In the mean time some things that I have been working on lately:

• Been loving Jenkins as a CI tool for our ASP.Net e-commerce system at Amblique and it’s associated  plugins
  • Haven’t really gotten to the stage of uber customisation and it’s already proved incredibly invaluable
• Been preaching the ways of systematic, thorough, documented testing since I started at Amblique, with early results a-showing
  • Only a matter of time before we go full ball to automate our testing system, most likely using Sillenium
• On the subject of testing systems been playing with and appreciating jmeter as a performance/load testing system
  • Just don’t go tyring to run a full ball performance test using the java UI, or you will bring the testing machine to a grind and get some really dodgey numbers
    • instead use the command line version
    • make sure to only have one listener/reporter (maybe the agregate report)
    • and pass in parameters like thread count (user count) and thread loops (test iterations) using the -Jproperty_name=value arguments
  • Oh and don’t try and use it to performance test Ajax ui’s, JMeter uses an html-as-xml-dom inspection approach to extract and test for assertions, and so doesn’t actually remote a browser (i.e. no javascript ability).

Yep, I’ve changed roles again, and am incredibly excited to be working as the new Technical Director at Amblique.

Amblique do agency-type work, but work that is specifically focused on their custom built ASP.net ecommerce and content management system, so it should be a little bit less fast paced than Gruden was.

Needless to say, I will miss the great bunch of people over at Gruden, but I am definitely looking forward to putting my skills to use with a fantastic team that has immense potential and luxury of a little more focus that is afforded to a business with a specific product/market segment to target.

Link from boingboing.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/qld-floods/beforeafter.htm

1. Looking for a full time Senior Dev (any server technologies around .Net, Cold Fusion, or even Flex)
2. We’re also looking for a Sydney based Flex contractor to start on a short term contract ASAP. If you’re a flex contractor who knows Flex 3/4 MVC/MVP frameworks then we should probably talk.

Drop me an email or respond to this thread with a comment if you think you fit either role

I’m looking into a replacement as we speak, and right now it’s a toss up between an Acer TimelineX 4820T or a 13″ MacBook Pro. I’m basically going for rugged small form factor, large battery life, and great performance on power. At this stage the Acer is winning because it has a 1366×768 screen, but the aluminum body on the macbook pro is doing it’s best to sway my decision towards durability over screen real estate.

It was an interesting and exciting first week, and hopefully a good indicator of things to come. Not much else to say except it seems like I’ll be working with a bunch of great people on a bunch of great technologies in the online space. Pretty much my cup of tea.

Or perhaps the title should read “End of my era… at ninemsn“.

It’s been three and a half fruitful, action packed years, and I’ve had an absolute blast, but like all good things it has to come to an end. Tomorrow is my last day as a ninemsn‘er. I’m blessed to be leaving behind an incredibly talented commercial development team full of fantastic people with tremendous energy who will no doubt easily fill the void I leave behind in a matter of minutes. I’ll also be leaving behind some fantastic co-workers in a vibrant workplace that is just generally a nice place to be. You’ll all be missed.

I’ll be starting my new role as the Development Manager at Gruden in a couple of weeks, and am incredibly excited about the opportunities that that journey will present. The guys at Gruden are a fun and energetic bunch, and something tells me I’m going to fit right in there.

In the mean time, I’m probably going to spend a week at home doing absolutely nothing (well gardening anyhow). This will be the first actual break between jobs in almost 10 years, I think.

Goodbye ninemsn, it’s been a great ride.