Category Archives: Reviews/Recommendations
Great Series — 31 Days of Mango
Jeff Blankenburg does it again with another great 31 day series of tutorials. This time it’s Windows Phone Mango.
photo via Jeff Blankenburg
31 Days of Mango in eBook Form
In the past, Jeff has done awesome work with his other 31-Day series – such as 31 Days of Silverlight and 31 Days of Windows Phone 7. I recommend any of his 31-Day series posts as well as his blog in general. Jeff always seems to come up with really helpful tips and tutorials.
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Happy learning!
Camera+ = Pretty Nice Little App
I was going through the Photography blogs that I subscribe to and noticed a mention of an iPhone app named Camera+.
I’ve been on a mission lately to learn better composition and use more than just my D90 to shoot photos. That means my Canon Powershot S3IS and my iPhone 3GS. The Camera+ app is the creation of photographer Lisa Bettany. It has tons of features and effects to let you really experiment with the photos you take with your iPhone.
I was playing around with the app this weekend and below is the before and after of one of my photos.
Before After
There are so many features, I have barely scratched the surface.
Additional Information
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Happy shooting!
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Getaway – Fredericksburg, Texas
In mid-June, we took a quick 2-day trip to Fredericksburg, Texas. It is a nice Texas Hill Country community famous for the beautiful country, awesome shopping and peaches (yum!).
We stayed at a bed and breakfast called Barons Creekside. We loved it and will definitely be staying again in the future. They are pet-friendly too, so we did not have to board our dog Jake.
When we did go into town, our favorite places were the Fredericksburg Brewing Company and Old German Bakery Restaurant. I am sure there are more wonderful places, but those will have to come later.
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Can’t wait to make it back! The one thing that could have been better…the temperature! It was hot, hot, hot.
Fredricksburg Trip 2010 Album on Picasa
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Great T-SQL Resource: Beyond Relational
I recently ran across the site Beyond Relational. It is full of great information on SQL Server. My favorite areas of the site are T-SQL Challenges and T-SQL Challenges for Beginners.
Whether you are just learning T-SQL or sharpening your querying skills, these two areas contain some great assignments to learn from. Check them out.
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Glass – Interesting Add-On for FireFox
While attending South by Southwest 2010 (SxSWi), I ran across a booth in the Exhibit Hall that offered an interesting add-on for FireFox.
The add-on is called Glass and it allows you to create a floating window (or virtual canvas as stated on the Glass Blog) over a website. You can type something about the site you are on and send that to a contact.
When that contact sees the notification, they can go to that website and see that window with your message.
If you are both on at the same time, it becomes like an Instant Messenger. Of course, both parties need to have FireFox as well as the Glass Add-on installed.
This is a cool concept and I can see where it would be a great collaboration tool. I’m all about collaboration.
Glass is in Beta status right now. I suggest trying out the tool if you can get an invite.
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31 Days of Silverlight Series = Awesome!
Jeff Blankenburg has created a great 31-day series on all that is Silverlight. I have just begun my journey through the plethora of information and highly recommend anyone who has plans to work with Silverlight give this series a go.
Day #1: Mouse Events in Silverlight
Day #2: Silverlight Screen Transitions
Day #3: Custom Silverlight Loading Screen
Day #4: Communicating Between Two Silverlight Controls
Day #5: Silverlight Drag and Drop
Day #6: Silverlight and the Twitter “Hello, World!”
Day #7: Using WCF Web Services With Silverlight (and LINQ)
Day #8: Custom Fonts in Silverlight
Day #9: Using Keystrokes in Silverlight
Day #10: Styling Silverlight Control
Day #11: Animating Your Silverlight Application
Day #12: Jumping From XAML to XAML in Silverlight
Day #13: Binding Elements In Silverlight 3
Day #14: Perspective 3D in Silverlight
Day #15: Silverlight Charting
Day #16: Silverlight AutoComplete Textbox
Day #17: Silverlight Layout Options
Day #18: Silverlight Effects
Day #19: Silverlight Pixel Shader Effects
Day #20: Adding Audio to Silverlight Events
Day #21: Rapid Silverlight Prototyping In SketchFlow
Day #22: Using The Farseer Physics Engine in Silverlight
Day #23: Silverlight Outside The Browser (Part 1 of 3)
Day #24: Silverlight Outside The Browser (Part 2 of 3)
Day #25: Silverlight Outside The Browser (Part 3 of 3)
Day #26: Silverlight Data Grid
Day #27: Templating Controls In Silverlight
Day #28: Silverlight Application Themesa
Day #29: Using Isolated Storage in Silverlight
Day #30: Bing Maps in Silverlight
Day #31: Geocoding and More Fun in Bing Maps for Silverlight
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Happy Silverlighting!
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Using Oops!Backup to Backup Your Stuff
Oops!Backup is an easy to use backup tool with a crisp, clean and intuitive interface. I have become a fan of it’s BackInTime™ Restore feature. It is $37 with a 30-Day free trial.
It works with the following Operating Systems
- Windows 7
- Windows Vista
- Windows XP
Some of the features of Oops!Backup include
- Search Back in Time – you can search not only for current versions of files, but previous versions of the files as well.
- Use your existing external hard drive – no need for a special drive for backups…any old USB pen drive will suffice.
- Backup to your network or NAS drive – direct your backup to a mapped network drive if available.
- Browse your backed up files directly from Windows Explorer – plug your backup drive into a PC where Oops!Backup is not installed you can still access and restore your backed up files.
- Plug & Protect – when the backup drive is connected to your PC, your files are automatically backed up (synced) with out any need for action.
- ReverseDelta™ – only actual changes to the files are backed up, not the whole file. However, the latest version of the file is always available in it’s entirety.
Installation was quick and easy which is always a welcome feature.
Here are a number of screen shots from Altaro that explain how the software works.
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Below are some screen captures that I gathered while setting up a backup.
You can backup the entire contents of a drive or just selected folders.
You can restore from a point in time. You know the point in time BEFORE you picked up that virus. 
If files are accidentally deleted, Oops!Backup’s restore feature allows the reinstatement of those files. Just select the backup set, select the time you want to restore from and Restore All. It is quite an easy interface.
Select where you want the restore to go and click Restore. It is as easy as that.
Oops!Backup has an abundance of settings to satisfy just about every need. This includes a good built-in scheduling feature.
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In closing, Oops!Backup has proven to be a valuable backup application. I am expecting my new HP Desktop with Windows 7 and will likely be using this software as my backup tool. I really like it’s clean and intuitive interface as well as it’s BackInTime™ Restore feature. The $37 may be slightly steep, but if you have been through a situation where you have lost valuable files, it may be worth it.
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Additional Information
- Oops!Backup Is A Delightfully Easy Way to Back Up Data
- Altaro Software Releases its Innovative Oops!Backup Product
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Stack Overflow Family of Sites
Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky formed Stack Overflow a while back. If you are a developer and have not been living under a rock 
then you have most likely heard of it. I did not realize until fairly recently that there is now a “family” of Stack Overflow style web sites.
- Stack Overflow – programming Q & A
- Server Fault – system administrators and IT professionals Q & A
- Super User – computer enthusiasts Q & A
- Meta Stack Overflow – This site is for meta-discussion of a family of Q&A websites, all based on the Stack Overflow engine.
I have found Stack Overflow invaluable as a developer and am anxious to dig into the other sites and see what they have to offer.
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Until next time…
SQL Pretty Printer Add-In for SSMS – Review
I came across an online Instant SQL Formatter a while back and have been using that for some time to format SQL code that I get from other people. Now I see there is an add-in for SQL Management Studio from the same author of the online version. I downloaded and installed the SQL Pretty Printer Add-In For SSMS (not free) and have really found it very helpful.
Once installed, you will see the following toolbar in SSMS.
I created a couple of quick queries without paying too much attention to formatting.
Here is the same code after using the Pretty Printer SQL Formatter. Nice!
There are also numerous settings for the formatting, which is also very cool.
In closing, if you are like me and have an OCD when it comes to consistently formatted code, you will find this tool useful. The place where it is really useful and time-saving is on REALLY long Stored Procedures. I have had to deal with this lately, so I use this tool daily.
SQL Pretty Printer Add-In for SQL Server Management Studio
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Until next time…
Great Refactoring Series
Sean Chambers has recently finished up a wonderful series called 31 Days of Refactoring. I have been a programmer for a long time, but an object-oriented programmer for a few years. Series’ like this are so helpful to me that I truly believe they are worth a blog post.
I highly recommend checking the series out as it contains a plethora of useful information for improving your code.
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Until next time…
