A Quick Review of Investments Unlimited

August 22, 2023

The DevOps movement has been trucking along for over half a decade. We are breaking down silos, automating toil, and making life better for…

Heroism is an Anti-Pattern

January 22, 2022

I’m generally not a fan of all the criticisms of “hustle culture,” but my developer Spider-sense is triggered whenever I see a company…

The Most Important Developer Skill

January 03, 2022

One thing that drives me crazy in this field is how some folks think it’s a weakness to look something up. While you should spend time…

Code First Microservices With a Single Database in Entity Framework Core

December 21, 2021

All of your microservices would have their own database in the ideal universe. Unfortunately, enterprise development is not in the ideal…

Five Tips To Pick Better Developer Tools For Your Projects

December 07, 2020

Have you suffered on a project due to lousy tool choices? (“Tool” can mean many things, but in this context, we’re talking about developer…

Why You Should Be Skeptical of Developer Career Advice

June 18, 2020

I was recently at a (socially distanced) high school graduation party. Like most graduation parties, the older adults doled out a big…

2020 Technology Predictions

February 25, 2020

Welcome to year three of my yearly technology predictions. The goal of this project is to publicly state predictions and gauge whether I’m…

The Case for DevOps: A Summary of Accelerate

February 22, 2019

During my travels as a developer, I find myself having the following conversations far too often. Have you seen any of these? Timid…

Do Your Apps Spark Joy?

January 22, 2019

Image from Web Summit via Wikimedia Commons What can this tiny Japanese lady teach you about technology? This is Marie Kondo. She’s become a…

New Year, New Look - Moving to Gatsby.js

January 08, 2019

You may have noticed my site design has become a bit… sparse. That’s because I recently moved from a hosted WordPress solution to a static…

2019 Technology Predictions

January 08, 2019

Last year, I did a post outlining my predictions for the next few years. It’s time to see how I did with my predictions. The reason I’m…

Adventures Building and Hosting Static Websites

July 31, 2018

It’s fun to experiment, but you eventually need to get things done. I spent a good chunk of my last weekend working on a side project. I…

Get The Boring Stuff Right: Talk Resources

June 01, 2018

If you attended my Get The Boring Stuff Right tech talk, you’ll know that I mentioned a ton of different resources to update your skills…

Winning With Web Components

April 27, 2018

The web is always changing. Every time I turn around it seems like there’s a new way to build user interfaces on the web. Whether it’s yet…

Adventures in Learning Azure

March 06, 2018

Being a developer is committing to a lifetime of learning new skills. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on grokking cloud…

Grouping Events by Date Ranges In SQL Server

February 09, 2018

Let’s say you have a table of events. Each event has a beginning and an ending date. How would you get a list of the events that happened…

10 Handy NuGet Packages for Your Next .NET Project

January 21, 2018

One of the great things about modern development is how easy you can leverage code written by others. Package managers like NPM and NuGet…

2018 Technology Predictions

January 09, 2018

Ever wish you could see into the future? I’d love to have known about Bitcoin eventually hitting 17k back when you could pick one up for a…

Architecture Patterns for Angular and .NET Core

November 30, 2017

There are a few ways to implement a monolithic Angular application. The easiest way is to use the built in template. Visual Studio comes…

How to Build a Serverless Angular App on Azure

October 09, 2017

Building web applications is hard work. Not only do you have to build the application, you need to figure out where to host it. Ever want to…

Speaker Tip: Zooming the Chrome Tools Window

October 08, 2017

When doing a technology demo, it’s important that everyone in the room can see your screen. This usually means bumping up your view to 15…

Avoid The Class Hierarchy Jungle: Favor Composition Over Inheritance

September 12, 2017

Have you ever worked on an application with a jungle-like class inheritance hierarchy? Everything in the app inherits from two layers of…

Cmder is the Cadillac of Windows Consoles

September 06, 2017

Like fashion, computing works in cycles. Things that were once looked at as passe come back with retro vengeance. For .NET development, the…

A Free Windows Tool For Recording Tests (Steps Recorder)

August 31, 2017

4 Tips For Blazing Fast ASP.NET Core Applications

August 08, 2017

I’m a huge fan of ASP.NET Core. It’s a great iteration on the ASP.NET platform and it should be your default choice for any new web…

Speaker Tip: Warm Up Your Audience With Conversation

June 27, 2017

The next time you give a tech talk or presentation at work, show up early and start a conversation. It’s a great way to get things moving in…

R for .NET Developers: Why Bother?

June 15, 2017

In addition to the productivity benefits of using the right tool for the right job, it’s good for your personal development to learn new…

A Few of My Favorite R Resources

June 07, 2017

In an effort to improve my data analysis skills, I’ve been learning and speaking about the R programming language. Even if you don’t want to…

Solution: New Project Hanging When Using R Tools for Visual Studio 2017

May 17, 2017

I’m really enjoying using R Tools for Visual Studio. It’s nice to learn something new (R) with something familiar (Visual Studio). I did…

Angular CLI With .NET Core

March 20, 2017

Update February 2018 The fine folks at Microsoft now have a template that integrates Angular CLI and .NET Core. I used it on my last Angular…

Book Review: Crucial Conversations

March 11, 2017

Ever find yourself in high stakes situations where even the slightest miscommunication can bring everything crashing into the ground? If so…

Debugging Angular Apps with Augury

February 07, 2017

I recently went on a hunt for Angular (formerly known as Angular 2)  profiling tools.  Angular is a fantastic framework, but the component…

To Win At Work: Be A Jack of All Trades, Master of One

February 02, 2017

Books The easiest one is to read books. Books are cheap and accessible. If you don’t have a lot of time to read, get yourself an Audible…

The State of Local Profiling on ASP.NET Core

February 01, 2017

If you want to improve it, you need to measure it. We use profiling tools to get the insight required to find and destroy application…

How To Deal With Tech Overload: Focus on Value

January 25, 2017

Image By walknboston (Flickr: Gavel) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons The technology…

Cutting Through The JavaScript Toolchain Thicket with Angular CLI

January 19, 2017

If there is a developer hell, one of the circles will involve the JavaScript toolchain. The JavaScript ecosystem is awash in tools, choices…

Building Tech Radars for Fun and Profit

December 22, 2016

The technology landscape is exploding. New technologies, platforms, and tools are being creating at an ever-increasing rate. VR, AR, and…

Great Reads for Innovators

December 14, 2016

As technologists, we are the vanguard of innovation. We’re at the forefront of technological innovation. Even if you’re slagging COBOL in…

Lazy Loading Modules With Angular 2 And Webpack

November 21, 2016

I’m sure this is obvious to some people, but this issue threw me for a loop. When building applications in Angular 2, it’s best practice to…

How to Turn Off TypeScript Automatic Compilation in Visual Studio

November 14, 2016

TypeScript is a first class citizen in the Visual Studio universe. By default, Visual Studio will compile your typescript files whenever you…

Taming the JavaScript Dragon with TypeScript

August 01, 2015

The year was 1995. “Gangsters Paradise” topped the music charts. Pixar released Toy Story, the first wholly computer generated film. And, in…

How to Future Proof Your Web Application

July 22, 2015

What do traditional archers and old Linux hackers have in common? Terrible looking websites. I’ve recently started getting into traditional…

How to: Ionic in Visual Studio

June 24, 2015

Mobile devices are taking over the world. If you are a web developer, you need to be prepared for a world where people spend the majority of…

How To Get The Most Out Of Criticism

May 22, 2015

Have you ever built something you’re proud of, only to have it torn to shreds when you show it your audience? Get burned in a code review…

What We Need More of is Hubris: A Review of Zero to One

May 20, 2015

We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters. Peter Thiel According to Peter Thiel, an amazing future lies ahead. All we have to do…

Purify Your Razor Views With Tag Helpers

May 08, 2015

Hate mixing HTML and C# code in your Razor views? Work with designers who are markup ninjas, but scratch their heads at a view full of HTML…

Visual Studio Goes Cross Platform with Visual Studio Code

April 29, 2015

Today, Microsoft kicked off Build 2015. Among the long list of exciting developments, Microsoft released the first cross platform version of…

Book Review: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

April 14, 2015

Being an adult is hard. People are constantly vying for chunks of your attention. As you become more successful, you have to weigh lots of…

How to Find The Best Tech News

April 12, 2015

Staying well informed is important to every professional, but how do you navigate the sea of infinite content? How can you filter out useful…

How to Build HTML Helpers like Html.BeginForm() in ASP.NET MVC

March 18, 2015

If you’ve used ASP.NET MVC for more than five minutes, you’ve probably used the Html.BeginForm helper method. This method wraps your content…

How the Monty Hall Problem Can Make You a Better Software Developer

March 04, 2015

Legacy Systems, Legacy Thoughts

February 26, 2015

There’s nothing like replacing a legacy software system to stoke the fires of self-righteousness. You get to pull some poor users out of the…

How I Build Tech Talks: Part 1

February 25, 2015

Last year, I created my first tech talk and delivered it to several venues. I enjoyed the experience, so I decided to produce a new talk…

Telling Stories With Data and D3.js (Video)

January 29, 2015

If you missed out on my D3.js talk from last year, the fine people at MadJs recorded it.

Psychology for Software Developers: Dunning-Kruger Effect

January 25, 2015

The more I learn about software development, the more I notice the things I don’t know. Each tactic I pick up or lesson I learn just leads…

OR/M Pain: Maybe Stored Procedures Aren't So Bad

January 24, 2015

When I first started using OR/M, I looked forward to not writing boilerplate SQL code. As a lazy developer, I prefer to automate boilerplate…

Building Antifragile Software

January 10, 2015

Software developers spend most of their time taming chaos into orderly systems. Along the way, there’s often lots of random issues that can…

Book Review: Soft Skills by John Sonmez

December 19, 2014

Have you ever wished that you had a manual for how to live the good life? A guidebook that will tell you how to make the best decisions. I…

Navigating the Mobile Development Landscape: September 2014

September 28, 2014

Smartphone and tablet adoption has exploded in the past five years. This trend has encouraged me to start exploring mobile development…

4 Steps to Better Non-Fiction Reading

September 20, 2014

I love to read. I’ve read over 40 non-fiction books in the past year (and all five Game of Thrones books). One of the problems I ran into is…

Telling Stories With Data: Building Interactive Data Visualizations With D3.JS

August 07, 2014

This is a text version of a talk I’ve performed. The best way to use this post is to grab the demo code and follow along. Demo Code: https…

Stoic Wisdom for Software Developers: Introduction

June 24, 2014

How can a bunch of philosophers who lived over 2000 years ago help you become a better software developer? The ancient philosophy of…

Building My First Tech Talk

June 12, 2014

Ever want to give a tech talk to your peers? I recently built and delivered my first tech talk and I’d like to share my experience. There…

3 Tips To Help You Ace Your Next Technical Interview

June 05, 2014

I used to be a little nervous about doing technical interviews. Even though I spend much of my free time learning about technology, I’m…

Reprogram Your Wetware: Habit Change for the Modern Software Developer

February 03, 2014

Habits are like cron jobs for the brain. They govern a large portion of our behavior automatically. According to a study by a researcher at…

Resources for learning ASP.NET MVC and Preparing for Exam 70-486

November 02, 2013

ASP.NET MVC is great, but one thing I’ve had trouble with is finding information. I’ve wasted many hours searching for documentation or…

How I Passed 70-480: HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3

September 04, 2013

I recently passed Exam 70-480. Despite the lack of official study material and information regarding what was on the exam, I passed the exam…


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