Category: Cool

Anything I find that’s really cool. Take a look at the posts in this category to get an overall view of all the cool things I’ve blogged about.

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“Twitch” Coined on Twitter Fan Wiki – Glossary

OK, sometimes you get a small opportunity to change the world.  And in this case, only the crickets can offer their “chirp, chirp”. 🙂 That’s them saying, “uh, you did something?  Sorry, no one noticed.” 🙂

I’m a recent Twitter convert and I just got off a recent binge.  Feel free to follow me at @MattPenner if you so desire.

Anyway, I made a typo in one of my tweets.  It, of course, caused me to re-tweet with a correction.  So, my off-topic mind asked the question, “what is a typo called in Twitter?” 

If you don’t know, there are several coined terms in the world of Twitter.  For instance a Tweet is a message in Twitter and Twiterature is when you give quotes from literature on Twitter.

So, what is a typo in a tweet called?  It turns out there isn’t a name for it.  So, in all trumpets and fanfare (there are those crickets again!) I added Twitch to the list:

Twitch – When you tweet a typo causing you to tweet a correction before getting a load of replies.

 

You can check out a lot of other Twitter glossary words at the Twitter Fan Wiki

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Recorded sessions from Code Camp?

I record the monthly presentations at the Inland Empire .Net Users Group.  I’m half way done developing the distribution area for our groups website.  This is taking a while because I have no free time!  J/K, I’m also guilty of putting in the kitchen sink.  I’m creating it so that users will have a single place for all session content including a Silverlight player for video, access to downloads such as slides and code as well as ratings and content.  Will be nice, if I ever get it done!

Anyway, back to the topic.  Is anyone interested in recorded sessions of Code Camp?  I know I sure am.  There are so many sessions by so many great speakers that it is impossible to see them all.  Why not record them and make them available after the show?

I’ve volunteered to Lynn Langit and Daniel Egan, who I know have vested interest in Code Camp, to do the work.  I just need funding for the resources.  It’s not expensive, but it’s not trivial either.  The setup I currently use for our IE .Net sessions is a VGA frame grabber from Epiphan (great equipment!), a wireless mic and my laptop.  That’s it.  Turns out when I went to the ESRI User Conference in San Diego they do the exact same thing, although they use Macs and a few mixers since they also have PA systems for the presenters.  They sell their week’s worth of presentation recordings on DVD’s for ~$400.  I’d like to make this content freely available for viewing on the web much like PDC.

This would be relatively easy.  I could get a few bodies to help set up and keep things running smoothly.

Code Camp 2009 has at most 9 simultaneous sessions.  Assuming this doesn’t grow I’d need to purchase and put together 9 recording “kits”.  If we went the “inexpensive” route, without any vendors kicking in free or discounted gear, we could probably build a kit for a little less than $1,000.  This would be for the frame grabber (VGA2USB model), a decent but inexpensive laptop, wireless mic and miscellaneous cabling gear.  We’d get 5-10 frames per second at 1024×768, which for 95% of the presentations would be adequate.  So, we’re looking at the need to finance ~$10k of equipment allowing for one spare.  Any takers? 🙂

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Technical and Developer Podcasts Worth Listening To

A fellow member of the IE .Net User Group asked me what podcasts I listened to.  He expressed taht there are so many it’s hard to sift through what is actually good quality, both in content and actual production.  Some podcasts are great sound quality, however have very little content that is worth while.  In contrast, some podcasts have great content, but are so hard to hear or are of such poor audio quality that it is really frustrating to ferret out what they are actually talking about.

Here’s the list I usually listen from:

The two I listen to the most and are of very high quality (both in production and content) are .Net Rocks (http://www.dotnetrocks.com/) and Hansel Minutes (http://www.hanselminutes.com/).  Both can be subscribed to via iTunes.

ASP.Net Podcast (http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/) is another one I will listen to if they have a good topic but the quality is pretty lousy so they have to have someone really good for me to bother.

If you’re interested in good podcasts that aren’t necessarily just .Net development, but all around technology check out TWIT: http://twit.tv/.  I haven’t listened to them in a while but they are all very high quality (Leo Laporte, the main host, has been in radio for 30 years) and they have a lot of very good content.  Almost anything technical you’d want, other than .Net development, is covered by one show or another.  Here are just a few that I’ve listened to (not in any particular order):

  • net@night is a good all around what’s happening in tech this week.  A little more of a social bent but a lot of good info and a very open topic of conversation.
  • The Tech Guy is Leo’s actual call-in radio show helping users.  Lots of good general information on anything tech, but probably more for the general consumer.
  • Security Now is a good in depth security podcast.  I think that Steve Gibson is a little too proud of himself but the actual knowledge and explanations of complicated subjects are quite good.
  • MacBreak Weekly is a really great podcast if you are a Mac guy or have Mac friends.  It’s funny and has wonderful content. 
  • TWiT (This Week in Tech) is a very good open discussion podcast with a few regular experts.  Really interesting with the different viewpoints given.  Very good listening.
  • FLOSS Weekly is an complete open source driven podcast.  Usually on things Linux and such but on fairly broad open source projects that do appear in the Windows world.  Very good interviews, however, despite the name it is not weekly.

I don’t listen to every edition of these podcasts, only those that are actually interesting.

If you come across any others that you like let me know!

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Verifying code with Pex

I’m a very TDD yourself type guy. I don’t like generated tests, which totally conflicts with the first D in TDD, Test Driven Development.

 

Anyway, Maarten Balliauw had a really nice short post on using Pex. 

 

Stealing from Maarten’s post, here’s an abstract from a recent session on Pex:

“Pex is an automated white box testing tool for .NET. Pex systematically tries to cover every reachable branch in a program by monitoring execution traces, and using a constraint solver to produce new test cases with different behavior. Pex can be applied to any existing .NET assembly without any pre-existing test suite. Pex will try to find counterexamples for all assertion statements in the code. Pex can be guided by hand-written parameterized unit tests, which are API usage scenarios with assertions. The result of the analysis is a test suite which can be persisted as unit tests in source code. The generated unit tests integrate with Visual Studio Team Test as well as other test frameworks. By construction, Pex produces small unit test suites with high code and assertion coverage, and reported failures always come with a test case that reproduces the issue. At Microsoft, this technique has proven highly effective in testing even an extremely well-tested component.”

 

In the simple example Maarten used he showed how Pex may be a great tool to run after your TDD tests are finished just to possibly catch any edge cases you missed. 

 

However, make sure you refactor after including any code Pex suggested.  In Maarten’s post the last check ( if(length < 0)) is never entered because it is included in the check by Pex ( if (length < 0 || current.Length < length)).  This entire block can be removed.  It’s not harmful in anyway, but can be a little confusing and should be cleaned up.  ReSharper probably would catch it.

 

I’m going to have to give Pex a try!

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World’s first flying car prepares for take-off

Check this out:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article5489287.ece?print=yes

I think an idea like this is a bit far off yet.  Sure, the technology and physical product may be ready fairly soon, but I doubt the FAA is ready to let any person just jump in the air flying over buildings and roads.  If I run out of gas right now I coast to the side of the road.  You run out of gas in one of these things and you may be wishing you topped off before you left for the last time. 🙂

However, think of what the world would be like without traffic?  I live in the Inland Empire (southern California) and commonly travel to Orange County and Los Angeles.  The only three freeways between the IE and OC/LA are the 91, 60 and 10, which are 3 of the highest traffic freeways in the country.  If I could fly from my house to OC and avoid the entire freeway system it would make the commute a thing of pleasure rather than frustration.

It is set to list at $200k.  Maybe to pay for it I’d initially shuttle business execs from IE to OC/LA.  Get to work in 30 minutes!  Just $50 a trip! 🙂

Let’s see, supposed I did 3 runs in the morning and three in the evening.  That’s $300 per day.  5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, that would be 75,000 a year.  After overhead for gas I could have it paid off in 5 years. :)  Of course, it may cost $1 million a year just for insurance.

In all seriousness though think of what transportation would be like if these really did take off (no pun intended).

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Computer geeks learn to flirt

Just saw this great article from Reuters (via Yahoo News):

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090109/od_nm/us_flirting_odd_1/print

BERLIN (Reuters) – Even the most quirky of computer nerds can learn to flirt with finesse thanks to a new "flirting course" being offered to budding IT engineers at Potsdam University south of Berlin.

The 440 students enrolled in the master’s degree course will learn how to write flirtatious text messages and emails, impress people at parties and cope with rejection.

Philip von Senftleben, an author and radio presenter who will teach the course, summed up his job as teaching how to "get someone else’s heart beating fast while yours stays calm."

The course, which starts next Monday, is part of the social skills section of the IT course and is designed to ease entry into the world of work. Students also learn body language, public-speaking, stress management and presentation skills.

"We want to prepare our students with the social skills needed to succeed both in their private life and their work life," said Hans-Joachim Allgaier, a spokesman for the institute at Potsdam University where the course is being offered.

(Writing by Anna Brooke; Editing by Nick Vinocur)

In all seriousness this is a great idea.  It’s really a class on social skills in the work place.  I’ve never seen this in any of my courses in technology at college and some of my fellow students severely needed them.  If you’re going to get ahead any place you work the ability to be comfortable talking with peers, management, customers, giving presentations, etc is a required skill.  It’s nice to see some institutions are addressing this area.

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Multiple Displays on a Laptop

Two of the main reasons why I’ve never switched to a laptop as my main platform is performance and multiple display support.

 

With today’s laptop performance is almost nil.  The cost compared to desktops is almost trivial and the performance a laptop can offer these days is absolutely incredible.  Unless I am a performance nut, such as someone working in film or audio editing and you need quad-core processors, four hard drives and 8 GB of ram a laptop can usually fit all your needs these days.  If you’re a gamer they even have laptops with SLI on board (although these are still fairly expensive).

 

However, multiple displays has always kept me back.  I love my dual 20” displays.  I also don’t want a 17” screen on my laptop.  The whole point of a laptop to me is portability.  When I go to a presentation or a conference I don’t want to lug around a 12 pound machine and then fight for chair space when I try and open the behemoth in the audience.  So I want a lightweight laptop with a 15.4” screen.  That causes a problem when I’m home at my desk.

 

In the last few months USD-DVI cables have started coming out and the performance is pretty amazing.  Here’s a company allowing you to run three simultaneous displays as 1600×1200.  After a firmware update coming out in the near future you’ll get even more performance and resolution.  Amazing!

 

Check it out:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/usb-dvi-lcd-display,6777.html

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Microsoft Surface: SecondLight

If you know anything about Microsoft Surface than this will probably peek your interest.  Things like this may just be eye candy for now, but you can see in just a matter of years (or less) the way we interact with computers in our daily lives will be drastically different.

I don’t mean the way we all normally use computers, but how we do everything else.  Look at the way people are using phones now.  They play games, text around the world, get driving directions, take videos and pictures, listen to music and a whole host of other things we never though of 5 years ago.  If you went back to just the year 2000 and told everyone what phones would be like today most would never believe you.

That’s where Surface and technologies like it are taking us.  When you’re out and about you’ll be interacting with display technology like this every where.  Whether it’s ordering off a menu at a restaurant, getting plane tickets, adjusting your hotel amenities and upgrading your rental car all during your layover at the airport, finding where stores are and what sales they have at a mall display, etc information will be much richer and more interactive than we have now.

OK, get the point.  🙂

SecondLight is a technology where a second image is literally projected through the first.  It isn’t visible until a translucent item is placed in front of it.  This could be something as simple as a sheet of tracing paper.

that isn’t so special in itself, this easily could have been simulated with the older Surface technology.  It’s the fact that this second image is projected that really beefs things up.  Suddenly displays are becoming more "3D".  Not in the traditional sense but you can hold the paper above the surface for an easier view.  They showed some plexiglass "disks" that were molded with a prism inside.  This allowed the light to bend and display the image on the side.  It’s all simply amazing.

Check out this article and watch the video.  It’s just mind blowing.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/233511/secondlight-surface-on-steroids.html

As I always say, this is an amazing time to be alive.

Take care all!

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Microsoft to include jQuery in Visual Studio

This is absolutely amazing.  If you’ve never used jQuery definitely check it out.  Ever since James Johnson (president of the Inland Empire .Net User’s Group) did a presentation on it last year I’ve been hooked.  It’s is an outstanding JavaScript framework that actuallly makes JavaScript a pleasure to use.

As a classically trained developer I’ve always approached JavaScript as a tool to use only when absolutely necessary and as a last resort.  Dealing with cross browser compatibility and just plain frustration over the language has made JavaScript a tool of evil in my development toolbelt.

With jQuery I not only now consider JavaScript a valuable asset I actually love to develop in it.

Hearing that Microsoft is now including it in their IDE is pretty exciting.  This means that IntelliSense and debugging (while possible with some great workarounds from the jQuery community) will most likely eventually be fully supported for jQuery.  I’ve worked with lots of development environments and Visual Studio is by far one of the best IDE’s around.

Probably even more exciting is that this furthers the strategy that MS is really interested in working with developers.  Some of my friends are probably tired of me bashing the old-school “Microsoft Way”.  Seeing the real encouragement of MS through employees like Scott Gu, Phil Haack and others on projects like MVC and such really make it apparent that MS is offering alternatives for developers who want the ability to code using modern standards.

Actually integrating jQuery into Visual Studio shows that MS is willing to offer alternatives to their own prodcuts such as the ASP.Net AJAX JavaScript framework.  MS is no longer in the “We’re Microsoft.  Our way or the highway” mentality.