John Kellar's Blog

Blog moving

admin@nashdotnet.com — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 06:00:00 GMT

I am discontinuing my blog on the User Group site, but continuing the effort on my personal site www.anvilsystems.com.

Good Diff Tool

admin@nashdotnet.com — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 07:00:00 GMT

I came across a recent blog post by Eric Sink today mentioning a diff tool that SourceGear has made available. It is called DiffMerge and does as much or more than many of the diff tools I have used. Better yet, it is free. I played with it some today and must say that I like it. I recommend that you give it a look and see what you think about it.

devLink 2006 recorded session available

admin@nashdotnet.com — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 06:00:00 GMT

InfoQ.com has started posting the sessions that were recorded during devLink 2006. Currently there is only one available, but over the coming weeks more will be posted. The location for the sessions are http://www.infoq.com/devlink. Don't forget to sign up for devLink 2007 as this year's event will be bigger and better.

devLink 2006 recorded sessions available soon

admin@nashdotnet.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 06:00:00 GMT

InfoQ.com has scheduled several of the sessions recorded at devLink 2006 for release. These will be done on the InfoQ website starting in May. If you want to learn more about the devLink Technical Confernece please take a moment to visit www.devlink.net.

devLink 2007

admin@nashdotnet.com — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:00:00 GMT

So we are working on devLink 2007 and I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised. We are going to have it October 12-13 and will be adding new content this year. We want to appeal to the entire development team so that means we are going to have some Project management, Business Analysis and related information included in this years conference. Don't worry we are not going to abandon the development side there will be plenty of .NET and SQL Server information available. We also want to bring Java into the mix as we are not single minded. So if you know of a great speaker or a company that might be interested in supporting devLink send them to the website www.devlink.net because we would love to talk to them.

What is next

admin@nashdotnet.com — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 06:00:00 GMT

Christmas and the New Year is almost upon us. I am doing a horrible job of putting anything worthwhile in this blog. Planning for devLink 2007 has already begun. This time around we are going to have a two day event on Friday and Saturday. I am updating my Windows Services presentation and should be giving that in February for the Nash .NET meeting if all goes well. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

devLink 2006

admin@nashdotnet.com — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 07:00:00 GMT

Well devLink 2006 was an amazing event and since I am fully recovered I wanted to jot some things here. We had about 396 people on hand for the event. The devLink Staff which is Tommy Norman, John Baker, Joe Chafatelli and Amy Boegh did a wonderful job keeping things on-track and running smoothly. A great effort was put forth by our volunteers Jim Wilt, Robert Wilburn, Joe Senter, Jim Barry, Marty Lee, Ian Lee, and Chris Gundersen who all stepped up to help out with the conference. Some of these people did not even volunteer before the event but saw a need the day of an helped out. Special mention must be made of LeAnn Baker who did a tremendous job taking the lead on registration and getting people checked in, she did such a great job. I personally appreciate all their efforts which made devLink a resounding success. With all the positive feedback, we are sure to have another event next year. I also appreciate every individual who attended the conference and hope that they took something useful home with them at the end of the day.

XML Notepad

admin@nashdotnet.com — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 06:00:00 GMT

With devLink (www.devlink.net) just around the corner I have neglected my blog. I thought I would make quick mention of a great tool that has been reborn on MSDN. XML Notepad 2006 is a very sleek tool that has been rewritten in C# and leverages the .NET Framework to provide some excellent XML editing features. I wish the XML Diff was a little more refined, but at least they have it and it works well. I recommend you check it out if you are doing any work with XML files. It is available on the MSDN XML Developer Center page of you can get it directly from here.

Process Explorer more than a Task Manager replacement

admin@nashdotnet.com — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 07:00:00 GMT

I know Sysinternals Process Explorer has been recommended in several blogs for quite some time. While most developers are familiar with this Task Manager replacement, few seem to leverage all it has to offer. Where I find it most useful is in the Process View (you have to double click the process to get there). Once there check out the .NET tab (.NET assemblies only) which provides some great information about what the process is doing. I personally like to monitor the .NET CLR Data information to help me better understand memory usage during runtime. If you have a memory leak in a .NET assembly this can be extremely helpful. I used it to monitor Garbage Collection and Generation Heap Size as I navigated one application and found clues which assisted me to eliminate a nasty leak. If you are not familiar with how the Garbage Collector operates this a good way to learn. I also recommend you check out this article by Jeffrey Richter. Now something you should know is that you can get the same information from perfmon, but why when it is so nicely presented by Process Explorer. If for some reason you cannot afford the cost of Process Explorer (free) then go with perfmon and see this article.

Introduction

admin@nashdotnet.com — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 06:00:00 GMT

I am going to kick this blog off with a general overview of who I am. I am a developer/architect and have put a significant effort into growing the .NET developer community over the last few years. I started in Little Rock, AR where I was the VP and Charter member of the Little Rock .NET User Group (www.lrdnug.org). I helped get the group established and put on two conferences Tech Expo 2005 and Tech Expo 2006. Now I am in Nashville, TN and have worked on the devLink Technical Conference (www.devlink.net). I am also helping the Nashville .NET User Group the best I can with things like the Nash .NET (www.nashdotnet.org) website and some other activities.