Visio Stencil and Template for UML 2.2

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Visio 2010 includes software and database diagrams out of the box with the Professional and Premium editions but if you’re using the standard edition, good luck.  Once again I’m a little late to the party on this but I wanted to share a collection of UML stencils and a template I ran across today.

I’m far from a UML expert but from what I can tell, this is a pretty complete package that includes tooltips, multiple connection points, and expandable compartments.

If this is something you’ve been looking for you can grab it from the link below.  The stencils and templates are available for Vision versions all the way back to 4.1.  Be sure to check out the tips and tricks page for descriptions of the more advanced features of this set.

Visio Stencil and Template for UML 2.2.

Cool Swag from Stack Overflow

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Stack Overflow Padfolio

This afternoon Esther called me at work to say that I’d received a package from some place called Stack Overflow.  Inside was a nice, branded padfolio, pen, and a few other things.  I was surprised about receiving this but the smart people over there anticipated my reaction and included a cover letter explaining it was a gift for having been an active Careers 2.0 user during my job search.

I was really impressed with the what the site offered.  I especially like how it goes beyond the traditional résumé by including sections for community involvement via avenues like blog posts and open source projects.  Being able to export the profile to PDF for easy submission to potential employers is a welcome feature too.  It was fun when I interviewed at Leaf and one of my interviewers recognized my résumé’s format as the one from the Careers 2.0.

My job search may be over but I’ll still be putting this to good use.  Thanks, Stack Overflow Careers team!

On a related note, I still have a few invitations for Careers 2.0 available.  If you’re interested and serious about using them drop me a note.

IndyNDA – Your Spark Razored my NHaml

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When Jay Harris told me at KalamazooX that he was going to be speaking at IndyNDA soon I got really excited. That’s why I’m upset that for the first time in nearly two years I can’t make it!  On the bright side, I’ll be hanging out with my wife in Las Vegas as we celebrate our 10 year anniversary.

This month Jay is going to discuss a few of the ASP.NET MVC view engines, namely Spark, Razor, and NHaml. Jay is a great speaker and an all around good guy so if you can make this event I highly recommend it.

This month’s meeting will be at:

Wiley Publishing
10475 Crosspoint Blvd
Indianapolis, IN 46256


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My Lumia Has Landed

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Anyone that knows me personally or has been following this blog for a while knows that I was an early adopter of Windows Phone.  When I first heard about the platform and saw how Microsoft was re-imagining the mobile phone experience I knew which OS my next phone was going to have.  I’ve taken some heat from some friends over my enthusiasm of the fledgling platform but nevertheless I went ahead and got a Samsung Focus the day it was released and haven’t looked back.

Nokia Lumia 900Here we are about a year and a half later and the game has changed.  The highly anticipated (at least among us Windows Phone enthusiasts) Nokia Lumia 900 has been released on AT&T.  Unlike previous Windows Phones though, AT&T seems to be giving this device the respect it deserves with a massive marketing campaign.

Some of the best phones I’ve ever owned have been made by Nokia and being the Windows Phone fanboy that I am, I had to get my hands on one.  Amazingly, I was eligible for an upgrade so I wasn’t going to have to wait very long.  I moseyed over to my favorite AT&T store where Jessica tried to hook me up but they were already SOLD OUT of the cyan model!  She placed an order one for me and a few days later it arrived at my door.  That was about three weeks ago.  So how is it?  How does it compare to the Focus?  Does it live up to the hype?

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Kalamazoo X in a Nutshell

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This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend my 3rd consecutive Kalamazoo X conference.  This event has gotten better every year thanks to the efforts of Mike, Mike, Matt, and Mark.  I’ve written about the conference recently so I won’t go into detail about what Kalamazoo X is.  Instead I’ll let a quote from the home page do the work for me:

The X Conference is the other half of your career; the half that makes you stand out.

Kalamazoo X has a rich history full of great speakers with interesting topics and this year was definitely no exception.  As with years past I took quite a few notes, the highlights of which I’d like to capture here and share for you to ponder.  As you read through them I think you’ll find some of the recurring themes begin to fall out naturally.

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String Distances

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One of my first projects at Leaf has been trying to match some data read from an OCR solution against what is in the database.  As sophisticated as OCR algorithms have become though it’s still not reliable enough to guarantee 100% accurate results every time due to the number of variations in type faces, artifacts introduced through scanning or faxing the document, or any number of other factors.

Most of the documents I’ve been working with have been pretty clean and I’ve been able to get an exact match automatically.  One of my samples though, has some security features that intentionally obfuscate some of the information I care about.  This naturally makes getting an exact match difficult.  Amazingly though, the OCR result was about 80% accurate so there was still some hope.

One of my coworkers suggested that I look at some of the string distance algorithms to see if any of them could help us get closer to an exact match.  He pointed me at the Levenshtein algorithm so I took a look at that along with the Hamming and Damerau-Levenshtein algorithms.

For the uninitiated (like myself a week ago), these algorithms provide a way to determine the distance between two strings.  The distance is essentially a measurement of string similarity. In other words, they calculate how many steps are required to transform one string into another.

I want to look briefly at each of these and show some examples. Note that each of these algorithms are case sensitive but modifying them to ignore case is trivial.

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Turning Over A New Leaf

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Today is my last day at Aprimo.  The past 6 1/2 years have been full of rewarding experiences.  During my time at Aprimo I’ve learned a lot, worked on some neat projects, and made some very close friends.  At the same time though, I’ve felt like I’ve been in a bit of a rut for some time and needed some change.  After serious consideration I decided that the time to make the change is now.

Next week (April 2) I’ll be starting as a Systems Engineer at Leaf Software Solutions in Carmel, Indiana.  I’m really excited about this opportunity and the new challenges and experiences it will bring.

I’d like to thank Aprimo for its part in shaping me into the person and programmer I am today and for preparing me for this next chapter of my life.  I wish everyone at Aprimo the best wherever life may take you.