Ross Hawkins - June 2010 Entries

June 2010 Entries

A non sensationalist post about EF4

I have a few things I want to write about the Entity Framework 4 over the next couple of weeks – but first, I need to post something rather short and simple, so here it goes: I’m currently using EF4 on a customer project in Europe. It’s working fine. It’s doing its job. We have no major complaints so far. There, done. A rather boring posting indeed, but I didn’t want to start talking here about EF4 in an overly negative way! Tags: Microsoft, ASP.NET, Entity Framework

posted @ Saturday, June 19, 2010 11:58 PM | Feedback (0)

On techniques for writing longer posts

In the past I’ve been very much a stream of consciousness writer. That is to say, an idea will pop into my head or something will happen and I’ll sit down and write about it then and there, and post it when finished (after a quick proof read). This has a couple of implications – if I’m too busy to write when that something happens then I often forget to write about it. I’ll often make notes and points along the lines of “Hey, I should write about that”, but often find it hard to come back and get...

posted @ Saturday, June 19, 2010 11:53 PM | Feedback (2)

The difference between architecture and design

The terms enterprise architect/architect are ones which gets thrown around a lot, sometimes without real thought. The Difference between Architecture and Design does a good job expanding on what should make an architect different to a designer/senior developer: By definition, an architect must be a designer, but the reverse doesn’t hold true Meaningless job titles don’t do much for me, and I like that it helps define what an Enterprise Architect should actually be doing, as well as why it shouldn’t always simply be given to someone technical who wants a new title/pay raise.

posted @ Wednesday, June 16, 2010 4:15 AM | Feedback (0)

IIS application warm up module & VS2010 power tool extensions

A couple of slightly unrelated (they’re both Microsoft ish, but really that’s as far as it goes) but neat looking things: IIS 7.5 Application Warm-Up Module – a nice idea, being able to remove the spool up time for large applications, or indeed any application where user experience is important (that’s all of them, right?). Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tool Extensions – contains some additional handy add-ins for Visual Studio 2010. A few of them are available already if you use ReSharper 5.0, but quite a few aren’t. Tags: Visual Studio, IIS

posted @ Tuesday, June 15, 2010 4:22 AM | Feedback (0)

Remove .svn information using TortoiseSVN

Obviously the best and easiest way to get files out of a Subversion repository is to use the Export command. However sometimes when renaming/moving or generally messing with the structure of a project you can accidentally delete a few of these files and end up needing to remove all the .svn directories and their contents and starting again. I’ve used a few ways to find/delete those files in the past, but I didn’t realise there’s a much easier way to remove .svn files using TortoiseSVN. Definitely useful to know. Tags: Subversion

posted @ Tuesday, June 15, 2010 4:19 AM | Feedback (0)

Subtext 2.5 released.. upgrade imminent!

Subtext 2.5 (well 2.5.something now that they’ve had to patch a couple of things) looks like a nice upgrade indeed. The improved searching and ‘related content’ features should be interesting to anyone who pays even a small amount of attention to their blog stats. It’ll be upgrade time around here as soon as I get a few moments. Tags: Subtext

posted @ Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:43 AM | Feedback (0)

On Vowe’s recent DNUG posting and similarities in NZ

You only have to glance at my tag cloud or my site introduction paragraph in the sidebar to the right to see that I’ve not called myself “A Notes person” for quite some time – however I still have clients who use the technology, and as such I can’t help keep an eye on things. Vowe’s recent post “Things I learned at the DNUG conference in Berlin” shows that a lot of the things I’ve noticed about the IBM/Lotus market in New Zealand are happening in other places too. New Zealand has always been a stronghold for Microsoft, and...

posted @ Sunday, June 13, 2010 3:12 AM | Feedback (2) Filed Under [ Notes/Domino ]

A quick collection of useful .NET related links

LightSpeed 3.1 released – Eeek, I missed mentioning the release of fellow New Zealanders Mindscape as they released version 3.1 of their LightSpeed O/RM product last month. Some great looking features in there – obviously Visual Studio 2010 support is a must, but saved quick views into the model is something which has my mouth watering, and splitting large models into multiple files is a a nice feature too. Simplify, Shorten and Speed Up Your LINQ Statements with "Let" – a useful LINQ tip. A little bit of refactoring ahoy for me in a few places now I think....

posted @ Monday, June 07, 2010 4:25 AM | Feedback (0)

About me

My name is Ross Hawkins and I'm a developer, consultant, business owner and writer based in Auckland, New Zealand (pictured below!). My current work revolves around ASP.NET, C#, jQuery, Ajax, SQL Server, and a mix of other Microsoft development technologies.

I also have about 15 years of experience with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and associated technologies. While Notes/Domino is no longer my primary focus I still like to dabble and keep my skills up to date.

I own and run 2 businesses - Hawkins Consulting Services, and Ignition Development.

Bethells Beach, located in sunny West Auckland, New Zealand