Book Review: Pro CSS for High Traffic Websites, by Antony Kennedy and Inayaili de Le’on

Good book wrong title.

To be totally honest with you, I have been so busy that I only had a chance to read three (3) chapters in their entirety. However, I did scan through the most of the book. I am probably a little biased in my comments regarding the book, as I am a Agile/Scrum evangelist myself. You may be wandering how that is a bias for a book about CSS, right? It so happens that the book is not about CSS as much as it is about managing the development process using agile techniques.

Project management appears to be the primary topic with CSS/Web development sprinkled throughout the material, primarily for demonstrative purposes. There are a couple solid CSS chapters. I would have read this book simply for the Project Management content. The content regarding all the processes which should be in place to make your team more agile is practical and useful for someone that has not had the chance to practice being agile or is relatively new to Scrum.

I would probably not recommend this book, if you are looking for in-depth CSS coverage. HOWEVER, I would definitely recommend reading the book to team members new to agile or scrum.

Tags: APRESS, Books, CS5, Reviews, Web

Book Review – Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform, by Andrew Troelsen

First of all, I had to wrap up reading this book so that I could spend some time checking out my new HTML5 books.  Below is my review of Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform, by Andrew Troelsen.

First, I must warn you that you will need a strong arm if you intend to lug this book around.  The book has over 1700 pages.  The good news is that the book is available as an eBook too.  The original reason I purchased this book was because of the detailed content on ADO.Net.  There are so many books out there that try to give an overview of ADO and never really give it very good coverage.

So off I went to read the ADO.Net chapters Part I – Part III.  What was amazing was how the author was able to explain why and when you would use certain pieces of the framework.  Most books simply give you a couple pages on how to use a very specific piece of the framework.  After devouring the ADO.Net portion of this book, I was so impressed with the authors ability to explain the logic of why and when to use certain pieces, not just the how, that I HAD TO READ THE BOOK FROM COVER TO COVER.

The book is arranged in 7 major parts, beginning with C# fundamentals, moving through Core and Advance programming constructs, and ending with discussions surrounding Web Apps, Windows Forms, and Mono.  The content never talks down to you and is consumable by a programmer with some experience to a more experienced programmer that would like to fill in gaps in their C# knowledge.

I would highly recommend this to anyone except possibly the master programmer (you know who I am referring to).  The book can be found at most book stores or purchased directly through APress.

Tags: .net, APRESS, development, HTML5, programming, Reviews, Web

HTML5 is here and gaining momentum. PART I

As many of you are aware, HTML5 has been in the works and is partially supported by several of the popular browsers.  Hard to believe, since the “candidate recommendation” is targeted for 2012, and the “proposed recommendation” is targeted for 2022.  Recently there have been a bunch of publications coming out discussing what HTML5 is all about.  I have had the chance to peruse several of these publications:

* Pro HTML5 Programming, by Peter Lubbers, Brian Albers, and Frank Salim
* The Definitive Guide to HTML5 Video, by Silvia Pfeiffer

I am currently reviewing the later, The Definitive Guide to HTML5 Video.  As I go through the book, I will post additional comments/reviews and possibly share some snippets of code.

If you are using features found in HTML5 or have found publications that are ROCKIN, Please share your reviews or comments here.

Cheers,
-Dale

PS… There is a soon-to-be-published book Beginning HTML5 and CSS3, that should be a good read as well.  If I can get a copy to review I will share the review here.

Tags: APRESS, Books, development, HTML5, Reviews, Web

SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, Installation Rule VS 2008 SP1

OMG. I ran into this insanity when trying to install SQL Server 2008 recently on my development box. I was able to install SQL2008 successfully on a clean Virtual PC with XP Pro SP3, and Visual Studio 2010 installed with no problems. So to my great surprise, it wouldn’t install on my Development box.

I decided like a typical geek to check the internet for a solution. Sure I could apply VS 2008 SP1 to my system, right. Not so fast, it crashed every time I tried to install it. Mind you that I had VS2003, VS2005, VS2008, and VS2010 installed at the time. So I decided to clean up my system. I mean, who needs all these releases of Visual Studio on their machine anyhow, right? Well… I think I do want several version sitting around to for experimentation. I decided that I would start using Virtual Hard Drive to that end, if I needed to.

So, off I went to back up all the wonderful stuff I might step on during this adventure… Of course I had to get a new 3Terabyte drive to make a clean backup and organize all the Microsoft Download. Several days later, I had everything backed up and was ready to start cleaning out my Visual Studio accumulation…

I started by removing the obvious VS 2008 items, rebooted and tried the SQL2008 installer again. The same message occurred. I removed all the framework and tools related to the VS 2008 version, rebooted and tried the SQL2008 installer again. The same message occurred. I removed VS2010, VS2005, VS2003, and related items. I removed all .net frameworks, and tools, rebooted and tried the SQL2008 installer again. The same message occurred. What kind of MADNESS is this? I decided to uninstall the SQL2005 Express, and SQL 2008 pieces that were installed prior to the message and try again from scratch…

Can you guess the outcome… Yup… The darn thing still wouldn’t install, and was still getting stuck on the VS208 SP rule.

OK Microsoft, pull you head out of you money hole and figure out how to make this work (like including the freakin sp1 patch, if it is a requirement).

Frustrated by this madness, I went ahead and clean my registry out (carefully exporting removed registry items). This step is not recommended for the faint at heart. I wasn’t too worried, because I have re-built this pc many a time and had a good back up and installation process…

I really didn’t want to build the pc from scratch, so I decided to take a wack at one of the setting in the registry (trick the installer into thinking the patch level was VS2008 sp1). Heck, I knew that their was no chance, that there was any VS installation on the pc at this point.

Quick Disclaimer: Try this at your own risk!
Find the following entry in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\9.0\SP
Change the SP’s REG_DWORD value from 0 to 1.

Below is the recommended upgrade/installation path prior to removing every thing like I ended having to do.

Run the Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack Preparation Tool

Note: Installing a more recent service pack will uninstalled this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945140″>VS 2008 SP1 automatically.

Run the SQL Server 2008 installer…

Good luck, Dale

Performance Monitor Issue

The other day I was trying to track down some performance issues on my home computer. I decided that I would go into Performance Monitor(Perfmon) and track a couple of things to determine what might be causing my issue. So I opened the Performance Monitor and started to add some counters. To my surprise… There were no Performance Object available in the Add Counter wizard. What he heck could cause this? I had upgraded to SP3 on XP recently and figured it must have WACKED my installation some how.

Off I went to the web to see what suggestions were available. What a MESS. No one had any great advise. I stumble on to an article about restoring the PerfMon DAT files. To save you the misery of digging thorough all that wonderful information, I have a quick suggestion for you if you come across a similar issue. When you click on the PLUS sign in the performance monitoring area, you will be presented with an Add Counter pop-up.

If you are seeing an empty/grayed out performance Object.  Here is how I solved the issue.

- Create a Folder to hold some files that we will be working with on your desktop.
- Copy the perf*.dat files from %Systemroot%\System32\Perf?009.dat to the desktop folder we will work from.
- Rename the %Systemroot%\System32\Perf?009.dat files to %Systemroot%\System32\Perf?009.datOLD
- Copy the C:\WINDOWS\I386\PERF?009.DA_ files to the desktop work folder.
- Expand the .DA_ files
- Copy the expanded files to the %Systemroot%\System32\ directory.
- Run the Performance Monitor to see if we are good now.

Cheers

Tags: ISSUES, PerfMon, Performance Monitor

Tools I Use

I have been goofing around with a FaceBook application for a short while now and my tool collection has expanded. I figured that it was time to share some of my most used tools with anyone that is interested.

FREE Tools:
(As always, consider supporting these products if you can)

• WinMerge – I cannot live without this tool. This tool allows you to DIFF/Compare multiple files and is very good at it.

 

• Tortoise SVN – For those of you that are total Microsoft Drones, this is one of the Great Source Control programs. Couple it with a little NANT, PowerShell, and CruiseControl to automate your build process. If your shop doesn’t have automated builds, I highly recommend you look into this one.
• Gimp – A good friend of mine recommended this Image Editor, when I asked if they knew of an editor that could do transparent backgrounds of a GIF file. Once I downloaded this application I was Surprised at the incredible amount of features that were packed into it.
• WinSCP – For those of you that FTP to a Web Site or Remote Server, I have find that the Classic FTP is cumbersome and tedious. WinSCP and FileZilla are similar in features. However, I tend to prefer WinSCP without being able to tie down why I prefer it over the other.

I will update this list with any tools I come across that are A MUST HAVE and that I use regularly. I DO NOT intend on listing all the PAID FOR development tools, such as Visual Studio, Flash Builder, etc. I hope you will share your most valued tools with us and discuss why they are a value to you.

- Dale

Powerful Open Source Audio Editor

I recently had the need to edit a little audio and came across this powerful and intuitive audio editor. This is worth checking out and since it is open source, you may be able to contribute or even learn some new tricks by reviewing the source code.

The name of the product is Audacity and the site is located at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Adobe CS5 Begginnings

I am still playing around with Adobe CS5 and thinking about purchasing one of the packages they offer. They allow you to try the fully functional version for 30 days free of charge. How cool is that?

Since I am getting ready to head to Disney for a week, I am trying not to get too deep into anything. However, I came across this cool tool as part of the CS5 download, called Adobe Pixel Bender. The tool allows you to programmatically filter pictures. This is a very powerful tool that is fairly simple to use. The language syntax is very similar to C. There are a couple documents that explain how to use the tool and how to develop within the tool. This site will get you started and has all of the downloads you will need. Enjoy.

Adobe Developer Connection

I will be following up with other quick excerpts from my CS5 experimentation. I may even include a couple cool filters for your consumption. Adobe has a site where you can get some public filters too (Pixel Bender Exchange).

Tags: Adobe, CS5, development, Flash, Flex, Photo, Pixel Bender

Flash Beginnings (Part II)

Over time most development tools mature. As this is true for all good things, Flash is no exception. You can get a 30 day evaluation copy of Flash Professional CS5.

Some other useful tools you may want to grab if you are starting to get serious with Flash Development are:

• FlashDevelop, a nice tool for developing Action Script 3 (AS3)
• Flash Player Debug and Projector, used to debug your Flash Code

A good place to get some free training on Flash is at the ADOBE TV site.

Tags: development, Flash, programming, TOOLS

Game Developement Beginnings

I picked up this book the other day called Real-World Flash Game Development by Chris Griffith. The book has a companion web site. At the time of this post there was a link to another site, where you could get free access to several game development books for 30 days. I hope you get a chance to take advantage of this offer before it ends.

Tags: DEVELOPMNENT, Flash, GAMES, programming, SILVERLIGHT