Dan Maharry

The Client Side Is Now On Hold

danm@hmobius.com — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:00:00 +0000

The Client Side is now on hold until such time as I can definitely commit the hour or two a day it takes to fill the firehose and generate the highlights of the day. I hope I will be able to make that commitment sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, thank you to the some 150 people who had already subscribed to this feed. I’m glad you thought it worthy enough to read.

Dan

The Client Side

danm@hmobius.com — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:27:00 +0000

Trying to find a project which fits into baby-sleep-sized chunks has been a bit difficult of late. However, after a bit of trial and error, I’ve come up with The Client Side, a new link blog for client side development, in much the same view as The Morning Brew and Silverlight Cream. It’ll try and find as much current goodness on HTML5, CSS and Javascript development as it can. Please do visit and say hi.

Calling for Writers and Reviewers at DeveloperFusion

danm@hmobius.com — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:00:00 +0000

It’s taken a little while to write this, but I’m happy to say that I’ve been offered and accepted the job of editor at DeveloperFusion. My new role will be to commission, edit and write new weekly – perhaps twice weekly if all goes well - articles for the site to go along with the news and roundups that are already put out frequently. Initially, I’ll be concentrating on .NET development topics as that’s what I know, but shortly I’ll be looking for articles and authors on many more topics – Apple, Ruby, Python, Perl, Architecture, Databases, Java and more.

I’ve already released two articles which you may be interested in:

Introduction to Windows Azure – What you should know by Neil Mackenzie
How to migrate your ASP.NET site to the Azure cloud by Richard Parker (@rikp)

These are the first two of a series of articles on Azure coming out in the next few weeks. We’ll also have some Windows Phone 7 stuff, F#, and a good helping of ASP.NET as well. Keep tuned to @developerFusion on Twitter and the article feed to keep pace with new articles as they are released.

We Need You

Of course, it goes without saying that we need your help to keep DeveloperFusion going.

If you’re a writer, experienced or wanting to write your first article, please get in touch and let me know. All the articles we publish are reviewed and edited before release so you’ll get some good feedback on your writing style, content and coding in return, as well as exposure to some 50,000 users who subscribe to our newsletter plus many more who come visiting in through the front door. And if you’d like to write but haven’t any preconceived ideas as to what to write about, we can help you with that too.

If you’d like to help but don’t want to write, perhaps you’d care to review an article or two for us. No matter your knowledge level, there’s likely to be something in the pipeline which your help will make better. You might be able to improve a writer’s code or say whether or not their article succeeds as a tutorial from your point of view as beginner yourself. Those who can, do, as they say.

Either way, please do get in touch. The email address is hello@developerfusion.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Reflector Giveaway Wrap Up

danm@hmobius.com — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Well, all 50 Reflector 7 VS Pro licences have been sent off to their new owners. Thank you to everyone who entered and to those of you who didn’t, well it may have been worth your while to jot down some notes. First some stats about the giveaway.

The giveaway started on Friday Feb 11 and was publicized almost exclusively by twitter and those reading my RSS feed. Key people like Scott Hanselman and Jon Skeet retweeted its existence which helped no end, with 804 day 1 page views to the giveaway entry by the end of play. Chris Alcock was also kind enough to point out the giveaway the following Monday leading to another spike in interest of 204 page views that day. In total, there were some 1990 page views between start and finish of the giveaway with 1866 unique views according to Google Analytics.

So nearly 2000 people read about it and yet only sixty (yes, 60) people entered. You missed a great chance here everyone.

So What Is It Used For?

From those entries received, it seems that the most popular use for reflector is trying to figure out how Microsoft’s own code works. As one entrant wrote,

I am a SharePoint Developer. ‘nuff said.

Indeed, this was not the only SharePoint developer entering the giveaway, although it was definitely the most succinct. Here’s a full list of those DLLs and applications that were mentioned in entries.

.NET Framework (unspecified) – 16
Non-MS Third Party Components – 9
ASP.NET – 7
SharePoint – 2
MS Dynamics – 2
WCF - 1
WPF – 1
Surface SDK – 1
Expression Blend – 1
Azure SDK 1.3 - 1
PowerGUI - 1
Telerik Sitefinity – 1
nHibernate – 1
MS Commerce Server – 1
MS Unlocker for WinPhone7 \ ChevronWP7 Unlocker – 1

Granted sixty people isn’t very representative of all developers out there, but maybe Microsoft are realising there is actually a call for good API docs and in-depth articles on how stuff works. I noticed that the ADO.NET team mentioned this apropos the forthcoming release of Entity Framework 4.1

We’ve held off on extensively documenting the CTPs because the API surface has been changing so much. RC will have intellisense and online documentation.

Something that Microsoft.Web.Helpers could do with for sure.

But figuring out a third-party DLL isn’t the only reason for using reflector. A number of you replied that Reflector had saved the day after a hard drive crash or disaster by source control failure of some kind. CW for example wrote,

I walked in to a new job a couple of years ago, within a few days I noticed that they had an issue with version control. There were 3 VSS databases and some other guy had decided to use CVS – just to add to the mix.

It became clear that the ‘old’ developers were happy with VSS and when it got a bit slow or crashed too much they would just setup a new VSS databases do some copy / paste of files and carry on. The CVS guy knew this was all bad and was trying to force everyone to ditch VSS and move to CVS. To add to the fun people had not used labels in VSS and there was also a culture of checking-in weeks or months after something was put into prod.

So – trying to work out where the current production code was held – or IF it was even held was a nightmare. Luckily for me everything was C# and they had not obfuscated any code.

Reflector to the rescue – every time I needed to make a change in production to something I had not worked on before I would reflect the current production binaries and then compare with what I could find in VSS or CVS. Even 3 years later I am still finding odd bits of code that I need to reflect – none of this would have been possible without Reflector.

Several entries also highlighted one or several of the plug-ins that Reflector now has via http://reflectoraddins.codeplex.com/ and the integration into Visual Studio that the recent Pro versions of Reflector have included.

Reflector has also used in a couple of more innovative ways by entrants.

It disassembles IL code back into C#, so a few developers use it to translate their VB code into C#.
As an obfuscation check. If Reflector crashes while trying to disassemble a DLL’s code, the developer takes it to mean that they have a good level of obfuscation applied to their code to hide it from casually prying eyes.

And to conclude, here is a list of useful projects that reflector has influenced and helped:

Reflector Addins : http://reflectoraddins.codeplex.com/ and http://neovolvex.codeplex.com/
An HttpModule implementation with strengthened Forms Authentication in .NET : http://sws.codeplex.com/
Investigating ChevronWP7 internals : http://www.martani.net/2011/01/chevronwp7-internals-microsoft.html
Natural User Interfaces in .NET (Book with Manning Pubs) : http://manning.com/blake
OpenKinect : http://openkinect.org/wiki/Main_Page
Using Razor from a Console Application : http://thegsharp.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/using-razor-from-a-console-application/
PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension : http://powerguivsx.codeplex.com/ and PowerGUI.org

Reflector 7 Giveaway

danm@hmobius.com — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:00:00 +0000

There’s been a great deal of discussion online recently about Redgate Software's decision to move their stewardship of Lutz Roeder’s Reflector software from a free \ premium model to a not-free \ premium model. The company’s Reflector forum is full of pleads, cajoles, reasonings and answers as to why a Reflector 7 licence will cost you $35 rather than $0 for v6. But when you come down to it, if you use Reflector in anger - and I’m sure many of us do – $35 is a small price to pay for the fantastic functionality it provides. And if you don’t already use it, then maybe I can help out.

Back on Feb 3, Jay Grieves bought ten Reflector 7 licenses with his own money to give them away. Redgate saw the post and offered another 50 licenses for his giveaway. If you didn’t notice it, that giveaway ends today so I’ve got in touch with Redgate and they’ve agreed to give me another 50 licenses to give away. However, rather than just post a comment below, I’d like to help others appreciate how useful Reflector can be.

So, please email me your favourite use for Reflector with examples and screenshots if you have the time and fifty people who send an email will get a Reflector 7 license free of charge. The address to send it to is HeresWhyILove-Reflector@yahoo.co.uk and the deadline is Monday February 28. I’ll post the best and most popular examples here next month.

Good luck

Boilerplate talk slides for DDD9

danm@hmobius.com — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 13:58:00 +0000

Well, that went surprisingly better than I had worried it would. Thanks to all the people at DDD9 who came and sat through my talk on the HTML5 Boilerplate project. You were very nice and thanks to all those who gave and hopefully will send me feedback to improve it for future renditions.

The slides are here : http://blog.hmobius.com/file.axd?file=DDD9Slides.zip

Other sites I mentioned include:

Boilerplate homesite and on github
Modernizr homesite and on github
MVC \ Boilerplate project on github
dotLess CSS project homesite

Speaking At DDD9

danm@hmobius.com — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:00:00 +0000

I’m happy to say that my latest talk, “Learning from the HTML5 Boilerplate” has had enough votes cast in its favour for me to present it at DDD9, which takes place at Microsoft UK on Jan 29. It looks like a great set of sessions has been lined up for the event and while all the tickets have initially been taken, no doubt some will drop out so get your name on the wait list quickly! See you there.

Music In 2010

danm@hmobius.com — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:43:00 +0000

It's the end of the year again, so following my efforts in 2008 and 2009, here's my look back at the year in music as I've heard it.

Before I do however, I need to highlight the end of an era. I never listened to John Peel on the radio but his influence continues to range wide and far. Whereas many may say that he was the reason they got a break or simply fell for music in a big way, for me the two people who filled that role were Tommy Vance and Mary Anne Hobbs. Tommy sadly passed away several years ago, but Mary Anne has continued to fill my ears with new and challenging music since the mid-nineties. Sadly she decided to leave her radio show after some fourteen years at Radio 1 in November, albeit with a bang. She will be sorely missed by all (except those lucky enough to be doing radio courses at Sheffield Uni at the moment.) Thank you Mary Anne. You'd definitely be one of my dinner guests.

Back to now.

Whereas last year's sources of new music were dubstepforum, boomkat and various electronica sites, this year I relied almost entirely on Spotify and the various blog sites highlighting new additions to the service to guide my listening. Spotify's 'What's New' service began the year as a weekly spreadsheet listing the latest additions but this quickly stopped as Spotify themselves changed the way they monitored imports. The Spotify UI itself is too rigid to allow anyone to see anything but the first 100 or so tracks recently added but various sites like Pansentient and Spotinews have managed to put a filter on the firehose that is the 'what's new' search results returned by the Spotify API itself. Sadly there's no genre information though so there's a lot of luck in what you notice has come out.

In any case, what follows are my track and album highlights of this year. All of these are streamable on spotify. The track playlist is here.

Meet Me On The Outside - Melissa Auf Der Maur
Out Of Our Minds is only Melissa's second record since leaving the Smashing Pumpkins some ten years ago and as a concept record based around viking myths and such like, it's surprisingly delightful, pitched nicely between rock and (yes) pop. Meet Me On The Outside starts almost timidly before the chorus warms it up and energizes it out of the viking snow. A track to go out to.
Come Undone - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
A lushly orchestrated smoulder of a song - romantic and yet not whimsical, a melancholic remnant of a MGM musical never filmed.
Tempting Time - Animals As Leaders
I love extended range guitars - those with seven or more strings. Typically it's jazz and classical players that really make use of those extra strings while rock and metal players use them purely for lower power chords. Not Tosin Abasi from Animals As Leaders though as Tempting Time demonstrates. Drums and two eight string guitars playing a heavier jazz/metal fusion with more style than I've heard in quite some time.
Safe in the Steep Cliffs - Emancipator
A happy recommendation from a friend at work. Emancipator's second release is download / stream only and this title track is a lazy sunny day with daisies floating through the air as you lay on the riverbank hearing the water flow past.
The Calm – Dave Weiner
Steve Vai's rhythm guitarist and Riff of the Week maestro released his second album this year. At 76 minutes with ten tracks, it's an ambitious slab of progressive instrumental music. The Calm is its brief prelude, less story telling and more mood setting, as the name would suggest.
Hangar 18 (Live) – Megadeth
The seminal Rust In Peace is 20 years old but like the Big Four thrash bands themselves (Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer) it hasn't aged at all, still as urgent and vital as it was when first released. To celebrate, Megadeth played RIP in its entirety on the anniversary and recorded it for posterity.
8 Ball - Seasick Steve
Far and away the most fun three minutes of music appearing in 2010, 8 Ball should be regarded as mandatory listening to all and sundry. Joyous hobo blues.
Golden Room – Joe Satriani
Joe’s latest is a far sight better than Satchafunkilus collection of a couple of years ago. His Chickenfoot collaboration in the meantime seems to have given him a lot of joy in his music and it’s reflected in pretty much the entire of his latest Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards album. This has got a set of great riffs and a cool Indian vibe.
City Building - Johann Johannson
Move over James Horner. Your soundtrack to Inception is an immense record but Johannson's 'And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees' tells almost the same aural story twice as well in half the time. City Building even makes sense in terms of Inception too.
Devil's Spoke – Laura Marling
With a voice that belies her age (only 20) and rivals Lanegan's for timbre, the entire of her album, I'll Speak When I Can, is a lesson in traditional folk with modern values. Standout track Devil's Spoke is an upbeat whirl-y-gig with a more serious calling.
The Siren's Sound – Collapse Under The Empire
This is a builder, starting from a simple heart beat, adding layers into a near maelstrom until the storm blows itself out, some nine minutes later. A splendid piece of post rock magic.
Good video too

Albums

Teimo, Permafrost, Nunatak 3 disc reissues – Thomas Koner
The era of the digital download has put pay to the concept of an album as a single piece. Thanks to Amazon, iTunes and the like, we punters can buy individual tracks and lose entirely the glory of the full work. That's why Pink Floyd haven't released their albums legally to the web. There isn't a single standout track on any of the three albums in this reissue. Instead we have three complementary polar soundscapes, cold, barren and elegant in their minimalism. A challenging listen but ultimately worth it for the small tingles on the back of the neck they produce. (On Spotify)

Hawk - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
If he were British, I'd be petitioning for Mark Lanegan's voice as a national treasure. The well worn bass-baritone of the Screaming Trees singer reverberates deliciously wherever he sings - and fortunately he's a frequent guest voice on other people's albums when not bringing out solo material. Hawk is the third collaboration with the ethereal, fragile soprano of Belle & Sebastian's Isobel Campbell (the first that acknowledges Campbell as the writer of all the original material) and while the first two were OK, Hawk really refines the balance between the two to a tee. To whit, it has received a lot of radio coverage since release and justifiably so. Save track 1, the songs are lush, friendly and warm like a summer Sunday matinee. (On Spotify)

A Hopefully Brief Hiatus

danm@hmobius.com — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:35:00 +0000

It is unfortunate how life sometimes overtakes you and no matter how you prioritize the things in your life, you must sacrifice. Such is the case now, when I realise now that I must leave Co-operative Web and became a full-time dad to look after my family.

When our daughter was born, it was an occasion for great happiness. She is, and I hope will remain, a source of great joy, but she is also not a well bunny. Unfortunately, as a result of her illness, her mum has now also become ill and needs to get back to work to recuperate mentally. Which leaves me needing to look after our baby girl until such time as she is well enough to attend nursery. Which means I am now a full time dad. Hopefully I will not miss work as much as the other half currently does.

Sigh.

For a while then, I’ll be putting content on a new site which I’ll link to when it’s up and ready. Hopefully I’ll have the time to update it regularly.

If you’re based in Birmingham, UK and are looking for a .NET developers job, I heartily recommend working for Co-operative Web. They run a very positive shop with challenging tasks and supportive team members. The arcade machine and table football table help as well. Their jobs page is here.

MbUnit\Gallio 3.2 Released

danm@hmobius.com — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:20:00 +0000

Andrew Stopford has announced the release of MbUnit \ Gallio v3.2 with lots of new goodness. His own blog entry contains a quick runthrough of what’s what, but the full release notes can be found here, and you can find the download here.

I should also highlight the new documentation wiki over at gallio.org. This contains all the previous documentation efforts started when I was contributing docs for this project plus a lot of new stuff. Excellent work guys! Glad you found a publishing mechanism that suits you the best.