The Geek Within

Are we all phony?

2011-08-19T07:30:00.002-04:00

In response to an article by Scott Hanselman, I must say I completely agree that I too am a phony. You should take the time and read it here.

Management Awakening

2011-08-01T20:24:00.005-04:00

It has been sometime since I tried the blogging route and felt it was time for a new awakening. The topics will be within the realm of IT, but as I have taken on a management role in recent months I plan to focus on leadership and growth.

Don't worry, there will be plenty of opportunities for Star Wars, technology, and my other passion of music.

Let's see where this goes!

What happened in to the posts?

2008-05-27T09:36:00.001-04:00

Since I am moving my blog back to Blogger, I will be adding posts from my now defunct blog here, but setting the published date to its original. Not sure how that will affect feed readers, guess we will see.

Blog Is Moving!!! - Or Not

2006-05-10T15:13:00.004-04:00

*** UPDATE! ***

Consider my blog "unmoved" as of now. I have been silent the past year due to offline family busyness, but it is time to attend TechEd 2008!

I have taken down my domain for now, so my posting will be back on Blogger for the time being.

------------------------------------------------------

Well, I am extremely excited to announce that I am moving this blog off of Blogger to my own hosted site.

This innovation came about with the awesome open-source .Net blog implementation named dasBlog. Seeing as my main profession is .Net coding I felt it was important to host my blog on a code base I can modify and extend without a problem. To that end, stay tuned for my future posts on dasBlog mods I have implemented.

The new blog is located at http://www.geekwithin.net/ and has a new RSS feed associated with it, just check the side bar.

While I was able to write some code to transfer my Blogger posts to the new system, I am still working on moving comments from Haloscan. We'll see if that works.

See you at the new site!

Search Engine Fairness

2006-05-02T07:06:00.000-04:00

Wow. I had thought that Google was big enough that it had no fear of Microsoft, but apparently I was wrong. According to the Reg Developer Google has complained to European Union watch dogs stating that it is unfair that the new search dialog in IE7 hits MSN. There main assertion is that it is difficult to change, while Microsoft has an equal share of documents showing how easy it is to change.

Why is this an issue for Google? I don't understand what they have to fear seeing as EVERYONE uses their site for searching. Have to watch to see how this plays out.

Microsoft Goodwill

2006-04-20T14:59:00.000-04:00

In an article at the Reg Developer (Microsoft extends Visual Studio handout program) Gavin Clarke reports that Microsoft has decided that the express versions of both Visual Studio 2005 and SQL 2005 will not cost anything. Initially, the plan was to offer them for free to get people interested and then to start charging for them.

To me, this is a good thing and will help generate more interest in Microsoft's programming languages. There is a steep price to pay to get legitimate copies of Visual Studio and many who may wish to give it ago don't have access to it via a corporate job. As more people give it a try they will find out how good Microsoft .NET technologies are.

Personally, I plan to get a copy for my ten year old son and his friend. This summer I am starting him on the path to programming/networking/hardware excellence. He doesn't have a sports interest, but his ability with computers has impressed me... I can't wait to see how he does.

Blog Ministry Post - Prayer Journal

2006-04-17T07:43:00.000-04:00

Quicklink to my post at Blog Ministry discussing how a prayer journal can enhance your prayer life.

Top Job In America

2006-04-14T11:53:00.000-04:00

Well, now isn't that cool. It seems that I am one of the luckiest employees around in that my job is the #1 top job in America according to MONEY Magazine.

That will teach me to complain.

Windows + Macintosh = WinMac

2006-04-14T07:34:00.000-04:00

I can't help but laugh out loud at the ignorance of Mac owners. I am sure that there are still some die-hard Mac fans out there, and I applaud you for your devotion.

WATYF has written a great post over at MusicalNerdery.com about the ability to load Windows XP on to the new Intel based Mac hardware. For anyone who has kept up with or been involved in the whole "Microsoft versus Mac" debate, it makes for a great laugh.

Microsoft Atlas

2006-04-14T07:22:00.000-04:00

Well, last month Microsoft issued a pre-release of a product called Atlas and just a couple of days ago they have updated the pre-release with more controls.

For those of you were aren't familiar with it, Atlas is Microsoft's development kit for AJAX. That's right, another framework to help out the lowly developer. Of course, this one is bent to working well with a Microsoft ASP.Net backend, but that is to be expected.

You can check out the features and download the pre-release at http://atlas.asp.net and read what the Reg Developer had to say here.

.NET Helper Tools

2006-04-12T10:55:00.000-04:00

A coworker of mine recently pointed me at an article on MSDN by James Avery that lists the Ten Must Have Tools For Developers.

Wow. This is an awesome resource. Mr. Avery does a bang up job in describing why these tools are great and provides links to them all. On top of that, they are all freely available (with the exception of CodeSmith) and fill some important functions. Take a look!

Where Art Thou, O Rational

2006-04-12T09:43:00.000-04:00

Having just read an article on the Reg Developer, I am struck by their question of what has happened to the once great company, and product, of Rational. For the company that created UML and produced the best, if not most expensive, software tools for design applications they have been suprisingly silent. Is this IBM's doing?

In case you didn't know, IBM bought Rational Software about two years ago. It was said, jokingly, at the time that IBM bought Rational because it was cheaper to buy the company than to purchase the licenses they needed for the software suite. It is expensive.

The article initially speculates that IBM is planning on replacing the Rational tools with others that it has developed, but the marketing manager for the Rational division disputes it.

Either way, Rational is as good as dead if they don't get out there and get visibility. Only time will tell.

Whirlwind of Life

2006-04-07T06:15:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a busy few weeks. I must apologize for the significant delay since my last posting, there has been so much competing for my time that the blog lost. From college final exams (passed!) to project due dates at work, and not to mention an ISP change at home that has been less than perfect... whew. Now I just need to catch up on the technology news and let you know what I think of it!

History of Delphi

2006-03-09T07:39:00.000-05:00

You will notice that I have a soft spot in my heart for Delphi. It was my first experience with good UI design as well as OOP concepts. The Reg Developer has an article, written in an Old Testament biblical (King James) manner, that lays out the slow descent of Delphi.

Good-bye my friend.

Inside Out

2006-03-09T07:27:00.000-05:00

My friend Joe at d3 eMinistry found one of those personality quizes, this one from Personal DNA, and passed it on. Since I know he looks at things from a development standpoint, I checked it out. Wow. What a cool interface. I would have to say it was the most professional personality survey I have encountered. I enjoyed their usage of Flash without making it look like Flash was used.

My results are here.

Blog Ministry Post - A Life Of Prayer

2006-02-28T13:22:00.000-05:00

Quicklink to my post at Blog Ministry discussing our prayer life and providing some practical techniques for improving it.

Blog Ministry Post - Slumbering

2006-02-28T13:20:00.000-05:00

Quicklink to my post at Blog Ministry dealing with issues raised while reading Ted Dekker's book "The Slumbering of Christianity."

Extendability and Blog Ministry

2006-02-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

An awesome opportunity has been granted me recently - I am now a guest blogger at Blog Ministry.

What does this mean?

Well, for one thing, I will now have an opportunity to reach more people. Blog Ministry has created a following that I have not achieved yet.

Another thing is that while I have focused this blog on technology and software development, my new opportunity will be more ministry with technology based postings.

Anyway, I will be posting links to Blog Ministry as I contribute.

Web 2.0 Takes A Hit

2006-02-24T07:23:00.000-05:00

Everyday I see examples as to how the U.S. patent process is broken, and today is no different. It seems a company has gone and received a patent for "rich-media applications via the internet".

Uh, is there any intelligent life at the patent office?

This means most of the Web 2.0 is in trouble while even well known technologies could be affected, such as Flash, Flex, Java, AJAX, and XAML. Not to worry though, the company with this newly minted patent, Balthaser Online, is generously offering to provide licenses.

Borland's Bad Idea Becoming Permanent

2006-02-24T07:18:00.000-05:00

Sigh. In my previous post I mentioned how Borland is getting out of the development IDE business. This means goodbye to JBuilder and Delphi. I lamented that this is an idea that should be corrected much like their failed name change.

According to the Reg Developer it looking final. Now Sun and REAL are fighting over developers who used Borland tools and want them using theirs.

The end of an era is at hand.

Microsoft Office 2007

2006-02-21T08:08:00.000-05:00

Have you heard about the new version breakout? Here are the three low-end packages:

Microsoft Office Basic 2007 ($ N/A)
Includes:
- Microsoft Office Excel 2007
- Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
- Microsoft Office Word 2007

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 ($149)
Includes:
- Microsoft Office Excel 2007
- Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
- Microsoft Office Word 2007
- Microsoft Office OneNote 2007

Microsoft Office Standard 2007 ($399)
Includes:
- Microsoft Office Excel 2007
- Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
- Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
- Microsoft Office Word 2007

Do you see it?!? Both the lowest package (Basic) and the Standard addition include Outlook, but the Home edition does not! This, to me, is outragious as Outlook is my tool of choice for email. To make matters worse, you can't just buy the Basic edition, it is intended to be OEM distributed.

I know many of you are anti-MS and probably don't care, but I have found Outlook to be a suprisingly stable mail client. The built-in security is fairly decent and the add-ons I have installed make it easy to manage junk mail. Why would they do this? Does anyone know the reasoning behind this decision? To buy Outlook seperately it will cost $109, which would bring the combination up to $258.

On top of all this, there isn't even an upgrade price available for the lower packages. Sheesh.

Borland's Folly

2006-02-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Have you heard about the recent announcement made by Borland? They have decided to drop all involvement in IDE production and focus more as a provider of tools that will help optimize code. Why is this important? It means that Borland Delphi is going away, and is a sad day for the faithful who have stuck it out.

I am a Delphi programmer and find it superior to almost all other IDE's I have used. They have always been at the top of the stack and they have legions of developers who love their product. Their compiler has always been the fastest on the market, and their forward thinking caused them to move to Object Oriented Design well before products like Visual Basic.

Let's just hope this is a bad idea that will be corrected.

Get It Done Yesterday

2006-02-21T07:54:00.000-05:00

As I was writing my last post, it occurred to me that some businesses have come up with solutions to the so called "development timeline creep" - they require it to be done yesterday.

I ran into this at my last job where we had to produce a software build weekly. It didn't matter if the add-on or new feature might require more meetings to define it, in the end we were expected to provide a solution yesterday. Not.

There are other things that suffer in that sort of environment, such as: documentation, object reuse, code redundancy, and bugs. We had an one entire person dedicated to fixing bugs and they were busy!

I am sure there has to be a happy medium out there. It is important to be able to properly design software as well as new features. Additionally, it is important to provide value for each dollar a customer commits to a project. Truly, as professionals our job should be to make the customers happy and hopefully gain additional work due to our ability to get the job done, not because we never finished or embedded too many bugs.

Professionals Wanted

2006-02-21T07:44:00.000-05:00

Recently I read an article on Reg Developer that I completely agree with.

David Putman starts out by describing a process I have used many times: a Kanban system. This is where you break your project down in to small segments, write it on index cards, and post on a wall. As developers work through the project they take the index cards and move them from a waiting section to an in progress section, and finally to a finished section. This not only provides you an "at a glance" project update, but it also ensures you have not missed anything.

Mr. Putman's issue is in getting developers to break the project down and use the system. His experience is that developers rebel and cry "but I'm a professional" and state they do not need to be "micro" managed. He then exposes the unsavory side of software development: no one knows or is willing to commit to a specified timeline, unless of course it provides twice the amount of time it may need. I have seen this as both a customer and a consultant. It is why the cost of custom development is so expensive.

An arguement Mr. Putman puts forth in the article is that other professions are required to provide time and cost estimates up front, so why not those who are completing a development project? I must admit, this is an area that is not given any thought and one that developers would benefit some training in.

Belated Valentines

2006-02-21T07:41:00.000-05:00

If you don't already read the d3 Ministries blog, then you missed an awesome post on Geek Romance. Give it a read and you'll wonder if he was reading your mind.

I'm Back!

2006-02-21T07:11:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the break in posts. I decided to take time out to take my mid-terms, play with the kids, and do Valentine's Day right. Priorities are important.

Prayer Tips and Helps

2006-02-02T08:24:00.000-05:00

Previous two posts help lay a history for this one, not needed but helpful

I have been blessed with a God fearing wife who has followed the plans He has laid out for her. Sure she is nervous and unsure (aren't we all when we step out on faith?) but she has been obedient. One of the results of this was her call to be the prayer coordinator for the national board of Protestant Women of the Chapel, a womens ministry within the military chapel system. This lead to her being recorded teaching a class on effective group prayer, ways to enhance your prayer ministry, and other tips.

I am excited to provide a link to the MP3 of that class. While it was recorded in 2002, the information is just as relevant today and I pray it is a blessing to you.

My Wife - Part II

2006-02-02T08:11:00.000-05:00

So now that you know how we met and all, let me tell you how awesome this woman is in her love and zest for the Lord. Please believe me, this isn't bragging or an attempt to elevate her in any way.

Her love for the Lord has gotten her involved in many ministries. After we were married she dived right in to an organization name the Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC) at a local level. Over the years she has helped in many capacities from bible study leader, retreat planning, board member, and even local level president. Her love for God and concern for His will have made her a very effective leader and provided her many opportunities to trust in Him to help her do the job.

The biggest example of this was when she was asked to become the national level prayer coordinator for PWOC. Wow. She was stunned and took some time to pray for God's will. You see, prayer was not really more than a casual thing to her at the time, no more or no less than other aspects of christian life. This request has become a major turning point in her and my life. Her acceptance of the call has lead our life on a journey only God could have planned. It is through that call she set out to learn all there is to know about ever aspect of prayer and has in the years since become an authority of sorts. She wouldn't admit or put it that way, but the respect she has received is well deserved.

It is through the ministry of prayer that we both find ourselves serving our current church, her as the prayer coordinator and myself trying to reach out to men. What a challenge and a privilege to do God's work. I can only say that we are weak and He is strong and all things happen because of a willingess to see where God is working and joining Him in the work.

Next Up - A Treat For You All

My Wife - Part I

2006-02-02T07:07:00.000-05:00

As you can tell from the post title, I'm a married man. I don't post about her mostly due to her reluctance to be mentioned and my respect for her concern. I guess today is a day to go against the grain due to how proud I am of her. But first let me give you some background information to set the context.

My wife, Christina, and I met while still in High School. Our fathers were both in the Air Force and happen to be stationed at Cannon AFB in New Mexico at the same time. While I had been at the school for a few years, remember that military families move frequently, she did not arrive until mid way through our senior year. Anyway, since the base was a good distance from the town we all had to ride a bus or drive. Seeing as I didn't own a car I had the wonderful experience of bus riding.

It just so happened that on one of those often boring bus rides that I spotted a pair of girls sitting together near the front of the bus. They looked new and one happened to be where a letter jacket from Spangdalem, Germany.

[Quick aside -- I spent most of my schooling, to include the first year and a half of high school, in Germany at Bitburg HS - a sister school to Spangdalem]

As any confident young man would do, I approached the girls and proceeded to do my best to make a good impression. To make a longer story only long, Christina and I realized we had been in the same band class in 8th grade and started a friendship. I did do my best to impress her with my great dating skills, they had worked on many girls before, but it seems I was doomed to failure with her - our first couple dates landed flat.

So, as many will, I moved on to other opportunities but remained friends. At the time something about her struck me and I just couldn't figure it out. It is easier with the benefit of time to understand what I saw then - a geniune lover of God. Her faith was the basis for all other things in her life and it truly made her desirable. But friends it would be.

Fast forward to the year after graduation and I had just finished basic training after enlisting in the Air Force. I decided to contact Christina and see how things had been going for her. After HS she struck out for Lincoln Christian College in Illinios so I hadn't seen or heard from her in quite a while. That contact turned into deeper friendship that I would come to rely on in the days ahead.

You see, before joining the service I had a fairly good idea about God and had indeed been saved as a teenager. But somewhere along the way church become more of a chore than a joy. Once in the service I was free to do whatever I pleased and unfortunately that included women and booze. It is not a time that I am overly proud of outside of serving my country but within that cloud of darkness there always remained one beam of sunlight - my friendship with Christina. I could not help but be attracted to her and her faith. I called her frequently, the $400 to $500 phone bills showed me that (its only money), and while deployed to Turkey/Iraq I wrote more letters than I have written in the whole rest of my life.

So, two years passed and Christina and I were pretty good friends by this point. When it came time for me to move to California (next duty assignment), I called her up and we worked out a deal where I would pick her up in Illinios and take her to New Mexico (my parents place) for her spring break. Wow. If God had ever planned anything in my life it would have been that week. We laughed, drove, and talked of old times. It was the most amazing time and at the end of the week I took her back to school and said goodbye.

At this point you may be thinking the same things my parents actually said when I got back to New Mexico - what a fool!! I did the best thing I could at that point and asked her father for his daughters hand in marriage, and when he approved called her next. Yeah, I know. Not the most romantic way to propose but who was I to argue with God's will!

Next Up - Part II - Her Service in Ministry

One... Two... Three... Maybe Four

2006-02-02T06:37:00.000-05:00

I have never been "tagged" before but it seems my time has come courtesy of Dan Lee at Blog Ministry.

Four jobs I have had in my life

McDonalds
Instructor for Learning Tree
US Air Force (law enforcement and computer networking)
Government Contractor (software development)

Four movies I can watch over and over

Better Off Dead
Star Wars (any of them)
Incredibles
Lord of the Rings - Return of the King

Four places I have lived

Upper Heyford, UK (near Oxford)
Incirlik, Turkey
Bitburg, Germany
Washington D.C

Four places I have been on vacation

London, UK
Capadocia, Turkey (christian region due to crusades)
Orlando, Florida (can anyone say Disney)
Upper Peninsula, Michigan (not much there but bugs)

Four TV shows I like to watch

Alias
Lost
Monk
House

Four websites I visit daily

Four favorite foods

Spaghetti
Steak
Potatoes
Popcorn

Four places I would rather be right now

Home with my wife (at work)
London, UK (my favorite city)
Heaven (not in a "I want to die" way)
Any beach with warm weather

Four people I am tagging with this meme

WDRP (friend who started to blog but stopped)
Cory Isakson (You Are The Church)
Everyone else has been tagged... need more friends

IE 7 BETA 2 - Isn't it done yet?

2006-02-01T13:13:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems Microsoft has finally entered Beta 2 for Internet Explorer. Of course that just means they are done and taking the time to let us see what bugs it will have before we install it for "real".

I have to admit that I do like the changes but that is probably more because I already like FireFox and Opera and all the new features are mirrors of what has been done already. I do like the Quick Tab view which shows a thumbnail of all webpages you have open - very slick.

Say what you will, but they do still have over 80% of the browser market.

Links:

Phishing Around

2006-01-27T07:27:00.000-05:00

While reading an article at d3 eMinistry blog, titled Phishing, Stop the Madness!, I noticed his recommendation to take a quiz as to your fool ability. Well, I took it and got a 90%! It would have been 100% if Capital One was better at their emails... but at least I errored by calling a legitimate email a fraud.

Check out d3 eMinistry's entry for tips on how NOT to be the next victim.

Good Book

2006-01-25T08:19:00.000-05:00

During my daily check of the Reg Developer I noticed they have a book review for a book titled Code Complete.

I am in complete agreement with them as to the value of this book. While most people will walk away from a book published by Microsoft Press, it is important to know that this book does not speak to any single programming language but rather is all about best practices and techniques.

Some of the topics:

Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity
Defensive programming techniques
Safe refactoring
Building quality into the process

I highly recommend this book.

Spaminator

2006-01-24T11:13:00.000-05:00

There is a great article at The Register that sums up the past and current states of the spam problem (Hey Bill, why am I still getting spam?).

This topic is similar to one my friend Joe addressed yesterday ("Free": the Devil's Favorite word).

To me the answer should be a mix of detection technologies and jail sentences. First, why can't we track these people down? I know they use zombies, I know they go to foreign countries... but ultimately everything can be traced back to a source. It would be interesting to see an article on our limitations in this area. Alternately I think we should impose fines on companies that use spam as a marketing tool. Why don't we do this already? Simple - money. Lawmakers are paid, via campaigns, not to pass laws that would stop spam. Sad isn't it.

Ultimately we all hold some personal responsibility as well and need to control that clicking finger. Between protection software and a better aware computer user this should have been cleared up years ago. Yeah, right.

To Framework or Not To Framework

2006-01-24T09:16:00.000-05:00

An article on Reg Developer titled "The 'f' in framework" has given me food for thought.

/begin rant

Do we really need to design complex frameworks, or even buy complex management systems for our websites? Almost every project I have been on the first thing that is suggested is the purchase of a framework or some workflow system. To me these add a complexity that needs to be addressed, they do NOT automaticaly fix your problems.

I also find it annoying that just because someone says they want workflow that it means we need a system to manage it. Hello?!? Maybe they just want you to pay attention to how they use the app and how it needs to guide them through the business process.

/end rant

New Now Playing Sidebar

2006-01-20T15:48:00.000-05:00

Messing around I found a really cool Windows Media Player plug-in (unfortunately now longer supported, but source is available) that can save an XML file with data about the current song you are listening to.

There are many options, but only four that I liked: album cover art (small size), album name, song name, and artist name. The coolest feature of all was that you could have it FTP the XML file and a jpg of the art to any server you have access to. WOW!

So, I took that and worked it so that the files were uploaded to a service I have that also allows ASP.Net execution. I added some quick code to the code behind page (C#) starting with four public variables:

public string album;
public string artist;
public string song;
public string image;

And added this to the page_load event:

string filepath = Server.MapPath("songout.xml");
System.Data.DataSet ds = new System.Data.DataSet("nowplaying");
ds.ReadXml(filepath,System.Data.XmlReadMode.InferSchema);
artist = ds.Tables[0].Rows[0]["artist"].ToString();

if (artist == "Stopped")
{
image = "nosong.jpg";
artist = "";
song = "";
album = "Not Listening";
}
else
{
image = "smsongout.jpg";
album = ds.Tables[0].Rows[0]["album"].ToString();
song = ds.Tables[0].Rows[0]["title"].ToString();
}

Adding it to Blogger was as easy as using the IFRAME HTML tag. I plan to change it to an object tag later seeing as the IFRAME tag is on its way out, but for now it will do the job.

Final product? Check it out on the sidebar... way cool!

RSS Madness 2.0

2006-01-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned just a few posts ago (RSS Madness), I have been messing around with RSS and enabling it for my site.

Well, the builtin Blogger version (Atom) is good, but I much prefer what I found at FeedBurner and have changed over to using theirs.

My new RSS feed link is located on the sidebar.

Who Are You?

2006-01-17T08:46:00.000-05:00

Having just read Joe's post on the d3 eMinistry blog about Anonymous operating systems, I am reminded of Microsoft's announcement on some new IE 7 features for flushing the browsing history.

I am disturbed by the trend to excuse anonymous access as a method to retain individual privacy. What is the root of this requirement? Why do we believe we have a right, that trumps all others, to have privacy on a computer network that inherently knows all about us.

I believe there are two main reasons people want to maintain a level of anonymousness:

1. Afraid of Big Brother
I must admit that this one makes me laugh. If someone wants to waste their valuable time watching all the boring stuff that I do, let them. The root fear here is that the government will take control of our lives and usher in what the bible declares will happen in the end times. Interesting arguement, but ultimately fruitless since God will move when He decides and nothing we can do will stop it.

2. Porn or other equally sinful obsessions
Face it, you don't want others to know you have fallen down. This is something I struggled with myself in the early Internet years and I am happy to say that God has worked in my life in this area. Technologies, such as the new IE history flusher, only serve to 'hide' what we have been doing when we shouldn't be doing anything that needs to be hidden in the first place. Confess and repent.

Opinions will vary and I am sure I have missed some points, but ultimately we need to be reminded who it is we serve and to what degree we have given our life over to His work.

RSS Madness

2006-01-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

I don't recall if I had it turned on previously, but I do now. Use the normal Blogger URL to add The Geek Within to your feed reader (http://geekwithin.blogspot.com/atom.xml).

Unmaintainable Code

2006-01-13T10:21:00.000-05:00

I followed a link from The Geek Times to an article on how to keep your job forever, or at least make those who come after you cry.

Very funny.

Million Dollars Worth of Pixels

2006-01-12T12:49:00.000-05:00

Well, he did it. Alex Tew has sold all one million pixels he set out to sell and he did it in four monthes. Congrats on a great idea that paid off big.

Links:
The Register news
Million Dollar Homepage (may be slow due to the curious)

"Live" Visual Studio?!?

2006-01-12T12:01:00.000-05:00

My first response? WTF (as my new friend joe says - what the fudge)!

First there is going to be a "Live" version of Office, as if it wasn't slow enough already... but now they are talking about a "Live" version of VS. I can tell you why it won't work:

Live software taps into a growing trend for software to be delivered online, with relevant data and content held on back-end servers.

Uh, what?!? That's is exactly what my company, or even I would want as an independent consultant. To put my content on THEIR servers. No thanks.

Exception Handling

2006-01-12T11:15:00.000-05:00

If you are not familiar with the Tech News website TheRegister.co.uk, you should be. Not only do they host the classic BOFH series, but they have recently launched a version of their site for developers named Reg Developer.

The article that caught my attention was a putting down of C++, Java, and C# developers and their approach on exception handling. I've met too many people that fit this mold not to laugh.

Holy Loading of an Image, Batman!

2006-01-10T13:55:00.000-05:00

I can't say much more than: wow.

Well, maybe a little more... It seems that Lokesh Dhakar has solved a problem that many web developers face: how do I show a graphic (no matter what the size) in a nice way without losing my customers interest. What do I mean? For me there have only been a few options for showing enlarged versions of graphics:
- Javascript pop-up window (sized properly for the graphic)
- A new window with close button
- Load in current window with back button

Well, my unspoken wishes have been granted and Lokesh has found a solution that will now be my favorite... take a look here.

Podcasting: New or Newly Improved?

2006-01-10T11:41:00.000-05:00

The podcasting revolution has facinated me. I have been involved with web technologies since its wonderful inception in the early 90's and I have noticed a trend. Those of us we have been around the block get to see the technology many months before it hits the publics view. Usually the big shift is based on the involvement of a company that wishes to capitalize on the technology.

Enter podcasting.

Just by looking at the word it is easy to see what its origins are... who hasn't heard of the iPod? But is the technology that new? Nope. If you look closely you will find that podcasting is really just the combination of two existing technologies, MP3 and RSS, wrapped up in a great marketing campaign.

A quick read of this history of MP3 page informs you that this awesome standard of digital audio has been around since 1992. Of course its wide spread use wasn't until 1998 with a wide distribution of encoders and decoders. Did you know that the first music album distributed via MP3 was issued in 1999?!?

As for RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a technique that evolved from many different sources but was moved forward, at least initially, the most by Netscape. What was the goal? To publish news and other tidbits that could be easily updated and "pushed" out to subscribers. This isn't much different than what it has become, but with many more options and lots of confusion. It appears those in the RSS arena don't always play well with others.

This brings us to podcasting itself. By taking a proven digital audio format and creating an RSS feed that can be queried by individuals who have or want to download it. Don't get me wrong... this is an fantastic use of technology. Who wouldn't want to know if there is a new version of an MP3 available?

The big question on my mind is this: is it a fad or will it become commonplace, like HTML? Time will tell.

Links:
Web RSS (Syndication) History
Podcasting: Evolution or Revolution?
History of RSS
What is RSS?

Happy New Year

2006-01-10T07:15:00.000-05:00

Robert Cringley is on a roll. His latest article lays out a strategy that if Google is truly following can change the course of history.

The world we live in revolves around market research. All of the online advertising, sales discounts, and superbowl ads have one purpose: to get you to buy something they have determined you need or their surveys say you already want it.

Google is the best at this and if they are following the vision laid out in the article will continue to be the premier market knowledge retailer.

I am a Computer God

2005-12-19T14:02:00.000-05:00

Well, apparently some of those Internet quizes actually get it right...

Wow. I am alive and a bad blogger.

2005-12-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

Well. It seems that my passion for blogging has suffered lately. To be honest, I have been very busy changing jobs and spending time getting ready for the holidays. I know it is a bad excuse, but it is my only one.

Javascript Fun - Picture Album

2005-09-13T13:50:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the length of time since my last post. Life gets in the way at times.

Anyway, I recently have had the occasion to do a side project for a friend. She was looking for a way to display pictures of various events on the web. Being the dutiful proponent of not programming something if someone has already done it, I set out to see what was available. I was actually disappointed to see that almost everyone uses the same code (http://www.kitykity.com/photoalbum/). I don't have anything against this implementation, but what we needed required a different set of parameters:

Multiple images displayed at a time (I chose 4, but it could be easily customized)
Multiple albums
Single page to access all albums, but not necessarily show all albums

My friend has a limitation at the location her site is hosted at in that she is paying by the page. This is what pushed the final requirement for accessing mulitple albums.

So, how did I solve this challenge? First, I created a function to parse the URL and grab the parameters passed.

function queryString(key){
var page = new PageQuery(window.location.search);
return unescape(page.getValue(key));
}

function PageQuery(q) {
if(q.length > 1) this.q = q.substring(1, q.length);
else this.q = null;

this.keyValuePairs = new Array();

if(q) {
for(var i=0; i < getkeyvaluepairs =" function()" getvalue =" function(s)" j="0;" getparameters =" function()" a =" new" j="0;" getlength =" function()">

These two functions are used to pull the querystring parameter to see which album I am wishing to view.

Additionally, to manage the photos I create arrays with the names of the image files and the captions I will show for them.

function photo_obj(pic,caption)
{
this.pic=pic;
this.caption=caption;
}

albumGrace= new Array();
albumGrace[0]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'carrots.jpg','Carrots are health and good for your eyes.');
albumGrace[1]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'bannana.jpg','Bannana');
albumGrace[2]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'cherry.jpg','Cherry');
albumGrace[3]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'cucumber.jpg','Cucumber');
albumGrace[4]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'garlic.jpg','Garlic');
albumGrace[5]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'lemon.jpg','Lemon');
albumGrace[6]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'melon.jpg','Melon');
albumGrace[7]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'onion.jpg','Onion');
albumGrace[8]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'pepper.jpg','Pepper');
albumGrace[9]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'strawberry.jpg','Strawberry');
albumGrace[10]= new photo_obj(imgpath + 'tomato.jpg','Tomato');

The page would have one array per album and then in the BODY onLoad tag a function is called that pulls the querystring values and checks to see which array is to be used.

switch(queryString(key))
{
//Default and false (querystring error) loads the first listed album
default:
case "false":
case "grace":
// Each album just has to load these values
pic_obj = albumGrace; //name of array from above
document.getElementById('pageTitle').innerHTML = "Photo Album - Grace"; // Title on page
break;
case "youth":
pic_obj = albumYouth; // name of array from above
document.getElementById('pageTitle').innerHTML = "Photo Album - Youth"; // Title on page
break;
}

So anyway, I have not fully customized it, but my goal was to create something that could easily have a nice design wrapped around it and be futher modified for any given purpose. Demo links: Grace Album, Youth Album (I used the same graphics but removed some from the array and modified the captions). Some of the features:

Next and previous button show or hide dynamically
No Image graphic is shown if a complete set of four is not available
Code is commented with help for "non-techies" to use it
Plain and easily designed around
Standard HTML with no suprises

Use your browsers view source ability to grab the code. Once I "package" it I will post a link here.

FileSystemWatcher Fun

2005-07-29T09:05:00.000-04:00

I wrote an application awhile back (hopefully to be online for download soon) that caused me to increase my knowledge of the FileSystemWatcher (FSW) class. Wow! This thing has got some power.

First, a quick explanation of what it can do for you. Think of it as a guard dog. If something moves, it barks. If something, new drops out of nowhere it barks. If something disappears, it doesn't care. The FSW can be setup to watch ANYTHING. Directories, files, even hidden objects are monitored by this class. How would you then use this? In my case I was updating and creating files that needed to be reflected to the user via a Windows desktop application.

Second, what things will make using FSW make you scream. Believe me, this is no joke. A great page with tips that illustrate what I am talking about is on Ashutosh Nilkanth's .NET Blog. Some of the more irritating issue revolve around multiple event execution and the built-in cache size.

The one I want to concentrate on now is the cache. If you are planning on taking action based on the event being executed, you will quickly find that putting code into the event handler function will make profanity almost second nature. As it turns out, the FSW object caches the request and then attempts to execute all code in the event. Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, additionally it will NO LONGER RAISE AN EVENT FOR OTHER FILES until the current event process finishes. !!!

I did end up determining a workaround for this that, while convaluted, does provide the end results I needed. The answer? The Queue object and a Timer object. In my event handler for the FSW I add the filename to the Queue object and enable the timer. The time is set to the smallest interval and processes the files in the Queue. That's it!

While adding a Queue and Timer object causes an increase in memory for the application, it did not significantly impact my application and so I was happy with this implementation.

Other links:
C# Corner
Know Dot Net
Code Guru
The Code Project

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1

2005-07-28T12:26:00.000-04:00

Ah, well it is about time we see some movement from Microsoft on the browser front. Other than the "security" enhancements with the IE service packs, this is the first movement for IE in years.

What is everyone saying out there? Well, Slashdot has a discussion going on both Microsoft Vista and IE 7 here, but I find Microsoft-Watch to be a better source of information. Additionally, the Microsoft IE blog has this post and the following two links: What's New and a Technical Overview.

I find it interesting, as many do, that it was only released via MSDN. Many think it should have been a larger release since its target was specifically to Developers and not all of them have MSDN subscriptions. Personally I find a MSDN subscription to be worth EVERY penny paid so I was not disappointed by this method.

For developers who use the IE API to retrieve and parse web content, there will be some definte reworking of their applications. More importantly, what I am interested in are the updates to parsing HTML, CSS, and any Javascript DOM modifications. You can expect another post once I find out.

DST and the Developer - Move Along There is Nothing to See

2005-07-27T09:11:00.000-04:00

By now I am sure you have heard of the proposed change to Daylight Savings Time. InfoWorld has a great article laying out the concerns.

From my perspective this is not really a big deal. This will affect embedded systems (i.e. your VCR) more than our web and desktop applications. As long as you haven't been using DST as a major event to drive data, fear not and move along.... there is nothing to see here.

Microsoft and VB6

2005-07-25T07:06:00.000-04:00

Direct from Vulture Central, The Register has an article on Microsoft's use of an unsupported development platform. It seems they are taking Microsoft to task as a hypocrite.

Personally, I think this is just another instance of "find a way to nag" Microsoft rather than a deliberate attempt by them to continue using a language they no longer support. First of all, the anti-spyware application that relies on the VB6 runtime was acquired less than a year ago. It doesn't suprise me that Microsoft hasn't had time to rewrite it and release it in a .Net format.

I also disagree with how the article puts down VB6. Yes, I am a VB programmer and I continue to advocate the ease with which new programmers can get into the game by using something like VB6. I am teaching my own son using this version rather than the stricter VB.Net so he can learn the fundamentals without some of the frustrations a tighter development tool brings. He is 9 after all.

It is just a shame that many look for ANY reason to bash Microsoft.

New Code Block Style

2005-07-19T21:42:00.000-04:00

As you can see from my last post, after Edit, I have devised a new way to display sample code. Hopefully this works for all of you. Let me know.

Making Things Focus

2005-07-15T10:52:00.000-04:00

There are new challenges each and every day, and coming up with a consistent way to set Focus on a given form field is my new one. Of course, we can't leave things that way... so I now have a method to fix this problem.

The Javascript required was easy:


function setFocus()
{   
 //Notice the use of a Public variable
 var formElement = "<%=formElement%>";

 //We have to check and verify it equals something
 if (formElement != "")
 {
  document.forms[0][formElement].focus();
  document.forms[0][formElement].setSelectionRange(0,0);
 }
}

See, rather easy. To make it run in the page all you do is add the onLoad attribute to the body tag like this: onload="setFocus()"

Now that your page is ready, it is time to add the pieces you need to the ASP.Net code behind file. You have a few options:

1. Set focus immediately on page load: formElement = object.ClientId
2. Set focus during an event handler - same as above
3. Set the button to be clicked to put the ClientId value into a hidden text field:
button.Attributes.Add("onmousedown", "document.forms[0].hiddentext.value =
'" + object.ClientID + "';")

Don't forget that objects contained within Web User Controls have "_ctl0_" appended to the
front of them.

I will post a demonstration later, any thoughts until then?

Creating a Cancel Button to Go Back

2005-06-24T13:41:00.000-04:00

Many of you may be familiar with the need to add a Cancel button on a form or other page.

I ran to an interesting development though when all I wanted it to to was return to the previous page.... the previous page, as defined by the JavaScript history cache, is not what you may have expected. It seems that EVERY postback is stored in the browser history cache and going back like this...
<input class="button_red" onclick="window.history.go(-1);" value="Cancel" type="button">
may not always work. Sigh.

Well, never fear for I have found a solution that works quite well. It starts by modifying the HTML control a little first:
<input runat="server" id="btnCancel" name="btnCancel" class="button_red" value="Cancel" type="button">
You will notice that it is setup to runat the server, which will allow me to access it from the code behind file. Also, I have removed the onClick event since I plan to add it dynamically instead.

Next, if VS.Net is as unkind to you as to me, you will need to add the following object declaration:
protected System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlInputButton btnCancel;

Once you can access it, the next trick up our sleeves is to use the ViewState to track how many times you have accessed this page. For those who are unfamiliar, the ViewState lets you store values in it, much like a Session, and embeds them into the form.
try
{
ViewState["history"] = Convert.ToString(Convert.ToInt32(ViewState["history"].ToString()) + 1);
}
catch
{
ViewState["history"] = "1";
}

You will notice that I am cheating here by using a Try.. Catch to validate whether this is our first visit. If it is our first visit, the ViewState key will not exist and cause an Exception, which in turn sets the key to a number one.

The final bit of code we need adds the onClick event to our HTML button:
btnCancel.Attributes.Add("onClick", "window.history.go(-" + ViewState["history"] + ");");

There you go! Anyone have any improvements? Comments?

Time To Show It Off

2005-06-15T11:48:00.000-04:00

I hope to have some new improvements for my blog and my side consulting business (Full Force Technologies) by this weekend, or certainly by next week. What type of improvements? CODE!

Yep, that's right. It is time to put my talent where my talk is. I will be making some changes to my company site to accomodate two things: 1) that it is a single owner business 2) Demo's and code samples.

It should be interesting to see how that works out. My first order of business is showing off the rotating session key functionality and seeing if someone out there can poke holes in it. We'll see.

Blogging on the Job

2005-06-15T11:41:00.000-04:00

While it still seems to be an IT phenomenon, blogging on the job is becoming very popular. I just finished reading an article from the San Francisco Chronicle that was interesting.

While I don't blog about the company I work for, or even my own side business, it isn't because it wouldn't be interesting.... I just prefer to talk tech and both of these companies are so small no one has heard of them.

Conventional wisdom says that someone will mess it up for others, but the steps these companies have taken could actually work and conteract the stupid among us.

Only time will tell.

Somehow I Thought I Would Score Higher

2005-06-10T11:56:00.000-04:00

I probably scored lower since I am actually married... hehe.

Session State and Security

2005-06-08T07:49:00.000-04:00

Session state control is a tough thing to handle. If you are in a web farm environment it gets even tougher. What are the options?

Use an IIS Session State server
Don't use web farms and use the Session object
Manage session state manually by passing a key

It is option number three that I want to talk about. Option 2 doesn't work if you have to build reliability into your system and Option 1 only works if you have the extra money.

Session Key Management
So, how would you do this? Most developers will generate a unique key and pass it back and forth, or maybe even use the ViewState. I like to use both.

When trying to use manual session keys, I will generate the key and then append it to all internal links plus add it to the ViewState for post-backs. This is that hard, just have an extra function that is called last iterate and append the data to all hyperlink objects (doesn't work it you use HTML href's). But is this secure?

I came up with, IMHO, a method for securing the session key itself. Stay with me, it gets interesting. First off, you will need the following data:

Browser User Agent (ServerVariables value)
First three octets of client IP address (Parse the ServerVariables value)
Unique user number (Probably from a database or server side xml file)
Last accessed timestamp

Here is how a typical first interaction will transpire with those values:

Upon first access, update last accessed timestamp
Take all four values and append into one large string
Use a hashing algorithm (I like SHA256) and hash the string
Store the returned value (now your session key) and pass to client in ViewState and appended to links

Now that we have our key, most people would stop here and just pass it back and forth, validating it against the stored value in the database.... but that isn't secure. Nope, if all you did was pass it around than ANYBODY could snatch it and use it. To be secure we need to follow a second set of steps whenever a return user accesses our site:

Take the passed in session key and validate it matches a current one in the database. Some developers also enforce a "session" timeout and check the last accessed time and log them out if it exceeds the system timeout. For our purposes, we will assume they have not reached system timeout.
Now that it is valid, we ditch the entire key and RECREATE IT AS WE DID BEFORE. Read that again... we get all four of the ORIGINAL values, append them, and hash them. Then we validate against the database to see if they still match. This is the security we are looking for.
Now that we are positive the keys match, we ditch the entire key again, update the last accessed timestamp, and create a new key and deliver it to the client the same way we did with the initial key.

Interesting? I have found that it stops all of the session abuse I have witnessed in the past. Anybody see a vulnerability with this scheme? Thoughts?

Wanna Stop Phishers? Join the Club

2005-06-07T13:04:00.000-04:00

I just read a facinating article by Robert X. Cringley. I have been reading his work for years, and those of you who read InfoWorld will recognize the name.

Awhile back he left InfoWorld (even though there is a column with his name still being written) and his columns are hosted at PBS.org now.

Anyway, the article I just read was regarding how we can all work together to stop Phishers. I think Cringley is right on target and gets an A+. I almost can't wait to get an email from a Phisher now.

Check out his article here.

Javascript element.focus() and ASP.NET

2005-06-07T12:50:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how many of you have run into this problem, but here it is in a nutshell.

Let's say you want to have a form load (web page) but want to specify which textbox, or other form element, has the focus. How would you do that from the code behind file?

You can't.

I know, how dumb. To make matters worse, it isn't like you can just create a javascript block and say:

document.[formname].[elementname].focus()

Why not? Because .NET will change the reported name of your form element in many cases.... such as when you use User Controls. Yep, that's right. Not only does it rename it, but it gives it a name like ctl0_[yourname]. Yuck.

So, what is the solution? Since I just had to work this out, here is what I came up with. [Be aware that I use the QueryString or Form to pass the element to focus on. This could be easily changed to using control properties, I just didn't need to]:

On the parent (first) page, add a javascript block like this:

SetFocus()
{
var elementFocus = "<%=elementFocus%>";
if (elementFocus != "")
{
document.Form1.elementFocus.focus();
document.Form1.elementFocus.setSelectionStart(0,0); //my pref
}
}

In the parent code behind, create a public string named elementFocus and set it to the Querystring and/or the Form objects value for the focus key.

Now, on the page WITH the form element you wish to focus, which may be the parent or an added user control, create a variable that you assign the all important property to.... ClientId. ClientId is the actual name that ASP.NET plans to name your form field based on what it current knows is being rendered. By grabbing this value and passing it via the QueryString/Form/Property value, you now know the name to set focus to.

That's it. If you want a more complete code sample, just let me know.

The under-used IFRAME tag

2005-06-06T10:37:00.000-04:00

How many of you out there use the IFRAME tag? Do you even know what it is?

If you have never looked at it before, the first thing you need to check out is the W3C specification. The IFRAME, or Inline Frame, allows you to put a frame in the middle of the page!

How is this useful? For those of you who like graphics ladden websites, this allows a graphical border the completely surrounds your frame. The frame itself will have a scroll bar, just like other frames.

I have found it useful lately in avoiding Event Handler hell. I have a page with a user control, that has a second imbedded control inside the first and one more inside of that. It makes sense in how the data relates and the UI needs to interact with the data, but it means that button clicks must have Events that are captured at the higher level pages and passed down to the last embedded control. I have still not found an EASY way to do this, so my answer was an Inline Frame.

By moving my code into a seperate frame, poof, new same level Event Handlers for all interactions I need to make. Ah, the blissfulness it has brought is worth it... plus it looks good.

I'm curious how often this frame type is used, and how others have utilized it.

More to this than .NET

2005-06-03T13:02:00.000-04:00

Interestingly enough, I am a Star Wars fanatic. No, not the kind that makes his own costume and camps outside the theater... but I do have to play all of the PC games LucasArts produces and read all of the fiction I can find.

Why is this important? It isn't really, but since I have recently started this Blog I thought I would try to lay a foundation of my personality as well as my technical skills. It is amazing what interests people.

Web User Control Hell

2005-06-03T07:55:00.000-04:00

Web user controls.... an innovation that can make or break a good ASP.NET object oriented design.

The problem is, once you start modularizing your controls, and embedding them within each other, the event model breaks down. I guess breaks down is too soft, is just doesn't work. The answer? You have to write event handlers at higher levels that will trickle back down and trigger the correct event in the embedded control. Sheesh. It is easier to revert to classic ASP style solutions that to do this.

Anyone out there have a tried and true method for working this issue?

All about the Destination

2005-06-02T21:44:00.000-04:00

Why be a blogger?

Well, in my case I am both a Star Wars fanatic (just ask my wife) and a lover of web development discussions. How do they relate? Hmm.... I'm not sure that they do, but Star Wars has been such a presence in my life that I had to include it. Stick around and you'll understand.

As for web development... I am a .NET junkie to be sure, but I also appreciate the finer points of (X)HTML, CSS, Javascript and whatever else they will come up with to help me make good looking, but extremely functional websites. My current tinkering is with C#, but I grew up as a Delphi/VB programmer. Yeah, I know it isn't C or JAVA, but it does the job and it does it well. This blog is partly about how to make it work though.

Anyway, this is the start... let's see where it goes.