RIF Notes #4

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both” – Machiavelli

“A well-stated problem is half-solved” – John Dewey

• jsFiddle- Cool javascript testing tool
• Modernizr- Modernizr is a small and simple JavaScript library that helps you take advantage of emerging web technologies (CSS3, HTML 5) while still maintaining a fine level of control over older browsers that may not yet support these new technologies.
• Why We’re Going With HTML(5) Instead Of Silverlight – More on the debate between Silverlight and HTML5.  A year ago I would have said Silverlight, hands down, for LOB development, now its not quite as clear.  At least not if your users need to access your apps from their iPads and Droids.
• Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Braintree – Braintree Payment Technologies was the first company I contacted when I first started investigating credit card tokenization a few years back. 
• Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) -- Technical Analysis- Matt found this article, for anyone interested in how RDP works.
• What am I so hung up on Unbounded Result Set?
• When things go well – Sounds like what we’ve been doing for years.
• Standards-based web, plug-ins, and Silverlight – More on the future of Silverlight from the Microsoft heavyweights.
• We’re not big fans of what I consider “vertical” ambition – Excerpted from “Why I run a flat organization”.  It’s consistent with my own desire to be craftsman rather than a manager.
• The unnecessary evil of the shared development database – I think we kind of figure this one out on our own too.
• Introducing the Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Service – This a great article about the distributed caching technology within Azure.  The product was formerly called Velocity and I followed it a bit, but with it being incorporated into Azure and not being quite ready yet, we opted to go with NCache instead.
• Build Big-Data Apps in SQL Azure with Federation – Fascinating article discussing database “sharding” which I’ve never heard of before.
• Parsing Log Files with F#, MapReduce and Windows Azure – MapReduce is something to pay attention to.
• CQRS on Windows Azure- CQRS is another pattern I need to spend more time with.