Dave Lloyd's 2 Cents

Guaranteed Laugh

2008-06-27T02:43:00Z

Want a good chuckle?

Goto Google Maps
Get Directions from Sydney Australia to Los Angeles CA (For those with little or no time)
Read number 6 on the directions.

It’s cool to be a geek…

2008-04-25T17:40:00Z

Do you remember when it was not cool to be a geek?

Not that I ever let it bother me. I have attended every PDC since 2001. It’s tough to be the coolest guy out of 8000.

Now a days it's cool to be a geek , people are coming out of the wood work to proclaim their geekyness with pride. Below are three examples I came across in the past few weeks.

1. A developer who changed his girlfriend’s favorite game (bejeweled) so when she achieved a certain score it displayed a proposal of marriage.

2. I remember when that one kid in a class with a laptop was the geek. Who’s the outcast now?

3. Cat 5 Wedding rings, need I say more.

ObjectSharp @ the Movies

2008-02-21T03:29:00Z

On Feb 7th ObjectSharp hosted a free event at the ~~Paramount~~ Scotia Bank Theatre downtown. The morning after one of this winters largest snowfalls 160 people showed up for a morning of what's new in Visual Studio 2008. I did a piece on VSTS and TFS 2008. My slides are attached.

Even with the snow the event turnout was great, thanks to everyone who ventured out. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

A few pictures were taken at the event you can view them here.

Laboratory Automation Robots

2008-01-31T00:59:00Z

Living in Canada I don't get to the Desert very often. I have always been under the impression it doesn't rain there very often. So on my first trip to the desert what does it do? Rain, the whole weekend. I was in Palm Springs attending a conference, which was a bit different for me. I have been to many conferences in my time; however I normally attend developer conferences like Microsoft's PDC and Tech Ed, DevTeach and in the past Client Server World. This time it was Lab Automation 2008.

I was there to help one of our clients, Thermo Fisher Scientific. Thermo is showing off some new software that allows its users to define and execute an automated Laboratory. Thermo is a leader in this space, and this is the next generation of their Lab Automation Systems named Momentum. I have wanted to Blog about this project for some time now but couldn't say anything until the show made it public. Now that the show has taken place, and the world knows how cool Momentum is, I can talk about it. J

I have worked on some cool projects in my 25 years of software development; this is definitely in the top 5. Thermo has built a Software Factory that allows their clients to create laboratory automation systems that can be configured to execute experiments using any vendor's instrument. In the world of Lab Automation there are hundreds of instruments that perform various tasks, from changing a plate's orientation to filling it with a compound. For the Lab Automation conference we created a demo that helps illustrate what Momentum can do. I took a short video before I left for home. In the video below you see three robots that are executing a process which is moving a plate from one location to another. Then when an conference attendee drops their plate into the shoot a bar code reader detects the plate and instructs momentum to add another process to the run which returns the attendees plate along with a plate containing a prize. How cool are Robots!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMpwqRjSSkE[/youtube]

Visual Studio 2008

2008-01-20T17:00:00Z

In case you haven't heard ObjectSharp is hosting a free VS2008 What's hot and what's not event at the Paramount Theatre downttown on Feb 7th 2008.

It's going to be a lot of fun. Our graphics guy has been busy making movie posters for the event. They are wonderful not to mention very funny.

Check out Rob Windsors Blog he explains wonderfully.

Cleaning up your TFS Build Server

2007-12-10T03:32:00Z

The Team Foundation Build Server at one of our clients was getting out of hand. We set up continuous integration so we are getting a lot of builds per day. The server had hundreds of builds that we just didn't need hanging around anymore. We asked our IT guy extraordinaire, Max if he could write us a script to automate the cleanup of TFS Builds. He rose to the challenge and now we have one.

He wrote the VB Script attached to this post. I tried it out on the server last Friday and it worked great. Here is the command to call it.

cscript TFSBuildCleanup.vbs http://<Server>:<port> <Project> <Build Location> <BuildType> <Days>

Server = Team Foundation Server
Port = TFS port
Build Location = Folder that contains the builds on the server (ie: c:\Builds)
BuildType = Name of the build Type to remove
Number of days of build to keep. If you put seven it will remove all the build 8 days and older.

I set it up as a task on the build server to run each night.

I hope it's useful to someone out there.

GoDiagram by NorthWoods

2007-11-09T03:39:28Z

I have been using a tool that is new to me. I am very impressed and would like to share my experience.

The product I am talking about is GoDiagram from Northwoods. I of course am using the .net version there is also a Java and MFC version of the product.

The tool is used for creating diagrams and also includes a library of Instruments, if you buy the right license.

The object model is a little complicated at first but there is a good document that comes with the product that explains the architecture, I recommend reading it before you begin it really helps to set the stage.

The documentation is OK, but could be better. However Northwoods makes up for that via support. Their online forum is watched very closely and responses are very quick and helpful. I called and left a message the other day and someone called me back. We chatted for ages, he gave me his email and personal number. They are so eager to help its very refreshing. The other wonderful support tool they have is their samples. When you install you get a bunch of samples, with source code. They have been a great help in learning the tool.

It's amazing how powerful and flexible this product is. If you have a need to create any kind of diagram or free form drawing tool I highly recommend it.

Some of my favorite features include:

Overview: A control that duplicates your diagram in a smaller window with zooming and scale changes of the main diagram.
UndoManager: Automatic undo and redo capabilities.
AutoLayout: Costs extra but it's worth it. AutoLayout does just what its name implys. It will automatically organize your diagram for you.
Images: With the GoImage object you can easily add graphics to your diagram.
Flexability: You can create your own Node and Link classes and they can look and behave any way you want them to.

If you have a need for such a product, do yourself a favour and make sure this product is on your list to evaluate.

Autumn Background taken in Burlignton, Ontario

2007-10-29T18:37:00Z

I recently found out that my favourite XP Background was a photograph taken in Burlingto ON, Canada, my home town. A friend of mine pointed out this article in the Toronto Star.

Imagine that!?

DeploymentItem Attribute on a VSTS TestMethod

2007-07-23T13:31:00Z

Did you know there are two ways to Deploy files to be used when executing unit tests in VSTS.

You can added them to the .Testrunconfig:

Or using the DeploymentItem attribute on the TestMethod:

[TestMethod,DeploymentItem(@"Bin\fr-CA\Thermo.Automation.Foundation.Tests.resources.dll","fr-CA")]

public void Multilanguage()

{

Message msg = Message.Retrieve(Messages.Multilanguage);

msgServ.Post(msg);

Assert.IsTrue(msgServ.ValidateMessageReceived("English message"));

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo("fr-CA");

Message msgFr = Message.Retrieve(Messages.Multilanguage);

msgServ.Post(msgFr);

Assert.IsTrue(msgServ.ValidateMessageReceived("French message"));

}

Snagit and TFS

2007-07-23T02:07:00Z

Two great tools come together to make our lives easier.

I have been a fan of Snagit for many many years, and more recently Camtasia, both from Techsmith. Now snagit has a hook into Team Foundation Server, allowing you to create a Work Item from a Snapshot of a screen. Using the tried and true features of snagit to capture a portion of your screen you can now use the newly added Team System tool bar item to create a Workitem and automatically attach the screen shot to it.

TechSmith has a Camtasia demo here so you can see it in action.

Thanks Andre