Programming Amazon EC2 by Jurg van Vliet and Flavia Paganelli is practical in nature and takes you through all the steps to create and configure accounts, develop applications, and deploy applications. If you’re new to Amazon EC2 (and related services) this is definitely a good place to start, because it goes through all the components Amazon offers, such as S3/Cloudfront and RDS for data storage. It also looks at how you can setup your application to scale up and down, and ensure your application has excellent uptime. The book takes you by the hand based on some applications the authors have created themselves. Although this approach makes the book practical, it sometimes reads as (irritating) marketing for their applications.

In recent years the development story for Internet Explorer wasn't particularly appealing. If you wanted to fix CSS and JavaScript errors, IE was definitely not the tool you wanted to use. Also, seeing what was going over the wire wasn't possible with IE, and as a result developers flocked to FireFox and other browsers offering (plugins) to help with these issues. You don't have to be a genius to understand that in the long run this wasn't helping IE in terms of market share. And with the renewed focus on webbased (HTML5) apps, Microsoft has stepped up and produced built in developer tools, also known as the F12 developer tools. So, what's in there and what can you do with it?

What's taking so long?

As with IE8, there are inspector tools for HTML, CSS, and script. Since I am by no means an HTML/CSS guy, I'm not the best judge when it comes to these tools, but for what I need from those I've been pretty satisfied. For me, the new profiler and network tools are much more interesting, because they respectively hook into the browser rendering engine and what's going over the wire with HTTP. If you've been using tools such as Fiddler or HttpWatch, the latter of the two should be more or less familiar. As you can see in the image below, it shows all the HTTP requests going out to the server, when in the timeline these requests were going out, and how long that took. If you've never seen something like this, you can see that this provides great insight into what goes down under the covers.

If you need more details about the timing information, you can select one of the items, and see more. As you can see below, that information doesn't only include HTTP information, but also information about the time it took to render and JavaScript to fire. If there's a page that is slow to appear in the browser screen, this will give you great insight into where your time is going.



Is this functionality better than commercial tools such as HttpWatch? Not at this time, but I have a feeling Microsoft isn't done yet. Tools like that are specialized, and Microsoft is playing catchup. One annoying thing I found is that if I have multiple requests bouncing back and forth, filling in a form, etc. IE9 tools will only show me the last interaction. It could be I'm missing something, but I haven't been able to figure out how to see the whole list of requests since I started capturing, and I'm too lazy to figure it out. That means I find myself going back to HttpWatch for that (at the moment). That said, the tooling is good, so if you don't want to spend the extra dime for other tooling, this will do in most cases. Except of course that this only works in IE9, whereas some of the tools out there work in multiple browsers. But wait... there's more.

What I'm I getting?

An interesting question is always: what HTML will a certain browser actually get. This is where the F12 tools have another nice new feature. You can change the user agent string the server is receiving, and as a result inspect what happens on the HTML, CSS, script side when other browsers come in. Obviously this doesn't make IE9 behave itself as one of the other browsers, but it can provide nice insights nonetheless, especially to tweak what robots are seeing.

How will it look?

The last thing that I fond really useful is the ability to change the browser so you can check the user experience for users with different settings. As you can see from the image below, you can disable css, script, and the pop-up blocker. In the environment I'm working in now, there's often the need to see whether everything still works if JavaScript is disabled, and there this is a great tool. It definitely beats going into the browser settings and changing these settings every time you have to test.



Last but not least, you can easily resize the browser screen to fit a certain size. I always used Windows Sizer for this, but having this built in is better, because I rarely use it for anything but webdevelopment.

What's more?

There's a whole bunch of stuff I haven't gone into here, so I advise you to play around with the F12 tools for a while. I'm also betting we'll see a lot more where this came from in the not too distant future. Microsoft is investing heavily in HTML5, and is actually trying to use "the best HTML5 support" as a unique selling point for Windows.

If you're a developer using the Microsoft platform and want to learn Windows Azure development, Developing Applications for the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure Platform (Patterns & Practices) is the book for you. It's a clear book which rides on a good practical case that covers most of the important angles. Because this is a Practice & Patterns book, it also spends quite some time teaching you the right mindset for building (multi-tenant) cloud applications.

The downside of the book is that it really assumes a good familiarity with the Microsoft .NET Framework and C#. Without that, you're not going to understand much of the cases, apart from the high-level cloud information. That said, the book starts with a good explanation of why you would want to build cloud applications, the types of scenario's that fit well, and what Windows Azure (and in more general terms Platform-as-a-Service) development means. The example case really covers most scenario's and choices people will come across, and that means it also covers all the core technologies within Windows Azure. Another great thing about the book is the many links to articles and other (free e-)books that provide deeper insight into a certain aspect or technology. Be aware that Windows Azure is a fast moving platform, with changes on a regular basis. Although most of the core concepts in this book will remain the same for a long time, it can't keep up with all the new developments. I hope new editions will follow to keep up with the changes.

Reading iOs 4 Programming Cookbook by Vandad Nahavandipoor left me confused about the book’s intentions. The book’s audience is stated as for novice AND experts. That rarely works and this is no exception. That said, there is some good, practical content

The first few chapters cover topics aimed mostly at the novice developer. In a language basics book these chapters would typically be somewhere half way through the book. So this is only useful if you just started to learn Objective-C without reading a book. The cookbook format doesn’t help here, because discussing these topics benefit from a nice flow, which the cookbook format doesn’t have. This goes for a lot of content covered. The content itself is not bad, but it should have been covered textbook style, not cookbook style.

Several chapters are good in the cookbook format, such as chapter 4, which deals with maps and location. It quickly explains how to get things done in a practical manner. The book goes back and forth between content that should be part of a textbook (e.g. gestures, networking) and stuff more suitable for a cookbook (e.g. audio/video, camera).

All in all, I think you can get quite a few handy tidbits from this book, but to be fair, this should be split into two books. One textbook, that really starts at the basics of Objective-C programming and teaches you good programming practices, and one cookbook with the good cookbook stuff from this book and with more practical recipes to give it more body.

p.s. I realize I have a real Microsoft aura around me, so for some it may come as a surprise that I read an iOS book. However, I like to keep myself informed about things outside my comfort zone. I am also reading an Oracle book :).

I've written quite a few functional designs over the years and I've found that for users needing to validate it having visuals is key. In most cases prospective users don't understand what they really get until they see screens. On the opposite side of the spectrum telling developers what to do also is much easier with a screen, especially when you are debating what would be the best and most efficient (coding wise) way to give a user certain functionality. In these situations just getting a piece of paper and draw is the best you can do. The last few years I've done this on and off on my tablet. I can sketch on it, but the results are often so poor to see (and read!), that I can't possible put it in a functional design. This is where a good mockup tool comes in.

A good mockup tool should make you feel like you are drawing, but provide you with predefined controls to make your job fast and easy. Recently I came across Balsamiq Mockups, which is simply jaw dropping. Let's start with the result, which looks pretty much like a hand drawn thing. At first glance that may not seem like a big deal, but it is. It states clearly "This is a mockup, the actual thing may look different". If you give a user something that looks like a screen shot, that is what to expect to get. With this they know it will look differently when it is done, and this also makes it much easier to debate your choices and come up with better ideas (to quote David Platt, "Thy User Is Not You", so they will come up with stuff you didn't even dream about).

Ok, so the result is great, what about getting there? Well, that's a piece of cake, really. Balsamiq is as intuitive a tool as I've seen and I was able to create a pretty complex screen in about 10 minutes. There's a bunch of commonly used controls (and some less common), and you can easily find what you need. Also, you can download tons of additional controls from http://mockupstogo.net. Placing, moving, resizing etc. is all very easy because of the snapping support. Want to see for yourself? Look here.

The last things that I find refreshing is the licensing model and fee. It only costs $79 for a single license, and that comes with updates forever (and they update frequently, so they say). Because the tool is already so good, this means you can use it for years, without having to worry about support or having to get a new version.

This is just a great tool. I am sure I will be using it often.

A while back I blogged about testing VirtualBox. At the same time we've tested Windows Virtual PC, and it's been disappointing pretty much across the board:

1. It doesn't run on our company's Lenovo T61's, which displays some vague error message. Since most of our developers have a T61, this means they can't use it at all. Virtual PC 2007 and VirtualBox run fine, so it isn't clear why WVPC can't. We have some different machines where it does work, so we went on testing on those to see how well it works, in case Microsoft steps up and fixes the T61 problem and starts supporting 64-bit guests. See the remaining points for my experience...
2. The integration features of WVPC suck. Even something simple like dragging a file from the guest to the host or vice versa doesn't work. The reason is that with Integration Mode enabled, you're actually connected to the guest through Remote Desktop Connection. Microsoft has done this to leverage some of the advantages of RDP (as Ben Armstrong explains), but IMHO they should find a different way to do so.
3. Starting/stopping a guest takes forever, and renders my laptop inoperable while doing so. With VPC 2007 hibernating or restoring a hibernated VPC with 1.5 GB of memory takes several tens of seconds, but I can easily use all other applications while doing so. WIth WVPC just restarting a hibernated image tages 3-5 minutes and during that time my other applicaties are pretty much frozen. I can get a cup of coffee (if I'd drink coffee), eat a sandwich, and go to the John, during the wait. I have no clue why this works as bad as it does, because VPC does this perfectly fine.

The only thing that's been a positive experience is the performance once it has started. That said, I can't really tell if VPC 2007 or VirtualBox work better or worse, so I can't even praise WVPC on this point.

So for now it is back to VPC 2007, with our final decision on switching to VirtualBox postponed until we really need 64-bit support.

On a side note, we've been trying to get the open source version of VirtualBox working, and that appears to be quite a challenge. There are no binaries, so you need to compile yourself. Even though we have a recent build, getting all the prerequisits is hardly possible. Some of the needed SDKs are no longer available. Our conclusion up until now: the open source version is  not really viable (at least for Windows), and possible only there for marketing reasons ("see, we do open source").

Lately I've been making time to read more again, and I thought I'd share my findings. My most recent read is Solid Code: Optimizing the Software Development Life Cycle by Donis Marshall and John Bruno. My feelings about this book are mixed. On the one hand, it gives a good overview of software engineering practices. On the other hand, an overview is all that it is. It doesn't really do a good job at giving any details. That said, I think it is a good read for junior/medior developers to get a sense of all the stuff they should be aware of when building software. For senior developers and architects a quick scan to see if they have a gap somewhere is enough. From there you can explore books specialized at the topic(s) you need to know more about. Some of the topics covered include, design, testing, performance, scalabiltity, and security.

As an aside, I've read several books now that cover Agile development methodologies. What strikes me everytime is that the given examples are always about product development, and this book is no different. Product development and custom software projects however are very different. In product development you can work with fixed budget and fixed time, and cut features if either budget or time doesn't allow you to create them. Custom software projects can't do this as easily. Clients are not going to give you a bag of money and a schedule and say "we'll see what makes it into the final version". The client wants to know what he/she is going to get for the money they pay. This means that in custom software projects, you need to have a much more detailed view up front of what needs to be implemented. I'm not saying this precludes Agile development practices, but there is a certainly a difference at the start of the project, because a large chunk of the design work has to be done earlier in the project lifecycle.

Commerce Server is een van die producten die altijd net buiten m'n gezichtsveld ligt. Binnen The Vision Web hebben we een aantal experts op het gebied, dus het is niet echt nodig om me daar mee te bemoeien. Nu CS2007 gebaseerd is op ASP.NET 2.0 weet ik echter ineens veel meer van de algemene werking dan voorheen. Door het baseren op ASP.NET 2.0 is CS2007 overigens niet meer bruikbaar met ASP, omdat er geen COM interfaces meer zijn. Die zou je wel weer kunnen maken door de Web Services interface te wrappen, maar dat moet je niet willen.

De spreker (Ryan Dononvan) weet waar hij het over heeft, maar dat mag ook wel als je onderdeel bent van het team dat het maakt. Wel lopen z'n demo's nog redelijk stroef. Dat een iisreset nodig is om een nieuw thema (look & feel) toe te passen vind ik wel dubieus. Een half uur in de sessie heb ik alleen nog maar ASP.NET 2.0 dingen gezien, met uitzondering van de standaard globalization zaken.

Wat me vooral opvalt is dat CS2007 niet een beetje, maar echt veeeeel beter doordacht is dan z'n voorloper. Het is niet meer een verzameling losse handige tools, maar veel meer gericht op het proces. Zo kunnen allerlei business rules gedeeld worden tussen verschillende onderdelen, zodat je niet meer op meerdere plaatsen dezelfde rules moet implementeren. De BizDesk is ook weg en vevangen door een Windows SmartClient applicatie die communiceert via de Web Services interface. De code van de SmartClient is beschikbaar in de Partner SDK en je kunt 'm daarom aanpassen aan eigen wensen. Dat geldt ook voor de rapportage, omdat die gedaan wordt via Reporting Services. Gek genoeg voor zowel SQL 2000 als SQL 2005, terwijl CS2007 alleen draait op SQL 2005 (althans dat zei Ryan eerder in z'n presentatie).

Tip voor de spreker (demo's geven les 1): zorg dat je alle updates geinstalleerd hebt en zet auto update daarna uit! Nu moest hij wachten tot zijn VPC opnieuw opgestart was na het installeren van updates.

Het jaarlijkse TechEd "feest" is weer begonnen. Gisteren al met een etentje met de MVP's waar ik weer eens heb kunnen praten met m'n mede-MVP's, waaronder Andre Obelink en Sander Gerz die boeken over VB en C# hebben geschreven in dezelfde serie waarvoor ik net een boek geschreven heb (De Basis). Leuk om ervaringen uit te wisselen.

Vanmorgen de keynote van Eric Rudder, die vooraf gegaan werd door Simon Brown. Simon had een leuk intermezzo met Arfa Karim, de jongste Microsoft Certified Professional (11 jaar, uit Pakistan). Arfa liet een zelf geprogrammeerde calculator zien en de code zag er netjes uit. De demo's tijdens Eric Rudder's keynote waren ook leuk om te zien. Als je de afgelopen twee jaar met je kop in het zand hebt gezet waren ze zelfs indrukwekkend.

Later meer over de sessies...

Since I started as a programmer, I have hardly ever developed Windows applications. I mostly did web and components, GUI stuff is not my can of beans. That said, I do want to keep tabs on what's happening in with Windows GUI development, so I bought Programming Microsoft Windows Forms (a streamlined approach using C#) by Charles Petzold. I can tell you it was not the type of book I expected. What I expected was to learn how to build Windows applications, using a database and so on. Basically everything you need as a beginner to start developing full fledged apps. To my surprise the book is actually JUST about the GUI. There is the least amount of "clutter" of stuff that is not related to the GUI. In addition the whole book is setup so you can develop with just Notepad. The result is that the book has a very clear build up to how Windows Forms actually works. As such it was an enjoyable read for me.