CMake, cross-platform make

Welcome to CMake, the cross-platform, open-source build system. CMake is a family of tools designed to build, test and package software. CMake is used to control the software compilation process using simple platform and compiler independent configuration files. CMake generates native makefiles and workspaces that can be used in the compiler environment of your choice. CMake is quite sophisticated: it is possible to support complex environments requiring system introspection, pre-processor generation, code generation and template instantiation. In addition to controling the build process, CMake includes CTest for testing and CPack for packaging. Please go here to learn more about CMake.
CMake was developed by Kitware as part of the NLM Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit project. The ASCI VIEWS project also provided support in the context of their parallel computation environment.

http://www.cmake.org/HTML/index.html

15 Tools to Help You Develop Faster Web Pages

Response times, availability, and stability are vital factors to bear in mind when creating and maintaining a web application. If you’re concerned about your web pages’ speed or want to make sure you’re in tip-top shape before starting or launching a project, here’s a few useful, free tools to help you create and sustain high-performance web applications.

I’ve tried to include a wide variety of tools that are easy to use, and have tried to keep them as OS and technology-independent as possible so that everyone can find a tool or two.
http://sixrevisions.com/tools/faster_web_page/

Debugging Windows Error Reporting

If you’re a software developer, chances are that you have written an application, and this application has crashed. When this happened, it probably put up a dialog that looks something like this:



How do you figure out what went wrong?

Strategy #1: Extract the minidump from Windows Error Reporting
Windows Error reporting has already created a minidump of the crash. So one way to find out what went wrong is just to look at the minidump. This works really well if your application is written in native code and there is no debugger on the machine where the crash occurs. You can use it for managed code too, but you will need to use sos.dll to analyze the dump (see MSDN). Open a command prompt (Start->Run, cmd.exe), and switch to your temp directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\greggm>cd /d %tmp%


Look for the dump file that Windows Error Reporting produced. It will have a '.dmp' or '.mdmp' extension and the date should be shortly after the crash happened:


C:\DOCUME~1\greggm\LOCALS~1\Temp>dir *.*dmp
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 70E3-6676

Directory of C:\DOCUME~1\greggm\LOCALS~1\Temp

05/24/2007 08:54 AM 109,570 4A88835.dmp
1 File(s) 109,570 bytes
0 Dir(s) 25,379,823,616 bytes free

Mark the file as read-only. This will prevent Windows Error Reporting from deleting the file after you dismiss the dialog:

C:\DOCUME~1\greggm\LOCALS~1\Temp>attrib +r 4A88835.dmp

Now dismiss windows error reporting and copy the dump file wherever you want. You can analyze the dump in Visual Studio by opening the dump file as a project (File->Open Project), and start debugging (F5).



Strategy #2: Access the dump from Online Crash Analysis
Microsoft has a program to allow ISVs to access the crashes in their applications that have been submitted by users. If the person experiencing the crash is a customer, this is a great way to find out what happened. See the winqual site for more information.



Strategy #3: Debug the crash through Just-In-Time Debugging
Probably everyone already knows about this, so I won’t spend much time discussing it. However, as long as the application is crashing on a computer that has a debugger installed, this is the easiest option. The only thing tricky that I will mention is that in Windows Vista, depending on your computers Windows Error Reporting settings, you might actually need to click the 'Send information' button before Windows Vista will present you with a second dialog that allows you to debug.

Watir - Automated testing that doesn’t hurt

Watir is a simple open-source library for automating web browsers. It allows you to write tests that are easy to read and easy to maintain. It is optimized for simplicity and flexibility.

Watir drives browsers the same way people do. It clicks links, fills in forms, presses buttons. Watir also checks results, such as whether expected text appears on the page.

Watir is a Ruby library that works with Internet Explorer on Windows. Watir is currently being ported to support Firefox and Safari.

Like other programming languages, Ruby gives you the power to connect to databases, read data files, export XML and structure your code into reusable libraries. Unlike other programing languages, Ruby is concise and often a joy to read.

Watir stands for “Web Application Testing in Ruby”. It is pronounced water.

http://wtr.rubyforge.org/

The 100 top Web apps for 2008

These are the 100 best Web 2.0 applications, chosen by Webware readers and Internet users across the globe. Over 1.9 million votes were cast to select these Webware 100 winners: http://www.webware.com/html/ww/100/2008/winners.html