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The Latest from Our Team
Customizing Your VSTS Task Board
The VSTS task board is a great way for developers and project managers to see development tasks in the current iteration. But we like to also see which tasks have been submitted and are awaiting a pull request. Here is how we customize our task board to add an additional step for work items. Creating…
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DPL Reading List – September 15, 2017
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week. In manufacturing, software jobs outpace production jobs for first time – “The increased demand for software developers is particularly concerning for manufacturers who are discovering how difficult it is to find qualified candidates to fill these jobs. Automakers and other manufacturers tend…
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Legacy Application Wrangler
/* This post is part of a series about what we cover in our Software Design and Development Clinics, a 1-week series of classes where we dive into various aspects of software design and development principles. Legacy application migration is a core focus of this class. Learn more at http://dontpaniclabs.com/education/. */ We have never done any…
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DPL Reading List – September 8, 2017
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week. Designing IoT Products for Consumers – “Rather than trying to breathe life into inert objects, designers should focus on designing IoT products that are mute and functional.” 4 Examples of How AR & VR Will Improve Customer Service – “The internet made…
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Getting Started with Azure Cosmos DB, Part 4 – Partition Keys
We have gone through quite a bit of Azure Cosmos-related posts the last few weeks, but we have skipped over the concept of partition keys in almost of the queries we have covered. Ignoring the partition key is probably fine for these small data sets, but for real workloads we should probably think this through….
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Generating Print Graphics on the Web Using SVG
While redesigning our tradeshow booth, I needed an image of outer space. Google image search to the rescue, at least for a placeholder. After a few rounds of revisions, the design was nearly complete. But I was still using the placeholder star field. I could have bought a stock image, found a free one to…
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DPL Reading List – September 1, 2017
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week. How One Insurance Firm Learned to Create an Innovation Culture – “Creating a culture of innovation is about much more than hiring a Chief Innovation Officer or creating a new department. Culture change takes time and significant effort, and shifting culture…
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Using Git From PowerShell with Multiple Hosts
I do almost all of my Git work via the command line and so should you. As a tool that developers use every day, it is important that we understand what is happening. I find that most Git GUIs hide too much and developers that rely on them exclusively are often unaware of how Git…
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Getting Started with Azure Cosmos DB, Part 3 – SQL Queries
In my first post, we performed some really basic CRUD queries against Azure Cosmos DB. In my second post, we went a little deeper and refined our queries. In this post, we are going to be using SQL to query Cosmos. Yep, SQL. First, we will rewrite our count method. Previously, we did something that…
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From Educator to Software Engineer, Part 2 – Interviews and Interns
Make sure to check out part 1 of my series if you haven’t done so yet. I am a 30-year-old developer finishing my first year as a software engineer. I didn’t get where I am by any traditional means, but I’ve learned some things along the way that might encourage someone to follow their interest…
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