Tonight at the Cincinnati .NET User Group (CINNUG) I will be giving a grok talk on distributed version control.  The featured speaker tonight is David Giard who will be talking about the Microsoft Extensibility Framework (MEF).   I hope to see you there!

Update:  You can find my presentation materials here.

I use Cropper as my primary screen capture utility.  Unfortunately, it will not run on Windows Vista 64-bit (it causes a Bad Image Exception), despite it being built on the .NET Framework.

Having discovered this, I thought “surely, I could not be the only individual who has ran into this issue” and headed to the Cropper Issue Tracker where, lo and behold, I found this item.  The fix turns out to be quite simple: Change the platform from ‘Any CPU’ to ‘x86’, recompile and then replace the installed assemblies.  This fix will also work on Windows XP 64-bit.

The installation directory is <drive>\Program Files (x86)\Fusion8Design\Cropper.  You will need to replace not only the assemblies in this directory, but also those in the plugins sub-directory.

Interesting in knowing more?  Come to panel discussion the CINNUG meeting tomorrow (2008-05-20) at MAX Technical Training in Mason and discuss what it means to have a career in software development.

Hey you!  Going to CodeMash?!?   What's that, you don't know what it is?  Let's find out:

CodeMash is a unique event that will serve to educate developers on current practices, methodologies and technology trends across a variety of platforms and development languages.  Java, .NET, Ruby, and PHP anyone?

Even better is that CodeMash is held at the Kalahari Resort  (596 beautifully appointed African-themed guest rooms and suites) in Sandusky, Ohio. What a great way to escape winter weather in the Great Lakes region!

Ok, enough cheesy sales pitch.. you want the goods, eh?

How about more than forty-five sessions across areas like:

• Architecture (SOA, WS*, Interoperability and more)
• Desktop Dev (Smart Clients, client/server, and any standalone apps on your favorite platform)
• Web Dev (Web services, AJAX, frameworks, and all sorts of browser magic)
• Methodologies (Help you do it faster, better, cheaper, and with less pain)
• Mobility (devices, content distribution, social networking, and more)
• Languages (see what's new and nifty with C#, Python, Ruby, Java, PHP and more)

Check out the session list (and those are just the confirmed ones, more sessions still being added, so check back often!).

Speakers?  How about Bruce Eckel, Neal Ford, and yes, Scott Guthrie.

Register now!   Register by December 18, 2006 and registration is only $99 and get a guaranteed room. Time and rooms are running out!  Conference registration, meals, hotel room for only $349! 

CodeMash - Making it all work together!

The June 1, 2005 issue of SDTimes (yeah, I get the dead-tree edition) has a piece on Improving Software Quality http://www.sdtimes.com/article/special-20050601-01.html.

While I found it a good read and agree with much of what is in there (definitely the ‘get the testers involved at the beginning’ , I wantd to note the “Eight reasons why it’s better to be a tester than a developer” piece. Prime for getting tacked up on a cube wall.  It made me think of a former co-worker who is a killer tester.

-Nino

A colleague of mine, Jeff Donahoe, has recently started a blog (ok, in late March), and has started a themed set of posts entitled The Back of the Napkin.  Jeff was in the SD family, but switched to DM (delivery management) – he brings an interesting perspective to this.  Take a read:  #1  and #2   ..and don’t forget to read his initial post (which generated a number of great comments).

Subscribed.

Jeff: Glad to see you out here!  We need to head out west and get a few pints of Fat Tire…

-Nino

Why can I not diff (compare) a solution or project file in Visual Studio by right-clicking on the file in the Solution Explorer and selecting ‘Compare’? The only way, AFAIK, to perform a diff in the IDE is (after selecting the file in the Solution Explorer) to do File > Source Control > Compare.  

I wonder why that is…    (and feel free to call me lazy for wanting to leverage the context menu)

-Nino

Earlier this month (December 2005), some Avanade folks got together and started The Software Lifecycle Blog.  Check it out.  You can bet that I am subscribed.

Lucky me, I’ve gotten to work with some of these guys - pretty smart fellows whom I have a lot of respect for.  Oh, and as the disclaimer says, they speak not for Avanade, but for themselves.

-Nino

Want to write ASP.NET pages in 80386 assembler?  Go here.    this is just sick, IMO...

Steve Maine links to Jeff Attwood's post on Skill Disparities in Programming.  Steve's comments sum things up nicely.

-Nino