The Eric Wroolie Blog

Overpass Experiences

Some thoughts on the ASP.Net MVC Framework

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A few months ago, I got tired of ASP.Net.  I was tired of developers who depended on server-side controls, the Microsoft ajax implementations (as opposed to under-the-hood javascript ajax), excessive use of session and view state.  My preferred method of coding which relies more on the html than on the “runat=server” attribute, was considered old fashioned.

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Creative Commons License photo credit: paulb

So, I wanted to look at something else.  In my mind, Asp.net was getting too bloated and heavy.  I started learning Ruby on Rails.  RoR is a fantastic framework which integrates testability and maintainability.  Rails is the framework—Ruby is the language.  It’s easy to set up an Model View Controller site very quickly.  I love Rails, but I hate Ruby.  I had to lean how to do everything over again in Ruby.  It was like learning to speak a new language—even the simple things were hard.

Then, I looked at the ASP.net MVC framework that was released earlier this year.  The MVC framework is like Rails for ASP.  It keeps aspects of ASP.Net that I really like (like master pages and C#) and moves away from the bulky server-side, viewstate heavy, controls (like the DataGrid) that slow down ASP.Net performance.

My faith in ASP.Net is restored.  My brief foray into the hip and trendy world of Ruby development has given way to working on Microsoft code again.

I’ve been using the MVC framework in a few projects now.  I’ve started writing a Chinese Dictionary application (using the CEDict database) and am enjoying every minute of it.  I don’t know if I’ll every put this site live, but coding it is helping me learn the finer points of the framework.

There are some great MVC tutorials here:

http://www.asp.net/mvc/learn/

The best video tutorial (to start off with) is “Creating a Movie Database Application with ASP.NET MVC”.

Spotify online music service is pretty good

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I like to listen to music while coding.  I always have.  Sometimes I’ve worked at jobs where they allow this (media companies like BBC never mind developers with headphones) and some that don’t (investment banks never allow this).  So it’s nice when I get to do some coding at home on my own pc with my own set-up (Visual Studio 2008, twin monitors, etc) and my own music.  So when I’m at the desktop PC, I usually have iTunes open in another window.

So I have a pretty big music collection—not tied to a specific genre.  I’m hardly a connoisseur of music and would be out of place in any conversation about music, but I know what I like.

Yesterday I heard about Spotify from a friend who raved about it.  I downloaded the app and gave it a try.  I think I found my new background-music application for writing code.image

Spotify is a desktop application which streams music to the desktop. You can chose any song they have in their library (I have found most that I’ve looked for) and listen to whole albums, etc.  When I heard about it, I thought is sounded a lot like Last.fm, which is an okay personalised-radio station service application.  But Spotify seems to have no lag or buffering.  It seems to download the tracks as needed in one go, without streaming.  Not sure how the technology works underneath, but by watching the network usage on task manager, I see the network usage spikes only when a new track starts to play.

My only concerned with listening to music on the internet is that Orange broadband is already complaining about how much bandwidth I’m using in the evenings (since I spend a lot of time watching mlb.com, iplayer, and youtube videos).

I’ve found some articles online that refer to Spotify as an iTunes-killer.  I hardly think that’s the case.  If I was tied to this desk and never listened to music on my iPod in the car or while running, that would be the case, but you don’t keep the music, you just listen.  You can listen to albums or tracks and set up playlists.

Spotify is also being referred to as a legal alternative to piracy.  I can see that.

I’ve only started using it a few days ago, but am very pleased with it.  I’m using the free account (ad-supported), but they have pro accounts for £10 a month.  There are some adds inserted between the tracks, but I’ve listed by about 5 hours now and have only heard one.

It’s a nice service available in the UK now if you have a chance to take it out.

My domain is being used for spamming

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ASCII Art Junk Mail
Creative Commons License photo credit: Yandle

I woke up this morning to about a hundred out-of-office replys in my inbox and junk mail folder.  It turns out, someone is using my Overpass.co.uk domain in an email reply-to and sending out loads of sex-related spam.

I’ve been searching for what to do about this, and it turns out that there’s not much I can do.  Since the spammers are not sending from my server and only using the reply-to, all I can do is hope that it stops soon.

Apprently, this is a pretty common problem.

If you get an email from Overpass, it wasn’t sent by me.