Strong as an Ox

I came across this nifty bit of code the other day when looking for a way to do this and, just for fun, thought I’d convert it to IronPython. So I did. And here it is:

import System

def is_assembly_debug_build(filename):
	"""Returns true if filename appears to have been built in debug mode"""
	result = False
	dll = System.Reflection.Assembly.LoadFile(filename)
	customAttribs = dll.GetCustomAttributes(False)
	for att in customAttribs:
		if att.GetType() == System.Type.GetType("System.Diagnostics.DebuggableAttribute"):
			result = att.IsJITTrackingEnabled
	return result

I saved this in a file called diagnostics.py. So using it (you’ll need to be in the same directory as diagnostics.py or have added diagnostics.py to your path – more info can be found here: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/modules.html#the-module-search-path) is simply a matter of doing something like this:

from diagnostics import is_assembly_debug_build
is_assembly_debug_build([absolute_path_to_your_dll])

If you’re interested you can grab a copy of diagnostics.py from http://gist.github.com/206177

Have fun

Are you fed up with so called SEO experts extolling the importance of meta “keywords” tags on a site’s Google rank? Me too. I therefore created doesgoogleusethekeywordsmetatag.com.

So the next time anyone moans about their site’s lack of a keywords meta tag, you know where to send them

• 7 Keys to Reading Faster
  via Think Simple Now
• Cherry picking is the enemy of soul
  via Signal vs. Noise
• Deploying A Web Application with Git and FTP
  via Rob Conery’s Blog
• Revisiting “The Fold”
  via Coding Horror
• BitTorrent in Silverlight
  via Miguel de Icaza

Having recently read about Jekyll I decided to boot up Ubuntu, install all the bits and pieces and give it a try. However, I fell at the first hurdle when greeted by the following error:

Error installing gemcutter:
gemcutter requires RubyGems version >= 1.3.5

The Synaptic Package Manager reported everything as being up-to-date but only to version 1.3.1. As it turns out, there is another way to update rubygems on Ubuntu, which worked a treat! The rest of the installation was a breeze

If you are interested more info on Jekyll can be found on GitHub.

• LINK: Javascript for paging posts with ‘j’ and ‘k’
  via Signal vs. Noise
• INSIGHT: UI that looked sexy in Photoshop almost always
  via Signal vs. Noise
• What you buy when you buy a lottery ticket
  via Seth’s Blog
• Add Reference Dialog Improvements (VS 2010 and .NET 4.0 Series)
  via ScottGu’s Blog
• Dev Anti Pattern: Unworkable Machine
  via Team Leadership

I often use a couple of paragraphs of Lipsum when testing forms containing <textarea> tags and have had this bookmarklet I cobbled together sitting on my Bookmarks Toolbar for a while now.

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to hook it up to a HTML 5 form to let you customise how many paragraphs of Lipsum you want each time you click it. So that’s what I went and did:

Lorem Ipsum Bookmarklet Generator

Hopefully it’ll save you a few mouse clicks next time you’re testing some forms.

(Please note that the form used in the generator uses the <input type="range" /> HTML 5 tag which currently works best in the latest version of Opera. YMMV when using other browsers).

Quite often, when buying books off Amazon, you can sometimes get them cheaper by going to a marketplace seller’s own website. That’s how I came across The Book Depository, where I have bought a few books recently.

One nice UX feature that I like on this site was the way in which they highlight where to find your credit card CVV/security number depending on which credit card you are using:

Visa card with CVV number highlighted

The image above shows the security number highlighted on the signature strip when you select Visa from the credit card type drop-down list. Compare that with the screenshot below showing the security number highlighted on the front of the card when American Express is selected:

AMEX card with the CVV number highlighted

It’s a simple feature really, but nicely implemented.

When writing unit tests with SubSonic’s new built-in testing for ActiveRecord don’t forget that each time you call the Setup() method on your ActiveRecord object it adds records to any that have already been created. For example:

[Test]
public void Foo_Bar() {
    Foo.Setup(10);
    Assert.AreEqual(10, Foo.All().Count());
}

[Test]
public void Bar_Foo() {
    Foo.Setup(10);

    // This will fail: Foo.All().Count() will return 20
    Assert.AreEqual(10, Foo.All().Count());
}

To reset your test repositories you will need to call the ResetTestRepo() method prior to each test, which can be accomplished easily enough by adding the method call to your test’s [SetUp] method:

[SetUp]
public void SetUp() {
    Foo.ResetTestRepo();
}

[Test]
public void Foo_Bar() {
    Foo.Setup(10);
    Assert.AreEqual(10, Foo.All().Count());
}

[Test]
public void Bar_Foo() {
    Foo.Setup(10);

    // Now Foo.All().Count() will return 10 and the test will pass
    Assert.AreEqual(10, Foo.All().Count());
}

Hopefully this will save you a bit of time, as well as head scratching :p