Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day: 02/10/2013

Friday, February 15, 2013

Kevin's Tips To Technology Presentation Perfection. Six tips for to help you toward Demo Mastery

Kevin E. Kline - Demo Mastery for the Technology Evangelist

In the same way that the finest presentations involve much more than the simple relaying of information, the finest software demos are much more than just presenting features.

REMEMBER: The goal of a demo is to INSPIRE the audience to use the software/technology, not to teach them every nuance of software/technology.

I’ve spent the last 10 years learning how to give good presentations and to give good software demonstrations. Here are several tips to take your software demonstration from informative to masterful:

1. Know your audience

2. Start, but only start, with an agenda

3. Skip the lengthy intro

4. Show what is pertinent

5. Don’t get sidelined

6. Hit the jackpot

...

One day, I might become a Developer/Technology Evangelist (officially... I already kind of am unofficially... just ask anyone I work with... lol) so I like gathering these kinds of tips and tricks.

The best part of sharing this? These tips can be applied to ANY presentation.

The HTML5 Quick Start For Greg's (err... Dummies... um... err... um.. for the HTML5 Challenged. Yeah. Them)

CodeProject - HTML5 Quick Start Web Application

Background

I started learning more about HTML5 from December last year. Since it was new, talked about and had real good features, I got a jump start from the thought of using it in our upcoming projects and possibly giving a session on HTML5 to my team once I have some good insight on the same. While learning about the HTML5, I started developing a demo web application that was fully HTML5 based with all the new major features that we will be discussing in this article going ahead.

Once the thought of sharing the features in a quick and easy manner hit me, I tried to develop a HTML5 enabled ASP.NET application that would be self sufficient in explaining and showcasing the new HTML5 features - kind of self starter kit to see and play around with the feature implementation straight away post download.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Tools

Structure

Forms

Drag & Drop

Audio & Video

GeoLocation

Web Storage

Web Workers

Web Socket

Canvas

Offline Application

Device Support

...

"

Being HTML5 "Challenged" (Man, I seem to say that about a bunch of things don't I? That's why I love my job and the tech space... so much to learn! That's also why I hate the tech space... so much to learn! lol ) I found this article a great read and tool to jump start my HTML5'ness... The best things are the diagrams/snaps/images. they really help demonstrate the point at hand...

Find your inner App Hero with these two new Windows 8 App Templates

Mark Arteaga - Windows 8 App Templates Released

"For the past month we have been busy putting together some Windows 8 templates to help developers build apps for Windows 8 faster. With the help of Barranger, I have built out two Windows 8 templates with each having a companion backend server.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, your will know that almost everything I do is .NET C#/XAML development. For these templates, I decided to go the HTML5/CSS/JavaScript route and use WinJS for Windows 8 client apps. On the backend decided to use NodeJS on Windows Azure with a MongoDB data store on MongoLab.

So what templates are being released?

Finder App Template

The Windows 8 Finder App Template is a template developed to allow developers to quickly and easily create a location based type application for the Windows 8 store. It allows a developer to easily pull existing point of interest data into the app to display on a map.

...

Hero App Template

The Windows 8 Hero App Template is a template developed to allow developers to quickly and easily create an application to collect certain information while out in the field on a Windows 8 device. For example, if a developer wanted to create an app to allow people to submit information on roads needing pothole repairs, the Hero App Template is a good starting point. The Hero App Template is a derivative of the Windows 8 Finder App Template described above.

...

..."

I thought these two templates interesting in their scope and all the stuff they provide out of the box... Why write it if you don't have too?

It's a Rap! The Surface Pro Rap, that is...

Go DevMENTAL - The Surface Pro Rap

"The Surface Pro was released on Saturday, enjoy this little rap inspired by the Surface Pro commercial below

...

The rap

(thanks MC Sean I warned you I would post it!)

To rock my business

I needed something fine

So I got a Surface Pro

To make my business shine

Running all my apps

In the modern UI

Jump into desktop mode

Business on the fly

Super sleek and light

Black as the night

Keyboard is the cover

Stand props just right

Full Desktop in the day

Keeping competition at bay

Win8 apps at night

Keeping friends real tight

It’s at the Microsoft Store

Or a retailer near you

Supplies running out fast

You best buy two

..."

Come on... you know you want too (rap it, that is... and maybe buy one too, now that they are back in stock... :)

Microsoft Message Analyzer better in Beta 2 (Gantt viewer, Quick filter, Parsing REST Protocols and more)

MessageAnalyzer - Microsoft Message Analyzer Beta 2 is released (build 5950)!

Install the Beta 2 version from here: https://connect.microsoft.com/site216/Downloads. You’ll need to be a member of our connection.

This release adds a range of new functionality and resolves a number of bugs:

· IntelliSense UI for filter creation – As one of the most requested features, Filter IntelliSense is now available for exploring protocol message hierarchies to find the fields you need to build filter expressions. The capabilities are vastly improved compared to Network Monitor, now displaying protocols, messages, fields, structures, properties, annotations and more!

· Quick filter - Quick filtering makes it easy to create a time window in which to view trace results! Unlike BSV, it filters messages in memory after loading them instead of during import. Just select the traces you want, adjust the time slider as needed, and you are done. It’s that easy.

· Capture firewall discard events – This feature allows you to discover how the firewall is affecting network traffic. New messages tell you when traffic is blocked and associated IDs point to the specific firewall rule responsible for dropping the message.

· OPN Viewer – You can right click on any field and select Go to Definition to view the field’s OPN definition. This feature provides the equivalent functionality of the NPL Viewer in Network Monitor 3.4.

· Parsing REST Protocols – This feature enables you to diagnose and analyze RESTful web services. RESTful web services are one of the fastest growing network areas.

· Performance improvements:

· Gantt viewer – Do you need to see a bird’s eye view of your message traffic? Message Analyzer now includes a highly customizable Gantt Viewer that provides easy-to-use navigation, zooming, and the ability to drill down into further details, as necessary.

· Console viewer – provides an interactive command-line interface for filtering, sorting, grouping, and viewing messages collections.

..."

Lots of cool features if you're into Network traffic analysis (and who isn't? :P )

Capturing data (cough… passwords… cough) on unsecured wireless isn’t hard… (so don’t use them or SSL it baby!)

Network Monitor (NetMon/NM) 3.3 Released
NetMon Parsers – Existing parsers available and more coming via CodePlex
NetMon API – Capture, Parse and and Capture File Access (with Managed P/Invoke example too)
Network Monitor 3.2 (aka NetMon, NM3) Beta Released – Now with application network conversation tracking UI
NetMon 3.1 Released
Network Monitor 3 (aka NetMon 3, aka NM3) Re-released for Vista
NetMon 3.0 RTW

Note to Los Angeles Metro (aka subway) riders: Don't block the darn doors...

blogdowntown - Metro continues transit manners campaign with new platform decals

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — A few weeks after Metro beefed up their bike etiquette signs aboard trains, they have continued to promote good public transit manners with new platform decals at the 7th/Metro Center Station.

These floor signs have been placed on red and purple line platforms and are intended to help coordinate the flow of traffic on and off trains, Metro's blog The Source reports.

These decals look like large yellow mats with arrows pointing away from the train, indicating that riders should be let off the light-rail line before new ones board. There are two additional diagonal arrows outside the yellow mat that point towards the train -- telling passengers they should wait to the sides until it's their turn.

Stephen Tu of Metro's rail operations told The Source that the 7th/Metro station is the busiest rail station in the system, and that they already build an extra minute into the subway schedule to account for the large number of boardings at this station. These trial-run floor decals are an attempt to reduce wait times and ease passenger transitions at the station.

..."

<rant>

I know light rail & subways are kind of new to Los Angeles (though we've had them for over a decade) so maybe people don't know the right waiting for a train etiquette, but you know it's really much easier for you to get in, if you wait for the people to get out first (and thereby giving them some room to get off the darn train too). Yeah, I know, people waiting to get on a train, standing right in front of the doors are causing a traffic jam by blocking people from getting off, imagine that! Matter of fact, same rant for elevators too.

Come on people, get a clue. Do you really have the IQ that requires a mat this this to figure this out?

Really?

(sigh... yes, they do... I almost "expressed myself loudly and forcefully" (aka almost lost it) today with people blocking me from getting off the train... TGIF ;)

</rant>

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Adobe Photoshop Source Now Available! (For the 1990 v1.0.1 version... ;)

Computer History Museum - Adobe Photoshop Source Code

When brothers Thomas and John Knoll began designing and writing an image editing program in the late 1980s, they could not have imagined that they would be adding a word to the dictionary.

...

That first version of Photoshop was written primarily in Pascal for the Apple Macintosh, with some machine language for the underlying Motorola 68000 microprocessor where execution efficiency was important. It wasn’t the effort of a huge team. Thomas said, “For version 1, I was the only engineer, and for version 2, we had two engineers.” While Thomas worked on the base application program, John wrote many of the image-processing plug-ins.

With the permission of Adobe Systems Inc., the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available, for non-commercial use, the source code to the 1990 version 1.0.1 of Photoshop. All the code is here with the exception of the MacApp applications library that was licensed from Apple. There are 179 files in the zipped folder, comprising about 128,000 lines of mostly uncommented but well-structured code. By line count, about 75% of the code is in Pascal, about 15% is in 68000 assembler language, and the rest is data of various sorts. To download the code you must agree to the terms of the license.

...

Commentary on the source code

Software architect Grady Booch is the Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM Research Almaden and a trustee of the Computer History Museum. He offers the following observations about the Photoshop source code:

..."

That's just kind of awesome....

Have I downloaded it? You bet!

588k zipped. Nice.

(via Bram.us - Adobe Photoshop 1.0.1 Source Code)

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Microsoft SQL Server Licensing Question? There's a hotline for that...

MSSQLFun - Microsoft SQL Server License Helpline

Microsoft SQL Server license has lots of flavors in terms of user based \ CAL or processor based license, license based on versions or license based on environment (physical or virtual).

Although, Microsoft release license guidelines for each & every SQL server version. But there are more complex scenarios for licensing then we think.

Best person to answer your all queries over licensing is MICROSOFT itself.

[GD: Post Leach level 99%]

Why a snap? I leached enough of Rohit Garg's post, I felt icky leaching that last bit... So an image presents the information but doesn't steal too much from his SEO... well, so I hope anyway. Being a web curator is waling a fine line...

Anyway...

Seems the questions of the ages are Microsoft License/CAL (well actually any big corp software license related...) so when I saw this, the fact that I could call a human and get answers from the horses mouth so to speak, well I knew I had to grab it for future need.

And if you guys can use it too... :)

Wiki-wiki, here's some popular PowerShell add-ons...

TechNet Wiki - Popular Add-Ons for PowerShell Users

Just a few of the many add-ons and things you can extended PowerShell with, but good ones none-the-less...

Table Per Type(TPH) Inheritance in Entity Framework, a Beginner's guide oneness (well understanding at least)...

CodeProject - A Beginner's Tutorial on Understanding Table Per Type(TPH) Inheritance in Entity Framework

"Introduction

In this article we will discuss about implementing Table per Type inheritance hierarchy using Entity Framework. We will see a small sample to see how this can be implemented in a step by step manner.

Background

There are times when our database design has tables that do not logically match with the entities that we need in our application. There could be chances that the database has too many or too few tables than the entities required logically by the application. Some other times when the tables are created one per logical entity but the relationship between them is not logical from the application and entity perspective.

Inheritance in entity framework provides a way to create the required logical entities to act on a set of database tables and also to create a more meaningful relationship between entities using inheritance.

There are three type of inheritance relationships in the entity framework. Table per type(TPT), Table per hierarchy (TPH) and Table per concrete type(TPC).

In this article we will try to look at the Table per Type inheritance relationship because from an efficiency standpoint this tends to be the efficient(comparatively) and this provides a great way to model the tables having one to one relationships.

...

..."

Since I'm an EF newbe, I can use all the ~~Idiots~~ Beginner's guides I can get... :)

Gaming up a story with the PowerPoint Game Design Storyboard Shapes...

Visual Studio Gallery - Storyboard Shapes - Game Design Shapes

"Use these shapes to visualize your game and then connect them to the Team Foundation Server

This is the first of a number of icons that you could use to design your games. This is not intended to be used in place of your final graphics, but allows you to determine what graphics you need and to explain your work goals.

For connectors in Storyboarding, use the "shapes" and select a connector. The Storyboard shapes do not normally have connectors. If you are used to using Visio that can be confusing.

This will aid in showing non-app devs what your plan of work is for your game. This storyboard might be improved overtime since it needs improvement.

..."

Storyboarding in PowerPoint/VS2012 has saved me untold hours of effort... There's just nothing like showing a user a near-app like view of what you THINK they are asking for (and getting back, "Oh no, not THAT! Now that I see it, I'd...")

Here's a snap of more of the shapes in this pack;

Glima!... Gilma v3 is a .Net 4.0 update...

CodeProject - Gilma - GUI for the ILMerge Application Revised for .NET 4.0

Introduction

I saw the beautiful interface made by Tomer Shalev on the SourceForce Web site and thought I could rewrite it in a self-contained way. The original Tomer Shalev's Gilma is a front-end application to ILMerge: Microsoft's command-line utility that can be used to merge multiple .NET assemblies into a single assembly. ILMerge is freely available from Microsoft's Web site.
ILMerge's license does allow commercial usage.

In my implementation, the snapshot of which you can see in the image above, I have referenced the ILMerge executable directly in Visual Studio 2010.

Using the Code

The MSI file contained in the demo installs the application. .NET 4.0 Client profile and the 3.1 Installers are pre-requisites. In the source zip, the entire Visual Studio 201 project is contained.
The only thing to point out is the presence of the possibility to use a strong key in the preferred *.snk format to digitally sign the assembly.

...

I last blogged about Gilma five years ago (Gilma - GUI for ILMerge Branched for .Net 2.0). I guess it's okay to blog about it again, now... :)

Sunday, February 10, 2013

"Official" Surface Getting Started Guide (free 68 page PDF) is now available...

Microsoft Press - Quick news: Surface Getting Started Guide now available

Greetings, gang. Just wanted to let you know about this guide to the Microsoft Surface, which was published yesterday. You can download the 68-page PDF (1.35 MB) here: Surface_Getting_Started_guide.pdf

Surface Getting Started Guide

Here's the table of contents...

Am resisting the urge to insert a snarky comment about how nice this PDF might have been 90+ days ago with the release of the Surface RT device... must... resist...