This article is going to be the first in a three-part software engineering best practices series on code reviews. Here, we will focus on what a code review is and why it’s an integral part of a mature software development lifecycle (SDLC) process. In the following...
Software Development & Release Management
OSS, Heartbleed, and the Impact on Medical Device Design
The use of open source software (OSS) within the medical device industry is a double edged sword. On one end of the spectrum, you have freely available code that is available for the world to scrutinize. In the process, one would hope that bugs are more easily...
How-to Run Android 4.4 (KitKat) using VMWare Player
Did you see our guide for running Android 4.0 in VMWare from two years ago? We've updated the instructions, below, to help you get the newest version of Android running to use as a product development tool. Download and setup VMWare Player 6 (note that you will need...
MKSSI Environment Variable – an Integrity PLM Software Primer
I'm not a programmer by trade, so I've had to force feed myself a lot of knowledge – some of it makes sense, some of it is beyond me. I've written this post to serve as an Integrity PLM Software Primer for the MKSSI Environment Variable. I hope you find it useful!...
4 Hardware Recommendations when Using VMs as a Product Development Tool
These days, there is no practical obstacle to using machine virtualization to solve computing problems without the need of acquiring additional hardware. In fact, virtual machines are a compelling product development tool. There are a variety of virtualization tools...
Exploring Java 8’s New Feature: Lambda Expressions
Recently, Oracle announced the release of Java 8. This latest edition has some interesting new features, most notably the inclusion of lambda expressions and the ability to do multiple inheritance through default methods. We’ll spend the bulk of this article exploring...
WinDirStat and Windows File Management
This week we want to cover a utility that allows users to manage the buildup of files that eat up space on your storage device. We are speaking about WinDirStat, which is a tool that presents a graphical view of your entire storage drive (or from a folder level)....
Trigger UAC to Ensure Scripts are run As Administrator in Windows 7
I wanted to post this solution since we run into this problem all the time: Often, our .bat scripts include making registry changes or copying files which require Administrative access. This code will cause the .bat file to trigger a UAC prompt before running...
Unix 101: Utilize the “Screen” Command
In my previous post, I highlighted 5 great commands to improve administering your Unix machines within your infrastructure. The very first command I mentioned was screen, which allows you to run multiple pseudo-terminal "windows" within one shell session. Screen also...
Executives, Can you Afford to Stay on a Windows PC?
As the CEO of a technology services company, my personal computing necessities are actually quite simple. I've got to have easy, reliable access to the Internet, the basic Microsoft suite of tools, and I need synchronized email with Gmail, my computer and my mobile...
How To Leverage Jira as a Service Desk
Many of you are undoubtedly familiar with using Jira as an issue tracker. But for those of you who have been juggling issue tracking and meeting SLA requirements -- and for those of you who had the recently acquired VertygoSLA addon -- this article may be useful...
Installing Java 7 JDK, Eclipse 4.3 (Kepler) and the Eclipse GWT Plugin on Ubuntu 12.04.3
As a provider of engineering services, the majority of my projects involve developing GWT applications, and I do all my work almost exclusively in Ubuntu. Ubuntu 12.04, specifically, has many convenient features and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to get their...