This is my personal site where I share information about myself and my interests.
There are no secrets on this site so feel free to poke around. The Links in the sidebar
will take you to main stuff and feel free to contact me if you have questions.
30,055 participants contributed to the "A LIST APART" survey of people who are building the web (developers, designers, etc.). Topics covered include things like, education, compensation, experience, age, ethnicity, vacation days, etc. My favorite statistic, 13.8% of us have had a bl... [More]
Tuesday, 7 April 2009 06:05
Recently, I had a project where I was wanting to be able to create a reusable UserControl to display tooltips throughout the application. The control would need to access the jQuery framework, a jQuery plugin, required some inline scripting, and had its own class of styles. Not every page i... [More]
Friday, 1 August 2008 15:23
I frequently use the RSSToolkit to consume and display RSS feeds from other blogs. Recently, I've noticed problems with the RSSToolkit not being able to display feed from some external sources. In particular, I've been having trouble consuming feeds from external blogs like Blogspot a... [More]
Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:16
I bought a discount PC from a highly reputable company (okay, it was Woot) a couple of months ago to replace my aging PC at home. I come from a hardware background so I'm more apt to put up with crappier parts in exchange for a good deal. However, when "crappy" meets "incompatible", I'v... [More]
Monday, 9 June 2008 13:26
A typical web-based authentication system will have two options--Sign In (a path for existing users) and Register (a path for new users). Potential problems for users arise when they don't know if they have an account, or they have tried to sign in unsuccessfully and decide to try to create... [More]
Monday, 2 June 2008 14:26
I swear radio buttons pucker up the closer my mouse gets to them. Aside from the lack of good CSS options for radio buttons, they demand a certain level of commitment from the user. Unlike our promiscuous friend the checkbox, once you manage to jab the tip of your mouse into the pinhole of ... [More]
Monday, 19 May 2008 15:53
Recently, I blogged about my favorite file upload technique for web applications--the free flash/JavaScript-based SWFUpload. While this library is not the perfect solution for all circumstances, it certainly provides a very nice user experience and is worth seeing if it matches your project... [More]
Friday, 25 April 2008 16:28
I love multiple monitors. I made everyone at work start using multiple monitors last year. At first they were afraid...they were petrified...but now they don't like working at home if they only have one monitor. If you're looking to justify multiple monitors in your organization, here's... [More]
Tuesday, 15 April 2008 13:44
It all started with my upgrade to VS 2008. I've been using the trial version and only had 3 days left...time to do the deed.
IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: If you are using the trial version, you don't need to do a full uninstall/reinstall. I saw this option the very second I clicked the "unin... [More]
Wednesday, 19 March 2008 15:20
I recently happened upon this intriguing little API that provides a nice interface for displaying events on a timeline. It was pretty easy to get my head around it and it's pretty easy to setup and use. It's got a Google Maps-like scrolling interface that is very intuitive. If you... [More]
Monday, 17 March 2008 13:25
Apparently not much. According to the product pricing page, all you need is "Any other developer tool". Here is the full eligibility statement found at the bottom of this page: Upgrade Pricing Eligibility To qualify for upgrade pricing, you must be a licensed user of one of the followi... [More]
Tuesday, 4 March 2008 12:52
UPDATE: This is now available as a free ASP.NET control.
Recently, Joe Stagner created some videos and talked about 4 upload scenarios that provide an AJAX-like file upload experience. I've used or looked at all of those options at least once or twice in the past, but they were ... [More]
Friday, 22 February 2008 11:53
What's broken? It would appear that there are a couple of problems with consuming Atom feeds using the RSSToolkit.
<pubDate/> shows up empty
<link/> use the the base URL for the channel instead of the URL for each <item/>
I opened up a work item for these issues, and ... [More]
Saturday, 26 January 2008 15:58
Follow my erotic tale of "code awakening" as I discover AJAX's raw naked self. We'll pop the hood and see AJAX as nature intended. This steamy tale of passion, romance, love, and AJAX may leave you breathless and panting for more. Or, it could simply be a ruse to get you... [More]
Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:19
It's the burning question that's been haunting me for years. Where did this little ambiguous icon come from? What was the inspiration for this symbol of information subscription? What great mind dove deep into their soul and returned with this gem? I may have uncovered the mystery...See it fo... [More]
Tuesday, 15 January 2008 15:45
I attended last year and, though a bit on the spendy side, it was a worthwhile trip and will probably be attending this year as well. Here are some tips if you've never been to this event at the Orlando, Florida location. The hotel is ginormous. Not just big, ginormous. Plan on getting lost a few ... [More]
Tuesday, 15 January 2008 13:39
This MS Word Document flyer sums it up, but it looks like Verio is providing free web hosting for members of Microsoft User Groups through January 2010. These are regional groups that regularly meet and are a great resource if you have one near you. The hosting plan is a little limited (100m... [More]
Thursday, 10 January 2008 14:43
Yahoo! has released an API that allow you to easily embed a media play that will automatically attach itself to MP3 links. They had one that just linked to their own music library, but that's boring.
Here is a sample HTML page that has some MP3 links and an embedded audio player:
... [More]
Wednesday, 9 January 2008 15:08
Would it surprise you to learn that a new survey by NDP finds that only about 6% of Americans have every tried a web-based productivity suite like Google Docs? How about that 99.95% are still using desktop-based tools? It surprised me at first. But then I started thinking about why I don't ... [More]
Tuesday, 18 December 2007 14:40
Today it ends...I have explained, for the last time, why "the fonts are all screwed up". My tag clouds are coming down. Since we added a social networking site to our web services about a year ago, I been answering this question quite regularly and have staunchly supported the ... [More]
Tuesday, 20 November 2007 11:12
If you are looking for some good fodder for your next "big idea" meeting, take a look at this report. Lots of meaty statistics from a reliable and quotable source. The report is focused for libraries, but is very broad and includes data from six countries. The report is free to downlo... [More]
Friday, 2 November 2007 08:30
A while back I talked about this new inline editing control that was being worked on by Mike Davis over on the Encosia blog. Yesterday, he posted an updated version that fixes some postback issues and adds some new features that make this a very useful control. I played around with it... [More]
Tuesday, 30 October 2007 09:07
A while back I wrote an article for CodeProject that was just a simple demonstration of how to load portions of content after the initial page load using AJAX.NET.
Basically, using a timer and an update panel, this user control loads some RSS headlines after the initial page load. S... [More]
Monday, 29 October 2007 03:00
Did you read Day 1 first? It was a rough start for me this morning as I battled an oncoming cold, here's what stuck during Day 2 of the Community Server Developer Conference 2007. Extending CommunityServer (Scott Watermasysk) Low-Tech Options Scott reminds developers not to overlook the obvi... [More]
Sunday, 21 October 2007 19:55
It was a beautiful day in Frisco, TX. Telligent picked a very nice venue and have been great hosts for the first CommunityServer Developer Conference. Here's a wrap-up of today's events: Keynote (Rob Howard) Rob gave a little talk about Telligent and gave a quick demo of Enterprise Reportin... [More]
Saturday, 20 October 2007 13:40