My own personal networks aren’t comprehensive thinkup.jasonrowe.com but ThinkUp still comes in handy when I can’t find an old post from Twitter. It also gives you Klout like information on follower counts and interactions. A fun area to look at is the follower categories which are: Most Popular, Dead Beats, and Chatter Box.

Another feature is you can pull in data from Facebook pages you have liked. You don’t need to have access to the account to pull in the data since it is already public. For example, I started tracking the MarketWatch Facebook page. Now from the ThinkUp interface I can see what stories have the most social engagement.

Huh? Maybe Apple stock is going to get a little cheaper in the next couple of days. :)

Here is an example of one of the nice stats you can get from the ThinkUp web app.

MarketWatch Facebook Likes

With little effort you get a quick way to connect and pull in social network data. Adding more Facebook pages is as easy as liking the page and then clicking the ThinkUp button shown below.

Last week in the office I thought to my self, “Holiday weekend coming! I’ll have time to play with WP7 or maybe I’ll play with HTML5”. Then I saw this tweet on twitter.

We as developers spend too much time playing with baubles and shiny new tools and not enough time on core skills and fundamentals

I thought well, instead of using some free time this holiday weekend to build something why not do a little research. I happened to have a problem at work which someone suggested using the Visitor Pattern. So I spent some time looking over a few resources and Wikipedia has a great explanation. I won’t try to repeat that. One area I was stuck on though was the concept of double dispatch. I found this example on StackOverflow.com which solidified the concept. For some reason learning by spaceship and rebel alliance works for me.

So now that I had a good understand all I needed to was implement it right? I thought about it and figured that could wait. Now is an opportunity to work on my fundamentals. The Wikipedia article mentioned Common Lisp and how the Visitor Pattern simplified when using dynamic languages. This got me to thinking what would this look like in F# or a functional language?

While looking into functional languages I came across this Stack Overflow question “I am a C# developer, Should I start looking more on F# [closed]”.  Jon Skeet’s answer influenced me and I figured I would pick up a book Real World Functional Programming. It fits into the category of fundamentals because it’s using C# and F# to teach functional programming. Which I haven’t used in many years.

So I start reading with the goal in mind that I would make a quick example of the visitor pattern in F#. Don’t think I am a super geek (not that you would be confused because of my skills). I did take time to drink a few of these and go to the Crowded House concert this weekend. By the fourth chapter or so things started to sink in with F# and functional programming.

If I were using a declarative functional style of programming, I wouldn’t even need the visitor pattern at all!  I don’t have objects that would need to be separated from the algorithm. I would only have types and could use pattern matching and discriminated unions to perform my algorithm. The visitor pattern is needed in my current project because I’m using an implicit OO coding approach.

It was really shocking to me that this wasn’t obvious right away. I’ve been doing OO for so long now I’ve completely become accustomed to dealing with objects and state. A programming world without objects had completely slipped from my mind. Glad I took the time to get started on this book as it’s already giving me new ideas and techniques I can use in my daily C# and OO programming. Now to start working on some of the other programmer competencies.

The act of sending mail is also incredibly complicated because spammers have abused the infrastructure for a decade. There are a few immune responses that are still effective, such as DKIM and Reverse PTR records. SenderID is another method, also based on DNS records, but it’s less well regarded. If you’re going to send email and you want it to arrive, you need to implement all this stuff!.

I agree with this completely and would like to add some additional information about bounce handling. So after you get your Feedback loop setup with all the major ISPs, don’t blow it and ruin your reputation! Get some good bounce handling rules put in place.

The at sign, required character of the e-mail address.

Bounce Handling Rules
Your server will be put on a IP blacklist if you don’t handle bounces correctly. After you send a bunch of email the job is not done. The methodology I use for bounce handling was adopted from ISIPP’s white paper Bounce Handling Process, Email Delivery Rejection, and Receiving System Policies. I’ve been very happy with the results. Below is a brief summary, without getting into too much detail.

Hard bounce Handling Policy:

• Description: If a hard bounce, spam complaint, unsubscribe feedback, or user initiated block is received I consider the email address dead and remove it immediately from all mailing lists.
• Frequency: I check for these types to be immediately removed every 15 minutes.
• Example: A hard bounce is permanent, “user unknown” being one good example.

Soft Bounce Handling Policy:

• Description: Email address will be considered dead if the following criteria are met.
• At least three delivery rejections have occurred in the last 30 days,
• and user has had no successful deliveries in the last 15 days.
• In addition, the time between the most recent delivery rejection and the initial delivery rejection is greater than 15 days.
• Frequency: It’s acceptable to handle these types of bounces once per day
• Example: Most commonly, a soft bounce is a temporary condition, such as “mailbox full.

Other areas you need to understand before sending emails include unsubscribe compliance, Mime Type Specifications, and email headers.

static double F(double x)
{

return Math.Pow(x, 2.0) + 5 * x + 7;

}

OneV firstExp = x => Math.Pow(x, 2.0) + 5 * x + 7;

delegate double OneV(double x);

TwoV Exp = (x, y) => Math.Pow(y, 2.0) + 5 * y + 18 * x + 2 * x * y + 7;

The writing is outstanding and the mathematical explanations are detailed and focused. Anyone with a basic understanding of algebra and natural numbers should be able to follow this book.  Most of the math in the book can be visualized via the authors real world examples or given puzzles. When it can’t be quickly visualized the author goes into a mock dialog with you which is helpful.  

For example, when explaining “To convert C-numbers (C = cyphertext) back to their original P-counterpars (P = plaintext), multiply them by 21 modulo 26.   You: Did you say multiply? Surely there must be a division involved somewhere. And where does this magical number 21 come from?”

They go on to explain everything in a back and forth conversational “You Me” format. Very informative and easy to follow. I’m not giving it justice in my explination but I hope you get the point.

I thought this was a great book. Amazing for the math layman like myself.  Really got me excited about cryptography and the arithmetic involved. I think this might be a good read for parents who are worried about their children not getting enough math skills in school.  The book provides a way to teach people math in a non confrontational and interesting way.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if there will not be a sharp distinction between McCain and Obama, because they belong to the same special interest groups. And that is why you won’t get any real debate over the Federal Reserve system or the foreign policy or monetary policy. That will all continue. And that is why so many people in this country have come to the conclusion that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties. And I think you will see that, once this bill is passed, how the groups got together.