Working title

  • Favor DateTime.Add over new DateTime

    February 29, 2012

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    Hooray, it’s that magical day that only comes every four years! And guess what, a bunch of date-dependent code just broke because someone didn’t account for this special day. In a project that I’m working on, there’s some validation code that goes like this: This code is used to validate birthdate and whether we have to treat the user as a child. You should already see the problem: 13 years ago, there was no 2/29. Instead, you sh…
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  • It’s All In The Details

    February 24, 2012

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    Striving For Pixel Perfection Imagine if your MacBook’s trackpad wasn’t centered, but “good enough”? Or if Ferrari just made their lug nuts from steel instead of titanium. These are products that have been honed and crafted by someone with a clear passion for what they do. Attention to detail can separate a good product from something truly great. You might not be an industrial designer in Cupertino or a mechanical engineer in Modena, but web…
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  • Tech Throwdown: SQL vs NoSQL

    February 22, 2012

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    Rather than bashing rival technologies, come learn and participate in the Tech Throwdown We’re going to look at a variety of NoSQL options such as Cassandra, Hadoop, and Mongodb and how they compare to each other as well as relational databases. Presenters: Kevin Cawley Cassandra and Hadoop Chris Merz: Chris has roots in the web industry going back to the early 90′s.  Before starting with MapMyFitness in late 2010 as their Data Stor…
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  • HTML to PDF HttpHandler

    February 17, 2012

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    Recently, we were looking for lightweight reporting tools for integration into one of our Asp.Net projects, that would make things easy to pull html and pdf versions of the report. There is no shortage of enterprise reporting frameworks each with their own daunting learning curve, custom integration points, installation processes, and export features. Of course, the word enterprise immediately throws us off track, and if we needed an earth mover…
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  • Creating Custom WordPress Menus

    January 25, 2012

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    Custom Navigation Menus were added back in version 3.0 and have made it much easier for clients to manage their own menus with ease. With this feature they can easily create menus, add menu items , create drop downs and much more. This tool also offers drag-and-drop functionality which makes moving menu items around a breeze. Many of the default WordPress themes, including Twenty Eleven, offer this feature by default but they also require the user to ed…
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  • The Fight for a Living Style Guide

    January 19, 2012

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    Designing something for the web is very different from designing on any other medium. It leaves a door open for changes and/or updates at any time, and most clients use this to their benefit. It gives a reassurance that nothing is permanent and that if a design/user flow isn’t working it can be modified at a later point. One of the downsides is that changes can take place 3 hours to 6 months after launch. From personal experience, the further the changes a…
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  • In Extension Method for C#

    January 18, 2012

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    Sometimes, you end up with code that obviously works, but it's not very obvious, and it can get pretty unwieldy (imagine if those characters were all enums...). Wouldn't it be nice to have a straightforward way to say "if the value is in this set of values...", like you do with the SQL keyword IN?
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  • The Importance of a Rollback Plan

    January 17, 2012

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    At Mapleton Hill Media we do a lot of iterative development, which means we push code to production on a regular basis. This is an exciting time, seeing our hard work become a reality is very rewarding for both our clients and our team. However, as most of you know, the production push doesn’t always go smoothly. For one reason or another, problems occur with the application or website and in these moments a rollback plan is crucial. Implementing a r…
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  • Collaboration is king!

    December 30, 2011

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    As a former .net and database developer turned project manager I have been on both sides of the coin when it comes to frustrating development tasks that can slow down a project.  While some might argue that it’s a result of poor estimations I would argue that missed estimations are to be expected and planned for, but the real deadline killer is in a missed opportunity for team collaboration. I like to refer to the first indication that something is wron…
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  • HTML Email Formatting

    December 12, 2011

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    If it sounds like a dirty word, you’ve probably got a little experience with the nightmare of trying to maintain cross-browser/cross-email-provider/cross-client-application consistency in your emails. After struggling with some auto-generated marketing emails for a client, this is my takeaway in a nutshell...
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