If you’re eagerly awaiting Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 10, then it looks like you don’t have long to wait. Late July looks set to be the launch period for the new OS, with hardware partner AMD accidentally spilling the beans. This means we have less than 15 weeks to go before the new OS ships.
Windows 10 is widely anticipated to turn the lacklustre sales of Windows 8 around and convince the remaining Windows XP and Windows 7 users to upgrade too.

The news doesn’t actually come from Microsoft, but one of its partners, AMD, which is better known for making CPUs and graphics cards. Specifically, AMD’s CEO, Lisa Su, let slip the date during a quarterly earnings conference call:
"What we also are factoring in is, you know, with the Windows 10 launch at the end of July, we are watching sort of the impact of that on the back-to-school season, and expect that it might have a bit of a delay to the normal back-to-school season inventory build-up."

Windows 10, which is looking like it will be released at the end of July, will bring back the Start Menu

I’d say the information is highly reliable given AMD’s stance in the industry, the fact it’s a Microsoft hardware partner and the fact Microsoft has specified a summer launch for Windows 10 anyway.

Aligning the launch so there’s a bedding in period for the ‘back to school’ season – a time when extra numbers of laptops and PCs are sold, makes sense too, as retailers can use the new OS as a selling point.

Free upgrade for some, get it via Windows Update

For the rest of us, when July comes around here’s what to do. The OS will be free to download for Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows phone. Upgrading in the first year after release will be cost-free and this is likely to remain the case too – you’ll only be hit with a fee if you miss this one year window, although there is speculation as to how Microsoft MSFT +0.5% will make money from the OS – perhaps with additional features or updates in future.

So there’s no need to head to your nearest PC store to pick up a copy. As I reported back in January, not only is the new OS free to most users, but Microsoft confirmed to me it will be dishing it out via Windows Update.

So if you want to upgrade, all you need to do is download the update from Windows Update – be warned, though, the update will likely be pretty hefty. The update will likely have to happen for every PC in your home separately.

Windows 10 updates will likely be delivered via P2P with the option to access pre-downloaded updates from other PCs too.

In addition, as I reported here, Microsoft will likely be using peer-to-peer or P2P to deliver Windows 10 updates, with the added ability to access pre-downloaded updates from another PC, dramatically reducing the time it takes to install them if you’ve got several PCs in the home

source: forbes

 Windows 10 news, including the release of Spartan browser in latest build

• Spartan browser arrives in latest build.
• The operating system will be a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 users during the first year.
• If you do not upgrade in the first year, you will be charged. There has been some confusion around pricing - but Microsoft is expected to charge a one-off license fee and NOT move to a subscription model.
• Windows 10 will launch in late-2015, likely by the end of July. The Technical Preview will end on 15 April 2015.
• Microsoft also debuted the 84in Microsoft Surface Hub and Windows Holographic. The latter will allow users to create 3D models via a custom-built HoloLens.

Windows 10 latest news

Windows 10 will launch globally in 190 countries this summer, and details about what to expect from the next-gen OS are slowly being revealed - officially and via leaks. Here's our roundup of the latest Windows 10 news.
20/04/15: The release date is almost guaranteed to be July 2015 if a slip of the tongue by AMD's CEO during an earnings call is anything to go by, according to reports.
17/04/2015: The Windows 10 Technical Preview is being pulled from its most popular phones, after users previewing the operating system began to report huge issues.
As reported by Windows Central, a Microsoft employee wrote in the Windows Insider forum: "We are seeing some reports of failures on Lumia 520/525/526 devices when trying to roll back to Windows Phone 8.1 using the Windows Phone Recovery Tool.
"We are pausing build availability for these devices temporarily while we investigate the issue and work with customers who have reported problems."
Users complaining of issues with the build have reported crashing, sometimes before completely bricking their devices.
14/04/2015: The second Windows 10 preview for mobile brings Project Spartan to Windows Phone for the first time, at least to Lumia devices.
Announced in a Windows Phone blog post, Spartan is now present on some Windows 10 mobile devices, a week after its debut on desktop. The preview isn't perfect, however, with some bugs expected to greet those early adopters.
"This build, like last week's desktop build, is a very early look at software that we're actively developing," Kyle Pflug, programme manager at Project Spartan, said.
"You'll still find Internet Explorer 11 as the default browser in this preview. In a later update, Project Spartan will be the only browser included on Windows Phones."
13/04/2015: Despite new tech preview builds arriving with increasing speed, Windows 10 still has some tricks up its sleeve. A leaked private build, Build 10056, has displayed some intriguing new features - in addition to tweaks in the personalisation options, a Shazam-style song finding function has also been added to Cortana.
Further changes include a brace of new apps (including Mail and Calendar), and the ability to resize the columns housing Live Tiles in the Start Menu. However, the most interesting feature appears to be the introduction of achievements to Windows. Opening the Windows Insider Hub in the new build will prompt a notification informing the user they've earned an achievement.
This is the first - and so far, only - sign we've seen of desktop achievements, but if they are integrated to Windows 10, it could be an intriguing aspect of the 'gamification' of modern life.
08/04/2015: Windows 10 isn't here yet, but Microsoft is already planning updates. Reports suggest Microsoft will release two major updates to the next-gen OS in 2016, one in June and one in October. Both will be released under a new codename, Redstone - a reference to the game Minecraft, which Microsoft bought last year for $2 billion.
The updates are expected to arrive automatically to Windows 10 users, and will include some new functionality, including support for additional devices, according to another report.

Windows 10 release date

Windows 10 Technical Preview ends on 15 April 2015 and the general release is tipped for later this year. Exact launch date of the full build is yet to be confirmed.
Windows 10: Faster builds
News that Microsoft is planning to accelerate its release schedule for Windows 10 preview builds has appeared following the event. An announcement in the Windows Insider Hub app (available only for existing Windows 10 users, via ZDNet) said:
"We've heard your feedback asking for more frequent builds - and as Gabe mentioned in his recent blog post, we've probably been too conservative about pushing builds to the Fast ring for Windows Insiders. So we're preparing to speed up the build releases for those who want to live life in the Fast lane.
"The good news is that Insiders who choose Fast will be getting fresher code, with all of the features and fixes, more often. The potential downside is that as we go faster, the builds will likely include more bugs with fewer workarounds. If this doesn't sound like something you want to deal with, now is your time to switch to Slow."
Windows 10: Latest builds
The release of Technical Preview Build 10041 brings Cortana to UK desktops.
Previously, the feature was once available to users in the US (there was a way of tricking UK desktops into enabling the feature on the previous build by changing settings). In addition to the UK, Cortana now also works in France, Italy, Germany and Spain.
The feature is still developing, so may not work as well as could be expected but it can search for files, apps, settings and stuff on the web. Cortana also promises to learn and make results more personalised as time goes on.
Build 10041 has been released as part of the “fast ring” that Microsoft has set up for users who want access to the latest features. Understandably, this build may not be as stable as other builds. Users in the “slow ring” of the Windows Insider program may well be able to get the update at a later date.
Other features now include improved handwriting recognition for pen users and a Network Fly-out setting giving access to network settings from the taskbar network icon.
There are also enhancements to the Photos app that now includes images from OneDrive and support for RAW files.
Improvements have also been made to the Windows Insider program itself with the feedback app featuring the ability to filter feedback as well as suggestions versus problems.
Earlier this month, details emerged about another Windows 10 build (dubbed 9888), which reveals even more about what users can expect from the OS when it finally arrives next year.
The build has was intended to be a partner-only release that was not scheduled to be formally pushed out to the public, but since then has been leaked online.
According to a report on Winbeta, the build has popped up on various file-sharing sites, but users are being advised against installing it because it was never intended for public release.
Therefore, it's uncertain if those that do will be able to install other builds or Windows 10 updates as and when Microsoft releases them.
A follow-up report from tech site Neowin suggests users that do opt to install build 9888 will not be excluded from future Windows 10 updates, but - because the release is not supported by Microsoft - may experience problems when coming to update it later down the line.
The 9888 build features new-look animations, introduces the concept of unified context menus and makes the zPC settings app the default means of applying new settings.
In the meantime, the November update (build 9879) for the Technical Preview of Windows 10 (which is widely considered to be the last Microsoft will push out in 2014) has been making its way to those signed up to the "Slow Ring" within the Windows Insider programme in recent days.
As part of the programme, the software giant lets users choose how quickly and often they receive the build updates. Those who opt for the "Fast Ring" will receive more frequent updates that carry with them a higher risk of bugs.
Meanwhile, those who sign up for the "Slow Ring" will reportedly receive fewer updates and the ones they do get should be more stables as many of the bugs in them will have been picked up already by members of the "Fast Ring."
The 9879 build has since been updated too, to fix some functionality issues within the Windows 10 Explorer function.
Windows 10 Tech Preview launch: September 2014
The Windows 10 launch event was presided over by Windows chief Terry Myerson at the end of September 2014, who confirmed the OS will be called neither Windows 9 nor Threshold, despite numerous reports to the contrary.
During his time on stage, he talked up the importance of Windows to the enterprise, before going on to explain the new OS will work on the "broadest" range of devices possible.
"Enterprises need to evaluate Windows early, and we're starting our dialogue with them today," he said.
Myerson also spoke about how Microsoft wants the development of Windows 10 to be more collaborative that previous iterations of the software.
"We're planning to share more than we ever have before... earlier that we have before," he said.
This sharing will be done through the newly-launched Windows Insider Programme, which will provide users with a forum to share feedback on beta versions ahead of its general release in 2015.
The Technical Preview is aimed at developers, and is designed to allow them to get a taste of what it has to offer ahead of its general release.
Joe Belfiore, the corporate vice president of the operating systems group at Microsoft, used the event to walk attendees through the many new features Windows 10 has to offer.
These include a new multi-tasking feature called Task View, which showcases all the apps that are currently up and running on the system.
Another, enterprise-friendly feature of the operating system is that it also features multiple, virtual desktop that users can switch between.
Furthermore, users can call on Task View to help them switch between them and the apps being used on these desktops.
As suggested by various sources and leaks in the run up to the launch, the OS sports a re-worked Start Menu.
He then talked about how the new-look OS will work on two-in-one devices, with users able to initiate a "tablet mode" by simply tapping the touchscreen.

Windows 10 Price

The rumours that Windows 10 will be free for existing Windows 7/8.1 users has been confirmed, with the company revealing that Windows 10 will be free for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users for the first year. However, executives declined to comment on the pricing structure after this time frame.
Microsoft has also announced that the free Windows 10 upgrade will also be available to users of pirated software, with Myerson telling Reuters: "We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10."
"Anyone with a qualified device can upgrade to Windows 10, including those with pirated copies of Windows," a Microsoft spokesperson said to The Verge. "We believe customers over time will realise the value of properly licensing Windows and we will make it easy for them to move to legitimate copies."

I worked in Java for a number of years at Nike, writing an order management application that would run on four platforms. We used to joke that we"d "write once, debug everywhere." Now, this was the early days of Java, but the thing was, every form and control was "owner drawn." That meant that a button looked the same everywhere because it wasn"t a real button as far as the operating system was concerned. It was a picture of a button. We used to use Spy++ and different Windows inspector programs to explore our applications and they could never see a Java program"s controls. This meant that the app pretty much worked everywhere, but the app always LOOKED like a Java App. They didn"t integrated with the underlying platform.

With MVVM (Model, View, View-Model) patterns, and techniques like the Universal apps work on Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1, code sharing can get up into the high 90% for some kinds of apps. However, even for simple apps you"ve still got to create a custom native view for each platform. This is desirable in many cases, but for some app it"s just boring, error prone, and tedious.

Xamarin announced Xamarin.Forms today which (in my words) effectively abstracts away native controls to a higher conceptual level. This, to my old eyes, is very similar to the way I wrote code in Java back in the day - it was all done in a fluent code-behind with layouts and flows. You create a control tree.

"Xamarin.Forms is a new library that enables you to build native UIs for iOS, Android and Windows Phone from a single, shared C# codebase. It provides more than 40 cross-platform controls and layouts which are mapped to native controls at runtime, which means that your user interfaces are fully native."

What"s interesting about this, to me, is that these "control/concepts" (my term) are coded at a high level but rendered as their native counterparts. So a "tab" in my code is expressed in its most specific and native counterpart on the mobile device, rather than as a generic tab control as in my Java example. Let"s see an example.

My buddy from Xamarin, James Montemagno, a fellow Chipotle lover, put together the ultimate cross-platform Hanselman application in a caffeinated late night hack to illustrate a few points for me. This little app is written in C# and runs natively on Windows Phone, Android, and iOS. It aggregates my blog and my tweets.

Here is the menu that switches between views:

And the code that creates it. I"ve simplified a little for clarity, but the idea is all MVVM:

public HomeMasterView(HomeViewModel viewModel){ this.Icon = "slideout.png"; BindingContext = viewModel; var layout = new StackLayout { Spacing = 0 }; var label = new ContentView { Padding = new Thickness(10, 36, 0, 5), BackgroundColor = Color.Transparent, Content = new Label { Text = "MENU", Font = Font.SystemFontOfSize (NamedSize.Medium) } }; layout.Children.Add(label); var listView = new ListView (); var cell = new DataTemplate(typeof(ListImageCell)); cell.SetBinding (TextCell.TextProperty, HomeViewModel.TitlePropertyName); cell.SetBinding (ImageCell.ImageSourceProperty, "Icon"); listView.ItemTemplate = cell; listView.ItemsSource = viewModel.MenuItems;
//SNIP

 listView.SelectedItem = viewModel.MenuItems[0]; layout.Children.Add(listView); Content = layout;}

Note a few things here. See the ListImageCell? He"s subclassed ImageCell, which is a TextCell with an Image, and setup data binding for the text and the icon. There"s recognition that every platform will have text and an icon, but the resources will be different on each. That"s why the blog and Twitter icons are unique to each platform. The concepts are shared and the implementation is native and looks native.

That"s the UI side, on the logic side all the code that loads the RSS feed and Tweets is shared across all three platforms. It can use async and await for non-blocking I/O and in the Twitter example, it uses LinqToTwitter as a PCL (Portable Class Library) which is cool. For RSS parsing, it"s using Linq to XML.

private async Task ExecuteLoadItemsCommand(){ if (IsBusy) return; IsBusy = true; try{ var httpClient = new HttpClient(); var feed = "http://feeds.hanselman.com/ScottHanselman"; var responseString = await httpClient.GetStringAsync(feed); FeedItems.Clear(); var items = await ParseFeed(responseString); foreach (var item in items) { FeedItems.Add(item); } } catch (Exception ex) { var page = new ContentPage(); var result = page.DisplayAlert ("Error", "Unable to load blog.", "OK", null); } IsBusy = false;}

And ParseFeed:

private async Task> ParseFeed(string rss){ return await Task.Run(() => { var xdoc = XDocument.Parse(rss); var id = 0; return (from item in xdoc.Descendants("item") select new FeedItem { Title = (string)item.Element("title"), Description = (string)item.Element("description"), Link = (string)item.Element("link"), PublishDate = (string)item.Element("pubDate"), Category = (string)item.Element("category"), Id = id++ }).ToList(); });}

Again, all shared. When it comes time to output the data in a List on Windows Phone, Android, and iPhone, it looks awesome (read: native) on every platform without  having to actually do anything platform specific. The controls look native because they are native. Xamarin.Forms controls are a wrapper on native controls, they aren"t new controls themselves.

Here"s BlogView. Things like ActivityIndicator are from Xamarin.Forms, and it expresses itself as a native control.

public BlogView (){ BindingContext = new BlogFeedViewModel (); var refresh = new ToolbarItem { Command = ViewModel.LoadItemsCommand, Icon = "refresh.png", Name = "refresh", Priority = 0 }; ToolbarItems.Add (refresh); var stack = new StackLayout { Orientation = StackOrientation.Vertical, Padding = new Thickness(0, 8, 0, 8) }; var activity = new ActivityIndicator { Color = Helpers.Color.DarkBlue.ToFormsColor(), IsEnabled = true }; activity.SetBinding (ActivityIndicator.IsVisibleProperty, "IsBusy"); activity.SetBinding (ActivityIndicator.IsRunningProperty, "IsBusy"); stack.Children.Add (activity); var listView = new ListView (); listView.ItemsSource = ViewModel.FeedItems; var cell = new DataTemplate(typeof(ListTextCell)); cell.SetBinding (TextCell.TextProperty, "Title"); cell.SetBinding (TextCell.DetailProperty, "PublishDate"); cell.SetValue(TextCell.StyleProperty, TextCellStyle.Vertical); listView.ItemTapped += (sender, args) => { if(listView.SelectedItem == null) return; this.Navigation.PushAsync(new BlogDetailsView(listView.SelectedItem as FeedItem)); listView.SelectedItem = null; }; listView.ItemTemplate = cell; stack.Children.Add (listView); Content = stack;}

Xamarin Forms is a very clever and one might say, elegant, solution to the Write Once, Run Anywhere, AND Don"t Suck problem. What"s nice about this is that you can care about the underlying platform when you want to, and ignore it when you don"t. A solution that HIDES the native platform isn"t native then, is it? That"d be a lowest common denominator solution. This appears to be hiding the tedious and repetitive bits of cross-platform multi-device programming.

 

There"s more on Xamarin and Xamarin Forms at http://xamarin.com/forms and sample code here. Check out the code for the Hanselman App(s) at https://github.com/jamesmontemagno/Hanselman.Forms.

SOURCE: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/XamarinFormsWriteOnceRunEverywhereANDBeNative.aspx

Much has been written and much will be written about the Windows 10 announcement.

Windows 10, because 7 8 9.

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) September 30, 2014

I"m pretty stoked, and am playing with the Windows 10 Technical Preview now. I can see that there"s lots of new enhancements to the shell, the Start Menu/ Screen, how Universal apps work, and so much more. But, let"s focus on the "other shell." The console!

The console (conhost) that cmd.exe (often incorrectly but colloquially called the DOS Prompt) and PowerShell live within hasn"t had much love in the last several years, IMHO. But then, suddenly, on stage at the Windows 10 announce we"ve got a VP showing folks that Ctrl-V (paste) works in the command prompt. Why would he do such a crazy thing?

remember when microsoft demoed the command prompt in windows on a stage in 2014

— spooky dan seifert (@dcseifert) September 30, 2014

Well, from what I can tell looking at the Preview, there"s a LOT of cool Console goodness coming in Windows 10.

Here"s a list of hotkeys in the Windows 10 Technical Preview console. This is just hotkeys! Be sure to explore the Properties dialog as well, resize, word wrapping, and more.

Text selection keys

These combinations interoperate with the mouse so you can start selecting with the mouse and continue with one of these commands, or vice versa. 

Selection Key Combination	Description
SHIFT + LEFT ARROW	Moves the cursor to the left one character, extending the selection.
SHIFT + RIGHT ARROW	Moves the cursor to the right one character, extending the selection.
SHIFT + UP ARROW	Selects text up line by line starting from the location of the insertion point.
SHIFT + DOWN ARROW	Extends text selection down one line, starting at the location of the insertion point.
SHIFT + END	If cursor is in current line being edited * First time extends selection to the last character in the input line. * Second consecutive press extends selection to the right margin. Else Selects text from the insertion point to the right margin.
SHIFT + HOME	If cursor is in current line being edited * First time extends selection to the character immediately after the command prompt. * Second consecutive press extends selection to the left margin. Else Extends selection to the left margin.
SHIFT + PAGE DOWN	Extends selection down one screen.
SHIFT + PAGE UP	Extends selection up one screen.
CTRL + SHIFT + RIGHT ARROW	Extends the selection one word to the right.
CTRL + SHIFT + LEFT ARROW	Extends the selection one word to the left.
CTRL + SHIFT + HOME	Extend selection to the beginning of the screen buffer.
CTRL + SHIFT + END	Extend selection to the end of the screen buffer.
CTRL + A	If cursor is in current line being edited (from first typed char to last type char) and line is not empty and any selection cursor is also within the line being edited Selects all text after the prompt.  (phase 1) Else Selects the entire buffer.  (phase 2)

Extra Fun with CTRL + A

CTRL + A behavior is interesting. Regardless of the state of mark mode and quick edit mode, one of two things should happen. Either the entire buffer is selected, or (only in a single case) "2-Phase select" starts.  2-Phase select is the process where the first CTRL-A selects the characters to the right of the edit line prompt, and the second press selects the entire buffer.

Editing keys

As I mentioned above you can copy and paste text with the keyboard. When copying text, you might worry that CTRL + C has always been the BREAK command. This is a nice touch, it will still send the break signal to the running application when no text is selected. The first CTRL-C copies the text and clears the selection, and the second one signals the break. Nice attention to detail, IMHO.

Editing Key Combination	Description
CTRL + V	Paste text into the command line.
SHIFT + INS	Paste text into the command line.
CTRL + C	Copy selected text to the clipboard.
CTRL + INS	Copy selected text to the clipboard.

Mark mode keys

These keys function in mark mode. You can enter this mode by right-clicking anywhere in the console title bar and choosing Edit->Mark from the context menu as before, or via the new shortcut combination, CTRL-M. In the original console, mark mode resulted in block mode text selection. While in mark mode, you can hold down the ALT key at the start of a text selection command to use block mode in the new console. The selection key combinations above are all available in mark mode. CTRL + SHIFT + ARROW operations select by character and not by word while in mark mode.

Mark Mode Key Combination	Description
CTRL + M	Enter "Mark Mode" to move cursor within window.
ALT	In conjunction with one of the selection key combinations, begins selection in block mode.
ARROW KEYS	Move cursor in the direction specified.
PAGE KEYS	Move cursor by one page in the direction specified.
CTRL + HOME	Move cursor to beginning of buffer.
CTRL + END	Move cursor to end of buffer.

History navigation keys

Navigation  Key Combination	Description
CTRL + UP ARROW	Moves up one line in the output history.
CTRL + DOWN ARROW	Moves down one line in the output history.
CTRL + PAGE UP	Moves up one page in the output history.
CTRL + PAGE DOWN	Moves down one page in the output history.

Other keys

Other Key Combination	Description
CTRL + F	Opens "Find" in console dialog.
ALT + F4	Close the console window, of course!

If you are like me and also love the console and want it to get even better, head over to the Windows Command Prompt Uservoice and be heard!

SOURCE: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows10GetsAFreshCommandPromptAndLotsOfHotkeys.aspx

I had an interesting chat recently at a conference in the "hallway track." The hallway track is all the great conversations that happen in the hallway between sessions.

What drives your development processes? Are you a TDD house, where your tests drive development? Or, perhaps there"s a chief architect who isn"t a very nice person. We call this ADD - Asshole Driven Development. However, this chat was about FDD - Fear Driven Development.

Organizational Fear

Organization fear can have developers worried about making mistakes, breaking the build, or causing bugs that the organization increases focus on making paper, creating excessive process, and effectively standing in the way of writing code.

This "analysis paralysis" slows the entire project down. Every one is so afraid of the process that forward motion stops. There"s a great post called "10 ways to lose a team" that covers many negative behaviors that can affect a team. Things like

• Forbidding one-on-one meetings
• Don"t share information
• Implying that everyone can be replaced
• Micromanaging

All of these behaviors increase ambient fear and can cause a cloud of anxiety to loom over the organization.

Losing Your Job Fear

Other kind of Fear Driven Development is when an organization tries to get developers to stay far too late, work unreasonably hard, by implying that they"ll lose their job at the sign of any problems with the project. Threatening jobs will never create a more productive team. It only perpetuates negative feelings and will always lead to people quitting. This also can cause management to believe that heroic effort is a common and acceptable part of the software development. An occasional "work push" is one thing, but if EVERY RELEASE cycle means a heroic effort at the cost of your personal relationships, you"ve got problems.

Fear of Changing Code

Another kind of Fear Driven Development is when your development organization (or your entire organization) is afraid of the code. Perhaps the code is older (legacy code) but more likely it"s just not fully understood. It mostly works, but folks are afraid that a small change to the code could cost unpredictable side-effects. Fear of bug regressions - a closed/fixed bug coming back to life also stresses developers out.

Can you think of other flavors of Fear Driven Development?

* Photo by Stacy Brunner, used under Creative Commons

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Sponsor: Many thanks to Aspose for sponsoring the blog feed this week! Aspose.Total for .NET has all the APIs you need to create, manipulate and convert Microsoft Office documents and a host of other file formats in your applications. Curious? Start a free trial today.

SOURCE: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/FearDrivenDevelopmentFDD.aspx

Most folks learn how to use Task Manager pretty quickly. We"ve all been on the phone with non-technical-relative and ask them to open up Task Manager.

As we move from user to technical-user we are introduced to SysInternals tools and perhaps Process Monitor for finding out what"s happening to a disk. However, I find that for quick questions that using Resource Monitor is faster to access and the information is easier to interpret.

You can bring Task Manager up, of course, by right clicking the Taskbar and clicking Task Manager. Or, hit Ctrl-Alt-ESC as a hotkey for Task Manager.

From Task Manager, you may never have noticed the Open Resource Monitor link at the bottom of the Performance tab.

Click that and open up a whole new insight into what"s going on.

Disk

This is all great stuff but I find myself exploring the Disk tab the most.

Remember to sort by Read or Write bytes/sec. I often sort by Total and often find things like DropBox in there.

CPU and the CPU usage of Services

Task Manager is great but it doesn"t easily show how much CPU is being used by a Service. Resource Monitor not only lets you easily Filter processes with a checkbox, but you can also sort services by CPU usage.

On the CPU tab, is an Associated Handles pane. If Resource Monitor is a well-kept secret, then Associated Handles is a secret within a secret. You can search across all processes for an open file name (or any handle), as well as filter by Process or Service.

Network Activity

The Network Activity tab is super useful and jam-packed with information. It makes it easy to find a process from a port or TCP connection.

You have this tool and all these views now, and I suspect you might not be using it to the fullest. Perhaps you pull from a number of smaller applets or shareware utilities to pull it all together.

Once I reminded myself that Resource Monitor could be launched directly from the Task Manager (an app that I have open often a lot already) I started using it even more. I may just pin it to the Taskbar!

SOURCE: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/YouArentUsingResourceMonitorEnough.aspx

About a year ago we thought it would be a good idea to do a talk on "What not to do in ASP.NET?" - basically an anti-patterns talks. We kept seeing folks falling into the same traps and wanted to be prescriptive as there"s aspects to ASP.NET that are 10 years old and don"t apply to today"s internet, but there are also new aspects to ASP.NET that are only a year old, and perhaps haven"t soaked into the zeitgeist quite yet.

Damian Edwards gave his version of this talk at NDC 2013 and you can watch the video here if you like, it"s very entertaining.

We took the information we gathered from people like Damian, Levi Broderick and others, and Tom FitzMacken put together a whitepaper on the topic. It"s not complete, but it covers some of the most common "gotchas" folks run into.

Here are the areas we call out in the whitepaper so far, with highlights below from me.

• Standards Compliance
  • Control Adapters - Control adapters were a good idea in .NET 2, but it"s best to use solid adaptive CSS and HTML techniques today.
  • Style Properties on Controls - Set CSS classes yourself, don"t use inline styles.
  • Page and Control Callbacks - Page Callbacks pre-date standard AJAX techniques, so today, stick with SignalR, Web API, and JavaScript.
  • Browser Capability Detection - Check for features, not for browsers whenever possible.
• Security
  • Request Validation - While Request Validation is useful, it"s not focused and it doesn"t know exactly what you app is doing. Be smart and validate inputs with the full knowledge of what your app is trying to accomplish. Don"t trust user input.
  • Cookieless Forms Authentication and Session - Don"t pass anything auth related in the query string. Cookieless auth will never be secure. Don"t do it.
  • EnableViewStateMac - This should never be false. Ever.
  • Medium Trust - Medium trust isn"t a security boundary you should count on. Put apps in separate app pools.
  • - Don"t disable security patches with appSettings.
  • UrlPathEncode - This doesn"t do what you think it does. Use UrlEncode. This method was very specific, poorly named, and is now totally obsolete.
• Reliability and Performance
  • PreSendRequestHeaders and PreSendRequestContext - Leave these alone making managed modules. These can be used with native modules, but not IHttpModules.
  • Asynchronous Page Events with Web Forms - Use Page.RegisterAsyncTask instead.
  • Fire-and-Forget Work - Avoid using ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem as your app pool could disappear at any time. Move this work outside or use WebBackgrounder if you must.
  • Request Entity Body - Stay out of Request.Form and Request.InputStream before your handler"s execute event. It may not be ready to go.
  • Response.Redirect and Response.End - Be conscious of Thread.Aborts that will happen when you redirect.
  • EnableViewState and ViewStateMode - There"s no need to hate on ViewState. Turn it off everywhere, then turn it on only for the individual controls that need it.
  • SqlMembershipProvider - Consider using ASP.NET User Providers, or better yet, the new ASP.NET Identity system.
  • Long Running Requests (>110 seconds) - ASP.NET isn"t meant to handle long running requests that are a minute (or two) long. Use WebSockets or SignalR for connected clients, and use asynchronous I/O operations.

I hope this helps someone out!

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SOURCE: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ChecklistWhatNOTToDoInASPNET.aspx

There"s an ancient cliché that drives a lot of my thinking about personal productivity. "Excessive busy-ness is a common form of laziness."

Busy-ness in the Tibetan tradition is considered the most extreme form of laziness. Because when you are busy you can turn your brain off. You’re on the treadmill. The only  intelligence comes in the morning when you make your To Do list and you get rid of all the possible space that could happen in your day. - Elephant Journal, 2008

The Tibetan term lelo, as I understand it, begins to describe this kind of laziness.

Kausidya (Sanskrit; Tibetan Wylie: le lo) is a Buddhist term translated as "laziness" or "spiritual sloth".

Alan Wallace explains that kausidya (lelo in Tibetan) refers to a very specific type of laziness, that is concerned only with virtuous activity. Wallace explains from Wikipedia:

[...]lelo in Tibetan, is often translated as ‘laziness,’ but it is much more specific. If a person is working sixteen hours a day, hellbent on earning a whole lot of money with absolutely no concern for virtue, from a Buddhist perspective you could say that person is subject to lelo. A workaholic is clearly not lazy, but such a person is seen as lelo in the sense of being completely lethargic and slothful with regard to the cultivation of virtue and purification of the mind. Our translation of this term is ‘spiritual sloth,’ which we have taken from the Christian tradition, where it is very comparable to the Buddhist notion.

I"m not saying you"re lazy so don"t get mad quite yet. I"m saying that using "I"m too busy" as an excuse or a reason to not do something important to you, then you might want to give your situation a closer look. I"m saying that sometimes we are busy with work, but not the kind of work we should be busy with.

Sakyong Mipham states: "Speediness is laziness when we use it as a way to avoid working with our minds."

Of course, there"s busy people who are literally on fire and being chased by ninjas, I"ll give them a pass. But when someone says "I"m too busy" perhaps they are letting you know they are too important to talk to you, or they are just using it as an excuse to not engage. Often I"ve said in the past that "I"m busy" when I really mean "I"m not really that into your idea to take the time to think deeply about it."

So when we say "being busy is a form of being lazy" we"re saying think about what"s important, and think about the work you"re doing. Is it moving the ball forward? Is it moving YOUR BALL forward. The Ball that you care about?

I have an hour set aside once a week that"s for a meeting. The meeting is with myself. No one else comes to this meeting but me. I think about what I"m doing, where I"m going, and what I need to be working on. I use this meeting to think about the business and busyness of my previous week. I think about what busy work I did that was a waste of time, and try to setup myself up for success in the coming week.

My parents and brother are convinced that I"m too busy to hang out or have lunch. I constantly hear "Well, we didn"t want to bother you." I"m never too busy for them. Time can be made. It"s amazing how quickly a day of meetings (or a half-day) can be cancelled or moved. Days can be cleared and time can be made.

It"s easy to get caught up in the chaos of business. It"s fun to play Tetris with your Outlook calendar. It"s satisfying to pack those productive meetings in and feel important and urgently needed. It"s cathartic to delete email and think that getting rid of that email is moving my life forward, but often it"s not. Often I"m just on a treadmill, running to keep up. I know this treadmill and my inertia keeps me going.

The hard work is to consciously step off the treadmill, step away, turn around and look at it. What can be removed? What can be refined? In what ways have we taught our bosses or co-workers how to treat us and our time?

I was in Egypt once and the hosts wanted to take me to the Sphinx, but I didn"t want to miss a weekend with my sons. They may have thought me rude, but it was about consciously choosing one priority over another. I knew my time and my priorities and made a conscious choice on how I was going to spend it.

In what way are you buying into the idea of being always busy? What are you doing to find balance?

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SOURCE: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PersonalProductivityBusinessVsBusynessVsLaziness.aspx