Effective communication is harder than it should be in your workplace

There’s just something about communications that’s harder than it should be. Of all the skills we develop as leaders and professionals, communicating are one that we’ve been practicing since birth. And yet it often gets in our way, causes stress, and leaves us at a loss. I found extremely useful advices from Guy Farmer blog. We too frequently miscommunicate, obfuscate the point, cause an unintended reaction, or avoid a messy discussion altogether. More...

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An article by Slava Agafonov No Comments

Near Field Communication and Mobile Tagging

People’s phones are an essential part of their daily life, connecting them to their entire world of friends and information. Using recognition technologies to make virtually anything clickable lets you quickly take advantage of today’s phone-centric lifestyle and help you direct customers to the most relevant information about your brand. The Microsoft Tag marketing solution gives you and your customers the easy way to use a rich suite of recognition technologies, from QR Codes to the current Tag barcodes and beyond to the next generation in mobile, Near Field Communication (NFC). Depending on your choice, you can create a simple campaign delivering a line of text or a phone number, or go further and help people use your mobile site, see a video, download an app, get contact info, and much more. You don't have to worry about them typing in your URL or finding you online – using Tag instantly puts the relevant info at their fingertips. More...

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Success in today’s IT environment

Success in today’s IT environment requires you to view your career as a business endeavor. I have been working as a Software Developer in different companies for over 5,5 years and Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) at Microsoft more than 8 months. I have learned a lot with the Microsoft and I am getting more comfortable with process, job and more confident with abilities in new projects every day. I like writing code and spend a good chunk of my time writing automated tests in fast changing environment on new technologies. Also I like to develop tools to help with work and to help the rest of my teams to create high quality software. I also love analyzing problems and coming up with brand new solutions, but most important that I am trying to ensure that investing time and energy in the right areas. More...

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An article by Slava Agafonov 1 Comment

Problem solving - the Right Stuff

Problem-solving is not a science, but part art and part skill. I read this phrase and list of common practices for algorithm design in S.S. Skiena, The Algorithm Design Manual book. Skiena explains that this is one of the skills most worth developing. I've read other data-structures and algorithms books, and I've never found one like this one. Algorithm Design Manual - is very deep book and it is easy to understand More...

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New features in Windows 8

Windows 8 is the next version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, servers and media center PCs. “Building Windows 8” official blog is starting to drop out a bunch of information about the next version of Windows including.

Windows 8 brings together all the power and flexibility you have in your PC today with the ability to immerse yourself in a Metro style experience. You don’t have to compromise! You carry one device that does everything you want and need.  You can connect that device to peripherals you want to use. You can use devices designed to dock to large screen displays and other peripherals.  You can use convertible devices that can be both immersive tablets and flexible laptops. More...

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Top 100 ways to motivate yourself

The lack of motivation can to a cancer that can build apathy, pessimism, cynicism, and can stifle energy stunting a company's growth and just like cancer if not treated can destroy the organization. Managers have the reasonability to examine every single individual and also the places they need to have improvement, apply motivational theories in their behavior modification plan. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. — Charles Mingus. More...

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ILSpy versus .NET Reflector

ILSpy - open source.NET assembly browser, decompiler and software utility for Microsoft .NET combining class browsing, static analysis and decompilation. Tool for code internal assemblies code analyze or reflector tool for our applications to improve the performance or to know the internals of the assembly we have created. I was using Red Gate .NET Reflector earlier for same as it was free and with frequent updates. Now Red Gate has made that tool paid (about 35$) version so I found alternative tools from that I can see IL and C# code easily for free. Why we need to pay money if we can develop open source product like ILSpy? That decompiler tool almost giving same functionalities like .NET Reflector. More...

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An article by Slava Agafonov 4 Comments

Yasiv is Yet Another Similar Items Visualization

At this article I am going to present yasiv. What is Yasiv? No, Yasiv is not populated place in Afghanistan :) This is a beautiful assistant in books search, a web site developed by Andrei Kashcha (aka Anvaka). Yasiv visualizes a relation network of books on Amazon, from the statistics data "customers who bought this item also bought", by digging related books again and again. You also can faster see description and google book preview,  if it is available for this book. More...

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An article by Slava Agafonov 1 Comment

.NET Gadgeteer platform and Micro Framework

.NET Micro Framework is an open source platform that expands the power and versatility of .NET to the world of small embedded applications. Desktop programmers can harness their existing .NET knowledge base to bring complex embedded concepts to market on time (and under budget). Embedded Developers can tap into the massive productivity gains that have been seen on the Desktop. Microsoft has announced the official launch of Gadgeteer, a set of electronic parts designed to be plugged together to build prototypes or working electronic devices. Remote controlled cars and cameras are given as possible examples. More...

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Manifesto for Agile Software Development

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