Dave Burke - A freelance .NET Developer specializing in Online Communities

Dave Burke's Blog has moved

daveburke — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 04:09:00 GMT

You'll find my current blog at http://dbvt.com/blog. Many thanks to Scott Watermasysk for hosting my blog here at weblogs.asp.net, beginning back in 2003 when it was dotnetweblogs.com and running Scott's .Text application.

I specialize in building online communities and enhancing existing sites with social networking capabilities like blogs, forums, media galleries and wikis. I take .NET Open Source solutions like those you see in action at dbvt.com--BlogEngine.Net for my blog and Gallery Server Pro for my photo gallery--and integrate them into a unified community application.

I am a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer and proud to promote Microsoft Software Solutions as an Independent Software Vendor and partner in the Microsoft Empower Program for ISVs.

Peace.

Lucene searching added to my .text 0.95 blog

daveburke — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:16:00 GMT

I haven't reported in on my weblogs.asp.net account for a few weeks, but this is a cool technology that is definitely post-worthy. Being a ScottW groupie, I wanted the opportunity to work with his latest 0.96 source, and DotLucene looks like a great application. So in deciding how to add searching to my 0.95 blog there was no other choice for me. There are details I'm still working through (scheduling and highlighting), but it works great. Search page at http://dbvt.com/blog/search.aspx. Post describing the implementation is located here.

Adding Podcasting support in .Text

daveburke — Thu, 23 Dec 2004 20:59:00 GMT

Yesterday I posted the details of adding podcasting support in a .text project on a dbvt.com/blog post located here.

WebMon for tracking new blog post comments

daveburke — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:31:00 GMT

I've been recently interested in tracking other people's blog posts where I may have left comments, or posts I simply wanted to track. After sitting on it a bit it seems obvious that a web monitoring application would fit the bill quite nicely. After some investigation into both web- and client-based options, I went with WebMon (a freeware application) and it seems to work great in receiving notification of new blog post comments. More info and screenshot pics on a personal blog post here.

Job Security Implications for the Quiet Nerd

daveburke — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:27:00 GMT

Good article at SD Times titled “Out of Site, Out of a Job“ by Larry O'Brien.

While it’s hard to lament the loss of the incompetent, the other type of programmer that is doomed is the developer with poor social skills...

P.S. Thanks Julie Lerman for the link to Larry's blog. Subscribed.

Using reflection for either ParentType usercontrol or webpage

daveburke — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:17:00 GMT

I had a piece of code in a usercontrol today which could have been the child of either a web page or another usercontrol. If I've referred to a usercontrol type with reflection before I've forgotten it, so today's reflection tidbit seemed like the first time, and first time events get a blog plug.

The code excerpt is on a personal blog post here.

Simple tip on controlling display of asp:CheckBoxList control

daveburke — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 19:13:00 GMT

I discovered a quick tip on fixing the wraparound in the checkboxlist control short of overriding the ListControl object and altering the rendering of the base control: I wrapped the text of each checkbox item inside a TableCell TD. Produces the bottom checkboxlist display and works in both IE and Firefox. Details in a personal blog post here.

Doing Email Testing in development without an Exchange Server

daveburke — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 18:11:00 GMT

My home office Exchange server crashed in September and while the server has been replaced, I really don't want to re-install Exchange on it unless I absolutely have to. So I implemented a real simple approach to test HTML-based email components without requiring Exchange or any type of email server. The result is that HTML emails are sent to web folder for viewing in IE rather than sent to Exchange for viewing in Outlook. I cover the details with the source code on a personal blog post here if you're interested.

Review: Seth Godin's The Big Red Fez: How to Make any Website Better

daveburke — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 20:21:00 GMT

The Big Red Fez is based on a simple yet effective analogy of a monkey (wearing a big red fez) being trained to jump into a vat of lime Jell-O, but to do so the monkey must be rewarded with a banana. If the search for that banana is not obvious, the monkey will lose interest and not complete the Jell-O jump. So to the monkey, its all about the banana.

I posted a detailed review of the book on a personal blog post here, along with 10 points on improving web site design and the user experience.

Implementing CAPTCHA. Easy AND fun.

daveburke — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:57:00 GMT

It took less than an hour to implement captcha on my personal blog, based on the work of Chris Kunicki, BrainJar, and CMU nerds. Details, links, and code excerpts on my personal blog here.