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.
A new feature from Google Labs will let you view your website through a special overlay that will predict the amount of browser real estate users will be able to see on your website. A useful tool for making sure the most important parts of your site are readily seen by the majority of users.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009 07:42
Twitter's recent security crackdown includes a list of 370 passwords that will not be allowed when signing up for new accounts (no word on whether changes to existing passwords will have the same restrictions). I'm thinking that a server script and/or javascript filter using this list could help cu... [More]
Tuesday, 29 December 2009 07:35
So, Gmail seems to be having problems again. They seem confident that this is "temporary", but how do they know that and how do we know that they haven't just decided to pull the plug on this free "beta" service? Is Gmail still good enough?
Thursday, 24 September 2009 09:47
I decided to jump into the netbook arena when I saw a nice brown (yes, I also have a brown Zune) Acer One for under $300 (got mine for $270 before they became more popular). With 1gb RAM and a 16gb SSD for a hard drive I figured I'd see what it could do. It came with XP home and an Office 2007... [More]
Thursday, 30 July 2009 07:12
In a recent focus group meeting I was helping to facilitate I was once again reminded of the importance of realizing when you're trying to force something that is getting in the way of the primary objective. Our negotiated contract with the client was to use the focus group to help construct a... [More]
Tuesday, 28 July 2009 07:32
I recently got my invitation to try out Google's new Voice service. Once again, the price is free and you can get your own invitation here. Setting up yet another dependency on a free beta product from Google concerns me but not enough to keep me from trying it out. Getting setup is pre... [More]
Tuesday, 28 July 2009 05:47
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
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