Blog
Paul Seal's personal blog
Blog posts
One of my readers has asked to show them how they can style the popup infowindow on a google map. This post gives you a basic example of this. This is notoriously tricky, but I think I have simplified it for you.
dev The light bulb and turd cycleIn all of the places I have worked, especially the larger companies, there has been this underlying process happening. It is called the light bulb and turd cycle. I named it that myself. Here is the explanation so you know what to look out for and what stage your company or department is at.
dev The best podcasts about programmingFor the last few years I have been listening to some great podcasts and I wanted to share them with you:
dev My favourite Visual Studio keyboard shortcutsI'm not one for using my mouse if I can help it. I like to use keyboard shortcuts where possible. In this post I share with you my favourite Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts.
dev·dotnet Why you should not write comments in your code.Over the years, I have heard both sides of the argument about whether you should or shouldn't write comments in your code. In this post, I make my argument as to why I think you should avoid writing comments in your code.
dev 10 tips for being outstanding in an interviewHere are my 10 tips for being outstanding in an interview.
umbraco umbracoUrlAlias - Create an alternative URL for a page in UmbracoUsing the umbracoUrlAlias property on a page in Umbraco gives you the ability to set up one or more different URLs for a single page. The page structure of your site might create long URLs, and you may want to a shorter one, the umbracoUrlAlias will do that for you. Or a page may have previously existed with a different URL, and you want to catch the traffic going to that URL and get them to look at this page, the umbracoUrlAlias will do that for you as well.
dev How to add any search engine or site search to google ChromeIf you have a favourite site that you like to search on, or want to use a different search engine this tool will help you set up quick searching on them using Google Chrome.
umbraco How to install Umbraco using Visual Studio NuGet IIS and SQL ServerThis post gives you a step by step guide on how to install Umbraco on your local machine using Visual Studio, NuGet, IIS and SQL Server.
umbraco Intercepting content and member save events in UmbracoIn Umbraco, you may want to perform certain actions when a content item or member is being saved or created. This post shows you how to do that. This is relevant for Umbraco projects that use MVC.
dev What makes a good recruitment agent?Over the years, I have had many interactions with recruitment agents. In fact, I got my last 2 programming jobs thanks to the help of recruitment agents. This post shares with you what I have learned about recruiters, what to look out for and how you can get the best from them.
dev Valuable lessons learned about delivering softwareWhen you look back at a project and you think about what you could have done differently, you should write these down and look at them before you start the next project so you don't do the same again. In this post I share some of the lessons I've learned in my career when delivering software.