Sergio Pereira

November 2008 - Posts

• Please open my .aspx fast

  Still in the topic of performance, I'll throw a little freebie. Visual Studio seems to take an inordinate amount of time to open .aspx files for the first time. I noticed that the status bar read "Initializing toolbox..." for a long time. I'm mentioning .aspx but it really applies to any other webforms markup like .ascx and .master as well. Heck, I don't even have the toolbox loaded, docked, or hidden in my IDE. I don't use the toolbox at all for web develoment. I'm more of a source view kind of programmer. So why should I be penalized like that? I shouldn't. Here's what I did to speed that up: Show the toolbox Right-click and select "Choose Items..." Uncheck every item that the namespace contains "Web" (I also unchecked controls that I can't stand, like the database connections and data sources.) Click OK to save that, close the toolbox again and enjoy your precious stolen time again. Posted Nov 22 2008, 05:33 PM by sergiopereira with 2 comment(s) Filed under: .NET, Development, Tips & Tricks

• Sluggish Windows in VMWare Fusion - Solved

  I've had my MacBook for over 2 years. Initially I avoided installing virtualization or even BootCamp to run Windows. I was forcing myself to adapt to OS X, get out of my comfort zone, and learn more about that different environment. The mac was also my Ruby On Rails development machine and I wanted to keep Visual Studio out of it. After one year, I decided that the hardest phase of the learning process was long gone and I installed VMWare Fusion (version 1.something - don't remember) and Windows XP with Visual Studio. I also bumped up my RAM to 2Gb. Using Visual Studio inside a VM on a mac was a surprisingly viable alternative. I could have all the mundane applications like web browsers, email clients, IM, Twitter, word processors, etc, be mac applications running in the host and leave a very spartan Windows installation with just the minimum required software. Enter Fusion v2.0. I honestly don't know at what point things started going downhill. More or less around the same time, maybe 4 or 5 months ago, I applied XP SP3, upgraded Fusion to 2.0, and installed VS2008 SP1. I don't even remember what order I followed anymore. I just know that my Windows VM became almost unusable. I'd click and wait. Visual Studio was so unresponsive that I would prefer to terminal in to my desktop Vista and work like that instead of the VM. Today I had some time to get back to this problem and do a little googling on it. After a few not so useful hits, I landed on this forum posting that got me back on track. I still don't know if all my messed up settings were done by yours truly, trying to solve the problem and making it worse, or by the Fusion upgrade. For now I'll assume it was me. Here's what I had to change. Give less memory to the VM. This seems counterintuitive, but I had divided the RAM 50/50 between OS X and the VM. I reduced the VM to around 820MB. Use only one virtual processor. I have a dual core processor but virtualizing only one seems to ensure the host always has at least one entire core to do the housekeeping. Optimize for Mac OS. Mine was optimized for VM. Probably done by myself with the best intentions in the world. No sharing of any applications. I just don't need that. Gone. Several people on the forums mentioned reinstalling the VMWare Tools. Mine had installed/upgraded fine before so I didn't touch that. With all these tweaks in place I'm again a happy camper and stopped making plans to buy one of the new MacBook models that support more than 2GB. Performance is back to it's Fusion v1.x days and that's all I was asking for. Posted Nov 22 2008, 05:25 PM by sergiopereira with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Tips & Tricks

• Don't be sloppy in your scripts

  For a few weeks now, every time I try to logoff from my home banking website something bad happens. See screenshot below. Firebug opens unexpectedly There's a frigging debugger; statement in the live production site The logoff process hangs until I press F8 in Firebug or the continue button All my information is still on the screen. Imagine if I had just clicked Sign Off and left my desk. When I saw this for the first time I though: wow, some developer will be slapped for that (actually there are some developer names in the file,) but it seems that nobody else has a debugger enabled or they just hate their clients that are also web developers. The "bug" has been there for at least 2 weeks now. Even if you don't care for customers that happen to have a debugger like myself, leaving that kind of thing in your production environment immediately projects an image of sloppiness that is the last thing I want to have with my home banking. Update 11/24/2008: That script was fixed sometime over this past weekend. Posted Nov 14 2008, 12:05 PM by sergiopereira with 8 comment(s) Filed under: Development

• Video - The Langston's Ant

  Remember one recent post when I talked about the Code Kata that I attended? Well, Micah prepared a screencast version of that Kata and that video is now available. It's a short screencast (14') and even if Ruby is not your cup of tea, it's interesting to watch BDD being practiced. Langston's Ant in Ruby Kata from Micah Martin on Vimeo. Posted Nov 14 2008, 07:41 AM by sergiopereira with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Ruby, Development, Video, Community

• Video - Core, an AOP Framework

  Wow, that took a long time to be published, but here it is. This video was recorded during the October's meeting of Chicago ALT.NET that happened almost just about a whole month ago. The video shows Josh Heyse demonstrating and explaining the works of the AOP framework called Core. What the video doesn't show is who's that voice that also knows a lot about Core. That would be Anthony Green, who developed Core with Josh. Posted Nov 07 2008, 09:34 AM by sergiopereira with 1 comment(s) Filed under: .NET, Development, alt.net, Video, Community

• The people behind the bytes

  I think that any developer that creates customer-facing software dreams that their users rave about and show affection for the product. But being users of software ourselves we know it's not easy to like any application that much. There are usually so many other applications vying for our love, and they tend to be so bland and similar, it's easier to just treat them with equal disinterest. SIDE NOTE: This reminds me of how much I miss Kathy Sierra's Creating Passionate Users blog. Still, why some applications win your heart? I would argue that this has all to do with the way such application let some of the hearts and souls that created the application leak through some inoffensive outlets. The idea is that it is hard for users to attach themselves to something that has no sign of human behavior. Let me try to clarify this point with an example. Let's say Albert is your co-worker. He gets his job done but not always the same way every day. Sometimes he's not in the mood for water cooler chat, worried about the world financial crisis, sometimes he's thrilled that his team qualified for the playoffs, sometimes he's supportive when you are facing some personal problem. I mean, he's not a machine. Take one of the biggest examples of them all: Google. Do you think the Google Doodles or the famous hidden treats are there just the works of mischievous coders? No. They are carefully placed messages that serve as a constant reminder that the folks at Google are real people and they like to connect with you, the user. What other email site would dare to have user message like "Hooray, no spam here!" ? Why am I talking about this? I've joined a new company a couple of months ago and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that we make use of those little outlets to connect to our users on a personal level as well. For example we change the site logo on special occasions and send plush toys to customers when we release a new version (plush toys, as a "weapon" of Marketing, deserves its own post. I'll leave that for another day.) You may think this just sounds silly, but you should see the emails we get from customers when they notice these little things. They are thrilled to find them. Sometimes it makes someone's day. It happened again last Friday (Haloween — a major occasion in the U.S.) It's very rewarding and I'm very proud to work with people that think about their users that much. Posted Nov 03 2008, 01:41 PM by sergiopereira with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Development