Extensible By Design » Extensible By Design

Bill Eats His Own Dog Food…And Bites When It Tastes Bad

Jeff Cope — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:17:04 +0000

One of the nice things about not being employed by Microsoft is that I need not live in fear of receiving an email like this from Bill Gates. This email from Bill Gates to the people responsible for Windows is worth a read if you have time. It is a nice little rant on Windows from the guy most responsible for making Windows the most ubiquitous operating system on the planet. The next time you get ready to verbally abuse Bill Gates when Windows frustrates you, take a deep breath and relax with the knowledge that BIll is using the software too and giving ‘em hell when it needs to be improved.

Note: The Microsoft Mullet and other funny mullet pictures can be found at http://www.mulletmadness.com/.

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SolidWorks World Experiences

Jeff Cope — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:30:46 +0000

Well, it’s over again. Every year it just flies by in three blinks of the eye. This year started out with a little irony (my connecting flight to Atlanta was cancelled due to inclement weather [30degrees F with snow] so I had to fly through Minneapolis instead where it was -15 F) but quickly turned into a great experience.

My favorite thing about the conference was all of the people that I met. I discovered that people do really read my blog (thank you Adrian from Intercad) and I met some of the other bloggers (although I am not really a blogger by the estimation of Richard Doyle of SolidWorks). Some of the guys that I met were Lenny Kikstra of SolidWorks Macro fame, Josh Mings from SolidSmack (the best SolidWorks blog out there), Ricky Jordan and Ben Eadie of SolidMentor. I also ran into a few of the bloggers that I had already met in person (e.g. Matt Lombard of SolidWorks Surfacing and SolidWorks Bible fame, Rob Rodriguez – the Grandmaster of PhotoWorks).

In addition to the great networking, I got to see a few really good presentations and a few duds. My two favorite presentations were Michael Craffey’s presentation on regulatory compliance issues related to software and Jonathan Freeson’s presentation on developing PDMWorks Enterprise add-ins. The stump the chump session was pretty good too even though some took advantage of the format by trying to get free consulting. The major thing I got out of the stump the chump meeting though was that far fewer companies than I had previously thought have switched to SolidWorks 2008. They don’t know what they are missing.

Finally, I got to see a few cool products that I am excited about. My favorite is Template Wizard by 3Dawn. The voice recognition software was pretty cool too.

Breakfast sucked as usual (hard bagels, fruit and yogurt just don’t do it for me in the morning). I am excited that SolidWorks World will be back at Disney World again next year. Mickey Mouse pancakes with eggs and bacon are my favorite! See you next year.

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SolidWorks World 2008

Jeff Cope — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:55:54 +0000

I will be in San Diego for my fourth SolidWorks World. If you see me there, then by all means say hello.

For those of you that have had positive feedback on the blog over the past few months, I appreciate it. It is for you that I write the blog. I hope someone finds it useful.

Development Tools

Jeff Cope — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:55:01 +0000

Every developer has a set of tools, books and websites that they rely upon for help in their quest to build quality software. I thought there might be some folks out there doing SolidWorks API programming/development that would appreciate finding out tools other developers are using. Hence, this post.

Below is a partial list of some of the tools that I rely on. I hope you find something that is useful to you. You may also have some tools that you rely upon that might benefit the rest of us. If so, then let us know with a comment. I will be posting a list of books and websites that I use also.

Analysis
- FxCop – This is one of the most useful tools out there for .NET development. If you have ever wondered if you were designing/coding your .NET application in the “best” manner, then this tool is for you. FxCop is a static code analysis tool that checks your .NET application for adherence to Microsoft’s best practices for .NET. Implement the iDisposable interface incorrectly and FxCop will let you know about it. It is hard to overstate the usefulness of this tool. One word of warning though, it has a little C# bias (just like everything else Microsoft puts out for .NET) but it is still a great tool.
Regular Expressions
- Espresso – Espresso is a regular expression editor/designer that greatly simplifies the process of creating the correct .NET regular expressions for text matching / replacing. I don’t know what I ever did without this tool. Note: There is also an (unrelated) email client called Espresso.
XML
- XMLNotepad – XMLNotepad is an open-source XML/XSL editor that is put by Microsoft (I swear it!). An XML/XSL editor is a must have for anyone that spends much time working with XML and although there are many tools out there (e.g. Oxygen, etc…), XMLNotepad is my favorite due to its sheer simplicity. You can also download the source code and make it work however you want. I have a real job and therefore no time to screw off on open source projects so I just use the OOTB tool. It has worked great for me.
Process Tools
- Process Explorer - ProcessExplorer is a nifty little tool that will tell you what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.
- Process Monitor - ProcessMonitor allows you to monitor the file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time. It is also a very easy tool to use. Check it out.
- Handle - Handle is a basic, command-line utility will show you what files are open by which processes, and much more
System Tools
- Autoruns - Autoruns is a utility that shows you what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login. Autoruns also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.
Database Tools

SQLServer Express – If you need a database application for a website or client application that isn’t going to be hit by more than 10 clients simultaneously and want a free database then SQLServer Express is your man. It is just like the pay version of SQLServer but with limits on database size and concurrent connections. If you are a hobbyist developer or a developer for a small company then SQLServer Express is more than likely the way to go. If you outgrow it, then it is very easy to upgrade to the regular SQLServer and for your code you will likely only have to change the connection string. And did I mention it was free?

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I couldn’t resist…”The Code To Ruin”

Jeff Cope — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:12:31 +0000

Although I like the old “Daily WTF” better than the newly named “Worse Than Failure,” it is still a great place to go in order to feel better about your projects.

The site’s latest post, “Avoiding Development Disasters,” discusses the now infamous FBI software fiasco known as Virtual Case File and is a pretty good read. For those short on time, I think their picture, “The Code To Ruin,” says it all.