Jul 16 2008

Powershell and .NET

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 6:55 pm

PowershellPowershell gives you full access to Microsoft .NET framework objects. There is a special syntax for accessing static methods and properties (it uses square brackets). For creating new objecects and instantiating .NET classes you use Net-Object commandlet.
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Jul 13 2008

Powershell vs UNIX Shells

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 11:15 pm

PowershellFirst of all, I love Powershell. For those of you that don’t know, Powershell is (relatively) new command-line and scripting language for Microsoft Windows platform. The Powershell team has spent a lot of time looking at existing UNIX scripting tools and in my opinion cherry-picking the best features from them. Its the best of Ruby, Perl, Zsh etc. The language syntax is very similar to Ruby and Perl. I am a big fan of both. In this article I’ll try to compare it to other unix shells and scripting languages.

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Jul 11 2008

iPhone upgrade to v2.0 problems

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 5:13 pm

Network TimeoutYep, I just made my phone into a brick: I tried installing v2.0 firmware update. It partially updated my phone and left it in locked state. It says to connect it to itunes, but iTunes can’t connect to its servers for whatever reason. I am getting network timeout messages. Probabily too many people are trying to update their phones … but how is that my problem? Now my phone is completely dead and I need to make some calls! This sucks.

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Jul 09 2008

Create Unix Aliases in Vista

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 6:47 pm

Its kind of funny –commands like ls, grep, find, cat etc are so wired into my hands, I always make a mistake of typing them even when I am using Windows. Its even a bigger problem for me, since I work for Microsoft and I develop on Windows all day. So what I usually do it (1) avoid cmd.exe completely :) and use powershell since it already has these aliases. (2) if I have to use cmd.exe I run these settings to remap things for my brain :) Enjoy.

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Jun 05 2007

Reserved filename in Windows

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 6:21 pm

I just found out, you can’t create a file/directory named “con” on windows. I thought I was going crazy for a second there.

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Feb 27 2007

C# Events and Delegates for UNIX developers

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 9:52 pm

In this tutorial I’ll explain events and delegates the easy way! The intended audience is UNIX people with minimal C and Java experience. Sending events is super simple in .NET framework. The C# language has “delegate” and “event” keywords.

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Dec 24 2006

Ubuntu 6.10 impressions on Toshiba Satellite A105 S4134

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 9:08 am

UbuntuMy very first experience with UNIX/Linux was Red Hat 2.1, when it first came out in 1996. Since then, I “lived and breathed” it. When I was in high school, my friends and I started a Linux User Group in Spokane, and later on, founded Toolbuilders Labs LLC. After our business moved towards security/cryptography applications, I switched exclusively to OpenBSD for a few years and used it as my primary desktop and development platform, so 1998 was the last time I actually used Linux (as a desktop machine). Since then, I’ve also purchased 3 Macs, so basically, I’ve been using BSDs all of this time (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Darwin/OS X) but I’ve always been curious about whats going on in Linux World.

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Dec 15 2006

Regex Notes

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 8:29 pm

Regular expressions (regex) let you search for a particular pattern. Regex consist of literal characters, and special characters, also called meta characters. Regex syntax has 2 modes, one inside of character classes, which is inside [ ] and one outsided of character classes. Continue reading “Regex Notes”


Nov 26 2006

jEdit for Emacs fans

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 1:07 pm

jEditIf you’re a big emacs fan like me, and you like good things, then you should check out jEdit. Is an open-source editor written in Java that is super-fast (unlike most of Java software that is typically bloated). I am a very long-term emacs fan. I’ve written emacs modes, and all kinds of elisp tools for me in the past. The way that I look at it, jEdit is just the next Emacs. It takes all of the things we love about emacs a step further. Continue reading “jEdit for Emacs fans”


Nov 24 2006

CakePHP vs Ruby On Rails

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 3:37 am

CakePHP is a MVC (Model-View-Controller pattern) framework that tries to mimic the way RoR (Ruby on Rails) does things. After developing a large web application on CakePHP platform, I decided to write a little bit about it and compare it the real thing. Haha, as you can tell, I am just a little bit slightly biased towards Ruby.Being a ruby programmer, and having to make a web app that uses php+mysql I immediately started looking for something similar to Rails. There are many rails-like frameworks for php, and I ended up narrowing down my search to cakephp and symfony. Because my client specified php4 (symphony only works on php5), I went with Cake. Continue reading “CakePHP vs Ruby On Rails”


Nov 24 2006

Making of Klimb, Rock Climbing Training Software

Category: Rock Climbing, Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 2:52 am

Klimb ScreenshotWhen I was in college, I had two computer classes in which we had to do a major final project. One of them was on relational databases and another on Java/Swing GUI programming. I also needed some kind of journaling software to keep track of my climbing and training. I wanted something that helped me visualize my progress and help me train more efficiently. So, I made Klimb, the very first Rock Climbing Training software. It helped me pass my classes, train smarter for comps and make some cash on the side!

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Nov 23 2006

New Ruby On Rails project

Category: Software DevelopmentDmitry @ 11:58 am

Ruby On RailsToday I started on the new Ruby On Rails (RoR) project. Its a personal/business productivity suite of web applications, packeged as a service, that will be released in the begining of next year. I got a lot of ideas for it from Dr. Covey and his awesome books, such as “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and other sources on personal productivity.