My Links Page

Application Architecture

I'm always interested in good papers and reference sources on topics related to software architecture. Here's a few sources I use regularly:

World-Wide Institute of Software Architects - an organisation dedicated to turning software architecture into a recognised specialist profession.
CBDi Forum - This is probably my key source on Component-Based Development, service-based architectures, and a lot of related topics including EAI. They have some pretty good free content, including at least one of my papers, and a regular email newsletter. However, I'd recommend a subscription if these are areas of interest to you.
EBizQ Network - A cross-industry review group looking at issues related to EAI and message-based integration in particular. They have some good free content, and a regular newsletter.
IBM's Patterns for eBusiness - A useful catalogue of analysis, business and architectural patterns for eCommerce systems.
Reliability Software Listing - A useful listing of software and reference sources on the topic of reliability assessment, for both hardware and software.
Microsoft's Visual Basic Homepage - The fount of all knowledge (well, some of it!) for VB.
British Computer Society Testing SIG - A very good starting point for information on software testing.
Bredemeyer Consulting Resources for Software Architects - This is a first-class site for anyone interested in the process of software architecture and the role of the architect, with a substantial amount of free content.
Nucleus Research - An unusual organisation, Nucleus Research concentrate almost entirely on evaluating Return On Investment (ROI) for various software and technology initiatives. It's an excellent place to start if you're trying to sell the value of technology.
Blueprint Technologies have a lot of useful whitepapers on Object-Oriented analysis and design, and their relationship to architecture.
The Cynefin web site has a number of useful articles on the use of stories, and the Cynefin Framework which describes different decision-making and problem-solving environments.
VRAPS.COM David Kane, David Dikel, and Jim Wilson wrote an excellent book entitled "Software Architecture: Organisational Principles and Patterns" It's about how to make architectural changes across an organisation. It's very much about the softer aspects of selling ideas, getting buy-in, and then seeing changes through. This site presents a lot of useful material from and related to the book and their model for architecture. You can also read my review of their book.
The Code Project. This is a great collection of articles on algorithms, coding strategies and programming languages and tools. If you're looking for a clear algorithm to solve a common problem, try here.
The Enterprise Integration Patterns Site does what it says on the tin - provides a comprehensive repository of patterns related to integration in general and message-based EAI in particular. The author expects you to buy his book of the same title for the details of specific patterns, but it's a good place to start, and has a great collection of "doodleware" art created with modelling tools!
The Veryard Projects site contains a lot of interesting stuff on service orientation, and particularly how it relates to patterns in business.
Cirrus Minor, a site/blog dedicated to exploring the detail behind the "architeture" box on process diagrams.
Martin Fowler's Website - gems from the guru of OO development - enough said!

I am a founding member of the World Wide Institute for Software Architects. Their site has a great deal of information on software architecture as a profession. If you're really interested, you may even want to join up!

Modelling

I support the Agile Modeling and Agile Data work being led by Scott Ambler

Chernoff Faces

Chernoff faces are a great way of representing multivariate (i.e. many-dimensioned) data. I use them s a way of representing the ratings in my book reviews, but there are all sorts of other applications. The following sites describe them in a bit more detail. I borrowed my Chernoff face applet from John Wiseman's page.

User Interface Design

I take an active interest in issues around user interface design, and how people interact with computer systems. To my mind, one of the most important initiatives in recent years is the Expressive Systems movement lead by CSC's Richard Pawson. You can read my review of his book, or visit the Expressive Systems web site:

The Expressive Systems Organisation

Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood's site, ForUse, is a very good source for lots of information on software usability and how this can be defined through modern system development approaches such as UML.

There's also a growing movement which is trying to apply patterns to user interface design. I've been disappointed in the books so far, but the following two sites have useful pattern catalogues:

Useful Software Download Sources

The best source for drivers is without doubt the Driver Guide.

Gibson Research Corporation - Steve Gibson keeps a watchful eye on our behalf on issues of information security and privacy. When he finds a problem, he often releases a small software utility which you can use to check the state of your system. I don't agree with everything he says, but I can only praise his watchful viewpoint.

The following are useful sources for Windows-related information and utilities:

These fill a similar role for the Pocket PC and Windows CE:

Web and Document Design

The Microsoft Typography web site has a lot of useful reference material, and is the main source for web font embedding technology, as used on this web site.