When Software Attacks!

Useful .Net Search and Replace tool

I need to update something like 300 web.config files today, with the same change in each. I turned to my old friend Google for his recommendations and up popped a magnificent free tool from Nodesoft. Why magnificent? It’s advanced mode allows you to specify start and end tags and update everything in between. That’s fantastic for dealing with big chunks of web.config files! Better yet, give it a file mask and a path and it will run through the entire folder tree if you like.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Saturday, July 5, 2008

Congratulations Richard!

Well done Richard, who has been given the accolade of Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Visual Studio Team System.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Thursday, July 3, 2008

Workflow History and SQL Error

When trying to view an item in a list which has workflows run against it, you get an error: Some part of your SQL statement is nested too deeply. Rewrite the query or break it up into smaller queries Problem Background Trying to explain the exact nature of our configuration in this case would break many people’s heads. This, therefore, is a bit of a simplification. We have a custom webpart which allows users to log an enquiry.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Thursday, July 3, 2008

Catching Up

I’ve been far too busy lately and whilst there have been lots of things I wanted to post about, time has not been on my side. Before I start to forget some of the points I thought a quick post was in order. @media 2008 was great. Slides and audio are just filtering onto the blog now. A highlight for me was Indi Young’s talk on Mental Models. I now have her book on my desk (waiting for having the time to read it) and I’m excited about how the technique might interface nicely with the User Stories we use for feeding requirements into our Scrum development process.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Friday, June 13, 2008

Blogging On The Move

We try to dogfood here at Black Marble so I’m writing this on my HTC TYTN. How? With Richard’s new app

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Hats off, lads

Just seen the sad news of the passing of Arthur C. Clarke. The world was better for his having been in it, and will not be the same without him.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Taking time to enjoy the scenery

You know, the thing about RSS is that it’s a bit like the advent of the motor car - you miss things. Just as driving around means you don’t get to pass the time of day with folk, or discover that tiny little deli you’d never notice from the road, RSS dehumanises the web. For example, I subscribe to the blog of my good friend Nick Smith. Since he hasn’t posted about his new redesign, I didn’t know about it.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Monday, March 17, 2008

IE8 Rapid Fire Site Test

I can’t spend much longer playing with IE8 or my wife will skin me. However, from my cursory browsing experience I’m worried. Either the devs have a good deal of work to do or I’m going to be very busy with CSS rules for a while. Here’s the University of Bradford site in IE8: And to try to compare apples with oranges, here it is in Firefox 3 beta 3:

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Internet Explorer 8...

Well, as expected, the public beta of IE8 appeared on the web pretty much straight after the Mix08 keynote mentioned it. I managed to grab it within mere moments and I now have it installed on my trusty laptop. As announced only a day or two ago, it defaults to the new rendering mode, with a big toolbar button to toggle back to IE7 mode. I haven’t had time to test the browser with any sites yet, but I’ll try to do that in the next few days and maybe post again.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The XPERIA X1 - A Windows Mobile device that I could really get excited over

Before I joined Black Marble I had a succession of Sony Ericsson smartphones - the P800, P900 and finally a P910i. They were great - the size was good, the UI was good, the handwriting recognition was excellent (with a grafitti-style interface that meant I could really get a good turn of speed) and I could work most functions one handed with the fabulous Jog Dial. Please note that the jog dial was sadly emasculated with phones after the P910i when Sony Ericsson foolishly reduced it’s degrees of freedom to simply rolling back and forth and clicking.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Monday, February 11, 2008