Topics:  Free MS ebooks, Xamarin podcast, cloud server in 55 sec., squash your PNGs, Heartbleed fallout, RDP from Android.

• Former co-worker @_Shakeel passed along some free e-books being offered by Microsoft Virtual Academy.
• @munificentbob announced his free online book, Game Programming Patterns.
• I keep finding more and more Xamarin community resources. This week it was their podcast on SoundCloud.
• Also, useful for cross-platform development: Notes on Using Various PCL Profiles with Xamarin (via @WindowsAppDev)
• Cloud hosting service DigitalOcean advertises you can spin up a new “droplet” (i.e. VM) in 55 seconds, and has what looks to be a pretty reasonable pricing structure.
• Do you know what your TRAQ score is? Online comic Devil’s Panties (“not satanic porn!”) has a good write up about their ad revenue tanking after improperly getting flagged as an adult site.
• If you’re working on web pages be sure to check out these handy CSS tips.
• In the wake of Heartbleed the OpenBSD community is refactoring OpenSSL “one arcane VMS hack at a time.” (via Dan)
• Meanwhile, a security firm reports many Android apps (mostly games) are vulnerable to Heartbleed and most scanning apps are doing it wrong, but don’t tell us which ones are doing it right. (via Re/Code)

Tools, etc.

• Color Scheme Designer is a great online tool for generating/exploring color palettes.
• And while we’re talking design, Scott Hanselman reminds us to squish our image files – Trimage is a handy app to do that on Linux, Windows and Mac.
• Did you know Google has a Remote Desktop tool for Chrome? Well, now it’s available for Android too.

Projects, etc.

• Less than 30 days left in the FoodStats app fundraiser. We’re at $250 now. Pledge as little as a $1 or as much as you feel like – every little bit helps. Or just help spread the word: Use the share buttons on the campaign site or give this easier-to-remember URL to friends, family and those who might be interested: http://tiny.cc/foodstats
• Released an initial alpha version of Commit Message Editor – a simple, cross-platform GUI editor for commit messages in Git. The goal is to provide a light-weight editor with key features useful for writing commit messages. (This was a request from my friend and former co-worker Jonathan.)

Topics: Telecommuting tips, Heartbleed tools, the end of crapware?, Git tutorials, free education, ideas into products, humanize numbers, better Datetimes, a Git GUI.

• The Pluralsight blog has some good tips for those working from home.
• If you’ve been under a rock and haven’t heard, make sure you’ve updated OpenSSL on all your computers.
  • If you’re a LastPass user, they now have a report that will tell you which of the sites you have accounts on have patched the bug.
  • GRC (host of the Security Now podcast) has an online tool that will tell you if your browser is properly recognizing revoked SSL certificates.
• SweetLabs is working with PC vendors to replace OEM-installed crapware with a recommendation-based app store solution, letting developers sell their apps directly.
• The fledgeling OneGet community has apparently pushed to get the repository moved to Github. (via @fearthecowboy)
• Discovered that Atlassian has a nice set of Git tutorials and resources online.
• The Free Technology Academy offers free education in “Free Software, Standards and Hardware“.
• Local developer @EliThompson passed along an interesting new guide coming out soon: How to Transform Ideas into Software Products from Femgineer. Sign up to be notified when the guide is published and you can participate in a free e-mail course to get feedback on your idea.

Tools, etc.

• Wow. Humanizer is a .NET library that provides a mind-boggling array of ways to convert “strings, enums, dates, times, timespans, numbers and quantities” into more human-friendly text. (via Scott Hanselman)
• Scott also recommends Noda Time as a better library than what’s provided with the .NET Framework.
• Looking for a GUI for Git and/or Mercurial? Source Tree is a free download from Atlassian.

Projects, etc.

• Working on something, which I hope to announce the next day or two. Stay tuned….