The DaxMindMapper Reloaded

Darrell Russell. A Software Contractor with over 10 years development experience. He is an experienced Microsoft .NET software developer specialising in C#, VB.NET, SQL Server Databases, ASP/ASP.NET web sites, XML, Web Services, WinForms, WCF and WFF development and consultancy work on a freelance basis. Based in the South West of the UK (Tetbury, Gloucestershire) and available to do work within South Wales, the M4 corridor, Gloucestershire, Dorset, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Somerset including Bath, Bristol, Swindon, Cheltenham, Gloucester and Salisbury. At the moment he is particulary interested in Agile Software development methodologies including Test Driven Development (TDD).

February 28, 2006

Ezoka

Filed under: Clients — Dax++ @ 2:50 pm

My time at Ezoka (2000-2001) marked a number of large changes in my life:

  • I became a Dad! Wow .. that feels like it happened about a 3 million years ago. So much has happened since Yasmine was born.
  • Moved out West .. From Kingston upon Thames to Tetbury in Gloucestershire to be precise.
  • Started working on a n-tier ecommerce system - uptil then most of my development work had been a lot less sophisticated
  • Worked in an environment that empowered and respected its developers .. never tried that before. My previous employee had been something of a sweatshop - great for learning time management skills and timescale estimations.
  • Worked with a development team that I respected .. although I had worked with individuals that I respected in previous roles, this time it was the entire team :)

QES

Filed under: Clients — Dax++ @ 2:07 pm

http://www.qes24.com/

Oxford Natural Products

Filed under: Clients — Dax++ @ 2:02 pm

A start-up company where I began my .NET career in April 2002.

Worked in a small development team on a country estate in Oxfordshire.

Capita Life & Pensions (CLPS)

Filed under: Clients — Dax++ @ 1:40 pm

http://www.capita-lps.co.uk

Capita Life & Pensions Services is the UK’s leading provider of business process outsourcing for the life and pensions industry.

I work for CLPS as a .NET developer within their New Technologies area. I’ve learnt a lot about SOA and Messaging Architectures within the Financial industry.

Using database audit information for other non-audit purposes

Filed under: Software Architecture and Design — Dax++ @ 10:16 am

When I create database schemas I sometimes have a requirement to audit those tables and record “who changes what” within the database. This means I could, if I so wish, understand the history of any particular entity within the database. All very nice .. and occasionally very, very usefull.

the question I have now is “should Audit information be sanctosant?” Or could/should I use Audit information to power, say, MI?

I’d say it’s generally considered good form NOT to overload the use of a particular piece of functionality - rather have it do and be responsible for just one thing and one thing only.

But then all that audit information does appear to be the easy answer for all your MI requirements .. so maybe you can use it for reports. Mmmmm lots of lovely, precious data.

And to start with things look rosy .. if a little complex .. but then, over time, unusual things start to happen and as a developer you’ll find yourself questioning whether you should be using audit data for anything other than recording change.

These situations will invariably be caused by pressure from the business/users to change what the MI is displaying based on their understanding of what the system is doing. Unfortunately that goes against the whole aim of the audit: to record what actually happened.

February 27, 2006

I really do need to get on and use TDD with VSTS

Filed under: .Net, Testing — Dax++ @ 6:12 pm

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/02/27/agitator_team_system/page2.html

No excuses .. its about time I got stuck in there with Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) and built my own “perfect” development environment.

I like the facist idea of not allowing developers to check in code unless their code has past certain tests & checks.

Also the auto creation of unit test stubs is a cool concept too.

Secret tracking codes in laser printers cracked

Filed under: Security — Dax++ @ 2:18 pm

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/20/outlaw_printer_dots/

What! I didnt know about this .. jeez, you couldnt make this stuff up.

McNealy begins to sees identity theft from a punters persepective

Filed under: Security — Dax++ @ 2:15 pm

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/25/ernst_young_mcnealy/

Ha, ha! Ol McNealy is really back tracking from his ludicrus comments previously regarding privacy. Now the boots on the other foot he’s not finding the concept of identity theft quite so funny - which made me laugh for one.

Making sense of ASP.Net Paths

Filed under: ASP.NET — Dax++ @ 11:16 am

http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/269.aspx

It does seem wierd that this area is so confusing becuase ASP.NET developers need to use this kind of functionality often (and its so important to get right for obvious reasons).

February 26, 2006

Swiftcover Online Car Insurance

Filed under: Cars — Dax++ @ 11:21 pm

http://www.swiftcover.com

Pretty cut down service but amazingly cheap. If you want anything out of the ordinary insurance wise I reckon you can forget it .. but for 80% of car owners I’m guessing its the cheapest out there at the moment.

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