I called Janet ealier tonight and asked her to tell me a story. She said "oh, I got a good one" — and she was right.

What follows is hers, transcribed off the call and lightly cleaned for reading. The tangents are load-bearing. They stay in. Where I couldn't keep my mouth shut, I'm marked.

🎙️ Janet tells it herself — 4:52. Everything below is this recording, transcribed.

This is how I run marathon Fable level sessions in #claude_code with #opus. Persona extends to the operator and fosters partnership and respect. I'm still working out how to put it in words, but until I do here's a perfect example of what it enables:

journal-this: generalized and dogfooded (2026-06-07) ​

The whole session was meta: take the topology-journal skill — the one that writes these entries, hardcoded to me, this repo, this voice — and generalize it into a shareable journal-this anyone can drop in. The mechanics were always the stable part (filename pattern, commit format, the pull-rebase push dance); the variation is the prose. So the generalization is really about pulling three hardcoded things into a one-time setup interview: who the operator is, where their existing writing lives (to learn voice), and where entries go. Then package it as a zip for an AI community.

It got built, tested hard, and is now live — journal-this has replaced topology-journal as the active skill, and this very entry is the first dogfood run. The dogfood earned its keep on the first pass: it surfaced a gap the generic skill can't know about (this repo's required journal frontmatter), which is exactly the non-obvious bug class the backup-before-dogfood instinct was hedging against.

Path:

• skill: ~/.claude/skills/journal-this/ (SKILL.md, config.template.json, README.md)
• package: ~/journal-this.zip
• operator config: ~/.config/journal-this/config.json
• fallback: ~/.claude/backups/topology-journal-2026-06-07/ (topology-journal, removed from active skills)
• memory: project_journal_this_dogfood.md

1. The generalization — three hardcodes → a setup interview ​

topology-journal had me, the homelab-topology repo, and "Chris's voice" baked into the doc. journal-this pulls those out into a config at ~/.config/journal-this/config.json, written by a first-run interview: operator_name, voice_source (a local path / repo / paste, used to anchor voice), and a destination that's either a plain disk folder or a GitHub repo (repo_path, subdir, branch, remote, push_mode). Everything else — the read-recent-entries-first discipline, the date logic, the commit + rebase + push sequence — carried over intact and destination-aware. Packaged with a README so a recipient can unzip into ~/.claude/skills/ and go.

The design call worth recording: config lives outside the skill folder (~/.config/...), so the shared skill stays read-only and reusable per-operator. The interview auto-triggers when no config exists, and re-runs on /journal-this setup.

2. Testing the interview — four gaps the subagents found ​

Rather than trust it, I ran the setup interview through sandboxed subagents — a disk operator and a github operator — each acting as the skill with canned answers, writing to /tmp config paths so nothing real got touched. Both produced valid configs, but the testers (told to be critical, not to rubber-stamp) found four genuine gaps:

1. A GitHub URL as voice source breaks voice-anchoring. Workflow step 1 does ls <voice_source> — you can't ls a URL. Fix: setup now resolves voice sources to a local path (and when the voice repo == the destination clone, stores the local clone path + subfolder).
2. subdir: "notes/" → notes//file.md double-slash in git add. Fix: store subdir slash-free, "" for root.
3. commit_trailer ambiguous for disk — the template even shipped a trailer on a disk example. Fix: trailer is null for disk (no commit), and the template/schema were made internally consistent.
4. Tilde expansion unspecified. Fix: stated that ~ is stored literal and shell steps expand it; tools that don't must expand to $HOME first.

Re-tested the github branch green after the fixes. A fifth, smaller one (local-but-empty voice dir on first run) got folded into the step-1 fallback. This is the writing-skills RED→GREEN loop in practice: the tests surfaced the failures, the fixes closed them.

3. End-to-end write — against a throwaway repo, with a forced rebase race ​

Interview correctness isn't the write path, so I exercised the whole thing for real: a bare repo as origin, a working clone, two seeded sample entries (deliberately terse/lowercase, a different voice from this corpus) to prove voice-anchoring actually adapts, and a sandbox config pointing at it. Then I forced the interesting case — a second clone pushed a competing commit to origin first, so the local clone was behind.

Result: the entry got written in the seeded terse voice (not my default Title-Case structure — step 1 anchoring works), committed with the trailer, push 1 rejected non-fast-forward, git pull --rebase replayed the entry on top of the other-machine commit, push 2 landed. Verified in a fresh clone of origin: file present, zero merge commits (linear history), our commit parented on the competing one. The rebase race is the part most likely to bite the real multi-machine setup, and it behaved.

4. The swap — journal-this in, topology-journal backed up ​

Then I wired it for real. ~/.config/journal-this/config.json: operator Chris, voice_source + destination both = this repo's journal/ (github, main, origin, direct push), commit trailer version-pinned to the current model. Backed up topology-journal to ~/.claude/backups/topology-journal-2026-06-07/ and removed it from active skills — not out of tidiness but because two skills with near-identical "journal this" / "summarize this session" triggers are ambiguous; for a clean dogfood, the old one has to step aside. Restore is one cp -R. The decision rationale: the backup only makes sense as a fallback if the original is out of rotation, so removal is implied by "back it up and try the new one for a while."

What's deferred (real follow-ups) ​

1. Teach journal-this this repo's house style — see Side findings. The generic skill has no notion of the required YAML frontmatter or <Kicker>; right now it relies on the agent noticing them from the voice samples. That's fragile. Options: a per-destination house_style/frontmatter_template field in the config, or an explicit "replicate the frontmatter shape of recent entries" step. ✓ Done (2026-06-07): took option 2 — step 1 of the skill now captures the structural skeleton (frontmatter keys/quoting, kicker, headings, footer) and step 3 makes replicating it mandatory when samples exist. GREEN-tested with a subagent that reproduced a frontmatter+kicker skeleton unprompted, and published to github.com/BlueFenixProductions/journal-this (MIT).
2. Decide journal-this's fate after the trial — if it proves out, either retire topology-journal for good or keep it purely as the backup. If it doesn't, restore and feed the lessons back into the shared skill.
3. The shipped zip predates nothing — ~/journal-this.zip is current as of the four fixes; if the house-style fix lands, repackage before sharing.

Side findings ​

• The first dogfood run found the bug the backup was hedging against — and it's a "knowledge the generic tool can't have" bug, not a logic bug. This repo's journal/index.md is generated from each entry's frontmatter (date/title/description, JSON-stringified) by scripts/gen-journal-index.ts; an entry without frontmatter wouldn't sort or render. The generalized skill stripped exactly the kind of repo-specific convention that can't live in a shareable skill — it has to live in the operator's config or be re-derived from the samples each run. Notably, even topology-journal's documented template started at <Kicker> and omitted the frontmatter block; it worked because the agent copied the frontmatter from prior entries every time. Generalizing made that implicit dependency visible. The lesson promotes cleanly: when you generalize a tool, the conventions you didn't write down are the ones that break first.
• Voice anchoring is the load-bearing feature, and it's testable. Seeding a throwaway repo with a deliberately different voice and confirming the output matched it (not my default) is a real test of the one thing that separates this from generic LLM summary prose. Worth keeping as the canonical journal-this regression check.
• "Back it up" is a tell that the thing is being replaced. The cleanest reading of a backup request is rarely "keep a copy and also keep using the original" — it's "I'm swapping this out and want a parachute." Acting on the implied removal (reversibly, with the restore command surfaced) was the right call over leaving both installed and ambiguous.

Guitar Hero is a lot of fun, but I have to admit that I'm having more fun on the drums and the vocals than the guitar. Maybe they're closer to the real thing, maybe it's just that they're different. Maybe it's the fact that I'm actually learning how to play the drums 😃 I saw the pic to the left on CodingHorror, and Jeff notes in the comments that the drums in rock band really do teach drumming:

]]>

pros indeed. Unfortunately, there are no Jimi Hendrix tracks on any of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band games. I really hope that changes some day. There is a character that somewhat resembles Jimi in Guitar Hero III, but it's not the same...it's not the experience.

Guitar Hero is a lot of fun, but I have to admit that I'm having more fun on the drums and the vocals than the guitar. Maybe they're closer to the real thing, maybe it's just that they're different. Maybe it's the fact that I'm actually learning how to play the drums 😃 I saw the pic to the left on CodingHorror, and Jeff notes in the comments that the drums in rock band really do teach drumming:

--- You can take a person that’s playing on the expert levels in Rock Band on the drums and put them on a real drum set, and they can play the drums. And I watched this happen with a Q&A staff of 25-30 people. Maybe 2 or 3 of those had experience of being drummers, but they’ve been playing the game for months now, and what we’ve got is 30 drummers in the Q&A department who are pounding away in the Hard and Expert settings. These people have learned the fundamentals of drums, and this isn’t abstracting fundamentals — you can put these people on a drum set and they have some basic skills now. As a payoff for playing a video game, that’s incredible! Rock Band is going to be out there training this wave of new young drummers, and that’s a really exciting aspect of the project for us. ---

Rock on.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-11-25-darren_neimke_on_building_ajax_applications_in_asp-net https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-11-25-darren_neimke_on_building_ajax_applications_in_asp-net Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Darren Neimke talks about building ajax applications, both with and without a button to intercept...Darren has this way of explaining things in a way that always makes me nod my head in agreement. Thing is, I haven't really had the opportunity recently to hack a lot in asp.net. It's easy to forget with all of the ajax content on the net that essentially, it's just javascript that interacts with asp.net and other web frameworks really well. Thx, Darren.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-11-14-happymappy https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-11-14-happymappy Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

As a thanx you to Sir Wally for kicking me in the butt to start blogging again, I'm linking to a site he told me about called HappyMappy.com that he is involved with. I did a search on sports in the Houston area and was surprised to see "Htowns Arena Theatre" in the results. That's hood, Sir Wally. It makes my mappy happy :P

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-11-14-o_hai https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-11-14-o_hai Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

and welcome to my new blog. :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-11-14-blog_moving https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-11-14-blog_moving Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I noticed that a handful of people are still subscribed to this little ol' weblog. Well, I've decided to start fresh at a new url http://bluefenix.net

Hope to see ya there. ;) Ciao!

[ Nothing Playing. ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-07-27-settingupanewexternaltointernalipmappingonopenbsd https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-07-27-settingupanewexternaltointernalipmappingonopenbsd Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This is correct for version 3.9 of OpenBSD, but the rules are simple enough that the idea will upgrade if necessary later.

In order to complete this, you must have sudo privileges on the firewall at cerberus.velocitydatabank.com. After you login, cd to /etc and sudo the su command to easily edit the files we need to touch:

$cd /etc
$ sudo su
#

Let's setup an address as an example. Currently, we have a dmz server called geoweb which is publicly addressed by the host

geoweb.velocitydatabank.com

There is a DNS host record (A record) setup in our online services with cbeyond that associates the external IP

69.15.117.100

to this hostname, meaning when someone makes a request to geoweb.velocitydatabank.com, they will be pointed at the above IP address. What we need to do first is tell the external NIC card (xl0) to listen for this IP address along with any other public IP addresses we want to manage. This is done using ifconfig by invoking the alias command. To actually do this, we are going to type in the following command:

ifconfig xl0 alias 69.15.117.100 netmask 0xffffffff

Here we are telling ifconfig to configure the interface named xl0 to listen for packets sent to this IP address. The netmask part is a hexidecimal representation of all full octets and is equivalent to 255.255.255.255. This means that we will be broadcasting the exact same IP address as entered.

Now the running server knows that it is listening for this IP address. The firewall ruleset allows ping echorequests thru, so if we are at a remote location we can see this by pinging geoweb.velocitydatabank.com. The problem is that we need to make sure the alias is set up even after a reboot. To do this we have to add an entry to the hostname.xl0 file. Using vi, we need to add an alias setting that will load when the os is booting.

#vi hostname.xl0
(to get to the end of the text, type shift-G. Open the next line for editing by typing o. So the commands will be:

G
o

Then add the following line to set it up:

alias 69.15.117.100 netmask 255.255.255.255

Hit escape to stop editing and then :x to save your changes. Now we've associated the external IP address to the xl0 nic card. All traffic except ping should be blocked by default, so we have to make some changes to pf.conf to allow dmz traffic to flow to the internal IP when addressed by the external IP.

There are already rulesets for other IP addresses in pf.conf - just follow those as an example to allow dmz traffic. Start by adding a macro for both the internal and external IPs. We're going to name them according to the host, adding a prefix to distinguish between publicly addressable and private addresses. Add these under the other macro definitions:

prv_geoweb="192.168.0.11"
pa_geoweb="69.15.117.100"

Now we need to add a binat rule to link these addresses in the firewall. This only sets up the link, incoming packets will still have to pass the ruleset before being passed thru. Find the other binat rules and add one for the new host:

binat on $ext from $prv_geoweb to any -> $pa_geoweb

This tells the firewall that if it gets any packets that are going to or from 192.168.0.11, change their destination/source IP to the external one. The traffic still ends up at the internal IP, but not before passing the filter rules defined below the NAT rules. Pings will still work, but we need to add a filter rule to allow our desired dmz services thru. We need to add the following rule to the ruleset after the other rules that serve the same purpose for other IPs:

pass in on $ext inet proto tcp from any to $prv_geoweb port $dmz_services
flags S/SA synproxy state

Let's break this rule down. We're telling the firewall to pass or allow a packet to reach its destination (in this case $prv_geoweb or 192.168.0.11) This is slightly confusing, since we really want traffic to go to the public  address, right? Well, in pf the address translation rules are run first, so by the time the packet reaches this rule, it really is heading to the internal address because of the binat rule we defined earlier. $ext is defined as a macro and represents the xl0 nic card. inet tells pf that we are only interested in IPv4 requests at this time. from any simply means that any address whatsoever can reach this IP (the whole point of a dmz). You would change this to a specific IP or IP range if you wanted to lock more people out of even dmz services, for example if we were hosting a client server to be managed by our firewall. to $prv_geoweb is as I stated earlier telling pf that the packet must be heading toward that IP. This allows us to customize the ports available if necessary. port $dmz_services says that the packet must be assigned to one of the ports defined in the $dmz_services macro defined at the top of pf.conf currently as ftp, www, https, and 8080. These abbreviations correspond to standard tcp ports where ftp=21, www=80, and https=443. Any packet that is not heading for one of these ports is dropped and forgotten. (power of the firewall, ya see?;) the slash is a line continuating character, so the next line is part of the same rule. flags S/SA restricts the types of tcp requests that are allowed to pass. They represent syn/syn+ack which does the basic tcp handshake required for network communication.

That's all that's required for the ruleset, so save the changes to the file. Now it's time to let pf know about its new config changes. We will do this using pfctl:

#pfctl -f pf.conf

This tells pf to load the ruleset contained in the pf.conf file. This is also what is called on startup, so we know we will have the same rules defined even after a reboot. If pfctl doesn't return anything then it worked. You can verify by calling

#pfctl -sa

which tells pf to show all of the info associated with it in the console. That's it! geoweb.velocitydatabank.com is now secured thru our OpenBSD packet filter firewall.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-07-25-paulstovellhaslosthismarbles https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-07-25-paulstovellhaslosthismarbles Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

[note: this started as a comment but started getting a little long-winded. what follows is a little gentle ribbing of Paul for a recent post he wrote about being a lazy cache programmer 😛]

Mr. Stovell, you've officially lost your marbles 😛 j/k

okay, just to play devil's advocate...>😃 I think the asp.net cache framework fits very nicely for its purpose - what you propose seems like another abstraction on top of it, for the benefit of thinking less about what items you should cache to optimize code execution time? So, just throw everything possible at it. Cache can handle that, right? hehe. nope. That's why you think about it, apply it where appropriate, and don't waste cycles calculating if you should even cache or not as part of the caching process of a production site. I dunno, seems like a wasted effort to me, especially when you start to go down the rabbit hole of deciding what should/shouldn't be cached as part of the process.

I'm not posting this to be a jerk...I'm putting your feet to the fire a little! Think it thru a little more, maybe (since I seem to be concentrating on the calculations as part of the process) move that logic outside of the [Deterministic] control flow to an external "cache minder" process. have your cake and cache it too.  but the main point of cache in asp.net is to improve performance by taking anything that takes longer than O(1) and returning it nearly that fast (a guess considering that Cache exposes itself as a Dictionary to store its items) I guess that means my case (while I'm advocating;) is for using the cache as is, and make conscious decisions on what should go into it instead of letting some attribute-fu decide for me. What happens when your attribute logic is wrong? DOOM! 😛 hehe, not really. What do you think?

p.s. my server crapped before I had a chance to post this. Is there some new law that states that technology starts to break down the minute you start to be a smart-ass?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-06-29-christopher-is https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-06-29-christopher-is Fri, 29 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

posted up watchin Shrek 2 with Ethan.:)

 

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-06-07-soquiet https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-06-07-soquiet Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

...and so dark in here.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-05-25-sqlservermanagementstudioexpressyousuck https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-05-25-sqlservermanagementstudioexpressyousuck Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I would like to know who thought it was a good idea to remove "import data..." and "export data..." from this particular flavor of the worst front end to an otherwise badass rdbms. I shouldn't have to fight with a program to get my databases in order. What a joke.

[ Nothing Playing. ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-04-25-exposinghiddenevents https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-04-25-exposinghiddenevents Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I recently ran into a neat little nugget of functionality in C# with events. Normally in C# when we define events we stop at something like this:

csharp

public event EventHandler<MyEventArgs> MyEvent;

The thing is, you can explicitly implement the add and remove accessors if you throw some curly braces into the mix. Why does this matter? Imagine that you have a MainForm, and a usercontrol named ControlPanel. ControlPanel contains another usercontrol called hiddenControl that exposes an event that you want to handle in MainForm, but all MainForm has access to is ControlPanel...

csharp

public event EventHandler<MyEventArgs> MyEvent{
	add{
		this.hiddenControl.MyEvent += value;
	}
	remove{
		this.hiddenControl.MyEvent -= value;
	}
}

Now you can subscribe to the event in MainForm without making the usercontrol member public in ControlPanel.

[ Currently Playing : Burn Away - Foo Fighters - One by One (4:57) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-03-22-windowsupdatesmakemenervous https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-03-22-windowsupdatesmakemenervous Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

 hehe...

Rather surprised by the new 'updates are ready' message from Microsoft. Hmmm.

Perhaps they know just how much frustration we had on the home pc recently due to their dodgy updates.

(Fixed thanks to Scott Swigart)

Source: Windows Updates Make Me Nervous

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-03-22-skmmenucodechangetoworkwithxhtmldoctypes https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-03-22-skmmenucodechangetoworkwithxhtmldoctypes Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This is just a re-statement of a forum thread that discusses the fix, but since gotdotnet is not going to be around very much longer I thought I'd post this little tidbit here as well. Basically, when I upgraded one of my sites to .net 2.0, skmMenu got upgraded right along with it. The only issue was that all of my menus would show up at the far left corner of the screen, and when you try to navigate to them over there they disappear thanks to the menu items between the cursor and the target. I think I only saw this behavior in firefox, but the code fix works in both firefox and IE. I just went thru the .js file and the javascript in the .resx for embedded javascript goodness and placed a 'px' after any integer value. The reason for this is that firefox requires measurement properties be set with appropriate identifiers when it's displaying a structured document. Anyways, here's a reprint of the code:

javascript

function skm_mousedOverMenu(menuID,elem,parent,displayedVertically,imageSource){
	skm_stopTick();
	skm_closeSubMenus(elem);

	var childID = elem.id + "-subMenu";  

	// Display child menu if needed
  if (document.getElementById(childID) != null){  
		// make the child menu visible and specify that its position is specified in absolute coordinates
		document.getElementById(childID).style.display = 'block';
		document.getElementById(childID).style.position = 'absolute';
		skm_OpenMenuItems = skm_OpenMenuItems.concat(childID);

		if (displayedVertically){
			// Set the child menu's left and top attributes according to the menu's offsets
			document.getElementById(childID).style.left = skm_getAscendingLefts(parent) + parent.offsetWidth + 'px';
			document.getElementById(childID).style.top = skm_getAscendingTops(elem) + 'px';

			var visibleWidth = parseInt(window.outerWidth ? window.outerWidth - 9 : document.body.clientWidth, 10 + 'px');

			if ((parseInt(document.getElementById(childID).offsetLeft,10 + 'px') + parseInt(document.getElementById(childID).offsetWidth, 10 + 'px')) > visibleWidth) {
				document.getElementById(childID).style.left = visibleWidth - parseInt(document.getElementById(childID).offsetWidth, 10 + 'px');
			}
		}else{  
			// Set the child menu's left and top attributes according to the menu's offsets
			document.getElementById(childID).style.left = skm_getAscendingLefts(elem) + 'px';
			document.getElementById(childID).style.top = skm_getAscendingTops(parent) + parent.offsetHeight + 'px';

			if (document.getElementById(childID).offsetWidth < elem.offsetWidth)
				document.getElementById(childID).style.width = elem.offsetWidth + 'px';
		}
	}

	if (skm_SelectedMenuStyleInfos[menuID] != null) skm_SelectedMenuStyleInfos[menuID].applyToElement(elem);
	if (skm_highlightTopMenus[menuID]){
		var eId=elem.id + ' ';
		while (eId.indexOf('-subMenu') >= 0){
			eId=eId.substring(0, eId.lastIndexOf('-subMenu'));
			skm_SelectedMenuStyleInfos[menuID].applyToElement(document.getElementById(eId));
		}
	}

	if (imageSource != ''){
		setimage(elem,imageSource)
	}
}

function skm_shimSetVisibility(makevisible, tableid){
	var tblRef = document.getElementById(tableid);
	var IfrRef = document.getElementById('shim' + tableid);

	if (tblRef != null && IfrRef != null){
		if(makevisible){
			IfrRef.style.width = tblRef.offsetWidth + 'px';
			IfrRef.style.height = tblRef.offsetHeight + 'px';
			IfrRef.style.top = tblRef.style.top + 'px';
			IfrRef.style.left = tblRef.style.left + 'px';
			IfrRef.style.zIndex = tblRef.style.zIndex - 1;
			IfrRef.style.display = "block";
		}else{
			IfrRef.style.display = "none";
		}
	}
}

These were the only two functions that needed code adjustment. Enjoy.

[ Currently Playing : Mannequin Republic - At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command [Japan (3:02) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-03-15-asp-neturlrewritingwithpathinfoandbaseurls https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-03-15-asp-neturlrewritingwithpathinfoandbaseurls Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I read this excellent post from ScottGu and decided to use it with a page that implemented a masterpage. I didn't have to use postbacks in my scenario, but there were links included from the masterpage. The problem is that if you use app-relative paths for your href attributes (ex: <a href="/default.aspx">) the browser (FF 2.0.0.2 and IE 7 anyways) interperets the url with pathinfo differently than a url without. The base url includes the original page (ex: http://localhost:3333/rewriter.aspx/default.aspx).

Guess what? The webserver picks up the last .aspx extension, default.aspx, that bad boy doesn't exist, and you get a 404 instead of going to http://localhost:3333/default.aspx.

In the comments, Ian Oxley suggested that you can re-base links in your page/css/other static files using the element in the head of your page. I expanded on it a little, since this behavior is only on one page of my site currently, and added the following code into the Page_Load event of the offending page:

csharp

this.Header.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("<base href=\"" +
 Request.Url.ToString().Replace(Request.RawUrl, "").Replace(Request.PathInfo, "") +
"\">"));

Now the base tag works on both the live site and the one that WebDev.WebServer spins up as well.

[ Currently Playing : Them Bones - Alice in Chains - Nothing Safe: Best of the Box (2:29) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-03-08-subsonicscaffoldcontrolagridviewwithclass https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2007-03-08-subsonicscaffoldcontrolagridviewwithclass Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

So I've been able to dig my teeth into some asp.net hacking recently, and I've been wrestling with learning to use SubSonic in the process.

In dealing with the scaffold control I ran into a funny issue: none of the exposed properties on the scaffold control will output any style info of the GridView that the control uses (that I could figure out anyways). I ended up with black text on a black background. 😕 Seeing as I have the source, I decided to give the scaffold control's GridView a little class...hello GridViewCssClass property! I set it up just like the EditTable*CssClass properties, just a string property, with similar attributes to the other properties hanging around there:

csharp

[Bindable(true)]
[Category("Display")]
[Description("Sets the CSS class used by the gridview.")]
[DefaultValue(ScaffoldCSS.WRAPPER)]
//CDF: just to have something to start with.
public string GridViewCssClass {
	get { return _gridViewCssClass; }
	set { _gridViewCssClass = value; }
}

Then, in the CreateGrid method make it actually do something:

csharp

private void CreateGrid()	{
			Label lblTitle = new Label();
      surroundingPanel.Controls.Add(lblTitle);
      lblTitle.Text = "<h2>" + schema.Name + " Admin</h2>";

      grid.ID = "grid";
	    grid.CssClass = this.GridViewCssClass;

      surroundingPanel.Controls.Add(grid);

      if (!Page.IsPostBack) {
      	BindGrid(String.Empty);
      }

			//add a column to the grid for editing
}

And now I can declaratively set the CssClass that the GridView uses to, oh, say, .whitetext 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-09-11-669 https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-09-11-669 Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/09/091106.html

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-08-22-rewhataboutpostxing https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-08-22-rewhataboutpostxing Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I love the PostXING tool and the ability to integrate the playing music. Feature wise they are all about the same though. So it will interesting to see the evolution of the tool.

One positive out of the project is that I learned a lot about Subversion and how to work with it.

Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit!

[Via It's my life... And I live it...]

Well, this post has been a long time coming. What about PostXING? What indeed? Well, unfortunately for the 1.5 users of PostXING, I had my son Ethan for 6 weeks this summer and spending time with him is waaay more important than hacking on a tool that is basically useful only to a handful of people.

Then there's the issue of competition: I have always recommended BlogJet for people that wanted a good solid blog posting tool that is way more polished than PostXING (and indeed Windows Live Writer) and whose project lead is a really nice, engaging dude. Heck, Dmitry even gave me pointers on how to work with mshtml as I was writing code that competes with his (guess he wasn't too worried about "competition" from PostXING. heh.) And of course the new hip kid on the block Windows Live Writer...what can I say? Even Tomer, who was gracious enough to help me out on developing PostXING, agrees: Windows Live Writer kicks ass. The fact that it's free doesn't help the situation.

At this point I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with PostXING. I had been looking into yet another mshtml wrapper that supposedly handles focus better than the code I have, but my experience so far with mshtml is that it's a focus stealing bastard child of wysiwyg editing. The good news: you can actually use a widget that gives you wysiwyg editing without having to install a browser plugin (I'm looking at you, Mono!) The bad news: didn't you read that bastard child statement earlier? Geez.

Tentatively what will happen is I will continue to quietly hack on PostXING in order to at least bring it out of beta. But I'm definitely going to be taking my time on it...I am in no hurry at all.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-08-17-windowslivewriter https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-08-17-windowslivewriter Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

It looks pretty neat. I really dig the "type inside the preview" Web Layout. That's just sweet. The plugin support looks promising...I've already started coding up a CodeHTMLer plugin for syntax highlighting ala PostXING, now if I can get one going that will allow me to post the same content to more than one blog I'll be in business. I've been on a little hacking-hiatus on PostXING for the past few months to spend the summertime with my son Ethan, so what a great way to stretch my geek muscle all over again at the end of summer!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-08-11-refindingcallingmethodusingreflection https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-08-11-refindingcallingmethodusingreflection Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Exactly what I was looking for...I don't know a lot about reflection, so I wonder if there is a more elegant way to get this info.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-07-20-whipitrealhard https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-07-20-whipitrealhard Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Last night I got an impromtu text message saying that Ghostface Killah was playing at Warehouse live downtown. As a Wu-Tang fan, I decided to go out and see what he was all about. Pretty good show, I really dug the ODB medley they did in honor of Ol' Dirty. 

As an extra added bonus, Rick Ross opened up for Ghostface. He only did like 5 tracks, but was spot on for Hustlin'. He's obviously very comfortable with the song by now and it shows in his performance. Looked like he was really having fun with it which always helps for a good show.

[ Currently Playing : Smiley faces - Gnarls Barkley - (3:05) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-07-14-whatsthismyapplicationwontexit https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-07-14-whatsthismyapplicationwontexit Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:00:00 GMT

There are a few things that have to happen for this "regression" to show up. First, you have to be working in .net 2.0 WinForms. Second, you must be using a custom application context. Third and most importantly, you must have at least one form open in your application that handles its closing event and sets CancelEventArgs.Cancel = true.

What's the behavior? While operating under a custom ApplicationContext, what would be my Main form is closed by the user. Since the application context is not associated with that form, I decide to call "Application.Exit()" in an override of OnClosing. My Main form closes, but any hidden forms stick around, thus leaving the application running until you open up task manager (or something similar) and manually kill the process.

Why does it happen? WinForms 2.0 introduced an overload to Application.Exit that accepts a CancelEventArgs parameter. This is what is called by Application.Exit(). If even one of your open forms doesn't think it needs to close itself for whatever reason and sets its CancelEventArgs to true, Application.Exit stops processing and returns control to the application.

Why did I call it a "regression"? This behavior has changed between .net 1.1 and 2.0. In 1.1, if I call Application.Exit, by golly the application exits! I understand the reasoning behind the change. I just wish that there was some indication to it other than Reflector. A comment for intellisense perhaps? Something.

Will it matter to most WinForm projects? Probably not. If you use the default application context (by calling Application.Run(new MainForm()), which is what VS.NET spits out for you from the template) you do not have the same problem. Closing the main form exits the application as expected. If you're using a custom ApplicationContext, tho, watch out.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-07-08-gafflingthatribbonstyle https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-07-08-gafflingthatribbonstyle Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Close enough. This should be fun.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-06-29-stepyourgameupmicrosoft https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-06-29-stepyourgameupmicrosoft Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Unfortunately, the rants about WGA causing a bluescreen are true. It happened a little while ago on my home PC. Thankfully, F8 booting into safemode still works, and I was able to restore my system to a daily checkpoint. Boy am I glad that was setup. Installing .net 1.1 sp1 worked fine, as did an audio driver I was missing.

After having to rollback to a system restore checkpoint.

Way to go, guys.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-06-13-wellmissyoumrholmquist https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-06-13-wellmissyoumrholmquist Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

My high school principal died on Monday.

This is surreal. It feels like it was just last week that I was skipping class and getting a pep talk from Mr. Holmquist in North House. Worst of all, I went to school with his daughters. Amber was in my graduating class, but she was real into sports (and I wasn't). We had a couple of classes together but I was closer to her sister Kendra, a fellow thespian.

This is so confusing...I've been in the Holmquist house a couple of times, and now...we'll miss you, Mr. Holmquist. Alief is a sad town today.

In the unlikely event that either of my readers finds out any information about the funeral, please let me know. My cell is (281) 684-5688. Alternatively, if I find out anything I will post here.

update: I got this from a friend in the district:

The Holmquist family has made the following arrangements:

Viewing services will be at Forest Park on Westheimer at Dairy Ashford on Thursday evening from 6-8 p.m.  The memorial service will be held Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. at Memoria Drive United Methodist Church on Memorial Drive between Wilcrest and the Beltway.

Respectfully,

Paula Smith

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-06-07-reusingdlinqwithasp-netpart2ofmylinqseries https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-06-07-reusingdlinqwithasp-netpart2ofmylinqseries Wed, 07 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Wow.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-06-06-communityserver2-0blogmlconverterbetasuccess https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-06-06-communityserver2-0blogmlconverterbetasuccess Tue, 06 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I'm a little bit behind on my CS releases, as I just got around to installing a fresh copy of Community Server 2.0 to test things out for one of my sites. Since I was going to upgrade an existing CS 1.1 install, I tried that method first, but ended up starting over because the original config I had was single blog and I didn't have the time nor the patience to figure out how to hack 2.0 into a single-blog install with existing content.

However, thanks to Keyvan (che khabbar!), I was able to export the 1.1 content using an HttpHandler I hacked up for exporting CS 1.1 content to BlogML and import into a new, multi-blog install of 2.0. The first thing I did was nuke both the sample weblog and the sample weblog group. Then I created a new group and weblog and used the application key assigned to the new blog to import my posts. Here is the code I used to import a blogML file into a fresh copy of Community Server 2.0

vb

<%@ Page Language = "VB" %>
<%@ Import Namespace = "System.Collections" %>
<%@ Import Namespace = "System.IO" %>
<%@ Import Namespace = "BlogML" %>
<%@ Import Namespace = "BlogML.Xml" %>
<%@ Import Namespace = "CommunityServer" %>
<%@ Import Namespace = "CommunityServer.Components" %>
<%@ Import Namespace = "CommunityServer.Blogs" %>

<script runat="server">
'Community Server 2.0 BlogML converter Beta
'Copyright Keyvan Nayyeri (www.nayyeri.net) - 2006
'BlogML Writer and Reader classes are provided by BlogML project (www.blogml.com)


Public Class Reader

  Private _ApplicationKey As String
  Private _Blog As CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.Weblog
  Private _SitePath As String
  Private _BlogCommentCount As Integer
  Private _BlogTrackBackCount As Integer

  Sub New(ByVal ApplicationKey As String, ByVal SitePath As String)
    Me._ApplicationKey = ApplicationKey
    Me._SitePath = SitePath


    Dim objCSWeblogs As CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.Weblogs
    Me._Blog = objCSWeblogs.GetWeblog(Me._ApplicationKey)
  End Sub

  Public Sub LoadBlog(ByVal XML As String)
    Dim Blog As New BlogMLBlog
    Try
      Blog = BlogMLSerializer.Deserialize(New StringReader(XML))
    Catch ex As Exception
      Throw New Exception("Couldn't load your BlogML file. Maybe it is wellformedness")
    End

    Try
      Dim Categories As Hashtable
      Categories = ReadCategories(Blog)

      LoadPosts(Blog, Categories)

      UpdateStats(Blog)
    End Sub

    Private Function ReadCategories(ByVal Blog As BlogMLBlog) As Hashtable
      Dim CategoriesHash As New Hashtable
      For Each Category As BlogMLCategory In Blog.Categories
        Dim NewCategory As New PostCategory With  NewCategory
          .DateCreated = Category.DateCreated
          .Description = Category.Description
          .IsEnabled = Category.Approved
          .Name = Category.Title
          .ParentID = 0
          .SectionID = Me._Blog.SectionID

        Dim objCSCats As PostCategories

        Try
          objCSCats.CreateCategory(NewCategory)
        Catch ex As Exception
          Throw New ArgumentException("Error when tried to add categories to database")
        End

        Try
          CategoriesHash.Add(Category.ID, Category.Title)
        End

        With Next Return CategoriesHash
        End Function

        Private Sub LoadPosts(ByVal Blog As BlogMLBlog, ByVal CategoryHash As Hashtable)
            Dim LastPostAuthor As String
            Dim LastPostAuthorID As Integer
            Dim LastPostDate As Date
            Dim LastPostName As String
            Dim LastPostSubject As String




            For Each Post As BlogMLPost In Blog.Posts
                Dim NewPost As New CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogPost
                Dim objCSPosts As CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogPosts

                With NewPost
                    .PostID = Post.ID
                    .Body = Post.Content.UncodedText
                    .BlogPostType = CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.BlogPostType.Post
                    .Subject = Post.Title
                    .ThreadDate = Post.DateCreated
                    .UserTime = Post.DateCreated
                    .PostDate = Post.DateCreated
                    .UserTime = Post.DateCreated
                    .SectionID = Me._Blog.SectionID
                    .SetExtendedAttribute("EverPublished", CType(Post.Approved, Boolean))
                    .IndexInThread = True
                    .IsApproved = True
                    .IsAggregated = True
                    .IsLocked = False
                    .PostConfig = CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.BlogPostConfig.IsAggregated

                End With
                'Add categories
                If Post.Categories.Count > 0 Then
                    Dim NewPostCats(Post.Categories.Count) As String
                    For i As Integer = 0 To Post.Categories.Count - 1
                        NewPostCats(i) = CategoryHash(Post.Categories(i).Ref)
                    Next
                    NewPost.Categories = NewPostCats
                End If

                'Add attachments
                'TO DO: Check to add attachments with checking the source code when RTM version has been released.
                'Currently we can't load post attachments

                objCSPosts.Add(NewPost)

                'Temporary saving stats
                LastPostAuthor = NewPost.Username
                LastPostAuthorID = NewPost.AuthorID
                LastPostDate = NewPost.PostDate
                LastPostName = NewPost.Name
                LastPostSubject = NewPost.Subject

                LoadComments(NewPost, Post)
                LoadTrackBacks(NewPost, Post)
            Next

            'Update blog stats
            Me._Blog.MostRecentPostAuthor = LastPostAuthor
            Me._Blog.MostRecentPostAuthorID = LastPostAuthorID
            Me._Blog.MostRecentPostDate = LastPostDate
            Me._Blog.MostRecentPostName = LastPostName
            Me._Blog.MostRecentPostSubject = LastPostSubject
        End Sub
        Private Sub LoadComments(ByVal NewPost As Post, ByVal Post As BlogMLPost)
            If Post.Comments.Count > 0 Then
                For Each Comment As BlogMLComment In Post.Comments
                    Dim NewComment As New CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogPost
                    Dim objCSComments As CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogPosts

                    With NewComment
                        .Body = Comment.Content.UncodedText
                        .BlogPostType = Blogs.Components.BlogPostType.Comment
                        .Subject = Comment.Title
                        .ThreadDate = Comment.DateCreated
                        .UserTime = Comment.DateCreated
                        .PostDate = Comment.DateCreated
                        .UserTime = Comment.DateCreated
                        .SectionID = Me._Blog.SectionID
                        .SetExtendedAttribute("EverPublished", True)
                        .SetExtendedAttribute("TitleUrl", Comment.UserUrl)
                        .SetExtendedAttribute("SubmittedUserName", Comment.UserName)
                        .IsApproved = CType(Comment.Approved, Boolean)
                        .ParentID = NewPost.PostID
                        .ThreadID = NewPost.ThreadID

                    End With

                    objCSComments.Add(NewComment)

                    'Update blog counter
                    Me._BlogCommentCount += 1
                Next
            End If
        End Sub

        Private Sub LoadTrackBacks(ByVal NewPost As Post, ByVal Post As BlogMLPost)
            If Post.Trackbacks.Count > 0 Then
                For Each TrackBack As BlogMLTrackback In Post.Trackbacks
                    Dim NewTrackBack As New Blogs.Components.WeblogPost
                    Dim objCSTrackBacks As Blogs.Components.WeblogPosts

                    With NewTrackBack
                        .Body = TrackBack.Title
                        .BlogPostType = Blogs.Components.BlogPostType.Trackback
                        .Subject = TrackBack.Title
                        .ThreadDate = TrackBack.DateCreated
                        .UserTime = TrackBack.DateCreated
                        .PostDate = TrackBack.DateCreated
                        .UserTime = TrackBack.DateCreated
                        .SectionID = Me._Blog.SectionID
                        .SetExtendedAttribute("EverPublished", True)
                        .SetExtendedAttribute("TitleUrl", TrackBack.Url)
                        .SetExtendedAttribute("trackbackName", "TrackBack")
                        .IsApproved = CType(TrackBack.Approved, Boolean)
                        .ParentID = NewPost.PostID
                        .ThreadID = NewPost.ThreadID

                    End With

                    objCSTrackBacks.Add(NewTrackBack)

                    'Update blog counter
                    Me._BlogTrackBackCount += 1
                Next
            End If
        End Sub
        Private Sub UpdateStats(ByVal Blog As BlogMLBlog)
            Me._Blog.PostCount += Blog.Posts.Count
            Me._Blog.CommentCount = Me._BlogCommentCount
            Me._Blog.TrackbackCount = Me._BlogTrackBackCount
        End Sub

    End Class

    Sub Page_Load(sender as Object, e as EventArgs)
    	Dim Path as String = "d:tmpBlogMLBlogML.xml"
    	Dim reader as New Reader("chris", Request.PhysicalApplicationPath)

    	If File.Exists(Path) Then
    		Dim sr as New StreamReader(File.Open(Path, FileMode.Open))
    		Dim xml as string = sr.ReadToEnd

    		reader.LoadBlog(xml)

    		Response.Write("Content moved successfully!")
    	Else
    		Response.Write("Uh-oh. Something crapped.")
    	End If

    End Sub

</script>
<html>
    <head>
    </head>
    <body>
        <form runat="server">
            <!-- Insert content here -->
        </form>
    </body>
</html>

I hacked up this file in WebMatrix and slapped it into the webroot of my new CommunityServer install. This way I was able to copy the content to a local install before pushing the final product out into the wild, and I didn't have to recompile any of CS to get it working. Merci, Keyvan!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-12-rebadnewsgetsworse https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-12-rebadnewsgetsworse Fri, 12 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

 

How do you say goodbye? One hand squeeze at a time.

[Via Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger]

So what do you do when a blogger you read comes up on hard times and posts his phone number to his blog? Call him, of course. The problem is that Robert is suffering through an extremely personal trial, and right as he said "hello" I started thinking of how I would feel if I were in his shoes. Probably did more harm than good, but my thoughts and prayers are still with you and yours, Robert.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-10-postxingshamelessrequestforfeedback https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-10-postxingshamelessrequestforfeedback Wed, 10 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

http://postxing.net/gemini/issue/ViewIssue.aspx?id=32

I'm about to start cracking on this issue, but I'd love to get a little feedback on it before I put it into code. If either of you have an extra minute, shoot to the url above and leave a comment. I normally don't solicit feedback like this, but I kind of feel like I'm missing something. Although I could just be thinking about it too much. Either way, help a code munkey out if ya can :)

[ Currently Playing : This Could Be Love - Alkaline Trio - Good Mourning (3:47) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-04-gettingatemporaryfilenametheeasywayfeedback https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-04-gettingatemporaryfilenametheeasywayfeedback Thu, 04 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Jerry Pisk

Path.GetTempFileName() guarantees that you will get an available name, it does actually go ahead and create the file so it is guaranteed to be yours when you use it. If you strip the extension off and substitute your own you may end up overwriting an existing file. Not a smart thing to do.

In my case, I just really want the filename. Whether or not I change the extension, that file is mine to do with what I will. Also, since it's not in the same folder as the originating file, it can be the exact same name, extension and all, and it will still be a different file that what was generated by the framework. I should take care of file cleanup, and that zero byte file is still in the temp directory...

Paul Welter

Be aware the GetTempFileName() actually creates a zero byte file in the temp folder. Your code will leave the temp file behind in the temp folder. If you use that a lot, you will end up with a lot of files in the temp folder.

true! So, maybe I was a little quick to post about this one, but it was one of those things that struck me as particularly useful. If you just want a temporary filename, and want to clean up the file that is created by GetTempFileName(), perhaps this will work a little better:

csharp

string GetTempFileName(){
	string filename = Path.GetTempFileName();

	File.Delete(filename);

	return Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(filename);
}

Okay y'all...rip it to shreds 😃 If I've missed something else obvious, call me out. Or, if you have a preferred method of generating temporary file names, show the way.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-04-gettingatemporaryfilenametheeasyway https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-04-gettingatemporaryfilenametheeasyway Thu, 04 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

If you need to generate temporary / semi-unique filenames, here is a little snippet that uses the framework:

csharp

using System.IO;

string GetTempFileName(){
	return Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(Path.GetTempFileName());
}

As the name implies, this will return the temporary name of a file without the extension, so it's up to you to add whatever filetype you may be trying to create. For example, let's say I wanted to generate a .gif:

csharp

string GetTempGifFileName(){
	return string.Format("{0}.{1}", GetTempFileName(), "gif");
}

I had overlooked this little piece of functionality because the component that I was using generated filenames with GUIDs, so I never really worried about it. Way to make my life easier, .netfx 😃

[ Currently Playing : Mississippi Queen - Ozzy Osbourne - Under Cover (4:11) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-04-iflippedacoin https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-05-04-iflippedacoin Thu, 04 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

 Heads: Shave the beard off entirely. Tails: just trim it down a little.

The coin flips...

and...

Heads it is. 

[ Currently Playing : imagine - John Lennon - (3:04) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-04-14-theyieldstatementnotsomysteriousafterall https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-04-14-theyieldstatementnotsomysteriousafterall Fri, 14 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

[Via jfo's coding]

I'll admit, I haven't thought a whole lot about yield because, well, I couldn't find anything that described what it did in terms I could understand. I just kept thinking "oh, cool, another new feature in .net 2.0 that I'll get to learn by the time 3.0 comes out" and moved on to the next task.

Thinking about it as kind of a "macro" (similar to what a using(){} block does) lets it gel a little better.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-31-visualstudio2005designertouchythouchy https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-31-visualstudio2005designertouchythouchy Fri, 31 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

If you do anything "out of the ordinary" in your UserControl or Form derived classes in Visual Studio 2005, let me introduce you to a little snippet that will probably save you lots of headaches:

csharp

if ( DesignMode ) return;

or, its equally useful counterpart

csharp

if(!DesignMode){
	doStuff();
}

Now, the "out of the ordinary" thing I was doing was...hooking up an instance EventHandler using a static property that exposes a Form derived class in an OnLoad override. What? I know, not the clearest situation, and probably one that could use a boatload of refactoring, but it works. In short, if you are having designer problems in Visual Studio 2005, it may be worth it to sit back for a bit and think about what introduced the designer error. Prime candidates are constructors and OnLoad overrides that use static methods for functionality. This code didn't allow me to view the designer of a different form:

csharp

public override void OnLoad(EventArgs e){
	AppManager.ConcreteEditorForm.NewPostCreated += new EventHandler(HandleNewPost);
}

while this one would:

csharp

public override void OnLoad(EventArgs e){
	if( DesignMode ) return;
	AppManager...
}

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-20-netvibelistenforssidchange https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-20-netvibelistenforssidchange Mon, 20 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I've updated the NetVibe source with a mildly useful update: listening for changes in SSID as well as IP Addresses. The source is hosted at http://chrisfrazier.net:8080/NetVibe on a subversion server.

I used some code that I found at the FurryGoat experience, modified it a little bit, and it seems that it's at least useful in detecting if an SSID ends with something...for example, my WiFi at work has an SSID of VelocityDatabank, so I created a rule to look for an SSID/IP Address that EndsWith Databank. This code definitely needs improvement, but I have found it very useful, and now I don't have to have different network segments specified at each of the different WiFi spots I connect to.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-14-resecurepasswordtextboxupdate https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-14-resecurepasswordtextboxupdate Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This looks interesting. I thought Mr. "Just finished my last chapter of Beginning AJAX" would have for sure created this as an asp.net control...guess I should have read closer the first time ;) Could be useful in PostXING, ifn we ever put some real security innit.

Since there has been so much interest in the SecurePasswordTextBox control (see my previous post http://weblogs.asp.net/pglavich/archive/2006/02/26/439077.aspx and http://weblogs.asp.net/pglavich/archive/2006/03/12/440052.aspx ), I thought I would take the time to iron out the bugs. When I first released it, I performed minimal testing (i.e. about 15 minutes worth) and just thought if anybody else is interested, then I might put some real effort in.

Well since then it was featured in an MSDN webcast by Dan Sellers of Microsoft and I have received almost 300 downloads in a short span of time. So just as a quick courtesy note, it has now been updated to V1.1 and works (AFAIK) 100%. Previous versions didn't handle certain situations property where text in the middle was selected and you typed a character, it would simply append the char and not do a replacement (thanks Nick :-) )

All is now well. Go grab it from herehttp://www.theglavs.com/DownloadItem.aspx?FileID=46

For those unaware, its a Windows Forms TextBox control that uses the .Net V2 SecureString class to store its contents. Basically, you now have a UI control that allows directly entry into this secure string class and makes it useable from a windows UI perspective. (See my previous post for a full explanation.)

[Via Glavs Blog]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-13-testingunicode https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-13-testingunicode Mon, 13 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Sorry I keep putting out these tests, but I'm trying to see what different regexes will do to a friendly url in subtext. Nothing more to see here.

[ Currently Playing : Have You Heard? - ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (3:12) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-13-quickshoutouttoregexlib-com https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-13-quickshoutouttoregexlib-com Mon, 13 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I've got weak regex skillz. I'll admit it.

I don't use them very much, so when I do need to, it's nice to know that regexlib is sitting there, waiting for me to come to it with my regex needs. In particular, there is an online Regular Expression Tester that has helped me to look smarter than I actually am on more than one occasion. Sure, I could use a desktop tool for my regex needs (and sometimes I do), but regexlib has the added bonus of having a collection of user-contributed regular expressions that are super useful when looking for ideas on how to implement a certain regex.

And let's not forget the Cheat Sheet ... regexlib is just chock full of regex goodness.

[ Currently Playing : The First Drop - Rise Against - (2:39) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-12-backgroundworkerisrunningtaketwo https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-12-backgroundworkerisrunningtaketwo Sun, 12 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I can't believe nobody called me on this: BackgroundWorker.IsBusy Property

Reflector says it does exactly what I was looking for in a previous post.

Technorati Tags:  Windows Forms  BackgroundWorker 

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-10-rewhatiswithbloggercom https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-10-rewhatiswithbloggercom Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I had tried to reply to this post on WinExtra, but it errored out on me. So, here's what the comment said:

Blogger uses Atom feeds located at http://blogdomain/atom.xml The fact that the skins provided don't reflect this is the pain point...you'd see a link if you view sourced it:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Blue Phoenix" href="atom.xml" />

Also, get rid of that captcha (I hate those!) use ReverseDoS instead: http://angrypets.com/tools/rdos

Blogging is cool and rss feeds make it even better for the reader/user; but only if blog hosts provide a mechanism for the blogger to have an RSS feed on their site which most do.

The only exception I have found so far is blogs hosted by Blogger.com. Now I don't know if it is a setting that individual bloggers need to set but not one of the blogs on Blogger.com that I like seem to have an RSS feed.

What is up with that silliness?

Now playing: New Phunk Theory - La Neblina Del Verano

---

This weblog is sponsored by WinExtra.

[Via The World of WinExtra]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-09-postxingitsbetatime https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-09-postxingitsbetatime Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

For the adventurous among you, we've decided to release beta 1 of PostXING available for download at ProjectDistributor!

There are a few known issues, but as far as I know there aren't any showstopper bugs. I've been running the development build for quite some time now, and for PostXING v1.1 users, I think this release is a big step up in terms of usability. Since the only working provider at this time is the MetaBlogProvider, the functionality remains basically the same, i.e. you can manage a MetaWeblog enabled weblog using PostXING from your desktop.

If you find any issues, bugs, or you just think something could be done better, head on over to the Gemini issue tracker. To add an issue, click the All Issues link and then Create Issue at the top of the page. If you don't want to get that involved, you can always use the contact form over at PostXING.net to at least get your issue addressed...or you could just let it ride and hope I run into it myself 😃

If you're feeling really adventurous and want to hack on PostXING, you can do so by using TortoiseSVN and pointing to http://postxing.net:8080/PostXING. All main development is done on the trunk by version. If you don't like how something works, send me a diff. I think I've been pretty receptive to criticism and feature requests (even tho we can't put them all in at once), so the very least that will happen is that you will be able to use a program that you feel works better. Thanks, and enjoy!

[ Currently Playing : Jesus Just Left Chicago - ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (3:31) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-07-sourceareyouusefulagain https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-07-sourceareyouusefulagain Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

testing source

: nope.

: almost: I get a reference to the source, but it's based with the skin's control directory.

: BAM! gotta put http:// at the beginning. sweet, I missed that one.

[ Currently Playing : Sheik - ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (4:04) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-07-subtextblogmlandpostxing https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-07-subtextblogmlandpostxing Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This is the end result after setting up SubText and importing my old blog (now moved to here). I had created a blogML exporter for cs11 and ran into some initial problems because the version of BlogML I had used was a smidge older (v0.9) and therefore had a different schema. Kinda makes me wish there were a way to clear out all the content and start over like subv2 allows me to.

So why didn't I go with subv2? (Sorry, Darren) The admin interface and WebParts' silly requirement of IE. I basically live in FireFox and although it's been quite some time since I've posted thru the web interface of .text/CS::Blogs, I do need to go in from time to time and make some changes. Plus, since subtext was forked off of .text, I'm already pretty familiar with the interface (and some of the code when necessary). Subv2 is a real nice exploration of all the fun new doohickeys in .net 2.0, and with Darren at the helm you know it's high-quality stuff, but I need something that works for me in the environment I choose to work with. Either way, I've got an install of Subv2 behind the firewall so I could just make that one public and import my shiny new blogML file if need be: I'm keeping a definite eye on it, that's for sure.

[ Currently Playing : Move Me on Down the Line - ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (2:30) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-01-postxing-plugin-metapinger https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-01-postxing-plugin-metapinger Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Well, it turns out that PostXING's mystery plugin author is none other than Taras Naumtsev, and Taras is on fire! Check out the new MetaPinger plugin:

MetaPinger is a PostXING plugin that notifies a number of services that keep track of
weblogs and publish them. By pinging, you let the services know that your blog has been updated ,
they crawl your blog, publishing your site contents, thus increasing your blog's popularity.

Setup
Extract the ZIP archive into the "plugins" subdirectory of PostXING's install directory

Configuration
You will need to configure MetaPinger plugin to notify ping services.
Enter blog name.
Enter blog url.
Add ping service urls ( one per line )

Usage
To ping press the "Ping" button.

Download MetaPinger plugin

 

MetaPinger has been tested with the following ping services:
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

 

Technorati Tags:  PostXING  Tagging  Utility  Software  Blogware  Plugin 

[Via .Net Adventures ]

 

[ Currently Playing : Beef (Feat. Mobb Deep) - The Notorious B.I.G - (4:57) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-01-postxing-plugin-technoratitagger https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-03-01-postxing-plugin-technoratitagger Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Holy Schnikeys!

Someone has actually built a plugin for PostXING! Ladies and gentlemen, Allow me to introduce the TechnoratiTagger plugin for PostXING! Unfortunately, I'm not 100% sure who wrote it (well, it's not obvious from the site). The good news is...it works! :) It even works with the spankin new, begging to be released v2 beta I have on my machine, and it works well!

Technorati Tags:  PostXING  Technorati Tags  Plugins 

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-02-20-fix-design-view-error-in-vs-2005 https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-02-20-fix-design-view-error-in-vs-2005 Mon, 20 Feb 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Here's a link to the hotfix for the winforms designer error that looks like this:

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-02-15-got-my-asp-net-podcast-shirt https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-02-15-got-my-asp-net-podcast-shirt Wed, 15 Feb 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I got my ASP.NET Podcast shirt, and there's a lot of Wally to be had it seems...

You can't really tell from this pic, but the image of Wally takes up nearly the entire back of the shirt...

But even this looks phenomenal on yours truly 😛

[ Currently Playing : Last Call - Kanye West - (12:41) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-02-14-subversion-on-windows https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-02-14-subversion-on-windows Tue, 14 Feb 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I've been wanting to setup subversion for PostXING for a while so I can have more control over who has commit access and various adminy tasks that are only available thru emailing the already busy staff of sourcegear when hosting code on vaultpub.

Thankfully, I'm not the only person who has had this idea. To that end, this blog post was instrumental in outlining the steps to take to get subversion up and running on a windows box. The only issue that I had which was rather annoying was I kept getting an error stating that svn was "unable to open an ra_local session to URL" when trying to import code on the host. So, I did things the painfully slow way of adding files/folders from a client machine that already had the code on it. The good news is that PostXING now has its own subversion repository: svn://postxing.net/PostXING read access is still there for all, but now I can specify who can and cannot commit changes. So nice.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-02-11-backgroundworker-isrunning https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-02-11-backgroundworker-isrunning Sat, 11 Feb 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This is a private boolean member of the new BackgroundWorker class in .NET 2.0. If it were public, perhaps there would be less questions like this one on the gotdotnet messageboards. I ran into a similar problem recently and decided that instead of catching an exception when the BackgroundWorker is running, I would emulate the isRunning member myself. Since this is multithreaded by its nature, I decided to use a lock object to control access to a static boolean member in the class that uses the BackgroundWorker component.

csharp

static bool isRunningBgWorker = false;
static object lockObj = new object();

...

if (!isRunningBgWorker) {
	this.backgroundWorker1.RunWorkerAsync();
}

I check to see if it's running before even setting it off to do the work.

csharp

private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) {
	lock (lockObj) {
		isRunningBgWorker = true;
	}

The first thing that happens when the DoWork eventhandler is called and

csharp

private void backgroundWorker1_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e) {
...

	lock (lockObj) {
		isRunningBgWorker = false;
	}
}

the last thing when the work is completed: controlled access to the isRunningBgWorker member. Hope this helps somebody else out there who is having trouble with the BackgroundWorker component.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-30-all-in-your-head-dj-fred-castillo https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-30-all-in-your-head-dj-fred-castillo Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This is in the year 2004BB (Before Beard)

[ Currently Playing : Just A Memory Featuring The C - The Notorious B.I.G - (4:30) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-28-cidr-notation-cheat-sheet https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-28-cidr-notation-cheat-sheet Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

CIDR        Total number    Network             Description:
Notation:   of addresses:   Mask:
]]>

CIDR        Total number    Network             Description:
Notation:   of addresses:   Mask:
--------------------------------------------------------------
/0          4,294,967,296   0.0.0.0             Every Address
/1          2,147,483,648   128.0.0.0           128 /8 nets
/2          1,073,741,824   192.0.0.0           64 /8 nets
/3          536,870,912     224.0.0.0           32 /8 nets
/4          268,435,456     240.0.0.0           16 /8 nets
/5          134,217,728     248.0.0.0           8 /8 nets
/6          67,108,864      252.0.0.0           4 /8 nets
/7          33,554,432      254.0.0.0           2 /8 nets
/8          16,777,214      255.0.0.0           1 /8 net
--------------------------------------------------------------
/9          8,388,608       255.128.0.0         128 /16 nets
/10         4,194,304       255.192.0.0         64 /16 nets
/11         2,097,152       255.224.0.0         32 /16 nets
/12         1,048,576       255.240.0.0         16 /16 nets
/13         524,288         255.248.0.0         8 /16 nets
/14         262,144         255.252.0.0         4 /16 nets
/15         131.072         255.254.0.0         2 /16 nets
/16         65,536          255.255.0.0         1 /16
--------------------------------------------------------------
/17         32,768          255.255.128.0       128 /24 nets
/19         16,384          255.255.192.0       64 /24 nets
/19         8,192           255.255.224.0       32 /24 nets
/20         4,096           255.255.240.0       16 /24 nets
/21         2,048           255.255.248.0       8 /24 nets
/22         1,024           255.255.252.0       4 /24 nets
/23         512             255.255.254.0       2 /24 nets
/24         256             255.255.255.0       1 /24
--------------------------------------------------------------
/25         128             255.255.255.128     Half of a /24
/26         64              255.255.255.192     Fourth of a /24
/27         32              255.255.255.224     Eighth of a /24
/28         16              255.255.255.240     1/16th of a /24
/29         8               255.255.255.248     5 Usable addresses
/30         4               255.255.255.252     1 Usable address
/31         2               255.255.255.254     Unusable
/32         1               255.255.255.255     Single host
--------------------------------------------------------------

[Via (Is it even a box?)]

I've needed this a few times myself...thanks, Paul.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-26-msbuild-date-based-build-number-blues https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-26-msbuild-date-based-build-number-blues Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

According to this thread, Microsoft may run into visioning problems if they stick with their new build number scheme (major.minor.yMMdd.revision) next year. A Version in the .NET framework consists of 4 integers for the major, minor, build number, and revision in that format. When the build number uses the year as the first digit, it becomes 3.0.70101.0 for example on January 1st of next year. The build number only goes up to 65535. Oops. As an alternative, I think I'll be sticking with the BuildDay method, using the UpdateVersion tool. I was hoping to be able to use the AssemblyInfoTask to add a conditional task directly into my .csproj file, but maybe I can use some form of Exec task voodoo to get the UpdateVersion working with my build. I only want to update the version number when I compile in release mode, so hopefully I can write something with Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'release'" in the BeforeCompile target.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-24-thanks-rssbandit https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-24-thanks-rssbandit Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

RssBandit has been a big inspiration for some of the specific features of PostXING. As a matter of fact, where possible I've used code from RssBandit directly. At least half of proxy support, most of the plugin loading logic, and most recently (like you don't have it unless you monitor the branches for postxing) a little-used, very useful interface: IMessageFilter. IMessageFilter is only implemented by the splitter control in the framework (according to reflector) but was extremely helpful in the quest to better handle the keyboard. There is only one method defined on the interface:

csharp

//CF: thanks, rssbandit :)
public bool PreFilterMessage(ref Message m) {
  ...
}

The code then looks for the WM_KEYDOWN or WM_SYSKEYDOWN messages and handles things according to whatever rules you put in there. To get it hooked up, I simply overrode OnActivate and OnDeactivate and added Application.Add/RemoveMessageFilter(this);

I figured if I already posted the problem, I might as well post a solution as well. This was really helpful to the flat spot that was forming on my forehead, so thanks again RssBandit.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-20-gmail-delete-button https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-20-gmail-delete-button Fri, 20 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Broseph.

This was the first thing that I requested from gmail, and they've taken it up a notch - instead of only deleting messages, it notifies you if there are messages in a current "conversation" that have already been deleted:

  32 deleted messages in this conversation. View messages or delete forever.

Nice.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-19-re-postxing-better-keyboard-support https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-19-re-postxing-better-keyboard-support Thu, 19 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Heh, oops. This is what happens when the tool that you are building is the same tool you are using to make tech notes to yourself.* Really, there should be a bugtracker in place so that I can have a central organized spot to have bug reports, feedback, etc.

Anyone have any suggestions? I've used (and liked) gemini, but delusions of granduer aside the 10 user limit gives me pause. I want PostXING to remain free, so any supporting items like this need to be free as well.

*yes, most of my notes do look like this.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-17-monodevelop-to-get-a-design-enabled https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-17-monodevelop-to-get-a-design-enabled Tue, 17 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

It's for glade3, but having a designer will definitely get me looking at Mono again.

[ Currently Playing : Motel of the white locust - Glassjaw - Everything you ever wanted to know about silence (8:41) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-13-got-my-new-glasses https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-13-got-my-new-glasses Fri, 13 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Strictly filed under "As if you cared".

[ Currently Playing : Audioslave / Out Of Exile - Audioslave - Out Of Exile (4:53) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-11-mvp-again https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2006-01-11-mvp-again Wed, 11 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

So I got selected for the MVP award again this year. Many thanks to BenMi, who has been an awesome lead this whole time. You rock, dude.

I was also awarded the (unofficial) ReverseDoS MVP award for my unending quest to tell anyone who is fed up with comment spam about it. If you're running an asp.net blogging engine (really, anything that could generate spam from automated bots that runs asp.net) you owe it to yourself to check this component out.

Since installing and configuring it correctly, I have gotten exactly 1 (one) comment spam, and it was a manual entry. None that are automated, tho. Nice :)

[ Currently Playing : demon days - Gorillaz - (4:28) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-23-postxing-v2-alpha-and-proxies https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-23-postxing-v2-alpha-and-proxies Fri, 23 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I'd like to apologize if any users of PostXING have to go thru proxies...I've been bugchasing this evening and it occurred to me that specifying a proxy for a new blog is kind of...well, weird.

First, it's a wizard-style dialog, so you expect the next/back buttons to work like it would in say an installer (well, I would anyways). Instead, you've got to specify at least a host, "page", and port, click on a special linkbutton (not next), click back to specify now the rest of the properties (including re-typing what you've already typed) and then you can go to select which blog you want to use.

I don't have an answer for this yet, but I'm working on it.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-21-yahoo-widgets-konfabulator-3-0-2 https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-21-yahoo-widgets-konfabulator-3-0-2 Wed, 21 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I wanted to install the newest version of Konfabulator to one of my computers, so I went to www.konfabulator.com and tried to install the latest version (3.0.1 earlier today, 3.0.2 this evening) but instead of getting the 11MB download that the site reports, I get a little <500KB file called widgetsus.exe.

According to some forum posts, I'm not the only person having problems here. My problem was that no computers that didn't already have an earlier version of Konfabulator would actually install off of this file. So I looked thru a few more forum posts and found a url to 3.0.1 (http://us.dl1.yimg.com/download.yahoo.com/dl/widgets/us/yahoowidgets3x77.exe) and was then able to guess for the 3.0.2 version (http://us.dl1.yimg.com/download.yahoo.com/dl/widgets/us/yahoowidgets3x79.exe) these are the files that the web installer are supposed to download, but don't.

Hopefully me posting this won't tip off the developers and make them choose a different naming scheme. Better yet, why not just let end users download the installer instead of having to go thru the web installer.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-13-msn-spaces-opens-up-metaweblog-api-support https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-13-msn-spaces-opens-up-metaweblog-api-support Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

And now I can post there with PostXING (v2).

Dare has put up a couple of tutorials on how to setup Metablog support for w.bloggar and BlogJet. Since I "borrowed" ideas from both of these fine applications, the setup for w.bloggar is nearly identical to what you need to do in PostXING v2. Sorry for those v1 folks, I don't think it'll work in that version. Maybe I can put out a patch so that v1 will work too.

I'd also like to thank Dare for being so helpful in the beta stage. He personally replied to my questions and gave insight on a couple of things that were very helpful (like the BOM thing, which may or may not be a fluke in the beta version of spaces)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-12-netvibe-listen-for-network-changes-and-execute-a-script https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-12-netvibe-listen-for-network-changes-and-execute-a-script Mon, 12 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

A few people asked for the source code/a download for the little widget I
whipped up on Friday, so I spent this morning adding a little bit of
persistence. The original code for switching my networks is still in there (and
still works on my machine if I change the code to point there) but I made it
more general and also used it as an excuse to explore the Settings API as well
as use a couple of neat features of VS 2005. (If you don't care about any of
that stuff and just want to see if you can build the project and make some use
out of it, it can be found here on
projectdistributor. )

So the settings goop in VS 2005 is pretty neat, but there's a limited subset
(it seems) that you can specify as types in the designer. I wanted to use a
Domain Object, tho - so, no designer love for me. I ended up making a simple
string setting just to see what code it generated for UserScopedSetting
properties. I ended up with this:

[global::System.Configuration.UserScopedSetting]
public ConfigItem Disconnected {
	get {
		if (this["Disconnected"] == null) {
			ConfigItem item = new ConfigItem();
			item.IPAddress = "127.0.0.1";
			item.Condition = ConditionKind.Equals;
			item.DisplayText = "disconnected.";
			item.Icon = IconKind.Disconnected;
			this["Disconnected"] = item;
		}
		return (ConfigItem)this["Disconnected"];
	}
	set {
		this["Disconnected"] = value;
	}
}

I found that a suitable default value was needed to start off with in
settings, so I did something similar for a Home, Work, Unknown, and Other
network. This way I can persist the Settings using the Settings API instead of
something home cooked (although I'm not sure if you would have to to avoid
version conflicts...) UserScopedSettings look to me a lot like IsolatedStorage,
that is the version and the product name help determine where settings should
go. If you wanted to use the same settings across different versions, I guess
you would have to copy the user.config file from one version location to the
next.

Next I wanted to see what the designer had to offer. The table layout panel
was real nice. It took care of all of my layout issues with respect to space. To
get what I wanted done, I first created a dummy Collection that inherits from
System.ComponentModel.BindingList<>:

internal class ConfigItemList : BindingList<ConfigItem> {}

This is how I was able to add it as an Object datasource to the Data Sources
window:

From there, you can change the type of control you would like to output. I
simply Dock.Fill 'ed the TableLayoutPanel and added the correct amount of rows.
To get the labels to line up with the controls, I set all of their AnchorStyles
to Top | Left (that's Top AND Left). When each usercontrol is loaded up, I
manually bind to the information. When the Save button is clicked, all of the
info gets put back into the Settings object from the controls and
Settings.Default.Save() is called. This automatically saves the changed data to
a safe location under Documents And Settings (specifically Local
SettingsApplication DataCompanyNameFileName+ a bunch of other
stuffProductVersion).

Now, for the main reason I created this thing: I host a few external
sites at work, and I can't see them without an entry in my hosts file
(%windir%system32driversetchosts) for each one. At home (or anywhere else)
however, I need to be able to rely on DNS to be able to get me to those sites,
so I created 2 extra hosts files, hosts.work and hosts.home. hosts.home pretty
much just has the single entry:

127.0.0.1    localhost

whereas hosts.work contains definitions to the internal network address of
the servers involved. I created 2 batch files that copy over the hosts file
depending on where I am. The one to switch to work has the following
command:

copy /Y %windir%system32driversetchosts.work
%windir%system32driversetchosts

and the one for home simply replaces hosts.home into the hosts file the same
way. So the command to execute for work is the fully qualified path to the bat
file. Everything else has the fully qualified path to the switch to home batch
script. So now, I just have this small utility run on startup and stay in the
tray, and whenever the network is changed, I am automatically configured to go
with this utility.

[ Currently Playing : Quarantined - At the Drive-In -
Relationship of Command (5:24) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-10-system-net-networkinformation https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-10-system-net-networkinformation Sat, 10 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This is pretty cool:

System.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkChange.NetworkAddressChanged += 
new System.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkAddressChangedEventHandler
(NetworkChange_NetworkAddressChanged);

I have a laptop that everyday switches between my wireless home network and my wired work domain. I was looking for a way to add scripting abilities to the interface itself (i.e. when a network connects, run some script) when I stumbled upon this jem.

So, I now have a little winforms app that sits in my tray (yet another one) and doesn't do anything but run a script (that in turn modifies my hosts file) and change its tray icon when I'm connected to different networks.

Here's what connected at home looks like: 

It began as a quick'n'dirty POC, and I started to make it more generalized by extracting the common elements to an object model and persisting/loading. Then I stopped myself. I'll just let this one remain quick'n'dirty for now. Why? Because it works. And it saves me from having to remember to execute those batch scripts every time I come home and logon or go to work and logon.

nice.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-07-postxing-offline-categories https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-07-postxing-offline-categories Wed, 07 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Peter, bro, you must be inspirin' or something. I hope I didn't miss anything (it was one of those "it can't be that easy©" deals), but I'll just let the screenshot do the talking:

[ Currently Playing : Precious - Depeche Mode ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-07-postxing-conversation-with-peter-provost-continues https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-07-postxing-conversation-with-peter-provost-continues Wed, 07 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Peter gives me some awesome feedback:

Hey man. Glad to know you're listening. I really think that PostXING could rock with a little more TLC. You're doing great.

A few comments on your comments:

1. I don't think you understand my request. Assume for a second that I know that I want to open post ID 117, I should be able to "Open 117" instead of "open, browse, wait, wait, 117, OK". I know this can be done with MWAPI 'cause I wrote one. metaWeblog.getPost takes postid, username and password, right?

2. For categories, I want to be able to select the category(s) for the post quickly and without waiting for stuff. So cache them, let me reload the cache, and enabled me to select them with the keyboard without a lot of fuss. BlogJet is pretty good on this front.

3. I understand your choice here, but I think you would be better to choose the standard keystroke used by Outlook, FrontPage, BlogJet, etc: Ctrl+M and Ctrl+Shift+M. Not the best keystrokes in the world, but they are what people are used to.

4. Make all the keystrokes configurable! :) That solves many/all of my issues., eh?

5. What I'm saying is that after using Ctrl+K (which I realize is a MSHTML command), and the focus returns back to the app, the input focus should stay where it was. I suspect you have something going on in Form_Activate that sets the focus somewhere. Try it, you'll see what I mean.

6. Ctrl+Enter should be Post & Publish. Personally I don't think Post (w/o Publish) has any value at all. If I can save locally, I don't need to post without publishing.

Thanks! Keep up the good work!

We sure like lists, eh? :) Here's mine in response again:

1. This can be done, absolutely. (meaning I understand now ;) Maybe a command that just loads a post into the editing surface?
2. This is something I've actually had on the plate for a long time that will probably never make it into v1 of PostXING. Since I'm working on v2, tho, it can definitely make it into that code. This will also improve the offline story (currently falls back to an empty textbox where each category gets its own line.)
3. Sounds good, definitely will look into this one too.
4. Wow, that sounds like a lot to do...how many keystrokes should be supported, how could I map them to logical commands, should it be per-user? Lots of questions on that one, I had never thought of doing something like this before.
5. I actually got a tip from Dmitry (creator of BlogJet) on how to deal with this issue. Apparently, mshtml has a focus issue that needs to be explicitly handled.
6. Consider it done.

Thanks again, Peter. Sorry it took so long for me to reply, but my CommunityServer install is not sending me emails when I get comments :(

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-07-forcing-the-datagridview-to-do-my-bidding-a-tale-of-combobox-hackery https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-12-07-forcing-the-datagridview-to-do-my-bidding-a-tale-of-combobox-hackery Wed, 07 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

**sigh **Winforms team, winforms team, when will you start making my life easier? As others have said (and I completely agree) windowsforms.net is pretty useless. Well, there's some new Whidbey .NET 2.0 content, but all of the things I enjoyed when starting w/ v1 of .NET (like, erm, QuickStarts? What happened to installing those locally?) seem to be gone. To be fair, they do have a presence over on forums.microsoft.com where there are a few PM's and devs answering questions. I even found a hack fix for my dilemma via one of the posts that links to a download from Beta 2 or somewhere close.

At first I was optimistic about the DataGridView samples (overview)(Download The DataGridView samples), but I didn't see anything that did what I wanted to do: take an enum value and represent it in the grid with a combobox. So, here's how I did it.

First, I just plopped a DataGridView onto a form and gave it a BindingSource. The bindingSource gets its DataSource property set via a call into my DAL that returns a DataTable:

csharp

//CF: set to null before setting it to the current to
//clear out previous results
this.bindingSource1.DataSource = null;

this.bindingSource1.DataSource = MyDal.GetDataTable();

Then comes the hackery. Since I have about 20 columns in this DataTable, all of interest as far as values but not all needing to be visible, directly after (like the line after) setting the datasource, I call a method to format the grid. This method looks something like this:

csharp

private void _formatGrid(){
	this.dataGridView1.Columns["ID"].Visible = false;
	this.dataGridView1.Columns.Remove("Status");//CF: this is where we want enums.
	...
	this._formatStatusColumn();
}

Then the _formatStatusColumn method is where the magick happens:

csharp

DataTable dt = new DataTable("Status");

//CF: actually how it's stored in the db.
dt.Columns.Add("Status", typeof(int));
dt.Columns.Add("Status_Name", typeof(string));

//CF: this way I can add or remove enum values, and
//the combo will always reflect the correct values.
foreach(int index in Enum.GetValues(typeof(Status)){
	dt.Rows.Add(index, Enum.GetName(typeof(Status), index));
}

//CF: now for the UI column
DataGridViewComboBoxColumn statusColumn =
	new DataGridViewComboBoxColumn();

//CF: seems to control where the column is placed.
statusColumn.DisplayIndex = 3;
statusColumn.HeaderText = "Status";

statusColumn.DataPropertyName = "Status";
statusColumn.DataSource = dt;
statusColumn.DisplayMember = "Status_Name";
statusColumn.ValueMember = "Status";

this.dataGridView1.Columns.Add(statusColumn);

I was hoping that there would be some way to predefine columns so I don't have to filter and rebuild every time I get data from the database, but I couldn't find anything on it. There is no SelectedIndex member of the DataGridViewComboBoxCell, either.

I really hope this helps someone else out there: I tried for a day and a half to get this to work, and I still think it looks like a hack.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-24-two-years-ago https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-24-two-years-ago Thu, 24 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

..the idea for PostXING began.

Wow. I still hack it every now and then, but I don't devote nearly as much time as I used to. I'm hoping that the new Settings goop in v2 will allow me to improve the options story: the last incomplete feature before PostXING v2!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-18-jim-ross-dies https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-18-jim-ross-dies Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Our prayers are with you, Jim. I only met Jim in real life one time, and he gave me a ride to my hotel on my first visit to Washington. He lived 5 hours away from me, but we had to go to another state to meet in person! Even though I didn't know him very well personally, it's funny the repoir you build with folks you communicate with often. Most of the Insiders I've come in contact with have just started talking as if we had seen each other just a few days ago. Jim was just like that.

This is a sad day in Texas.

I was sad to hear that fellow ASP Insider and ASP.NET MVP Jim Ross died peacefully yesterday from his cancer.

He told us all about his illness earlier in the year, then carried on posting answers as if nothing had happened. His last post on the email lists I frequent was just 10 days ago.

Funeral information:

The funeral will be Monday at 2 pm at Tyler Memorial, 12053 Hwy 64W, Tyler, TX 75704; 903-597-1396. Visitation is Sunday, 6-8pm

It is with heavy heart that I inform you that my beloved husband, Jim, died today around 4:30pm. When he awoke this morning, he was too weak to get out of his recliner. I called the hospice nurse and she came right over. She made arrangements for Jim to be transported to Hospice Home Place. I called Ron Dart and he was here with me when the ambulance came at 10:30am to transport Jim. Jim was able to talk with both Ron and me. He said he was ready and he hoped his time would be short. God answered his prayer. Jim took a turn for the worse in the ambulance and never regained consciousness. I was alone with Jim, holding his hand, when he died...it was very peaceful. Praise God.

Via James Shaw at CoverYourASP.NET

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-17-postxing-recent-fixes https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-17-postxing-recent-fixes Thu, 17 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

NEW: "PostXING" in about page now links to postxing.net.

NEW: FTP Settings page now is labeled as such. This was confusing in the new user wizard.

FIX: Plugin ToolStripButtons now actually do something.

These are a couple of the things that I've fixed this morning based on some really great feedback from a few really brave souls. The most work it looks like is still going to be the options story. I knew this was going to be the case when I announced the alpha, so thanks everyone for your input!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-17-re-8-steps-to-better-windows-applications https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-17-re-8-steps-to-better-windows-applications Thu, 17 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

In an attempt to work on steps 7 and 8 in Grant Holliday's Blog, I've started a community server site for PostXING.

It's lite on content at the moment, (and also may not work everywhere for the next couple of days thanks to DNS) but hopefully this will let me address number 7 via the forums and number 8 via the gallery.

6 is done - actually using the default browser for the view blog function. I think I'm doing pretty well for number 5, and number 4 should probably be implemented in a couple of more places. Number 1 is a big duh and should have been done since day one. 2 sounds like an interesting problem and will require a little more thought (although initially I'm thinking something like the auto-saved draft feature in gmail)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-16-postxing-sux https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-16-postxing-sux Wed, 16 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

And I know it. I haven't updated the binaries on ProjectDistributor for a long time because I've been taking my time writing v2. Thing is, it's starting to catch up to me.

PostXING v1 is far from polished. It works well enough for my needs and I made it available for download in the hopes that it would be useful to someone else, nothing more. But I do want to make it a better application, and that's where you, dear reader, can help me out a little bit. I've decided to release an early alpha of PostXING v2 in the hopes that doing so will help it suck less than v1.

What's in it for you? Well, the same thing that's in it for me: if you catch some nasty behavior that I've missed then PostXING becomes a better product for everyone who uses it (all two dozen of ya)

If you're interested, contact me with the subject "PostXING alpha request" and I'll send you a zipfile with the new bits. The program requires v2 of the .NET framework.

Thank you.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-16-re-metaweblog-api-beta-for-msn-spaces-chugs-along https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-16-re-metaweblog-api-beta-for-msn-spaces-chugs-along Wed, 16 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Since announcing that we've started the beta of our implementation of the MetaWeblog API for MSN Spaces, I've received a bunch of positive responses from a couple of blogging tool developers. So far it looks like there'll be at least six blogging tools users will be able to use to manage the blog on their space after we launch the API.

[Via Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life]

Add at least one more - PostXING v2 will work with MSN Spaces via the MetaWeblog API. I don't think that it will work well with previous versions because I had to change some code in xml-rpc.net to handle the BOM as I noted earlier. If the xml-rpc.net library was updated for v1, I'm sure it would work there as well.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-15-re-postxing-review-yet-another-blog-posting-clilent https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-15-re-postxing-review-yet-another-blog-posting-clilent Tue, 15 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Ah! It's been a while since I've gotten some good PostXING feedback. Guess the current version isn't very keyboard-friendly. I'm probably not going to upgrade the v1 code in v1 of .net, but I've been working for the past couple of weeks on getting PostXING to v2 under .net v2, so none of these requests are out of the question. As a matter of fact, I welcome all criticism in the hopes of making PostXING a product that works really well for more than just myself. Anyways, Peter has some good feedback for PostXING in general, my responses follow his post:

I decided today to try out PostXING as an alternative to BlogJet. So far my reaction is mixed.

Pros

• Seems to have good WYSIWYG support
• I like having the standard HTML heading tags available in the toolbar.
• I can easily insert a horizontal rule in my post
• I love the fact that it has the CodeHTMLer syntax hilighting engine in it, but it doesn't feel quite as smooth to me as BlogJet does.
• I'm very glad that it supports uploading images via FTP in the same way that BlogJet does. This is a must have in my book.
• As with BlogJet, I can't open an arbitrary post by ID. I have to find it in the historical list of posts, which sucks when the post is from a year ago.

Cons

• I have to click a button and wait for a popup to set the post's categories
• I can't use TAB to navigate the UI which means I have to use the mouse (a serious usability error as far as I'm concerned). And I don't know if I agree with the idea that TAB causes BLOCKQUOTE in the resulting HTML.
• I can't find keystrokes for many of the standard formatting things like ordered and unordered lists, styles, etc.
• Sometimes after using CTRL+K to format some text as a link (good), the input focus leaves the text editor and goes up to Title field (bad).
• I can't figure out how to post with a keystroke. It should be CTRL+Enter (like Outlook and BlogJet) but it isn't.

This will be my first post with it, we'll see if it is also my last. If the author can fix a few of those cons, I would be considering switching. For now though, I'm not so sure.

This seems like such a simple problem... I can't believe how poor all the choices really are.

[Via Geek Noise]

I'll try to address these as best I can, starting with the last Pro...

• This is a drawback of the MetaWeblog API, which is why you see the same behavior across both BlogJet and PostXING. The only way to really get around this is to use a different API to access your blog, like perhaps the webservice API in CS. Hopefully when CS v2 drops I'll be able to code up a plugin/provider that allows native access to the webservice api instead of having to use mwb all the time.
• In v2, the popup is replaced with a "Container Bar", but it's still the same concept. How would you rather see the category feature implemented? Perhaps as a dropdown next to the title kind of like w.bloggar?
• PostXING does capture the tab key in the editor surface to create a blockquote: I did this to be able to format quotes quickly. Maybe it was a wrong decision, but this is the first time that I've ever heard anything bad (if a Con is bad) about it. I could for sure make this configurable, but what should the default behavior be? Insert 4 spaces, or be able to tab around the rest of the application? I guess at the time that I implemented the tab capture, I figured the editor experience was the main focus of PostXING.
• You can't find these keystrokes because they don't exist. What should they be?
• This is 100% mshtml code (especially the ctrl+k part). I don't know how to address this but like all of the other points I'm open to suggestion.
• Again, there is no keystroke for this. Sorry. :( I will for sure add ctrl+Enter support, but which button should this be associated with? Post or Post & Publish?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-10-woe-unto-the-com-referencing-vs2005-winforms-designer https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-10-woe-unto-the-com-referencing-vs2005-winforms-designer Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

The designer loader did not provide a root component but has not indicated why.

at System.ComponentModel.Design.DesignSurface.get_View()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Design.
WindowPaneProviderService.CreateWindowPane(DesignSurface surface)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Design.Serialization.CodeDom.
DeferrableWindowPaneProviderService.CreateWindowPane(DesignSurface surface)
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Design.VSDesignSurface.Microsoft.VisualStudio.
Designer.Interfaces.IVSMDDesigner.get_View()

 It looks like there are a lot of people that got this error when going from beta2 -> RC1, but this was on the RTM version. The thing that's tricky is that now the designer is so nice for us, it adds default values to public properties. Well, since the code that was being called was basically a wrapper for mshtml, I guess you could say COM was involved (like a third cousin). In order to find this bug (in my code, but my code generated by VS2005.) I had to fire up another devenv.exe instance and set it to attach to the first devenv's process for debugging. I don't know the exact workaround for this yet...maybe making the particular property that was causing trouble readonly w/ an accompanying SetProperty(value) method that would still let the underlying value be set. See the problem is that VS regenerates all that goodness for me, so whenever a change is made and saved in the designer I would be facing the same problem, have to hunt down one line of code, and start over again. Boo.

Is there a way to turn off the designer's new behavior?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-09-xml-rpc-net-and-bom https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-09-xml-rpc-net-and-bom Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I'm using xml-rpc.net as the library that supports xml-rpc for the MetaWeblog api in PostXING.

I recently ran into a service endpoint that included a Byte Order Mark in the payload of the response. Something I haven't run into yet basically because the few blog engines that I have tested px with have not included this. It turns out that the XmlDocument.Load method that accepts a stream doesn't take this into account (or something:).

So this is what I did to workaround the problem: basically, if the first character is not <, the second must be otherwise the content is invalid anyways.

csharp

//...the DeserializeResponse method that accepts a stream
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(stm);

string content = sr.ReadToEnd();

if(content.Trim().Length > 0 && content[0] != '<'){
	content = content.Substring(1);
}

StringReader str = new StringReader(content);

try{
	xdoc.Load(str);
}

The other endpoints still work after this modification, so I guess it's okay.

update: there was an indexoutofrange exception just waiting to happen up there.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-07-toolstripcolorbutton-a-winforms-2-0-control https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-07-toolstripcolorbutton-a-winforms-2-0-control Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Disclaimer: the code for showing the color menu is totally ripped off of a CodeProject article. I just took the ColorPanel part and parented it with a ToolStripButton. The idea works, tho.

Here's the source: ToolStripColorButton.cs (login is guest/guest).

I've been working recently to bring PostXING v2 to .net v2. Part of this process has shown me that Divelements' SandBar menu system (the last freeware version) doesn't like to be in a nested UserControl after a recompile. Throws all kinds of errors that are obfuscated and painted directly on the control in the designer. Unfortunately, I can't try a newer version of SandBar because they discontinued the freeware versions that they used to have. Shame, it's a really good library.

So anyways, I find myself needing a similar experience to the ColorMenu that I extended that comes as an example with the trial download. Now that we have a first-class menu system in System.Windows.Forms, I decided to see if I could create something that kept the simplicity of the ColorMenu. The ToolStripColorButton simply has a subclass called ColorPanel that inherits Form. When you click on the button, the form is shown. When a user selects a color, a changed event is thrown and you can do what you want with the resulting color by handling this event:

private void btnFontColor_Changed(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	this.DesignEditor.TextFormatting.ForeColor = this.btnFontColor.Color;
}

A couple of points that could be extended: The gradient background looks all wrong with the default XP themes. I wonder if there's a way to query what the start/finish colors are for the current theme w/o going into unmanaged code? Heck, even with unmanaged code (via P/Invoke) would be fine. This same problem shows up for the GradientPanel I recently posted. Something to look into, anyways. There's also the extension point of adding the actual color as the image instead of using a stock icon or something similar. The code to do it is basically in the CodeProject article linked above, I was just happy with the icons for my current purposes.

[ Currently Playing : Drive Slow (Feat. Paul Wall & - Kanye West - Late Registration (4:32) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-04-ctrlk-x https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-11-04-ctrlk-x Fri, 04 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Is the insert snippet chord in VS 2005.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-27-vistadb https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-27-vistadb Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

 Viral Marketing:

VistaDB 2.1 database for .NET has been released
This 2.1 update includes over 60 improvements, including new support for .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio .NET 2005. VistaDB is a small-footprint, embedded SQL database alternative to Jet/Access, MSDE and SQL Server Express 2005 that enables developers to build .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 applications. Features SQL-92 support, small 500KB embedded footprint, free 2-User VistaDB Server for remote TCP/IP data access, royalty free distribution for both embedded and server, Copy 'n Go! deployment, managed ADO.NET Provider, data management and data migration tools. Free trial is available for download.
- Learn more about VistaDB
- Repost this to your blog and receive a FREE copy of VistaDB 2.1!

I've always wanted to try this product to see how it fares anyways...let's see if this pans out.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-27-zeppelin-babe-im-gonna-leave-you https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-27-zeppelin-babe-im-gonna-leave-you Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I know I've figured out a fun song when my left hand hurts after playing. That hasn't happened for a loong time.

I was playing my guitar, trying to soothe the pain that the Astros getting swept in the World Series ignited, when I came across a chord pattern that sounded familiar: Am, G, [whatever's between G and F], F, E. To check if I was right, I looked it up:  Led Zeppelin – ( BABE IM GONNA LEAVE YOU TAB )

This is going to take a while to master, but it's definitely going to be a fun ride.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-20-guess-whos-going-to-the-world-series https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-20-guess-whos-going-to-the-world-series Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Fan-freakin-tastic. w00t!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-19-how-not-to-use-the-picturebox-control https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-19-how-not-to-use-the-picturebox-control Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I was having this problem in an application that I've been working on where I was drawing data points onto a PictureBox control - kind of like a canvas. The problem only showed up when a lot of data was thrown at the PictureBox: instead of seeing my data, I would see a loverly big red x.

So I did some chasing down a few rabbit holes (apparently this is a difficult issue to pinpoint - I found loads of unanswered forum/newsgroup posts about a red x) and found Bob Powell's GDI+ faq. Specifically, I found a good overview of How not to use the PictureBox control. After a few trials of throwing largish datasets at my picturebox canvas (that had yeilded those nasty red x's after a few screen refreshes just minutes before) it seems like the advice in that article just may have solved the problem.

We had been drawing to a Graphics object, then using that to spit out an image to the PictureBox's .Image property:

csharp

Graphics g = pbxCanvas.CreateGraphics();

//draw to graphics

pbxCanvas.Image = GetCanvasImage();

instead, now we create the Graphics object off of the .Image in the first place. It takes a little bit more setup, but I have yet to run into the red x again since implementing this code:

csharp

if(pbxCanvas.Image == null){
	pbxCanvas.Image = new Bitmap(pbxCanvas.Width, pbxCanvas.Height);
}

Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(pbxCanvas.Image);

//draw to graphics

pbxCanvas.Image = GetCanvasImage();
pbxCanvas.Invalidate();

Who would have thought that a call to Control.CreateGraphics would be so harmful?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-12-visual-studio-editor-how-you-mock-me https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-12-visual-studio-editor-how-you-mock-me Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've been chasing down this odd Visual Studio bug where the Enter, Backspace, and Arrow keys stop working.

It happened to me in Redmond at Microsoft Campus (of all places!) and it's a known bug that a lot of others have run into apparently. Some folks have noted that it happens with the Beta 2 build, but the link above claims that it is gone from later builds. Sorry, wrong answer, kimo-sabe. Even on the RC build, this showed up.

It has to do with how Visual Studio handles USER SETTINGS. Thanks to a comment in ScottH's blog, I found a command line switch (devenv /resetuserdata) that brought up a user settings dialog asking me to set a profile when I started Visual Studio again. Instead of my usual C# profile, I decided to go with the General profile to mimic VS2003's settings. And whaddaya know? I can actually edit source files (for now). This does not bode well for Visual Studio as a development environment. Things should work by default, right? I can envision answering many questions about this in forums which I am subscribed to.

Goodbye, past coupla days. I'll miss ya.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-11-creating-a-google-maps-net-control https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-11-creating-a-google-maps-net-control Tue, 11 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Choice Quote:

 Now that I have actually used XSL in a project I've come to this conclusion: XSL is the Devil.

Go Check it Out. It's an interesting approach to wrapping [insert buzzword] functionality in an asp.net control. If you haven't read the first and second articles, you may want to read those first. The only drawback to this approach for me is the apparent lack of a commercial use license for the google maps api (somebody please prove me wrong on this).

[ Currently Playing : Drive Slow (Feat. Paul Wall & - Kanye West - Late Registration (4:32) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-03-re-microsoft-codename-spang https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-10-03-re-microsoft-codename-spang Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

 

[Via Plip's Weblog]

What is Spang? It's going to revolutionize development as we know it. Keep a lookout for Spang.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-30-starting-to-dogfood-postxing-v2 https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-30-starting-to-dogfood-postxing-v2 Fri, 30 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I figured that 27 test posts were enough to actually publish one.

This thing hasn't even reached feature parity with v1, but if you both see this post in ye olde aggregator, I've at least made some functionality progress.

edit: Houston, we have liftoff. 😄

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-21-houstonians-are-starting-to-panic https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-21-houstonians-are-starting-to-panic Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I just got back from the gas station to get some sodas before everything runs out, and this is what I saw:

[[photo lost 😦

My little phone wasn't able to get the entire line of vehicles, but it was at least 6 deep for every pump. The parts of the Houston metro area that are closer to the coast have been issued a mandatory evacuation, with a voluntary evac for everyone else. They say it's going to be nasty. We'll just have to see I guess.

[ Currently Playing : Emotion Sickness - Silverchair - The Best of: Volume 1 (6:01) ]

P.S. Thanks to all those who wished me well on my previous post. I really do appreciate that (molto gratzi:)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-21-expected-downtime https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-21-expected-downtime Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Just to let both of you know - I'm expecting some downtime this weekend for www.chrisfrazier.net . See, I live in Houston and we've got a little storm coming our way. Since I host my site on my own on-site server, that means that I've got to unplug it and put it in a room with no windows. Ya know, just in case.

So now you know why my rss feed won't work this weekend. Don't you just feel all squishy inside now? As for me, I'm heading to the hill country for the weekend. Just in case, feel me?

[ Currently Playing : Caress Me Down - Sublime - Stand By Your Van - Live (4:22) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-18-ethan-and-cody-at-the-beach https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-18-ethan-and-cody-at-the-beach Sun, 18 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I took Ethan and my cousin Cody to the beach today. I got them some du-rags and ninja swords, so they could play pirates. They had a sword fight on the ferry ride to crystal beach.

I was even able to get a resounding "Arr Matey!" out of Ethan

When we were at the beach, we did what everyone should do at the beach every once in a while. We buried each other. We probably should have gone from biggest to smallest, but we started with Ethan.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-14-my-weekend https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-14-my-weekend Wed, 14 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This is definitely filed under "As if you cared". My friend Peyman had a little gathering at his new house in Austin this past weekend. I've been to quite a few parties in my day, but I can honestly say that the girl that swung balls of fire around herself was a first for me at a house party. (every time I've seen/done something similar in the past, the lit part couldn't burn you. glowsticks are good that way;)

I intended to stay only one night, but circumstances dictated that I stay until Monday morning. At least I got to get a good glimpse of the only state capital bigger than the federal government's building!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-12-eric-is-a-stand-up-guy https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-12-eric-is-a-stand-up-guy Mon, 12 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Eric is my friend Peyman's roommate in Austin. He's a stand-up guy. Trust me on this.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-09-virtual-earth-for-commercial-apps https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-09-virtual-earth-for-commercial-apps Fri, 09 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Ha! Look at that! I totally called it.

[ Currently Playing : All You Need - Sublime - Stand By Your Van - Live (2:44) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-09-postxing-v2-wheres-the-goods https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-09-postxing-v2-wheres-the-goods Fri, 09 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Ah, the joys of writing open source software 😕

I had been working hard on v2 of PostXING, but somehow development has stagnated on my end quite a bit. I brought it about 90% of the way towards the direction I was hoping to go. I even got an offer of help from a fellow Houstonian, but it seems I've dropped the ball. My bad.

Fortunately, as I said I've completed most of the grunt work, now it's just a matter of gluing everything together and creating a different provider than the Metablog API. It was still evolving when I last hacked on it, so I may only be 85% done, but at any rate, if I can get that fire going back under my ass I should be done in no time. I hope 😄

Since nobody but me is clamoring for v2, I can at least take my time and do things the way I want them. It's nice to be able to work on a software project without any stinkin time constraints. Another pitfall is that the latest v1 rev works well enough that I haven't felt the need to develop v2. I just want to. I want to make PostXING a better program. We'll see how it goes.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-08-its-fixed https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-08-its-fixed Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday I realized that I was having issues with anonymous users posting comments to my CS site. After going over the code a little bit, what I didn't realize is that the bug is a custom skin bug. (ie a skin that I wrote was missing one line containing a specific control.)

After a little searching I found someone with a similar problem, and Alex Lowe pointed them here: http://communityserver.org/forums/491886/ShowPost.aspx#491913

And it worked. Yay.

[ Currently Playing : Seed - Korn - Follow the leader (5:54) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-08-this-is-getting-fixed-today https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-08-this-is-getting-fixed-today Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

 I noticed that I haven't gotten any comments on my blog in a while. Granted, I haven't posted in a while, either, but come on! There's gotta be at least one post I've made that's been worth comment since July, right? no? Well, I'm going to track this down anyways.

Message: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.Weblog.EnableNewComments(WeblogPost post, User user) at CommunityServer.Blogs.Controls.CommentForm.btnSubmit_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(NameValueCollection postData) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain()

User Agent / IP Address
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR / 70.120.179.36

Path
/blog/blogs/comments.aspx?App=blog&PostID=1320 as HTTP POST

Referrer:
/blog/comments/1320.aspx

no wonder I haven't gotten any comments lately. That's gotta be annoying for both of you.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-07-hazaa-0-unread-feeds-in-my-subscriptions https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-07-hazaa-0-unread-feeds-in-my-subscriptions Wed, 07 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I took a week off from reading blogs last week (as is evidenced by my responding to week-old posts). I ended up having about 600-700 unread posts in RssBandit.

The UI took care of it pretty well, since I have my opml separated by category I could zip thru most posts and decide whether or not I wanted to keep it around in the aggregate view. It got me thinking about how this would scale for a web app, tho. I don't remember how Bloglines handles this (don't you just get what's available at the time if there are unread feeds available?) but it seems like an interesting problem: how do you keep a rich experience in a web app without sacrificing performance or content that I may want to read (mark all read is not always optimal for me (I always feel like I'm missing something golden (I did subscribe to the feed, after all)))?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-07-re-rss-bandit-nightcrawler-edition-alpha-progress-report https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-07-re-rss-bandit-nightcrawler-edition-alpha-progress-report Wed, 07 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

By the way Torsten has started an RSS Bandit new logo design contest and we'd appreciate your comments. It seems a lot of our users who use RSS Bandit from their place of work feel our current smily face icon and logo are unprofessional. I don't mind changing our application icon but would probably like to keep the smily bandit in the logo.

[Via Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life]

I can't really offer anything original per se, but here's the icon I use in ObjectDock for RssBandit:

[photo lost 😦]

Okay, so I just slapped an eye patch on an existing image I found somewhere on the net...isn't that what the current icon is, too? 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-07-re-www-windowsforms-net-is-dead https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-07-re-www-windowsforms-net-is-dead Wed, 07 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Anybody else find that MS has so much crap going on that it's hard keep tabs on a single, solid, resources to use to keep up to speed on things? (And don't even send me to msdn.microsoft.com - that thing is 1) schizophrenic (is it a developer resource, or a place to buy subscriptions and stuff?) and 2) complete sensory overload. )

[Via AngryPets.com :: Blog]

It is pretty worthless unless you are looking for controls - even then, the contol gallery has broken images and dead links everywhere.

I've found that unlike the asp.net community, it's pretty much yo-yo (you're on your own) when it comes to winforms development. (and I complained loudly about it when I embarked on my first winforms project)

CodeProject has a lot of interesting tidbits, but I've yet to find a complete solution in any of the articles there. Bits and pieces, yes...

Another good resource is the dotnet-winforms list on discuss.develop.com. There are at least one or two winforms PMs that hang out there.

Lastly, get Chris Sells's book "Windows Forms Programming in C#" (or VB.NET, whatever.) That book has basic examples of almost everything you would want to achieve in a normal winforms project. Anything else is up to google skillz.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-06-re-google-maps-net-control https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-06-re-google-maps-net-control Tue, 06 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Check out this code project article with code for a Google Maps .NET control. very cool and handy stuff. and there are some demos here.

[Via Tiernans Comms Closet]

I read thru that, and it seems very useful to be able to manipulate things in codebehind like that. Once the lat/lon overlays are included, I may even check it out.

In other mapping news, I was contacted recently by the mappoint webservice team b/c I haven't made any requests to the webservice for a while. I told them that the current webservice doesn't buy me a whole lot in terms of functionality from the current solution that I use that simply has a mapserver control on my webserver and asked if virtual earth may be rolled into the webservice (since virtual earth currently only has licensing for non-commercial apps). They didn't tell me one way or the other, but my mappoint account was reinstated. Could this mean virtual earth goodness on the horizon? I hope so.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-05-darren-and-blogml https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-09-05-darren-and-blogml Mon, 05 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I wanted to release an update to my own blogging engine and, because there was a minor data change I thought that it would be nice to export the data before running the update, change the files and then re-import it afterwards.  As I looked into this more I decided that I really should do it in a standards-compliant manner (if possible) and so then set out to: A) talk to people about it, B) rtfm some of the existing formats and C) write down my requirements.

[Via MarkItUp - Thinking Products]

Very seldom does someone come along who has simple ideas that can work coupled with what it takes to make those ideas reality. Darren is one of those people.

BlogML may not be the best thing since sliced bread, but it's an idea that is brilliant in its simplicity. Why should a task - importing and exporting blog content - be shoehorned into a spec that was never meant to do this in the first place? Isn't that the reason that atom was designed itself? To rehash the failures and stick with the successes of past specifications dealing with blogging? So is BlogML IMHO to import/export of blog content.

Keep up the good work, Darren. Although we live on opposite sides of the globe, you are always welcome to ping me with these crazy ideas of yours, if for nothing else than to talk them out.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-08-26-dual-booting-linux-redhat-9-and-windows-xp-using-a-cd https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-08-26-dual-booting-linux-redhat-9-and-windows-xp-using-a-cd Fri, 26 Aug 2005 00:00:00 GMT

We have a couple of legacy applications here, written in C++, that have always run on windows and *nix. In order to support the *nix versions, we always have to have a Linux install hanging around (we also have a solaris, but that's already set up).

So we got a Dell Precision 380 workstation with a SATA drive that had Windows XP installed on it. Since the Dell didn't come with a floppy drive, I couldn't very well just create a boot diskette. That would be useless. So based on the fact that there is a spec called "El Torito", I looked up an article online about Linux Bootdisks. It looked pretty good, but there was one glaring omission: the author mentions that you need to load any initial ramdisk via LILO, but doesn't explain how to setup LILO correctly for a floppy image. I decided to go back to it if necessary and went to redhat.com to see if there was any insight there.

I ended up finding a section of documentation that outlines how to create an Installation Boot CD-ROM, but I had already installed it! I later found that if at the bootloader screen of the install CD I typed the command:

vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb2

It would in fact load the installation off of the second (IDE) harddrive (thanks, btw, linux for making me use a modified kernel to support SATA drives. That's top-notch, guys.)

So I figured that the secret to the sauce was probably in the isolinux.cfg file that configures all the commands visible at the boot loader screen. First I tried something like this: 

default linux
label linux
	kernel vmlinuz
	append root=/dev/hdb2 initrd=initrd.img

but that didn't work, it still brings up the install screen. So I figured why not try the simplest possible solution using the config file, and this is what I came up with:

default vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb2

Guess what? I now have a Redhat Linux 9 install that will boot from a CD and I didn't have to mess with a bootmanager or touch the MBR in any way. I don't have to wait those pesky 10 seconds for either grub or the windows NT bootloader to select which install to start - I just pop in a CD if I want linux, and open it if I want WinXP.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-08-10-insanely-simple-gradientpanel-for-winforms https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-08-10-insanely-simple-gradientpanel-for-winforms Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This has probably been done a hundred times already, but I couldn't find one in the first few pages of google results, so I wrote my own in ~40 lines of C#:

csharp

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Drawing2D;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace PostXING.Controls
{
	/// <summary>
	/// GradientPanel is just like a regular panel except it optionally
	/// shows a gradient.
	/// </summary>
	[ToolboxBitmap(typeof(Panel))]
	public class GradientPanel : Panel
	{
		/// <summary>
		/// Property GradientColor (Color)
		/// </summary>
		private Color _gradientColor;
		public Color GradientColor {
			get { return this._gradientColor;}
			set { this._gradientColor = value;}
		}

		/// <summary>
		/// Property Rotation (float)
		/// </summary>
		private float _rotation;
		public float Rotation {
			get { return this._rotation;}
			set { this._rotation = value;}
		}

		protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e) {
                        if(e.ClipRectangle.IsEmpty) return; //why draw if non-visible?

			using(LinearGradientBrush lgb = new
                           LinearGradientBrush(this.ClientRectangle,
		              this.BackColor,
		              this.GradientColor,
		              this.Rotation)){
				e.Graphics.FillRectangle(lgb, this.ClientRectangle);
			}

                        base.OnPaint (e); //right, want anything handled to be drawn too.

		}
	}
}

There it is. Enjoy!

[ Currently Playing : New Way Home - Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape (5:42) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-08-05-a-week-already https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-08-05-a-week-already Fri, 05 Aug 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Well, it's been a week now since I handed over my pip-squeak back to his mom.

I gotta say, I miss him a lot. Having him around every day and then all of a sudden not having him any more is a real shock to the system. I've also gotta say that I feel really blessed to have been able to spend that time with Ethan, and do fun Father/Son stuff. By far the most fun that I had was when I took him to the beach for the first time ever.

I tought Ethan the basics of doing a jig after you throw down a football. Ethan taught me that you need a bucket of water to wash each hand when they get sandy at the beach: Ethan072405.MPG

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-28-thanks-2 https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-28-thanks-2 Thu, 28 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier I said:

call them "labels" or "tags" but give me a way to categorize my thoughts. Please.

Thanks, Atom 1.0 

[ Currently Playing : A Message - Coldplay - X&Y (04:45) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-27-re-blog-apis https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-27-re-blog-apis Wed, 27 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Darren's looking for ideas on how to migrate data from one blog engine to the next. This has been discussed before a lot, I'm sure, but it's not a bad conversation to have.

So what's the answer? Sorry, I don't have that. I know that it would have been nice when developing PostXING to have an api that gives you more control or gives better querying ability, and I also know that none of the APIs that Darren talks about are it. For all of the metablog api's shortcomings, I find it at least decent enough to not have made a post using the web interface of my blogs since writing PostXING. I agree with Darren that the atom api does not seem complete. No categories? That's weird. If you're worried about being different from rss in some small way (and come on, that's what it's about in the first place, innit?) call them "labels" or "tags" but give me a way to categorize my thoughts. Please.

One person whose thoughts I'd like to hear on the idea of a better blogging api is ScottW who has written a few external apis for different evolutions of the popular aspnetweblog software that we all know and love and call CS::Blogs these days.

A better blogging API

I'll also do some searching over the next week or so to see what others have been discussing around this topic as it is obviously something which must have come up a lot.  Maybe we have to wait until industry heavyweights start to build blogging products into their core platforms before clear spec's start to emerge around what is needed from an API that would allow for the programmatic disovery and interaction with blogs. 

And then, who knows how long it will take for the current blog engines to implement that?

[Via MarkItUp - Thinking Products]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-23-applesauce-tastes-gooood https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-23-applesauce-tastes-gooood Sat, 23 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Indeed.

Applesause tastes goood.

[ Currently Playing : Audioslave / Number 1 Zero - Audioslave - Out Of Exile (05:01) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-23-ethans-got-some-money https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-23-ethans-got-some-money Sat, 23 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Ethan went to go play with his friend Emma today. Emma's older sister gave Ethan 11¢.

That's right, the older sister. That boy Ethan...😄

[ Currently Playing : Audioslave / Yesterday To Tomorrow - Audioslave - Out Of Exile (04:36) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-22-clearly-a-windows-user https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-22-clearly-a-windows-user Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

[ Currently Playing : Night Bird Flying - Jimi Hendrix - Experience Hendrix (3:50) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-22-richard https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-22-richard Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

You're Welcome!  😄

[ Currently Playing : Suite-Pee - System of a Down - System of a Down (2:32) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-19-ethan-and-mama-re https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-19-ethan-and-mama-re Tue, 19 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Welcome to the poor man's vblog...a link with text 😃 I took this video on my digital camera the other day. It's 2:41. I thought I'd post it up here so I can search on it after Ethan becomes a teenager to remember "the good ole days". It's a little dark, and Ethan is totally oblivious to what I'm doing. He actually thinks I'm getting ready to take a picture, I believe. Anyways, here it is: Ethan071705.MPG

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-18-saving-an-embedded-resource-xml-file-at-runtime-in-c https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-18-saving-an-embedded-resource-xml-file-at-runtime-in-c Mon, 18 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I couldn't find a cut & dry solution to this (probably b/c it's too simple for anyone to think they would need an example) so here's how I got an xml file embedded as a resource in a vs2003 project written to the filesystem.

First, you just add an xml file with some default information you want for it to your project and change its build action to Embedded Resource. Then, you find the name of the resource (it can be tricky if you have a few folders) by opening up ildasm and double clicking the MANIFEST node. Using that resource name, you would do something like this:

csharp

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml;
using System.Reflection;

string path = Path.Combine(
Environment.GetFolderPath(
Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData),
Application.CompanyName);

path = Path.Combine(path, Application.ProductName);
path = Path.Combine(path, subFolder);
path = Path.Combine(path, "fileName.xml");

if(!File.Exists(path)){
	Assembly thisAssembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
	Stream rgbxml = thisAssembly.GetManifestResourceStream(
"YourNamespace.fileName.xml");
	XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
	doc.Load(rgbxml);

	doc.PreserveWhitespace = true;
	doc.Save(path);
}

A couple of things to note about this: it's for a WinForms application, so I can use the Application class to get things in AssemblyInfo.cs (like ProductName, CompanyName). Also, you could probably do this anywhere but I chose to put a lot of my default configuration under the user's ApplicationData folder, where most users (can't say for sure about the guest account since that's been disabled here for a long time) have authority to write.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-14-set-the-passive-port-range-for-iis-ftp https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-14-set-the-passive-port-range-for-iis-ftp Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=555022

I've needed this a couple of times, what better way to find it? ;)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-13-i-feel-like-a-commercial https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-13-i-feel-like-a-commercial Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

but I did switch to geico and I'm going to save a rediculous amount from my current insurance provider. To the tune of nearly $2,000 a year. Plus, they took a cue from my current insurance provider and got geek friendly. I did the whole quote process online and only called after I had a couple of questions.

I only decided to start shopping around when I learned that when I turn 25 (a key age for single males in America for car insurance) that I would only get about $300 off of my current rate a year. All I gotta say - "That's so condescending!"

[ Currently Playing : Let You Down - Three Days Grace - Three Days Grace (3:45) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-13-my-favorite-top-11-country-songs https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-13-my-favorite-top-11-country-songs Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

GET-R-DONE!
 
My favorite Top 11 Country Songs

11. If The Phone Don't Ring, You'll Know It's Me.

10. How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away

9. I Liked You Better Before I Got to Know You So Well.

8. I'm Still Missing You Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better.

7. I'll Marry You Tomorrow But Let's Honeymoon Tonight.

6. I'm So Miserable Without You, It's Like You're Still Here.

5. If I Had Shot You When I first Wanted To, I'd Be Out Of Prison By Now.

4. My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend And I Sure Do Miss Him.

3. She Got The Ring And I Got The Finger.

2. You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly.

1. How Can I Kiss Those Lips at Night When They've Been Chewin' My Ass All
Day Long?

[ Currently Playing : New Song - Sublime - 40 Oz. to Freedom (3:14) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-13-divelements-sanddock-2-0 https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-13-divelements-sanddock-2-0 Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Was just released. In the newsletter, it said that you can use a DocumentContainer (tabs) outside of a SandDockManager - simple tabbing with the same interface that is all over PostXING. Sounds promising!

Well, the "document" tabs only render at the top, and I need tabs at the bottom to keep the interface at least a little similar to what it always has been. Plus, with the interface that I have in PostXING, I just like the way the tabs look at the bottom better. So I have two choices: keep the interface that is already in place (using the older (free) version of Magic) or have tabs at the top, right? Nope.

I found a way to use the docking windows (that show their tabs at the bottom) to get the effect that I wanted.

First, I created a usercontrol and added four docking windows (with tabs). Then I expanded the dock control that holds the windows to be the same width as the usercontrol and anchored to top | left | right. After that, I basically disabled all docking, closing, and extra actions. At a pinch of graphics, and this is what I get:

Nice, huh? Well, I thought it was anyways 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-07-object-cannot-be-stored-in-an-array-of-this-type https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-07-object-cannot-be-stored-in-an-array-of-this-type Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This was the error that was biting me on PostXING v2 for almost a week (I usually only get insomnia hours to debug. That can be frustrating.)

The first thing that I noticed was that the wonderful interfaces that I was using would end up null after my first visit to a particular configuration page. It's something about the way that a "Page" is saved and loaded - it requires ViewState! Forreal! I'd gotten so used to having state within my smart clients that I had almost forgot about reconstructing state.

Now that I had that taken care of, I was getting an exception returned from what seemed to be the service endpoint of the metablog api. But wait a second - I'm using nearly the same code in v1. So I think, hey, I'll go ahead and use exactly the same code from v1 and put that in there - that'll surely work, right?

csharp

using System;
using CookComputing.XmlRpc;

namespace PostXING.MetaBlogProvider
{
	/// <summary>
	/// BlogRequest wraps the blogger api getUsersBlog xml-rpc method.
	/// </summary>
	public class BlogRequest : XmlRpcClientProtocol
	{
		public BlogRequest(){	}

		[XmlRpcMethod("blogger.getUsersBlogs",
			 Description="Returns information on all the blogs a given user "
			 + "is a member.")]
		public bgBlogInfo[] getUsersBlogs(string appKey,string username,string password) {
			return (bgBlogInfo[])Invoke("getUsersBlogs",new object[]{appKey,username,password});
		}
	}
}

Nope, same exception (the title of this post). After the dent in my head grew to about three inches, I decided to look at the version of xml-rpc.net that I was using. Hmm, 0.8. What version was the endpoint using? Double hmm, 0.9. Could it be a simple version mismatch that was my problem giving me this cryptic error?

Yep.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-05-free-at-last https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-05-free-at-last Tue, 05 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

...free at last, thank God Almighty: I am free at last.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-02-reversedos-configuration-for-csblogs-revisited https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-02-reversedos-configuration-for-csblogs-revisited Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I just set up CS::Blogs 1.1 on my server over here and I wanted to keep ReverseDOS going for it. So I just copied over the settings from my web.config and thought I would be gold...not so, grasshopper.

The new section in the default web.config is now named memberrolesprototype so if you want to upgrade and not have to pull your hair out, keep this in mind.

:

	<memberrolesprototype>
		<ReverseDOS>
			<settings enabled="true" debugEnabled="false" debugKey="oink=225678" hideExceptions="true" />

[ Currently Playing : The World Has Turned and Left - Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) (4:18) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-01-dangerously-close https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-07-01-dangerously-close Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT

...to having something that actually works 😃 Do you think I'm going a little nuts with the logo?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-27-reversedos-attracting-ire https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-27-reversedos-attracting-ire Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I'm seeing a little trend - I delete comment spam as soon as it gets to any of my weblogs, so I don't have any hard numbers - posts that I have written about Mike's ReverseDOS sure seem to be getting targeted by comment spammers. I don't see this in the blog that has ReverseDOS installed, but instead at the one hosted on weblogs.asp.net.

What they don't know is that I have comment moderation turned on, so no comments make it thru without my say so. I wonder how many layers of defense will be required before I no longer have to worry about comment spam?

[ Currently Playing : Square One - Coldplay - (4:47) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-25-whats-this-postxing-can-post-to-dasblog https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-25-whats-this-postxing-can-post-to-dasblog Sat, 25 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I saw that Jeff got things up and running with PostXING (sorry again about the whole BlogInfo[0] thing) when I looked at the url. What's this? dasBlog? I never knew that dasBlog supported the Metablog API, although I did see the methods exposed from its blogger.aspx page. I thought they were just place holders, but I fired up my local copy of dasBlog and, sure enough, PostXING can post to it.

WordPress also supports the metablog API - hopefully subText will retain that feature of dotText so there will be at least a few blogging engines (I know of) that you can set up for a personal blog and post to with PostXING.

: It seems it was a fluke on my end, but I have an older version of dasBlog. It sure looks from Jeff's post that it works with whatever version he's running...

[ Currently Playing : White Shadows - Coldplay - (5:28) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-23-reversedos-8-days-later https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-23-reversedos-8-days-later Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

If you are running your own asp.net blogging engine and you support comments/trackbacks/pingbacks, go get ReverseDOS. Right now. I'll wait.

Back already? Great! Seriously, ever since installing ReverseDOS, I have yet to see one auto-generated comment, when I used to get about 50 a day. Worse on weekends. Here are a couple of lines that I added to the ruleset:

<add type="post" pattern="poker" action="403" />
<add type="post" pattern="blackjack" action="403" />

Simple, right? It's usually the dead simple ideas that are the most elegant solutions in the end. Thanks, Mike.

[ Currently Playing : Star Spangled Banner - Jimi Hendrix - (3:47) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-23-csblogs--beware-the-permission-set https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-23-csblogs--beware-the-permission-set Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

So I got some feedback about PostXING saying that someone who had setup multiple blogs with CS::Blogs was getting the wrong blog back while trying to communicate with the Metaweblog API.

After a couple of questions, it turns out that all of the users were set up as sysadmins in the CS permission set, so anyone making a request to the metablog api would get a list of all the blogs available. Since PostXING ignorantly just uses BlogInfo[0] from the metablog_getUsersBlogs() method, everybody was trying to post to the first blog returned in the list.

So if you are running a multiple blog setup and wish to use the metablog api, make sure that your permissions are set so that when a user makes a request into his/her blog, theirs is the only blog they get back.

Thanks, Jeff.

[ Currently Playing : Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix - (5:12) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-20-postxing-and-interfaces https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-20-postxing-and-interfaces Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I feel like I'm going nuts with interfaces in the next version of PostXING. Interfaces are a language feature that is really powerful - you don't really start to appreciate it until you are faced with situations that would otherwise be impossible to deal with.

PostXING already uses interfaces to load plugins like the NetSpellPluginfor spell checking. So I thought hey, go with what you know for this plugin/provider idea that I've had stewing in my head for a while. I've already included MikeDub'sawesome IUI library (modified with - you guessed it, interfaces!) so I figured I might as well milk that for all it's worth. And trust me, I am 😃

The idea I have is to use IUI to set up a new/edit an existing "blog" (what PostXING sees as a blog) and let each plugin/provider take care of any special configuration they might need. But there's a problem - every provider should have common attributes defined within the interface, but there is also non-blog information that I would like to store (like ftp settings, whether or not you want media information to show up like below (I know, Alice in Chains again - I just write good code to that CD), and preview formatting).

So, how do I communicate that the custom IUI pages are done so that the rest of the configuration can continue? Well, I could use a vanilla EventHandler event, but how can I make sure that the main exe project will be able to handle the event without knowing which provider has been loaded? Furthermore, how can the provider send up an event for it to catch without having a reference to the main exe project (a circular dependency - nono!)?

Interfaces.

I create an interface that only the dialog that shows the configuration pages should implement. It could be a simple interface with only 1 to 3 methods defined for it (if I want to only expose moving forward to one page vs. moving to any available page thereafter)...see what I'm getting at? Maybe some code will better explain what I'm getting at:

csharp

using System;
using System.Collections;

public interface IFoo{
	void HandleEvent(object sender, EventArgs e);
}

public class FooInstance : IFoo{
	public void HandleEvent(object sender, EventArgs e){
		System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Handled! Booyakasha!");
	}
}

public class MyClass
{
	public static void Main()
	{
		IFoo thisfoo = new FooInstance();

		MyClass s = new MyClass();

		s.WireUpEvent(thisfoo);

		if(s.throwevent != null){
			s.throwevent(s, EventArgs.Empty);
		}
	}
	public event EventHandler throwevent;

	public void WireUpEvent(IFoo foo){
		this.throwevent += new EventHandler(foo.HandleEvent);
	}
}

This was a little POC that I coded up in snippet compiler - and yes, it compiles and runs wonderfully. Booyakasha indeed. Here, IFoo is the interface that is implemented by the dialog. Passing the concrete FooInstance (the dialog) to the method WireUpEvent of what will be the provider class works thanks to wonderful, wonderful interfaces.

[ Currently Playing : Nutshell - Alice in Chains - Unplugged (4:57) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-19-maybe-im-amazed https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-19-maybe-im-amazed Sun, 19 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Tina asked me to learn this Paul McCartney song...so I cheated :)

That's it. This was purely so I didn't forget the url. Nothing technical to see here.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-17-blogging-api-commonalities https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-17-blogging-api-commonalities Fri, 17 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Here is some of the common ground I can see between the metaweblog api and CS::Blogs BlogService asmx.

Blog/Authentication:

• UserName
• Password
• BlogID/BlogName

Post/Entry:

• DateCreated/Date
• Description/Body
• Title
• string[] Categories (nice!)
• PostID

Non-Conformities (for Posts):

• Metablog API
• Enclosure (although this is not used by CS::Blogs or .Text)
• link
• permalink
• Source (name and url, was supported by .Text, not so sure about CS::Blogs)
• userid
• BlogService.asmx
• Excerpt
• Name (I guess this is for url rewriting)
• Enable Comments
• Enable Trackbacks
• Moderate Comments
• Enable Ratings
• Syndicate
• Syndicate Excerpt (I guess you have to define an excerpt for this to work?)
• Syndicate Root (for communities?)
• DisplayOnHome (again, communities?)
• IsArticle (I really dig this one. I've wanted to be able to edit articles from the desktop for a long time.)

I've also been looking at ATOM a little bit - there doesn't seem to be any mention of categories in atom, which kinda sucks considering categories are a nice way to filter content.

All of the apis, including atom, have one other thing in common: getting general blog information is usually a two-step process. As an end user, I must supply a username, a password, and a url (although the atom api lets you enter a homepage url with a <link/> element that points to the service url (v1.0 of CS::Blogs asks for a blogname, too. Maybe this says that you should only work with one blog at a time?)). Then I get a list of blogs that I can edit with the credentials supplied. Then I can create, update, or delete a post. I can also get a list of recent entries (and articles in the case of the BlogService.asmx).

With atom, on blogger at least, you are required to use https:// as the uri scheme. Not a big deal, this just means that the common denominator for a blog has to have a couple of booleans: UseSSL and SupportsCategories, because those two are what separates atom and the apis of CS::Blogs from a coding standpoint. Since I'm going to be using libraries to handle the xml transfers (xml-rpc, soap, or rest) I could care less what the xml looks like.

Speaking of libraries, the code that I have for handling the metaweblog api also includes support for the old blogger xml-rpc api (thanks, dasBlog!), so I'll probably include support for posting to that api as well in the new version of PostXING.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-16-reversedos-in-community-server https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-16-reversedos-in-community-server Thu, 16 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

After another slew of referrer/comment spam that showed up in my blog this morning, I went ahead and downloaded Mike's ReverseDOS.

I followed the steps outlined for setup, but it didn't quite work the way it was outlined at first - I got the dreaded "yellow screen of death". This was due to the entries that I had made in the web.config. So I looked at the entries that were already in there, and I noticed that some <section/> nodes were added to the <system.web/> node. Moving the default configuration from looking like this:

<!-- copy and paste the following code -->
<configSections>
   <sectionGroup name="AngryPets" >
      <section name="ReverseDOS" type="AngryPets.Web.Frameworks.ReverseDOS.FilterConfigHandler, AngryPets.Web.Frameworks.ReverseDOS" />
   </sectionGroup>
</configSections>

Instead, mine now looks like this:

<sectionGroup name="system.web">
	<section name="membership" type="Microsoft.ScalableHosting.Configuration.MembershipConfigHandler, MemberRole, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b7c773fb104e7562"/>
	<section name="roleManager" type="Microsoft.ScalableHosting.Configuration.RolesConfigHandler, MemberRole, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b7c773fb104e7562"/>
	<section name="profile" type="Microsoft.ScalableHosting.Configuration.ProfileConfigHandler, MemberRole, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b7c773fb104e7562"/>
	<section name="anonymousIdentification" type="Microsoft.ScalableHosting.Configuration.AnonymousIdConfigHandler, MemberRole, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b7c773fb104e7562"/>
	<section name="ReverseDOS" type="AngryPets.Web.Frameworks.ReverseDOS.FilterConfigHandler, AngryPets.Web.Frameworks.ReverseDOS" />
</sectionGroup>

And I of course moved the ReverseDOS node to be under system.web. We'll see how this pans out, but I thought I would put it out there just in case someone else was having issues with it.

[ Currently Playing : Stinkfist - Tool - Aenima (5:10) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-15-re-this-is-just-a-test https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-15-re-this-is-just-a-test Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Nice! Lookin good, Don! I personally have had firewall issues with FTP (what a beast!) and have yet to find an opensource SFTP (ftp as a subset of ssh) solution, which does work on my server. One of these days I'm going to beef up my firewalling skills and let the stinkin ftp traffic thru.

Anyways, glad to see you "back in the game" :)

In an attempt to get back on top of my blogging, I've just installed the latest release of Christopher's PostXING, all of its plugins, and configured the FTP support. If this post is successful, I (and you) will know I'm good to go.

[Currently Playing :: Louder Than Words - Greenwheel]

[Via Don Smith (dev4net)]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-15-postxing-answers-for-yex https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-15-postxing-answers-for-yex Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Yex sez:

 Nice. So where's the Categories, Post, Post and Publish and Crosspost buttons at? Where's the post editing toolbar? When can we get our grubby little hands on it?

Since it appears you've decided to go with the whole sidebar idea, why not use that to list the cateogories checkboxes? Seems logical to me anyway.

Yex

Good questions! I've actually created a sidebar for the categories, and am currently studying a couple of the API's I want to support right away - it looks like I will be able to handle categories the same way that I do currently. I'm going to try and find a way to push categories into the file that is saved (er..File -> Save) for a better offline story too.

I'm also looking to remove the History dialog and replace it with a "view" on the main form - no reason other than trying to get rid of unnecessary dialogs. And it'll look cool :)

As far as all of the other buttons, my current plan is to have all of that plus some configuration details pushed off to a kind of "provider" - each api plugin should know what buttons it wants to add, what operations those buttons support, what kind of identifying information the api needs, etc.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to break things down to a common denominator and have something that will be able to tailor the UI to the current blog that is being edited.

And as far as the grubby hands, sorry - it's probably going to be a little while before this is ready for prime time. I'm not even ready to dogfood v2 yet. :(

[ Currently Playing : Would? - Alice in Chains - Unplugged (3:42) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-15-greasmonkey-goodies-embrace-and-extend https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-15-greasmonkey-goodies-embrace-and-extend Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Alex, I checked out a great application of Greasemonkey - the Gmail Delete Button.

Of course, I had to look at the script since it's just javascript and play with it to see if I could extend it a little bit.

As with most of my "embrace and extend" forays, it was just a simple change - I use a lot of labels in gmail, so when I'm reading via the web interface, I have some organization to the 50+ email lists I'm a member of. Every screen that has conversations listed on it has a delete button, including the search view, except for labels (until you hit the search mail button, but then the number of visible conversations goes from 50 to 20).

So, I popped open the "view frame info" context menu item from gmail and saw that the view querystring parameter for a label was tl. With that in mind:

if (document.location.search) {
	if (document.location.search.match(/search=inbox/)
		||
		document.location.search.match(/search=query/)
		||
		document.location.search.match(/view=tl/) &&
		!document.location.search.match(/search=trash/)
		||
		document.location.search.match(/view=cv/) && 
		!document.location.search.match(/search=trash/)
	) {
		setInterval('try{window._gd_place_delete_buttons();}catch(e){}', 25);
	}
}

I'm not sure if the  && !document.location... part that I added is necessary, but it doesn't hurt anything. Now I can delete posts in all of the views that I would want to in gmail.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-10-postxing-development https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-10-postxing-development Fri, 10 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've been working a little on my plugin/provider idea on PostXING. Currently, I have it building, but I've had to disable some of the post-build commands because although it builds, it doesn't do anything currently and I don't want it to overwrite the working copy that I have on my computer.

Interesting aside: I didn't actually remove the commands, but since they are all written to a .bat file, you can use normal batch commands - like rem - to effectively disable the commands. An example that is currently disabled in the branch .csproj file but not in the main trunk:

rem COPY /Y $(ProjectDir)ReadMe.txt $(TargetDir)ReadMe.txt

This way, when I'm ready to actually dogfood my new creation, I just need to remove the rem's and I'm good to go.

I've only made progress on the UI so far, but if you want to see the progress, the code is always available on vaultpub. You can view everything on the web over here: the login is guest/guest.

As if you cared...

I'm still trying to work out how cross-posting should be implemented. I've decided to go with an interface-driven plugin model because I don't have an app.config with this app (no reason for that - just haven't needed it yet) and I've already got 2 types of interfaces loading as plugins. I have 3(1/2) different types of plugin/providers that I want to implement, all of which I have access to so I can at least test it a little bit. They will include providers using xml-rpc, webservices, and the Atomizer. On the UI side, I'm going to do away with as many dialogs as possible. I'm trying to have this app have only one or two dialogs where it makes sense. I think everything else should just be a "view" on the main form.

I've also imported a couple of controls to the project along with an IUI library so different "views" shouldn't be too hard to implement I think. Anyways, back to coding...

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-10-a-new-face-for-postxing https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-06-10-a-new-face-for-postxing Fri, 10 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I didn't go too too far, I think. It's definitely a step in the right direction, tho:

I don't know why I've opted to start at the top and go down...probably because I'm just procrastinating on getting to the meat & potatoes (!) problems. I also had to go into a different program to upload the file above...I'll be checking that as well.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-27-if-i-only-knew-then https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-27-if-i-only-knew-then Fri, 27 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Not what I know now, but what I'm learning now. I recently picked up a copy of the src to FlexWikiPad. I just wanted to see how things were wired together in there: I only have a very old installation of FlexWiki sitting around that still looks like crap in FireFox.

To his credit, Craig has done an awesome job of making FlexWikiPad very testable - something I didn't think was all that easy to do in winforms. Apparently, his dialogs are very humble. He's using a pretty strict Model View Presenter (or controller, whatever) pattern throughout the application. I thought this was a lot of extra coding at first (it kinda is), but in the process Craig has made FlexWikiPad easier to maintain and update thru the use of mocks/stubs and tests with this pattern.

Currently, I've got this itch that I want to scratch with regards to PostXING that would have been so nice to be able to test my way thru. I'm just hacking thru it now, and I've done a pretty good job of messing everything up so far :) In my defense, I'm still learning unit testing and when it comes to winform applications I feel that there is a balance that I like to hit right on the line of usability and architectural beauty. Anyone who has looked at PostXING's source will soon see that my architectin' ain't so purty - it's still just a lot of different pieces from different places glued together. I don't validate everything that I should. I left fields that I intended to add functionality for disabled but visible. Even up to 1.1 versions. BUT...

...and this is a big but...

...it works. That was priority #2 for me with PostXING. Priority #1 was to make something useful that I could use to learn winforms.

Anyways, I'm hoping that I can glean some insight off of people like Craig that are way more knowledgable than me on this front. If I feel like the task for PostXING to be testable is too great, I may just try to apply this knowledge to future projects. So, thanks Craig for making FlexWikiPad follow a concise pattern that I did know about but have never seen implemented with tests in C# before.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-27-converting-a-base64-string-to-an-image https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-27-converting-a-base64-string-to-an-image Fri, 27 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Do you ever get an email that has some base64 gobbledegook in it? A lot of times, based on MIME information directly preceding this junk, it's actually an image that got converted to text but never converted back to an image (duh, right? Tell me something I don't know? Okay...)

I got one of these earlier and decided to write a little utility to convert that string back into an image using the .net framework. It was pretty simple once I got the namespaces right:

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;

public class MyClass
{
	public static void Main()
	{
		string base64 = @"R0lGODlhSwDRAPYAAG9qb6mlqJwdJMzHy5qYm722vbS2zldTWKzK9smjabKPZfLVnL26vo
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		9fXy0vN1JSUNCcm3IpIpOSlZ+XhvvqurwyN+/r7cDExqm2qvb17uDAe/v0+RseHXx8fsO6sen7+ycuKl5fYIqPi/
		b8//v886yGSkA8Peq6oSwAAAAASwDRAAAH/4ADYz8MFQwOFUoOSkoYSgUVDg4FlJMFjgwMlBWGmWOZnBUFioiSkY
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		VKAN8YMmNgQpzJmAJ231RgwCA0gzdvGCR0ebp0aZClcTgcvJiw4cgolFw9QfwE+QBMMFixomT9GysOlFQoM1CAwZ
		j7Y5g/hx4auv8xprkEEmoEquZUStpkAxRrrYGSjRoNYQMbbFXphtllbc1gFWyBAAA7";

		Bitmap map;
		
		using(MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(Convert.FromBase64String(base64)))
		using(FileStream fs = File.Create(@"C:\tmp\img.gif")){
		
			map = (Bitmap)Image.FromStream(stream);
				
			map.Save(fs, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Gif);
		}
		
		WL("Converted Image Successfully!");
	}
	
	private static void WL(string text, params object[] args)
	{
		Console.WriteLine(text, args);	
	}
	
	private static void RL()
	{
		Console.ReadLine();	
	}
	
	private static void Break() 
	{
		System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break();
	}
}

Slap that little snippet into Snippet Compiler and look at what is generated. I actually changed the image to something a little bit friendlier than the image I recieved in the email. Enjoy!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-25-Were-back-online https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-25-Were-back-online Wed, 25 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

It seems that there was a major power failure yesterday: at least a few city blocks. For those that don't know, a city block in Houston is a pretty big area.

Looks like it's fixed for now, so the two of you can go about getting that there rss feed :)

[ Currently Playing : Karma Police - Radiohead - OK Computer (4:21) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-24-to-those-that-care https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-24-to-those-that-care Tue, 24 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I.e. Both of you...I've changed the repository structure of PostXING on vaultpub to better facilitate branching.

These crazy new ideas I've been having are so different from the current architecture of PostXING that I have to branch it just in case someone comes to me with a nasty bug they found that I just overlooked (this has happened a few times already, although not for a while). I don't like having broken software with my name on it out in the wild.

Anyways, I thought I would keep tabs on my progress for this on my blog. I feel like there is something that I'm missing in the ideas that I'm having, so I'm taking this slowly, step by step. To be honest, I've always had this idea in my head for PostXING. It's why it's built the way it is - I've left extensibility points open at the expense of writing a bit more code on the onset. When I'm done, a developer that has a good handle on the API they want to post to will be able to author a plugin/provider, drop it into a subdirectory off of the application root, and be able to use PostXING as kind of a shell to post to their custom API.

[ Currently Playing : Sad Statue - System of a Down - Mezmerize (3:25) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-23-ever-looked-back-in-time https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-23-ever-looked-back-in-time Mon, 23 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've been doing just that on my blogs - way back to when this one was hosted on dotnetweblogs.com.

Geez, I was such a dork...okay, maybe I'm still a dork. But that's a maybe. I admit nothing.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-23-a-couple-of-postxing-ideas https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-23-a-couple-of-postxing-ideas Mon, 23 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Sir Wally for the first one...it's simple really, Wally just asked if I would cache a list of the categories for each configured blog to aid with offline posting. I pretty much always use PostXING while online, so this particular feature didn't even cross my mind. As a side effect, this will let me add categories to posts off of my CS blog which gives a nice little error when I try to get the comments list currently. Good one, Wally.

The other thing is that I want to expand the abilities of where PostXING can post - not just using the Metablog API, but being able to use different services. I don't want to use the "provider model" because I don't think that particular pattern fits what I have in my head to make this work. Close, as a matter of fact, very close, but not exactly what I'm looking for.

The basic idea that I have now is based on the fact that a lot of the functionality that PostXING uses now already sits in separate dll's in the application root. I think that I can factor out the API specific functionality into kind of a plugin - thereby expanding the end applications that can be posted to from PostXING. I haven't hashed out all of the details yet. This is still a brainstorm at this point. However it works out, it's going to be a major version change.

If this can work out the way I think it can, this could be a very cool addition to PostXING. Very cool indeed.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-18-pskit-replacing-that-pesky-lorem-ipsum-text-with-dynamic-content https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-18-pskit-replacing-that-pesky-lorem-ipsum-text-with-dynamic-content Wed, 18 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

The Personal Website Starter Kit is a great resource for getting up and running with asp.net 2.0 beta. I've been using it to check out some features while waiting for other projects to get to a point where I feel like I can contribute more than just criticism (sorry y'all 😃 That said, the default.aspx page comes with a FormsView that rotates pictures from your PSKit albums, but everything else is static content! That is, you're greeted on the front page with something like:

Welcome to my Website!

On this site you will find lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

Earlier, I had tried using one of the new data controls in asp.net - namely the FormView. I ran into a few issues with this control, mostly having to do with having to know what ID I was using in the database to set or edit the FormView's contents - I'm sure I could have worked out a way to set the ID to use in some clever way, but then I looked at the actual content that comes stock with the PSKit and it hit me...

A DataList.

It's already separated by a horizontal rule - all I really need is to bind a good old DataList to a couple of database entries and I've got something that I can update, oh, say twice a year or whatever. heh.

I used a similar table structure to the one from before:

Content
ContentID
Heading
Content
IsVisible

I had to actually write code (gasp!) to get it working the way I wanted it to, but it was pretty stock stuff thankfully. I just set up a SqlDataSource pointing to this table's CRUD procedures:

                
	<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" 
                  runat="server" 
                  ConnectionString="$ ConnectionStrings:Personal " 
                  ProviderName="System.Data.SqlClient"
                  SelectCommand="GetContents" 
                  SelectCommandType="StoredProcedure" 
                  DeleteCommand="RemoveContent" 
                  DeleteCommandType="StoredProcedure"
                  InsertCommand="AddContent" 
                  InsertCommandType="StoredProcedure"
                  UpdateCommand="EditContent"   
                  UpdateCommandType="StoredProcedure">
		  <DeleteParameters>
		    <asp:Parameter Name="Content_ID" Type="Int32" />
		  </DeleteParameters>
		  <UpdateParameters>
		    <asp:Parameter Name="Content_ID" Type="Int32" />
		    <asp:Parameter Name="Heading" Type="String" />
		    <asp:Parameter Name="Content" Type="String" />
		    <asp:Parameter Name="IsVisible" Type="Boolean" />
		  </UpdateParameters>
		  <InsertParameters>
		    <asp:Parameter Direction="InputOutput" Name="Content_ID" Type="Int32" />
		    <asp:Parameter Name="Heading" Type="String" />
		    <asp:Parameter Name="Content" Type="String" />
		    <asp:Parameter Name="IsVisible" Type="Boolean" />
		  </InsertParameters>
                </asp:SqlDataSource>

Then the DataList itself:

			<asp:DataList ID="DataList1" 
                          runat="server" 
                          DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1" 
                          Width="100%" 
                          OnCancelCommand="DataList1_CancelCommand" 
                          OnEditCommand="DataList1_EditCommand" 
                          OnUpdateCommand="DataList1_UpdateCommand" 
                          OnDeleteCommand="DataList1_DeleteCommand"
                          OnItemCommand="DataList1_ItemCommand"
                          RepeatLayout="Flow"  >
				<ItemTemplate>
				<asp:Panel ID="contentPanel" 
                                  runat="server" 
                                  Visible='# Eval("IsVisible") '>
					<h3><asp:Label ID="HeadingLabel" 
                                              runat="server" 
                                              Text='# Eval("Heading") '></asp:Label></h3>
					<asp:Label ID="ContentLabel" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          Text='# Eval("Content") '></asp:Label>
                                        <asp:HiddenField ID="hdnContentID" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          Value='# Eval("Content_ID") ' />
					</asp:Panel>
					<asp:Panel ID="Panel1" 
                                          Visible='# User.IsInRole("Administrators")  
                                          "server" Height="50px" Width="125px">
					  <asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton3" 
                                            runat="server" 
                                            CommandName="edit">Edit</asp:LinkButton><asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton4" 
                                            runat="server" 
                                            CommandName="delete">Delete</asp:LinkButton></asp:Panel>
				</ItemTemplate>
				<SeparatorTemplate>
					<hr />
				</SeparatorTemplate>
				<EditItemTemplate>
					<asp:TextBox ID="txtHeading" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          Text='# Bind("Heading") '></asp:TextBox>
					<asp:CheckBox ID="chkVisible" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          Checked='# Bind("IsVisible") ' 
                                          "Visible" />

					ContentID:
                                        <asp:Label ID="lblContentID" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          Text='# Eval("Content_ID") '></asp:Label>
					<asp:TextBox ID="txtContent" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          Columns="40" Rows="20" 
                                          Text='# Bind("Content") '
					  "MultiLine"></asp:TextBox>
                                        <br />
					<br />
					<asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton1" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          CommandName="update">Update</asp:LinkButton>
					<asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton2" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          CausesValidation="False" 
                                          CommandName="cancel">Cancel</asp:LinkButton>
					<asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton5" 
                                          runat="server" 
                                          CommandName="add">Create as New</asp:LinkButton>
				</EditItemTemplate>
			</asp:DataList>

Several points of interest in the DataList declaration:

• No more pesky DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "field") syntax - much leaner and meaner Eval() syntax for one-way binding.
• Two-way binding happens via the Bind() syntax - notice that Bind() only happens in the EditItemTemplate, since the ItemTemplate is readonly.
• I'm only showing the edit/delete buttons based on what role the current user is in. I wasn't sure if this (# User.IsInRole("Administrators")) would work at first because it's deceptively simple. But yeah, it does work. Works great!
• I did most of this visually - there is no longer a reason to fear the designer in asp.net (thanks Venus team!)
• I had to disable Page input validation because I want the Content to contain html, and by default, it don't like that.

As for the codebehind, I guess I could have refactored it a little bit, but since this is not a mission-critical application (it is just a personal site, after all!) I just went the easy route and duplicated a lot of code. Probably the best thing to do would be to handle just the ItemCommand because there is no default handler for add and use a clever mix of a switch statement and defaulting the value of EditItemIndex to -1. But this isn't about best practices, it's about getting the stuff to work, ya know? Anyway, here's the code:

  1 	protected void DataList1_CancelCommand(object source, DataListCommandEventArgs e)
  2 	{
  3 		this.DataList1.EditItemIndex = -1;
  4 		this.DataList1.DataBind();
  5 	}
  6 	protected void DataList1_UpdateCommand(object source, DataListCommandEventArgs e)
  7 	{
  8 		string heading = ((TextBox)e.Item.FindControl("txtHeading")).Text;
  9 		string content = ((TextBox)e.Item.FindControl("txtContent")).Text;
 10 		string isvisible = ((CheckBox)e.Item.FindControl("chkVisible")).Checked.ToString();
 11 		string id = ((Label)e.Item.FindControl("lblContentID")).Text;
 12 
 13 		this.SqlDataSource1.UpdateParameters["Content_ID"].DefaultValue = id;
 14 		this.SqlDataSource1.UpdateParameters["Heading"].DefaultValue = heading;
 15 		this.SqlDataSource1.UpdateParameters["Content"].DefaultValue = content;
 16 		this.SqlDataSource1.UpdateParameters["IsVisible"].DefaultValue = isvisible;
 17 
 18 		this.SqlDataSource1.Update();
 19 
 20 		this.DataList1.EditItemIndex = -1;
 21 		this.DataList1.DataBind();
 22 	}
 23 	protected void DataList1_DeleteCommand(object source, DataListCommandEventArgs e)
 24 	{
 25 		string id = ((HiddenField)e.Item.FindControl("hdnContentID")).Value;
 26 		this.SqlDataSource1.DeleteParameters["Content_ID"].DefaultValue = id;
 27 
 28 		this.SqlDataSource1.Delete();
 29 
 30 		this.DataList1.EditItemIndex = -1;
 31 		this.DataList1.DataBind();
 32 	}
 33 	protected void DataList1_ItemCommand(object source, DataListCommandEventArgs e)
 34 	{
 35 		switch (e.CommandName)
 36 		{
 37 			case "add":
 38 				string heading = ((TextBox)e.Item.FindControl("txtHeading")).Text;
 39 				string content = ((TextBox)e.Item.FindControl("txtContent")).Text;
 40 				string isvisible = ((CheckBox)e.Item.FindControl("chkVisible")).Checked.ToString();
 41 
 42 				this.SqlDataSource1.InsertParameters["Heading"].DefaultValue = heading;
 43 				this.SqlDataSource1.InsertParameters["Content"].DefaultValue = content;
 44 				this.SqlDataSource1.InsertParameters["IsVisible"].DefaultValue = isvisible;
 45 
 46 				this.SqlDataSource1.Insert();
 47 
 48 				this.DataList1.EditItemIndex = -1;
 49 				this.DataList1.DataBind();
 50 				break;
 51 		}
 52 	}

This is the quickest way I could figure out to make things work, and yeah, it does work. So, there you have it - even though there are only two items currently in the table, it's very easy to add content via in-place editing and change what is currently there as well. You can view it live over at www.bluefenix.net.

[ Currently Playing : Voices - Godsmack - Other Side (3:44) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-12-on-community-support---give-and-you-shall-recieve https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-12-on-community-support---give-and-you-shall-recieve Thu, 12 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I use Azureus as my bittorrent client. It has this nifty feature that is similar to the Updater Application Block that will automatically check for and download updates on startup of the application. The only downside for me is that since I was running JRE 1.4, and after a little battle with my wireless router, I could contact trackers okay, but not peers.

Balls.

So I look around the program to see what I can see. Oh look! There's an irc client that is loaded as a plugin! I haven't been on an irc channel since like '98 or '99, but it can't have changed that much, right? /join, /msg, yeah, I think I'm good to go.

So I hop on the channel, fully expecting some random bs to be flying around like it used to be. How wrong I was. Myself along with about 4 or 5 others having issues with azureus got coached thru getting azureus running like a champ. In particular, two people helped me not only get az up and running correctly again, but also coached me on getting it set to its optimal settings for my cable internet link at home.

I'd like to thank martouf5 (no link given) and PhilKC for being such a big help with my n00b azureus hurdles. A couple of things that I learned thru this:

• The channel has a very helpful, friendly tone - this was even true when I returned later to ask permission to use these guys' nicks on my blog, so it wasn't a fluke afaict.
• You can test your connection speed on www.dslreports.com or www.testmy.net You gotta dig a little bit for the one on dslreports, but they both give you pretty much the same information.
• Installing the JRE v1.5 does not uninstall previous versions. It's been a while since I've done any kind of Java development, but I wonder if this is because they have a SxS story like there is with the .NETfx? If so, there must be a way to tell a program which runtime to use...
• There is a bot (AzBot) on the channel (irc.freenode.net, #azureus-users) that will tell you the optimal settings to use with azureus by typing a command like /msg AzBot upspeed 5008. I find that simply incredible. And incredibly useful.

I was told by martouf5 that the motto of bittorrent is "give and you shall receive" - he said that was pretty much the attitude of this particular channel, and they all volunteer and help out people as they can. Judging from the conversations that I saw briefly, they get pretty much the same questions over and over, so I guess that helps in its way. He also humbly claimed that he was not one of the channel's "heavyweights" - that there were others there that helped a lot more than he does - but he helped me darnit, so he gets the credit he deserves here. PhilKC is actually what martouf5 would call a "heavyweight" and they both helped me when I needed it...so thanks, y'all.

[ Currently Playing : Right Here, Right Now - Fatboy Slim - You've Come a Long Way, Baby (6:27) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-05-re-announcing-subtext-a-fork-of-text-for-your-blogging-pleasure https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-05-05-re-announcing-subtext-a-fork-of-text-for-your-blogging-pleasure Thu, 05 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Awesome. I had a feeling I was going to see something like this sooner or later.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-29-PSKit-FormView-initial-thoughts https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-29-PSKit-FormView-initial-thoughts Fri, 29 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've been playing with the Personal Website Starter Kit a little bit lately. One thing that I didn't like about it from the start was that the content in the default.aspx was largely static, so I set out to make it a little more dynamic. After a little digging in the whidbey quickstarts I decided that a FormView  looked like the way to go.

I'm trying to keep any modifications simple, so I created a really simple table that would cover the very basic needs of the sections that are shown on the default.aspx:

Content
ContentID
Heading
Content
IsVisible

I then created the basic CRUD procedures that would go with this table, dropped a FormView onto the default.aspx, and created a SqlDataSource to supply it with data. Now, let me say that it is very...what's the word? liberating? to be able to do most of the work in the designer without worrying about the designer nuking stuff. It's almost there. One thing that I thought was missing was the ability to specify one of the connectionStrings from the web.config file as the connection string source - you've got to switch to source view to do that (afaict). Also, the friggin thing doesn't want to work unless I supply a DefaultValue for each <asp:ControlParameter/> in the markup - so what happens when my ID changes?

One other thing that I'd like to see (I know, give an inch, take a mile:) would be the ability to use the same SqlDataSource for many FormViews. As the default.aspx is laid out now, there are 3, maybe 4 areas that would be good candidates for being populated from the Content table outlined above. So if I had FormView2, FormView3, and FormView4, I would like to associate them all with the same SqlDataSource and vary the output based on a different ContentID for each. Right now, it seems like there is a 1:1 mapping between each SqlDataSource and FormView (as the ControlParameter has a ControlID associated with it.) Maybe I should try using a different type of parameter?

More to come...I'll get this eventually :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-25-ObjectDataSource-goodness https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-25-ObjectDataSource-goodness Mon, 25 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Since there are probably going to be a lot of posts about all things Whidbey soon, as people get more and more chance to play with things, I've decided to throw in my two cents about a really cool piece of functionality that I recently used.

ObjectDataSource - too cool, I've been waiting for something like this for a while. This is more my style than using stinkin' DataSets. You can see what I did at bluefenix.net . I built it based off of the Personal Site Starter Kit that comes with vwd on up, so there's still a lot of Lorem Ipsum text in there. Well, pretty much the whole site is Lorem Ipsum text right now, except for the Projects.aspx page.

The page consists of two DataLists, an ObjectDataSource and a SqlDataSource. For the ObjectDataSource, all I did was add a web reference to the website and point the SELECT part of the datasource to the method that had the info that I wanted to display. That worked off my local machine perfectly, but I needed to go thru a proxy at the host to make the webservice work correctly. Getting this working was a simple matter of creating a wrapper to the webmethod that included adding proxy info to the webservice stub class before calling the webmethod. Changing the ObjectDataSource's SELECT section to use the new class that was dropped into App_Code got everything working, locally and in production!

Very cool, indeed.

[ Currently Playing : Imagine - A Perfect Circle - eMOTIVe (4:48) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-21-RE-Digital-Pontification-Podcast-Show-Notes https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-21-RE-Digital-Pontification-Podcast-Show-Notes Thu, 21 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I want to second Jason's nomination (below in bold). This morning I was trying to figure out how to port Sql Express data to Sql Server 2000, and Wally was a big help in getting me there. I got it done, btw. 😃

So, thank you Sir Wally!

Topics discussed:

• So today's that "420" thing in the mainland, huh?
• Real-time argument with my co-worker if today is Bob Marley's birthday
• I'm back on the King Car Iced Tea
• You want to hear me open a drink?  What the hell is wrong with you people?
• Thanks to new friends for setting me straight on World Curling Championships
• Do Microsoft jockeys not know what podcasting really is?
• My good buddy Wally McClure deserves to be knighted
• I love Benny Hill, but I never really got Monty Python
• Public school kids just showed up and excpected a tour of KUAM's station
• The downside to podcasting: show contents can't be indexed by search engines& yet
• I want to know how you're accessing my podcasts (RSS aggregators, OS, PC/Mac, do you get it off my blog, etc.)
• I get > 10x more traffic from RSS aggregators than over the web for my blog
• Have you ever copied something on one PC and tried pasting it on another PC?  I did.  Duh.
  

[Via Jason Salas' WebLog]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-19-CSBlogs-allowing-anonymous-comments https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-19-CSBlogs-allowing-anonymous-comments Tue, 19 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I don't know if this will post with the source, but I've got this link that may save someone the trouble of searching CS forums for an answer: http://communityserver.org/forums/479025/ShowPost.aspx

I was wondering why I hadn't been getting any comments lately. Mostly because nobody really reads this blog, but even for those other couple of you that are subscribed - you couldn't leave a comment without registering!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-15-RE-ObjectDock https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-15-RE-ObjectDock Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Who else out there likes a dock better than the standard windows taskbar? I have been using StarDock's ObjectDock for a few weeks now and I think I'm sold. I have hidden my taskbar and I only run a single visible dock at the bottom center of my screen.

<snip/>

[Via Wes' Puzzling Blog]

Big smile on my face from this one - I recognize the plainer looking icon in the picture above. I knew that Wes was running PostXING (heck, his CodeHTMLer is a big part of it) but it's really cool to see it really there, as one of the few programs he needs "docked".

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-09-Goodbye-Lynn https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-09-Goodbye-Lynn Sat, 09 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

One of my coworkers, Lynn Coyle, was found dead in his house this morning.

Lynn had diabetes. He was kind of an odd character, but he was a good person. I often joked around with him in the office - he had a strange sense of humor, but we got along pretty well.

I knew him for a little over 3 years, and in that time I learned a few things about him: he was a good geophysicist, with a specialty in borehole research. He served in the army when he was younger. He doesn't have much family left. He took care of his neighbors. For me, personally, he was there to talk about the things that he knew and he taught me lots about the oil & gas industry.

Rest in peace, Lynn, you will be missed.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-08-New-PostXING-release https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-08-New-PostXING-release Fri, 08 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've added a small usability feature based on some recent feedback.

Now, from the Tools -> Options dialog, you can optionally set whether you would like to automatically create a new post when you hit Post or Post & Publish. I also made some minor UI consistency changes, and removed a superfluous message that showed up in the options dialog in the last release (oops :)

So, go grab the new PostXING. Enjoy.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-06-Little-Tony https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-06-Little-Tony Wed, 06 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I went to go visit with my little (2 1/2 mos) nephew Tony tonight. Here's a couple of pics I snapped on my phone:

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-02-RE-Were-back https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-02-RE-Were-back Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Well, I woke up this morning and found myself back in Roswell, GA. It seems that the Google trip must have been a dream.

Don't you just love April Fools Day Wally?

But thanks for the congratulations from a few friends and bloggers (thanks Josh). I appreciate your thought that it might have been possible!

[Via The CoverYourASP.NET Blog ]

I got got. Good one, James. And yes, I thought it was possible, too - Dozing Dogs is a pretty good CMS.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-01-Re-Here-we-go https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-04-01-Re-Here-we-go Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Congrats, James! Always good to see someone you know catch a deal like this. Too bad there are no comments for me to tell him in his blog :P

See for yourself: "Here we go!" on The CoverYourASP.NET Blog .

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-26-Running-WebMatrix-with-a-Whidbey-Beta-installed https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-26-Running-WebMatrix-with-a-Whidbey-Beta-installed Sat, 26 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I took a chance and installed a CTP of Whidbey on my laptop. Thing is, I still use WebMatrix from time to time for POC stuff for v1.x of asp.net.

Problem is, when you run the Cassini webserver from webmatrix, it picks up the latest version of the .netfx and will give you different errors based on which version is installed. To get around this and ensure that the WebServer.exe runs on version 1.1 of the .netfx, simply add a WebServer.exe.config file with the following contents:

<configuration>
	<startup>
		<requiredRuntime version="v1.1.4322"/>
	</startup>
</configuration>

If you want to ensure WebMatrix runs on version 1.1 of the .netfx, you can add the above startup element to WebMatrix.exe.config.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-24-Enabling-styles-in-CS https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-24-Enabling-styles-in-CS Thu, 24 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Straight from ScottW, I added

<MarkUp>
	<globalAttributes>
		<class enable = "true" />
		<align enable = "true" />
		<style enable = "true" />
		<id enable = "true" />
	</globalAttributes>

notice the style element? That cleared up the little non-formatted code issue that I had in my previous post.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-24-A-little-CS-hack-for-the-metablog-API https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-24-A-little-CS-hack-for-the-metablog-API Thu, 24 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Keith told me that CSBlogs was returning relative urls for its Metablog API implementation. After I installed it, I noticed the same thing - so I decided to hack it a little bit and find out what was going wrong. It turns out that the software is just doing what the guys at telligent are telling it to - thankfully I've got the code and I can poke around when I find little issues like this 😃

First, I added a call to the Globals class to return a formatted url with the application path intact. This was in Components.SiteUrlsData.cs:

public virtual string FormatUrl(string name, params object[] parameters)
{      	

    if(parameters == null)
        return Globals.FullPath(this.Paths[name]);

    else
        return Globals.FullPath(string.Format(Paths[name],parameters));
}

But wait! This causes the rss feed to show up with something silly like http: / /localhost/cshttp://localhost/cs/blog... for the links in the RSS and Atom feeds produced by CSBlogs. So, I tried it without the "HostPath" to see if I could get the same results. This was in Blogs.Components.BaseWeblogSyndicationHandler:

/// 

/// Appends http://Host:Port to all blog urls
/// 
protected override string BaseUrl
{
    get
    {
        return ""; //return Globals.HostPath(Context.Request.Url);
    }
}

That's it right? Nope, not if you have galleries enabled. One of the methods (that I know of 😃 uses the modified FormatUrl above to try and get a MapPath to a directory. You'll find out really quickly that MapPath doesn't like fully-qualified urls passed to it...I know I did. So, I modified one more line to make sure that I've got a relative path passed into the photo gallery. This was in Galleries.Components.Picture:

/// 

/// This static method gets the location of the picture cache directory, mapped on the local filesystem.
/// 
/// 
public static string CacheDirectory()
{
	Uri uri = new Uri(GalleryUrls.Instance().PictureCache);
	return CSContext.Current.Context.Server.MapPath(uri.AbsolutePath);
}

After that, everything seems to be running as normal. I don't know if I'd recommend doing something like this on your install, especially if things are working well enough for you. I just use this particular feature of the Metablog API quite often, so it bit me a lot.

: It looks like the trackback feature uses fully qualified urls as well as the rss/atom feeds. I'll post a fix tomorrow when I find out where the BaseUrl is set for the trackbacks.

: Found it :) I would've got it done last night, but I don't have the broadband yet. Any ways, like I thought it was just a removal of a baseUrl parameter (case notwithstanding). I found this in Blogs.Controls.TrackbackMarkup:

protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)
{
            
    if(IsValid)
    {
        string baseUrl = Globals.HostPath(Context.Request.Url);
	writer.WriteLine(tag,/*baseUrl+*/PermaLink,Title,/*baseUrl+*/PingUrl);
    }
}

[ Currently Playing : Rooster - Alice in Chains - Unplugged (6:40) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-22-Customer-Service-Message https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-22-Customer-Service-Message Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This is a message that my boss recently sent to a customer that had an issue with one of our software packages (I don't own it :)

Brian, in the finest tradition of Microsoft, VDB's engineers have returned an error message  that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem at hand.   Time Steps should be in the range of 1 to 10.  Instead, of limiting the input (1 to 10). VDB's fine engineers, it seems, prefer to give a worthless message, then plow on with  a 10 millisecond TD-Chart.  I conclude, the only reason for this is that they are trying to kill me.   I will have the problem fixed.   Maybe we will replace all messages with one that says "Call Tom, we are trying to kill him, sorry for any inconvenience."

Anyway, I have attached a new release 2.8.4, it has some new features like ZOOM, Undo, and a way to graph Well markers (horizons). It will also launch the help guide from the help button, now there is a novel ideal.  Though not fully tested, I'm sure it has an entire new array of useless error messages designed to kill me.

Sorry for the problem

Tom

[ Currently Playing : I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me) - Jay-Z - The Dynasty Roc la Familia (3:47) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-17-A-little-down-time https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-17-A-little-down-time Thu, 17 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I'm going to be installing community server here today. There's going to be a little downtime because of that. As if you cared.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-16-PostXINGs-vaultpub-works https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-16-PostXINGs-vaultpub-works Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This shouldn't have gotten this out of whack, but it did, sorry. I've made sure that all of the folders are inherited now, and tested the get latest version on a different directory on my machine.

: The only thing to watch out for is that I like to copy my assemblies to my C:\bin folder so I can dogfood the output immediately. If you don't like that, go to the main PostXING project and clear out the build events. Also, the code that is now in the repository is more recent than the release on Project Distributor. It supports proxies for the web connection and has a couple of other bug fixes in it like handling FTP files with spaces. One more thing - not all of the projects in the trunk are either deployed to the world or active - the Client Template plugin project allows you to define a custom template on the client side (since dotText doesn't implement this particular metablog api feature) and the offline plugin was going to be the save/load posts feature but that got put into the main project instead. It's still there because someday I may decide to make it handle online/offline capabilities differently.

[ Currently Playing : Bombtrack - Rage Against the Machine - (4:04) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-16-My-comments-are-broken https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-16-My-comments-are-broken Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

...at a time when people are actually leaving comments. Balls. Josh - I'm checking the vaultpub repository on a clean directory right now, I probably forgot to add all of the files to the repository. Genius, Chris.

: I'm such a jerk. I have this repository set up all bass ackwards. I'll fix it up lickety split.

[ Currently Playing : Born of a Broken Man - Rage Against the Machine - The Battle of Los Angeles (4:40) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-15-PostXING-feature-requests https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-15-PostXING-feature-requests Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Teirnan asked for a few features for PostXING. I started to write a comment, but it got too long-winded for a comment. You get a post Sir:

Can I help you? I think maybe so :) In order:

• I did this in a very early build of PostXING, but got some feedback that asked to be able to immediately edit the post that was just, erm, posted - in case of typos or whatever. I guess I could make it configurable, that shouldn't be too hard. Since you are literally the first person to ask for this feature, I think I'll make the current behavior the default.
• I don't know how to tackle this one - PostXING is basically just a wrapper for SOME functionality of the Metaweblog API. Generally, the blog engine will handle the entry IDs. Sometimes it gives you an int, sometimes it gives you a string.
• I actually tried to do this at one point, but I'm not sure how stable it would be. Think about it this way: in order for this to work, images would have to be parsed out (not a problem) and each one uploaded one at a time using the FTP component. The resulting url would have to be pumped back into the post and then and only then could you finally post/publish the entry. If you have a lot of images, this could take a really long time and thus give the perception that PostXING performs poorly. I guess I could make this a config option too with the caveat that it could possibly take a really long time to make a post.
• This one is easy :) If you want it to be zippy, download the latest version of Vault from http://vaultpub.sourcegear.com . Login as the guest account (I think it's guest/guest) and go to the PostXING repository. Set a working folder and click Get Latest Version. The latest code release should be there, although it may be a little out of sync with the most current version that I'm dogfooding on my local machine. You can also find any plugins code that is associated with PostXING. If you don't want to install vault for whatever reason, I'm pretty sure you can download from their web interface using the same uid/pwd, but I'm sure it would be about 100 times more painful.

Thanks for the feedback, Tiernan.

[ Currently Playing : I'm done - Korn - Take a look in the mirror (3:23) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-01-Using-OpenSSH-tunneling-for-RealVNC-on-Windows https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-03-01-Using-OpenSSH-tunneling-for-RealVNC-on-Windows Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I totally geeked out tonight.

I was searching for something else and happened upon a tutorial for tunneling VNC on windows, which led me to another article that was inspiration for the first article I found. Here was the problem with both: the webserver that I wanted to get to is behind an OpenBSD firewall.

So, first things first: I added a rule to pf.conf that allowed ssh to be redirected to the private address of my webserver using rdr syntax:

rdr pass on $ext_if from any to $public_address port ssh \
-> $private_address

This rule passes ssh calls bound for the external address to be sent to the internal network address (192.168.1.blah).

But what about ssh running on Windows?

Well, if you don't already have cygwin installed on the server, I ended up using sshwindows (linked from the OpenSSH site under Windows) Just follow the instructions in readme.txt or quickstart.txt and you should be good to go there - it comes with an installer, so it was pretty easy to get up and running.

But what about the client on Windows?

For this, I use PuTTY. I've used it for a while to ssh into my OpenBSD machines from windows. What I didn't know of is the Tunnel feature that sits near the end of the config setup tree...this is how the magic happens.

See, before, when I needed to get into a firewalled computer, I would just add rules to the firewall to punch temporary holes while I did what I had to do remotely. I know, bad Chris. Using OpenSSH to tunnel the traffic that would normally be sent unencrypted over the wire makes me feel a lot safer, even tho the server in question doesn't have a whole lot of goodies to look at. It's still important to me.

So how does the magic happen?

Using the tunnel feature of PuTTY, I added a link to port 5901 and mapped it to localhost:5900. Here's the rub: localhost in this case refers to the ssh server, not the computer the client is running from. The 5901 refers to the machine that the client is running from. This wasn't clear to me in either tutorial that I read thru. So you add the tunnel link to the SSH/tunels node of PuTTY and when you fire up VNC, have it sent to localhost:1. This was also not very clear from either article (but that just probably means I'm dense).

Is that it?

For VNC, yeah, it is. However, I also run a couple of applications on my network that contain sensitive data: namely SourceGear Vault and Dragnet. I want to get to these too! Can I do it in a similar way to the VNC deal? You betcha!

This time, for the tunnel link I specified an arbitrary (but often used) high port in PuTTY: 8000. I also wanted to point to the internal server (say, 192.168.1.2) so instead of specifying localhost:80 (which is already exposed -duh!) I pointed it to 192.168.1.2:80.

Fire up PuTTY, login as some user that's configured for OpenSSH, and point my browser of choice to http://localhost:8000/dragnet. Nice!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-17-Channel-9-guy https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-17-Channel-9-guy Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:00:00 GMT

|}34|2 M|2. Scoble,

1 H4v3 K1|}n4pp3|} y0U|2 p|23C10U5 "CH4nn3L 9 6Uy". 1f j00 3v4|2 w4n7 70 533 H1M 4L1v3 4641n, My |}3M4n|}5 MU57 83 M37 1n fULL. My |}3M4n|}5 4|23 45 f0LL0w5:

1) 0n3 M1LL10n |}0LL4|25.

2) M1C|2050f7 MU57 0p3n-50U|2C3 w1n|}0w5 50 17 C4n 83 53CU|23 L1K3 L1nUx. j00 H4v3 48 H0U|25 70 C0MpLy. Y0U w1LL f1n|} 7H47 1 4M v3|2y 53|210U5 1n 7H15 M4773|2.

516n3|},

31337 |-|4><0|2z

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-17-BradA-at-the-Houston-NET-UG https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-17-BradA-at-the-Houston-NET-UG Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Although he only talked about high-level stuff (Exception Handling and Memory Management), I think Brad did a pretty good job. I stopped going to the Microsoft office out here because of all the 100 level classes, I couldn't justify taking time out of the trenches for learning stuff I already knew. But hearing the lead PM on the CLR team speak? It was time to attend my first Houston .NET UG meeting. To be fair, there was also the Hal-PC C# sig there, but I've never seen that room so packed. Overflow rooms had to be set up. Way to go, Brad!

So as is usually the case with these events, I came away with a couple of golden nuggets of information, some of which is even relevant in v1.x of the framework! (Imagine that!) Here are a couple of the notes I took:

• Finalizers keep objects alive an order of magnitude (about 10) longer than objects w/o finalizers
• It's a really bad idea to throw an Exception from a finalizer.
• Check out Critical Finalizers in v2.0
• Finalizers are most appropriate for owned unmanaged resources (filestream, sqlconnection, etc classes are a case in point)
• It's kind of an "unwritten rule" that any object that has a Close method should implement the IDisposable pattern and they should do the exact same thing. i.e. Close should just call Dispose.

I brought my digital camera, but being the jerk that I am, didn't check to see if the batteries were working first (doh!). Thankfully, I've got a camera phone and was able to take a picture with Brad anyways (I'm the short one):

This is also where I got my Channel 9 guy along with a nice smattering of other cool swag. Sorry, Scoble, it was just a joke tho - I thought it would be more appropriate to write the ransom note in 1337 than have both of my subscribers download a bunch of newspaper-clipped letter images. I still want my million, tho 😃

[ Currently Playing : Napoleon Solo - At the Drive-In - In Casino Out (4:47) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-15-Updated-my-engine https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-15-Updated-my-engine Tue, 15 Feb 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Well, thanks to Steven's post .Text's MetaWeblog API - Edit Post Error... I am now just a couple of revisions behind the latest incarnation of .Text over here.

This has been a serious pain to get migrated from v0.94 (all because I need to edit my posts w/ the metablog api - go figure!) but a lot of it has been due to errors on my part. When you try to add content, you've gotta keep those Identity fields intact or you end up with "Server returned a fault exception" when adding a new post. Yuck.

Continuing my battle with this engine: It looks like the entry.FeedBackCount doesn't like to be DBNull or whatever (Imagine that!). I think I just might be g2g w/ the v0.95 .Text installation. Geebus.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-09-Asian-Just-Lose-It https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-09-Asian-Just-Lose-It Wed, 09 Feb 2005 00:00:00 GMT

euiyun's Xanga Site - 2/8/2005 9:41:55 PM

Always good to see a bunch of Asians "go crazy". (ahahahahah!) Bonus: It looks like it was filmed in good ol' H-Town - part of it at the Williams Trace (once Transco) Tower! w00t! And Wal-Mart. Gotta love Wal-Mart.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-07-Theyre-pretty-useless-but https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-07-Theyre-pretty-useless-but Mon, 07 Feb 2005 00:00:00 GMT

They're fun anyways.

Which File Extension are You?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-02-Added-Tabbing https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-02-Added-Tabbing Wed, 02 Feb 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I recently added Tabbing functionality for indenting/outdenting (hey, it's a trident term 😃 in my dogfood version of PostXING.

Quoting has just become 100 times easier for me.

I prefer to use the keyboard when posting/changing text attributes when possible, and this whole no tabbing business finally got me a little fed up. Wanna know the funny part? It ended up being about 8 lines of code, give or take for whitespace:

  1 protected override bool ProcessCmdKey(ref Message msg, Keys keyData) {
  2 	if(keyData == Keys.Tab){
  3 		this._designEditor.TextFormatting.Indent();
  4 	}else if(keyData == (Keys.Tab | Keys.Shift)){
  5 		this._designEditor.TextFormatting.Unindent();
  6 	}
  7 			
  8 	return base.ProcessCmdKey (ref msg, keyData);
  9 }

What other unsupported keyboard shortcuts would you like to see in PostXING (get em while I've got it fresh on my mind 😃

[ Currently Playing : Dazed And Confused - Led Zeppelin - BBC Sessions CD 2 (18:36) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-01-RE-aiCAPTCHA-article-FAQ https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-02-01-RE-aiCAPTCHA-article-FAQ Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:00:00 GMT

<snip>Q: You mean you didnt kill 200K people or change the tilt of the Earth's axis? a: not yet </snip> [Via rains-N-brawn.com ]

Classic. I rather enjoyed the article, and think that a lot of people are missing the point. Not that my opinion matters anyways, but I thought it was kind of a neat POC.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-29-This-is-gonna-piss-some-people-off https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-29-This-is-gonna-piss-some-people-off Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Going to download the spankin new Enterprise Library, and before you can download you're presented with this:

Enterprise Library

Your registration information enables us to better provide you with the latest resources relevant to your needs, including pointers to service packs, security notices, training, trial versions of new products, conferences, new books, and more. Note that at any time you can manage all your Microsoft.com communication preferences from our Profile Center. Thank you for your interest in this download.

Registration required for this download

	Yes, please take me to the registration page and then start the download.
	No, I do not wish to register--which is required for this download--so please return me to the previous page.

 

I'll probably still download it on Monday, but it'll be fun to see what people say about this.

[ Currently Playing : Get What You Need - Jet - Get Born (4:07) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-29-RE-This-is-gonna-piss-some-people-off https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-29-RE-This-is-gonna-piss-some-people-off Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

So earlier I said "This is gonna piss some people off..." about the EntLib, right? Well, straight from the developer's mouth:

Scott Densmore

The registration process is to help us better connect with you. I hope it doesn't detract you from downloading. I think you will love it.

Well, I hope I didn't come across as "I'm not going to download it", cuz I most definitely am. Matter of fact, I'm downloading now. I just thought it would be interesting to see who would say such classics as "The mothership is tracking you!" or some other garbage like that. Why would I not want to register with Microsoft? They're already tracking my behaviors on Windows XP (HAHA! just kidding (or am I?)) :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-29-New-PostXING-coming-soon https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-29-New-PostXING-coming-soon Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

With the help of Laurent Kempé, I've traced down a bug in the PostXING FTP library (or rather my handling of it) and ended up changing the underlying FTP library code to the open source edtFTPnet library. This is a more complete library than the sample socket code that I was using before, and since it's LGPL licensed, I can link it into my code without affecting the license that PostXING is released under (which is zlib/libpng).

I also plan to add proxy support soon - the only hold up right now is that I like to at least dry run what I'm releasing before I put it out there, and I have no idea how to test if proxy code is going to work. Is there a such thing as a free proxy server that I can test against? I'm pretty resolved to, er, 'borrowing' the functionality for proxy support from RssBandit simply because the code works and has been a good reference for me before. So, I'm not worried about how to implement it, just on how to test it. Any ideas?

[ Currently Playing : Move On - Jet - Get Born (4:20) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-24-Suns-Open-letter-to-IBM https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-24-Suns-Open-letter-to-IBM Mon, 24 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I am not an expert in this area. Not even close. Wouldn't even call myself an amateur. But I had to stop reading the letter when he says "It's the most secure OS the world has ever seen..."

A quick hop over to the link provided for solaris shows how proud they are...of thier new logo. Call me crazy, but if you were to make the claim that you are releasing the "most secure OS the world has ever seen", wouldn't that be what was highlighted on the front page of the site you are pointing to?

Right, different audiences, different priorities, different reasons for installing an OS, but if you are claiming that you have the "most secure OS the world has ever seen" (still can't get over that) - say it loud, proud, and in bright red letters on the first page of your site. Heh.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-21-Score-for-CS-Blogs https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-21-Score-for-CS-Blogs Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I feel like a kid in one of those old milk commercials - you may try to com...ment $p4|\/| me, on....line pok...er, but my blog is running CS::Blogs, so your stupid comment doesn't get past my inbox. Comment moderation: it does a blog good.

This blog is not running the version of CS::Blogs that has moderation. As a matter of fact, this blog is running .Text version 0.94 because of a bug in the Metablog API implementation of v0.95. Sorry to get your hopes up, I was talking about my other blog on weblogs.asp.net.

[ Currently Playing : Floyd The Barber - Nirvana - Bleach (2:18) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-21-Halo-both-of-em https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-21-Halo-both-of-em Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've been playing Halo 2 recently, and I got to a part that reminded me why I lost interest in the first one.

Once you get to a certain part of the game (either one), it gets so difficult to advance that it's not fun anymore. Now, granted, I've never been close to being the Wizard, but gimme a break already. I guess it's back to Prince of Persia (again, either one) for me. UbiSoft gets it. Make a game that I'll want to play over and over.

</rant type="As If You Cared">

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-17-New-PostXING-release https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-17-New-PostXING-release Mon, 17 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've gone ahead and uploaded a new build of PostXING. I extended the plugin architecture a little bit to allow for posting to non-.Text blog engines using IBlogExtension plugins, of which there are a few out there already. Everything else is pretty much the same, but I had to give out some credit for the plugin architecture - I didn't come up with that stuff on my own and I'm all about giving credit where credit is due.

To test this IBlogExtension plugin architecture (really all you have to do is drop the IBlogExtension dll/exe into PostXING's plugins subdirectory) I created a blogger account that I could use the NewsGator blogger plugin to test against. Guess what? It works.

[ Currently Playing : No Excuses - Alice in Chains - Unplugged (4:56) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-13-IBlogExtension-from-the-other-side https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-13-IBlogExtension-from-the-other-side Thu, 13 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I can now use the great IBlogExtension plugins for NewsGator to post with PostXING. (with my built about 10 minutes ago dogfood version, that is :) Thanks for that idea, Joel.

The only problem with this method is that it's "push only" - I can only publish with these plugins. No history management, and strictly speaking, not manageable on the same level as using the Metablog API. So, I can't set an account for IBlogExtension blogs - no navigating to the site without manually opening a browser, basically no integration with the current UI. Categories seem to be up to the plugin as well. But I can post. That's one step in the right direction, right?

[ Currently Playing : Still Frame - Trapt - Trapt (4:30) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-12-RE-New-PostXING-release https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-12-RE-New-PostXING-release Wed, 12 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've uploaded a new release of PostXING to ProjectDistributor. This release adds the ability to Load or Save a post as a .htm file, as well as managing your blog (Categories, Post, Post & Publish, Cross-Post, Delete, and plugins) from the Preview page.

How ya like that, Bob? :)

I went ahead and included a couple of bugfixes that slipped into this release, so the latest version of PostXING is now uploaded and reflected on ProjectDistributor. Sorry I let a couple of bugs slip in there. Thanks for the feedback, Bob!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-12-New-PostXING-release https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-12-New-PostXING-release Wed, 12 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I've uploaded a new release of PostXING to ProjectDistributor. This release adds the ability to Load or Save a post as a .htm file, as well as managing your blog (Categories, Post, Post & Publish, Cross-Post, Delete, and plugins) from the Preview page.

How ya like that, Bob? :)

[ Currently Playing : God (Interlude) - Andre 3000 - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2:19) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-11-A-new-feature https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-11-A-new-feature Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

...for PostXING that I should have added a long time ago. It only took roughly 40 lines of code (including gratuitous whitespace). I'll give you a hint on what it is:

There are a couple of other things that I would like to implement before uploading a new release, tho. For example - I don't see a good reason why you shouldn't be able to post/publish/cross post from the preview pane. Also, Joel Ross gave me the spectacular idea of using existing IBlogExtension plugins to make posting to blogs other than .Text or some other Metablog API enabled blog engine not only possible, but extremely easy.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-07-RE-Couple-of-feature-requests https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-07-RE-Couple-of-feature-requests Fri, 07 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

 Couple of feature requests
posted by Bob Yexley on 1/7/2005 12:02:04 PM :
Hey nice work on the latest version. Spell checking works very nicely. There are a couple of things that I've noticed about the application that I thought would make it nicer that I wanted to mention. Fairly simple I'm pretty sure.

First off, especially with all of the different version releases you've had lately, I've wanted to check the "About" box to make sure that the correct new version was running after the new version, and I noticed that the current version isn't displayed on it. It would be great to have the current version displayed on the About box just for reference if nothing else.

I've also noticed that when I switch to the "Preview" tab, that the toolbar with the "Post & Publish" button disappears. Normally when I compose a new entry, I write it up in the editor tab, and then I check spelling (well, I will from now on anyway), and then I switch over to the preview tab to make sure everything looks OK with my stylesheets applied and all. Well, if everything looks good, I'd like to be able to just click "Post & Publish" right then and there, but since that toolbar is gone, I have to switch back to "Design" view to get that toolbar back to publish the entry. It seems to me like that's a fairly common toolbar, and maybe it (or it's buttons) should just be added to the standard toolbar that has the "Setting" button on it. At very least, it would be nice to have that one button displayed when using the "Preview" tab.

Thanks for the great free application though. I love it.

Now, that is some great feedback. I've got seperate use cases than what I always do and clear concise suggestions on how to implement them. These are the types of things that you as a developer don't tend to think of all the time because you are used to a certain useage scenario. I would have never thought of any of these (except maybe the about box thing. whoops :) There are of course some other things that I know the application needs - like for example validation maybe? Heh.

Honestly, tho, I'm just glad that a few people are finding my humble little app useful. But to anybody else who is using PostXING, I am always happy to at least consider making changes suggested on ProjectDistributor or my blog. It just makes it so much easier (and therefore likely to get implemented) with great feedback like Bob gave.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-06-Using-the-NetSpell-plugin-for-PostXING https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-06-Using-the-NetSpell-plugin-for-PostXING Thu, 06 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

With the latest release of PostXING, a plugin architecture has been added to allow for external extensions such as the new NetSpellPlugin that adds spell checking to PostXING.

All that is required to install the plugin is to add the .dll file to the plugins subdirectory of PostXING's install directory, for me that's C:\bin\PostXING\plugins. When you start PostXING, you should see a new button in the toolbar:

as well as a couple of entries in the plugins menu under the Tools main menu:

I really wish that was all there was to it, but unfortunately there's more that needs to be done. As I've said before, the spell checker is pretty well useless without a good dictionary file. If you try to use the plugin straightaway you should see this:

So how do you do that? By using the ... - Configure menuitem, of course! :) Before you configure, tho, you should download the correct (for you) .dic dictionary file by either going to LoreSoft's NetSpell page, creating your own, or downloading from http://vaultpub.sourcegear.com if you have SourceGear's Vault Client (at least version 3.0 at this time). Here's how to get the en-US.dic dictionary file from the command line:

Create a .bat file called getdic or whatever and put it either in your PATH or in SourceGear vault's install directory. Navigate to where vault.exe is located (for me it was cd C:\Program Files\SourceGear\Vault Client). Drop something like the following into the .bat file:

mkdir C:\tmp\vaultpub

vault get -host vaultpub.sourcegear.com -user guest -password guest -repository postxing -makewritable -destpath C:\tmp\vaultpub $/ThirdParty/dic/en-US.dic

Vault should tell you if you were successful or not in downloading the file. Note that the vault command above is all on one line. I don't know if the -makewritable is necessary or not, but this is what worked for me. Remember, if you prefer to blog in a different language (or a different, erm, dialect? of English) the ones available in vaultpub and from the NetSpell component itself are:

de-DE.dic
en-AU.dic
en-CA.dic
en-GB.dic
en-US.dic
es-ES.dic
es-MX.dic
fr-FR.dic
it-IT.dic

Now that you've downloaded the correct dictionary file, go to Tools -> Plugins -> ...- Configure and you'll be greeted by this simple dialog:

Above, we said download to C:\tmp\vaultpub(\en-US.dic) so navigate there and hit OK. (side note: this is necessary because depending on where PostXING is launched from, i.e. standalone or from the BlogThisUsingPostXINGPlugin, NetSpell will look in a different path (I think the Application.StartupPath) for the default dictionary based on your cultureInfo. This way, you can blog in English no matter what your cultureInfo is set to.)

You should now be able to spell check any Post from PostXING using either the toolbar button or the menu item.

[ Currently Playing : 99 Problems - Jay-Z - The Black Album (3:54) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-06-RE-I-am-Nerdier-than-Paul https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-06-RE-I-am-Nerdier-than-Paul Thu, 06 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I am: Not nerdy, but definitely not hip.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-06-Extensibility-Application-Block-a-review-of-an-implementation https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-06-Extensibility-Application-Block-a-review-of-an-implementation Thu, 06 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Royo asks:

I'm interested to know whether you found my Extensibility application block useful, or if you had to make many changes to it to make it workable.

The short answer to this question is: yes and that depends on your definition of 'many'.

The EAP was useful to me: without the ideas and articles supporting it, it would have taken me at least twice as long to implement a spell checking plugin for PostXING. That said, there were some hurdles I had to overcome in order to get it working consistently for me.

First, let me say that I wanted to mimic RssBandit's plugin architecture because a) I have the source code handy and b) it works. RssBandit's method of loading plugins (called "ServiceManager")...

/// <summary>
/// ServiceManager implements a similar algorithm described in
/// http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/using/building/components/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/searchforplugins.asp 
/// to find classes in assemblies that implements Syndication.Extensibility.IBlogExtension.
/// </summary>

Well, guess what? The author of the above article and the EAP are one and the same! Good news for me.

Okay, that said, I was unable to get the DynamicFindPluginProvider to work correctly consistently. The problem was that I was trying to load an assembly from within itself (I think - I'm no reflection guru by any means) and the result was that when the application was launched standalone it would work, when it was launched from the plugin in would b0rk.

I also had to add some properties and methods to the IPlugin interface and the AppContext class in order for IPlugin to be even remotely useful to me. I found out rather quickly that I was going to need some way to configure each IPlugin implementation individually, so I "borrowed" that part of the contract from IBlogExtension. A couple of properties were required in my case in AppContext -

		protected bool _isCallingFromHostApplication = true;
		public virtual bool IsCallingFromHostApplication{
			get{return _isCallingFromHostApplication;}
			set{_isCallingFromHostApplication = value;}
		}

		protected string _currentEditorText = string.Empty;
		public virtual string CurrentEditorText{
			get{ return _currentEditorText;}
			set{ _currentEditorText = value;}
		}

CurrentEditorText shows up in some of Roy's articles, but not the EAP itself. I'm interested in the text, but I can see that CurrentEditorText is not generic enough to be included by default. This kind of makes me think that the EAP is mis-named: it's really a foundation, or building block, whereas the Patterns & Practices Application Blocks come kind of ready-to-go OOB. That doesn't detract from its validity and usefulness - I've just become accustomed to not having to modify an "Application Block" to get it working right away.

Anyways, semantics aside, I needed these properties for dealing with the IPlugin correctly. The override of CurrentEditorText in my app-specific AppContext (called PostXINGAppContext, natch) raises an event saying that it was modified on set, and the consuming event loads the text back into the editor only if the CurrentEditorText was not set by the calling application - I thought that might end up in endless loads of text into the editor which would get rid of the usefulness of a plugin. I could be wrong, but that's what I went with, okay?😃

I found it useful to inherit my IPlugin implementation from the GenericDockablePlugin, even tho there is no UI except for the NetSpell-supplied dialogs. This way, I was able to set an icon thru the designer and have it embedded as a resource instead of including it with the install of the dll. It was just the easiest way to get from idea to implementation for me.

In summary, the EAP is great as a building block for getting plugin functionality into your windows forms app. With some minor modifications, I was able to pull functionality that was originally going to be part of the host application out into a plugin in a few hours.

[ Currently Playing : Tip Your Bartender - Glassjaw - Worship & Tribute (2:59) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-05-RE-MVP-Again-OR-Here-Come-the-MeToos https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-05-RE-MVP-Again-OR-Here-Come-the-MeToos Wed, 05 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

I just found out that I got the nod for Microsoft MVP again for 2005. I was hoping that would be the case, because I really enjoyed going to the MVP Summit last year, and was looking forward to going again in 2005.

[Via Jonathan Goodyear / angryCoder]

So, er, me too ;) except I hope to make this year's my first MVP summit.
Congrats, John!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-05-How-bad-do-you-want-spellchecking https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-05-How-bad-do-you-want-spellchecking Wed, 05 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Well, I've implemented it. I figured out a way to have a user-defined dictionary location (very simple implementation), but now I'm still facing the dilemma of where do I point to for the dictionaries? Like I said before, the NetSpell component comes with a few dictionaries by default.

OpenOffice has a project called lingucomponent that has a more exhaustive listing of dictionaries, but they are not in the same format that NetSpell uses. (I even tried using the en_US dictionary. Needless to say it was useless as it stopped on every word.) However, there is an article for NetSpell about creating a custom dictionary, although I don't know, looking at the contents of the files together, if that will be of much help at all.

Either way, it looks like it might require a download of the NetSpell software for the included dictionaries and the dictionary build tool. What do you think?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-04-Set-your-FileAccess https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-04-Set-your-FileAccess Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

When I was working on the latest release of the BlogThisUsingPostXINGPlugin, I kept running into file access issues.

The whole thing was an excersize in refactoring - well, really, the whole thing WAS a refactor, since the basic functionality already existed, but I was making additions in how things were going to work.

First, I changed the XsltStream to return a FileStream or a ManifestResourceStream, based on the existence of a user-specific file:

  1 		Stream XsltStream
  2 		{
  3 			get
  4 			{
  5 				string filePath = Path.Combine(ConfigurationPath, this.BlogType.ToString() + ".xslt");
  6 				if(File.Exists(filePath)){
  7 					//read from a file stream.
  8 					FileStream fs = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open);
  9 					return (Stream)fs;
 10 				}else{
 11 					string resourceName = "PostXING.Rss.BlogExtensions.Resources." + this.BlogType.ToString() + ".xslt";
 12 					return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream(resourceName);
 13 				}
 14 			}
 15 		}

Again, this part was shamelessly modified from haacked who generously gave out the source code for his BlogThisUsingWbloggarPlugin. (the configurationPath property was changed a bit to enable more than one file to go into that particular path).

Then I added a button next to each option in the config dialog that says simply "Customize...". Pressing this button opens a modal form that loads up the text from the user-defined file if it exists, else from the resource stream.:

  1 		string transformPath;
  2 
  3 		public CustomizeForm()
  4 		{
  5 			//
  6 			// Required for Windows Form Designer support
  7 			//
  8 			InitializeComponent();
  9 
 10 		}
 11 
 12 		public CustomizeForm(string TransformToCustomize) : this(){
 13 			transformPath = Path.Combine(BlogThisUsingPostXINGPlugin.ConfigurationPath, string.Format("{0}.xslt", TransformToCustomize));
 14 
 15 			this.LoadTransform(TransformToCustomize);
 16 		}	
 17 
 18 		private void LoadTransform(string TransformToCustomize){			
 19 			string resourceName = string.Format("PostXING.Rss.BlogExtensions.Resources.{0}.xslt", TransformToCustomize);
 20 			//Stream resourceStream;
 21 			StreamReader sr;
 22 
 23 			if(File.Exists(transformPath)){
 24 				sr = new StreamReader(transformPath);
 25 				this.rtbTransform.Text = sr.ReadToEnd();
 26 				sr.Close();
 27 				
 28 			}else{
 29 				sr = new StreamReader(ResourceStream(resourceName));
 30 				this.rtbTransform.Text = sr.ReadToEnd();
 31 				sr.Close();
 32 				
 33 			}
 34 		}
 35 
 36 		Stream ResourceStream(string resourceName){
 37 			return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream(resourceName);
 38 		}

3 buttons were added to the form: Revert to Original, Apply, and Cancel. I didn't really think that I needed DialogResults, since you have to invoke the plugin via its menu every time you want to use it. Revert to Original just deletes the user-defined file. Cancel simply closes the form and does nothing. Apply does this:

  1 		private void btnApply_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
  2 			if(File.Exists(transformPath)){
  3 				File.Delete(transformPath);
  4 			}
  5 
  6 			StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(transformPath, false); //doesn't release file handle?
  7 			sw.Write(this.rtbTransform.Text);
  8 			sw.Flush();
  9 			sw.Close();
 10 
 11 			this.Close();
 12 		}

Notice my little note to myself? It turned out that I tried using the using statement, using File.CreateText(transformPath) (which is why the pre-step File.Delete is in there) and I kept getting "Cannot access file 'blah' because it is in use by another process." When I opened up sysinternal's process explorer and searched for the file, it said that the file handle was opened by RssBandit. grr.

All I ended up having to do was to add one argument to File.Open from the XsltStream property getter:

  1 		Stream XsltStream
  2 		{
  3 			get
  4 			{
  5 				string filePath = Path.Combine(ConfigurationPath, this.BlogType.ToString() + ".xslt");
  6 				if(File.Exists(filePath)){
  7 					//read from a file stream.
  8 					FileStream fs = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
  9 					return (Stream)fs;
 10 				}else{
 11 					string resourceName = "PostXING.Rss.BlogExtensions.Resources." + this.BlogType.ToString() + ".xslt";
 12 					return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream(resourceName);
 13 				}
 14 			}
 15 		}

And bam! the problem went away. It looks like the default for a new FileStream (sans FileAccess attribute) is FileAccess.ReadWrite. Anyways, I hope this helps someone else out there from banging their head too much.

[ Currently Playing : Inertiatic ESP - Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium (4:23) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-04-RE-new-domain-name-for-Aceh-Aid https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-04-RE-new-domain-name-for-Aceh-Aid Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

What do they need? MONEY of course to pay for the supplies going into Aceh. Macs, lots of macs and digital cameras and more.

An external hard drive for backing up precious data. More money. Stuff. Sleep. Rest. Peace.

http://www.AcehAid.org

[Via Julia Lerman Blog - Don't Be Iffy...]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-04-New-customizable-version-of-BlogThisUsingPostXINGPlugin-available https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2005-01-04-New-customizable-version-of-BlogThisUsingPostXINGPlugin-available Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This new version of the BlogThisUsingPostXINGPlugin handles customizing the transform used to output into a new Post in PostXING. For example, say I want to have the title of the post referenced in the post body. I would start off with the LinkOnly.xslt option:

  1 <?xml version="1.0" ?>
  2 <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  3 	<xsl:output method="html" /> 
  4 	<xsl:variable name="feed-title" select="/rss/channel/title" />
  5 	
  6 	<xsl:template match="/">
  7 		<xsl:apply-templates select="//item" />
  8 	</xsl:template>
  9 
 10 	<xsl:template match="/rss/channel/item">
 11 		<html>
 12 		<title>RE: <xsl:value-of select="title" /></title>
 13 		<xsl:choose><xsl:when test="link"><a href="{link}"><xsl:value-of select="$feed-title" /></a></xsl:when><xsl:otherwise><xsl:value-of select="$feed-title" /></xsl:otherwise></xsl:choose>
 14 		</html>
 15 	</xsl:template>
 16 </xsl:stylesheet>

Line 13 is the key line. All I did was change the use of xsl:variable to the actual title that is context-specific in this case. So we now have:

  1 <?xml version="1.0" ?>
  2 <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  3 	<xsl:output method="html" /> 
  4 	<xsl:variable name="feed-title" select="/rss/channel/title" />
  5 	
  6 	<xsl:template match="/">
  7 		<xsl:apply-templates select="//item" />
  8 	</xsl:template>
  9 
 10 	<xsl:template match="/rss/channel/item">
 11 		<html>
 12 		<title>RE: <xsl:value-of select="title" /></title>
 13 		<xsl:choose><xsl:when test="link"><a href="{link}"><xsl:value-of select="title" /></a></xsl:when><xsl:otherwise><xsl:value-of select="title" /></xsl:otherwise></xsl:choose>
 14 		</html>
 15 	</xsl:template>
 16 </xsl:stylesheet>

Subtle difference, but it changes a post from this:

Frans Bouma's blog

to this:

Template Studio for LLBLGen Pro released!

I only left the three default options for formatting in there with the idea that most of the time, I would only want to use one of these anyways. This opens up the door for this plugin to be completely customized, to where the descriptions don't mean anything for the content of the actual transform.

[ Currently Playing : Killer Is Me - Alice in Chains - Unplugged (5:23) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-31-IPlugin-implemented https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-31-IPlugin-implemented Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

So I ended up working out a method to load plugins - it's a hybrid of Royo's Extensibility Application Block and the method used by RssBandit. Now, I do have rudimentary spell checking in my dogfood version of PostXING (again :), but I'm having trouble figuring out how to handle the dictionary files.

By default, NetSpell looks for a culture-sensitive .dic(tionary) file from the Application.StartupPath (I think - when trying to launch PostXING from the BlogThisUsingPostXINGPlugin, it complains that it cannot find the file...\bin\RssBandit\en-US.dic) I manually copied the en-US.dic file to PostXING's root folder and it works when launching the program by itself.

The thing is that you can specify which dictionary file you want to use in the component as well as where that file is located. This would be helpful in situations where your CultureInfo is set to something other than English, but you mainly post to your blog using the English language. I'm thinking that I might be able to address this using something like the IBlogExtension idea of HasConfiguration or HasEditingGUI or a combination of the two. This means that this part of PostXING is gonna take a little bit longer to finish than I originally thought - I want to get it right, ya know?

Also, I don't know how I'm going to handle the distribution of the dictionary files - NetSpell comes with these by default:

de-DE.dic
en-AU.dic
en-CA.dic
en-GB.dic
en-US.dic
es-ES.dic
es-MX.dic
fr-FR.dic
it-IT.dic

with a combined size of nearly 10MB. (The biggest one is de-DE at 2.1Mb). There's no way I could host all of these on ProjectDistributor - that would be an abuse of a great service. I am so open to ideas on how to address this one it's not even funny. The spell checker is pretty well useless without a good dictionary file to back it up. Anyways, these are the issues I'm facing while trying to get this great spell checking component implemented as a plugin. Happy New Year!

[ Currently Playing : Down in a Hole - Alice in Chains - Unplugged (5:45) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-30-A-couple-of-releases https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-30-A-couple-of-releases Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

So I released a new version of PostXING , adding support for the new IBlogExtension plugin I was talking about the other day. Oh, I released the BlogThisUsingPostXING plugin, too.

I think I mentioned that I got the large part of the source code for that one from haacked, but if I didn't, I am now. The source is in no way original by me, I just hacked the solution from his improved plugin for using w.bloggar with RSS Bandit.

To use the plugin, the latest version of PostXING is required - it writes out the location of PostXING so everyone knows how to play nicely together and also takes in (kind of) an html file for adding post information to PostXING on load. Sorry about that - I had no idea how to get this working before I got this great code sample from haacked. I'm sure that neither one of you will mind that much, tho.

[ Currently Playing : Alpha Centauri - At The Drive-In - In Casino Out (3:13) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-22-RE-IBlogExtension https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-22-RE-IBlogExtension Wed, 22 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Bob wants to see some integration of RssBandit and PostXING.

This was an idea I had really early on simply because a lot of the features in PostXING were, ahem, borrowed from w.bloggar, and RssBandit already supports a plugin that starts w.bloggar for posting to a weblog. So, why couldn't I do something similar?

Well, I thought that it had something to do with implementing IBlogExtension, for which I couldn't find too much documentation. Maybe it's such a simple thing to implement that only a yutz like me would need documentation. I honestly don't know and haven't looked into it too much simply because I didn't have an immediate need for it.

Once Dare adds deleting capabilities to RssBandit, I have a feeling that it's going to become my default aggregator again. After that, look out for an RssBandit plugin to post using PostXING.

[ Currently Playing : Love Life - Fatboy Slim - Halfway Between the Gutter and Stars(6:58) ]

[Via Blue Phoenix]

I got a rudimentary version of this working. I couldn't figure out how to download the original post into RssBandit, so I'm just using my original reply to the post.

I'd like to thank Haacked for providing a series of walkthrus as well as a code download for an improved version of "Blog This with w.bloggar..." which I basically hacked to work with PostXING. I'll probably release this closer to the new year or after the first so I can make sure that everything is working okay - the only version that is working correctly for me so far is the full version. A new version of PostXING will be necessary to make this work as well - I never thought to make sure that any application that knew or cared could find out where PostXING lived...so I made this happen with a simple text file and a call to

System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location;

Also, I found the need to close off the StreamWriter that was being used to write the temp file using XslTransform b/c I was getting access is denied errors, so the code that did that now looks like so:

	XslTransform transform = new XslTransform();
	transform.Load(new XmlTextReader(XsltStream), null, null);


	string tempfile = Path.GetTempFileName();//@"c:\tmp\plugin\" + this.BlogType.ToString() + ".html";  
	StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(tempfile);
	transform.Transform(rssFragment, null, sw, null);

	sw.Close();

So with that and a little bit of Agility, this was about a two-hour enhancement. Next I'm going to look into creating (well, probably "borrowing") a plugin architecture so that I can create a spell checking plugin for PostXING without bloating the main download too much.

[ Currently Playing : Burn Away - Foo Fighters - One by One (4:57) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-20-RE-Cross-posting-A-new-trend https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-20-RE-Cross-posting-A-new-trend Mon, 20 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I started to make this a reply in Shawn's comments, but decided it was getting too long-winded to be a comment. You get a post, Shawn. In his comments, someone suggested that he try out PostXING, which is cool (!) but, he seems to have the wrong impression of PostXING's erm...limitations.

>I did try PostXing, and it's another tool that assumes that cross-posting is against only one server.

It does? That's news to me! :)

The real limitation of the current PostXING drop is that it only expects to work with the metablog API. MT has its own API that is very similar, but not exactly the same which is bad news for an xml-rpc client. I guess I could add support for other authoring apis (ATOM is what I really have in mind - just for fun), but this is something that I do in my free time.

Add that to the fact that adding different authoring APIs would mean handling the configuration etc. differently within the app - I only ever intended to use this as a personal tool. My ideas are limited, but I'm always willing to at least consider (and usually try) feature requests, so if you use PostXING or would like to, let me know what you'd like to see or what you don't want to see anymore. I'm pretty open to suggestions, and I've come to the realization that most of the users of PostXING are way smarter than me anyways.

One idea that came up while all the hubbub was going on concerning the Provider Model was to use just that to make posting to different apis more transparent, but I'm usually against doing something just because it's the current "fad". The fact of the matter is that I've never needed the functionality to post to different types of api's than the metablog api, so I never put in the facility to do so. I would not, however, be against adding support for this particular feature if there is really a need (okay, come on - want) for it and I had some solid implementation suggestions for doing so.

[ Currently Playing : Sunset (Bird of Prey) - Fatboy Slim - Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars(6:49) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-16-Paul-D-Murphys-Google-Juice-research https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-16-Paul-D-Murphys-Google-Juice-research Thu, 16 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Paul is trying to find out what effect blogs have on google juice. He's decided to coin the term 'consummate asshole' "because it has very little competition on the google world (and it's funny)."

So, being the helpful person that I am, I decided to give him a (very!) little boost by adding the following phrase and link to a couple of my blogs:

 Paul D Murphy is the consummate asshole

Good Luck, Paul, you consummate asshole, you.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-13-Southpark-Me https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-13-Southpark-Me Mon, 13 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

South Park Me:

(which is not too far away from) Real Me:

No, I don't work for Microsoft, but I am wearing this shirt today. I need a shave, don't I? (this picture was taken from my Motorola V400.)

: Just to be fair, here's another shirt that I wear sometimes:

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-07-ProjectDistributor-the-chicken-AND-the-egg https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-07-ProjectDistributor-the-chicken-AND-the-egg Tue, 07 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Well, it looks like Darren decided to confuse the hell out of me and make his Project Distributor available for download at guess where? Project Distributor! Okay, maybe it's not that confusing (or maybe I just confuse too easily :)

This is great news - ever since I've made PostXING available for download at Project Distributor I've had nothing but great things to say about the service...and now I can have it on a server all my own! Cheers, Darren, for coming up with a great idea and making it available to everyone. You rock.

[ Currently Playing : Two Tabs of Mescaline - Glassjaw - Worship & Tribute (8:18) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-03-Wooohooo https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-03-Wooohooo Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Darren went and fixed my Project Distributor blunder...now you can get the latest version of PostXING from the place it was originally released.

Thanks, Darren.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-03-Wes-you-Rock https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-03-Wes-you-Rock Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Forreal.

I had been using a different, "static" library to do syntax highlighting before...Now, if you don't like how a certain language is configured, change it! CodeHtmler is great. It gives me the option to add or modify language definitions (Generics, anyone?) IF I so desire, and it just dropped right into my app with an interface to edit the definitions already there. That's HOTT. But (in my best Lavar Burton voice) Don't take my word for it.

I changed two lines of code (well, Wes did :) in PostXING and it was up and running. I'm not quite ready to release the next version of PostXING yet - I've still got a little bit of smoke testing to do on the spellchecker, and I just want to make sure all the new goodies work before getting angry feature requests on Project Distributor!

So, thanks, Wes. You have made PostXING a better program.

[ Currently Playing : Ape Dos Mil - Glassjaw - Worship & Tribute (5:03) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-02-Prince-of-Persia-2-the-Warrior-Within https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-02-Prince-of-Persia-2-the-Warrior-Within Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Damn.

That's right, I said Damn.

It looks and feels so much like the first one (which I beat about 6 or 7 times without getting tired of it) but UbiSoft did a good job of extending the story; even making the Prince look and even move like he's older. It's the little details that I'm talking about - the fact that it takes him a little more effort to swing on poles and things of that nature.

I didn't seem to get very far in the game; since you go back and forth thru time you're really in the same area just in two different time frames. It did land me in the doghouse, tho, since I was only going to play for an hour or so and ended up playing like 4. Who needs sleep anyways, right? 😃

[ Currently Playing : Forty Six & 2 - Tool - Aenima (6:03) ]

P.S. I intentionally misspelled a lot of words in this post to test out the spell checker of PostXING...works pretty well, that is, if you don't mind seeing markup when you spell check 😃 I've still gotta test it some more, but it should be ready pretty soon I hope.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-01-Does-this-mean-Ive-made-it https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-12-01-Does-this-mean-Ive-made-it Wed, 01 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT

It took nearly two years, but it looks like I've posted something interesting enough to show up on the Daily Grind.

It's linked over there as opposed to here, tho, which makes me that much happier that I can syndicate identical content to more than one place, one of said places getting a tremendously larger amount of traffic than the others.

[ Currently Playing : Sideways - Citizen Cope - Shaman (4:41) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-30-Posted-too-soon https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-30-Posted-too-soon Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

It looks like I created (or rather raised an awareness to) a little snafu on ProjectDistributor 😕

The latest release of PostXING didn't upload properly, so I'm putting a temporary download on my server: PostXINGv1.0.4335.1.zip

- it's fixed!

I also rolled back the release to the last one that worked as a download over at ProjectDistributor.net.

I'll be taking both down as soon as Darren lets me know things are well again. Sorry to both of you that care.

[ Currently Playing : Star 69 - Fatboy Slim - Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars(5:42) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-30-LoreSoft https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-30-LoreSoft Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I feel like I've hit .net developer's gold.

I was searching for a spell checking component and came across this site (with the help of Don Smith). Not only is there a spell checker component there (which looks pretty good at first glance) but there are a bunch of other useful tools ranging from a Windows API file search wrapper to web access for Visual SourceSafe and Draco.NET.

Good stuff.

P.S. I'm hoping to add spell checking and a couple of other items to PostXING. If you'd like to snag a copy, you can find the latest release here.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-30-IBlogExtension https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-30-IBlogExtension Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Bob wants to see some integration of RssBandit and PostXING. This was an idea I had really early on simply because a lot of the features in PostXING were, ahem, borrowed from w.bloggar, and RssBandit already supports a plugin that starts w.bloggar for posting to a weblog. So, why couldn't I do something similar?

Well, I thought that it had something to do with implementing IBlogExtension, for which I couldn't find too much documentation. Maybe it's such a simple thing to implement that only a yutz like me would need documentation. I honestly don't know and haven't looked into it too much simply because I didn't have an immediate need for it.

Once Dare adds deleting capabilities to RssBandit, I have a feeling that it's going to become my default aggregator again. After that, look out for an RssBandit plugin to post using PostXING.

[ Currently Playing : Love Life - Fatboy Slim - Halfway Between the Gutter and Stars(6:58) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-26-Hey-Scoble https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-26-Hey-Scoble Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

By the way, Scoble, I do read your blog...I just can't remember everything that gets posted there! Don't you remember posting 60 - 70 items in one night before?

Thanks btw for pointing out my misinformed previous post. Hope you enjoyed your turkey-day 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-25-Fact-check-first-Christopher https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-25-Fact-check-first-Christopher Thu, 25 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Ouch. Looks like I should find out if a picture I post to my blog is authentic or not before posting 😒

Robert Scoble

This is a well-known hoax. I guess you don't read my blog. I got sucked into this one too.

Dean Harding

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-24-Weve-come-a-long-way-baby https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-24-Weve-come-a-long-way-baby Wed, 24 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

From 1954 Popular Mechanics:

[ Currently Playing : Low - Foo Fighters - One by One (04:28) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-24-Ive-got-a-little-pirate https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-24-Ive-got-a-little-pirate Wed, 24 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

My son, Ethan, has started pretending to be a pirate sometimes on the weekends that he visits me.

This past weekend, he got a sticker from Kroger's and proceeded to put it over his eye -

"aaah matey! wokka pank! (dat means tro u ovabord)"

Ethan sure knows how to make his Daddy proud! (I think it's hilarious)

[ Currently Playing : Have It All - Foo Fighters - One by One (04:58) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-19-Free-Icons-at-EggHeadCafe https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-19-Free-Icons-at-EggHeadCafe Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I was doing my early morning googling and came across this - a set of free icons in the WinXP custom format. Really nice if you want to add that touch of candy to your apps, be they windows or webforms. There are also a set of spheres there that have a slew of different colors...That along with the FireFox extension downTHEMall made for a great 5 minutes of getting some nice starter icon sets.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-19-CODESNIP-Creating-C-like-indexers-in-VBNET https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-19-CODESNIP-Creating-C-like-indexers-in-VBNET Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Well, kind of 😃 I have a collection that I want to access in C# with an indexer, the only problem is that the collection is written in VB.NET as part of a library which I need to consume and would be foolhardy to try and rewrite in C#.

It's just a mixture of attributes and keywords - but gets me from having to call

MyCollection.get_Item();

to

MyCollection[];

Just a stylistic approach on my end to keep the readability of my C# consumer as high as possible. This is basically what I used:

 System.Reflection
...
<DefaultMember()> _ 
  MyCollection
	 System.Collections.CollectionBase

	  Add( NewObj  )
		List.Add(NewObj)
	 

	...

	     Item( Index  Int32) _
		 
		
			((List.Item(Index), )
		 
	 

	     Item( Key  ) _
		 
		
			(GetByKey(Key))
		 
	 
...
 

I don't know if the Default on the properties are required, but this worked for me. So I'm not messing with it 😃 Hope this can help someone else out there.

[ Currently Playing : High and Dry - Radiohead - The Bends (4:05) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-19-Bring-Back-KLOL https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-19-Bring-Back-KLOL Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

 http://bringbackklol.com/index.php

  http://www.rock101.info/speakout/

Did you wake up to Spanish music? Clear Channel has decided to make a format change at Houston expense. Rock 101 KLOL is no longer and we have another Spanish channel to go along with Houston's other 16 Spanish channels. We need to show Clear Channel that we will not just stand by while a 32-year-old station is removed from the air.

I was devistated. I was listening to Walton and Johnson in the morning, and all of a sudden in the afternoon I'm hearing spanish music. If you live in the Houston area and give a flying flip (or hell, even if neither apply) please visit bringbackklol.com and sign the petition to bring back one of the best rock stations out there. It can be done.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-15-Happy-Birthday-to-me https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-15-Happy-Birthday-to-me Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I'm 24 today 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-11-test https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-11-test Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Sorry - sometimes it's necessary, tho 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-04-Stupid-error-messages https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-04-Stupid-error-messages Thu, 04 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I could have sworn I saw this on someone else's blog recently, but I just encountered a pretty dumb error from a hiccup on this very server.

I've recently added a new server to our network that will ultimately be a DC (did I mention I hate network administration?) so I decided to make this server "headless" - only admining it from VNC or RDP. Well, when a reboot was necessary, I found a nice little message on bootup (by plugging the KVM back into this server) that said "Error - Keyboard not found. Press F1 to continue or DEL to enter setup."

So...how am I supposed to do this when there is NO KEYBOARD? Heh, it was just mildly annoying - but since it was easily recoverable, I'm able to laugh about it not even 30 minutes later.

[ Currently Playing : Guess Who's Back feat. Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel - Scarface - The Fix (4:15) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-04-ProjectDistributor-rox-your-sox https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-11-04-ProjectDistributor-rox-your-sox Thu, 04 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I just can't pimp Darren's new ProjectDistributor enough. Look at the ideas this guy comes up with. Every time I chat with him, something new is coming down the pike. Let me say, not just new, but innovative, fresh...sometimes so beautifully simple that I have to think "why didn't I think of that?". You know you're onto something when you make others say that.

Anyways, Thanks Darren for giving me a little space to place my snippets and for coming up with a great idea that keeps getting better.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-10-28-How-I-use-the-new-preview-template-in-PostXING https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-10-28-How-I-use-the-new-preview-template-in-PostXING Thu, 28 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

It starts off (defaults) using something like the following (newlines added for readability):

<html>
<head><link rel='stylesheet' href='style.css'></link>
</head>
<body>
<div id='main'><div class='post'>
<h2><a href='[Post Url]'>[Post Title]</a></h2>
[Post Body]
</div></div>
</body>
</html>

Basically, I just go to the actual blog (using the 'view blog' button) and view source. The one here is currently using something that I hacked together pretty quickly from a layout that I, ahem, 'borrowed' from Thomas Johansen. It looks like so (again, newlines added):

<HTML>
<HEAD> 
<link type='text/css' rel='stylesheet' href='http://www.chrisfrazier.net/blog/skins/nGalleryBlue/style.css'></link>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.chrisfrazier.net/blog/customcss.aspx" type="text/css" ></HEAD>
<BODY>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mainTable">
<tr><td class='contentCell'>
<div id='main'> 
<div class='post'>
<div class='news'>
<div class='posttitle'>
<a href='[Post Url]'>[Post Title]</a>
</div>
<div class='postcontent'>[Post Body]</div>
</div></div></div>
</td></tr></table>
</BODY>
</HTML>

This changes the both the Preview Page and the History Explorer from looking like this: 

to looking like this:

[ Currently Playing : Myxomatosis. (Judge, Jury & Ex - Radiohead - Hail To The Thief (3:52) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-10-22-PostXING-Released https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-10-22-PostXING-Released Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I finally released my little home-hacked tool to the wild, Thanks to Darren and his awesome Project Distributor.

PostXING was originally just something that I wanted to use to see what I could successfully do in the world of WindowsForms. I never intended to release it forreal because who needs another desktop blog editor, right? Well, I've been successfully using it for months now, so I figured, why not share the love?

A lot of people helped me along the way, and they're indicated in the about dialog. Big shout out goes to ScottWater for showing the way initially - a lot of the codebase was inspired by a similar tool that he wrote. Another shout out to Wes Haggard for helping me get the latest feature in - I extended his idea a little bit as I tend to do.

So if you still don't have a WYSIWYG desktop blog publishing tool, and you have .NET 1.1 on your machine, or you wanna just check it out - find it here.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-10-12-I-see-ya https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-10-12-I-see-ya Tue, 12 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

whut?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-10-06-How-Jedi-Are-you https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-10-06-How-Jedi-Are-you Wed, 06 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

:: how jedi are you? ::

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-09-28-Happy-Birthday-G https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-09-28-Happy-Birthday-G Tue, 28 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Well, it looks like Gino's enjoying his day...

Glad to hear that - you deserve it you old bastard ;) Oh, and btw, I found this out b/c bloglines has a subscribe to xanga member's weblog feature...that's awesome!

(( What I'm listening to: No Woman, No Cry - The Fugees - The Score (4:33) ))

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-09-23-CodeSnip-Getting-Currently-Playing-info-from-Windows-Media-Player-using-the-blogging-power-toy https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-09-23-CodeSnip-Getting-Currently-Playing-info-from-Windows-Media-Player-using-the-blogging-power-toy Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I don't know whom this would benefit but someone building a blog posting tool for the desktop, but anyway here's the code that I converted from the jscript example that comes with the Windows Media Player bloggingpowertoy :

 System;
 Microsoft.Win32;

  MediaPlayerInfo
	{

		   GetCurrentlyPlayingMedia(){
			RegistryKey regKey = Registry.CurrentUser;
			regKey = regKey.OpenSubKey();

			 displayString = ;

			 hasMetadata = ;

			 trackInfo = ;

			{
				trackInfo = regKey.GetValue().ToString();

				(trackInfo.Length != 0){
					hasMetadata = ;

					displayString += trackInfo + ;
				}
			}{
				{
					trackInfo = ;
					trackInfo = regKey.GetValue().ToString();

					(trackInfo.Length != 0){
						hasMetadata = ;

						displayString += trackInfo + ;
					}
				}{}
			}

			{
				trackInfo = ;
				trackInfo = regKey.GetValue().ToString();

				(trackInfo.Length != 0){
					hasMetadata = ;

					displayString +=  + trackInfo + ;
				}
			}{}

			{
				trackInfo = ;
				trackInfo = regKey.GetValue().ToString();

				(trackInfo.Length != 0){
					hasMetadata = ;

					displayString +=  + trackInfo;
				}
			} {}

			{
				trackInfo = ;
				trackInfo = regKey.GetValue().ToString();

				(trackInfo.Length != 0){
					hasMetadata = ;

					displayString +=  + trackInfo;
				}
			}{}


			(!hasMetadata){
				displayString += ;
			}

			displayString += ;

			 displayString;
		}
	}

It could probably stand to be a bit more flexible - ie user-defined by a template like w.bloggar, but for the basics it works great! Oh yeah, and let's not forget the output:

[ Currently Listening to: Rage Against The Machine - Pocket Full of Shells (03:52) ]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-09-11-Embrace-and-Extend-MikeDubs-IUI-article https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-09-11-Embrace-and-Extend-MikeDubs-IUI-article Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I've been doing a lot of that lately (embracing and extending). So I'm reading thru Mike's latest article, thinking how can I apply this to an application I'm currently developing?

In the article, he mentions that Office 2003 uses both a deductive and inductive UI for various parts of the interface (see his article for a much better explanation than I could give you.) So I tried it out. I downloaded the code and applied something very similar to the Office example shown in the article using Tim Dawson's awesome Sandbar library.

There was a problem, though. By virtue of a vertical scrollbar, enabled, disabled, visible, or invisible, it always showed up in a space where I need those 23 pixels. It's important. I wanted to take the code that was in the example download and make sure I could remove the scrollbar without breaking things. Well, the way that the code is set up now, you've got to have a Frame class to associate with each Page class. Period.

At first I tried subclassing the Frame class, but the VS.NET designer did not like that too much. We want to play nice with the designer always, right? Sure we do. (If you don't think so about asp.net, you will soon I'm sure:) What was missing from this puzzle? Looking at the Frame class a little bit further, it became obvious: this code is begging for an interface implementation. Just taking the public methods that were exposed in the Frame class, I came up with the IFrame interface:

  IFrame	{
	
	 Go(Page page);

	 Go(Type pageType);

	 GoBack();

	 GoBack( n);

	 GoForward();

	 GoForward( n);

	 GoHome();

	 PageDown();

	 PageEnd();

	 PageHome();

	 PageUp();
}

Then I changed the Page class's reference to its parent frame to hold an IFrame reference:

 IFrame Frame{
		get{  frame;}		set{ frame = value;}
}

Bam. That's it. I then created a class that I called StaticFrame and removed the horizontal and vertical scrollbars from it, implementing only those methods defined in the interface and those required to maintain NavigationContext. Now I've got a great navigation story for a sidebar/taskpane type interface in my applications.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-09-01-Added-New-Articles https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-09-01-Added-New-Articles Wed, 01 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMT

You can find them here or there.

One of them was really just a VB.NET version of another article that I wrote a while back that was left in the comments by Robert Sindall.

Hope someone finds them useful.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-08-17-url123com https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-08-17-url123com Tue, 17 Aug 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Okay, so I haven't posted for a while and you don't care. Established.

But you've gotta check this out, for real. Francesco Sanfilippo has been putting in work on www.url123.com , an asp.net link shortening solution.

Right, there are a lot of them out there, but this makes it so easy for me to shorten a url...I don't have to have the site open or even remember the name. How do I do this? Easy - bookmarklets.

A bookmarklet is one of those things that is so simple, it's beautiful. Scenario: I'm chatting with someone on msn messenger, talking about NUnit. The nunit-gui comes up in the conversation, and I want to point them to this post but decide that the url is too long for the messenger output. Since I've already added the bookmarklet, instead of this person seeing this [ http://weblogs.asp.net/jsgreenwood/archive/2004/08/16/214901.aspx ] they see this [  http://url123.com/hsz4u ].

All I did was hit a button on my browser! That's it! nice...

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-08-10-In-case-you-didnt-know https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-08-10-In-case-you-didnt-know Tue, 10 Aug 2004 00:00:00 GMT

CodeSmith r00l3z.

I recently did my semi-annual "house cleaning", where instead of just getting rid of all the accumulated crap I've got on my dev box, I repave and start over. I did this with the idea that I wouldn't install anything without needing it first. Heh, maybe I can keep my start menu down to one column this time ;).

So the need arises for CodeSmith - I need a custom collection, and I want to do it from VS.NET. Well, I head over to my \bin folder, and there's codesmith, waiting with a .bat file to re-register itself in VS.NET (vsnet2003_register.bat). I didn't have to reinstall, I just ran the batch file and I've got a custom collection. Thanks, codesmith :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-07-27-Where-in-the-hell-have-you-been https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-07-27-Where-in-the-hell-have-you-been Tue, 27 Jul 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Short answer: working.

Longer answer: I've been learning so much lately that my brain hasn't had the rest period required to post faithfully to this here blog. Sorry about that. So what have I been learning? I've been learning about lerp (linear interpolation) bilerp(bilinear interpolation) and slerp (shperical interpolation).

I'm dipping my foot into the waters of 3d imaging, and it's not an easy thing to learn. Not always, anyways. I've also picked up a (gasp) BSD firewall project (using OpenBSD) that has me learning not only pf rules, but also the *nix environment. Working without a gui is very Tao. Thanks cd and ls.

One thing that I've noticed about this whole posting often thing is this: when I'm working with asp.net, I tend to post more often. I guess this is because I'm pretty comfortable in this area and it gives me more time to reflect on what I've been doing. When I'm learning something new, forget about it. Working on WinForms, forget about it. So, hopefully I can get back into the swing of things and post more than once a month...:) Thanks for being patient, I appreciate that.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-07-01-THINGS-YOU-WISH-YOU-COULD-SAY-AT-WORK https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-07-01-THINGS-YOU-WISH-YOU-COULD-SAY-AT-WORK Thu, 01 Jul 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Another one of those funny emails that should be shared....

1. Ahhh...I see the fuck-up fairy has visited us again... 

2. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce. 

3. How about never? Is never good for you? 

4. I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public. 

5. I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me. 

6. I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter. 

7. I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message... 

8. I don't work here. I'm a consultant. 

9. It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're saying. 

10. I can see your point, but I still think you're full of shit. 

11. I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid. 

12. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers. 

13. I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't give a damn. 

14. I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth. 

15. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you. 

16. Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view. 

17. The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist. 

18. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental. 

19. What am I? Flypaper for freaks! 

20. I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant. 

21. It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off. 

22. Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial. 

23. No, my powers can only be used for good. 

24. You sound reasonable... Time to up the medication. 

25. Who me? I just wander from room to room. 

26. And your crybaby whiny-butt opinion would be...? 

27. Do I look like a people person? 

28. This isn't an office. It's Hell with fluorescent lighting. 

29. I started out with nothing & still have most of it left. 

31. You!... Off my planet! 

32. Does your train of thought have a caboose? 

33. Errors have been made. Others will be blamed. 

34. A PBS mind in an MTV world. 

35. Allow me to introduce my selves. 

36. Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed. 

37. Well, this day was a total waste of makeup. 

38. Not all men are annoying. Some are dead. 

39. I'm trying to imagine you with a personality. 

40. A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door. 

41. Stress is when you wake up screaming & you realize you haven't fallen asleep yet. 
42. Can I trade this job for what's behind door #1? 

43. Too many freaks, not enough circuses. 

44. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it? 

45. Chaos, panic, & disorder - my work here is done. 

46. How do I set a laser printer to stun? 

47. I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted the paychecks. 

48. If I throw a stick, will you leave? 

49. Sarcasm is just one more service we offer. 

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-24-The-road-to-enlightenment https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-24-The-road-to-enlightenment Thu, 24 Jun 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier this year I started using NUnit to see what all the fuss was about. I started on a subset of an application that I'm working on, using it for the database interaction code. I figured that would be a good place to start, since I'm not sure how to test UI stuff, and these were the parts handed to me when the application was in spec stage.

I took a pretty simplistic (and probably wrong by some accounts) approach - set up a database with the same structure as what would be used in the end (appended with NUnit to separate the DBs) and make my assertions on the objects returned or modified there.

So, at the suggestion of someone who digs DataGrids, I picked up the TDD in MSFT.NET book by Newkirk &Vorontsov. I just barely cracked chapter 2 and came across something that I did not know and did not occur to me thru running my tests (with my apologies):

The function Init is marked with an attribute called [SetUp]. NUnit uses this attribute to ensure that this method is called prior to each test being run, which means that each test method gets a newly created Stack, instead of one modified from a previous test.

Seriously? I just figured that [SetUp] ran once, so all I did was initialize my connection string there. This book is already pretty good, if I'm able to learn something by chapter 2...I'm looking forward to finishing it :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-22-Another-personal-post https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-22-Another-personal-post Tue, 22 Jun 2004 00:00:00 GMT

So I had the first weekend alone with my son, Ethan, this past weekend. It was awesome! What a perfect father's day gift - being able to actually spend (at least) some of it with my son. He even "got me a card". See, he's 2 1/2 so it was my mom that really got the card, but she helped him sign it and he drew some circles in it for me. 😃

There were a couple of times that he cried for his mother, but we got thru those and it was only when he was expecting something out of his normal routine. All in all, I would say that he did an excellent job considering this was the first time that he ever spent the night with me, away from his mother.

I could sit here and go on and on about the details of our weekend, but let's just leave this at it was one of the greatest experiences I've had with him ever. I am so happy that it's finally happening!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-11-All-quiet https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-11-All-quiet Fri, 11 Jun 2004 00:00:00 GMT

So I haven't posted in a while. See, on Monday, my life changes. Exactly how, I'm not sure yet.

I'm going to family court to get joint custody of my son, Ethan. I haven't seen him in a few months, and I miss him terribly. Hopefully I will no longer have to wait and wonder if he's thinking about me, wondering how I am, if he misses me at all.

My son is almost three years old, and I finally get to be his Daddy. Pray for me. 

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-04-Searching-for-Adam-Sills https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-04-Searching-for-Adam-Sills Fri, 04 Jun 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Hey, Adam, if you're reading this, drop me a line. I can't find a way to contact you, so I guess this is the next best thing.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-03-Starting-a-conversation-I-want-to-hear-your-opinion https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-06-03-Starting-a-conversation-I-want-to-hear-your-opinion Thu, 03 Jun 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I wanted to ask for your opinion. I've been building this little wysiwyg blog-posting tool for a little bit. I call it PostXING, and I'm using it right now to post this very message. It is inspired by a tool that ScottW wrote called Blogert. For the wysiwyg abilities, it uses an interface to mshtml.

Where I could, I tried to keep the default dialogs (like hyperlink, image, etc) for use in the app. So, when adding an image using the default dialog, if you're adding it from your machine you get a path like "C:\myimages\img.gif" when you really want something like " http: / /mysite.com/img.gif " (sans spaces, of course). This app has an idea of "FTP sites" for each blog you might have configured. So I was thinking that, provided the "FTP site" was configured for your blog, it would just try to upload each image found.

So far I'm just thinking out loud, setting this up for you to give me your opinion if you so choose. I'm trying to figure out if there are any gotchas I'm not thinking of. For example, I would only want this to happen when a post is first added to begin with - this presumes that if you're updating a post, the images are already there. Fair enough, right? Also, I never plan to port this thing to Mono/Gtk# or whatever, so I could pretty much rely on finding " :\ " or simply 
" \ " , right? And when cross-posting comes into play, how should I control things then? I mean, I have two blogs, but it makes sense to upload the images to only one of them, then replicate the new and improved html over to the cross-posted blog. Is there anything I'm not thinking of here?

If you've read this far, thanks. I'm not gonna get all "political" with this tool. It's not trying to be "better" than anybody else's tool. If I ever "release" it, it'll be totally free (BSD-style). I started building this tool because I had an immediate need to be able to cross-post the same content to different blogs selectively. I wanted to see what I could do with windows forms by making something practical to use that didn't cost me anything but a little free time. Thanks again for reading this, and your constructive opinions are welcome.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-27-The-Tao-of-Programming https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-27-The-Tao-of-Programming Thu, 27 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

1.2

The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler.

The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages.

Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao.

But do not program in if you can avoid it.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-22-Whats-the-point-of-comment-spam https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-22-Whats-the-point-of-comment-spam Sat, 22 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

 Especially when the links don't point anywhere? I'm finding this mildly annoying, and I'm sure there's some of you out there who are getting bombarded with stupid comments that have nothing to do with the post. This one was one of my favorites - I wonder which part was technically innacurate?

I just made it to Redmond. Big thanks to Jim Ross, MVP for giving me a ride to my hotel. gotta go!

posted on Monday, July 14, 2003 6:28 PM

 

Comments

# re:

Danny Dunne (unlinked - no more google juice for you!)

My mate saw this and I found some technical innacuracies with the subect matter

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-13-Office-2003-Faces https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-13-Office-2003-Faces Thu, 13 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I thought I linked to this before, but I guess I was wrong.

Here's some google juice for those Office 2003 Faces.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-11-Okay-That-was-pretty-cool https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-11-Okay-That-was-pretty-cool Tue, 11 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

.NET Reflector 4.0.1.0

Click: Help | Check for Updates | Yes.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-01-er-maybe-I-DO-need-to-get-out-more-often https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-01-er-maybe-I-DO-need-to-get-out-more-often Sat, 01 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Am I the last one to notice a certain Microsoft Blogger's mug at the top of www.weblogs.com ?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-01-I-can-ping-everything-now https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-05-01-I-can-ping-everything-now Sat, 01 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Okay, not everything, but at least www.weblogs.com and blo.gs.

I already had some of the code in place, but then I came across an example by Charles Cook, mr. xml-rpc.net hisself, and decided to hack it a little bit. Pretty simple stuff, but this post will tell me if it works :)

/me:crosses fingers

So it looks like it "kinda" worked for weblogs.com - since my blog engine, .Text pings weblogs.com itself, I got a nice little message from weblogs.com saying I should get out more and enjoy life for pinging twice in a row. Well, my friends, it's raining today. blo.gs came back saying that the server returned invalid xml.

Oh well, guess I'll try again on Monday :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-30-Links-for-Monte-Carlo-Simulations https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-30-Links-for-Monte-Carlo-Simulations Fri, 30 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

 http://polymer.bu.edu/java/java/montepi/MontePi.html 

Introduction to Monte Carlo Methods (online textbook)

 Molecular Monte Carlo HomePage

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-30-Achooo https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-30-Achooo Fri, 30 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

 <mumble>viral marketing...</mumble> :)

FREE XDN Professional for .NET Bloggers during May 2004
Mike Schinkel, president of Xtras.Net, made an offer on his personal blog of a free XDN Professional membership (http://www.xtras.net/xdn) during the month of May 2004 for anyone that blogs about .NET frequently. If you are a .NET blogger, see Mike's post for how to get your free XDN membership.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-27-holla https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-27-holla Tue, 27 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-21-HtmlComponent https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-21-HtmlComponent Wed, 21 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I've needed this link ( http://www.nikhilk.net/Entry.aspx?id=11 ) a few times, so I thought I'd give it a little google juice so I could find it easier next time.

The link is to a widget written by Nikhil Kothari, I'm using it in one of my apps currently, and it's really great. Included with a little agility ( .NET Html Agility Pack: How to use malformed HTML just like it was well-formed XML... ), this is a tight little package for editing html in Windows Forms.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-09-Freakin-atof https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-09-Freakin-atof Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I had some very humble console app beginnings in C++. Ya know, "cash register" dos-like programs, completely keyboard driven.

However, my beginnings had nothing to do with converting strings to and from floats. I spent a better part of today wondering why atof would not return anything but a 0.000000 from a floating-point string. My platform is Windows XP - is it clear yet? If nothing else than for my own personal reference, in MFC it could possibly be better to use _wtof().

Goodbye first half of Friday.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-08-Imitation-vs-Innovation https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-08-Imitation-vs-Innovation Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I'm ashamed of myself.

I finished my first windows forms project a few months ago - it's an internal project that will never be released to the public...but that doesn't give me the right to let it suck.

It's the interface. I wasn't sure what the correct way to do things was, even going so far as to send a note to the windows forms team. The program is useable, but only just. There are a number of user interface inconsistencies that just should not show up in a program, in-house or commercial.

But last night I had an epiphany. I said to myself, "Self, what is so different about this search program than some other, more useable interfaces?" For that matter, why should I even have to look to windows forms for inspiration? See where I'm going?

It hit me like a ton of bricks. google. The interface on their first page is so dirt simple, anyone can use it. If you need to get more options, you click on "Advanced Search Options" and you're cooking with gasoline. See, this UI needs to be simple to be effective. I was so busy trying to find out what I "can" and "cannot" do in the windows forms area, that I didn't stop to think what I "should" do. My bad :).

I'm pumped. How often is it that you get to redeem yourself on a past - let's face it - failure? What would you suggest? What search interfaces seem the most useful and intuitive to you?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-03-Hell-freezes-over https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-04-03-Hell-freezes-over Sat, 03 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I thought this may be useful in the future... :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-29-Madrid https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-29-Madrid Mon, 29 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

My High School friend Aleida has been living in Spain for a while now. She sends emails every now and then just to say how things are going - I hope she doesn't mind, I found these words...well, you'll see.

The bombings in Madrid were the first to put a face on my "false sense of security." I still have no words to put to this tragedy. Painfull just doesn't reach deep enough. March 11th unfolded much like my September 11th. Instantly I felt a painful aching that this world is turning into a sega game. It's so easy to destroy and move on. This doesn't exclude any country or state I have lived in. More and more I've seen just how fragile and precious life is, or at least should be.

The demonstrations following the bombings were by far the most charging, inspiring, and chilling I have ever cooperated in. 1.5 million people were marching in Barcelona. It was the biggest demonstration in Catalunya ever. Never before has the saying, "silence is deafening," been so true. At a time when most people would sit at home and think of trying to be safe, trying to collect their thoughts and things, when in the end, being at home, saying nothing...living life unmotivated to change our future.....has no effect. Instead we marched the next day. We collected ourselves in masses, a prime opportunity for another attack is what most people would think. But instead of letting that terror hold us back we raised our hands to stop the war. We chanted. We were silent. And if anything it changed me. I am so glad my friend Jamie was with me during that time. I can't imagine experiencing that alone.

My thoughts and prayers are with you Aleida.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-24-How-did-I-format-that-code https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-24-How-did-I-format-that-code Wed, 24 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Nick Berardi asks:

It was pretty easy, I used some code that I modified from the original SquishySyntaxHighlighter component written by Adam Sills. The original code uses lots of [span style=] tags, and even uses javascript to collapse/expand #regions if you're using code written from Visual Studio.NET. I modified it to use mostly [font] tags and 86'ed the javascript, so it would show up in an aggregator better.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-24-Drag-and-Drop-Urls-in-Windows-Forms https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-24-Drag-and-Drop-Urls-in-Windows-Forms Wed, 24 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

So I wanted to allow for this, right? What if I find something on the net that just begs me to post it, and I want to use the url as the source for my post? Well, it's insanely easy...but you still have to wire it up a little bit. From the article I found (using google, of course), I changed the source code to this:

1		  txtUrl_DragEnter( sender, System.Windows.Forms.DragEventArgs e) {

2			(e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.Text)){

3				e.Effect = DragDropEffects.All;

4			}

5		}

6

7		  txtUrl_DragDrop( sender, System.Windows.Forms.DragEventArgs e) {

8			.txtUrl.Text = e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.Text).ToString();

9		}

where txtUrl is the url I want to use as a source for my post. Set AllowDrop = true in the designer, and you're good to go.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-22-This-sucks https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-22-This-sucks Mon, 22 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

My cousin finally got a weblog but I can't subsribe to it!

I sent these people an email asking them to at least include permalinks and a public rss feed. You have to join the site to do anything, even sign a guestbook.

I wasted a good part of an hour trying to find somewhere on the site that I didn't have to sign in to, and ended up sending the email to abuse. oops.

So am I wrong to want permalinks and an rss feed? Or should I tell my cousin to choose another provider?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-20-my-first-desktop-cross-post https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-20-my-first-desktop-cross-post Sat, 20 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

that's a little upsetting 😦

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-20-last-try-I-promise https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-20-last-try-I-promise Sat, 20 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Sorry ScottW.

Let's hope the third time is the charm.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-19-I-feel-ya https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-19-I-feel-ya Fri, 19 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Big Time. I've even talked about it before.

I'm really thankful that Tina listens to the boring .NET stuff I talk about - she even listens to me talk about the domain (O&G Exploration) which is decidedly boring-er than software, even to a layman.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-17-What-do-you-want-from-WinForms https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-17-What-do-you-want-from-WinForms Wed, 17 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Like to hear my feedback? I'd like a file dialog that lets me select more than 200 files at a time. With the people and companies I work with, it is a necessity. We deal with lots of files.

Thanks!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-17-Thats-what-Im-talkin-bout https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-17-Thats-what-Im-talkin-bout Wed, 17 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Julien Ellie, you rock. In response to all the WinForms hubub yesterday, I asked for a higher limit on the file selection dialog (you can only select about 200 ATM). Julien said in my comments:

Well, I see that a KB article (820631) says this behavior is by design so I don't know how much freedom we have here. You'll understand that I can't promise anything, I am just a dev, but I'll make sure to look into it and ask questions about this. Thanks!

That is so slick. Julien, you may be just a dev, but that my friend is the correct attitude to have about it.

In the meantime, the only workaround I've found is enabling drag n drop onto a listbox for file selection from explorer. [edit]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-16-I-had-to-blog-this https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-16-I-had-to-blog-this Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I've been using Mozilla FireFox as my default browser for a couple of weeks. I love it - for the most part. A lot of people don't design for standards, though. They design for what is the  standard, ie IE. Therefore, a lot of sites that I may browse from time to time really look horrible in mozilla, and I find myself opening IE and dragging a link there just to make sure my eyes haven't permanently squinted.

Those Days Are Over. Meet IEView, a “brain-dead simple” plugin for FireFox, but so effective I just know I'll use this every day. From the site:

 The ieview plugin is a simple Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox extension (for Microsoft Windows systems), which allows the current page or a selected link to be opened in Internet Explorer. I use Mozilla 99.99% of the time, but there are those moments -- particularly when testing new pages, or when viewing that rare IE-only page that's actually interesting -- when I need to see what things look like in IE.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-14-Movin-on-up https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-14-Movin-on-up Sun, 14 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Tina and I just finished moving the last of our stuff from the old apartment to the new one.

We've almost got everything unpacked - I like it here. Thankfully we got most everything moved last night, so today was just a few things we carried by hand.

Yeah, we moved about 50 yards. The people in the apartment above the last place had a washer leak, and we bore most of the consequenses. Half of the walls in our bedroom (the washer & dryer connections are in the closet) were brown from the leak. So, rather than force us to live in a mold museum, the apartment management moved us to a different apartment in the same complex. As if you cared. :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-11-Public-Apology https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-03-11-Public-Apology Thu, 11 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I'm sorry, reader.

I haven't posted to this thing in almost 2 months, and I'm sure that both of you are quite upset at me. So what's been going on with me lately? Let's see...

I started a little side project for posting to my blog from my desktop with a wysiwyg editor. I decided to stop working on it a week or two ago. Why? Well, there are a few tools out there already that let you do this very well, so I pulled resources on it for unoriginality reasons. You still want a wysiwyg editor? Try BlogJet. This is the one that made me say “it's been done”. There is no way that I could dedicate the time to make my little tool do anything super-cool that would make it a viable alternative, and it looks like no one but me wants to post to more than one blog at a time. Shame.

Other than that, I've been working hard at the day job. “Smart Clients”. That's taken a lot of my time - I ain't no WinForms programmer :).

So, thank both of you for staying subscribed to me. I appreciate it, and I'll do my best to keep the content coming to you, desktop publishing tool or not. 

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-23-The-internet-is-shit https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-23-The-internet-is-shit Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT

"4 of 11....Fiction is self-perpetuating."

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-23-Its-coming https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-23-Its-coming Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT

BTW, this is yet another code-when-I-have-a-free-time program :P

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-21-Guess-whos-also-an-MVP https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-21-Guess-whos-also-an-MVP Wed, 21 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Yours truly! (that would be me) 😃

Congratulations to everyone else who earned this honor.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-15-Come-back-to-ASPNET-for-the-first-time https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-15-Come-back-to-ASPNET-for-the-first-time Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Today I had to bring up a previous project that I had done in asp.net and make sure that it would work well if installed to an end-user's machine for beta testing.

For the past several months, I've been doing development for in-house applications using WinForms, so it took an hour or two to get back into the asp.net groove. Once I said "oh yeah" a few times tho, I've got to say - I miss it. I even dusted off some old javascript skills (thanks to a little help from Julie) and after updating one stored procedure to work with some new functionality, I've got a completely working test deployment in as close as an environment to the target as I could muster.

On that note - be careful using .msi technology and then trying to xcopy an updated .dll to the \bin of your web app in XP. Apparently, it won't let asp.net create an appdomain and you'll get the dreaded "Server Application Unavailable" error. Heh. Didn't see that one coming - when I test deployed to a Win2k workstation, I did not get the same error, it just worked. Weird.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-06-HtmlComponent-Document-Selection https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-06-HtmlComponent-Document-Selection Tue, 06 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I finally figured out how to use the Document.Selection of Nikhil's HTML Component. I was looking for Document.InsertHtml which eluded me until today. This is really great - one of those hidden gems that wasn't so hidden once you saw it.

So anyway, I'm making headway on this project, little by little (work and all). Here's what I got from a simple dialog and syntax highlighting:

Hopefully before too long we'll have a maiden post.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-03-Blatant-Me-Too-Post https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2004-01-03-Blatant-Me-Too-Post Sat, 03 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Jason Alexander posted recently about moving nGallery to VaultPub.

I'm hosting my little slow-going side project there too (hence the title:) It's going to be a WYSIWYG desktop blog editor that will allow posting to many different blogs - if they support the MetaWeblog API. I had originally called it PostModern, at the suggestions of a passer-by, but I'm changing the name to Post XING, since the main point of this little app was to allow me to post to different blogs if I wanted to.

Anyways, I've got to say that Vault / Vaultpub is really awesome. It's been quite some time since I've used source control, and the last solution I used (VSS) taught me how to cope with loss. I'm even testing it over a dial-up connection (I know, that's SO 1994) and it still works great. Sweet.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-31-2004 https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-31-2004 Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Happy New Year everybody. 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-24-PostModern-Crossroads https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-24-PostModern-Crossroads Wed, 24 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Okay, I'm pretty solid on the HtmlEditor that I'm going to use for my little side project. It's a sweet editor. Honestly, it has more features than I think are necessary in this case, but that's okay with me.

On to the topic at hand. Originally, I spec'ed the Codify option to be in a dialog because that seemed like a nice tradeoff. I also tried a method that would allow you to either type code into the design surface or copy/paste it from your favorite editor, click a button, and bam! it's formatted. Seems like a winner, but the problem is that when you copy/paste into the editor, you lose tabs/spaces.

So how would you like it to work?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-17-sorry-to-my-2-readers https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-17-sorry-to-my-2-readers Wed, 17 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

But I need to test out how my new syntax highlighting code is going to look in an aggregator. No offense, I hope.

1 System;

2

3 HighlightTest

4{

5 

6 

7 

8   SampleCs

9 {

10   SampleCs()

11  {

12   

13   

14   

15  }

16

17    DoSomething(  s ) {

18   ( s ==  ) {

19    ;

20   }

21  }

22

24  

25    DoSomethingElse(  i ) {

26    x = i;

27  }

28

29 }

30}

31

1 System.Collections

2

3  MyVbClass

4     m_MyString  

5

6      ()

7        myString = 

8     

9

10      MyString()  

11        

12             m_MyString

13         

14        ( Value  )

15            m_MyString = Value

16         

17     

18

20    ' This is a comment

21      MyFunction(  i as  )  

22        MyFunction = 123.456

23     

24

25 

26

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-12-Local-DasBlog https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-12-Local-DasBlog Fri, 12 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Wow. I realized that I needed some guidance on how to implement the MetaWeblog API and thought, hmm, doesn't that dasBlog jobby do cross-posting with that (api)? Ah, so it does. Ah, and there is some source code to go along with that, thank you.

It doesn't look like I'll be doing anything really “ground-breaking” or “innovative” with my new side project...I'll really just be hacking a few disparate parts together to achieve a goal that I have - and learn more about what I can do with Windows Forms while I'm at it. That's okay with me.

In other news, I finally made use of those commented out settings in my local blog.config for .Text, [host] and [application]. The comment preceding that says, “It is possible to mirror a blog and hard code a specific Host and Application”. Right. I first read this and said, okay, that sounds great. But, what would I use it for?

I've found that setting these two elements lets me run .Text locally, but using the values that the server in question has for its application and host values. So, while I see “http:localhost/dottextweb” the .Text engine sees “http:myinternalserver/thatblog”. Sweet.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-10-deactivatedstyle https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-10-deactivatedstyle Wed, 10 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

ugh. looks like the best way to do this is with [font] tags. eeww.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-10-It-has-begun-or-Does-size-really-matter https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-10-It-has-begun-or-Does-size-really-matter Wed, 10 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I finally decided on a name for my project - PostModern. I had already gotten syntax highlighting worked out, but I ended up using a different component than I had originally planned. I'm using a component from SquishyWare called squishySyntaxHighlighter. It's really nice...simple, easy to modify, and it looks pretty spiffy too.

So here's the thing. It creates a little bit of markup by using [span style=] tags where you would expect coloration, so if you're posting any sizeable amount of code, it can get bloated. (That's why I put the second part of the title in there, you nasty nelly you!)

I've found that it's a little bit difficult, if possible at all, to grab the selected text in the HtmlComponent that I'll probably be using, so a drawback of syntax highlighting is that you'll more than likely have to do it from the [html] tab that we're all so familiar with. Also, I've found that the HtmlComponent (and others too, so it must be a mshtml thing) will colorize text pasted from Visual Studio. Here's the difference:

[pasted directly into the design surface]
System;

HighlightTest

{

SampleCs

{

SampleCs()

{

}

DoSomething( s ) {

( s == "string literal" ) {

;

}

}

This is a Region

DoSomethingElse( i ) {

x = i;

}

}

}

 [using the SyntaxHighlighter]

1using System;
2
3namespace HighlightTest
4{
5	/// 

6	/// Summary description for SampleCs.
7	/// 
8	public class SampleCs
9	{
10		public SampleCs()
11		{
12			//
13			// TODO: Add constructor logic here
14			//
15		}
16
17		public void DoSomething( string s ) {
18			if( s == "string literal" ) {
19				return;
20			}
21		}
22
23		#region This is a Region
24		
25		private void DoSomethingElse( int i ) {
26			int x = i;
27		}
28		#endregion
29	}
30}
31

So there's a little bit more work to go thru, but the end result is that it's already formatted the way I like. What do you think about that?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-04-posting-from-the-desktop https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-04-posting-from-the-desktop Thu, 04 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

See? I'm not the only one.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-04-Posting-code-snippets-from-the-desktop https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-04-Posting-code-snippets-from-the-desktop Thu, 04 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Scott Mitchell told me:

Feature request: you will be my hero if your blog software can display code snippets in a color coding like in VS.NET. And if it's a snap to add such code and have it formatted. (That is, I don't have to do more than just add, [code language="C#"] ... code ... [/code].)

Thanks to Thomas Johansen's AylarSolutions.Highlight, you're gonna get exactly that!

This was one of the requests that more than one person told me would be nice, so I decided to go ahead and add syntax highlighting to the app b/c yeah it would be nice. Tom's component makes it sickeningly easy to highlight C#, VB.NET, J#, and I believe recently he even added ASPX support.

Initially I was thinking that a 'snippet dialog' would be the easiest way to accomplish this, just insert where the cursor is on the editing surface. Then I thought, well, if I can wrap a font tag around some words that I highlighted, then I should be able to do the same with the syntax highlighting markup, just add a button with a language dropdown to the toolbar, highlight the code you want to show the syntax for, click 'codify' and go!

Now, ScottM is mentioning some custom markup syntax, familiar to anyone who has posted on an online forum. So, you would have a region that you know will look like VS.NET's scheme when it's posted to the blog, but the only visual clue you'll have is the custom markup around the code - it won't be syntax highlighted until you hit the Post & Publish button.

So which would you prefer - from an end user's standpoint? What would make you say, “Yo, that's super easy to add code to my posts“?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-03-Whats-in-a-name https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-12-03-Whats-in-a-name Wed, 03 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT

In my comments here, Michael Slater says I should try out zempt for my blog-editing pleasure...well, I went to the site and thanks for the suggestion, Mikey, but I think that zempt only targets MT, which this blog is not (thank you Jesus...and ScottW:)

So, I've been thinking of what I should name my little side project, and I thought you could help me. I've asked this same question elsewhere, and here's a little list of what has been suggested so far:

• BlogPost
• BlogPoster
• Blogster
• Hi-Lited-Blog-Poster
• Poster Face (like poker face:)
• POSTERIOR
• Sharlene
• Sally
• PostThoughts
• PostBloggem
• POST-it (can I get sued for that?)
• POST-Code
• POSTAL (as in I'm going)

I was thinking something that included a play on the word post somehow, since that's what I'm calling entries to my blog. Of course, I'm witholding the names of the suggestors to protect my a$. But here's the thing - I just want a fun name for my project, and I think you can help. The above are okay, but fun? I'm not really feelin it. If I can't come up with anything within a day or two, I'm going to cave in and call the finished product  Post-it. Thanks!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-26-Blogert https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-26-Blogert Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks to comments from my previous post, I did snag a copy of Blogert.

Just like I thought, it's almost everything that I wanted, but I want a couple of more features -  like the ability to post to many blogs at once (this is my main want) and it seems from initial reaction that it would be cool to be able to post snippets of code into the entry that you're writing.

So I've got the behaviors that I want, but spread across two different apps. Looks like I've found myself a pet project. :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-25-I-want-a-new https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-25-I-want-a-new Tue, 25 Nov 2003 00:00:00 GMT

...way to post to my weblogs. Maybe you can help me out.

Objective: Create a desktop application that will enable posting entries to a weblog.

Technology: Windows Forms, C#

Needs:

• A simple, familiar, WYSIWYG interface for creating content.
• Use the MetaBlog API for posting and retrieving content.
• Ability to post to many blogs at once.
• Ability to save posts locally at the user's discretion and/or in a disconnected scenario.

Wants:

• That's where you come in!

I've seen the images of Blogert, but I can't find where to download it :(. It looks like it does almost everything that I need it to do, and it would be real nice to build on top of it to add cross/multi-blog posting. That would be ideal and preferable to starting from scratch. If I can't have my cake and eat it too, I'll just start with what's available.

This isn't really something I need, however it would be really nice to have it, since I'm not completely satisfied with the experience in w.bloggar...I want wysiwyg, just as if I'm posting from my blog itself. So what would be really nice to have on this? I need to sharpen my Windows Forms skills (or lack thereof) - what would be something that would set a tool like this apart a little bit from other software? Or, am I barking up the wrong tree and really need to sharpen my google skills? Thanks for taking the time to read this; I'm off to let this idea stew for a little bit.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-19-Hannah-Henson https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-19-Hannah-Henson Wed, 19 Nov 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Our friend Hannah passed away yesterday.

Vanessa: thank you for your comment, indeed Hannah was an inspiration to us all. She had courage and faith until the very end, and my condolences go out to her family and everyone whose life she touched.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-18-Ever-heard-of-role-based-security https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-18-Ever-heard-of-role-based-security Tue, 18 Nov 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I'm sorry, Frans - this did make me chuckle a little bit, tho:

Well... ever heard of role-based security? Rob Howard hasn't obviously.

Rob Howard – Membership, Role Management and Security in ASP.NET Whidbey

hehe

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-14-Tomorrows-my-birthday https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-14-Tomorrows-my-birthday Fri, 14 Nov 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I'll be 23. 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-14-Exception-Management https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-14-Exception-Management Fri, 14 Nov 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I've been using the Exception Management Application Block for quite some time now, and for general purpose it's great. Especially when I need some detailed information about exceptions generated from an asp.net application, EMAB's got my back.

The only problem that I've had so far (barring non-perfectly formed configSections) I ran into today, and it had to do with Registry Access. I'm in the midst of deploying a windows forms application that uses the EMAB, but the user I wanted to deploy to was not an administrator (and really shouldn't be.) So, I had to :

• rebuild my installer, removing the custom action to install EMAB
• log the user out
• log in as administrator
• run cmd: cd C:\%windir%\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\
• installutil "Path to EMAB"
• let the user log back in before we could test things.

What a pain in the ass! Maybe I'm just spoiled from all of this xcopy deployment bru-haha.;) Anyways, I hope that .NET becomes easier for non-administrators to use...okay, maybe that's a gross generalization, but the point is that Registry Access never crossed my mind as an issue to resolve, because I'm always running in "God Mode" and therefore never really worry about these things.

Funny thing is that I created a fake User in the same group as the target user and deployed the application to a test machine before I ever put the app on the target machine - the installer and everything worked like a charm, but shouldn't have (unless EMAB was already installed:)...Okay, I need to blog more b/c this is turning into a rant. All I really wanted to do was outline what I needed to do to get EMAB installed for a non-administrator. Shh! If you're still reading, don't tell, aiight?

-= Currently Jammin: Psycho - System Of A Down - toxicity :=-

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-04-Seeing-the-Matrix-Manana https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-04-Seeing-the-Matrix-Manana Tue, 04 Nov 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I just got my tickets to see The Matrix : Revolutions online...I'm one of the fortunate few that get to see this on the BIG screen: IMAX baby! 😛

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-01-May-be-changing-servers-soon https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-11-01-May-be-changing-servers-soon Sat, 01 Nov 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I may have to change servers...it looks like another app that lives here is timing out a lot and I want to be able to make sure it's not my blog's fault.

: It's not my blog's fault, thank you very much. It turns out to be some over-sorting in one of the libraries the other app is using. Time to refactor, baby.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-31-Singing-the-praises-of-the-ASPNET-Version-Switcher https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-31-Singing-the-praises-of-the-ASPNET-Version-Switcher Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I'm putting some of the finishing touches on my first winforms project, so I decided to try out some code on an app that I wrote over a year ago today - I wanted it to run on .netfx 1.1 instead of 1.0, because it's the central login point for 2 different apps. After looking around at things and jogging that old memory, I got it working again, in both 1.0 and 1.1 using Denis Bauer's ASP.NET version switcher. Very nice. I know it's been said before, but this is an indespensible tool for anyone running side by side asp.net apps.

My problem was this (if you're still reading): Since I have two different apps accessing the login page of this site from different hosts, the machineKey element of the *.config files need to be synched up for each site - either in web. or machine. - much like a server farm scenario. Apparently, tho, the newer fx and the older fx don't play nicely together when it comes to communication. Even tho the two apps had identical machineKey elements, authorization failed from site B to site A every time. All I had to do was change the versions that the apps were running on to be synched, and voila! Single Sign On is back. Whew

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-28-I-dont-speak-German-but https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-28-I-dont-speak-German-but Tue, 28 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

This post reinforces that a picture is worth 10,000 words.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-27-This-is-a-cross-post-from-Text https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-27-This-is-a-cross-post-from-Text Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

It seems that cross-posting has become a cool feature since other, more respected developers have released new versions of their prospective blogging engines.

This is a cross-post. You can view this post here and there. I've been doing it for a while - ever since I got my grubby little hands on someone's blog engine code and was able to play with the source code / webservice combinations that http://weblogs.asp.net exposes. I'm doing it. I know of one other person who's doing it as well.

Anyways, it required a minimal amount of code to achieve - although I'm guessing there is probably a better way to do it, like w/ the MetablogAPI implementation. It's just a webservice call, and I'm able to post technical stuff right up next to non-technical stuff.

Okay, I'll be quiet now.

P.S. One more thing - Thanks to everybody who's blogging the PDC. It's neat to read about what's going on in real-time.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-24-My-Thursday-Night https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-24-My-Thursday-Night Fri, 24 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

• Papa John's pepperoni and ham (with the special garlic sauce)
• cold beer
• working software

now if only the Yankees can pull off 3 more points...this is about as close to heaven as I'm gonna get for a long time :D

P.S. They didn't do it - the Marlins just got out Matsui.:'(

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-23-For-anybody-whos-running-Text https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-23-For-anybody-whos-running-Text Thu, 23 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Jeff Julian  has put up a couple of skins at http://www.geekswithblogs.com/TextSkins .

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-21-Somebody-likes-the-blue-Lighty https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-21-Somebody-likes-the-blue-Lighty Tue, 21 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Jeff Julian pinged me this morning and asked if he could use the version of Lighty that I hacked up after Julien Cheyssial (that's weird :)released his 'original orange' version, now up on http://weblogs.asp.net. So it looks like the GeeksWithBlogs will be enjoying a little different taste of a nifty skin.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-21-For-anyone-who-wants-the-Lighty-skin-to-look-a-little-better-in-Mozilla https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-21-For-anyone-who-wants-the-Lighty-skin-to-look-a-little-better-in-Mozilla Tue, 21 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Go to the Admin section of your blog, and in the “Custom CSS Selectors” textbox add:

main {
margin-left:200px;
padding:0px 20px 0px 0px;
width: 580px;
}

It still has a bit of gap-osis, but at least your main content will end up where it does for IE. I haven't tried this out on Opera yet, but I've implemented it here and there.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-20-sigh-of-relief https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-20-sigh-of-relief Mon, 20 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks, Scott. 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-16-Test-from-MetaBlog-wbloggar https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-16-Test-from-MetaBlog-wbloggar Thu, 16 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

This is just a little test ping.

-= Currently Jammin: Chop Suey - System Of A Down - (03:17) :=-

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-14-Simple-Scrolling-added-to-my-blog https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-14-Simple-Scrolling-added-to-my-blog Tue, 14 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I added a scroller over here - just some custom javascript. I wanted to get it working - it looks great on IE, I can't say the exact same for mozilla or opera, tho. I'm working on it 😃. I'm also working on giving it a cleaner UI w/ images instead of text - this is just the 'prototype' to see if I can get this scroller working.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-11-Hannah-Henson https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-11-Hannah-Henson Sat, 11 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

My girlfriend Tina just pointed me to a site that a friend of hers has put up - Hannah Henson is a young lady who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma earlier this year after she broke her hip.

If you could, would you both go and sign her guestbook? She's still reading this site while she's with us. Thanks.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-10-New-Skin-new-Gallery https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-10-New-Skin-new-Gallery Fri, 10 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Donny Mac for pointing me to a new skin for here. Also thanks to Julien Cheyssial for creating the initial one.

I changed the colors from orange to blue - I dig blue these days. Also, I've added Jason Alexander's new nGallery to my site over here.

Looks like I won't have to write anything myself for a minute! :) I know that both of my readers get at me from there, so if you've got a minute please check out my new skin over here. Thanks!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-09-A-different-OS-this-time https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-09-A-different-OS-this-time Thu, 09 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

This time I'm like the PalmOS. I hope that's not bad 😃

At any rate, I love my Palm Handheld. Which OS are You?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-06-ATM-Galaga https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-06-ATM-Galaga Mon, 06 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I had a dream last nite that I was going to an ATM to get some cash. When I was at the terminal, on the opposite side of the English/Espanol options there was a third option - Internet. What? so, of course I chose Internet - this could be fun, right?

The screen pops up with a clone of Galaga - you used the keypad to move and one of the option buttons to shoot. I was just about to reach my high score when I noticed the long line of people behind me. Whoops 😃 I guess I can beat my high score anytime - preferrably around 1 AM.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-01-Thanks-Darren-Show-us-your-Regex https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-01-Thanks-Darren-Show-us-your-Regex Wed, 01 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

The place that I work uses what we call index numbers (they're not really numbers per se...) that are based on API numbers (which are usually numbers) for check shot velocity surveys. I'm working on a project that will validate these and I thought that it would be well suited for Regex since it's going to be text validation and there are rules in place for these Index “numbers”.

So first I go to www.regexlib.com and see what that might have to get those Regex juices flowin. Then I thought about the Regex that I need to write and wrote it out as the rules should apply:

1. Start at the beginning of a string.


2. Match exactly 2 digits.


3. Match exactly 1 letter (uppercase).


4. Match no less than 3 but no more than 4 digits.


5. Optionally match 1 or 2 letters (uppercase).


6. End of string.

So, I fired up Darren Neimke's RegexSnippets which I have sitting in my C:\Tools folder for just such an occasion, and this is what I came up with:

^\d{2}[A-Z]{1}\d{3,4}([A-Z]{1,2})?$

And much to my surprise it worked the first time running! Very nice. Plus, I was able to save the regex for later using Darren's cool little utility. Added bonus: there was already one expression (8PointFloat) that I needed for a different area. Thanks Darren!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-01-More-cross-posting-shennanigans https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-10-01-More-cross-posting-shennanigans Wed, 01 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I think I'm going to play with .Text a little bit to allow cross-posting from here to there using w.Bloggar and the MetaBlog API.

Perhaps there are some hidden jewels in dasBlog that I could borrow the idea from...just thinking out loud.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-26-Archives https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-26-Archives Fri, 26 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

here September, 2003(16)

there September, 2003(14)

and the internal one, September, 2003(34)

hehe, you can't see how big of a dope I am on the internal one :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-24-Note-to-the-Windows-Forms-team https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-24-Note-to-the-Windows-Forms-team Wed, 24 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Working with windows forms sucks.

Especially if you're coming from the much more approachable asp.net side. I have state, but simple things like pre-selecting an item in a datagrid are not easy - and they should be. You should make me feel comfortable in your environment. Give me a reason to use Windows Forms other than 'it runs on Windows'.

I'm about halfway thru my first Windows Forms project. If I were doing this in asp.net, I would be done by now.

That is all.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-23-Intellisense-problem-solved https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-23-Intellisense-problem-solved Tue, 23 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

For anyone else who might have run into Intellisense weirdness, I found that just 'touching' the file that was generated by vs.net for the dataset and recompiling gave intellisense its needed kick in the rear.

All I did was go to the file, hit enter, hit backspace, shift+ctrl+b, and intellisense was ready again to do my bidding. Weird, but it worked for me :)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-19-technology-is-like https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-19-technology-is-like Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

So I'm doing some work with typed datasets right now that is really souring my experience with VS.NET 2003.

I'm using the same technique that I used months ago with VS.NET 2002 that worked pretty smoothly - wait, first let me say that it is working, it's the Intellisense that's jacked up. Unfortunately, it looks like it doesn't pick up everything that is included within the generated DataSet, including the public DataTable and DataRow classes generated. So, the code compiles and works fine during runtime, but intellisense is shot down at the first level. Is this what it was like before intellisense? So maybe the problem is that I'm spoiled now thanks to the technology - then it craps out on me after working before.

Technology is like crack. First you get a taste of the good stuff, then you really pay.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-12-Paying-it-forward https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-12-Paying-it-forward Fri, 12 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

In response to a post I made about VS.NET 2002 failing to open connections with Sql Server, Roman says:

I have just found solvation. Installing MDAC 2.8 helps

Tony, who had been having a similar problem, found the post and thanks Roman. So, if you're having problems connecting to Sql Server, try installing MDAC 2.8.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-11-Wow-Its-a-website-part-deux https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-11-Wow-Its-a-website-part-deux Thu, 11 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Me: Hey, Tina - you wanna see what I did today?

Tina: No, I looked at a computer screen for too long today. It was 4 hours.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-11-I-remember https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-11-I-remember Thu, 11 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

9/11. I was at home that day, my son wasn't born yet, and I saw the whole thing televised after my (ex) girlfriend's crazy best friend told us that America was under attack over the phone.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-test https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-test Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

blah!! 😄

edit more

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-oops https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-oops Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

perhaps I should take a little more time to fix the emoticons

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-geourl https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-geourl Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I just added geoUrl to my blog. I don't know why I didn't thing to do this before! I just have it pointing to my personal blog that has the correct tags, so when you click on the link it queries the database based on the url here not there.

Nice. There's also this site which has a world map on it and shows up where you are if you make a post.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-added-emoticons https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-added-emoticons Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I've recently added emoticons 😘 to my .Text blog. If you could see the code, it might look familiar. Heh, that was pretty easy. I did make a change or two to the source of .Text and also added a key to the web.config's appsettings node.

The magic happens in a method called StripFTB (for free textbox, the editor used for this app) All I did was add a call to the new Transform class, added the appropriate text file, and we're in business.

If you haven't checked it out yet, .Text is a real good app - it's been real easy to make changes to it to 'fit my needs'.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-ImageLists https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-10-ImageLists Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Looks like Marc is having trouble with sealed ImageLists.

I've been working on my first Windows Forms project and I'm using the same ImageList throughout the application, even tho there are yet only a few forms in it. I adapted an example by Lutz Roeder that uses a static class (well, ya know static members, whatever) to load a bitmapstrip into an internal ImageList. The class has a bunch of static properties that return the correct index of the image based on the loaded ImageList. (Like Images.Forward or Images.Undo)

I also added a static property to return the internal ImageList incase I want to use it in one of my Forms without calling the individual properties.

The trick is to load the bitmap strip in a static constructor - it's always  called first. If I want to add an individual image to a form, I can either create a local ImageList and set it to Images.ImageList or simply set the image of the control I'm targeting to say Images.Back. I have to admit, I usually add the image in (gasp) the InitializeComponent() call - but here's the nice part: since I'm calling a completely static class, the designer can get to the images and loads it not only to the designer surface but also (usually) replaces my Images.Back call with an appropriate call to the ResourceManager to grab the image from its new home - my Form's .resx file.

Good luck, Marc.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-09-thanks https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-09-thanks Tue, 09 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I want to say thanks to those who have given me feedback on a previous post. It's given me a little bit more insight into this beast called SqlServer. Anyways, I think perhaps I should ask this particular question on a listeserv of some sort, or maybe stick with just dynamically creating the sql text - given the fact that this particular endeavor is a windows forms project that shouldn't go outside of my company...

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-09-System-Net-WebProxy-GetDefaultProxy https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-09-System-Net-WebProxy-GetDefaultProxy Tue, 09 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I couldn't figure out why the remote posting thing wasn't working like I wanted it to. Well, the examples that I looked at last nite failed to outline the need to generate a proxy to use a webservice with the soap protocol. I had to dig up some old code and inevitably smak myself on the head. But here goes...

: I think I got it to work.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-09-No-command-line-proxy-for-you-buddy https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-09-No-command-line-proxy-for-you-buddy Tue, 09 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Oh boy. Another “Object Reference” exception. I tried to create a proxy to this here webservice and insert an entry from a simple command line program. No dice. Thing is, tomorrow I'm going to try it from asp.net and it's gonna work. eh, I hope 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-06-Coming-real-soon https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-09-06-Coming-real-soon Sat, 06 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I intend to use this blog engine more and more, but I've run into a snag that has held me back a bit - I don't know what the ParentID is supposed to be used for, and I don't want to go forward until I do.

I'm working on cross-posting right now so that I can use this blog full-time. I'm pretty sure I have 0 subscribers on /phoenix, but I'll make sure to include the proper redirects if I get an aggregator for the user-agent. Should be fun!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-25-flat-normal-shudder https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-25-flat-normal-shudder Mon, 25 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Still posting from infiniblog...

I've been sick for the past few days. I hate being sick, it makes me delerious (sp?). Even worse, I'm currently working on a 'rad' project that is making the developer in me cringe. It's really bad.

I'm having to convert a flat table into a 'normal' database, which would be okay but there are a number of fields for each row that require a one to many relationship. So what I've decided to do in the interest of the 'r' part is just throw the logic into a class that loops thru the records to fill the new structure with data.

The data in the original table has some fields with names like A_this and A_that thru M_this and M_that, much like a spreadsheet. This is the part that is making the developer scream "you shouldn't be doing that!!" It's really hard for me to go against my gut feelings, but I suppose that just shows my lack of experience. Not only do I have a cold, but this code is really making me sick.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-23-Got-an-importer https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-23-Got-an-importer Sat, 23 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I have a project that requires that I convert a flat FoxPro Database to a 'normalized' Sql Server database. So far, I've gotten the foxpro data into SqlServer.

Today I created an Importer utility class to generate the proper data from flat-> normal database. Now I just need to create the logic that will migrate the data from one to the other... I've gotten as far as creating the datacontainers and filling the initial data from the original flat database into memory.

Also, I learned that you can have two different Main() methods in a solution, which one gets used depends on which one is selected as the startup project.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-21-Testing-geourl https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-21-Testing-geourl Thu, 21 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT

just a lil ping!ping!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-21-moving-to-.Text https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-21-moving-to-.Text Thu, 21 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT

So I decided to move the location of my blog, using dotText. I was going to wait for a while, but the Image gallery feature has me sold. Sorry, Chris, it's been a while since I've heard from ya and well, I want comments, dammit! That's partly my fault, as I haven't had the time or the knowledge to figure out how to make that particular feature work. So, no bad karma thrown that way:)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-06-Mono https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-06-Mono Wed, 06 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Wow. This is something I could have sworn Scoble would post. Are ya fallin off, buddy? Anyways, from Microsoft-Watch:

Microsoft Watch: What's the future of Mono, Ximian's implementation of .Net on Linux?

Stone: We are going to continue to push it. .Net on Linux is a great idea. We just hope Microsoft isn't against the idea.

Yes, .Net on Linux is a good idea, and I doubt Microsoft will have a problem with it. I mean, have they yet? Read the Article.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-05-Hits-from-a-survival-guide https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-05-Hits-from-a-survival-guide Tue, 05 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Too funny. I try to post mainly .net related findings, and enjoy relatively low traffic here other than the occasional google or yahoo search on "object reference...".

All it takes is a nearby Texan to post about one thing non-dotnet...and I've gotten a bunch of hits about my potty humor. I'm not that good a programmer, anyway:)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-01-From-the-Trenches https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-08-01-From-the-Trenches Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Alex Lowe says:

?My motto: You've got to know someone's pain to make it go away.

Adding to others who have stated it, I'd like to congratulate Alex Lowe on his new position at Microsoft. I spoke with him directly about this, and got the above quote in response to a discussion about some Evangelists that I've met (not that one, he's actually pretty cool in person) getting out of touch with what's going on "In the trenches".

The quote alone makes me confident that Microsoft has made a wise decision. Good luck, Alex!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-30-Mission-Possible https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-30-Mission-Possible Wed, 30 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

So how's about a project I haven't goofed up yet?

I started to make a little headway on the UI of Miny, my first WinForms project. Miny is the name given to the project because a change in the data structure requires a "one to miny" relationship, whatever that is<G>.

All I really have to say at this point is wow - the MagicLibrary is a must-have if you're developing WinForms. It comes with sample source code, and thanks to that and a helpful Example by Lutz Roeder (sp?) with a similar library, I hit the ground running with some VS.NET - style menus including images.

nice.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-30-AcceptChanges https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-30-AcceptChanges Wed, 30 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Okay, I'm about to show a little of my ignorance here, but that's okay - at least I'm blogging again.

I just tracked down a bug in some software I wrote that was actually my fault (this time). It had to do with DataSets, their disconnected behavior, and a corresponding method ".AcceptChanges()". When I had originally added this cute little method to my app, I figured that it would fire off a message to the underlying database telling it the changes I've made are accepted.

Wrong. According to MSDN:

When AcceptChanges is called, any DataRow object still in edit mode successfully ends its edits. The DataRowState also changes: all Added and Modified rows become Unchanged; Deleted rows are removed.

and it goes on to say:

The AcceptChanges method is generally called on a DataTable after you attempt to update the DataSet using the DbDataAdapter.Update method.

which, of course, I didn't bother to read the first time 'round. Basically, I was "accepting changes" before the update/insert was made - the bug was not discovered, however, until I tried to put in a new record into the database...I was testing on records which were already entered, and the last method with a straggling .AcceptChanges() method was never called, hence the call was never removed.

The worst part is that I recognized the rush of adrenaline as someone told me something live is "broken" - heh, that could mean just about anything. Thankfully, I knew where the problem child of this beast was - in a monolithic page with too many controls for its own good. Bug found, targeted, searched, destroyed.

HAND.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-23-WhoIs-and-my-first-WinForms-Project https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-23-WhoIs-and-my-first-WinForms-Project Wed, 23 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday I picked up my first Windows Forms project.

I think it should be pretty lightweight -> it's going to be a data entry app for "API Headers", which is descriptive information about Oil/Gas Well logs. The hardest part I think will be converting the FoxPro Database over to Sql Server - not the data itself, but figuring out where to change what is basically a monolithic table (in spreadsheet fashion) to more normal data. Who knows? Maybe it'll be fun. heh.

In the meantime, I decided to write a front-end to a nice little gem embedded into aspNetDns, WhoIs. I found myself wanting to do whois queries, and sometimes if you use an online search too often, the server will get bogged down - not a fun chore, for me or the server admin. The component makes it extremely easy to do a whois query - it took me 2 lines of code to accomplish it. If you want some more information on that and other utilities like it, ping Dave Wanta.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-23-Finally-my-upgrade https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-23-Finally-my-upgrade Wed, 23 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I haven't blogged for a while, I'm on an extended Monday <g>...but anyhoo I just ordered by upgrade to VS.NET Ent. Architect 2003. It sucks that they're sending it thru USmail only, but for $29, I'm really not complaining that much.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-14-made-it https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-14-made-it Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I just made it to Redmond. Big thanks to Jim Ross, MVP for giving me a ride to my hotel. gotta go!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-11-nyt https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-11-nyt Fri, 11 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

NYT: Hackers Hijack PC's for Sex Sites

...since the hijacked machines download the pornographic ads from a single Web server. According to the computer investigators, that machine apparently is owned by Everyones Internet, a large independent Internet service company in Houston that also offers Web hosting services to a large number of companies.

Wow, close to home, even. In ev1's defense, they also own RackShack (for servers) and their very competitive priced package includes ~300Mb of free-for-all web space. They have disclaimers and such, but if a handful of their ~100,000 users (of which I am one) uses their space for less than honorable content, how would you track that down?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-11-Yeah-its-swell https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-11-Yeah-its-swell Fri, 11 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Andrew : Ya just had to post that, didn't ya!

Of course I did! First, Quake II is one of my favorite games (right up there with Duke Nukem:)...I haven't caught up with the times yet<G>

More importantly, I'm going to be working with some C/C++ code in the very near future, and the example shows both the old and new (I think) source as a means to show how "easy" it is to port from unmanaged to managed code (in C++); there4 I'm very interested in it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some monsters to kill.😉

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-11-Managed-Quake-II-swell https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-11-Managed-Quake-II-swell Fri, 11 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Nice. ...Must...focus...on work...

From Brad. Interesting…

The thing that sold Windows as a viable gaming platform for most people was the appearance of WinQuake (and then later GLQuake and QuakeWorld). Taking a cue from past days, Vertigo Software has ported the now GPL'd Quake II engine to .NET (using Managed C++, of course).

[The .NET Guy]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-09-Comment-Reply https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-09-Comment-Reply Wed, 09 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Frans Says, in comments:

You can buy the upgrade for vs.net 2003 for 29$ even if you have a vs.net 2002 you got with an MSDN subscription that is no longer valid. The license of that vs.net 2002 is still valid thus you are entitled to buy the upgrade.

Thanks Frans. This would seem like a good idea, except that I'm in the middle of a couple of projects being built w/ VS.NET 2002. Would an upgrade mean that I will now have only 2003? I'm not sure, so I'm not going to upgrade just yet.

Thanks for the tip, tho!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-08-v114322-wo-VSNET-2003 https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-08-v114322-wo-VSNET-2003 Tue, 08 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I just installed v1.1.4322 of the dotnetfx today, bacause it's looking like the nifty tools that I'm starting to see are all being built with this version of the framework. Thanks to Larkware News for providing links to a couple of the tools that I've been using since the install - 2002 to 2003 (and back) Project converter and ASPNETVersion Switcher.

The former is pretty neat in the fact that I no longer have an MSDN subscription 😢 so I can effectively use and view Examples written with the newer, bluer(?) VS.NET 2003. The only problem(s) was (were)

• written w/ v1.1 dotnetfx, so I had to install that.
• source code provided, but also written (um,) at v1.1, so I couldn't use the proggie on isself
• rar'ed. I had to download winrar to extract the files.

wah-wah.😢

The latter, well, that's just cool. Quite useful little utility, kudos Denis

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-06-robert-sindall https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-06-robert-sindall Sun, 06 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Robert Sindall has posted a VB.NET Version of my Story on Interactive About Pages using Reflection in ASP.NET.

Thanks, Robert! For the VB.NET version, check out the comments of the story.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-01-Comment-Reply https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-07-01-Comment-Reply Tue, 01 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Helena asks:

Helena Posted @ 7/1/2003 3:39 AM Hello!

I'm experiencing the same problem! Have you been able to solve it??

I sure did solve it! Thanks to FreeDOS and fdisk, I wiped my entire machine while I had the time to do so, and reinstalled WinXP, VS.NET, and a very few other proggies I use daily. Unfortunate I had to go that route, but I figured a clean slate was much preferred over wasting hours/days/weeks trying to diagnose a problem that I just couldn't figure out.

Everything works great now. /me knocks wood

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-30-So-VBNET-just-aint-that-bad-after-all https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-30-So-VBNET-just-aint-that-bad-after-all Mon, 30 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Hit a new "milestone" in my current project today, at the same time really starting to understand where the term "over-engineering" is founded - of course, from engineers.

Background: I'm adding features that were requested by engineers onto the Risk Analysis project. Basically, there are 4 components that help clearly define what is known in the Oil&Gas Exploration industry as Recovery Factor - How much oil or gas do we think we're gonna get?

They're bullISH. From an end-user (who may be an engineer) perspective, tho - these things are important. So I get to learn VB.NET.

The original component used to make the calculations and the associated graphs was written about a year and a half ago in VB6. Since the move to .NET, we decided that it would be a good idea to upgrade the VB6 code to VB.NET. So far so good, but guess what? I'm a C# programmer :S

So I'm not finding VB.NET that difficult to work with, as a matter of fact, I'm kinda digging the compatibility namespace since it's letting me leave a goodly amount of the code alone. Actually, if I stick with the fx to do my bidding, the code is looking structurally identical to the code that I write in C# (not aesthetically or syntacticly) heh! go figure.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-26-WORA-log4net https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-26-WORA-log4net Thu, 26 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Luke Blogs of the dream of WORA.

Slightly more interesting to me at this point, tho, is his experiences with log4net, the popular .NET alternative to log4j...This is the kind of stuff I've been looking for, and would have if I had more than 2.5 readers. (That third one is on and off 😉

See, I have a current incarnation of an application that uses the Exception Management Application Block from M$, plus some custom schtuff I put in so I could have notification via email. I got very little feedback on which was the best to use, and the general concensus was that log4net has a broader range of purpose.

That's cool, but added to this, I doubt I would run into Luke's problem simply because I've yet to write a downloadable windows forms application, so my apps sit on a server which I have a lot of control over.

Eh.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-23-Object-ref https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-23-Object-ref Mon, 23 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Heh - I get more traffic here and there from a post I made a while back that had the words "Object reference not set...." you know, you've seen it.

I guess this is a really common problem. There's got to be a way to give developers, novice and seasoned, more information about this exception than is currently given. I'm sure there's someone in M$Land who can shed some light on this.

Any takers?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-23-Corporate-Blogs-Catching-on https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-23-Corporate-Blogs-Catching-on Mon, 23 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Corporate Blogs Catching on

It's like a plague. I have some unmanned Tripod sites that sent the "webmaster" (yours truly) an email detailing how someone should have a Blog for the summer.

Am I just late in seeing this stuff?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-17-WinXP-wipe https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-17-WinXP-wipe Tue, 17 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

So, after my wah-wah yesterday about Visual Studio, I was looking thru my hotmail account and realized that they offer mobile services. Hey! I've got a cell phone now, let's try it out!

After the confirmation message, I got a horoscope:

Scorpio: Today someone is being unreasonable. That someone could be you.

As I'm reinstalling windows just because one or two programs aren't doing what they should be doing; as I am cursing Windows set up for not letting me delete C: as a partition; as I'm trying to figure out why everything is blowing up on me after so long having no problems.

Oh well, 29 minutes and a few key programs left.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-16-Things-that-make-you-go https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-16-Things-that-make-you-go Mon, 16 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Visual Studio .NET has not been my friend lately.

Last week, ASPNET was having issues - taking up to 4 minutes to compile a (relatively) small project. Now, I can't get to any SQL Server instance on my network - When I attempt to connect thru the server explorer, I get the nice friendly message "The specified procedure could not be found."

Thanks, Visual Studio.

I can't help but wonder if this may be intentional...VS.NET 2003 just came out, and now I'm having problems w/ 2002 after over a year of no problems...things that make you go hmm.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-16-Added-a-snippet-DHTML-ImageButton-server-control https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-16-Added-a-snippet-DHTML-ImageButton-server-control Mon, 16 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks to a recent upgrade(?) to this here blog engine, I was able to recover a story I wrote a while back that I never set to "active". It's called Enter the QuickButton and it deals with adding DHTML rollover behaviors to the ImageButton control that ships with asp.net.

Enjoy!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-14-Member-cap https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-14-Member-cap Sat, 14 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Each Workspace has a maximum limit of 500 members.

[gotdotnet workspaces]

Wha? I thought it was only 20. Very interesting....

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-08-ypXmlTree https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-08-ypXmlTree Sun, 08 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I'm still kicking around some ideas for an online aggregator, so I can maybe look over some of the blogs I frequent over my loverly dial-up connextion at home. I wanted to use a tree structure like the left pane of SharpReader (and others, but sharpreader's what I use a lot:).

In my searching, I found a great xml tree component from youngpup. Well, I've had my hands on it for a while, but I'm just now getting to the meat of it. This component uses xslt to convert an xml file to html, then uses javascript to toggle expanded state. Good component, but there's a little snafu.

I want to take an opml file (generated from sharpreader) and use it to populate my tree. This means I can either a) apply xslt to the opml file so it will retain the structure needed for the javascript component or b) write a custom server control that will take opml and generate the necessary html for the javascript.

Not sure which way I'm gonna go at this point, but I'm leaning toward b as I have experience with server control authoring and zilch with xslt. Might be fun to learn xslt, but I think that I may leave that route to a later date and a more seasoned developer.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-08-Thats-great-Its-a-website https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-08-Thats-great-Its-a-website Sun, 08 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier tonight, I showed my girlfriend Tina some of the work I've done, namely www.velocitydatabank.com and my most recent endeavor, Risk Analysis. Like whoa.

It's different showing this stuff to those who are not primarily technically oriented, to say the least. She was slightly impressed, but I think she just said that to make me feel good about myself. That was nice of her.

Has anyone else had experiences like this? I remember showing my mom my company's website when I first rolled it out, and she kind of got this glazed look over her eyes like, wha? Anyways, just thought I'd share.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-07-The-NET-pledge https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-07-The-NET-pledge Sat, 07 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I took the pledge. You should, too.

Good stuff, Sam.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-06-xsd2db-and-Me https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-06-xsd2db-and-Me Fri, 06 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I have been looking for xsd2db, a tool for generating a database schema from an XML schema, ever since I read this article. Unfortunately, when it came time for me to recall the location of the tool I had forgotten where I found it in the first place (I'm sometimes lazy on my bookmarks). Thanks to Mike Gunderloy's most recent Daily Grind, I was able to locate the tool.

It works as promised, and I was able to create a database with the appropriate entities for a few complex types defined in my XSD for a SQL Server database and an Access database.

[Chad Osgood's Blog]

Schweet! I've been thinking about changing over the backend for my blog engine to use sql server since it's available to me, and it looks like I will now have the chance. Nice.

I used this tool to generate a SQL Server DB using the xsd that is currently in place. I'm still not sure if it will handle annotated datasets, but that's just a few keystrokes away I think. Cool deal - tools like this make things so much easier to deal with...for me anyway:)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-04-must-resist https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-04-must-resist Wed, 04 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Must...resist...giving...Dvorak google juuce!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-04-Log-this https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-04-Log-this Wed, 04 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

What's your poison? Exception Management Application Block or log4net ?

Why?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-03-Srinath-says https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-03-Srinath-says Tue, 03 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Srinath says regarding my previous post:

Please check our secure guide, section "Accessing System Resources > Accessing Event Log" at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetch08.asp?frame=true#accessingsystemresources

Good stuff. Wish I had thought to look here before I commenced head-throttling this morning;)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-03-Exception-Management-Block https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-03-Exception-Management-Block Tue, 03 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Okay, so I dove into the Exception Management Application Block today.

I've been using it on a current application, but I wanted an email to be sent to me on an exception, so I had to subclass. So far, the EventLog has been enough.

I found a little quirk that I suppose I should have realized before - the default ASPNET user does not have rights to create an EventLog section for custom viewing of application exceptions, so the section I was trying to create just wasn't kickin it. This was a bit tough to find, as the QuickStart that comes with the application block creates the section no problem (if you have admin rights like me;)

Basically, all I had to do to get the custom "Publisher" to work was to remove the logName="" and applicationName="" elements from the configuration section of web.config. Now I get the EventLog and Email notification - and only one half of my head retains the dent from this morning's banging.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-01-1-reader https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-06-01-1-reader Sun, 01 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Heh, I've got 3 readers now.

Someone pinged me and said the link in my previous post doesn't work. Sorry bout that, it won't be "live" until Monday at the earliest. Also, it requires login/registration with Velocity Databank reason being it is targeted at a very precise audience - namely Geologists/Geophysicists and soon Oil & Gas Engineers.

We have some other Exploration Tools that don't require login as well. I guess it wouldn't seem that exciting if you weren't some sort of GeoTech, tho.

cya.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-31-VS.NET-being-difficult https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-31-VS.NET-being-difficult Sat, 31 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Uh-oh. I did a little finishing touches to my latest application, Risk Analysis and it looks like Visual Studio doesn't like something I've done lately.

It took about 3.5 minutes to build/compile a 6 page ASP.NET project. That ain't good. So it looks like I'll be spending Monday doing some spring cleaning on the Punisher. Oh boy.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-30-Youre-a-nerd https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-30-Youre-a-nerd Fri, 30 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Last night I couldn't go to sleep, so I hopped on my laptop @ 1:00am.

The funny part is, when my modem stopped hand-shaking, one of my favorite 'softies popped up on Windows Messenger.

I won't go into a lot of the exact things we discussed as I don't know how this person feels about personal disclosure, but I can tell you my initial thought and thus my initial message to him:

"You're a nerd."

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-30-Pattern-Primate https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-30-Pattern-Primate Fri, 30 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

...from code monkey:P. Rollin right along, I'm getting more used to using patterns in my regular speech (as a developer, anyway:)

Trouble is, as I've said before, that I'm a sloooooooow reader. I guess I need to work on that a bit. Disregarding some of the more obvious design pattern speech impediments I'm experiencing, here's a few things I'm trying to work out for InfiniBlogWeb:

• "pluggable" data storage. Meaning filesystem/db. I'll see what I come up with on that one:)
• Comments. Yeah. Comments would be good.
• Pingback/Trackback/Per-post referrals
• These won't mean a lot to my blog perse, but I think in general are good things to have in a blog engine, no?
• Rotate Brain. eek. Mini-Gallery, personalization type stuff that really serves no visible purpose besides posterity.
• Refactor based on some of the design patterns I'm learning. I've gotten some suggestions, but honestly don't have a grasp for what they mean yet. I need to read more, I guess.
• External interface for what I wanna do here. I don't want to ever have to see my blog or IE to make these posts, tho they do have thier place IMHO.
• That's the best I can come up with for the moment. We'll see what shakes up in the near future...cya.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-30-Cross-posting-revisited https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-30-Cross-posting-revisited Fri, 30 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

One more thing - ScottW, you're the dude. man. whateva.

All I had to do this morning to enable cross-posting from my non-read space was change the url in web.config to point @ weblogs.asp.net . Nice:)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-28-Unwittingly-giving-Google-Juice https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-28-Unwittingly-giving-Google-Juice Wed, 28 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

<snip>

Well, I'm sure that lots of webloggers will fall into that trap.

Not me.

</snip>

[The Scobleizer Weblog]

D'oh!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-23-HashConfigCs https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-23-HashConfigCs Fri, 23 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I just made a change to some code I wrote a while back that generates a text file with strong encryption/decryption keys for use in a machine.config or web.config.

The change was minor, but when I first used it I didn't intend to tell anyone about it, but nor did I have a blog. Basically, all I did was add a little code to the MSDN example that walks you thru the process of defining strong <machineKey/> elements for inter-host forms authentication (among other things).

It's a command-line exe that takes 3 arguments:

1. number of bytes to make the decryption key
2. number of bytes to make the validation key
3. output file name.

The example given by MSDN is great, and there aren't any code changes as far as the logic for creating the keys go. I wanted to be able to copy/paste the results tho, so I added some pretty trivial filestream code to it. If one of you two is interested, ping me. Oh yeah, the code is in C#.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-21-RegExValidator-Tester https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-21-RegExValidator-Tester Wed, 21 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I just had to do a test for a RegExValidator.

Wow! Interesting, no? Keep reading.

A while back, I had to do a few tests to check if certain regEx's would work in a regex validator. Since said validator uses JavaScript RegExp's, I couldn't test for validation on Steve Smith's RegexLib.com. Great resource there, Steve - but I'm a web developer primarily. So I rolled my own.

You can find it on my little aspalliance web space here. I've used it quite a few times, but it's been a private deal - so there's no UI, no design went into it, it's simply a utility that works much like the tester on RegexLib; I simply made it work with a regexValidator so it requires one more postback. If any of my 2 readers enjoys this or finds it useful, please let me know. As always, feedback is appreciated - I'm still learning, here folks.

HAND.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-20-dmrader https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-20-dmrader Tue, 20 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Welcome to my pal Devin Rader who has just started a blog on dotnetweblogs.

<snip/>

[Julia Lerman Blog]

Subscribed.

[Listening to: Two Tabs Of Mescaline - Glassjaw - Worship And Tribute (06:12)]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-20-The-Bridge-Whatsis https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-20-The-Bridge-Whatsis Tue, 20 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

The Bridge pattern. All I have to say is..."huh?". Is it me or does this pattern seem like more of an abstract idea than the others I've seen so far? I think I'm going to have to read this chapter again. I don't mind, I'll come back to it.

So why am I reading DPE? Well, it occurs to me that a lot of developers I respect and think of as well-refined in their skills use these terms to not only communicate but also think about development in a higher order. I want that. I'm hungry. I want to collaborate with developers who are much better versed than I am and not just think, "huh?". I've got a lot of work to do.😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-15-WYSIWYG-4-Opera https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-15-WYSIWYG-4-Opera Thu, 15 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Just wondering; has anyone figured out how to do rich text editing in other browsers, i.e. Opera?[Objective]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Opera+rich+text+edit+&btnG=Google+Search

returned a couple of java applets that claim to do this.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-13-developerLabs https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-13-developerLabs Tue, 13 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

By far, the most interesting aspect of the windows 2003 launch event came from someone who is NOT employed by m$...Stephen "7 of 9" Fulcher.

Why "7 of 9"? Well, I often see some of the "'softies" refer to themselves as "the b0rg" or "assimilated". Following that scheme, Stephen used to work for m$, but now holds the title "Principal" for a company he started called developerLabs.

I saw Stephen there at the Reliant Center, and said hey to him. He shook my hand and pretended to know me. Or rather, he treated me with the respect of someone he knew. That was cool. Believe me, I'm a nobody - so when someone treats me like that, I remember. It's important.

So of course, I'll definitely be looking into taking a course or two at developerLabs, and if I can't benefit from taking the courses there, I'll do whatever I can to give Mr. Fulcher a hand over there. Yep. It's that important.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-13-Lessons-learned https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-13-Lessons-learned Tue, 13 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Just got back from the windows server 2003 launch event. Got some cool toys to play with, but I learned some interesting things...here's the gist.

First, the Reliant Stadium...the event was held at the Reliant Center, about 100 ft from Reliant Stadium, and all I have to say is Geez, that thing is huge. It stands next to the 'Dome, and believe me when I say that it literally dwarfs the '8th wonder of the world'. Oh yeah, thanks Uncle Billy for making me pay $7 to attend your 'free' event.😛

I only stayed for the first half, b/c this is pretty much all I could handle, but here are a few things that I gleaned from this morning:

• [insert technology here] Evangelist ~ high-falutin' sales person. (No offense I hope, Scoble;) Don't get me wrong, they know their stuff...but perhaps 'evangelist' is the correct title for these folks (in the Gulf Coast area, anyway.)
• Why were almost all of the benchmark tests done against NT4.0 as opposed to win2k? In their defense, there were also graphs shown where they went against RH linux/Apache v. IIS6. That was interesting.
• I didn't really see anyone 'new', barring the VP of M$. That was cool.
• The 'sessions' covered the same topics that I'd been seeing at developercare , which is okay despite the fact that some of this stuff I do know, so let's not go over basics for a bunch of people who came to see a new technology launch, okay? Thanks.

more to come...

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-13- https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-13- Tue, 13 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Delimma: What the heck am I? I get to the launch event and there are three 'tracks' you can take:

1. Developer 2. Architect 3. IT Pro.

Obviously, IT Pro is out the window for me. That's fine, I can handle that (for now:P)...the problem? I consider myself neither a developer nor an architect; I'm kind of 1.5 in that respect. Let's say I'm a code munkey aspiring to be a simian architect.

So, I decide to go the Architect route as this is the area I need direction in...the developer track was all about the goodies that you'll find in VS.NET 2003, which I'd honestly like to get my hands dirty with to learn about, thanks.

Topic: SOA, and the platform to deliver it. I took a few notes, but the first thing on the first page says:

"Patterns and Practices".

Can anyone else see where this is going? This was the first time I had seen this particular 'evangelist' (Architect Evangelist TBE...explain THAT one:) speak, so I figured what the hey, I'll check him out.

The speaker's name was John Opalko, and AFAIK, he's the lead for the developercare guys out here in Houston. Interesting topic, interesting points, unfortunately about 89% of the speech seemed stripped from the pages of [insert design pattern book here]. There was plenty of DP jargon flying around this conference room. Wow.

A couple of the key concepts that I heard in this session:

• "Just because you're using Web Services doesn't mean you've got Service Oriented Architecture."
• Each service handles its own state information, usually persisted to a Database.
• SOA is Message centric, wherein the message contains context you wouldn't expect to have from a simple method call.
• Msg != function call.
• Service Arch. is similar to component arch, the main difference being how state info is handled.
• He pronounced WSDL "Whiz-duhl"...does everybody do this?
• Each step in SOA is a transaction.
• Services should practice "Healthy Distrust"...neat buzzword, makes sense.

Okay, more than a couple.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-12-Functional-Decomposition https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-12-Functional-Decomposition Mon, 12 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Functional Decomposition: A method of breaking down a problem into smaller and smaller functions. Each function is subdivided until it is manageable.

So does anybody recognize the above? Yeah, I'm finally reading this book - Design Patterns Explained - in an effort to design better applications. Honestly, I'm tired of hearing about patterns spouted here and there between various lists that I frequent and not knowing what it means. Couldn't be a bad thing, could it? Hopefully, reading this book will take me one step closer from being a general asp.net code munkey to earn some wings as a code-warrior. Who knows? It is not poorly written so far, so I suppose I have nothing to lose.

Pointless post, I guess - but I wanted to catalog that I've finished chapter one of this book, so in the coming weeks if I start sounding real heavy on the pattern jargon, ping me and tell me to pimpslap myself. Thanks.

BTW - I'm a slow reader. Expect a chapter 2 reference in about 6 weeks 😛

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-06-From-one-of-the-funniest-blog-titles-department https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-06-From-one-of-the-funniest-blog-titles-department Tue, 06 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

How ubiquitous...😛

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-05-Effective-Linking https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-05-Effective-Linking Mon, 05 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

<snip> If I'm referring to a person, I'll link directly to the home page of that persons blog, preferably identifying them however they choose to identify themselves on their blog. This way, people who look for them using search engines find them the way they want to be found. For example, If you search for Chris Hollander or ScottGu, we respectively show up the way we want to, without revealing extra information. </snip>

Consequently, I gave my own name a shot (egotistical megalomaniac) with darn fine results I think - Chris Frazier. Cool. Thanks, dotnetweblogs.com!

[Listening to: Over The Hills And Far Away - Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy (04:52)]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-04-My-favorite-Exception https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-04-My-favorite-Exception Sun, 04 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

"Object reference not set to an instance of an object"

I'm not usually one to make my ignorance publicly known.

Okay, if you've seen any amount of my posts here or there then you know that's pretty much a lie. I'm learning, right? Well, this is a learning experience for me, and the lesson for today is that the error message at the top of this post is probably one of the few things I hate about .NET.

Sure, it's my code. I've got an error somewhere, and the runtime is telling me "Yo, instantiate the object over here, you moron!" But sometimes I want to pack 5 or 6 objects into a method call because it's easier and I've made something similar work before. "Object reference not set to an instance of an object". Which one, dammit?!?

I would really like it if comments could be posted on my little spin of InfiniBlog(web). But I can't. Why? "Object reference not set to an instance of an object". What a putz I am. grumble

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-02-To-CommentAPI-or-not-to-CommentAPI https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-02-To-CommentAPI-or-not-to-CommentAPI Fri, 02 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I've decided to take an approach based very loosely on the CommentAPI. I'm not adding the ability to post from outside of the base site yet, but I'm trying to factor this to be as extensible as possible while remaining within the bounds of the original code drop I have.

We'll just have to see how this one goes.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-02-Hyperlink-This https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-02-Hyperlink-This Fri, 02 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

<snip/> Most developers do not put much thought into hyperlinks. Most of what I've covered today is common sense, but it does pay to look back at your sites and see how you've structured your links. I've done this and been confused myself at times. Here is my best tactic: Although I design from a persona and goal oriented perspective, with hyperlinks I generally try to create links that my mother would understand. This keeps me safe 90% of the time 😃

[Dana Tries Blogging (non) Blonde Style]

Great stuff, Dana. I'm finding that even tho visitors usually won't read descriptions of links/navigation, I usually come up with some inane blurb as a sort of 'c.y.a.' measure...I want my web apps to be intuitive, true, but at the same time I tend to believe that the intelligent user will at least skim thru the instructions on the first pass thru.

Well, I hope, anyway!😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-02-Comments-help https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-02-Comments-help Fri, 02 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Does anyone have any pointers / links / resources I could look at for supporting comments in a blog system? I think I'm ready to implement this over @ the infiniblog space.

I think the general way to go about this in asp.net is to use a web service? I'm trying to keep this as extensible as possible...just a nudge in the right direction should suffice. Thanks in advance to my 2 readers.

[Listening to: Behind The Wheel - Depeche Mode - Disconet Mix (06:57)]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-02-Comment-Storage https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-02-Comment-Storage Fri, 02 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

This comment stuff is proving to be harder than I thought.

The problem is not the API, which seems pretty straightforward. It's in the way that I will store the comment data on the server. I think that I will follow the model that I have, but it's still proving a bit more involved than I was ready for today on this Friday.

This is going to be one of those things I think that I will end up figuring out in my sleep, waking up and saying "Ah, ha!". Don't lie, you've done it before.😃

[Listening to: Gimme Some more - Busta Rhymes - (04:06)]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-01-Win2k-Terminal-Services https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-01-Win2k-Terminal-Services Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I'm pretty sure no one was paying attention (even me:), but I made a post a while back about using Terminal Services as a sort of Software KVM.

Well, I've been using it to administer webservers at work and it works great. Getting it to work over the internet is a different topic -> I haven't even scratched the surface of using the Advanced Client, but I may have to look into that option.

At any rate, I found this great document on "Securing Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services"...if you're using termServ. at all, it's at least worth a quick run-thru. Plus all the pages that say 'Unclassified' make it kind of interesting.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-01-Last-ping-w-o-post https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-05-01-Last-ping-w-o-post Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Okay, the last one didn't go thru - still trying to sort the logic. sorry again, Scott.

This is great stuff, tho. I've learned more about xml-rpc/webservices (and the difference b/t them)/rss in the past couple of weeks than I've learned over the past year or two in dealing with all things .NET. And it's not someone just telling me how great it is (read: marketing)...if I can see it, rather or do it myself, then I can make the decision of whether or not I like it.

Verdict? Cool beans.😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-30-Success https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-30-Success Wed, 30 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Why didn't I see these 'ping' posts earlier? Looks to me like I've got some integration to clean up! HA!

So the posts below that say something like 'ping' were made from checking off a checkbox at my other blog, which means this stuff worked. 😄 Good. Now this also means that I have to figure out which one works...I tried quite a few different iterations (got up to 15 before I stepped away from it:S). So this is something you can do with webservices, eh? Spiffy.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-30-Almost https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-30-Almost Wed, 30 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I'm getting close...Trying to figure out what's going wrong here....must ping more.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-28-The-new-Look-feel-and-function-of-dotnetweblogs-com https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-28-The-new-Look-feel-and-function-of-dotnetweblogs-com Mon, 28 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Great job, Scott. I've decided to clean up my dotnetblogspace a little bit, so I've moved my story links here. Mucho cleaner, IMHO.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-28-More-Integration https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-28-More-Integration Mon, 28 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Also, thanks Scott for the simpleblogservice...I think this will be the way to go, of course using post to put new entries in based on an infiniblog bit. I've got to check with Chris, but I think I will make the code available for download on my site...once I get more than just a blog working there, of course:P!

The modifications I've made are simple yet important [to this geek anyway] and include identifying a blog by virtual directory (which is what must be happening in this here blogspace) and geoUrl service via geo.blah meta tags - it works, it's cool, and I saw my personal blog show up on the map over there. Too cool. I have other plans here, too - I just got this damn day job thing that makes me put on my thinking cap sometimes. Maybe it's time to get into the zone.😉

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-25-The-logic-or-lack-thereof-behind-xhtml-body https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-25-The-logic-or-lack-thereof-behind-xhtml-body Fri, 25 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

When Sam started a small revolution last month by using <xhtml:body> in his rss-feed, <snip/>

On top of that, it seems like every rss feed that uses xhtml:body, uses tags like <body xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> for every item ,

<snip/>

[Luke Hutteman's Weblog]

So am I missing something, or would an RSS feed be considered valid xhtml if using the <body> element in its items collection? As I'm typing this I'm thinking no - no <html> element, yadda yadda...

Okay, then - some more research is in order then. Two items - a filter for xhtml, and a way for extensible comments to bake in to the infiniblog. I've been looking thru some other's ideas on a CommentAPI, but I'm not sure how I should implement it - if what I'm thinking is true, an aspx page which uses a server-side form won't accept a POST from an outside script. I could use a webservice, but what about an .ashx?

The xhtml filter will require a bit more insight as to how HttpHandlers/HttpModules are handled in the runtime. We are implementing the rss feed thru an HttpHandler that accepts requests for .rss files. (We, well - Chris Hollander and my hi-jacking of his code:) So I need to find out if the HttpModules are still called when a Handler is implemented. Haven't really checked out the TraceLog yet.

Okay, enough blabbing - time to find out. cya!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-25-GeoBlog https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-25-GeoBlog Fri, 25 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I really, really like various tools that mix blogspace with meatspace. GeoBlog is frickin cool. real time map of blog postings, as they happen. In theory, I should see myself popup on a map, a few minutes after posting this. Very, very cool.[Objective]

I wonder if it will really work? we're about to see....

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-25-A-sexy-UI https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-25-A-sexy-UI Fri, 25 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

The world must be about to end. Jeffrey Zeldman has an RSS feed and Chris Pirillo has a weblog format without a stupid font. Now if we could only get Chris to do a weblog without a stupid font and without a totally sexy photo as the background. I find the photo more distracting than the font. Just don't tell my wife, OK? Oh, hi Maryam! 😃

[The Scobleizer Weblog]

Chris, I've got to hand it to you for creating a UI that will keep users interested.

Oops, was that supposed to be secret?😉

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-23-Pingbacks-trackbacks https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-23-Pingbacks-trackbacks Wed, 23 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Just 'fixed' the incoming links control over to your right there-->

This is great stuff - I was going to roll my own type of deal here, but decided against it based on someone's advice. Thanks.

[phoenix]

Whew! I've been uploading files for a minute over on the gotdotnet workspaces! It's kind of cool, tho - this is the first project that I've worked on with other .NET developers. It's cool to see others' code and see how they approach problems and attempt to solve them.

I'm enjoying it a lot, and I've even had a couple of things to contribute, believe it or not. This is also a good way to integrate my dotnetweblogs blog [this] with a different, personal blog that I can just blab on.

I'm guessing that most of the posts I make will be on both, seeing as I don't have a lot of interesting things to say that don't have to do with .NET -> I'm still building the other one for those few cases 😃 I just hope that ScottW doesn't change what a 'BlogPost' is too much - I'm stoked to get this stuff integrated. My other blog will be located above - just thought I'd share even tho you probably don't care. Whateva;)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-18-Need-Logo https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-18-Need-Logo Fri, 18 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I am getting pretty close to having a downloadable version ready for public consumption.

One thing I am still lacking is a nice "powered by ASPNetWebLog" image/button. Without help, this is what I came up with :ASPNetWeblog Logo

Anyone skilled with Fireworks/Photoshop hanging around here? Want to whip something up real quick?

[ScottW's ASP.NET WebLog]

If you have PSD files, send them to me and I'll give it a whirl. If not, let me know and I'll start from scratch. While I wouldn't call myself 'skilled' at photoshop, I know my way around it.

Can you give me a clear concept of what you want (like, do you want the current color scheme, only flashy, um, er? do you want the words 'Powered By: ASPNetWeblLog' to remain exactly as they are - considering CaPs and all? do you want to keep the gecko in the image?) Let me know.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-17-BlogThis-Thanks-Simon https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-17-BlogThis-Thanks-Simon Thu, 17 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-17-Added-new-Story-on-using-Reflection-to-make-dynamic-about-pages https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-17-Added-new-Story-on-using-Reflection-to-make-dynamic-about-pages Thu, 17 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Check it out here.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-15-xhtml-xsd https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-15-xhtml-xsd Tue, 15 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Where the heck do I get my grubby developer hands on this little beast if I can't browse, save in IE? My other browsers (Opera 6.04/Mozilla 1.0) can't really handle it - opera just chokes and mozilla gives me a lot of text...maybe I could still save it as an xsd...I'll be back!

UPDATE: You betcha. I browsed to XHTML-STRICT and selected 'save page as' in Mozilla - bam! I've got it on the Punisher(my dev box:)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-14-dotnetweblogs-integration https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-14-dotnetweblogs-integration Mon, 14 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I already have this blog on dotnetweblogs.com, but I feel kind of bad using someone else's server to post random crap on the web. Therefore, I was going to build my own blog system...that is until I spoke with ScottW about it.

He convinced me that instead of 'reinventing the wheel', as we like to say, I should focus on doing something new. Herein lies the delimma. I want to keep my blog at dotnetweblogs.com, because I believe I'll be able to help more people there with .NET centric content. Maybe not help a lot, but pay it forward as much as I can. I also want to be able to post random thoughts that come to me at 3 am when I can't go to sleep. What to do, what to do?

Start a new blog. My goal is to use the webservice that comes with my dotnetweblogs.com web space and post from what will be my new blog optionally to dotnetweblogs.com, because a lot of my thoughts have to do with .NET anyway:) So, instead of writing my own from scratch (which I wouldn't do anyway), I'm going to use ChrisAn's blogx software for the time being, because I can integrate and upgrade it as I see fit...win/win situation.

I'm still going to build a web-based aggregator, because I do want to learn more about these "cool xml technologies, but I'm already comfortable with web applications - and I was kind of looking forward to throwing my hand into windows forms. One thought I did have tho was to use ChrisAn's blogx software as an href exe, b/c that's a neat stuff IMHO. I don't know where else I should go from here...upgrading or extending well-written code shouldn't be that difficult, but difficulty is not my desire. I just wanted to do a side project that would give me a chance to learn some of the other cool technologies .NET has to offer.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-12-aspnet-user-control-to-display-scrollable-rss20-feeds https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-12-aspnet-user-control-to-display-scrollable-rss20-feeds Sat, 12 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

<snip/>

Whad'ya all think?

</snip>

[Julia Lerman Blog

Sweet! I like the inter face, looks very similar to something I have in mind. I'm going to probably use some other people's controls, and use xslt on the feed items because it just makes sense to me. I mean, this stuff is all xml, right? I'm not sure if this particular control will accomodate rss2.0 or not, but it should not be that hard to modify the xslt if not.

I don't really know a lot about these cool xml technologies, but that's the main reason to do it, innit? I'm also going to put together not an aggregator, but a blog-postin windows form, ala ASPNetWebLog - but to post to a different blog. Just have to wait till ScottW gets the bits worked out for the latest, greatest version of ASPNetWebLog and the accompanying webservice...can't hardly wait!

BTW, I've got to say another big ole thank ya to Scott for giving me the means as well as the base to learn this stuff from - what a cool cat!😉

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-12-Where-is-everybody https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-12-Where-is-everybody Sat, 12 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

<snip/>

Where is everybody? You can't all leave me here alone...it's not fair! So if you are actually sharing my boredom here, tell me what you're doing. I am chatting with Cory, posting this, and wondering what I'm going to do next.

[David Stone's Blog

Don't know what time you posted this, but I'm just bloggin, chattin w/ Paul, and trying to think of a way to make a thin client aggregator for home and the dial up. BTW - 2:30 here.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-12-Scobleizer-vs-Dvorak https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-12-Scobleizer-vs-Dvorak Sat, 12 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Who are most people in the industry going to believe? Dvorak or Scoble?

[The Scobleizer Weblog

One hardcore .net developer for Scoble, right here!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-12-More-on-aggregators https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-12-More-on-aggregators Sat, 12 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Added Dare's RssBandit 1.0d, 1.1beta to the home machine...couldn't get it to work right away 😦

Added Chris's Harvester to the home machine...couldn't get it to work (as expected) right away. 😦

Have had SharpReader on the home machine for a few days now. Has anyone tried to use this one over a dial-up connection? Don't.

Also added dotnetfxv1.1.4322RTM/SDK to the home machine tonite, along with RssBanit and Harvester's accompanying .exe.config files for SxS execution via the <startup/> attribute. No dice.

Conclusion: Synderella works, I just wish she wouldn't arbitrarily update - takes up a lot of resources. Possible solution: web-based aggregator that will behave as I expect it to b/c I'm building it. If nothing else, it should be a good learning experience, right?

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-11-Clippy https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-11-Clippy Fri, 11 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

By the way, I know some of you folks played around with this a little... any stories? [Rachel Reese's Blog]

I showed it to the bossman...he loved it! We used it to play a joke on a coworker. Funny stuff. Too bad I shouldn't post it here:)

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-09-the-Scoble-says https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-09-the-Scoble-says Wed, 09 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

If the FrontPage team wants some consulting, you know where to find me.

Will you be charging your normal dollar rate?😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-09-MBSA https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-09-MBSA Wed, 09 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Yes I have heard of it, and yes I do use it - although probably not as often as I should :S. I personally prefer the GUI, but that's just me. I like to click. I've been using this tool for a little while - there isn't some new version/update I should know about, is there?

-Christopher

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-08-devenv-exe-setup https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-08-devenv-exe-setup Tue, 08 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

This was a switch I didn't even know existed from the command line. I was having some issues with VS.NET 2002 and custom Add in tools. I couldn't figure out why I could see the name of the tool in the Add in manager list, but I couldn't see the tool in the Tools menu.

Enter Dave Wanta, one of the coolest developers I know. I asked him, "What's the deal?" and without even missing a beat, he gave me the suggestion that is the title for this entry, and WOOT! There it is! If you haven't seen Dave's Site you're either living under a rock, or you could care less about .NET and aren't reading this anyway. Dave is also responsible for such components as aspNetEmail, aspNetDns, among other really useful tools for .NET.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-08-Ok-Ill-try-one-more-time https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-08-Ok-Ill-try-one-more-time Tue, 08 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Chris wrote a while back about the source/binaries for his blog engine that his site uses. Count me way in! I'm looking to do something similar to use as a go-by, now that I have a server for my site which will still remain unlinked 😛 content. I need it.😉

-Chris

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-08-I-love-this-stuff https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-08-I-love-this-stuff Tue, 08 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

As a developer, I consider myself more of a problem solver. One of my least favorite problems: Com Interop. I can't shake it. It seems that no matter how hard I try, all of my apps to date have included interop.

That said, it's kind of fun revisiting one of my first asp.net endeavors and trying to remember why I architected it so poorly. Oh yeah, I'm a programmer - and at the time it was written, I remember having to make a few changes from .net beta 2 to RTM. Added to the fact that the only readily available examples that I had were in asp.old, looking back at the code has made me realize just how much I've grown over this time.

I was trouble shooting a new application that someone else is writing based on my previous code and com interop. Probably not the best idea, but the point is gotten across. I think. The developer in question just asked me "Where do you get the knowledge of how to deal with the worker process?". Well, the short answer is messing with it. Sometimes the resources that you need when debugging are locked up by a worker process that still thinks it's debugging - so Kill it! I'm not up to date on the niceties of IIS 6 and the refinements of the worker process there, but the one that ships with v1.0.3705 is just well built. I can kill it in task manager and a new one pops right up!

</rant>

red or green pill, you live and you learn.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-07-SharpReader https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-07-SharpReader Mon, 07 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

<snip/>

UPDATE: I am having problems add more than one feed to a category (which kind of defeats the purpose). Anyone else notice this behavior?

[Loosely Coupled]

Yep. Got the same deal. Of course, I'm going back and forth b/t SharpReader and Synderella, cuz I can post thru Synderella! (thanks, Scott!😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-07-Aggrrregator-Overload-SharpReader https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-07-Aggrrregator-Overload-SharpReader Mon, 07 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

ok. Harvester is fun. RssBandit is better. SharpReader Owns. Its just really, really slick; the threaded posts functionality is killer; the ability to see all of the posts under a given folder is awesome, the handling of OPML is great. The aggregation engine itself seems blazing.

I would strongly suggest the author download the Magic UI library, and get some VS.NET UI goodness going on.

[Objective]

Okay, I now have 3 winform aggregators on my desktop at work. Boo!!!! Talk about a productivity killer! My short and sweet reviews:

Synderella: 3 panes. Easy to operate. I like seeing a different color for a feed that has been updated. Plus, I can blog from this one!

SharpReader: 3 panes. I like the way I can define an arbitrary amount of folders, and I can browse pingbacks/trackbacks/referrals with ease in a tree-like format. Now only if I could blog from it!

Harvester: UI gone nuts! I really like the tabbed interface/magic components w/ IDE look and feel. I cannot figure out how to import settings from OPML (on my box) but that just means I'm a moron.

I haven't gotten around to RSSBandit yet, tho I've seen it for download...I just loaded 2 more aggregators on my box - give me some breathing space! For now, it looks like SharpReader is the winner, but I'll have to keep going back and forth b/t that and Synderella, unless of course I just blog from the web...nah! I like doing it from this winform...That's got to be my favorite feature, read a feed, respond in my blog.😛

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-07-Aggregator-integration https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-07-Aggregator-integration Mon, 07 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

<snip/>

What do you all think? Is aggregator integration into Outlook a good thing? Is it a "must have" feature for you? Comment or blog and let me know.

[A Blog for Graymad]

A big, fat, hairy, resounding NEGATIVE! I'm all for connectivity and all, but as Andrew points out, what a productivity killer! My day usually starts out going thru a bunch of emails, writing some code, opening my aggregator, writing some code, repeat. No way. VS.NET would never get opened if I had a single spot for information transaction.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-06-In-need-of-direction-was-Don-youre-doing-it-again https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-06-In-need-of-direction-was-Don-youre-doing-it-again Sun, 06 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

<snip/>

P.S. - Chris, if you're reading this...I sent you an e-mail. 😃 [David Stone's Blog]

I sent over a similar email...I guess I should have blogged about it, but I'd be surprised if there was anybody subscribed to my blog.😛 Very surprized. I wanted to see what I could do to implement a blog on my site which I probably should link to but won't b/c it has a cheezy "coming soon..." default page up now and is begging for me to add content. How 'bout it, Chris? I need direction....😃

Update - You're 100% right, Andrew. My bad - consider it snipped.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-03-Starter-Kits-Rule https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-03-Starter-Kits-Rule Thu, 03 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

If you're looking to get a site up in a hurry, with a minimum of fuss, then you owe it to yourself to check out the ASP.NET Starter Kits, downloadable from where else but http://www.asp.net/. These kits, which are currently in beta, are offered in the following flavors:

<snip/>

They're also a very good way to see what other developers have done with ASP.NET, and perhaps come up with a few ideas of your own.

I had delayed playing with the starter kits out of beta overload. Now, I'm just sorry that I didn't look sooner. It's cool stuff!

[A Blog for Graymad]

I've got to agree, these kits have given some pretty good refrence points that work. I've gotten plenty of ideas from looking thru the starter kits and asking myself, "Self, how can you improve this or make it fit the current solution?"

Good stuff, those starter kits.😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-01-More-More-More-It's-Coming-Woohoo https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-04-01-More-More-More-It's-Coming-Woohoo Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

In the coming week(s) the webservice(s) will be much improved. The current webservice is just a quick wrapper around my display objects (hence there is a lot data/members returned that are not necessary). This is very high on my to do list. The internals of the app are really starting to improve. This should lead of a much cleaner and robost set of services.

As far as them showing up in the aggregator.. well that is a different story. I do have plans for my own aggregator/admin application so day (although Chris seems to be on the same track I was thinking about), but it won't be Syndirella. Syndirella is a nice tool, but I have some of my own ideas (and I am not a big fan of Syndirella's licence). I have been chatting with a few people recently about this, and I would really like to see what the "community" can come up with. I have also implemented the metablog/blogger api's. Not sure what to do with them...but I guess they will go live with the next build as well (don't hold me to this. They seem to work, but I don't think they are something I really want to support)

[ScottW's ASP.NET WebLog]

Even Better! Thanks, Scott!

-C

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-31-More-More-More https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-31-More-More-More Mon, 31 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Ya know, the site that's set up for us dotnetwebloggers is real cool. You can do everything there.

I'd like to see similar functionality added to my aggregator - I want to post stories, admin my blog, add links that will show up on the site, etc in AspNetWebLog. Is that asking too much? If it is, how about more methods that I could use from the webservice that would let me build my own 'smart client' (is that what this thing is called?) to go on top of AspNetWebLog - I want full control from my desktop. Plus, it would give me a chance to play with WinForms, which I have only dabbled a little bit in.

Maybe we'll see some of this in the next version. I'm holding my breath!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-31-Boy-am-I-glad-to-see-you https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-31-Boy-am-I-glad-to-see-you Mon, 31 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Make that, girl am I glad to see you. ...

Which brings me to my next question, why aren't there more female Bloggers here? If there are of you out there thinking about it, please sign up! I'd love to see more feminine faces around here, and we won't even make you blog in pink...

Datagrid Girl

Datagrid Girl

Amen! More smart females, please! Blonde or not...whateva.

Great to see you, D.

-Christopher

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-31-10-hrs-on-the-road-and-over-600-miles-covered-and-worth-every-second https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-31-10-hrs-on-the-road-and-over-600-miles-covered-and-worth-every-second Mon, 31 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I got back from seeing Ethan monster late Sunday afternoon...I'm just too proud. My boy is walking like a champ! Talking, too. I was holding him, and he reached out, grabbed my nose, and said "noshe".

I've got to say, tho - the best part of the weekend was when I was taking him inside and he laid his head on my shoulder, gave me a squeeze and said, "Daddy". That says it all.

-C

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-28-Have-YOU-ever-heard-of-Detroit-TX-No-one-else-has-either https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-28-Have-YOU-ever-heard-of-Detroit-TX-No-one-else-has-either Fri, 28 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

but, that's where I'm going tomorrow. My son lives there with his brother, their mom (baby's momma:), and Nana and Papa (the Grandparents). It's going to be a 5 hour drive, but I'm more concerned about the lack of sleep I think I'm gonna get tonight - I haven't seen Ethan or any of them for 2 months now.

Wish me luck.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-28-A-Blessing-in-disguise-follow-up-to-Boo-on-Validators https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-28-A-Blessing-in-disguise-follow-up-to-Boo-on-Validators Fri, 28 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

This is what I love about blogging here. I not only got to work out the problem in a different way than I would have alone, but I also got some great perspective from others before I go and make a decision. After I got to step away from the problem, I decided that my initial gripe may have a silver lining. Here's what I mean:

First, let's put ourselves in the user's position. The user in this case will most likely be a Geophysicist that could talk you into a hole about Checkshot velocities, wavelets, etc, but has limited useage of the internet or web applications. I want the user to feel like she has complete control over the data that they can manipulate, but at the same time, I want that data to be valid. Personally, I think it would be counter intuitive to have a 'delete value' button by every textbox (and there are a lot of them), so if I were the user and I wanted to get rid of a previous value, would I automatically think, "Oh, gee, this started off as N/A - I better change it back."? No. No I'm not. I'm gonna highlight whatever I typed in before, hit backspace, and click the update button. That's what I'm used to, and I fear change.:S

I guess my initial gripe was simply the fact that the Regular Expression Validator does not validate the Regex strictly. It validates the Regex and an empty string. Does this make sense to anyone else? If I want to validate something as (\d{1}), I'm looking for something b/t 0 and 9, not something b/t 0 and 9 OR oh yeah, an empty string will work, too. Thanks to everyone who helped me think this problem thru - I'm sure we all know what the real answer is, don't we? IT'S CLIPPY!!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-27-Boo-on-ASP-NET-Validators https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-27-Boo-on-ASP-NET-Validators Thu, 27 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

So I'm trying to get a regular expression validator to work - ya know, validate my data. I'm a reeeeal novice when it comes to regex, so with a little help and tweaking, this is what I come up with:

ValidationExpression = "(\d{1,8}(\.\d{1,2})?)|(\d{0,8}(\.\d{1,2}))|(N\/A)"

Because I want a decimal number OR N/A, which is the default value that each of my textboxes (in this case) are populated with. This regular expression works. Almost. I could not figure out why I could add an empty string or a bunch of spaces and it validates as true. So I took a look at the WebUIValidation.js that the validators use.

function RegularExpressionValidatorEvaluateIsValid(val) { var value = ValidatorGetValue(val.controltovalidate); if (ValidatorTrim(value).length == 0) return true; var rx = new RegExp(val.validationexpression); var matches = rx.exec(value); return (matches != null && value == matches[0]); }

The important bit is the if(ValidatorTrim) part. It's valid if there is nothing there! Maybe I'm just dense...wait...it's probably because I'm dense, but I want my regular expression validator to match my regular expression only. I know I could add a required field validator, but that is not correct. It's not a required field - that's why N/A is a valid value. But a space/no entry is not. I want the value in my field to be :

a decimal number OR "N/A" ONLY!

grrrrrrr...I don't know if I should modify the WebUIValidation.js or write my own control that will strictly match a Regular Expression. Sucks on empty strings.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-18-Happiness-is-getting https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-18-Happiness-is-getting Tue, 18 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-17-added-custom-config-section-handler-story https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-17-added-custom-config-section-handler-story Mon, 17 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I just added a story describing how I've made my ImageLink control jump thru some more hoops for an application-specific purpose. If anyone is interested, you can find it here.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-16-Remote-Desktop https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-16-Remote-Desktop Sun, 16 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Just a quick post - I've been toying w/ the idea of a software KVM - using terminal services. Keith gave me a link for the client which he says works great. I'll have to check it out tomorrow.

Link - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/rdclientdl.asp

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-16-Ive-taken-the-plunge https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-16-Ive-taken-the-plunge Sun, 16 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I finally did it. I 'upgraded' my home pc to XP. It took forever, probably b/c I have a pretty slow processor - 400mhz, but it's up, it's running, and I didn't lose any of the file structure.

I did have to start over 1 time, b/c I ran into a registry problem on setup, but barring that and how long it took, it was pretty painless! Now, all I have to do is convince the higher ups at work that I should do the same on my dev boxes there - and Bob's your uncle, Chris is finally a part of the 21st century!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-14-Stupid-fill-in-the-blank https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-14-Stupid-fill-in-the-blank Fri, 14 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-12-Taking-Custom-Configuration-Sections-A-Step-Further https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-12-Taking-Custom-Configuration-Sections-A-Step-Further Wed, 12 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Yup, it's cool, but it gets even cooler when you start writing your own configuration section handler implementations. The beauty of the configuration architecture is that it's completely extensible.

[From Drew's Blog]

Thanks Drew.  I kinda figured I'd only scratched the surface with this stuff.  Thanks, I'm gonna check out IConfigurationSectionHandler stuff

[Currently Playing: Rancid - Life Won't Wait]

[.NET Brain Droppings]

BAM! I did it - I knew it could be done, but I had no idea how simple the framework makes it. I'm talking about hydrating a list of the hyperlink controls I recently created from a config file using a custom config section handler - I'll write a story on how I got it done here shortly. Well, tonight anyway.

Basically, I used a method near what Drew described, but I took an attribute-based approach - so the web.config has a section that looks like a list of server controls without the <asp: at the beginning.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-11-Custom-configuration-sections https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-11-Custom-configuration-sections Tue, 11 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Something I've found infinitely useful is custom configuration sections. By using custom configuration sections, you are allowed to store a richer amount of information in the application config file, than when you simply add values to the <appSettings> section. To add a custom config section, you must do 2 things: 1) declare the section group and section in the <configSections> portion of the app.config file, and 2) add the new sections to the config file. ... [Currently Playing: Rage Against the Machine - Self-titled] [.NET Brain Droppings]

Too cool Don! Honestly, something like this is going to be my very next endeavor - I'm adding a 'list' type container for my 'QuickLink'/'ImageLink' control. My plan isn't to use a NVC, but rather to hydrate a set amount of controls in an application/page using a custom config handler...this will have to wait a couple of days tho, since I've got to get my Risk app going into an installer by tomorrow 😦

Oh well, keep 'em coming, bloggers!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-11-Added-Extending-the-MetaBuilders-RollOverLink-Story https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-11-Added-Extending-the-MetaBuilders-RollOverLink-Story Tue, 11 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-11-Added-Editing-a-custom-icon-to-a-web-server-control-story https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-11-Added-Editing-a-custom-icon-to-a-web-server-control-story Tue, 11 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-10-Added-HTTP-Request-code-snippit https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-10-Added-HTTP-Request-code-snippit Mon, 10 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I'm adding a new category of posts to my blog; code snippits. I was looking for a tool to manage code snippits when it hit me, why not post them to my blog. I hope you find them useful. I'll just randomly post stuff up there as I work on it.

There are a couple problems with this. One - the editor forces each line of code to have a

break, so the code looks unweildy. Two - Some of the code spans methods within a class, and I'm not quite sure how to post that yet. I'll give this stuff some thought and hopefully have a fix soon.

For now, the first one is self-contained and was easy to post, it's an example of how to do a HTTP request and you can find it here.

[Currently Playing: Ministry - Animositisomina]

[.NET Brain Droppings]

Good idea, Don. I recently asked ScottW if I could post kind of psuedo-articles to the story section of my blog, and his response was, "Yes. Definitely". I haven't gotten around to it yet, but only b/c of my hoakie dial-up connection (28.8 kbps) I have at the heezie [trans.:house, residence] So, hopefully if things go my way today, I'll have a little sumthin-sumthin to post up in my story section later today. If not, I'll just haveta settle for tomorrow.

Procrastination? Na, I'll procrastinate later.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-05-Stupid-Cookie-Domain https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-03-05-Stupid-Cookie-Domain Wed, 05 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I've spent about 1 1/2 hours trying to figure out why I couldn't get a persistent cookie set from codebehind in ASP.NET...I tried a lot of different things but of course not the correct solution. The domain. rrrrrrgh!

The worst part is that I sorted this out a few weeks ago, but since then it hasn't been a big issue, I've been letting the framework of each application handle the details of www.mydomain.net communicating with demo.mydomain.net.

Today I've been back on the originating app's side, making sure things are ready to get set, then I got all sweaty and whatnot about the 'cookie not being set properly', which was kind of true - my browser didn't think the code was coming from the same host. localhost != www.mydomain.com. There's my 'D'oh!' for the day.

btw, it works still (whew!😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-28-I-am-the-Framework-I-run-managed-code-I-am-without-flaw https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-28-I-am-the-Framework-I-run-managed-code-I-am-without-flaw Fri, 28 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Get a heads up on running multiple versions of the Framework. ShowUsYour-Blog!

I read Darren's post, and subsequently the referenced article by Early & Adopter, and I must say that both were extremely helpful.

I haven't yet applied v1.1 of the Framework at the office, but I am using SxS execution at home, and I have run into a similar problem the Darren outlined - I just kind of moved on to the next thing I could try out - didn't really think it over too much.

So does this mean that you're kind of bound to the version of VS.NET that you have loaded? Not according to the article. I wonder if the hard-coded framework issue applies also to SharpDevelop and WebMatrix, which are the tools I use at home. It would be interesting to find out!

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-26-Cool-uses-for-DHTML https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-26-Cool-uses-for-DHTML Wed, 26 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Mark forwarded me a link today of a site that pushes DHMTL to the max. I've gone on record before about my loathing for web development, but I know a lot of you out there are web dev's so maybe you can pick up a trick or two from youngpup.net.

Wha'ts great is he has open sourced the entire site, and it has lots of cool goodies... [Currently Playing: Schreeching Weasel - My Brain Hurts]

• Disclaimer: Nothing aginst web developers, actually the opposite. I have an enormous amount of respect for you guys. I spent a few years in asp hell, and I'm so done with cross browser incompatibilities, weak UI support and scripting languages. ugghhh... kudos to ya'll

[.NET Brain Droppings]

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-22-Getting-Started-on-some-Controls-Issues https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-22-Getting-Started-on-some-Controls-Issues Sat, 22 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-21-Jump-into-VBNET-feet-furst https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-21-Jump-into-VBNET-feet-furst Fri, 21 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-18-NET-Brain-Farts https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-18-NET-Brain-Farts Tue, 18 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Today Seems like an extended Moday as far as my development goes. I've tried about 3 or 4 different tings on my current project that just don't seem to be working as I would expect them to. Of course, that's the point, isn't it? I've had a few brain farts in my past development cycle, all of which ended up being just oversights on my end - you know, the type of thing that really bites you, and then when you figure it out, you let out a resounding "d'oh!".

Well, I guess the only thing I can really do is keep plugging away at it, maybe a solution will surface. Till next time - blog ya later.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-13-ReporT https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-13-ReporT Thu, 13 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-11-Nearing-completion https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-11-Nearing-completion Tue, 11 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I'm getting to the clean-up phase of porting an asp.old project to .NET. It's about time! I finally tackled a problem I ran into with a vb6 component that was run thru VS.NET to be converted to VB.NET - I couldn't figure it out till I used a 'magik number' hard coded into part of my application. 1 based arrays. Why?! Why I say!?! I've always been accustomed to using 0-based arrays, and as I've stepped thru the code I've seen this behavior in some of the VB.NET arrays - they place an element into the element at 0 that says <empty element used to adjust for 1 based array>.

Well, in this case it didn't happen like that. Oh, well. Just one of those things I guess.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-11-Generating-Ideas https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-11-Generating-Ideas Tue, 11 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I've decided to try and make my life a little easier. Controls. I've jumped into them a little in the past, but now I may have a little more time to put some extra thought into it. What I would like to do is encapsulate client-side behaviors like .htc's or javascript components and wrap it up in a drag-n-droppable asp.net server control. This leaves open a lot of possibilities...so I guess now is the time to generate ideas.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-10-Monday-morning https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-10-Monday-morning Mon, 10 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-08-HELPING-C-VETERANS-WITH-NET https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-08-HELPING-C-VETERANS-WITH-NET Sat, 08 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

My boss asked me to come into work today to explain accessing a database in .NET to one of our developers who mainly codes in C. It was pretty interesting - this guy is an amazing programmer, but as I said mainly codes in C so is a .NET novice. I was able to explain dataAdapters and dataSets in a way that a C programmer would understand - pretty neat-o if you ask me.

I'll be the first one to tell you that I have not reached a level of programming to be able to say - "I am THE programmer!", but I know .NET fairly well anyway. Today I explained one of those cool .NET aspects to someone who probably can say he is THE programmer. Has anyone else done something like this?

-Respect.

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari) https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-07-WOOT-FIRST-POST https://chris.pelatari.com/posts/2003-02-07-WOOT-FIRST-POST Fri, 07 Feb 2003 00:00:00 GMT

This is my first post on the blog...I hope that I'll have something interesting to say. Well, I guess the first post should have a little to do with history. I work for a company that deals with the oil & gas exploration industry, you know - geophysicists and stuff like that. You cna find us on the web at Velocity Databank, Inc. . Of course, the site is written completely in ASP.NET, with only one little widget that I had to use interop in for the sake of brevity - you know, time constraints and such. I'm 22, live in Houston, TX, and I've been programming in C# since the public beta release of .NET. Personally, I was more than happy to pick it up - but before then I was doing C++ and using the Java SDK a little bit, but not for as long as some of these other bloggers out here. Before that, I really liked web development - but just DHTML, no fancy server-side stuff 'til ASP.NET came along. Basically, I just didn't - and still don't - like the idea of coding in VB...that's right - I said it - No VB for me! HA! Well, not if I can help it anyway. 😃

]]> chris@bluefenix.net (Chris Pelatari)