The Morning Brew

Software

• Released RequestReduce 1.7.0: Giving the RequestReduce onboarding story a happy beginning – Matt Wrock announces the release of RequestReduce 1.7.0, the latest update to this library for helping you to reduce the size of your web pages. This release improves the handling of complex CSS involving multiples classes, improves performances of page processing with lots of sprites, adds support for Windows authentication when retrieving files, and better handles CSS with no content.
• Vulnerability in AntiXSS Library Could Allow Information Disclosure – Barry Dorrans announces the release of a new version of the AntiXSS Library to address issues with possible information disclosure as discussed in MS12-007. This update requires you to update your developer tools, and rebuild (test) and deploy applications which make use of the AntiXSS library to gain protection.
• Upcoming Releases: 1.0.1, 1.1, and beyond – Todd Parker of the jQuery Mobile Team outlines the next 3 planned release, with a maintenance release planned for jQuery Mobile 1.0, and then looks at what they hope to include in version 1.1 and 1.2, with lots of new features and widgets planned.

Information

• A Really Empty ASP.NET MVC 3 Project Template – Phil Haack shares a ‘Really Empty’ ASP.NET MVC 3 project template, discussing how you can create your own templates and have them installed into Visual Studio.
• Non-trivial and real-world feedbacks on writing Unit-Tests – Patrick Smacchia discusses some of the significant lessons he has learned over his 8 years of real world unit testing experience, discussing Test Organisation, Test First, specifications, Test and Code Contracts, coverage, refactoring and test execution.
• Fluent API in bddify – Mehdi Khalili continues his series looking at his bddify library, looking in this part at the fluent API which allows you to create tests using a fluent and expressive way to represent the test case in a BDD style.
• Performance and Design Guidelines for Data Access Layers – Rico Mariani shares some advice on ensuring that your Data Access Layers are optimal in performance and well designed, discussing the concept of Unit of Work, locking and querying.
• DateTime.UtcNow is generally preferable to DateTime.Now – Kirill Osenkov also discusses performance in this post discussing the use of DateTime.UtcNow for non-customer facing times (and timing code) as it offers better performance.
• A C#/.NET Attributes Based Command Line Argument Parser – Pete Barber shares an attribute & reflection based approach to parsing and getting command line parameters in your console applications, discussing and sharing the implementation in this CodeProject Article.
• My app has principles – understanding the Metro design principles – Paul Laberge discusses the key design principles behind the Metro styling for applications on mobile devices.
• Follow Up: Windows Phone Design Principles – Michael Desmond of MSDN Magazine shares a follow up interview with Jeff Smith continuing the discussion started in his ‘How to Translate Common Design Principles to Windows Phone’ article in MSDN Magazine.
• Mango Sample: 3 Solutions to Formatting Problems – Jerry Nixon continues his series of posts on Mango with a discussion of formatting data during databinding, exploring three techniques for controlling how your data looks.

Community

• Knockout.js & YOUR Mobile Future – The DevEvening UserGroup in Woking, Surry welcome Graeme Foster and Matt Lacey to present at their next meeting, on Wednesday 25th January. Graeme will be presenting a session on building client side web applications using Knockout.js, and Matt will be talking about mobile development trends.
• Matt Lacey on Tour – Gary Ewan Park shares the plans for Matt Lacy to visit the various Scottish usergroups, with sessions planned for Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen during the week commencing Monday 20th February.
• Updated agenda for Six Weeks of Windows Azure now available #6weeksazure – Eric Nelson highlights the latest updates to the Six Weeks of Windows Azure, and also reminds us all that it is not too late to sign up for this 6 week course in all aspects of Windows Azure, due to kick off on 23rd January.
• NxtGenUG – Event – This Androids Life – Ross Scott will be delivering his session on the various options for development of Android applications at the Oxford / Abindgon NxtGenUG group in Tuesday 7th February. In the session Ross will look at using HTML5 and Phone Gap, Java and .NET / C# to develop applications for Android devices.

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