Roland Weigelt

Five Years of Blogging

2008-07-02T21:14:58Z

Just thought I'd mention it...

Notepad3 vs. Notepad2, or The Spirit of Open Source

2008-07-01T20:33:51Z

I already mentioned Notepad2 in a past blog post: It's a nice little free Notepad replacement that meets my requirements for a program that is similar to, but slightly better than the original, with a fast startup.

That's why it makes me sad to read about what has happened to the author, Florian Balmer: Somebody took the (GPLed) source code of Notepad2, changed a few lines and released it as an "improved version" called Notepad3 to various download sites. In theory there's nothing wrong about this as the licensing conditions are met, but some kind of unpleasant aftertaste remains to put it mildly.

Read the full story in a commentary by Florian titled The Spirit of Open Source.

PDC2008 - I'll be there!

2008-06-27T07:05:04Z

The PDC has always been something special to me.

In 2003 I was following the bloggers late at night in front of my computer here in Germany. Live blogging was fairly new back then and I can remember hitting F5 a thousand times as the news bits from the keynote came in.

In 2005 I had an absolutely fantastic time in Los Angeles. Hey, I even had the opportunity to tell Anders Hejlsberg that raising events is too complicated in C# in my opinion (his reaction was "Yes, we thought about it, didn't find a solution that's best in all situations and in the end other things were more important"). And I got Brad Abrams and Krzysztof Cwalina to sign my copy of the Framework Design Guidelines book during the power outage on the day of the precon.

In 2007 I was all fired up to go and was incredibly disappointed when PDC2007 was cancelled.

Yesterday my company (Comma Soft AG, we're hiring BTW) completed the process of registering me and two colleagues for PDC2008 and now it's "Los Angeles, I'm coming!". Wow, this has been a great week at work for me, after getting my new development machine (Q9450 Quad Core with 8GB of RAM, running Windows Server 2008) on Tuesday.

GUI-Design für Nicht-Designer in Koblenz: Folien online

2008-05-31T08:04:00Z

Die Folien zu meinem Vortrag "GUI-Design für Nicht-Designer" beim User-Treffen der .NET Developer Group Koblenz stehen nun zum Download bereit:

PPTX-Format (1,66MB)
PPT-Format (2,20MB)

Update 29.6.2008: Die Folien stehen nun auch im PPT-Format zur Verfügung.

Usage of GhostDoc in Large Corporations

2008-05-23T14:43:50Z

A message to all developers in large corporations out there: If you try/have to approve the usage of GhostDoc because of company policy, you may get the response that legal problems prohibit the usage as no agreement could be reached with the author (i.e. me). To avoid the impression that I'm trying to rip off your company in any way, I'd like to explain this:

If a company approaches me asking whether the usage of GhostDoc is allowed for commercial purposes, I point them to the license which clearly states that this is the case. If company policy still requires an explicit statement regarding commercial use, I don't have any problem with that, either.

But: I will not sign any multi-page legalese for a piece of software that I didn't actively offer, let alone try to sell to a company in the first place. If my freeware license is not compatible with company policy, then that's unfortunate, but it's nothing I will do anything about - sorry.

Vortrag "GUI-Design für Nicht-Designer" in Koblenz

2008-05-18T21:37:35Z

Am Mittwoch, 28. Mai 2008 bin ich bei der .NET Developer Group Koblenz zu Gast, wo ich ab 19:00 einen Vortrag mit dem Titel "GUI-Design für Nicht-Designer" halten werde.

Der Vortrag richtet sich u.a. an jene Entwickler, die von sich behaupten überhaupt keine Ahnung von GUI-Design zu haben. Die werden durch den Vortrag natürlich nicht automatisch zu perfekten GUI-Gestaltern, aber wenn man ein paar Grundregeln kennt, ist es gar nicht so schwer, zu einer durchaus brauchbaren grafischen Oberfläche zu gelangen.

In den Beispielen zeige ich GUIs mit Windows Forms, insgesamt geht es aber relativ wenig um konkrete Technologien, sondern eher darum zu lernen, Anwendungen aus der Sicht der Benutzer zu betrachten. Dabei kläre ich u.a. was zugekniffene Augen und Fluchtreflexe mit Usability zu tun haben.

Blog Posts are now tagged by Language

2008-05-18T21:08:13Z

As the number of my blog posts in German language has increased in recent time, I have decided to tag all posts with either "English" or "Deutsch", depending on the language.

My blogging language for technical posts will remain English, I just want to give those living outside Germany a chance to avoid my announcements of events, availability of slides, etc.

AfterLaunch: Vortragsfolien online

2008-04-12T07:54:00Z

Die Folien zu meinem Vortrag "Visual Studio 2008 Tipps und Tricks für die Praxis" beim AfterLaunch in Köln stehen jetzt zum Download bereit:

PowerPoint-Präsentation (1,7MB)

AfterLaunch: Ausgebucht!

2008-04-08T19:16:00Z

Die AfterLaunch-Konferenz am 11.4.2008 in Köln, organisiert von den .NET User Groups Bonn-to-Code.Net), .net User Group Köln und .net developer user group niederrhein unter der Schirmherrschaft des JustCommunity e.V. ist restlos ausgebucht.

AfterLaunch: Nur noch zwei Wochen - jetzt anmelden!

2008-03-29T17:54:00Z

Es braut sich etwas zusammen in Nordrhein-Westfalen! Anlässlich der Vorstellung von Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 und Visual Studio 2008 haben sich die User Groups aus Bonn (Bonn-to-Code.Net), Köln (.net User Group Köln) und vom Niederrhein (.net developer user group niederrhein) zusammengetan, um unter der Schirmherrschaft des JustCommunity e.V. ergänzend zum offiziellen Launch ein Community-Event der besonderen Art auf die Beine zu stellen:

Ein ganzer Tag voller Vorträge, verteilt auf drei parallele Tracks
Sprecher, die als Entwickler und IT-Professionals aus ihrer täglichen Arbeit heraus Praxiswissen vermitteln
Große Verlosung von Software (Not-for-resale Versionen von Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 und Visual Studio 2008, Lizenzen für CodeRush with Refactor! Pro, Resharper und dotTrace, ANTS Profiler und SQL Compare Pro)
Vielfältige Möglichkeiten zum Networking mit anderen Teilnehmern und Firmen aus der Region

Und das zu einem Preis von nur 8,- Euro, in dem auch noch Verpflegung, Getränke und Parkausweis enthalten sind.

AFTERLAUNCH
Launch war gestern - heute ist Praxis

Freitag 11. April 2008
KonferenzZentrum im Technologiepark Köln
Anmeldung und weitere Infos auf www.afterlaunch.de

Italian Configuration File for GhostDoc 2.1.3

2008-03-13T22:29:00Z

Even though GhostDoc is intended for English documentation (and there are no plans for future versions to change that), Luca Tagliaferri from Italy has created an Italian configuration file for GhostDoc 2.1.3. While I cannot comment on the quality (I haven't tried it, non parlo l'italiano), I recommend checking it out here. Just be sure to export your current configuration as a backup.

An Award for Two Years of Bonn-to-Code.Net!

2008-02-24T22:32:00Z

Wow, that came really unexpected: at a company meeting last Friday I received an award for organizing and leading the .NET User Group Bonn called "Bonn-to-Code.Net" (all credits for the glorious pun go to Jens Schaller).

Comma Soft AG has been very supportive in the past two years by letting the monthly meetings taking place in the conference rooms, but other than that the user group is something I'm running in my spare time - that's why this award was such a (nice) surprise.

Mysterious Mail / The Final Mill / Van Velsenmeer

2008-02-06T11:55:00Z

To whom it may concern: Nice idea, sloppy execution.

Update 2008-02-09: As this thing is getting more and more elaborate, I'd like to clarify the "sloppy" comment. While I do acknowledge the overall effort you (whoever you are) put into this ARG, I must say that the initial impression wasn't favorable in regard to the level of quality - the English texts on the websites of two supposedly no-nonsense companies/organizations really would have benefited from some proof-reading. In a game where the goal seems to be the recruiting of smart people, you should always keep in mind that everything you do reflects on the company behind the game. Anyway, there are people (with way too much time on their hands) working on the various riddles and puzzles and I honestly wish you luck that at least one of them actually ends up working for you in the future.

Vista Tips

2008-02-03T18:50:00Z

My buddy Jens Schaller (of SonicFileFinder fame) has set himself the goal to blog one Vista tip each day of February.

The first posts are

His full blog can be found here, the tips are filed in the category Vista.

1st Place for EventFilter!

2008-01-21T23:59:00Z

The winners of the programming contest over at the German website www.dotnet-snippets.de have been announced – my entry EventFilter was chosen by a jury from almost 100 entries to be the winner.

EventFilter is a generic helper class for dealing with events that may be raised multiple times in rapid succession, when only the last event of a “burst” is of interest.

You find the English version in this blog post I published recently.