Eric On Web Development (and more...)

Sitefinity CMS

2007-07-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

Sitefinity CMS

The migration of OriginO's Site to telerik's Sitefinity 3.0 platform is almost complete. I like what I have seen so far. The support has been superb. Support tickets are answered quickly by knowledgable staff. Updates are freqent. The documentation is a little bit on the thin side but it is getting better.

In short, Sitefinity is a pretty good product. The price is a little steep for small businesses ($899US for a standard license) but it is pretty powerful. I am implementing the Community edition for one non-profit organization. I would like to write a full reviews on the product but I have found myself all too busy these days.

Safari 3 Beta for Windows / Mac

2007-06-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

Apple has released a beta version of its Safari browser for the Mac and Windows platform today.

You may download safari on Apple's official site.

NHL Playoff Round 2 predictions

2007-05-15T16:26:00.000-07:00

NHL Playoff Round 2 predictions

It didn't work out as well as round 1, and it is too late to make prediction for round 3. Let's put it this way, I am all for a Ducks-Senator final. I like both teams (the Senators a little more, but my hockey pool has more ducks) and it would be a very exciting series.

Seagate Momentus 7200.2 ST9120823AS

2007-05-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

New Hard Drive for my MacBook

I just got this new 120GB 7200rpm SATA note book hard drive to replace the stock 60GB one that comes with my MacBook.

Mac OS X, Parallels, Windows XP, Visual Studio 2005, Macromedia Studio 8, my own portfolio, work folders etc filled up the hard drive pretty quickly. I often had only 2 to 3 GB remaining disk space--and I haven't even put any music file or game on it.

The hard drive installation was a snap--much easier than replacing hard drives in Power Book G4. I installed Windows XP on my Boot Camp partition and I finally can run Visual Studio at its native speed. The superior IO speed is also very much welcomed.

I am very happy with the purchase and I have installed Microsoft Expression Blend and Expression Web from my MSDN subscription to test out the new software. I have also purchased a very nice-looking external enclosure by Vantec to house the stock hard drive.

PS. It is a shame that Parallels nor VMWare fusion supports Vista on Boot Camp partitions; I would be running Vista instead of Xp had there be better support. Also, I usually like to partition my hard drive into a few partitions for Windows. Boot Camp, etc., however, don't seem to support multiple Windows partition very well. I hope the final release will offer such an option.

Logitech VX Revolution Notebook Mouse

2007-05-09T21:35:00.000-07:00

A Logitech Convert? Well, almost

I have liked Microsoft's input devices; I love my Internet Keyboard Pro and Optical Wheel Mouse Blue (a gift from fanshi. Thank you fanshi. I really love that mouse). I like the USB hub on the keyboard and, being a lefty, the simple and symmetric design for the mouse.

I have been looking at getting a wireless notebook mouse to go with my Mac Book on the West Coast Express. Most of Microsoft's recent offerings are either too fancy or otherwise not attractive to me; I love my Mac Book but I failed to fall in love with the wireless mighty mouse.

Truths be told, I am never big on Logitech mice or keyboards; they just don't feel right to me. Worse, I have many bad experience with their drivers and "bundled" software.

The VX Revolution mouse displayed in the London Drug in Coquitlam Center, however, caught my attention. It is designed for righties, true, but it feels reasonably comfortable with my left hand. I did some homework on the Internet and its reviews have been largely favorable.

I am tempted to get the mouse when it went on sale on Best Buy for $60; I went to the London Drugs on Robson for a price match. Honestly, I was a little bit worried when I made the purchase. I knew I could always return it for a refund, but I'd rather not to (Hate the hassle; and I try not to abuse store return policies).

The Goods

The mouse was quite a surprise. The tracking is very good and it feels pretty comfortable with my left hand. The software seems to be pretty stable so far and I have't noticed any "update agent" or registration reminder installed.

The Bads

I sorely miss the magnify function offered by the intellipoint software. Also, not so much of a negative, I've found it feels ten times better with my right hand. I am fine with using my right hand for mouse but it will take some time to get used to it.

All in all, I am very happy with the purchase and will certainly recommend this mouse to anyone. 4 out of 5

Flash Page Curl Effect

2007-04-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

I came across this site when I was looking for some sample codes for page curl effects in flash. Very interesting stuff indeed.

3D Page Curl Effect

Vancouver Canucks to advance - NHL playoff: second round

2007-04-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to my Vancouver Canucks.

They didn't play so well in this series but they got the four wins and it is what matters. I think the officiating is in nucks' favor though, with several questionable calls against the Stars.

My round one predictions:

Western:

Red Wings in 5 - Red Wings in 6
Ducks in 5 - correct
Canucks in 7 - correct
Predators in 6 - sharks in 5

Eastern:

Sabers in 5 - correct
Devils in 6 - correct
Thrashers in 7 - Rangers in 4
Senators in 5 - correct

So I got 5 out of 8 exactly right, 1 off by one game and 2 off by quite a bit. Not too shabby eh?

My predictions for 2nd round:

Western:

Ducks in 6 (Sorry, canucks)
Red Wings in 6

Eastern:

Devils in 6
Rangers in 6

It has been an exciting 1st round and I look forward to the Ducks vs 'nucks series.

Dell's customer service

2007-04-21T14:58:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago, I unwisely started the Windows Update process before I went to bed. The Windows Update crashed in my sleep and the screensaver couldn't start. I started to notice a burn-in image on the top right corner of my Dell LCD monitor(a UltraSharp 2005FPW)

I called Dell on a Saturday. Surprisingly, I wasn't put on hold for long and I wasn't transferred even once. The Dell representative walked me through a few simple "trouble-shooting" (check your cable, etc) steps and told me my replacement would come on the next Tuesday.

The replacement was a 2007FPW but I found the old monitor to scale up low-resolution images better; ghost image still happens when I play Winning Eleven on my PC. All in all I am happy with the way handle the whole situation. Great customer service from Dell, for once.

Unify Tour 2007 at Vancouver

2007-04-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

I will be attending the Unify Tour 2007 in Vancouver tomorrow.

If you happen to be attending as well, please do drop me a note and we could meet up and chat a little bit.

My Vancouver Canucks and 1st round predictions

2007-04-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

The game one was certainly exciting and I look forward to a very close and exciting series between the Stars and Canucks. Losing Cooke, Burrows and Kesler would hurt our chance but hopefully the call-ups will fill in adequately until the regulars come back.

My predictions:

Western:

Red Wings in 5
Ducks in 5
Canucks in 7
Predators in 6

Eastern:

Sabers in 5
Devils in 6
Thrashers in 7
Senators in 5

Massive Technology Show in Vancouver

2007-03-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

I was attending the Massive Technology Show in the Vancouver Exhibition & Convention Centre.

Overall, I've found the information interesting and helpful and I will definitely go again if I have the opportunity.

I was at the Yahoo! booth and asked the Yahoo! lady some questions regarding their Paid Search Marketing. She reached to her laptop and fired up her browser. Her home page? Any guess? You have 30 seconds....

Chicago - the Broadway musical coming to Vancouver

2007-03-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

I have purchased two tickets for the May 2, 2007 performance and I really look forward to it.

The Illusionist and L'enfant

2007-03-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

Just got the two movies on DVD last night. I watched the illusionist in the theatre and I liked it. I might review them later.

I was recently invited to join Flixster, a social-networking movie community site. It is pretty cool and you should check it out.

MCPD-Self-Paced-Training-Exam-70-547

2007-03-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

My new book has arrived! Ordered it from Chapters online last week and got it in about a week. I am pretty impressed with the efficiency at chapters and amazon canada.

I will provide more information on the book as soon as I have spent more time on it. I am liking it so far.

My most recent project involves the use of themes, master pages and localization and I wish there are more books on the marketing discussing these topics in finer details. So far the books I have read so far (see my previous post) only touch the bare basic on these topics. An O'Reilly cook book style book would be great.

PS. I checked out the asp.net cook book before and it only contains some very basic recipes.

OnSomething.NET relaunched

2007-03-09T14:55:00.000-08:00

OnSomething.NET is relaunched. I have just migrated it from a dreamweaver template to ASP.NET 2.0 Master Page. I will start adding my print portfolio and other information in the website too. I am looking at some .NET blogging software to integrate to the site, and the Blog Starter Kit preview or subtext would be among the first things I try. Please send in any suggestion or recommendation as far as blogging software goes.

Got a new book coming from Chapters

2007-03-09T12:06:00.000-08:00

Just ordered a new book from Chapters.ca yesterday:

MCPD Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-547): Designing and Developing Web-Based Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework

And I hope to complete my MCPD certification by the end of 2007. The 70-547 exams seems to focus more on the design and theoretical background of ASP.NET 2.0 development and should help preparing me for larger scale projects.

OT: I also bought the "Shopaholic & Baby" for my girlfriend. She wants to save the shipping cost by piggybacking on my SQLchase, which is SQLally fine with me. After browsing at amazon and chapters for a few times, however, they start recommendinMCTSicks books to me. They will recommend mostly computer books to me and a few chick books as I browse. Initially I wanted to get my book from amazon.ca but it expected my book to be shipped in 5 to 7 weeks. I kept tracking the expected shipment time on both sites for a week and I decided to go with Chapters. While personinititalave really good experiences with amazon and I prefer, albeit only slightly, it over Chapters, I have decided to go with Chapters as it "usually" ships the book within 24 hrs.

Stop recommending chick books to me please.

My 2007 goal is to further my understanding in the ASP.NET 2.0 platform to help me complete my personal project. I have bought a few books for that reason. I base my purchase decision on reviews on amazon.com. Instead of going just for the rating I read through the comments to make sure I understand why the user is giving the book that particular rating. Sometimes some users just bought books that are not right for them or had too high an expectation.

I haven't finished all the books yet but these are my initial thoughts on the books:

Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications: Advanced Topics

This book deals with more advSQLed topics as welSQLs the lower level stuff that are harder to find on the Internet. Haven't finished reading the book yet but it seems to be a very good reference so far.

Rating so far: ****

Pro Ajax and the .NET 2.0 Platform

This books does an excellent job introducing the history, the basic and the technologies behind Ajax. I am only half way through the book and I enjoy reading the book so far. The examples are easy to follow and the explanations are clear.

Rating so far: ****1/2

Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying

Many reviewers swear by this book. For good reasons, too. I am currently reading the first chapter of the book and I am really liking this book already. This book is a little bit different from most of the SQL books I have read so far. The approach it uses (ie: explaining how a query is evaluated, etc before actually showing you the syntax, etc) is refreshing and effective. It helps me to understand the big picture much more easily.

Rating so far: *****

Well, since I am talking about books anyway I will mention this book anyway.

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation

The 70-536 exam objectives are really board. This book was the only comprehensive book written for the preparation of the 70-536 exam at the time and it does a decent job introducing you to the various topics. The examples are not very easy to follow and often time I find the information provided not sufficient to help me fully understand the topics (even if I actually do the mini projects at the end of each chapters.) It does save me some time by providing some understanding of most of the exams topics, but it certainly won't help one to pass the exam on its own.

Rating: ***

Companion Holidays site migration phase 1 completed

2007-03-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

The migration was from JSP to ASP.NET 2.0, taking advantages of the globalization, Master Page and themes features. The migration allows the site to be much easier to maintain.

I am working on an article detailing the localization of the Master Page, the creation of a PageBase class and the use of URL rewrite to create the maintainable and SEO-friendly site.

Please visit Companion Holidays' site for more information.

Origin Organic Farms' site launched (origino.ca)

2007-02-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

Well, that took us some work but the client has approved the site and it is now up and running (Although we are still waiting a few missing pieces from the client, at least all the major information is now available online.)

Please visit it at Origin Organic Farms, Inc.

SQL Cache Dependency

2006-12-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

I am working on a new project for our sister company. For easy maintenance I have decided to spend some extra time on their News and Events section. The simple admin page will allow them to easily update the section by entering a date, title, description and optionally uploading PDFs or specifying an external link.

The site is written in ASP.NET 2.0 and the hosting package we use includes SQL 2005 database support. So I've decide to store the information on the SQL 2005 database.

Among the first steps for setting the SQL cache dependency up is to prepare the database for notification. One only needs to run the following query:

-- Enable Service Broker:

ALTER DATABASE [Database Name] SET ENABLE_BROKER;

I was using the SQL Server Management Studio and the query took forever to run. Then I read in various articles that the query requires exclusive lock on the database.

First, make sure you don't have any open session to the database. (ie: close your management studio and server explorer in visual studio, etc). Then, through the commandline browse to

c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727

and run

aspnet_regsql -ed -S server_address -U database_uid -P password -d database_name

for a complete list of available options, run

aspnet_regsql /?

You may need to modify the code for your particular set up. If everything goes well, you will see the following message.

Enabling the database for SQL cache dependency.

.

Finished

I will write more about my experience with SQL cache dependency once everything is up and running.

Next Microsite: MCLPorsche.com

2006-08-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

For the last week or so, I have been busy constructing the new Porsche Website for MCL Porsche. The idea is pretty much the same as the Jaguar Vancouver website in my previous post. The emphasis is on usability and search engine friendliness. Thank to the use of CSS and Dreamweaver template, the development time has been dramatically reduced.

Please check out the ASP.NET starter kits when you have time; Microsoft does provide a few fully funcitional sample web projects (called starter kits) on which you can base your (commercial or personal) website. I have done one for MCL for selling used cars in Vancouver

Visit ASP.NET for more information

I am looking to schedule my 70-536 test soon. Yup. Lots of reading and coding to do. I will post again if I find anything interesting.

UPDATE: the Porsche Vancouver site is up. So are Jaguar Vancouver and Land Rover Vancouver.

Fun with major re-construction of a relatively large static website

2006-08-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of weeks I have been working on re-structuring a luxury car dealer in Vancouver. MCL Motor Cars of Vancouver is actually our sister comapny. It sells high-end luxury cars such as Aston Martin, Bentley, Porsche, Jaguar and Land Rover. The dealer has two locations in the greater Vancouver region. The main MCL building focuses on Jaguars, Aston Martin, Bentley and Land Rover while MCL Porsche Vancouver specializes on Porsche.

The management of the dealer is actually quite happy with the current design of the website, but it also finds it difficult to navigate; the search engine result is also not optimal. Our plan is to streamline the whole project

Our solution? We are building a few microsites for the dealer, with each microsite focuses on a particular brand. This allows us to put brand-focused content and navigation system to allow better experience for site visitors. The first of such microsites is Jaguar Vancouver. The site will contain information about all Jaguar vehicles as well as the contact information and current promotions.

The site is pretty much completed as of now and it is ready for launch. It is written in standard compliant XHTML + CSS--except for the front page. I have found a few hacks to get flash embedded on a website in a standard compliant ways, but I would like to do further research so that I am using the best possible way in this scenario. Oh well, it is my first blog and my first entry. I thank you for those who actually spend time reading my blog and hopefully I can provide more technical information and good tips / hacks on web development to all of you.