With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.

Of course I had to punch in ColdFusion! Unfortunately the “Interest over time” graph didn’t look to good:

Google Insight

Of course I know these things are skewed all over the place but tools like this are always fun to play with… Flex for example has lots of interest:

Google Insight - Flex

Definitely worth playing with if you are interesting in statistics and what’s under Google’s hood.

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After using SQuirrel SQL for a few days I’m happy to report my search may be over!  SQuirrel SQL is like Eclipse - it’s based on Java, uses JDBC drivers to connect to your database, and it can be extended via plugins.

SQuirrel SQL

All the basics are here - code completion, SQL editor, auto correction, editing results, etc.  Through plugins you can get table relation graphs, data import, database copy, SQL validation, syntax highlighting and more.

Since SQuirrel SQL is based on Java it’s cross platform, it supports any database with a JDBC driver and is free!

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Bitnami has this figured out.  Bitnami offers what they call ’stacks’.  You can either download an application ’stack’ like Drupal, WordPress, etc. Or you can download a platform ’stack’ (WAMP = Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and then download application modules for that particular stack.

Sample Bitnami Applications

At work we’ve been looking at various bug trackers and I wanted to get Mantis setup and running but didn’t want to spend a lot of time getting it up and running.  After a bit of Googling I found Bitnami and gave it a try.

Installation was a breeze.  I ran the installer and only had to define a port for Apache to run on (I selected 88 so it didn’t conflict with my ColdFusion install) and a default username and password for login.  Installation took awhile - it IS installing quite a bit of stuff.  When it was done I simply hit my localhost and Mantis was up and running!

Bitnami does provide an uninstaller which seems to clean up after itself fairly well.  I first installed the Mantis stack but realized it had some drawbacks. If you download for example the WordPress application stack and set it to port 88 and then try to install another application stack you will have to provide another port.  It sets each application up independently.   To get around this they offer the platform stacks like WAMP.  Now you can install that as your base and then install multiple application ‘modules’ on top of it - all sharing one port.

Bitnami is free and stacks are available for Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris.

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Balsamiq is a really cool application that allows you to easily mock up page layouts.

Mockups feels like you are drawing, but it’s digital, so you can tweak and rearrange controls easily, and the end result is much cleaner. Teams can come up with a design and iterate over it in real-time in the course of a meeting.

What’s neat about Balsamiq is that’s it’s built on AIR.  So installation is just a simple click, and you are up and running, and it’s cross platform.

I like the pencil sketch elements which hopefully will keep people for focusing in on colors and other design elements during initial layouts.  The sample screenshots give you an idea of what can be created.  You can export as PNG or as XML so other Balsamiq users can import your sketches.

I only ran into a few glitches - some of the elements seem to be transparent while others are not so you run into some weird overlap issues.  It would be nice to have a control to flip the transparent state on/off.  Another useful addition would be the ability  to create your own ‘libraries’ of elements to use.

Sample Balsamiq Mockup

Balsamiq is not freeware - he’s asking $79 with a few options to get it for free.  Considering the amount of time you would have to spend in Photoshop to do the same thing - I think it’s a bargain if you do a lot of these types of mockups.

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They have a Linux version! Holy S–T Batman!!!

I haven’t given it a really thorough test but all the basics seem to work just as well as the Windows version.  They also have a nice upgrade plan and you can by a ‘dual platform’ license that covers both Windows and Linux versions.  Best thing is it’s still under $50 for the basic version. Pro adds a few things like 3-way merge, SFTP support, and a few other features.

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1. One repository per project or…
2. One project per repository

The Subversion book goes into this a bit - and mentions a few pros and cons of each method but I was curious what people were actually doing.

Right now we are ‘One project per repository’.  There were a few reasons for making that decision but now we are re-evaluating and considering moving to a single repository for everything. I’m curious if anyone is currently doing that and having issues?  Anyone have an alternate setup?

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Fixing Ignored Files

We’ve all run into this one before - you have a file somone mistakenly commited (.log files in my case).  From the TortoiseSVN help:

If the files are already in the repository, you have to do a little more work.

1. Hold the Shift key to get the extended context menu and use TortoiseSVN > Delete (keep local) to mark the file/folder for deletion from the repository without losing the local copy.
2. TortoiseSVN > Commit the parent folder.
3. Add the file/folder to the ignore list so you don’t get into the same trouble again.

Moving Files within the Repository

I’ve also got some folders scattered around the repository containing documentation. Ideally these should all live under our /doc directory.  But how to move these without loosing their history?  Again - from the TortoiseSVN help:

The easiest way to copy files and folders from within a working copy is to use the right-drag menu. When you right-drag a file or folder from one working copy to another, or even within the same folder, a context menu appears when you release the mouse.

Every time I dig into the TortoiseSVN help I learn something new!

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Shutdown
There are lots of posts around about how to shutdown Windows automatically.  There is a shutdown.exe in Windows but I tried that and had issues with it actually powering off the PC.  I didn’t really want to run an application so I eventually found PsShutdown.exe a utility from the old SysInternals (now owned by Microsoft).  So I simply created a batchfile and call this with the poweroff switch:

Usage: psshutdown [[\\computer[,computer[,..] | @file [-u user [-p psswd]]] -s|-r|-h|-d|-k|-a|-l|-o [-f] [-c] [-t nn|h:m] [-n s] [-v nn] [-e [u|p]:xx:yy] [-m "message"]

-k    Poweroff the computer (reboot if poweroff is not supported)

And call that script from a scheduled task.

Startup
So now when I come in I have to crawl under my desk to power on the PC. I’m far too lazy to do that so I dug around and discovered that most newer computer BIOS support an automatic power on option.

On my Dell it was under “Power Management”.  I turned it on, and also selected “weekdays only” and a time.  Now when I come in - my PC is on and ready to go!

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• Merge tracking (foundational)
• Interactive conflict resolution
• Changelist support
• Speed improvements, cancellation response improvements
• More than 150 new bug fixes, enhancements

And a host of other things!  I’m sure Tortoise and the other clients will be updated soon as well.

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The tools market is dead. Open source killed it. The only commercial tools that can survive today are the ones that leapfrog open source tools.

According to my IDE survey the majority of the 400 respondents indicated they would pay up to $500.

• 111 - Free
• 144 - $100
• 126 - $100-500

But one wonders how much better it would have to be before people switched from the free CFEclipse.  And as I’ve said before - now with 4 CFML engines available - a ‘universal’ CFML IDE become even more important.

The Slashdot article leads to a post at DZone where the author discusses his new IDE which looks interesting as well.

UNA Collaborative Edition is a real-time collaborative development environment for software engineers. It lets two or more developers edit the same code, at the same time. It’s similar to pair programming, but better because both developers can contribute productively, whether they’re located across the hall from each other or on different continents.

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