Community Blogs

I was wondering why it was so quiet this week and no one was speaking to me, but now I know the answer. I discovered tonight when I updated my blog to BlogEngine.NET 1.4 on returning from the beach Sunday I forgot to restore an essential Community Server legacy page, my /blog/rss.aspx redirect to BE.NET's /blog/syndication.axd feed. Sorry for appearing to be holed-up in some cave eating wild pig monitoring the CB frequencies. "There wouldn't be any trouble if it weren't for that King *** Cop." I was supposed to have only been offline for Beach Week, but upgrading BE.NET was so easy I did it on my vacation and uploaded the new site on my return, turning out the lights on my feed for most of you. But the feed lives! There...

I read and talk about online social networks, but when you're in a difficult situation, like, say, when you drive your car into a ditch at 10 o'clock at night, you appreciate the wonder of real world social support networks. Tonight my little girl and I were watching a DVD when we heard the local fireworks. In less than 60 seconds we were in our Honda Odyssey and on the chase. I didn't stop to grab my cell phone or even put on shoes. Fortunately my little girl had the good sense to slip on a pair of sandals. A mile down our road is a white barn owned by the University of Vermont, with a dirt lane used by farm machinery leading into a corn field for great fireworks viewing. While backing out I swayed off the path and ended up in a...

In case there was anyone out there other than me who enjoys scrolling through the Stylin screen pics and wants another way to quickly get there, I added a second access point to them tonight. (I blogged about the BE.NET particulars of the Stylin screen display list here. ) I'm trying to avoid adding a main menubar link as I had on my DBVT2007 blog, so in addition to the category link which displays the screen pics I added a link in each of the Stylin posts. I changed the CodeSmith template I use to generate the Stylin posts, so the link is created automatically. Read More...

Another cool Associates widget from Amazon, Product Preview Popups. It's the first Amazon script I've used on my blog. You can see the Preview Popups in action on my "Amazon Burst Buy" post. Mouseover popups have several obvious advantages, providing additional book information to readers without requiring them to leave and return back to the post, adding some color to the page, the speed of display, increasing interactivity, and no clicking required! The script that makes the Product Preview popups possible is located on the Amazon Associates Link building page. To enable it in BlogEngine.NET, copy and paste the script into the Tracking Script area on the Settings Page. Read More...

I buy books from Amazon in burst mode. I sprinkle my wish list with interesting books over the span of a few months and then I usually buy between 6 and 8 of them. It was about time for another purchase. And besides, I've been spending a lot of quality time on the Nordic Track recently so new books are a reward. I have a history of listing the books I order in burst mode as I did in an April post, in February 2007, and in June 2005. I obviously missed recording a few packet transmissions along the way. I blog about the new books in part because I'm excited about them arriving in the mail from their various points of bookseller origin, but also because they're a good indication of my current interests. My wife would tell you they're...

One of the photo feeds that has replaced the Flickr Donuts feed that I had to drop is \\Static. I particularly enjoy their "Misc Pics of the Day" series. I have no idea where they come up with their photos. Some aren't exactly rated "G" for General Audiences, but they do capture the nutty world we live in. Check out this photo of Darth Vader following a group of clergymen. Cracks me up. Here's the rest of the day's Miscellaneous pics. Read More...

I am very happy to announce the release of DBVT2008, the dawn of a new era at dbvt.com. The biggest difference you'll find in DBVT2008 is no "Powered by [anything Telligent]" logos anywhere. That's right. No Community Server. No Graffiti. I am using strictly Open Source .NET applications on dbvt.com, Mads Kristensen's BlogEngine.Net for my blog and an application called Gallery Server Pro by a young man from Wisconsin named Roger Martin for my photo gallery. You know about BlogEngine.Net, and while few people know about Gallery Server Pro, they both rock. There are several DBVT2008 technical issues I'm looking forward to blogging about regarding migration, integration, SEO and so forth, but not tonight. Those of you...

I'm putting a web site up for my sister who makes beautiful quilts. I decided to use Expression Web and for her blog, BlogEngine.Net. I've got more to say about BlogEngine.Net (the more I use it, the more I like it!), but that's another post. Expression Web has a number of templates that help you get started, which is the route I took. The HTML is super clean and the interface helps you get the job done really quickly. Check out this example below. I want to change the font on all H3 tags of a single page. I highlight the area (1) and view the HTML (2), much like VS2008. Then I can select the page CSS class in the sidebar (3), making the process super quick and GUI-driven, which is a refreshing change for an old-time code guy like...

My Cyber Buds should take a vacation in Ireland. As I may have mentioned before, I'm not big on vacations but my wife is, which is one of the reasons I married her. Leah forces me to travel to places I wouldn't go otherwise, like Ireland. In spite of my lack of enthusiasm for vacations I recommend that all of you cyber buds of my mine take a vacation in Ireland. It's a foreign country, sure, but not foreign enough to make you feel overwhelmed or at any time lost. We spent our week in sourthern Ireland, flying into Shannon Airport and renting a cottage in Claire County. This map shows the area we covered. Left is Right. When you jump in your Hertz rental in Ireland you'll most likely open the passenger door, then walk around to...

I'm heading to Ireland tomorrow for a week vacation. I don't have many more details for you at the moment, since it's a normal Burke Family Vacation with my phenomenal wife making all of the arrangements and telling me what day and time we need to be at the airport. Funny, I was talking with an IT shop in Ireland just today who I've been doing some Community Server Freelance work for recently. Great company! I'd love to pop in and say "Hey!", but as Seth Godin blogged, they might be expecting George Clooney (or John Wayne) and then I walk in. I couldn't take that kind of rejection. Read More...