tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13658183309625853682013-05-21T13:38:34.489-07:00developer musician photographerJon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.comBlogger296125jongallanthttp://feedburner.google.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-74354190337523736732013-05-21T13:38:00.001-07:002013-05-21T13:38:34.493-07:002013-05-21T13:38:34.493-07:00<p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/49e26d1d9d7e_BCB8/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/49e26d1d9d7e_BCB8/image_thumb.png" width="195" height="61"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.pluralsight.com/">PluralSight</a> is great, but because I don’t have 3 hours every time I want to learn something, I always watch them at double speed – and that’s as fast as PluralSight allows you to go….until now. <a href="https://twitter.com/itsananderson">Will</a> said I should try to get the video player element and increase the speed in the console. <a href="https://twitter.com/wbreza">Wallace</a> stopped by and we figured it out.</p> <p>They use <a href="http://angularjs.org/">AngularJS</a> (yah!) so I got ahold of the controller and called their setPlaybackSpeed method and…it worked!</p> <p>So all you have to do is open your Chrome console and execute this line of code:</p><pre class="brush: js;"> angular.element($('div[ng-controller="PlayerControlsController"]').get(0)).scope().setPlaybackSpeed(11)</pre><br /><p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/49e26d1d9d7e_BCB8/image_3.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/49e26d1d9d7e_BCB8/image_thumb_3.png" width="303" height="71"></a></p><br /><p>You don’t get audio when it is played that fast and anything over 2 is probably too fast…but hey, you can do it if you want to.</p><br /><p>Watch this if you don’t get the “11” reference.</p><br /><p><iframe height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/F7IZZXQ89Oc" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen></iframe></p><br /><p>&nbsp;</p><br /><p>Jon</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/klMHI7tYTho" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/05/pluralsight-playback-speed.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-80963382318712940542013-05-08T23:00:00.001-07:002013-05-08T23:00:19.254-07:002013-05-08T23:00:19.254-07:00<p><strong>“DO I HAVE TO GET INTO MANAGEMENT TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT MICROSOFT?” </strong> <p>That, along with the <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/microsoft-employee-review-model.html">review model</a> and <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/05/work-life-balance-at-microsoft.html">work/life balance</a>, is a very common question I get from interview candidates and current Microsoft employees. Based on what I’ve seen over the years I don’t think you have to get into management to be a success. A lot of people go that route and later regret it because they haven’t thought through what it all means. It’s a different job that requires a different skill set that can take many years to learn. You won’t jump in and be an immediate success. There will be bumps along the way. I’m hoping this post prepares you for some of them. <p>I’m not a Microsoft spokesperson. I’m just a dev manager sharing my thoughts. I’ve been a lead at Microsoft since 2005 and have led teams that range from 5 to 30 people on a bunch of different products. I learned a ton from the school of hard knocks and a couple of great mentors. I never took a management class before I became a lead. I was AWFUL when I first started. I literally just cringed thinking about my early mistakes. After 8 years I feel like it is time to share some of my thoughts and help those out there struggling with the decision on whether or not they should get into management. <p><strong>THE CAREER PATHS</strong> <p>At Microsoft there are two career paths: individual contributor (IC) and management. Microsoft has structured the career model to encourage both paths and doesn’t pressure people one way or the other. The level bands are: SDE, SDE II, Senior, Principal &amp; Partner. Most people start off on the IC track and are given the choice to fork off into management once they get to the Senior or Principal band. Both paths share the same level bands, but the competencies change. ICs are generally going to focus more on depth of technical knowledge and managers are going to focus more on technical breadth and collaboration. You don’t have to take the management path to be a success. There are plenty of Principal and Partner level ICs at the company. <p><strong>YOUR PATH ISN’T SET IN STONE</strong> <p>Choosing the right path is hard. But the good thing is that you can go back and forth between the two paths. I know people that have gone back and forth many times throughout their career. Sometimes because they wanted to and others because they were forced to. Like I mentioned in my <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/05/work-life-balance-at-microsoft.html">work/life balance post</a>, it’s all about seasons. Sometimes you want to learn a new technical skill or go deep into something and other times you want to learn how to manage people or products.&nbsp; Pick the role for a season and be open to changing if it doesn’t work out or if you want a change of pace. <p>You can fail at being a lead and pick yourself up again and go back to being an IC and vice-versa. Don’t ask yourself “What do I want to do for the rest of my career?” Instead ask yourself “What do I want to do for the next season of my career?” That could be a year or it could be 5 years. It’s up to you what you want to do. Most people, if they set their minds to it, can be fine leads. But if their heart isn’t into it or if they get into it for the wrong reasons then they will likely fail. Remember that you can always switch back and try again down the road. <p><strong>DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT</strong> <p>Lots of people join Microsoft at the SDE or SDE II level bands. I tell them to not even worry about whether or not they should become a lead. They have many years to go before they are even allowed to be a manager. I tell them to work on being a technical leader, because all ICs need to be technical leaders anyway. Once your technical leadership skills have matured AND you are a Senior, then you can start to think about it. Otherwise don’t stress over it. Prove yourself as an IC technical leader and go from there. If you are an SDE or SDE II and have your heart set on being a lead, then discuss it with your manager and they can hopefully set you up to be in explicit technical leadership roles to give you more years of practice. I’ve done that and it has helped. <p><strong>TURN AROUND. IS ANYONE THERE?</strong> <p>I’ve mentored many people who want to get into management and the first question I ask is: “Is anyone following you now?” If not then they aren’t ready to be a lead. The best response I can get after I promote someone to a lead role is “Aren’t they already a lead?” That means that are already seen by the team as a leader. <p>Sometimes I’ll ask other people on the team if they could work for the person I’m thinking about making a lead. If the answer is no, then I drill into why and get that feedback to the person who wants to be a lead. For my teams, promoting someone to a lead should be a big celebration that most of the team supports. If the majority of the team doesn’t think the person should be a lead then it is going to be a very hard uphill battle for them and for me. I’d rather push the promotion out a bit and let the person mature before pulling the trigger. <p><strong>ASK YOURSELF WHY</strong> <p>Why do you want to be a lead? Is it because you think that is what you need to do to get ahead. Wrong. Is it because you want to have a bunch of mini-mes that can implement all your ideas? Wrong motive. Is it because you want to mentor, encourage and support a team to help them reach their full potential? Getting closer. <p>Decide to be a lead because you think you’d love it and you’d serve yourself and your company better for doing so. <p><strong>IT’S NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST</strong> <p>Do you have to be the most-liked person in the room? If so, then you’ll struggle as a lead. Sometimes you will do things that you know are right that will make you unpopular with some folks. Those situations should be addressed with open, honest and respectful communication, but they will come up. Prepare yourself for some awkward situations where you aren’t the most popular person in the room. It’s okay. It will pass and hopefully whatever made you unpopular will turn into a very big plus later down the road when it all works out as you had hoped. <p><strong>USE YOUR STRENGTHS</strong> <p>Are you good at going into a deep hole for 14 hour chunks of time for weeks at a time and coming out with a masterpiece? Don’t you love that? Well, then you probably won’t be successful as a lead at Microsoft. (Probably not a good agile dev either, but that’s a different topic). I have yet to meet a lead that codes as much as they did when they were an IC. Yes, most leads still code, but it isn’t their primary focus. <p>Do you feel like you have many good years of hard-core coding left in you? If so, then do us all a favor and don’t become a lead. There are so many other things that go into being an effective lead that if you spend days in a cave your team and the product will suffer. <p><strong>I’M A PEOPLE PERSON!</strong> <p>How are your interpersonal skills? Be honest. Do you like interacting with people? Do people like interacting with you? You will spend many hours talking with your folks as a team and individually. Some will bore you. Some will be engaging. You have to put energy and time into each relationship to figure out what makes these people tick. <p>Sometimes you are going to just click with your folks and other times you won’t. You have to be able to carry a conversation with someone you don’t click with because they are on your team and they are looking to you for guidance. It’s tough. I’ve been there. But, I’m still here. <p>You have to be good at recognizing when something is wrong with your folks. You have to be able to read people’s expressions, demeanor and posture to figure out if they’d like you to dig into something they aren’t saying. That’s a complex topic and I don’t have it all figured out, but it is a skill that needs to be learned. <p><strong>RECOGNIZE TALENT</strong> <p>Are you good at recognizing talented people? To be an effective lead you need to be interviewing for a long time before you can make a final hire/no-hire decision. You need to be bold enough to give someone a no-hire and send them home. Even after your entire team gave them a hire. The most expensive and regretful thing you can do is make a bad hire. I’ve done it. It’s painful. If you want to be a lead then get interviewing now. Get very good at asking the right questions. You will ask those questions over and over again and you’ll want to be able to distinguish a good answer from a great answer. <p><strong>DON’T DO IT FOR THE MONEY</strong> <p>Being a lead isn’t going to make you any more money than being an IC. A Principal IC developer makes the same amount of money as a Principal Lead. <p>As an engineer in today’s world you are already making enough money to live off of. Your motivation in life shouldn’t be to make more money it should be to do more of what you love. A potential few more dollars here and there isn’t going to change your lifestyle, but being a lead when you really want to be an IC will destroy you. <p><strong>BUILD UP TO IT</strong> <p>There are a ton of management training courses out there, but none of them prepare you for real-world management. I will promote people into leadership positions, but only after they have proven to be a technical leader. I give them trial runs. I set them up for success and let them fail. They learn from the trial and, if they want to, they give it another go. <p>A trial run may include being the feature lead on an area of the product with a couple of devs that they lead. Or it may be a new product where they are assigned a few vendors to help them. The idea is to see if they can swing it as a technical leader. <p>Go through a couple of complete product development cycles as an IC. Feel the joy and pain of releasing software as a member of the team before you try and lead one. There are so many things to learn and then teach from time management to deployment to capacity planning to support.&nbsp; A lead needs to be good at them all and know how to teach the skills to their teams. Baby steps. <p><strong>YOU AREN’T DOING IT RIGHT</strong> <p>You have an employee on your team that isn’t meeting expectations. Do you have it in you to talk to them about their performance and provide them with practical guidance on how they can improve? If not, then you aren’t ready. You can’t just tell them they aren’t doing it right. You have to give them concrete feedback with examples to back it up. <p>You must be able to either help them get better or help them find a new job. It doesn’t happen often, but you might someday have to let someone go. Do you have what it takes to tell someone you like that they aren’t a fit for the job? <p>My style is to give direct feedback early and often. Sometimes people don’t like it. But most of the time they do. Some of them didn’t speak with me for days because they didn’t like what I had to say. But I held my ground and let them digest the message. In every case, the people come back to me, after some introspection, and thank me for the feedback and had a plan for how they are going to turn things around. <p>The best thing you can do as a manager is give feedback to your folks. It’s tough. But essential to great leadership. And don’t save it up for a big reveal at review time. Give consistent direct feedback early and often that is both constructive and encouraging. <p><strong>SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP</strong> <p>Yes, you should have your own management style. But your preferred style won’t fit every situation. Here are some good words of advice when I was just getting started: Learn to adapt your style based on the situation. In a nutshell, when given a task, people can possess or lack the necessary competence and commitment to complete it. It is up to you as a manager to figure out what the person needs in any given situation and adjust your style. Sometimes you are directing every step and other times you are encouraging and supporting. You can find out more about Situational Leadership <a href="http://www.kenblanchard.com/Effective_Leadership_Solutions/One_to_One_Talent_Management/Management_Situational_Leadership_Training/">here</a>. <p><strong>THERE’S NO RUSH</strong> <p>Don’t be in a hurry to get into management. It’s better to take your time, build a following as a technical leader, develop your style and then become an official lead. It is better to learn and develop your technical leadership chops before you have to take on people management. It’s better to do something amazing as an individual contributor to earn the respect of those around you. It’s better to enjoy where you are and be totally content with what you are doing. Jump in too early and you might get in way above your head and struggle for years. Sometimes that can be a good, but a slow ramp into management to test the waters and prove yourself has been more successful for me and the people I have promoted to leads. <p>Jon <p>&nbsp; <p>Special thanks to John Kurlak, Jim Gale and James Trott for reviewing this post. They have been awesome at reading through my epic posts and have provided very valuable feedback. I owe them a couple of tacos.</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/cIQ6p654yJw" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com8http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/05/microsoft-career-model.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-17419797880324084862013-05-08T15:57:00.001-07:002013-05-08T16:15:50.185-07:002013-05-08T16:15:50.185-07:00<p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/d0344859d9b2_D8F5/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/d0344859d9b2_D8F5/image_thumb.png" width="498" height="132"></a></p> <p>I recently joined a new team to work on a brand new super-secret Windows 8 Modern app. You may have seen my “<a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/new-job-hiring-devs.html" target="_blank">Moving on to Microsoft Advertising to work on a super secret Win8 app. Come join me.</a>” post back in March.&nbsp; We set out to hire 30 developers and hired a ton of good devs right off the bat. </p> <p>We recently decided to repurpose a few of those openings to bring on some QA/Test engineers. We need to fill things out a bit and hire some engineers with a QA background that can help us flesh out the test plan and develop some good end-to-end test cases that developers can then go implement.&nbsp; We are starting with 2 openings, one Senior SDET and one SDET II.&nbsp; We are hoping that the Senior SDET can play a broader role in coordinating all-things-test for the team and the SDET II can contribute by implementing those things and help get to closure on proper test case implementation and code coverage.</p> <p>We are pretty open and flexible to the type of person we hire, but you must be passionate about QA/Test, have a strong track-record of developing test solutions end-to-end and come with a ton of good ideas on how you can cover all-things-test for us.&nbsp; </p> <p>The job description is below.&nbsp; Read it over and if interested follow these two very important steps:</p> <ol> <li>Apply on the official MS site <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/jobdetails.aspx?ss=&amp;pg=0&amp;so=&amp;rw=4&amp;jid=109890&amp;jlang=EN&amp;pp=SS" target="_blank">Senior SDET</a> (many years under your belt, ready to run the show) or <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/jobdetails.aspx?ss=&amp;pg=0&amp;so=&amp;rw=5&amp;jid=110444&amp;jlang=EN&amp;pp=SS" target="_blank">SDET II</a> (couple years under your belt. not ready to run the show)&nbsp; <li>Send me a note with a link to your online resume (linkedin, stackoverflow, etc) <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/p/contact.html">here</a>.&nbsp; Sell yourself. Get my attention.</li></ol> <p>Thanks in advance for applying.&nbsp; I look forward to speaking with everyone.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>NOTES: </p> <p>You must have be a US/AU Citizen or already have an H1B.&nbsp; I can transfer, but can’t sponsor.</p> <p>I can’t do remote. I can’t do part-time. You need to relo to Bellevue, WA.</p> <p>Jon</p> <p><a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/jobdetails.aspx?ss=&amp;pg=0&amp;so=&amp;rw=5&amp;jid=110444&amp;jlang=EN&amp;pp=SS" target="_blank"><strong>SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER IN TEST – SDET II</strong></a></p> <p>No legacy code. Greenfield Windows 8 app. We are the User Centric Advertising Team and we’re developing a key application combining features of Bing into a truly native experience for Windows. We’ll push the limits of the social graph and machine learning to deliver a world class experience on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and the Web. We just got the green light from the leadership team to move forward with the project and we now need to hire a team of engineers to go build it. We haven’t fleshed out all the details, but that is a good thing. You can come in and see the project blossom from the ground up and influence the direction of it. One thing we know for sure is that we have the drive and know the product and team are going to be amazing.<br></p> <p>We are a tightknit team of engineers that put shipping the product above all other artificial boundaries. Our team members with more feature development background will do most of the feature code and our team members with more of an automation background will do most of the automation development…but you will work together to ship. Mutual ownership at its finest. Most of us on the team haven’t developed Windows 8 applications yet. It would be a plus to have Windows 8 development experience, but not required. We are a bunch of web developers that are experts in building applications using the latest and greatest technologies including MVC, jQuery and a slew of other technologies that other teams rarely get the opportunity to experiment with.</p> <p><br>Now that we have hired a bunch of developers we need to augment with a solid strong SDET that understands all the complexities that go into testing a complex Windows 8 application. You will work closely with our TBH Senior SDET to analyze all the scenarios that we are targeting for a given two week sprint, develop all the Test Cases that need to be automated and then hand them off to the SDEs to implement. You’ll also code, just like the rest of the SDEs, but your primary responsibility will be helping us figure out all that needs to be tested and make sure we aren’t missing anything.<br>You don’t need join a startup to have the startup vibe, come join us and get all the same benefits of a startup culture with the security of all that Microsoft has to offer.</p> <p>Required Experience:<strong></p></strong> <ul> <li>3+ years relevant test experience <li>Fluent in multiple web technologies with hands on experience in many of these areas: HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3, jQuery, ASP.NET, WebApi, MVC, JSON,&nbsp; RSS/ATOM <li>Must demonstrate strong skill in C#, VB, Java or C++ <li>Understanding of Agile Methodology <li>BS in Computer Science or related field or equivalent experience<br></li></ul> <p>Pluses:</p> <ul> <li>Windows 8 Application Development <li>A/B Testing Experience <li>Experience building reliable, large-scale web sites or services <li>Good understanding of web performance and scalability concerns<br></li></ul> <p><strong><a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/jobdetails.aspx?ss=&amp;pg=0&amp;so=&amp;rw=4&amp;jid=109890&amp;jlang=EN&amp;pp=SS" target="_blank">SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER IN TEST – SENIOR</a></strong></p> <p>No legacy code. Greenfield Windows 8 app. We are the User Centric Advertising Team and we’re developing a key application combining features of Bing into a truly native experience for Windows. We’ll push the limits of the social graph and machine learning to deliver a world class experience on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and the Web. We just got the green light from the leadership team to move forward with the project and we now need to hire a team of engineers to go build it. We haven’t fleshed out all the details, but that is a good thing. You can come in and see the project blossom from the ground up and influence the direction of it. One thing we know for sure is that we have the drive and know the product and team are going to be amazing.<br></p> <p>We are a tightknit team of engineers that put shipping the product above all other artificial boundaries. Our team members with more feature development background will do most of the feature code and our team members with more of an automation background will do most of the automation development…but you will work together to ship. Mutual ownership at its finest. Most of us on the team haven’t developed Windows 8 applications yet. It would be a plus to have Windows 8 development experience, but not required. We are a bunch of web developers that are experts in building applications using the latest and greatest technologies including MVC, jQuery and a slew of other technologies that other teams rarely get the opportunity to experiment with.</p> <p><br>Now that we have hired a bunch of developers we need to augment with a solid Senior SDET that understands all the complexities that go into testing a complex Windows 8 application. The perfect SDET is someone who can come in, analyze all the scenarios that we are targeting for a given two week sprint, develop all the Test Cases that need to be automated and then hand them off to the SDEs to implement. You’ll also code, just like the rest of the SDEs, but your primary responsibility will be helping us figure out all that needs to be tested and make sure we aren’t missing anything.<br>You don’t need join a startup to have the startup vibe, come join us and get all the same benefits of a startup culture with the security of all that Microsoft has to offer.</p> <p>Required Experience:<strong></p></strong> <ul> <li>5+ years relevant test experience <li>Fluent in multiple web technologies with hands on experience in many of these areas: HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3, jQuery, ASP.NET, WebApi, MVC, JSON,&nbsp; RSS/ATOM <li>Must demonstrate strong skill in C#, VB, Java or C++ <li>Understanding of Agile Methodology <li>BS in Computer Science or related field or equivalent experience<br></li></ul> <p>Pluses:</p> <ul> <li>Windows 8 Application Development <li>A/B Testing Experience <li>Experience building reliable, large-scale web sites or services <li>Good understanding of web performance and scalability concerns</li></ul> <p>Microsoft is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE) and strongly supports diversity in the work place.</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/bgLvBOWI9mo" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/05/hiring-qa-test-engineers.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-31820149277289471222013-05-08T15:32:00.001-07:002013-05-08T15:33:22.812-07:002013-05-08T15:33:22.812-07:00<p>Most people know that the KendoUI controls are awesome and free. The thing that is missing from there demo site is how to create a Jsonp WebApi service that the controls can talk to.&nbsp; I tried to get it up and running and ran into an issue because my service was returning regular Json and the “Loading” icon just spun for ever. </p> <p>Here’s how to get an e2e going with KendoUI TreeView and WebApi.&nbsp; This post very intentionally follows the code demo provided by Telerik <a href="http://demos.kendoui.com/web/treeview/remote-data.html" target="_blank">here</a></p> <p>Hopefully you find it useful.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a class="download-button" href="https://github.com/jonbgallant/KendoUIJsonPWebApi">Download <span>Latest version from GitHub</span></a></p> <p><strong>Create VS Project</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>1. Create a new MVC project.</p></blockquote> <p><strong>Add Nuget References</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>2. Add the following references</p> <p><a href="http://nuget.org/packages/WebApiContrib.Formatting.Jsonp/" target="_blank">WebApiContrib.Formatting.Jsonp</a> – This adds the JsonpMediaTypeFormatter class to the project.</p> <p><a href="http://nuget.org/packages/KendoUIWeb/" target="_blank">KendoUIWeb</a> – This adds the KendoUI controls to the project.</p></blockquote> <p><strong>Register Formatter</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>3. Add the following line of code to the Application_Start() method of the Global.asax file</p><pre class="brush: csharp;">GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Insert(0, new JsonpMediaTypeFormatter());<br /><br /></pre></blockquote><br /><p><strong>Create Model</strong></p><br /><blockquote><br /><p>4. Add the following Employee class to the /Models folder</p><pre class="brush: csharp;">public class Employee<br />{<br /> public int EmployeeId { get; set; }<br /> public string FullName { get; set; }<br /> public bool HasEmployees { get; set; }<br /> public int? ReportsTo { get; set; }<br />}<br /></pre></blockquote><br /><p><strong>Create Controller</strong></p><br /><blockquote><br /><p>5. Add the following Controller to the /Controllers folder</p><pre class="brush: csharp;">public class EmployeesController : ApiController<br />{<br /> private readonly List&lt;Employee&gt; _employees = new List&lt;Employee&gt; <br /> {<br /> new Employee{ FullName = "Jon Gallant", EmployeeId = 1, HasEmployees = true, ReportsTo = null},<br /> new Employee{ FullName = "Scott Hanselman", EmployeeId = 2, HasEmployees = false, ReportsTo = 1},<br /> new Employee {FullName = "Howard Dierking", EmployeeId = 3, HasEmployees = false, ReportsTo = 1},<br /> new Employee {FullName = "Drew Miller", EmployeeId = 4, HasEmployees = false, ReportsTo = 1},<br /> new Employee { FullName = "Jeff Atwood", EmployeeId = 5, HasEmployees = false, ReportsTo = 1}<br /> };<br /><br /> public IEnumerable&lt;Employee&gt; Get()<br /> {<br /> return _employees.Where(e =&gt; !e.ReportsTo.HasValue);<br /> }<br /><br /> public IEnumerable&lt;Employee&gt; Get(int employeeId)<br /> {<br /> return _employees.Where(e =&gt; e.ReportsTo == employeeId);<br /> }<br />}<br /></pre></blockquote><br /><p><strong>Create View</strong></p><br /><p>6. Add the following View to the /Views/Home/Index.cshtml file. </p><pre class="brush: xml;">&lt;link href="~/Content/kendo/2013.1.319/kendo.common.min.css" rel="stylesheet" /&gt;<br />&lt;link href="~/Content/kendo/2013.1.319/kendo.default.min.css" rel="stylesheet" /&gt;<br />&lt;script src="~/Scripts/kendo/2013.1.319/jquery.min.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;<br />&lt;script src="~/Scripts/kendo/2013.1.319/kendo.web.min.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;<br /><br />&lt;div id="treeview" class="demo-section"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;<br /><br />&lt;script&gt;<br /> //var serviceRoot = "http://demos.kendoui.com/service";<br /> var serviceRoot = "api";<br /> <br /> homogeneous = new kendo.data.HierarchicalDataSource({<br /> transport: {<br /> read: {<br /> url: serviceRoot + "/Employees",<br /> dataType: "jsonp"<br /> }<br /> },<br /> schema: {<br /> model: {<br /> id: "EmployeeId",<br /> hasChildren: "HasEmployees"<br /> }<br /> }<br /> });<br /><br /> $("#treeview").kendoTreeView({<br /> dataSource: homogeneous,<br /> dataTextField: "FullName"<br /> });<br />&lt;/script&gt;<br /><br /></pre><br /><p><strong>Run it!</strong></p><br /><p>Run it and this is what you should see.</p><br /><p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/5a9bdccb8987_93A7/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/5a9bdccb8987_93A7/image_thumb.png" width="192" height="151"></a></p><br /><p>&nbsp;</p><br /><p>Jon</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/ZfTxq8_1jJk" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/05/kendoui-webapi-jsonp.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-18011759604395222432013-05-02T04:37:00.001-07:002013-05-09T20:56:21.567-07:002013-05-09T20:56:21.567-07:00<p class="c1"><span>“What does work/life balance look like at Microsoft?” </span><span>That is the second most asked question I get after “</span><span class="c3"><a class="c4" href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/microsoft-employee-review-model.html">What do you think of the Microsoft Employee Review Model?</a></span><span>”</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Interview candidates want to know if Microsoft is going to suck the lifeblood out of them and turn them into zombies that are fed pizza under the door like Douglas Coupland talks about in his book </span><span class="c3"><a class="c4" href="http://www.amazon.com/Microserfs-Douglas-Coupland/dp/0060391480">Microserfs</a></span><span>. The tales talked about in that book were probably correct at one point in Microsoft’s history, but I have witnessed an intentional shift to a focus on employee health and retention - which most definitely involves promotion of good work/life balance.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>I’m not a Microsoft spokesperson. I’m just a dev manager who has been at Microsoft since 2004 and I put family values above other priorities. The objective of this post is to give you glimpse into </span><span class="c0">my view</span><span> on work/life balance at Microsoft and provide you with some recommendations on things that have worked for me over the years. Other Microsofties will most definitely have completely different experiences, but I can only speak from mine. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>I’ve struggled with the challenge of work/life balance because I’m interested in so many things. I’ve learned to go through life in seasons and focus on a few things at a time, but it hasn’t always been that way. I don’t have it all figured out, but I thought it was worth sharing my thoughts with the hope that it helps someone that is struggling with balance or someone interested in finding out more about what life is like at Microsoft.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>MICROSOFT IS A THOUSAND LITTLE COMPANIES</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>The first thing you need to realize is that Microsoft is like a thousand little companies - each with its own modus operandi which affects how each team looks at work/life balance. I'm not talking about the Microsoft core values like integrity, honesty, etc. Rather I'm talking about the things that set each team apart like the way people communicate with each other and what they value at a more personal level. The work/life balance gauge for each team largely depends on the product the team is building and even more so on the team leaders. If they are working non-stop, which is unfortunately normal at Microsoft, then some of the people down the chain will do the same at all costs to be noticed. Choose early in your career to not chase after that. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>Which do you prefer, working on a really cool competitive product or having a healthy work/life balance?</strong></span><span> Most people think those two things are usually mutually exclusive, but I've worked on many cool products all-the-while maintaining a good healthy balance...because I was intentional about it. They think you have to work non-stop for long periods of time, but that doesn’t work these days. Maybe in the early days, but (I think) we are much smarter about how software is built and can achieve much better results with a healthy self-directed team.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Most teams at Microsoft have external competition, Bing, Xbox, etc - so it is understandable that those teams work longer hours and are under more stress than other teams. Think about that when you decide which team to work for. External competition means a lot of challenging work, but your balance may suffer. Internal work can be challenging, but it’s a different kind of challenge that might offer better work/life balance. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>Do the values of the team align with my values?</strong> </span><span>This can be a hard one to get a straight answer on while interviewing, but you can ask smart questions that lead you to the answer. Of course they will tell you they are all about balance when you are interviewing, but what happens when it’s crunch time. Does everyone freak out or do they have a leader to keep things together so everyone doesn’t burn out?</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>Does this team value working non-stop or are they about results?</strong></span><span> Ask the leader and other team members what hours they work. I interviewed once and I asked that question. The response was...”I work 8 hours in the office and then I go home and work another 8...I have two jobs.” Red flag. Run away. I didn't run at the time and regret it. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>Does this team provide free dinner every night?</strong></span><span> I know this is great at Google because you never have to leave, but at this time it’s a bad sign at Microsoft. Some teams provide dinner every night…..sounds like a dream come true for a guy right out of college, but for a guy with kids that can be a nightmare. That means they are expecting everyone to work through dinner. Precious family time for me. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>Is the team engaged and is everyone working hard and smart?</strong></span><span> A disengaged team leads to poor work/life balance. They don’t think far enough ahead to plan for hard times and end up pushing everyone in a “death march”. Are the people on the team excited about what they are doing and are they doing the right things?</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>Are people sending flame mails?</strong> </span><span>You can tell if a team is healthy by asking when the last time there was a serious flame mail. That is what we call emails that intend to hurt other people and are usually escalated to HR. It hasn’t happened on any of my teams in a long time and maybe it doesn’t happen anymore, but it doesn’t hurt to ask if they still go on. If they do then you might want to consider a different job.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>I know that everyone is different and we all go through seasons. Sometimes you may want to double down for 6 months to be part of an amazing product and sometimes you want to lay-low so you can coach your kid’s soccer team 3 days a week. The important thing is figuring out what matters to you for a given season and finding a way to make it work for everyone in your life.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>YOU ARE REPLACEABLE</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>What I’m about to tell you is often hard to digest and contradicts what Gautam Mukunda talks about in his book </span><span class="c3"><a class="c4" href="http://www.amazon.com/Indispensable-When-Leaders-Really-Matter/dp/1422186709">Indispensable</a></span><span>. When you are in the thick of something you feel like you are on top of the world and no one else can create the amazing thing that you just created. The fact is that you are replaceable. Sad, but very true. Maybe not if you are Abraham Lincoln, but if you are the average worker in the average job then you can be replaced. The reason I tell people this is because I want to help them realize that there are important things in life and then there are VERY important things in life. Make sure you are good in the areas of life that you aren’t replaceable (family) and then focus on the other areas (work). This is my view, but I think anyone with a family probably feels the same way. Telling someone they are replaceable is a great cure for arrogance. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>I appreciate the work that my folks do and tell them that, but Microsoft will go on without them. Think about the last time someone left your team. How long did it take before they were a distant memory? Probably a day or so then the team moves on with their work. I'm not saying don't care about work. I'm saying care about the VERY important things more. If your work/life balance is off and the VERY important things are threatened, then take a break and get some help.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>At work you can be replaced in about 5 minutes, but you are effectively irreplaceable at home. Keep that in mind. I think about it every day.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>USE YOUR PAID TIME OFF</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Microsoft gives me 4 weeks vacation, 2 weeks sick time and 10 holidays a year. That's 2 months off a year and I use it all. I use vacation time to get out of town and disconnect for long periods of time and I sometimes use sick time when I need to recharge physically or mentally. The job is taxing and the time off allows you to get back to a place where you can put 100% in. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>You are only allowed to roll over a max of what vacation time you can earn in a year. If you get 3 weeks a year then you can only roll over 3 weeks. The worst thing you can do is not use it and lose it. To me that's just throwing away time, which is money. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Use your paid time off. It is essentially in getting to a good work/life balance. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>IT’S ALL ABOUT RESULTS</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>You, your manager and your team should put results above all other things. Pay attention to the output of each team member and the team as a whole. Is it extraordinary? If not, then the answer usually isn’t work more hours. The answer can be many things, but it’s probably the leader’s fault. The team needs direction and (sometimes) organization - yes, self-directed and self-organizing teams are the best, but Microsoft is a mixed bag and sometimes you need to show them the way until they get it on their own. They need the leader to set clear goals and expectations for each of them and for the team as a whole. Sometimes it helps for the leader to literally draw out the dots and let them connect them. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>It’s good to call out the guy who sweeps in at the last moment and saves the day, but make sure you are also rewarding the team for continued results.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>YOU ARE NO GOOD BURNED OUT</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Talk to any of the people that have been on my teams in the last 5 years or so and they will remember me saying that they are “no good to me burned out”. You cannot be effective if you are burned out. After a certain amount of hours your productivity decreases over time. I’d rather have a developer put in 4 hours of focused engineering work a day than 10 hours of random stuff to make them look busy. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>I have a friend that translates from Korean to English for a living and gets paid by the word. After many years of translating he discovered that he reaches his max words-per-minute ratio after 30 minutes. If he continues to work after that first 30 minutes then he starts to lose money. So he works in 30 minute bursts with 5-10 minute breaks in between. </span><span>Figure out what your cadence is and stick with it. If you are a dev then it probably isn’t 30 minutes, the number doesn’t matter. Just recognize when you start to become less productive and do something else for a while. Go home early. Take a walk. Talk to a co-worker. Play ping-pong. Whatever. Just don’t sit there and plow through it.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>YOU CHOOSE YOUR WORK HOURS...WITHIN REASON</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>It would be great if Microsoft was a </span><span class="c3"><a class="c4" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE">Results Only Work Environment (ROWE)</a></span><span>, but it’s not...yet. I’m working on getting it there, but for now I’m very flexible when it comes to work hours. I ask my folks to show up for standup, go to important meetings, be available via IM/Phone between 10am-2pm and the rest is yours to figure out. I personally work from 4am-7am, then 10am-5pm. That allows me to eat breakfast and dinner with my family every day and be available in the evenings for homework, games, play, puzzles, etc. I’m content with putting that much time into my primary income source and my family is happy with the balance, so it’s a win-win. Take the time to figure out what works for you, your team and your family. Establishing that cadence is key to a healthy work/life balance.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>BLOCK YOUR CALENDAR</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>I block two very important times in the day: 12-1pm and 3-5pm. I want to eat lunch with my team as much as possible, because I’ve been working with these guys for so long and I really like hanging out and talking shop. It doesn’t happen often, but people book lunch meetings for random stuff that isn’t important. Lunch with the team is usually more important. I also block 3-5pm, so I can make sure I have time to close out any loose ends for the day and go home with a clear head.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>You obviously don’t have to block those exact hours, but block some time during the day so people can’t book meetings and you can do whatever it is you need to do. I know some people that block whole afternoons so they can get a good chunk of focused coding done and I know other people that block whole days, crawl into their cave and come out with a ton of work. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Whatever works for you. Just make sure you own your calendar and you have focused time to get your engineering work done without distraction.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p><span class="c0"><strong>WEEKENDS ARE SACRED</strong></span></p> <p><span class="c0"></span><span>I’ve been a lead at Microsoft since 2005 and I have only asked my teams to come in on a Saturday twice since then. Both were for major public facing releases and there were bugs that had to be resolved. Twice in eight years! That’s really low compared to other teams and companies that work non-stop nights and weekends. I just can’t bring myself to do that. Well, maybe for a season, but I haven’t been in that situation for a real long time and I haven’t been on a “death march” in a long time either. Maybe I’ve been sheltered, maybe I’ve found a better way, either way I’m fine with the way it is. Weekends are for family IMO.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>ALWAYS ANSWER THE PHONE</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>If my family calls I drop whatever I’m doing and answer the phone. If I’m busy then I ask if it is an emergency. If not, I call back. If so, I’m ready to jump into action. I don’t want to be the guy in a meeting not answering a call from my wife when she is stuck on the side of the road or got into an accident or whatever. Nothing that you are doing at work is more important than what your family is calling about. You may say, yeah, but my family calls every 5 minutes with stupid random stuff. I would have a conversation with them and establish a boundaries around certain hours.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>DISCONNECT AT HOME</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Don’t be the guy that is constantly checking his phone or constantly getting the new mail ring tone while spending time with your family. They notice that you aren’t focused on them and it’s disrespectful. Again, whatever it is can wait...unless you are on live site support and you are losing millions of dollars by the second. Figure out what works and set expectations with your family. Hopefully you aren’t in that mode constantly. If so, then you probably want to find a different job. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>HAVE “WHATEVER TIME”</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>As I mentioned before, I work from 4am-7am. I know not everyone can get up that early and I have no idea why I do, but those hours are precious. I call it my “whatever time”. That means I get any high priority issues out of the way and then I do whatever I want. Sometimes it is burning down the backlog, sometimes it is researching tech or taking a PluralSight course. Sometimes I go for a run, sometimes I play guitar. It all depends on what I feel like doing that day and I give myself the freedom to figure out what I want to do and not feel guilty about it. Microsoft gets plenty of my hours during the week. In general this is work time, but it can also be anything I want. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Set aside some time in the day to do whatever you want. If that is spending more time with your family at night than that is fine, just make sure </span><span class="c0">you </span><span>making the decision, not the company you work for.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span class="c0"></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>OWN YOUR PRIORITIES</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>I have a doc that lists all my priorities in ascending order. I revisit the doc every morning and ask myself a few questions about each of them. Is there anything that your wife has asked you to do that you haven’t done? Is there anything you need to take care of for your family? Are all your high priority tasks taken care of for your number one income provider? I go down the list and mentally check-off the items. It’s a great way to be reminded of the things that are important to you and make sure you aren’t slacking on any of them. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Your priorities can be whatever you want them to be. I find it helpful to write them down and review them regularly because I so easily get off track with frivolous unimportant things.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>THEY WILL ONLY GET AS MUCH TIME AS YOU GIVE</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>There is a never-ending-ever-increasing amount of work that needs to be done. You could work non-stop for the rest of your life and there would still be more work. If you let them, Microsoft (or any company), will accept as much work as you want to give. It is up to you to draw the line and say when you’ve done enough. Feel good about what you have done and set a boundary between what is healthy. They will work you to the bone if you let them. Don’t let them.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>YOU CAN WORK AS MUCH AS YOU WANT</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>As a manager I’m never going to tell someone that they can’t work more than 40 hours a week. By the time someone gets to my team they are adults and can manage their own life. I may drop some hints here and there and will intervene if it gets really bad, but most of the time I let them figure it out on their own. I’ve heard stories of managers who track their folk’s time and cut them off after a certain amount of hours. Don’t be that guy. Don’t coddle. If your people want to work all the time then let them have their moment. Don’t stifle.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>BE FLEXIBLE</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>A lot of the advice above is in general terms and is dependent on a lot of factors. I tell people that in the corporate world they should account on doing work they love about 80% of the time and work they don’t love 20% of the time. That is the ideal for me. Sometimes you are paid to do something you don’t like. That’s life...to a certain extent. It is up to you to figure out how much work you don’t love you can handle. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span class="c5"></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Other times you’ll be asked to work (or want to work) extra because you don’t want to leave it for another co-worker or are excited about it. Set up a communication system with the people you work with and your family to accommodate those situations. I’ll sometimes tell my family: “I’m going to go work something out for another hour tonight and then you’ll have my full attention.” I have a very understanding wife, partly because she’s in software as well, but hopefully your relationship is grounded enough that she understands how creative/software people can be. She knows that if I ask then it is important to me and knows that I won’t be able to stop thinking about it anyway, so it’s not a big deal that I wrap something up. Those instances are rare, but the point is to be flexible enough to allow anomalies from your balance to come in. Sometimes you’ll leave work early to see the doctor or watch a movie and sometimes you’ll need to stay a bit to wrap something up. Be flexible.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span class="c0"></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c0"><strong>OWN IT</strong></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>I firmly believe that work/life balance is up to you...</span><span class="c0"><strong>not</strong> </span><span>your employer. Don’t let a manager or a company control your life. If you want to cut out early to see your kid play ball or whatever, then do it and don’t feel guilty about it. I repeat...don’t feel guilty about enjoying your life. The ultimate goal is a healthy work/life balance and that includes being guilt free when you do the things you love to do. </span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Figure out what is important to you. Be firm. Take control of your work/life balance and live happily.</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span>Jon</span></p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c5">p.s. I’ve been working on this post for a couple of weeks and just yesterday I got a call from my wife at 3:30. Her car wouldn’t start. I was in a meeting, but I answered the phone. I called a tow truck and made sure she was good.&nbsp; I then got home and told her I needed some time to wrap a few things up for work – which was totally fine.&nbsp; </span></p> <p class="c1"><span class="c5"></span>&nbsp;</p> <p class="c1">Special thanks to James Trott and John Kurlak (devs that have worked for me in the past) for reviewing this post and providing great feedback.</p> <p class="c1 c2"><span></span></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/NFjFrE0M74U" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com33http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/05/work-life-balance-at-microsoft.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-10430480453700846052013-04-21T17:45:00.001-07:002013-04-21T17:45:15.441-07:002013-04-21T17:45:15.441-07:00<p>If you are like me, you want to spend your waking hours engineering and <strong>not</strong> messing with your 401k allocations.&nbsp; I know it is awful, but I have gone years without rebalancing my 401k. Mainly because I don’t know what I’m doing and don’t have time to research all the options. Over the years I’ve resorted to asking other Microsofties how they allocate, but that gets annoying for them and they are probably guessing as well.</p> <p>So, I was very happy to hear from <a href="www.linkedin.com/in/garyvoronel/" target="_blank">Gary Voronel</a>, a guy I worked with on Bing Mobile – who is the type of guy you immediately like.&nbsp; He, and a couple of other guys (<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/joeollis/" target="_blank">Joe Ollis</a> &amp; Xavier) just started <a href="http://msft401k.com" target="_blank">MSFT401k.com</a>.&nbsp; <strong>In a nutshell, it makes MSFT 401k allocation suggestions for you so you don’t have to think about it.</strong>&nbsp; I’m not sure how they are doing it, but it doesn’t really matter to me.&nbsp; He has partnered with Xavier who looks like a smart financial guy, so I’m pretty sure what ever they recommend is going to be better than what I could come up with on my own.&nbsp; Based on their chart it looks like they do much better than what most of my 401k was allocated to.</p> <p>I love the idea and I think the service will take off because I’m sure there are 10s of thousands of other Microsofties who don’t want to think about this kind of stuff. I pinged Gary to see how he was going to monitize the service.&nbsp; He said it will likely remain free and they will be providing other related services in the future for a fee.</p> <p>I just rebalanced based on their recommendations and the next one comes in June.</p> <p>Check it out and LMK what you think.</p> <p>Jon</p> <p><em>I have no affiliation with them (other than knowing Gary), they aren’t investment advisors, use at your own risk.</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://msft401k.com" target="_blank"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/dbf4d83fb036_F3C6/image.png" width="821" height="459"></a></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/ag3XK5G1jOA" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com2http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/msft401kcom.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-37322354458319671922013-04-17T07:29:00.001-07:002013-04-17T07:29:30.620-07:002013-04-17T07:29:30.620-07:00<p><a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/" target="_blank">WhatsApp</a> is all the rage.&nbsp; <a href="http://www.kakao.com/talk/en" target="_blank">KakaoTalk</a> is a great alternative for the frugal world. I’ve been using it for years without a problem. It’s on <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id362057947" target="_blank">iPhone</a>, <a href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.kakao.talk&amp;hl=en" target="_blank">Android</a>, <a href="http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/76029/?lang=en" target="_blank">Blackberry</a>, <a href="http://windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/bd5729eb-0c01-4889-8798-6060cd6a14f6" target="_blank">Windows Phone</a> and <a href="http://www.samsungapps.com/topApps/topAppsDetail.as?productId=G00005692260" target="_blank">Samsung apps</a>. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="플랫폼 별 카카오톡 실행화면 스크린샷" src="http://img.kakao.co.kr/images/v2/talk/locale/en/img_main02.png?1349160750"></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/4661n8SnpB8" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/kakaotalk-free-alternative-to-whatsapp.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-39934227696692381342013-04-15T07:00:00.001-07:002013-04-15T07:00:32.356-07:002013-04-15T07:00:32.356-07:00<p>I’ve always been a SQL Server guy, but I wanted to give MySQL a try for a project that I’m working on.&nbsp; I could find a really quick MySQL/MVC example so I threw this together. LMK if you have any issues.</p> <p><strong>DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL MYSQL</strong></p> <p>1. <a href="http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/installer/" target="_blank">Download &amp; Install MySQL</a> (Includes MySQL Server, Workbench and Visual Studio Connector)</p> <blockquote> <p>I did a Full Install (not Developer default) and configured as a Development Machine.</p> <p>MySQL Workbench will launch when it is complete: </p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb.png" width="644" height="396"></a></p> <p>Read <a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/workbench/en/wb-getting-started-tutorial.html" target="_blank">this</a> if you have issues getting MySQL running.</p></blockquote> <p><strong>CREATE THE DATABASE</strong></p> <p>2. Click “Create a new EER Model”</p> <p>3. That will launch the Model Editor</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_3.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_3.png" width="644" height="396"></a></p></blockquote> <p>4. Click the plus icon over to the right of “Physical Schemata” to create a new database.&nbsp; Name it “Company”</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_4.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_4.png" width="350" height="107"></a></p></blockquote> <p>5. Double-click “Add Table”</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_5.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_5.png" width="162" height="137"></a></p></blockquote> <p>6. Create a new Employee table like so.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_6.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_6.png" width="617" height="156"></a></p></blockquote> <p>7. Click Save.</p> <p>8. Go to <strong>Database –&gt; Forward Engineer</strong> to push your changes to the MySQL instance.&nbsp; Read <a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/workbench/en/wb-getting-started-tutorial-creating-a-model.html" target="_blank">this</a> if you are having issues here.</p> <p><strong>CONNECT TO DATABASE</strong></p> <p>9. In Visual Studio, Open Server Explorer and create a new connection to your Employee MySQL database. This is what my Add Connection dialog looks like:</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_7.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_7.png" width="388" height="385"></a></p></blockquote> <p><strong>CREATE MVC APPLICATION</strong></p> <p>10. Create a new MVC application in Visual Studio. I used the Internet Application template.</p> <p><strong>CREATE ENTITY FRAMEWORK MODEL</strong></p> <p>11. Add a new EDMX file to your MVC app and select the employee table.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_8.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_8.png" width="804" height="454"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>I selected Yes, include the sensitive data in the connection string. Because it’s a quick sample.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_9.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_9.png" width="631" height="563"></a></p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_10.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_10.png" width="410" height="205"></a></p></blockquote> <p>That will create a new EDMX, just make sure you save AND BUILD it once the diagram opens.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_11.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_11.png" width="293" height="261"></a></p></blockquote> <p><strong>CREATE MVC CONTROLLER</strong></p> <p>12. Add a new controller with the MVC template and EF. Right click on “Controllers” folder and select “Add –&gt; Controller”</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_12.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_12.png" width="608" height="397"></a></p></blockquote> <p><strong>RUN THE APPLICATION</strong></p> <p>13. Hit F5 and change URL to /employee (i.e. <a href="http://localhost:45171/employee">http://localhost:45171/employee</a>)</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_13.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_13.png" width="495" height="499"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>CREATE A NEW EMPLOYEE</strong></p> <p>14. Click “Create New”. Enter a Name. Click Create</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_14.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_14.png" width="495" height="499"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Nice. We now have end to end MySQL, EF and MVC.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_15.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/a2dc565e58e1_557C/image_thumb_15.png" width="495" height="499"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Jon</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/P7qbqXt5qDU" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/mysql-aspnet-mvc-entity-framework.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-4158453386606621302013-04-11T07:11:00.001-07:002013-05-02T05:52:43.191-07:002013-05-02T05:52:43.191-07:00<p> <p><em>The following thoughts are my own, not Microsoft’s. I’m not a spokesperson. Just a dev manager sharing my thoughts.</em> <p>An interview candidate recently asked me what I thought of the Microsoft employee review model. I don’t hate it and I don’t love it. I personally tend to not stress about things I can’t change. I’m more passive than others when it comes to these types of things because I’d rather spend my energy on engineering work. The bottom line is that an engineer shouldn’t have to worry about the review model. Idealistic? Yep, but, as you will read below, there are some things you can do to set yourself up for success regardless of the current review model. When people ask me what I think of the review model, I usually start by flippantly asking “You got a better way to review 100k people?”, we laugh and then I get into what I really think. I’ve tried my best to summarize it all below and I might come back later to add more. <a href="http://twitter.com/jongallant">Follow me on twitter</a> if you want to get the updates. <p>I’ve been at Microsoft as an FTE since 2004 and since then the review model has changed 3-4 times. Actually when I joined it was good to get a “5” and bad to get a “1”. Now it is the opposite. I’ve been a lead since 2005 and have had to learn these new models, teach my people about what it all means and hand out the reviews. 99% of the time it is a great experience because I’ve been fortunate enough to be on very high performing teams and I’m a strong believer in “no surprises”. Meaning that all my people know how they are doing (good or bad) long before the mid-year and annual reviews. Like I said earlier, you shouldn’t have to worry about it and here’s how I think you can minimize the stress around it. <p><strong>DO AMAZING WORK</strong> <p>It all starts with what you produce or how you are adding value. The first thing we look at when talking through our people is the “what”. It’s less about checking off boxes and more about the big fish that you fried. If you aren’t doing your absolute best and churning out a bunch of engineering work then you should be honest with yourself and be okay getting an average review. Take a look around at all the work people of the same level are doing. How do you compare? If you take a few minutes and think about it you could probably do more, but it’s not about doing more. It’s about doing what is right and what is needed. That comes with time, so don’t worry if you are at a stage in your career where you don’t know what is right. Observe others around you, preferably more senior people, and do what they do. It’s more than checking in code. Review others code. Influence designs. Bring new ideas. Push people to be their best. Be a technical leader. <p><strong>FIND A MANAGER YOU CAN TRUST</strong> <p>I was fortunate enough to find a manager I can trust back when I joined Microsoft as a contractor in 2003. I’ve moved around Microsoft quite a bit since then and have had a few different managers. But, there’s a reason why I’m back to working for him again today. He says what he means and means what he says. I would accept any review that he gives me because there is a level of trust there. If he thinks that I’m doing an average job then I probably am. If you currently have a manager that you can’t trust then try to build the trust or change jobs. It’s that important. Stop here and be honest. Can you trust him? If not, then fix it. <p><strong>YOU OWN YOUR CAREER</strong> <p>I cringe when a manager says they manage someone’s career and I cringe even harder when I hear someone say their manager isn’t managing their career. It’s the person’s own responsibility to figure out what they want to do with their career and use the resources that Microsoft provides to help them get there. Managers have lives too and they definitely can’t be spending all their time managing someone else’s career. After all, they have their own career to manage. <p>A truly good manager provides help, guidance and support towards their direct reports career aspirations. I will have the career discussion with my people, but it is always me asking what they want to do with their career and how I can help. Sometimes I’ll nudge people in a certain way or the other based on their strengths, but I never “manage” their career and you shouldn’t expect your manager to either. <p><strong>YOUR MANAGER MAKES REVIEW “SUGGESTIONS” NOT THE FINAL DECISION</strong> <p>Your review is the result of many discussions with you, your manager, your manager’s peers, your manager’s manager, your manager’s peers and eventually all the way up to Ballmer. Every one of those people have a say in your review. A manager will make a recommendation for your review and then you are discussed in relation to all your peers and a collective decision is made. If there is any contention then someone will eventually will make a call, usually the manager two levels above the people being discussed, so that would be your skip-level manager. <p>Don’t be visible for visibilities sake, but make sure people know who you are and what you have accomplished. Your manager can help you get that visibility, but it’s best when you do such amazing work that people don’t have to promote it. The best discussions about people are the ones we skip over because everyone in the room knows the amazing work they have done and agrees with your manager’s recommendation. Be that guy. <p><strong>DON’T BE A JERK</strong> <p>I try very hard to build a team of people of the same mindset, but every now and then you end up working someone with an agenda other than collective software development. Don’t be that guy. I have a very hard time handing out a good review to someone that everyone can’t stand. There are ways to influence without being a jerk. Ask around. See if you are a jerk. Most of the time you don’t realize it. You can still be a hard-hitting-push-it-forward type engineer, just don’t leave dead bodies along the way. <p><strong>TRACK YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS</strong> <p>You do a lot in a year and it is hard to recall everything when it comes time to write your review. Make sure you have a way to keep track of all your successes. Some use OneNote, some use email. Whatever it is…take a weekly or monthly inventory of everything you have accomplished. Write it down and send it to your manager. When it comes time to write your review all you have to do is go back to your accomplishment log. <p><strong>EDUCATE YOUR MANAGER</strong> <p>Make sure your manager understands what you are doing and can communicate that to a room full of his peers. You are in trouble if, when it comes time to discuss your accomplishments, your manager says you “did something with some api” but you really “re-implemented your services endpoint that is consumed by the entire company to return OData endpoints on top of WebApi”. He has no idea what you did and can’t explain it. It’s not his fault. It’s yours. You haven’t educated him enough to talk intelligently about what you have accomplished. Most of the time engineers work for even more technical people, so this isn’t a problem, but if it is for you then spend some time explaining what you have done. Write it down. Send it to him. At least they’ll be able to read it to their peers. <p><strong>GET AND GIVE FEEDBACK </strong> <p>There’s the official route through the Microsoft internal tools and then there’s the “hey, how am I doing?” informal approach. I prefer informal, but it’s good to do both. The official feedback is definitely reviewed and used when determining how someone fits into the review model. I usually over subscribe and try to get feedback from as many people as possible…even if I think the feedback won’t be glowing.&nbsp; It’s a great way for people to express themselves without the awkwardness of a difficult face to face conversation. Take all the feedback to heart, because the perception of how you are is as important as how you think you are. Make sure you ask your manager to see the feedback. They don’t always willingly offer it up.&nbsp; <p>Getting back to the “no surprises” comment I made earlier.&nbsp; “Early and often” is how I like to give feedback to my team and to my peers.&nbsp; I don’t wait for them to ask.&nbsp; I don’t feel like I’m doing my job as a manager if I’m not helping people see their blind spots and encouraging them in their strengths.&nbsp; I have my own blind spots, every one does, and finding a person that will point them out will be HUGE for your career and personal growth. <p><strong>DON’T OVERTHINK IT</strong> <p>Many people constantly nag their manager to find out how they are ranking or if they are going to get a promo. These things should be discussed, but not every week. Set aside some time to discuss with your manager and then get back to doing amazing work because without that piece there’s nothing. Don’t linger on the fact that you “only got a 2” when you think you should have gotten a better review. Honestly that’s a great number – it means that you are doing better than the majority of people at Microsoft. It might not be what you expected, but have that discussion with your manager and try to get more insight into it. <p><strong>TRUST THE SYSTEM</strong> <p>If you have all of the above in place, most importantly doing amazing work and having a manager you can trust, then you really need to let go and trust that it will all work out. Your performance will be affected if you linger on it. Use that energy to do more amazing work. Feel good about what you have accomplished and don’t depend too much on how an organization evaluates you. <p>Jon <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/Rt_r3A8aQG8" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com8http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/microsoft-employee-review-model.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-79239552685613197512013-04-11T04:44:00.001-07:002013-04-11T04:45:04.139-07:002013-04-11T04:45:04.139-07:00<p>Read <a href="http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=25862" target="_blank">this</a> if you don’t know the “why” behind Guid.Comb.&nbsp; In a nutshell. We want to uniquely identify records and don’t want PK collisions across database instances. Using Guid as a PK used to be taboo. Now (circa 2002) it’s acceptable with Guid.Comb.&nbsp; It generates Guids in a semi-sequential order to limit page splits. This post is a combination of <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/a/7098804/2211981" target="_blank">this</a> and <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/a/13014102/2211981" target="_blank">this</a>. Here’s a <a href="http://thatextramile.be/blog/2009/05/using-the-guidcomb-identifier-strategy" target="_blank">good post</a> on how to do Guid.Comb with NHibernate.</p> <p><a class="download-button" href="https://github.com/jonbgallant/guid-comb-ef-code-first">Download <span>Latest version from GitHub</span></a></p> <p>What I’m using:</p> <ol> <li><a href="http://nuget.org/packages/entityframework" target="_blank">EF 6 beta3</a> – Though you could probably use EF5 without issue <li><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/visual-studio-express-products" target="_blank">VS2012</a> – Express should work <li><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/editions/2012-editions/express.aspx" target="_blank">SQL Express</a> <li>Nuget</li></ol> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>1. Create a new Console App called GuidComb</p> <p>2. Open Package Manager Console and run the following:</p> <blockquote> <p>PM&gt; Install-Package EntityFramework -Pre</p></blockquote> <p>3. Add this code to your app:</p><pre class="brush: csharp;">using System;<br />using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;<br />using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;<br />using System.Data.Entity;<br /><br />namespace GuidComb<br />{<br /> class Program<br /> {<br /> static void Main(string[] args)<br /> {<br /> using (var db = new ItemContext())<br /> {<br /> for (var i = 0; i &lt; 10; i++)<br /> db.Items.Add(new Item());<br /><br /> db.SaveChanges();<br /> }<br /><br /> using (var db = new ItemContext())<br /> {<br /> foreach (var item in db.Items)<br /> Console.WriteLine(item.Id);<br /> }<br /><br /> Console.ReadKey();<br /> }<br /> }<br /><br /> public class Item<br /> {<br /> [Key, DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]<br /> public Guid Id { get; set; }<br /> }<br /><br /> public class ItemContext : DbContext<br /> {<br /> public DbSet&lt;Item&gt; Items { get; set; }<br /> }<br />}<br /><br /></pre><br /><p>4. Run the following in Package Manager Console</p><br /><blockquote><br /><p>PM&gt; Enable-Migrations</p></blockquote><br /><p>5. Run the following in Package Manager Console</p><br /><blockquote><br /><p>PM&gt; Add-Migration Comb</p></blockquote><br /><p>6. Open the /Migrations/[Timestamp]_Comb.cs that was created by the Add-Migration command and add defaultValueSql: “newsequentialid()” to the Item table Column builder.</p><pre class="brush: csharp;">namespace GuidComb.Migrations<br />{<br /> using System;<br /> using System.Data.Entity.Migrations;<br /> <br /> public partial class Comb : DbMigration<br /> {<br /> public override void Up()<br /> {<br /> CreateTable(<br /> "dbo.Items",<br /> c =&gt; new<br /> {<br /> Id = c.Guid(nullable: false, identity: true, defaultValueSql: "newsequentialid()"),<br /> })<br /> .PrimaryKey(t =&gt; t.Id);<br /> <br /> }<br /> <br /> public override void Down()<br /> {<br /> DropTable("dbo.Items");<br /> }<br /> }<br />}<br /><br /></pre><br /><p>7. Hit F5 and you should see this:</p><br /><p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/343c5f9b6c9a_661C/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/343c5f9b6c9a_661C/image_thumb.png" width="367" height="290"></a></p><br /><p>As you can see the Guid are being generated sequentially.</p><br /><p><a class="download-button" href="https://github.com/jonbgallant/guid-comb-ef-code-first">Download <span>Latest version from GitHub</span></a></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/uZA9eNuKJiw" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com6http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/guid-comb-ef-code-first.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-22183692882168649502013-04-08T05:26:00.001-07:002013-04-08T05:26:20.068-07:002013-04-08T05:26:20.068-07:00<p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Took me a bit to find the solution to this one, but I eventually found it <a href="http://devnet.jetbrains.com/docs/DOC-1332" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>1. Upgrade to Resharper 7.1.2</p> <p>2. In VS go to Resharper –&gt; Options –&gt; Unit Testing –&gt; MS Test and Uncheck “Use Legacy Runner”</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Solution-to_4A9D/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Solution-to_4A9D/image_thumb.png" width="784" height="604"></a></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/p-XlbhhgFj8" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/path-unittest-resharper-vs2012.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-32300212757084373262013-04-01T04:58:00.000-07:002013-04-01T04:58:11.656-07:002013-04-01T04:58:11.656-07:00Just a quick post to let you know that if you get the error below it means that you don't have the TypeScript plugin installed:<br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\TypeScript\Microsoft.VisualStudio.WJProject.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.&nbsp;</import></span><br /> <br /> <import><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34790">Click here to download the TypeScript plugin.</a></import><br /> <br /> <br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/zGz7Ep_PrMQ" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/04/Microsoft.VisualStudio.WJProject.targets-was-not-found.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-19917389412106663472013-03-16T14:44:00.001-07:002013-03-16T14:45:05.356-07:002013-03-16T14:45:05.356-07:00<p>Part 0. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012.html">How to deploy Neo4j to Azure using Visual Studio 2012 – Overview</a></p> <p>Part 1. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.html">Create Azure Account and Prepare Azure for Neo4j Deployment</a></p> <p>Part 2. Download the Azure SDK and Configure Azure in Visual Studio Server Explorer</p> <p>Part 3. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">Download and Configure the Neo4j.Azure.Server Solution</a></p> <p>Part 4. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">Upload Java and Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p>Part 5. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5.html">Deploy Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <h2>&nbsp;</h2> <h2>Get the Windows Azure SDK</h2> <p>Download and install the <a href="https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/downloads/?fb=en-us" target="_blank">Windows Azure SDK for .NET</a> </p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb17_thumb.png"><img title="image_thumb17_thumb" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb17_thumb" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb17_thumb_thumb.png" width="593" height="362"></a></p></blockquote> <h2>Get Publish Settings File</h2> <p>Download your publish settings file by going to <a href="https://windows.azure.com/download/publishprofile.aspx" target="_blank">this page</a>. Remember where you saved this, you’ll need it later.</p> <h2>Modify the Temp Folder Path</h2> <p>The default Azure temp folder is too long.&nbsp; In Windows 8 search for environment, Click Settings and then “Edit Environment variables for your account”</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb11.png"><img title="image_thumb[11]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[11]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb11_thumb.png" width="534" height="161"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Create a new user variable:</p> <blockquote> <p>Name: _CSRUN_STATE_DIRECTORY</p> <p>Value: c:\A</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb13.png"><img title="image_thumb[13]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[13]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb13_thumb.png" width="398" height="441"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>Make sure you Exit Azure and Restart VS after you make the change. </p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb82_thumb_thumb.png"><img title="image_thumb82_thumb_thumb" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb82_thumb_thumb" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb82_thumb_thumb_thumb.png" width="265" height="160"></a></p></blockquote> <h2>Add New Storage Account to Server Explorer</h2> <p>Open VS and then open Server Explorer. Right click on Windows Azure Storage and select “Add New Storage Account…”</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb18_thumb.png"><img title="image_thumb18_thumb" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb18_thumb" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb18_thumb_thumb.png" width="316" height="133"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Click the Import button, find the file you downloaded in Step 4. The dialog should look something like this after you have imported it.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb3.png"><img title="image_thumb[3]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[3]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb3_thumb.png" width="644" height="508"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Copy the “Preview connection string” to a safe place, you’ll need it later. Click OK. Back in Server Explorer you will now see the new storage node (neo4j2 in my case). Neo4j will be hosted in a Container within a Blob.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb5.png"><img title="image_thumb[5]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[5]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb5_thumb.png" width="196" height="114"></a></p></blockquote> <h2>Add New Deployment Environment to Server Explorer</h2> <p>Open VS and then open Server Explorer. Right click on Windows Azure Compute and select “Add Deployment Environment…”</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb1.png"><img title="image_thumb[1]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[1]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb1_thumb.png" width="337" height="129"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Add Staging, then come back and Add Production.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb7.png"><img title="image_thumb[7]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[7]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb7_thumb.png" width="554" height="488"></a></p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb9.png"><img title="image_thumb[9]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[9]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1-How-to-deploy-_CF27/image_thumb9_thumb.png" width="274" height="63"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Alright, Visual Studio is all configured. Move on to the next step…</p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/6ywFY1DyCIs" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com2http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-74677414899758288592013-03-16T14:39:00.001-07:002013-03-16T14:40:06.442-07:002013-03-16T14:40:06.442-07:00<p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Part 0. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012.html">How to deploy Neo4j to Azure using Visual Studio 2012 – Overview</a></p> <p>Part 1. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.html">Create Azure Account and Prepare Azure for Neo4j Deployment</a></p> <p>Part 2. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">Download the Azure SDK and Configure Azure in Visual Studio Server Explorer</a></p> <p>Part 3. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">Download and Configure the Neo4j.Azure.Server Solution</a></p> <p>Part 4. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">Upload Java and Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p>Part 5. Deploy Neo4j to Azure</p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </p> <h2>Update Port (Optional)</h2> <p>If you want to change the port it is deployed to then double click “Neo4jServerHost”, select Endpoints and change the Neo4j endpoint value.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb62.png"><img title="image_thumb62" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb62" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb62_thumb.png" width="199" height="60"></a></p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb64.png"><img title="image_thumb64" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb64" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb64_thumb.png" width="515" height="202"></a></p></blockquote> <h2>Deploy Neo4j to your local Azure Emulator</h2> <p>In VS, Select Neo4j.Azure.Server and hit CTRL+F5. That will launch the local Azure Emulator deployment.</p> <p>Right click on the Azure Logo in your System Tray and select “Show Compute Emulator UI”</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb.png" width="266" height="157"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Navigate to the green node under Neo4jServerHost and wait for it to finish uploading and installing.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_3.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_3.png" width="193" height="129"></a></p></blockquote> <p>When it is complete you should see this message:</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_4.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_4.png" width="351" height="63"></a></p></blockquote> <p>And you’ll see a blank Java window….that’s a good thing.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_5.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_5.png" width="681" height="347"></a></p></blockquote> <h2>Launch the local Neo4j Web Admin App</h2> <p>Open your browser and go to <a href="http://localhost:5000/webadmin">http://localhost:5000/webadmin</a>.&nbsp; You should see this…&nbsp; If you do that’s awesome.&nbsp; It means it works locally!</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_6.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_6.png" width="644" height="382"></a></p></blockquote> <h2>Deploy Neo4j to Azure Cloud Services</h2> <p>We have to update the connection string before deploying to the cloud.</p> <p>Back in Solution Explorer, Open ServiceConfiguration.cscfg</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb52.png"><img title="image_thumb52" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb52" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb52_thumb.png" width="224" height="111"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Replace UseDevelopmentStorage=true to the same “Preview connection string” you copied into Program.cs earlier.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb54.png"><img title="image_thumb54" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb54" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb54_thumb.png" width="817" height="56"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>Make sure you change it in both places:</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb60.png"><img title="image_thumb60" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb60" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb60_thumb.png" width="840" height="55"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> </blockquote> <p>Right click on the Neo4j.Azure.Server project and select Publish…</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb66.png"><img title="image_thumb66" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb66" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb66_thumb.png" width="368" height="140"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Select your subscription, click Next</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb68.png"><img title="image_thumb68" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb68" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb68_thumb.png" width="689" height="468"></a></p></blockquote> <p>You might get this prompt if you don’t have any Cloud Services configured.&nbsp; Enter the name of the service (whatever you want), select your region (should be the same as the one you created earlier, for me that is West US) and click OK.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb70.png"><img title="image_thumb70" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb70" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb70_thumb.png" width="394" height="183"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Select the appropriate Cloud Server, select Staging Environment, Release Configuration and Default Service Configuration and click Next and then Publish.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb72.png"><img title="image_thumb72" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb72" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb72_thumb.png" width="689" height="468"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Deployment will start…</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb76.png"><img title="image_thumb76" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb76" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb76_thumb.png" width="487" height="103"></a></p> <p>You can monitor the deployment from within Visual Studio in the Windows Azure Activity Log or on the Azure Portal here: <a title="https://manage.windowsazure.com/#Workspaces/CloudServicesExtension/CloudService/neo4j2service/instances" href="https://manage.windowsazure.com/#Workspaces/CloudServicesExtension/CloudService/neo4j2service/instances">https://manage.windowsazure.com/#Workspaces/CloudServicesExtension/CloudService/neo4j2service/instances</a></p></blockquote> <p>If all goes well you can hit your Neo4j webadmin endpoint to test it out. You can find the base of the URL in the Windows Azure Activity Log item for the deployment.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_7.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_7.png" width="388" height="112"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Add the port and /webadmin to the end of the url like so…</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://7c921141de1343db86ed5d000e031fe0.cloudapp.net:5000/webadmin/">http://7c921141de1343db86ed5d000e031fe0.cloudapp.net:5000/webadmin/</a></p></blockquote> <p>Hopefully it loads…you should see the web admin app! It’s a great thing if you do. It took me so long to get to this point, hopefully it was a breeze for you.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_8.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_8.png" width="644" height="382"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Okay, now you can deploy to Production.&nbsp; Just repeat the same Publish steps that you did above, but select Production instead of Staging</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_9.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_9.png" width="157" height="49"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Let VS finish publishing to Azure.&nbsp; When it is done you can hit your production endpoint the same way you did staging, but this time use your Cloud Service name, in my case it is neo4j2service.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_10.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_10.png" width="711" height="348"></a></p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://neo4j2service.cloudapp.net:5000/db/data">http://<font style="background-color: #ffff00">neo4j2service</font>.cloudapp.net:<font style="background-color: #ffff00">5000</font>/db/data</a> – replace neo4j2service with whatever you called your Cloud Service and if you changed the default port, change 5000 to whatever you changed it to.</p> <p>If all goes well it will load up the Neo4j console and you are good to go.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_11.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5_5E87/image_thumb_11.png" width="644" height="382"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Congrats on getting all the way to the end of this EPIC post series!!&nbsp; Hopefully you found it useful.&nbsp; Do LMK if you run into any issues.</p> <p>Jon</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/c902rsgtvgM" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com2http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-75367043025450734912013-03-16T14:38:00.003-07:002013-03-16T14:39:00.867-07:002013-03-16T14:39:00.867-07:00<p>Part 0. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012.html">How to deploy Neo4j to Azure using Visual Studio 2012 – Overview</a></p> <p>Part 1. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.html">Create Azure Account and Prepare Azure for Neo4j Deployment</a></p> <p>Part 2. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">Download the Azure SDK and Configure Azure in Visual Studio Server Explorer</a></p> <p>Part 3. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">Download and Configure the Neo4j.Azure.Server Solution</a></p> <p>Part 4. Upload Java and Neo4j to Azure</p> <p>Part 5. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5.html">Deploy Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h2>Copy the Connection String to Program.cs</h2> <p>Get the Account Credentials by going back to Server Explorer, right click on Windows Azure Storage –&gt; neo4j2 and select “Modify Storage Account”. Copy the “Preview connection string” to your clipboard.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_thumb.png" width="330" height="137"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_thumb3.png"><img title="image_thumb[3]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[3]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_thumb3_thumb.png" width="644" height="508"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Open Neo4jUploader—&gt;Program.cs and paste the “Preview connection string” into the cloudStorageAccount Parse method.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_thumb44.png"><img title="image_thumb44" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb44" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_thumb44_thumb.png" width="559" height="55"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Run Neo4jUploader and enter “1” to create the local blob container and enter “2” to create the Azure hosted blob container.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_3.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_thumb_3.png" width="678" height="85"></a></p></blockquote> <p>In Server Explorer, you will now see a new container called “neo4j” under Windows Azure Storage –&gt; (Development)—&gt;Blobs and neo4j2 –&gt; Blobs</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_4.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_thumb_4.png" width="232" height="219"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Double click neo4j and you’ll see that the JRE and Neo4j zip files are in it. You can double click the URL test initiate a download…just to test it out so you can be sure it is uploaded and you can download it, but not required.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_5.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4_5E37/image_thumb_5.png" width="572" height="139"></a></p> <p>You could also go to the Azure Portal to view the container (replace neo4j1 in the url with whatever you called your storage node)</p> <p><a title="https://manage.windowsazure.com/#Workspaces/StorageExtension/StorageAccount/neo4j1/Container/neo4j/Blobs" href="https://manage.windowsazure.com/#Workspaces/StorageExtension/StorageAccount/neo4j2/Container/neo4j/Blobs">https://manage.windowsazure.com/#Workspaces/StorageExtension/StorageAccount/<font style="background-color: #ffff00">neo4j2</font>/Container/neo4j/Blobs</a></p> <p>At this point you won’t be able to download from a browser, but you can from within VS.</p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Alright, your Azure blob that has Java and Neo4j is ready. Move on to the next step…</p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/QdEq2wEGIrw" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-12606850280308512452013-03-16T14:38:00.001-07:002013-03-16T14:38:34.860-07:002013-03-16T14:38:34.860-07:00<p>Part 0. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012.html">How to deploy Neo4j to Azure using Visual Studio 2012 – Overview</a></p> <p>Part 1. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.html">Create Azure Account and Prepare Azure for Neo4j Deployment</a></p> <p>Part 2. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">Download the Azure SDK and Configure Azure in Visual Studio Server Explorer</a></p> <p>Part 3. Download and Configure the Neo4j.Azure.Server Solution</p> <p>Part 4. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">Upload Java and Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p>Part 5. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5.html">Deploy Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <h2>&nbsp;</h2> <h2>The Neo4j.Azure.Server Solution</h2> <p><a href="http://ideanotion.net/neo4j-and-azure-deployment-improvement/" target="_blank">Raymond Tsang</a> did the community a huge favor and took the VS2010 Neo4j.Azure.Server SLN and converted it to VS2012.&nbsp; I’m going to use that as a base.&nbsp; You can read his post for more info <a href="http://ideanotion.net/neo4j-and-azure-deployment-improvement/" target="_blank">Neo4j.Azure.Server.zip file</a>, but if you are running VS2012 you should download <font style=""><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/p/neo4j.html">my version</a></font><font style="background-color: #ffff00"></font> which is updated with Neo4j 1.8.2 and Windows Azure Tools – October 2012.&nbsp; You may want to download his version if you are running VS2010 because I don’t have VS2010 and didn’t touch that solution.&nbsp; I’ll do my best to keep it updated when new Neo4j and Azure SDK versions come out, but no promises.</p> <h2>Get the Neo4j.Azure.Server Solution</h2> <p>Download and extract the <font style=""><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/p/neo4j.html">Neo4j.Azure.Server.zip</a></font><font style="background-color: #ffff00"></font> file.</p> <h2>Fix Neo4j.Azure.Server Dependencies</h2> <p>Open the Neo4j.Azure.Server.sln file for VS2012 and the Neo4j.Azure.Server.vs2010.sln for VS2010.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Try to build it.&nbsp; If it builds then move onto the next step.&nbsp; If it doesn’t then try refreshing the NuGet packages in two different ways:</p> <h2>Option 1</h2> <blockquote> <p>Right click on the solution and select “Enable NuGet Package Restore”</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_thumb.png" width="623" height="211"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>And click Yes…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_3.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_thumb_3.png" width="498" height="279"></a></p></blockquote> <p>If the “Enable NuGet Package Restore” option isn’t available then try…</p> <h2>Option2</h2> <p>Right click on the solution and select “Manage NuGet Packages for Solution…”</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_thumb38.png"><img title="image_thumb38" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb38" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_thumb38_thumb.png" width="464" height="184"></a></p></blockquote> <p>You will see “Some NuGet packages are missing from this solution.” at the top of the dialog.&nbsp; Click Restore. </p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_thumb73.png"><img title="image_thumb73" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb73" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_thumb73_thumb.png" width="455" height="103"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_thumb74.png"><img title="image_thumb74" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb74" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3_5DFE/image_thumb74_thumb.png" width="447" height="75"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Build the Solution, just to make sure all is good.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Alright, Neo4j.Azure.Server is ready to go. Move on to the next step…</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/GpVGHc8JktU" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-45972740968642009832013-03-16T14:37:00.001-07:002013-03-16T14:37:18.472-07:002013-03-16T14:37:18.472-07:00 <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Part 0. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012.html">How to deploy Neo4j to Azure using Visual Studio 2012 – Overview</a></p> <p>Part 1. Create Azure Account and Prepare Azure for Neo4j Deployment</p> <p>Part 2. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">Download the Azure SDK and Configure Azure in Visual Studio Server Explorer</a></p> <p>Part 3. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">Download and Configure the Neo4j.Azure.Server Solution</a></p> <p>Part 4. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">Upload Java and Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p>Part 5. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5.html">Deploy Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h2>Create Azure Account</h2> <p>Create an Azure account on the <a href="https://www.windowsazure.com" target="_blank">Windows Azure website</a>.&nbsp; Don’t forget that <a href="http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/member-offers/" target="_blank">MSDN Subscribers get free Azure accounts</a> and <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2012/08/microsoftie-perk-3-msdn-technet-azure.html#.UURlNhzbOqk" target="_blank">Microsoft employees get free MSDN Subscriptions</a>. Make sure you take advantage of that.</p> <h2>Create Azure Storage Service</h2> <p>The Storage Service is where you will keep the Java Runtime and Neo4j bits, which we will upload later.</p> <p>Go to the <a href="https://manage.windowsazure.com" target="_blank">Azure Management Portal</a> and create a new Storage Service by clicking “New”, “Data Services”, “Storage”, “Quick Create”. Enter a sub-domain of your choosing and select a Region. Click “Create Storage Account”.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1_59DB/image_thumb5.png"><img title="image_thumb[5]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[5]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1_59DB/image_thumb5_thumb.png" width="644" height="121"></a></p></blockquote> <h2>Create Azure Cloud Service</h2> <p>The Cloud Service is the endpoint that will serve up Neo4j endpoints.&nbsp; It’s the app hosted that will be hosted at <a href="http://*.cloudapp.net">http://*.cloudapp.net</a>.&nbsp; You will upload your Neo4j instance to this Cloud Service later.</p> <p>Go to the <a href="https://manage.windowsazure.com">Azure Management Portal</a> and create a new Cloud Service by clicking “New”, “Compute”, “Cloud Service”, “Quick Create”. Enter a sub-domain of your choosing and select a Region. Click “Create Cloud Service”.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1_59DB/image_thumb7.png"><img title="image_thumb[7]" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image_thumb[7]" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1_59DB/image_thumb7_thumb.png" width="644" height="144"></a></p></blockquote> <p>Alright, Azure is all prepped. Move on to the next step…</p> <p><a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012.html">&lt;—Previous Step</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/a1OweeDrMd0" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-64923699777543197832013-03-16T14:36:00.001-07:002013-03-16T14:36:58.786-07:002013-03-16T14:36:58.786-07:00<p>I just spent a bunch of time searching the interwebs to find out the best way to get Neo4j up and running on Azure. <a href="http://blog.tatham.oddie.com.au/" target="_blank">Tatham</a> has some great resources and talks, but I couldn’t get his <a href="https://github.com/Readify/Neo4j.Server.AzureWorkerHost" target="_blank">Neo4j.Server.AzureWorkerHost</a> NuGet package working. So, I decided to go the <a href="http://ideanotion.net/neo4j-and-azure-deployment-improvement/">Raymond Tsang</a> route and after many hours of mucking around I finally got it working today. There were a lot of time consuming hurdles, so I thought I’d save you some time and do a very detailed post to help you get from nothing to a fully functioning Neo4j deployment on Azure.&nbsp; </p> <p>Part 0. How to deploy Neo4j to Azure using Visual Studio 2012 – Overview</p> <p>Part 1. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.html">Create Azure Account and Prepare Azure for Neo4j Deployment</a></p> <p>Part 2. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-2.html">Download the Azure SDK and Configure Azure in Visual Studio Server Explorer</a></p> <p>Part 3. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-3.html">Download and Configure the Neo4j.Azure.Server Solution</a></p> <p>Part 4. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-4.html">Upload Java and Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p>Part 5. <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-5.html">Deploy Neo4j to Azure</a></p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012-part-1.html">Next Step –&gt;</a></p> <p>Hope this helps you out.&nbsp; LMK if you run into any issues. </p> <p>Jon</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/oGaRDhkOtdc" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com1http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/neo4j-azure-vs2012.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-74869410183527600792013-03-14T09:35:00.001-07:002013-03-14T09:35:43.261-07:002013-03-14T09:35:43.261-07:00<p>I am an avid Google Reader user. I use it to scan over 400 tech blogs and often share to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and email. It’s easy to miss stuff on Facebook and there’s too much noise on Twitter. Since <a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-google-reader.html" target="_blank">Google Reader is going to be retired on July 1st</a>, I set out to find a good cloud based alternative for web and mobile. </p> <h1>Reader Requirements</h1> <h2>Quickly Scan Headlines</h2> <blockquote> <p>Since I subscribe to 400+ blogs I need a “list” interface that allows me to quickly scan headlines.&nbsp; I’m not interested in pictures or elaborate layouts.&nbsp; Google Reader was perfect for my scenario, so I’m going to try to find something as close to their layout as possible.</p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb.png" width="581" height="160"></a></p> <h2>Easily Share to Social Networks &amp; Email</h2> <blockquote> <p>I often share articles that I think are interesting to Facebook, Twitter and to my team via email.&nbsp; I need to be able to do that from the reader interface. This is something that Google Reader is lacking in as well…you can only share to Google Plus or Email.&nbsp; My new service will need to be able to share to Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Email.</p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_3.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_3.png" width="209" height="45"></a></p> <h2>Import feeds from Google Reader</h2> <blockquote> <p>400+ feeds.&nbsp; I’m not going to reimport them one-by-one.</p></blockquote> <h2>Fast &amp; Functional</h2> <blockquote> <p>It has to to be fast and it has to work. As you’ll see later, many of the alternatives aren’t even functional.&nbsp; I’m sure it is because of the current onslaught of traffic, but it tells you a lot when a site can perform during these peak “Google Reader Alternative” times.</p></blockquote> <h2>Flag/Star</h2> <blockquote> <p>I often see articles that I are interesting but will take more time to read than a scan.&nbsp; In Google Reader I star them and then go back to read them when I have a few minutes.</p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_4.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_4.png" width="618" height="116"></a></p> <h2>Platforms</h2> <blockquote> <p>It must work on Mac, Windows &amp; iPhone.</p></blockquote> <p>I think the best thing for Google to do is to open source Google Reader and let another company that can scale take it over.&nbsp; That likely won’t happen, so let’s try to find a replacement.</p> <h2>&nbsp;</h2> <h1>Google Reader Alternatives</h1> <h1></h1> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3>Quick Summary</h3> <p>I grepped the entire interwebs looking for a good alternative and compared them against my requirements.&nbsp; All the details of my experience are below.&nbsp; To sum up my investigation…there isn’t a perfect replacement, but the ones that come close are:</p> <p><a href="http://www.netvibes.com" target="_blank"><strong>Netvibes</strong></a> – <font style="background-color: #ffff00">I’m going to switch to Netvibes.</font><font style=""> It was the </font>only reader that met all of my requirements, performed well during the “Google Reader alternatives” peak times, but they really need to do something about that font…or let me change it.&nbsp; </p> <p><a href="http://goodnoows.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Good Noows</strong></a> - Met all my requirements as well, but it was extremely slow.&nbsp; I also really hate the popup div.&nbsp; I’d reconsider if they fix those issues.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>The following two options are included in my top 4 because they look like great apps, they just need to perform better and they need to resolve the errors.&nbsp; I will come back later and try them out again…or not.&nbsp; I’m sure I’ll get settled with Netvibes and stay there.</p> <p><a href="http://feedly.com" target="_blank"><strong>Feedly</strong></a> – Looks like a great app, but too many perf issues and errors to get a good feel for it.</p> <p><a href="http://www.newsblur.com" target="_blank"><strong>Newsblur</strong></a> – Same as Feedly.&nbsp; I’ll come back if they improve perf and get it functional. </p> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3>Detailed Investigation Notes</h3> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://feedly.com" target="_blank">Feedly</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>I clicked on the “Connect to Google Reader” button on the homepage…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_5.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_5.png" width="244" height="147"></a></p> <p>And got this…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_6.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_6.png" width="244" height="159"></a></p> <p>I went back to Feedly.com and it hanged on “Refreshing page…”</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_7.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_7.png" width="244" height="130"></a></p> <p>It does look like you can view as a list…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_8.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_8.png" width="182" height="384"></a></p> <p>This looks like a good feature…being able to see popular articles shared by my friends and the people I follow.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_9.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_9.png" width="231" height="313"></a></p> <p>When I click on a tag I expect there to be a way to view all feed items that are read, but it doesn’t look like there is a way to do that.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_10.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_10.png" width="592" height="310"></a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>I think I’m going to like Feedly.com, but it doesn’t work right now.&nbsp; I’ll have to come back later to fully try it.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://www.newsblur.com" target="_blank">NewsBlur</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>I like how the content is framed into the page, but I couldn’t create an account or import from Google Reader because of this error.&nbsp; I’m sure it is due to load.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_11.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_11.png" width="229" height="244"></a></p> <p>When trying to import from Google Reader and when trying to create a new account…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_12.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_12.png" width="459" height="178"></a></p> <p>When trying to refresh a feed…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_13.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_13.png" width="225" height="83"></a></p></blockquote> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <blockquote> <p>It’s really hard to evaluate Newsblur because it isn’t functioning.</p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://netvibes.com" target="_blank">Netvibes</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>The first thing I notice is that they have a premium account for $499/month.&nbsp; I’m skeptical that there will be a big upsell, but I see they have a free account. The premium is for “brand monitoring” and some other stuff that I don’t really care about at this point.</p> <p>I click create free account and get this and select News…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_14.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_14.png" width="613" height="299"></a></p> <p>First thing I notice is that they do have a list layout toggle in the header: </p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_15.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_15.png" width="198" height="35"></a></p> <p>Then AWK! the font they chose is awful…no one uses Garamond, Georgia as their main font…not sure if I can look at that all day long.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_16.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_16.png" width="563" height="191"></a></p> <p>I click on “Add Content” and then “Add a feed”…looks like you can import from OPML (which you can get from Google Reader via <a href="https://www.google.com/takeout/" target="_blank">Google Takeout</a>)</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_17.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_17.png" width="409" height="189"></a></p> <p>That redirects me to the list dashboard that looks a lot like Google Reader…but man that FONT is going to kill me.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_18.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_18.png" width="686" height="276"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <blockquote> <p>They do have a “Read Later” feature, which meets my Flag/Star requirement.&nbsp; I like how it is integrated into the app and doesn’t require me to use Pocket or Instapaper like Good Noows does.</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_19.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_19.png" width="209" height="151"></a></p> <p>Clicking on “Share” opens this dialog…Facebook, Twitter and Email…no Google+ or LinkedIn</p> <p>&nbsp;</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_20.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: left; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" align="left" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_20.png" width="731" height="407"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <blockquote> <p>So far, Netvibes is the best option because it meets all my requirements, I just wish there was a way to change the font.&nbsp; They don’t have LinkedIn/GooglePlus integration, but that isn’t a must have for me.</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://www.pulse.me" target="_blank">Pulse</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>I don’t see a way to view as list, couldn’t import from Google Reader moving on to next one…</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://flipboard.com" target="_blank">Flipboard</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>Same as Pulse…moving on…</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://reederapp.com/" target="_blank">Reeder</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>Mac only.&nbsp; I need Windows too.</p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="https://www.taptu.com/" target="_blank">Taptu</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>I click Add Stream in top left…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_21.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_21.png" width="174" height="109"></a></p> <p>They have Google Reader import…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_22.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_22.png" width="366" height="212"></a></p> <p>I tried, but I got this spinner for about 30 mins</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_23.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_23.png" width="57" height="51"></a></p> <p>I go back home, click Add Stream again then I see this under Reader…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_24.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_24.png" width="390" height="306"></a></p> <p>No way to view as list…moving on…</p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="https://www.google.com/producer/currents" target="_blank">Google Currents</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>I don’t see a web version…moving on…</p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://goodnoows.com/" target="_blank">Good Noows</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>I click on Newsstand and I see OPML import…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_25.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_25.png" width="194" height="43"></a></p> <p>I choose my Google Reader feed and got this importing screen for at least 30 minutes…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_26.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_26.png" width="509" height="282"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>I go back to Newsstand, click on Imported sources and I see “some” of the blogs, but not all.&nbsp; I might have to reimport them all manually.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_27.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_27.png" width="468" height="556"></a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>They do have list view called: Executive Ticker</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_28.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_28.png" width="272" height="198"></a></p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_29.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_29.png" width="635" height="149"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>You can share via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Email…all the ones I need.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_30.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_30.png" width="94" height="122"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>They have a “Read article later” feature, but I wish there was an in-app version, not just external like Evernote, Pocket, etc.&nbsp; That way I wouldn’t have to use multiple sites for news.</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_31.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_31.png" width="167" height="45"></a></p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_32.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_32.png" width="117" height="141"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <blockquote> <p>In list view the titles disappear if the title is longer than the visible space:</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_33.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_33.png" width="625" height="280"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>They don’t have an iPhone app and they don’t have adaptive rendering…it looks like a pain to use on iPhone Chrome.</p></blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <blockquote> <p>I REALLY don’t like how every story pops up in a new overlay div.&nbsp; The UI is awful and it is very slow.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_34.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_34.png" width="492" height="306"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://www.zite.com/" target="_blank">Zite</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>Looks great, but they don’t have a web version.</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://feedreader.com/myfeeds/" target="_blank">FeedReader</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>No Google Reader Import.&nbsp; Perf is bad. Seems like a really old site. Got this when importing one site:</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_35.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_35.png" width="362" height="110"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/index.html" target="_blank">Bloglines</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>They tell me I have to migrate before using.&nbsp; The Migrate Now button doesn’t do anything…moving on…</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_36.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_36.png" width="698" height="236"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>I got an email a little later, logged in and found out that it is powered by Netvibes.&nbsp; Not sure why I’d want to use Bloglines over Netvibes, but I’m not going to find out.&nbsp; I’d rather just use Netvibes because it “powers” Bloglines…meaning that bloglines is probably a subset of features.</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_37.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_37.png" width="476" height="111"></a></p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://www.newsisfree.com/" target="_blank">NewsIsFree</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>This site looks very old school.&nbsp; I poked around a bit and didn’t I didn’t like the usability of it and didn’t see an OPML import feature, so I moved on…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_38.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_38.png" width="244" height="175"></a></p></blockquote> <p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://www.skimr.co/" target="_blank">Skimr</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>They have OPML import:</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_39.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_39.png" width="434" height="216"></a></p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_40.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_40.png" width="557" height="170"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>I waited a few minutes, went to the homepage and didn’t see any of my feeds.&nbsp; Although slick it doesn’t look like it meets any of my other requirements…moving on…</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://readefine.anirudhsasikumar.net/" target="_blank">Redefine</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>Desktop only and it uses Adobe AIR, but I thought I’d give it a try.</p> <p>They have a Google Reader import feature:</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_41.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_41.png" width="543" height="306"></a></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <blockquote> <p>The reader interface looks nice, but it doesn’t meet any of my other requirements.&nbsp; It also appears to be backed by Google Reader, so it might not be available after Google Reader is dead.</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://netnewswireapp.com/" target="_blank">NetNewsWire</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>Mac only.</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://www.feeddemon.com/" target="_blank">FeedDemon</a></h3> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/031413-feeddemon-to-shut-down-but-267699.html" target="_blank">Will be shutdown when Google Reader dies</a>.</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://feedwrangler.net/" target="_blank">FeedWrangler</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>Looks promising, but not available yet.</p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://theoldreader.com" target="_blank">The Old Reader</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>I get this when I try to import my Google Reader OPML</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_42.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_42.png" width="670" height="186"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>I try to add one feed and the “Add” button doesn’t do anything…moving on…</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_43.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_43.png" width="451" height="107"></a></p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://hivemined.org/#main" target="_blank">HiveMinded</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>Not released yet.</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://tt-rss.org" target="_blank">Tiny Tiny RSS</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>Looks like you have to install it on your own server.&nbsp; Moving on…</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="http://getprismatic.com" target="_blank">Prismatic</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>I don’t see a way to add new subscriptions…moving on…</p></blockquote> <h3><a href="https://www.rolio.com/" target="_blank">Rolio</a></h3> <blockquote> <p>You can import Google Reader.&nbsp; Go to My Rolio –&gt; Import</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_44.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_44.png" width="213" height="140"></a></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>I initiated the import and it’s been spinning for minutes…</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_45.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_45.png" width="427" height="267"></a></p> <p>From what I can tell there doesn’t seem to be a way to view all unread items in one list. You can click on the feeds on the right and then they pop to the top.&nbsp; Not going to be manageable with my 400+ feeds.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_46.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_46.png" width="677" height="649"></a></p> <p>You can share to social networks, but not email.</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_47.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Google-Reader-Alternatives_4714/image_thumb_47.png" width="152" height="116"></a></p></blockquote> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/wFTIEF06_TY" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com4http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/google-reader-alternatives.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-74734359726771043892013-03-12T02:40:00.001-07:002013-03-12T02:43:54.069-07:002013-03-12T02:43:54.069-07:00<p>My hard drive crashed today. As you can see in "<a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/2012/11/my-backup-strategy.html" target="_blank">My Backup Strategy</a>" post, I am a rigorous backer-upper, but I got schooled today. <p>My strategy includes "File History" from my C drive to my L drive and then backup the L drive to CrashPlan. When I setup my backup strategy I was under the impression that I'd be able to go to File History and restore all files to the latest version. Unfortunately that isn't the case. <p>Important lesson for me: <strong>Don't depend on File History for a pure "latest version" backup.</strong> It may be a user error, I may have done something along the way that cleaned up old versions or whatever, but the point is I'm in a state right now that I don't know for sure if I'll be able to recover my C drive. Let's hope I can. <p>Here's what I am seeing in File History. <p>There is a file on my C drive called Google.txt. <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/e845cb0d8e12_23A3/win81_3.png"><img title="win81" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="win81" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/e845cb0d8e12_23A3/win81_thumb_3.png" width="255" height="121"></a> <p>When I click "Restore" I get this… <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/e845cb0d8e12_23A3/win82_3.png"><img title="win82" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="win82" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/e845cb0d8e12_23A3/win82_thumb_3.png" width="581" height="356"></a> <p>The path indicates that File History didn't correct itself after I did a big file move from C:\_my_c to C:\_docs\. <p>I still think File History is a decent feature to go back and get a previous version, but as you can see in my case it has failed for me.&nbsp; Don’t repeat my mistake. Have an alternate plan to restore the latest version.&nbsp; In my case, I’m just going to sync my C drive to CrashPlan as well as File History. <p>Jon <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/vQdIP6hd-bA" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/windows-8-file-history-latest.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-37405848658337271212013-03-10T09:48:00.001-07:002013-03-10T09:48:33.885-07:002013-03-10T09:48:33.885-07:00<p>Installing Neo4j on Windows is pretty straightforward, but the <a href="http://www.neo4j.org/install" target="_blank">Neo4j installation instructions for Windows</a> are lacking….this is all they have.&nbsp; It’s a little more involved than that.</p> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/image_thumb.png" width="633" height="90"></a></p> <p> <p>&nbsp; <h1>Install Java</h1> <p>Download and Install the Java JDK from <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html">http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html</a> <p>I clicked on this graphic: <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image001.png"><img title="clip_image001" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image001" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image001_thumb.png" width="164" height="169"></a> <p>I then read the entire "Oracle Binary Code License Agreement for Java SE" word for word with Oracle and my lawyer present. After days of negotiation with Oracle we finally came to an agreement on the terms. My lawyer OK'd everything, so I came back and clicked on "Accept License Agreement". <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image002.png"><img title="clip_image002" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image002" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image002_thumb.png" width="552" height="100"></a> <p>I then selected the Windows x64 install. Version 7u17 at the time of this post. <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image003.png"><img title="clip_image003" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image003" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image003_thumb.png" width="507" height="49"></a> <h1>Install Neo4j</h1> <p>Download the Community Edition of Neo4j from <a href="http://www.neo4j.org/install">http://www.neo4j.org/install</a> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image004.png"><img title="clip_image004" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image004" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image004_thumb.png" width="880" height="233"></a> <p>Unzip it to c:\temp\Neo4j <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image005.png"><img title="clip_image005" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image005" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image005_thumb.png" width="470" height="302"></a> <p>Open base.bat in c:\temp\Neo4j\...\bin with your favorite text editor, I use Notepad++, but any text editor will do. <blockquote> <p align="center"><font style="background-color: #ffff00">Note if you don't do this step you could get this exception when trying to install Neo4j</font> <p align="center"><font style="background-color: #ffff00" face="Consolas">Error: Unable to access jarfile windows-service-wrapper-*.jar</font></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>Find this line: </p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><font face="Consolas">set wrapperJarFilename=windows-service-wrapper-*.jar</font></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p>Change it to:</p></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><font face="Consolas">set wrapperJarFilename=windows-service-wrapper-4.jar</font></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp; <p>Save base.bat <p>&nbsp; <p>Open a Command Prompt and navigate to c:\temp\Neo4j\...\bin <p>&nbsp; <p>Run Neo4j.bat <p>&nbsp; <p>You might get a UAC prompt if you just double click on it. If you do, click "More info", then click "Run Anyway" <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image006.png"><img title="clip_image006" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image006" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image006_thumb.png" width="708" height="252"></a> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image007.png"><img title="clip_image007" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image007" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image007_thumb.png" width="709" height="245"></a> <p>You might get this "Windows Security Alert", check whatever networks are appropriate for you scenario and click Allow Access. <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image008.png"><img title="clip_image008" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image008" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image008_thumb.png" width="552" height="440"></a> <p>If all goes well, Neo4j.bat will output this text: <blockquote> <p><font face="Consolas">org.neo4j.server.AbstractNeoServer INFO: Server started on [</font><a href="http://localhost:7474/"><font face="Consolas">http://localhost:7474/</font></a><font face="Consolas">]</font></p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/image_3.png"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/image_thumb_3.png" width="681" height="347"></a> <p>Go to <a href="http://localhost:7474">http://localhost:7474</a> and you should see the Neo4j web administration console. <p><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image009.png"><img title="clip_image009" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="clip_image009" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/3473af3eb567_6CED/clip_image009_thumb.png" width="924" height="537"></a> <p>There are a lot of ways to get help…start with <a href="http://www.neo4j.org/participate">http://www.neo4j.org/participate</a>. <p>Jon <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/KyR0Ny7z8Mg" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com3http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/install-neo4j-windows.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-47871333724194717992013-03-07T15:12:00.001-08:002013-05-02T16:08:23.303-07:002013-05-02T16:08:23.303-07:00I joined MSN three years ago to help them turn around the Tools team and that work is done. The team is in a really good place now, so it’s time to move on. Honestly, the MSN Tools team was one the most jelled teams I’ve ever been on and I was having a blast. But, I like to try new things and Microsoft is very cool about letting you do that every year or so. I started looking for my next role back in October, shortly after that I was re-org’d to the MSN.com homepage. While that put me in an awesome position…to own the MSN.com homepage, it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.&nbsp; I learned a ton at MSN, like how to hire the right people, how to mentor people into becoming managers and how to run a team that gets a lot done and has fun at the same time.&nbsp; But, back in October I decided to try something in a different org….I just didn’t know what yet.<br><br>I recently found out about an opportunity that my long time manager was diving into.&nbsp; No code. Brand new market and product. Windows8 Modern app. All that sounded awesome, but what really sold me was meeting the man running the team: <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/gericengstrom" target="_blank">Eric Engstrom</a>, one of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Renegades-Empire-Software-Revolution-Microsoft/dp/0609604163" target="_blank">Renegades of the Empire</a>…. when I left that meeting I told myself that it didn’t matter what he was working on, I wanted to work with Eric.&nbsp; It’s not to often that you find someone with so much passion and innovation and the know-how to execute on it.&nbsp; I’m pumped about the project, but I’m equally pumped about what I will learn from him.&nbsp; I, without a doubt, accepted the job and will start on 3/18.<br><br>So here’s the interesting part.&nbsp; I’m employee #2 in a 30 person team….that means I need to hire at 28 developers! It gets better.&nbsp; The project is super secret.&nbsp; I can’t tell you what the app is about until you come in for an interview and after you sign an NDA.&nbsp; That, honestly, is cool.&nbsp; I’ve never been able to say I worked on an app that I can’t tell anyone about.&nbsp; I’m sure Mary J. Foley will try to figure it out, but I don’t think she will :)<br><br>You’ll find the job description below.&nbsp; Here’s how to apply:<br><br> <ol> <li>Apply on the official MS site <a href="https://careers.microsoft.com/jobdetails.aspx?ss=&amp;pg=0&amp;so=&amp;rw=8&amp;jid=108174&amp;jlang=EN&amp;pp=SS" target="_blank">here</a>.&nbsp; I know the job description says SDE II and 2+ years of experience, but that is just the minimum for us to get the job posted on the careers site.&nbsp; It’s totally okay for you to have more experience and levels will be figured out after your interview and before we make you an offer. <li>Send me a note with a link to your online resume (linkedin, stackoverflow, etc) <a href="http://blog.jongallant.com/p/contact.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</li></ol><br>Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for submitting your resume.&nbsp; Good luck!<br>Jon<br><br> <h1>SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER</h1><br>No legacy code. Windows 8 app. We are entering into a new market for Microsoft. We are developing a key application combining features of Bing into a truly native experience for Windows.<br><br>We are the User Centric Advertising team and we are going to push the limits of the social graph and machine learning to deliver a world class experience on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and the Web. We just got the green light from the leadership team to move forward with the project and we now need to hire a team of engineers to go build it. We haven’t fleshed out all the details, but that is a good thing. You can come in and see the project blossom from the ground up and influence the direction of it. One thing we know for sure is that we have the drive and know the product and team are going to be amazing.<br><br>We will be a tightknit team of engineers that put shipping the product above all other artificial boundaries. Our team members with more feature development background will do most of the feature code and our team members with more of an automation background will do most of the automation development…but you will work together to ship. Mutual ownership at its finest.<br><br>Most of us on the team haven’t developed Windows 8 applications yet. It would be a plus to have Windows 8 development experience, but not required. We are a bunch of web developers that are experts in building applications using the latest and greatest technologies including MVC, jQuery and a slew of other technologies that other teams rarely get the opportunity to experiment with.<br><br>You don’t need join a startup to have the startup vibe, come join us and get all the same benefits of a startup culture with the security of all that Microsoft has to offer.<br><br>Required Experience:<br> <ul> <li>2+ years relevant web development experience <li>Fluent in multiple web technologies with hands on experience in many of these areas: HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3, jQuery, ASP.NET, WebApi, MVC, JSON, RSS/ATOM <li>Must demonstrate strong skill in C#, VB, Java or C++ <li>Understanding of Agile Methodology <li>BS in Computer Science or related field or equivalent experience </li></ul>Pluses:<br> <ul> <li>Windows 8 Application Development <li>A/B Testing Experience <li>Experience building reliable, large-scale web sites or services <li>Good understanding of web performance and scalability concerns</li></ul> <div>FAQ:</div> <div> <ul> <li>You have to relocate to Redmond.&nbsp; <li>You have to have valid work status.&nbsp; US Citizen or H1B that you can transfer. If current Microsoft and not in US then you need to be with company at least 1 year for an L1.</li></ul> <div>&nbsp;</div></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/ObDnePGLDLE" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com16http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/new-job-hiring-devs.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-39607535225694834322013-03-05T06:47:00.001-08:002013-03-09T06:32:58.934-08:002013-03-09T06:32:58.934-08:00<p>You’ll sometimes get this error in Firefox and Chrome, but not IE.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Solution-to-TypeError_57B3/image.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Solution-to-TypeError_57B3/image_thumb.png" width="346" height="28"></a></p> <p align="center"><em>“TypeError: m[5] is undefined”</em></p> <p align="center"><em></em>&nbsp;</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Solution-to-TypeError_57B3/image_3.png"><img title="image" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/Solution-to-TypeError_57B3/image_thumb_3.png" width="591" height="52"></a></p> <p align="center"><em>"TypeError: Cannot read property ‘length’ of undefined"</em></p> <p>There has been a known issue with Firefox and Chrome when you combine RegularExpressionValidators and RequiredFieldValidators.&nbsp; It’s been around since 2009, but no one has addressed the issue. Here’s the bug report on ASP.NET forums: <a title="http://forums.asp.net/t/1417973.aspx" href="http://forums.asp.net/t/1417973.aspx">http://forums.asp.net/t/1417973.aspx</a> and here’s the bug report filed to Mozilla for the FF issue <a title="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi/attachment.cgi?id=512979" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi/attachment.cgi?id=512979">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi/attachment.cgi?id=512979</a>.&nbsp; Neither of them have a solution.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>I narrowed it down to these lines of code in WebResource.axd – the one with the Validator control JavaScript that starts with <font face="Consolas">var Page_ValidationVer = "125";</font></p><pre class="brush: js;"> if (m != null &amp;&amp; (m[2].length == 4 || val.dateorder == "ymd")) {</pre><pre class="brush: js;"> year = (m[5].length == 4) ? m[5] : GetFullYear(parseInt(m[6], 10))</pre><br /><p>&nbsp;</p><br /><p>The root of the problem is that the WebResource JavaScript isn’t checking if "m[2]" and “m[5]” are undefined before checking the “length” property. The obvious fix is to do just that, but it’s embedded in an automatically generated WebResource.axd file.&nbsp; You can’t edit it directly, but since Microsoft didn’t scope the JavaScript properly you can override that method if you insert a method with the same name at the bottom of the page.</p><br /><blockquote><br /><p>&nbsp;</p></blockquote><br /><p>Here’s how I resolved it:</p><br /><p>1. Create a new .js file called WebResourceOverrides.js</p><br /><p>2. Copy the entire “ValidatorConvert” method from the WebResource.axd file to the file I created in Step 1.</p><br /><p>3. Modify the method to check for undefined</p><br /><br /><pre class="brush: js;">// added m[2] undefined check because it was failing in FF and Chrome<br />if (m != null && ( (typeof(m[2]) != 'undefined' && m[2].length == 4) || val.dateorder == "ymd")) {<br /> <br />.<br />.<br />.<br /><br />// added m[5] undefined check because it was failing in FF and Chrome<br />year = (typeof m[5] != 'undefined' &amp;&amp; m[5].length == 4) ? m[5] : GetFullYear(parseInt(m[6], 10))<br /><br /></pre><br /><br /><br /><p>4. Reference that new js file <font style="background-color: #ffff00">AT THE BOTTOM OF</font> my master page</p><pre class="brush: xml;">&lt;script type="text/javascript" src="/WebResourceOverrides.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;<br /></pre><br /><p>&nbsp;</p><br /><p>You can download my version of the WebResourceOverrides.js file from here: <a href="http://jongallant.com/blogassets/WebResourceOverrides.js.txt">http://jongallant.com/blogassets/WebResourceOverrides.js.txt</a>.&nbsp; Just remove the “.txt” extension, copy to your site, add the reference to the bottom of your master page and you are good to go.</p><br /><p>&nbsp;</p><br /><p>Jon</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/sUsXkJg6LN0" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/typeerror-webresource-override.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-12172953489739875672013-03-04T10:52:00.001-08:002013-03-06T00:47:49.159-08:002013-03-06T00:47:49.159-08:00<p>I purchased <a href="http://www.youtube.com/movie/argo" target="_blank">Argo (“HD”)</a> from Youtube.com last night.&nbsp; I was expecting at least 720p since it was advertised as HD, but the highest resolution available was 480p.&nbsp; Here’s the definition of HD video from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_video" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><b>High-definition video</b> is </em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video"><em>video</em></a><em> of higher </em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution"><em>resolution</em></a><em> than is standard. While there is no specific meaning for high-definition, generally any video image with <font style="background-color: #ffff00">more than 480 horizontal lines</font> (North America) or 570 lines (Europe) is considered high-definition. 720 scan lines is generally the minimum even though many systems greatly exceed that.</em></p></blockquote> <p>Here’s how it played out last night.</p> <p>I go to Amazon.com and find <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BHMETKC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00BHMETKC&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=httpblogsms0a-20">Argo</a> but they only have it in SD for laptop.&nbsp; You can stream HD to Kindle Fire HD, Xbox 360, PS3, Roku, TiVO or other compatible devices, but I don’t have any of them.</p> <p>I go to Youtube.com and find <a href="http://www.youtube.com/movie/argo" target="_blank">Argo</a> and they have (what I think is) the HD version for the same price as Amazon.com, $3.99.&nbsp; See the “HD” next to the price below?&nbsp; Wouldn’t you think that means 720p or better?</p> <p><img style="float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/youtube/yt1.png"></p> <p>I purchase it from Youtube.com and start to play it.&nbsp; I want to make sure I am getting at least 720p, so I click on settings and see this…480p being the highest resolution available.</p> <p><img style="float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/youtube/yt2.png"></p> <p>I was on WiFi at the time so I thought it might be due to my network connection speed – sometimes streaming services will do what is called “adaptive streaming”, which means it will adjust the resolution that is streamed based on the users internet connection.&nbsp; I plug my laptop into the wired network and check my network speed.&nbsp; I’m getting my usual 92mbps.&nbsp; Yes, you can hate me.</p> <p><img style="float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/youtube/yt3.png"></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>So now I know it’s not a problem with my internet connection.&nbsp; I go back to the movie details page and see this:</p> <p><img style="float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto" src="http://jongallant.com/images/blog/youtube/yt4.png"></p><img style="border-top-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-bottom-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; margin: 0px" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=httpblogsms0a-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00BHMETKC" width="1" height="1"> <p>Ah ha!&nbsp; Under the movie title, it states the the movie is “Quality: 480 (DVD equivalent)”.&nbsp; So that is the max resolution I can get.</p> <p>I’m a little peeved, but I want to watch the movie and I figure I can deal with Youtube the next day to get my money back.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>3/4/2013</strong>: I called Youtube this morning.&nbsp; They don’t have phone support, so I will send them the details through online support and see if I can get my money back or a credit.</p> <p>I’ll update this post once I hear back from them.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>3/6/2013</strong>: I got an email from Youtube.&nbsp; They gave me a credit and are going to report the issue to the content team.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <blockquote> <p><em>Hi there,<br>Thanks for reporting this issue, and I'm sorry we've missed an opportunity to give you an enjoyable experience.</em> <p><em>Since we haven't met your expectations we've granted you a refund. You should receive a confirmation email from Google Wallet shortly, if you haven't already.<br>I've also passed your report on to our content review team, who will look into the problem you noticed. If you have any more information to add, please reply to this email.<br>I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have trouble again in the future.<br>Regards,<br>Anya<br>The YouTube Team</em></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>So, the lesson is…make sure you check the left rail grid of video details page to determine resolution, NOT the header icons.&nbsp; It must be at least 720p for it to be HD. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Jon</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/HHyLwJsjZKg" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/youtube-hd-only-480p.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1365818330962585368.post-69792012980059434432013-03-03T06:04:00.001-08:002013-03-03T06:10:21.437-08:002013-03-03T06:10:21.437-08:00<p>I just spent several hours trying to figure out why I was getting JavaScript errors when using IE10.&nbsp; I owe <a href="http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BugAndFixASPNETFailsToDetectIE10CausingDoPostBackIsUndefinedJavaScriptErrorOrMaintainFF5ScrollbarPosition.aspx" target="_blank">Hanselman</a> on this one.&nbsp; My error wasn’t exactly the same as what he described, but close.&nbsp; Through some searching I found his post, implemented the new browser files and the issue was resolved. Thanks Hanselman! </p> <p>Everything worked fine in IE10 Compatibility Mode and all other browsers, just not IE10.&nbsp; I was getting errors like:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>“'Page_ClientValidate' is null or undefined not a function object"”</em></p></blockquote> <p>You can read more on <a href="http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BugAndFixASPNETFailsToDetectIE10CausingDoPostBackIsUndefinedJavaScriptErrorOrMaintainFF5ScrollbarPosition.aspx" target="_blank">his post</a>, but the short of it is that ASP.NET uses files on the server to determine which browser the user is using. They obviously didn’t account for IE10.</p> <p>Jon</p> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/jongallant/~4/QuifJWYgfvA" height="1" width="1"/>Jon Gallanthttps://plus.google.com/108260055196724354556noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.jongallant.com/2013/03/ie10-pageclientvalidate.html