The front-end framework of choice for MVC 4 web applications seems to be Knockout.js.  It's fairly robust and easy to add/remove from projects via NuGet and provides an MVVM feel much like Silverlight or WPF.

Think of a label control used in WPF.  Using data bindings, you tell the label to display certain text.  If the object representing the text displayed is updated, WPF kindly…

A firestorm erupted after chief Yahoo Marissa Mayer banned working from home in an effort to shock the moribund company culture back to life. The resulting debate over whether working from home was good for corporate innovation and productivity is, to me, not all that interesting. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t work from home even after putting in a full day at the office -- at the very least, they check and respond to office emails and make work-related calls during…

Last winter I bought a Lumia 920 which runs Windows Phone 8.  Windows Phone 8 is a large overhaul of Windows Phone 7 because now it uses the same kernel as Windows 8.  It also added support for better hardware and a more flexible development framework. Previously I have used the original iPhone, the iPhone 4 and the Galaxy Nexus Google Android phone. I have never seen anyone with a Windows Phone and I thought it looked neat so I decided to try it…

So last week I flew over to Oahu and had brunch with Daniel Leuck (whom you all know if you read TechHui).  It was a great trip, but one of the highlights of it for me was his absolute surprise we had revenue.  Apparently this is a big deal.

He had to explain it to me, because I was clueless.  Daniel is of course…

In case you are not super familiar with pair programming here are the core essentials of how it works.  Two programmers sit in front of the computer they are working on and slide the keyboard/mouse back and forth. The person with the controls is called the driver the other is navigator or observer.  To those that have never done it before it can sound kind of stupid but when it's done right it can actually be…

Political junkies (like me) and immigration stakeholders (including many technology employers) have been watching as the immigration reform process moves forward in the current congressional session. After much watching and speculation (see for example, earlier posts here) about what impact this will have on the high tech industry, there is now a bill being offered in the U.S.…

Our Night Out with Heroku Japan & Friends

During our trip to Japan last month we got to enjoy an evening out with the Heroku team. We've enjoyed using their platform for years across many projects, so it was good…

It has been more than 6 months since I launched RedeemHi5.com, which I wrote about in one of my first blog posts. The launch hasn't been perfect; the most major issue is that the connection to the database gets lost and it doesn't reconnect, thus leaving people with a loading screen. The first thing to do, of course, is to fix it. In addition, though, I wanted to add tests to document these issues and maintain some peace of mind as I…

I have been immersed in Rails development for the last several months and I almost always recommend Rails as the best platform for raising a new website from scratch.  Recently, though, an opportunity came up to work on a .NET MVC 4 project. Great, I thought.  I get to switch back to my favorite language (C#) and still develop in an MVC framework.

Below, I will compare some major feature areas of both frameworks:…

On March 13th, 4:00am HST, registration for the Google I/O 2013 conference opened to the public. Barely coherent, at 3:45am I rolled out of bed, bumping each wall in my apartment hallway as I stumbled towards my Macbook. I checked to see if my Google+ and Google Wallet accounts were properly set up as…

Recently, I have come across this infographic floating around the web that I believe deserves more attention. You can see the full version here. It illustrates the labor pool shortage we are experiencing in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) related fields. Some key…

Many of us have either had the urge to write a book or spew some sort of long-winded excrement of words.  Maybe it's a story that's been bouncing around in your head, a piece of history you would like to document, or a coalescence of documentation/blog posts on a subject you are passionate about. Regardless of the reason they all require the same thing.  The ability to…

When I first learned javascript, I mainly used the jQuery library for small interactions (select something/do something) and adding very basic behavior to the websites I worked on. At the time, it was no big deal to just throw all of my simple jQuery methods and functions in a .js file…

It wasn't so long ago that functional programming seemed to be an arcane science. If you knew Haskell, Standard ML, or Common Lisp, you've either been programming for a very long time, involved in computer science research, or just had a lot of free time on your hands. However, functional programming has been making a comeback with…

Trying out Xamarin Studio 2.0 Starter Edition

Xamarin Studio is an IDE that allows developers to create iOS, Android and Mac apps using C#.  Recently Xamarin released Xamarin Studio 2.0 and along with a free Starter edition.  While the Starter edition is very limited it allows developers to see what Xamarin Studio is like and how writing Android apps using C# works.  I was hoping to create an iOS app, but it turns out a Mac is still required in order to write iOS apps even…

Gazing into the future is difficult.  It is fraught with error and generally limited by our finite experience and limited perspectives.  In spite of these obvious limitations, let’s play "what if" for a moment and pretend that we have a clue as to what might come to pass in future messaging systems.



Years ago I was at a conference in New York City.  I was gone…

Aloha TechHuians,

I'm sending the March newsletter a few days early to make you aware of a number of interesting upcoming events as well as imminent committee votes on key bills that affect the Hawaii tech community.



Events



Unconferenz

March 2 from 8am-4pm at Windward Community…

Facebook announced the launch of a new smart discovery engine that, for now, will focus on four areas: people, photos, places and interests.

It uses the power of your own network to give you highly personalized results for your search queries. Results will be ranked according to your friends and friends friends interactions.

Does this mean the end to Google, LinkedIn, Yelp, Foursquare and the rest?

I asked Robert Scoble if I could share…

Posted on behalf of HTDC