pgAdmin PostgreSQL Tools

Needed for Decision Guidance Systems Course.

AnkhSVN and VS Command Shell

Add the following tools to your toolset if you're doing doing Continuous Integration with your .NET projects:

AnkhSVN - A Subversion SourceControl Provider for Visual Studio. The software allows you to perform the most common version control operations directly from inside the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. With AnkhSVN you no longer need to leave your IDE to perform tasks like viewing the status of your source code, updating your Subversion working copy and committing changes. You can even browse your repository and you can plug-in your favorite diff tool.

VS Command Shell - VSCmdShell provides users with a shell window inside the Visual Studio IDE that can be used for Visual Studio commands as well. Current version allows user to use either Windows Command Shell (cmd.exe) or Windows PowerShell.

Development Tools

If you manage a start-up, and can't afford to pay for software development tools, then these are for you. They are very popular in the open-source community. There is also plenty of help on these tools on the web to help you get started. I am currently using these for my projects as well, and they're really good.

NUnit

NUnit is a unit-testing framework for all .Net languages. Initially ported from JUnit, the current production release, version 2.4, is the fifth major release of this xUnit based unit testing tool for Microsoft .NET. It is written entirely in C# and has been completely redesigned to take advantage of many .NET language features, for example custom attributes and other reflection related capabilities. NUnit brings xUnit to all .NET languages.

NAnt

NAnt is a free .NET build tool. In theory it is kind of like make without make's wrinkles. In practice it's a lot like Ant. A

TortoiseSVN

Subversion client, implemented as a windows shell extension.

TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.
Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like.
TortoiseSVN is free to use. You don't need to get a loan or pay a full years salary to use it.

DBVisualizer

DbVisualizer is a database tool useful for developers and database administrators to aid develop and maintain their databases. It is the perfect solution since the same tool can be used on all major operating systems accessing a wide range of databases.

Oracle Database 10g Express Edition

Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE) is a free, downloadable version of the world's most capable relational database.

Oracle Database XE is easy to install and easy to manage. With Oracle Database XE, you use the Database Home Page, an intuitive browser-based interface, to administer the database; create tables, views, and other schema objects; import, export, and view table data; run queries and SQL scripts; and generate reports.

Oracle Database XE includes Oracle HTML DB 2.1, a declarative, graphical development environment for creating database-centric Web applications. In addition to HTML DB 2.1, you can use popular Oracle and third-party languages and tools to develop your Oracle Database XE applications.

Links

http://www.nunit.org/index.php
http://nant.sourceforge.net/
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis/
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html

Sucks to be Microsoft

I have been busy in dealing with work, school, and a personal project of mine in the past month; thus, I have been neglecting my blog, but I will get back to my regular blogging in two weeks after I'm done with my summer class.

I want to share with everyone something interesting I saw today from the list of Del.icio.us's Popular sites. I feel bad for Microsoft being the Empire that it is and having to deal all this rivalry. What do you think?



Source: http://mshiltonj.com/software_wars/current/

What is TortoiseCVS?

I am going to set up and play around with this application called TortoiseCVS, which is a CVS client that runs on the Microsoft Windows platform. It's officially recommendated by SourceForge. Thanks to Jin for telling me about this cool application. It's free, so you should give it a try too.

Here is an overview of TortoiseCVS from SourceForge:

CVS, Concurrent Versions System, is a centralized Revision Control System (RCS). SourceForge.net provides CVS service to all hosted projects. In order to access our CVS service, you will need to install a CVS client. CVS allows developers to keep a historical record of changes made to their source code tree, and to allow multiple developers to work on a single set of files at the same time without accidentally overwriting changes made by other developers.

TortoiseCVS is a CVS client that runs on the Microsoft Windows platform. TortoiseCVS is integrated with Windows Explorer (Windows Explorer is the file manager in Windows, not the web browser of a similar name, Internet Explorer), rather than a separate stand-alone application. Since most Windows users are comfortable with the Windows Explorer interface, it is often easy for new CVS users to escape the learning curve by using TortoiseCVS.

What Is Next for Oracle?

Oracle is planning to buy the following three open-source software companies, which valued at more than $600 million according to Business Week Online.

• JBoss: Based in Atlanta, specializes in so-called middleware, the program the serves as a connection between disparate programs, competition against BEA Systems and IBM, worth as much as $400 million [www.jboss.com]


• Zend's PHP software language: Based in Cupertino, California, one of the most prevalent on the Web, present in more than 18 million Web sites, worth as much as $200 million [www.zend.com]


• Sleepycat Software: Based in Emeryville, California, specializes in technology that is used in many of the open-source databases that handle reams of digital data [www.sleepycat.com]

What is the next target for Oracle?

Read more about this at www.businessweek.com.

My Firefox Extensions

If you haven't done so already, you should go ahead and download Firefox browser. It comes with extensions and themes that you can download and install to improve your browsing experience. My favorite extension is the Web Developer and my favorite theme is iFox. Here is my recommended list of extensions.

Firefox Shortcuts

• Select location bar: Ctrl+L or Alt+D


• Select search bar: Ctrl+K


• Back: Backspace or Alt+Left


• Forward: Alt/Option+Right or Shift+Backspace


• Change search engine: Ctrl+Down (Next) +Up (Previous)


• Find as you type text: /


• Find as you type link: ‘


• Regular old find: Ctrl+F


• Open link in new window: Shift+Enter


• Open link in new tab: Ctrl+Enter


• Open address/search in new tab: Alt/Option+Enter


• Caret browsing: F7


• Refresh: Ctrl+R or F5


• Refresh (override cache): Ctrl+F5 or Ctrl+Shift+R


• Switch tabs: Ctrl+Tab


• Select tab (1-9): Ctrl+[1-9]


• Compose email: Ctrl+M

[Source: www.lifehacker.com]

Firefox and Thunderbird

My favorite browser and email programs at the moment are Mozilla Firefox (v. 1.5) and Thunderbird (v. 1.0.7). Both of them are free and very compact in size, so you won't have any problem downloading them at all. Now I can use my Gmail email account with Thunderbird. Pretty cool!One of the coolest extensions for Firefox is the Web Developer Toolbar. It adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock and Mozilla, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. If you are a web developer like myself, you should definitely get it.