Author Archives: Jason Salmond

New Course: Introduction to Ruby on Rails 3

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We are proud to announce our newest author, Dan Bunker, who has just published his first course: Introduction to Ruby on Rails 3

ruby-on-rails3-fundamentalsDan Bunker is a senior consultant and the Scripted Practice Manager for Software Technology Group, a consulting company based in Salt Lake City, Utah (softwaretechnologygroup.com)… not too far from the Pluralsight HQ. Dan also has an active role with the company’s Java practice and employee training initiatives. He provides training in Ruby, Python, Groovy, PHP, JavaScript, Java, Spring MVC, Spring Security and many others. In addition to a passion for software development, Dan is a Jazz guitarist and enjoys arranging music and giving lessons to local enthusiasts.

In my first call with him we talked a bit about his small collection of microphones, and I was impressed with the several guitars hanging on his wall behind his desk.

About this course:

We are excited to have another Ruby course to cover all of the basics of working with the Ruby on Rails 3 framework. Dan starts off by providing a quick overview of Rails and immediately get to work building your first application from the ground up. The Philosophy and Architecture of Rails, as well as a more in depth look at each of Rail’s components, is looked at while we enhance our initial application.

Enjoy this new course and fresh face to Pluralsight now by clicking here.

New Course: Automated Testing for Fraidy Cats Like Me

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Julie Lerman has just published a new course: Automated Testing for Fraidy Cats Like Me

automated-testing-fraidy-cats Many developers have heard of unit testing or test driven development but are daunted by the scope, depth or learning curve. This course aims at removing that first layer of trepidation. You will get a quick and broad perspective on why you might want to take a closer look at testing. You’ll learn about some of the key benefits, get a high level look at the testing landscape and see baby steps to coding some of the most common techniques. The course should help you determine if you want to learn more about testing and provide you with a solid platform to continue on to more advanced learning resources. Automated Testing for Fraidy Cats Like Me is aimed at developers from any discipline although Visual Studio, C# and related tools are used to demonstrate testing techniques.

Cat

It has been my pleasure to work with Julie as her editor on this course. See for yourself how inviting she makes testing become by clicking here for the table of contents.

New Course: Understanding SharePoint 2013: Part 5 – REST and CSOM

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Sahil Malik has just published a new course: Understanding SharePoint 2013: Part 5 – REST and CSOM

understanding-sharepoint2013-rest-client-side-object-modelIn his 5th installment of the ‘Understanding SharePoint 2013′ series, Sahil takes you deeper into his world.

Want to learn Apps? The path to Apps goes through REST and CSOM; so whether you are writing WSPs or Apps, this is a topic you can’t afford to ignore.

Microsoft is on a mission. A mission to get custom code out of the SharePoint server. But how are we to deploy new functionality? The answer is, using REST and CSOM. Introduced in SharePoint 2010, and greatly improved and expanded in SharePoint 2013, REST and CSOM is one of the fundamental pillars in SharePoint knowledge that you must master.

Go find out for yourself how, and click here to get started right away.

New Course: JavaScript From Scratch

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Jesse Liberty has just published a new course: JavaScript From Scratch

javascript-from-scratchWe apparently can’t keep Jesse down as he strives to get more content to help the beginner who is starting “from scratch.”

JavaScript is one of the most popular languages on the planet. In this course, you will learn all you need to know to get started programming with this powerful language that can be used for creating web applications or Windows 8 applications. This course assumes no prior programming experience.

So sit back and enjoy Jesse’s new addition to the library. Click here to get started right away.

New Course: Building Windows Store Business Apps with Prism

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Brian Noyes has just published a new course: Building Windows Store Business Apps with Prism

building-windows-store-business-applications-prismJust when you thought Pluralsight could not publish any more in a day…Brian has been working hard to get this content ready and just a couple days after the new release of Prism.

When building client business applications for WinRT and the Windows Store in XAML you need to design your application for maintainability and testability. To achieve this, you need to design your application following principles of separation of concerns and loose coupling, which usually means employing the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern in XAML. In addition, you have to learn how to leverage the new features of the Windows Runtime (WinRT) platform to ensure a great user experience, but have the code that drives that experience in the right places in your application following the MVVM pattern.

In this course you will learn how to do that by learning how to leverage the Microsoft patterns and practices guidance “Prism for Windows Runtime” directly from a member of the Prism team. You will learn how to separate your Pages into Views and ViewModels following the MVVM pattern and integrate nicely with the WinRT navigation system and application lifecycle of suspend/terminate/resume. You’ll learn how to manage dependencies and communicate between loosely coupled components in your application. You will see how to validate user input, both on the client side and through service calls to a back end, as well as how to display those errors to the user. You learn how to call Web API services and how to do simple authentication and authorization with those services. Finally you will learn how to leverage Windows Runtime platform features including Search charm, Settings charm flyout panels, and Live Tiles.

So sit back and enjoy the weekend with Brian. Click here to get started right away.

New Course: Understanding SharePoint 2013: Part 4 – Conventional Development

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Sahil Malik has just published a new course: Understanding SharePoint 2013: Part 4 – Conventional Development

understanding-sharepoint2013-development-conventionsOn March 5, 2013, Sahil dropped the first 3 courses of this “Understanding SharePoint 2013″ series with the promise of more to come. Well, here he is again with all the style and grace that you have come to expect from him.

SharePoint 2013 supports two main ways of deploying new functionality – WSPs (Windows Solution Packages) and Apps. Apps are new, but WSPs are still good for many key scenarios. This video walks you through the more “SharePointy” topics, and introduces you to authoring WSPs in SharePoint. Having this knowledge is key to understanding Apps.

Go enjoy this new course by clicking here, and don’t get too comfortable because Sahil will have more for you soon enough.

New Course: Front-End First: Testing and Prototyping JavaScript Apps

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We are proud to announce our newest author, Elijah Manor, who has just published his first course: Front-End First: Testing and Prototyping JavaScript Apps

I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Elijah on this first course for a couple of months now, and we are both excited that the world can now see what he has been creating from his nice little home in Tennessee. I even met him a few weeks back at the AngleBrackets conference in Las Vegas, and he is even nicer in person ;) . Visit his Bio Page to learn more about him.

About this course:
testing-and-prototyping-javascript-appsYears ago it was common for the back-end to have code coverage, but having unit tests for client-side JavaScript was difficult, cumbersome, and rare. Thankfully, today that is no longer the case. By using various tools and libraries such as Mocha, Sinon.js, and GruntJS you can easily provide code coverage for your front-end as well.

Historically a front-end developer had to wait until the back-end was complete before they could start truly building a functional User Interface. Thankfully today there are libraries such as Mockjax, AmplifyJS, and mockJSON that can enable you to simulate the interactions with the back-end before its even complete. By doing so, this enables a front-end developer to work independently from the back-end and allows both teams to efficiently work within their specialty.

Click here to go directly to the TOC to get started learning. Elijah has several other JavaScript and jQuery courses in the works, keep your eyes peeled. Don’t forget to let us know what you think about the course in our user forum or on twitter (@elijahmanor @pluralsight).

New Course: SQL Server 2012: Nonclustered Columnstore Indexes

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Joe Sack of SQLskills has just published a new course: SQL Server 2012: Nonclustered Columnstore Indexes

sql-server-2012-nonclustered-columnstore-indexesIf you need to develop a solution to meet your business intelligence needs but don’t have the in-house SQL Server Analysis Services skills to make it happen, don’t rule out a SQL Server database engine solution just yet. SQL Server 2012 nonclustered columnstore indexes provide a compelling new option for extremely fast querying of very large data sets found in relational data warehouses. This course will cover the benefits of this new functionality and will also clearly articulate the current limitations and planning considerations along the way. By the end of this course, you’ll be equipped with enough information to help decide if nonclustered columnstore indexes will be a viable choice for your application data tier.

This course is perfect for developers, DBAs, and anyone responsible for SQL Server performance.The information in the course applies to SQL Server 2012 onwards.

Click here for the TOC, and go here to see what else Joe has for you to check out.

New Courses: No Code XRM Development AND Dynamics CRM Developer – Part 1

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Julie Yack and David Yack have just published a new course each:

no-code-xrm-developmentIt has been a while since we have had more content from Julie, but we are excited for this most recent addition to the library. In this course, you will explore the various out of the box aspects of Dynamics CRM that allow users to make it their own. The course covers creating and changing system and custom entities, customizing with security roles to grant or limit access, the various reporting options available, including charts, views and custom reports, and the creation of dialog and workflow processes.

Click here to get started, and keep your eyes open for much more from Julie.

This is David’s first course, and he does not disappoint. The Dynamics CRM Developer course is designed to help a developer familiar with Microsoft developer technologies learn how to customize and extend Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This is the first in a three part course series that introduces Dynamics CRM to developers in an accelerated way. This course covers existing capabilities, CRM application modules, key entities, platform, deployment types and authentication. You will also explore administration, business management, collaboration, and data management settings, as well as teams, business units, and security. The course then goes into customization and creation of entities, solution management, and data modeling.

To get started with this course from David, you simply need to click here and push play.

We are looking forward to several more additions to the Pluralsight library and to the Dynamics CRM category as we progress through the year thanks to the Yack family.

New Course: The Art of Public Speaking and Effective Presentations

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John Papa has just published a new course: The Art of Public Speaking and Effective Presentations

public-speaking-effective-presentations

In this course, John takes a little different direction from his more recent end-to-end Single Page Application development courses. He brings to you some of the hard lessons and techniques that he has developed over years and years of his experience as a presenter. Learn from him how to best tell a story, engage the audience, leave them inspired.

This course provides a great road-map for delivering effective presentations and motivating an audience through forming your message, designing visuals and demos, preparing for the unexpected, and effective delivery strategies. By the end of this course, you will learn many techniques on how to become a more effective presenter.

Along the way you’ll find tips from many accomplished speakers including some of your favorite Pluralsight authors.

Click here to get started …we are pretty sure you won’t want to stop until you finish the whole course.