What will the new year bring to us? Fact is that we already have the Visual Studio release of 2008 including .Net 3.5. This big improved development environment is a guarantee that 2008 will bring a lot of happy coding experiencing some new language improvements like Linq and improved WPF.
Be carefully if you intend to do some fireworks, sow you don't need to code with less fingers next year.
I wish all the best and a good health for all of you in 2008.
Till next year.
I think, most of us who have the gift to own a creative mind, can agree with me that time is like an enemy. While wishing to get all those things done that run around through your head, again and again, with the realistic knowledge back in your mind, that it's never could be possible, seems the 24 hours in a day too less sometimes. Love it and hate it. I would never mis it anyway, but more grip on time and more rest in my head as a result of that is welcome for me.
Sometimes you need to search for things and sometimes they come right to you as 'Hello, this is what you need!'.
While reading, organize and clean the new E-mail messages in my inbox like I do usually every morning, an article introducing an e-book was included in one of them. Because I'm full of enthousiasm about the contents of that e-book and think that the things discussed in it can make some value, I would share this e-book and recommend to read it to the creative mindz with us.
You can download it from here.
tagged under:
Do you recognize the picture below as your mp3 music library? Then read on and download for free!
(picture 1. Before)
I've made a small tool that can help you organise your mp3 files just like you want. MapMP3 creates a folder tree like artist - album -title.mp3 for every mp3 file in the folder where it is executing. In first case the tool reads the required information from the ID3 TAG's in your files, but if there was no ID3 TAG found on a file, or it was simply not providing all the required information, than it tries to extract the missing information from the current file name.
The tool is simple, fast and powerfull. After installing it you can just call it on a command prompt window, everywhere, in any location. It can handle directories with +7000 files located in it without any trouble.
(picture 2. MapMP3)
Options are no option. It's just that simple. Just run, and reorganise your music archive as you ever wanted it should be. See the picture below for the results.
(picture 3. After)
MapMP3 is build on the .Net Framework (2.0). That's the only prerequisite it takes. Most times this Framework is already installed if you run Windows Updates regular, but for the case it isn't I have deployed MapMP3 in to setup variants. One including the .Net Framework (2.0) and the other one without.
See the links below to download.
Tagged under:
mp3 ,
mapping ,
organise ,
tools ,
utillitie ,
util ,
music ,
archive ,
download ,
software ,
release ,
free
Ever wanted to synchronize your outlook with your Google Calendar? The solution is here.
I have developed an Outlook add-in that wil synchronize the scheduler of it with Google Calendar and backward. The process takes place in the background every time your Outlook is executing the Send/Receive operation.
Setup is easily. After installing the add-in, Outlook shall prompt the options dialog of the plugin at it's next startup.
(See the image below)
Fill in your gmail address, password and the calendar feed of your Google Calendar account. Select which type of synchronization you want and it's all done. The plugin shall take care of the rest.
The current release is Beta 1, so don't blame me for any bugs or missing features. Just come back frequently to this blog to check for updates.
The current version is availlable here.
Any feedback is welcome.
Have fun.
A couple of weeks ago Microsoft released Windows Live Writer Beta. This is a tool that can help you maintain your
blog(s) on a easily and structured manner.
And ofcourse, because I'm one of the biggest tool lovers on this planet, I had to figure out this new tool. My conclussion: This is another tool that has become very favourite to me.
Now I can do 2 things: #1. I'm gonna tell you everything about this new piece of software and need to sit down for a big moment to write it all down. Or,..... #2 I can give you the link and say "Find out by yourself". Because my schedule is very tight at the moment, I go for option 2. Sorry about that. Ofcourse I'm very curious to your experience and it will be great to start some discussion about that over here.
Here is the link where you can download the tool.
Enjoy.
Do you recognize it: Every morning that buzz, beep, or maybe a radio that is getting you out of your sweat dreams? Or for some of us it does a try (me included). Near it is just innatural to get waked by sounds, it's not the most pretty manner to get waked too.
Because I'm struggling with a wake-up problem for my whole life. Expecially when I'm out of regular rhytm by stress, or just long days I make somethimes due the combination of a fulltime job and do some school in evening, near my always being busy life, getting awake in the morning is going from worse to very bad. I decided to buy a wake-up light today.
Near the integrated light of 400 lux and a digital FM radio, it's featured with 3 natural sounds (whistling birds, seashore and forest animals).
Because it's medical proven that a good day/night rhytm is ruled by light and you will have more energy when you're getting awaked by shining light, I have some serious hope on this new device.
Tomorrow morning I'll try the forest animals, so neighbours, I'm sorry if you're getting waked by monkies and elefants. But, it's always better than the hard beep that I used before, isn't it?
There's allready been a lot written about the Provider Model pattern. But in my opinion this pattern is more powerfull than most people realize. That's my reason to do a contribution on sharing some knowledge about this pattern.
The Provider Model pattern was born while Microsoft was developping version 2.0 of the ASP.Net framework (Whidbey). The name was given somewhere in the summer of 2002. The pattern was designed to give developers the abillity to have complete control over the internal implementation for a specified API.
Because it is currently only supplied within the ASP.Net framework and not in the whole .Net framework, I think that there is a mis understanding about the concept. In my opinion is the pattern more valuable than most people assume. So let's have a deeper look into what the pattern really ships to us.
A provider is a contract between an API and the Business Logic and/or the Data Abstraction Layer. The provider is the real implementation of the API separate from the API itself. So the API itself does not contain any business logic, instead it forwards a call to the configured provider for it. The provider is responsible for the implementation of the API (or a part of it) and can call whatever type of BLL or DAL. See the picture below for an illustration of this.
A provider implementation must always derive from an abstract base provider, which is used to define the contract for a particular feature of an API. The base provider class must always derive from the ProviderBase class, which can be found in the .Net framework under the System.Configuration.Providers namespace. The ProviderBase class is used to mark implementers as a provider and forces the implementation of a required method and property common to all providers. The picture below illustrates this inheritance chain.
Now we have exposed how the Provider Model pattern can help us from decoupling API interfaces and their implementations, it is the next step to show up the broad range we can use this decoupling for.
Have you always thought that ict workers are boring people? It's not that bad. An investigation has covered that they are more than average kissing with co-workers and drink alcoholic in time of the boss. Also it seems they regular fall in sleep at work.
The stereotype image of an ict worker who has no social skills except with his computer is not true. Out of results of an investigation of the American jobsite www.careerbuilder.com appeared that 47 percent of the ict workers has kissed a co-worker. The investigators are expecting that of all respondents, the men are more honest in their response than the interrogated woman. When also the not ict-worker should be included than the result should be not more than a small 39 percent.
The chance that you, as an ict-worker are drinking some alcohol on your desk (or under) is 25 percent according the investigation. Otherwise, this is not more than in other industries or positions.
After all this drinking facts are almost 50 percent of the respondented male ict-workers saying that they do some sleep sometime in working hours. The female ict-worker is only good for a small 35 percent.
source: computeridee
___
You see, I always sayed that people have the wrong image of me. Im not a boring computer-nerd. Now the facts are here!
tools ,
reflector ,
ghostdoc ,
VS2005 ,
snippets ,
software development ,
wireshark ,
clr profiler ,
profiler ,
ants profiler ,
fx cop Many times I've been called "The tool-guy" or something like that. That's because people around me know that I love tools, and have a lot of them. And if they don't know it yet, they will know after they come to me with a particular issue. But still, many times I wonder that people do not know the tools, or simply not use them. Practical experiences have given me the knowledge that a good tool is serious valuable.
What makes a tool a tool?
A tool can be defined as an instrument that helps solving an issue in any kind of way. This can be done by providing information that provides a better knowledge of a working environment, or speed up a particular process, or taking the responsibility of boring repetitive tasks, or help you to manage something in the creative process. Anyway, a tool is a piece of equipment which typically provides an advantage in accomplishing a task, or provides the ability that is not naturally available to the user of the tool.
In response to this deeper understanding of the definition of a tool, it's directly possible to conclude that many available tools are not a tool in fact. Simply because they don't make any value to accomplish a task. In worst cases, they delay the process, or disturb it in other kind of way. That makes it necessary to critical select a tool for a particular task.
My own experience tells me that many software developers seem to have a lack on good tools. How many of you guys are using snippets in VS2005? The reason for this lack can be found in what I’ve told above. The existence of many bad tools that bring nothing valuable, but only headaches. Especially for them who are not satisfied yet from the value a good tool can deliver, I've selected a bunch of good tools that a software developer’s life really makes easier.
Reflector
A great tool for exploring API's in an assembly and helping to provide a better understanding of how an assembly really works.
GhostDoc
Do you like to write all those XML comments that frequently return?
FX Cop
Analyzer for strict usage of design guide lines like naming conventions, security, localization and more...
VS2005 Snippets
A large collection of frequently used code that can be called by typing a few letters from intellisence.
WireShark
World's most popular network protocol analyzer.
CLR Profiler
A good tool for profiling your code so you can face the points where optimizing is required.
Ants Profiler
Same as CLR Profiler but the 2 important differences are that this one is much better and costs $249,- instead of free.
I found
this article on Reuters today. BIG news as they descripe the assumable fact that the planet Mars had oceans once. Duhhh!!!
Isn't Mars not just a planet like Earth will be once too? Ofcourse there was was life on Mars and ofcourse there isn't none anymore. It's simply not possible.
I wonder all those investigations. Why not study just evolution? That will increase a lot of time, spend on those investigations that most of all result in the same answere.