Amazon (again)

In recent months Amazon has become quite a controversial topic in Germany. It all started with an “undercover” documentation for one of our TV stations. I watched the docu online after everyone and their dog wrote about it and the first “Boycott!” outcries were made. I don’t know if what the docu claimed was actually…

My GetService Pattern

In .Net the Interface System.IServiceProvider is a simple and elegant method to query services from other objects without having – or even wanting – to know how the class structure behind it looks like. Is the interface at that class implemented or at another? No matter, you query IServiceProvider and you get an instance of…

My XmlSerializer Pattern

The idea behind the .NET System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer class is that you can easily serialize an XML file into a class tree and vice versa. If you’re using XML Schema files, the xsd.exe tool can create that class tree for you. But for simple applications you don’t even need a schema. You simply create a class that…

Poker Chips Spreader

My buddies and I are playing Texas Hold’em cash games every once in a while. As a start stack you get 5,000 in chips. Since it is a varying degree of players every evening (from 4 up to 8 so far) I wrote a little app that would determine what kind of chips the start…

Windows 8 – The Keyboard Shortcuts You Should Know

Windows 8 was written primarily for touch devices such as tablets and touch screen monitors. If you’re a classic mouse and keyboard user there will be some challenges. For example, did you know that if you want to close one of the new Metro apps, you have to push your mouse to the top of…

Grief: A Smallville Fan Fiction

Note: The general idea of this story is the aftermath of 6×21 Prototype combined with the Bones episode 6×22 The Hole in the Heart in which one of the recurring characters gets killed and the two lead characters deal with the loss. The story goes AU from there. Disclaimer:: I do not own Smallville. The…