Software-Development

I have a Synology NAS that has starting acting up.  By acting up I mean I can’t connect to it and it requires a unplugged reboot to fix it.  Power button no work.  After doing some detective work I’m not sure if the problem is with the hard drives or the Synology it’s self.

To help me narrow down the problem I thought I’d run SpinRite which is a hard drive diagnostic tool.  I heard about SpinRite from the Security Now podcast.  It was created by Steve Gibson, one of the hosts and they talk about it’s virtues often on the podcast.

I recently had to generate a private/public key pair to access a Git repository.  While I’ve done this several times before I never do it enough to remember all the steps so this time I wrote it down.

Since my primary workstation runs Windows I use PuTTY to generate the keys.  If you thought PuTTY was just a SSH client then you are not alone (e.g. I used to think that too).  PuTTY’s unofficial tag line should be:

For an upcoming project I’m thinking of using PostgreSQL.  I’ve heard lots of great things about PostgreSQL in the past but have been too scared lazy busy to try it.

What changed my mind was JetBrains DataGrip database client.  I’m sure there are other PostgreSQL clients but DataGrip is included in my JetBrains subscription so why not give it a try.   I’m a sucker for GUI database clients.  As a generalist it’s too hard to remember all the command lines for each individual database.  Plus it’s really hard to view more then a few rows or columns of data in the command line.

I recently started a new contract that involves tools and software languages I normally don’t use.   I have to remember that .NET best practices don’t necessarily translate to PHP/Java.  I have to remember that New Tools Require New Standards (originally published on September 3rd, 2010).

“An old belief is like an old shoe.  We so value its comfort that we fail to notice the hole in it.” - Robert Brault

As developers we all have standards, even if they aren’t that well defined.  Of course I’m talking about technology standards but feel free to insert your social awareness and/or hygiene standard joke here.  Standards can range from the usual coding standards to the names you give your servers (e.g Lord of the Rings Characters) and everything in-between.

Why Developers Use ORMs (i.e. their Strengths)

This is the third and final part of a lighting talk I’m giving at the SQL Saturday Edmonton Speaker Idol Contest.   Imagine I’m actually speaking the words below and showing some of the images on slides and/or doing a demo.

If you don’t want to read Part 1 or Part 2 the basically give an example of a developer using ORM, panic over indexes, and then show more ORM examples.  I don’t think it will all fit in a 15 minute talk.