[Word of the day]: is a quotation...

Yesterday my friend and colleague Tomas Wallin came with one of the nerdiest quotation I’ve heard: “Regular expression and XML are like the wheel and the fire for our industry”. I don’t know if it’s true but it is very nerdy and very fun…

Code Snippets in Visual Studio

It seems that most people don't use Code Snippets. It to bad. Snippets are very useful to get away from the copy-paste coding. Instead of copy-paste you can write snippets for the most common copy objects. Read more about snippets here.

Rapid development

Rapid Development by Steve McConnell is a very good book I think every developer/architect should read. You can read the "Classic Mistakes Enumerated" from the book here. Check it out.

Cool app

Paul wrote a little applikation for a Windows Mobile 6 Smart phone "that automated the taking of pictures, geo-tagging them from Bluetooth GPS, posted them to my site and displayed them using Virtual Earth on my blog." Really cool read more here.

Using import and XSD.EXE

I was going to use XSD.exe on a XSD I made. The XSD was importing a XSD with general definitions
.

First when trying to use XSD.exe to generate the C# class it didn't found the imported schema. Then I added the imported XSD to the command in my bat file (that I use instead of writing in the command line every time).

Now it works! The bat file looks like this

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\xsd.exe" Object.xsd "./General/General.xsd" /c /l:cs /edb /n:Company.Project.BusinessEntities
pause

Thats all.

Flickr

I have finnaly created a Flickr account and I have just uploaded my first two pictures. Check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/utvecklargodis and the feed is here.

XML knowledge

I just realized that the knowledge in the developer community about XML, XSLT and XSD is very limited. I found out that I know far too little about this and then I discovered that most my colleagues didn't know much more. I borrowed a book from Tomas W to help my lack of knowledge. The XML (and surrounding X*) technique is very powerful and useful when used in the right places. In the future versions of Visual Studio there are new tools helping us in the development and debugging of XSLT. So borrow or buy a good book about X* to read in the summer. :)

Subversion for Team Foundation Server

Do you like subversion and want to use it with TFS? Now you can do that. There is a project on CodePlex called SvnBridge that will help you with that. Check it out here.

Some Inaccurate Statements About Software Factories

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about Software Factories in the developer forum we have on my company. Right now I'm writing a short PowerPoint presentation about the topic. I was searching the net for good ideas about what to say and what to show. I found this really good post from Jack Greenfield about "Some Inaccurate Statements about Software Factories". Read this post!

The first time I heard about Software Factories was in a .NET user group meeting. After that meeting I was very sceptical to Software Factories and I had misunderstood the concept the same way as the article Jack’s referring to. Maybe I misunderstood the whole thing or maybe the speaker wasn’t able to explain it right…. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. It was first when I read about Software Factories when I come home I understood the meaning and what the purpose is.

It was Jack Greenfield and Keith Shoort et.al. that wrote the book “Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Frameworks, Models & Tools".

How many times...

One thing just hit me. How many times do you suppose to say “hello” to your co-workers? You always says hello when you come in to work in the morning. Your co-workers says hello when they arrives in the morning to. So sometimes in the morning you have greeted everybody. Then you say hello or nod every time you run in to someone all day.

You don’t want to be that grumpy guy that don’t say hello. Hmmm…. This is a tough question. Anybody that knows the right amount of hellos under a day?

Update your process explorer

"Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded".

Check out this tool here.

Really cool travel site

I found a really cool site via the travel blog Travelaid.se. You select a country and then you via links or the nice Google Maps integration they have. I think it's best for you to try it out for your self. Heres the link to the site.

T-SQL/database unit test

I found this article about T-SQL/database unit testing.

Fame and fortune

Now it's time to start developing a killer add-in for future release of Windows Home Server. You can win cash and a trip to Redmond. You can win $10.000 cash, an all-expenses-paid trip to Redmond and your solution will be premoted on Microsoft.com. Read more here.

ALT.NET

Sam Gentile has a great post about the term ALT.NET. You can also read the Hot/Not list. There are a couple of things I don't agree about when I read the list, like Entity Framework, but I really like most of the list. But I really wonder what Roy (the original list writer) thought when he put Active Record as hot. Active Records are never hot :).

Katmai June CTP released now

I just saw that Microsoft released the first CTP of Katmai (June CTP). You can register here. David Hayden has a post about some new features in SQL Server 2008. Read the post here. I found a webcast from Tech-Ed 2007 in Orlando when David Campbell has the first presentation of SQL Server 2008.

The virtual earth integration and the location data type are really cool. I don't know if I ever will need them but... it's still cool.

Fx 3.5

Daniel Moth has posted the new features in .NET Framework 3.5. Read the post here.

Code name Acropolis

I got a question from Tomas if I had post anything about Acropolis yet.... Tomas here it comes. :)

David Hill has a great post about "intruducing Acropolis". Here you can download the just released CTP and watch a really good 12 minutes webcast about Acropolis. This webcast gives you a good overview about what Acropolis is.

The description Microsoft has is "The Microsoft code name “Acropolis” Community Technology Preview 1 is a set of components and tools that make it easier for developers to build and manage modular, business focused, client .NET applications. Acropolis is part of the “.NET Client Futures” wave of releases, our preview of upcoming technologies for Windows client development.

Acropolis builds on the rich capabilities of Microsoft Windows and the .NET Framework, including Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), by providing tools and pre-built components that help developers quickly assemble applications from loosely-coupled parts and services."

Motivation...

Robert Scoble is writing about how his boss at Microsoft used to play this video (see below) to the team members when needed. When the results weren’t good enough and when the team spirit is low all teams need something for inspiration.




I think the need for motivational activities are underestimated in the IT business. Why shouldn’t we need that? I haven’t heard many speeches or seen much of these activities at all. No, we need more team building activities and inspiring “coaches”. The project manager and the lead developer must motivate and coach the team members. My friend Micke Deurell once said that the project manager should be like a shepherd, keeping the herd together, happy and safe from the outside danger. Not that I’m resemble the project team with a bunch of sheep but I think you got the picture.

So inspire each other and if you are a project manager, an architect or a lead developer, inspire your team, the team delivery is depending on you.

Sommarkollo

Ifall du vill vidarutveckla dig lite i sommar ordnar Microsoft för tredje året i rad ett sommarkollo. Kolla in alla ämnen här. Själv är jag lite sugen på WCF, WPF, SOA och min vän Mickes MSF dragning.

Google maps... again....

They have made it again. Google maps is fantastic. They have created a new feature thats just amazing. They have a new feature called Street View. You can see, zoom, turn around and go in this new view. Incredable!! I started at Madison Square Garden (right across the hotel I stayed in last time I was in NYC) and followed 8th Avenue north to Time Square.



Check it out on Google Maps.

Another cool feature in Google Maps are the new presentation of the buildings. Check this out. This is Empire State Building.

Wired has a collection of pictures and links of cool places to visit, check it out here.

[Word of the day]: Mashup

The first time I heard the word mashup was on a seminar at Developer Summit last year. After Microsoft released the alfa of popfly I heard of the first mashup editor. Thats a cool word... mashup editor... Some minutes ago I found this post when Jay Neely compares three mashup editors MS popfly (alfa), Yahoo Pipes (beta) and Google Mashup Editor (Beta).

Lists

I have never read Forbes magazine before but I found a link to Forbes list of the best air ports in the world and I got interested. I found out that Forbes is specialized in lists. I love lists myself so…

Best airports
1, Shangi International Airport, Singapore (of course… they have the best airport and the best air line)
2, Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong.
3, Zürich Airport, Schweiz
4, Dallas Fort/Worth International Airport, USA
5, Münich Airport, Tyskland
6, Incheon International Airport, Sydkorea
7, Central Japan International Airport Ise Bay, Japan

10 Amazing Helicopter Tours.
1, British Columbia, Canada
2, Rotorua, New Zealand
3, Iguazu Falls, Brazil
4, Great Barrier Reef, Cairns, Australia
5, Juneau, Alaska
6, Victoria Falls, Zambia
7, Hawaii
8, The Grand Canyon, Arizona
9, Sabah, Malaysia
10, Montserrat

The Best Wine Vacations in the World
1, Tunisia and the Mediterranean
2, Priorat, Spain
3, South Africa
4, New Zealand
5, Mendoza, Argentina
6, Alentejo, Portugal
7, Napa and Sonoma, USA
8, Piedmont, Italy
9, Tokaj, Hungary
10, Burgundy, France

Amazing Asian Mega-Malls
1, Starhill Gallery: Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia
2, Harbour City Mall: Hong Kong
3, Roppongi Hills: Tokyo, Japan
4, VivoCity: Singapore
5, The Siam Paragon: Bangkok
6, SM Mall of Asia: Pasay City, Philippines
7, COEX Mall: Seoul, South Korea
8, Dream Mall: Taiwan
9, South China Mall: Dongguan, China
10, Mall of the Emirates: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Then you can read lists about Train Trips of Luxury, Forbes Traveler 50 Most Visited Tourist Attractions and many more on Forbes Traveller.