Community developer blogs

Charlie Barker

Recent Posts

• New Job - Wonga

  Posted: 29 Sep 2008 at 13:17

  I have recently changed job, I have moved from the relative safety of Tradeweb to Wonga an 18 month old startup. It's a very exciting place to work offering a very dynamic working environment. The company is very focused on becoming the number one payday loan company. It offers cash direct to your

• Uploading IIS or Event log files to SQL Server using Microsoft Log Parser

  Posted: 20 Sep 2008 at 20:28

  Every now and again I stumble across a tool that does exactly what I am looking for no if's or but's just exactly what I need. It is a rare moment and something to savour. Today it happened and the tool is Microsoft's Log Parser. This is a tool that knows how read IIS and Windows event logs out of t

• A Review of Mark Steel's book: What's going on ?

  Posted: 20 Sep 2008 at 10:29

  I am a big fan of Mark Steel's, I loved the "Mark Steel Lectures" series that he did for the Open University. He is very good at explaining ideas in plain english, de-jargonising them and adding touch of humor to the learning experience. The majority of the series seems to be on you tube, just searc

• Schema Design Rules

  Posted: 13 Aug 2008 at 09:26

  These are the schema design commandments I live by, they are kept here purely for my reference. Rules marked with * are absolute and if not implemented will result in karma so bad you will be reincarnated as a bottom feeder. 1.) Pluralise table names. 2.) *Every table in the db will have a primary k

• New Social Gaming Network - Playfire

  Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 18:33

  I have a friend I'll call him Aaron because that's his name. He has joined the company behind a new social networking site focused in the gaming community. The have just revamped their site, it is still in beta though you wouldn't know it. The have areas for all the major consoles and of course pc

• New search engine - CUIL

  Posted: 29 Jul 2008 at 09:19

  There is a new search engine on the block, you've got to admire someone who's got the balls to take google on! Check CUIL out. My first impressions are that it's fast, it doesn't have a geographical filter like google which might make looking for online stores in your country a problem, unless it ha

• Centro - Entity Definitions / Work in Progress

  Posted: 16 Jul 2008 at 10:07

  Entity Definitions ================== Center - An organisation that runs courses Center Admin - A course administrator Center Instructor - A course instructor Organisation - An organisation that sends people on courses Organisation Admin - An administrator at an organisation that sends people on cou

• Occupational Health Website in Monorail for ProHealth

  Posted: 27 Jun 2008 at 22:23

  I wanted a way to get into the guts of monorail so I offered to create a website for the occupational health company that my mum works for. It is very much a work in progress, you can check it out here ProHealthUk if you want to see the CRUD click the admin link. When the site goes fully live

• nPower Sucks

  Posted: 27 Jun 2008 at 22:09

  So tonight at about 8pm I sit down on the couch with a beer when I hear a knock at the door. When I answer it there two ladies and a gent all smartly dressed in suits. The woman asks me to confirm my name and address as shown on her clipboard she then starts a vauge diatribe about how I could save

• centro a new open source project in monorail

  Posted: 26 May 2008 at 22:59

  I am building a course booking system in monorail and in the process of uploading the source to google code. This is basically a way for me to understand the MVC approach to building websites using the castle monorail project. I figured the code may be of use to others tackling similar tasks or who

• What happens to your Blog when you die?

  Posted: 17 Apr 2008 at 11:05

  I was having difficulty getting to sleep last night and started wondering what happens to a persons blog when they die. Currently this blog lives on my server at home so I wouldn't reckon on it lasting too long after my passing should I be struck down by a Bus or Psyclist in london. Most folks who b

• Crazy Invention #1 - Cable tidy for your Pc

  Posted: 17 Apr 2008 at 10:56

  Every now and then I have a half baked idea for a new kind of Gizmo, today I was staring at the mess of cables on my desk and thought up this. A device that replaces the multitude of cables that inhabit the back of your desk with one single fat cable for neatness. Could also develop a wirless versio

• The Best Merge and Diff Tools

  Posted: 12 Apr 2008 at 14:53

  So I am relatively new to using merge tools. I have been developing with them for about a year. Merge tools become a necessity if you are developing in a team, or working on branches in your source control system. You do have to be ultra careful when you are merging against another developers change

• T-SQL Reserved Keywords List

  Posted: 27 Mar 2008 at 18:34

  I always try and avoid using these keywords when naming objects in SQL Server: ADD EXCEPT PERCENT ALL EXEC PLAN ALTER EXECUTE PRECISION AND EXISTS PRIMARY ANY EXIT PRINT AS FETCH PROC ASC FILE PROCEDURE AUTHORIZATION FILLFACTOR PUBLIC BACKUP FOR RAISERROR BEGIN FOREIGN READ BETWEEN FREETEXT READTEXT

• Draytek 2820 Review

  Posted: 28 Feb 2008 at 10:19

  Model Name          : Vigor2820 series Firmware Version   : 3.1.1 Build Date/Time     : Nov 8 2007 11:10:43 ADSL Firmware      : 211801_A Annex A Price: £135 inc VAT I have just bought one of these to use

• zero punctuation game reviews LMAO ROFL

  Posted: 24 Feb 2008 at 19:08

  This has to be the funniest most original game reviewer on the web. He is also very knowledgable

• Use your Wii as a Media Center with Orb

  Posted: 22 Feb 2008 at 22:22

  This will r0x0r your b0x0r's! http://lifehacker.com/357869/use-your-wii-as-a-media-center The article explains in several easy steps how to turn your wii into a media center. I tried it and could not believe how well it works! Some things you will need: A Wii with wireless access to the internet The

• Hyundai BlueH - 22in Widescreen LCD Tv/Monitor

  Posted: 06 Feb 2008 at 14:49

  The HM22W is a nice TV for a bedroom, the picture is good with no ghosting and a wide viewing angle. The built in speakers are a bit limp so don't expect high volume. The remote control is easy to use if a little more complicated that is necessary. The unit only has an analogue tuner so if you want

• Multicore processors, the C++ STL & Heap Allocation

  Posted: 05 Feb 2008 at 15:00

  A few weeks ago one of the devs in the trading system team hit a performance issue, running four threads on a multicore machine ran slower than running when processor affinity was turned on. Turning on processor affinity basically was limiting his application to one core so he expected a performance

• New Version of DasBlog and a new look for 2008

  Posted: 22 Jan 2008 at 21:51

  One of my new year's resolutions was to upgrade to the latest version of dasblog and host it on ASP.NET 2.0. Well this is probably the only resolution I will keep. I chose the MadsSimple theme I really liked the business theme but the blog post font was a little small and this is a personal blog so