Dot Net Monkey

Scott Hanselman has posted a great list of questions that he believes all great .NET developers ought to know.  It's a big list, it's a thorough list, it's a scary list!  It's a great list to sharpen any .NET developers skills.  Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to go through this list and make sure I know the answer to each of these questions.  Then I will be a Great .NET Developer. 

Related Resources
What a Great .NET Developer Ought to Know (More .NET Interview Questions)

Nippon Style has created the ultimate in style - The Wood Keyboard.  It's very pretty but Gizmodo says it costs $2500 which is a bit much really. 

I can highly recommend using AltaVista Translate tool to translate the website and you'll end up with awesome Engrish like this:

"High-tech" × "natural moisture" = future nature

In those which everyday are touched by the hand being the plastic make, isn't dissatisfaction felt? As for the plastic where durability is high, is easy to produce in large quantities certainly convenience. But, the keyboard and the mouse etc. as for those which the hand touches daily with is as natural as possible the material which feeling being good?

I've done a little playing around with the Enterprise Library and it's way cool.  Thanks MS!  There are already some great resources out there, so if you haven't played around with Enterprise Library do so IMEMDIATELY!

Here are some resources for you:

• Enterprise Library Demonstration and Powerpoint Presentation - Doug Rohrer's presentation to the Cincinnati .Net users group meeting as well as some code
• Ohad Israeli and Ido Samuelson C# user group presentation - Don't freak out about the Hebrew on the first few slides, it's just there to throw you! 
• Tom Hollander bangs on about Instrumentation in Enterprise Library - Which is a good thing.

Ninemsn.com.au has just released a map service for Australia.  I've just tested it out and it's pretty cool. You can copy in a block of text and it'll just work out the details and show you a map. Beats having to type in the number, then the address, then the suburb, etc.  It also has a neat feature that allows you to copy the map to a PocketPC, which is great and might just help me with my house hunting.

Speaking of maps, here are some other cool resources:

• WhereIS - kinda slow, but it works
• Google Maps - If I was in the US I'd be using this
• Keyhole - Awesome technology, shame about the coverage

Related Resources
Ninemsn.com.au Maps & Directions
WhereIs.com.au
Google Maps
Keyhole

Microsoft have now got their own Nuggets.  MSDN Nuggets.  Full of information, packed with intellectual nutrition and only 3 grams of fat.  Check them out!

Okay, so it's really just a bunch of short 10 minute videos highlighting a particular feature and/or task.  But I like em.  In fact I've often thought about doing something like this myself.  Damn you apathy!

So I'm currently looking around for a house to call home.  The real estate market is just plain old fashioned diabolical so that's why I'm looking for new untapped real estate potential.

Maybe a floating house?

Think of all the fun I could have floating down the Yarra on one of these babies.  Playing football in the back yard could be a problem -- and as for Frizbee, forget about it!

Jake Lawlor has posted an article called Portrait Of An Agile Development Process which describes what an Agile Process should be.

According to the man:

The term agile refers to a set of patterns and practices that builds a highly collaborative partnership between the business and IT, promotes team communication and delivers functional software releases in iterative cycles. By delivering business value early and often, the process allows for a natural feedback loop to adjust and improve the software.

The difference between an agile process and other processes is that an agile process is crafted to integrate seemlessly into its environment. Rather than dictating rigid process practices that may not apply, the team selects the right process fit for the environment and makes adjustments every iteration, tuning it, to result in an increased team output and quality.

The great thing about this article is that he outlines a bunch of agile patterns and practices in nice easy to understand paragraphs.  All in all a great piece.  Now if only my companies agile process was just as ... erm... agile.

Related Resources
Portrait Of An Agile Development Process

Everyone loves a good fiddle, and if you say you don't then you are probably lying.

Okay, enough shinanigans!  Fiddler is a Microsoft PowerToy that slots itself nicely into your HTTP stream as a proxy allowing you to have a look at all that traffic going to and fro.

There is a good MSDN article about configuring and running Fiddler which is well worth a read. Also from the Fiddler site there are some pointers to some good references.  Such as:

• HTTP Response Codes - pretty handy for working out what a 404 really means
• Header Field Definitions - understand what all that crazy header stuff means
• HTTP 1.1 Specification - if you read this you are a geek! (no exceptions)

So there you go, lots of great stuff about fiddling with yourself.

Related Resources
Fiddler Powertoy
MSDN Article - Fiddler PowerToy Part 1: HTTP Debugging
HTTP Response Codes
Header Field Definitions
HTTP 1.1 Specifications

I have just been listening to Joe Stagner's Webcast on Security and quite enjoying it.  At the moment the Digital Blackbelt series of webcasts is still very much in the early days but Joe is a great presenter and the series promises much.  Couple of things to take away from the presentation are:

• Establish threats early
• Design Security into the apps (hard to retro-fit)
• Try and get security as part of the practice
• Read some good books about security

Related Resources
Microsoft Thread Modeling Tool
Microsoft Security Developer Center
Microsoft Threat Modeling Website
Digital Blackbelt Website