Finished my presentation on “What’s new with .NET Framework 4.0″ last Saturday at CTU 2009v2. I hope everyone enjoyed the talk. Here are the slides and demo available for you.

CTU2009v2 – What’s new with NET Framework 4.zip

We had an awesome Christmas party last Friday, and we’d like to thank everyone for coming and we hope you enjoyed yourself. This week’s is a little slow because of Christmas and the New Year, but I’m sure we’ll be back with more events in January.

Just a quick reminder to everyone. If you want to host any community meetup which is open to public at HackerspaceSG, send an email to events A-T hackerspace D-T sg. We’re happy to have you at our humble house. So without further ado, here are the events for the week.

Hackerspace Hack Time
Mon, Dec 21 6:00 pm Tue, Dec 22 12:00 am

Our regular scheduled reserved time for our members to get anything done is back on Monday again. We currently have the following projects being worked on – Security Access System, Sucktionator, Water Rocket, Stop Motion Animation, and many other miscellaneous projects currently worked on by our members. So come join in and hack on any of your projects!

CodeAndroid Christmas Party / Hackfest
Sat, Dec 26 1:00 pm Sat, Dec 26 5:00 pm

Another Christmas Party?!? Yes, that’s right. But this time we’re not the host. CodeAndroid is having a chill out session at HackerspaceSG with no agenda except to talk, discuss, and have some fun. RSVP here if you’re interested.

Phew, I’m exhausted. Getting all these episodes out within such a short period of time. Well, never fear we have this other episode out with an interesting twist of a buzzer-like to switch topics. I wonder if this is the kind of format people will like. Anyway, it’s out and there’s still 1 more episode left which will be our Christmas special, before we end the year off with another interested DigressCast. Continue to listen to us and look out for our regular episodes again.

DigressCast Episode 8: Moving Along Swiftly To The Next Topic Because This Topic Has Expired…

For those who hear me talk about multi-touch and how we need to rethink new ways away from traditionally what we know as a screen and interacting using a single point, 10/GUI is a concept I felt focuses on what works and fully leverages on it, what doesn’t and provides a solution for it. Generally, on the hardware side of things, a touchpad is the way to go for multi-touch surfaces instead of a multi-touch screen. But what I’ve always been complaining about is that our current way of dealing with User Interfaces has been so centric around a single point touch that we’re trying to refit new multi-touch capabilities and concepts into an old single point touch interface, which I think is ridiculous. 10/GUI conceptualizes and makes multi-touch native to manipulating the User Interface. Yet, I felt we can do more in terms of User Interface concepts and just let our whole single point centric preconceptions be forgotten. For once, let us rethink everything from icons to menus to buttons and try to break away from the whole single point dictatorship and free ourselves into a multi-touch paradigm of interacting with our computer. What do you think of 10/GUI?

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Finally! I’m done with Episode 7! Sorry for the almost 2 months delay of DigressCast but there will be more episodes quickly released more often from now onwards. Anyway, we have our first listener of DigressCast joining us for this episode. We’re actually trying this new format for DigressCast to be a little more serious with a touch of funny. Let us know what you think of this format.

DigressCast Episode 7: The Semi-serious Tech Discussion

Well, this is part 3 already. I hope you’ve enjoyed and appreciated the last 2 part and understand my pain. Well, here’s something that doesn’t seem all too convoluted, but could have been achieved with just 1 line of code. By the way, just for those who don’t know, there isn’t really anything syntactically wrong with any of these code.

for (int i = 0; i < 24; i++)
{
    string strIndex;
    if (i < 10)
    {
        strIndex = "0" + i.ToString();
    }
    else
    {
        strIndex = i.ToString();
    }
    // ... do more stuff with strIndex
}

It’s slightly tougher to understand why this is bad code for those inexperienced. For those you understand why you should not write this code, good for you! You’ve got some developer sense in you. Till the next part, I hope you enjoy this code. Learn not to write like that, please.

Disclaimer: What I write in this post does not represent my company, the community, Microsoft, or its employees. These are my independent thoughts of the current state of the Microsoft community in Singapore ONLY based on my own observations.

Where do I even start? How about last week when I was speaking at the recent event at Microsoft? I observed the following:

1. The entire event was handled by an events company.
2. The host, a Microsoft employee, only appeared for 2 minutes to introduce me and did not return again.
3. Evaluation forms and ratings were expressively indicated to be more important to Microsoft than actual interaction and getting direct feedback.
4. The host even got the summary of my topic wrong.
5. There was originally supposed to be a Wine and Discussion session after my presentation, but since nobody knew about it.
6. The audience were quiet, unresponsive, but were very forthcoming for one-on-one questions.

Based on my observations, my conclusions are that Microsoft is not doing a good job at engaging the Microsoft community at large. Thus, corroding the entire community infrastructure to a bunch of zombie people just receiving content and being told what they should do, rather than passionate individuals with their souls and fire ignited to speak out and contribute to the discussions.

A lot of you might say that the developer community in Singapore are so jaded by the problems that they just lost all of that fire. Let me give a huge rebuttal that I’m one of the co-founders of HackerspaceSG and I do not see that at all. We have GeekCamp, UnConference, BarCamp, and various other user groups out there with many developers that are so passionate about what they do, what they want to share, the pains and difficulties, and even the pleasures of developing on a certain platform and technology. So don’t give me that crap about developers are jaded. Not all are.

So what is missing at Microsoft then? What is Microsoft doing that is wrong? Let me break it into various points.

No familiar face during community events

Where are the Microsoft employees? Are the developer evangelists supposed to be attending all these events and care for the community? Why are they always stuck at meetings after meetings? Come on, it is your job to grow the community, care for it, and show that you’re the person in charge for their needs.

Host not appearing at your own event

I don’t know, but doesn’t this sound like bad PR and marketing to me? Even appearing for just 2 minutes is NOT ENOUGH. I really have nothing else to say about this except good luck if you think you can continue doing this.

About your bonus, not the community

So here’s the problem I think is prominent with Microsoft Singapore. Everyone employed to cater for the community (aka developer evangelists) are troubled by Key Performance Indicators (KPI). This determines their performance in the company, thus affects their bonus or salary or re-contract. That’s why if you attend ANY Microsoft event, they always emphasize on filling up the feedback form and getting their metrics and numbers.

HELLO!! I agree you need that, but don’t you think that the basic requirements of a community like discussions and interactions is higher priority than feedback? You’re being paid to look after the community, NOT YOUR BONUS. Once you bring into focus the correct target, which is the community, everything will follow through.

Where’s the passion, Microsoft?

I always believe that there needs to be a catalyst in community building. Someone needs to be able to bring out that passion from each individual and keep the flame burning. If you’re a developer evangelist, I expect you to be the one since you’re being paid to do so. You just need a few people with the energy and passion to create the culture and vibe across the community and you’ll start to see individuals speak out. Where are these individuals? I know of only one, Dennis Chung.

Making use of Microsoft MVPs

I keep telling everyone this, that Microsoft MVPs are not Microsoft employees. To you Microsoft employees, we are not your BITCHES. The reason why we’re awarded as MVPs is NOT because we grovel and lick your feet, wag our tails at your every achievement, it is because we are an independent voice that is NOT Microsoft, providing an objective view to what is good and bad about Microsoft technologies, and providing alternative solutions to problems with Microsoft technologies. Despite all the failures and flaws, we care enough to want Microsoft to improve and create better products and technologies. If you think we’re just there to “evangelise” and you want to force us not to say anything bad about your technologies, THINK AGAIN. We’re not your BITCHES. You can very well threaten to take away my MVP award for all I care. I will still continue doing what I’m passionate about, which is to share my objective view towards what’s great and problems with Microsoft technologies. If you think you can make use of MVPs and treat them like that, I’m sorry but this is very degrading of what the entire MVP program is about.

One way transfer of knowledge

I realise that Microsoft Singapore’s events are so caught up in trying to get people excited about cool technologies, and their newest and greatest innovations that they forget about the 2 way knowledge transfer called discussions. Many developers out there still use the older technologies by Microsoft and they want to talk about their problems. Or maybe their cool solutions and workarounds. To grow a community, you need community engagement. IMHO, Microsoft Singapore has gotten the meaning of “engagement” wrong. Engagement is a 2 way flow of discussion where you need to encourage the community to voice out their displeasure with certain technologies, or talk about their experience with Microsoft technologies. It is much more convincing to get the community to talk about it, rather than Microsoft evangelists.

Your events are so passe

Hey, do you know the difference between barcamp, geekcamp, unconference, versus Microsoft Singapore’s own event? The biggest difference is user-created content. The people actually using the technologies come out to talk about it, express their feelings. I attend all these non-Microsoft events and I see a huge difference in the vibrancy of the community I am sad by the fact that Microsoft Singapore themselves are just killing themselves with their old thinking and KPI driven techniques. My advice to you? Rebuild the community again and show your social passion. Encourage community content rather than you providing the content.

Different Developers

Oh I’m sorry, but you concentrate on different types of developers? Yes I agree that there are different types, but neglecting any of them for a long period of time is really your loss. I stress again, developers are developers. You neglect some, you neglect all. Rethink your strategy, and not base everything on your KPI.

The current state of the Microsoft developer community?

I call them zombies. Jaded by the fact that they don’t have the power to influence or make a change at all. All these built into them by the consistent marketing propaganda that is being stuffed into them by Microsoft. Imagine taking away the voice of someone, forcing that person to listen to music he hates without the ability to voice out “STOP IT PLEASE!” Well, that’s exactly what I see the Microsoft developer community to be right now, and I’m very sadden by this fact. I look at other non-Microsoft developer communities congregating at HackerspaceSG and other places, and I continuously ask myself, why isn’t Microsoft doing what these other communities are doing with little or no money at all? Then I come back to reality that it isn’t about community, it is about numbers.

I know I’m going to get very screwed by a lot of people from Microsoft Singapore, but I feel they need a wake up call and realise the current state of the community. I care enough to voice out to the Microsoft community that you need to stand up again and be passionate! I was there back in 2004 when I co-founded SgDotNet and I saw the passion. I was there again in 2006 when Chewy Chong took over as Developer Evangelist and I saw the passion. Now that I’m back again in 2009, I see a dying community.

Where are you now?

Sorry guys, but this is a super last minute event from HackerspaceSG which we just got word from Johannes Grenzfurthner yesterday of his intention to rant with us about his experience with context hacking.

For those who are unfamiliar with the rant: it is a tradition of performance art which was developed in Europe in the 19th century and successfully ported to the Internet in the early-to-mid 1990s. It is now being introduced to Asia by aesthetic pioneers like Johannes Grenzfurthner.

In recognition of Singapore’s leading position as the financial and cultural capital of Asia, and of Hackerspace.SG as the leading hackerspace in Singapore, he has chosen Hackerspace.SG as the venue for his first Singapore performance of this artwork.

We invite all members of Hackerspace.SG and the related community to attend this rant.

There is no fee, though we wish to thank in advance all the wonderful people who consume beer, wine, or soft drinks, for their cash donations into the little glass that says “your donations are welcome.”

For the purposes of licensing under Chapter 257 Section 319, this is an exempt entertainment as defined by the Public Entertainments and Meetings (Specified Arts Entertainment) (Exemption) Order 2005.

Details follow.

monochrom and the East: Some stories about Context Hacking and Asia
A tour-de-farce by Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom

monochrom is a worldwide operating collective dealing with technology, art and philosophy and was founded in 1993. So to sum up, monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, political activism and technological disaster.

Johannes wants to tell us stories about monochrom’s “context hacking” projects that specifically deal with our focus on contemporary Asian topics.

The term context hacking—like its mimetic sibling “communication guerrilla”—refers to unconventional forms of communication and/or intervention in more conventional processes of communication. Context hacking is a specific style of political action that observes and makes visible the paradoxes and absurdities of power. Context hacking uses absurdities as the starting point for interventions by playing with representations and identities, with alienation and over-identification.

I thought I’ll post this in case anyone else encounters this problem. The purpose of the method is to get back a set of ClientContacts filtering based on the ClientID and select only those active if the onlyActive parameter is true, else ignore the IsActive filter and return all the records.

Here’s my LINQ query with a simple if-else shortcut within it:

public IQueryable<ClientContact> GetClientContactByClient(int clientID, bool onlyActive)
{
    return from clientContact in this.db.ClientContacts
             where clientContact.Client_AutoID == clientID &&
                      onlyActive ? clientContact.IsActive : true
             select clientContact;
}

Notice line 5? Here’s where I got this code wrong. The above code generates the following SQL statement:

SELECT *
FROM [dbo].[ClientContacts] AS [t0]
WHERE (
    (CASE
        WHEN [t0].[Client_AutoID] = @p0 THEN CONVERT(Int,[t0].[IsActive])
        ELSE @p1
     END)) = 1

If you actually work it out, this SQL statement will always return all records.

Here’s the change I made on the code to fix it.

public IQueryable<ClientContact> GetClientContactByClient(int clientID, bool onlyActive)
{
    return from clientContact in this.db.ClientContacts
             where clientContact.Client_AutoID == clientID &&
                      (onlyActive ? clientContact.IsActive : true)
             select clientContact;
}

Notice the brackets I added? This resulted in the generation of the following SQL statement:

SELECT *
FROM [dbo].[ClientContacts] AS [t0]
WHERE ([t0].[Client_AutoID] = @p0) AND ((
    (CASE
        WHEN @p1 = 1 THEN CONVERT(Int,[t0].[IsActive])
        ELSE @p2
     END)) = 1)

Again, if you work it out, this is the correct SQL statement to achieve what I want. I didn’t know a set of brackets make such a huge difference in the SQL code generation. Do take note of this when you’re finding out why your LINQ query doesn’t work as you might have thought.

We had a great time over the weekend at Neoteny Singapore Camp 1 and everyone was very excited about HackerspaceSG. Apparently everyone who attended NSC1 are all hackers themselves and don’t want to leave our HackerspaceSG. So here are the events of this week.

Make cool things with Mitch Altman
Mon, Dec 14 6:00 pm to Late

Wow! Did I mention people don’t want to leave HackerspaceSG? Well, you shouldn’t! Because one of the founders of Noisebridge, Mitch Altman, is in the house! Yes, you heard me. He’ll be teaching us how to make awesomely cool things with micro-controllers! YES! If you’re one of those interested, you’ll be learning from the man himself. Come! Join us for this experience of a lifetime. There will be kits available for purchase on the spot. They are all priced in SGD.

LED Cubes, TV-B-Gone,Brain Machines, Drawdio, Mini POVs  ( $30 each )
Trippy RGB lights ( $15 )
Boarduino – $30
AVR Programming Boards – $30

Check out http://www.ladyada.net/make or http://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_mfaire.php if you’re unsure what the above are. But I’m sure you already know where to look for information.

Pivotal Labs Seminar on Next-Generation Software Engineering with Ruby and other languages
Mon, Dec 14 7:30 pm Mon, Dec 14 11:00 pm

If you’re not interested with micro-controllers and robots, you might be interested in some software engineering. We have Pivotal Labs, software ninja SWAT team of the Internet, joining us to share their valuable knowledge with us. They are the guys who saved Twitter. Yes, that’s right, the famous Twitter that everyone uses. They are in town for NSC1 and would like to meet the local community of developers to talk about software engineering best practices, agile development methodologies, and scaling Ruby. If you think of yourself as the Tiger Woods (sans drama) of software development, or would like to one day be one of the best, join us. If you think of yourself as a CMM Level 0 up-all-night rebel superhero, this session may inspire you to realize your potential through discipline … kind of like a self-taught street punk going to train under kung fu masters at Shao Lin. Just join us! No registration required.

Hackerspace Hack Time
Tue, Dec 15 6:00 pm Wed, Dec 15 12:00 am

We’ve moved our Hack Time from Monday to Tuesday this week simply because we have too many awesome people in our home who are excited to share and discuss with us. So after learning all that cool robotic micro-controller mayhem, together with your ninja software engineering skills, why don’t cool off by working on your own projects? We have reserved this day just for you.

Hackerspace.SG Christmas Party
Fri, Dec 18 7:00 pm Fri, Dec 18 11:30 pm

Jingle bells, jingle bells. Yes, we’ve survived our first month of HackerspaceSG without a celebration of our very own Christmas Party. If you have always been thinking of popping by HackerspaceSG to see the space itself, this party will be a great time to do so. You don’t really have to RSVP, but sometimes it is always good to know who might be coming. Post your suggestions on how we can do this. I hope to do a PotLuck Style with people bringing food, together with some basic catered food. Plus our usual drinks, beer, wine and alcohol in the house. As usual, we hope you can contribute to our pot of donations. I’ll see all of you there at the party!

Hacking Sexual Morality Through The Ages
Sat, Dec 19 19:30 Sat, Dec 19 22:30

If our own Christmas party hasn’t gotten you worn out yet, you can join us again next evening for a meeting on sexual morality.

So we all know that Religions tell their faithful: No fornication, no adultery, no anal sex, no oral sex, no homosexuality, no pants, no short skirts, etc. Secular humanists however have no prescribed text to follow, no holy men to guide us in the finer points of dating and sex. Does this imply a no holds barred approach? How should Humanists navigate the minefields of love and lust? How should Humanists manage relationships with people of faith?