Hello WordPress!

With the phasing out of the blog spaces on Windows Live, I’ve migrated to WordPress.com. This is my first WordPress post (an edit of the auto-generated “Hello World” post).

From my first impressions, I’m quite pleased with WordPress. I hadn’t looked at it in a number of years, and it’s come quite a long way. This isn’t my main blogging site, however. My main posts are all at kb.Gilleland.info. But, this will probably be my cross-posting site where I’ll do summaries of the “real” post.

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Cross-Posted Blogs

I’ve finally set up a more centralized location for all my bloggings and articles at kb.Gilleland.info (where the “kb” stands for “Knowledge Base”). I will still have blog posts here, but my own website will have these and other articles/blogs as well.

HTTP Handlers and HTTP Modules

I’ve run across an article – "HTTP Handlers and HTTP Modules in ASP.NET" – that provides a nice introduction and background on the topic, so I thought I would mention it here (for myself and others). The article is from 2002, but it still serves as a good introduction.

Re: Creating Custom Route Constraints

Stephen Walther writes an article on creating custom route constraints for web apps. One particularly interesting constraint is to only allow a certain URL to run if it is run from the local machine (which can be great for an admin to check something that others shouldn’t be able to). Here’s an excerpt:

Creating a Local Constraint

You also can create a custom constraint that prevents a request from matching a URL unless the request is made from the local machine. This type of constraint can be useful for restricting access to website administrative pages.

…

The LocalConstraint simply checks whether the current request is a local request by taking advantage of the Request.IsLocal property. This property returns the value True when the host is either equal to localhost or 127.0.0.1.

He goes further by offering suggestions on how to write unit tests for these constraints, illustrating how to fake the HttpContext (look in the download code for this one).

RE: App_Code vs. ascx: Differences you should know…

I just wanted to make note on my blog of an article by Nathanael Jones about relative paths and whether you use user controls (ascx) or opt to make Control subclasses in App_Code. Overall, it’s a nice article, and a good reminder of some subtle differences in the two approaches.

Daily Chess Puzzle

A friend recently introduced me to GameKnot – a place that you can play chess online with others. Among the other interesting features are the Daily Puzzles, which you can also embed in your own site, as I have done on my instructor site. It doesn’t insert well into this blog, however, as the script filtering on this rich-text editor strips out the javascript reference that is required to get the game on the site.

 

I was, however, able to get the game on my instructor site at NAIT.

Tectonic Plates

Every once in a while I like to go to Discovery Channel Online and view some of the various shows. This was a neat show about our Earth’s tectonic activity, and I thought I would mention it briefly in my blog (if only so I remember the link :).

Remote Control Planes

Here are a couple of cool movies of a remote-control plane with a camera and VR (virtual reality) headset. The first one has a nice added sound-track. (A co-worker showed one to me, & I found the other on the internet.)

 

Lower & Closer (R-C planes) – Google Video

Bromont golf club – Google Video

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[edit]: I found the following taken from a blog post by the French-Canadian who created the videos. Here’s the links he gives to his videos…

Canadian autumn ([his] best one)
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/30340…_of_r_c_planes/

The best of Pizzaz ([his] second best video)
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/34872…eo_from_canada/

A dream come true
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/33479…ream_come_true/

Flying few feets above F1 race track for a complete tour
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/34085…n trol_planes/

Bassin d’aération (beautiful)
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/33762…video_pilotage/

Onboard my aerobatic plane Funtana
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/34001…funtana_planes/

Lower & closer
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/35408…asystar_planes/

TrackR1 test video to show AeroPix headtracker
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/35500…oard_my_planes/

Dream day
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/35409…cock pit_view/

 

Silverlight Interoperability

If you’ve heard of Silverlight but are not sure of how to integrate it with what you’ve already got ("I’m already using Ajax" or "I’m not really wanting to replace what I’ve got with Silverlight"), then this might be a good article to read. It’s got some code snippets, but it doesn’t focus on a single aspect or usage of Silverlight. Rather, it tries to show how Silverlight can be used "to enhance your existing website in a non-obtrusive way".

Wilco Bauwer – "Silverlight Interoperability"

IE Developer Toolbar

If you’re involved in developing web sites or Web Applications in any way, then it’s a good idea to get the IE Developer Toolbar. You get quite a lot of information on a page you browse. Here’s a screen-shot.

There are a lot of great tools & features hidden in those menu items, like the ruler under the Tools menu (see image below).

This allows you to actually see measurements of stuff on your screen, like this:

This is definitely a good tool to use. I’ll be exploring it more as time goes on….