Archives
-
Secret Server 4.0 has shipped!
-
Removing dead code
What does your code terrain look like? Are there bodies of dead logic lying here and there? Maybe they helped briefly while you worked towards a better solution or perhaps they just fell victim to changing business rules.
-
Symmetric Salting - remember that salt goes with more than just hash
If you understand hashing and salting then skip the next paragraph.
-
RockNUG tonight - Geoff Snowman showed off BizTalk Server
I attended my first event at the new Rockville .NET User Group (RockNUG) in Maryland tonight. Geoff Snowman, our local Microsoft integration specialist showed off the latest BizTalk Server (BTS) technology and talked about the future of BTS and its related products. As Geoff pointed out, BTS is a niche product that works well for large customers that have unique or complex integration requirements. The power of BTS was clearly in its mapping/transformation abilities, flexibility in talking to various endpoints (on various platforms) and the scalability of dynamically handling large amounts of orchestrations. My take was that it was especially well suited to integrate different applications especially when they are on different platforms and speak different languages (text vs XML vs EDI etc.). If you are interested in BTS and more on integration, don't miss Geoff's MICSUG group which has upcoming presentations on WWF and ESB.
-
Do you have what it takes to be a Thycotic TDD Developer?
Thycotic is gearing up for a new product development cycle and we are looking to grow our team of passionate test-first developers. Our team is one of the best places to learn and improve your agile development skills.
-
Agile Estimating and Planning with TargetProcess - RCC4
On Saturday, the Thycotic crew (well, only three of us this time) went down to Richmond to the forth Richmond Code Camp. It is a 2 hour drive but my new handy TomTom GPS did well - asides from one occasion where it decided to re-route us back through Washington DC when we were only 30 minutes from the event!
-
Secret Server 3.1 has shipped.
-
Shipping Software ... Secret Server 3.1 Sneak Peek
Shipping software is one of the most exciting times for a development team but this new release is easily the most anticipated version of Secret Server to date by our customers. Secret Server 3.1 will feature the two most requested features from customers who visited our booth at TechEd in June 2007: full Active Directory synchronization along with remote password changing. I am very proud of our team being able to take both of these features from whiteboard to release in about 7 weeks.
-
The Case of the missing ASP.NET tab in IIS
We recently had a problem on our development build server that had us puzzled. The ASP.NET tab disappeared and our CruiseControl.NET server quit working. We had seen the problem with CruiseControl.NET before - a serialization error on DateTime - and we knew it was related to running the dashboard in the wrong version of ASP.NET. So the two issues seemed to be related.
-
Some photos from TechEd 2007
Kevin has posted some of our photos from TechEd 2007.
-
Still putting your passwords in Excel?
There is a better way. Stop by the Secret Server booth at TechEd (booth #946) to see our latest version - Secret Server 3.0. If you are not at the show, you can try out a free hosted version here or download it here. (more info here)
-
Arrived at Microsoft TechEd 2007 in Orlando, FL and first shot of the Secret Server 3.0 booth
We arrived in sunny Orlando this morning after meeting at Reagan Airport around 5am - needless to say that everyone was a little tired but there was definitely excitement in the air. We were greeted by the sign for TechEd right in the Orlando airport ... nice touch.
-
Non-Technology Thinking
Synchronized, sealed, variable, interface and even tool. These words all conjure up very specific things in the mind of a programmer or IT person. Much to my surprise they hold very different meanings for non-technology people - well at least the word "tool". This last week, I was invited to attend a meeting of the Arlington Business Council. It was their spring kick off event and it was very well organized and attended.
-
Secret Server goes to Microsoft TechEd 2007 in Orlando
This will be the first year that Thycotic has a vendor booth at Microsoft TechEd. This is an exciting milestone for the company and we are busy with preparations for the conference. There will be four of us from the team going - the flights and hotels are booked. Dan Parker and I will be staffing the booth during regular hours and are planning to meet lots of interesting people. Kevin and Pouya will actually get to go see the sessions and then will be helping out on exhibitor night.
-
Richmond Code Camp 3 reviewed
This last Saturday morning, the Thycotic team headed to Richmond at a bright and early 6am. This alone wouldn't have been too bad but some on the team had been busy until 2am on a client project! For the first Richmond Code Camp ever, it actually didn't rain (it rained all day for the last two).
-
CMAP Code Camp Sessions are posted
The CMAP Code Camp is being held on Saturday 4/21/2007 from 9AM to 7PM - you can register here.
-
Kevin Jones is now an ASP.NET MVP!
Our own Kevin Jones has been awarded MVP for ASP.NET by Microsoft. This award recognizes his excellence in technical skills and his contributions to the community in spreading best practices in software development.
-
The Indulgences of Open Source
I am always amused by the complete lack of customer savviness that open source projects sometimes demonstrate. Of course I am not being fair at all and my observations are in no way scientific and I am sure you can find ten more examples of commercial companies doing the same. With that in mind, here are my two examples:
-
Refactoring example in C# and VB.NET
Our very own Bryant Smith has revamped his conversion of Martin Fowler's refactoring example (originally in Java) to now cover both C# and VB.NET.
-
Whitespace is a code smell
Do you space out your code so there are line breaks between the pieces of logic? Why do you think this is necessary? Typically this is done to separate chunks of logic so that they can be easily distinguished. If it is a complicated enough chunk, then it may even make sense to put a comment at the top of the chunk. At this point, the Agile police will jump on you and tell you to turn your comment into a method name and perform an Extract Method refactoring. This is great practice (fellow Agile police member here!) and it makes a lot of sense since it abstracts the concept and makes the code more self describing.
-
Pair Programming improves your communication skills
Many developers in our industry prefer a dark corner to the presentation podium. This is often explained away with references to introverted personalities and geekish tendencies. While this may be true for certain individuals, there are definitely many benefits to breaking away from this stereotype. One of the best ways to progress in the business world is to develop strong communication skills - customers want to be understood and the combination with technical ability provides a powerful skillset when understanding problems and providing solutions. As with so many things in life, excellence in communication can be achieved through lots of practice.
-
Writing "good" code: How do you understand code?
John Morales has a great post on understanding complexity and how to think about difficult concepts.
-
Code Review - Standing on the shoulders of smart people
A very intelligent person once said:
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
The person in question, is of course none other than Sir Isaac Newton. He was able to go further with his discoveries because others had solved some of the details already and provided a layer of abstraction for him to improve upon. -
Live Writer
This is my second post with Live Writer and so far it seems pretty good. We have been using BlogJet for a while and really like the intuitive interface although it seems like Live Writer has most of the same features. Being able to easily pull up an earlier blog post to make a correction is such a great feature for me since I always spot typos or missing links after the post goes out. I was also very impressed with the easy configuration of Live Writer - I simply pointed it to my blog url, gave my username/password, it prompted me for a blog engine type and then suggested a post URL and it all just worked!
-
Code Camps, Code Camps, Code Camps.
I presented on Pair Programming at the Maryland ColdFusion User's Group on Tuesday and was very pleased to tell everyone about all the upcoming Code Camps in our area. I also promised to post the links to the group, so here they are:
-
Yet Another Mid-Atlantic Code Camp - but AGILE!!! (April 14, 2007 8am-6pm)
Do you breathe agile? Do your progress bars always turn green? Do you refactor in your sleep? Then I need you for the agile track … We are looking for attendees, speakers and volunteers! This is the first Mid-Atlantic Code Camp to have an official Agile track (and I am the track chair – woohoo!)
-
Will TDD become mainstream?
I have been asked a number of times in the last few years if I think TDD (Test Driven Development) will go mainstream. Firstly, we need to agree on what mainstream is – Wikipedia does not give any hard numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream) but it seems like 20% would be a good number for software development (I pulled this out of thin area – please share your thoughts). For TDD to have that much mindshare (in the stubborn software development world) would firmly seat TDD as an established and accepted way of developing code. So how much mindshare does it have now? Again I don’t know how you would get a measure (Gartner studies maybe?) but my experiences with software development in the Washington DC Metro area makes me think it is far less than 20%.
-
Speaking on TDD at the CMAP Architect Group in Maryland tonight (2/20/2007)
I will be presenting on Test Driven Development at the CMAP Architect Group in Maryland. Session details and directions here.
-
Want a new email signature? (ShorterSigs)
ShorterSigs is a new service from Thycotic Software which solves the problem of communicating relevant contact information (and even your photo!) without cluttering up your email messages. This is just what every techie needs whether posting to forums, newsgroups or just a friendly chat among your peers.
-
When the developer tools fail
As developers, we pride ourselves on our analytical skills and being able to quickly deduce a problem. Being “engineers” and “craftsmen” we use tools to gain insight and learn about a problem while we determine our diagnosis. Every now and then, the tools fail. This evening I was dabbling with some licensing code in one of our dependent .dlls to troubleshoot a problem that one of UK customers is having. We had our suspicions that the problem is a globalization issue with dates when not running on en-US.
-
Looking for the perfect job where you can do Test Driven Development and Pair Programming?
Thycotic is growing once again – we are looking for another top calibre developer to join our team - this is a great opportunity to practice agile techniques on the Microsoft .NET platform from an experienced team while working on great products and with interesting clients.
-
TDD Programmer Internship with Thycotic
We are currently offering a programming internship on our developer team. This is a great opportunity to improve your skills and see if you have what it takes to become a Thycotic developer. We practice Test Driven Development, Pair Programming and Continuous Integration. We are a Microsoft Gold Certified partner and are breaking new ground in the security space with products such as Secret Server and our Two Factor Authentication technologies.
-
5 things you don't know about me (probably)
This has been going around for a while and Andy finally got me.