Nashville .NET User Group Member Blogs

Tech Tweets for 2-Sep-2010

Elijah Manor — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:45:00 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

ASP.NET (1)
- "MSDN Magazine: Cutting Edge - Better Web Forms with the MVP Pattern" #tech #aspnet http://bit.ly/dpp3v2
ASP.NET MVC (2)
- "Committing To ASP.NET MVC - New DevExpress Extensions (coming soon)" by @mehulharry #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/cDXw32
- "Another way to Get Start ASP.NET MVC 3 (Preview 1)" #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/dbiPgB
JavaScript (8)
- "DailyJS: Let's Make a Framework: Chaining" by @dailyjs #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/ddFSMF
- "Knocking It Out: Zelda-esque Game Called Tweetquest" by @VigetInspire #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/cZqQ7t
- "Generate sound with JavaScript in Firefox 4" by @F1LT3R #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/aKo4IX
- "DailyJS: Node.js Roundup 4" by @dailyjs #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/9S7qFM
- "Google JavaScript Style Guide" #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/9AQJoq
- "Quick Tip: What May Not Know About JavaScript’s Logical AND Operator" by @nettuts #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/ciqwxP
- "5 Great YQL One-Liners" by @rww #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/bMTAvB
- "Google's JavaScript Linter Tool" by @closuretools #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/aRMygh
jQuery (3)
- "How to Easily Inject jQuery into any Web Page" by @reybango #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/bfTKKA
- "Building a Custom HTML5 Audio Player with jQuery" #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/d7nAzr *via @codylindley
- "jShaker jQuery Plug-in Demo" #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/d6F4t2 *Wow, this just makes me laugh!
Misc (2)
- "First Look at Arc Touch Mouse" by @ch9 #tech #misc http://bit.ly/bRHtzs
- "Once upon a time there was a big brown bear who loved writing software" by @josephcooney #tech #misc http://bit.ly/dyAyex
Visual Studio (2)
- "Inside the Default Browser Switcher Visual Studio 2010 extension" #tech #visualstudio http://bit.ly/c0FFuG
- "@ch9: Web Camps TV #2 - OData Overview with Jonathan Carter" by @jsenior #tech #visualstudio http://j.mp/ctuyTZ
Web Dev (1)
- "iCandies Icon Set: 60 Free Icons For Your User Interfaces and Apps" by @smashingmag #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/b8CbO6

If you've found value from my blog posts or tech tweets and feel led to give back, please consider donating a dollar or two. Thanks!

Tech Tweets for 1-Sep-2010

Elijah Manor — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:05:21 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

ASP.NET (1)
- "Displaying Files and Folders in a GridView" by @ScottOnWriting #tech #aspnet http://bit.ly/buLpTg
ASP.NET MVC (1)
- "S#arp Architecture 1.6 Released!" by Billy McCafferty #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/bm0QIh
JavaScript (6)
- "Performance Optimization: How to Load your javascript faster!" by @przemek #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/ddFCju
- "PNGStore - Embedding compressed CSS & JavaScript in PNGs" #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/chuwia
- "cached-commons: API for Common JavaScripts and Stylesheets" by @changelogshow #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/9VpwPe
- "Mastering Node: Open source eBook for Node.js" by @changelogshow #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/dwg3u7
- "Reactive Extensions for .NET – Event-based Async Operations" by @MattPodwysocki #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/axkwBt
- "Building with JavaScript – write less by using the right tools" by @codepo8 #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/dBZe7p
jQuery (3)
- "Using jQuery's Proxy() Method In Event Binding And Unbinding" by @bennadel #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/df6Zl4
- "DailyJS: jQuery Roundup" by @dailyjs #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/c9LHCn
- "jQuery: Fastest Way To Select Nothing" by @rwaldron #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/c0wNG1
Web Dev (6)
- "Announcing my new TekPub series, where you call the shots" by @Encosia #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/blKgqx
- "IEBlog: Add-on Performance part 2: Helping consumers make informed decisions" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/96iPZO
- "@Ajaxian » Extending HTML5" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9yyhDM
- "@Script_Junkie: An Introduction to the HTML 5 Canvas Element" by @reybango #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cWOVvZ
- "IEBlog: Getting Ready for SVG Open" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/dbqOGF
- "21 Ridiculously Impressive HTML5 Canvas Experiments" by @nettuts #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9jtoNm

Tech Tweets for 31-Aug-2010

Elijah Manor — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:11:00 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

.NEt (1)
- ".NET Rocks #51: Scott Hanselman take on ASP.NET - LIVE!" #tech #podcast #dotnet http://bit.ly/b7bah5
ASP.NET MVC (2)
- "DevExpress Extensions For ASP.NET MVC 2.0 - Quick Summary" by @mehulharry #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/bBva2o
- "Simple Dependency Injection using Custom MVC Controller Factory" by @mikeceranski #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/cj5WGi
Humor (1)
- "This is how I feel about buying iPhone apps" by @oatmeal #tech #humor http://bit.ly/aJuEs2
JavaScript (3)
- "Fun - A Programming Language for the Realtime Web" by @badass_js #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/cY9YGJ
- "DailyJS: Traits - Creating Modular Components" by @dailyjs #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/b4z5Qo
- "Crockford on JavaScript - Scene 6: Loopage & Server Side JS" by @yuilibrary #tech #video #javascript http://bit.ly/drutOg
jQuery (1)
- "Using jQuery's Proxy() Method In Event Binding And Unbinding" by @bennadel #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/df6Zl4
Misc (1)
- "Gmail Priority Inbox Launches: Your E-mail Will Never Be the Same" by @mashabletech #tech #misc http://bit.ly/cTzxL9
Web Dev (9)
- "New Series - Ask the Expert with @DaveWard" by @tekpub #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/bR5kRV
- "cujo.js - OOJS, OOCSS, and OOHTML - Part 1 (OOCSS for Engineers) " by @unscriptable #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/avV4PF
- "Zen Coding 0.6 Cheat Sheet" by @quicklycode #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9PlJu5
- "@Ajaxian » New SVG Web Release: Owlephant" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cJyjn6
- "5 Killer Ways to Streamline your Coding Efficiency" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/94SlMW
- "IEBlog: Performance - Profiling how different web sites use browser subsystems" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/a3n8Oc
- "New Version of My Free GUI for the Microsoft Ajax Minifier" by @miamicoder #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/aHyZmu
- "@Ajaxian » Raphaël 1.5 Released - SVG Drawing & Animation Library" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cjyqI2
- "HTTP Optimization the easy way: Part 1, how do I know?" by Scott Galloway #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/dmABQI

Tech Tweets for 30-Aug-2010

Elijah Manor — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:35:01 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

.NET (2)
- "Building my new blog with Orchard – Part 1" by @bleroy #tech #dotnet http://bit.ly/dz73zs
- "August 29th Links: .NET, ASP.NET, IIS Express, Silverlight, Win Phone 7" by @scottgu #tech #dotnet http://bit.ly/a3cN1p
ASP.NET MVC (3)
- "Elegant MVC with Spark - The way views were meant to be" by @RobertTheGrey #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/dolKgf
- "File uploads and MVC Controllers" by @elegantcode #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/dtSJF3
- "Enhancing Store Locator ASP.NET MVC App to Include Directions" by @ScottOnWriting #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/9Yqjc3
JavaScript (4)
- "Code Org, Take 2: Structuring JavaScript Applications" by @rmurphey #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/bmWyEo
- "Fabric.js: Interactive Object Model & SVG Parser for Canvas Element" by @badass_js #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/b9QqL2
- "Looking for Node.js Modules? Check out NPM (Node Package Manager)" by @badass_js #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/9cUJgr
- "JavaScript from Null: Cross-Browser Event Binding" by @nettuts #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/anMgca
jQuery (5)
- "Publish & Subscribe Functionality w/ Native jQuery Event Management" by @bennadel #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/a7XbMl
- "Working With XML, jQuery, and JavaScript" by @erichynds #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/a1unwF
- "Hear me talk jQuery and ASP.NET on the jQuery Podcast" by @Encosia #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/92I0To
- "Great Twitter Accounts to keep up to date on jQuery news" by @insideria #tech #jquery http://oreil.ly/ciuwVl
- "Using jQuery To Bind And Trigger Event Handlers On Detached DOM Nodes" by @bennadel #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/9slpxf
Misc (2)
- "10 Ways to Kill Pair Programming" by @sommardahl #tech #misc http://bit.ly/9l6c9t
- "Two Must-Have Tools for a More Readable Web" by @shanselman #tech #misc http://bit.ly/cOzFCP
Web Dev (9)
- "Google APIs: A to Z" by @programmableweb #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cYuRim
- "Percentage Bugs in WebKit" by @chriscoyier #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/bTfejk
- "@Ajaxian » Design 3D Models in a Browser" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cmnLRc
- "View Source Tutorial: Content Site Using HTML5 Canvas + CSS3" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9x4V4f
- "Building a digital clock with OOCSS and MVC" by @briancavalier #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cG8rs3
- "IEBlog: More on SVG - 9 Things I <3 About SVG" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9vf8JN
- "Iron Languages Podcast #3: Interview w/ Brian Hogan - Rails, Ruby, Mentoring, & HTML5" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cDmEom
- "CSS is to HTML as a CMS is to… HTML" by @chriscoyier #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9ToqAA
- "How I’m learning Ruby" by @JacoPretorius #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/bxPGGb

Tech Tweets for 27-Aug-2010

Elijah Manor — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:36:00 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

.NET (1)
- "Herding Code 92: @drusellers & @ferventcoder on Nu" #tech #dotnet http://j.mp/aJcxvE /cc @odetocode @lazycoder @jongalloway @kevindente
ASP.NET MVC (1)
- "@nettuts: ASP.NET from Scratch: MVC" by @jwmcpeak #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/dgZx9S
JavaScript (2)
- "DailyJS: Let's Make a Framework: Chaining" by @dailyjs #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/dstwOd
- "DailyJS: PaintbrushJS, Canvas Wrapper, Rangy" by @dailyjs #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/9FGwsp
jQuery (3)
- "Ask the expert on Web Camps TV: @ReyBango" by @jsenior #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/9Ya4Mq
- "jQuery Selectors - The Firebug Plugin Inserts A Hidden DIV Element" by @bennadel #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/b3ihR8
- "The Official jQuery Podcast – Episode 32 w/ guest @Encosia" #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/91mXaR
Misc (5)
- "Installing Ubuntu 10.4 LTS on Windows Virtual PC on Windows 7" by @shanselman #tech #misc http://bit.ly/cn4aGt
- "Web Camps L.A. Sold Out in 48 hrs" by @jsenior #tech #misc http://bit.ly/cFMeVH *Vote for the content to be presented
- "Get rich contact profiles right inside of Gmail" by @rapportive #tech #misc http://bit.ly/bP8ISC
- "TekPub's Screencasts are Free! Today only" #tech #jquery #git #rails #iphone #hg #aspnetmvc #misc http://bit.ly/cJ1Bb3
- "We’re Not Paid To Write Code" by @haacked #tech #misc http://bit.ly/aAlZty
Web Dev (5)
- "Ajaxian » It’s Gmail: The Game!" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9YW7hj
- "Ajaxian » Find Info On Webkit Spec Extensions" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/a0itT6
- "Stylebot: Chrome Extension to quickly tweak page CSS & reapply each visit" by @stylebot #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/b3LCSL
- "Script Junkie" by Somasegar #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/c8ynUn
- "Font Smoothing" by @usabilitypost #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/d4wY56

Tech Tweets for 26-Aug-2010

Elijah Manor — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:15:17 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

ASP.NET MVC (2)
- "Web Camps TV #1 - ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 & Razor Tips w/ @Haacked" by @JSenior #tech #aspnetmvc http://j.mp/bQ2VZl
- "Behind the scenes at mvcConf: How we ran a free virtual conference" by @jongalloway #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/9ORAmW
Humor (3)
- "Name WIN: I've been Rick Rolled!" by @FAILBlog #tech #humor http://bit.ly/aN5Xib
- "The Programmer Hierarchy" #tech #humor http://bit.ly/asytZG
- "Wesley Snipes Was Almost Geordi La Forge, and Other Star Trek: TNG Casting Fun" #tech #humor http://gizmo.do/dyPbF0
JavaScript (6)
- "PaintbrushJS: Client Side Image Filtering For The Masses" by @badass_js #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/9fVfKy
- "jsPerf: JavaScript performance playground" #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/aQSdxW
- "Quick Tip: Object Indexing vs. Array Collection" by @davidwalshblog #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/dn0sxQ
- "DailyJS: Node Roundup 4: Webshell, nDistro, Node on Windows, etc" by @dailyjs #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/bG8fqA
- "Quick Tip: Quick and Easy JavaScript Testing with Assert" by @nettuts #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/audOQd
- "Intro to the Reactive Extensions for JavaScript – Buffering" by @MattPodwysocki #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/c5n1Sg
jQuery (1)
- "jQuery Plugin Checklist: Should You Use That jQuery Plug-In?" by @jonraasch #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/bXocuA
Misc (3)
- "Netflix now available on your iPhone and iPod touch" #tech #misc http://bit.ly/brtEIb
- "Gitbox — Git client for Mac OS X" by @gitboxupdates #tech #misc http://bit.ly/a488yr *Ran across this today... any good?
- "New Digg Is Live: What It Means For Digg and For You" by @mashable #tech #misc http://bit.ly/a57jVa
Web Dev (11)
- "Ajaxian » How to Drag Out Files Like Gmail" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/chZ0MW
- "HTML5: Me, Myself and I - or: Abbreviations, Definitions & Citations Revisited" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9sn38j
- "Introducing Yeti: The YUI Easy Testing Interface " by @yuilibrary #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9ZNF77
- "Using HTML5 LocalStorage to retain state of app for the end user" by @codepo8 #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/c3XeHx
- "AJAX Requests Get And Set Cookies Like Any Other HTTP Request" by @bennadel #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cljZhs
- "Introducing HTML5 Book (@brucel and @rem) is available on eBook" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/b49ZIU
- "IEBlog: Chakra: Interoperability Means More Than Just Standards #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9M6d0o
- "HTML Lint: Make sure your markup looks good" by @htmlint #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9CzaLa
- "How to Centre and Layout Pages Without a Wrapper" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cK8fH5
- "WebKit HTML5 Search Inputs" by @chriscoyier #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9s6n6i
- "Ajaxian » innerShiv: Make innerHTML + HTML5 Work in IE" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/dbj4FZ

Tech Tweets for 25-Aug-2010

Elijah Manor — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:21:00 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

.NET (1)
- "A quick primer on .NET web frameworks" by @ChadMyers #tech #dotnet http://bit.ly/ajIti7
ASP.NET MVC (1)
- "Implementing a Store Locator App Using ASP.NET MVC (Part 2)" by @ScottOnWriting #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/9wtbqO
jQuery (7)
- "jQuery Html5form Plugin Demo" #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/93LWrs
- "jQuery dualSlider Plugin: Video & Text" #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/9HGb2w
- "Create a Twitter AJAX Button with MooTools, jQuery, or Dojo" by @davidwalshblog #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/9nmYdh
- "Elijah Manor works for appendTo - The jQuery Company" #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/baf3Et
- "DailyJS: jQuery Roundup" by @dailyjs #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/a20wkN
- "Extensible Autocomplete jQuery Widget" by @jqueryui #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/c1sPUK
- "jQuery Conference 2010: Boston Announcement" #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/duWqVG
Misc (2)
- "Official Google Blog: Call phones from Gmail" #tech #misc http://bit.ly/bOGNlo
- "Getting Started with UML Refcardz" #tech #cheatsheet #misc http://bit.ly/bvJdso
Web Dev (9)
- "ColorSuckr: Create Color Schemes from Photos" #tech #webdev http://j.mp/cNtljX
- "HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/dm8F6o *via @cowboy
- "CSS3 Sidebar Full Height Background Color" by @AEXTnet #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/aNIBuk
- "Getting to Work with CSS3 Power Tools" by @nettuts #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/ddVNIr
- "Ajaxian » Real World Canvas Tips from Hakim El Hattab" by @mrdoob #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cg2DAU
- "Git Extras: Helpful tools for Git" by @changelogshow #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9i9x7o
- "@Script_Junkie: Internet Explorer Developer Tools: The CSS Tab" by @PeteLe #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cw7fs0
- "The Future of Web Apps - Single Page Applications" by @maboa #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/97Er0J
- "15 Tech Tweets from Yesterday (24-Aug-2010)" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/94Yh87
Windows Phone 7 (1)
- "iPhone to Windows Phone 7 Tutorial – #0" by @jesseliberty #tech #wf7 http://bit.ly/aIECg2

I work for appendTo - The jQuery Company

Elijah Manor — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:04:55 -0700

As you may or may not seen on Twitter the last 3 weeks or so, I accepted an offer to work with appendTo, LLC - The jQuery Company.

I first met the CEO (Mike Hostetler) and President (Jonathan Sharp) of appendTo back in January while I was at the launch of jQuery 1.4 in Washington DC.

After the unfortunate turn of events at my last job (raided by the FBI & IRS), I was forced to look for a new job opportunity.

One of the first places I thought of working for was appendTo. After several weeks of talks everything worked out and now I am an official employee!

Since I’ve started I’ve done some writing, did an architectural review of a client’s code, and most recently I’ve been diving deep in developing a JavaScript and jQuery library.

I am really excited about this opportunity. The group of people that I work alongside are top notch! I find it impressive that appendTo has 5 official jQuery Team members working for them.

It looks like I’ll be able to attend the Boston jQuery Conference this coming October 16-17, 2010. I hope to see you there! Sign up while tickets last.

By the way, thank all of you who sent me job leads, contacting me about working with you, or tweeted on my behalf while I was looking for a job. I appreciate all your efforts!

Tech Tweets for 24-Aug-2010

Elijah Manor — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:23:00 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

.NET (2)
- ".NET Rocks #587: Ted Neward Programs in Everything" #tech #podcast #dotnet http://bit.ly/ctXrZg
- "Different Ways of using the C# Null Coalescing Operator" by @suprotimagarwal #tech #dotnet http://bit.ly/bkzRKw
ASP.NET (1)
- "Resharper Templates Galore: File Templates" by @hhariri #tech #aspnet http://bit.ly/adDM0T
JavaScript (2)
- "DailyJS: Polymaps Graphics Library" by @dailyjs #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/cH720I
- "Ajaxian » Blow Things Up!" by @BradNeuberg #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/dfJ4Lt
jQuery (1)
- "Feature Suggest App w/ PHP, MySQL & jQuery" by @Tutorialzine #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/9muhl1
LightSwitch (1)
- "LightSwitch Beta1 Now Available, Building Your First App" by @jlzander #tech #lightswitch http://bit.ly/cywmn5
VisualStudio (1)
- "Search and Navigation Tips/Tricks with Visual Studio" by @scottgu #tech #visualstudio http://bit.ly/dgf3V8
Web Dev (7)
- "Go Daddy Coughs Up $1 .Com Domain Names" by @diskopo #tech #webdev http://gizmo.do/bNMcVO
- "Dynamic favicons" by @rem #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cgJlYs
- "Ajaxian » CSS Media Queries: Bees Knees Or Spawn of Satan?" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/ckEnpg
- "10 Underused Html Elements & how to use them!" by @QwibbleDesigns #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9cNzga *& Read comments
- "New Poll: Multiple JavaScript Libraries. Do you use 1 or more?" by @ChrisCoyier #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9pK9uM
- "SQLCop update Version 1.1" by @LessThanDot #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9y4mst
- "IEBlog: Making Sites Look Their Best in IE9's Standards Mode" #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cLqSLc

If you've found value from my blog posts or tech tweets and feel led to give back, please consider donating a dollar or two. Thanks!

Tech Tweets for 23-Aug-2010

Elijah Manor — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:43:54 -0700

The following are a list of the technical tweets that I posted on Twitter yesterday.

If you are interested in keeping track of my technical tweets, then here a several ways you can enjoy them...

Add a RSS feed to this blog and wait for the daily tech tweet post (as well as my other posts).
Follow me on Twitter and get all of my technical and personal tweets. Note: I tend to tweet a lot :)
In addition to posting on Twitter, I also programmatically publish my tech tweets to delicious on a daily basis.
And you can always just check out the tech tweet category on this blog for past Tech Tweets posts.

ASP.NET MVC (3)
- "What the difference <%: var %> and <%= var %> in ASP.NET MVC?" by @jeffreypalermo #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/ahSgdf
- "@dotnetcurry: ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 - Razor View Engine" by @MalcolmSheridan #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/9QFpkM
- "Download Chapter 7 - Simplifying Complex Applications from ASP.NET MVC 2 Cookbook" #tech #aspnetmvc http://bit.ly/dw8w6z
JavaScript (3)
- "LABjs & RequireJS: Loading JavaScript Resources" by @getify #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/a3zPyp //Updated to include RquireJS
- "DailyJS: Brequire, Node Pipe, Enable JavaScript" by @dailyjs #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/9ONnid
- "HTML5 canvas and the flying dots" by @pyalot #tech #javascript http://bit.ly/bu4gPs
jQuery (3)
- "Nominate jQuery as Your Favorite Open Source JavaScript Library" by @packtpub #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/araC8q
- "Quick Tip: Dissecting jQuery – Filters" by @nettuts #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/b1A4A3
- "jQuery - YUI3 Rosetta Stone" by Carlos Bueno #tech #jquery http://bit.ly/cFBJUj
Misc (3)
- "Google Begins Charging Devs $5 To List Chrome Extensions, Themes, & Apps" by @TechCrunch #tech #misc http://tcrn.ch/cYtCkj
- "Hanselminutes #227 - Inside Expression SuperPreview w/ Mike Calvo" by @shanselman #tech #misc http://bit.ly/amt29c
- "Updating Wiki Pages with Windows Live Writer" by @matthawley #tech #misc http://bit.ly/blbdNh
Twitter (1)
- "Twitter’s Tweet Button Comes to the Browser" by @mashsocialmedia #tech #twitter http://bit.ly/9VG6oD
Web Dev (9)
- "@Nettuts: The Official Guide to HTML5 Boilerplate" by @paul_irish #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/blBlFC
- "Mobile Browser Detection" by @mobtuts #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cQ97Gk
- "Fixing the background bleed" by Mike Harding #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9XtgEF
- "HTML5 Periodic Table of the Elements" by @JoshDuck #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9A5qvX
- "Hanselminutes #226 - Building your own Ultimate Developer PC 2.0" by @shanselman #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/cuaEup
- "view-source will teach you things that are wrong" by @codepo8 #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/9Hy2Nl
- "Ajaxian » The CSS3 Song" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/ceVaWk
- "The HTML5 Experiments of Hakim El Hattab" by @hakimel #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/c9S0jU
- "Ajaxian » Pure Pulsing CSS Map Markers" by @BradNeuberg #tech #webdev http://bit.ly/aimWEE

If you've found value from my blog posts or tech tweets and feel led to give back, please consider donating a dollar or two. Thanks!

My Windows Phone 7 Apps

Gaines Kergosien — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:15:00 -0700

Today I attended two Windows Phone 7 sessions at DevLink and am excited to jump in.

I started working on a Windows Mobile application a while back to record scores when playing disc golf. Unfortunately, I fell prey to feature creep and got swamped in trying to make it do too much cool stuff (like downloading content from the web) so I still don't have a release version to show for it.

On the up side, Windows Mobile is on it's way out and Windows Phone 7 release is quickly approaching and, having learned from my mistakes, am ready to begin development for the next generation of phones. Once I have a basic scorekeeping app under my belt I have plans for some more intricate projects.

iPad – Week One

John Kellar — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:51:00 -0700

Last Saturday, I received the new Apple iPad delivered to my door. That’s right, I didn’t sleep outside any stores like so many others. Now that I have had a few days to work with it, I felt the urge to share some thoughts.

First Impressions

The first thing that caught my attention was the clarity of the display. It renders beautifully and is very easy on the eyes. Whether viewing web pages or a book in the iBook application, the iPad definitely has a remarkable screen. I think the next most noticeable feature for me is the performance. The iPad is extremely responsive and the smooth transition between landscape and portrait views is the most obvious way to observe it. That being said, my iPhone demonstrated great performance when I first purchased it as well, but has become considerably more sluggish over time. I will be watching that closely.

Question: “Isn’t it just a big iPhone/iPod Touch?”

While the general look and feel is identical, but size does matter in this instance. Remember that those were devices that were all about mobility, the iPad (in my opinion) is more about entertainment with a little productivity on the side. Little screens aren’t very good when it comes to reading and watching movies. Even more important is the ability to type and as Todd Anglin so nicely put it “It’s like an iPhone that finally fits your fingers”. Thanks Todd

I had the chance to take this little gem with me on a flight earlier in the week. I thought a quick comparison to a laptop on a plane would be a good field test.

Laptop	iPad
Can be bulky unless it’s a netbook, but still not quite the same	Light weight and reasonably sized.
Startup time wastes time and battery life	No startup time, no problem
When the person in front of you puts down their seat you have to bend down to see the screen.	Easy to handle and hold, no worries about putting that seat back. Can easily lay it on the tray.
Battery life not so hot, probably 3 good hours unless you start turning on power saver options.	Battery life was not an issue for 6 hours of travel time. Still had plenty when I arrived at the hotel.
Watching movies, games and music. All good, but back to battery life and the pesky person in front of you who likes to recline	I have 5 movies on my iPad, several games and all my music. I watched a movie each way on my trip, listened to music and squeezed in a couple of games with no impact to battery and a great picture.
Will start to get hot after a while and planes aren’t the coolest place on earth. UGH!	No heat issues at all, even holding/resting it directly in the hand for hours.
I can code on it	I CAN’T code on it

Applications

The iPad has tons of applications, but a couple of useful productivity applications called “Pages” and “Numbers” are the big thing for iPad. These are Apple’s versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. I liked using both of the applications on the iPad. I used Pages for taking notes which was great just hit the button and tap and I can start capturing information. Numbers was not bad, but there is nothing like Excel to work with spreadsheets. It would be good for capturing some information while out of pocket though. Need a way to pull them back over and into Excel, now that would be productive.

In Summary

So overall I think the iPad is a great device for entertainment and it can help from a productivity standpoint as well. It does not replace a laptop and I don’t think that was Apple’s intention anyway. It is a nice piece of technology and has some great uses, but a laptop has all the bells and whistles and the iPad just doesn’t yet. The size is right and the price is high, but if you already have a laptop it can be a great companion.

I see some potential as a good field platform for enterprise applications (with 3G, of course). Unfortunately it looks like Apple is going to screw that up with their recent change to the Developer Program License Agreement which potentially excludes applications built by MonoTouch, Unity3d and other non-Apple tools. Smart move Apple, hope you come to your senses.

DEVLINK 2010 - Allowing voting on sessions

John Kellar — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:06:00 -0800

I am amazed that it is already March and the amount of time for getting DEVLINK 2010 is shrinking quickly. This year I thought it might be nice to open things up a little bit and let the community help drive what sessions make the conference. To be completely honest, it gets tough reviewing so many sessions and trying to find the best fit and balance, so why not share the workload. Of course, voting is only one component of how sessions get selected, in the end it will fall on us to make the deciding factor of what sessions can make the schedule. I really like the StackOverflow model of voting up or down which is why we went that route. If you are planning to attend the conference, please take a moment to check out the sessions and cast your vote on what you would like to see.

SWE101 TDD GreeGame challenge

Roberto Lopez — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:55:00 -0800

Last weekend I attended the Software Engineering 101 event at the Microsoft Offices in Nashville. It was a lot of fun and at the end we did some pair programming to try out Test Driven Development. Here is the solution that @mhenry07 and me came up with.

 public class GreedGame { private const int MaxDieValue = 6; private const int SingleOneValue = 100; private const int SingleFiveValue = 50; private const int TripleOnesScore = 1000; private const int TripleMultiplier = 100; public int Score(int[] dice) { int[] diceValueCounts = GetDiceValueCounts(dice); return CalculateScore(diceValueCounts); } private int CalculateScore(int[] diceValueCounts) { int score = 0; for (var dieValue = 1; dieValue <= MaxDieValue; dieValue++) { var count = GetCount(dieValue, diceValueCounts); score += CalculateNonTripletScore(dieValue, count); if (count >= 3) { score += CalculateTripletScore(dieValue); } } return score; } private int[] GetDiceValueCounts(int[] dice) { int[] diceValueCounts = new int[] { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }; foreach (var die in dice) { diceValueCounts[die - 1]++; } return diceValueCounts; } private int CalculateNonTripletScore(int dieValue, int count) { int multiplier = count < 3 ? count : count - 3; if (dieValue == 1) { return multiplier * SingleOneValue; } if (dieValue == 5) { return multiplier * SingleFiveValue; } return 0; } private int CalculateTripletScore(int dieValue) { if (dieValue == 1) { return TripleOnesScore; } return dieValue * TripleMultiplier; } private int GetCount(int number, int[] numberCounts) { return numberCounts[number - 1]; } }

Nice, succint, readable. I was surprised at how the whole thing came together as we put tests together and refactored the code.

Free Desktop Productivity Tools

Gaines Kergosien — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:45:00 -0800

Carpenters must keep an organized work space so they can find their tools and work efficiently. Developers are no different, except instead of a peg board our tools hang on a task bar. There are three tools in particular that I've come to depend on and, unlike expensive carpentry jigs and fixtures, these are completely free!

ClipX
How many times have you copied something to the clipboard only to realize you just replaced something else you needed? Considering how integral the clipboard is to software development it's amazing there hasn't been more innovation in how we copy and transfer values. With ClipX you can now keep a clipboard history and with a simple keystroke (CTRL+Shift+V) paste any text or image from history.

TrayIt
If you're like me you probably need a number of applications throughout the day and it doesn't make sense to close them down only to open them right back up next time. My task bar used to get cluttered with programs waiting to be used until I found TrayIt. Now I can minimize those apps to the system tray so they use minimum real estate and I know exactly where to find them. TrayIt makes it easy to create profiles for specific applications and is extremely flexible.

AutoSizer
So much of our time is spent rearranging windows. This can be especially annoying when you find yourself having to move the same window over and over. AutoSizer takes the headache out of window placement by letting you specify the size and placement of each window once so you never have to do it again. Make that annoying popup appear minimized or messages appear in the corner of the screen.

Hewlett Packard support fraud?

Gaines Kergosien — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:38:00 -0800

In my last article, Hewlett Packard HDX18 Woes, I wrote about the numerous problems I've encountered with my HP HDX18 notebook and how Hewelett Packard intentionally makes the support process difficult for the consumer. What I never expected was that they would sink to a new low by claiming out of warranty liquid damage and ignore the fact that I spent an extra $120 on a year of Accidental Damage Protection (ADP). A quick internet search shows that HP is willing to call just about anything liquid damage if it helps them avoid warrantied repair. This post at Ars Technica is just one example where HP's "proof" was laughable.

Here's the photos of my notebook sent by the HP representative.

Notice that there are no pictures of the actual motherboard or other electronic components, only the keyboard tray and DVD ROM case. Could this residue be a result of a spilled liquid? Possibly. Does it indicate that the notebook was damaged by spilled liquid? Not unless that keyboard tray or DVD ROM case is malfunctioning. Their claiming the fan and touch panel needed to be replaced and those are located on the other side of the notebook.

As I said, whether or not there is actually liquid damage is a moot point since I paid for Accidental Damage Protection at the time of purchase (less than a year ago). I was able to locate the original email confirming purchase and registration of my ADP coverage and provide the ADP serial number, however they had already escalated my case to corporate and insisted that I must wait to be contacted. When I asked for the contact information for the department handling my case I was told, "I cannot give you that information until your case has been assigned and you've been contacted."

I don't care how good of a deal it is, I would have never purchased a Hewlett Packard computer if I had known the kind of hassle I'd have to go through to get a working computer. Next step: Better Business Bureau.

Retrieving and saving images from SQL Server using RIA Services and Silverlight

Roberto Lopez — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:45:00 -0800

One of the requirements in the application I have been working on lately is to save images to a sql server database. I found snippets of code around the web but nothing that put it all together. So I created a test project to figure out what needed to be done. This is just test code not production ready code.

First I created a simple table to hold the images.

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TestTable]
( [ImageId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [ImageData] [varbinary](max) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_Images] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([ImageId] ASC)
) ON [PRIMARY]

I created my data model using Linq to SQL and finally a domain service using RIA Services. The first part that I had to figure out was how to convert the byte array into a bitmap so it can be used to set an image control's source property. It turned out to be fairly easy. I wrote a Byte Array to bitmap converter.

 public class ByteArrayToBitMapConverter : IValueConverter { public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { var binaryData = (byte[])value; if (binaryData == null) { return null; } BitmapImage bitmap = null; if (IsJpegOrPngImage(binaryData)) { Stream stream = null; try { stream = new MemoryStream(binaryData); bitmap = new BitmapImage(); bitmap.SetSource(stream); } catch (Exception e) { bitmap = null; } finally { if (stream != null) { stream.Dispose(); } } } return bitmap; } private static bool IsJpegOrPngImage(byte[] binaryData) { if (binaryData.Length > 2) { if (binaryData[0].Equals(0XFF) && binaryData[1].Equals(0XD8)) { return true; } if (binaryData[0].Equals(0X89) && binaryData[1].Equals(0X50)) { return true; } } return false; } public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { throw new NotImplementedException(); } }

Since I am only dealing with Png and Jpg images I added some logic to the converter to check the first two bytes to make sure that I am trying to convert the right type of image file. The XAML using the converter then looks like this:

 <local:ByteArrayToBitMapConverter x:Key="ArrayToBitmap" /> <DataTemplate x:Key="ReadFormStyle"> <StackPanel> <dataFormToolkit:DataField Label="Image Id"> <TextBlock Text="{Binding ImageId}" /> </dataFormToolkit:DataField> <dataFormToolkit:DataField Label="Image"> <StackPanel> <Image Source="{Binding ImageData, Converter={StaticResource ArrayToBitmap}}" Height="400" Width="400" Stretch="None"></Image> </StackPanel> </dataFormToolkit:DataField> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate>
...

I used some of the code from my previous post about encoding a jpg image but used ImageTools library to be able to do png compression. Next was getting an image from the client's local drive to save to the database. The only challenge that I encountered here was that when using FJCore to resize and encode a jpeg image it created some artifacts so I opted for converting the image to Png and then use Silverlight's ScaleTransform to do the resizing.

 void GetLocalImage_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { var dialog = new OpenFileDialog { Filter = "Image files(*.jpg;*.jpeg;*.png)|*.jpg;*.jpeg;*.png|All Files (*.*)|*.*" , FilterIndex = 1 }; if (dialog.ShowDialog() == true) { using (Stream fileStream = dialog.File.OpenRead()) { WriteableBitmap bitmap = new WriteableBitmap(1, 1); bitmap.SetSource(fileStream); double newWidth = 300; double newHeight = bitmap.PixelHeight * (newWidth / bitmap.PixelWidth); var tempImage = new System.Windows.Controls.Image(); tempImage.Source = bitmap; WriteableBitmap resize = ResizeWriteableBitmap(bitmap, newWidth, newHeight, tempImage); Stream pngCompressed = GetPngStream(resize); pngCompressed.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); byte[] binary = new Byte[pngCompressed.Length]; long bRead = pngCompressed.Read(binary, 0, (int)pngCompressed.Length); var imageRecord = dataForm.CurrentItem as TestTable; imageRecord.ImageData = binary; }; } }

You can download a zip file of my test project here:

ImageTest.zip (2.29 mb)

Of course you will need to change the connection string to your local instance of SQL Server.

Hewlett Packard HDX18 Woes

Gaines Kergosien — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:48:00 -0800

I'm hesitant to post a whiny blog as the first of 2010, but I've been putting off writing and figure you have to start somewhere...and my fellow geeks will agree that when your computer is having problems it's at the forefront of your mind.

Last year I purchased a HP HDX18 laptop. I did a lot of research, considered building my own, but in the end decided that the 40% off coupon that HP runs every few months made it too good of a deal to pass up. Looking back I might have reconsidered if I had known the problems that were hidden behind that sleek exterior.

The first major problem I had was when I would arrive at work or class only to realize that my laptop had come out of sleep mode in my bag. It seemed that when the screen opens the laptop automatically wakes up and I couldn't find any way of disabling this functionality. Unfortunately it happened on a trip while the laptop was in it's bag inside the trunk. Apparently that was the last straw as it wouldn't boot once I got to my destination. HP support had to replace the motherboard, but didn't have a solution for it waking up so I resolved to shut it down completely before putting it in a bag.

Soon after I noticed my volume would spontaneously turn up, down or mute and my wireless would disable itself, sometimes repeatedly. This was extremely annoying and I tried everything I could including reinstalling the operating system and updating drivers/software. Even after spending over an hour on the phone with support I couldn't find a solution, so I just lived with it.

I also began noticing that my headphone jacks were temperamental. It was difficult to get the headphones to properly connect and the USB port right next to the audio jacks didn't seem to work reliably.

All of this I was willing to ignore because the core functionality of the laptop worked and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on the phone with someone telling me to update drivers and reinstall the operating system.

This weekend I noticed that my laptop seemed to running very hot. I have a plastic ventilated tray for when I am not at a table, but even with that buffer the bottom of the laptop was uncomfortably hot. Last night it started dying. I don't mean crashing, locking up or blue screening. I would hear a pop and instantly the laptop was off as if it had completely lost power. I was able to boot it back up and use it for a while before it did the same thing again. I realized I was running some fairly intense software and checked out the temperatures only to realize that even under light load they were hovering around 170F at the GPU and 140F at the CPU.

Long story short, I spent some time in online chat with a support tech from India who, while very polite, was no help whatsoever. Even though he seemed to understand my issues his only suggestions were to perform updates or reinstall. I called phone support and managed to get someone in North America who identified that the issues I was having with my volume and wireless could be caused by the heat affecting the touch panel that controls those functions and authorized it for repair. Even after he decided the problem warranted repair he still had difficulty getting it through the system. At one point he explained, "They design these systems so it's as difficult as possible to authorize service."

I guess the moral of this rambling blog is, you get what you pay for, and Hewlett Packard has proven once again that they care more about their bottom line and giving the customer the runaround than providing a quality product/service. If it weren't for one abnormally helpful rep I probably would still be living with a flaky laptop rather than running their service maze.

Community Events of Note

John Kellar — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:20:00 -0800

With 2010 already well underway, a new list of community events is building up. Of course, devLink will be happening August 5 – 7 in Nashville, but I am going to be at a couple of others and wanted to bring them some attention.

January 20th, Nashville, TN - A lap around PDC featuring Steve Ballmer
Microsoft is putting on a one day event in Nashville with Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft doing the keynote. This is a summary of some of the content that came out at PDC in 2009, so it should be very informative for those using Microsoft development platforms and tools.

January 21, Murray, KY – Western Kentucky .NET User Group
I have been given the honor of being the inaugural speaker at the Western Kentucky .NET User Group in Murray, KY. I will be presenting on Effective Interface Design. If you are in the area please come by for the kickoff meeting of this new group.

January 23, Mobile, AL - Alabama Code Camp
This is my first time going to the Alabama Code Camp, but the lineup looks excellent. I will be presenting three sessions and really looking forward to getting down there. If you are in or around the area, you might want to consider going to this free event.

January 29, Louisville, KY – Louisville .NET Meetup Group
My last community event of the month will be a presentation at the Louisville .NET Meetup Group. I will be presenting Tools, Tips and Tricks for the .NET Developer which should be a great time. If you are in Louisville then check it out.

Searching a table with SQL LIKE statement and multiple paramters

John Kellar — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:41:00 -0700

Recently I was faced with the need to search across a table for several search terms and return the results. The search terms were to be built dynamically, so there was no way to know how many would be provided. Due to some client policies, I had to do the work through a stored procedure. I did not want to perform multiple calls to the procedure for each term identified, but you cannot pass multiple parameters to the LIKE statement in SQL, or can you? I immediately thought of passing in all my search terms via XML, but couldn't remember the syntax to pull the data out. Thankfully a friend of mine was kind enough hear my dilema and not laugh (too hard) when he pointed out that it was called 'OPENXML'. Yes, extremely obvious, but it had been a long day. Ok, so back on track.

If you haven't used OPENXML before it is available in SQL Server 2005/2008 and is really quite useful. In the past, I have used this mostly for passing in multiple objects to perform a mass INSERT and/or UPDATE. This was my first time using it with a LIKE statement, but it works perfectly. I didn't want to lose this code, since I am likely to use it again in the future so I figured I would do a quick blog post. So here is how to pass multiple parameters into a LIKE statement in SQL Server.

Below the schema for a table that I will use in my example.

Here is a little sample data for as well

So I need to be able to search the "Bio" field in my table to see if it contains the words 'PhD', 'scientist' or 'CEO'.

First, I need to build my search terms in XML form. This is a simple string which can be built in your application code and passed as a parameter into SQL Server. My example below show how you can do it in SQL Server so you can tweak it.

--String parameter with the search terms in XML format

DECLARE @xmlTerms VARCHAR(8000) -- Size it according to your expectations



--Here I am building the XML string with all the necessary terms.

SET @xmlTerms =

'<SearchTerms>

<SearchTerm>%PhD%</SearchTerm>

<SearchTerm>%scientist%</SearchTerm>

<SearchTerm>%CEO%</SearchTerm>

<SearchTerms>'



--A handle to the XML so we can reference it in the OPENXML call

DECLARE @xmlHandle INT



--This parses the XML and returns us a handle to the data

EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @xmlHandle out, @xmlTerms



--Now we can perform our query

SELECT id, searchTerm FROM exampleTable A

INNER JOIN (SELECT searchTerm

FROM OPENXML(@xmlHandle,'/SearchTerms/SearchTerm',1) --Make note that the XML nodes are case sensitive

WITH (searchTerm VARCHAR(50) 'text()')) T ON A.Bio LIKE searchTerm

ORDER BY id

One key thing to note is that this must be done via a JOIN, otherwise it will not work. The JOIN is what allows the LIKE comparison over multiple criteria dynamically.

Capture rendered asp.net page

Roberto Lopez — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:13:00 -0700

The other day I needed to capture what was being rendered in a confirmation page of an e-commerce site without having to set up a test environment. Here is the code that I put in the master page to capture the html.

protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)
{ if (SomeCondition == true) { MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream(); StreamWriter streamWriter = new StreamWriter(memoryStream); HtmlTextWriter memoryWriter = new HtmlTextWriter(streamWriter); base.Render(memoryWriter); memoryWriter.Flush(); memoryStream.Position = 0; TextReader reader = new StreamReader(memoryStream); string output = reader.ReadToEnd(); writer.Write(output); string path = Server.MapPath("~/Log") + "\\" + "capture.txt"; using (System.IO.StreamWriter swriter = new StreamWriter(path)) { swriter.Write(output); } } else { base.Render(writer); }
}

Running Fedora 11 in Virtual Box hosted in Windows 7

Roberto Lopez — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:41:00 -0700

So I started working on a project that uses PHP and decided to install Linux. Problem is I could not get Windows 7 Virtual PC to boot using the install iso image for Fedora 11. It kept crashing. So I found Virtual Box and installed it and it kept giving me "IO APIC Resources could not be located". It turned out that in the settings for the virtual machine under the "System" section in the "Motherboard" tab you can check "Enable IO APIC". Also when I tried to install to the virtual hard disk it did not work when using a dynamically expanding drive. I had to create a fixed size virtual drive.

Definition: con-crash

Gaines Kergosien — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:50:00 -0700

Main Entry: con·crash
Pronunciation:\ˈkän-krash\
Function: noun
Date: 2009

1 : The physical, financial and/or mental low experienced after return from a convention.
2 : Depression resulting from a return to reality after a surreal convention experience.

Updated to BlogEngine 1.5

Roberto Lopez — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:00:00 -0700

Things have been very busy and last month I did not have the time to post anything. Finally updated to BlogEngine 1.5 and changed my theme. Should be able to post something over the next few days.

devLink 2009 – THE GREATEST DEVLINK EVER!!!!

John Kellar — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:11:00 -0700

Yes, I said it! Actually, I am just repeating what I keep hearing from people who took the time to attend. Personally, it was the best event for me and the devLink team has expressed the same. With the economic climate today we were not expecting such great attendance, but we saw approximately 675 attendees from across the United States and Canada, as well as the United Kingdom and Denmark. It never ceases to amaze me how many folks are willing to invest in themselves to improve their skills out of their own pocket.

This year we added an extra day, extending devLink from a Friday-Saturday event to a Thursday - Saturday event. We always try new things each year and this year we made the first day a series of In-depth (3 hour) sessions intended to get people up to speed on a given topic. Overall it was pretty successful, but I think we can improve on this a little next year. Chicken Nick’s catered our lunch and had some amazing chicken strips which everyone was raving about. We invited comedian Rik Roberts to perform during lunch on Thursday to give everyone a smile and get them ready for the afternoon sessions which he did wonderfully.

Microsoft's Josh Holmes wrapped up the event for Thursday with his thought provoking keynote "The Lost Art of Simplicity". Then it was off to the VIP dinner where we welcome our speakers and thank them for committing their time to the event, along with some lucky attendees who get to come.

The second day of devLink was back to the regular session schedule and we had plenty to keep people busy. We had a little hiccup for lunch when our other lunch vendor deliver only half of our order and people had to wait for the second delivery. It would have been a disaster at any other event, but our attendees were so gracious and understanding it was surreal. I put Keith Elder on the spot and told him it was his job to keep the people waiting on the food happy. For those who don't know Keith he is a very charismatic guy and he had people playing musical chairs, red rover and singing songs. Of course, giving him some prizes to give away probably didn't hurt either. I think we may need to book him as one of our entertainment options in the future. When the food finally arrived the manager gave a personal apology to all the attendees and we got everyone fed.

Once sessions wrapped up on Friday several attendees made their way to the Nashville Sounds baseball game for the devLink attendee party. We had the entire party deck full of folks enjoying burgers, hot dogs and BBQ along with the game. It was a great time and Nashville won the game. Early in the evening we crowded everyone on the lower deck for a group picture (shown below).

Saturday rounded out the conference with another full day of sessions. We wrapped up the conference this year with DotNetRocks hosting a speaker panel for the event. It was a great discussion on whether software development had become too complex. At one point the line at the microphones were five people deep. Richard and Carl helped us give away the conference prizes with the 64-bit question contest which everyone enjoyed thoroughly.

So that is a quick rundown of how devLink 2009 went. It would not be possible without a number of great volunteers like John Baker, Jason Clark, Bryan Meyer, Rachel Twyford, Amy Boegh, Colin Neller, Randy Walker, Keith Elder, Alan Stevens, Evan Hoff, Robbie Mansfield, Rebel Bailey and many more. Even more devLink would not happen without the support of Leanna Baker who works her butt off all year long and puts up with me.

While this may have been the best devLink ever, it was also one of the toughest to put on. With the economic climate today we saw a drop in sponsors ability to support the event. We don’t want to turn devLink into a $1500 conference, actually we never will, but it takes sponsors to make the event available for $100 per person. So I have to mention these companies because their contributions as sponsors were crucial to putting on our event this year.

Vaco Technology was a tremendous factor in us putting the event on this year

Microsoft is a long time supporter and continued to be a major help to us this year

DataDirect is another long time supporter of the event and keeps coming back time and time again

Infragistics joined us as a major sponsor for the first time this year sending Jason Beres down for not only a vendor session, but we were able to fit him in for a regular session as well. We hope to see them again next year.

As the big conferences see their numbers drop lower and lower, events like devLink are growing. So next year is tenatively scheduled for August 5, 6 and 7, 2010 and we are already planning for it. If you have something/someone that you would love to see at devLink, please feel free to contact me anytime.

Bing me!

Gaines Kergosien — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:45:00 -0700

I'm not gay, but Google is hot! I mean, IMHO, they pretty much rule the roost when it comes to email and discussion groups. I never questioned making them my primary search engine over Yahoo! and Live Search...but then came Bing. We've all seen those annoying commercials and, I promise, they did nothing to encourage me to give it a shot. It wasn't until a DevLink attendee mentioned Blind Search that started to think maybe my search engine allegiance might waver. Blind Search is like the old Pepsi/Coke taste test, but instead we're comparing search results. I entered a few test searches and, to my surprise, I ended up picking Bing nearly every time.

I must admit it will be hard getting used to saying that I "binged" instead of "googling", but I'll give it a shot. :)

Adding mp3 audio books to your Zune

Gaines Kergosien — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:33:00 -0700

There's nothing better to pass the time on a long drive than a good book. If you don't want to get sick from reading in the car or happen to be the driver, audio books are a great choice. Having just bought my first Zune, one of my tasks was to load some audio books for my upcoming trip. I expected this to be a simple matter of syncing, but since my audio books did not come from Audible or Overdrive it's not.

The Tools:
ZuneWaxCreator2 - Prepares your folder of mp3s for Overdrive
Overdrive Media Console - Copies the prepared mp3s to your Zune

Preparation:
- The specific naming scheme for your mp3s doesn't seem to matter as they will be renamed automatically. Just be sure they are in order alphabetically. If you have your files neatly organized I suggest using a copy of the folder so your original files stay untouched.
- If you want cover art, place a jpg file in the folder with your mp3s.
- Your Zune must be plugged in via USB with no applications accessing it. If your Zune software is running, close it.

Execution:
1. Run ZuneWaxCreator. It will prompt you to select a folder.
2. Navigate to the folder containing the audio book's mp3s and jpg (optional) and click OK.
3. Enter the Author's Name.
4. Enter the Title.
5. Click OK.

At this point there are some optional steps. If you're like me and want the titles of your books to be neat and tidy then follow these steps. Otherwise, proceed to step 6.
5a. Click Cancel.
5b. Open the folder containing your mp3s.
5c. Rename the .wax file to your book title (ie. "Pride and Prejudice.wax")
5d. Open the Overdrive folder (ie. "C:\Program Files\OverDrive Media Console")
5e. Drag the .wax file onto TransferWizard.exe

6. Click Next.
7. Click Next.

The mp3 files should now be copying to your Zune. Once the process is complete click Finish. You should now have an Audiobooks menu item on your Zune.

Silverlight 3 WriteableBitmap to Jpg

Roberto Lopez — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:53:00 -0700

Andy Beaulieu had posted how to "print" from Silverlight 3 using a WriteableBitmap that's converted to a png image (post here.) I wanted to use a jpeg image. After looking around found the FJCore library which provides jpeg encoding/decoding. After struggling with how to convert the pixel array from WriteableBitmap to the format that FJCore expects I finally got it working. Here is the code if anyone is interested.

private static string GetBase64Jpg(WriteableBitmap bitmap)
{ int width = bitmap.PixelWidth; int height = bitmap.PixelHeight; int bands = 3; byte[][,] raster = new byte[bands][,]; for (int i = 0; i < bands; i++) { raster[i] = new byte[width, height]; } for (int row = 0; row < height; row++) { for (int column = 0; column < width; column++) { int pixel = bitmap.Pixels[width * row + column]; raster[0][column, row] = (byte)(pixel >> 16); raster[1][column, row] = (byte)(pixel >> 8); raster[2][column, row] = (byte)pixel; } } ColorModel model = new ColorModel { colorspace = ColorSpace.RGB }; FluxJpeg.Core.Image img = new FluxJpeg.Core.Image(model, raster); MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(); JpegEncoder encoder = new JpegEncoder(img, 90, stream); encoder.Encode(); stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); byte[] binaryData = new Byte[stream.Length]; long bytesRead = stream.Read(binaryData, 0, (int)stream.Length); string base64String = System.Convert.ToBase64String(binaryData, 0, binaryData.Length); return base64String;
}

devLink 2009 Conference Schedule is live

John Kellar — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:45:00 -0700

With around six weeks remaining until the big event, the conference schedule for devLink 2009 is now available. It is hard to believe that we are so close to our fourth conference in Nashville. You can find the conference schedule on the devLink website (http://www.devlink.net). If you are planning to attend the conference I look forward to meeting you. Don’t forget to let your friends know about the event too, we want as many people as possible to benefit from what devLink has to offer.

CodeStock 2009 is history, but not done yet

John Kellar — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:38:00 -0700

I spent this past weekend at the CodeStock 2009 conference in Knoxville, TN. This is the second year for CodeStock and Michael Neel put together another excellent event. I spent the majority of Friday in the Open Spaces discussing everything from blogs to refactoring code for legacy applications. Saturday it was my turn as I presented “Getting Started with WPF”. While WPF is not new anymore, I still find people who are just now looking at it for the first time. Attendance at the session was surprisingly larger than I expected for a Saturday morning, but I am not complaining. I am not a slide heavy speaker, so I will just make the sample project available.

So above I took a snapshot of the front and back of the guide (shown above) and got a real kick out of the 2010 concept. If you don’t understand, watch the movie 2010 and you will. It is great to see that there is motivation to do CodeStock again. I must admit, it can be addictive once you have had a couple of successful events. I also had the honor of participating in a panel about community events which was fun.

So I guess I need to get back to work on devLink since it is only about six weeks away. Wow! Time flies.

So you want to be a consultant? – Billable Hours

John Kellar — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:13:00 -0700

Recently, I have been getting a number of questions about what it takes to be a consultant. This is obviously a huge topic to try and cover in a single post. The conversation usually turns to a question about how much the person should charge for bill rate. This is not easy to answer either, since several factors come into play. To get started at determining your bill rate you really need to think about how many hours you will be able to bill someone for your services. So how many billable hours are REALLY in a year? Let’s look at the numbers.

52 weeks in a year
x 5 work days each week
260 possible work days each year

Now that we have a starting point, let’s think about time off. Yes, you have to take time off whether you like it or not sometimes. There are essentially 10 major holidays to consider in the United States. While not all companies close on every holiday, you have to plan for them all since you never know what a company will recognize.

New Year’s Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday
President’s Day
Memorial Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Veterans Day
Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Day

Next, consider how much vacation time you plan to take each year. This will be different for everyone, but I use 15 days vacation in my planning. That covers sick days and actual vacation time, remember you don’t get paid when you are on vacation as a consultant. Let’s apply our time off to the number of days available and see where we fall.

260 possible work days each year
- 10 holidays
- 15 days vacation
235 possible work days remaining each year

So you might think you can stop here and you could, but I don’t recommend it. Ask any recruiter how many billable hours are in a year and you will probably hear a number around 2000 hours. That number sure sounds great, but this is not a perfect world. You may or may not be on a contract for the duration of the year, consultants experience change and you must be ready. So below I have two scenarios, the first is a scenario where you will have no more than 5 days of not being on a contract and the second is a scenario where you will have 25 days of no work. This may or may not be representative of what you will experience, but better to prepare for the worst.

Good Scenario	Bad Scenario
235 possible work days - 5 no contract days 230 work days * 8 hours per day 1840 billable hours potential	235 possible work days - 25 no contract days 205 work days * 8 hours per day 1680 billable hours potential

So there you have it, plan for both scenarios and you should have a good idea of where to get started with bill rate.

MS Access SQLOLEDB connection

Roberto Lopez — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:46:00 -0700

I got a call from a client that uses an MS Access database as a front end to a SQL Server 2008 back end. Suddenly they said that they could not access the database. I knew that recently their IT department had added a domain controller and joined the server to the domain. It turned out that the Group policy had turned on the firewall and ports TCP 1433 and UDP 1434 were now being blocked. Port UDP 1434 needs to be open if you connect to the server by using only the name of the instance so in this case exceptions were added to the firewall rules to open both ports.

All about Podcasting

John Kellar — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:09:00 -0700

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to sit down with Carl Franklin of DotNetRocks (DNR) fame. This was really impromptu, but I knew exactly what to talk about. Carl and Richard Campbell have been tremendously successful in the podcasting realm so it was time to get Carl’s thoughts on how to get started podcasting. So sit back, relax and pay attention as Carl shares his experience on podcasting.

Silverlight 3 Ria Services Paging

Roberto Lopez — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:49:00 -0700

If you start going through examples using Silverlight 3 and RIA Services you'll encounter a settle issue with the paging functionality. It took me a while to realize why it wasn't working until I experimented with the Domain Service and found some posts on the issue. Paging requires your data layer to accept Skip() and Take(). Now most examples use the Entity Framework for the Data Layer and EF only allows Skip() and Take() when your data has some ordering. If you create your data layer using EF then add RIA services and configure paging on the Silverlight side you'll see that the first batch of rows will load fine but when you click on the next button there is no data. The solution is simple just add an OrderBy clause to the IQueryable property in your Domain Service that gets all the data from the table you want to enable paging on.

public class NorthwindDomainService : LinqToEntitiesDomainService { ... public IQueryable GetEmployees() { return this.Context.Employees .OrderBy(emp=>emp.EmployeeID); }

Where has John been?

John Kellar — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:10:00 -0700

I recently made the decision to return to the world of consulting so time has been spread thin. I have actually become an entrepreneur by merging my Anvil Systems (Sole Proprietorship) with Useful Devices, Inc. (www.usefuldevices.com). Useful Devices is an electronic product development company that has offered electronic design, manufacturing and management for commercial and industrial companies. So what does that have to do with software development and consulting? Great question, if you have an MP3 player you probably have software on your computer to interact with that device. This is no different for custom built devices, hence the need for quality software applications to support devices. I expect this will offer new and exciting development challenges. Not all custom software development will be for devices of course. I will additionally consult on development needs of customers as well.

What does all this mean?

Well, I will be getting back to my blog to deliver more frequent and hopefully useful content. I am really excited about Visual Studio 2010 and may even tackle some other topics as well. So essentially, I just wanted to make sure you knew that I am still alive and plan to bring my blog back to life.

Getting around to Practices of an Agile Developer

John Kellar — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:56:00 -0700

I have had the book Practices of an Agile Developer sitting on my bookshelf for quite some time. This past week I went to the Toronto Code Camp and decided to take the book for the plane trip. I know the book is not brand new ©2006, but I found it to be a good read and contain some worthwhile content so I figured I would mention it.

As with most practices books there are usually several “I already knew that” moments, but it is always good to get a different perspective. Sometimes you get to see a new way of thinking or reinforce your own understanding of a principle. The book is written in a conversational tone, which makes for an easy read.

The book is broken into a series of short sections or lessons within each chapter, so you don’t have to read it cover to cover. It covers a wide array of topics and mentions some excellent resources and tools. At less than 200 pages it should not sit on your bookshelf as long as it did mine. Anyone who is looking for some exposure to Agile practices or just good overall practices would benefit from the book.

Planning a Technical Event – To Pay or Not to Pay

John Kellar — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:07:00 -0700

The question of whether to charge people to attend an event is something I get all the time. It is tough question because I have run both free and pay events and they both have their risks and rewards. Every situation is different, so you should consider your situation carefully and make an informed decision. I have a couple points which I share when asked the question.

This is about the community, we don’t want to make people pay to attend.

You are absolutely right, it is about the community. A sponsor(s) may be willing to cover all the costs. A company may offer their facilities. Attendees can brown bag their lunches. If you can bring together an event at no cost to you then you can definitely deliver it for free to attendees. There are a number of free events that operate successfully this way. The best thing about a free event is if people are not happy, they can get a full refund. Expectations may be high, but the “free” says it all, it only cost them time.

If we can put on an event for free, why would we consider charging at all?

Good question, so events that are free suffer from two core issues. They don’t necessarily dictate success or failure, but they can affect the reach and operation of your event.

Perceived Value
Look at the sample advertisements below.When you call about the free puppies what do you think your expectations will be versus calling about the $250 puppies? You will probably expect the puppies that cost $250 to be pure bred and registered with the local/national kennel club. Your expectation of the free puppies will be far less and you might even harbor some reservations about whether you would want one.

Apply the same logic to your event and you can see that there is a chance of limiting your audience. This is not a global truth, but it should be considered. When you add a price tag to the event, people will evaluate it differently. I am not saying charge $1500 a person, that type of event is about making money not the community (for the most part). Think of a nominal charge that you think people would be willing to pay. I try price events based on the cost of a good technical book. Most good books range from $30 - $70 so if you can give someone the value of a book at your event, that should be your price point or a little less. By charging a nominal fee, you could increase the number of people you reach. If your event isn’t costing you anything, use the money to print up t-shirts, buy everyone lunch or give the money back when they show up.

No Investment means No Commitment
The biggest impact to free events is the dreaded drop off rate. My experience is that most free events see between 35% and 70% of registered attendees not show up to the event. Consider the following scenario.

You organize an event and get sponsors to pay for t-shirts and lunch. You have 600 people register to attend. You order enough food and shirts for everyone plus some extra, just in case. The day of the event arrives, but you only have 400 people show up.

In reality, a free event with 400 out of 600 people is great. So you now have over 200 meals that will not be eaten and 200 shirts that will not be worn. You could have used the money that was wasted and bought prizes or something else for those who did attend. What do you do? Donate the food to a shelter is one idea.

The easiest way to motivate people to attend an event is to make them demonstrate their interest in attending. By requiring someone to pay a nominal fee, you will give them a reason to show up. Think about it, if you skip an appointment to the doctor, they most likely charge you for not showing up. Do you skip regularly? If they didn’t charge you, there would be not reason for you to care if you skip or not. The same applies to an event.

The drop off rate I have experienced since adding a cost to attend has been at the highest 4%. No joke, we see 96% of those who register for the event actually attend the event. They have a vested interest in attending so they are more committed to show up.

Risks and Rewards
Remember, I am not saying that free events are bad, just demonstrating some things to think about. If you don’t see them as a concern, please keep your event free. When you add money to the equation there are definite differences. You have to be concerned with how to collect payment, managing the money and more. There are definitely rewards to adding a price tag, people are more committed to attend and will perceive your event as more valuable. There are risks associated with it as well, since people have put money in their expectations rise and will react differently if they don’t leave satisfied. You will need to focus on the details so your event delivers or exceeds attendee expectations.

I am always interested in hearing others opinions on this topic.

CodeStock 2009, a must attend event

John Kellar — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:00:00 -0700

Once again Michael Neel and the crew in Knoxville, TN are pushing the envelope for community conferences with CodeStock 2009. The CodeStock crew will be presenting the 2nd annual CodeStock conference on June 26-27, 2009. Not only is the event put on by developers who are passionate about technology, but you have a chance to decide on what the sessions will be. If you register for CodeStock before May 15, you can cast a vote for your top 5 most desired sessions. The voting will help decide what sessions are selected. I was at CodeStock last year and it was a very well attended and well run event, especially for it’s first year. I know that this year will be just a good and look forward to heading back.

The amount of activities that will be going on is quite impressive. Jeffrey Richter and John Robbins will be delivering virtual sessions which I assure you will be excellent. I have been trying to get just one of those guys to devLink since 2006, so great job to the CodeStock folks for landing them. There will be a contest called Unbeatable Geek, which should be very interesting to see. Nick Bradbury, creator of HomeSite, TopStyle and FeedDemon will be participating in a panel on creating business from software. Even I have been invited to participate in a panel discussion about running community conferences and user groups, which should be a fun time. The good ole boys from Deep Fried Bytes, Keith Elder and Chris “Woody” Woodruff will be on hand to record a live podcast episode as well.

This is one of the best run and enjoyable events that I have every attended so I hope you will consider spending a weekend in Knoxville at CodeStock this June. Oh, I forgot to mention that the price for tickets is only $25 before June 1st and $45 after that date, so it is recession friendly. With an offering of around 50 sessions and the rest, it is a bargain.

Alternative to Cisco VPN Client for Windows 7 64-bit

John Kellar — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:00:00 -0700

A few months back I posted a blog entry about a VPN client for Vista 64-bit. My problem was that Cisco did not offer a VPN client and I needed one. I came across the NCP Secure Entry Client which I have been using since that time with great success. Actually that is one of the most visited blog posts. I must say that the company does an amazing job at supporting the tool, although I had minimal issues with it in the beginning anyway. I have to point out one instance where Someone posted a question on my blog regarding the tool, and it was not something that I could answer. So I contacted support and mentioned the question and they took time to answer the question on my blog. Now that is support!

Recently I decided to give the Windows 7 Beta a try and I have been pleased to say the least. As I was walking through my list of applications to install, I came across the NCP Client. Not thinking clearly, it was like 3 a.m., I attempted to install the Vista 64-bit version. Windows 7 made me try a few times, but it finally was installed, but I was unable to import my connection settings (.pcf file). I decided I would hold off on any panic until I visited the website to see if maybe there was a more recent version or a forum post answered my dilemma. To my surprise the NCP Secure Entry Client has a Windows 7 beta version as well. Now how many companies out there are offering a beta product for a beta operating system? That was a rhetorical question.

I held off on posting anything this time around until I had plenty of time to see if I encountered issues. Having gone through pain trying to get the Vista version installed I was concerned about the installation process. Well, it worked the first try without any hand holding which was nice. Then I figured I might encounter the problem importing my .pcf file again. Nope! It worked without a hitch. So I have been using the new version for around 3 weeks now and it has performed perfectly. So if you are looking for a VPN Client for Windows 7 64-bit, the NCP Secure Entry Client is again a very good option.

devLink 2009 – Registration Open

John Kellar — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:54:00 -0700

Yesterday, we opened registration for devLink 2009 which is scheduled to take place August 13 – 15, 2009. You can see the sessions that are available on the website (www.devlink.net). This year features more content and we even added an extra day. Content is the key and it is targeted to software developers, architects, project managers, database administrators and more. The best part of devLink is that while it is organized and structured like a major conference it costs much much less. At $100 a ticket (or $75 if you register before April 15) it costs less than two good technical books. Most companies are used to paying over $1000 for similar events. Don't be fooled, just because devLink doesn't cost a small fortune doesn't mean it is cheap. If you want to learn more check out the website at http://www.devlink.net. The devLink 2009 event will take place in Nashville, TN on August 13-15, 2009. Space is limited and the event had sold out every year since 2006.

HPHDX.net Launch

Gaines Kergosien — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:46:00 -0700

I've been shopping for a notebook computer since the end of February when my last contract ended. I couldn't justify dropping several thousand on a new computer, but I'm a bit spoiled and couldn't see settling for a mid-range machine. I lucked upon a deal on a Hewlett Packard HDX18t. I've been a loyal Dell customer ever since college and never owned an HP, but the specs are excellent for the price and the reviews are generally glowing.

As the ship date drew near for my new laptop I began looking for a bag that this monster would fit in. This led me to the HDX18 owner's thread at NotebookReview.com where I spent several hours sifting through the three hundred page discussion. I was amazed at the amount of useful information buried where nobody would ever find it and decided this was yet another job for DotNetNuke. By the end of the evening I had launched the HP HDX Owners Club at HPHDX.net. I wanted to make the site useful to the largest audience possible so I branded the site for the entire HDX line rather than a single model.

It hasn't even been 24 hours since the site launched, but it's already beginning to look like a valuable resource. Now if my computer will just arrive. :)

ADO.Net Data Services Linq to SQL

Roberto Lopez — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 09:02:00 -0700

I did a recent presentation on consuming ADO.Net Data Services with Silverlight at the Nashville .Net user's group web focus meeting. You can download the code here, AdoNetDemo.zip (1.32 mb). You'll need to change the connection string in the web.config file. You can download the NorthwindEF database from John Papa's website, author of "Data-Driven Services with Silverlight 2", look for the links section on the right and you'll see the link to download the sample code from his book. I highly recommend that you get his book, it has a ton of samples and goes into great detail about data binding and getting data from different source into Silverlight.

In my samples I used the Entity Framework for my data model but you can also use Linq to SQL. There are a couple of things that need to be done for it to work with ADO.Net Data services. For all of you entities you need to create a partial class and decorate each entity with the DataServiceKey attribute to indicate which column is your primary key (Entity Framework does this automatically but Linq to SQL does not), otherwise ADO.Net Data Services will raise an error saying that an IQueryable property is being exposed for a non-entity object.

 [DataServiceKey("CustomerID")] public partial class Customer { }

The second thing that needs to be changed is adding an implementation of IUpdatable for the Linq to SQL data model if you intend to update data through ADO.Net Data Services. You can download an implementation from the MSDN code gallery.

SyntaxHighlighter update

Roberto Lopez — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:47:00 -0700

I was using BlogNet Engine's codeformatter plug-in but was not happy with it. So I upgraded to use SyntaxHighlighter. This blog engine uses tinyMCE to enter posts so I had to change tinyMCE's init code to not remove line breaks in the control tinyMCE.ascx.

<script type="text/javascript"> tinyMCE.init({ // General options mode: "exact", elements : "<%=txtContent.ClientID %>", theme: "advanced", plugins : "inlinepopups,fullscreen,contextmenu,cleanup,emotions,table,iespell,advlink", convert_urls: false, // Theme options theme_advanced_buttons1: "fullscreen,code,|,cut,copy,paste,|,undo,redo,|,bold,italic, underline,strikethrough,|,justifyleft,justifycenter,justifyright,justifyfull,|, bullist,numlist,outdent,indent,|,iespell,link,unlink,sub,sup,removeformat, cleanup,charmap,emotions,|,formatselect,fontselect,fontsizeselect", theme_advanced_buttons2: "", theme_advanced_toolbar_location: "top", theme_advanced_toolbar_align: "left", theme_advanced_statusbar_location: "bottom", theme_advanced_resizing: true, remove_linebreaks: false, tab_focus : ":prev,:next" });
</script>

The last thing was to remove from my style file any styles that referred to a "code" tag.

devLink Technical Conference - Speaker Selection has begun

John Kellar — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:31:00 -0700

Earlier this year, we opened the devLink 2009 call for speakers and the response was tremendous. The deadline for submissions was this weekend and the final (revised) count is 71 speakers and 360 potential sessions. When I think about over 70 people willing to travel to Nashville and share their knowledge with other professionals all I can say is WOW! Unfortunately, our space is limited and we will have some tough decisions to make. With registration scheduled to open April 1, 2009 the selection process will be complete soon. Keep watching the devLink website next week as we work to announce the sessions for this year's event.

Come to the Atlanta Code Camp

John Kellar — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:14:00 -0700

The 5th annual Atlanta Code Camp will take place this Saturday, March 14 at the Georgia Gwinnett College. The event is free to attend and they still have space. If you are in the area and are interested in attending you are asked to register http://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=136331. Don't miss out!

Browser gaming with Travian

Gaines Kergosien — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:06:00 -0800

The world is becoming more browser based every day. We check our email on Gmail or Hotmail, catch up with friends and family using Facebook, share news and thoughts over Twitter and even create and view documents online. The world of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) is no exception to this trend.

Travian is a real-time strategy (RTS) game where empires are built and wars are waged. Players farm resources in order to build their nation’s infrastructure, defenses, and armies. Sound familiar? There have been a number of successful RTS titles over the years, but few of them allowed you to play online with thousands of other people using only your browser. We’re not throwing sheep here. Players can choose to form alliances or attack their neighbors to expand their empire. Armed forces can be made up of numerous types of units, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

One of the wonderful aspects of this game is the built in time management. I spent countless hours on end playing WoW when I should have been doing something else, because there’s always one more quest to complete or item to find. This lack of self control is not an issue with Travian as it takes time to farm resources and build an infrastructure. Players are shown an amount of time it will take until they can afford to start a new task. In the beginning this can be as little as a few minutes while a resource is being extended, however soon these waits stretch to hours or even days. This means no matter how addicted you are to the game, you wont progress any faster by spending hours on end in front of the computer.

Of course, just because you have to wait for your resources to build up doesn’t mean you won’t find yourself logging on during spare moments with your cell phone. Travian does not load correctly in Pocket Internet Explorer, but it is compatible with Opera on Windows Mobile phones or Safari on the iPhone. I’m sure there have been more than a few battles waged during church and cities built while waiting in the doctor’s office.

Browser based gaming does have its pitfalls. Where as most MMOs employ sophisticated cheat detection techniques in their software, websites have limited access to the user machine and can’t detect illegal applications or scripts which may give an unfair advantage. Many players use the Greasemonkey addon for Firefox to tweak their interface, making information more accessible and increasing their efficiency. Others go so far as to employ scripts which allow them to schedule actions, something that is not available in the unmodified game. Though the temptation to improve the interface and gain an advantage is strong, players should be aware that these sorts of enhancements are illegal and efforts have been made in the past to identify abusive players resulting in bans.

There’s no monthly fee to play Travian, so grab your netbook and fire up Travian.

Avoid Twitter character limits with TinyChat

Gaines Kergosien — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:14:00 -0800

Have you ever replied to a tweet and realized you want to carry on a real conversation without having to limit your replies to 140 characters? Maybe you met them on Twitter and don't have any other way to talk with them. Just go to TinyChat.com and "Click to create your chat room". In just a few seconds you'll have a URL which you can post or send through direct message to anyone who you wish to chat with. They can click the link, enter a name and be chatting with you instantly.

In the TinyChat Terms of Service (ToS) they say, "After you leave the chat room, all the chat data is gone, so its perfect for secure chats." While they may discard the chat data once you leave, I would caution against considering this a secure method of chatting. The only thing anyone needs to join the chat room is it's URL and the site does not make use of a secure connection.

TinyChat wont be replacing email or instant messaging any time soon, but for those instances where you want a quick and easy way to talk online it's excellent.

Note: TinyChat gives you the option of entering your Twitter credentials. I'm very wary about giving my login information out to anyone, however warhawke tried this and found that they automatically tweet your meeting room information for everyone to see. As always, give your credentials at your own risk.

Why you should check out TweeterGetter

Gaines Kergosien — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:25:00 -0800

I've read a number of articles in the past week regarding TweeterGetter, most of which identify it as a ponzi or pyramid scheme. At first glance they seem to be right, however I've given this a lot of thought and come to the realization that they couldn't be farther from the truth.

TweeterGetter is basically a multi-level marketing tool to get new followers on Twitter. Yes, it is pyramid shaped in nature and involves you following several people below you in the "chain" in order to be added to the list of those to be followed. That's where the similarity to the aforementioned schemes end. Getting new followers is no guarantee that those tweeps will continue following you. It's up to the quality of your tweets to keep those followers. On the flip side, you can stop following the people who you were "forced" to follow when you joined whenever you want. Joining essentially costs you nothing and the gains are short lived unless you add value to the twitterverse.

One of the great strengths of Twitter is the way it brings together people who would have never otherwise met through their common interests/discussion points. I see this as just one more way you can connect with people you might not have had a chance to meet. Only you can decide if gaining possible followers is worth following a few random people for a bit. If so, give TweeterGetter a try!

Amazon announces new Kindle 2

Gaines Kergosien — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:37:00 -0800

The Kindle 2 was announced today by Amazon and the buzz is positive. I've been using my Kindle for nearly a year for pleasure reading and absolutely love it. I'm so happy using an e-reader that I'm working to liquidate my extensive paperback/hardback collection. Needless to say that the gadget geek in me couldn't wait to see how Amazon had improved upon one of my favorite devices.

Text-to-Speech
Audio books are great for times when you want use of your hands/eyes, but they're generally pretty expensive and relatively few books ever make it to audio. The new Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature makes any book into an audio book. Of course, the digital voice could never compare to Leonard Nimoy and, while it does an acceptable job, the inflections are often a bit off. Those shortcomings aside, it's an excellent new feature.

Battery Life
The original Kindle gets excellent battery life and rarely have I ever had to plug in while reading, however it's always nice being able to go untethered for an even longer period of time. Even more significant in my mind is the new ability to charge via USB. With my current Kindle, if I plug it into the computer to copy over books from my hard drive it operates off battery power. It has a special charger that must be used even while on a USB connection. The new Kindle 2 has no such limitation and will offer much more flexibility in keeping that extended battery juiced.

Form Factor
The Kindle 2's new design is a big selling point for me as the edges of the original Kindle are nearly covered with buttons. My biggest frustration has been accidental page turns. The new layout offers more button-free area for grip while the slimmer case keeps weight down. I also like the move to a five-way rocker instead of the roller. I often put my kindle in a zipper freezer bag for reading in harsh conditions (such as the hot tub) which makes the roller nearly unusable. I expect the five-way rocker will also make using the internal web browser much easier and more intuitive.

Storage
I have to mention the fact that they increased the internal storage, however I don't see this as a very big improvement since the Kindle has a memory card slot which allows the user to increase it's memory to whatever amount they need. I have a 16GB secure digital card that gives me enough space to carry more books than I'll read in ten years!

Speed
It only took me a few pages to get used to reading on the Kindle. I've never been bothered by the page turn "flicker", however others have told me that's a major reason why they decided against purchasing a Kindle. Those individuals should be happy to note that the Kindle 2 boasts faster page turns.

The Good
Beyond the features listed above, the Kindle 2 still boasts a web browser and free internet access. I think this is absolutely the most overlooked feature and one that would most likely tip the scales for anyone considering purchasing a Kindle. I can't count how many times I've been reading a book on my Kindle and popped open the browser to check my email, the weather, or just Google something.

The Bad
My biggest disappointment in the Kindle 2 is that it still doesn't offer native PDF support. Sure, you can email your PDF to an amazon email address and receive an e-book copy, however the conversion does not always go as planned and I've had difficulties getting larger PDFs to convert at all. Many school textbooks can only be found in PDF and contain an abnormally high number of pictures which makes the conversion even more awkward.

The original Kindle came with a binder-style cover. I didn't like the way that the cover would tend to come loose while reading so I only ever used it for protection when traveling. The new cover has a locking hinge to avoid this problem, so why would I include this in "The Bad"? The cover is not included and costs an additional $29.99.

Conclusion
I love my Kindle and have recommended them to fellow gadget geeks who enjoy reading. The Kindle 2 should perform just as well as the original and I would highly recommend it as well, however I'm not sure the improvements justify an upgrade unless you're likely to use the new text-to-speech feature or are willing to shell out $359 for a nicer form factor.

The Kindle 2 is available for pre-order from Amazon.com. Owners of the original Kindle will take first priority.

Designing Business Cards

Gaines Kergosien — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:10:00 -0800

I'm designing business cards and would like to get people's opinion on the front of the card. Bear in mind that these are personal cards (ie. not company specific) and I plan on placing my contact information on the back.

Edge Of Dev - CodeMash

John Kellar — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:59:00 -0800

Well, it took some time, but here is a quick episode of Edge Of Dev about the CodeMash conference that I attended early in January. I had a great time at the event which took place in Sandusky, Ohio at the Kalahari resort. Yes, that was Kalahari, not calamari. I think the organizers did a great job and it was a very memorable event. If you haven't been to a conference lately and you are free next January, I recommend you check it out. You can also find this and other episodes at http://www.edgeofdev.com.

Nashville Web Developer January Meeting Review

Gaines Kergosien — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:55:00 -0800

We had a great turnout for our first meeting and came up with some great suggestions for presentations. Thanks to everyone who participated. Here's a list of the meeting topics we're considering:
- Silverlight & XAML
- Silverlight 3rd Party Components
- ASP.NET Performance Considerations
- ASP.NET Security Considerations
- ASP.NET Page Lifecycle
- Introduction to JQuery
- Ajax/JavaScript Development
- Designing with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
- DotNetNuke Installation & Configuration (1/2)
- DotNetNuke Module Development (2/2)
- Overview of Visual Studio 2010
- Converting Classic ASP/ActiveX to ASP.NET
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Joseph Wichman shared his experience creating streaming videos with Silverlight. They can be found in the Research Videos section of tnbackpackers.org.

Nashville User Group Meetings

Gaines Kergosien — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:59:00 -0800

How enthusiastic do you think you would be if you had a 1/5 chance to win a really nice prize worth up to $1,300? We gave away a ton of great stuff at the Nashville .NET User Group meeting, but the enthusiasm level seemed abnormally low. Our first meeting at the Brentwood library went really well, despite the reserved mood and the (new) projector refusing to work for the first 10 minutes. The library conference rooms are quite nice, the speaker (Chris Hefley) was great, and we had a fair turnout considering the meeting location change.

Now that the January .NET UG meeting is behind us, I'm excited about the first Web Developer meeting this Thursday @ Compuware. If your job involves developing web sites/applications or you're just interested in learning to publish your own sites, come join us. We'll be discussing what topics people would like to see presentations on.

Update Virtual PC before installing Windows 7

John Kellar — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:22:00 -0800

I installed Windows 7 as a Virtual PC last night and all went well, except that my mouse responded slowly. So with the operating system in place I attempted to install the Virtual Machine additions. I actually had to run the setup myself because the menu option did not start the process as it had in the past. After the install, I did the obligatory reboot and was shocked to see the blue screen of death. Yep, I said it, and you can see it below.

I immediately had a clue of the cause because I remember hearing that there was a Service Pack released for Virtual PC 2007. It would make sense that Windows 7 would probably need something that was part of that Service Pack. Anyway, I was easily able to repair the system and Windows 7 was working again.

After downloading and installing the Service Pack, which is available here, I attempted to install the Virtual Additions and it worked directly from the menu, which was good sign. After the reboot of Windows 7, I was greeted with the login screen. So lesson learned, you want to confirm you have the latest version of Virtual PC before doing any installs of Windows 7.

devLink 2009 Call for Speakers announced

John Kellar — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:44:00 -0800

Tonight I spent several hours working on the devLink website, ugh. If you have any thoughts, please pass them on. I just posted the devLink 2009 Call for Speakers for those who are interested in presenting at the event.

Currently the plan is to have seven (7) tracks and those are fluid based on the session abstracts we receive. We have to find qualified speakers for each track and fill that track. The core tracks will consist of the following:

Client App Dev
Web App Dev
Architecture and Practices
Database
Project Management
Application Lifecycle Management
Open (just that, open game so any type of session will be considered)
Open (In-Depth), these are 3 hours sessions so you can get more detailed than you have before.

If you have an idea you would like to share, please make it known to me. I personally would love to see some systems based sessions, but we will have to see what comes.

The date for submitting your session abstracts is March 13, 2009 and that is a firm date. Every speaker will have to present a minimum of two (2) sessions so I recommend you put in at least 4 ideas, but the more you send in the better off you will be. One more thing that I didn't put in the submission form. I would recommend you put your preferred sessions at the top of the list. It won't get you any special points, but you could get selected quicker with your best ideas being first.

If you have any questions about whether a session would be of interest, please let me know.

Microsoft Tag - Cell phone bar code scanner

Gaines Kergosien — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:30:00 -0800

I remember thinking how cool it would be to write a program that would use my cell phone's camera to scan a book bar code then automatically add that book to a digital library or shopping list.

While Microsoft Tag wont let you scan traditional UPC bar codes, it does let you create your own bar code that will send a user to a website, place a phone call, add a contact or just show regular text. The main thing I see this being useful for is posters with a URL. Imagine seeing a concert poster and wanting to buy tickets online, where all you have to do is point your phone at the poster and it pulls up the ticket purchase page.

Pretty cool stuff, but of course it all depends on people adopting the technology and printing these bar codes on their products.

You sign up for the beta by visiting tags.microsoft.com. Just for fun, here's a tag for this Blog.

New Site: SprintPre.net

Gaines Kergosien — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:59:00 -0800

Palm announced a new phone named the "Pre" yesterday for release on the Sprint PCS network. It's already created quite a bit of buzz, so last night I put together a community website for it. Now my task is putting useful information on the site and getting the word out so future Pre owners start using it.

XNA Game Development for the Xbox 360

Gaines Kergosien — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:36:00 -0800

If you have an Xbox 360 and a bit of time on your hands (ie. no children) you've probably visited the marketplace to browse the Live Arcade games for something new. You may have noticed that they recently added Community Games, which is where amateur game creators can publish their games for everyone to try and rate. If a game becomes popular enough, it is added to the Xbox Live Marketplace. I was flipping through the community games the other day and was not impressed. Like a typical software developer, I thought to myself, "I could make a better game than this...if I knew anything about making games."

I mentioned this to some coworkers who are into game development and they explained how simple it is to make games for the Xbox using Visual Studio and XNA Game Studio. Now I'm intrigued. You mean I can leverage my existing skills with Visual Studio and C#? Sure, I don't know much about modeling or bump mapping, but I'm a big fan of old school games and would love to make a simple Mario-style platformer or 2D puzzle game.

The spark of interest has been coaxed into a flame of creativity. I don't want to let my other projects suffer, however I intend to check out XNA and see if I really have what it takes to put something together. I'd love to hear from others who are thinking about trying their hand at XNA or who have already developed with it.

Nashville User Groups (.NET and DotNetNuke)

Gaines Kergosien — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:23:00 -0800

Since being appointed as Vice President for the Nashville .NET User Group, I've felt like a fireman without a fire. My task as VP is to handle sponsorship and the all important SWAG (Stuff We All Get). The previous VP had a child and needed to step down early, so I expected to be swamped with current and potential sponsors to contact and have a list of companies who had donated products/books for giveaways to hit up for more stuff. This was not the case. The user group has been blessed with a number of very faithful sponsors and, although we did have to scramble for a new meeting place, doesn't seem to have any urgent needs.

As anticlimactic as this felt, I'm grateful in that I have more free time to devote towards personal projects and organizing a Nashville DotNetNuke User Group. The plan is not to create an altogether separate UG, but a child group within the .NET UG. My task now is to find out what date would be good for our first meeting. Is Thursday the best weekday? Chime in with your suggestion. Would it be a good idea to have it the Thursday after the .NET User Group meeting?

Heading to CodeMash

John Kellar — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:19:00 -0800

I am off to attend CodeMash in Sandusky, OH. CodeMash is very similar to devLink in that they put on an event with top notch speakers for a lower price than the big conferences. I cannot comment too much on the event since this will be my first time attending. I do know some of the people that put the event on and I am sure it will be a great time. It is always a good idea to collaborate with other event coordinators to share ideas for what works and what doesn't. As a matter of fact, one of the key players Jim Holmes attended devLink 2008.

If you don't already have a ticket to CodeMash it is a little late. They are sold out for a capacity of 500 which is great. You can still signup for updates so you can stay informed for next year at their website though.

Silverlight in DotNetNuke

Gaines Kergosien — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:36:00 -0800

Have you ever been fired up about doing something, but every time you try to start you get bogged down in the details and loose interest? If you're a developer and tinker with projects at home I'm sure this has happened a time or two. I had an idea for a website, similar to Craigslist, but instead of hosting classified ads it would host a calendar of events for motorcycle enthusiasts. If you want to plan a ride to a specific destination next weekend, just go to your city's site and post a ride. Other members can join in if they're interested. It wouldn't be limited just to rides, but also bike rallies and club events.

I brought all the pieces together except one major facet, the event calendar. I used DotNetNuke as a basis for the site and couldn't find a decent event module. The core module didn't display well and was a bit buggy, and on top of the standard limitations I was trying to customize the site so events would tie in with discussion threads. Post an event and an associated thread would be created where people could ask questions and talk about the event. I also saw the need for moderation/abuse reporting, which would need some custom work. Every time I tried to make some headway it seemed I was farther away from my goal.

It's been over a year since I started struggling with the site and tonight I resumed my efforts to get something launched. What makes now different than all the other times? My current client needed a management portal and wanted it created using DotNetNuke. This gave me the opportunity to develop some custom modules in an environment where I was focused with no distractions. The result was some pretty nice modules and a lot of useful experience. I also did some work this summer with Microsoft Silverlight. If you're not familiar with Silverlight, it's similar to Flash in that it's great for making media-rich web interfaces. This is perfect for an interactive calendar. The last piece of the puzzle is Silverlight Desktop for DotNetNuke. It provides the framework for easily including Silverlight applications in a DotNetNuke site.

My goal is to have SOMETHING working by the end of the weekend. It probably wont be very pretty and it surely wont have all the functionality I want, but if I can get something published it should get me out of this rut and help generate some momentum.

Edge Of Dev - Episode 1: Microsoft Surface with Tim Huckaby

John Kellar — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:56:00 -0800

Back in October, I had an opportunity to talk Microsoft Surface with Interknowlogy CEO Tim Huckaby. Tim and I were both at the DevReach conference in Sofia, Bulgaria and he had just completed a video which showcased some of the applications his team had been building. We took a few moments to sit down and I recorded the conversation for my new video series Edge Of Dev.

I hope you will be pleasantly surprised when you see some of the applications that Interknowlogy has put together. Personally, as cool as the video is, you really have to get hands-on with the Surface to appreciate what it has to offer. In November, while in Los Angeles for PDC, I had a chance to see these applications first hand with a couple of the developers from Interknowlogy. A very sharp group of guys who enjoy their work, I might add. It is a very different experience when you are working with the Surface. I will say that several of us made a conscious effort to confuse the Surface and make it hang up, but the system handled it well. I know, a bunch of developers trying to break someone else's code is hard to believe, but trust me it happened.

The Surface certainly has great potential to change how we think of building applications from the multi-touch perspective. You are probably thinking that you will never have to worry about building multi-touch into your applications though, right? Well, you might be surprised. Microsoft was talking up multi-touch at PDC when discussing Windows 7. The keynotes included several demonstrations of this functionality on the HP TouchSmart system which was recently featured on DotNetRocks.

Think about this for a second. If Microsoft starts to build their own applications to support multi-touch, it won't be long before your users start complaining that your applications don't have that capability. So many applications follow Microsoft's lead when it comes to incorporating features into their applications. Just think about how many applications now have a ribbon bar instead of the old menu | toolbar interface. I don't think the Surface will be replacing your desktop, but Surface brings things to the table, pardon the pun, that will undoubtedly impact it.

Oh, it was 3 a.m. after a long day when I recorded that intro. Upon first viewing Todd Anglin said "you are -way- more serious/furious looking in your video intros than you ever seem in person. It's hilarious!". Lesson learned if you don't want to look like a scary person, do your video in the daytime after a good nights rest.

Show me the money

Gaines Kergosien — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:54:00 -0800

In yesterday's blog I discussed the birth of my first major website, SprintMogul.net. What I didn't mention was the monetary side. As traffic began to increase, I realized I might be able to cover the expenses by placing a Google Adsense banner or two on the site. I was thrilled to see it generating approximately $10/day in the first week. That's over $3,000 a year and more than enough to cover costs. In August I added inline linked advertisements through Vibrant Media as well as a ringtone referral through Commission Junction, which pushed my revenue to approximately $50/day. Traffic continued to grow and so did revenue. It peaked at the end of 2007 with just over $100/day. By this point I had purchased a rack mounted server at Dolphini, a professional hosting facility, and my operating costs had increased significantly.

I soon learned that the end of the year also means the end of advertising contracts, which was reflected in the revenue dropping drastically at the beginning of 2008. Although this effect would only be temporary, by the time advertising contracts picked back up the Mogul was on it's way out. Most of the site traffic was from people who were thinking about purchasing the Mogul or who already had and wanted to customize it. Revenue leveled out to a slow decline where most of the current traffic consists of existing owners who continue using the forum to ask questions and discuss issues. Thus is the life cycle of a website devoted to a gadget. The initial buzz dies down and eventually the gadget becomes obsolete.

I didn't enjoy having to pay taxes on those unexpected earnings, but they got me through a rough time in my life and helped me establish a platform from which I could develop new sites and create new sources of revenue. Here's to the next wild ride!

From Zero to Hero

Gaines Kergosien — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:07:00 -0800

In June of 2007 I began researching PocketPC phones. I needed a new phone and, being the geek I am, wanted to get the most tech for my buck. I'm a big fan of Sprint's plans (I'll go into that another time) so I decided on the Sprint Mogul (HTC PPC-6800). By this point I had amassed a plethora of bookmarks, files and snippets which would help me get the most out of my new phone. On a whim, I decided to create a website where I could share all of my research and maybe even discuss it with other Mogul owners. I purchased the domain SprintMogul.net and installed DotNetNuke. I was thrilled when, in less than two weeks, the site had over 100 registered members. Soon traffic grew to over 500,000 page views per month. By the end of 2007 we were seeing nearly one million page views and had grown to 15,000 registered members. While the numbers were impressive, the part that I will never forget is all the emails from members thanking me for creating the site. Many visitors even made donations through PayPal to show their appreciation. What started as a resource had become a community and, no matter how many other successful websites I launch, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

Welcome to my world

Gaines Kergosien — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:45:00 -0800

I'm fortunate to have formed friendships with many important and influential people in the software development and web publishing community. One consequence of knowing these people is it's easy to discount my own accomplishments as minor in comparison to what they have done or are working on. I haven't yet written a book or been asked to speak at a conference. I'm not working on a new technology and haven't ever visited the Microsoft campus in Redmond. I've only recently been made aware that other developers might be interested in what I've done and am working on, so for what it's worth I give you the blog of the DotNetDude.

Announcing the Edge Of Dev

John Kellar — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 08:35:00 -0800

For quite a while now, I have listened to podcasts like DotNetRocks, Thirsty Developer and DeepFriedBytes to stay in tune with what's going on in the industry. Outside of blogs, conferences and user groups this is one of the best ways to stay informed. One thing I always felt was missing from these podcasts was the human element. You see, I personally prefer face to face communication over telephone, e-mail, instant message or even Twitter. I suspect there are still a dwindling few people left that have that same perspective. Even more, I am a visual learner, so an audio podcast can sometimes limit what I get from it. Screencasts like dnrTV are great, since they provide the content and the visual component, but I still crave that key human element.

In that spirit, I would like to introduce a new endeavor called "Edge Of Dev". The Edge Of Dev will essentially be me sharing video content that I capture from around the development community. This may be interviews, presentations, open spaces or other content of interest. My hope is that the Edge Of Dev will provide an additional resource for relevant technical information so folks can stay informed.

Now before I get inundated with comments, I would like to start off by stating that I know I don't have a face for video. My response to that is if Carrot Top can do it, so can I. Additionally, I am an amateur at this so I am not claiming to be Channel 9 or DotNetRocks, these are great resources with polish and I will probably reference them often. I am simply taking a different approach to contribute to the community. So I understand other's may be presenting information in a similar fashion. GREAT! We are all in different places at different times with different people. I believe we can all find something to contribute. Finally, this would not even be possible without the support of Telerik who has provided all the equipment, software and support.

I will look forward to your feedback from the first episode which I will be posting next week.

devLink 2009 is coming

John Kellar — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:43:00 -0800

I have been waiting to announce some news about devLink 2009 for quite a while. After considerable effort and a few skipped heartbeats, I can finally declare that the devLink Technical Conference will take place August 13 - 15, 2009.

Did you say three days?

Yes, devLink 2009 will be a three day event. We wanted to add an extra day last year, but scheduling kept us from doing so. Since this is our first time attempt at a three day event, we are going to limit activities to pre-conference sessions and early check-in. Friday and Saturday will continue to be the full range of activities that you have seen in the past.

Where on earth will devLink 2009 take place?

I am happy to say that Lipscomb University has graciously offered to host our event again. We had several requests last year asking us to move back to Nashville proper and we heard you loud and clear. Lipscomb offers superb facilities and a prime location for people who live in Nashville and those coming from across the country.

How many seats are going to be available, devLink keeps selling out?

Well devLink 2008 was supposed to be limited to 400 people, we actually had closer to 450. Lipscomb has completed some ongoing renovations which are going to allow devLink 2009 to have room for approximately 800 folks. That should give you plenty of opportunity to get into the event. I don't recommend you procrastinate thought, because the early birds get the best price and we could sell out again this year. Remember we sold out weeks before the event last year. By the way, the fact that we sell out the event is not a bad thing.

What is it going to cost me?

I mentioned last year that we were going to have to raise the price for tickets, but that it would remain affordable. As I have said in the past, if we have to charge over $100 to do devLink, we just won't do devLink. So devLink 2009 will cost $75 for the early birds (and I mean early) and $100 for those who take their time. We are still cheaper than PDC, Tech Ed, VSLive, DevConnections and most events that come to mind. If you want to pay more I am sure we can find a way to adjust your ticket cost, just let me know.

Who will be speaking?

We will begin asking for speaker submissions in January. If you have someone you would like us to try to get as a speaker, post a comment. If you are interested in speaking, start getting your bio and abstracts together now.

Where can I stay up to date on devLink 2009?

To stay up to date on the latest information you can do any of the following.

Follow devLink on Twitter
Join the devLink group on LinkedIn
Join the devLink group on Facebook
Sign up on the devLink website

What should I do next?

First, I hope you will mark your calendar for the August dates. Don't forget to get connected so you don't miss important announcements. Finally, I ask that you tell all your colleagues, user group members and anyone that may be interested about the event. We want to reach as many people as possible.

Sharing images and files in a forum

John Kellar — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:40:00 -0800

If you have ever posted in a forum, you have probably noticed that most sites don't allow you to upload images or files. This can be a problem since you may need to provide something additional to explain your question or answer. There are several sites that host images like ImageShack, FreeImageHosting or TinyPic. Each of these services incorporate advertising with your graphic, which I like to avoid when possible. Actually, TinyPic goes one step further and includes an ""Images You'll Also Enjoy" section, which seems a little risky to me. So I thought I would share an alternative to these options.

ImageHost.org provides the ability to upload a file 100MB or less for free. Don't let the name fool you, they allow any file type to be uploaded. So if you need to add a sample Visual Studio project, just zip it up and upload it to the site. Files are not deleted unless they have not been accessed for a period of time. I have outlined the current timelines below.

Files under 1 MB will be deleted after 180 days of inactivity
Files between 1 MB and 20 MB will be deleted after 90 days of inactivity
Files above 20 MB will be deleted after 30 days of inactivity

You can upload a single file, or up to eight (8) files at a time. When uploading an image you will see the following page after the file is on the server. This page provides all the code necessary to use your graphic in forums, blogs, etc...

If you upload a non-image file (i.e. zip) the screen below will appear.

ImageHost does allow you to hotlink, but there are limitations. You can hotlink to a JPG, GIF, PNG file as long as it is less than 1 MB. You cannot hotlink a BMP so convert those to JPG or PNG. They also allow you to hotlink to Flash files (SWF or FLV). For SWF it must be less than 1 MB while a FLV file can be up to 10 MB.

So hopefully the next time you need to provide more information in a forum post, give this site a try.