James Simmonds

[Update 18th July 2013] @RobGibbens and Greg Hurlman picked up on this - Rob pointed out that there is an FxCop rule that can do this and Greg suggested a Visual Studio extension. I've had a quick look at the Visual Studio options and it looks like an " Editor Extension " is a good fit....hmmm, Project New, click...doh...dammit I really don't have time for this but it looks a fun little diversion! I'll update here if I get anything working. [Original Post] Had an interesting idea for a Visual Studio Resharper add-in the other day but don't have the time to implement it so thought I would put it out there...it might already exist (and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction) or someone will build it (Darren Voisey where are you?!). The idea is very simple really - when you have a variable for an object that implements IDisposable it gets highlighted or a tell-tale is displayed to let you know it should be disposed or should be wrapped in a u...

[Update 19th Apr 2012]  - mission complete!...v2.4.0 of Wolfpack has been released and this includes a new set of plugins that can automatically download a NuGet package then execute a deployment tool (eg: DropkicK, MSBuild.exe) - it can even run NUnit tests (via the console runner). Wolfpack v2.4.0 Wolfpack.Contrib.Deployment [Original Post] Another day, another project and deployment raises its head... Thinking that this problem must have been cracked by now I had a look around the .Net landscape and found two interesting solutions. Octopus Deploy - a .Net convention based deployment system using NuGet packages, loosely based on AppHarbour's approach. DropkicK (aka DK) - another awesome initiative from Dru Sellers et al. I like the simplicity of Octopus but also like DK's  fluent code based deployment. Hmmm, this has got me thinking - Wolfpack could easily be adapted to be used as a deployment agent. Wolfpack can already monitor a NuGet feed for new pac...

Hurrah! Version 2.1 of Wolfpack (formally MonitorWang) is released! This release is all about " Build Analytics " - a new set of plugins allow you to monitor the state of a TeamCity build configuration and then once this is complete it can extract stats from any* build tool run as part of it. * When I say any I mean it supports NCover, SpecFlow, StoryQ reports but as usual with Wolfpack it is easy to create your own parsers to extract from any tool you might use, eg: NDepends, FxCop. It is also simple to extend it to cover other build systems like TFS, CruiseControl. The final piece of the puzzle of to visualise this information and the Wolfpack Geckoboard Data Service does a great job of this - it allows you to display these stats directly in your Geckoboard .

I've observed an interesting trend from my download statistics on my main open source project, MonitorWang ...that downloads often increase on a Friday. What can we infer from this? Developers have some down time to look at "other" stuff on Friday? Interesting to know how official this is or just people getting bored with the humdrum stuff and looking for something interesting to do at the end of the week? MonitorWang's official birthday is 8th August when I first uploaded it to codeplex however it was in conception & development way before that so it's almost a year old. It's racked up over 1000 downloads and I've got some big plans for it to be revealed shortly. More importantly I'm starting to get feedback and success stories of it in use which is the icing on the cake - 1000 downloads means nothing if it's not of value to someone! Thanks to everyone that has helped shape & contribute to it, in particular Rob Gibbens and David St...

Podio  - currently being wowed by this web application. It's a highly customisable collaborative "space" for your team to manage there activities. Essentially you create a "space" then populate it with the apps (widgets) that have the greatest affinity with what your "space" is about. So if you were collaborating on a new website then you will use apps from the software development pack (suite of apps) but you can mix and match apps from any category to provide a completely customised environment to manage your work & team with. This concept is excellent as I've used many "management" type sites, must notably (and well known) being Basecamp and found it good but not great - its suitability & popularity varied between project/client - with Podio you can tune the environment to ensure that you only have the features you need and even better you can create your own apps if there is nothing suitable available; I've not tried this ...

Another roundup post to cover a few things of interest I've discovered lately.... (via Automated Home) comes the HDMI hacker box from Kwikwai - it allows you to bridge home automation systems into AV equipment, eg: send a text string to your TV OSD! CEC is an optional command channel built into HDMI that allows commands to be sent from one device to another - eg: when you turn your TV off it sends a turn off command back down to your DVD player connected to it. This box allows you to sit in between devices and fake commands or just discover (sniff them). (via HRB/JasonFried/Twitter) Great post on un-managing your team to unlock potential from a guy at 37signals (basecamp). Superb post - a must read! 37signals are rewritting the development team book!

One of the big topics on our project is SEO - luckily we have an SEO ninja called Glyn and he's going to be revealing and rounding up some of the SEO magic that makes or breaks a site. Check out Glyn's blog for more useful SEO information. I've been doing my own reading and can recommend this book - ok, it's a year old which is a looonnng time in web terms but it's got a good approach and walks you through things very clearly.

So as you may know I've started a personal project that I hope to turn commercial one day and I'm using Unfuddle to do the "project/development management" which includes a SVN repository. I've got CruiseControl.Net setup to CI my code and it all works gloriously well but I was chatting to Glyn the bloke that put me onto Unfuddle and he mentioned that Unfuddle has a repository callback feature - rather than have CC.Net ping my Unfuddle SVN every 30 seconds to detect if a commit has occurred Unfuddle will POST details of the latest commit to the url you register as your callback - a much more efficient Pub/Sub approach. Ok - so how to get a callback to trigger a CC.Net build? Easy! Attempt 1 I Fiddlered the url that the CC.Net webdashboard calls when you press the "Force Build" button on a project - it looks like this, http://[ yourserver ]/ccnet/server/local/project/[ yourproject ]/ViewProjectReport.aspx?ForceBuild=Force I entered this into the...

I am a heavy user of Remote Desktop connections in my development work. Our development environment is hosted as virtual machines and access to all other environments is via Remote Desktop too. I often have to transfer files between environments and security/firewalls usually mean there is no direct way to do this so I usually copy the file to down to my host machine running the Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) then back up to the destination RDC. This involves right click the file, copy, find the host drive (or type \\tsclient\c), find the folder (usually rdctemp) then right click paste - phew... Or...thanks to this link I have created a shortcut in the SendTo menu to my host drop folder (\\tsclient\c\rdctemp) on my source (developement) RDC (Win2k3) and can just file right click, SendTo->RemoteDesktopHost to copy the file down to the Host PC. On the desktop of the destination RDC I have another shortcut to the same location (\\tsclient\c\rdctemp) that then allows me to quickly...

I have a Windows Eventlog. I have tens of thousands of entries hitting it. I need to find and report on a few of them that an app should insert each day. Step forward LogParser ..nothing new here, we're old acquaintances. The spotlight is reserved for Visual LogParser ...happy days :)

I've long been a fan (and sometime practitioner) of " Getting Things Done " (GTD) organisational approach. At the heart of being "organised" is having a good "todo" list...and for the last few months I've been using ToDo-ist to power my list. I'm also a recent convert to "the cloud" - using online applications and services...the availability and reach makes "cloud" based stuff just so useful....and Todo-ist also neatly ties these two things together...and the real plus is that ToDo-ist also has an iGoogle gadget/widget plugin. Usually I find a shiny new app/service/tool etc and post about it immediately only to find that it doesn't live up the hype or expectation - so this "recommendation" for ToDo-ist is based on several months of actually using it! I really like the level of flexibility ToDo-ist offers (it terms of list structures) and has some nice shortcuts too (like putting "tod" or "tom...

Just seen this productivity util from the Maxivista guys. PhraseExpress - http://www.phraseexpress.com/ Its a phrase/expression expansion tool that works in any application (not just msoffice) to expand any phrase/term into a full string... eg: you type bbfn and it is automatically expanded into bye bye for now Plus - its free for the personal use edition!

Hello!....been a bit quiet on the blogging front...Windows Media DRM, Type 1 Active Stores and the like are keeping me very busy but this made me laugh...if you need a productivity boost this might be the gadget you need!