Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day: 07/14/2013

Saturday, July 20, 2013

[Hardware Review] Haswell is coming... Haswell/Harris Beach Intel SDS Ultrabook Review - Part 0

Next week, it's going to be an exciting week. I was recently offered the opportunity from Developer Media and Intel to get my geeky hands on a reference Haswell Ultrabook. Of course, it's not all fun and games, I do have to do a review of it, up to at least three posts, totaling 1,450 words. But in the end, assuming I follow through, I get to keep it. Now that's a deal...

This will be a new endeavor. I've done a number of book reviews, but never a "real" hardware review. So man, I have to like, you know, write! Actually generate content! Yeah, I know, going to be a stretch for a web curator like me. :P

Next week? In my inbox is the shipping notice, Tuesday is the big day. Nothing like getting a new piece of shinny new, cutting edge hardware!

Here's the post planned schedule:

Part 0 - "Haswell is coming...", July 20 [This Post]
Part 1 - "Hello Haswell" - Unboxing and initial impressions, July 28
Part 2 - "Life with Haswell" - A couple week with Haswell, September 15
Part 3 - "It's been a Haswell Summer", October 13

See you next weekend!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe my readers will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Friday, July 19, 2013

[Humor] PRISM Anxiety Disorder

The Joy of Tech Comic - PRISM Anxiety Disorder

(via All Things D - PRISM Anxiety Disorder (Comic))

What's funny (or maybe not) is that this is probably someone's reality...

5 for 11 on 8.1 - Five Fun Features of Modern IE11 on Windows 8.1

next of windows - 5 Cool Tricks You Can Do Only With IE 11 on Windows 8.1

Have you tried the new IE 11 from Windows 8.1? You might not notice the subtle differences, but under the hood there are quite a few welcome and unique changes only applied on IE 11 with Windows 8.1. IE 11 is probably the best browser in a very specific domain, the Windows 8 full screen mode, though it might not strike the best performance points.

For those folks out there who haven’t had chance paying more attention on this, here are five neat tricks you can do with IE 11 on Windows 8.1.

IE 11 Allow You To Open Up to 100 Tabs ...

Ensure Tabs and Address Bars Are Always Shown At the Bottom Of the Screen ...

Smart Instant Search Result ...

View Previously Opened Tabs From Another Device ...

Have Multiple IE 11 Running Side By Side Comparison In Full Screen Mode ...

I wonder how many of these apply to Desktop IE11? Going to have to see. 100 tabs would be cool...lol

Miss the future events on the To-Do pane in Outlook 2013? Here's an add-in that will give them back to you...

CodePlex - Outlook 2013 Add-In

Adds extended appointment calendar to see events for several upcoming days, and enhanced new email notification system to delete/flag incoming emails.

This project was born because after moving to the new Outlook 2013, a lot of nice and useful features were strangely "lost" in the upgrade from versions like 2010 or even 2007.

It started as a personal project to include these options in my own daily work, but some colleagues were interested in it, so I decided to include it in Codeplex for everybody to download and mess around with it if you like it too. You're absolutely free to download it, and do whatever you want to do with the code if you wish, which BTW is provided as-is. ;-)

If you find it useful and have spare time you can drop me a line saying how you like the tool and such. ;-)

...

Upcoming appointments
One of the things that I missed a LOT from 2010 was the ability to see upcoming appointments for the following days in the to-do task pane.

It's very weird but in version 2013 this option has disappeared, so you can only see the appointments for the current day, which most people may not think of it as a big issue, but say you have a meeting tomorrow at 6:30 am, you won't be able to see it today and could probably miss it... ;-)

For this I have implemented a new pane that docks to the right of the Outlook window and shows the calendar and a list of future appointments within a certain range of upcoming days:

...

Multiple calendars
It was a very popular request to add support for multiple calendars and now the appointments shown in the pane will be selected from the configured list of calendars to choose from (see configuration below). As of now only those calendars under the "My Calendars" section will show up, and there are some timeout issues with accounts such as "public folders".

Also they will show in the same font/color, so drop me a line on a suggestion to better show them, as I think the look and feel may be confusing with color categories.

Configuration
Configuration can be accessed now through the little gear icon in the calendar, to claim more space for items (after removing the buttons). You can select the following options:
- Number of days to show from the selected date onwards.
- Allow users to show/hide previous appointments in the day.
- Enable/disable new email alert notifications.
- Show/hide friendly group header names for specific dates (yesterday, today and tomorrow).
- List of accounts to show calendars from.

...

The change of the To Do Bar/Pane in Outlook 2013 is one of the things that really bugs me. Sure you can Pin a View, but still you only get the events/meetings/appointments for Today. So I've got a love-hate thing going with Outlook 2013 and have been holding off putting it on my primary personal box.

Then along came this add-in. It works pretty darn good (for me at least) and does just want I want.

Plus the source is available too so I can tweak it if I want! Muahahah... :)

[Why Didn't I Think of This... Thing of the day] Windows 8 Keyboard/Mouse Cheat Sheet Wallpaper

MotorMouth's Blog - Windows 8 Cheat Sheet Wallpaper

Now that's brilliant...

(via QuicklyCode - Windows 8 Cheat Sheet Wallpaper)

Do you DMV (SQL Server Dynamic Management View)? If not, check out this series... "July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO's"

Tamarick Hill - July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO’s - Intro

DMO’s burst onto the SQL Server scene in 2005 and when they did they unlocked a wealth of information. I’ve became a major fan of DMO’s as they tend to simplify my troubleshooting as well as provide me with valuable information about what is going on within the SQL Server engine. I would recommend that those of you who are not familiar with DMO’s, take the time to really learn more about them.

For those of you who may not be familiar with DMO’s, for the month of July, I will be writing about one DMO per day. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no DMO expert or anything like that, but I’ve worked with them enough to feel that I can give you some good information about DMO’s to help you get started with using them. During these blog sessions, I will not be providing you with any complicated queries to solve all of your SQL Server problems that you may or may not have. I will be simply introducing you to various DMO’s and illustrating what type of information they provide. After you learn more about these individually, then you will be able to join whatever DMO’s you need to pull back the information you are seeking.

I hope that you all benefit in some form or fashion from my next 31 DMO postings!!! Enjoy! [GD: Post Leached in Full]

Tamarick Hill - July, the 31 Days of SQL Server DMO’s – Day 18 (sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats)

The sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats Dynamic Management Function is used to return IO statistic information about each of your database files on your server. As input parameters, this function takes a database_id and a file_id. If you want to return IO statistic information for all files, you can simply pass in NULL values for both of these. Let’s have a look at this function and examine its results:

SELECT db_name(database_id) DatabaseName, * FROM sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats(NULL, NULL)

...

I don't DMV nearly enough [Insert "Back when I started with SQL Server..." old guy comment here] which means I'm missing out on the awesome that are DMV's. If you've been avoiding or ignoring them, check out these series. It will give you a feel for just some of the cool that can be found, or done with, DMV's.

Here's the series ToC To date (to see the latest, just check out the July archive)...

Shining some light on your MSI to WiX conversion with Dark (and this simple UI Wrapper)

CodeProject - Convert VS2008 .msi to WiX project

If you have a setup file (.msi) built with Visual Studio 2008 and you want to create a WiX project to build a Visual Studio 2012 .msi, this article is for you.

Note that this utility is best suited for setup files which are fairly simple and do not have too much customizations involved.

Background

In the below blog, there are steps to extract information from a VS2008 .msi. These manual steps are cumbersome if you have many .msis to be converted. These simple steps are combined into a UI based utility.

http://geoffwebbercross.blogspot.nl/2012/11/converting-visual-studio-setup-project.html

Using the code

The UI is self explanatory. The utility does the following:

Use dark.exe to decompile the .msi to create the .wxs file.

Use dark.exe to extract and rename the binaries (limited set). More customization might be needed depending on the contents of your .msi.

Copy a simple Config.wxi which has relative paths set for the files to be packaged

Copy a sample .wixproj to get started.

Replace '~' in ShortName attributes to '-' to remove warnings

..."

Geoff's Blog - Converting a Visual Studio Setup Project to Wix

Anyone who’s using Visual Studio 2012 and either opened up an old solution with a Setup Project (.vdproj) or created a new solution and looked for the setup project under project types will know it’s no longer there and no longer supported. This is not actually that surprising since TFS Build Server and MSBuild doesn’t support the legacy .vdproj files any way.

Wix is the recommended alternative; itis very powerful, but quite complicated to work with and there is currently no GUI.

The .vdproj can’t be converted directly, however one of the wix tools called dark can be used to decompile msi files into wxs xml format.

This is a step by step procedure for converting an MSI with an exe, a number of DLLs and files into a Wix project.

...

First you know I've got to whine about the dropping of the Setup and Deployment Project types from VS 2012+... whine, whine, whine... Okay, that's out of my system (for now).

Anyway... If you have an MSI that you'd like to WiX'ify, the Dark utility and the two above projects will help.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Legislative Data Challenge - Win $5k challenge by helping the Library of Congress make US laws machine readable...

Nextgov - Contest Aims to Make Proposed U.S. Laws Machine Readable Worldwide

The Library of Congress is crowdsourcing an initiative to make it easier for software programs around the world to read, understand and categorize federal legislation.

The library is offering a $5,000 prize to the Challenge.gov contestant whose entry best fits U.S. legislation into Akoma Ntoso, an internationally-developed framework that aims to be the standard for presenting legislative data in machine-readable formats.

...

News from the Library of Congress - Library of Congress Announces Legislative Data Challenge

The Library of Congress, at the request of the U.S. House of Representatives, is utilizing the Challenge.gov platform to advance the exchange of legislative information worldwide.

Akoma Ntoso (www.akomantoso.org) is a framework used in many other countries around the world to annotate and format electronic versions of parliamentary, legislative and judiciary documents. The challenge, "Markup of U.S. Legislation in Akoma Ntoso", invites competitors to apply the Akoma Ntoso schema to U.S. federal legislative information so it can be more broadly accessed and analyzed alongside legislative documents created elsewhere.

"The Library works closely with the Congress and related agencies to make America’s federal legislative record more widely available through Congress.gov," said Robert Dizard Jr., Deputy Librarian of Congress. "This challenge will build on that accessibility goal by advancing the possibilities related to international frameworks. American legislators, analysts, and the public can benefit from international standards that reflect U.S. legislation, thereby allowing better comparative legislative information. We are initiating this effort as people around the world are working to share legislative information across nations and other jurisdictions."

Utilizing U.S. bill text, challenge participants would attempt to markup the text into electronic versions using the Akoma Ntoso framework. Participants will be expected to identify any issues that appear when applying the Akoma Ntoso schema to U.S. bill text, recommend solutions to resolve those issues, and provide information on the tools used to create the markup.

The challenge, which opened today and closes Oct. 31, 2013, is extended to participants 18 years of age or older. For the official rules and more detailed information about the challenge or to enter a submission, visit akoma-ntoso-markup.challenge.gov.

The competition’s three judges are experts in either U.S. legislation XML standards or the Akoma Ntoso legal schema. The Library of Congress will announce the winner of the $5,000 prize on Dec. 19, 2013.

...

Akoma Ntoso

Akoma Ntoso (“linked hearts” in Akan language of West Africa) defines a “machine readable” set of simple technology-neutral electronic representations (in XML format) of parliamentary, legislative and judiciary documents.

Akoma Ntoso XML schemas make “visible” the structure and semantic components of relevant digital documents so as to support the creation of high value information services to deliver the power of ICTs to increase efficiency and accountability in the parliamentary, legislative and judiciary contexts.

Akoma Ntoso is an initiative of "Africa i-Parliament Action Plan" (www.parliaments.info) a programme of UN/DESA.

I'm trying really hard to be supportive of this and not be snarky (like at least with this, something will read the laws congress passes... OH darn, see what I mean? ;)

Silos are for farms, not agile development teams...

naked ALM - A better way than staggered iterations for delivery

There is a better way than staggered iterations for delivery that will keep you on the path to agility.

I have seen many companies that are trying to move towards greater agility get trapped in the past by creating artificial silos based on skills. They believe that by creating a timebox for planning, development and testing that we can get closer to agility and move away from our traditional models. Unfortunately the actual result is to enshrine that traditional staged model and step sideways on the path to agility, not forwards. In many cases it can be a significant step backward that will take many painful years to rectify.

..

The problem with staggered iterations for delivery

In the diagram above we have an 18 week cycle from inception to delivery. That’s more than 4 months between ideation and delivery with a lag of 2 months to even get feedback with a 2 month lag for all subsequent feedback. Worse this is the most expensive kind of feedback as the Coding and Testing teams ..

...

The solutions to staggered iterations for delivery

We need to foster teams over individuals and make those teams responsible for the delivery of working software. To get that we need cross-functional teams that can turn ideas into that working software. And we need to do it often.

Cross-functional teams –We need to have...

Asynchronous development - Ideally you want...

Test first – Test first is about not doing any work unless there is a measurable test that ...

Working software each iteration – If you don’t create working software at the end ...

Quality Assurance requires no testing – If you consider that all testing is done as part of the sprint, ...

...

Conclusion

The expected result of staggered iterations would be an increase in rework and in technical debt. If you are moving from a 4 year iterative process to a 4 month one you will see value, but your process will be opaque and will only reduce your ability to deliver working software.

Yes your cycle time will be reduced, but you can do so much better....

I've been here, done that, but I've found that without support and buy-in by everyone, this is an easy trap to fall into. Heck even cross functional teams can be a political beast that can't be slain, let alone everything else.

Yet, that doesn't mean we can't dream and strive for something like this.

New C#/VB Language features in VS2013/.Net 4.5.1? Nope, and here's why...

The Visual Basic Team - No new VB and C# Language Features in VS 2013

As you can see in the VS2013 Preview, we have not added new language features to Visual Basic and C# in the next version of Visual Studio. I’d like to share our thinking on this. There are essentially two main reasons why we chose not to evolve the languages this time around.

The most important is that we just shipped new versions of these two languages less than a year ago, with support for asynchrony being a major new and impactful language feature in both. Developers are still learning how to integrate and benefit from the asynchrony shift in languages and APIs. We are very excited about the quicker pace of release for VS, but we believe from experience that language versions need a little more time to settle in. Our current thinking therefore is that Visual Basic and C# should stay closer to the pace they have been on for the past decade. It’s a balance between providing stability and new value, and we feel like we already have that balance about right.

There is a more tactical reason for us as well, which is that we are nearly done reimplementing the compilers and language services for Visual Basic and C# from the ground up. You may have heard of this effort as the Roslyn project, and there will be many end user benefits to this work when it ships. From our internal perspective on the language team, the new infrastructure makes it vastly easier to implement and test new language features with confidence, quality and great tooling. While the old compiler infrastructure is rock solid and supports VS 2013 beautifully, any effort we spend implementing new language features on it takes away from investing in the tooling, language features and compiler APIs that will power the future.

We are actively working on the next versions of Visual Basic and C#....

So it's all Roslyn's fault... But actually, that's okay. I can live with a VS release without a language update. And given that it's .Net 4.5.1, it makes sense too. But using this time wisely my language building friends!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

“Productivity Hub SP1” = Office 2007/2010 Module of training and doc's for SharePoint 2010 (Think Plug in Module, Play lots of Training)

Kurt Shintaku's Blog - DOWNLOAD: “Productivity Hub SP1” – Installable Training Module for SharePoint Server 2010

The “Productivity Hub” is a free, downloadable module that plugs into SharePoint Server 2010. (Note: There’s also a version that plugs into SharePoint Server 2007)

It is essentially a massive 2GB+ self-service training web site that provides end users with a place to review training & quick reference content for each of the major Office & Windows products – including Windows 7 & Internet Explorer 9. It provides video training, documentation, as well as Q&A areas featuring “coaches” that a company can designate within your org to help other people.

What makes it unique is that the site is completely extensible by mere mortals. Customers that use Productivity Hub can create new areas for, say, Adobe Acrobat… or Box… or whatever 3rd party application you’d like to provide self-services support for, and publish your own documentation, videos, etc.

There is a demo site for you to peruse to see what the Productivity Hub looks like on your own. The location of where to download all the content packages for Productivity Hub are also listed below:...

Productivity Hub 2010 SP1

Version: 2010 SP1

Date Published: 3/18/2013

ContentPack2010SP1-1.exe, 460.0 MB
ContentPack2010SP1-2.exe, 441.4 MB
ContentPack2010SP1-3.exe, 470.4 MB
ContentPack2010SP1-4.exe, 718.8 MB
CoreInstall2010SP1.exe, 14.0 MB

Microsoft has developed the Productivity Hub to help support your ongoing end user training efforts.

The Hub is a SharePoint Server site collection that serves as a learning community and is fully customizable. It provides a central place for your training efforts, and includes training content from Microsoft’s core products. Microsoft also provides ongoing and updated content packs.

The Hub uses SharePoint Server’s social networking capabilities, such as blogs and discussion groups. In addition, it offers the Coach program, a change management feature to help you train end users to self-help, reducing the burden on your training and IT staff. The Coach program impacts productivity in a collaborative and positive way.

The 2010 SP1 version of the Productivity Hub includes a quiz feature, a section called ‘Get it Done’ that offers training for tasks such as email management and collaboration, and also features Silverlight. However, instructions are also provided to use non-Silverlight web parts, if needed.

What the Productivity Hub is:

Format: Pre-loaded SharePoint site collection, optimized for Web 2.0 functionality and easily deployed within SharePoint 2010 SP1 environment

Content: Convenient end user productivity training in a variety of formats (documents, videos, podcasts, etc.). Receive free periodic updates of content that you will learn about through the Productivity blog.

Blog: The Productivity blog offers tips and tricks for end user productivity. Use it as is, or your training staff can use the posts as their own to help them get started in running an internal blog.

Train the trainer: Includes IT/Manager section to aid with deployment of the site collection, and guidance to develop the Coach program

Products: Office (2007 & 2010), SharePoint (2007 & 2010), Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9, Project (2007 & 2010), Visio (2007 & 2010), Publisher (2007 & 2010), Live Meeting 2007, Communicator 2007, Groove 2007 and Lync 2010 You can also download additional content packages that expand the training materials you can make available through the Hub.

One set of downloads, bunches of training free training for your users. I mean, come on, it's free and will make you a training doc's hero! Your users will throw flowers in front of you as you walk by, name their first born after you... okay, okay, maybe I exaggerate a little :)

Anyway, Keeping my eyes open for the Office 2013 version...

[Awesomeness of the Day] Dragon Skull Found on Beach

Winextra - A Giant Dragon Skull Found On Dorset Beach

It would seem that a giant dragon skull was found on the Charmouth beach on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast but unfortunately...

...and regardless of what the images might show it isn’t a real skull

“Game of Thrones is easily the most talked-about TV show of the moment,” said Ben Ayers of Blinkbox. “We wanted to mark its arrival on Blinkbox with a spectacle every bit as dramatic as this amazing series.” via ComicBookMovie.com

That really is just beyond awesome... I wonder how long that would take me to 3D print? :P

6 on 8.1 - VB6 on Windows 8.1...

a blog or 2 - Visual Basic 6 on Windows 8

For those interested and supporting legacy visual basic applications and need to install VB6 onto your windows 8.1 builds heres how: (tested with the pro-preview build which you can download, test and give us feedback - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview-download

1) run setup as administrator from the vb6 installation media
2) go through the custom setup and de-select the data access components
3) the install will go straight through and will request a restart of windows
4) after a restart, start your visual basic and confirm all works well, advised to set the program to run in administrative mode so it can write to areas of the registry
5) close it down and install the vb6 service pack 6 components which you can get from here - (again make sure you run as administrator)
6) Once installed, restart VB6 and check the help about box to confirm you see SP6 installed

And away you go.

Please do take the time to review the support Statement for Visual Basic 6.0 running on Windows 8

..." [GD: Post Leach Level = 99%]

While it's been a while (though less than a year) since I've done any VB6, it's good to see it will still be supported on Windows 8.1. But I wonder how much longer...? There's going to come a time in the next few years where the final OS nail will be put into the VB6 coffin. That or maybe it will come back from the dead! Imagine a future where VB Classic was released as open source/orphan source... We could call it ZB! Zombie Basic! Muahahahaha.... (Sorry, been a long day).

"How to Develop Your DBA Career" Free eBook (and posters and whitepapers and more [oh my])

Brent Ozar - Grab a Free eBook – How to Develop Your DBA Career

You’ve been trying to get the right DBA job for a long time, but you just can’t seem to figure out how to land it.

You’ve landed a DBA gig, but you’re looking for ways to learn more and make the most of the opportunity.

You’ve got a decent job, but you just wish it was… better.

We want to help. We’ve created a new, free ebook where we share some of our best writing on:

Why it’s so hard to find a Junior DBA job

How to get your foot into the door of database administration

How to handle DBA job interviews

How to get training on the job

What to do when you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling with your DBA job

How to get promoted

It’s all packaged up in a portable, easy to read format.

Brent Ozar - SQL Posters, eBooks, & Whitepapers

How to Develop Your DBA Career
Free eBook

We’ve collected some of our best writing on how to get a DBA job, grow your skills, and ~~slay zombies~~ get promoted.

Bandwidth Reference Poster
by Kendra Little

How big IS that pipe? Read more about this poster here.

Isolation Levels in SQL Server Poster
by Kendra Little

Isolation levels can be a snore, and it’s hard to remember all the details. This poster solves your problem the old fashioned way: cartoons.

Dates and Times in SQL Server Poster
by Kendra Little

Dates and times are more complicated than you think! This poster helps you measure the types by weight (not volume) and remember helpful functions. Read more here.

SQL Server Table Partitioning Poster
by Kendra Little

There’s a lot of moving parts involved in table partitioning. Kendra’s poster shows you how the components of table partitioning work together.

Whitepapers

Factors of Cloud Success

Sizing Up Solid State Storage for SQL Server

SQL Server AlwaysOn- The Uneasy Button

SQL Server Critical Care- A Sample Case

A number of great SQL Server resources from Brent Ozar/Kendra Little.

Here's some snaps from the ebook;

Monday, July 15, 2013

List of some of the new Windows 8.1 features that IT'ers might like...

Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS) - Microsoft Technet - Windows 8.1 New Features

An updated summary of new features for Windows 8.1 can be found in the link below:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dn140266

QUOTE: We built Windows 8 to bring a modern computing experience to businesses and to help professionals stay connected to their colleagues and clients from anywhere, anytime. Windows 8.1 advances this vision and introduces new manageability, mobility, security, user experience and networking capabilities that will be available later this year ... Below is a list of some of the new and updated features:

Harry's bulleting of the new business related features of Win 8.1 is something I'm going to need as I fight off the Win8 naysayers (who have never used it... sigh)

While there, make sure you check out;

Windows 8.1 Preview: Frequently Asked Questions

This article provides answers to common IT professional questions about the Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems with regard to the following topics:

Windows 8.1 Editions

Windows Store Applications

Deployment

Virtualization

Administration

Security

Unless otherwise noted, the information in this FAQ applies to both Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Preview.

Gestalt your way to better data visualization by following the Gestalt Laws

Six Revisions - How to Make Data Visualization Better with Gestalt Laws

People love order. We love to make sense of the world around us.

The human mind’s affinity for making sense of the objects it sees can be explained in a theory called Gestalt psychology. Gestalt psychology, also referred to gestaltism, is a set of laws that accounts for how we perceive or intuit patterns and conclusions from the things we see.

These laws can help designers produce better designs. For instance:

Gestalt laws can help us achieve better visual hierarchy

Gestalt laws can aid us in conceptualizing good symmetry in our designs

Gestalt laws can improve our hyperlink designs

Gestalt laws can even help us teach web design to students

In this guide, we will talk about how to apply the principles of Gestalt to create better charts, graphs, and data visualization graphics.

For broader implementation tips of Gestalt laws, please read Gestalt Principles Applied in Design.

Introduction

Gestalt laws originate from the field of psychology. Today, however, this set of laws finds relevance in a multitude of disciplines and industries like design, linguistics, musicology, architecture, visual communication, and more.

These laws provide us a framework for explaining how human perception works.

Understanding and applying these laws within the scope of charting and data visualization can help our users identify patterns that matter, quickly and efficiently.

None of the Gestalt laws work in isolation, and in any given scenario, you can find the interplay of two or more of these laws.

Let us cover some of the Gestalt laws that are relevant to enhancing data visualization graphics.

...

Summary

To sum up the lessons we can derive from these Gestalt laws:

Law of Prägnanz: Keep it simple. Arrange data logically wherever possible.

Law of Continuity: Arrange objects in a line to facilitate grouping and comparison.

Law of Similarity: Use similar characteristics (color, size, shape, etc.) to establish relationships and to encourage groupings of objects.

Law of Focal Point: Use distinctive characteristics (like a different color or a different shape) to highlight and create focal points.

Law of Proximity: Know what your chart’s information priority is, and then create groupings through proximity to support that priority.

Law of Isomorphic Correspondence: Keep in mind your user and their preconceived notions and experiences. Stick to well-established conventions and best practices.

Law of Figure/Ground: Ensure there is enough contrast between your foreground and background so that charts and graphs are more legible.

Law of Common Fate: Use direction and/or movement to establish or negate relationships.

The title of my post should have been "Break the Gestalt Laws, go directly to the Data Visualization jail, do not..." Anyway, great write up, advice and guidance...

Missed the session about C# 6/.Net 5 at Build? (Well there wasn't one, BUT Anders DID talk it up in this C9 Live Interview)

Smart Software - Anders On C# 6.0 at BUILD 2013

Anders Hejlsberg and Charles Torre talked about a future version of C#, version 6.0, at Windows Build 2013. http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2013/9-006 (34:30)

Visual Studio 2013 is the minor release version in an annual major/minor release cycle. The version of .NET included in VS 2013 is 4.5.1 which is an in-place upgrade of version 4.5. Major changes are expected for Visual Studio 2014 and .NET 5.0.

C# 6.0 will feature an all new C#-based compiler based on Roslyn, which will be released with VS 2014. Roslyn is currently available as a community technology preview, which opens up new compiler services for third parties. The C# team aims to make Roslyn as close to the performance of the native compiler as possible (within a factor of 2 during development and better on release), and, in some cases, Roslyn already outperforms the native compiler due to a more modern immutable AST architecture that supports parallel compilation. The immutable AST architecture is detailed in a recently filed patent.

...

The transcription of the pertinent section by Wesner Moise is awesome. While I felt it s shame we didn't hear about much of the future future stuff (C#6, .Net 5, Roslyn, etc) this interview gives me hope that there at least will be such a release (not that I didn't think there wasn't [Is my boolean logic right?], but still it's good to hear it from none other than Anders himself...)

Full O'Fun with the "FEZ Game-O", an open-source .Net Micro Framework console

GHI Electronics - FEZ Game-O, an open-source console

GHI Electronics believes in the importance of education and the quality of nurturing future generations. The all new FEZ Game-O is a programmable handheld console that lets developers develop applications using Microsoft Visual Studio with C# and Visual Basic. Developers and students learning how to program on the FEZ Game-O can use the same knowledge to develop applications for computers. Similarly, developers that already know C# and Visual Basic (.NET) already know how to program FEZ Game-O.

Not only is it easy to code but having .NET Micro Framework at its core allows the device to be programmed using just a USB cable. Debugging is also supported over USB, from breakpoints and stepping in code to inspecting variables and invoking commands.

We made FEZ Game-O even more awesome by making it all open source! Advanced users can show off their skills by tweaking the core software and even connect JTAG to run native software, using their favorite IDE or even use GCC with command line. We also invite the entire community to continue this open platform and write open source applications and games.

The core of FEZ Game-O is a 32-bit 168Mhz Cortex-M4 processor, STM32F407. This powerful little microcontroller is capable of running all kinds of arcade games and even a software 3D rendering. Advanced users can take advantage of the RLP feature, which allows native code to be invoked from within C# or Visual Basic.

FEZ Game-O is a hacker-friendly device. We want you to open it! Inside, you will find a MicroSD socket, a placement to solder a Bluetooth module (not included) and few IOs. We did not forget about JTAG/SWD and kept it available.

We are releasing FEZ Game-O on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform. You can pledge to help us out and be among the very first people to receive one of the best educational tools available, FEZ Game-O. Coding will be more fun than ever before!

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Kickstarter campaign, Open-source programmable hand-held console, FEZ Game-O

Learn how to program your own applications and games on this open-source hand-held console.

We believe anyone should be free in how they use their devices. We also believe that writing applications and games on an open-source platform is a great way to learn programming, for both kids and adults. We have built FEZ Game-O from the ground up with these two beliefs in mind.

FEZ Game-O is an open-source hand-held programmable console. With it you can accomplish more in less time as it is programmed using Microsoft's Visual Studio, in C# and Visual Basic (.NET). These are the same tools that professionals use today to create all kinds of applications and games for Windows PCs. A developer who knows C# or VB already knows how to program the FEZ Game-O and a beginner learning C# or VB on FEZ Game-O can use that same knowledge to program a PC.

The goal of FEZ Game-O is not to compete with other closed-source platforms or to sell overly priced games. Instead, we want to build an open-source platform with a community where you will obtain the application for free and even receive the source code of that application as well. We want you to share your work, learn from and improve other's work ... this is the FEZ Game-O mentality.

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Advanced Users

There are many options for advanced users. For example, the core libraries include a feature that allows users to load native code within NETMF code (Runtime Loadable Procedures) where game logic can be done with managed C# or VB but the critical inner loops can be done in C or assembly. This is similar to how DLLs function on PCs. Below is an example of a 3D software raycast rendering.

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Can FEZ Game-O emulate a classic console?

Yes it can! We currently do not have any emulators in development but it is possible to emulate many of the classic consoles. We have a feeling someone in the community will port an emulator. Will that be you?

How easy is it?

Below is a snippet of code to show you how easy it is program the FEZ Game-O using C#. The code shows you how to draw a circle, line, text and bitmap on the LCD.

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Manufacturing Timeline

Place order for additional parts (July)

Place order for additional PCBs (July)

Start circuit board assembly (August - October)

Hand assembly of remaining parts (August - October)

Quality Check (August - October)

Shipping of backer rewards (August - October)

What we will provide

FEZ Game-O console with protective pouch and USB cable

FEZ Game-O Eagle design files

FEZ Game-O board schematics

FEZ Game-O 3D PDF

FEZ Game-O SDK compatible with both Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012

FEZ Game-O tutorials and access to a community-driven code-base

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FEZ Game-O

*** This product is being launched on Kickstarter, learn more . ***

FEZ Game-O is a programmable console that is ideal for education and for open-source application development. Its hardware hosts a powerful 32bit 168MHz STM32 Cortex-M4 processor with 1MB of RAM, combined with a 320 x 240 color display, 3D accelerometer and audio circuitry.

By default, FEZ Game-O ships loaded with the .NET Micro Framework (NETMF) sytem, which allows developers to connect it to a PC using a USB cable then use Visual Studio (even the free express version) to program it, using C# or Visual Basic.

Also with an available JTAG/SWD connection, developers can load any ARM Cortex-M4 compiled-code on the core micro-controller, using their favorite IDE or even using the command line with GCC compiler

FEZ Game-O is open source with all hardware design files provided in EAGLE format. The .NET Micro Framework software is also completely open source.

Key Features

Cortex-M4 168Mhz microprocessor

1024KB FLASH

192KB RAM

320 x 240 16-bit TFT display

3D Accelerometer

Speaker

Volume control

USB Connection (for loading and debugging applications)

Bluetooth option (see below)

JTAG/SWD (for advanced users)

Runs off 3xAAA batteries