Jason N. Gaylord's Blog : Personal

What I’ve Been Up To Lately

Jason N. Gaylord — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:44:29 GMT

Things have been quite busy with me lately and thus my post count has dropped significantly. Nope, I haven’t dropped off the earth. I have been working pretty hard on a few projects that I’ll hopefully be able to shed some light on soon. I gave an MVC/jQuery/IE8 talk recently at a Philly.NET Code Camp and posted a really basic app on CodePlex to support the talk. You can check it out at http://bizweb.codeplex.com. Otherwise, stay tuned!

Technology Highlights of 2008

Jason N. Gaylord — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:38:58 GMT

What fitting way to end 2008 than a list of my own version of technology-related highlights of 2008.

Dell’s Acquisition of Equallogic – Ok. So technically this happened in November of 2007. But the acquisition wasn’t completed until early this year. After review of the devices, they are definitely a cost-effective NAS solution. What a great way to introduce storage solutions to small businesses.
ASP.NET MVC – Again, this technically happened in 2007, but my first experiences really happened this year. What a great, clean way to build web applications.
Flip MinoHD – When Pure Digital introduced the Flip Ultra, they introduced new competition to the digital media market. Now their pocket-sized camcorder sold over 1 million units during this year. Then, they introduced the device with a 1280x720 resolution.
Silverlight 2.0 – One of the highlights of the year is the performance of Michael Phelps at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Millions around the world watched. In the US, NBC covered the Olympics on both TV and the web. Their web content was delivered using a custom beta (yes, I did say beta) version of Silverlight 2.0. A true success for the dev team at Microsoft.
Android – Rumored for a couple of years, Google released their competitor to the iPhone called Android. Nope, it’s not a phone. Rather, it’s Google’s own mobile operating system. Several manufactures have signed on to build phones to support Android and it is assumed that this will only increase over the next year or two.
Apple iPhone 3G and iPhone App Store – Apple continually releases “cool” technology. This year they’ve released a new version of their iPhone with enterprise technology built-in including Exchange 2007 ActiveSync support. They also made strong improvements in their iPhone App Store. Look for them to continue the coolness into 2009.
Netflix Streaming – Move over Blu-ray. Netflix is taking control of the movie market. Adding to their Roku support, Netflix now offers streaming over several devices including the XBox 360, Tivo HD DVR, and a Blu-ray player from Samsung and one from LG.
The “Netbook” – With Cloud computing becoming increasingly popular, end users needed a device to access web applications from all over. One of the downsides of traditional laptops have been their size and weight. The “netbook” is the answer. Many companies have made top selling devices including Acer (Acer Aspire One) and Dell (Dell Inspiron Mini).
Social Computing Takes Off – Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace continue to grow. LinkedIn added applications. Sites like FriendFeed and TripIt take off. This will more than likely continue through next year and beyond.
Nintendo Wii Fit, etc. – Nintendo is smart. Very smart. Finally someone out there realized that there happens to be a large crowd of mothers that aren’t gamers. So what does Nintendo do? They introduce Wii Fit. They also released Personal Trainer: Cooking to help capture that market.

-- Honorable mentions – XBox 360 Experience, SlingBox improvements, SlySoft Blu-Ray/HD-DVD backup

Preview of 2009

Here are a few things to watch for as they progress in 2009:

Eye.Fi – Need to download photos from your camera and are too lazy to sit behind your PC? Would you like an “endless” SD card? Try this. It’s a wireless memory card.
Plastic Logic – This is neat. An 8 1/2” x 11” tablet that will compete against the Amazon Kindle. It’s lighter. It’s bigger. They’re also rumored to be building a flexible digital screen.
Internet Car Radio – Last.FM. Pandora. Just 2 of the Internet radio sites/applications available. It’s only a matter of time before they come to automobiles. We may be looking at the end of Sirius/XM.

My Personal Technology Interests of 2008

Here are a few of the items that I purchased this past year.

Light-O-Rama – I recently picked up a Light-O-Rama light controller to help me with my Christmas light display. Can’t wait to add onto it for next year.
Keurig Platinum B70 (review) – What a great way to get a single cup of coffee. Especially when everyone in your household enjoys different flavors. The Keurig system also allows for teas, iced beverages, and even the ability to use your own coffee using the My K-Cup filter.
Flip MinoHD – see above

To all, have a safe, and happy new year and we’ll see you in 2009!

So What Happens When Technology and Holidays Come Together???

Jason N. Gaylord — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:53:37 GMT

This is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s a busy time of the year, but it’s fun. If you’re not into the holidays, chances are you’re too busy and you need a vacation. Even the busiest individuals can enjoy the holidays. Since I was little, I was always fascinated with Christmas lights and decorations. (1980’s photograph will be inserted at a later date)

There’s nothing like seeing the faces of the young and old when they see the glow of Christmas lights. Over the years, things have changed quite a bit. We’ve gone from C7/C9 bulbs to more energy-efficient LED lights. We’ve decided to save on space by eBay’ing our classic, plastic blowmold figures to make more room for our collapsible wire frame deer and Airblown inflatables. Over the past 5 years or so, I’ve started my own collection of items. I’ve grown to have over 10,000 lights including 33 blowmold figures, 3 inflatables, and over 1200 feet of extension cords.

Recently I decided that wasn’t enough. I needed to fancy my inner-geekness. This is where synchronized lighting fit in.

There are a couple of different ways to get a synchronized light display as well as various different technologies to take you from start to finish.

1) Mr. Christmas Lights and Sounds (Better known to brand-name shoppers as the GE Lights and Sounds) – These devices are already pre-built and contain basic functionality. They can control between 6-10 channels and have 20 built-in songs. However, they limit the amount of lights and customization that can be handled by a single box. For $50-$150, they’ll get you started. (I used one last year and have it available if anyone wants it.)

2) From Scratch (ie: Phidget Interface Kits) – Brian Peek from ASPSoft wrote a very good article over at the Coding4Fun website. In his example, he uses a Phidget Interface Kit and C# 2008 to build his display. This is great to learn how the system works, but again, you are limited to the number of channels you can utilize. I really wish Phidget would release some higher power boards. I’d love to be able to control my lights from within a .NET application. That would be too cool.

3) Using the Experts – Controlled lighting isn’t new, it’s just new(er) to Christmas. In fact, many of the “experts” just began to support the classic controlled lighting interface known as DMX. There are quite a few companies out there, but I’d recommend Light-O-Rama, D-Light, or Animated Lighting. I personally own a single 16-channel 1602 controller from Light-O-Rama. Most of the synchronized displays that you see use Light-O-Rama hardware and software. Although, D-Light is picking up ground especially in some “virtual Christmas” communities.

So, what does this all mean? Well, if you’re into the holiday season as much as I am, you better get started.

Want to know what I’ve done this year? Hop on over to my holiday blog at mylightdisplay.com. Over there I talk a little bit more about my specific display including how to setup an FM transmitter, using the Light-O-Rama software and system, and much much more. If you’re in the Northeastern Pennsylvania area, be sure to stop by my display. You can also find local displays by visiting the Display Links at SynchronizedChristmasLights.com. If you’d like to participate further in the Christmas talk, hop on over to MyHolidayDisplays.com.

I’ll leave you with a link to the video of my house on YouTube.

Have a safe and happy holiday season!

My Syndication at FeedBurner – Using Your Domain

Jason N. Gaylord — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:01:41 GMT

Awhile back, one of my friends over at Telligent, Scott Watermasysk, posted a message regarding FeedBurner and hosting your own RSS feeds. FeedBurner is a web application owned by Google that hosts syndicated feeds and provides statistics based on those feeds such as the number of viewers. Scott recommended setting the MyBrand feature of FeedBurner to point to your own site and creating a CName entry with your domain’s DNS. You can read more about that here: http://simpable.com/technology/feedburner-cname/.

I finally got around to getting this setup. You can now access my feed using: http://feeds.jasongaylord.com/JasonNGaylord.

Microsoft MVP… Again!

Jason N. Gaylord — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:05:27 GMT

I just received word that I’ve been awarded with the Microsoft MVP award for ASP.NET for 2009. I’ve been a Microsoft MVP since 2003. It’s always nice to receive the MVP award, but it’s even better to see the impact that you have on the community. Six years ago, Northeastern Pennsylvania had no user group. In fact, most developers and IT professionals had no idea that Microsoft had a new .NET Framework. Things have changed. Many companies now use the framework and our user group has expanded to include IT professional and open source content. We’ve hosted events at our area’s best colleges and universities including Scranton University, Penn State – Lehman, and Luzerne County Community College. We’ve held an annual event called TechBash that has had as many as 125 at the event. I need to thank the community for this award. I hope we continue to grow technology in the area.

Like always, if you’re interested in seeing what we’re about in NEPA, visit dotnetvalley.com. We’ll be releasing our new site in the upcoming months.

My ESPN Fan Profile and Blog

Jason N. Gaylord — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:40:07 GMT

I'm moving my sports blog from MSN Live Spaces over to ESPN. Hopefully ESPN will release an RSS aggregate for the blog posts, but for now, you can add me to your fan profile here: http://sportsnation.espn.go.com/spaceman126/.

Our Little One Shows Up

Jason N. Gaylord — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:53:00 GMT

I've been offline a lot lately preparing the arrival of our little one. Arianna Theresa was born on April 20th at 4:54pm. She was 8lbs 5oz and 21 1/2 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing just fine. I'll be offline for the remainder of the week but figured I'd post a quick picture at http://www.jasongaylord.com/photos/Details.aspx?AlbumID=185&Page=0. Everyone wish me luck!