Colt Kwong Blog

DotText and new version of WebLog@ASP.NET launched

What a great news that ScottW announce the new blog engine - DotText and his personal blog to a new home. (It's a good name and a very good application! I know he have many beautiful skins and fantastic features coming :)

Moreover, he have a blog dedicated for Site News and mention the latest version and situation of this blog site.

I saw a Link Category from ScottW where he show all of the blog places are using the DotText engine, e.g. ScottOnWriting and DotNetJunkies (Sorry, I can't find this link category from his blog at this moment). In the meantime, I'm working on a Chinese blog community now, which is based on the DotText engine (more accurately it is the 'old' version of DotNet Engine), here is a screen shot:

Yes, one of my modification made is make it to support “aNy”  languages, in addition to English.
(Hopefully, ScottW will put my link on his link category shortly. :)

BTW, I noticed that the Trackback/Referral section was removed in this latest version of WebLog@ASP.NET, I'm not sure why ScottW insist to do so. Well, it's a bit confusing and ugly when reading a blog, but I think it's an interesting sections when we know who's reading it. (ScottW, I hope you can hear me :)

Update: I found the Link Category that showing “Blogs using .Text”, it's actually at the left hand side of http://scottwater.com/dottext :)

New face of ASPAdvice

I browse to ASPAdvice and it give a shock tonight, it was changed!

AFAIK, ASPAlliance use Red color as its theme (Yes, it's bloody red :S)

With the launch of ASPAdvice List, it use Red color too of course. Now, it's changed to ... light blue/mild purple (Sorry, I think I'm a color-blind and can't distinguish color easily :\ 

IMO, it's clean and fresh! If there's any change for the ASPAlliance web site, I'll vote for this color instead of the existing one. (Can you hear me Steve? :)

A new logo and new layout was applied for the ASPAdvice in fact, a couple of new items and sponsors page were added, but the goal and mission do not change: 

ASPAdvice - Answers to Questions

If you don't know what's ASPAdvice or not yet subscribe to its list(s), but working in the field of ASP/ASP.NET and want to know more about this email list, here you go.

File and Data Management Area in ASP.NET Web Matrix

One of the very cool feature in Web Matrix v0.6 is the real time visual rendering of User Control. That is, if we create a User Control and save it(uc1.ascx), and then we create a parent/template page (WebForm1.aspx) to embed this User Control, what we have to do is to drag the User Control (uc1.aspx) and drop it onto the page (WebForm1.aspx), then the visual appearance of the User Control will be displayed on the designer of Web Matrix automatically. That's a really cool feature in WM and his brothers - Visual Studio .NET 2002 and 2003 still can NOT render user controls in real time like that but just showing a 'grey box' instead.

In the meantime, the Guided Tour come with Web Matrix v0.6 have a section talking about:

From the File and Data Management Area (located on the top left hand side of the tool), drag the copyRightsNotice.ascx onto the copyRightsNotice.aspx page.

There's NOT really a command button, a section or area named "File and Data Management Area" inside Web Matrix, so a FAQ post in the ASP.NET Forum - "Where's the File and Data Management Area?" / " I can't find this area and how can I drag & drop the User Control onto the Designer pane?" ... blah

The File and Data Management Area actually means the Workspace window on the top right hand corner of WM :

Maybe there's a typo in the Guided tour , but many Web Matrix developers feel ambiguous in reading the guided tour about the section of "User Control" and I hope they can find this blog useful.

Desktop Security Demo (Flash)

The MS HK office show a simple and nice Flash demo about the core security and privacy features of Windows XP and Office XP, including Secured Access, Protecting Documents, Remote Control Permissions, Authenticating Files and Messages, Preventing the Spread of Viruses and Internet Connection Protection.

Introduction Secured Access Protecting Documents<</font> Remote Control Permissions Authenticating Files and Messages Preventing the Spread of Viruses Internet Connection Protection Round-up

The presentation / UI of this demo is pretty nice, provided that you have a Flash player AND a fast Internet connection ;)

What are you currently reading?

Recall a blog discussing "What are you currently reading?" by ScottW, and I know that there're really a lot of valuable books out there.

BTW, I watched a TV show recently and found that Bruce Lee (Yes, I'm talking Bruce Lee -> the Master of Kung-Fu) have 2500 books in his home, he read and jot notes for EACH of them! Well, most of the books are Kung-Fu related but not computing book, but I just want to blog this interesting figures of this hero here. :)

Attendee of my local User Group Presentation

My local .NET User Group hold a technical presentation today and the topic is Database Programming with .NET - A Quick Start. This presentation is hold by my User Group and a tertiary educational insitutation cooperatively and target for the students.

Well, I'm not a speaker for this session, and I didn't sit in the bench of staff, but I sit next to the students. I want to be a undercover man to the students and I want to know what's their response or attitude to the presentation.

My observation: The speaker show a working demo and the student open their VS.NET and try to follow the step by step tutorial. Unfortunately, they write a couple lines of code and then... open Solitaire, check email, ... etc (I'm writing my blog too :P

Is it a normal behaviour of attendee? Alright, I stop here and listen to the speaker now.

An addition to the FAQ for Email Sending in ASP.NET

Mike post a FAQ for Email Sending in ASP.NET and I blog it in my previous entry. Today, I saw a Forum member face this problem while his suggest solution is NOT covered in this FAQ, so one addition to this list of FAQ today :)

2 New Vocab by Paul Wilson

I blog about a book by Paul Wilson yesterday and got a comment from my friend - Paul Wilson in a couple of hours. (2 x Thanks to PaulS)

Essentially, I learned 2 new vocab from that book :-

i) Deadline-Oriented Person : There're many Object Oriented Person here, right? That mean everything in their mind would look like an object, or entity, so an application or solution can isolate or relate different objects - object based. So, how many of them are 'deadline' base person? :)

ii) Information Overload : A modern version of New York Times is different from the one in 10 years ago (2 methods with the same name can perform differently due to difference in functionality and signature - by overloading)

I think information is really overloaded at this age, especially in the world of .NET . We see, learn, discover, unleash its power every day; tens of articles, reviews, component published every day. Even the fastest spread-reader can't read all of these information within 24 hours, again and again.

The author stated 2 choices to this case:

1. Ignorance
2. Read the information selectively in discipline

 ;-)

[Book] Calm at Work - by Paul Wilson

I read few pages of a book titled "Calm at Work" - Paul Wilson.

Yes, the author of this book is Paul Wilson! That's why I pick it up from the bookshelf (Hey Paul, why don't you let me know that you publish a book with no relationship with .NET?!)

Obviously, that author is actually NOT the one who I know - the ASP.NET Guru: PaulWilson. I saw this book on the cateogry of Psychology from a bookstore, and I pick it up anyway as the title is quite interesting to me (another reason is that I want to clarify is that Paul == the one who I know :)
While a chapter of "Time" and "Time Pressure" in this book impressed me and I'd like to blog and share it:

"Time is money"
"Time and Tide wait for nobody"
"Procrastination is the thief of time"

Yes, the quotes above are always true, we might always get pressure from "time", actually it's the deadline of our work. The author explain briefly for the Time concept and from my understanding:

Time won't give pressure to us, which is actually depends on our attitude and perception of "time"...

Heads create time pressure but not the clock...

Our tension increase especially when the deadline near, but if we can look at another point of view, the 'deadline' give security and motivation to people to work on. Especially, I think in this I.T. / Computing industry, most of us are facing 'deadline' everyday, as most of our works are project / contract based, where a deadline and the associated pressure created when the contract start among different parties.

The abstract description/extraction of this book explain the concept of time and time pressure pretty well, and the suggest solution for the time pressure can be found on that book as well.

Monitor II

After reading a blog about a 'multi-monitor' (pilot) office here (remind me if you remember the Url of that blog), I saw another 'special' office today...

Looks cool!