This is a great advert and very true if you develop on the fly (pardon the punt) or conform to Agile development e.g. Scrum.
Defiantly something I can relate to.
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TrackbackToday I had to update a regular expression that I have not touched in two years!
On first look I got the old hhmm where do I start 
(?<Protocol>\w+):\/\/(?<Subdomain>\w+)\.(?<Domain>\w+)\.(?<tlDomain>[\w.]+)/(?<File>.*)
This matches:
http://subdomain.url.com/Default.aspx
And breaks it into:
Protocol: http
Subdomain: subdomain
Domain: url
tlDomain: com
File: Default.aspx
But the problem starts when you have a - (dash) in the subdomain:
http://a-subdomain.url.com/Default.aspx
This of course fails as I use \w to break up the subdomain string, which just matches alphanumeric characters. All I need to do is to allow - as well as a-zA-Z0-9 (\w).
The final expression was:
(?<Protocol>\w+):\/\/(?<Subdomain>[\w-]+)\.(?<Domain>\w+)\.(?<tlDomain>[\w.]+)/(?<File>.*)
- Change marked in red
Simple change but testing this takes some time as I either have to run my complete application or write a small test program.
Last week Matt Manela on the msdn blog shared a great application that allows you to test C# code without having to even write a class or create a project.
FastSharp is a great tool for testing out some code. It even goes as far as checking for compilation errors.
This was caused by me not adding the correct library for the Regex class.
To fix this all I had to do was click settings and then add the using statement.
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
My little code snippet then ran fine and I was able to test and adapt my change very fast.
Great tool be sure to check it out + for more in depth into why and how it was coded see Matt’s post.
Comments rss TrackbackYesterday I installed the Stumbleupon Firefox toolbar as I ran out of unread blog posts and wanted something random to read. On my first click on the Show next page button I was taken to a great interpretation of the software project life cycle
I’m sure every developer can relate to this in some way.
Comments rss TrackbackWhile installing Visual Studio 2008 on my PC I started to get the not so friendly Windows low disk space pop-up. This was odd as I thought I had lot of spare space! So I opened up Windows Explorer to see what I could find only to find nothing. My PC has files all over the place put there by all kinds of programs.
Then I remembered WinDirStat, this program turned out to be my saviour.
After leaving it run for 10 minutes it came back with a very nice psychedelic version of my hard drive:
Not my real hard drive
On closer inspection I found that I had many unused Virtual PC instances and old ISO images.
WinDirStat is broken up into three sections each of which offers a different view of your data:
Shows the disk usage summary from a group of folders down to file level
Colour coded with the psychedelic view so that types can been seen easily.
This is by far the best view and with a quick glance you can see where all of your disk space has gone.
No matter what view you are in, selecting or hovering over any of the items will highlight the area in the psychedelic view and provide you with more information about the file. Its odd to see the same patterns repeated by user directories or the sheer size of virtual PC images.
Once you have found what you are looking for the application allows you to clean up the files directly by using the delete key or the clean up menu.
This is a great application and I have since seen some of my colleagues running it and playing with the psychedelic view.
Comments rss TrackbackIt seems that you can wait ages for something to finally be released by Microsoft. For example I started .Net with Visual Studio 2005 beta only to wish for the RTM version and then SP1. SP1 came along only for me to wish that I had 2008. All of this due to bugs and missing/cut features.
It seems that Microsoft is coming to the end of a massive development cycle as there are lots of projects starting to stick their heads above water (Microsoft Firewall).
These are some that I have noticed including some links:
Silverlight 2.0 - Beta Q1 of 2008
ASP.Net 3.5 Extensions - Public release due
IIS 7.0 – Coming early 2008 with the new version of Windows Server
ASP.Net MVC – Preview any time now with the supported release in the first half of 2008
Windows Vista SP1 – Just got RC so RTM will not be too far away
Parallel FX – Preview out now
Visual Studio 2008 – Out now for MSDN subscribers with the official release being February.
.Net 3.5 – Out now
.Net Source Code – Coming soon
LINQ – Out now
Volta - Technology preview
Expression Service Packs – Out now
XNA Game development platform – RTM Coming Soon
I’m sure I have missed some, but even so this is quite an impressive list to release at the same time especially when some of these are linked.
All of this makes me wonder what Microsoft is working on that we have not yet heard about. Oh how great it would be if I could to be a fly on their wall. As this is not possible I guess the next best thing is Channel9
So I guess the wait continues. I’m looking forward to the first half of next year.
Comments rss TrackbackLooking for a unique way to sell a book!? Well this definitely caught my eye.
The book is called “Managing Humans” and is written by the same author who wrote “The Nerds Handbook“. The promotional site has got a really nice touch that you have to click through a series of cool slides telling a little story to get the actual pitch.
I may add this to my Amazon wish list, as it sounds quite interesting.
Comments rss TrackbackOk, it’s not quite H. G. Wells’s Time Machine as you will not be moving anywhere.
Ever wished you had not deleted a file or even worse not knowing when and where it vanished from your hard drive. Well Apple has created a way to jump through time from the comfort of your office chair, if you own a Mac with the new 10.5 Leopard Operating System you can do just that.
Own a MAC? Stop here and check out Time Machine.
For the rest of us who do not own a Mac there is still hope!
Alas there is no snazzy Star Wars style GUI, but rsync is the right tool for the job.
Lifehacker links to a great resource on how to setup your own Time Machine style backup solution.
Comments rss TrackbackYesterday I downloaded the Android SDK for Googles new mobile platform and this lunch time I get to play with it
Downloaded, Installed and now what! I know check out my own site:
I guess now it is time to take a look into how you code one of these mobile applications.
Comments rss TrackbackMove over TinyURL a bigger alternative is coming through!
http://nicholasclarke.co.uk
TinyURL:
http://tinyurl.com/yux94d
We now have a choice
So if you don’t care about using up more bandwidth, and screen real estate then bigger is better.
Classic idea, but I guess it will not be the next big thing.
Thanks to Wired for pointing out this alternative to TinyURL.
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About 6 years ago I owned a Palm device, so it is a shame to hear that Palm is falling on hard times. Maybe Google’s Android could be what they have been looking for, as it has been rumored for a while that Palm are developing a Linux based OS for themselves.
For me Palm was always like how the Mac is to the PC market, summed up in one word: Style
Engadget has a nice post on its thoughts on the possible Android and Palm partnership.
Update: Palm confirms that there will be no partying with the little green robot.
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