Is Microsoft Losing Its Developer Base?
I am by no means a visionary, but when so many influential people in the Microsoft camp are talking about it, you got to start listening. Here are some posts/podcasts to ponder over:
Martin Fowler about Ruby and Microsoft
Sam Gentile comments on the above post by Martin Fowler
Oren Eini on Martin Fowler’s post
Microsoft vs TestDriven.Net Express
Hansel Minutes podcast talking with Martin Fowler and David Heinemeier Hansson
Paul Graham’s famous Microsoft Is Dead post
Scott Hanselman asking if Microsoft is losing the alpha geeks
Just some stuff to think about…
Ruby On Rails Active Directory Authentication
During a conversation at work, the idea of using ruby on rails for future development projects came up. One of the ‘hurdles’ that was discussed was integrating it with Active Directory (LDAP). So, I went out searching to see how to integrate it. Wouldn’t you know, like everything else, it is has been done before and it doesn’t look that hard. Here are a couple of links to keep around if you are up against the same requirement:
Ruby/Rails user authentication with Microsoft Active Directory The comments include some talk about invisible logons which is something I would like to tackle in the near future to see if I could get it to work. This would be the ideal situation for internal network users of the applications so they don’t have to sign in all the time, and it would force authentication from the outside user who isn’t already authenticated on the domain.
http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/ActiveDirectory This is a page on the Rails Wiki that talks some more about AD integration.
Of course, Active Directory isn’t the only thing out there someone would want to authenticate against, so on the Rails Wiki, there is a whole section dedicated to this topic http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/Authentication
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Just for fun, I thought I would include this post – Why Ruby on Rails won’t become mainstream
Jean-Paul Boodhoo on Demystifying Design Patterns – Parts 1 & 2 Screencasts
“Jean-Paul Boodhoo starts a multi part series on design patterns that can be applied in any environment.”
OS X Tweeks, Ruby for Kids, SCPlugin, Python Video
Top 10 Mac OS X Tweaks
http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-mac-os-x-tweaks-261579.php
Ruby Programming Tutorial for Kids
SCPlugin -TortoiseSVN for OS X
Python Video
SQL Server 2005 – varchar(max)
Recently our users wanted to increase the size of a description field so I did a little research and found this FAQ page answering several questions regarding the new MAX values in SQL 2005.
Also noteworthy, is the removal of TEXT, NTEXT and IMAGE data types in future versions of SQL Server. So be sure to avoid using these data types with SQL Server 2005.
The Switch – Part 3.1 – The Negatives… Continued
This is just an add on to the last post of my switch series of posts.
As with PCs, Macs also sometimes suffer hardware/software problems. This guy posts a years worth of troubles with his MacBook.
I found this pretty large security document from Apple to keep your OS security in check (PDF).
Project Euler, SPE, Compiler Design, Today’s Top Distributions
Project Euler (www.projecteuler.net)
“Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve…”
SPE – Stani’s Python Editor (pythonide.blogspot.com)
Python IDE with intellisense.
Basics of Compiler Design
http://www.diku.dk/hjemmesider/ansatte/torbenm/Basics/
An Overview of Today’s Top Distributions
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
Behavior Driven Development, MySQL Backups, And Intro To Regular Expressions
It seems there has been a flood of BDD posts in the last few days. This one by Ben Strackany of DevelopmentNow has a great link for an intro to Behavior Driven Development.
Ben Strackany also posted about creating MySQLbackups the easy way.
Here is a post to cover the bare minimum you need to know to work with regular expressions.
Check In Your Code Often
When working on a team project, especially when you are working in the edit/merge style of source control, this is super important.
Moving to Outlook 2007
This happens to be a really good blog post about moving to Outlook 2007. Has some gotcha’s, some tips and some interesting facts. Reminds me to do a little research before upgrading instead of blindly clicking setup.exe. =)
