Helen Bamber

I normally have a lie-in on a Saturday morning. It is a highlight in my week, with no work or church to force me to get up early. This weekend, I awoke at 09:30 (early!), and lay in bed listening to Radio 4.  What a slacker I am.

As I lay there, I heard one of the most moving and inspiring stories that I have ever came across.  It was the story of Helen Bamber, a psychotherapist who worked with survivors in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  She was later involved at the start of Amnesty International, becoming chairwoman of the first UK group.  She later set up the charity Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture in 1985 to provide long-term care to those who have suffered torture. She has since setup the Helen Bamber Foundation to offer support to people who had suffered human rights violations.

This is a woman who in her 80s who is still determined to make a difference, who continues to fight injustice and human rights abuse.  I think she is an incredibly inspiring figure.  She may not be a household name – but she should be.

To listen to the segment in the Saturday Live show on Helen Bamber, it starts at 08:05, and ends at 15:18 minutes.

The Weekly Links 7

This is the 7th post in an ongoing series of weekly roundups of links useful to developers.

Tools

• Outlook .PST File Tools – Jean-Christophe Cimetiere describes two open source tools, available on CodePlex.com, for working with Outlook .PST files.
• TekPub ASP.NET MVC 2 Starter Kit – Rob Conery announces the release of version 0.5 of the starter kit.
• Dropbox API and RestSharp for a C# developer - Damian Karzon describes how to connect to the Dropbox API from C# code, using the RestSharp client.
• SquishIt – The Friendly ASP.NET JavaScript and CSS Squisher - Justin Etheredge describes how to use SquishIt, a JS and CSS minimiser.

Information

• Code Contracts Part 2 – Preconditions - Part 2 of a series from Kevin Hazzard on Code Contracts.
• Code Metrics: Measuring LoC in .NET applications – Gunner Peipman has a useful article on measuring LoC in our solutions, part of a series of articles around this topic.
• C#: System.Lazy<T> and the Singleton Design Pattern - James Michael Hare describes how to implement the Singleton design pattern more cleanly using the Net 4.0's new System.Lazy<T> type.
• Test-Driven Javascript – James Shore shows how to develop your JavaScript code using the TDD methodology.
• Video – Code Leaders and Beautiful Teams – Roy Osherove offers a video on team leadership and beautiful teams that he gave at QCON London earlier this year.
• Creating Enterprise Search Metadata Property Mappings with PowerShell – Corey Roth offers another handy tip.

Events

You can now check out developer events in Northern Ireland using my calendar.

Events in the coming week include:

• Going Deeper into Visual Studio 2010 – Another MW-MTUG event in Derry on Wednesday 2nd June.
• Windows Phone 7 Developer Hub – A full day event for mobile developers in Dublin next Thursday (3rd June).
• Idea Hacking #1 Storytelling – A new type of event for Derry on Thursday 3rd June.
• Going Deeper into Visual Studio 2010 – NIMTUG hosts Paul Fallon to give his VS2010 talk in Belfast on Thursday 3rd June.

Careers

• Citi Group (via NIJobFinder.co.uk) – Graduate roles with initial 12 week training programme.  Roles in Programming, Application Support or Quality Assurance, based in Belfast.
• Blue Zinc IT – Technical Support Specialist, based in Holywood.
• Fidesa – Software Developers required for the company’s Belfast office.
• First Derivatives – Various developer and consultant roles, based in Newry, Belfast and further afield.
• Queens University, Belfast – Various engineering roles in the fields of data security, network security and intelligent surveillance systems in the Centre for Secure Information Technologies
• Export Technologies - .NET Developers required for this Belfast startup.
• Aepona – Several roles available, based in Belfast.
• Southern Regional College – Web Application Developer, based at the Portadown campus.

Debugging SharePoint in Windows Server 2008 – IISAPP Is Missing!

I’m currently working on a solution that is built in top of SharePoint 2007.  My development VM is built with Windows Server 2008, to mimic the production environment. 

Whilst debugging an issue the other day, I went  to call the iisapp.vbs script on the command line to identify the correct w3wp.exe process to attach Visual Studio to. (See this article for more details on debugging SharePoint solutions.)

I was surprised to see the following error message:

A quick Google established that in IIS 7 the iisapp.vbs is replaced by the following command:

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe list wp

Some of you may be thinking “If you’re working in SharePoint 2010 with VS2010, you don’t need this, Visual Studio will automatically attach the debugger to the worker process for you!".

Think again. On a SharePoint 2010 training course, I got to try out the automated debugging offered by VS2010, and it is sloooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.... As in, hit F5, go get yourself a coffee, and still have time to dunk a few digestives before the debugger responds.  And this was a Hyper-V VM with 6GB RAM dedicated to it.  So, even in VS2010, you are still going to want to attach the debugger manually.

The Weekly Links 6

This is the 6th post in an ongoing series of weekly roundups of links useful to developers.

Tools

• Identity Finder – An article on LifeHacker.com describes this very useful tool. 
• .NET Framework cleanup and setup verification tools - Aaron Stebner announces the release of new versions of these tools for .NET 4.0.  I didn’t even know that these tools existed within the .NET framework!
• OpenWrap – Robert Pickering describes on his blog the OpenWrap project, an open source package management system for .NET projects.
• RAMMap v1.0 – The SysInternals guys have released a new tool to  help you analyze your use of RAM memory.

Information

• Fun Visual Studio 2010 Wallpapers – Scott Guthrie blogs about a new community site that allows you to download Visual Studio 2010 themed images that you can use for your Windows desktop background.
• Most Common ASP.NET Support issues – Another Scott, Hanselman this time, has an article on the most common issues behind support calls for ASP.NET.
• JavaScript local alias pattern – Betrand Le Roy describes how to implement a common local alias pattern form JavaScript in C'#.  Neat!
• How to: Create an OpenSearch Provider for SharePoint – Corey Roth has another great time saving tips for SharePoint 2010.
• Code Contracts Part 1- Kevin Hazzard starts a series of blog posts on Microsoft Code Contracts

Events

You can now check out developer events in Northern Ireland using my calendar.  I have further work planned for the calendar, and the format of these posts. 

Events in the coming week include:

• Barcamp Belfast – The barcamp is being held in Belfast this Saturday (17th).
• DevDays 2010 (Belfast) – Tuesday 25th May, in Belfast.
• DevDays 2010 (Dublin) – Thursday 27th May, in Dublin.

Careers

• ASG Software Solutions – Quality Assurance Analyst required for the Belfast office.
• Latens – Senior Software Engineer and Software Engineers being recruited by the Belfast firm.
• Terex Corporation (via NIJobFinder.co.uk) – A Data Warehouse Architect required for the Dungannon office.
• GE – A number of development and technical support positions are available with the company in Lisburn.
• Larsen and Toubro Infotech (via NIJobFinder.co.uk) – Various positions available for the company’s new office in NI.

C# 4.0 Whats New

 

Just to point out, I forgot to give a shout out for Alan Bradley’s NW-MTUG talk this Monday.   The talk will be on the new features in C# 4.0, and will be held in Magee College, Derry from 18:30.  For further details, click here.

Note, there will be prizes given away on the night.  At the last NW-MTUG talk, I picked up a ReSharper license, and was brutally assaulted when a bag of sweets was thrown at me. You have been warned!

Weekly Links Changes

 

Just to let you know that I intend to change the format of the weekly links posts.  The increasing size of the weekly roundup means that it is getting unwieldy.  it is also taking a substantial time to edit and publish each Thursday evening, so I am looking at breaking up various sections into discrete posts.  This move will tie in with a new project I’ve been planning – keep your eye on the projects page for further details!

The Weekly Links 5

This is the 5th post in an ongoing series of weekly roundups of links useful to developers.

Tools

• Style Cop – Version 4.4 of the code style checker (and it is now open source!) is available for download.
• Solution Converter – a much needed tool to convert between the various Visual Studio solution formats (2005, 2008, and 2010).
• PowerShell Community Extensions – V2.0 of this useful extensions library is released.

Information

• Build Tools Roundup For .NET Systems – Derick Bailey of the LostTechies.com blog site gives an overview of the various build automation tools available for .NET developers.  Just to note, PSake does it for me every time.
• JavaScript Coding Standards – Simon Ince announces the release of Microsoft’s first public coding standards for JavaScript.  The standards are aimed at developers using the Ajax Control Toolkit.
• The Power of Enum – Jason Sonmez looks at the use of the humble enumeration in .NET to produce elegant code.
• Easy creation of code generators in Visual Studio 2008 - Sebastian Negomireanu begins a series of posts that look at code generation in VS2008.  A welcome relief from the tsunami of posts on VS2010 following the recent launch.
• Use Extension method to write cleaner code – Fredrik Normen looks at using extension methods to write cleaner, more maintainable code.  In his article, he gives an excellent breakdown of the various steps in refactoring as well.  It ties in well with the number of links in last week’s roundup on extension methods.
• Make your XML strongly-typed – I’m including this link  as much for the excellent design of Doug Rathbone’s blog, Diary of a Ninja… , as for the article content!  It puts my blog to shame!
• Updated C# all-in-one file - Kirill Osenkov offers an updated file demonstrating the entire C# syntax.
• Starting and using Git successfully – Jimmy Boggart has posted an article on how to make the best use of the popular distributed version control system.
• All About Assemblies – A Code Project article on how to manage assemblies.
• Growl for Windows Target for NLog – A fantastic article  for developers on how to log output to a custom notifications using Growl and NLog.
• And finally, a spoof post on the history of Programming Languages.

SharePoint Information

• New advance SharePoint 2010 training material released – an overview of the training available from Microsoft on SharePoint 2010.   Much of the same material (i.e. virtually identical) can be downloaded here.
• Create your own SharePoint Server 2010 RTM Virtual Machine – Andrew Connell’s announces that a free guide to create a SharePoint 2010 VM is available form his company, Critical Path Training (Andrew, if you reading this, no promo link for the firm until the cheque arrives).

Events

• No new events, just a reminder about Barcamp Belfast – the postponed Barcamp is now rescheduled for 22nd May.

Careers

• Seagate (via NIJobFinder.co.uk) – Software Engineer with both Java and .NET experience, based in their Derry plant.
• Relay - .NET developers and Junior Developers required for their Belfast office.
• Gem – Technical Support Agents and Web Application Developer (via NIJobFinder.co.uk)  are required for the Belfast company.
• Fujitsu – A number of software developer roles are currently being advertised for my previous employer.  Roles are in both the Belfast and Derry offices.
• Randox Laboratories (via NIJobFinder.co.uk) – Software Engineer required for the Crumlin plant.
• Openwave – Software and Quality Engineers in the Belfast office.
• Parity – My current company is continuing to recruit for their Centre of Excellence in Belfast.

Calling PowerShell from Launchy

I have recently started using Launchy, a Windows keyword launcher. One problem I had with Launchy was configuring it to call my assorted PowerShell scripts.  An initial search of the web led me to this blog post, which in turn led me here.  So… call my PowerShell scripts from a batch file that I call from Launchy?  No, I don’t think so.
So, I searched again, and came across this screencast by PowerShell guru Hal Rottenberg, who showed how to configure Launchy to run your scripts. 

In Launchy, select the options, and in the Plugins tab, select the Runner (a custom command tool) options.  To create a new command, click on the ‘+’ button. Set the new command’s name  as “posh”, and then set the program by double clicking the field.  A folder browse button will appear.  Browse to the PowerShell directory (%windir%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0) and clicking on the program executable, powershell.exe.  You then need to type in the command arguments as follows:
"-nologo -noexit -noprofile -command $$"
To run your scripts from Launchy, hit the Launchy keyboard shortcut (ALT + SPACE by default), and type “posh”. Then hit the tab key, and type in the name of the script that you wish to run.  In this way, you can call your PowerShell scripts.

City of Culture 2013

 

Just a quick blog post to say I’m supporting Derry’s bid to be the UK City of Culture in 2013.  If you want to get involved, register your support at  http://www.cityofculture2013.com and check out this handy article.

Changes to RDP in WS2008

A quick post to point out that from Windows Server 2008 onwards, the useful /console switch has been deprecated, and the /admin switch is now used instead.  For details, check out this support article from Microsoft.

The Weekly Links 4

This is the 4th post in an ongoing series of weekly roundups of links useful to developers.  As I was working in London last week, this is a bumper post incorporating two weeks worth of links. 

Tools

• TFS 2010 Power Tools – Buck Hodges of the VSTS team announces the release of the TFS 2010 Power Tools.
• FlairBuilder Desktop – My colleague Andy Poots blogs about this handy wireframing tool.
• Ook! .Net Compiler – another esoteric language to add to the ranks of BrainF*@k and LOLCODE.  I learned about the Ook! language by following the Irish Open Spaces Coding Day II on Twitter which unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend… But Andrea tells me it is likely to be repeated again in August/September.

Information

• Extension Methods Are Helper Methods That Taste Like Candy – John Sonmez looks at how to make use of C# extension methods.
• C# Extension Methods - To Extend or Not To Extend... – In a related article, James Michael Hare discusses when you should write an extension method.
• Breaking through the class sealing - Jason Crease gives the lowdown on using the sealed keyword in .NET.
• Back to the basics: constants vs read-only fields – A review of the differences between constants and read-only fields in the .NET framework.
• 6 important .NET concepts: - Stack, heap, Value types, reference types, boxing and Unboxing – A handy reference article on the Code Project site that describes these essential topics.
• Dynamically Read, Compile, and Run Source Code From a Text File – Does what it says on the tin… Interesting article, but I prefer using CSI, a simple C# interpreter written by David Anson, a Microsoft developer.
• 15+ hours of free Visual Studio 2010 – Free online training from Microsoft and AppDev.

SharePoint Related

• An Expected Error Has Occurred – Todd Carter describes how to create custom error pages in SharePoint 2010.
• SharePoint Visio Stencil and Template – Maxime Bombardier on her MSDN blog makes available a Visio template for the easy design of WSPs and features.
• Temporarily disabling List View Threshold on a large list – This article from the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog discusses how to view large lists (> 5000 unfiltered items) in SharePoint 2010.
• How to: Build a SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Cmdlet – Corey Roth takes you through how to create your first PowerShell cmdlet for SharePoint.
• Service Application Framework Architecture – An overview of this framework in the SharePoint Foundation 2010 (the successor to WSS 3.0).

Events

• DevDays 2010 – Digital Circle and the All Island Software Network are organising a conference for all those developing mobile applications in Ireland, in Belfast (25th May) and Dublin (27th May).
• Azure Self-paced Interactive Learning Course – A free online course from Microsoft, starting on the 10th May.
• Idea Hacking #1 Storytelling – A very different event happening in Derry on 3rd June.
• Barcamp Belfast – the postponed Barcamp is now rescheduled for 22nd May.

Careers

• Barclay Communications – iPhone developer and web developer required for the Belfast office.
• CyberSource – A number of roles (QA and Software Engineers) at various levels are being advertised for this growing company, based in Belfast.
• 8over8 – This Derry based company is continuing to advertise for .Net developers.
• Latens – Software Engineers required for the Belfast office.
• ASG – Software and QA Engineers required for their Belfast office.
• Kainos – Graduate Developers required for the Belfast software company.
• Singularity – Various roles being advertised with the Derry based company.
• Learning Pool – The Derry based company are seeking PHP developers (intermediate and advanced) and technical support agents.

Mint Really Is Mint!

Just a quick blog post to sing the praises of Mint, a user-friendly Linux operating system.  I have been promising my brother that I would rebuild an old laptop for him for several months.  After finally completing the physical rebuild at the weekend, I faced a dilemma as to what OS to install.  The only Windows options open to me were Windows XP (9 years old), or Windows Server 2008 (fine as developer workstation, not great for a non-techie end user).  I did look at buying an upgrade to Windows 7, but I couldn’t justify the £80 price tag for this 7 year old laptop. 

So I thought I would try out a Linux OS for the first time.  After using this excellent online wizard to select a Linux OS, I plumped to install Ubuntu.  Unfortunately, Ubuntu wasn’t configured to deal with the wide screen on the laptop, and after booting, it would only display a blank screen.  I did search for a fix, but despite spending some time on the command line, I wasn’t able to update the display configuration. 

After this, I remembered reading that Mint was a variant of Ubuntu specifically designed for first time Linux users, and decide to give it to go.  After an insanely short time (approximately 15 minutes), Mint had smoothly installed itself, and was ready for use.  I am already very impressed with the options to install and automatically update applications using the software manager, and the overall performance of the OS.  Remember, this is a 7 year old laptop, with only 500MB RAM – I dread to think what the performance would have been like if I had installed Windows.  So, my brother has his laptop, and I am left a Linux convert!