Don Kitchen

Don’t buy those expensive HDMI cables!

Don — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:56:44 +0000

Stay away from those over-priced HDMI cables that Best Buy pushes (i.e. Monster Cables). Instead, check out Amazon.com or anywhere else on the Internet where you can get a good quality HDMI cable for well under $10. The Mint.com blog said it best with this infographic:

Forcing a user to read (or scroll through) all text before accepting terms

Don — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:39:58 +0000

If you’ve used a computer before you’ve undoubtedly scrolled through and agreed to some sort of agreement. Most likely it was some sort of software license agreement that you didn’t read about some website you were signing up on or an application that you were installing.

Maybe, if you’ve installed enough software or been on enough websites you’ve come across an instance where they actually forced you to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the text before you were able to click “I Agree” or whatever acknowledgment they wanted you to use.

Well I was recently faced with creating this exact situation in a web application and ended up using jQuery to accomplish this in my ASP.NET application. For my particular situation I ended up putting my content inside a scrollable div. This can easily be done by using a textbox if you wanted without much effort.

Basically, here’s what you’ll need.

Reference jQuery (I’m not going to go into that, you can easily find that out here)
Put a DIV on your page containing your text that needs to scroll (obviously you’re putting more than a few sentences or you wouldn’t be in this boat)
Put a button on your page that, once enabled, will log the user’s acceptance and redirect them accordingly
Some simple JavaScript to tie the DIV’s scrolling event to your button

Here’s our DIV:


Lots of text to read.
Lots more text to read

Here’s our button:

Here’s our JavaScript:



<script type="text/javascript">
     $(document).ready(function() {
 
          // Initially disable the button
          $("#ContinueButton").attr("disabled", "disabled");
 
          // Map the function below to the scroll event of our Terms DIV
          $("#Terms").scroll(function() {
               if ($("#Terms").AtEnd()) {
                    // Enable the button once we reach the end of the DIV
                    $("#ContinueButton").removeAttr("disabled");
               }
           });
     });
 
     $.fn.AtEnd = function() {
         return this[0].scrollTop + this.height() >= this[0].scrollHeight;
     } 
script>

And that’s it. This code is light weight and works in IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make it better? Let me know.

CMD HTTP Request – command line HTTP request utility

Don — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:50:01 +0000

More and more I find that I need to setup some kind of job or scheduled task to accomplish something in .NET on a reoccurring basis. Typically in the past I’ve written Windows Services to accomplish this. While effective, these definitely take longer to write and are harder to debug than say a simple ASP.NET page. What I’ve done lately is started to move these non-critical, non-security sensitive processes into ASP.NET pages that can be called on a specific schedule via Windows Task Scheduler.

When I started moving this way I realized that I wanted to find a small utility that I could run from a command line to initial a web page request. It had to be something I could run from a scheduled task and something that I could use to save or log the results. After doing my due diligence Googling I realized there wasn’t such a utility that I could easily run from within Windows without installing all kinds of libraries and non-Windows based tools. So, like any good programmer, I made my own. Enter CMD HTTP Request.

As I said, this utility is small, light weight and runs on Windows via the .NET Framework. You don’t need any special commercial programs to run it and it will even check your pages for keywords you specify and save the request’s results to disk as a HTML file. This, essentially, is your log of what happened during that request on that date and time.

I won’t go into too much more detail here. I think you get the main idea. You can download the source code or executable from the project page on Codeplex and learn more about it. As always, feel free to leave me any feedback or suggestions either here or via the project page on Codeplex.

CMD Email v2.0 released

Don — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:25:00 +0000

CMD Email, the email command line utility I developed (originally discussed here) has been updated to version 2.0.

Here are new features for v2.0:

Updated to target .NET 3.5 Framework
Added support for message body being loaded from a file
Added support for multiple file attachments
Added support for logging to the Windows Application Event Log

You can download the latest runtime or source from the project page on CodePlex.

Dynamically re-size an iFrame’s height across browsers

Don — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:40:19 +0000

A while back I had a need to dynamically re-size an iFrame’s height and found a solution using a jQuery plug-in called autoHeight. What I later found was that this solution provided poor results with Internet explorer when my iFrame’s contents were fairly large and frequently changing (i.e. via navigation inside the iFrame).

It took quite a bit of tinkering but I was able to come up with a solution that works (and works well) in IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. It still uses jQuery but doesn’t depend on a plug-in. Here’s the code in case you’re looking for the same thing:

First, the iFrame…

Next, the JavaScript to resize it…

<script type="text/javascript">
 
     function sizeFrame() {
          jQuery("#MyFrame", top.document).css({ height: 0 });
          var heightDiv = jQuery("#MyFrame", top.document).contents().find('body').attr('scrollHeight');
          jQuery("#MyFrame", top.document).css({ height: heightDiv });
     }
 
     jQuery(function() {
          sizeFrame();
          jQuery("#MyFrame").load(sizeFrame);            
     });
 
script>

This line is needed to initially initialize the height so that it works in Safari and Chrome. Without this line the window will never shrink to fit smaller content, it will just retain the last biggest height.

jQuery("#MyFrame", top.document).css({ height: 0 });

Visual Studio 2008 is a piece of shit!

Don — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:01:23 +0000

It’s been one of those weeks

It should be noted that I was able to take a screen shot, upload it to WordPress and make this blog post before that message went away and I was able to interact with Visual Studio.NET again!

July 2009 Baltimore SQL Server Users Group Meeting

Don — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:13:30 +0000

Passing along the Baltimore SQL Server Users Group July 2009 Meeting Announcement. I’m considering attending since we use Reporting Services and SQL Server 2008 here at work. Here’s the information in case you may be interested in attending. Don’t forget to RSVP via email as noted below.

General Meeting Information

Date: Monday, July 6, 2009
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Merkle located at 7001 Columbia Gateway Drive, Columbia, MD 21046
Directions: Visit this MapQuest link for directions
RSVP: Please email Ray Barley (raymondbarley@gmail.com) if you are attending so we can plan appropriately
Web site: http://www.bssug.org/

Presentation Information

Title: SQL Server Reporting Services Report Builder 2.0
Speaker: Craig Guyer of Microsoft
Abstract: Authoring reports for SQL Server Reporting Services is even easier than before using the new stand-alone application Report Builder 2.0 (RB2). In this session we will walk through creating some basic reports, show how RB2 fits in with other report authoring applications, and discuss other new report authoring features in SQL Server 2008.

Don’t pay those shipping fees!

Don — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:05:00 +0000

I buy tons of stuff from Amazon.com. It’s convenient, the prices are usually pretty good, and most of the time you can usually get free shipping if you spend over $25 thanks to their super saving shipping (which, all though they say is the slowest method I usually get stuff in 2 days anyway).

Well, what happens if the thing you want is $18.50? What about if it’s $22.53? You only need another $2.47 to get free shipping (which may cost you 3x that much). There must be a way you can get that free shipping without adding another $30 thing to your order that you didn’t need…

Enter item fillers. These websites are great because they let you search by a specific amount you need in order to qualify for free shipping. Just load up the site, put in your amount, pick some categories that you may want to look in and optionally put in a search keyword and viola… you have pages of items that are close to that $2.47 that you needed to spend in order to get free shipping!

Two sites that I found recently were SlickFillers.net and FillerItem.com. The first site is the one that I actually used earlier in the week when I was buying some stuff (see screen shot above). I liked that site better because it showed information about most discounted items and top sellers. I guess for me I wanted to try to get something that normally costs much more than the $7.44 that I was spending

So next time you’re shopping for something cheap at Amazon and you’re just shy of getting that free shipping, don’t forget about these item fillers. You can also quickly Google amazon item fillers and you’ll find these two sites right up there at the top.

Dusting off the running shoes

Don — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:00:57 +0000

Thanks to a co-worker I’ve been slowly getting back into running lately. For some reason (maybe having the kids?) I went from running a decent amount a few years ago to not running at all. Not that having kids is a good reason to stop running and exercising, I guess I just let it become an excuse. Either way, I’ve been much more active this year and for a good while now have been playing racquetball 4+ times a week. Luckily now that I’ve gotten back into running I’m realizing that all that racquetball has gotten me in decent condition to get back into running starting out with 3+ mile runs without much trouble.

Along with dusting off my running shoes I’ve dusted off and charged back up the Garmin Forerunner. What the heck is that you ask? It’s a wrist-mounted GPS fitness computer! Come on, you didn’t think I’d have a gadget for running? You must not read this site or know me. Actually, if you’re into running or thinking of getting into running you may want to consider picking up this or one of their other models. It’s great when you’re trying to train for a race (5-k, 10-k, half or full marathon, etc) or just want to track your routs/progress and allows you to download your data for free to the Garmin Connect website.

Two things to note if you already have one of these devices or consider buying this model. 1, they have a firmware (software) update for the unit. Since I hadn’t used mine in a few years mine was a few versions behind. All you need for this is to download their web updater software and it’s pretty much automatic from there. 2, this unit only has a serial (RS-232) interface to the computer. If you don’t know what that means all you need to know is that most new laptops and Macs don’t have serial interfaces. You can solve this problem by picking up a USB to Serial cable adapter. This will make working with any modern computers (laptops and Macs) much easier and faster.

Hopefully I can stick with the running now and build back up to doing some races. My co-worker is doing the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon this Labor Day weekend. I would love to go with him but we have so much else going on this summer that I really just can’t take another weekend away. I may be able to convince him to do the Baltimore Half-Marathon this October. We’ll have to see how that works out I guess.

Either way I plan on getting in at least 2 runs a week for now as I ease back into things.30

Google or Bing? Why not both?

Don — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:16:03 +0000

Bing is definitely nice on the eyes. But I can’t bring myself to stray from “old faithful“. Now, you can have the best of both worlds…