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At the Software Craftsmanship 2010 conference I met Gael Fraiteur of Sharpcrafters, he had given a talk on Aspect Oriented Programming AOP.Since the conference I have had a chance to look at his Postsharp AOP product for .NET. I decided to do a quick spike project for a tender I have been working on, the requirement is to add a security model to an existing .NET assembly. Usually this would have entailed adding some security logic at the start of each public method to implement the security model. Using AOP I hoped I would be able to get the same effect by adding an attribute to the classes/methods, hopefully making the changes easier to read and quicker to develop. ...

I mentioned at the Developer Group meeting I was speaking at last week at the Typemock had a new C++ version of their product. They have now published the video of their webinar on this product.

Gael Fraiteur of Sharpcrafters recorded some interviews at the Software Craftsmen conference a couple of weeks ago. The interviewees include Ben Hall, Jason Gorman, Sandro Mancuso, Zi Makki and myself. They are all up on Youtube

On the 17th of November I will be speaking in Newcastle at the NEBytes user group on the subject ‘Using Typemock Isolator to enable testing of both well designed code and nasty legacy systems’. NEBytes meetings have an interesting format of a developer and an IT Pro talk at each meeting. The IT Pro session in November is to be given by another member of Black Marble staff, Rik Hepworth, and is on Sharepoint I think. ...

On the 17th of November I will be speaking in Newcastle at the NEBytes user group on the subject ‘Using Typemock Isolator to enable testing of both well designed code and nasty legacy systems’. NEBytes meetings have an interesting format of a developer and an IT Pro talk at each meeting. The IT Pro session in November is to be given by another member of Black Marble staff, Rik Hepworth, and is on Sharepoint I think. ...

I have always read a lot of novels, and I like to have a book with me for those unexpected moments when I get a chance to read. Of late this has meant I use the Microsoft Reader on my phone. It is not too bad an experience, using Project Gutenberg I can get a book (fiddle a bit in Word) and export to the Reader format. However I would like a slicker experience and be able to read new releases, so the Kindle seems just the job. ...

I don’t work with C++, but if you do you might be interested in Typemock’s free webinar this Thursday (21st October) on Isolator++. It will cover: The basic API design principles of Isolator++ (from AAA to recursive fakes, loose fakes, sticky behaviour etc..) What can Isolator++ do that others can’t? Code examples using Google Test framework and Isolator++, to test nasty untestable C++ code And as it is being given by Roy Osherove, possibly a short song, suitable for the occasion, performed live. Also as an added incentive Typemock, in honor of the first release of Isolator++, Typemock are giving away a free Isolator++ license to all webinar attendees . ...

I had a strangely thought provoking weekend, I took my son to do the tour of Concorde at Manchester Airport, and whilst in the area popped into Jodrell Bank to look at the Radio Telescope and the arboretum. Two great technological achievement, well worth a visit, but I felt both seemed to be in our past. I remember Concorde, I remember Apollo (just) and I remember sitting in a room at school to watch the first Shuttle launch, but where is the equivalent today? I started to feel that this ‘thrusting to the future’ style of project no longer exists; there seem to be few children saying ‘I want to be an engineer’ or ‘an astronaut’. I fear they are too often now saying ‘I just want to be famous’. ...

Want to monitor the health of your TFS system? Then wait no longer, the ALM Rangers have just shipped a SCOM Management pack for Visual Studio 2010. The management pack provides availability and configuration monitoring, performance data collection, and default thresholds. So if you use any SKU of SCOM 2007 and TFS 2010 why not download it and have a look.

To quote their site…. Leeds Hack is a 24 hour hack day in the city of Leeds (surprise!). 100+ people in a room – Feed them, water them, take them out for walks every now and them and let them create some amazing things. Best of all… It’s free.. For more details have a look at http://leedshack.com/