Data Tools and Software Testing : Geeky

The BEST Silverlight sample of them all...

nihitk — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:06:00 GMT

Oh well...I am biased since I worked on this...but I really think this is a COOL demo of silverlight and AJAX and what eCommerce scenarios can look like.

I especially like the use of videos which I was initially skeptical about but I think can actually influence the impulsive buyers a lot while creating a really immersive shopping experience for the other visitors as well. You will of course need to install Silverlight if it's not already installed on your machine.

Here is a page with video on it.

And on this page you can see a sunglass and zoom in easily and see various colors etc. of the sunglass via hovering. Try adding to shopping cart for a very snazzy UI experience as well.

All in all I think it is a great demo - Kudos to everyone who worked on it!

Process Monitor for Debugging

nihitk — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 21:09:00 GMT

The Process Monitor looks like a great tool to help in debugging issues and includes a bunch of features from a diverse set of sysinternal utilities such as RegMon, FileMon etc. I think this is the first tool offering to come out since the acquisition of Sysinternals.com and more importantly perhaps, Mark Russinovich (who has bunch of interesting posts about debugging issues). Looks like there is even a dedicated Sysinternals Blog at TechNet and if you are not familiar with the sysinternal family of tools there is a free Tour of the Sysinternals video available.

What's NXT?

nihitk — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 08:48:00 GMT

Finally managed to make at least the first basic robot using the Lego Mindstorm NXT kit which I ordered recently. Still haven't tried the Microsoft Robotics Studio (which recently announced the October 2006 CTP release) but that will be the next (or should I say 'nxt') thing I shall be doing. Among other things it contains the cool CCR (Concurrency Control Runtime) which can be used in any app, not just robotic apps and which Richter explains quite well in this MSDN article. Here is a snap of my very first robot:

A lot of other things have been happening as well, including my completing 5 years at Microsoft (a few months ago actually but never got around to taking a snap of it!) which got me the 5 year anniversary memento shown below:

Another recent change on the job front has been that I have taken on a new role as an SDET Lead and so will be getting more involved with managing and developing people as part of my day to day job. Have given it a lot of thought and am really excited to have gotten this opportunity in my curent team itself. Might even have a few insights of my own that I would like to share in some time.

Wow! Posting this from Word 2007!

nihitk — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 04:17:00 GMT

Am trying out the new Blogging feature in Word 2007 and love it. One of the biggest benefits is the ability to use the good ‘ol familiar (not anymore in 2007?) Word features such as spell checking and formatting etc. to write up your blog posts. Very very cool – Kudos to the Word team!

Windows Vista and Office 2007 – Two Thumbs Up

nihitk — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:04:00 GMT

So now that we RTMed Commerce Server 2007 (and the docs are online on MSDN as well), I finally got a chance to dogfood the cool new Windows Vista Beta 2 and Office 2007 Beta 2, and have been very impressed. The changes in both these flagship products are big and bold and on the whole a BIG net positive. A good posting on how big and bold these changes are (particularly the office 2007 ones) can be read here in this post by Anil Dash. Highly recommended to test drive these Betas.

Among other things also came across this jazzy site which gives an overview of the various features in Windows Vista. Also have finally gotten a chance to catch up a bit on the rapidly changing world of Atlas and Ajax via posts from Scott and more the main Atlas site. Very exciting to see all the changes happening. A site that I found totally cool and which really brought home the impact of these new technologies is PageFlakes.com.

Also discovered a very interesting blog by Phillip Su which contains gems such as the Broken Windows Theory, his views on outsourcing and his rant on the state of software systems used by non-profit organizations.

(This Title has only got blanks and tabs and spaces...)

nihitk — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 08:43:00 GMT

I knew someone would stand up one day for the rights of those poor old whitespaces. Such a pleasure to see that someone has taken the time and effort to come up with the first whitepace-friendly programming language, aptly named, "Whitespace" (please ignore the fact that this was done in 2003 and that I just recently discovered). It includes samples, a tutorial and also the well-commented source code for a program that counts from 1 to 10. In case you are wondering what is special about this esoteric programming language, it is the fact that the interpreter ignores any non-whitespace characters. The world is full of diversity – isn’t it!? J

P.S. - The title is inspired by the Elton John's the song with no title.

P.P.S - You have to check out the MSDN Windows Vista Developer Center - it redefines the meaning of the word "cool".

Cool Tools for Commerce Server

nihitk — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 06:11:00 GMT

If you work with Commerce Server you will find the following tools invaluable. These tools were created by Max Akbar, who recently joined our Program Management team, but has been working on Commerce Server for a long time and has a very detailed knowledge of everything Commerce Server. Kudos to Max for sharing these out (for all these years!) with the community.

Commerce 2002 Info (mscs2k2info.zip, 2k, 4 downloads)	Posted: 04/15/2005 09:24 AM
This utility generates a small text file containing information about the Commerce Server 2002 installation. This tool was created by Finbar Ryan.
PipeLine Modifier (PipeModifier.zip, 133k, 5 downloads)	Posted: 03/22/2005 10:25 PM
Now there is way to programmatically modify your pipeline files and the component configuration. This sample is not a replacement for PipeLine Editor. Lets say you need to create a site in a wizard like style where pipelines get different components based on user selection or lets say that you have developed a site where you have different values in your staging and production environment you can use this sample to modify your pipeline files programmatically and eliminate the daunting task of manual steps.
Catalog Migration Tool (CatalogMigration.zip, 418k, 7 downloads)	Posted: 02/24/2005 02:04 PM
This is a simple catalog Migration that show how to migrate external data into Commerce Server 2002 FP1.
HTML Compressor (HTMLCompressor.zip, 27k, 19 downloads)	Posted: 07/11/2004 03:25 PM
This small utility is not related to Commerce Server but can help shrink your HTML files and cut down on traffic generated by empty spaces.
A simple Bulk Insert Sample for FP1 Marketing System (BulkInsertCoupons.zip, 28k, 20 downloads)	Posted: 06/04/2004 01:06 PM
A simple solution for Bulk Insert\migration of coupons for Commerce Server 2002 FP1.
Site Term Viewer (SiteTermViewer.zip, 38k, 38 downloads)	Posted: 04/04/2004 11:28 PM
A .NET Site Term Viewer.
Copy Catalog (CatalogCopy.zip, 35k, 36 downloads)	Posted: 03/28/2004 02:18 PM
A WinForm app that displays copy and saveas functionality. Select a Catalog and give it a new name then copy the catalog exactly with your new name.
Commerce Module Template (CommerceModuleTemplate.zip, 21k, 74 downloads)	Posted: 02/27/2004 09:44 PM
A Commerce Module Teplate to get you started creating and extending Commerce Server 2002.
Pup log reader (PupLogReader.zip, 96k, 37 downloads)	Posted: 02/26/2004 10:33 PM
An easy way to read pup log files.
Campaign Control for Commerce Server 2002 (CampaignControls.zip, 21k, 52 downloads)	Posted: 02/03/2004 11:22 PM
Retail 2002's Campaign Control converted to C# minus the multi lingual support.
IBuySpy converted to Commerce Server 2002 (IBuySpy.zip, 3035k, 77 downloads)	Posted: 02/03/2004 06:06 PM
C# Sample to demonstrate the basic out of the box functionality of the Commerce Server .NET Application Framework.
Display Catalogs and Categories in HTML Tree control. (LeftNav.zip, 3k, 54 downloads)	Posted: 01/30/2004 07:00 AM
This has been very popular in the news groups so I am posting it here for folks to download. Basically I am creating my own HTML tree like control to display Catalogs and their sub categories.
Pipeline Component UI (PipelineUI.zip, 35k, 88 downloads)	Posted: 01/12/2004 09:24 PM
A template to display the use of custom Pipeline component.
delete a Commerce Server 2002 sites (DeleteCS2K2Site.zip, 331k, 39 downloads)	Posted: 12/28/2003 06:26 PM
An application to delete a Commerce Server 2002 site.
Order FormViewer (OrderFormViewer.zip, 133k, 116 downloads)	Posted: 11/30/2003 04:01 PM
A an application to view the marshalled data of Commerce Server's OrderSystem.
Pup Viewer (PupViewer.zip, 61k, 67 downloads)	Posted: 11/30/2003 03:59 PM
Finally you can peak at the pup file to see what's lurking inside have fun.
Commerce Server 2002 .NET Catalog Editor (CS2K2CatalogEditor.zip, 675k, 116 downloads)		Posted: 08/03/2003 02:49 PM
A .NET tool for editing Commerce Server 2002 catalogs.

Spot the Bug Contest #1 Solution: The mystery of the Decimal.Parse FormatException

nihitk — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 05:31:00 GMT

Well - as promised here is the solution for the Spot the Bug (contest?) posting which was correctly answered first by Nat (Congratulations!).

The Bug:
The following line of code will fail intermittently when executed and most of the time rerunning will work. Sadly, these are the sort of bugs most easily overlooked.

return Decimal.Parse(rand.NextDouble().ToString());

where rand is a Random class instance. The exception thrown is:

FormatException Input string was not in a correct format.

What is bewildering is that on the face of it this seems like a perfectly legitimate line of code - we are simply converting a value from a Double in the range 0.0 - 1.0 (since that is what NextDouble() returns) to a Decimal value. The boundary conditions are both well contained within the Decimal range.

The only way out is to write a quick and dirty app to simulate this failure and here is what I wrote (no comments for sake of brevity):

static void Main(string[] args)
{
      Decimal decNum; Random rand = new Random(); String str = "";
      for (long counter = 0; counter < long.MaxValue; counter++)
      {
            try
            {
                  decNum = Decimal.Parse(rand.NextDouble().ToString());
                  if (counter % 1000 == 0) Console.WriteLine("Iteration: " + counter);
            }
            catch (FormatException ex)
            {
                  Console.WriteLine("Iteration: " + counter + "\nDouble value string: " + str);
                  Console.WriteLine("Exception occured: " + ex.ToString());
            }
      }
}

Running this console app with a breakpoint set inside the catch block, immediately bubbles up the root cause. The crux of the issue turns out to be that this exception occurs when the random Double value generated is so small as to need scientific notation. E.g. the double 0.000083304941692997209
will return "8.33049416929972E-05" when you do a Double.ToString() and this scientific representation is in turn not an acceptable input to the Decimal.Parse method, causing it to throw the FormatException. Mystery solved.

The Fix:

return (Decimal)rand.NextDouble();

Seems like the simpler and more logical way to write this in the first place, but that's only because this is a simplified case for illustration of this bug.

I already have another spot the bug lined up - just need some time to write it up. In case you have any such interesting bugs that you have hit as well (solved or not) that you would like to share, let me know!

Spot the Bug

nihitk — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 20:40:00 GMT

Ran into this recently and thought it might be interesting.

Can you try and spot the bug and the possible error that can occur with the following lines of code?

Decimal randomDoubleAsDecimal()
{
Random rand = new Random();
return Decimal.Parse(rand.NextDouble().ToString());
}

Solution in the next post.

Grads Getting Good Guidance

nihitk — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 04:55:00 GMT

Joel offers some great tips to Computer Science students (or really anyone in college who is a geek and likes software and programming) who will soon be graduating - very practical advice. In addition, it would be great to see fresh graduates trying to incorporate testing into their goals as well. I took a look at one of my undergraduate projects (Static Analyzer for C++) and was amazed by how little testing we did on it. Maybe if graduates spend more time on testing and automating some of the tests for their projects, they will also develop an appreciation for the challenges and rewards that testing holds. Well - guess it's never too later too start. Would love to hear from anyone who actually used some automated testing for a college project of theirs?

Take a look at the internship options at Microsoft - definitely one of the most pampered and exhilarating internships (can vouch since I have been one myself) - and don't forget to ask for a test position if you think it might be your cup of tea!

Are we there yet?

nihitk — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 01:14:00 GMT

So have we reached the top of the graph predicted by Moore's law? Seems like it (if not the top, very close to it), especially with respect to performance of a single, lonely processor. Herb Sutter has written a very nice article on how we are reaching the end of the road, or rather a bend in the road, which will require us to be much more aware of concurrency than we are at present. The article is slated to be printed in Dr. Dobb's Journal and the C/C++ Users Journal, in 2005 - but you can steal a sneak right now.

Interestingly, this article on the PC of 2005, in PCWorld, also mentions this exact same phenomenon, stating that few major hardware changes are expected in 2005. It even starts off with "Consumers thinking about buying a new computer in 2005 might be better off putting off their purchase until 2006" which is a very brave thing to say for a magazine which relies mainly on the health of the PC Industry!

So this might be a good time to read up on software concurrency and how it relates to development and testing of software. I know I need to.

P.S. - Wishing everyone a Happy New Year! May it be a peaceful and joyous one for all.

Blogs for the Masses

nihitk — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 03:36:00 GMT

Just in case, you haven't heard the news - MSN has come out with the Beta of a new and fabulously cool general blogging tool called MSN Spaces. I tried and loved it for a lot of reasons, among them:

Photos - This makes it so much more personal and effective as a communication medium.
Drafts - This one feature has to be my favorite - the ability to write a post and save it simply as a draft which is not published. I have lost count of all the files where I have jotted out ideas on which to blog at a later time. Very, very useful (and something that is missing from even popular blogging engines such as .Text, on which the MSDN blogs are being run).
Look and Feel - Very customizable UI with themes and layout control.
Access Control - Allows you to make your blog viewable by only certain people. This is so important if people are expected to share their personal lives and stories with family - not everyone wants to share the fact that their dog is not well today with the Whole Wide World.

It has lots of other features as well such as sharing your book lists or music lists etc. - so give it a shot and see if you like it. But keep in mind that this is a BETA, so don't expect the world (I already got one of my accounts locked out and permanently unavailable).

A big Kudos to the MSN Spaces team (who seem to be really busy since the Beta was released). Some of the great blogs I found from the MSN Spaces team members are those of Mike, Dare and Scott.

Costco.com on Commerce Server

nihitk — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 07:09:00 GMT

Feels great to share the news that the 5th largest retailer in US (by fiscal year revenues) is now using Commerce Server to drive their Costco.com online store. If you needed to know whether Commerce Server can perform well at the top of the tier - well, here's your proof!

As an aside - did you know that the most expensive item ever sold at Costco has been a $235,000 diamond ring!? And that they sold 22 million rotisserie chickens last year! Talk about range of items being sold. Quite amazing. Read up more about these and some other interesting facts about Costco in this article.

Update: Just had to share this cool factoid - the price of the Costco hot dog and soft drink combo has been $1.50 for the past 19 years. What's all that talk about inflation? :)

Starter Site - The Real Solution Site

nihitk — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 04:02:00 GMT

If you have worked with Commerce Server 2002, you have probably used one of the Solution Sites which were shipped as great examples of how Commerce Server could be used in various ways. These included the very popular Retail site and the international Retail2002 sites. Unfortunately, though these sites were great examples and tutorials for the various features in CS 2002, they were not designed for use on actual production quality web sites, which need to be much more robust, scalable and security conscious. Well, looking at the issues that we were getting, it was decided that we needed to come to the aid of our customers and help them build high-quality web sites. The answer is the Commerce Server 2002 Starter Site - just for our special Commerce Server 2002 customers. :)

Download and check it out right now - happy site building! Would love to know what you think of it.

P.S. - Notice any similarity between the Starter Site and MSIB? Well, let's just say, we don't like reinventing a good solid wheel.

2006 - The Next Commerce Server Version on it's way!

nihitk — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 03:07:00 GMT

The official word is out (great to be able to share what we will be working like crazy on, for the next > 12 months) - Commerce Server will be coming out with the V.Next release in 2006.

Some big things to keep in mind, that will be added / supported for the 2006 release are Whidbey (.Net Fx 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 development platform), only ASP.Net based development, great integration with BizTalk enabling lots of internal and partner application integration scenarios, fast and nice-to-look at winform apps for management of data, a web-services based achitecture for all sub-systems, 64-bit support and lots of help and support in automating deployment and management of sites including staging of data from test tiers to production). Please let us know what you think of these features and if you are super-excited to get a further glimpse of the 2006 release. Ping us to know more about becoming an early adopter for the next release.