Rhonda Tipton’s WebLog

Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week. Way to go Saints!

Application Development/Design

• ASP.NET: ListBox Tooltip – Great article on the Tooltip option of the ListBox control.
• Immutable Data Structures in Concurrent Java Applications – You can minimize synchronization and the headaches that go with it using immutable data structures.
• Setting up a new MacBook Pro for Development – Ben Scheirman tells us how his MBP is setup. I find it interesting to see what tools others use for development.
• My 2010 Book Wishlist – James Sugrue provides his reading list for 2010. Looks like some pretty good books.
• Book Review:Coders at work – Good review of a book I’m reading now.
• General Tips & Tricks – Great tips!
• Playing WAV Files – A commonly used standard for high quality sound reproduction is the Waveform Audio File Format, with sound data usually stored in WAV files. The .NET framework provides the SoundPlayer class to allow simple playback of such files.
• Visual Studio 2010: Test Driven Development – Good TDD tutorial.
• Tutorial Videos: A deeper look into AutoMapper: Custom Type Resolvers
• Visual Studio Tips: Guidelines, a hidden feature for the VS Editor | Setting a Breakpoint in the Call Stack Window | Create a floating DataTip | Setting a Tracepoint in source code
• Snippets: Enumerate all controls and sub-controls in a windows form | Finding a Node in an XML String | Get URL Parameters using LINQ | C# Quadratic Formula Solver

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• More Free SQL Server DBA Training Videos Online – The SQLBits conference in Great Britain videotapes their sessions and makes them available for public viewing. This weekend, they announced that last fall’s sessions are online now – and it’s all free!
• SSIS: Make your output files dynamic – I wanted to build a little more flexibility into my packages. Wouldn’t it be great if we could simply modify a stored procedure to include additional columns, and these changes would be reflected in the output files, with no further work required? Here’s an outline of my first steps towards achieving this.
• SQL Server Table Variables – A table variable provides functionality similar to a standard variable and a local temporary table combined.

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings. 
• Thanks iPhone Dev Camp Houston! – Ben Scheirman has posted materials from his presentation at iPhone DevCamp.
• Data Design – Buck Woody has posted the links used in his Data Design presentation.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• Search Wikipedia in Google Chrome the Easy Way – Do you need a quick and easy way to access Wikipedia while browsing throughout the day? If so then you will want to take a look at the Wiki Lookup extension for Google Chrome.
• How Android differs from Windows Mobile – Great comparison!

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• Working With Recruiters – Brent Ozar has posted a good article on the subject of recruiters.
• Becoming Friends with Your Nemesis: Time – With the right approach, we can stop seeing time as our enemy and start to enjoy getting things done easily and effectively.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Icy Saturn Moon Burps Up Heat and Ice – The icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus appears to occasionally belch up blobs of warm ice, findings that help explain the mysterious heat seen there, scientists now suggest.
• ‘Lost’ recap: What’s Your Worldview? - This was forwarded to me by a co-worker. You are advised not to read this if you have not seen the Lost season premier.
• Our best look yet at Pluto – Here’s what astronomers say about the new set of Pluto images: Hubble’s view isn’t sharp enough to see craters or mountains, if they exist on the surface, but Hubble reveals a complex-looking and variegated world with white, dark-orange, and charcoal-black terrain.
• Dilbert comics I Found Funny: 02-01
• Movie Trailers:  The Last Airbender

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Great Link Blog Sources

• Brent Ozar – Weekly Links Recap
• The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
• John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Jonathan Gardner – Links
• Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read
• Johnathan Giles – Java Desktop Links of the Week

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Happy Surfing.

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Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week.

Application Development/Design

• Extension Methods on Types You Own? – Good post and discussion on extension methods.
• Some good articles on the ASP.NET GridView object: GridView and Business Objects | Selecting a Row in a GridView
• Learning the Ruby Programming Language – Looks like great resources for teaching yourself Ruby.
• Highly Recommended Book: Debug It! – …there is just a lot of tremendously valuable information in this book. And it’s only about 190 pages so it definitely won’t take you a long time to read it.
• More Resources for Developers – A new stable channel update of Google Chrome has been announced. For developers, this update represents some significant advances in terms of extensibility and new HTML and JavaScript APIs.
• Software Development Do’s and Don’ts – Never write code with the intention that you will fix it later – Chances are you will never have the time or opportunity to fix it later.
• Nice “Quick Hit” Videos about ASP.NET 4 and VS 2010 – Someone pointed me at some nice “quick hit” videos that have been published that also provide quick first looks at some of the new features coming with ASP.NET 4 and VS 2010.
• Do You Live to Program or Program To Live? – Over the years I have noticed that there are two different kinds of developers. Developers that live to program and developers who program to live.
• Building a Url Shortener with the bit.ly API – It seems like url shorteners have become very popular these days. Especially with applications like twitter who limit your messages to only 140 characters. The cool thing is that most of the URL shorteners have API’s that you can use if you want to integrate them into your application.
• Favorite Extension Methods – Cool list of Extension Methods!
• The Weekly Source Code 48 – DynamicQueryable makes custom LINQ expressions easier
• Android Development Tutorial: Part II: A Simple UI With Events | Part III: Dynamic Layouts | Part IV: Databases And Menus | Part V: Signing And Publishing
• Visual Studio Tips: Searching Breakpoints | Adding labels to Breakpoints
• Articles from Code project: When To Use Interfaces

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• SQL Azure Frequently Asked Questions – I talk to a lot of enterprise DBAs, project managers, and developers about SQL Server in the cloud. Here’s some of the questions I get asked most often.
• Use SSIS to import one cell of an Excel file into SQL Server – Recently I needed to find a method to import one cell of an Excel sheet into SQL Server 2005 using a scheduled job on a 64 bit clustered environment.

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings. 

Internet, Software and General Technology

• The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave – Looks like a great resource for Google Wave.
• Google Voice, now available on iPhone, sort of – Cool to be able to access Google Voice on my phone now.
• Extensions, bookmark sync and more for Google Chrome – Chrome goodness
• Share How You Wave and Help Write the Book! – Tell us about how you use Wave on a day-to-day basis, and your use case just might get included in The Complete Guide to Google Wave, the first book about Wave.
• Tips and Tricks: Making the Most of Google Docs – Some pretty good ideas on using Google Docs.
• 10 More Must-have Google Chrome Extensions – Another great list of extensions.

Blogging and Social Networking

• 5 Things I Learned About Blogging from Being an Author and Journalist – Pretty good information for blogging.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• How to Find Meaning In Your Work – Here’s how to find meaning in your work, and to get your motivation back.
• LiveMeeting Presentation Tutorial – Want to give a presentation over the web with Microsoft LiveMeeting? It’s quick and easy, and with my tips in this six-minute video, you can give a high-quality presentation that attendees will enjoy.
• How Not to Hurry – Great advice for slowing down and enjoying life.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Wallpaper: Aurora Borealis | Sunset In Tuscany
• Use Windows 3.1 again by going to a Web site – Ahhh memories…
• Full Moon Names for 2010 – Sweet! Total Lunar Eclipse in December visible from North America.
• Cassini Takes New Images of Saturn’s Moons – New images from the Cassini spacecraft of two of Saturn’s moons.
• Dilbert comics I Found Funny: 01-25 | 01-27 | 01-29 | 01-31
• Movie Trailers:  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows–

Great Link Blog Sources

• The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
• Rick Minerich – F# Discoveries This Week
• John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Jonathan Gardner – Links
• Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read
• Johnathan Giles – Java Desktop Links of the Week

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Happy Surfing.

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There are tons of great blogs out there. Each month I will shine a spotlight on blogs that I access often and find useful. Hopefully, you will find something of use too.

I pick one blog from each category. The categories include Application Development, Database Development, Science/Technology, Productivity and Health.

Application Development – Zain Naboulsi’s Blog | Zain is Developer Evangelist for Microsoft. His site is a great source for all things Visual Studio.

Database Development – Mladen Prajdić Blog | Mladen is the creator of the very cool SSMS Tools Pack and provides lots of great code samples on his blog.

Science/Technology – Astronomy | Great overall blog on the world of Astronomy.  

Productivity/LifeHacks – Quick and Dirty Tips | Great resource for tips on numerous topics including: Grammar, Productivity, and Public Speaking.

Health/Fitness – MyRecipes | Good recipe site. Contains recipes for quick dinners, budget menus and healthy diets.

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Until next month…

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Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week.

Application Development/Design 

Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week.

Application Development/Design

• Top 20 Programming Lessons I’ve Learned in 20 Years – "This post could be viewed as hard lessons learned for newly graduated college students, entry-level programmers, or advanced developers who just want a chuckle."
• 3 Characteristics of Good Programmers – "A wise man once told me that the best way to get ahead in life is to learn lessons from the experiences and failures of others."
• .Net Remoting Made Easy – Good explanation of Remoting.
• 66+ Free Cheat Sheets – "69 and still counting fabulous free cheat sheets for almost any coding and programming language!" — Very nice!
• Tutorial Videos: Exploring Operator Overloading in C# | How Do I: Create an Efficient and Standardized Approach for Implementing CSS Styles?
• Visual Studio Tips: How to use Reference Highlighting | Search for the currently-selected string without the Find window | Pasting a single selection into a box selection 
• Snippet(s): Replacing characters with escape sequences | state abbreviations list (dictionary) | Get the Namespace, Class Name, and Method Name of the Currently Executing Method Via Reflection

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• Powershell Tools – Great post on Powershell Tools such as PowerGUI, Powershell Analyzer and PowerTab.
• MS Project Server and Backup Best Practices – "Microsoft’s Project Server extends Project’s capabilities and allows the sharing of resources and information across an Enterprise."
• Using .Net libraries in Powershell – "One of the great things about Powershell is its ability to take advantage of the .Net platform."
• Snippet(s): Search Stored Procedure for String

Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings. 
• We’re Back!! – The South Houston .NET User Group will be back in February.

Internet, Software and General Technology

• Learning Windows 7: Desktop Themes and Backgrounds – Good tutorial for dealing with the Windows 7 desktop.
• Upload your files and access them anywhere with Google Docs – Google Docs now supports files up to 250 MB in size.
• Try Android 2.1 on Windows – Something else to play with
• Create Notes Inside (and Outside) of Firefox – This is a pretty useful plugin.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• What Is a Good Work Ethic? – This article makes you think. Work ethic means different things to different people.
• Barnes & Noble Saves Students Money with New Textbook Rental Service – Very nice!
• Productive Geek Is a Forum for Flexing Your Productivity Muscles – Very cool! I love the How-To Geek website, now there is Productive Geek.
• Fourteen Tips for Getting More Sleep — and Why It Matters – Some good tips.
• How to not suck at a technical interview – Great advice on what and what not to do in a technical interview.
• 8 Ways to Get Over the Work Slump – "It’s not uncommon to lose motivation to keep on churning out the goods at work."
• Textbook Price Comparison Helps You Find the Cheapest Textbooks – Looks like a great service!

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• How to Find Sleep When It Escapes You – Good tips on falling asleep easier.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Byway 9 – Nice Wallpaper
• Mystery Behind Galaxy Shapes Solved – "Galaxies come in many shapes and sizes, but until recently astronomers have been at a loss to explain why."
• LOST Season 6: Then I Can Die – Can’t wait for some new LOST!
• 100 Quotes Every Geek Should Know – Really, really awesome!
• Sky highlights for 2010 – Pretty cool sky events in store for this year. [Source: @gabriellyn]
• Dilbert comics I Found Funny: 01-15
• Movie Trailers:  Wolfman | Legion | She’s Out Of My League

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Great Link Blog Sources

• The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
• Rick Minerich – F# Discoveries This Week
• Brent Ozar – Weekly Links Recap
• Jonathan Gardner – Links
• John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read

–

Happy Surfing.

^..^

Here is the latest installment of links that I have found interesting in the past week.

Application Development/Design

• Myths about code comments – “Comments don’t make code more readable. They are ways to compensate for code not being readable.”
• Language Envy – C# needs Ranges – Great argument for ranges in C#.
• Visual Studio 2010 New Features in Debugging – Good post on VS 2010 Debugging.
• I Use Dead Programming Languages – “For a ‘dead’ language, Java isn’t doing too badly.”
• What is Reactive Programming? – “I thought I’d take a stab at an explanation of what reactive programming means to me. Let me take you to the future.”
• Tip: File / Open / URL – Great tip!
• Calculate the Number of Business Days in a Range – Useful post on dealing with business days.
• Tutorial Videos: How Do I: Create and Use Classes in JavaScript? 
• Visual Studio Tips: Pin a project to the Recent Projects list on the Start Page | Zoom in or out of text in the Editor using the mouse wheel | Insert a blank line above or below the current line

SQL Server, Compliance and PowerShell

• SQL Server WHILE Loops – Good intro to SQL While Loops.
• SQL – Useful Functions – Useful overview of SQL’s built-in functions.

 Community/Technology Events & Training

• Houston Area User Group Meetings – This is my monthly listing of Houston area user group meetings. 
• CODE Magazine Special for PyCon 2010 Attendees – Looks like a decent deal.
• A Bunch of Reasons to Love Ruby – Ben Scheirman has posted the slides from his HDLUG Presentation.
• Dallas CSharp SIG Presentation Code And Slides – Latish Sehgal posts his presentation materials.
• How to Organize a Programming Language Club – This is a great “Unofficial How to Organize a Programming Language Club Handbook.”

Internet, Software and General Technology

• How To Remove Antivirus Live and Other Rogue/Fake Antivirus Malware – This would have come in handy 2 weeks ago.
• Nexus One vs Droid vs iPhone – Pretty good comparison.
• Make Your Windows 7 PC Not Shutdown when You Accidentally Hit the Power Button – Nice tip!
• My Favorite iPhone Apps | My Favorite WordPress Plugins Lately – Brent Ozar lists his favorite iPhone Apps and WordPress plugins.
• 10 Must Have iPhone Applications – Jonathan Gardner lists his favorite iPhone apps.

Self-Improvement, Productivity and Career

• 5 Great Productivity Goals For 2010 – Five career-related resolutions for 2010
• New Year’s Resolutions for Software Developers – “This article is a list of possible New Year’s resolutions for you, as a developer, to consider.”
• Why People Hate Productivity – “The problem happens when we get hyper-focused on producing. We start to think we’re inadequate unless we’re being ‘productive’ or ‘getting things done.’”
• Use Better Tools to Be a Better Student in 2010 – Great article on note-taking. I really need to become more proficient at taking notes.

Health, Fitness and Recipes

• New Physical Activity Data in Wolfram|Alpha – Nice activity stats resource.

Sports, Entertainment and Everything Else

• Sheldon’s rock-climbing adventures – Great Big Bang Theory picture to use as a wallpaper
• Warner Bros. is Run by Idiots – I completely agree with Michael on this.
• Recreating Galileo’s Discovery: 400 Years Later – Wolfram|Alpha provides copious amounts of data on the history of Jupiter.
• New Sky-mapping Telescope Takes First Photo – “A sea of stars takes center stage in the very first photo released from NASA’s newest space telescope built to map the entire sky.”
• Dilbert comics I Found Funny: 01-06 | 01-07 | 01-08
• Movie Trailers:  A Team | The Sorcerer’s Apprentice | Date Night–

Great Link Blog Sources

• The Simple Dollar – Weekly Roundup
• Rick Minerich – F# Discoveries This Week
• John Clayton – Weekly Web Nuggets
• Jason Haley – Interesting Finds
• Alvin Ashcraft – Morning Dew
• Steve Pietrek – Links
• Arjan Zuidhof – LinkBlog
• Mike Gunderloy – Double-Shot
• David Vidmar – Links of the week
• Sam Gentile – New and Notable
• Craig Bailey – On Microsoft
• Chris Alcock – Morning Brew
• Greg Duncan – A Feed You Should Read

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Happy Surfing.

^..^