NCover

Why Bookmarks Fail Developers

Peter Waldschmidt — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 22:27:16 +0000

Why Bookmarks Fail Developers

Developers collect useful information all the time.

A helpful article on a framework behavior. A documentation page that finally clears up a confusing feature. A support thread that explains a difficult error message. A blog post that outlines a better way to approach testing, deployment, or debugging.

When we find those resources, the natural thing to do is save them as bookmarks so we can return to them later.

The problem is that later does not always go as planned.

Many developers have had the experience of remembering that they saved something helpful, opening a bookmarks folder, and then realizing they cannot remember which link they need or why they saved it in the first place. The title may not be descriptive. The folder may contain dozens of other links. The version, use case, or original problem may be missing entirely.

That is where bookmarks begin to fall short for development work.

The Link Is Only Part of What Matters

For developers, a useful saved resource is rarely just a URL.

What usually matters just as much is the context around it:

• what problem the resource helped solve
• what project or technology stack it applied to
• whether it related to a specific version, tool, or environment
• whether it represented a best practice, workaround, or temporary fix
• what action should be taken the next time it is needed

A bookmark stores the location of the resource, but not always the reason it mattered.

For individual developers that can be frustrating. For software teams, it can become expensive.

Teams are constantly collecting small pieces of useful knowledge. They save release notes, API references, issue discussions, testing guidance, performance tips, and examples from other developers. That information can be extremely valuable, but only if it can be recognized and used again later.

Bookmarks Are Convenient, But They Are Limited

We think bookmarks continue to be popular for a simple reason: they are easy.

They are built into the browser, they require almost no effort, and they give developers a quick way to hold onto something that looks useful. For a small number of links, that may be enough.

Over time, though, bookmarks tend to become crowded and difficult to manage. Folders fill up. Naming becomes inconsistent. “Read Later” becomes a catch-all for everything. Developers start remembering the problem they were solving, but not the title of the article or where they filed it.

This is not necessarily a matter of poor organization. It is more often a sign that browser bookmarks were not designed to support the way development teams gather and reuse information.

Software development moves quickly. Tools change. Libraries evolve. Documentation improves. Teams investigate problems under pressure and often save resources in the middle of active work. In that environment, simply saving a link is not always enough.

Lost Context Costs Time

Development teams spend a great deal of time solving problems, researching options, comparing solutions, and learning from previous work. When useful information is difficult to recover later, that effort can easily be repeated.

That repeated effort shows up in familiar ways:

• time spent searching for an article that was already found once before
• repeated investigation into an issue that had already been understood
• difficulty onboarding team members to tools, workflows, or known problems
• uncertainty about whether a saved reference is still relevant

These may seem like small inefficiencies, but over time they add up.

We often talk about improving productivity by helping developers write code faster, build faster, and test more effectively. Those are all important goals. But teams also benefit when they can more easily find and reuse the knowledge they already worked hard to collect.

Better Work Requires Better Recall

At NCover, we have always cared about giving teams better visibility into their software. Code coverage helps developers understand what is happening in their applications and where more attention is needed. That visibility leads to better decisions and better outcomes.

There is a similar lesson here.

Teams do better work when they can recover not just information, but the meaning attached to it. A useful article is more valuable when a developer knows why it mattered. A saved issue thread is more helpful when it is tied to the problem it helped explain. A reference becomes much more effective when it can be understood by your future self or another member of your team.

That is the real weakness of bookmarks for developers. They are very good at storing links, but not always very good at preserving context.

Saving Links Is Not the Same as Saving Knowledge

If development teams want saved resources to stay useful, they should think beyond collecting links and start thinking about preserving knowledge.

That can include:

• saving notes along with a resource
• organizing by project, problem, or technology
• capturing the takeaway, not just the source
• storing research in a way that supports search and retrieval later
• making saved information understandable to other team members

This does not need to be complicated. In many cases, even a small amount of added context can make a major difference when that information needs to be found again.

The key is to think about what your future self will need. Not just where the information came from, but why it was worth saving.

A Better Alternative to Traditional Bookmarks

Developers are not short on information. If anything, most teams are trying to keep up with an overwhelming amount of it. Articles, release notes, videos, support threads, examples, and documentation all compete for attention.

The challenge is not simply access to information. The challenge is being able to recover the right information when it is needed.

That is why we think tools and systems that preserve context deserve attention. For teams and developers who are rethinking how they save and recover useful technical information, tools like Rook point toward a more practical alternative than traditional browser bookmarks.

A bookmark may tell you where something was. A better system helps you remember why it mattered.

And for developers working to build better software, that can make all the difference.

The post Why Bookmarks Fail Developers appeared first on NCover.

NCover 5.5 Update Release

Kerry Meade — Wed, 11 May 2016 13:31:41 +0000

We have released an important maintenance release of NCover 5.5. We encourage all NCover users to upgrade as this release touches our entire product line. Remember, if you have an active support agreement there is no charge for this upgrade. If your auto-update alert has not already notified you, simply check for a new update from within the NCover GUI and initiate the update process.

We have full release notes for version V5.5.3353.1077 but here are a few of the key highlights:

Improved Handling of Module Duplication

This release marks a big change in the way NCover handles module duplication in code coverage. We have historically, and continue today, to define a module as being changed when the IL generated no longer matches a previous build. This approach allows multiple versions to merge, even after multiple rebuilds. However, once the IL changes, the module is considered new.

Historically, when these duplicate modules were merged, NCover would include both modules in the final merge.

As of V5.5.3353.1077, NCover will rely on Last Modified Date to determine which module in the merge is newer and NCover will only include the newest module in the final merge.

The main benefit of this new behavior will be seen by developers or teams that are continually merging coverage over a period of time. At any given point in time they will, by continuous merging, have the best summary of the coverage across their entire system without the confusion of how many times modules have changed.

This behavior previously required the use of the Prune command to remove modules that were being replaced. This change greatly reduces the work required to create the desired outcome. Although this is the new default behavior, you can easily revert to the previous behavior via a system-wide config setting by setting the following attribute to false in the ncover.exe.config file and restarting the windows service:

true

Please contact us if you have any questions or need assistance with this setting.

Faster Document Filtering

Document filtering speed has been greatly improved, particularly when multiple filters are in place, and we have made several minor adjustments to the calculation of metrics. Previously document filters eliminated only statistics from the query, but now the code branches (classes, methods) within those documents will be filtered from the tables and navigation. Additionally, the filtering process is much quicker, making the documents view of coverage more responsive. Document filters are most commonly used to ignore generated files in a solution like *.Designer.cs files.

Improved Merge Handling

One of the deceptive causes of duplicated modules which will not merge is the differences between DEBUG and RELEASE builds of the same code. This release introduces new labelling at the module view which shows if the profiler was able to detect that JIT optimizations are disabled. Disabled optimizations is the common identifier in compiled .NET assemblies that indicates if the assembly is a Debug or a Release build. This provides one more clue to the observer what the differences are between assemblies. The details reported now are Version, Create Date, and Debug/Release.

Faster Import of Execution Data

The import of execution data from export files is now dramatically faster with this release. We have refined the import process to provide a heavily multi-threaded import which also optimizes disk I/O and results in much faster imports. We tested the improved process against imports which contain a hundred executions and, in a control situation where all other system resources are held constant, have seen reductions in import time from approximately 2 hours to approximately 5 minutes.

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.NET Speakers to Hear

Vicky — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 10:00:51 +0000

Listening to experts in our field is one of many ways we can learn and help improve the applications we build as members of the .NET community. We think you should make it a point to hear these two .NET speakers if you get the chance.

Caleb Jenkins

Caleb Jenkins is an International Speaker, Author and Senior Manager at Avaya – leading development teams in North America, Ireland and India. He has led teams of people for the last 15 years, and recently managed the UX product design team at Sabre GetThere, co-chaired Sabre’s Employee Innovation Council #BringIt, and was a Principal Agile Coach for Sabre Airline Solutions working with international development teams around the globe.

Longtime community leader, 6 time recipient of the Microsoft MVP award, and former Microsoft Developer Evangelist – working with some of the largest organizations in the region, Caleb is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, Certified Trainer and .NET architect. Caleb has helped to design and implement enterprise .NET Solutions for some of the largest companies in the world.

Caleb lives in the Dallas area with his wife and their four children. Follow him on Twitter @calebjenkins or at his blog.

Niraj Bhatt

Niraj Bhatt works as an Enterprise Architect for a Fortune 500 company with an innate passion for building and studying software systems. He is a top rated speaker at various technical forums including Tech Ed, MCT Summit, Great Indian Developer Summit, Tech Days, Virtual Tech Days, etc.

He enjoys working on IT innovations that impact enterprise’s bottom line, integration and architecture of systems, performance tuning, & review of enterprise applications with a specialized focused on enhancing team’s productivity.

When he’s away from his laptop, you will find Niraj enjoying automobiles, pottery, rafting, photography, cooking & financial statements though not necessarily in that order. See what he’s up to now on his blog and on Twitter @nirajrules.

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Cloud-Based .NET Leaders to Know

Vicky — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 10:01:34 +0000

We wanted to take some time to salute some members of our .NET community that spend their time working on and solving cloud-based problems for their industry. Thank you both for all of the great applications helping improve the overall landscape.

Richard Seroter

Richard is a Senior Director of Product at Pivotal, a Microsoft MVP, InfoQ lead editor for cloud computing, blogger, author, Pluralsight trainer and frequent public speaker. He has spent the majority of his career working with organizations as they planned and implemented their enterprise software solutions. He recently earned a Masters Degree in Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Richard is author/contributor to several books addressing topics in Microsoft platform technology, applying good SOA principles to a wide variety of BizTalk scenarios, and integration strategies for Windows Azure, Salesforce.com and Dynamics CRM 2011.

Read about Richard’s exploits, pitfalls, and musings with enterprise software on his blog, and follow him on Twitter @rseroter.

Jason Kergosien

Jason is President and Lead Architect of Ingen Systems, a provider of web-based business services and solutions. With more than 15 years experience in the development and implementation of web strategies and architecture in a variety of industries, his extensive background includes leading companies in data management, portals and content management in Microsoft technologies.

When he’s not contributing to the work of Ingen Systems, Jason is serving as founder and president of the Dallas DotNetNuke Users Group, a member of the Professional Referral Group and serves on the board of the IT Roundtable, a non-profit organization of ministry IT professionals.

See what Jason’s up to on Twitter @ilovecsharp.

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.NET Developer Tips and Tricks

Vicky — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 10:00:56 +0000

We all have our own tips and tricks to what makes good, clean code that leads to powerful applications. We wanted to take a moment and share a couple of insights from some .NET developers on how they make powerful products. What are your tips?

Jérémy Jeanson

Microsoft Integration MVP Jérémy Jeanson discovered computers very early in life when his father brought home a Lynx: a funny box that produced Bezier curves on a small screen. Intrigued by the machine, he tried the basics, discovered storage on magnetic tape and powerful computers with 64Kb RAM. During his studies, Jeremy adopted .NET technologies, and a new world opened to him.

His best technology tip? KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and keep an open mind. He believes developers should always keep their options open, neglecting no technology. Jeremy says, “More mastery of a technology offers a better chance to give customers a simple and effective solution…You should not choose the solution you prefer, but one that is most suited.”

More advice and recent projects from Jeremy on his blog and @jeremyjeanson.

Gian Paolo Santopaolo

Italian Hardware Interaction Design and Development MVP Gian Paolo Santopaolo designs and develops NUI user experiences for multitouch devices, focusing primarily on PPI by Microsoft and Kinect. He researches and creates prototypes for tactile and gesture recognition solutions with particular attention to the interaction between the two. For over a decade he has been dealing with architecture, design and development of enterprise applications with extreme scalability requirements by implementing the latest technologies.

Gian Paolo has always had a knack for working in teams, so sharing his expertise in communities comes naturally. He believes exchanging ideas is the way to find solutions from which everyone can benefit. His best advice can be summed up in two words: sharing passion. Gian Paolo says, “Always share your expertise, because history teaches us that sharing knowledge always leads to a collective growth.”

See what Gian Paolo is sharing on Twitter @gsantopaolo and at his company, Software Lab.

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The Vampire King: In Memoriam

Peter Waldschmidt — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 20:45:14 +0000

Russell Hinson left this world behind in the early morning hours of March 12, 2016. He will always have a place in our hearts.

I first met Russell in the early 2000’s, when we hired him as a trainer at TetraData. Over the next few years he traveled all over the U.S., teaching school administrators how to use our analytics products to answer important questions. With “No Child Left Behind” having been signed into law, data about school performance and outcomes was a huge area of focus in education. Our customers loved working with Russell as he was always thoughtful and eager to help them find answers.

In 2011, at NCover, we needed someone to keep our documentation up to date and to help customers use the product. We were delighted that Russell was available and asked him to join the team. When he started, one of our team members bought him an army helmet that he would jokingly wear while answering customer requests. Although he hardly needed it. As our customers know, Russell was always thoughtful and kind in his responses and loved to help people. We received many compliments about Russell. In fact, our company has built a reputation for great support, largely because of the rapport that Russell established with our customers.

In recent years, Russell began to struggle with an ailment that caused him to lose his mobility. He began to have trouble walking, and started using a cane. His doctors told him he would need a wheelchair, but he stubbornly resisted. Russell knew that once he started using a wheelchair, he’d never get out of it. So he fought it all the way to the end.

Russell was constantly in a great deal of pain, but you’d never know it by reading his messages or talking with him. He worked from home much of the time, but he was in the office as often as he was able. While working, we’d see him grimace in pain as a spasm came over. Sometimes he’d stop and painfully massage a muscle or adjust his position, but his attitude was always positive and he never lost his trademark sarcastic humor.

Russell had an amazing sense of humor. You could always count on his sarcastic banter in our company Slack channels and his optimism held out until the end. During his final hospital stay as doctors and family members surrounded him sensing that the end was near, he said, “I still feel like I’m going to get better, but I don’t get that sense of optimism from everyone else in this room.” That’s the way I want to remember him, clear-headed while tenaciously optimistic.

Russell was a humble guy. Smart and witty, but content to stay out of the limelight. I’ll never forget the day I found out that Russell had written a book. Edward & Amelia: The Vampire King. He didn’t even talk about it. I found out from someone else. He wrote that story for his beloved children, and if you go to his Amazon author page, you can get a sense of his spirit. He loved his family very much and he glowed when he talked about them.

Family and the written word meant a lot to Russell, and Russell meant a lot to us.

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.NET Collaborators

Vicky — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 10:00:14 +0000

In the development world, we know that each line of code has been built upon what our community has learned the line before it. We wanted to take a moment to say thank you to two amazing collaborators and influencers to coding around the world:

Mihail Mateev

Three-time MVP Mihail Mateev is based in Sofia, Bulgaria and serves as Solutions Architect, Project Manager and Senior Technical Evangelist at Strypes, a Dutch-owned software development company. Over the last year, he has been working on the design of the new version of iOTA, a new generation of the IoT system with backend in Microsoft Azure using some of the latest features in Azure such as DocumentDB and Azure File Service.

When he’s not developing, you can find Mihail leading two user groups: Bulgaria NI & .Net UG and jQuery Sofia UG and serving as chairman of the board of the Bulgarian Software Community, a nonprofit association to manage community conferences in Bulgaria.

Check in on Mihail’s latest projects on his blog or on Twitter @mihailmateev.

Patrick Lamber

Office 365 MVP Patrick Lamber is a long-standing .NET Developer and has offered SharePoint consulting, development, and training services to customers since the launch of SharePoint 2007. Since April 1, 2013, Patrick has been awarded as a SharePoint Server MVP. He is focusing on collaboration and communication topics in combination with SharePoint, Yammer and Office 365.

Patrick is the founder and CEO of NUBO, a group of professionals specializing in SharePoint, Office 365, Azure, and .NET technologies. Patrick speaks three languages (German, Italian, and English), with most of his work focused in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Patrick is married to Daniela and lives in South Tyrol (Italy). In his spare time he enjoys swimming and salsa-dancing with his wife.

Learn about his latest involvement with the SharePoint community on his blog or on Twitter @patricklamber.

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.NET Developers to Know

Vicky — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 11:17:47 +0000

.NET is celebrating its birthday this month. As part of this special celebration, we wanted to showcase two .NET developers we think we all should get to know. See what they have been working on and all they have accomplished:

Ahmed Bahaa Farid

“Working for Community inspires me, and pushes me always to achieve more because; I believe that the value of any man doesn’t come from how much he can get for himself but, it comes from how much he can give to others, and how much he can positively affects people’s lives.” Dr. Ahmed Bahaa became active in the technical community by giving talks at the Middle East Visual Studio .NET 2002 Launch (Version 1.0) in March 2002 in Cairo-Egypt. He presented the ADO.NET session, and has since made it his goal to remain active in the community.

Professionally, Dr. Bahaa works as the Principal Technical Consultant in an ALM Microsoft Gold Partner in Cairo-Egypt, CompuPharaohs, building enterprise solutions. You can also find him in the classroom as an Associate Professor of Computer and Information at Helwan University in Cairo, Egypt. He appreciates the sustainability of sharing his knowledge with talented university students.

In addition to consulting and teaching, Dr. Bahaa serves in a variety of advisory roles.

Nino Crudele

Nino Crudele first came in contact with BizTalk Server in 2004, and from the first moment, he was hooked. He has worked exclusively on BizTalk Server for many years, giving him the chance to use every function and explore every aspect of the platform. He has learned a lot about integration, leading him in recent years to focus on the future and on hybrid architectures, such as Azure Service Bus, BizTalk Services, and BizTalk On-Premise.

In addition to his extensive work with BizTalk Server, Nino has delivered world class Integration solutions using many different technologies such as AS2, EDI, Rosettanet, HL7, RFID, SWIFT. When he’s not developing, you can find Nino blogging, speaking, writing, and collaborating with the community.

Read about his latest projects on his blog and follow him on Twitter @ninocrudele.

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NCover Desktop & Visual Studio Update

Kerry Meade — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 10:46:04 +0000

We are pleased to announce the release of NCover Desktop 5.5. This latest version is focused on significantly improving the ease, speed and flexibility of collecting and using code coverage in Visual Studio.

NCover makes collecting and managing coverage easier than ever before right from Visual Studio. After installation, activate NCover’s Coverage Collection in Visual Studio and we will take care of the rest. No special test runner, no complicated configuration.

NCover allows you to collect coverage directly within Visual Studio without automated tests or a test runner. Once you turn on Coverage Collection and run or debug your application in Visual Studio, we will collect and report all captured code coverage.

NCover is pre-configured and ready to capture code coverage on the NUnit testing framework when executed in Test Explorer, Testdriven.net and Resharper in your Visual Studio solution. Use your favorite test runner in Visual Studio 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013 & 2015 and collect coverage without changing your workflow.

NCover is also pre-configured and ready to capture code coverage on the integrated Test Explorer running tests build with MSTest framework. From early test runners like QtAgent to the most recent VsTest.ExecutionEngine, you’ll be capturing coverage with zero configuration.

Unique to the NCover Visual Studio extension, NCover has the ability to accumulate coverage as you individually run, add to or modify your tests, including manual testing. NCover monitors for changes and adds those to any pre-existing coverage you may have collected from earlier tests. You can easily set and reset testing sessions with a single click.

NCover has been completely re-engineered to run faster, lighter and with reduced usage of system resources in Visual Studio. Now, you can run thousands of tests without slowing down.

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.NET Community Salute

Vicky — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 11:17:31 +0000

We know that the coding community is a pretty great one and we are privileged to get to work with .NET developers each and every day to make better applications through coverage. We wanted to take a moment to salute two great members of our community. Take a moment to see what makes them great.

David Sanchez Aguilar

David Sánchez Aguilar is a Microsoft technology consultant. He is certified as MCP, MCT, MCSD, MCITP, MCTS and Microsoft Specialist. He is a Computer Systems Engineer with more than seven years of experience working with collaboration platform technologies. David has been involved in many projects for Latin America and North America with technologies like SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Azure, Team Foundation, SQL Server, System Center and also development solutions based on .NET Framework and HTML5. In addition, he is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.

David started participating in communities by creating a technical blog, and then had the opportunity to be a member of the SharePoint Costa Rica Community as a speaker and coordinator for on-site and virtual events. He founded the Costa Rica Developers .NET community with the idea of sharing knowledge and technical solutions of high value to members of the communities.

David’s latest musings can be found on his blog and on Twitter @davidsancheza.

Dan Ciprian Ardelean

Client Development MVP Dan Ardelean was born in Romania. His first contact with the world of personal computers was in 1992 when his father was able to bring him one from the United States: a 386-DX2, a rare item in the post-communism period. Today, he’s a full-time C# developer and has been since moving to Italy in 2003.

In 2013, Dan started his own company — XpressCode which focuses on consulting and mobile cross-platform development using C# (Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Android, iOS using Xamarin tools). He loves staying involved in .NET communities and enjoys meeting people who share the same passion, their knowledge and their experiences – it is a family where everyone helps each other.

Collaborate with Dan on his blog and on Twitter @danardelean.

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