Every once and a while I need to clean out my Instapaper of some cool utility stuff I’ve collected. This is that while.

• I’ve been doing some clojure, and Ultra is a neet-looking Leiningen plugin for improving the look and feel.
• Mosh (mobile shell) is ssh++ with reconnection.
• moreutils is a growing collection of the unix tools that nobody thought to write long ago when unix was young. Simple stuff you weren’t allowed to imagine you needed!
• Sandstorm.io is a linux webapp hosting platform that makes it really easy/turnkey to deploy things like MediaWiki or GitLab or LibreBoard. It’s also an interesting place to host newly developed apps, as it provides some infrastructure services that you won’t need to develop for yourself. (It needs a Phabricator module!)
• Packer is a tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration.
• Create context menu items for Windows in C#.
• MagicPrefs lets you wire up some cool shortcuts with your MacBook trackpad and MagicMouse.
• Asciinema and Showterm are utilities for recording a console session for later embedding in a web page as an interactive ‘video’.
• I love me my Chocolatey, but it’s nice to have options, and Scoop looks like a good one with a bit of focus on the unix-y tools.
• Just found out that you can specify specific domains and tlds in files in /etc/resolver to use different DNS resolution sets. This can be a way to use dnsmasq to provide specially resolved address sets for development or CDN purposes. Also useful to my split-horizon VPNs.

Bonus: “Things—presences or voices of some sort—could be drawn down from unknown places as well as to standard out.” –The DOOM That Came to Puppet

http://blog.fogcreek.com/increase-defect-detection-with-our-code-review-checklist-example/

Definitely a worthwhile read, although a more actionable checklist would be shorter, I think. I think there are also pretty significant differences in what a ‘review’ might mean depending on the size and frequency of check-ins. This list really assumes some specific workflows and team behaviors in terms of what gets reviewed.

As I’ve been working up a new angular application, I’m getting a lot of value out of the write-ups at angular-tips.com. Specifically, the articles on unit testing Controllers and Services have been quite high-quality.

I really like the concept of this site. “How I Start” gives some expert demonstration of how to use cool new languages and frameworks. How do you create a project and how do you lay out your code and tools? Valuable advice.

I whipped this together to answer a Stack Overflow question, but I keep looking for the url, so I’ll leave it here.

http://csharpstringescape.apphb.com

Ok. I’m late to this party. I don’t know where all of my trusted news sources have been, but I just found Fody, and am shocked by the coolness, and that I’d never heard of it. Using Fody, and it’s modules, you can replace the implementations of static methods (Ionad), or embed one assembly within another (Costura). Typical AOP stuff is in there too, with logging and tracing aids, and exception management.

There’s a good slide deck that lists some of the basics, but I bet the Pluralsight course is the definitive introduction.

http://nssm.cc is the non-sucking service manager. It’s good for using with Event Store (http://geteventstore.com).

Version numbers are important. Semantic Versioning 2.0 is a simple yet well defined method for describing the change of your software.

NServiceBus 4.0 is out and running at major customers. Stop by for a Happy Meal and watch your order flow through the service bus. The new version has better modeling tools, debugging functionality, and can use RabbitMQ and MSSQL Server as transports. There are also online labs to help you get up to speed without needing to set up your own systems.

Nuget is a powerful tool for dependency management, but using it in the enterprise is frequently discussed because it can be problematic.

CloudFlare is a really neat company that provides caching, scaling, and attack tolerance capabilities for internet http sites. They recently blogged on the details of and remediation for the recent vulnerabilities in RC4 encryption.

If you’d like to polish your coding skills, but cannot think of a good, simple program to write, try one of Martyr2’s project ideas. Also take a look at thekarangoel’s github repo where’s he’s started doing ALL of them.

Described variously as one of the most accessible introductions to crypto….and as the instigator of more bad crypto implementations by newly minted cocky ‘experts’, the Handbook of Applied Cryptography stands alone.

It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Microsoft makes their development tools with a certain customer set in mind…but this presentation on the Psychology of C# is a little bit scary in the way it pigeonholes the stereotypical C# developer. Many good insights here too.

Visual Studio 2013 has a pile of cool new development goodness for Web developers.

People have asked me a couple of times why TFS Source Control is put down so much. Recently I read that it’s an ‘inferior version of Perforce’ (which would make sense, since MS licensed Perforce’s code before making TFS). So, how do I find out what is ‘wrong’ with TFS? How about the Perforce/TFS feature comparison published by Perforce? It should have the dirty low-down on what TFS is missing!

Did you wish you had a professional exploit kit to deploy your malicious code? Styx Exploit Pack can make your personal botnet shine, or get you that extra Microsoft Surface by running a little ransomware. $3000 gets you the exploit kit with multiple drive-by vulnerabilities, malware obfuscation, and access to the vendor’s 24/7 help desk. Want to learn more about the world of exploit kits? Malware don’t need Coffee is the site for you.

Frontend Development on github. A huge list of frontend development resources, including design, workflow, testing, CSS, JavaScript, mobile, fonts, animation, and site frameworks. Some Challenges: Try running JSLint on your JavaScript code. Develop a responsive site using Angular or Bootstrap. Understand this, call, and apply in JavaScript.

A lovely and fast cheat sheet for all your git needs.

Huge collection of Free Microsoft eBooks for you, including: Office, Office 365, SharePoint, SQL Server, System Center, Visual Studio, Web Development, Windows, Windows Azure, and Windows Server

The Task Board in Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 is built to better support a lean / kanban style of process. Visual Studio Magazine provides more detail on the features and usage.

OWASP has released the 2013 Top 10 web security risks document. Which of the top 10 do you think we have exposure to?

Rob Ashton thinks that your stand-ups are a waste of time. Does his argument hold water?

Are you an addict? The Effects of Computer Programming on the Brain.

Does home ownership lead to unemployment?

Alister Scott says “I once saw a technology company here in Brisbane advertise ‘fast, unfiltered Internet’ in their list of employee perks, alongside free pool tables and Friday drinks. I thought it was odd until I realized it’s actually a competitive differentiator for an employer to offer this.” Is it time to rethink the corporate Internet proxy?

Facebook really doesn’t want their developers wasting their time. Rather than wait for I.T. to come around, there is a vending machine that lets you get a new keyboard, mouse, or a pair of headphones (all free). And instead of trying to squeeze a little more life out of an old computer you get a new laptop the third time you call the help desk with a PC problem.

Get a lot more use out of the WIN-R run dialog or windows 8 start screen with indexing and custom shortcuts. The article also has an extensive list of direct commands for windows features.

OzCode says their debugger add-on is magical. It certainly has some cool visualizations. Free while in Beta.

If you liked StarCraft, WarCraft, or Command and Conquer, play the one that came before them: Dune 2. Running in your browser with HTML 5.