulting XML looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"?>
<ZipContentInfo xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <FileName>00107_tokyoatnight_1680x1050.jpg</FileName>
    <FileSize>281268</FileSize>
</ZipContentInfo>

Here is a cleaner way:

public static string Serialize(this object obj)
{
    var ser = new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());
    using (var tw = new StringWriter())
    {
        using (var xw = XmlWriter.Create(tw, new XmlWriterSettings() { OmitXmlDeclaration = true }))
        {
            var ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
            //Add an empty namespace and empty value
            ns.Add("", "");
            ser.Serialize(xw, obj, ns);
            return tw.ToString();
        }
    }
}

And the resulting XML looks like this:

<ZipContentInfo>
    <FileName>00107_tokyoatnight_1680x1050.jpg</FileName>
    <FileSize>281268</FileSize>
</ZipContentInfo>

select top 5 * from users order by newid()

Nhibernate is a different story.  I am new to NHibernate and I both love and hate it.  I hate the steep learning curve and the unobvious ways of doing things.  Anyway, here is how to select 5 random records using nhibernate.

First class a new order class to perform random ordering:

public class RandomOrder : Order
{
    public RandomOrder() : base("", true) { }
    public override SqlString ToSqlString(ICriteria criteria, ICriteriaQuery criteriaQuery)
    {
        return new SqlString("newid()");
    }
}

Then use the new class in your query:

IList<User> users = session
    .CreateCriteria(typeof(User))
    .AddOrder(new RandomOrder())
    .SetMaxResults(5)
    .List<User>();

Done…

Nonetheless, I am very excited about the book and I hope you guys like it too and learn something from it.  Of course, reviews on amazon.com would be appreciated – specially positive ones :-)

Thanks to Wrox, here is a free chapter – download it here.

If you have been following my blog, my company or my twitter page then you probably know that my startup – yonkly – was built with ASP.NET MVC.  In this post, I will talk about how I scale deploy Yonkly very easily.

Hosting

Initially, I had it hosted on Amazon Web Services inside EC2 instance.  That didn’t work too well for a few reasons:

• EC2 only supports windows 2003
• A separate instance is needed for load balancing (extra cost)
• The database instance is very costly
• Databases tend to run slow on virtual machines

While looking for alternatives to AWS, I joined Microsoft BizSpark (a program that provides software,  support and visibility for software startups).  The greatest benefit of the program is the use of pretty much all Microsoft products for 3 years for free.  Imagine all the SQL and Windows licenses that you need to scale your website – all for free.  Another great benefit is that Microsoft partnered with hosting companies for even more discounts.

The next step is to find a hosting company.  I went with ServePath/GoGrid.  They offer the best combination in price, scalability and flexibility.  I got a dedicated server for SQL Server and created virtual machines for the front end in GoGrid.  Since both services are by the same company, the virtual machine has a super fast connection to the dedicated server.  The cool thing about GoGrid is that it includes a free load balancer.  So my setup looks something like this:

The blue machines are virtual/cloud machines running in GoGrid and the database server is a dedicated/physical server.

Web Servers: Windows 2008, IIS, ASP.NET MVC

Build Server: Windows 2008, TeamCity

Database Server: Windows 2008, SQL Server 2008

The beauty of all this is that I can add X more servers and scale within minutes.  Eventually, the db server will be the bottleneck and I would have to cluster it, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Management & Deployment

You are probably wondering.  How do you manage all these machines?  How long does it take you to deploy a new version?  The answers are “easy” and “less than a minute”

I started off using CruiseControl.NET (CCNET) to manage my build and deployment but eventually changed to TeamCity.   I like CCNET and the fact that is written in .NET and runs in IIS is very comforting to me.  On the other hand TeamCity is way more capable, has a better interface and was way too easy to setup.  On the flip side, TeamCity is written in Java and runs in Tomcat.  This is a very simplified list of benefits, for more info check their homepage and look at the screen tour.  The best part, both products are free and CCNET is open source.

Once I got TeamCity up and running, I created 2 projects one called “Yonkly Build” and the other “Yonkly Deploy”.

The Yonkly Build project:

• monitors the source control repository (SVN)
• checks out changes
• builds the code

The Yonkly Deploy project copies the changed files using Robocopy to every web server using a NANT script.  The NANT build file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="yonkly" default="deploy files">
    <target name="deploy files">
       <exec
         program="robocopy.exe"
         commandline="c:\dev\yonkly20\yonkly20\ c:\websites\yonkly20 *.* /E /XA:H /COPY:DT /XO /XD .svn logs obj aspnet_client app_data properties controllers helpers models /NDL /NC /NS /NP /XF *.cs *.csproj *.config  *.pdb"
         timeout="120000"
         failonerror="false"
         resultproperty="nunitReturnCode">
       </exec>
       <fail if="${nunitReturnCode > '7'}">Robocopy failed with yonkly20 (return code ${nunitReturnCode})</fail>  

       <exec
         program="robocopy.exe"
         commandline="c:\dev\yonkly20\yonkly20\ \\10.109.69.2\c\websites\yonkly20 *.* /E /XA:H /COPY:DT /XO /XD .svn logs obj aspnet_client app_data properties controllers helpers models /NDL /NC /NS /NP /XF *.cs *.csproj *.config  *.pdb"
         timeout="120000"
         failonerror="false"
         resultproperty="nunitReturnCode">
       </exec>
       <fail if="${nunitReturnCode > '7'}">Robocopy failed with yonkly20 on remote (return code ${nunitReturnCode})</fail>  

    </target>
</project>

You can repeat the Robocopy command for every web server.  You can learn more about Robocopy here, NANT tasks here and the exec task here.  The fail element in the above XML file tells TeamCity to only fail the build if the return value from Robocopy is greater than 7.  Get more info about Robcopy return code which is a bit map over here.

It’s important to note that I have a dependency setup between my build and deploy projects.  This is to ensure that I don’t deploy a failed build.  The deploy project will only work if the build succeeds.

Tools & Helpers

There are a couple of helpful tools/plugins that make TeamCity even more powerful.  The first plugin is a system tray notifier that will display popups to notify of build status.

The other plugin is for Visual Studio and is a “killer feature” for TeamCity.  It allows me to verify that my code will build on the server before I check it in.  it’s probably better if you read the description on their site.

Ready. Set. Go

Now, all I have to do is check in my code.  TeamCity will detect the new files, check them out, build the application and if it succeeds, it will deploy it.

What’s Next?

Many of these things are relatively new to me, so if you know of a better way to do things, please share.  I am also looking for a way to automate my database migration (probably with a NANT task).

So, I need to start/create a new product or service and need your opinion on what to do next.

I created a very short questionnaire (only 1 required question and no email address is required).  Can you please take 5 seconds and guide me in the right direction?

It is located at http://bit.ly/hIk1p

If you decide to fill out your email (optional), I will use it to send you a free copy/subscription of whatever I (we) decide to create.

I will announce the results of your votes on twitter after I close voting. 

Thanks for your help in advance.

PS: You can also help by re-tweeting – http://bit.ly/1uIuvI my request for feedback.

PSS: I will make the results public once voting is closed.  I just don’t want the current results to influence your vote.  I will also make public the ideas suggested by you – some are really fantastic (thanks).

PSSS: Some related discussions here

<div id='pnlUsers'></div>
<div id='pnlMessages'></div>
<div id='pnlStatus'></div>

I can easily hide all the divs up by doing a wildcard selection on elements with an id starting with “pnl”, like this:

$("[id^=pnl]").hide();

You can even narrow it to only divs like this:

$("div[id^=pnl]").hide();

There is another example with even more explanations over here.

^(?#Protocol)(?:(?:ht|f)tp(?:s?)\:\/\/|~/|/)?(?#Username:Password)(?:\w+:\w+@)?(?#Subdomains)(?:(?:[-\w]+\.)+(?#TopLevel Domains)(?:com|org|net|gov|mil|biz|info|mobi|name|aero|jobs|museum|travel|[a-z]{2}))(?#Port)(?::[\d]{1,5})?(?#Directories)(?:(?:(?:/(?:[-\w~!$+|.,=]|%[a-f\d]{2})+)+|/)+|\?|#)?(?#Query)(?:(?:\?(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:]|%[a-f\d{2}])+=(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:=]|%[a-f\d]{2})*)(?:&(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:]|%[a-f\d{2}])+=(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:=]|%[a-f\d]{2})*)*)*(?#Anchor)(?:#(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:=]|%[a-f\d]{2})*)?$

There is more information on Ivan’s blog.

Initially, I thought I should turn this into an eBook and sell it for a few bucks then I thought my target audience are probably not willing to spend money even it were only 5 bucks.  I finally settled on making it into a series of blog posts and also incorporating your comments along the way.

Risks

First, let’s set the stage.  My situation is probably different than yours; so if you have lots of money saved up, rich parents or potential investors and have no debt then some of these questions/pointers might not apply to you.  I started off with zero savings, high credit card debt and pretty good credit score.  So, among money of the risks you will be taking, ask yourself if you are willing to end up with bad credit.  A year+ later, I am short selling my condo, have a lot more debt than before and I don’t even want to know my credit score.

I was telling my sister about my situation and she said “you are taking this surprisingly well.  You used to be very conscious of your credit score”.  Well, I told her it’s not the end of the world and I will just have to learn to live within my means for the next few years until banks agree to lend me again.  Can you imagine living in a world where you only buy the car you can afford?  The computer you can afford?  The house you can afford?  So again, are you willing to take this risk and take it “surprisingly well” if things go bad?

So far we have “Are you willing to end up with bad credit?”, this of course is one of many more questions you should ask yourself to assess your readiness to take the leap:

• Can you handle a foreclosure?
• Can you live without a car if it breaks down and you can’t fix it or if it gets repossessed?
• Can your significant other handle it?
• Can you handle living without some “relative luxuries”: eating out, drinking, partying, vacation, gadgets, toys and so on?

In the above questions, when I say “handle”, I mean “can you mentally, psychologically and physically handle it?”.  It is really hard for me to walk into Best Buy or stumble on Amazon.com and come out empty handed.  It is very difficult for me to go out with some friends and just order a couple of beers all night.  All I am saying is: prepare yourself.

One more thing and then I will move on.  A friend once told me about how brave I was for doing this and that he could never do the same thing in a million years.  I asked him what was his biggest fear and his answer shocked me: “… that my wife would leave me”.  I am sorry, but personally I think if you are thinking this way then you probably married the wrong person.  And, honestly if she leaves you because you are broke, then good riddance.  What happens to “until death do us apart”, it’s not “until your credit score do us apart”.  Luckily, my fiancé is still around and we are getting married in the next few months.  Off topic: weddings are a big, expensive, waste-of-money one-night party that no one will remember.  And if anyone remembers your wedding 3 months later it is because it was really good or really bad.

Offsets

There are many things to offset the risk while you are starting your company.  The most obvious one is to not quit your job.  I personally couldn’t do that.  You can’t spend 10 hours at work and then come back home and be able to fully focus and commit to your startup.  If you can do that then you should.  But say goodbye to your social life and probably health and mental well being.

Again there are a hundred ways to offset the risk and generate some money on the side if not to cover all your bills at least it will cover your food and Internet bill.  I don’t know you and I don’t know what you can do to make some money but I will tell you some of the things I did and an estimate on how income they generated.

• Consulting gigs (web development and social media consulting) – $30k
• Online ad Revenue from my websites – $2k
• Startup/yonkly – revenue (I know!  Can you believe that?  It is already generating revenue) – ~$10k.  Most of the money was a side effect of the startup e.g. custom development.
• Book writing – I don’t think I am allowed to disclose the amount but let’s just say it’s enough money to pay your bills for 2 or 3 months.
• Article writing – depends on the magazine but should be between $500 and $1000 per article.
• Sell your junk on amazon, ebay and craigslist.  I sold a ton of books, dvds and electronics that I didn’t use anymore – $1k.  It won’t make you reach but it will be enough money to feed the dog for a few months.
• Raise money – $0.  Hey, don’t sound surprised, it’s a tough market.
• Not selling your organs on the black market – priceless.

The important thing is that you need to find the right balance.  If you do too much consulting then you won’t have time for your startup.  But if you get lucky and find a contract that lasts a couple of months and pays a lot of money then take it.  That should keep you going for a few more months.

Coming Up

I don’t want to make this post too long.  I talked about the risks and how to offset.  It is important to understand that you are minimizing risk – not eliminating it.

I am going to focus this series on an web startup or do I dare say a web 2.0 startup.  Not everything will apply to everyone (or to anyone for that matter) but hopefully it will be helpful and entertaining.  I would like to cover the following topics in future posts:

• Building The Website (multiple posts)
  • Development (Programming)
  • Hosting and scaling
  • Payment integration (PayPal)
• Marketing & PR (here is a good book)
• Tools & Services (I will expand on my previous post)
• Resources & References
• [insert your suggestion here]

Help me expand the previous list.  Leave a comment and tell me what you would like me to discuss.

The code is also very simple.  I didn’t add all the extra options that the API makes available and just wrote enough for me to shorten a URL.  Here it is:

public static class BitlyApi
{
    private const string apiKey = "[add api key here]";
    private const string login = "[add login name here]";

    public static BitlyResults ShortenUrl(string longUrl)
    {
        var url =
            string.Format("http://api.bit.ly/shorten?format=xml&version=2.0.1&longUrl={0}&login={1}&apiKey={2}",
                          HttpUtility.UrlEncode(longUrl), login, apiKey);
        var resultXml = XDocument.Load(url);
        var x = (from result in resultXml.Descendants("nodeKeyVal")
                 select new BitlyResults
                            {
                                UserHash = result.Element("userHash").Value,
                                ShortUrl = result.Element("shortUrl").Value
                            }
                );
        return x.Single();
    }
}

public class BitlyResults
{
    public string UserHash { get; set; }

    public string ShortUrl { get; set; }
}

Using this code is very straight forward.

var shortUrl = BitlyApi.ShortenUrl("http://www.verylongUrl.com").ShortUrl;

bit.ly has tons of features and a great API.  You can even see stats of any bit.ly generate url using /info.  for example: http://bit.ly/info/S0vRy shows you stats for http://bit.ly/S0vRy

Another feature I really like is their bookmarklet which you can keep on your browser’s bookmark bar and click it to shrink the site you are at…  It even pops this side bar with a bunch of useful info.

The API is pretty well documented at http://code.google.com/p/bitly-api/wiki/ApiDocumentation

Don’t forget to follow me on twitter.

Yonkly offers a white-label platform that enables anyone and everyone to create a twitter-clone/microblog network for anything.  The same way Ning allows you to create a Facebook-clone/social network.  Just like Ning, Yonkly offers a hosted solution that is fully customizable.  For as little as 5 bucks a month, you have your own Twitter-clone that you don’t have to install, maintain or upgrade.  It just works.

You can have your own look and feel (christtr.com).

You can have your own domain (isweat.com).

You can target any niche market (photographersjournal.com).

You can even run your own advertising if you want and make some money (writezoo.com).

You can create private networks for your company, team, group or anything.

You can integrate with Flickr, Picasa and Twitter (more integration points coming soon).

There are ton more features, check out the tour over here.

It is very possible that one day Yonkly will be in the top 25 list.  In the meantime, why don’t you go create a free account and try it out at yonkly.com

PS: Don’t want a hosted solution?  Prefer to host your own?  No problem, we are selling the source code, click here for more info.

If you have been reading my blog or following me on Twitter then you already know that I quit my job almost a year ago and launched my first startup (Yonkly) a few months ago.

The economy sucks, we are bootstrapped and doing whatever it takes to survive – I hope that kid I stole the sandwich from will understand.  As a startup, we need to cut the fat (not that there is any) and make sure we only pay for things we need (and no, you don’t need a subscription to Playboy).

I thought, I would come up with a list of online (and offline services) that are worth paying for.  Feel free to leave a comment with links to services that you use and think are worth the money.

FreshBooks: A great way to track your time and invoice your clients (until your startup takes off).  I am currently using their free plan but they have plans starting at $14/month

Basecamp: Really easy project management on the web.  They have a free version and plans start at $12/month

DreamHost: A very affordable way to host your blogs and websites I must have over 30 websites hosted with them for a ridiculously low fee.  It is so low, I want to pay extra with my bill (but I won’t).

WooThemes: Impress your customers with a killer WordPress theme.  These are some of the best themes I have seen anywhere.  We are currently using it on the Yonkly blog.

Animoto: So you have decided to raise some money and want to create an interesting video to put on your homepage.  Unfortunately you are as artistically talented as box of donuts (no offense Krispy Kream).  This is a killer way to create a video, go and try it out, you can create a 30 second video for free.  Here is the video I created for Yonkly, it took me less than 30 minutes.

Angelsoft.net: Speaking of raising money, try this site.  I signed up and paid $250 to have my application submitted to thousands of potential investors and investor groups.  Warning: It has only been 3 days since I subscribed to it, so I don’t know how effective it is.  I personally like the fact that I can reach so many investors very quickly it’s like monster.com for entrepreneurs/investors.  But don’t get your hopes too high, only 5% get funded.  Here are some stats http://angelsoft.net/industry/index.seam

StreamSend: Now that you have 15 thousand people signed up to receive your newsletter announcing the grand opening (or closing) of your startup, you need a way to send bulk email.  StreamSend is the cheapest I could find.  Not that best, but the cheapest.

Remember The Milk (RTM): Stay organized and productive with Remember The Milk.  They are everywhere: on the web, on your iphone, in your gmail inbox, in your gmail calendar on your windows and mac desktop, in your iGoogle start page and even integrates with QuickSilver on the mac and Launchy on the pc.  It’s free but I pay $25/year to use their iPhone app (that’s 25 a YEAR).  One drawback: it doesn’t sync withOutlook  

Amazon Prime: If you are going to buy a ton of book to tell you how to market/sell/buy/start/ a business or how to work 4 hours a week and live your dream then you should subscribe to Amazon Prime.  It gives you free shipping on pretty much everything at Amazon for $75 a year.

Amazon Web Services: The best way to reduce your bandwidth and online storage.  I use S3, CloudFront, Elastic Compute Cloud and SimpleDB.  I even created a SimpleDB manager, which you should buy a copy of.  Legend has it that for every copy sold a terrorist is captured.  You don’t believe?  I sold a copy the day John Walker (the terrorist not the drink) was captured.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.

Joe’s Goals: Set some goals, track them and celebrate your achievements (or cry yourself to sleep, loser).  It’s free, but you can pay $12/year to have the ads removed.  I will take my ads now, please.

CrowdSound: A great way to collect user feedback.  They have a free plan and plans starting at $10/month.  Definitely worth the money.

And of course, the myriad of Google tools and services out there: Docs, Calendar, Mail, Analytics, Reader.  They are all free but you have to give up your soul to Google.  But don’t worry, they will “do no evil”.  Worst case, they will sell ads on your soul with SoulSense (still in beta).

Please share with everyone services that you use and think are worth the money.

Hacker News users are stubborn and insist on commenting there.  I can’t seem to convince them, so here is a link to their comments http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=456422

Disclaimer: I am sure you noticed that most of the links have a referral code.  Don’t worry, that didn’t affect my recommendations or integrity (what is that?).  I actually use all the services mentioned above.  Plus we are bootstrapped and the economy is in the crapper so give me a break and use these links.

Create the tests

1. Install Selenium IDE from http://seleniumhq.org
2. Record your tests in Firefox using the Selenium IDE
   
3. Click File > Create New Test
4. Click the record button and create your test
5. Click the record button to stop the test
6. Save your test
7. Click Options > Format > C# to get the C# code
   

Setup Selenium Remote Control (RC)

1. Download Selenium RC (it includes the server and all necessary files)
2. Start the server by running selenium-server.jar in the selenium-server folder
   1. You can double click it, or
   2. Open a command prompt and type:
      java -jar selenium-server.jar

Run the tests

1. Create a new class library project in Visual Studio.
2. Reference the assemblies in the selenium RC folder related to .net
3. Paste the generated code from step #7 above into a class file
4. To test Internet Explorer, change the setup method to this
   

   [SetUp]
   public void SetupTest()
   {
       selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "*iexplore",
                                       "http://www.mywebsite.com/");
       selenium.Start();
       verificationErrors = new StringBuilder();
   }

5. Run the tests with your favorite Runner – I use ReSharper

A Selenium Core window opens up as well as an IE window and your tests will run.

Jeremy blogged something very similar to this at http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2006/05/14/144666.aspx

We have subscription plans and currently offering a discounted annual subscription* to celebrate the new year.  For the technically-savvy, we even have the source code up for sale .

What Next?

We have been contemplating the next step in our startup and want to hear your take on it.

Should we look for funding?  Angel investors? VCs? Friends and Family?

If yes, then how much and in return for what?

If no, then why and what are the other options?

Do we sell?  How much? How and to who?

The Dream

We are a dedicated and highly motivated team of entrepreneurs that want to achieve a 4HWW lifestyle and not work ourselves to the grave.  With that in mind is getting investors a good idea?

Exit: A Good Outcome

We think the best outcome for us is having enough paid subscribers to pay our bills and more.  A second best outcome is to sell the company and use the money to fund our next idea – we have a ton of ideas and lots of talent (that sounds conceited).  Third outcome is to get funding so we can aggressively develop, market and grow the company.

What do you think and why?

* Discounted annual subscriptions of up to 33% off.  Create your network, go to the admin control panel and click subscriptions.   This is a limited-time offer, so if you don’t see it there, it probably expired.

Buy it now at http://yonkly.com/buy

Includes

• Flexible license – deploy up to 2 domains and 10 sub-domains
• Make any changes you want
• Community support through forums
• No copyright required
• One time payment
• Advanced control panel
• Groups
• Picture sharing
• Sidebar widgets
• Run your own ads
• Use your own domain
• Threaded conversations
• Twitter integration

For more information visit http://yonkly.com/buy

Since it is still in beta, I have reduced the price to $19.99 but only for a LIMITED time.  The price will go up as soon as the bugs are ironed out and we get out of beta (very soon).

So what can SimpleDb Manager do for you?

• Create and delete domains
• Edit-In-Place item attributes (select the cell and start typing or hit F2 to edit)
• Delete items (select row and hit the delete button)
• Delete attributes (edit cell and delete its content)
• Add new items (just start typing in the last row)
• Execute queries (type query in query box and click the execute button)
• Save connection information for easy management of multiple accounts

There are a ton more features coming, so stay tuned.

Get SimpleDb Manager NOW before the price goes up – I am serious.

The second reason to celebrate: we finally popped the cherry and sold our first enterprise copy of Yonkly (http://about.yonkly.com).   Now, we just have to do it again a few thousand times.

Yonkly is now in private beta, but you can signup for an invitation at http://about.yonkly.com/.  It will be coming out shortly and it will be kicking some ass.  If you can’t wait, you can always buy the latest version with source code for $399, go to http://about.yonkly.com/ enter your email and you will receive instructions.

You can follow Yonkly’s progress on our new blog at http://blog.yonkly.com (it’s a work in progress).  You can also follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/yonkly 

Back to work, we have got a lot to do and not enough time.

Also, don’t for get to check Scott’s blog is http://scottdig.com/