Keyvan Nayyeri

In the past 3.5 years of blogging, I haven’t had such best pick up collections in the end of the year, but now that everybody is writing one, why shouldn’t I write my own?!

Collecting this list, I could realize some interesting facts that completely changed my mind about my own blogging quality in 2008! First I thought that I haven’t had such a productive year on this blog because the number of posts was lower than the past years, but I realized that the quality has been great, and this is the more important point. Likewise, I had suspected that I haven’t had many programming posts this year, and I also saw a completely different result after this quick review of all my posts in 2008! Sometimes you evaluate things with your shorter term memory, so don’t notice such points in your environment or your works!

However, here is a list of 25 top posts that I could collect. There is not a single parameter in my evaluation such as the number of views, comments, or external references. I used a combination of several parameters including my own impression on the post to choose them. Sometimes composers like a piece that audience don’t!

I also chose a collection of different post types such as announcements, programming concepts, programming tips,  software development topics, and mathematical discussions. I think that this blog has served as a multi-category blog, and I never focused on a single category which was one of the major goals of the blog since the beginning.

• Subkismet 1.0 Released: I began 2008 with the final release of Subkismet 1.0, an anti-spam framework for the .NET developers to apply modern techniques to keep their applications secure and spam-safe. I worked on this project with Phil Haack mostly before he joins Microsoft and we miss his great efforts on the open source community.
• Introducing Graffiti Extras: I also had another announcement in January 2008 about an open source project to complement Telligent Graffiti CMS features. Graffiti Extras has been the most notable and effective  set of adjunct features for Graffiti.
• How to Serialize a MailMessage: In the late February I inspired a storage technique from Community Server that I liked it myself. In this technique I serialized a MailMessage object to store it in a single column in databases, and to be able to extent it, and store all the fields in a very easy way.
• Professional Visual Studio Extensibility - Finally Released: My second book was distributed to the markets in March, and had an excellent sales rank. I had written this book in the main part of my military service and it was a sweet outcome of my arduous days. I love this book because it proves my persistence and diligent nature.
• How to Calculate Network Utilization in .NET: With a sweet mathematical analysis, I talked about the techniques to calculate the network usage utilization using performance counters in the .NET Framework. I think that my readers don’t agree with me on its coolness because it didn’t receive the traffic that I had expected.
• Some Thoughts About Random Generation: This was another post that I liked it personally in which I discussed the mathematical and theoretical concepts of random generation and some principles behind it.
• Spam - An Endless Pain: In the days when Waegis was a secret project and I was working on it, I wrote a comprehensive post about spamming and most effective ways to protect ourselves from spams.
• Generating Random Strings in .NET: In April and in a single post I described all the common ways to generate random string values in the .NET with the code samples to use.
• Use Fiddler to Test RESTful WCF Services: The other tip that I published in April was about a quick and easy way to apply Fiddler to test RESTful services in WCF. I think community members found it useful in the later months when RESTful WCF services became more common.
• Implement MetaWeblog API in ASP.NET: There was not such a simple and extensive guide on implementing MetaWeblog API in ASP.NET, so in May I wrote my own post that could receive an excellent praise from the community, and yet seems to be the best guide in this category.
• Introducing Waegis: After my Professional Visual Studio Extensibility, I spent much time to develop an enterprise spam-filter service specializing in the field of modern spam types on the web, and called it Waegis. After a few months of private development, in May 2008 I announced it publicly and brought the good news to the .NET community to have its own spam filter service. Like my book, this project was another proof of my perseverance.
• How to Build Your Very Own Provider Model - Part 1: In May I decided to start a post series about implementing a provider model from the scratch. The first part introduced the main concepts and key classes in the implementation.
• How to Build Your Very Own Provider Model - Part 2: Continuing my post series about provider model, I wrote the second part about the abstraction layer of the provider.
• How to Build Your Very Own Provider Model - Part 3: The third and last part of my series about a custom provider model was about the implementation and configuration of the provider using XML configurations.
• How to Build a Task Scheduler System for the ASP.NET – Part 1: I started June with another post series about implementation of a task scheduler system for the ASP.NET applications. The first part discussed the abstraction level of the implementation.
• How to Build a Task Scheduler System for the ASP.NET – Part 2: The second part of my series about task scheduler system for the ASP.NET applications talked about the implementation of the tasks in an application with a sample. Later I packed up this implementation as an open source project called Abidar.
• How to Implement Trackback Handler in ASP.NET: Like my post series about the implementation of MetaWeblog API in ASP.NET, I felt that there isn’t a good guide on the implementation of trackback and pingback handlers for ASP.NET developers, so continued my serial blogging style in July and August with a new series about these topics. The first part talked about the implementation of trackback handler in the ASP.NET and could receive a great attention from the community.
• How to Implement Pingback Handler in ASP.NET: I also wrote a post about the implementation of pingback handler in the ASP.NET that could repeat the popularity of my post about trackback handler.
• How to Send Trackback and Pingback Requests in ASP.NET: Having a good discussion about the implementation of trackback and pingback handlers, I thought that it’s worth providing a supplementary post about sending trackback and pingback requests as well.
• Our New Book – Beginning ASP.NET MVC: In the latest months of my service, Simone got me on board with a new book about ASP.NET MVC for Wrox that we’re finalizing its manuscripts these days. It’s been a great experience to work on this book as well.
• Building a Custom XML Configuration System for ASP.NET – Part 1: It looks like that in this year I had a good focus on some topics that come handy in professional software. In August I started a new post series about building your own configuration system for ASP.NET. The first part applied traditional XML APIs to implement this system.
• Using DataPager and ListView Controls with a Custom Data Source in the ASP.NET: I inspired a technique to use DataPager and ListView controls with a custom data source in the ASP.NET because it required some tips and techniques, and there were not good resources to talk about this case which happens frequently in more organized applications.
• Building a Custom XML Configuration System for ASP.NET – Part 2: In the second part of my series about a custom XML configuration system for ASP.NET I rewrote the system that I had implemented in the first part using XLINQ to show the power of this new technology.
• An Introduction to Bayesian Spam Filtering: Using my theoretical studies in the past few years, and my own experiences with Waegis, I wrapped up a good discussion about the usage of Bayesian technique in spam filtering. This was one of the posts that I loved it more than my readers.
• The Academic Background of the .NET Community Leaders: Recently I wrote a post about the academic background of some .NET community leaders that attracted many visitors and opened doors for some discussions.

Working on the list, I could extract some facts about my blogging activity that I’d like to outline shortly. This year I moved from tutorials and general programming posts to more specific posts, new ideas, and helpful techniques in programming. I also improved the quality and relied on it rather than quantity, so this year I had the least number of blog posts per year and blog posts per months in comparison with the preceding two years. Of course, it had some other reasons such as my busy days in the past few months after the service. Also I included a new set of posts on software development and topics related to it which gained the same attention and success as my programming posts.

The other nice point about my blog is that most of my high demanding posts are those that I had written in 2006 and 2007 that are actually tutorials and programming concepts and this is also another reason to support my claims in my last post about the Microsoft and its talent killing strategies.

As I said, my overall quality was a way much better than my own expectations and I’m happy for that. I think I’ll keep the same style for 2009, and focus more on quality rather than numbers because this style has proven to be much better for authors and readers both.