The Weekly Links 8

This is the 8th post in an ongoing series of weekly roundups of links useful to developers.  This post is effectively a roundup of links from the past months – apologies for the delay in posting!

Tools

• ApiChange Is Released! – APIChange is a command line tool that allows you to execute queries on against your compiled .NET code base. The main use of the tool is to determine the impact of each API change, such identifying all users of a specific type.  A useful alternative to the commercial NDepends offering.
• Chirpy – A Visual Studio 2010 Add-In for handling JavaScript, CSS, and DotLess files. 
• The Best Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools, Power Commands and Extensions – Scott Hanselman catalogues his favourite VS2010 extensions.
• OutlookSpy – A tool to allow developers to explore the Outlook object model.
• Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Power Tools – A set of templates and extensions that provides additional functionality to SharePoint developers.
• FxCop 10.0 – An insane jump in version number for the Microsoft static code analysis tool.
• Soluto – LifeHacker has an article on this Windows freeware tool that tracks all the applications in your system boot process, and tells you exactly which ones are slowing you down.

Information

• WatiN Screenshot Saver – Brian Shroer describes how to use Watin, the impressive automated web testing framework, to create a screen capture tool. 
• Observable Collections – Steve Wellens gives an overview of a collection in the .NET framework that is new to me.
• SP 2010: How to create a PowerShell Snapin Cmdlet – Tobias Zimmergren has a two part series on creating a PowerShell Cmdlet for SharePoint 2010 (Part 1, Part 2).
• SOLID Examples – Following an ongoing series of articles on the SOLID design principles at LostTechies.com, the various code samples have been brought together as a CodePlex project.
• Start Learning Ruby with IronRuby – Kazi Mansur kicks off a series of blog posts on IronRuby with a look at creating a development environment.
• The Power of Func<> – Jason Sonmez gives an introduction to the Func generic type.
• TechEd 2010 North America – NI’s very own Martin Woodward blogs about his TechEd presentation on Team Explorer, and he also links to a number of other presentations relating to VS2010/TFS.
• How to select open source libraries - Daniel Marbach gives a breakdown of the different criteria to use to select an open source library to use.
• .NET Logging Tools and Libraries – A site dedicated to cataloguing the various logging libraries available to .NET developers. My personal preference is for NLog, though I have recently become interested in using PostSharp, an AOP framework for logging.

Miscellaneous

A few more random links:

• Let Me Google That For You – The ultimate answer to dumb questions.  Simply copy the question into the search box, git the required button, and it will generate a http://lmgtfy.com/ link for you to email back to the waste of space who bothered you with the query.  Even better, kill time by monitoring what search terms are being entered in real time - http://live.lmgtfy.com/
• Script Junkie – A MSDN site dedicated to the serious web developer.  Courtesy of Simon Phillips.
• The Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever -  Exactly what it says….

Events

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

There are no events in the coming week.

Normal Service Resumes

Folks, apologies for the dearth of posts over the last few weeks.  It has been a very busy couple of weeks, both in work and personally.  I have been involved in a challenging project in work, that has required some additional hours. That, on top of my daily commute, meant there has been very little free time to spend blogging.

 

On the plus side, it has meant that I have had to take look at what I want to do with the blog, and I can see that changes are required.  For a start, I will be blogging more often in the future.  That is not a wish, but is a promise.  I will be taking a leaf from Jason Bell’s book, and will be getting up early to specifically spend time on the blog and personal projects.  There will be more posts on my personal projects,and a lot more code samples. 

There will still be a weekly roundup of links, but I’m dropping (for now) the jobs summary.  There will also be more time on spent reviewing developer tools.  I’m also considering a series of articles on SharePoint 2010.

In terms of personal projects, I’ll be able to post an announcement this week on my first major project. 

Absolutely Lost…

I was late comer to the Lost TV series.  In fact, it wasn’t until some time in September 2007 that I actually watched my first episode.  It was while I was working in Dublin, and staying at a hotel in Dublin.  It was a miserable night, and I only watched it while waiting for Battlestar Galactica to come on. As this particular episode (The Brig) was a climatic one in Season 3, I hadn’t a clue what was going on.  But I was impressed enough to go back and watch Season 1. 

 

From the first 5 minutes of the pilot episode, I was hooked.  Over 6 seasons, we have been treated to the most compelling TV.  And now it is all over.  I thought the last episode was bit long, and could have benefited from some editing. But I still cried at a beautiful and elegant end sequence.  And now I’m absolutely lost for some stimulating TV to watch.  Glee and Sons of Anarchy are decent– but Lost they’re not.