Come One, Come All to DDD Sydney – June 30th

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I’ve written about local conferences a few times before, but DDD Sydney is one of my favourites. There are few conferences that are so “For Us By Us” as DDD Sydney as it’s organised by Lewis Benge and contributed to by a whole swath of the local developer community from a number of different user groups, so it’s a great place to come down and meet a number of your local devs, learn something new or take part in the discussions – and for $25 it’s one of the cheapest conference tickets around!

Cause for Concern - Piracy on Windows Phone 7

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I have been playing with the Windows Phone 7 SDK for a while now, however I have been lucky to still have a day-job while doing my tinkering and therefore haven’t sourced my main income from sales in the WP7 marketplace. There are others who don’t have the same luxury as me and have bet a considerable amount of their time on the platform to date. Whether these developers are aware of it or not they are fighting a silent battle that I want to bring more awareness to –  a problem that every smart phone ecosystem has faced to date: Piracy.

Make Your Own Wi-Fi Hotspot - Testing Development Websites on Mobiles and Tablets

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Often you need to test a website on an tablet device such as an iPad using a local development machine’s web server. For whatever reason the available Wi-Fi when developing your site may be on another subnet or network entirely to you development machine (such as in an office environment). Situations like these call for a bit of creative thinking and a different approach, so if this is a problem you face here’s my take on a possible solution.

Things I Missed So You Won’t Have To – WP7 SDK

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During my development journey with Windows Phone 7 , there have been a number of things that I overlooked when writing your first app – things I wished I’d kept front of mind. None of these items are necessarily difficult or complicated things to cover off, so I thought I'd mention them here to save you the trouble, and at the same time show you ways to overcome each of them.

I’m a Junior Developer – You probably are too

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Part of my job is hiring people to build websites for advertising clients. Most of the things that we build don’t compete with brain surgery for complexity, but as anyone knows when working in software, having skilled people working on simple problems often leads to scalable, well built solutions – I hire accordingly. The problem is how do you define "skilled" and does it even have meaning in software out of the context of a company’s needs?

The Line Between Insanity and Genius. Where Do You Draw Yours?

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As Software Developers, our passion can sometimes be all encompassing. You can find a new language or framework and something inside you lights a spark and the obsession begins – it’s part of what makes a great scientist, developer, engineer or doctor. It can also be a part of what drives people insane. Recently I've wondered where the line is, when its time to back off, or even if you should.

What ASP.Net MVC Developers Can Learn From GitHub’s Security Woes

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Over the last week a few stories have moved through the Ruby On Rails and wider development community as one of their shining stars, GitHub was hacked to draw attention to some of the weaknesses that can come about from ROR’s convention-based model binding. The interesting thing about the security hole found at GitHub is that it is not necessarily limited to Ruby On Rails, but often comes from using a framework that supports model binding out of the box without understanding the security limitations up front. It also brings a question to the fore: Is it the role of framework developers to force any security configuration to be the default instead of being explicitly applied?

DevOps DNS for Developers – Now There’s No Excuse Not To Know

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Over the years I have had the luck to work alongside many really smart, switched on people in the development community. I’ve learnt from them many intermediate and experienced programming skills. Generally when it comes understanding the very basis of how the internet functions using DNS, most of these very same experienced developers haven’t got a clue. I wrote this post to hopefully help pay back some of the awesome karma they  have earned helping me over the years, by teaching them something in return. Lets learn about DNS.

InTheKnow Google Analytics Version 1.8 Released for Windows Phone 7

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Today marks the release of InTheKnow Google Analytics version 1.8 for Windows Phone 7 – there is a lot of little tweaks that have come about during the creation of this next version, and I'm excited that it is out there and getting great feedback. I spent a large chunk of the downtime in my Christmas break working on InTheKnow, so it is great to finally release the next version. If you haven’t tried the app, and are looking for and easy way to check your website’s Google Analytics on your Windows Phone 7 device, check it out – the trial is free.

8 Must-Have Tools for Windows Phone 7 Development

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After developing Windows Phone 7 applications in my spare time over the last year, I've collected an assortment of tools that make developing apps so much easier than when I first jumped in to Silverlight/Windows Phone 7 development. I only wish I'd know about them all when I first started down the Windows Phone 7 path. Whether you are just starting out or have been developing Windows Phone 7 apps for a while now, there’s something here for everyone.