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Octopus uses log4net, my favourite logging library. It also performs a lot of background tasks - for example, deploying applications. [...]

I’m pretty late to the Node.js party but I’ve found myself with some imposed free time this week so I thought I would spend some time getting across this newcomer. To get thing started I watch this video featuring Ryan Dahl. What follows is some reflection on what I see as the state of the platform. [...]

One of the things I'm noticing about running my Micro ISV is that I have to constantly change my mind :) [...]

I know, I know: apples, oranges etc. It’s not really, though – this is actually quite straight-forward. But first, some background. [...]

A few weeks ago I spoke at Web Directions’ What Do You Know event. The event consisted of 10 speakers each doing a 5 minute presentation about some technique or idea that they find useful in web development. [...]

When I started building Octopus and released a first beta, I had a pretty rough idea of what Octopus would be about. The beta experience has definitely shaped the product, and I'm much happier with the result that has been created by so much good feedback from the Octopus beta testers. Last week I had a couple of really useful phone calls with Octopus users, and I used some of that feedback to come up with a list of features that will make the final 'v1' cut of Octopus. [...]

The settings provider is a port from the FunnelWeb settings provider to Windows Phone. It is a really simple interface [...]

In Octopus, you use one central web portal to push NuGet packages out to many servers. On each server is a "Tentacle", a little Agent that receives NuGet uploads, and installs and configures packages according to conventions. [...]

Since I started working on Octopus, I've been using AgileZen as a task board. The graph below gives an idea of how the work has progressed: [...]

I wanted to set up the infrastructure for Octopus properly. This meant that I needed: [...]

This sessions will have something for everyone, if you have never used VSTO and are interested in it, I will be showing the value it has.If you have used it, and hated it, I will also be showing how to improve your experience and give you a way of approaching the problems and some nice ways to improve the default experience. Part of this is a quick intro to COM Interop, how it works and how to make sure you avoid problems with it.And finally, I will be showing a bit of VSTO contrib and how you can use IoC and other cool enhancements to the platform. [...]

New builds of Octopus are available immediately from my CI server, and can be downloaded from the Octopus downloads page. Every couple of weeks, though, I'll publish a short list of what's going on. [...]

Decades from now, I want the IT industry to be known not just for its innovation and creativity, but for its ability to deliver software projects reliably. There's a lot of work to do, and I think Agile principles of frequent, high-quality collaboration and embracing change are playing a big part in getting us there. Along with the human to human improvements, we're also adopting engineering practices to boost our chances of success - source control, continuous integration, and unit testing for example make an enormous difference. [...]

I just submitted this abstract for DDD Brisbane 2011. Don’t forget to vote for me! [...]

Customer: Your app crashed again. Developer: How? What were you doing when it crashed? What happened? Customer: I don’t know. I was playing with it and it crashed. Developer: Do you remember which page you were on? Customer: ? Developer: *bangs head against wall*Sound familiar?One of the first things I do when I start a project (or when I inherit one) is set up logging. You’d be amazed and depressed at how many projects just don’t have any, or bolt it on as an after thought. Here’s a hint: it’s much easier to debug your app while you’re developing it if you know where it’s breaking . Ground-breaking, I know There are a couple of things we want to do: [...]

Here’s is my slide deck and the Resources from the SharePoint Saturday Sydney 2011. Thank you for those who attended and voted for this session. [...]

Here’s is my slide deck and the Resources from the SharePoint Saturday Sydney 2011. Thank you for those who attended and voted for this session. [...]

I saw Shawn Wildermuth's post on maintaining a project targeting multiple versions of windows phone, I thought I would share the way I do it as I think it is far easier than the alternatives.http://wildermuth.com/2011/08/23/Maintaining a Project with Two Windows Phone_Versions [...]

So to get started, let me explain what it is.It is a MVC + MVVM Hybrid framework, I think MVVM falls down in a few area's, and by teaming up with the MVC pattern we can achieve great testability, performance, navigation, lifecycle etc.. [...]

Last week I put together a project template for a windows phone 7 test project. At the moment there isn't a really good story for unit testing on the phone. If you have the mango tools you have to grab the Mango Silverlight Unit Test assemblies from Jeff Wincox's blog. [...]