I have a Surface Pro 3, which I preordered shortly after it was announce by Microsoft several years ago. The i7 flies, and despite only having 8GB of RAM...
The heart of this newsletter is going to be about some programmers who have been paving the way for chatbot adoption and development. This is a list compiled by me, and filled with my own biases--so this is a top programmer list according to me, based on the five or so people that I know.
A lot of my tutorials and blog posts lately have been specifically Bot Framework-oriented. What you may have noticed, however, is that I'm using the...
The Bot Framework used to give you session storage out-of-the-box for free, including once it had been deployed to Azure. With the recent changes to the...
When we switch over into a New Year, it gives marketing departments the opportunity to promote their end of year or their what to look for in the New...
Image recognition simply becomes exponentially more powerful with machine learning. It follows that we use powerful tools to deal with our most aggravating challenges, and CAPTCHA represents a solution to a problem that passes the frustration onto the user when attempting to fix automated form population.
The Microsoft Bot Framework Node.JS SDK offers a nice layer between the low-level API and the bot application for you to do your work with little data...
As robots become more humanoid in behavior and appearance, will we be heading towards a robot civil rights movement? What will ultimately determine 'life' and 'consciousness' in thinking machines, and what rights will they have?
With all the work that I've been doing with Microsoft's Bot Framework, I've had the feeling for a while that it is culminating to something. What that is...
Yesterday was the first day of Microsoft's Connect event, and not long into the first keynote, they decided not to pull any punches, and dropped an...
If you've been following me at all on this site, or on Twitter, you've heard me mention several times about Metron, which is a JavaScript library I've...
About five years ago, I almost quit programming altogether. I'm a self-taught programmer--a child of the cyberpunk 80's, who grew up on emerging...
It's been a busy few weeks for me, as I was finalizing my code samples and getting ready for two presentations that I gave between Monday and Tuesday.
I've been doing a lot of data visualizations lately for a project at work, and as a result, I've built up a collection of charts and graphs that I've...
As many of you know, I've been on a Bot Framework kick over the last several months. We did a podcast episode several months back exclusively talking...
There seems to be a browser war looming on the horizon again.
TypeScript is a powerful language for many different reasons, but one the more powerful features revolves around TypeScript being capable of targeting...
As some of you know, I've been putting together some videos on programming, and my first playlist collection deals with the Microsoft Bot Framework.
I ran into a interesting issue while working with TypeScript a few weeks ago. Although TypeScript has a command line interface (CLI), most people...
I've been doing a series of videos on working with the Microsoft Bot Framework, and over the first few, I give some working examples.
Most teams work in some sort of agile methdology today, and by definition, change requests are something that are welcomed, and have no real special significance in agile when you're running through iterations (or sprints), and making changes based on user feedback.
Recently, at work, we've been trying to formalize a project management process that makes sense. After much experimentation throughout a handful of projects, we've been able to hammer down a process that works well for us.
Browsers have a long history of lacking solid storage options, but with the mobile-first web trend, and people moving towards faster, disconnected...
As many of you know, I've been working diligently to finalize a beta release for the Metron JavaScript framework. I'm happy to say that it's officially...
SQL has types to deal with dates, including adding and subtracting dates; however, what if you need to show a formatted result of the remaining time from...
A while back I mentioned how I was rewriting the metron library from the ground up using TypeScript. That rewrite has been largely a success--although...
Sometimes this site isn't just about technology, but about the peripherals of technology that enable us to work better and play better. We all have...
The wonderful world of open source software documentation has been the bane of professional software programmers since the beginning of the hacker movement.
The Internet Archive is best know for the Wayback Machine that allows you to check past versions of a web site, but it's actually a huge resource of archival text, video, and audio as well.
As much as XML was a huge buzzword in the early 2000’s, JSON has become the buzzword of the last few years. Much of this is a result of the proliferation of JavaScript frameworks recently.
I can't remember exactly how I became aware of Swartz's work, but it was well before his strident activism, and his downloading of JSTOR documents from a closet at MIT.
If this weekend has shown us anything, it's that the fire of protest is alive and well in America, and that activism will not stop in the face of...
Despite being an East-coaster, I'm a member of the Long Now Foundation, which--when I'm asked to describe it--I usually say is like TED, but with a long term view and way better substance.
In an effort to support privacy and security as much as possible, we decided to join the ranks of people putting their web sites behind SSL encryption.
If you listened to the last podcast episode (go ahead if you haven't; I'll wait), you'll know that I spoke at the edUi Conference in Charlottesville on...
I was going through some of the analytics logs for this site, and I came across a huge increase in readership month-to-month. When I investigated further...
I mentioned in my last post that I'm rewriting metron from the ground up. The original version of metron was layered with cross-browser compatibility...
On GitHub, you might find a small little JavaScript project called metron. This library has a long and storied history dating all the way back to Windows...
SQL Server has a lot of useful functions, commands, keywords, etc. that many of us don't use on a regular basis unless we're doing business intelligence...
Apache Bench does a decent job of giving you a quick assessment of whether or not an application can handle a load, but for a more advanced performance assessment, better tools are required.
Last Thursday we launched a complete rewrite of a medical education testing system at work. It was probably the most significant project launch of my 18...
I've been around for a while... which is to say that I'm old. I remember when AltaVista was a solid, popular search engine, Yahoo! was mostly a directory...
The codepunk web site is still in its infancy, relatively speaking. Despite this, our page views are actually pretty solid for a web site that is primarily programming driven.
Ever use Bootstrap? Of course you have. It's the most popular CSS framework on the market, and it's one of the best ways to prototype a web application.
I caught Hackers on Hulu a few months back and marveled at not only Hollywood's portrayal of 90's culture, but also the standard trope of hacking being...
Richard Campbell from the DotNetRocks podcast often says that DevOps isn't a title, it's something that you do. DevOps is the intersection between...
There's a nice little bit of functionality in .NET that allows you to specify certain elements as replacement elements in the Web.config file depending...
I've been getting more into digital lifestyle improvements recently, and with that has come a greater interest in office and desk design.
We've all dealt with hero programmers--not a fun job. We've also all been in situations where the code that you've produced gets hammered by criticism...
Binding parameters in ASP.NET MVC Web API 2 can seem like sorcery (but it's not, so headhunters, please don't ask for sorcery abilities in your next job...
When I first joined up with my current job, our Team Foundation Server (TFS) source control was set up as a single repository, serving a single solution...
LinkedIn is a useful tool in several areas contact management, networking, job searching, brand promotion.
You know what's a pain? Installing a new program or utility from the command line and then having to close out your command prompt or PowerShell window...
By now, many of you have probably heard of the great npm debacle that brought several JavaScript frameworks and libraries to their knees. As a short...
If you're a programmer--especially a relatively new one--then chances are your resume sucks. There's no easy way to say that, but honestly, it's probably...
I was having a discussion over Skype with Bill the other day about validation form input when the form in question has multiple steps. I've built an...
I've been enjoying a few email newsletters recently, which says a lot about how far the Internet has come.
I've heard about the Slow Web movement for quite some time, but never really made a concerted effort to engage with the idea much. Being a programmer...
We've all hit snafus when it comes to enterprise deployment, and even with the great strides that Microsoft has made with Visual Studio and Team...
The very first smartphone I ever owned was a second generation iPhone--after the AppStore opened to 3rd-party developers, and after they added 3G support.
Although the Toyota Production System, and the Japanese manufacturing industry, gave us Lean manufacturing decades ago, the concepts and principles of...
Yes, you read that title correctly. Why on Earth would anyone deploy WordPress through Team Foundation Server (TFS)? It's simple if you want a...
Team Foundation Server (TFS), which, until recently, was called Visual Studio Online (VSO) for Microsoft's cloud services (now called Visual Studio Team...
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is a one of those professional tools that Microsoft stack developers simply can't live without. It's probably the best SQL workbench on the market, and MS is always known for giving a lot of love to its developers through great tools.
Usually running npm install for adding node modules to a project is a cinch, but every once in a while you might come across a module that needs to...
Getting a new computer, laptop, or tablet is awesome. You know what's not awesome? Having to install all the software on the new device that you used to use on your old device.
If I had to rank programming languages by favorites, you can rest assured that PHP is at the bottom of my list. Most everything about the language and...
ASP.NET Web API does a fantastic job at parameter binding, and offers a powerful, transparent way for data on the frontend to be bound to models on the backend.
There are a few areas in .NET development where searching for online documentation or code examples can be tricky because newer versions have a different...
Content delivery networks (CDN's) have become increasingly popular for hosting JavaScript libraries for others to link too quickly without having to...
XML Schema is a powerful validation tool for XML documents that is virtually a requirement if you are accepting 3rd-party XML as incoming data for a web...
In a recent project for a client, the client asked for the ability to capture a customer's signature inside of the application, and have that applied to...
Sometimes you don't get to notice the true value of something until you really get the opportunity to put it to good use. I wanted to write this post...
Before XML was established as the preferred data format for applications, web applications were a trove of key/value pairs and pipe-delimited strings, while desktop applications ventured into flat files, manifests, and compiled data files.
DRM is terrible. Yesterday I started up my Zune software to listen to some music. I was in the mood for something a little on the New Age electronica side. Enigma. Deep Forest. Delerium. Bands like that.
There are some companies out there that run their business on vengeance - plain and simple. These are the companies that you just do not want to do business with - or even work for.
I remember watching the towers burn from afar. I had a consulting contract at the time with a technology division of AIG, and made the hour and a half to two hour drive to Livingston, New Jersey four times a week.
People from greatly different backgrounds and from different eras have had similar spiritual experiences, making it possible to hypothesize that many of these experiences are grounded in reality and result from a biochemical process that expands consciousness and perception, allowing the mind to receive data not normally available to it.
Last year, as I was complaining about the price of oil and gas, I came across an optimistic and well written article on Wired.com, telling us about how $5.00 gas was good for America. With a title like Why $5 Gas is Good for America, I'll admit I was very skeptical.
An ouroboros is an ancient Egyptian symbol depicting a snake eating its own tale. It can signify many things in both the ancient and the modern world. One of the significant things that it symbolizes is the circular revolution of life, such as birth and renewal.
I lied there - eyes closed - as blotches of clarity graced my inner field of vision. This wasn't inner intuition or new age imaginal sensing. This was actual clarity, like my eyeslids were disolving with holes in a manner akin to the ozone layer - brief glimpses through the darkness, through the sheets.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is perhaps best known for his theory of contradiction and reconciliation. He believed that an idea traverses from an initial conviction to its opposite, and then to a newer, higher concept that involves both, but also transcends them.
Listen to me closely when I tell you that artificial intelligence will not come about from some government scientist locked away deep within a lab in some remote secret mountain complex.
The king is dead, but his spirit lives on, like an excited child gleefully hording his toys away from the crowded play of others.
I see a vast disciplinary shift in magick that has passed over these tumultous years; and like the current ideology of time speeding up as we head towards the future - much like technology, etc. - so too it seems that magick has been changing faces and systems expeditiously with each passing season.
Religion is a wonderful and dangerous thing. Throughout time immeasurable religion has turned the poor into the rich, the blind into the sighted, and the lost into leaders through the sheer power of faith.
For the longest time—despite my spiralling consumption by the occult world, and subsequent engulfing of Eastern philosophies—I always had a problem with the concept of karma in relation to our cultural bias and hustling worldview.
Honestly, I don't even know how it all occurred. It's a blur, really; a twist of psychedelic schism. The intent always seemed to be there, but the activity leading up to the conclusion/beginning you see before you was less controlled by forcible action...
I first learned of Douglas Rushkoff while watching his speech segment on the Disinformation The Series DVD.
Taylor Ellwood is an anomaly amongst occultists. He walks a fine line between academia and mysticism, intermingling biology, literature, and magick into a coherent piece of theory highly approachable in practical work.
I was originally introduced to the connection between magick and high science (specifically quantum physics) through the literary works of H.P. Lovecraft, as well as the poorly adapted, yet enjoyable, 'B' movies that presented his work.
As much as I am influenced by Taoism, Soren Kierkegaard, and countless other religious and philosophical texts and figure-heads, Donald Michael Kraig's masterpiece, Modern Magick, was the pillar of support that I constantly fell back on during times of the “dark night” and moments of indecision.
When the dot com bubble burst, there were a lot of crying eyes from executives wishing they had invested their money in safer projects and better prospects. Ironically, one of the most successful businesses to come out of the Internet boom, was one that nobody actually wanted after they discovered just what it was all about.
Upon many occasions - with a curious mind and a mountain for courage - I've found myself on the pathways of the Jersey Devil.
Quantum physics has become a gem among sciences for every philosopher, whether contemporary or esoteric. The oddities of quantum physics have bent perceived reality into a new direction formerly only occupied by science fiction.
Cold back alleys and night lights of dim defiance penetrate your spine on days of gloom and darkness.
Philosophy can be disbursed into many subdivisions of scrutiny (logic, epistemology, socio-political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, rhetoric), but no such category reposes so much substratum for contention and controversy as that of ontology.
Nature has a tendency to heal. She heals both physical wounds and those wounds that deliberately eat away at our hearts and minds. She even heals herself. But when you have an open wound and you continually poke and prod at it, it will not heal.