Archives
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Browser Resizing
I just encountered a great tip on how to quickly adjust a browser window to a specific dimension.
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RegEx Pattern - Determining the name of the page
[.+]?/(?<pagename>[^/]+).aspx
If the only thing necessary is to determine the name of the page (without path information) this regex pattern did the job for me. -
Color Schemer
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Conditional Comments for IE
In a recent post, I pleaded for help with CSS. Among some of the great suggestions, I stumbled across an interesting feature supported by IE... Conditional Comments. These are evaluated on the client-side. In the context of CSS, it would enable a developer to allow IE to determine whether or not to process a link tag.
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CSS Help!
I stink at look-and-feel... and I hate that!
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Formatting code in blog entries
I just posted a blog, and spent too much time trying to get my code to format correctly. At that, it did not turn out well.
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Cache Loading Pattern
Yesterday was my first delivery of an MSDN Webcast. My topic - Caching Strategies for ASP.NET. One of the topics I demonstrated was a Cache Loading Pattern. This blog is to provide a code-walkthrough of that discussion
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We can only tell you a little...
I have been in New Mexico this week. My mission is somewhat classified. Simon Allardice explains it well here:
[Shhh... click here] -
Don't miss my first Webcast!
My first MSDN Webcast is less than two weeks away. Please join me as I consider Caching Strategies for ASP.NET.
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Caught by Sheriff in California
I recently took my family to Disneyland/California Adventure (we had a great time). However, IT is a small world. While standing in line for the California Screamin' Rollercoaster, I ran into the Sheriff... Paul Sheriff of http://www.pdsa.com and Microsoft Regional Director. You never quite plan to run into the Sheriff, but when you do, it can be an intimidating experience. Thankfully, he let me off the hook, and even took a picture with me (imagine bringing a camera to a place like this?)
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Getting a GUID string during design time
If you ever need a GUID generated during design time (serviced components, unique ids), you could always use the [Tools]-[Create GUID] menu options in Visual Studio .NET 2003. However, I find that it is too many steps. I created a MACRO to do the same thing, and assigned a keyboard shortcut to the macro (ALT-G).
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New look for Palermo4.com
Just changed the face of my site. Thanks to Simon Allardice, I now have a decent look-and-feel. Please take a look, and offer feedback!
Palermo4.com -
Getting XSLT intellisense in VS .NET
Just read a post from Daniel Cazzulino on intellisense for XSLT in VS.NET. I use a product called Visual XSLT from ActiveState that not only provides intellisense, it allows me to debug and step through as well.
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To the people of New York City...
A little over a week ago I took my family on a vacation to the northeast region of the United States. This was my first time to New York. Keep in mind I have heard horror stories about how rude New Yorkers could be, so I was very cautious.
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Squeak!
I was thinking about purchasing a new mouse, and I came across this presenter tool from Logitech
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A different perspective on Class Viewer in Visual Studio .NET
As I was coding away tonight I started messing around with Class Viewer in Visual Studio .NET. Although it has some nice features (some specific to language) I stumbled across a view I hadn't seen before. By choosing to group by type, everything is organized into subfolders according to it's kind. Here is a snapshot:
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Scott Watermasysk's HTML Friendly Code Viewer
Scott Cate was the first to show me Scott Watermasysk's code-to-html viewer. I just used it in a previous post, and thought I should give Scott Watermasysk another plug for making code easier to read in blogs. Thanks Scott(s).
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Getting the absolute path in ASP.NET (part 2)
In a previous blog, I received many comments on various ways I could get the application root. I am thankful for such comments. What most of the commenters did not realize is that I need the resolution of the url in a custom http module, where Control.ResolveUrl is not practical to use. And since I am using vanity urls (phantom paths that have no mapping to physical files or pages), I needed the resolution without the use of any System.IO objects.
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Providing information for a Repeater when there is no data...
I just read a recent blog from Alex Campbell on extending the Repeater control to provide a message when there is no data available from the data source. Check it out!
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Regex pattern for anchor tags (part 2)
Thanks to a comment by Jerry Pisk, I have revised the RegEx pattern to allow the anchor tag to include other attributes as well. Here is the revision:
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RegEx pattern for anchor tags
Scott Cate just wrote a blog on his first (from scratch) RegEx pattern to find anchor <a> tag. Here is my revision:
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C# with ASP.NET for Developers
The video series from LearnKey is finally available!
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Installing VS 2005 (May 2004) issues with documentation
I came across a good link if you are having issues with help documentation after installing Visual Studio .NET 2005.
http://normen.mine.nu/myblog/viewpost.aspx?PostID=79 -
TechEd Thursday
One of the best sessions I attended this week was this morning... VS.NET 2005 IDE Enhancements. Features that I loved...
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TechEd Wednesday
Today I spent most of the day at the Regional Director booth. Scott Cate and I handed out almost a thousand kbAlertz shirts. After the convention, I attended a party at a place called Dick's Last Resort. It was a blast! I spent most of my evening with Ben Miller, Microsoft MVP Lead. Here is a photo of him while we were playing pool...
I also found out that Scott Cate is quite the player himself...
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LearnKey: C# with ASP.NET
I stumbled across the LearnKey booth at TechEd today.
My multimedia training session had its official debut!!! The title of my series is C# with ASP.NET. Here is a picture of me seeing the product for the first time...
The guy in the poster is none other than Mike Storm of Interface Technical Training! -
TinyURL.com
I don't know how long this site has been around, but I stumbled upon it while reading some user group emails.
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Virtual TechEd 2004
Keep in mind, I am at TechEd this week. However, I just spent the last hour or so reading the amazing amount of blogs written so far. I feel like I have learned more from the blogs than attending the sessions! So for those of you who were unable to attend, you can show up at Virtual TechEd by going to any of the following links...
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TechEd Tuesday
The one theme that is ringing true at this event is how important it is to meet your peers. I am continually impressed with not only the talent, but how friendly everyone is. It shouldn't shock me that developers who are brilliant can also be kind and fun to hang around with... but it does.
After the sessions were over, MSDN threw a party. In the very crowded room, I happened upon the famous Hamid of Axosoft based in Phoenix (like me!). Here is a glimpse of that party with Scott Cate, Scott Water, and the folks with Axosoft... -
TechEd Monday
Today I served my duty at cabanas 5 & 6. My official duty was to answer questions regarding C#. As I am hanging out, I noticed a particular individual I was able to ask some C# questions myself...
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TechEd Sunday
This was a great day. After the Regional Director's summit, I attended a training on what to expect as a staff member here at TechEd. Here is a look at the typical profile one may expect at these events:
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Microsoft Regional Director Summit
I am sitting down with fellow Microsoft Regional Directors from around the world. In preparation for my staffing responsibilities for TechEd 2004, I will be meeting with Microsoft product teams. I am currently listening to a session on evangilism... I just saw a new video explaining the RD program. I will post the 'commercial' once I get my hands on it. As I find out cool things this week, I will keep the blogs flowing...
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Hanging out with Scott(s)
I am hanging out with Scott Cate and Scott Watermasysk at the W in San Diego. After talking with Scott Watermasysk, I have added categories to my blogs. Here he is hard at work at the hotel:
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Resolving entities when loading XmlDocument
Recently I needed to place special characters in an xml document. I had to put the &trade and ® into the text of an attribute. When I loaded the xml into XmlDocument, I received an exception:
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Getting the absolute path in ASP.NET
Typically when we create ASP.NET applications, we are developing against a virtual directory. However, when we deploy our app to a production web server, it is likely set up as a web site. This can have an impact on href assignments when using absolute paths. In order for paths to be consistant between virtual directories and web sites, I created a helper method that will work in either environment. Here is the code:
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A night with Scott Guthrie
Last night was our super user group meeting - guest speaker Scott Guthrie. He did the ASP.NET Roadshow for us here in Phoenix. We had more people show for his presentation than DevDays!!! All went well thanks to our community super-star, Scott Cate. Also cool to hang out with Dan Wahlin, who admitted to actually reading my blogs. I urged him to start blogging as well. Anyway, the samples from the presentation are available at Scotts web site, http://www.scottgu.com.
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Authentication issue with session state
Today I am teaching the ASP.NET (2310B) course from Microsoft. In the module on state management, one of my students stumbled across a peculiar behavior. Here is the setting…
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Google this!
I have just realized the power of Google with weblogs! The other day I was talking with Robert McLaws about blogging in general, and he told me that he blogs everything so that it can be searchable by Google. Just provide the weblog name as a search context, followed by any keywords.
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Reading XML
Don’t miss Dare’s new post on the different flavors for reading XML. I am looking forward to his article on the XPathReader to be posted at the XML Developer Center in the near future.
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Getting into shape
Last week I was teaching a VB.NET class at Interface, and a student in the class took my classic illustration of abstraction and polymorphism to the next level. I always like using ‘shape’ as an abstract example, where ‘draw’ is an abstract method. I ask the question “If you create a ‘shape’ with a ‘draw’ method… what will the shape look like?” Of course, shape is too abstract to know the answer.
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Using XPath on HTML
Just read another post by Dare with the XML team at Microsoft. My big question: Does this require the underlying HTML to actually be XHTML?
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Of things data and XML...
Recently, Scott Cate and I began architecting enhancements to kbAlertz and other sites. I can see so much potential for XML technologies in every layer of the application. I am looking forward to the new XML features in SQL Server 2005, such as the XML data type mentioned in Dare’s recent blog.
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OOP?
I always find it interesting to share OOP concepts with developers that are brand new to the concepts.
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This week, VB.NET
From Seattle to Phoenix to Albuquerque... Tomorrow I am training a group of 16 people on how to use VB.NET.
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So, the MVP Summit 2004
So what can I say? Everything was under NDA.
So I did walk away from this experience with at least one public comment/question... Has anyone else observed that most Microsoft employees begin sentences with the word “so”? Must have rubbed off on me (thus the start of this blog). So if this persists (with me) I am putting the primary blame on Rob Howard. His likely response? So what! -
DevDays Phoenix
Yesterday was DevDays in Phoenix, Arizona. Russ Ruggia (MSDN SW DE) and I tackled the opening keynote together. Lots of fun. For the most part, the speakers had a great time, and most of the demos actually worked :)
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Arizona .NET User Group 2004-02-03
We enjoyed having Richard Hundhausen (MS Regional Director - Idaho) speak at our user group this evening. He co-authored a book on the subject of ADO.NET in version v.1.0/v.1.1 of the framework. Tonight he highlighted features in v.2.0. We had a full house of developers jazzed about the enhancements.
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ASP.NET for the masses
I am about to submit a final outline for a multi-media ASP.NET series (training on DVDs). I was hoping that the developer community might influence me as to topics you would hope to expect in such a course. Any feedback? What do all the other courses seem to miss?
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Finally!
I can not believe I have waited this long to join the blogging community...