For our new startup we  looking for a good database that we can store schema-less data of different entities. Last year I had started reading the book MongoDB: The Definitive Guide but I ended up with stop reading since it didn’t sound much interesting. However one year later with more solid knowledge of database systems, it sounded cool.

First of all I started reading Bret Taylor’s  article How FriendFeed uses MySQL to store schema-less data. What he does is to store entities as JSON objects in MySQL column and then manage indexes in separate tables to refer those JSON objects. Read More →

Do you also use computer sometimes 16 hours a day like me? :) If so, I bet most of you have a loss of eyesight that you haven’t noticed yet or already wearing prescription glasses. Just because computer screen is too bright that you don’t notice, sometimes you begin to lose your eyesight or begin to have sleeping difficulties. There is a free software designed just for you. During the night times, it makes your screen a little bit yellow and it will stop hurting your eyes. Read More →

RSS guys might not have noticed, recently I have changed appearance of my blog to a minimalistic theme. Theme is named Cleanr and I have changed it a lot and open-sourced the changes. Removed sidebar, all those Facebook, Twitter etc buttons, GitHub and Google Reader badges, much more readable (especially for long posts).

Hope you liked it.

Older crappy themes of my blog:  Read More →

The problem comes from the following story: You have an application that stores incoming data in a database. However someday you have noticed that your database schema is not quite well-designed or there was a problem with your computation all the time which you have just noticed. So how exactly you can migrate your existing data to your new database schema or calculate something with your fixed computation logic?

The answer is replaying the logs. What I would sug logic gest is, for every user action that affects your database, you should have a separate “log table” or “log file” which you can parse and replay very easily. It can help you to migrate our database or recover from serious application logic mistakes. I would call this an architectural pattern.

Let’s see how it may be helpful in a few cases: Read More →

I’ve been passionate to computers and Internet since when I was a child. Okay, this post will be about lots of cliche words. This year was a notable one in my life. I earned my first money from this “computer” thing, after starting coding for twelve years. (such a touching moment!) I met hundreds of good, brilliant and friendly people on the Internet. Almost all of my friends are from this developer, social media network around me. Read More →

Microsoft ABD’de hem staj hem de full-time başvuru, mülakat süreci ve iş fırsatları üzerine orada tanıştığım bir full-time çalışan arkadaşım olan Yenel ile Türkçe bir blog hazırladık. Umarım staja ve full-time’a başvurmak isteyenler için faydalı olur: msftturk.wordpress.com This is my blog post after **How is it like to work at Windows Azure?  **During my internship at Microsoft, I learned, enjoyed, experienced and met new people a lot. For tl;dr guys; I don’t want to advertise Microsoft but I will be talking about what’s good and bad about working for Microsoft.

Is Microsoft evil?

I don’t know. I was such a open source and free software fanboy but I’m only a lover now. If you have a similar mind, probably your perception is telling you Microsoft is a bad and such an old-fashioned copycat company; Google and Apple is so cool. Yes they’re cool, I agree, I’m an Android and MacBook user. I develop free software. However, the point is, this is just a “company”.

I was also missing this point when I came here. Companies hire people and try to make money, that simple! 90% of the time, rest of the discussions are because of fanaticism.

If you’re looking for a real answer, let me tell you a recent news. You remember that Linux 3.0 kernel has just released and top contributor of 3.0 is a Microsoft employee and Microsoft is ranked 5th active Linux kernel developer company, and there are lots of similar stories you can hear about Microsoft’s open source contribution. Read More →

Aşağıdaki metin Jared C. tarafından yazılmış bir blog yazısıdır. Bilgisayar Mühendisleri için Problem Çözme Yöntemi yazıma ek olarak bunu çevirme isteği duydum (aslında bu ikisi oldukça benzer yazılar), gerekli gördüğüm yerleri sadeleştirdim ve bir şeyler de ekledim, umarım faydalı olur. Eğer kodlamayı öğrenmek ve bir şeyler ortaya çıkarmak istiyorsanız ve başkasına ne yapmanız gerektiğini soruyorsanız zaten yanlış düşünüyorsunuz demektir. Hemen şimdi, hiçbir hazırlığa gerek duymadan, göz açıp kapayıncaya kadar bu sorunuza bir cevaba ihtiyacınız olmadığını fark ederek hedefinize büyükçe bir adımla yaklaşabilirsiniz. Çünkü her şeyi kendiniz yapabilirsiniz. İhtiyacınız olan her şey bir yerlerde sizi bekliyor. Gidin alın, kimse sizi durduramaz. Hazır mısınız?

Read More →

During my internship at Microsoft, I decided to create a Windows Phone 7 app in my spare times. The reasons I started this were to get familiar with C#, Silverlight and getting the idea behind Windows Phone 7 SDK, how it is designed and Microsoft’s approach to developing mobile apps from developers’ point of view. With this app I’m participating to #WPAppItUp contest organized by Windows Phone Team for students.

The ironic point is Windows Phone 7 is NOT being sold in Turkey. The first time I have seen WP7 is when I came to Microsoft, because as you may guess, considerable amount of MS employees use WP7. Sadly, a student has no chance to develop apps for WP7 except using the emulator. This is terrible and still many students participate to contests like Imagine Cup with WP7 apps.

So, my app is: Colorify

With Colorify you can choose or take pictures and then we make them black & white  for you and the you click on the screen to recolor specific parts of the image and then share it on your Facebook wall and Twitter. Similar apps exists on both Android and iPhone marketplaces, and that’s my first paid app, I’m selling it for $0.99 on Windows Phone Marketplace. There are a few screenshots below, you can find more on Marketplace page. Thanks to _Yenel _for mentoring during development of the app.

[Download Colorify from Windows Phone Marketplace]

Here’s a screencast of the app, thanks to Asli: Read More →