This is my new favorite HTML color picker, it gives you shades lighter and darker than the one you enter, making it easier to come up with related color groupings for the UI.
What a nice week I’ve had at work. My main client gave me the week off, so I’ve been working on a side project along with training and planning for the coming year.
On today’s training menu, we have TekPub’s Rob Conery talking about JavaScript. His “you already know the syntax (or should) so let’s talk about weird stuff and best practices” approach was just what I needed today. He does a great job of walking through the examples to demonstrate clearly the weirdnesses around coercion, == vs. ===, the concept of ‘falsey’, assumed globalization of variables, hoisting, namespacing, this scoping weirdness, revealed module pattern, closure, the semi-colon insertion quirk, unobtrusive JavaScript, a quick demo of CoffeeScript, wrapping it all up with a few words about testing… very few, Jasmine is recommended and there will be a video up soon, according to Rob.
He quickly instructs on how to get the JavaScript debugging features running for IE, Firefox and Chrome, then uses the Chrome tools throughout the demo. I took a moment to download Firebug and make sure I could open my demo HTMLwith JavaScript page up in each browser. Following along while Rob demoed, I mostly used Chrome, but occasionally dipped into the other browsers so I could be aware of any differences. The intermission demo was about JSFiddle. This tool has me a little excited. What a great way to try out snippets of JavaScript and JQuery and CSS before dropping them into a larger script file. I’ll definitely keep it in my toolbox. I’m also pleasantly surprised at how useful the debugging tools in Chrome/Firefox/IE are. Being able to interact with the loaded DOM directly through the console is a lot like using the Immediate window in Visual Studio, one of my favorite debugging tools.
Resources and tools mentioned:
TekPub’s Javascript: Up To Speed video
JavaScript, JavaScript, a wordpress blog by Angus Coll
Google Libraries API – Developer’s Guide
TextMate (the text editor used in this video)
Fascinating and insightful talk about the internet, our devices, the ‘one machine’, and what the next 5000 days of the web will look like.. from the standpoint of the first 5000 days
Kevin Kelly on the next 5000 days of the web
Julie Lerman’s book, Programming Entity Framework, is now available through Amazon or O’Reilly. This book is the result of a lot of hard work by Julie and as one of her technical reviewers, I can say with certainty that it’s worth buying if you are interested in knowing more about Entity Framework.
Good job and congratulations, Julie.. how does it feel to get your life back?
I’ll be picking up my new laptop today. Nothing fancy, but a good solid (I hope) Dell Latitude 531 for under $1k. I’m excited but very aware that there’s a lot of work to be done before I can use it productively, for software development. One of my co-workers has been having a helluva time getting the .NET Framework installed correctly (through all versions, with all the extensions, etc.). My desktop machine has everything I need on it, but I’ve been adding versions and tools to it steadily over the years. Haven’t started from scratch in a while. Once I’m done getting her all filled up with developer goodness, I’ll be more mobile and able to do collaboration with geographically disperse development teams (i.e., work from home but be able to do face-to-face as needed).
And it’ll be cool having a laptop again 
w00t!!1!!
You may have seen this before, but if you haven’t and you are the kind of person who gets grumpy about cords and wires and devices all over the place, this may be for you:
Declutter Your Desk by Van Mardian (vmardian@gmail.com)
GeekPDX, Ryan, I’m thinking of you guys, check it out!
[credit where credit is due: as with many of the good things in my life, this tip came from wendy]
Jason Mauer will be coming to this Thursday’s South Sound DotNet UG meeting (3/8, 7 pm to 9 pm). We’ll be ’roundtabling’ at our rectangular tables on subjects like .NET 3.0, Microsoft XNA and WPF UX. I’m sure the discussion will tangent off from those points as well.
Not only do we have Jason to lead the discussion, we’ll have FOOD and DRINK. The drinks will be soft, at least until we break for the after meeting beer-scussion at a nearby venue. Bring yourself and some friends and reconnect with other .NET geeks.
Mark your calendars for the South Sound DotNet User’s group meeting on April 12th: Julie Lerman is coming to present on all kinds of data related .NET goodness, in a presentation titled “ADO.NET Orcas Overview”. She’s presenting at ASP.NET and VS Connections in Orlando in late March, so she’ll be all fired up for us. Her ASP.NET Connections talks are entitled “Asynchronous Programming for ASP.NET Developers” and “Building Data-Driven Web Applications with LINQ to SQL”, and she’s doing the “Overview” talk for the VS conference.
Please help us make her welcome in Olympia and plan on attending on Thursday April 12th. We’d love to have a packed room for her, after all, she’s coming all the way over here from Vermont. See the SSDotNet page for more details on the meeting location and SSDotNet in general. See Julie’s blog “Don’t Be Iffy”, for a list of her appearances and some information on the talks she’s doing this spring.
Along with being a .NET Goddess, Julie is a friend and a mentor. With her help, I networked my way into an interview at Microsoft once upon a time. Since then, she’s introduced me to the .NET community, in all of it’s marvelous quirkiness and personalities, knowledge and support. I owe her a lot, so hopefully food and booze will be accepted as a partial payment.
Here’s a brief bio and a synopsis of the ADO.NET Orca Overview:
Julie Lerman is an independent consultant and .NET Mentor who has been designing and writing software applications for 20 years. Julie is well known in the .NET community as a Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider and INETA Speaker. She is a prolific blogger, a frequent presenter at technical conferences in the U.S., Canada, and even some far reaches of the world and author of articles for MSDN Online, MSDN Magazine and other well-known technical publications. Julie presents on a wide variety of topics including ADO.NET, Web services, Tablet PC development, and other aspects of just getting your .NET applications to work the way you want them to. Julie lives in Vermont where she runs the Vermont.NET User Group, is a board member of the Vermont Software Developers Alliance, and a member of the Champlain College Software Engineering Advisory Board. You can read Julie’s blogs at www.thedatafarm.com/blog and blogs.ziffdavis.com.
The next version of ADO.NET will present a host of new ways to interact with data in your .NET applications. The Entity Framework provides for abstracted access to your data, client-side views and schemas, and mapping of data to objects. You’ll be able to build queries on the client side against your own views and schemas using Entity SQL and LINQ. LINQ can also be used to query datasets in memory. It’s an exciting new set of capabilities and this session will take a look at the current state of the upcoming ADO.NET and its Visual Studio integration tools.
That’s right. After two and a half years as a contractor at Russell Investments in Tacoma, WA, I’ll be starting a new contract tomorrow morning. Not only have I changed my client and location, I’ve changed parent companies as well. I’ll be working at Washington State’s Department of Labor and Industries (LNI) as a .NET developer for Milestone Technology.
This is the culmination of a year long quest to find a position that would allow me to move forward as a .NET developer, rather than continue to work in legacy technology as a support and maintenance developer. My time at Russell has had it’s ups and downs, of course, but overall it was a positive experience and helped me to add to my skill base and pool of friends and mentors. Likewise, Logicalis filled a crucial role as my parent company during a time when I needed some stability and consistency.
I’m excited about working for Milestone, a small company of four principals and about 20 developers. I like the smaller size, the local ownership and the availability of contracts closer to home. By working in Tumwater instead of Tacoma, I’m cutting at least 30 minutes from my one-way commute and avoiding the I5 after work lock-up that is becoming more and more common, and sometimes means 1.5 hours on the road to get home. I’m also excited about having the opportunity to work primarily as a .NET developer. I believe this is crucial to my career development and I think I’ll be darned good at it.
At the beginning of the year, I set some goals for myself and this job change accomplishes a number of them. As for this year’s resolutions, I’m thinking more about a 5 year plan, which I haven’t completely worked out yet. Amongst those goals will be something relating to income level, vacation days afforded and continuing to build my skills as a developer and solution provider. Farther out, I want to work toward doing some presentations and writing articles. I’ve got lots of avenues for presenting: user’s group meetings, Code Camps, etc. I just need some more depth in my .NET skill base so I have something of value to present. I’ve also got plenty of role models in the presenting arena, among them Paul Mehner and Julie Lerhman.
My thanks to all who have supported and mentored me over the years, you deserve some credit for this advancement as well. And now I need to finish my evening chores and get my contractor kit ready for my first day of work tomorrow. You know the stuff: daily calendar, SQL Pocket Guide, Excedrin and antacids, a few sharp pencils and a notebook. A few days ago I was nervous, but now I’ve settled into optimistic anticipation. I’m sure nothing can go as badly as the dream I had last night. I was starting my new gig and was brought into a large room filled with folding conference tables. At each table were 6 chairs and 6 laptop computers. All but one of the chairs were occupied. This was the developer room, and this was our work environment. I’m sure my new digs will be better than that, right?
I’ll keep you posted.
In the seasonal spirit of sharing, here are some cool things I’ve seen recently in other blogs
Whiteboard Stop Action
The Freakin Cool FishEye Camera. Found via Coding Horror, in his Cool Gifts for Geeks: 2006 Edition. This innovative product is on the Core77′s 77 design gifts under $77 Have you seen this yet? I just want to get this and take all my future family portraits in fisheye vision… it would certainly make our Holiday cards memorable.
I also got the idea for my previous post from that same Core77 list. Take a few minutes and browse through their ideas if you have people on your list who are hard to buy gifts for. I also think this is cool, but my future laptop will be larger than 15″, so this wouldn’t work: CRUMPLER School Hymn Laptop Case. The reason this caught my eye, was that I may need a way to carry a laptop in my bike paniers at some point when I can bike commute to work again. Ok, I don’t know when that’s gonna happen, but it’s good to plan for the future, right? And here’s the 17″ notebook sleeve…
