What's Happening at Tekpub

10 - Regular Expressions

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:48:14 +0000

In this episode Jon walks you through 3 scenarios where Regular Expressions can help - and also hurt. Simple string replacement and matching, as well as a more complicated example of log…

9 - String Manipulation

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:35:52 +0000

9 - String Manipulation:

In this episode Jon shows you how to manipulate strings using Substring, IndexOf and Split.

3 - How do I implement the Infinite Scroll UI pattern?

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:00:42 +0000

3 - How do I implement the Infinite Scroll UI pattern?:

In this episode Dave and I walk through implementing the infinite scroll pattern using the Twitter API.

6 - Building a Business App, Part 2

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 03:43:07 +0000

6 - Building a Business App, Part 2:

In this episode Christopher walks you through part 2 of creating a business-focused application with Silverlight - building out the Grid and Form bits he started in the last episode.

9 - Advanced Testing

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 00:56:42 +0000

9 - Advanced Testing:

In this episode Rob shows you the more high-level testing facilities in Rails 3, including Functional Tests, Integration Tests, how to make sure expected HTML is present in Views, and finally…

It's That Time of Year Again: Buy One, Give One Annuals from Tekpub

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:55:39 +0000

We just pushed our yearly seasonal treat for Tekpubbers - Buy one get one for annual memberships. It’s pretty simple:

You buy an Annual Subscription, you get a coupon for an Annual Subscription to give to whomever you like. Buy one. Give One.

Happy Holidays!

- Rob and James

PayPal No Longer Required for Monthly Subscriptions

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:08:21 +0000

James and I have been planning this migration for a while now - moving away from PayPal for monthly billing. I want to mention this straight up front, however:

If you’re a current monthly subscriber and want to stay with PayPal, that’s just fine. You don’t have to move, and we won’t make you move.

We’ve moved to using Braintree for every transaction we run - including handling the billings for our monthly subscribers.

If you have any questions - please let us know. This won’t impact current customers one bit - just new ones moving forward.

- Rob

Mastering Windows Phone 7 #2 - Hello World

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:56:17 +0000

Mastering Windows Phone 7 #2 - Hello World:

In this episode Chris and Rob walk you through creating a basic “Hello World” application, using Tekpub as the data source!

Mastering Windows Phone 7 #1 - Introduction

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:56:17 +0000

Mastering Windows Phone 7 #1 - Introduction:

In this short episode Chris and Rob walk you through what Windows Phone 7 is and some of the tools you’ll be working with. This is also our preview - but deserves a spot in the series to get your…

Introduction to Android Development #6 - Consuming a JSON API

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:56:17 +0000

Introduction to Android Development #6 - Consuming a JSON API:

In this episode Donn walks through consuming a JSON API from your Android application.

Mastering Silverlight 4.0 #5 - Building a Business App

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:57:02 +0100

Mastering Silverlight 4.0 #5 - Building a Business App:

In this episode Christopher walks shows you how to put your Silverlight skills to good use, building up a Business Application.

Rails 3 #5 - View Concepts

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:52:51 +0100

Rails 3 #5 - View Concepts:

In this episode Rob shows you the core concepts behind the View in Rails 3 including: Layouts, Partials, DRY, Helpers, script/css tag builders, and the HAML rendering engine.

Annual Subscription Billing Issue

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 20:33:00 +0100

Right up front: it appears I screwed up when setting up the annual subscriptions with PayPal. I had *thought* that I set the form up correctly - my goal was to absolutely be certain that the annual payment would not recur. When I tested it in PayPal’s sandbox, everything was correct: 1 month billing cycle, 12 billing cycles max, payment for 12 upfront.

That didn’t work with the live servers, apparently. They set up each of our annual subscribers for an annual billing cycle. Which means you pay us $200/yr for 12 years.

I take full blame for this - for a number of reasons:

I trusted PayPal
I didn’t verify the live subscription details
I promised you when you signed up that we wouldn’t do this

If you’re an annual subscriber you will receive a notification today that your payment has canceled. This is because I have gone through and manually turned off the auto-renew on each annual account.

Monthly subscriptions are unaffected, as are individual purchases. If you’re an annual subscriber that signed up over a year ago - please check and see if PayPal has billed you; if you didn’t intend on renewing - please let me know.

If you’re an existing Annual Subscriber, nothing has changed. I just turned off your auto-renew. You membership is still awesome.

I can’t apologize enough for this. If you’ve been rebilled - let me know. I’ll make it right.

Rob

Rails 3 #2 - Rack

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:30:25 +0100

Rails 3 #2 - Rack:

This is the “Introduction to Rack” production, repackaged and added to this series (in other words - if you’ve watched our Sinatra series, or if you’ve watched our Rack series - this is the same…

.NET Open Source #6 - Better SpecFlow with SpecFlowAssist by Darren Cauthon

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:05:07 +0100

.NET Open Source #6 - Better SpecFlow with SpecFlowAssist by Darren Cauthon:

In this episode Darren Cauthon shows off his SpecFlowAssist library.

Rails 3 #1 - Why You Should Care About Rails 3

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:42:43 +0100

Rails 3 #1 - Why You Should Care About Rails 3:

In this episode Rob introduces Rails 3 and discusses why you should care. In addition he sets up a Rails development environment with RVM and Git Flow.

.NET Open Source #5 - .NET Automation with Rake and Albacore by Liam McLennan

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:56:25 +0100

.NET Open Source #5 - .NET Automation with Rake and Albacore by Liam McLennan:

In this episode Liam McLennan gives you a quick introduction to using Rake, Albacore, and IronRuby to automate the .NET build process.

Ask the Expert: Dave Ward #2 - How do I handle the back button in jQuery?

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:32:24 +0100

Ask the Expert: Dave Ward #2 - How do I handle the back button in jQuery?:

In this episode Dave shows how to handle the back-button in jquery. We dive into working with browser history, permalinks, and the back button using a set of jQuery UI tabs and the jquery-bbq plugin.

Mastering ASP.NET 4.0 #5 - The Query Extender

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:01:25 +0100

Mastering ASP.NET 4.0 #5 - The Query Extender:

In this episode Craig digs into the Query Extender which gives you declarative control over database queries.

What's Happening! September Update...

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:07:01 +0100

It’s been a bit quiet of late on our end and I thought it would be a good idea to drop a note and let you know what we’re doing.

Currently I’m putting together the outline, and as of today, cutting the first episode of my new production for Tekpub: Mastering Rails 3. There’s a TON of new stuff here, and as always I’m going to focus on the pragmatic end of things: showing you what you need to know to get the job done.

As opposed to our other Rails series (BYOB:Rails) - this one is going to focus on concepts, in the same way our ASP.NET MVC 2 series focused on concepts rather than application building.

I’m also trying to push myself creatively - hopefully offering a bit more by the way of production value.

Expect the first episode to (hopefully) drop in the next 2 weeks.

We’re also doing a bit of a site redesign - taking all the feedback we’ve received over the last 6 months or so and revving to a new version. We have some good stuff on tap for our subscribers and streamers. No timeline on that just yet - but hopefully in the next month or so. That has been keeping me quite busy over the last few weeks.

I’ve been working with Ben Scheirman on the iPhone series and after revisiting our “final episode” - all 3 hours of it - we decided to add more hours to it and refocus it into its own production. We want to be sure to finish off the iPhone series before moving into something new - so look for that in the next week or so.

I’ll have more on the new iPhone production when we get firm on what it is we’re going to do :). I do think you’ll like it though.

James is still cranking away the jQuery stuff with Dave Ward, and a little monkey outside my window is telling me that he might have a few productions of his very own coming up soon.

Drops for Silverlight and Threading will be coming within the next week (plus or minus a day) - we can only push our authors so much and have to work around their schedules, which can at times get quite intense.

As always - if you have any questions, please ask!