Charles Miller has 6 rules for good unit testing. Click the link for an examplanation of each rule. If you don't know what unit testing is, shame on you (and google it). 

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Six Rules of Unit Testing
Charles' Six Rules of Unit Testing

• Write the test first
• Never write a test that succeeds the first time
• Start with the null case, or something that doesn't work
• Don't be afraid of doing something trivial to make the test work
• Loose coupling and testability go hand in hand
• Use mock objects

This tool is great at working out why your tiny .NET utility is using 80MB of memory! It lets you graphically see what objects have been allocated and quickly see where your memory leaks are.

Of course, the CLR should control this sort of thing, surely? Having to use this tool breaks any contract of trust a developer should have with the CLR. If you are having memory leak problems even after garbage collection then somewhere in your code you must have references to instances of objects that you have long forgotten about! Either that, or *anything* to do with unmanaged code (COM Interop, Win32)

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GotDotNet User Sample: Allocation Profiler
Allocation Profiler is a tool for visualizing and analyzing allocations on the GC heap. It presents the data from this log file in a variety of interesting and useful views. It can be used to verify program execution (e.g. ensure you've allocated only the objects you thought) and to detect possible memory leaks. Simply launch AP, point it at your EXE and click a button.

I've been getting up-to speed with BizTalk Server 2004, however the learning curve is quite steep. The examples Microsoft ships with the SDK are woefully undocumented making the talk of making your first "Hello, world" style project a real mission.

However, I found this article over at msdn blogs which really helps. Its got links to getting started guides, webcasts and tutorials. If you want to learn BizTalk then follow through the course outline and you'll come out the other end much wiser.

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BizTalk ChalkTalk : The QuickStart Guide to Learning BizTalk Server 2004
Are you getting started with BizTalk Server 2004? If so, this QuickStart guide is a great place to start! OK, so nothing is really "Quick" with BizTalk Server, but it has little to do with the product. Most of it has to do with the complex business problems that the product is trying to solve and all of the technologies that one must be familiar with. For instance, somebody that has some level of understanding of programming (XML, XSL, WSDL, .NET, C#, etc.), server technologies (Windows Server, IIS, SQL, WSS, etc.), and general Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) concepts will learn at a much faster rate than somebody who possesses less. However, that's not to say you can't!

The Cerebrate discusses an interesting alternative to the usual methods of blocking the spyware threat. He outlines the use of security policies to block spyware from executing, and stopping spyware before it infects you. Always a better option than than having to remove the spyware only after it has gotton a foothold.

Some interesting points are made regarding how 'good computing' can significantly reduce the threat of infection - that is, not running as local administrator while surfing the net!

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The Cerebrate's Contemplations : How To F*ck Spyware Right In The Ear...
To do this, we use a rather nifty little feature of Windows XP called "Software Restriction Policies". What they do is intercept calls to the operating system's loader when it's asked to run an application, check it against the rules defined in the policies, and only allow applications to run if they match the policies. Normally, they're used as yet another steel-shod baton of sysadmin tyranny, but their power can also be used for good.

Identity Cards

The UK Passport Service Biometrics Enrolment Trial report was published on 25 May. The trial gave more than 10,000 people across the country the opportunity to experience face, fingerprint and iris enrolment, sought their views on the experience, and surveyed their attitudes towards the use of biometrics.

The full report is available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/c­omrace/identitycards/. Some of the findings of this report suggest their are serious deficiencies with the proposed use of biometric data to support the system. Here is a summary: 

• Facial recognition - 31% of the population failed to verify against
  their own facial image, rising to 52% failure amongst disabled people.
  
• Iris recognition - 10% of the population could not even get their
  irises to record successfully, rising to 39% failure rate amongst
  disabled people. For those who did succeed in recording an iris image,
  4% failed to match when they were re-scanned.
  
• Fingerprint recognition - 19% of people in the trial did not match
  against their own fingerprint biometric. And in 12 cases the database
  found false matches against other peoples fingerprints and rejected the
  new fingerprints as fraudulent!
  

Scale these figures up to the entire UK population and it becomes apparent that millions of people will fail to record and/or match against their own biometric data. The figures look particularly foreboding for disabled users. It seems this program needs to be thought out in a lot more detail before the government strong hands the bill through parliament, however this is what they are currently doing. The national ID card scheme will cost the tax payer a massive amount of money - too much to go ahead without more guarantees the program will be successful. The failure of this will program will make over government IT disasters (Passport Office, Air Traffic Control, Child Support Agency, Criminal Records Bureau, etc, etc)  look like minor slip-ups.

Yes! Visual Studio 2005 has a decent way of creating managed Outlook Add-ins!! If only I had this stuff 12 months ago my life would be so much simpler. Still, at least the future looks bright for new Outlook projects I might undertake.

Microsoft has unveiled VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office). Follow the link below to find out all about it.

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Srinath Vasireddy - Online journal : Develop Managed Outlook Add-ins with VSTO 2005
After several weeks of hard work, at TechEd we announced our latest work – Yes, you can now easily develop managed outlook add-ins with VSTO 2005.