The number #1 productivity killer for me is the trivial inconvenience, it does not stop me from working… just make my job very frustrating.
Flame graphs in Ruby MiniProfiler
2 months ago
Analysis of performance issues in Ruby can often be fairly complex, in this post I cover a new technique you can use with MiniProfiler.
Do you smoke test?
3 months ago
I just introduced the first smoke test for Discourse. Reasoning, techniques and lessons learned.
iOS6 is out, and with it an essentially broken maps app, here are my thoughts on this matter.
MiniProfiler Ruby Edition
10 months ago
For the last few months we have been working on a version of MiniProfiler for Rails, here is the low-down
Leaving Stack Exchange
11 months ago
Testing 3 million hyperlinks, lessons learned
12 months ago
Recently I embarked on a mission to find and and build tools for dealing with broken links on the Stack Exchange network, here are some things I learned.
Sam's ultimate web performance tool and resource list
about 1 year ago
While preparing for my talk at Codemania I started filling my slides with links, clearly not something that scales. So, instead, here is a big list of interesting tools and resources that can help you journey through the murky waters of web performance.
Learn about a change introduced in the 2.6.39 kernel that has huge impact on your users perceived web performance.
MiniProfiler 2.0, almost out of the gate
about 1 year ago
We are pushing a 2.0 public release of MiniProfiler, the following post describes most of the awesome changes.
Stop paying your jQuery tax
over 1 year ago
The last script holding in your header is usually jQuery, learn how to move it to your footer and why you should.
That annoying INSERT problem, getting data into the DB
over 1 year ago
A common issue many users have with Dapper is the ability to insert records into a database, in this post I cover some options and a solution I developed.
In this post I cover the history, diagnosis and eventual repair of some erratic performance we were experiencing at Stack Overflow.
Optimizing ASP.NET MVC3 Routing
over 1 year ago
In this post I outline the process and method we used to optimize routing at Stack Overflow
Spam, bacon, sausage and blog spam: a JavaScript approach
over 1 year ago
Using rather simple techniques I practically eliminated all of the spam on this blog, here is a technical explanation
Extending the ASP.NET error page (show me the SQL edition)
over 1 year ago
In this post I demonstrate how to extend the ASP.NET error page with additional information about the SQL that failed.
Porting LINQ-2-SQL to Dapper for great justice
over 1 year ago
In this post I explain how I ported a rather tricky page to dapper, it highlights usage of a new helper called SqlBuilder, that lives in Dapper.Contrib
Oh view where are thou: finding views in ASP.NET MVC3
almost 2 years ago
Automatically instrumenting an ASP.NET MVC3 app
almost 2 years ago
In this post I work through one method you can use to get controller, view and partial render times in an MVC3 app.
Profiling your website like a true Ninja
almost 2 years ago
I am very happy to re-announce the MVC mini profiler, used in production at Stack Overflow.
A day in the life of a slow page at Stack Overflow
about 2 years ago
I have been spending a fair amount of time tuning Stack Overflow, in this post I will walk through the process of tuning a single page.
How I learned to stop worrying and write my own ORM
about 2 years ago
Does the world even need another ORM?
Why we took a step back at Stack Overflow and wrote our on mini ORM
Interesting answers on Stack Overflow from July
almost 3 years ago
At “my new job”:http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/06/welcome-stack-overflow-valued-associate-00008/ I have been looking at better ways of highlighting recent interesting answers.
Here is a list of answers I came across in July that I found interesting.
Diagnosing runaway CPU in a .Net production application
over 3 years ago
Diagnosing runaway/high CPU in production .Net apps has always been a dark art reserved for the true master debuggers.
No longer.
Got Flare?
over 3 years ago
Brand spanking new Media Browser Blog
over 3 years ago
We just started a new “group blog”:http://community.mediabrowser.tv/topics?category_id=4&order_by=published for Media Browser.
Behaviour driven design using rspec IronRuby and C#
over 3 years ago
I love “rspec”:http://rspec.info/ , and wanted to see what happens if you bring it to .Net, here is a tiny step by step guide to writing your own rspec tests for a C# project.
Our new startup, Media Browser
almost 4 years ago
After a lot of thought and research I have decided to see if we can make a business out of Media Browser.
Will program for food, the future of Media Browser
almost 4 years ago
Media Browser / Video Browser has always been free “as-in-beer”:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FreeAsInBeer and free as-in-speech.
Will it remain free?
Media Browser repository is now on Github
about 4 years ago
I just created a clone of the Media Browser repository on “Github”:http://github.com/sambo99/Media-Browser/tree/master
Upcoming features for Media Browser
about 4 years ago
Media Browser source code license changes
about 4 years ago
We just changed the way our source code is licensed, this post covers the reasons and details of the changes.
Refactoring media browser - entity resolution
about 4 years ago
I am going to try to post a little bit about my adventures refactoring Media Browser. In this post I am covering a some aspects of entity resolution.
Simpler debugging of Vista Media Center plugins
over 4 years ago
In this post I offer a streamlined mechanism for debugging Vista Media Center plugins in Visual Studio.
Slow response-time is usabilitie's alcoholism
over 4 years ago
For the last few weeks I have been forced to use a very slow website. This has left me feeling very demoralized. This is why.
My server just died, long live my new VPS
over 4 years ago
Earlier this week I lost my old trusty server which hosts www.samsaffron.com and www.mediabrowser.tv died.
I decided to migrate all the data to a new VPS (virtual private server), here is a sketchy account of how this all happened.
Deadlocked
over 4 years ago
In SQL Server a SELECT statement can deadlock against an UPDATE statement without being in a transaction. Why does this happens? What is a good approach to SQL Server deadlocks?
SSH Jumphosts tunneling and other curiosities
almost 5 years ago
Recently, I had to support a rails server which is deep behind a firewall. Here I offer a somewhat sketchy account of how I am able to support it.
Video Browser: Past, Present and Future.
almost 5 years ago
Running IE6 on Windows Vista
about 5 years ago
Speed up your feed generation in Rails
about 5 years ago
In general when generating rss feed in Rails you will be using the builder library, it can be fairly slow unless you take special care.
You should be very careful when using ActiveRecord eager loading
about 5 years ago
Watch out when you use ActiveRecord eager loading, it has the potential to wreak havoc if you are not careful.
I fixed up Video Browsers sort by date
about 5 years ago
Genre and runtime sort options for Video Browser
over 5 years ago
I just posted a new version of Video Browser that support “by genre” and “by runtime” sort options for movies.
A cleaner way to iterate through Enumerable lists in Prototype
over 5 years ago
Yet another way to enumerate through Enumerables if you are using the prototype javascript library.
Redo your migrations in Rails and keep your data
over 5 years ago
On Rails, I find myself quite often fixing up an old migration early in my projects, at this point I already have a bunch of data in my database and I would like to keep it.
So I created a Rake task that takes care of this.
A few new features for Video Browser
over 5 years ago
Getting started with Ruby On Rails on Windows
over 5 years ago
In this post I would like to give you all the information you need to get started with Ruby On Rails, on Windows. I will cover the tools you need, the resources you need and some tips.
Why the hell write yet another blog engine?
over 5 years ago
Writing your own blog software is an ideal first exercise when faced with learning a new web platform.
Hello World
over 5 years ago
At last, after months of procrastination, I decided to re-write my blog.
This post contains a list of software that made this blog happen.
A new version of Video Browser for Vista MCE
over 5 years ago
Video browser, is a little plugin for Vista MCE that let’s you browse your videos the way they were meant to be browsed.
Video Browser for Vista MCE
over 5 years ago
Goodbye Altiris
over 5 years ago
A nice GUI profiler for SqlLite (Profiler released to the public)
almost 6 years ago
IDisposable in Ruby
almost 6 years ago
An example implementation of the IDisposable pattern in the Ruby language.
It looks much nicer in Ruby.
Insert or Update pattern for Sql Server
about 6 years ago
Implementing the UPSERT (insert or update) pattern in MS SQL Server can be tricky. In this post I explore the various advantages and disadvantages of various implementations.
Keep it simple
about 6 years ago
