Just testing one of the source code plug-ins to Windows Live Writer to see how the code actually falls our when posted from Live Writer, as it seems to run off the editing area quite a bit when I try to post.  So this is what I see in WLW:

And this is the actual code when it gets pasted:

   1:  public static class RatingsHelper

   2:      {

   3:          private enum ControlType

   4:          {

   5:              Display,

   6:              DataEntry

   7:          }

   8:   

   9:          public static string StaticRatingsDisplay(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, int MaximumRating, double Step, double ActualValue, IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes)

  10:          {

  11:              return BuildControl(name, MaximumRating, Step, ActualValue, ControlType.Display, htmlAttributes);

  12:          }

  13:   

  14:          public static string RatingsEntry(this HtmlHelper helper, string name, int MaximumRating, double Step, double defaultValue, IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes)

  15:          {

  16:              return BuildControl(name, MaximumRating, Step, defaultValue, ControlType.DataEntry, htmlAttributes);

  17:          }

  18:   

  19:      // Implementation Here

  20:  }

Let’s see how that falls out when it’s posted.

So I’ve been looking for a Twitter client for my phone, and I’m presently giving Twikini a try.  It looks pretty good so far.

From my first observations:

1.  It loads quickly, pulling down the latest tweets very rapidly

2.  Can’t get any simpler for making a new tweet

3.  Automatically downloads the latest 20, 50, 100, or 200 tweets, based on your settings (I chose 50, as I’m not always paying attention, and it makes it easier to see what’s going on.)

4.  Good options, as far as a simple program like this needs.

Plus, the program is cheap—or free, if you follow their guidelines and help get the word out about Twikini for Windows Mobile.  I’m waiting on my license now!

I was looking at the NerdDinner web site earlier in response to a tweet, and stumbled across something that surprised me:

The dinner is to be held in the year 9999.  Now, for anyone who is a fan of Douglas Adams, the event is actually pretty funny, but for realistic use, this is obviously a problem. 

While 9999 is a “valid” year for a data, if you let too much of this stuff into your applications, they’ll just get littered with what essentially is noise.

One thing that NerdDinner does well is to only show in its primary display things that are coming up soon—so this only shows up when you drill down to all events.

But the concept is important.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’ve been head down, trying to get a work project solved for a couple of weeks, as well as spending quite a bit of time trying to pick up ASP.Net MVC, Fluent NHibernate, the Unity DI container, and quite a few other things. 

I just ran across this while searching for an answer to an issue I have, and thought I would re-blog it.

When I see something like this put together, my thoughts go two directions: the message, and the construction of the message.  The message is clear, I believe it, and I’m glad it has been said like this.  As to the construction of the message?  All I can say is that it is impressive.  To be able to write like this, to convey a message in two directions?  Genius.

It wasn’t really my intent to include stuff like this when I started this blog, but occasionally I just see something that I find pretty impressive—and actually touches something inside me.  Pass this on.  I believe it.  I believe in it.

When I picked a blog platform, I searched around trying to find one that I thought would be appropriate.  I know that blogging is pretty standard stuff, and most of the applications would probably begin to look alike at some point—at least as far as presentation and such is concerned.  Instead of one of the major platforms, I also wanted to ensure that I found a version written in .Net—something that I could spend time “under the hood”, understanding how it works, and taking a look at someone else’s programming style and intentions.  I also wanted something that would allow me to use a variety of data sources, as my hosting provider provides only a certain number of database instances in SQL Server, and I might want some options there.

In that vein, as a number of prolific bloggers maintain them, I took a look at both SubText and dasBlog, and a few other things I found around the web.  After reading some reviews and comparisons, I decided to run with BlogEngine.Net as my platform of choice. 

Things being how they are, including a busy work schedule and family with two small children, I’ve been unable to find the time to get down into the code.  This bugged me quite a bit, as what I wanted to do to get started was to change around one of the themes to fit what would be more my style.

Today, I’m happy to say that I’ve finally begun that endeavor!  My changes are small to start with, simply reorganizing an existing theme to more suit what I wanted, but what a great place to start.  I can tell that there has been quite a bit of thought put into how BlogEngine.Net works, and I’m pretty pleased with my choice!  I think I’ll probably work around trying out some other theme conversions, then start making some modifications to the code now.  I just had to make a comment about my discovery—it simply rocks!