Writing
Articles
Essays on thinking clearly, working for yourself, and doing real work while AI rewrites the rules. Two decades of them.
Intro to Microsoft Unity – Dependency Injection Container
A hands-on intro to Microsoft's Unity dependency injection container, covering manual and XML-based type registration with a downloadable sample app.
2008.05.26Read →TIP: Utilizing Fluent Syntax with the "Is" Keyword in Rhino Mocks and NUnit
Rhino Mocks and NUnit both use an Is keyword, which collides. Use NUnit's Iz syntax helper instead so both fluent APIs work together.
2008.05.23Read →Presenting at the Phoenix Arizona Desert Code Camp
I'm teaching a course on Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control at the Phoenix Arizona Desert Code Camp on May 31st, 2008. See you there.
2008.05.14Read →Using iTextSharp To Watermark/Write Text To Existing PDF’s
How to watermark existing PDFs with real text (not clunky images) using iTextSharp, complete with orientation detection and working C# code.
2008.05.11Read →The Importance of Unit Testing WCF Attributes
A WCF gotcha: removing the IsOneWay attribute silently turns an async call into a blocking one. You need unit tests on your service contracts too.
2008.05.07Read →Upgraded Personal Blog to DasBlog 2.x
Upgraded my blog to DasBlog 2.0.7 in about 10 minutes flat, then spent 30 more verifying cross-posting and admin login still worked.
2008.05.06Read →Software Development: Greeenfield vs. Brownfield
Greenfield vs brownfield development, explained with real examples of each, plus my own breakdown of how much of my career was spent in each camp.
2008.05.05Read →By Far, The Coolest Flash App I’ve EVER Played With
Why Atmosphere's paintitgold.com Flash graffiti app, letting you spray-paint any URL's screenshot, is the most fun web app I've played with.
2008.05.01Read →3.5 Beta Exams Not Available In Phoenix
Phoenix is a top-5 US city, but no local testing center was rated high enough to proctor the ASP.NET 3.5 beta exams -- the nearest was in Prescott.
2008.04.29Read →Simple Download Counter HttpHandler
A quick-and-dirty ASP.NET IHttpHandler that counts file downloads using a simple XML counter, built in minutes to test if an idea was worth pursuing.
2008.04.29Read →TechEd Developer 2008 & Party With Palermo
I'll be at TechEd Developer 2008 and the Party With Palermo event - drop me a line if you're going too so we can meet up in person.
2008.04.29Read →WTF’s Per Minute
A quick repost of the classic WTFs-per-minute code quality chart I found on digg, saved here mainly so I have my own copy to reference.
2008.04.07Read →