Onion PeelsOnion Peels.NET, Technology, Life, Whatever. Mostly about .NET and ASP.NET but don't hold me to it. Articles
Make Google Maps your Maps
2007-04-22 21:26:00 Google maps has added new features that allow you to create personalized, annotated, customized maps using Google Maps . Your maps can contain the following: Placemarks Lines Shapes Once you have created a map, you can: Add descriptive text, including rich text and HTML Embed photos and videos in your map Share your maps with others Open it in Google Earth To create or edit maps, you must be signed into your Google Account. You do not need to be signed in to view a map. Google Maps I gave it a quick spin. We're having a neighborhood garage sale in May so I thought I might create a map for our neighborhood web site announcement. It took all of 2 minutes to annotate the map and include it on our Web site. As I get confirmations on who wants to participate in the garage sale, I'll add them to the map. Pretty cool!. You can find out more about Google maps here.powered by Bloget™ More About: Google , Make , Googl
Keep Firefox?s location bar on sight
2007-04-21 02:55:00 Some pop-up windows may hide the location bar for a number of valid good reasons like providing a less cluttered interface or a smaller window, but it is also an easy cover for malicious web sites to hide the real location of fake sites in cross site scripting (XSS) attacks. Michal Zalewski, the hacker who uncovered a handful of security vulnerabilities in Fire fox on last February, pointed it as one of Firefox?s weaknesses. Fortunately, as suggested in the bug discussion, this behavior can be changed to forbid the ability to hide the location bar to all web sites. To do this: Enter about:config in the location bar Look for dom.disable_window_open_feature.location Double click it to toggle it to true You are done. Now popups will show the location bar always. It may look weird at first but it?s a small price to pay for additional protection. Mozilla Linkspowered by Bloget™ More About: Browsers , Location , Keep
PNGOUT Rocks
2007-04-21 02:20:00 PNGOUT is a free optimizer for PNG images and is written by Ken Silverman. The compression is lossless, meaning that the resulting image will have exactly the same appearance as the source image. This program can often get higher compression than other optimizers by 5-10% Wikipedia A few weeks back Scott Hanselman posted a blog article about PNGOUT. I finally got around to trying it and Wow does this thing work. It can sometime shrink PNG's by 50%. Scott published a registry file to add a right-click shortcut menu in Windows Explorer. I've found that PNGOUT also converts JPG's and BMP's to PNG's and shrinks them with even more stunning results. I've created a registry file that registers these extensions as well as PNG. pngout.regpowered by Bloget™ More About: Rocks , Gout
More Site Changes
2007-04-20 14:58:00 Fiddling with the site layout has been just a maddening experience. I really don't know how designers do it. I find myself constantly wanting to pixel tweak the layout. I'm learning that just like in code, keep it simple. Part of the reason I've been spending so much time on this aspect is that I need to learn what it missing from Bloget in terms of ease of integration. Like most freeware developers, I eat my own dog food in that I use Bloget much like I think a user would use it (notice the word "think"). That's because until I get more feedback from the field, I really don't a know where user's pain points are occurring. This is true of almost any software one writes. One of the things I've tried to do is use Bloget in it's "plain vanilla form" without customizations. I've (mostly) limited myself to using CSS to build this blog. It's an enlightening experience indeed. But doing so has made me focus on content and leaving just a enough bread crumbs so that the site can be... More About: Site , More , Changes , Chang , Chan
Dual monitor use in Visual Studio 2005
2007-04-14 00:57:00 If you have dual monitors and would like to make some use of the expanded realestate, check this out. You can likely do something like this in the MDI mode of VS2005 but I like that tab interface better and this trick gives me the best of both. Make your main Visual Studio application window a sizeable window (not minimized or maximized). Resize it to stretch it as wide as you'd prefer across both monitors (the 2nd image below completely spans the width and height of both my monitors) Right click on an open source code window's tab and choose New Vertical Tab Group. The result is two fully independent code panes, with independent scrolling, browsing, etc. You can also create numerous horizontal tab groups, which I didn't explore yet. Use your mouse to drag/place the vertical splitter where you prefer (in the 2nd image below, my splitter sits right at the border between my two monitors, so that the left side files the entire left monitor). You can drag and drop source code... More About: Monitor , Studio 2
Passport Tips
2007-04-12 15:31:00 My day job requires that I travel frequently. Recently, my passport came up for renewal. Typically, it takes about 2-3 weeks to renew a passport. However, lately it has been running much longer. I sent my passport in for renewal on March 7th and as of today (April 12th) I still do not have it.Because I'm traveling soon, I called to check my status. Good thing I did. They misspelled my name! Instead of Ward they had Wand. Close call. Also, because I'm traveling soon, they expedited my request (for an additional $67 + $15 for overnight).Most of this delay is because of a recent announcement that Canada will require passports shortly. As a result, there has been a large influx of passport applications which has swamped the regional processing centers. What was not communicated as clearly was that these passports are only required if you travel to Canada from the USA by air or water!More tips:Many countries require that your passport be valid for 6 months from the time of entry. You s... More About: Sport , Tips , Port , Pass , Spor
Fullerscreen for Firefox
2007-04-10 00:47:00 This extension enhances the full screen mode into a really full screen mode, hiding the remaining toolbars and statusbar and making them visible again when the mouse pointer hits an edge of the screen.This is a really nice little enhancement to the full screen mode of Fire fox . There is an icon on the status bar to go to full screen or you can use default full-screen key F11. Press F11 again to return to regular mode. Highly recommended. Download it here.powered by Bloget™ More About: Screen , Full , Fuller
Resolving Dependent .NET Assembly Version Conflicts
2007-04-08 15:52:00 I ran into an interesting error message this morning while adding some NUnitAsp unit tests to Bloget.------ Build started: Project: Bloget, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------Bloget -> D:DataVisual Studio 2005ProjectsBlogetBlogetinDebugBloget.dl l------ Build started: Project: D:...BlogetTest, Configuration: Debug .NET ------Validating Web SiteValidation Complete------ Build started: Project: UnitTests, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------Consider app.config remapping of assembly "nunit.framework, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=96d09a1eb7f44a77" from Version "2.2.0.0" [] to Version "2.2.8.0" [C:Program FilesTestDriven.NET 2.0NUnit unit.framework.dll] to solve conflict and get rid of warning.C:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2 .0.50727Microsoft.Common.targets : warning MSB3247: Found conflicts between different versions of the same dependent assembly.I've highlighted the relevant bits here. This occurs because NUnitAsp depends on a different version of the NUnit ... More About: Assembly , Conflict , Sion , Conflicts , Ving
Architect Hubris
2007-04-08 01:21:00 My day job has morphed into an architect role as of late. It's quite a change going from the consumer of designs to the maker of designs. I'm also rubbing shoulders with folks who don't program for a living and it's quite interesting to hear their views about how the implementation of a particular design should proceed. I once heard read somewhere that you should beware the non-coding architect. To be fair, you need people (make that smart people) who's primary duty is to design and align the major elements of a project. But I don't think they should be entirely removed from "feeling the pain" of their decisions either. A coding assignment now and then helps to realize the issues up close and personal. One thing I've noticed working with other software architects is that they sometimes try to solve too much in their designs. Since most of my experience has been at the other end of the food chain, I'm use to working out the issues as I encounter them. I read a great quote fro... More About: Archi , Architect
Site Redesign
2007-04-06 01:56:00 I've redesigned the site. The old one was a bit goofy and it jumped around a bit while rendering due to the use of the Nifty Corners script I used for making rounded boxes. This design is very light being mostly text with just a few graphics here and there. CSS is used to render layout without the use of tables. It should load very fast and render consistently across most modern browsers.It's amazing how much time one can spend fiddling with CSS and design layouts. You just keep tweaking and adjusting and then thinking it looks great and then 5 minutes later thinking it sucks. It's maddening which is why I could never be site designer (besides the obvious lack of any artistic talent).</p><p>I'm still looking for logos if any one wants to donate one. I need a logo for Blue Onion Software, Bloget and Calendar Gadget. Any submissions are greatly appreciated.Also, I would appreciate any comments on how I can improve the design.powered by Bloget™ More About: Design , Site , Desi , Sign , Redesign
Cars Powered by Air
2007-03-29 03:29:00 Check out the video on these air powered cars. The Air Car A French designer of engines for Formula One racing cars has turned his attention to creating an engine that runs on, and emits, only air! By all accounts, this is no pie-in-the-sky dream invention either - as the vehicle?s release is slated for later this year. With a top speed of 110kph (68mph) and a range of about 200kms (125miles), it looks to be an entirely useable commuter, and more. In fact, once the initial model is on the market, there are plans for a hybrid version - a car that will use a small amount of fuel to generate the compressed air required for the main engine - resulting in a 4,500km range (2,800 miles) from just one tank of fuel. In case you're wondering, the compressed air is stored in carbon-fiber tanks. If they are ruptured, the tanks simply split open unlike metal tanks that would create shrapnel.powered by Bloget™ More About: Power , Cars
Quick Copy and Paste in Command Prompts
2007-03-29 01:43:00 From the department of "Why didn't I notice this before?" comes a very useful command line tip. By selecting the Quick Edit Mode check box, you enable copy and paste from the Comm and Prom pt window. To copy, select the text in the Command Prompt window with your left mouse button, and then right-click. To paste, either at the command prompt or in a text file, right-click. It works with the windows clip board as well. Copy something from a windows application and then right-click in the command prompt. How did I live with out this wonder? powered by Bloget™ More About: Past
Performancing is now ScribeFire
2007-03-27 18:38:00 Remember that great little blogging plug-in for Fire fox called Perform ancing? Well it's back and it's called Scribe Fire. Works great with Bloget.Powered by ScribeFire.powered by Bloget™ More About: Crib , Form
Secret Gmail delete keyboard shortcut
More articles from this author:2007-03-25 23:12:00 Technology blogger Amit Agarwal has posted the mysterious keyboard shortcut for deleting messages in Gmail : If you are reading a message in GMail , press the # key (Shift+3) and that message will instantly move to Trash. Alternatively, select one or more email messages in the GMail list view, press the same # hash key and all the selected GMail conversations will be deleted in one batch.We've blogged about Gmail keyboard shortcuts before; add this to the list, definitely. Note: make sure you have Shortcuts enabled in your Settings before you try this, or it won't work. ? Wendy BoswellLifehacker GMail Delete Keyboard ShortCut - Works in IE, Firefox, Opera [Digital Inspiration]powered by Bloget™ More About: Board , Secret 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
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